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so the judge has a lot of latitude but on october 22nd he wants to hear from everyone on what their view is but right now your charter is to accept this or reject it i see so however it would be possible for us to suggest modifications no or or who who would uh i guess it goes back to the attorneys that would be doing they would restart these negotiations that have been going again um brian nagle who's the attorney general assistant attorney general on this had said that if this is rejected that likely they will go to court and try to through the court process through the in front of the judge not have a settlement which this is but force gilman to do specific things so right now we're being asked to say do we agree with this take it or leave it offered by gelman i see so um i see okay um is anybody uh pack you would like to speak all right yeah so why don't we i would i that makes total sense to me i'm not a lawyer um but it makes total sense to me that and all we're doing right is recommending to counsel so what we ought to do is you know this is not a motion this is a discussion but we should uh recommend rejecting this settlement then say why that's a whole bunch of warehouses i suppose uh then we should uh say something about what we prefer which is much stricter um or well much more what would be called [Music] a comprehensive cleanup of this plume to prevent it from entering spreading throughout the region under ann arbor and adjacent properties or townships whatever the right word is to prevent it from entering into the river to prevent it from entering in to whatever uh and that the um and to protect the three sister lakes or whatever they are the sister lakes you know so we should we should actually list a few criteria that we think are really critical but from my point of view reading all this stuff it looks to me as though this is a super fun disaster gellman is trying to uh get away with murder probably literally and um we don't we can't let this happen ann are you know ann arbor and the people of ann arbor and adjoining townships whatever it's just the wrong thing to do and so we got to say that loud and clear to council and then hopefully they too will agree to reject this settlement and return to court and if it returns to court of course it costs ann arbor money and uh but you know maybe we'll get an outcome that is good for our citizens this is not a good outcome for our citizens and what you just picked off there could be part of the whereases it would be whereas this does this whereas this does that where it doesn't do this okay yeah we got to do it in an expedited way i don't know when council needs this spy but we better make sure they have something and it's so perfect as the enemy of the good here got to make sure tomorrow well we gotta get them something and tomorrow yes i believe excuse me and anne's you know arms or something no i'm just kidding council votes on the 19th on this issue all right so that's our last opportunity is on the 19th of october which is before our next regular meeting so um so let's see anybody else want to make a comment here i think rita has her hand up go ahead first i want to thank you steve for writing a draft resolution that rejects this consent judgment thank you for taking the lead on that and for working very hard to push forward with this meeting which was difficult under the timing that we had but i totally agree with rejecting it i believe that this does not do uh good for the citizens of the area and that we should make that clear so i'll just make it that short right now um there i think there are plenty of reasons we've heard good reasons and we should in my opinion we should proceed with stating a rejection okay um i've since modified it um so why don't i share my screen now and what i'm going to do is just share my screen and hopefully you all can comment on it and we can just potentially draft this online together is this possible suggest that perhaps we might want to hear from one or two other council commissioners if if they want to speak before we look at that that's my suggestion yeah uh chris um i've been on the commission since the mid-2000s and this has been an issue uh boiling ever since and i've watched it all the way back from the beginnings man naught's letter was extraordinarily accurate about the issues involved in this particular change and how things might happen he lives on first sister lake he gets up every morning and looks at that water body he was very instrumental in getting the sewage storm sewer system retention system designed just beside for sister lake to try to improve water quality and he did what you've been doing steve for many years trying to get involved in the negotiations and how things were going most of that time he was stonewalled and left out because of unwillingness of the courts to make ann arbor a party to the discussions i have listened to the guy who's led the i think he leads card it's called forgive me for not remembering his name but he's been a trooper all the way along and watched the graphics that he's presented over the years of the movement and direction of the plume and have been highly disappointed that the effect of treatment and groundwater withdrawals has really not slowed it one iota if i watch the pattern of groundwater i think sort of a miracle this plume is going to reach the river somewhere near where alan's creek comes in and it's i think we need to thank our lucky stars it's not going north into barton pond if this consent judgment was a site plan issue that was presented to the planning commission and to the council it would be roundly rejected we don't permit contamination of our high quality wetlands we don't permit overwhelming hydrological changes to our wetlands we would just say no and i think for that reason alone we should say no to the consent judgment the right thing to do in my view is to treat the water better to current standards and pipe it below barton pond wherever they want to do that there are no people below ann arbor who are drinking here in river water we are drinking barton pond water 85 of our water comes out of that pond so if you say no we don't want to do that and if you say no we don't want to contaminate and overwhelm first sister lake then a pipe of some sort down below argo dam makes the most sense i i'm i understand this is expensive i sympathize when this pollution happened it wasn't known first of all that this chemical would be so water-soluble and so portable in groundwater it wasn't known or perhaps it was by some technician but not maybe by the bosses that it would cause such a problem and the expense of fixing a water groundwater contamination issue of this sort really fixing it is extraordinary we can just improve it and most of all protect our drinking water and our wetlands and native lakes anybody else wish to make a comment um so i'm going to say something further i have a few questions and i'm wondering um so i would like to put up uh [Music] my document and share my screen so that we could edit it online um starting very soon but i had a few questions um that struck in my mind i'm reviewing all this information and i agree with you chris that it's this has just been a shocking lack of technical expertise being consulted at the proper times there's been a shocking lack of transparency and i think we're all seeing what the results of this of these deficiencies are so i'm hoping that we can correct that at some time in the future at least within the city and um and if not the state and the federal government so my first question was well who collects the data is it the polluter or is there some independent third party that actually collects the data about um you know what the concentration of dioxin is in these uh in the in the monitoring wells and service waters uh steve this is dan can you hear me yeah hi dan yeah it's it's this geldin who does that for the most part they collect uh samples from the monitoring wells and have that analyzed at their lab report that to the state and from time to time the state will share samples with them and the state will analyze it and have gellman analyze it but for the most part gelman is collecting all the data and providing it to the state whether it be surface waters generally or monitoring wells there was a program that the state and the water resources commissioner did on allen creek that was done by them but otherwise generally it's gellman's data i find that troubling yeah i believe the city has done some of its own testing on a few spots that gilman has not been um subject to be responsible for like i think there has been some data that is has been collected by the city that they've run in their own labs too um like for the sister lakes and things like that that wasn't part of gelman's responsibilities my understanding but that the city has done some of their own testing on that as my understanding i think that's true it's it's it's gullman but i think there has been some supportive testing from the city just because they want to be able to um test more spots than what government is officially responsible for well that would be prudent um um it's it's a that's a situation that's right for manipulation of all kinds so um i mean where i come from professionally you do not allow that you have an independent third-party lab you use blinded samples they test them they give you the results and uh you can request a repeat and pay for it but for gelman to be responsible for all the uh data the sampling the the data generation and the dissemination is i think is i think a recipe for a potential disaster so it hasn't helped that since uh john engler's term in office the governor and republican legislators have done everything they can to tell the department of our environmental quality not to regulate through this entire time period we've seen a drastic cut in the budget of deq a drastic cutting the number of employees a drastic pressure on them relentless pressure on them to back off and the idea of that the polluter can monitor his own work is part and parcel of that it's been relentless since the 1990 mid-1990s well i'm not sure what authority the uh the city has to to request to insist on that or to make that happen steve yeah i'd like to suggest that that be one of the results that we add it may not happen but we could at least make a resolution or add to our results that an independent testing be arranged i think that rita brings up a good point steve is that you know if you if this body can craft a resolution that has some specifics in there that's probably more useful for council and in particular our attorneys to uh try and and move this fall forward um than just a general outright rejection i mean i think you know to to cite what these things are uh and do that and maybe that requires another meeting on the 18th you know for for this body to spend a little time kind of crafting the specifics that that are objectionable and coming back with a more detailed uh you know grounds of rejection yeah chip um that's my instinct as well i was thinking that let's get as far as we can today and then hopefully we can work in the background just to do you know and uh and tweak it a little bit and then we'll have a second meeting to approve it if we run out of time because i would like to end this meeting at nine o'clock uh back so this all sounds good i'm just uh we will only have limited amount of expertise that's necessary to suggest how to move it forward beyond rejecting it and saying things like there shouldn't be further contamination of our wetlands and and lakes and rivers or the spread of this plume underneath ann arbor and we can say things like that the question of how to do that would require very technical assistance and you'd also of course need to bring in a lawyer or team to be able to figure that out so we need to do is probably focus our recommendation on the city doing just that you know rather than trying to let the polluter decide how to deal with this we need to somehow have a team of experts that represent the uh people of ann arbor and adjoining region that has the expertise both technically pollution-wise hydrologic wise but also legally to put together um a case that this judge will be able to consider as an alternative to the settlement you know in other words and ever has to fight the efforts by gelman to get away with this um and you know it's a pretty typical situation i assume a polluter wants to save money and absolve themselves a responsibility and people are going to be hurt natural systems are going to be hurt property values are going to be hurt you name it you know this is not good and gelman's just trying to get away with it and so ann arbor has to like step up and so that's in essence what we have to say you know it's pretty darn obvious that that's the case um and we can't get into the specifics of what ann arbor needs but we can do it maybe in some general ways i don't i but it's you know we got to be a little careful that we again we don't try and do something that would be impossible to do well no i agree i think i think we need to avoid asking for means where we need to we need to focus on goals that the community would desire we need to focus on goals and in respect to the last five minutes discussion right one of the resolve clauses i have put in there is that the city should expand should they panel a professional group to peer review the data that they get at least you know and then also provide uh um um some kind of uh some kind of legal advice about pathways um for contesting um some of the uh arguments that uh gelman's gonna put up and some of the and identify some of the constraints in both state and federal law that prevent us from getting this cleaned up to an adequate level so but first bob and then chris thank you sorry but this all gets one of the things that i'm really struggling with and that is uh presumably someone has been negotiating on the city's behalf here right i mean who is that and what have they done and and is there some reason to think that that you know that they're recommending that we go forward with this and i just you know there's so many questions yeah this is dan i can help with that that was a fred dendorf who was your lawyer outside a lawyer and larry limpke's been your outside consultant through this and and really the way that it has been framed is not it's not it's not really uh clear and what i'm trying to say is that you all have tried as interveners to get a very substantive cleanup but gelman has rejected many many many of the things i assume that fred and larry have asked for but because all these negotiations have been confidential we don't know what they've asked for the only things we know is gellman says this is the bottom line take it or leave it so we are looking at what maybe fred has already asked or what larry has already asked we don't know because of the confidentiality agreement we we we are unclear yeah yeah dan's bob dan's exactly right this confidentiality agreement has really made it difficult for the public to to get information to see where things started to see where they they've been going um and you know i'm not one of these people who's gonna criticize the attorneys you know our team is working as hard as they can to get the best possible solution but you know let's let's not sugarcoat it gilman's not our friend they're not our partner they're not wanting to do anything uh and when that's your adversary sometimes you just end up in court and sometimes the law is with us and sometimes it's not you know maybe at the end of the day it's just better to go to court now like i i don't know i i mean it's going to be long it's going to be expensive it's an unknown outcome but maybe that's that's just where we are and you know i think we've been doing this this dance you know it was such a heavy lift to become an intervener in the first place back in 2016.

we have to have that's for group a the other group b just flips it we have to have that large chunk of time in between because we have to have time to do cleaning of all those rooms in between sessions so we have we have all that worked out but uh um i got some notes on the side there that uh you know they're basically uh again i don't want to read through all of those but um we've got the the reason we have those that split there so we have time to clean not only the classrooms but the buses as well and then you'll on the next slide you'll see a sample middle school schedule uh starts a little earlier than primary elementary because we have to have a stagger uh 7 30 to 10 and then 12 10 to 2 40 two sessions and either group a or group b um we'll split them you know our plan right now is to split by uh alphabet by last name but we will be making some adjustments to balance class sizes if needed so so the next slide is an explanation of why why the amp and model and so what the you know reasons a list of some bullets here that are reasons why we decided to make this switch this model removes the risk associated with properly executing lunch and recessed protocols so we had to get the social distancing during that those times is really difficult we found with our safe school learning space that we have it works really well until we get the kids outside in an unstructured time and then they're it's just hard to manage that um and then lunch time we can only have 50 students in a room so that just be just obstacles that we can eliminate by doing the am pm model uh fewer transitions during the day for students this only makes now they only have to wear masks for half the day then they can go home so it's not a full day with masks on class sizes are reduced facilitate we figure it's there's some benefit to the social emotional and the consistent educational impact of just seeing their teachers and peers regularly four days a week even though it's only two and a half hours it's still a step in the right direction we'll emphasize ela and math instruction in the k-4 during that two and a half hours that's what they will get is ela and math instruction um there'll be a more in-person time for students with ieps or those who qualify for el 504 services there are and i'll get to some negatives of the amp and model in a little bit because it's not all positive there are some drawbacks i'm going to skip through these slides fairly quick but these will be provided for parents you can go next slide matt these are just sample student schedules and what that will look like for the students so that's a middle primary elementary and then the next one is a middle school schedule and then we'll go to the next slide these next few slides will provide and again i'm going to be sending this over to parents uh this uh tonight actually i'm gonna try to when we're done here if everything if we approve this plan i'm gonna send a message out to parents uh both uh digitally and and uh a video as well um i'm gonna i'm gonna skip through these slides a little quicker but i want you to ask questions if you have any at the end there's some information on this slide about our special education and how it's impacted the next slide is regarding pre-k and how it's impacted all the information's here for those two you know the i will tell you with the with the special education we see benefits in getting our kids on campus and getting more in-person instruction for them but it's been a challenge to for for dr pittman and her staff to keep changing from one format to another is a challenge because we've got to get all the plans correct so it's not and then pre-k i'll get go into a little further detail but they'll re-run an am pm session as well our el our students are yell learners um we have a slide in here uh depicting what we'll be doing with or how they'll be receiving service but again we feel like more in-person time is going to benefit our rel students as well on on the fridays we anticipate bringing more students in for special services if needed so those are days that most of our students will be learning remotely but we will have students on campus who need extra services the safe school learning space has been there's been questions about good questions like we started this we're not going to stop it we have parents that are counting on this for and we're going to still continue that so those students would would attend the safe school learning space for half the day and then would be in their classrooms the other half of the day so so we'll continue with that program so the next grouping of slides is the health and safety factors and so i'm going to run through these many of these are not a surprise but face coverings must be worn at all times there's a few exceptions listed there we have purchased k and 95 masks for all staff who've requested so we asked all staff if you if you want them and we've purchased enough for uh those those masks are good for uh two days is what is what we're thinking and so we purchased enough for staff to use one for every two days some of the hospitals i've talked to are giving their staff one per week and they haven't put in a bag paper bag to let it breathe when they're not using it but we're doing two per every four days so um and then our nurses and cleaning staff are getting in fitted in 95 masks the cleaning and disinfecting so with the a pm model we had to create a plan to get all those rooms wiped down in between sessions so we do have that in place uh mrs arndt is running that process and uh so we do have that in place buses also have to be cleaned between routes we have that in place to be honest with you back in june when we were considering this plan i kind of nixed it in my mind right away because of the transportation issues we think we've worked around that a little bit but the transportation cleaning is makes us hard but we think for educationally it's going to be more doable we have all of our buses all the buildings will be fogged each night with a safe chemical that has been approved we'll do the same in the buses and then we have our regular custodial staff on site we have over a hundred hand sanitizing stations throughout the buildings as you walk around you'll see them all over the place right now so those are those are also new the air filtration system is uh you know i talked with our hvac contractor we have we're setting the automation system while the weather permits it's 100 ventilation rate and then as the weather changes that will it will go lower than that but it'll be a lot higher than what we've ever done so it means our system's going to have to work a little harder but it's it's what's recommended right now the and we've also gone through uh next week we will have all the the filters upgraded to what the cdc is recommending for this environment so all the and the each classroom that we have has its own so air is not the way i understand this the air is not transferring from one to the other it's it's all being we have uh univents in each classroom so that air exchange is happening in each classroom so uh they're pulling fresh air into every classroom so there's filters in every classroom as well we have purchased some rapid response antigen tests to saliva sample results in less than 30 minutes we haven't purchased a lot of these i've got i think a hundred that we've purchased and uh just to try to have them on site for our if we have a staff member that comes down with symptoms during the day we'll give them that test right away to kind of get an idea um it will prob likely be uh followed up with another test if if needed but um but we do we have that we're trying that and to see how that's going i know some some districts i've talked to are also doing the same the self-certification and temperature checks this was a this was kind of a obstacle at the beginning of the year that i didn't really know how we were going to do and and so this one did not go away had to figure something out kind of gone to a uh i think it's going to be for us to manage it it's going to be a simpler process but really i'm gonna we have to emphasize to parents and i'm gonna do that in my call tonight we really have to emphasize pretty hard we cannot have people sending their kids to school with symptoms because that's what's gonna shut us down so we have we have created this is going to sound kind of corny i guess but we've created we've we've had printed notepads that have all the symptoms listed and we're giving every parent a stack of notepads for their child each child and when their child comes to school they will rip one off and they and that's your child's ticket to get to school and it's saying by coming to school today by sending your child's school day you are saying they do not have any of these symptoms so that's they're basically their bus ticket that's their ticket to walk in the front door if they don't have it we will take them to the nurse for a screening but the bus they have to have it to get on because we don't have we can't have our drivers trying to worry about driving and that so they're going to have to that's going to be and so we're asking our k-4 students we'll have to have a parent at the bus stop because if the kindergarten student does not have their ticket to get on the bus we need them to go home with an adult so that's going to be something that is it's it's it's what we have to do the other option was we make our staff self-certified through skyward the parents have that capability to do that for their children as well but the problem is we everybody would have to remember to do that every day before their kid gets in school and that's going to be nearly impossible for us to manage that so so we're asking the parents to hand their kid that their child that ticket and that's a reminder to them to make sure that their their child is symptom free and then they'll give us that when they come and we'll also do temperature checks when the kids get in the buildings so every child will get a temperature check as well so that'll be kind of our second layer logistics we're going to go to transportation and again a lot of this is on i don't want to read through every bullet because but i'll briefly get them but a lot of these these slides are informational for everybody we're highly encouraging parents to not take our transportation system services unless they absolutely need it because we don't have we just don't have the room we're going to put 20 to 22 kids on a bus and siblings can sit together but otherwise it's going to be one per seat so you know part of our board meeting tonight is to take a look at our transportation policy this board policy and consider suspending it the current policy says that we provide transportation for all students if we're going to open up i can't guarantee that we can open up and still provide transportation if all students sign up for it we wouldn't be able to open up and so we are hoping that we can meet everybody's needs but if we can't we'll have to uh we'll have to lottery the bus or something i don't know so it's gonna really depend on on what kind of response we get back from parents in the next week and i'll go into that those details in a minute um you know the next slide the uh and the next slide these are this is just some sign seating and transportation and we're not going to see anybody behind the bus driver and just some bus expectations there food service i'll be on this slide very quick food service will be provided for students will not be provided for students who are in the blended hybrid model because they'll be here for just two and a half hour chunks they'll go home we still do our food service deliveries for families on fridays now we'll switch to fridays and we have reached out to all families to see if they need that service so we've got a waiver from the state for that students who attend safe school will still get lunch here we have a technology slide that has some faq questions on there we can go to the next one matt um students are gonna be reminded on the technology they got to bring their devices every day uh charged up we don't have a lot of extra devices laying around right now arrival procedures if there's anything that's making me nervous about this it's my it's our dismissal and our arrival traffic is going to be tough and um which is one of the reasons why we are going to phase the sand which again i'll get to in a few slides but we so arrival it really is just the traffic flow is something we're going to have to really keep an eye on let's go to the next slide the dismissal dismissal is going to be even worse than arrival because we have people that will come and want to get in line and we have we're playing around with an app that should help with this process as you pull on to the parking lots they'll be you'll have a dash tag and somebody will be there to see your dash tag and they'll punch that number in and they'll notify your child's class that you're here and hopefully by the time you get to the doors we'll have the child out so we want to try to keep the line moving so we're that's something we're working on and we'll have that in place we're going to be trying that with our safe school learning students in the coming week so our next steps getting down to our final slides here if we make this transition we'd like to do it on october 13th which is the day after columbus day and try one grade level in each building kindergarten second fifth grade so that gives each building a chance to spend two weeks uh problem solving uh issues that are going to arise so that's that's that's our first phase second phase if things were going well would be to bring on october 26th being first third and sixth grade in uh along with the kindergarten second and fifth so um so then we would have more kids in each building and if things continue to go well we'll we'll enter the last phase of the of the transition and that's bringing in the rest of grade levels pre-k 4th 7th and 8th um so at that point on november 9th that's the first day of the second trimester so if we were to get this done in time our students would start their second trimester with all students in at least part time but again that's there's a lot of things that could happen between now and then i want to i can't reiterate that enough like we uh we might find out that traffic is just jamming us up and and with with just two grade levels you know we might find out just jamming us up so we might have to go to like back to the drawing board and figure out how to do this and kids may not be able to come four days a week they'd come two days a week and so there's i can't guarantee that we're going to be able to follow this but that's our goal if everything works well that's that's what we want to do and uh we also don't know what's going to happen with the metrics at any time the metrics in the area could shut us down so uh we want to keep people safe so but that's our that's our timeline as of right now the communication to families i had said to begin the year that we would notify families by the 30th which is tomorrow of any next steps that might be taken so if we approve this tonight i will notify the parents soon either tonight or tomorrow uh what what we're thinking about doing if we don't approve it then i will notify them of that as well that we're going to continue in the in the hybrid model or the the virtual model we uh i'm gonna go to the next slide there's a there's another dashboard that we're looking at and dr king put this together because there are other factors that that could cause us to close that are kind of out of our some of them are out of our control um custodial status you know right now we are in a good status there's data behind this dashboard that you're not seeing but we have we know how many people we need and so we've set the thresholds to if we drop below certain thresholds that dashboard is going to change right now transportation status we have we have the drivers that we need but we i will tell you we are just on the edge with drivers we don't have a lot of extra availability we've had some turnover and there are not drivers out there that are applying for jobs right now at least here we have obviously staff school staff attendance says good right now because we're not in session certified teacher attendants we're not in session so we have some thresholds set and as we get started with this we'll be punching data in this to date daily one of the big issues is substitute teacher availability we have secured three subs per building for four days a week just because we're going to need them and we and we may not know we need them until the last minute because of situations that have come up so that's just a precaution that we have in place but we honestly it was very hard to get those people set up so we we're we don't have a lot of subs beyond that that are available um we will keep it we will keep this dashboard on our website uh it'll list all this information people will be able to look on here to see student coveted cases staff coveted cases hopefully those numbers stay very small uh we don't want obviously i i feel personally responsible for any sickness that happens so but you'll see any isolate quarantine numbers and those cases there so we have a an faq document that is pretty uh extensive and the link is on this on this uh spreadsheet or on this uh these slides here that i'll be sending to parents tonight so as we've been getting as we've been communicating together we've been coming up with questions ourselves and we've been getting questions from staff um we've had great questions from parents last night we had a very engaging citizens advisory council meeting and got some some very solid feedback from that group both positive and negative and i'm going to tell you that some people are are like i said before some people are very comfortable with what we're doing right now and are nervous that we're making this change so there are some negatives that you think of families that have rearranged their schedule to meet what we have right now and now we're asking them to change that schedule and knowing that it could go back at some other time so there's some there's some uh you know there's some challenges there and it's it's put us in a position to i mean i feel like we have to plan for this and try to get kids here but i also understand where parents are coming from they don't want to see the constant change i also know that if i if i put a message out that said we're going to be in virtual learning for the rest of the school year i don't think i would have a lot of happy campers either so um you know i've there's been some good a very valid comment is why would we do this now when cold and flu season is getting ready to start so that's a valid question it's just if if not now then when is my i guess the metrics that lake county has given me is saying that we're ready so we started this planning a month ago not knowing when ready would be but uh you know at this point the 13th would be the soonest we could get started with all the things we got to do yet so our timeline would be tonight i send something out to parents i give them until 8 a.m on october 5th which would be monday to fill out a two question survey one do you want blended or do you want to stay in virtual and two do you need transportation or not that's all that's really what we need to know because once we know all that information then we've got a lot of work to do and so we have about a week to get all that ready then but it's i will tell you i i we've got a lot of our administrators here tonight and they've really worked their tails off on all this i think we're all just kind of um we're just we're just strung out pretty hard right now but this isn't going to go perfect and we know that and but we're ready to shoot we're ready to problem solve it as we have issues so i think the phase in with one grade level at each building to start with might seem like might seem like a slow phase in because it's going to take until november 9th to get us there but i think we need those two weeks to kind of see if this is even going to work and then we'll add a grade level and see if that's going to work i feel like if we bring them all back at one time it's going to be a mess so so anyway that's where we're at and i'm open to fire away with questions so apologize that took longer than i thought i guess my first one is what is our protocol if students or a teacher get sick so would we have to quarantine the whole class or just a teacher so if somebody were to get sick there's somebody actually test positive with covid i'm going to read read straight from something here so the person that tests positive as obviously he's going to stay home until uh the illness is over and no symptoms for 24 hours and they get a release from corn or at least from isolation letter from the lake county health department so that's what gets them back into school or work okay so it's not a simple doctor's note they have to work with the lake county lake county health department's involved in that and they get a release letter from them um somebody who's exposed to so if i have uh if we have a case in a classroom um students that they'll do we'll do some contact tracing so students that are within six feet of an individual who's been exp who has been diagnosed as positive students who are within six feet for a cumulative of 15 minutes in a day in a 24 hour period they're considered close contacts so that's why it's important for us to set up our rooms so that we don't have any of those situations so you could we don't want to you know i would imagine and we haven't had to go through this yet but i would imagine that the health department's going to say there's going to be students in a cloud even if we have the six feet social distancing i imagine there's going to be some they're going to want a quarantine but one reason not to put 50 kids on a bus would be if if you have um if you have a situation now you've got a lot of kids that are involved that have to be quarantined um and we have to have seating charts for every room and every bus so we know where kids are at and when they're at those places and this is another reason why the lunch and recess taking it out of the mix eliminates a lot of issues for us so we have this we have a pretty strong guidance from the county i'll give you so here's another example i have a staff member right now who whose son is at a high school and was exposed and was told the quarantine so staff members asked me do i need to quarantine and technically in this case um that's a contact of a contact so they don't they don't quarantine context of context but you watch their symptoms and they make sure that so so we've we've learned way more than this and i want to know about but uh we have a chart we go to that lake county has given us that is is pretty solid to meet the and we didn't have that in august so we were really shooting from the hip in august so which is another reason why we just didn't feel comfortable coming back and then how will you inform the parents then of will you informed all the parents of the students in that class in case they want to i don't know keep their kids home and do virtual instead of being in class or how are you going to let parents or can you not inform the whole class we can uh what we can do and i've i have talked to the lake county health department a little bit about this we do have some guidance on on on on this procedure um so we can make a general notification that somebody in the school has been i don't know if we can go down to the class okay i'll have to find that out we make a general notification and then we let people know that if your child was a close contact you will be contacted like you will know so they do but we will help them with that process but we obviously can't give names and things like that but um but yeah we will we will do a and i think if if there are uh it hasn't happened yet around here but if there if there are multiple cases in a building they would they would consider shutting the building down so they don't have a specific number that i've seen but i mean i've read that two in an area but i don't know the size of our buildings what it would take but if we had a couple cases they could consider shutting it down too i have a question about blended versus virtual so right now kids are all learning remote with a teacher if they choose to stay virtual are they going to continue with that teacher but just not have as much contacts how is that going to work great question they will continue with that teacher the expectation that we're giving the teachers is that they would throughout the week you know there's going to be they're going to sign asynchronous work for those kids and then uh you know they'll there will hopefully be time for communication back and forth but there won't be um necessarily won't be uh zoom contact uh until friday now i i will say this i think it's going to be a classroom by classroom decision because some classrooms may have if a teacher only has one or two students that are remote she can handle it or he can handle it differently than a teacher that might have 10.

i think it would have been just easier to name the group but there's no name as i read it it's the first paragraph page 17. the top it's at the top the first paragraph yeah the first paragraph page 17. it's under mental health support that starts at the bottom of page 16. there's like two sentence two lines that it starts on page 16 at the bottom so can you just give me the name second harvest food bank thank you okay did you have more questions trustee travis yes it says on page 15 that there's a plan in development to provide support um do you have something in writing as to what the plan is second paragraph of page 15. last line i'm going on pretty soon on 15 yeah that uh plans mine reads ongoing modifications of supports and services will be made based on student data on page on my page 15 of 24 it says this plan is being developed to provide support such as basic case management and referral brokerage is there a plan in writing right now and if so can we see it yeah you are going to be seeing it by october trustee chavez this is the plan that barbara campbell is working with some principles to address students who are recent arrivals to the district english learners yeah i guess my question is it's always better to see the plan ahead of time to see and know what we're approving well the you're approving the lcap you're not approving that english language learner plan okay thank you and if i could just uh remind you all that this is a plan for 2020 2021 school year so it's for the whole school year and there will be some things that are still being developed so we can meet the needs of the students so i do have another question and it's kind of the same framework that it's still being developed that's all thank you okay thank you um any other questions or comments from the board on this item i do have a comment this is trustee marquez go ahead um because um sandra just said that this is a plan or template um for the 2021 um that's what i was dreaming right as you open it when the 20 when the 21 comes around um are you going to come in with new things or just what you have implemented so i'm the lucky one that gets to write two plans in one year so we will begin the process of writing an lcap in um january 2021 to bring to the board by june okay and so i'm glad you you you just worded it like that because tell me what the difference is uh on the uh the learning the continuity and an attendance plan template and then the l cap i mean we all know what the l cap is but we're not calling it an l cap anymore or we are so so um this plan is replacing the lcap for this school year yes only this school year during this time of covet and distance learning and school closures and things like that so it is only replacing it for this school year because it is more specific towards the pandemic and the time we're in and how we're addressing student needs and then we will go back hopefully we will go back to using the lcap as our guide for the school year for next year thank you for the information it's clear functional to me thank you okay thank you any other questions or comments from the board okay i um i just also want to thank everyone parents staff administration for all the hard work that's gone into putting this together as i continually talk about this is new for everybody from students on up and and it's not easy to put together an entire educational plan using an entire different model you know in this short of a time but everyone has come together to to get that done so i want to just appreciate that work from everybody um and my only question is the plan as it's laid out um i'm assuming that's why it's coming to us for approval that we do have the resources or the partnerships or or whatever it may be to to implement this plan going forward but are there any particular areas of the plan that um that may need us to to keep our eye on in terms of the sufficient support for implementation or you know any challenges that we do need to keep an eye on in particular um go ahead not not that i know of i mean if it's in the plan it's something that we definitely feel that we have the resources to do of course we're always looking for more resources to improve and add to what we're providing but um unless dr bauer did you want to speak to it more no that's that's the answer that's the answer yeah excuse me one last question sorry i missed it so on page 12 uh where it says the tech support so it says that the on the last uh block it says that the tech support for parent staff the i.t staff provides extended evening and weekend tech support to parents so the additional 80 000 is that because you did a new hire or are you now paying time and a half to the it time and personnel half to ait personnel trustee travis so um isn't it more cost effective to hire somebody else as a consultant and that way you're not paying time and a half no no i'm answering that's okay people will say otherwise thank you very much i know this is trustee marcus uh yeah before or before you trustee marcus i just kind of wanted to add on to um you know i understand it's a good point of you know making sure that we have enough support i t support but i in terms of um you know hiring a new person i i know that the cost to onboard a new person is often you know it seems like it makes sense up front but at least in my experience um in government agencies that cost to onboard and get people you know up and running often um out exceeds the amount that it costs to to pay existing staff who are familiar with all the processes and everything to move forward so that that's just been my experience in other areas trustee marquez um yes in your comment on it just reminded me of a concern that i had when i was reading this because um over the weekend i was talking um at a function i was talking with um with a couple of parents um from ellen rock and they were saying um they're always getting thrown out when they're trying to log in and i had to explain to her that 8 500 people were trying to get on and so that was going to be happening and then then the parent she said um but i don't think it was that uh just imagine i think that it was the fact that i what the the computer or whatever what whatever she had that we gave her it is the problem it's too old or it needs to be refurbished or it needs to be fixed because it happens way too many times so when you say we need to keep an eye on something that may have may reoccur or is reoccurring right now um she's not the first parent i have heard that from a couple of parents that are employees and have children in the district i've also mentioned to me that that they they think that they need to take in whatever was given to them at their school and have been checking out or give them something else so i think we need to stay on top of that because it doesn't sound to me from where i'm at that um every single uh laptop or whatever we gave the children um is is working all that well so i think we need to really keep an eye on those um on those those that equipment so thank you okay thank you i had uh raised my hand a while ago but i don't think you saw it oh i didn't see it but is it can i just do a follow up on that particular comment or do you have something yeah yeah oh no yeah i'm sure okay thanks uh mr gil is there any way that you could of all the devices that we have and you're muted by the way so oh there you go of all the devices that we have handed out whether they be hot spots or laptops or chromebooks whatever is there any way that you could just very generally speak to the um not necessarily the condition but the like how recent or how new or how what is the the not the quality like are these devices that are old outdated and you know likely to to have hardware issues so if i make comment more video generally any device when it is working is working but this part of its age right there are many other now we have seen most of our learning is a distance learning and there are factors of internet there is a factor of a zoom itself even if the internet is good and we are experiencing every day so most of our devices are pretty new newer three years or less there are few devices which have aged uh four plus years three plus years but most of the devices are premium less than three years okay but we're confident fairly confident that they are sufficiently functional um and we just kind of have to come to terms as we've seen in tonight's meeting with the reality of you know maybe i didn't it was my fault because i didn't put my you know password in right or maybe the internet or zoom or something else external was the problem and that's you know part of the picture it sounds like it's just the reality that we all are learning to come to grips with but it sounds like the device end for the most part is sufficient then in your estimation yes it is sufficient and as you stated that there are some user cases too where sometimes it is a password issue and if i may share there because we hear a lot of incidents from families through our tech support and my technicians share with me so there's one incident i would share is a student has an ipad what he did is he took a screenshot of his home screen and then when his parent comes to him why you are not connected he just click on the screenshot and stating that my ipad is not working see i'm clicking on the icon and it's not going so those are a lot of human involvement this is one example i share i go i'm gonna go back on my statement about trustee chavez i want this kid hired i want this kid hired for our itt he's brilliant oh but yeah so you know that's a good point of how and also so did santa are you taking that statement back no i'm not i'm not even gonna go there again this month but trustee um quintero uh i know you have comments i apologize for butting in there nah no worries um i i just want to express my gratitude and uh for for the the staff and the team that put the plan together the collaboration i think that um by working with all the stakeholders uh the the the folks that are you know impacted by this plan uh he got some really good input and so very very much appreciative of that um i've been able to observe firsthand some of that um interaction and i've had an enhanced appreciation for our teachers uh for the district staff and everything that they do um man that's a lot of patience that teachers have with with the students and uh my god that's their saints um because of uh because of some of the things that go on uh during during the sessions i'm not not that i'm peering or anything like that but i'm there to lend support to my kids and i'm able to observe some of the things that take place and um i i do feel uh um [Music] thanks to taftar and the entire i.t team because um the uh the teachers do feel very comfortable in saying reach out to the it folks remember i told you to do that last week and then or or remember that you know they were able to resolve this issue and so they're they are pointing the students in the right direction and they actually have examples of of issues with technology getting resolved when they point to the iep department so very uh i'm grateful to to to have a firsthand look at some of the um things that our our staff is doing and seeing them actually work so thank you all for the work that you're doing that was it okay thank you any last questions or comments and if not we'll go ahead and call for the vote for the approval i just wanted to make a comment that um when when i when i said my comment it was only for step to keep an eye on that not to examine it whether it is true or whether it's going this way or whether it's human error or whether it's technology error only to keep an eye on that because i i talk to people over here in all different kinds of places and every once in a while something will pop up and that was my only comment for that just to have the staff say we're going to keep an eye on that that's it okay i don't know can i just say something real quick um i just wanna you know i think uh the lotus for doing that because you know a lot of parents you know some of us are connected you know with the commanders some of us are connected you know by family and so that's great that they felt comfortable and letting you know um the lord is you know of course we could always improve as a district um and then the only thing in which you i'm sure you did but you know just continue to remind them that we have people like our amazing staff that can support them they don't go another day without you know being logged on to school so thank you to everybody you know we're doing our best so let's keep moving forward thank you okay thank you so i just realized that we don't have a motion or a second yet for this item to approve this item approval okay uh hold on your answers so we do have a motion i heard trustee quintero and second i heard trusty chavez but i'm sure what you have um um for the second that's what i heard first before justice either one is fine go ahead and put chavez i'm okay with that okay so i will go ahead and call for your vote as always as i see you here on my screen for the approval of item 3.01 trustee marquez yes trustee yes trustee chavez trusty quintero hi and myself i motion passes unanimously thank you everyone keep up the good work um and with that we can move on to item 4.01 update presentation and discussion on potential district solar power program initiative so at this point um as i mentioned we'll do the presentation first and then we'll allow for public comment um after that followed by board member discussion and questions this is an information only item so no action will be taken on this tonight um so with that being said um mr ruiz are you taking over oh he's going i'm you um rogerio and there you go are you able to share your screen um let's give it a go can you see that yes okay great um good evening board uh superintendent bauer members of the community um so i have been working with the staff and preparing this update uh for you uh regarding where the district is and looking at and examining the possibility of a solar power or solar pv project for the district and after listening to the discussion and the comments from board members and comments from members of the public we we thought we would try to structure this update to address some of those questions that concerns that we've heard in the past and hopefully we provide we can provide some answers to those questions and some more insight and so to do that i thought it would be helpful you know to lay out the goals for this brief presentation uh and those are really four things that we would like to cover the first is how did we get to this point how did the district get to this point to where it is right now in terms of its examination of a possible solar program for the district and what has been so done so far and what i'm referring to there is that um you know part of this process is is remembering that the solar program or a potential solar program is not a standalone item in itself the district has actually been looking at renewable energy sources and possible energy savings for about five years now and so we wanted to sort of update the board and remind the board of the community what steps have been taken along those ways along that way since then so and then look at where are we now in that process other renewable energy projects um and how it fits in with solar and then what the next steps look like in this process so um let's talk about how we got to where we are uh right now um so um in 2015 uh the board approved a program development agreement between the district and optera energy services that was in october of 2015 so almost exactly five years ago the purpose and i'll get into more detail into the purpose of that agreement but the thrust of that agreement was for the district to bring in a consultant to make an assessment of how the district uses its energy how much energy you the district uses both gas and electric and then uh what possible savings might the district achieve if it implemented some energy conservation measures or or other types of renewal renewable energy programs and again that was in 2015 after that ng services you you us incorporated acquired optera energy services and so as a result that program development agreement between the district and optera basically went over to ng in connection with that program development agreement ng then prepared an energy program savings report for the district that identified the district's usage of power both electric and gas and also looked at some possible savings solutions and then after that the district issued a competitive rfq for solar and energy savings program in 2017.

so if you are brought into litigation either through the office or administrative appearance or a court court litigation and has you maybe what it is a pending um class action lawsuit filed in california and there's also one that's been filed in new york that is named a lot of school districts and employers that you will be able to use your staff will be able to use support the decisions that were made during this time period of the school closure we've also provided advice to your district regarding sample communications to parents if your district decides to provide assessments in person as opposed to virtually in that communication includes a letter to a sample letter to the parents the parents acknowledgement of the risks safety protocols and the covert risk factor questions checklist 48 seconds left um i'm sorry now you can yield your time if you want okay i i i've exhausted my what we've been doing for your district uh and will continue to do for your district during this um strange time of the closures thank you f3 same question thank you very much miss jamal my name is carlos viegas i'm a partner in the los angeles office of fagin friedman and full frost i want to begin first with a few clients um pretty close to azusa that i think you would recognize and if you represent pomona across all different practice areas rialto hacienda la puente south whittier west covina and upland and i'll defer to my colleagues to include some of the notable cases but also start with a little bit of my passion i come from an education family and my dad was a superintendent my mom was a 40-year teacher a big part of what i do is labor and employment work and so part of the kind of in this era of covet is doing a lot of the collective bargaining agreements and coveted mousse over the last six months we've been constantly negotiating and i think that's a big issue that the districts are all going to be facing another part of what i do is teacher dismissals and so you may find yourself in a situation where nobody wants to end up in a teacher dismissal but i've been in some truly heartbreaking and gut-wrenching dismissals involving um truly horrible things that have occurred to small children and that's become an area of passion because i feel like my mom was a teacher and so we're honoring the profession by making sure that only the best teachers will remain in the school districts i also do a considerable amount of public records act and so and when i say me i mean the entire firm these are all areas of specialty for our firm as well as student work i did want to talk a little bit about the area special ed and i'm going to hand over to my colleague lindsey rogers but before i do it it's it's sometimes not something that you think about but i think one of the biggest issues you're going to face in special education is how do you collectively bargain to have all of these different competing state and federal obligations met by your employees so we all are aware what the federal laws are but one of the biggest challenges to special education during covet has been what are our employees going to do what are their expectations how do we collectively bargain with our employees and how do we meet the legal requirements but also meet the expectations of our communities i'd like to hand to my colleague lindsey rogers to speak a little bit more specifically about other challenges in special education lindsay you were on mute there we go did it happen that time okay sorry about that so yes lindsey rogers here and i i do do primarily special education and student work at f3 i'm also from an education family a superintendent's daughter and a speech and language pathologist both retired and so i i come i come by a special education through my family and so we um you know we've been i also do uh work in pomona unified that is i do their special education work and i also do one one client that i don't think was is that is in your area that you know the client uh call carlos mentioned is walnut valley unified it's another client that we do their special education work and la canada unified goodness i you know this this question is there's a lot packed in there as ms gilliard certainly demonstrated there are a lot of different areas that we could touch on and i'm trying i was trying to kind of hone in on one what is the biggest thing that i'm thinking about in terms of in-person instruction things that are coming back right now i can say the things that i'm working the most on that i hear most um that i get more most questions about right now are staff coming back for in-person assessments and or if they're coming back to the in-person cohorting so yes so i agree with carlos that's kind of the first thing that we're all going to be dealing with is going to be talking with staff communicating developing new emojis if we need to or communicate communicating with our labor partners to discuss how we are going to be bringing back special educators and general educators when that comes as well um and how that cohorting how that's going to work equitably amongst our staff and bringing them back and i do see that coming up right now even in the special education world because so much focus is about right now bringing special education teachers back to do special education teachers and providers back so i do think that that is one area um from the beginning that we're going to be seeing right away is working with our labor partners and bringing back as we bring back the other another issue with them for me in particular near and dear to me is there's a lot of talk right now about how we are going to be assessing student progress and possible and loss that's happened over this time so right now i'm working with um i work with i work with school psychologists and work with our directors and with the clients to really start thinking about where are the areas what assessments can we be doing virtually what assessments can we be doing in in person when we can do that and how do we do that safely developing protocols for both staff and for family for bringing students back in to do in-person assessments we really at f3 i would say our a major focus of our special education department and the way that we think about our client relationships is that we engage in in preventive law to the extent that we can meaning we uh i tend to have relationships with my clients where we're talking about we're talking about potential problems before they arise so we're definitely here for due process complaints we're here when you get those um the ocr complaints and the cpu compliance movement from those issues we certainly have been handled many of those but we also focus a lot especially in this covet time that we've had these months where everybody is reacting to to the newness and to new to law to new situations that we're in where we're kind of where we talk with our clients about how do we prevent some of these legal issues from arising so ways we do that that were already mentioned is a clear communications with parents and prior written notice letters sometimes we assess uh especially in special education we will assist with developing template letters that then we give to our clients to use themselves in that are not necessarily the formal legal private and notice letters but are just good practice to have good communication with your parents uh with your parent community during this time um during this time that is that can stave off a lot of uh litigiousness a lot of litigation a lot of anger and angst that can come about when there's not that communication so we try to work with our clients to ensure they have good parent communication in the special education community i would definitely say that's something that's applicable to the to us coming back to in person right now as we are we're getting i'm sure you guys are too we get we're getting questions every day about what what's the plan what's the plan for in person we heard you can do that now what are you doing next so it's really you know right now we do a lot of i would say non-traditional legal work working partnering with our clients to talk through the legal implications of the different in terms of teachers and children so those are the um the major issues that i'm seeing right now uh in terms of planning all of that is really is developing uh clear protocols for staff and clear protocols for parents and parent communication ah let's see you have about two minutes remaining yeah i wanted to do raise two is that that we we are just starting to i would say in the last couple of months last month maybe see more and more due process filings starting to trickle in so that is starting to happen um and we so in that situ in those in those instances obviously we are so we have i actually just was notified that we had a few uh successful f3 attorneys that successfully argued to stay put motions where parents were trying to get some in-home services uh as stay put meaning the parents were saying i get an aide at home i should get i get an aid at school i should also get that aid at home and that we have we've had a couple of successful stay put motions where oh has agreed with our argument that the district does not have to provide that service in the home if that's not what the iep said was that the service was required in the home now the law that the oah is handling cases is uh deciding cases in different ways so one of the things that we certainly have in f3 is a robust special education department up and down the state that we are weekly if not bi-weekly phone calls uh just you know with amongst us attorneys to keep each other apprised on the latest and greatest uh briefing that we're doing the latest orders that we're getting out of oah that aren't published anywhere else so we can share that information amongst each other and use that to our clients benefit uh throughout the state and if we still have a minute i would like to lindsay give jessica and leslie an opportunity to speak about the district they work within some notable cases you have 30 seconds that's so fast just thank you for having us my name is jessica ehrlich i head up our business and facilities and litigation practices in our los angeles office as carlos mentioned we work with quite a few districts in your area as well as up and down the state and handle cases um you know with regard to construction and facilities disputes to brown act matters um if we have public records disputes as lindsay mentioned special ed litigation so we really run the gamut of representing public schools thank you next we will have lozano smith and miss lieke will let you know when your time starts your time begins now hi there my name is darren kamaya i'm a partner in the lozano smith's los angeles office um i have on the line with me my colleagues trevin sims of the los angeles office who's a partner he works on facilities matters labor and employment matters governance matters and everything else that kind of comes up desiree serrano is the colleague in the la office she works on labor labor and employment matters student matters and governance matters mark waterman is a partner in our los angeles office he provides litigation support and special ed due process hearing representation uh aaron fraser is on the line from our firm she works on special ed and student and charter school matters and amanda cordova is one of my colleagues in the los angeles office and she works on special happy to be we represent almost 100 percent of our clients as school district or education clients 100 are public sector clients and we're well versed in all things related to school districts we take an approach to our practice that provides our clients with support not only with legal issues and providing uh analysis analysis and statement of law but also partnership with them to help them achieve their goals and so we do as others have mentioned especially nowadays provide support in terms of advice regarding uh the implementation of laws and rules and regulations that seem to be changing every day and uh it's it's uh interesting work we all come from uh seems like from education backgrounds and that serves us all well my mother's a school teacher my brother and many relatives are also teachers on our staff we have many attorneys who are teachers as well and so they they bring to the craft the knowledge of what has happened and is going on in the classroom and bring that perspective representative clients that we have in the area include burbank unified school district where we do personnel and labor and employment facilities matters and some board governance matters san marino unified school district we do personnel and board governance and public records matters west covina unified school district personnel matters los angeles unified school district we work with them on special education matters and labor employment matters realtors unified school district we are advising them on many different subjects and there are clients up and down the state that we uh provide uh assistance to um we have many notable cases related to education um dealing with layoffs of certificated employees discipline of employees and the appeals of those matters first amendment issues um including things uh like prayer in school where we actually just helped file an amicus brief today on an appellate uh case involving football and prayer we are involved actively in helping schools and districts provide distance learning to students and to help them when students and staff are coming back to the classroom into the school site so every day it seems like we're all involved in negotiations with unions over the return to work uh notably today the i understand the board of supervisors of l.a county has announced that they are going to or will soon be accepting petitions for uh waivers for tk through second grade and that's my that might be something that you folks are interested in and we can certainly help you with that as far as schools coming back to in-person instruction and special education issues that might come up uh i'd like to i'd like to introduce amanda cordova who can speak to that along with uh aaron and mark my name's darren good evening my name is amanda cordova and i'm an associate here in our la office i spend 100 of my day advising and working with school districts throughout the state including some local ones including burbank unified westside and lausd my work focuses primarily on providing advice counsel and trainings for district staff on special education matters and while my clients and i try to work collaboratively with families to meet the needs of children with disabilities there are some instances where that may not be possible and i regularly assist districts with due process matters compliance complaints and federal special education cases recently i've been working with districts on coverage related issues particularly for distance learning including assessing students remotely or in-person social distancing and using personal protective equipment we've also drafted some sample language to include in assessment plans and assessment reports addressing addressing the validity of assessments that are done remotely or using ppe that may not be falling in conformity with assessment protocols i've also been working with districts on finding creative solutions to provide instruction and services to students during the physical school closures through distance learning as well as bringing students on campus for small cohorts some of our school districts have already reopened particularly up north and our firm has been providing guidance to those districts on special education issues some issues that we're facing in addition to the assessments and the distance learning services and instruction is providing mainstreaming and inclusion opportunities for our students to have those in our in their ieps while maintaining cohorts as required by the guidance from cde and we've been working with districts to identify creative solutions on how we can keep those cohorts together while still ensuring that students have access to typically developing peers to get those peer models in accordance with their ieps in addition we've been assisting clients with responding to requests for me remediation intervention services for students with disabilities and uh responding to requests from both parents and attorneys who feel like their students were not receiving all of their services in their iep we've been working with special education directors staff and iep teams to develop protocols for assessing the need for remediation intervention as well as best practices on how to communicate with parents in providing those either addressing those requests through iep meetings or through prior written notices we also anticipate an influx in special education due process filings and we've been working with clients on those due process filings as well as recent class action matters both in new york and california and we've been advising clients on how to deal with when you get you know notice of service whether whether they've been served or not um and dealing with that we've been assisting clients through uh due process better specifically on distance learning issues already and of course that includes you know the regular representation of drafting pleadings motions as well as participating in mediation and settlement negotiations and when necessary proceeding to due process to defend the district's distance learning program and finally our firm has a special education legal consortium that's scheduled for next month where we'll be providing a half day long training to school districts throughout the state on how to address covid 19 special education issues as well as recent covid 19 decisions that have come from oah you have a minute and 20 seconds left mark is there anything you wanted to add regarding due process hearings or things that are coming up for uh special ed students that are returning thank you karen good evening my name is mark waterman i'm one of the partners in the la office and for 26 years i've been representing school districts and other public entities with my expertise being in administrative hearings in special education and employing discipline um as amanda alluded to one of the key advantages of lozano smith is that we represent school districts up and down the state um so this puts us in a unique position to know all of the issues that school districts are facing including those school districts that have already started back to school we also are in a unique position of knowing pretty much all of the opposing counsel and the judges in the youth process proceedings so we're able to have a good understanding of what is and is not working in in the administrative proceedings uh for special education it also means that one of the issues and one of the places where we often are is at the forefront of law most recently for example amanda and i just finished a special education your time is up okay next firm will be pnc and linka will tell you when your time starts your time begins now are we unloaded let's put the video on thank you my name is steve montenez and i'm a partner with the firm of parker and covert parker and covert was first established in 1978 and was the first exclusive educational law firm to exist in the united states our clients include locally glendora unified and bonita unified school district we also represent orange unified la habra city school districts long beach unifor fight and newport mesa unified i have represented orange newport mesa and long beach for over 20 years um long beach unified is where we do most of our special education work and i'm going to defer to cynthia yant at that point uh so that she can explain the special ed emphasis before i go on i want to send um expression of our heartfelt uh expression for those in the local community of azusa unified who have recently been the victims of the bobcat fires near the angeles national forest and and we know that that impacts students and and their their ability to come back to school and feel safe and i think an answer to question number one we know we have done negotiations for both the hybrid instructional model as well as the distance learning model and we know that the first emphasis for these special needs students is going to be the district's ability to make sure the students and the communities feel safe and well on all safety protocols are implemented in order to do that and we have done that with other districts and we fully operate with the intention of doing that also for azusa unified and i think that mous that have currently coming out in the various areas that are opening in various stages is an important element for special ed students and those that are you know tk and kindergarten and first grade in the elementary because we find that most schools districts either using an av model whether students are coming to school on separate days or the am pm model where you have a student population come in the morning and come in the afternoon we've seen various hybrid models of those as well and i think that we are able to support the school district in either model depending upon which suits the community azusa also has been identified as one who serves basically hispanic latino community and i know this board is facing decline in enrollment and we have assisted districts and also dealing with those issues so not only do you have a pandemic not only do you have fires not only do you have you know special needs students from the latino community whose families are really subject to you know the hardships that have been paced in this environment we have catered to those students that are small to those school districts that are small that have a minority community population you know we advance for you know proposition i think it's 16 that would allow for school districts to to service their minority communities without having the hampering of currently existing proposition 209 that bases you know the ability to provide services on on race which prohibits that so we're in tune with those broad range tools that will advance the district's need to service those at need students with that cindy if you could uh address the special ed issues good evening my name is cindy yant i don't know if you can see me i turned my camera on and my microphone can you hear me okay yes we can excellent um i have been uh with parker and covert for over 30 years and my main area of practice is indeed special education all throughout southern california my partner stephen montanez comments reminds me that just a couple of years ago it seems our client at wai nimi school district um suffered in their community a devastating fire and some of the decisions that we helped that school district with were unfortunately a precursor to this unprecedented set of events that we've had during covid19 so we were sort of a couple steps ahead in in some regards because of that unfortunate situation our focus has always been to promote proactive measures as you've heard my esteemed colleagues talk about tonight we want to be able to mitigate the number of complaints that are filed through due process or because of a section 504 alleged violation or a compliance complaint any type of complaint like that is going to cost the school district in resource resources and time and perhaps even legal fees to address the issues raised in those complaints so our focus has always been to assist our clients with proactive measures such as training staff making sure that as we keep up with changing law guidelines that are coming down that we're able to pass that information along to our clients and offer trainings to suit the specific needs of our clients we do that on a regular basis and and on a pro bono basis so we want to begin uh working with our clients on a possible dispute at the iep level to make sure that the staff knows going in what the what the current law is how they want to prepare for that meeting as best they can we want to make sure that if there is a complaint filed that we can represent the client fully by thoroughly examining the records talking to staff who are familiar with the case who are familiar with the student so that we can help the district make good decisions nip things in the bud if you will to keep things from from getting to an unreasonable level such as a due process hearing if a filing for due process is filed we assist the district in preparing for and we represent the district at the resolution meeting to hopefully narrow the issues or address some of the issues perhaps even come up with an interim agreement so that we can come to some conclusions before we get to that hearing level however at times we go to mediation fully prepared as well but we're not able to resolve all the issues of the case and then we work in earnest with our clients to prepare for due process hearing and try to keep the um the costs uh to a minimum um we try to stay five steps ahead all at all times with special ed issues and of course during covet 19 um this was something that that uh was unprecedented um we assisted our clients with drafting prior written notice letters to parents and we've really spent a great deal of time with our clients in helping them to not only maintain good relationships with the parents by keeping them well informed by having them be full participants in the decision making as we've been able to determine what services can be provided in a safe manner we have assisted then with the surge in due process filings that we have seen over the last few months we've seen a few of the law firms that we're familiar with take advantage of the fact that we are not providing in-service uh service excuse me in-person services and they're trying to opt for district uh funding of private services that are providing in-person services same thing with assessments because we're not sending our staff into students homes to observe them and to do in-person assessments we find that they're asking the parents are asking for independent educational evaluations from assessors who don't have any restrictions on going into the home and providing in-person assessments so what we've been advising our clients is do uh all parts of the assessment that you're able to do that don't require in person and we will follow up when we are able to do that to enhance those assessments as best we can the other issue that has come up as our clients are preparing for um return to in-person or hybrid formats is making sure that we're making individualized decisions uh for students who we anticipate will have a lot of problems making those transitions back to an in-person format or whose behavior we feel may be problematic in terms of safety measures so we're making sure that our clients are looking at each of these cases in a very individualized manner that we have good documentation supporting the decisions that are being made by the district in terms of what can be offered in the same training i'm beg your pardon 30 seconds oh thank you very much um so we're just trying to help our clients as best we can make those individualized decisions so that if those due process filings occur we can defend all of the positions that the district took thank you so much appreciate the opportunity to speak with you this evening thank you we will now move over to question two um i would just ask these questions when you'll have five minutes to respond to each and there are three remaining questions i ask that you also um if you can track your time we will track ours um so that way but i apologize we can't display the time but that way you guys can know exactly where we are okay question two we will start with f3 f3 your time starts now thank you very much i think one of the biggest challenges of the new title ix regulations is from our perspective they've changed almost every way that we're going to go about investigating title ix allegations and so i want to highlight that our firm partnered with an illinois law firm to provide national training on title ix issues and to kind of unpack the thousands of new pages of regulations in title ix and the training that that our firm provided which by the way we gave discounts to axa members um it is a training that lasts at least three hours and that's just the initial round of trainings and just to kind of give you a sense of where that begins is identifying title ix coordinators within your districts identifying investigators decision makers appeal decision makers and informal resolution facilitators and i think that really changes the traditional way that school districts have looked at title ix in years past where you may have had one person handle all of the different title ix issues for the entire district and so it's definitely going to be a new day when you're looking at title ix issues now apart from just the complexity of the new title ix regulations i think you also have to unpack you know what's the new definition of sexual harassment the new title ix regulations have changed that and in some ways i feel like it's made it so much harder to identify what sexual harassment is under the new regulations and one thing that i think overall when you're looking at the new title ix regulations i think one of the biggest takeaway is the boost to the rights of those folks who are accused of sexual harassment and so what does that really mean for the school district as you're doing your investigation it means that you may have to contemporaneously in real time disclose evidence in interviews and things that you normally would keep as a confidential investigation you will probably have to disclose that to the person who is accused of the sexual harassment at the same time you're trying to conduct your investigation now the district's question is how would that uh how would that impact student rights well imagine if you have students who are making accusations of sexual harassment what we know traditionally is there's only a fraction really only a percentage very small percentage of students who come forward and have the courage to even make these allegations if you look at the new regulations and you look at the way it boosts the rights of the accused i think what you're going to see overall is probably more students i'm sorry less students coming forward with these allegations and it puts the district in a much more difficult place to hold these people accountable when they get engaged in sexual harassment so apart from just looking at the definition of sexual harassment the scope of education programs and activities you have to really start wondering how are we as a district going to respond to formal and informal reports of sexual harassment i think that landscape has completely changed under the new regulations and so our firm we really pride ourselves on providing professional development to the extent that you don't need us anymore and we we consider ourselves true partners with public school districts i used to be a teacher in linux school district and the idea here is that a district that's dependent on its attorneys is not a healthy district so one of the things that we enjoy most is providing that capacity to reduce the footprint for the district and reduce the amount of money that you need to spend on attorneys and we do that in our partnerships throughout the state with both csba and with axa now we're looking at the question i want to unpack just a little bit we talked about student rights but also employee rights and so what would this mean for the collective bargaining agreement what would this mean for employee discipline i think the reality is it's going to be that much more difficult to discipline employees who engage in sexual harassment because ultimately we have to disclose all these issues up to them up front and we're probably going to be tied at the hip with the attorneys for the union so i think the districts are going to have to look long and hard at is a new allegation truly sexual harassment can it be processed under some other complaint procedure i think all of that is going to come into play and when it comes to the the title ix regulations it truly is uncharted territory but i think overall you want to err on the side of protecting potential victims within your district whether they're students or employees and i think the training that you're going to need to fulfill all these roles is probably going to be pretty rigorous you're going to have to teach your administrators how to serve impartially including avoiding any type of pre-judgment or preconceived notions about allegations you're going to have to also avoid conflicts of interest how is that going to play out for for the district's employees i think the union attorneys are looking at this and they're they're seeing that it's already difficult enough to discipline a teacher and we're all aware that in less than one percent thank you lozano and smith your time begins now hi i'm desiree serrano um thank you for having me here tonight i actually grew up in covina and live in san dimas so i really appreciate this opportunity to tell you about our firm you know this is a lot you know mostly we've been doing covid but this has also been a really big thing on our radar we've done several webinars on title ix in helping school district learn all of these new rules and regulations for investigations i just did one this morning for school districts so one of the big things that's changed is that process for the investigation and sharing all the information that we normally would keep a little bit more confidential having the exchange of information and evidence but also allowing each side to submit questions that they would want to ask of the other party that's very different um from what we did before um the roles that we have you know we now we have three to four to five different roles there's no more one man or woman show often you know your school district's a little bit larger so you might have a couple of people doing that some school districts only had one person doing this entire process so school districts are rethinking who do they want to be that title knight coordinator because there's rules about if you're the title ix coordinator you can't be the decision maker you can't be the appeals body so who do you want that title ix coordinator to be is it still the same person or do we need to move that to another position in order to make this process work the way it works best in our school district i'd also say you know one of the big changes here we used to be able to put it all into our sexual harassment policy whether that be for students or for employees and now we have a different definition of sexual harassment under title ix than what we have under california law so we're going to have to process them a little bit different and re-learn how we handle those complaints um you know does it fall under title ix no okay does it fall under one of these other policies and we use that so kind of reframing how we look at those and then also looking at you know we often had at the school site level as to students a school site principal assistant principal gets the issue someone comes to them and they just start running and they investigate and they solve the issue they address the issue and i don't know that they were always really thinking about you know first checking in with the title ix coordinator and i think that'll be really important to talk to your all your school staff about their obligations and reminding them okay if you get a report that looks like any form of sexual harassment let's report it to the title ix coordinator first before you really dive into things the other thing i would say is we you know we work with csba and other statewide organizations and help give input on those model policies so we are kind of involved at the state level the other thing that's different is the rules about exclusion for students we used to you know just investigate discipline right away and now we need to stay take a step back and look at whether that is really allowed under these new title ix regulations or do we need to finish the investigation first before we make that determination on whether or not the student has violated the ed code and that this discipline is justified for employee rights i would say that same issue about sexual harassment and what policy is violated i'll also kick it over to darren in case he has any additional thoughts sure with regard to the implication to employee rights uh you know every day i think all of us are getting calls regarding uh demands to bargain over things that are are new and impacting employees and their terms and conditions of employment this is no different and i foresee either um demands to bargain uh or just having new terms introduced in bargaining over the regular contract that implicate both your complaints against employees uh or public complaints articles seven o'clock and uh also apologize for that that's my computer um also uh your discipline uh articles that apply to either classified employees or if you have discipline short of dismissal in your certificated uh bargaining agreement but you you do have issues with respect to um the evidence that's uh obtained in a hearing uh that's not required under your title ix policy that could third time is up thank you p and c you will be next pnc your time begins now um the new definitions under title ix have been in effect under the cleric for community colleges for quite some time the new regulations on sexual harassment are consistent with supreme court precedent the clery act and the violence against women act and and they have broadened the definition of sexual harassment but they make it more difficult to substantiate the allegations during a title ix investigation so how do we address this well you know to address the change school districts need to update their board policies administrative regulations and title ix documentation to include the new definition of sexual harassment additionally title ix staff including title ix coordinators and all district investigators should be trained to the new standard of sexual harassment for consistency and compliance with the new regulations what's new under the old regulations and constru under under the old regulations any constructive notice of sexual harassment sexual assault or quid pro quo triggered the title ix district's title ix response under the constructive nota standard schools were responsible responding to all incidents of sexual misconduct if the school should have known about the misconduct the new regulations have increased this standard from constructive notice to actual notice this means the schools are required to respond to the incidents of known sexual misconduct rather than incidents that were not known but should have been known how do we address these issues the district can properly address the regulations by training all district employees to immediately report any and all incidents of sexual harassment to avoid district liability for inaction employees should seek assistance from the title ix coordinator if they are unsure whether the specific incident is sexual harassment the title ix regulations formally required each title ix complaint to be evaluated using the preponderance of evidence standard of proof under the preponderance standard the burden of proof is met with the and the evidence supports are finding that there is a 51 chance that a claim is true this standard is often referred to as the 50 percent or feather standard it is the same standard approved used in civil cases the new regulations allow school districts to decide whether either the preponderance of evidence standard or a stricter standard of clearing convincing evidence is necessary the new regulations state however that whatever standard is adopted it must be used consistently for all title ix complaints we have produced information on our firm blog that is consistent with what i've just said now the implication for employee rights to the new changes are implications that need to be addressed under the collective binding agreement because this in effect is a term and condition of employment as a standard for discipline of discipline discipline of both classified and certificated employees um you know what happens you know as a result of that well you just need clear and unambiguous language in order to articulate what standard the district will use for disciplining students now remember that you know sexual harassment sexual abuse and allegations made by claimants and respondents under this new standard require additional scrutiny and therefore the collective bargaining agreement must specifically we believe articulate the standards by which the district will follow and and then in order to do that effectively not only must it be clear but it must also be fair and reasonable um in this day and age of all the things that people are dealing with i think this issue of putting it in the collective bargaining agreement although the policies administrative regulations need to have arrested immediately uh you know it's my opinion that you know they're bigger fish to fry in this environment because you know you're coming back in a coveted environment where safety and educational distance learning and all the other models i think are taking top priority in the collective bargaining agreement arena and and those emphasis i i think need to be worked out first because you have to bring the kids back and and whether that be through a transition whether it be now or later is a subject that the districts must decide and and and that's the beauty of the assistance that our firm can provide and that it's fluid you know it may be one day away today and another way tomorrow and and we have demonstrated by our long history the ability to be fluid thank you next a-a-l-r-r good evening sharon good evening this is sharon ormond are you able to hear and see me yes excellent excellent um i know we have steve anderson on the line um and before i start uh to address the questions specific to title ix um steve did you want to make some other introductory remarks okay well hearing none i will go ahead and proceed um so my practice has focused on i'm sorry sherry i'm here oh okay go ahead steve yes i'd like to just backtrack just for a moment i apologize for the delay uh this evening but uh we've been privileged to represent azusa for the past 15 years and we have six attorneys working here and with with the district and sharon is one of our attorneys that works in general school law and personnel and she'll be doing the presentation on this topic uh briefly we have been in the public sector representing public school districts for the past 41 years we represent about 450 school districts in california and we have nine disc nine offices and the closest one is about about 50 miles away in pasadena so we're close by we also represent about 62 districts in the only personnel council which is most of the school districts in that area so we have a wide range of school districts over the years i just wanted to provide that background in terms of our our extent and depth of experience and let me then turn this over to sharon a partner in the firm please share him thank you very much so title ix of course has been around since 1972 but obviously this this new change that's been coming um effective august 14th involves the regulations that are intended to interpret the title ix mandate the goals that have been articulated and what becomes very apparent when you look at the different regulations and the formulation of what is referred to as a grievance process is the the goals to not only strengthen the protections for the survivors of sexual misconduct but also to provide greater due process protections for those who are facing accusations of misconduct um definitely there's been an incorporation of the legal standards that came from davis versus monroe county board of education 1999 supreme court decision in which there was discussion about the circumstances under which a school district would be liable for student on student harassment and generally finding that institutions must have actual notice of the harassment and have been responded with deliberate indifference and the harassment must have been severe pervasive and objectively offensive um this standard has now been incorporated into these regulations and um as one of the um attorneys has already mentioned that the definitions for sexual harassment has certainly been changed we have quid pro quo harassment still but it's an employee that needs to be conditioning the aid or service um on unwelcome sexual conduct the hostile environment sexual harassment and other types of misconduct like sexual assault or even stalking um those things are are most definitely now part of the sexual harassment um policies but to get to the question of how they're changed in terms of how the claimants and respondents rights are being treated one thing to look at is that supportive measures uh now have to be offered to the com to the complainant but also to the respondent um the idea here is that when we have this process happening that it's an obligation of the district to make sure that both parties are supported um throughout the complaint procedure that no no one party is supposed to be burdened by um measures that are punitive they need to be individualized in a way that will provide help to those to those students things like modified schedules or extended deadlines or counseling another thing that's um been incorporated and just to back up the the supportive measures is not technically something that's completely new before it was referred to as interim protection measures but because they are going to be applicable throughout the process the the terminology has changed but the obligation to extend them to the respondents has been articulated um in addition both of the parties will have the um entitlement to have an advisor of their choice and this helps them to navigate the process to understand that thank you thank you we'll now move the question three we will start with lozano smith and your time begins now okay well this is an interesting question um this is darren kamaya and um i would ask my colleague uh desiree serrano and my other colleague mark waterman to chime in with your thoughts on this with respect to the question after the completion of a financial review or a federal program the district has been advised to repay 600 000 for awarding a grant to a vendor without participating in the competitive process how would you advise the district with the goal of not paying back this is 600 000 well first i want to thank the board for this interesting question i want to make note that as part of this open session meeting it's typically not our practice to provide legal advice and to applying in great detail on hypotheticals but i would say that if the district had that goal uh and the board directed the uh would you quickly call in contact with uh and see if she can handle this question that's being asked not right now real quick if not contacting it's not leave pause time okay i'm back so if the district uh and the board asked us to advise them we would um first provide as we do with our clients an objective uh analysis of their potential liability for not paying back the penalty um or the uh not complying with the order and depending on on whether or not the the district decided to take action with uh measuring its risk tolerance on on you know facing that potential liability or not we would uh look at the potential options and discuss those options um how to do it see if there's a way to work through the situation um with negotiations to reduce perhaps the uh the amount of the penalty and uh and we we would do a fair amount of um exploration regarding options because it's pretty easy to say well we're just not going to pay the money but that's not what you're asking us for advice desiree and mark do you have anything to add i would add that you know one of the great things about our firm is we have different at practice areas i practice in labor and employment and student issues and board governance i would you know what i would do with this question is get on the phone and call one of our facilities and business attorneys and check in with them because i don't want to know this is not a question that i have personally dealt with before and i'm not going to spend the district's money trying to become an expert that we already have in our firm and rely on them and you know depending on the district i might just connect the district directly with that person so that they could you know you know cut out any extra time that i might add some districts are really tied to the attorney they work with so i might just consult with that so that's something that i would add i think mark is there anything you want to add to that thank you karen no i would just echo what that's where i said this isn't an area of law that that i have dealt with um but we do have numerous attorneys throughout the firm that um we could um bring in having one minute warning area you have one minute left thank you okay yeah and i think i think that sums up what we would do we would make sure that we have um our a few specials to deal with issues like this uh come in direct contact with the district and do what we talked about before which is provide an analysis of the liability and the options uh and risks and then we would move forward and help represent you in whatever you wish to do thank you very much thank you next pnc your time begins now sir you're muted there you go there we go start over um i think one of the first questions i would ask i have not had this particular issue brought before my attention before either is to find out what was the advice of the attorney that was advising the district about the competitive bidding requirement in the first place and was there any exceptions to the competitive bidding process that may have been overlooked or that there could be some way to to justify the process that the district actually followed then i think it's a matter of looking at what the potential liability is of to the district what representations if any did the vendor make during the process i don't know if there was an rfp process or what the selection process was for that vendor but since the federal programs have a number of requirements it would be interesting to find out what representations were made whether they were consistent with the regulations for that particular federal program so the district would have um a legal recourse against that vendor versus the district assuming financial liability for something that they may not have known about and would not have necessarily could not have known about based upon what the vendor's representations were made then i think you know from that assessment of all the parties then the district would be able to make an informed decision as far as how to proceed on either going finally in an action against the vendor for the reimbursement or to turn it over you know if need be even to their insurance if it's something that the insurance for the district might even cover i don't know if anyone else wants to jump in i think that's about it thank you a-a-l-r-r same question and your timing is now well that's very certainly a very interesting question i'm going to turn to wendy wilds to assist in providing a response wendy thank you good evening um thank you very much for allowing us the opportunity to be able to participate in the interview process we very much appreciate having uh the opportunity to answer some of your questions this evening the question that's been asked is rather an interesting one as you've probably already heard from the other persons who have been speaking with regard to this we have had experience more recently we had a school district that had been requested by the state to refund a very significant sum of money because specifically the argument was that they had not complied with the competitive process and what we first did was we went to the basis upon which the district took the action that it had taken so we wanted to investigate what had occurred with regard to the contract that had been entered into with the vendor why had the district taken the action that they had taken um it was in our in the other case we're looking for the facts so we're trying to determine what has occurred previously to determine whether or not the district has in fact violated the competitive process uh in most situations when we are looking at a at a claim that the district has not uh complied with a process whether it's a competitive process in a in an acquisition or in some other regard my experience has been that the districts are relying on prior counsel or a misunderstanding of a particular factual situation and so in most cases what we would be doing would be filing an appeal to challenge the request that the monies be returned to whether it's federal program or state program but but challenging the requirement that the district then have to repay these funds in our experience typically there is an explanation and so while there may be a belief that there wasn't a completely competitive process in the one i most recently am speaking of what had happened is the district had in fact gone through a process of selecting the vendor with whom they had then entered into the contract with and so while it may not have met the initial concern of the state or federal grant that in fact there were facts that would support the district's actions that had been taken and so what we're looking for is first is there a basis upon which the district can defend the position and if there is then of course potentially appealing that decision so that the district is not then faced with the payment of uh the return of the funds now in the in the chance that in fact what happened is the district did not comply with any procedure at all and in fact would be subject to having to repay these funds then we're going to be looking at the potentially council that may have advised them in the past or i think another present presenter had mentioned potential insurance to see if there's coverage for the district so we're looking at other potential sources of funds that might be able to assist the district in reducing the amount of impact that this might be financially to the district but i in my experience it is typically there may be some form of misunderstanding as to what has occurred and the district may be able to appeal a decision and not be subject to having to refund or repay those funds i don't know if anyone else and atkinson wants to add anything but that would be my summary wendy this is sharon and i would like to just uh add on that especially when you're dealing with the federal programs one of the things that i've experienced is that sometimes addressing them directly coming to them to say we have found you know a potential issue on our own and these are the steps we're taking to rectify it um can be uh sometimes effective in avoiding any kind of payback this is something that i was able to successfully assist two different districts in doing with respect to indian education programs where funding was coming to the districts based on um levels of enrollment that just weren't there and there was very high exposure and we were able to get um out from dealing with the problem by basically coming forward and self-disclosing and getting out ahead of things we didn't want the department of education to figure it out for themselves or then to hear things through reporting and that went a very long way to avoiding the the liability of course this particular question is thank you f3 f3 your time begins now good evening thank you again for having us once again my name is jessica ehrlich i'm a partner in the business and facilities and litigation practice groups in our los angeles office and upon seeing this question from the district i think my first action would be to consult our business and facilities practice group because one of the things that we pride ourselves on at f3 is that we work collaboratively and there is certainly someone who's had a question on point on this in the practice and we have over 100 years of experience combined in the business and facilities area in dealing with bidding and procurement and inherent knowledge of the public contract code education code so we really tap into our resources which i think results in a great value to districts in terms of cost-saving measures you know some and one of the other things i think we would do first after you know discussing with the district and doing some investigative measures is is there an informal resolution to this we always work at litigation prevention settlement dispute resolution before we want to jump right into filing an appeal sometimes those things can't be avoided but where we can discuss an informal resolution or other creative measures that's always our first go-to um we also have been faced with successful we've also successfully challenged audits from the state you know in terms of prop 39 expenditures and other issues that would directly relate to dealing with a challenge to a competitive process usually what we try to specialize in is what are the exceptions to the competitive process that we can provide districts so you know when faced with this situation they have a response and aren't writing a six hundred thousand dollar check um as some of the other uh respondents mentioned insurance coverage litigation those are also always always options but our first is going to be to work collaboratively within the resources of the firm to pull and see hey does anyone experience this before what are your thoughts and those are usually where we get the best answers and also to focus on informal resolution one of the other things we always try to say is we advise the district at the outset what are your options for procuring these goods or services what delivery method or competitive process best suits your needs for what you're trying to get and i think that advice at the outset usually ends up saving the district time and money at the end does anyone else have anything they'd like to add this is leslie locker and i am a partner with f3 law and i've been with the firm for over 12 years now and while my primary specialty is in charter schools i do also some business facilities and school construction work and one of the areas that we've had to grapple with is school construction on military bases and trying to reconcile the state and federal grant requirements that sometimes don't always intersect in the same way where they have overlapping requirements and so one thing that has been really helpful for for our clients that are dealing with that overlapping state and federal requirements is to really get out ahead of the process ensuring that they maintain constant lines of communication with the representatives of the state and federal levels for example the office of economic adjustment which is through the federal government and ensuring that they have those open lines of communication allows the district to be 10 steps ahead in terms of identifying any potential issues with the competitive process or whether they could go through a more relaxed process such as an rfp rfq type of scenario and so again really ensuring that we have those open lines of communication is the first step to preventing any type of future dispute or challenge as it relates to any requirements for use of those grant monies thank you thank you we will go to question four and we will start with p and c your time begins now i think our philosophy with regards to working with school boards is to understand that they represent the community and we are at will employers employees rather as a firm to the school boards even though we work with district personnel we understand who our bosses are and and we have worked directly with school boards on past issues involving you know allegations by staff discrimination claims that lead to litigation and working with school boards as to how to resolve and attack that issue that may be complete may become public for example you know i have a school district that i'm working with the board on where a um an individual who was released during her probationary period created a lot of controversy because she's african-american and in the current environment of black lives matter the board is extremely sensitive to that and didn't want and and doesn't want that type of allegation to interfere with the work they're trying to do in this current environment of bringing schools back online and and board members individually and may not collectively have very passionate views and issues that that they as a majority have to resolve and we have to assist them with doing that knowing full well that you know we don't make the decisions the board makes the decisions and i think some law firms forget that and think that we as attorneys are in a position to give them the best advice and and i will have to defer to spencer covert who is not here but he is the master in dealing with school boards because he's been doing it for over 40 years i think personally working with boards is an especial especially difficult challenge especially depending on sensitive issues you know we represented a school district that went on strike and and and the board was torn by the relationship it had with the community the relationship the superintendent had with the community and and we worked through that and and and we understand that dealing with school boards is a very specialized skill because of their commitment to their constituency and commitment to the public and and we try our best to get district staff and departments to work together when there are differences between board members the board and the district we dealt with the district who had a crazy board member and and again when you have one board member that is creating attention from the community to that board you know that is also something difficult to manage so i guess in summary i would like to say that this is not something that is unique this is something that happens with boards because of the nature of their composition in representing you know the community and and and we feel committed to ensuring that whatever the board wants we can help them get and overcome the obstacles that is associated with that unique situation some boards work together and work together just fine no problem some boards do not and that's not a reflection on the nature or character of the boards it's a reflection of the nature of the characters that comprise that board as an entity and we have experience doing that we we know what our role is in doing that and what our place is in doing that and it may be you know the superintendent or it may be other individuals i mean i i've worked with boards that have disagreed with you know our advice in council and we manage that you know we understand what our role is and and do you have any comments that yeah if i can just interject a lot of it just as our firm does always it's kind of the preventive law so a lot of it is education and so i've done a number of in-services on brown act for boards for conflicts of interest to try to thank you aalr same question your time begins now thank you very much i'm i'm steve anderson and josh morrison will be joining me and and also participating i've been in this business for a long period of time and it's an art working with school boards and they're very special and they're important fiduciaries that have high levels of responsibilities uh i have learned over the years that it's very important to connect with the boards and make sure they understand the issues so often for example in the areas of collective bargaining they will take positions perhaps sometimes emotionally and and not recognize the implications of outcome and it's important to spend time with boards for that purpose to make sure that they fully understand the issues and can spend reflective time in weighing the options before decisions are made in that context i've been involved in critical issues involving personnel matters and again collective bargaining issues even now collective bargaining issues with respect to you know how soon a district wants to move into a hybrid model and where the public uh the community is wanting to push the the board to move into the hybrid model and if there's a concerns and issues that need to be addressed because you have the unions not wanting to do it this quickly without the proper safeguards and even today this morning i had discussions relative to that issue and my primary concern was not only do we share with the board the concerns but we give them time to fully understand and assimilate the potential risk involved on both sides before decision is made in this context it's critically important from that standpoint time is of essence uh josh please share your comments yeah thank you very much steve and thank you very much for allowing us to present uh this evening um i wanted to talk a little bit about uh one aspect of of effectively working boards and that is to protect the board there there's a variety of of situations in which uh individual board members can potentially be at legal risk um uh or can you know be be seen as um doing something improper and so for example maybe the starting point with respect to that would be ensuring brown act compliance making sure that the board is aware of the requirements they've got their meetings agendas properly they're doing things appropriately they're not setting themselves up for uh members of the public uh or unions to to push back and suggest that the board is doing something improper um secondly along the same lines um we we do quite a bit in terms of conflict of interest and really work with districts and boards to identify and avoid um conflicts of interest um you know those are situations where an individual board member might have an interest that could be perceived as putting them in a position of uh of having really kind of two or two interests one one the districts but one but on the other hand their own uh personal interest and so um we we work hard to identify and avoid those um also with respect to a number of hearings you know employing discipline charges things of that sort those matters come to the board for ultimate decision in some cases particularly with classified employees and in order to avoid prejudicing the board um we do try to be uh cautious and uh ensure that the board um is not jumping in too early at the stage so as to create due process concerns uh it's important that the board have uh some ability to approach these issues neutrally and fairly uh and so we do try to protect the board in that respect certainly at the early stages of those matters so i mean this concept i think of protecting the board individually is something that um that is significant i would also note that the board ultimately is the client we represent the board we don't represent uh individual administrators and so um you know ultimately you know in terms of working with boards it's effect it's important to recognize uh who the client is um and we we fully understand that and obviously in most districts the administration is representing the board uh the administration is hopefully in touch with the board the administration is carrying forward uh the program uh approved by the board and typically we do uh work quite directly with with school administrators but but ultimately we do recognize that the board is the client and we need to uh sort of recognize uh recognize that and move forward with that um i don't know if anyone else wanted to jump in sorry your time is up okay thank you f3 thank you your time begins now our philosophy is that the board is the boss and you need to have communication communication communication and i think that's one of the most challenging things when you look at certain firms in the way that they interact with the board and they may potentially play board members against one another because their main focus is keeping themselves ingratiated within the districts and i think our main focus is accomplishing the goals of the board collectively and i think it's one thing when you're working with the board is understanding that the board as the majority has to have a single voice so one of the things in and i happen to be the firm's uh chair of the governance practice group that works specifically on governance issues throughout the state and i'm a frequent presenter with csba and i focus on training new board members and what i really focus on is making sure that board members in particular new board members understand civility and how to communicate with one another and ultimately accomplish the goals that really they set out to do when they first wanted to be board members now in terms of our firm we work with boards on a variety of issues and i want to move quickly because i want to make sure that my partners have an opportunity to address the different types of issues they face when working with boards for me i'm primarily a labor and employment attorney so i will advise boards on collective bargaining agreements we've talked to the board on very confidential very sensitive investigations including interviewing board members as well as on teacher dismissals that are going to have tremendous impact on the community and the board is going to have to make a very you know important decision about whether or not to reach an agreement or to pursue a dismissal even if it's going to have ripples within the community i think ultimately for the board they have to have confidence in their legal counsel and so you never want the board to have the sense that this legal counsel doesn't work for the entire board so our philosophy is our mission is to accomplish the board's mission we have to have constant communication constant training and typically when we on board with with a a school district we offer free trainings to both the administrators and the board so we can get a sense of what the goals are and i think the way that we charge for our legal services and point one increments also ensures that a board member primarily the board president who speaks for the board can always have a quick call with one of our attorneys at a point one and doesn't have to spend an excessive amount um for legal advice when they really need it and that responsiveness is absolutely crucial for us i'm going to hand it to my colleague justin thank you carlos just to expand on one of the very unique firms that things we do as a firm is our annual governance training right when the board comes in for the year and i think one of the things that's so important about that is yes we teach you this is what the brown act is and here's robert's rules of order but i think the most important thing is this is how to be an effective board this is how you work collaboratively together um both amongst yourselves with the superintendent and his cabinet and i think it really adds value um to the district and the board and then specifically we support boards in all sorts of areas both in open session and closed session whether it's giving a presentation about a new project and what the proper delivery method should be whether it's addressing the board and closed session um to finalize a property transaction or discuss a pending construction dispute and how to avoid litigation we're really there to help support the board the superintendent and the cabinets really work all together as one unit and i'll turn it over to leslie thank you jessica as i mentioned earlier i am the co-chair of our charter schools practice group and oftentimes we're asked to provide board workshops and training on issues such as charter petitions if they're submitted so even if your chart or your district does not have any currently authorized charter schools those petitions could come in at any point in time and there is a very focused and detailed set of procedural and substantive requirements that surround evaluating reviewing and considering charter petitions so while we tend to work directly with staff and equip them with various resources such as checklists matrices and other tools so that they can build capacity in-house to conduct these reviews we always like to have that opportunity to conduct a board training or workshop especially for board members who have never received a charter petition and don't know what the board's role is as a potential oversight agency or authorizer of a charter school because when those chart petitions come in there is a legal obligation to consider and take action to either approve or to deny those charters so we'd like to get out ahead of that and ensure that the the board is fully equipped and understands again what its legal obligations are what its role is as a board and thank you and the last firm was donald smith your time begins now so we represent you know when we work with school districts we represent the school district and you know on a day-to-day basis that usually means working with administration but on occasion that means working directly with the board um and like any service to a school district the first thing we need to do is really understand what that board needs from us um i like to think about and you know in my practice is what would i want from a professional luckily i'm not hiring an attorney um in my normal life but i still work with professionals and what's important there um and what's important is of course someone that's very knowledgeable someone that you trust so building that trust with the board and making sure we understand each other and also someone that serves as a counselor you know helping you think through those issues do i understand your goals and what's important to you so that i could help explain your options in a way that makes sense to you not every school district is the same not every board's the same so the options that i lay out for you based on understanding your goals and needs might be a little bit different so what you heard there is the importance of really listening that's what we need to do is listen to the board and understand what they want so that we could come up with creative solutions and give the board their options some of the examples of things i've worked with on with the board is you know boardsmanship training that's a good opportunity especially if we have new board members or new senior administrators is to take some time out to talk about what are our roles what are our expectations from each other um how are we going to operate and you know like any job like any relationship that communication of knowing our roles and what's it what we expect from each other is so important other things are advising the board on employee discipline such as you know a classified dismissal and serving in the role of advising the board and helping walk the board through that negotiations is another area or appeal of complaints you know your complaint process sometimes involve an appeal to the board so that's another area that i've worked with boards and helped walk them through um so also invite any of my other attorneys on my team to see if they have anything to add hi this is darren kamea i along with my other colleagues have appeared in closed session and in an open session to advise boards in many districts and um we have many clients and they're all different and our firm's philosophy on the most effective means of working with the school board is two parts the first is to work with the board in the capacity the board wants us to work with them we can't force ourselves on a board and tell them you have to do something if they don't want to do it the board is the boss the board is a client and we work for the board but we do believe that the most effective means of a school board to do what it needs to do would be to um to work towards consensus and to have an effective mechanism for board members to talk to each other and to talk to the superintendent and to talk to council so for us one thing that we use as a model would be your csba board bylaws and the policy regarding the board president being the spokesperson for the board and typically we'll speak to the superintendent and administrators on a day-to-day basis but with respect to the board best practice would be not to have individual board members contacting lawyers and instead channel that communication through the board president or the superintendent also to treat a question from one board member is a question from all provide an answer to everyone so everyone has the same information to build consensus and understanding of common facts we support the masters in governance program and uh are help helpful in terms of providing training to boards on civility and how to work with each other on a professional level even if um we don't agree on everything we know that board members are on stage all the time we need to make effective use of the time they are together so that we're not squabbling over minor procedural issues if we can avoid it we know that members run for office because they care about the school district and we uh believe that it's very effective to have members channel their interests and and their passion in those areas as far as areas that i have advised boards on labor negotiations labor relations employee discipline charter school matters various things and i know i have about two seconds so i thank you very much for your time thank you at this time i would like to thank you all on behalf of the board the superintendent and the members of cabinet for your time and your thorough responses if there's any follow-up questions you will receive those by monday um via email with the anticipated response time by friday again thank you for your time thank you thank you have a nice evening thank you very much yes thank you thank you very much thank you thank you thank you be well everybody uh jerry you're on mute i said so apparent thank you so this is where we're going to go ahead and adjourn and start pondering alrighty yes ma'am thank you very much ma'am 7 50 p.m i think i think um uh board member chris gonzalez had a question i believe oh i'm sorry go ahead i'm sorry i was needed twice so you didn't hear me yeah i just want to ask a couple clarifying questions so just in terms of the process you're asking us if we have any additional questions to send to submit them to you latasha by friday is that what you're asking from us yes please and um your responses will be sent to each firm right and then um and then my other question for you was in terms of us speaking about this because i see we don't have closed sessions scheduled tonight when when would we be speaking about this then our next um closed session which will be on the 20th of october so not in our next clue session which is october 6th then um no unless i mean so i'm i'm just going to suggest that's a really long time to have a conversation about this okay so i i mean i can i can follow i'm offline with with arthur and jerry but i think that's a really long time to to to talk about this that's no problem i will follow any direction given we can definitely do october 6th we just would have to minimize uh two things a the questions from the board and b the time that we're going to give the firms uh enough time to respond we definitely could do the six but we just we would all have to understand that those timelines would have to be uh condensed well can you can you maybe request can we condense our are submitting questions to you to a shorter time oh sorry agent is that what you were going to suggest that's exactly what i was going to say yeah can we make that adjustment now and reverse engineer from the six because i agree i think that that the 20th would be a pretty long time okay so then uh not a pr problem um so what about uh natasha just thinking out loud uh questions from the board uh by thursday um i'm just gonna suggest tomorrow i mean i think we just heard it it's fresh in our minds i mean i think if we have questions we should jot them down now and get them to you by tomorrow perfect concur how does everybody else feel everybody you okay with that did we lose gabriella looks like you haven't looked right yeah we just had a glitch i wonder if she got off when everyone was saying bye that may be it okay um so so so then uh questions by tomorrow uh latasha the questions go to the firms uh thursday morning and say we have to get those responses back would it be too late i'm asking the board of education to get those responses emailed to you by the fifth or do you prefer that they have to submit those by friday so you have the weekend monday's time with me monday's fine with me also all right so i'm just gonna recap uh and we'll send a follow-up uh email natasha to the board of education so any follow-up questions due by tomorrow wednesday the 30th we will submit those firms first i'm sorry questions to the firms on thursday with a response uh on monday or we can talk a little bit more maybe friday's acceptable um and and that way we could we could do the closed session on the sixth and can i just clarify the time that i will receive the question so we can review and make sure everything's out i think any time on wednesday is fine okay you'll still close it so close the business the reason close the business yeah that makes sense latasha is that for you 4 30 what time is that whatever time you send it but but what i mean i mean what are the what are your what are your like i know you work overtime because all every cbo i've known ever does that but um but i mean end of business day is is 4 30 for us if we could have 4 30 is fun yes yolanda has her hand raised jerry oh i'm sorry i was texting gabby to tell her that it would be 4 30.

and i talked to my grandpa and he they told me if they if they want to win the wars and don't look too good is it don't say that guy but we cannot lose you um their their record here is very low um to get designated is a super fun site my understanding is that the governor has to uh has to sign on she gets one opportunity to designate a superfund site a year she could designate this as the superfund site but the state has to become financially responsible for the cleanup and then recover the damages directly from the polluter so i've heard lots of arguments about this and this is just an example i'm giving about why i'm reluctant to weigh in on this as an environmental commissioner because our duty is to provide our best advice that we've heard from the community to integrate it and to provide some advice to city council about about what should happen so now my first um my first uh question that i don't really know is uh does anybody know is this a make or break thing at this point is there no further negotiation does uh does uh do the parties have to accept it or do they totally or do they have to reject it totally and if so then what then what impact would that have on the judge's decision so steve i'll just uh respond to that real quickly is we don't know i mean i think there's a lot of unknown what happens if one jurisdiction approves the cj and the settlement agreement and what if the other ones don't what's the judge going to do the the judge could certainly quite possibly listen to uh all of the discussion uh in his courtroom and and decide on a judgment himself uh i i think we're just in uncharted waters and nobody can tell us exactly what's next i think you know council member banister and i have gotten you know dozens and dozens of emails urging us to reject this in its entirety you know i think they're i don't know if there's room to move on some of it i don't know if there's room to move on on none of it i think some of it um certainly the all of the attorneys are paying attention to all of this dialogue uh if if there's room to move i think it's because the judge makes people move okay so does the judge himself have uh any um power to modify any of this consent judgment accept or reject parts of it forward well i believe so i believe he can enforce a judgment down on us but you know i'm not a lawyer i you know i'm just kind of repeating some of the things that i've heard from different attorneys that i've been talking to uh you know i i know the judge connors is interested in hearing from the public on this uh in his courtroom uh there had originally been discussion of a uh opportunity for the public to come and comment before him i i don't know where that stands right now um maybe council member bannister has more information on that than i but you know i think that that would be an important part of his deliberation to be able to hear directly from the public in his courtroom i haven't heard that he has scheduled that yet but no i haven't heard it specific on that judge connors okay so will he be accepting comment after october 22nd or what is this date what's going to happen on october 22nd steve this is dan bicknell can you hear me um okay yeah okay first of all i want everybody to raise their hand if they want to speak um how do you raise your hand for some questions because he has some some knowledge in this area so dan go ahead dan go ahead and speak um you're muted which number is dan is he the 248 number four three two okay i'm an accident you can leave him unmuted okay thank you very much yeah on october 22nd the judge is going to have a hearing and that hearing will be to see what is the status of everyone's review how does the city look at this how does the county look at this how does scio township look at this and generally how does the public look at this and what's being asked of us now is to take a look at the fourth amendment consent judgment and accept it or reject it that's what's being asked of us gellman has said that this is the most that they're willing to give at this time so either you guys are going to agree to this or you're not going to agree to this there's no ability to go and say i want x y and z go back to the negotiations the attorney general has indicated in a card meeting recently that if it is rejected that likely the interveners and the state will go back to court with gilman and try to get a better deal or whatever there is the possibility there is a possibility i think as chip was talking about that the judge can just say well uh okay you don't like the fourth consent judgment we're here with the third consent judgment i'm i'm going to potentially just take that third consent judgment and i'm going to order as he has in the past things be done such as to make the drinking water criteria be current at 7.2 instead of 8.5 which it is in the third and make the gsi 280 which is the updated value instead of 2 800.

and the discussions that have gone on between 2016 and 2020 have been things that a normal person that's not a lawyer would think could have been dealt with in a couple of months and we're talking about four years here and you know at a certain point you just either got to take care of your business or you got to get off the pot and you know no business is being taken care of and i think what what i would be looking for and i'm not going to speak for any of my other council members but you know i i think we're we're looking for some guidances is it tell us what the most important or the most egregious things in here like i can tell you right now that the first sister lakes discharge bothers me greatly and that i cannot vote to move forward on something on a on a resolution that that includes that now whether or not judge connors will say oh well you were close on other things and we can do this and that i don't know but that's that's kind of my my take on it because that's just moving our problems someplace else and creating a new problem that we don't have any data on yeah at the the end of this they you know i don't know maybe we end up in court but i think you know some of what i i would like this body to give us is things we should be telling our attorneys like this is what we need to see in this settlement agreement i know we've we've given council has given the attorneys quite a bit of direction okay yeah steve this is dan in that presentation that i sent you all i tried to show the the advantages and the disadvantages between the fourth percent judgment and the third for example i pointed out that they threw out the maple road containment objective which would have stopped east of maple road contamination so i would ask people since i can't give the presentation right now to just take a look at what i had sent and i think you'll see chip that there's lots of things in there that they have excluded or need to include well dan i i've shared that with the attorneys so you know i think they're there they've got that information so i've read those um comparison of the third consent judgment versus the fourth consent judgment um changes and uh there seems to be a strong argument for uh the fact that the uh um the pz you know that zone is going to be fixed at where it currently is and i'd like to remind people that uh last time i checked 95 of all the super fund money has gone to lawyers and not to any clown that's not actually true but i'm not here to debate super fun i'm here to look at the fourth amendment judgment exactly so in my mind the risk is if we reject it totally then um we're going to be continuing with things as they are for uh an indeterminate amount of time until something else can happen so that's you're going to be going back to court according to the assistant attorney general yeah but will it take another we already have an example where it might take four years to get something else meanwhile you know the plume continues to migrate to the river under the current conditions so is there any advantage yeah are there parts of the fourth consent judgment that are advantageous to keep my summary sorry again my summary has been that actually the third uh amended consent judgment the current one's better it has more action than the fourth all you have to do is upgrade the drinking water criteria and the groundwater surface water interface criteria and it's much more protective than the form i see but those are the two that need to be incorporated from the fourth consent judgment as you're saying is the new drinking water criteria and the new gis criteria is that correct that that's that's correct and i can't believe the judge wouldn't immediately do that how can the judge sit there and say okay you guys can't come to an agreement but i'm going to let you continue to violate the current state laws no i'm going to issue an order and remember the judge has issued three different orders um that have impacted the the second consent judgment he ordered an expansion of the prohibition zone he ordered uh an investigation into the unity and he ordered additional remediation efforts so it's not like it's um odd for the judge to issue an order where he sees that there's right that's not being done okay so so in other words shannon's been trying to say something i'm sorry shannon yeah um i guess i would like to say that i think that something that was really clear to me with this last round is that nobody was looking at surface water in terms of the solution i think that's what chip is getting at um that it seems like it's been much more oriented to groundwater um but that just to kind of throw this oh by the way we're gonna add you know four and a half inches a day to the first sister lake every day i mean it's like that just has enormous implications and so i feel like that i know we don't have any access to what people are talking about but one of the things that i would suggest in terms of some sort of tangible movement going forward if we're going to ask for anything would be that surface water understanding and hydrology at the surface would be part of the negotiation as well besides just the the groundwater contamination piece because i i it's just incredible to me that they would that they would um i mean it would it would fill up fast so it would basically spill over you know into into honey creek because there's a connection under wagner there um but we don't know where that where is that there's all kinds of things we just need to understand it and and it's like there's just no mention at all of of what's going on there and um some sort of i mean if that's going to go forward some sort of at least pre-study and and post you know to understand what that impact would be i mean that's huge so i want to make sure that moving forward that surface hydrology um is part of the is part of the discussion um because it just seems like it's uh has been more focused on the on the groundwater piece which is obviously super important as well but i would like that to be included so maybe that's um you kind of get at that somewhat in the in the resolution um uh but maybe to call it out a little bit more directly in terms of how the the issue was understood okay uh chris um if if you take paul an australian company at their word but this is the bottom line um and i given the nature of this judgment and it's really awful ramifications i think one needs to take them at their work it means an australian company that's abandoned our town is about to stop cooperating and that is a big gravity um if we could get it to be a super fun site then maybe 20 years from now there'll be some money there that could help us um it means in my view that we the people of ann arbor are going to have to fix this problem as best we can i wouldn't waste money on court i would get busy trying to figure out how to deal with it and raise the money to do it i you know uh the history of companies abandoning these things and going bankrupt or whatever it takes to avoid obligation is huge and i think that's where we're going right so what are you saying is that um council should not agree to block uh superfund option green okay um let's see so yeah um any other comments at this point so let me let me write down what i have so far here um one is that uh that we recommend the data be uh acquired and uh made public and uh you know well that any data about uh contamination or pollution be done by generated by an independent third party and that it be publicly available how about that okay the second one would be absolutely no discharge in the first sister like any diversion would have to be the other side i'm surprised that they didn't uh propose to take the treated water and inject it into an underground well on the site probably not a not a reasonable aquifer to do that with here and deep wells are very expensive well yeah but that's one way of uh if you wipe your dilution and dispersion you know if dilution is a solution then that's one way of doing it at low levels you know if they treat it down to seven parts per billion john calhoun would like to speak yep yeah so while we're on that point of the water discharge do you still have in the one whereas clause about the 100 year reign event and the reason i asked is i've seen people calculate that in very different ways and i don't know if we want to kind of commit to that without really having the analysis for that but maybe other folks know i'm just thinking i would feel better if that was not in there and the way that we talk about the groundwater discharge or the water discharge impact around there i think would make it stronger no i'm with shannon i'm with shannon uh go ahead um i just would say i was suspicious of it too and so i ran the numbers and i came up with the same thing so i actually feel pretty confident that i mean it is naming something so i get that in terms of um in terms of like it is a little tricky you know to to get in and name that i agree um but i i was also kind of like huh who did the math on that and so um i came up with a very similar very similar number but i think that um we don't have to say a hundred year i mean we can we can we can still get out get at the idea of it uh which is i think yeah yeah it would be yeah yeah no i agree i would be more stringent and just say no discharging to first sister like that's what i'd recommend and then if it's considered it need only be considered further if there's a thorough hydrology study and that there's a reliable and constant monitoring that at least uh it's it's been treated down to 7.2 parts per billion before it's put in there because you know uh what i heard in lumpke's presentation is oh yeah you know the lake will fill up but it'll discharge and so but where will it discharge right into honey creek right so what if they're not treating it down to drinking water standards and running it down here on creek upstream or municipal water intake right so so i'd rather leave it at that and just not even mention any rain events or you know because a thorough hydrology study would give us some better idea of what the hazards were what the flood risks were but there's even there's another risk of uh you know untreated dioxane getting dumped into hunting creek and so okay and then i mentioned the peer-reviewed panel for review of technical data the other one was vapor intrusion we haven't talked about vapor intrusion but there has been a concern that when the plume gets close enough it's going to we might get some potential intrusion of dioxane vapor into uh residents basements down in the water creek uh ellen creek watershed does anybody want to comment on that or does anybody have a uh have an opinion about that or some some closer knowledge now dan well the problem that we have is that they've never done a study to show where are the routes of exposure as this thing moves through the city when they originally set this up they said well the groundwater is going to go from maple road and go into the river but that's not really all the things that can happen to it it actually can go down and now in the old west side in west park it's within 10 feet of the surface so like you say you have the exposure where the dioxane kind of like radon will evaporate up and go into a building causing vapor intrusion you can also get a building that could get flooded and if it's flooded with the dioxin there's another route of exposure and then you have workers in the trench you can imagine a person cutting a trench to lay some pipe and if that's within you know 10 feet of the surface where the groundwater is contaminated that person can become contaminated so yes in the old west side and west park areas there are routes of exposure that this does not dress and also please also please the city of ann arbor sorry the ann arbor charter township has excuse me has wells between the plume and barton pond which we all don't reflect that but that's a major concern of course in our charter township is their residential wells right on that path because the plume moves towards martin pond which is which is where it's partially going yeah that's their concern not the city of ann arbor's i'm not to be blunt but you know i think we given our time restraints right now we should really restrict ourselves to thinking about what you know what what we send to council who's responsible for you know the city of ann arbor not the town yeah i think you could probably phrase it steve that the consent judgment should be protective of these routes of exposure in the old west side with the shallow groundwater contamination yep no i think that's good okay um now uh yeah i'm sorry anybody have their hand off yeah yeah steve there was another point i wanted to bring up to see what folks thought about this as an additional kind of issue to address is the the lack of performance criteria for the fighter remediation plans um it just kind of has a basic you know we're going to plant some trees but no kind of performance criteria in terms of what's what are we looking for what's going to be success what's what's very vague all they are required to do is remove mass which like you say is very big yep how does fighter remediation have to do with removal of mass well technically what they're saying which is partially true is that the dioxane will get sucked up with the water into the plant and like all plants they respire they breathe so the dioxane will come up into the plant and as the plant breathes and respires it's going to go off into the atmosphere so i know a little bit about fighter remediation and usually it's very much triggered by certain plant relationships it's like certain species are actually part of that whole system you don't just use whatever plants are out there there's targeted plants for targeted you know issues you don't just say fighter remediation you you know you would list the things that are specifically set up for whatever 1-4 dioxane is not just general you know evapotranspiration yes yes yes well that's the problem that we have with this a lot of this is in the future they're going to propose their plan you see they don't lay it out for us but generally poplars are supposed to be pretty good at this because they have a fairly deep root system dan you're fading i can't hear you sorry um yeah the problem is is that we don't know uh because they didn't tell us what their plan was but generally poplars are are used for this sort of phytoremediation so they would just plant poplars everywhere i mean it's like yeah yeah that's it well it was for a specific site near the gelman facility if i remember correctly okay well great i'm sorry i'm sorry yes it was in one specific area yeah yeah it was there was the pond one and two area in the marsh area okay the marsh area near the gilman site itself yes all of these all this is going to be on the gilman site not off of the gelman property okay the fighter remediation is for their site okay that clarifies that thank you yes ma'am um i just want to add to that that they they didn't provide any information for success with this method very specific to dioxane at all it's just just stated as a method yeah yeah it's uh it was bizarre so um so dan is there uh so are all the hot spots that you're aware of that have that have been admitted publicly by gelman are all those hot spots being treated in this plan in this future plan or do you think it's important to treat all the hot spots i think they should be treating all the hot spots yes but what they do in here for the groundwater off-site hot spots because they really don't do enough work they don't do enough groundwater extraction so one of the comments that that i would one of the warehouses that i would have is that they need to properly design broad water extraction and treatment system to actually you know halt the plume and clean up the aquifer you got to remember that what they did is to estimate and to put the number of groundwater extraction wells out there and how much they should be pumping they just simply use the 200 gallon per minute uh transmission line that they currently have they didn't say okay here's where you need to put the extraction wells and here's what the rate should be to capture this area they said wait a minute this line can only carry 200 gallons per minute so where should we put the welds so there's never been a remedial design investigation to determine what is necessary to halt the plume which is something they should be doing for sugar yeah i would uh yeah i would add a resolve clause that would say treat all hot spots to halt treat all hot spots using best technology available yes because i heard there already is another one okay well let me put up my screen now does anybody else want to make a comment at this point uh tech you're muted no i didn't have a comment sorry okay all that excitement for nothing think i must have just been going like this this is ian hey ann yes did we want to include maybe on even on that last resolve clause something about the the cj allows for that 500 parts per billion which and then gelman can walk away which was i think one of vince or james one of the callers put out that that's a non-starter that's way too high i'm sorry could you repeat that um they this this fourth cj allows for parts per billion is the threshold that then gelman can walk away and consider it done and that was too high i think aren't those limits set by by state law and federal law no sorry steve but what they said is that if you operate the park lake well to a remediation level of 500 parts per billion as ants talking about then you can turn it off it doesn't mean that things below 500 parts per billion aren't going to cause a problem it'll just allow that 500 part per billion below 500 part per billion plus to move the same thing on-site they have these three uh production wells pw wells on site which are extraction wells and their cleanup criteria is 500 parts per billion as well but but the rub is these other wells their criteria is until they attain the eastern area objectives and you can attain the eastern area objectives by just simply expanding the prohibition zone or using a mixing zone based groundwater surface water interface value so as soon as you attain the prohibition zone objective and the groundwater surface water interface objective then you can turn all the off-site wells off in the eastern area or most of them are [Music] well and that goal right now is 7.2 parts per billion uh that's the drinking water criteria but it's they don't have to hit the drinking water criteria is what i'm trying to say as soon as they find that the prohibition zone can be expanded okay which they can continue to the to expand if the court agrees okay that ident that satisfies their prohibitions on containment objective by expanding the prohibition zone sure the second thing they have to do is there's a groundwater surface water interface value that's where the ground enters the surface water and if they apply a mixing zone based uh groundwater surface water interface value which they can where it enters into the huron river so it goes all the way through the city and then enters the huron river then they're done with that objective so as long as they get those two objectives they can turn off the uh groundwater extraction systems that are off the site except for the park lake which you gotta hit 500 and the ones on the three on the site but you got to hit 500.

okay all right call this meeting roll call this mean order roll call please yeah here all right everybody stand for the pledge i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all we have any public comment all right item four the return to school model okay um i'm gonna probably stand up here i think you have a clicker map oh you're clicking it oh okay all right we've been working the last uh several weeks on on taking a look at our back to school plan if we um just to have just have the planning in place not knowing when that what the timeline would be and uh i'm going to just review some things with you tonight on how we where we're at with this plan and and some thoughts that we have in regards to a safe return the priorities here have stayed the same employee student and parent safety flexibility meet the needs of all students and families high quality instruction and maintaining fiscal solvency put a little quote there that says stay committed to your calling but write your plans in pencil because that's really what's happened here we we've uh you know our calling is to uh um to uh to get this get the kids back in school um in a safe way but uh the plans have been changing so um the one you know what guidelines we follow has been uh a uh you know an item that i want to make sure we reiterate at the beginning here it's under under the governor's executive order it does say that in phase four we can reopen under the guidance of the illinois department of public health we had we had collaboration with the task force the pandemic pandemic planning committee and our administrators and staff have collaborated through this so the presentation summary here is going to be i'm going to walk you through the five five different phases here the decision making guidance the uh the blended hybrid model the health life safe health and safety the logistical solutions and the next steps okay i'm going to pull this up on my screen right now real quick sorry okay so in this slide here that you're seeing these are some metrics that are new to lake county and as soon as we one of the reasons that we made the decision to hold off coming back to school is because we really didn't know in august we had a lot of logistics that were problems but we also didn't know like how how uh how serious the virus was in our own zip codes we didn't know how how prevalent it was and there were no metrics that told us you know gave us we really were after some metrics from lake county to find out you know some guidance from them in regards to the seriousness and uh on our weekly calls with the lake county superintendents we have a weekly calls with the health department they've been working they hurt us and they did it they've done a great job i have to give mark pfister and his team a lot of credit because they've created some metrics that they feel are based on science and it gives us some solid guidance as to what models of instruction we should be considering based on the metrics and the metrics go all the way down and i know on that slide for you guys it's hard to see up there at home they'll be able to see it a little easier but um the metrics zero down to our zip codes so uh for for our specific district so the uh uh the first metric we're staying here on this uh the first metric is the positivity rate and right now on the far right you see yellow 5.83 positivity rate that's for our four zip codes the yellow means they would the health department recommends if it's in yellow that we would be we're okay to be in a hybrid model so the next one is the incidence rate per 100 000 people and we're at 9.5 per 100 thousand which they recommend is at a hybrid learning model the uh covid like illness admissions is a little bit uh it's a little bit i call this one kind of a goofy metric it's um there there's very few covet-like illness admissions to hospitals but according to their chart we haven't had seven out of ten that are 7 out of 10 the last 7 out of 10 days have not shown decreasing admissions but so it technically is showing that we should be in virtual based on that data but i think that said there's only like right now there's only one coveted like a mission in lake county so it's not it's not an alarming statistic by any means then the last one they they put some stock in is the diagnostic turnaround time and that's when you get a test how long does it take to get the result back and right now they're averaging two days so they they feel good about that anything used to be greater than 10 days and that basically the test was no wasn't the testing wasn't doing any good for the county so that would be when they won us in virtual between three and ten days they would recommend a hybrid uh right now we're at two so based on the metrics if if i were to show these metrics for our zip codes to lake county health department they would say you should be fine to be in a virtual or a hybrid environment the next slide is and i it's it'll be impossible to read on this screen up here but uh this is just a i'm gonna send it out tonight i'm gonna send out all these slides to everybody but this is just a for for your purpose right now it's an information it's a slide that gives us very solid procedures in place to handle situations when we have students or staff that are either symptomatic or they've had they've had a covet diagnosis or they've been in close contact with somebody with a copa diagnosis this uh just gives us a guide for how do we respond to these situations this is something we also did not have in august so that's that's been a that's another uh change so the logistics that still remain uh maintaining six foot social distinct face coverings at all times i won't read all these but single symptoms do cause disruption so if somebody comes to school with the symptom does cause some disruptive disruption for us there's quarantine space needed in each building um no more than 50 students in a space individuals in a single space bus capacity is limited ppe for nurses and staff cleaning covered exposure areas that's within 95 fitted masks and then we still have the uh the fact that the guidance continues to change i just got an update yesterday so uh the one thing is different now is that this didn't have enough information so so now we're going to go to instructional models we have a blended hybrid 2.0 basically so one one of the things we've had to do is switch our planning for this blended model if you remember we talked about this summer doing a monday tuesday thursday friday and there were some obstacles with that that we just couldn't overcome in in regards and i'll go through some of those in a little bit so we've switched we switched our model but with this we will still have we'll still be following any state learning standards we will uh we're looking to have students commit to coming half half days monday through thursday they'll be resigned some remote learning activities for the other half of each day they'll have access to in-person instruction from teachers as well as access to personalized online learning programs the district has purchased all instruction will be provided remotely on fridays and i'll explain a little more there as we get into this so for families who choose full remote because we are families will have the option if they want to uh if they if they prefer to stay in the remote model i want to be very transparent with all of you about this because it's really hard to right now we have we have families who feel good about what we're providing them at home and feel very comfortable with it we also have a lot of kids that are really struggling and families that are struggling if we come back in this blended model it's you know to the expectation for and we've provided some excellent online learning tools for home but our teachers are not going to be as accessible to those students that are they're choosing the 100 remote model and so uh they're not going to be as accessible it's one of the reasons why we're taking the friday as a full virtual day so our teachers can spend more time with the students that are doing virtual and on fridays and then our students that are on campus for four days a week will do asynchronous learning on fridays at home so that's that's one of our our thoughts for the fridays so this is something this is something that uh i just want to be very clear about because uh i'm fully aware that no matter what we decide tonight we're gonna make a lot of people angry and we're gonna make a lot of people happy so it's just gonna it's one of those things and that's that's an area that um i'm struggling with i think our administrators are all struggling with a little bit we want it we want to make sure we want there to be equity for our kids that are at home we don't want them to be shorted so we're trying hard but we also know we know we can't overload our teaching staff it's it's a really hard they're they're dealing with a lot right now too so um we're trying to provide this in-person instruction and still provide support for those students at home if if we have a large population of kids that that want to stay home we might be able to adjust some things to provide more support because if we have fewer kids on campus we're gonna have more adults available to do that but if i can't tell you that that's going to happen yet so the slide that's up there is a sample and we won't spend a lot of time on this but a sample schedule for a primary elementary um uh you'll see in person learning from 8 30 to 10 50 remote learning from 12 35 to 315.

so you know a teacher that's only got one or two might feel like they can just bring them into the class virtually without a problem as the kids get older that's a lot easier as the kid you know at kindergarten that's tough so that's why it's hard for us to say what they're exactly going to get i think at the middle school i feel like you're probably going to see a little more of uh of some teachers wanting to pipe their students into the room but uh but but we're not we're not guaranteeing that we just want to see how this is going to go and how what the comfort level is for staff so um go ahead lauren are there any teachers that don't want to return to school in person teaching i'm sure yeah i'm sure there are and uh have you queried the teachers to see who's we did we so as far as don't want to or can't uh so there's because i i know people are nervous and i and i and i i respect it i do and i hope they respect you know what we're trying to do as well uh we're i don't want to put anybody in a dangerous situation that's not the intent at all and just trying to follow the guidance we're getting as well so i know we have people that are nervous do we have some that can't um the number is small and i'm working i'm working through those this week with uh some individual meetings just to kind of talk to people about what we can do to make them feel like they their safety needs are met given their situations but um there are some you know there's some leaves that could take place like people could take extended leaves if they just you know um so i don't have the number yet but this week i'm working doing some individual meetings and talking to people about that so there is a potential that a teacher who has a virtual class now may not be teaching that class come october there's a there's a potential of that yes because they if they if they can't come um there's potential of that that we'd have it'd be like somebody taking a maternity leave or something and having a sub so there is potential for that i don't think right now the the number is very small but uh there is potential do we have staff to fill in to backfill that that's that's one of the yeah we do right now we do but uh we don't have a lot so that's going to be one of the things that we have to watch closely that's why we put substitute availability on that that dashboard because that could tip us at any time so to understand the notepad it slips if example parents drop off their kids yeah parents says oh here's the slip go ahead you can go to you know in school but the kids that are taking buses and sometimes a parent has to go to work and so mrs such and such he'll go with her to the bus stop with her kid too and then they get to the bus stop and that other child doesn't have a slip mother parent forgot to give it to him or something can that other person that's with the kid give them a slip or are they named or how are they um if they just didn't have the slip we'd probably ask that parent to bring that child to school and then we would have our nurses do a screen because if they don't have the slip we'll just we'll do a screening for them and have our nurses check them out before we let them in the classroom okay so can i guess will the campus be open for visitors so well you know it's like in my district you cannot visit the school so no visitors on campus i think in our in our faq document did we put something about that i thought we did yeah yeah we said no okay i thought i couldn't remember that so and have you guys thought about assigning teachers just to teach virtual classrooms if if the numbers of students that sign up for virtual dictate it we could but we'd have to shuffle kids away from teachers that they currently have built relationships with that's what that's what makes us a little bit leery of doing that but if we have a large number of kids that want to stay virtual we we might consider doing that um the friday is uh friday morning there'll be some they'll be touching bases zoom with students and then friday afternoons are all prep in our early release days we are when we have trainings we're making them optional so those can be prep time as well walking throughout the schools we've seen flexible learning spaces and almost a lot of the classrooms and have those been all been eliminated they are i can't say that 100 yet because we haven't set up the classrooms but they they're going to be all on desks uh i think they're so no more sitting on couches or rolling around on balls or anything like that anymore uh balls i'm not sure couches yeah um i will have to check on that kevin i'm not positive i want to make sure i don't want to tell you yes if it hasn't been taken out yet but but yeah we'll have to uh that was one of my big concerns yeah i understand the importance of them and yeah the value they have but if i give a kid a chair with wheels that pretty much defeated the whole six foot good point yep good point all those items they'll be taken out of the classroom right because the temptations will be there right yeah yeah i know other schools have taken them out taking them out we've talked about it we're running out of a little bit of uh i actually haven't talked to i know mr whipple and i talked about it here because that's where a lot of this a lot of it happens too is um we're uh we didn't come up with a location to put some of it but uh he was going to ask some of the staff to take it was personal stuff he's going to ask him to take it home but um but yeah we'll work on that will the will there be those shields at the desk for the teachers we have purchased those for uh staff yes and they we've purchased the uh the k 95 mask but also face shields if they want them so they have face shields and masks and then they also have the dividers at the desk if they i think we bought one for every room so and then for middle school is it still going to continue in kind of a black schedule i realize it's probably on your one of your sides yeah it's it's similar yeah they're doing uh uh so the middle school students have six periods they're they're doing a little different i like what they're doing but uh they're doing so if you come on monday uh your in-person time in the morning is for periods one two three and your afternoon is still periods one two three but your that's your asynchronous time so that day you're only dealing with three classes but you can get get it twice and tuesday you're going to get your other three classes in the morning and afternoon kevin you have a list there go for it one of the slides said it was an emphasis on in-person instruction for ela and math for k-4 does that i mean i know what the word emphasis means but that doesn't mean that it's always going to be done yeah you know i think uh the way our schedules look right now that is yeah there there's a morning meeting right so they're they're doing a morning meeting but then the rest of it's there's no specials everything else is uh from home okay for k through four k four okay so are you guys doing like a a day and a b day like a is math b is reading so just that three hours is the teachers just pick they'll have both okay are they still getting the same amount they did before because it's like a 80-minute block or whatever it is yeah okay um and then temperature checks for the bus i i i see the point of this little ticket i see this as being a disaster though i i mean just seeing the kids because what if a kid gets on the bus loses it on the bus gets it on the bus they get in and now we got back up at the nurse's station i mean i think so they have to they have to actually get it they're going to drop it in the bucket when they get on the bus okay so that's that so they won't get on the bus unless they have it got it okay and then when they get out of their car we'll have people out and they'll just drop them in the bucket go in the building i mean what happened to like doing the temperature checks for the kids before they got i know that was a talked about at one meeting that we were going to have a second bus rider and they were going to just scan the kids as they come in yeah we just don't have the people that's the problem we just we're running out of people can i guess can the bus driver do live you see when the kids are walking on the bus because she's only having 20 something kids technically as they step on she can for us i mean we can we can do it it's just for us it was a safety hazard i just didn't want to distract the driver doing this and then forget what she got out of a routine and you know that that was that was reason we did we talked about it right we didn't talk about parents more accountable what's that so you're holding parents more accountable yeah yeah some so i've talked to several districts about who have who are attempting some in-person just kind of what are you doing because this issue was when i just couldn't get around this whole self-certification thing if everybody like i can get on my phone and it takes me 10 seconds to self-certify on skyward like i just because it does my face identification i just hit submit done but if everybody did it it would be easy but we just can't we have no way of determining when that kid gets on the bus if their parent did that and so um so that's why we had to go this route so what some are doing which i didn't feel comfortable with they're just telling parents if you send your child to school we are assuming that you've done the check so they're not doing any kind of but then when they come they're doing a temperature check when they get in the building um ideally they tell so that that to me was not good enough and and so we're at least by the parent at a minimum by the parent giving them this ticket there it's a reminder of the parent that they have to that you know i know it's not perfect but i don't know how to how else to do it the uh the temperature check ideally they say is you get once they're in the building for at least a couple minutes they get kind of get their because if when it's really cold outside those temperatures are going to read cold until the kid gets kind of acclimated to indoor air what temperature do they have to be to not um i think we have under 100.

right here we do in the district office oh it's above it's above me too nice did you still need um help with the cloud that you have this is justine marcus hello trustee marcus um there's all kinds of stuff on my screen uh asking me to do the english portion and i did i hit english and it didn't go away it's still on my screen what is that um we all have the same oh okay you're okay okay so do we have any notice from um trustee quintero dr bauer no okay well we will there's four of us here so we'll go ahead and get started um so i will call the meeting to order at 5 31 for our special board meeting on tuesday september the 29th um before we get going can i have maribel can you take the role please today is a special board meeting of september 29th 2020 at 5 30 p.m members of the boarding attendants president vice president president members of administration superintendent dr bauer president and trustee quintero says he is connecting okay okay so looks like we do have a quorum and we are recording this tonight um and as always the methods for the public to um provide comment are in the agenda in the instructions at the top of the agenda which you'll find on our web page um but it is basically the same that we've been doing now for a number of months um and also do we need to make the announcement again about the the translation interpretation um mr tripoli i don't know if you want to go ahead and do that as we have that's kind of a newer feature okay thank you [Music] thank you and and just in english i don't know if we need to make the announcement but i believe we do need to um if you are listening in english at the bottom of your screen you'll see a little button that it says what does it say translation i already did my interpretation so if you click on that and select um english if you're listening in english then you'll be able to hear the meeting without pause or delay or interruption we've had some some issues with that in the past so thank you everyone and so um with that being said at this point we'll go ahead and do the pledge of allegiance and then we can get started with the rest of the agenda so if you're able to stand at this time please stand and join me in the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states okay so thank you everyone and we can before we actually get started um it's been a you know as i as we hear the helicopter some of us here buzzing over our heads here in our community and i don't know what that is for but it has been a particularly difficult week for our district and our community and and with that being said um i'll go ahead and and provide open up the floor for trusteera loera um to make a statement about uh some unfortunate things in the past week in our district thank you president uh so as uh ernesto mentioned our alum rocking elementary school district has been impacted by several tragedies um in this weekend alone we unfortunately um lost one of our team members a health assistant to covet 19 on saturday two of our students lost both of their parents in the elm rock avenue accident on sunday a former student attempted against her life and is in a coma right now um on sunday and one of our students was shot last night monday night um each and every one of those lives are sacred and matter not just to us but most importantly to their parents their family members their community closest community and of course impact us as the alum rock community it also shows that we are still not doing enough as an entire community when one of our team members dies due to cohobid one of our children is shot and others have attempted to take their life it is calling all of us to ask ourselves if we're doing enough are we doing enough as a sister are we doing enough as a parent are we doing enough as whatever role we play we each have a particular piece in each and every one of the lives of those that are in our community so i asked during this moment of silence not just to think about um each individual and um i can't share the name obviously you know due to um holding um their personal lives um with honor and and not mentioning that but think about you know them and also think about what each and every one of you are doing and also as a representative of a system in our in our district you know our what are we doing um are we doing enough can we do more can we do more as individuals can we do more as a community can we do more as systems in place to support our alum rock union elementary school district so i ask you to think about those things um think about each and every one of those individuals and at this point i'm going to ask all of us to hold a moment of silence and i'll time it thank you uh thank you and at this point i just call you you know each and every one of us for call to action in whichever way you can support to do our part so that we don't have another youth you know or we don't lose any other youth that we can make this place this community safe sacred where all of us feel included loved and supported thank you thank you trusted and and to your final point there obviously i mean nothing there's nothing more to be said about just the the tragedies that that these are but to your point about a call to action i know that the um there is a gofundme page for the family um of the with the car accident that happened and so i guess um i know on my facebook uh trusty facebook page i can post it i think other trustees who have pages can post the link to that um and i'm not sure at the district level what we might be able to do but that's one thing that whoever is seeing this meeting or participating can can do every little bit um will help this family to you know just at least monetarily financially deal with you know a future that is unknown [Music] sorry yeah okay so um is trustee quintero with us at this point oh yeah there he is all right so let's um um mr mr ruiz can i make an adjustment or modification or at least a request to change the order of the agenda items i want what i want to do is allow the um the public on for each of the items on our agenda to um to to to have them hear the material and then be allowed to comment on the material once they've heard it but i know it's public comment is agendized before both of the items but i'm wondering if we can for each item present the information and then allow the public to comment at that time yes that's that's fine as long as the public is allowed an opportunity to come in okay okay so then and do we need any board consensus or anything no you do not okay so i think we'll go ahead and do that then just to make sure that the public can separate out their comments and hear the the um information that they'll be commenting on so with that being said um we can start with item number 3.01 approve the 2021 learning continuity and attendance plan um dr bauer i can turn this over to you at this point thank you uh more president i'm gonna turn it over to messandra garcia so that she can summarize what we're doing tonight and what we're requesting respectfully from the boards thank you can you all see my presentation no no can we share the the screen uh after maribel yeah okay let me try hold on um here we go yes yeah okay good evening superintendent bauer board president members of the board and alum rock community my name is sandra sian i'm the director of state and federal programs i'm here this evening to present to you our final draft of our learning continuity and attendance plan for board adoption i have a few slides that i want to share with you um just to kind of give a recap of the work we've done and the contents of the plan so if you all remember the last board meeting on september 10th i gave some background on the learning continuity plan just as a reminder this plan replaces the lcap for this school year only it is a special plan that was designed um to address the impact of covet 19 on pupils families and staff and to provide continuity of learning the requirements for adoption for this plan are that the board shall hold a public hearing to solicit recommendations and comments from the public which we did on september 10th and for the board to hold a special board meeting to adopt the learning continuity and attendance plan which is this evening as with all of our lcat plans it is important to gather stakeholder input um in developing the plan to use in developing the plan uh here is a brief summary of what we have done to gather input from our stakeholders for this plan we have used information from our four town hall meetings that took place over the summer which is allowed under the statute we have um we included parents teachers and support staff in those town hall meetings and we conducted them in english spanish and vietnamese we um launched two surveys um one in june uh in 2020 which gave us information um preliminary information on on how to begin um this plan and then another uh most recently in september for our parents to provide more information on their needs at the beginning of the school year we have also conducted input sessions with parents and teachers every site had an input session to gather recommendations and answer questions from site members we shared a copy of the first draft with our parent advisory groups our dak gilac and with a group of leaders from school ptas and school site councils we shared a draft copy with our union and association groups to gather input and also held the public hearing on september 10th some of the emerging themes through this process were that the the need to provide daily live synchronous instruction um also that there is a need for increased connection to staff and peers for students to have a sense of belonging in their classrooms and in their school the need for increased communication between teachers and parents the need for more resources for parents to support their students learning including how to use technology and the apps and platforms that we're using in the classrooms and lastly the need to expand support services for students struggling the most with distance learning this is just a review we went into detail um on september 10th the the contents of the draft plan and i just want to share again quickly what the content what you will find in the learning continuity plan i thought she was pausing but i think there's she's frozen i thought that was a dramatic pause um let's give it a second and see if the connection comes back hmm did we take the powerpoint away or did she do that okay so um while we wait and see if maybe she's able to connect on in a relatively short time is there anyone else from staff that has any um additional input to what has already been presented or maybe just something um pertaining to the report yeah i was trying to see if mr sanchez was there um and but we needed the you know i don't know if you have the power her powerpoint mr sanchez i'm communicating with sandra right now trying to get her back up um i don't have it uploaded right now i would have to forget about that let me take more than one click basically sandra went over the content of the plan in september we wanted to on you know just to refresh everybody's memory about you know some of the major highlights um if there is any questions from the board right now this tonight we're asking the board to approve this plan is due tomorrow to the state um as i have mentioned to you during our one-on-ones we have provided ample opportunity for feedback and we have taken feedback very seriously so um is there any further questions at this point i'll be happy you know to to respond to some of them or to ask mr sanchez to help you respond yes and if you um have tauro maribel if you could make me co-host see if i could share my screen are you able to share mr sanchez at this point i think he found the presentation and you know just um i don't know if coincidentally is the right word but this i know that this mirrors the experience that you know our families and our students experience in their day-to-day learning i think these types of events from what i've what i've been able to ascertain and gather from talking to people and hearing people and stuff i think these types of things are at this point a little bit more of the exception than the rules meaning that um you know they don't most of the time the connection for most students or families is is fairly stable at a minimum if not stable enough to to get things done that need to be done um but i know that we as part of the report in that we have been very intentional about setting up support really putting in not just one-off kind of one-by-one individual support but really looking at how to make that assist how to systematize the the the support that we can provide whether it's through um videos that people can access or through phone numbers and so dr bauer um or anyone do you have any sense if um that has improved and sanders you know she her area lost the internet you know those of all of us have experienced that and funny that you were talking about that trustee pejerano this morning and we were attending a virtual conference on innovation and technology so the leaders of the nation and the world were presenting we were very honored to be in presence of such eminence and um a bunch of people from boston froze in the middle of the conversation when none other than colin powell so i saw that i think that he was kind of clueless interviewing the forming chief former chief of staff um gets frozen in the middle of her conversation and he has to add live just like you're like we're doing right now it was fascinating to see them and you know kind of the question becomes when this happens to a student a kindergartner or a third grader or a sixth grader how do they ad lib you know maybe we you know we continue to have some intentional thought about preparing students as well i'm sure we're doing that at the classroom level but maybe it's something to think about even more is like i'm not back for harry potter i'm so sorry i don't i don't know what happened but um i don't even know where where the last you heard my presentation um where i ended up i was so into it and you didn't realize do you you were um did i go over the contents of the learning plan you weren't you were going to start that oh okay okay so um very briefly i'll just finish up it there's just a few more slides so just as a reminder the contents of the learning and continuity plan i did go into detail last um on the 10th for the contents under the plan just as a reminder there are five buckets included in the plan the first is the continuity of learning and that includes our plans for distance learning uh in-person instruction when we're able to go back devices and connectivity professional development people learning loss and then support for students with unique needs the second bucket is around the mental health and wellness social emotional learning and that includes the support services for mental health and wellness and the social emotional learning piece the third bucket is the student and family engagement and outreach and that includes our plans for reaching out to students when they're not taking part in their classes what is the tiered system for re-engagement um to ensure that they're getting the education that they need a family engagement and then the parent education that we will provide to make sure parents have what they need to help their students the fourth bucket is on student nutrition and how we will continue to provide meals for our students during this time and the fifth bucket has to do with the increased and improved services for our foster youth english learners and low-income students and that includes the prioritization of support for these students which are also called our unduplicated students and how we support them with our support staff our schooling services coordinators counselors community liaisons and after school support providers and how we prioritize services for these students through this plan and that's it that's the end again sorry about that okay thank you no problem it happens to the best of us um so thank you for the presentation um before we have any board questions or comments now um i'd like to open it up for public comment um so mr gill do we have at this point any uh public comment it's the latest one okay so maribel can we go ahead and get the timer set up and on the screen the first person will be delzer gonzalez okay is the timer up i don't know if my no my thing is set up right okay so maryville is a photoshoot okay and miss gonzalez when oh there we go when you begin speaking your two minutes will begin um for your public comment good evening members of the board my name is gonzalez i am a parent of three of two students in the umbra school district first of all i want to acknowledge and thank all of you guys for the moment of silence and acknowledging the family in the last that we've been having during the past days as a as a parent and as a community member i really appreciate that and i'm sorry if i'm breaking up because this is close to home um second i would like to thank sandra dr bauer and renee and the whole staff for the amazing work that they did um doing the continuing plan i would like to acknowledge the support and the dedication that they put especially in the social emotional part is something that is needed our families our staff and our children are getting stressed are getting anxiety and we could see some of that all that that there is that had happened because of this pandemic and that six months that we've been in insulation i would also like to um acknowledge the hard work and the education that they have been putting to the parents and having it translated in spanish and in vietnamese and uh for that um i will i don't have nothing else to say then to thank you and and to keep on working together and moving forward and having these mellow um meetings i really appreciate that have a really good evening thank you um mr gill next person is there another person yes next person is veronica okay veronica when you begin speaking your two minutes will start veronica are you there yes can you hear me yes when you begin speaking you're two minutes let's start great thank you and good afternoon um members of the borah and the members of alan rock um thank you for taking a moment of silence and thank you for letting us know of the although there are tragedies we need to know so we know how to support some communities um and thank you trustee corrina for your kind words um and again for the moment of silence i also want to thank dr laria bauer and renee um and as well as sandra for doing the amazing work and really taking our feedback that we have been um expressing towards them and continuing with that open conversation as it is crucial our children are the most important and most precious things that we have and we must make sure that we care for them and that we put in front of them what is their right right which is more than to survive um and so with that i also want to um make sure that i say that this is an ongoing um the continuity plan is just a foundation but um this ongoing talk with families and feedback will be open and we will continue with the work thank you again and have a great day thank you next person mr gill none okay thank you everyone for that so that being said uh we'll move on to board questions and comments trustee marquez and trustee quintero i obviously can't see you so if you have questions or comments either just give me some kind of sign i don't want to take it to the oldies songs here but just give me a little sign and and all you know you can have the floor um so at this point i see trastierer um go ahead and take the floor thank you um so i want to thank all the parent engagement that this plan called in you know um i know that each and every one of us as parents care about our children and you know what they're doing now and then the future plans um but i really you know enjoyed that this plan really um kind of woke up you know other parents that i hadn't seen in a while um and you know that they also called meetings with dr bauer um and that they were really not you know obviously we all care about things um but that they also found the time to be engaged and involved you know in providing their feedback um to me it's important to have you know that parent engagement and feedback so thank you parents and uh you know dr bauer thank you for taking the time right to not only create it or start off with a plan and you know baseline in the skeleton but also go to the parents and um and spend that time you know important time with them to include you know what is important to them as well obviously they know what's best for their children we know what's best for our children um so that for me was very important and you know i feel good i feel good that we took the time um you know in our last board meeting um that we took the time to you know meet with the parents um and that we included their feedback um and so you know i will be supporting this um and i look forward to having more more of those types of you know as one of the parents mentioned working forward and uh making sure that you know we do things together in this way in this matter okay thank you any other questions or comments from the board okay i don't see any other so um i'll actually just i had a question but first of all well i'm sorry trustee travis did you i can't barely make out your your figure did you have your hand raised she was raising her hand muted oh she's muted the whole time i was muted thank you oh go ahead um i do have some questions on the el cap is that okay to start asking him now yeah sure so on one of the pages it said that it was a community group that they um that they were gonna help and what's the name of the community group it just mentioned them as san jose a group in the community and just a san jose group who is that it said on page 17 of 24 a local community based organization within east san jose who are they page 17 of 24.

so the purpose for that was to take the analysis that was in the program development agreement and the energy program savings report that was prepared by ng and then the next step was to examine or to start looking at possible partners or contractors who could implement uh some of those recommendations so in connection with that rfq a committee was organized consisting of the bargaining unit representatives teacher representatives principals representatives from the business office staff who conducted interviews um of from the firms among the firms that proposed and uh that committee recommended and ng as a finalist and then the the board approved ng or approved the selection of edgy on april 12 2017 and then two years later in 2019 the board approved resolution 39-18-19 approving an energy services contract between the district and ng and i'll talk about that in a second too but that energy services contract dealt primarily with the implementation of of lighting measures replacement of district lighting and the use of prop 39 funds to pay for that project so let me go back to the 2015 uh program development agreement because it is directly related to the solar program so the pro the the program development agreement the purpose of that was for optera now ng to perform an energy assessment of the district facilities and then provide a recommendation identifying potential energy improvements and operational changes that could be implemented at the district sites to achieve energy efficiencies and cost savings so specifically in that agreement optero was or ng was to look at six different uh possible savings measures or areas for savings they included lighting building ottoman automation handling systems equipment modifications solar pv and electrical vehicle charging stations of course the district wasn't that was just a an examination of possibilities it didn't mean that the district was bound to go forward on any of those and then the second important part of that program development agreement was that the district in optera would then enter into good faith negotiations for an energy services contract following the assessment for installation of energy conservation measures and again that was in 2015 and that was approved by the board after that agreement altera acquires is acquired by ng and then ng proceeds and prepares the energy savings program report that is required by the program development and so this is a page from that energy program savings report and again the purpose of the report was or one of the purposes of the report was to provide recommendations identifying potential energy improvements and so as part of that process part of that analysis of course ng had to identify how much energy was used being used at each of the district's facilities and sites and so you can see here in this chart on this slide there's a very specific analysis of each of the district sites and the actual electrical energy usage and building and billing rates as part of that analysis ng also prepared uh recommended energy improvements for consideration by the board and there were three separate areas of improvements the first one was led lighting at eight sites the funding of which would be through prop 39 grant money and ng prepared an estimate of lifetime net savings over the lifetime of that equipment or that program the second area of examination was a potential solar program solar photovoltaic system at all of the district's sites the funding uh was because of the district's uh capital facilities program and needs and really you know um the overall uh unavailability of capital resources the funding in the energy savings program report was as was a power purchase agreement and i'll get into that in a little a little bit more detail but under a power purchase agreement the uh customer in this case the district does not pay for the acquisition of the equipment it doesn't pay for the installation or the construction or the maintenance of the equipment it's more in the nature of a contract for services in that ng would or the the contractor would set up the solar pv system and then the customer the district would then buy power from the contractor so the lifetime net savings estimated from that program were 43 million dollars and then the third program that was looked at by angie was led lighting at the remaining district sites but as you can see from this chart um funding or potential funding source was indeterminate at that point but if it could happen there the district could achieve additional lifetime savings over the life of that program so in connection so again this was all i anticipated this analysis was all anticipated in the original programmed agreement it was fleshed out a little bit more in the energy savings program report and as part of that energy program savings report and i believe this is a slide or a chart that you have all seen in one form or another ng did prepare an estimate of net savings if the district was to implement a solar pv power purchase agreement at 22 of its district sites and so you can see on the chart on this slide these estimates are based on 22 district sites and the term of the power purchase agreement being 28 years and you can see in the second column from the right the net savings every year at the bottom of that column based on this analysis that the net savings over the uh the 28 year life of that agreement to the district would be just over 43 million dollars so again this was part of the energy savings program report which was a consequence of the program development agreement so uh again um in april of 2019 the board approved the energy services contract with ng as i said earlier uh the purpose of that agreement was the implementation of the lighting measures and the contract amount in that case was 2.823 million dollars the and you can see here that the scope of the work were facility interior and exterior lighting efficiency upgrades and retrofits at eight schools the eight schools listed on that slide that work was completed in february of this year and again the funding source for that was prop 39 funds so that gives us that gives us the framework of the program development agreement and the energy services contract so that brings us to solar because that's that would be potentially the next step in this process okay so uh so as i said earlier the energy savings uh program report looked at potential savings um if the district was to implement a solar pv program that was uh slide number five and then uh the slide the green chart that we looked at uh included an estimate of cost savings from implementation of a power purchase agreement framework for this kind of program at the district and again it's all based on a power purchase agreement so what is a solar power purchase agreement a solar pv ppa um and this is a definition that i have just pulled from the epa website and a power purchase agreement is a financial arrangement in which a third-party developer owns operates and maintains the photovoltaic system and a host customer in this case the district agrees to site the system on its property and purchases the system's electric out output from the solar services provided a provider for a predetermined period so in this case what we talked about uh or what what angie put together was an estimate of savings over over a power purchase agreement with a term of 28 years and i think one of the points that that has been made in the past by district staff and others is that this is the point at the bottom of this slide is that because it is the um because it the the customer in this case the district doesn't pay for the system for its installation or construction but rather just simply purchases power generated by the system at a predetermined rate lower than what it would normally pay to the utility in this case pg e one of the benefits of this structure is that it can be cash flow positive for the for the host customer the district from the day that the system is commissioned so the concept of the uh so again the concept is the district would not purchase the equipment we would not pay for its construction installation or maintenance the developer pays all of those upfront all of those costs up front what the district would do is it would lease portions of its sites to the solar pv developer at a nominal p lease rate for the installation and operation of the solar equipment on the district facilities to generate the solar power so we have to keep in mind that you know not every solar agreement works for every customer so what would how how could it benefit the district in this instance so two of the principal points are is that it would benefit the district if it provides a stable source of electrical energy to the district over the term of the agreement and second that it provides that electrical energy to the district over the term at a cost less than what the district would have paid to utility over the same length of time and if that's the case then that would result in general fund savings to the district in this case so applying that that principle to the to alum rock um the district currently pays approximately 1.65 million dollars annually to pg e so if the the if in this case using the uh a solar pv program at all 22 district sites as as has been looked at previously let's assume that the developer installed solar at the dis in the district at all 22 of those sites the district using that analysis the district would continue to buy some electricity from pg e uh or power but not at the rate you know or the volume has had been done previously and if that amount is 250 000 annually to pg e and one million dollars per year to the developer the owner of the solar pv system i'm sorry you you um you went you know silent for a few minutes so um can you back up a couple of seconds yes so on this slide what i'm looking what i'm looking at is sort of uh implementing or putting together all of these principles uh and how it would work at alum rock specifically can you hear me now still yes so currently the district pays approximately 1.6 million dollars to pg e annually for power um but let's assume that the district installed solar uh solar power program across all 22 sites and that in this case the district would continue its its its utility bills paid to pg e would be reduced dramatically to fifty 250 dollars per year for electricity and one million dollars per year would be paid to the developer for the solar power generated by the solar pv system on the district property so in that case once the solar pv system is installed the district's electrical bill would be 1.25 million dollars that would be a 400 000 savings per year initially um under the solar power purchase agreement framework and again that would be you know a long-term agreement and what we've been looking at here is possibly 28 years one of the benefits or a couple of the benefits of this agreement or this type of structure is that the developer remains responsible for maintaining and repairing the solar pv system um for the term of the agreement in in this case 28 years in addition in the agreement itself the developer guarantees the amount of power that will be generated or the minimum amount of power that will be generated by the solar pv system over those 20 years and the reason that customers like the district and other school districts ask for that guarantee is your interest or one of your interests is locking in savings to your general fund over the course of the agreement and so though that power guarantee is critical uh to your interests so the district would pay only for the power produced provided that it meets the minimum guarantee at predetermined prices over the life of the agreement and then the agreement can also be structured with an out with an option to purchase so that if uh if it makes sense financial sense for the district at some point to acquire the system then it can do that those can all be built into the agreement okay so uh it so is all of this free and the answer to that is no it's not all free there would be costs in entering into a solar pv power purchase agreement so you would continue to have to purchase some electricity whether it would be through some of it through pg e and or some of it through your developer you would still have to buy some to power your systems but again the point of the agreement is that you are buying it the electric the electricity at rates lower than what you were you would otherwise pay and which are locked in for the term of the agreement there would also be some transactional costs associated with this the first would be dsa certified inspectors so in california whenever construction takes place on a school site most projects require a dsa certified inspector who is there to represent the interests of the district there may be some additional costs for permits and approvals there are transactional other transactional types like attorneys fees uh and other consultants to negotiate a solar pv power or purchase agreement and then um as the site the last category would be as the details of this of an agreement are being worked out there would be a more specific assessment of the district several several sites to determine to make a determination that the solar pv equipment can be installed there fully and easily there may be some issues that might have to be addressed of course as part of this um as you know with you know the the the school sites have to be accessible uh to disabled persons and these are not these would not be roof mounted solar systems they would be canopies they would be shade structures in the parking lots and potentially in other places at the school sites so there may be some additional uh minor cost associated with some necessary site improvements that would have to take place at about the same time some of these costs still remain to be determined but in you know in you know in terms of an order of magnitude um they are not uh you know they don't appear to be more than uh you know a million dollars at this point um but that this information would still have to be determined so what are the next steps uh for the district um so uh you know the staff the staff is working on getting answers to the following critical questions excuse me to help the board make a decision about this type of project these critical questions include would a solar pv system be implemented safely without disruption to the district's educational program second can a solar pv system be installed in the district that fits the requirements of the district's current and planned electrical structure and future needs so for example you would want the district has an interest in making sure that if if it is going to enter into a power purchase agreement for solar energy that the district does that the district doesn't have to spend exorbitant sums of money upgrading its existing facilities in other words the solar system can be can be installed and operated using the district's current electrical system and structure also taking into account um some planned improvements hopefully in the near future things like hvac and heating projects third what would the phasing of the installation project look like what is the period of time of build out which schools would go first those types of issues fourth would a solar pv system save money for the district and if so how much fifth what is a firm estimate of the transactional costs to the district in entering into the solar pv agreement so those are all critical questions um that and there may be some more that the board has but you know we think these are critical questions that we need to be able to provide uh the board uh answers for uh as part of your decision making process once we have those answers then uh the staff will make a presentation uh present its analysis and recommendations to the board under the government code for these types of projects the board cannot approve them unless and until it holds a public hearing with at least two weeks advanced notice to the public at which time the the board uh considering the staff's analysis and recommendations the potential benefits to the district the board would have to make a finding that the solar power purchase agreement is in the best interest of the district and then secondly generally that the anticipated cost to the district uh for the solar for the solar energy uh will be less than the anticipated costs uh for energy to the district in the future if it didn't have the solar power program so again that determination uh can only be made uh after a public hearing at a regular board meeting that's uh you know with at least two weeks advanced notice to the public so that's the presentation that's uh we are really at the point now of answering these these five questions uh that i walked you through uh to try to get to this the points in this last slide to develop a firm analysis and recommendation to the board so thank you for your attention and we're happy to answer any questions okay thank you mr ruiz and and staff everyone that that has worked on this report very thorough and very informative um and so uh before we get to questions and comments from the board as i mentioned we will go ahead and take public comment uh from our public and then we'll move into the to the board discussion or questions on this item so mr gill i am assuming that there are public comments so maribel um if we can get the timer up we can get going on those comments my assumption is correct right mr gill we have public comment yes there is one okay and there's leonika okay so uh the timer is up so veronica when you begin speaking your two minutes will begin you look great thank you so much for and thank you rogelio for giving this presentation um i do have a couple of questions one is um my first question is why is rogerio doing the presentation we usually have other staff just being him the lawyer um and then another of my questions is i know that governmentary newsletter is moving towards you know um more innovative electricity more innovative um uh stuff sorry um and and so would it be possible that maybe later governor newsom might put out a grant for districts um to receive um money to make sure that this installation you know whatever that we have to put up front does not come from our own money but rather than it comes from a brand that the government might put and it's not something that as parents we can definitely advocate up to um sacramento but just because it is essential that we know that there's other priorities that need to be handled before we put solar panels um and as we heard i know that before it was like oh no it's going to be free but it turns out like there is the cost and you know we kind of didn't know about that cost and we don't still even have an estimate of how much so i really want to keep us on that loop of like we know that governmentism is very progressive um and we're hoping to have him hopefully more and longer um and should a grand calm um should that really alleviate us because we are at 26 million dollars and also you know as the board moves forward with some of these things um i also want to remind everyone that there is still a mistrust right there is something that happened before that hurt our community and those war members for the most part are not there anymore and so just keep in mind that you might not be here and what it what is that that you're going to implement going to affect our families ourselves and our children so thank you thank you next speaker mr gill mendel hi um good evening uh board members um superintendent um i do have a comment over this um i appreciate the slideshow and the information i think that it gives us a lot of it answers a lot of the questions that we have um i do see that the expenditure is 10 to 20 000 that we at this point don't have i would love to redirect the staff to student achievement and um ways that we can support our students because right now as we see we are in dashboard at orange which means we're close to red which is not great as much as i would love to see solar panels i would love to see our student achievement go up and since this does require money maybe we could push this um a little bit further until hopefully prop 15 passes that can give some money to the district so we can do these things i would also love to see more companies i feel like this whole presentation was based on ng and um i would love to see more local companies that come from uh our area where the money goes back to the community and see what partnerships we can get to cover some of these expenses because i know that this can happen if we create great partnerships that or grants that can help us pay for this but i do want to concentrate on student achievement because right now we are in covit 19 and we still have a lot of issues that need to be covered and i would love this presentation to be done in a school board meeting not in a special board meeting where not a lot of attendance are and i find that that it's kind of um a red flag that this would be giving in a special board meeting not last time we had said this was going to be brought in october and we're in september 29th so i don't understand why there's this big pressure right now for this when we have a lot of issues with our student learning virtual learning thank you thank you next comment mr gil gonzalez when you begin speaking your two minutes will begin good evening members of the board um once again superintendent i have to echo what veronica and brenda had said before me one can we weigh a little bit more into governor and houston brings um a little more help for our students and for our help i know that he's an amazing leader and he's doing a lot for especially for our schools and education wise second i don't understand why we bring in this item this awesome presentation i have to i have to acknowledge that and thank the staff for bringing this and answering most of the questions that our parents had to a um to this kind of meeting instead of an open public meeting which is gonna happen in two weeks from now um it gives a lot more opportunity for more audience it gives a lot more opportunity for people to know and to hear the presentation and to acknowledge the work that i have been doing and not in a in in this in this kind of setting i i as a parent and as a as a community member that have been in every single board meeting will um don't understand why and i i really want to ask that to the board to why today and not waiting to october how it was planned before and what people are expected to hear um and also let's focus on another things that we have to focus based on our schools based on reparations that the schools needs before focusing on bringing solar panels so thank you very much and have a good evening thank you next person mr gill none okay thank you everyone so we can now open it up to questions and comments from um from the board are there any questions or comments off the top um from board members to direct courts staff or whoever trustee i see your hand and then trust me i see you after that uh so and i'm assuming it's a question for uh or the staff you know the answer um back in and you went through the timeline i want to say maybe april 2017 um when uh you know whether it's ng or at the time that the agreement was made whether it was the previous uh organization or not or at the time it was ng is there a uh like a legal binding agreement that was made is there a legal contract that was made at that time that we need to continue with this organization no um no that and that's why i thought it was to to go back to the program development agreement from 2015 because that just laid out the original structure of somebody taking a an analysis or doing an assessment and analysis of what possible energy conservation measures there might be the agreement for the lighting retrofits was specific to that to that project it doesn't bind the district to move forward on the solar uh program with ng or or at all with anybody okay and then um the next question i have and i you know kind of did my calculations with your approximate 1 million dollar dollar cost um at the beginning so that would mean that after the third year then we'd see um gainings from it uh money back to the to the district that we can then implement into you know whatever else we decide at that time is that correct that's correct assuming that savings level it's it's also possible so as as i noted in terms of the transactional cost there might be some site specific or for example ada costs those may actually never materialize with respect to the dsa inspectors there is a way to and no contract has been negotiated with ng or with anybody else so there is a way to try to build those costs in order to negotiate lower amounts uh to offset some of those costs so i i you know i i was probably being a little very conservative with the one million dollar estimate my my gut tells me that the transactional costs won't come in nearly that high and then even if you can't get rid of all of them there are some there there is some room to try to continue to push those costs down okay those are just the questions off the top of my head as you were talking that came out thank you okay thank you um and obviously you know more opportunity if other things come up to any other board members as we discuss uh trustee quintero um yeah so i appreciate the work that staff did to to bring uh this information i think it's good information um and uh you know um one of the reasons why we brought it forward i assume is because we wanted to dedicate more time uh because at a regular board meeting it kind of gets a little bit more of um there's other there's other items in the agenda but i would be glad to see it on the regular boardview agenda but not just the information that staff provided because what i assumed we were going to get at this meeting was other uh potential options beyond um what we're seeing and so there's a good information but i also wanted to see other options and so um other organizations that do power purchase agreements and what uh what what opportunities are out there and so um while we have an rfp in place with ng i'm i was more inclined to get uh more uh you know to find out what other opportunities i know it's been a while and so there's always new things that are popping up new programs new new technology and so that was my interest just to get more information um as we move forward that way we make sure we do so without you know with the wealth of information so those are my comments okay thank you any other questions or comments from the board uh trustee chavez uh kind of tapping on a little bit of what our trustee just just spoke on uh was this board has not seen three bids and so i know that they've seen them in 2015 but this board has not and also i want to remind you that in 2014 or 13 there was five schools that needed repair and they put it on a priority list and to this day they still have not done that first and it was priority then it's still priority over this um and the those schools were promised that and i just see us passing things and not following through i think we should follow on through on those things first because that is you can use the bond money there and um another thing is i don't know if i this may not sound too good but if we do this just go with this one company it sounds again like we're only going with one company and we're not vetting them properly and are we there i'm gonna be told something by the state because this is what happened with the last previous board um that there wasn't um several bids out and also i want to remind um everybody that i mentioned months ago that we haven't heard the alternative side and one of them is being that in one of the presentations on the facilities not only did the mot guy state but as well as the ng representative stated that we needed to upgrade the electrical before they put the solar in and so that's going to be a lot more cost in in the previous meetings when it was written down on the agenda no cost or very little cost that wasn't true and to me the way it was written it seemed deceptive so i didn't agree with that and also um i want to thank mr roger for the presentation and it seems like they have a new salesman but the thing is is that nobody on this board is a solar expert neither is the superintendent nor any of the admins any other trustees or the legal team so i would like to have a presentation of the 10 mistakes that districts make and i had recommended this before and there's things that you can guide yourself on it's done through the csba who has a team of lawyers and this particular law firm did it and i'm not advocating for them so i'm not going to put their name up but we should also get that presentation and an overview of solar power purchasing contracts including ppas and alternative ownership of options because as everybody knows anything in say in the phone world in communications within five years it's obsolete and so i believe that the solar power uh is being redone and in in a better way year after year and so this was done 2015 i don't want to get a system and put it in place and then ten years later it's gonna be a leader you can't get the solar panels and all the different mistakes that districts have made in trying to pursue solar power and and how to help the districts avoid all those mistakes i think we should look into that too because this is a good project but not now because we should be focused on student learning this distance learning has put so many kids behind and when i see the presentation and i see ng on the agenda month after month after month that tells me that the administration that's their priority when the priority should be the students and their learning and if they're not learning put all that you have towards that because before the coping the children were 68 below grade level so you can imagine after six months where they're at now if we spend the money on this it's at the cost of something else and it'll be and affect the students and their learning and i'm just requesting that you table this for months before you can get an expert telling you the other side before we see how much learning loss has been done during this period so that way we can help the students and the teachers in the classrooms thank you thank you uh mr ruiz mr chang or dr bauer are you um would you like to or are you able to respond to any of the questions that trustee chavez had or trustee quintero or i guess anyone up to this point with regards to um you know the bidding process um the the way that monies are allocated and whether or not that would distract from um the the academic focus that we need to take with the district any comments or responses to any of that in general well um this has not been for months and months it's not it's not you know trustee chavez you said that several times this when board with different trustees ask the board president and myself to bring items to the agenda we bring them to the agenda so that's how these happen we are focusing on student achievement and you're absolutely right we have to look into some some of the things that are happening to our students um we opened this special board meeting uh talking about the tremendous hurt that is it that that is in our community and we are obviously looking for ways to support them we have brought to this board numerous ways on how we are um addressing those issues and having said that this item has been requested by a trustee and we brought it just the way the rest of the board has requested other items and they are brought to the to the to the agenda so i just want to clarify that this particular effort in terms of it's it's a cost saving efforts um i know that there are many many steps before the board before we are ready to present to the board to um whatever way the board decides to go and i just want to say very clearly that you're absolutely right i have been working with the staff i've been working with rogelio to remind everybody that this particular board has not seen other rfps and i agree with that i agree 100 with you on that and that is the that is the reason that some of these conversations are being had right in public with plenty of time for the board to ask all the questions that the board has um we this this uh special war meeting was set up to answer questions regarding this effort not regarding ng and i just want to make sure that everybody understand that this is not about is the ng proposal being considered because that is not this is the beginning of the conversation if the board wants to have it maybe the board does not want to have this conversation and we are fine with that we will look for other ways to continue to bring savings to the district but in terms of student achievement this is not a distraction we still have to address facilities needs very soon we're bringing to the board because the board requested to go over all the rfps for program managers so we need to do that that's another step we need to and and by the way that's a great opportunity for the board to look into these scopes of this program manager to be able to address some of the the potential projects that that the district has to have mr edwards or mr chang anything to add to that um yeah so um so the government code under the government code these types of projects for energy conservation measures are not required to be bid as i mentioned and i think the last slide is although they're not required to be put out to to bid they the board does cannot award this kind of contract except to have after holding a public hearing and making a determination that the that in the board's view it's in the best interest of the district and that you're going to save more than you spend over time that being said it's the board's decision on whether or not it wants to issue an rfp or call for bids or an issue in rfq the government code gives you that flexibility that is a board decision the only reason i included the ng slides in that analysis is because frankly over the five year period ng is the only uh only one of your contractors who has prepared that analysis under that program development agreement um so it's just the intent there is just to give a framework for the discussion and an understanding of how that agreement would ultimately work but again it's it is a board's determination of whether or not the board wants to put it out to bid to an rfq process an rfp process and as i mentioned to remember there is nothing in those contracts that compels this district to either uh contract with ng on a solar program or even to implement a solar program in any way shape or form so this is really just about presenting the information and letting the board know this is your judgment call okay thank you um i'll go ahead and make a couple comments and then i see your hand trustee chavez well after after that you you can go um first of all i want again i want to thank everyone for the work that's been put into this so far and i just wanted to address a couple of things from my perspective so in terms of just this idea of of why and not necessarily why make a decision right now obviously we're not deciding tonight or next month or anything to make a definitive decision to move something forward but to me why this is important why not why this is now is a couple of things number one as dr bauer alluded to even as we focus on the academic part of our responsibility and obligation that doesn't mean that all focus needs to come off of everything else a district as as a quote-unquote business still needs to run there's still hr functions that need to happen operational there's all these other things that need to continue happening so to me i mean i think it's a little bit of a stretch to say that pursuing you know options in in some of these areas are going to be detrimental significantly detrimental to the academic program programming that we have and additionally um a reason why i you know continue to be supportive of moving a a solar program forward whatever that might look like is because based on information that i you know we've received now from staff and a number of different um places in my own research it's very clear to me that there's a a fairly significant or or reasonable assumption that can be made that there is money annual money and significant money over the lifetime of an agreement like this that can be saved now when we talk about needing resources for the district obviously our district and many other districts are challenged with millions of dollars in deficit and when i see the opportunity to year over year put 400 500 you know 600 whatever it is thousand dollars on the table every year to help with to help you know with some of those costs of running a district i take that very seriously i think that that becomes a priority to me because if you want to address issues of you know um whether it's academic programming or or social emotional learning all those types of things money that we don't have right now is potentially up you know to be to be available for us to do that kind of stuff and so this knowing the situation that we're in financially time is of the essence to me and some in some respects because i feel like i don't i i feel like i have the obligation to the to the district to the community to not leave money on the table as how i see it in terms of um what's available to us and how that could impact the learning of our kids um and the last thing i'll say for now is that with regards to like the hvac um and the electrical panels which i know was a concern for me also and i brought it up during that initial meeting that trusty child has alluded to i believe if i'm not correct and um and i think we do have some subject matter experts in this room tonight but i believe that the cost for the replacement of those solar of those um electrical panels there's a possibility that that could be worked into the agreement that we could do for a ppa and um and in that way we would still pay for them but we would pay over the course of 28 years but we need money in the immediate to put in air conditioning and heating and all those facilities things and that money in that way which i believe was um 4.5 million dollars would be freed up from our bond money to use on other things that we immediately need to address um in our facilities so getting into an agreement has the potential to delay those costs we still pay them but we will pay them over the course of time and again that frees up that money to address the concerns about the panel and the um the air conditioning and heating it frees up more of our bond money that needs to be used for those types of things so those are just um some of my thoughts for now and the last thing actually sorry is that the reason why we're bringing it to this meeting is to allow for more time because i know there's been some concerns about this taking too much time during a regular board meeting so given that feedback we've tried to be responsive to communities concerns and we brought it into this forum um so that there could be more time to discuss it so with that um trustee chavez i know i said you would be next okay so um dr bauer mentioned that you know we do have facilities needs we do and the money that they pass for the bond was exactly for that what had been allocated what had been voted on agreed on promised to those schools those students and six or seven years later down the road we have not done what the district voted on to do why is that if the bond money is sitting there it's just sitting it could have already been implemented put and already using all the age back systems but instead it's just sitting there in the bank account and it's doing no good learning very earning very little interest and when all of these five facilities and even the district mot person said that there was five schools that really needed them and some of them were safety issues and even mg said that there were safety issues we asked them what schools were they what priorities were they and still after all these years it hasn't been done how can you start a new project or even start talking about another project when you haven't even finished what you already voted on approved and what the bond money was supposed to be for thank you trustee quintero is that you wanting to say something yeah um you know we we've gone through we went through the facilities assessment and you know because when comments are made they need to be addressed you know if we don't stand out here people are going to think that this is true and the fact of the matter was that those those very those emergency situations were dealt with uh with them with the bond monies that we do have and so as far as i can recall that that's what took place um and if dr bauer if you can respond to to my to my comment and let me know if in fact it happened because that's right that's the report that i received and those those uh basically emergency issues the health and safety concerns that were raised in the in the um facilities report uh where the ones that were targeted and were dealt with correct and when i left colvera i i'm thinking that i can barely hear you so i don't know if mr chen uh got all of that i have a lot of noise here in the street um board president were you able to hear me or was that yeah you came across fine but it looks like mr chang heard and he can respond if we can unmute him yes so uh trustee contains um can you be more specific in terms of what um you were referring to so i can when we received the facilities report there were some very very serious safety issues that were highlighted in that very in-depth report that we got and what we said is we're going to take some of the bond money that we do have and go ahead and target those health and safety issues i want to make sure that i'm at least from what i was told that did in fact happen and so it did it take place that were those health and safety issues addressed right off the bat i remember the the the list of needs was massive in the report but the the ones that had to be taken care of immediately was obviously a smaller number and so my question to staff is was was my understanding correct that we went ahead and dealt with those health and safety concerns yeah there's there's a few items that we dealt with not particularly with bond money but with some deported maintenance money um and the two um that i that comes to my top of my head right now are some immediate um uh hvac system where we did install some temporary units uh because we did have some really old ones that wasn't working um in addition to that we also addressed all the locks that were needed to be replaced for security reasons at all of our sites so those were the immediate needs i know that the report also identified you know some electrical issues uh to be fixed but remember when those are those are big ticket items and we haven't had a program managers who to operate or oversee our bronze program and so back to the comment where things haven't been done over the last seven years that's really not true i mean we just had the hvac at dorsa and lucha um and the roofing projects about two years ago and up until now we haven't had a program manager and um you know we desperately need one in order for them to provide some support um and some uh facilitation on um identifying the needs and where we would need to address some of those uh urgent issues and that if you recall we asked the board and the board wanted to vet all the companies that have already submitted their paperwork and that's going to be another special we're meeting if you recall we asked that of the board in september and you wanted you didn't want the staff you didn't want a committee the board wanted to get all the companies so that's what we still need to do okay trustee and then myself and then trustee chavez after that and i just want to also confirm because i know i heard uh linda mention you know ask a question about you know pretty much there's been all this money kind of sitting there and why hasn't it been been used um and also i just want to you know ask you know just so we can refresh our minds as as board members and the community because i think if i was just in the community hearing that then i'd be like you know raising arms and bringing my my uh you know signs um to protest because um you know it just doesn't make sense right to have all this money just sitting there and not um making sure that our children get what they need um and i know we've you know turned this rock over and over but apparently we i think we forget that um part of part of the problem was that we weren't able to touch those bonds that bonds money um at one point right so you have you have in the bank the five million dollars that trustee travis is talking about but five million dollars do not cover the those hvac systems that were lined up to take care of the schools that's why corvette colvera was talking about that school that still doesn't have hvac and we needed to buy those units now all of this is pre-covered 19 right so we we were working thinking that we we were going to need them if we had been in school right now we definitely you know would have felt it because of the heat right so those five million dollars have not been touched as colebera mentioned we have used these other uh maintenance funds to be able to provide somebody uh and i apologize my system is also being delayed and there's an echo but the other the other bonds there's the the other uh issue that were that was paused by the county and i don't want to re leave all of that we are still we are going to be coming to the board to begin that process you know we are going to need a new count born counsel we're going to need uh people a financial advisor we're going to need a number of people to be able to put the district in a position to reissue bonds so that we can finalize some of those major ticket projects that the board needs to do it's just that at this point five million dollars last uh and and i need coverage to refresh my memory but that does not cover all of the the five schools that are still waiting for the hvac so that's that's the main thing that the the what we have right now in the bank does not cover for what is needed in terms of those five schools that i think trustee chavez was um uh alluding to okay i don't know where did you have anything to add to that no i was gonna um agree with dr bauer's comment in terms of um the the cost of the vice hvac system because when we went out to bid um those five hp's this is what's going to cost us approximately 25 million dollars and so um we were hoping to issue some measure eye bonds but at that point you know with all the stuff that was going on um we weren't able to i mean with with the county's involvement with the all the investigation so we kind of have to put that on hold for a little while so the cost that we got was 25 million and we have 5 million right now correct okay okay so just real quick um i had a a comment and a couple questions for um so the comment if and and i could be wrong on this but i believe in terms of the electrical panel what i remember being reported to us was that the reason that they were a safety issue i mean acknowledging that they're many many years old and our staff has done an amazing job apparently of keeping them functional up and running and able to to operate things but i believe that the the safety concern that was stated was that um it was that if the power went out then we could potentially have students and staff and parents on campus and that could pose a safety risk but in at least in the very immediate if that's correct um obviously that that's not a an immediate safety concern for the most part although we do have some staff and students on campus so you know that's partially true i guess the question that i have um for mr release number one in terms of those administrative costs and those um upfront costs that that would be included um in an agreement are there ways sometimes in these types of agreements that those costs could be there's other ways to cover those costs that it the district would not need to come up with that money um from their own funding or are there other strategies that have been used to your knowledge to um to handle some of these types of situations because i would imagine there's other districts that you know don't have you know money laying around that they just can you know put towards things that they want to do well one one possible way would be to build them into the cost structure of the agreement but then that would lower your savings over time so i'm not sure how palatable that would be in terms of grant funding and things like that remember these are really transactional costs including primarily the dsa certified inspectors special inspectors for this type of project so i'm not aware of any available grant funding that would cover those costs these are really just project costs that a district a public agency or school district in particular doesn't have any options on it has to have these types of inspections on this project okay but there might be options then that would cover that potential yes okay and then the last question i have is um it appears that we have at least a couple of either construction or solar experts here in the room tonight so at some point during the meeting is it um possible to allow them to speak as subject matter experts if they have anything that they want to answer questions that the community or board members have no well i mean they're they're perfectly entitled to some kind of members of the public so so would they but as much so they don't need to be like as public comment then they would yes they would need to have the two minute um yes requirement okay okay uh trustee chavez so with whatever money we have now get the worst one and situation and the one that is the biggest safety issue and put the money towards that one but at least do something if you can't do all five we already know that we heard that at the facilities um meeting but we were asking just do one of them or something to at least get it going and get that done start you know checking off before we want to go and forget the ball rolling is what i'm asking and also are we gonna also allow for another response contract i mean the uh if you're gonna allow for supposed experts are you gonna also hear the other side and i think we already hear public comment i think it's only fair that we hear both sides as what i was asking in the beginning that you know because again none of us are solar experts and um i think that both sides should be heard in all fairness thank you i don't i mean for me i don't know that there's a both sides to this like there's nothing this is just still information gathering um but to your point about getting the ball rolling on on you know just getting something going and just just doing something and throwing something out there i think i would be very cautious about that because as you know to your point about experts nobody that i'm aware of in our district is an expert on on project management in terms of these these construction projects and facilities projects so the fact that we have um put out requests for project managers and now we have them they're going to be coming back to us and we'll be voting on that um to me that is getting the ball rolling so so that's a necessary step that we need to take for um you know getting the ball rolling in terms of managing projects because we can't in my mind we can't take that on as a district without having the proper knowledge and and um person who can coordinate that work and make sure that it's being done properly um and so uh as i heard from mr ruiz we can still take some public comment for anyone that does so can i say one more thing one that does have um of the two mr garcia or or mr baldwin you don't necessarily need to say anything but i just want to make sure that you have the opportunity um are you going to recognize this excuse me i have the floor i know but i'll call on you when i do you see your hand i have the floor so please respect the process thank you so you know just raise your hand in the room if you need if you would like to make a comment if not the ball rolling there were six years that it wasn't rolling and i'm just that's just a frame a few words but what i'm saying is if we do vote on something or the previous book that we should we could is what i'm saying when we had the experts there we had the bond person that should have been priority that's what i'm saying that's the only thing i'm saying i know we don't have those people now we're trying to look to hire somebody and hopefully once we do that gets implemented before all this other solar uh more meetings on solar thank you for president yes trustee quintero you know um there are there's uh you know there's a president united states that tends to repeat uh uh certain things over and over again with the intention of making people believe them and uh unfortunately that seems to be a practice that's coming into alimock school board we just heard from uh kovara who let us know that there has been work that's been done the last six or seven years contrary to what was just mentioned and so when these um when when these attempts to go ahead and uh and steer the community in a different direction than what in fact take place and i'm going to continue to make sure that the community is made aware that we were we were we were putting on roofs we were doing uh things here in the district and so to say that six or seven years nothing happened is uh an effort to go ahead and obfuscate the truth and uh i don't necessarily appreciate it i would hope that some of my other colleagues would be able to speak up when other other members of the sport are attempting to mislead the public thank you any other questions or comments from the board yes i do okay trust me marquez so um first i'd like to request from rogelio the um the presentation that i did not get one um and so i was just writing notes as you were giving the presentation so if i you know staff can make sure that i get one i'd appreciate that and then um there was so much being said here you know from both sides from from everyone and i was just um i didn't know where to start i had comments for everything that everyone was saying but i'm gonna tell you what i know of the decade that i have been here and i think there was a mention about um covering he says we haven't had a bond direct bond director for a while and and then karina says well we weren't able to touch that five million dollars no that's not true that five million dollars we could touch it up until the office of victims was the one who stopped us but prior to them that just happened okay prior to that it was dr bauer who stopped everything everything i was here and we kept saying why is it not moving forward why is it not moving forward we couldn't move it forward because the administration is under her and we cannot order the administration the board members of the administration so it did stop everything stopped and then when you said cavero we don't we haven't had a bond director in a while well yeah that's right because um they gave him a letter saying that his services were nowhere no they weren't needed anymore because there was no funds there was lack of work and i forget the other one you still there hello trustee marquez we can't hear you if you're talking um yes yes okay we can hear you now we lost you for a second there yeah i had left rogelio like that when he was doing his presentation that's why i requested it but getting back to the we had an mot and then he was let go for those reasons and yet we're talking about five million dollars still being there you know the priority list that you know had input from community and and it was made and it was dealt with on the floor for the board and things that could have been done for you know ten thousand a hundred thousand here or maybe you know here and there but things could have been gotten done you know roofing roofing continued could have continued but that stopped too so i've seen it all i've been here i haven't gone anywhere and i've seen it all so roger says that the state we're losing you again trusty marquez so then can you hear me there you go the last thing we heard was can you hear me yes the last thing we heard was rogelio said something yeah the state will allow us to decide for the board to decide um that um that for the energy savings part that the board can decide okay okay and yeah and i'm getting feedback any feedback can you hear me can you hear me yes we can hear you yeah so we um there was a there was a public meeting with the mot director that was there at the time and he spoke in frustrations he was real frustrated because he says there are so many things that need to be done and he goes and then they won't let me um they won't let me do it what they have me doing and these are his words is that they have me putting band-aids on but there are there are things that need to be done you know um he was very concerned and he spoke and he pleaded at this at this mot meeting that they let him do his job and let him because these things need to be done but it did not happen because it was stopped at the superintendent level that's where it had stopped then there was other comments but um it's way too much and i have already taken a lot of time and i don't want to go there but what i do want what i do want to say is it i'm going to support my community who spoke today and said this is just um why can't we wait um why is it that when this first started was no cost no cost but now we're looking over a million dollar cost so but that kind of gets people's attention you know when they said there's no cost and then there is and um i just i just believe that this discussion is best saved for a later time and only because in less than 40 days i think it is um there there may be a new board or there may be different board members the you know the facets of it is going to change or may not change or in either case we make a decision right here right now and whatever happens if there's another board or whatever they have to deal with the aftermath down the line you know and it says well why did we get into it well because back there back then it kind of reminds me of this situation about what our president wants to appoint you know at the supreme court and we're saying oh not right now not right now we're in an election you know and he's hurrying it up and he's hurrying it up because he's got the vote because he can do it now and it's like this is what i'm projecting that this is happening right now and and i know that that we need we need to put the brakes on the brake on and to at least get some other companies to come and put in a bid and then do the presentation for us because the companies are the experts my general counsel he's not an expert but the companies they we need to get and get them going for you know get the bids going and you know hey let me go where it's going to go let it forward it's going to fall but not right now i want to focus more on the issues of this covet obviously it is a big problem for the you know for the entire state and everyone every district seems to be focusing on that and we're going off in a tangent with uh wanting to save money and bring money in and the parents and i can hear care my community and they have a lot of confidence in me because of the decade that i've been here in the 30 years on top of that that i have worked in this community and so they know me with confianza and they keep saying um give up assad what's going to happen what's going to happen and say we just we all have to work together and we'll have to wait to see how but we have to think of the safety of their children first and you guys want your children back in school but is it safe for them to go back what are some of the safety things we have to do just to bring them back so all of that takes time all that takes money and right now you need to know we're in deficit spending we were in deficit spending last year and it cost us our libraries and when deficit spending now who knows what it's going to cost us now so this book um i thank you for the information rogelio and the staff that helped you with it but i'd like to hear from um you know the people that know and that understand it and that's their job their work day in and day out so those professionals need to come and give us a presentation and not only that but give us the pros and the cons you can that's the community professionals thank you thank you um there's a number of inaccuracies that i heard in in that statement and i'll just um excuse me i have the floor but more thank you so we will you've uh trustee marcus you've had the opportunity to speak just as all of us have you have not demonstrated show raise your hand or anything to show that you wanted some to say something so that's why you haven't had the opportunity to speak to this point but you certainly will as much as you need to here but the only inaccuracy that i wanted to address specifically is that because it was made in public comment and it's been made by um at this point now trustees is that it was stated that this was no cost and from the beginning it was stated that there would be administrative costs that's in writing i mean in presentations that um have been given that this it says it was stated that there were administrative costs and that's indeed the costs that um that are have been indicated this evening and so i just wanted to correct that so i saw trusty um i saw trustee quintero and then after that trustee marquez if you have something to um continue with you'll be after trustee quintero and we can unmute the microphone for now mr jill thank you thank you uh so i just wanted to also clarify that i never mentioned the five uh million dollars specifically but uh the staff um you know talked about that money that um we were under an investigation um and so anyways all that that we've had to go through um and work to where we're at now anyways um i just want to bring us to like our point you know i keep hearing two sides and the other side and the other side um i think you know we are all on the same side right of providing our our students and our our staff um with what they need um including energy you know in safety and so i would just like to kind of regroup you know and bring ourselves back to our focus um and that today is just to um talk about this there is no action so i keep hearing you know you guys and i don't really know who you guys are but really i haven't seen anybody put it on the agenda for um action today and it's just conversation you know part of our duties as uh trustees to um you know sit down and go through the information and figure out is it the best for our district now or not and so it's just a part of that hard work right that some of us were elected or appointed to do and so um here we are you know again another long meeting i thought you know i told my husband i think i can have dinner with you by eight you know and it's okay he knows that i might not um but it's the work we get to do and so there's no actions happening today um and i've already heard from at least two trustees and i'm in agreement i think i said this last time um and that i want to see you know at least three or here you know we have ng and we can invite them back to give us the details but then we invite at least two others to give us the details um and it doesn't have to be next you know month it doesn't have to be i'm not like rushing for it and i don't think i've heard any one of us rushing for it i just want that in the near future um and so i look forward to doing that you know i look forward to focusing um on you know things like you know how our children doing and test scores and things like that that we don't spend on just you know lying or just turning you know words around um so that's it that's all i want to say thank you trustee quintero and then trustee marcus after that board president um keep on hearing about uh this uh program uh the the bond program person that used to be here i want to thank the citizens oversight committee for doing a very thorough job in the report that we got uh at the last meeting where they they very very aptly pointed out some serious issues with the last uh pro um bond um what's the official title cover bond manager or bond director bond director director yes yeah and yeah and so we saw that this individual signed off on uh jobs that have been done with zip ties and and things that have gotten us into a lot of trouble so for the public and for my fellow colleagues here um those are the reasons why you know we had a part ways unfortunately we we're seeing the the results of the work that that individual did in uh these in in these in these projects that were signed off and that were done in a horrible manner and so for somebody to sit here and go around uh feeling horrible because this individual was let go it's it's very sad and i think it's due to the fact that uh certain board members obviously aren't paying attention to the reports we're getting during the meetings because we would have you would have been informed that this individual is signing off on zip tie uh projects and so um that's part of those are part of my comments i i a lot of folks have asked for experts and we have individuals here that we would be able to call upon to inform us more about these opportunities i know you mentioned mr baldwin we also have so garcia who works with the um trades and has been informed of what opportunities are out there um i think that we can go ahead and bring folks to talk about uh what opportunities are out there and and what uh what things that what what things may be available not not too in debt but you know just enough to inform us as as board members as to what other opportunities are out there so um i would like to hear i would like to hear from you hey thank you thank you can we unmute her microphone um mr gill i think she wanted to continue or after her comment trustee marquez can you hear me yes okay so um you know it's really a shame it's always a shame and i'm always saddened by andres quintero when he always goes back to make reference to a good job these these zip ties you talk about i'm sure he wouldn't have never done that he's a professional you know and uh and he's a licensed architect and so he know he would never have done that if anything people in our staff and our emoji staff may have gone over there and just put a band-aid like their emoji director was saying you don't know you know but that you know it's like that's been done you won you guys won you wanted him out of here because he was he knew deltera he worked for deltera and our superintendent went and stole him from deltera but in the end you won you let this gentleman go when it was no fault of his every job they had while they were doing here came in on time there was no accidents it didn't cost more than then it was said it was going to cost but nobody speaks to that nobody speaks to that but he did give a report and saying every time something was done there it is and he would show you all the pictures of all the schools that were being done that he came in on time no accidents and it was at no additional cost so you know these things happen you know and that you know we we have sides i unfortunately i don't know how else to put that but um i i just i just wanna move on but my colleague never wants to move on he always wants to bring it back bring it back and we had a study session on how the whole board was going to get together and how we were just going to move forward then we can the last argument or the argument for that that i got in with him on it you know it again is because he went to he went to the past and he judged up stuff you know and it just seems to me that this is never gonna finish is this it unless we can all come together and just say i don't want two or three people to apply and put a bid in i want five or six people to put in for a bit i want a bigger and a bigger one i think that i think that community community see that there are other you know other companies out there that can come in here and i don't know them and andres doesn't know them and the lady doesn't know them and they had ano doesn't know them and you know none of them know him they just came and applied but i don't think that's the case anymore because nobody ever wants to touch this district with a 10 foot pole after we've done what we have gone through in the last six years you know it's like nobody wants to really come only if one board member or superintendent or a cbo reaches out to them and say hey you know come on over i think you have a good chance we're not getting any fights but in either case i just i want to apologize for raising my voice and um i'm not going to comment on what you had said but i do want to leave you with this one comment for you the head honor is it you talk the longest than anybody else you talk the most and it's not it's not to direct the the agenda and move it forward it's to make your opinions is to make your comments your personal comments you know it's it's and i really think that you know you need to be more aware of that and you need to maybe just control yourself a little bit more because you you do um you do speak quite a bit thank you thank you um so i do see a couple things but i'm not even going to dignify that comment with any response on my end but i do want to just speak very specifically and bring us back to trustee point that you know it i don't see the value in going back and doing all this other stuff but in terms of this a solar agreement or moving forward on a solar program that would benefit you know in the 30 to 40 million dollars in these scenarios over the course of the agreement to to make that easier to understand you know if if i have to pay someone one dollar up front and in the next coming years they're gonna give me forty dollars back for my one dollar then that's something that i want to take very seriously and if i know that not only are they gonna give me forty dollars back but they're gonna start giving me parts of that forty dollars back immediately so every year they're gonna give me a dollar a dollar fifty cents whatever it is then my dollar that i put forth up front is well worth it to me because i could then use that 50 cents or a dollar every single time they give me that that that money to spend on other things that i want to do so that's um all that i saw so i did see um um and uh if there is any public comment um from mr baldwin that i think he wants to provide as a subject matter expert um also the floor as i mentioned is open to mr garcia but can we unmute mr baldwin for now um or i'm sorry mr gill and let's see if he wants to speak and again this is a public meeting so everyone has the opportunity to attend this and provide public comment mr baldwin i believe thank you can you hear me yeah can you hold on a second though we do have to do this under um a public comment so um can you get the two minutes up so for now we have um because we don't have presentations and at some point you know if we continue this process then um you know we might have the opportunity for anybody who is in such a matter expert to come and be a part of the discussion but for now you can have the two minutes um as a public comment to go ahead and say what you wanted to say so whenever you start talking the two minutes will begin thank you very much yeah um i'd like to just make a couple of clarifications um rohingya transaction comp and ng actually got proposals for all of those types of costs except for the attorney fees and uh we have included all of those costs in the savings number that were shown tonight so all of those costs are embedded in those savings numbers mr president one thing um the second is that as a general contractor ng ran a competitive process with local labor for the electrical and mechanical scopes and invited numerous uh local union shops to um bid on that work so that's also part of the proposal um the solar tax credits that go into providing um a portion of the the lower rates that you're getting will drop where they're at now 22 on january 1st first um regard uh meter mains the the electric panels the main panels um well we don't need to replace those to actually connect the solar because we connect uh in front of them and not to the panel itself we can replace at the district's request really old or dilapidated panels as part of the project um it would just be a a slight increase in capital costs which would um raise the ppa price just slightly um so i just wanted to make those few clarifications there truly are no costs other than the attorney fees and we could include those if we if you wanted us to as well thank you thank you mr baldwin um i don't know is um his title or his company or who he is if someone can he didn't he didn't say anything like that so can you please tell me who he is um well as part of public comment an individual does not need to identify themselves i'm just asking if anybody knows yes frosty marquez thank you mr baldwin is the first the representative for ng thank you thank you okay so um it looks like that is all the unless there's any further comment or questions from the board it seems like the discussion has kind of um gone it's course and so we do at this point it sounds like and correct me if i'm wrong anybody but um we we do have it looks like an and request or a desire on the one hand to just not do anything um and that's you know that has been heard some people are of the belief that we just don't do anything and just wait until some non-specific point in the future i have also heard that there are trustees who are interested in having more information brought to us including other individuals who can present as subject matter experts um and so so that's something that i think would need to be considered those those opinions that were voiced um and i'm trying to think what else to kind of capture everything trustee quintero did you have a comment that you wanted to make yeah i just wanted to agree with uh the second or the latter uh that um i'm not on the side of not doing anything because i think that we can realize savings um but i wanted to make sure that we go ahead and get more information as we move forward um you know if not necessarily full on rfp um but more information that could potentially lead us to a new rfp if we get some really really uh very different information um and then you know because i don't think that i don't think that we i i i i i i am concerned about the loss and savings that will result as of the because of the january 1st deadline but i do believe that there's a bunch of politics involved around this not not from you know there's an election and people are you know fact they're concerned they're raising concerns this probably wouldn't be a big issue had it not been the the election time i think that after the election happens we can go ahead and move forward as a board and a lot of the issues are going to probably drop off and people are going to be able to focus on the actual savings um so i'm good with leaving until after the election so that the board can go ahead and focus on it on just just on its merits and um and so in the meantime i would like more information whether that's in in writing to the board or in a in a workshop in some way or another i want i want to um make sure that we we get more more information on what options are out there and then you know once this this whole issue uh passes on november 3rd uh we as a working you know regroup and then make an informed decision whether it's to to move on with the options that we have or move with the full-on rfp because there's other opportunities so those were my the points that i wanted to make okay can you just clarify a little bit what you say you want them to bring back more information but um are you saying that we want to hear back from specific um companies or entities that that are experts on the knowledge of this or are interested in other groups that can provide us options such as other groups that do ppas and so if i can get that information we can review it um and then make you know make a decision as to whether or not we we move forward with the rfp that we have in place or we go with a full-on other rfp again i don't think anything precludes us from doing another rfp if we find out that there are opportunities out there that we should we should look into so you basically mean that maybe in a regular board meeting staff would present to us that they went out they sought more opportunities that might exist and those and here are those opportunities and in a public meeting regular board meeting then we would decide whether we wanted to look more into those opportunities that were brought at that time or given the information at that time to just decide to maybe take an action on what we have currently to limit uh you know that report i don't think that we should go back and read relive this this study session again um but uh you know short and sweet to the point uh obviously while beforehand give us a thorough presentation to us and the public so that we can go ahead and come in and have a good dialogue but i have to take several hours to to make a decision okay um and does staff understand that is that clear because and oh the other thing i just wanted to add on to that that i think i heard you say is this would occur um in the i guess the november meeting at the earliest because the election would have happened by that time um what about the earliest that would happen november i think the election is the is it the third yeah so our meeting would be after that and so that would also give us time to regroup and make sure that we are able to take advantage of the savings that are going to disappear by january 1st if in fact the board wants to pursue that route if we want to let savings go then you know we as a board will be able to make an informed decision thank you thank you um i agree and i think that's a reasonable step forward unless there's any other comments from my colleagues okay 20 21.

uh thank you okay okay looks like everybody's here so it is 6 p.m so i'm going to go ahead and call the special meeting board meeting of 9 29 2020 open to order and at this point we'll do flag salute i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all and at this point we'll do roll call uh board member rodriguez pena president board member greer here board member cruz gonzalez here lord member ariana's present okay and at this point um you need the approval of the agenda do i have a motion question to approve the agenda second okay motion by gabriella i mean ariana's board member and seconded by board member greer and well you should vote on that screen join me okay jerry i think this is the only item we're voting on right right exactly let's just do a hand vote i agree all right everybody uh board member rodriguez pena board member grier yeah there's gonzales board member ariana's all right there we go all right so now um we go to item 4.0 items from the floor public comment on agenda or non-agenda items 4.1 this is the opportunity for the public to address the board on not on agenda or non-agenda items no action can be taken on non-agenda items individual speakers may be allowed up to three minutes to address the board on any agenda or non-agenda item prior to addressing the board please fill out the request to speak public well raise your hand because actually go around zoom and zoom we raise our hand and we'll call on you so do we have anybody in the public who would like to speak i see none so at this point we'll move on to item 5.0 5.1 rfq rfp for legal services okay thank you board president at this time we would like to have the firms present to correct their display name to identify their firm's name [Music] and i think we are having one firm having a challenge getting in at this time but i will start with the introduction if that's okay oh thank you so good evening board and members of cabinet and the community the district issued an rfp rfq for legal counsel back in august the results yielded 11 submissions the subcommittee reviewed all 11 firms and ranked them according to the agreed upon rubric the the subcommittee based on the scores invited four firms to participate participate in tonight's board meeting the subcommittee drafted four questions in which each firm will have the opportunity to provide a response each firm would have five minutes per question with the exception of the first as we would like to allow time for an introduction as previously shared members of the board or cabinet shall not engage in discussion nor ask any questions to the firms all follow-up questions should be submitted to myself by friday october 2nd and at a future closed session meeting will have an opportunity to review the responses and engage in discussion each firm will be asked the same question and they were selected in alpha order lika can i confirm that we have all four firms present uh they have not changed their names so maybe at this point if you are here from one of the legal firms if you can click the raise your hand icon i will give you speaking permission okay now it's now we're working hi this is douglas yeoman from parker and covert thank you douglas cynthia yant from parker and covert thank you cynthia and at this time we don't have to do a roll call we just want to confirm that we have all four firms yeah so far i have everybody who has raised their hand is now given permission to speak do one last call if you're here from a legal firm please raise your hand so i can give you permission to speak [Music] darren command from lozano smith along with my colleagues so we have a representative from f3 this is jessica ehrlich from fagin friedman and full frost along with colleagues okay and do we have a representative from aalr [Music] hello this is sharon ormond i'm not sure if my colleagues are also on the line but i am here from atkinson anderson all right thank you so i will display the questions um i will read it can you hang on for just a second i see a uh stephen uh montenegro um i am clicking the allow to talk button but it's advising me that the version of zoom he is using does not allow this um so i don't know if there's a different device he can sign in on or if there's somebody else from the firm who can speak on his behalf maybe i'll invite steve to come down to my office okay okay just one second and just to clarify for um context we are expecting to have one speaker at a time um so that way we don't have feedback or cut off but you guys are allowed to determine who would you like to speak at that time when is your firm's opportunity and we ask that if you are not speaking that you please keep your mic muted [Music] i will allow for 10 more seconds [Music] that's what i all am if you all could please mute to hear the instructions thank you so i will display the questions each firm will have the opportunity to answer each question i will call your firm's name when it's your turn to respond after i call your name your time will start when your five minutes is up you will be muted and we will go on to the next firm [Music] hey this is douglas from parker and covert should we be doing our introduction at this point no you should not okay i'm sorry okay [Music] okay is my screen visible yes thank you okay so we will ask each firm to provide an introduction we're asking you to identify your firm's name current school districts that you are currently working with and please identify the capacity and area identify notable cases that are related to k-12 education and the first question as schools come back to in-person instruction what issues do you foresee coming up in the area of a special education and how would you support the district and navigating them first firm aalr your time starts now all right good afternoon this is joshua morris and um we were expecting steve anderson to be on the call is he i'm wondering he may be having some trouble getting getting in he is on the um i can see him and talking is permitted however he has not unmuted his microphone ah okay [Music] can you hear me yes we can your time has begun okay uh karen gilliard is she with us this evening yes i am on the line this is karen gilliard um as you know the name of our firm is atkinson anderson loya rude and romo uh we represent several school districts in the san gabriel valley i presently represent amongst those districts bonita san marino and duarte um in the area of special education i have also represented azusa unified school district for several years in the area of special education student discipline office of civil rights complaints compliance complaints and [Music] office of administrative hearing special education division due process matters with respect to notable cases related to k-12 we have been able to obtain good results in cases regarding attorney's fees and with respect to stay put and with respect to um preventing a student from avoiding the receipt of his or her regular education regular education diploma which has maybe some of you know can result in the exit of that student from special education with respect to the question that schools come back to in-person instruction what issues do we foresee coming up in the area of special education and how would we support the district and navigating them our office and me in particular have been supporting your district since the school closure in mid-march with respect to issues related to assessment timelines iep timelines uh provision of special education services to your students via distance distance learning plans we have also been providing uh what we call our webinars fed ed talk uh that started in in april and in our last one was this past friday september 25th we have also been assisting the district and drafting drafting what's called higher written notices to address the different guidance that have been provided by the governor the office of special education programs which is a federal agency in the off in the office of civil rights we have been um providing those prior written notices in different phases um starting with what services to offer to students at when this closure started and we um adjusted them based on the length of the closures that were anticipated and as you know those those links changed over time to starting with we felt that we were going to be closed through the end of march and that expanded to may and then it expanded again to including extended school year and then unfortunately a lot of our school districts and careers have not been able to reopen with the start of the fall of this school year we have also provided um prior written notice sample private notice responses to your district with respect to what to offer uh in language to use an iep regarding emergency conditions learning plans um web services will be provided to that individual student based on senate bill 98 we've also provided language to your district regarding assessments of special education students both virtually and in person and the same with respect to services providing them virtually and in person as many of you may know some non-public agencies are now sending out emails to school districts including your school district stating they're stating that they are starting to offer in-person in-home services for special education students during the school closure based on state and county public health offices guidance that's starting to allow exceptions for one-on-one services in-home for special education students the primary areas of those services have been behavioral intervention the use of behavioral aids and medical intervention related to education with respect to nurses if you have a student has an iep that requires nursing services when they were in school in the brick and mortar school now parents are requesting that service to be provided in the home and depending on the school district those services had been provided um the response to those requests had been provided through prior written notices notice responses some of them had gone through special education due process hearings and and and resolve through those hearings um with respect to the the email that these um non-public agencies are sending out to districts my advice has been specific to your district and in my conversations with your district that's been to uh wait for a specific request from a parent for in-person in-home services be it behavioral intervention or nursing services analyze each request on an individualized basis consider the information from the students teachers and service providers including service laws as to how the student performed during distance learning going back to the spring and also starting in this fall um i've drafted sample as i said probably written notices responses to parents in a letter to the mpas and also sample waivers and or consents and acknowledgement the risks that your district can use in responding to those requests and with respect to those requests we're going to be seeing more and more than from parents for in-home in-person services based on recent oeh decisions um in addition we would support your district with respect to um presentations workshops and um the other area and would be with respect to the cohorts that are starting up in some of our districts providing um sample language to send out to the public to send out to parents regarding the cohorts of what they will consist of the composition of those cohorts thank you and lika i'm confirming your tracking time correct they have two minutes and 10 seconds left okay and the the other thing is that we've provided um a chart for use in your by your district and documenting decisions that have been made by your district concerning the content of distance learning plans holding iep tvs conducting assessments based on your district's ability um during this district school closer due to code at 19.

can i just say that you know it's kind of hard for me to ask questions because you know the reception was really bad and they were cut off a lot for a period of time i even got cut off maybe that's when gabby got kind of like got then i have to come back again i don't know what happened just but just just saying it it'd be hard for me to ask questions because some of the i didn't hear some of their conversation because the reception was was i don't know who just and my side but a lot of it was cut off in and just it's it's going to be hard for me to to um get any clarification this i just want to put that arthur generally how long does it take to get the the youtube video is it live right away or did it take you a little while to put it up to review once it's completed it it takes about 15 minutes to load onto youtube so it will be up tonight so i think i think um for most of us we heard most of it there was like one lady that was sounded very sounded poor but the rest of them i could hear very clearly so i mean there is the video if you want to re-watch it so we'll send we'll send that uh uh board email uh today before we leave here um requesting that all questions come in uh by tomorrow wednesday 30th by 4 30 p.m gabriella's back on again if we want to so i don't know what we talked about oh okay yeah i just finished texting her yeah i my understanding was that we were just only going to listen and then we were going to not speak about it until further notice so yeah no what we're doing is just uh when we want our questions in by that's got it justice summer in the timeline joseph memorized um we're going to send an email to all to the board of education tonight uh requesting that any questions that you might have be submitted by tomorrow september 30th by 4 30 p.m we will forward those questions to all four firms and request that those get uh submitted back to us um probably by end of day friday um then we will share with those we will share those with you all and then we'll have a closed session item on tuesday october 6 uh to further discuss uh the firms and the next steps okay thank you or through thank you channeling for uh you know for expressing that for them to share that with me um so we'll be receiving the email tonight and then by friday we'll go ahead and submit the questions by four o'clock no later right no by tomorrow submit the questions tomorrow at 4 30.

so the judge has a lot of latitude but on october 22nd he wants to hear from everyone on what their view is but right now your charter is to accept this or reject it i see so however it would be possible for us to suggest modifications no or or who who would uh i guess it goes back to the attorneys that would be doing they would restart these negotiations that have been going again um brian nagle who's the attorney general assistant attorney general on this had said that if this is rejected that likely they will go to court and try to through the court process through the in front of the judge not have a settlement which this is but force gilman to do specific things so right now we're being asked to say do we agree with this take it or leave it offered by gelman i see so um i see okay um is anybody uh pack you would like to speak all right yeah so why don't we i would i that makes total sense to me i'm not a lawyer um but it makes total sense to me that and all we're doing right is recommending to counsel so what we ought to do is you know this is not a motion this is a discussion but we should uh recommend rejecting this settlement then say why that's a whole bunch of warehouses i suppose uh then we should uh say something about what we prefer which is much stricter um or well much more what would be called [Music] a comprehensive cleanup of this plume to prevent it from entering spreading throughout the region under ann arbor and adjacent properties or townships whatever the right word is to prevent it from entering into the river to prevent it from entering in to whatever uh and that the um and to protect the three sister lakes or whatever they are the sister lakes you know so we should we should actually list a few criteria that we think are really critical but from my point of view reading all this stuff it looks to me as though this is a super fun disaster gellman is trying to uh get away with murder probably literally and um we don't we can't let this happen ann are you know ann arbor and the people of ann arbor and adjoining townships whatever it's just the wrong thing to do and so we got to say that loud and clear to council and then hopefully they too will agree to reject this settlement and return to court and if it returns to court of course it costs ann arbor money and uh but you know maybe we'll get an outcome that is good for our citizens this is not a good outcome for our citizens and what you just picked off there could be part of the whereases it would be whereas this does this whereas this does that where it doesn't do this okay yeah we got to do it in an expedited way i don't know when council needs this spy but we better make sure they have something and it's so perfect as the enemy of the good here got to make sure tomorrow well we gotta get them something and tomorrow yes i believe excuse me and anne's you know arms or something no i'm just kidding council votes on the 19th on this issue all right so that's our last opportunity is on the 19th of october which is before our next regular meeting so um so let's see anybody else want to make a comment here i think rita has her hand up go ahead first i want to thank you steve for writing a draft resolution that rejects this consent judgment thank you for taking the lead on that and for working very hard to push forward with this meeting which was difficult under the timing that we had but i totally agree with rejecting it i believe that this does not do uh good for the citizens of the area and that we should make that clear so i'll just make it that short right now um there i think there are plenty of reasons we've heard good reasons and we should in my opinion we should proceed with stating a rejection okay um i've since modified it um so why don't i share my screen now and what i'm going to do is just share my screen and hopefully you all can comment on it and we can just potentially draft this online together is this possible suggest that perhaps we might want to hear from one or two other council commissioners if if they want to speak before we look at that that's my suggestion yeah uh chris um i've been on the commission since the mid-2000s and this has been an issue uh boiling ever since and i've watched it all the way back from the beginnings man naught's letter was extraordinarily accurate about the issues involved in this particular change and how things might happen he lives on first sister lake he gets up every morning and looks at that water body he was very instrumental in getting the sewage storm sewer system retention system designed just beside for sister lake to try to improve water quality and he did what you've been doing steve for many years trying to get involved in the negotiations and how things were going most of that time he was stonewalled and left out because of unwillingness of the courts to make ann arbor a party to the discussions i have listened to the guy who's led the i think he leads card it's called forgive me for not remembering his name but he's been a trooper all the way along and watched the graphics that he's presented over the years of the movement and direction of the plume and have been highly disappointed that the effect of treatment and groundwater withdrawals has really not slowed it one iota if i watch the pattern of groundwater i think sort of a miracle this plume is going to reach the river somewhere near where alan's creek comes in and it's i think we need to thank our lucky stars it's not going north into barton pond if this consent judgment was a site plan issue that was presented to the planning commission and to the council it would be roundly rejected we don't permit contamination of our high quality wetlands we don't permit overwhelming hydrological changes to our wetlands we would just say no and i think for that reason alone we should say no to the consent judgment the right thing to do in my view is to treat the water better to current standards and pipe it below barton pond wherever they want to do that there are no people below ann arbor who are drinking here in river water we are drinking barton pond water 85 of our water comes out of that pond so if you say no we don't want to do that and if you say no we don't want to contaminate and overwhelm first sister lake then a pipe of some sort down below argo dam makes the most sense i i'm i understand this is expensive i sympathize when this pollution happened it wasn't known first of all that this chemical would be so water-soluble and so portable in groundwater it wasn't known or perhaps it was by some technician but not maybe by the bosses that it would cause such a problem and the expense of fixing a water groundwater contamination issue of this sort really fixing it is extraordinary we can just improve it and most of all protect our drinking water and our wetlands and native lakes anybody else wish to make a comment um so i'm going to say something further i have a few questions and i'm wondering um so i would like to put up uh [Music] my document and share my screen so that we could edit it online um starting very soon but i had a few questions um that struck in my mind i'm reviewing all this information and i agree with you chris that it's this has just been a shocking lack of technical expertise being consulted at the proper times there's been a shocking lack of transparency and i think we're all seeing what the results of this of these deficiencies are so i'm hoping that we can correct that at some time in the future at least within the city and um and if not the state and the federal government so my first question was well who collects the data is it the polluter or is there some independent third party that actually collects the data about um you know what the concentration of dioxin is in these uh in the in the monitoring wells and service waters uh steve this is dan can you hear me yeah hi dan yeah it's it's this geldin who does that for the most part they collect uh samples from the monitoring wells and have that analyzed at their lab report that to the state and from time to time the state will share samples with them and the state will analyze it and have gellman analyze it but for the most part gelman is collecting all the data and providing it to the state whether it be surface waters generally or monitoring wells there was a program that the state and the water resources commissioner did on allen creek that was done by them but otherwise generally it's gellman's data i find that troubling yeah i believe the city has done some of its own testing on a few spots that gilman has not been um subject to be responsible for like i think there has been some data that is has been collected by the city that they've run in their own labs too um like for the sister lakes and things like that that wasn't part of gelman's responsibilities my understanding but that the city has done some of their own testing on that as my understanding i think that's true it's it's it's gullman but i think there has been some supportive testing from the city just because they want to be able to um test more spots than what government is officially responsible for well that would be prudent um um it's it's a that's a situation that's right for manipulation of all kinds so um i mean where i come from professionally you do not allow that you have an independent third-party lab you use blinded samples they test them they give you the results and uh you can request a repeat and pay for it but for gelman to be responsible for all the uh data the sampling the the data generation and the dissemination is i think is i think a recipe for a potential disaster so it hasn't helped that since uh john engler's term in office the governor and republican legislators have done everything they can to tell the department of our environmental quality not to regulate through this entire time period we've seen a drastic cut in the budget of deq a drastic cutting the number of employees a drastic pressure on them relentless pressure on them to back off and the idea of that the polluter can monitor his own work is part and parcel of that it's been relentless since the 1990 mid-1990s well i'm not sure what authority the uh the city has to to request to insist on that or to make that happen steve yeah i'd like to suggest that that be one of the results that we add it may not happen but we could at least make a resolution or add to our results that an independent testing be arranged i think that rita brings up a good point steve is that you know if you if this body can craft a resolution that has some specifics in there that's probably more useful for council and in particular our attorneys to uh try and and move this fall forward um than just a general outright rejection i mean i think you know to to cite what these things are uh and do that and maybe that requires another meeting on the 18th you know for for this body to spend a little time kind of crafting the specifics that that are objectionable and coming back with a more detailed uh you know grounds of rejection yeah chip um that's my instinct as well i was thinking that let's get as far as we can today and then hopefully we can work in the background just to do you know and uh and tweak it a little bit and then we'll have a second meeting to approve it if we run out of time because i would like to end this meeting at nine o'clock uh back so this all sounds good i'm just uh we will only have limited amount of expertise that's necessary to suggest how to move it forward beyond rejecting it and saying things like there shouldn't be further contamination of our wetlands and and lakes and rivers or the spread of this plume underneath ann arbor and we can say things like that the question of how to do that would require very technical assistance and you'd also of course need to bring in a lawyer or team to be able to figure that out so we need to do is probably focus our recommendation on the city doing just that you know rather than trying to let the polluter decide how to deal with this we need to somehow have a team of experts that represent the uh people of ann arbor and adjoining region that has the expertise both technically pollution-wise hydrologic wise but also legally to put together um a case that this judge will be able to consider as an alternative to the settlement you know in other words and ever has to fight the efforts by gelman to get away with this um and you know it's a pretty typical situation i assume a polluter wants to save money and absolve themselves a responsibility and people are going to be hurt natural systems are going to be hurt property values are going to be hurt you name it you know this is not good and gelman's just trying to get away with it and so ann arbor has to like step up and so that's in essence what we have to say you know it's pretty darn obvious that that's the case um and we can't get into the specifics of what ann arbor needs but we can do it maybe in some general ways i don't i but it's you know we got to be a little careful that we again we don't try and do something that would be impossible to do well no i agree i think i think we need to avoid asking for means where we need to we need to focus on goals that the community would desire we need to focus on goals and in respect to the last five minutes discussion right one of the resolve clauses i have put in there is that the city should expand should they panel a professional group to peer review the data that they get at least you know and then also provide uh um um some kind of uh some kind of legal advice about pathways um for contesting um some of the uh arguments that uh gelman's gonna put up and some of the and identify some of the constraints in both state and federal law that prevent us from getting this cleaned up to an adequate level so but first bob and then chris thank you sorry but this all gets one of the things that i'm really struggling with and that is uh presumably someone has been negotiating on the city's behalf here right i mean who is that and what have they done and and is there some reason to think that that you know that they're recommending that we go forward with this and i just you know there's so many questions yeah this is dan i can help with that that was a fred dendorf who was your lawyer outside a lawyer and larry limpke's been your outside consultant through this and and really the way that it has been framed is not it's not it's not really uh clear and what i'm trying to say is that you all have tried as interveners to get a very substantive cleanup but gelman has rejected many many many of the things i assume that fred and larry have asked for but because all these negotiations have been confidential we don't know what they've asked for the only things we know is gellman says this is the bottom line take it or leave it so we are looking at what maybe fred has already asked or what larry has already asked we don't know because of the confidentiality agreement we we we are unclear yeah yeah dan's bob dan's exactly right this confidentiality agreement has really made it difficult for the public to to get information to see where things started to see where they they've been going um and you know i'm not one of these people who's gonna criticize the attorneys you know our team is working as hard as they can to get the best possible solution but you know let's let's not sugarcoat it gilman's not our friend they're not our partner they're not wanting to do anything uh and when that's your adversary sometimes you just end up in court and sometimes the law is with us and sometimes it's not you know maybe at the end of the day it's just better to go to court now like i i don't know i i mean it's going to be long it's going to be expensive it's an unknown outcome but maybe that's that's just where we are and you know i think we've been doing this this dance you know it was such a heavy lift to become an intervener in the first place back in 2016.

okay that's why i'm saying that the third uh amended consent judgment is very good it doesn't allow that sort of shenanigan and it was it would produce much more work if if they just change the drinking water criteria to 7.2 and the gsi to 280 to 280 yeah the groundwater surface water is 280 parts per billion now in the past it was 2 800 parts per billion right oh i just thought you said uh 208 but he meant 280 280 i'm sorry yes that's what i was trying to say okay it might have been me so um all right so let's um galen can you let me share my screen yes alrighty but to ann's point the 500 parts per billion has no scientific basis so what so how would uh how would these numbers be changed in well it's a simple thing you know you need to halt the plume and restore the aquifer to drink your water criteria um do we have the authority to demand that are we restricted by state and federal law you can ask for it i'm sure your attorneys may have asked for it but yellman is not yielding that's the most concerning thing here is that the prohibition zone can continue in the eastern area to expand and as it does that um it takes the private owners water rights away and just lets the plume go and does it again does it again and does it again and that's what happened as you all may remember in the evergreen area originally the prohibition zone in 2005 or six didn't include the evergreen area then as it as the plume expanded they expanded the prohibition zone in to take on those houses and now they've expanded it again so their strategy is to just keep expanding the prohibition zone taking away private property owners water well rights uh in implementing institutional controls and land use restrictions and do it all the way to the river and that's what this document allows them to do okay so um i'm not a very good typist here so uh you all can talk among yourselves while i'm doing this um let's see rita do you want to moderate or should i find a secretary to do this i think any comments anyone i guess i would ask them how would like if you were to help us craft this knowing that what um council member smith is asking for and what we've been discussing to date and given the sort of restrictions that you know about what do you feel like would be the most effective way to edit this document i can pass on some suggestions the ann arbor charter scholarship passed this resolution that said that they would not support the consent judgment and i can give you some of the whereases from them and i can give you some whereases you know that over the areas that we've been talking about as well like you guys are the decision maker i'm just here to kind of provide some regulatory technical thoughts right but you you know you're what we have right now and i don't know that we're going to convene a panel in time you know for us to be able to um you know i i i would love to have peck's idea of getting a panel together to be able to do this but i don't know that we're going to be able to um pull that off um well what i can do is i can give you all a draft of a set of whereases that i think would address the majority of the deficiencies in the fourth amendment and probably what you guys would ideally like to have and then you can uh you know back and forth yeah tibbetts on that that that sounds good to me to um kind of edit this to the extent that we are able to tonight steve and then if dan can share his technical expertise about what he feels like could be helpful for us to be able to pass this along um that we have another opportunity to be able to adjust it based on some of his wisdom around this yeah no that sounds um that's a great suggestion shane so i just have a process question about that do we have to convene another meeting like this in order to agree as a group you know to vote on it or could we take an e-vote over a time period my impression is that we need to um have a brief discussion and a vote publicly yeah the deliberations need to be public okay thank you but we can but i can draft this document and we can all have some input into it first i think i'd also like to just say that it seems to me that we don't i i totally like the idea of giving specifics to council but i don't think that we have to solve all of the problems necessarily we're in a tight time frame and i think if we give the guidance um that we've got to start on here that council will get the point and can take it further and find additional um consultation i hope rita is exactly right just say what what what the deal breakers are in this yep i agree i agree okay well i uh we've already talked about most of them uh-huh bob has uh commented yeah just a a couple tweaks i i might suggest if i could um what you've got now is the last resolved clause i i think makes sense to be the first resolved clause [Music] and i think it should probably be phrased that result that the ann arbor environmental commission recommend that ann arbor city council recommends yeah the environmental commission recommends that city council reject and then just one more thought um up toward the top um if you could scroll up to the very top of the document so i think we need to introduce the idea of the fourth consent judgment i would suggest a set i think the first whereas clause is fine but i would suggest a second whereas clause saying something like you know whereas the court has released for public consideration a fourth amended consent judgment and then all those things that come after it are part of that i'm sorry what was that bob i mean i'm just kind of spitballing but whereas the court has released for public consideration of fourth amended consent judgment oh yeah i'll tweet these a little bit i still don't know what legally this is called this consent judgment is called the document concern judgment to what the proposed fourth amendment consent judgment to the government and state that but they don't call it the gilman plume it's it's on the document i'm just going to get it from there yeah later okay so let's just go down here from we got the first two what about the third warehouse i don't personally i think all the warehouses are in pretty good shape actually one that i was wondering about was whether to split um where is it this there was an and one let's see the last one and have a separate whereas to emphasize the outreach to the epa you know so instead of having the epa mentioned in the same oh sorry i was looking at the old one i don't see it i mean what would the city do appeal to the epa consider yeah well the thing is that the the issue as you wrote it though the first time was um you said whereas the city of ann arbor would be required to submit an order of dismissal terminating their rights to participate in the consent judgment and agree not to support requests to the epa for super fund designation i would just put and and then that as a next whereas um i'm sorry where are we it's not a big deal um well it's not in because i hadn't seen this new different version that you've got and so it was your original version that that um [Music] a a phrase about the epa um yeah i just want to make sure that i think the city should um reserve its rights i agree i totally agree and that's why i wanted to emphasize it yeah okay so i'll figure out some better language and then we can work on the draft over the next couple weeks okay so um i think we're getting close to where let's see if galen are there any um so i'll i'll finish this off tonight and send it to everybody and give everybody on the commission uh permission to edit okay or to uh and then we'll see where we go okay we've got a question about process i thought we were going to try to vote on this tonight so that it could be shared with council tomorrow or that's not a priority um that was my original intent john but uh we're getting it's 8 51 now i'd like to finish by nine and we do have a public comment left got it i'm not sure we can finish this off so we might need a short meeting like a half hour meeting later on to do a final discussion public comment and then tweak it and then vote on it is that a grant indicated that this is not going to be voted on by council this week no the the wednesday night meeting is a public hearing for council to hear public comment there'll be no action on the agenda okay so i would propose uh does anybody want to propose a motion that we um that we tweak on this document um and then schedule another meeting um before um clearly before october 19th when council will vote on it and that we will vote on it at that point we'll have a meeting to discuss tweak it and vote on it that includes public comment i mean we didn't even introduce this formally so i'm not sure that's even necessary we can as long as that seems to be the consensus yeah okay yeah we can we can probably leave it at that okay that's my understanding of the bylaws i wanted to make sure that uh um you maybe have that formal option okay well um why don't we um why don't we and do i have a motion to end discussion and uh to postpone um uh discu further discussion and presentation of this resolution and voting on it until uh a date to be determined before october um let's make it uh i'll bet the 19th is a monday so let's make it um before the thursday beforehand so that would be yeah that would be october 15th okay okay we'll i'll schedule a meeting before october 15th just like this one it'd probably be shorter and they will finish uh we'll finish this at that time can you get a copy to us so we can suggest edits to you yeah i'm gonna share with everybody on the commission i'm going to try that gut done tonight okay yep right okay this seems like the most expeditious method that doesn't uh um you know that doesn't uh that still involves our full purchase participation of us and the public okay all right so um galen why don't we um why don't we pass to uh the second public comment period okay so uh this is the second uh opportunity for public content um this is an opportunity to speak up for three minutes please call 1-888-788-0099 and enter meeting id 925-5309 this information is also displayed on the meeting agenda and video feed city staff will select callers that have raised their hand one by one using the last three digits of your phone number in order in order to electronically raise your hand to indicate your desire to speak please press star 9 on your phone you will hear an automated announcement that the host is allowing you to speak when speaking please move to a quiet area and mute any television or background sound so that we may hear you clearly please state your name and address at the beginning of your comments and please be patient there is a delay of up to 30 seconds before a connection is established okay um we have a question from uh council member jack eaton uh go ahead and uh speak council member thank you can you hear me yes yes we can hear you okay so i'm not here to advocate any position but i really do encourage the environmental commission to take a a strong position for or against the consent judgment if you have any questions on how to draft a good con a good resolution i would recommend that you read the ann arbor township resolution um the sierra club uh here on valley chapter also uh sent us a letter um in opposition to accepting the consent judgment so i i would even recommend um looking at that for for reasons a consent judgment is an agreement between the parties it's it's a means of avoiding the trial and so it's not real likely that the judge will dive into the consent judgment and tinker with it um he may urge the parties to alter their positions and and send them back to to negotiate or he may try to impose a couple of small items like the numbers but he's not likely to to engage in a lot of modification of the agreement so in your resolution advising council you should identify the reasons for your position you know so for example if you advise us to reject this you might note that the polluter is not using the best treatment method they're using a substandard treatment method that actually will reduce the dioxin but not eliminate it the consent judgment only requires them to reduce the incidence of of dioxin to 500 parts per billion it allows for the further expansion of the uh prohibition zone um it will cause dumping tainted water into the lake as you've noted repeatedly and further there's no metrics for measuring the success of phyto remediation those are just some of the reasons that you could mention as a reason to reject the consent judgment i don't think that you should engage in suggesting what we should seek in a consent judgment um as councilmember smith noted we've given our lawyers lots of great suggestions this is the product of negotiation when you have hard bargainers on both sides of a negotiation nobody gets everything they want and so you really trying to decide whether this is good enough to accept or whether we should reject it and face that unknown that rejection really represents and you know going forward um if if the city rejects this we may be subject to more hard negotiations we may in fact have to go to trial on this matter or we could ask for a super fund designation but the question before us right now is whether to accept or reject this and so if you recommend one or the other you should give us reasons why you're recommending that not ask us to go and seek something better honestly we saw it better um and so you just need to know um the restrictions on what what's possible as to the next step thanks so much for everything you guys do i really appreciate it and i i hope that you'll give us a strongly worded recommendation thank you okay thanks jack um um who's the next caller do we have another caller on the line uh no we don't no one's hand is up okay i'll wait a few seconds then to close public commentary okay do i have a motion for a german how do i have a second john callaway seconded by rita um all who agree raise your hands all who disagree raise your hands well who wrote no okay the motion passed unanimously unanimously i declare this meeting adjourned thank you steve you

we have to have that's for group a the other group b just flips it we have to have that large chunk of time in between because we have to have time to do cleaning of all those rooms in between sessions so we have we have all that worked out but uh um i got some notes on the side there that uh you know they're basically uh again i don't want to read through all of those but um we've got the the reason we have those that split there so we have time to clean not only the classrooms but the buses as well and then you'll on the next slide you'll see a sample middle school schedule uh starts a little earlier than primary elementary because we have to have a stagger uh 7 30 to 10 and then 12 10 to 2 40 two sessions and either group a or group b um we'll split them you know our plan right now is to split by uh alphabet by last name but we will be making some adjustments to balance class sizes if needed so so the next slide is an explanation of why why the amp and model and so what the you know reasons a list of some bullets here that are reasons why we decided to make this switch this model removes the risk associated with properly executing lunch and recessed protocols so we had to get the social distancing during that those times is really difficult we found with our safe school learning space that we have it works really well until we get the kids outside in an unstructured time and then they're it's just hard to manage that um and then lunch time we can only have 50 students in a room so that just be just obstacles that we can eliminate by doing the am pm model uh fewer transitions during the day for students this only makes now they only have to wear masks for half the day then they can go home so it's not a full day with masks on class sizes are reduced facilitate we figure it's there's some benefit to the social emotional and the consistent educational impact of just seeing their teachers and peers regularly four days a week even though it's only two and a half hours it's still a step in the right direction we'll emphasize ela and math instruction in the k-4 during that two and a half hours that's what they will get is ela and math instruction um there'll be a more in-person time for students with ieps or those who qualify for el 504 services there are and i'll get to some negatives of the amp and model in a little bit because it's not all positive there are some drawbacks i'm going to skip through these slides fairly quick but these will be provided for parents you can go next slide matt these are just sample student schedules and what that will look like for the students so that's a middle primary elementary and then the next one is a middle school schedule and then we'll go to the next slide these next few slides will provide and again i'm going to be sending this over to parents uh this uh tonight actually i'm gonna try to when we're done here if everything if we approve this plan i'm gonna send a message out to parents uh both uh digitally and and uh a video as well um i'm gonna i'm gonna skip through these slides a little quicker but i want you to ask questions if you have any at the end there's some information on this slide about our special education and how it's impacted the next slide is regarding pre-k and how it's impacted all the information's here for those two you know the i will tell you with the with the special education we see benefits in getting our kids on campus and getting more in-person instruction for them but it's been a challenge to for for dr pittman and her staff to keep changing from one format to another is a challenge because we've got to get all the plans correct so it's not and then pre-k i'll get go into a little further detail but they'll re-run an am pm session as well our el our students are yell learners um we have a slide in here uh depicting what we'll be doing with or how they'll be receiving service but again we feel like more in-person time is going to benefit our rel students as well on on the fridays we anticipate bringing more students in for special services if needed so those are days that most of our students will be learning remotely but we will have students on campus who need extra services the safe school learning space has been there's been questions about good questions like we started this we're not going to stop it we have parents that are counting on this for and we're going to still continue that so those students would would attend the safe school learning space for half the day and then would be in their classrooms the other half of the day so so we'll continue with that program so the next grouping of slides is the health and safety factors and so i'm going to run through these many of these are not a surprise but face coverings must be worn at all times there's a few exceptions listed there we have purchased k and 95 masks for all staff who've requested so we asked all staff if you if you want them and we've purchased enough for uh those those masks are good for uh two days is what is what we're thinking and so we purchased enough for staff to use one for every two days some of the hospitals i've talked to are giving their staff one per week and they haven't put in a bag paper bag to let it breathe when they're not using it but we're doing two per every four days so um and then our nurses and cleaning staff are getting in fitted in 95 masks the cleaning and disinfecting so with the a pm model we had to create a plan to get all those rooms wiped down in between sessions so we do have that in place uh mrs arndt is running that process and uh so we do have that in place buses also have to be cleaned between routes we have that in place to be honest with you back in june when we were considering this plan i kind of nixed it in my mind right away because of the transportation issues we think we've worked around that a little bit but the transportation cleaning is makes us hard but we think for educationally it's going to be more doable we have all of our buses all the buildings will be fogged each night with a safe chemical that has been approved we'll do the same in the buses and then we have our regular custodial staff on site we have over a hundred hand sanitizing stations throughout the buildings as you walk around you'll see them all over the place right now so those are those are also new the air filtration system is uh you know i talked with our hvac contractor we have we're setting the automation system while the weather permits it's 100 ventilation rate and then as the weather changes that will it will go lower than that but it'll be a lot higher than what we've ever done so it means our system's going to have to work a little harder but it's it's what's recommended right now the and we've also gone through uh next week we will have all the the filters upgraded to what the cdc is recommending for this environment so all the and the each classroom that we have has its own so air is not the way i understand this the air is not transferring from one to the other it's it's all being we have uh univents in each classroom so that air exchange is happening in each classroom so uh they're pulling fresh air into every classroom so there's filters in every classroom as well we have purchased some rapid response antigen tests to saliva sample results in less than 30 minutes we haven't purchased a lot of these i've got i think a hundred that we've purchased and uh just to try to have them on site for our if we have a staff member that comes down with symptoms during the day we'll give them that test right away to kind of get an idea um it will prob likely be uh followed up with another test if if needed but um but we do we have that we're trying that and to see how that's going i know some some districts i've talked to are also doing the same the self-certification and temperature checks this was a this was kind of a obstacle at the beginning of the year that i didn't really know how we were going to do and and so this one did not go away had to figure something out kind of gone to a uh i think it's going to be for us to manage it it's going to be a simpler process but really i'm gonna we have to emphasize to parents and i'm gonna do that in my call tonight we really have to emphasize pretty hard we cannot have people sending their kids to school with symptoms because that's what's gonna shut us down so we have we have created this is going to sound kind of corny i guess but we've created we've we've had printed notepads that have all the symptoms listed and we're giving every parent a stack of notepads for their child each child and when their child comes to school they will rip one off and they and that's your child's ticket to get to school and it's saying by coming to school today by sending your child's school day you are saying they do not have any of these symptoms so that's they're basically their bus ticket that's their ticket to walk in the front door if they don't have it we will take them to the nurse for a screening but the bus they have to have it to get on because we don't have we can't have our drivers trying to worry about driving and that so they're going to have to that's going to be and so we're asking our k-4 students we'll have to have a parent at the bus stop because if the kindergarten student does not have their ticket to get on the bus we need them to go home with an adult so that's going to be something that is it's it's it's what we have to do the other option was we make our staff self-certified through skyward the parents have that capability to do that for their children as well but the problem is we everybody would have to remember to do that every day before their kid gets in school and that's going to be nearly impossible for us to manage that so so we're asking the parents to hand their kid that their child that ticket and that's a reminder to them to make sure that their their child is symptom free and then they'll give us that when they come and we'll also do temperature checks when the kids get in the buildings so every child will get a temperature check as well so that'll be kind of our second layer logistics we're going to go to transportation and again a lot of this is on i don't want to read through every bullet because but i'll briefly get them but a lot of these these slides are informational for everybody we're highly encouraging parents to not take our transportation system services unless they absolutely need it because we don't have we just don't have the room we're going to put 20 to 22 kids on a bus and siblings can sit together but otherwise it's going to be one per seat so you know part of our board meeting tonight is to take a look at our transportation policy this board policy and consider suspending it the current policy says that we provide transportation for all students if we're going to open up i can't guarantee that we can open up and still provide transportation if all students sign up for it we wouldn't be able to open up and so we are hoping that we can meet everybody's needs but if we can't we'll have to uh we'll have to lottery the bus or something i don't know so it's gonna really depend on on what kind of response we get back from parents in the next week and i'll go into that those details in a minute um you know the next slide the uh and the next slide these are this is just some sign seating and transportation and we're not going to see anybody behind the bus driver and just some bus expectations there food service i'll be on this slide very quick food service will be provided for students will not be provided for students who are in the blended hybrid model because they'll be here for just two and a half hour chunks they'll go home we still do our food service deliveries for families on fridays now we'll switch to fridays and we have reached out to all families to see if they need that service so we've got a waiver from the state for that students who attend safe school will still get lunch here we have a technology slide that has some faq questions on there we can go to the next one matt um students are gonna be reminded on the technology they got to bring their devices every day uh charged up we don't have a lot of extra devices laying around right now arrival procedures if there's anything that's making me nervous about this it's my it's our dismissal and our arrival traffic is going to be tough and um which is one of the reasons why we are going to phase the sand which again i'll get to in a few slides but we so arrival it really is just the traffic flow is something we're going to have to really keep an eye on let's go to the next slide the dismissal dismissal is going to be even worse than arrival because we have people that will come and want to get in line and we have we're playing around with an app that should help with this process as you pull on to the parking lots they'll be you'll have a dash tag and somebody will be there to see your dash tag and they'll punch that number in and they'll notify your child's class that you're here and hopefully by the time you get to the doors we'll have the child out so we want to try to keep the line moving so we're that's something we're working on and we'll have that in place we're going to be trying that with our safe school learning students in the coming week so our next steps getting down to our final slides here if we make this transition we'd like to do it on october 13th which is the day after columbus day and try one grade level in each building kindergarten second fifth grade so that gives each building a chance to spend two weeks uh problem solving uh issues that are going to arise so that's that's that's our first phase second phase if things were going well would be to bring on october 26th being first third and sixth grade in uh along with the kindergarten second and fifth so um so then we would have more kids in each building and if things continue to go well we'll we'll enter the last phase of the of the transition and that's bringing in the rest of grade levels pre-k 4th 7th and 8th um so at that point on november 9th that's the first day of the second trimester so if we were to get this done in time our students would start their second trimester with all students in at least part time but again that's there's a lot of things that could happen between now and then i want to i can't reiterate that enough like we uh we might find out that traffic is just jamming us up and and with with just two grade levels you know we might find out just jamming us up so we might have to go to like back to the drawing board and figure out how to do this and kids may not be able to come four days a week they'd come two days a week and so there's i can't guarantee that we're going to be able to follow this but that's our goal if everything works well that's that's what we want to do and uh we also don't know what's going to happen with the metrics at any time the metrics in the area could shut us down so uh we want to keep people safe so but that's our that's our timeline as of right now the communication to families i had said to begin the year that we would notify families by the 30th which is tomorrow of any next steps that might be taken so if we approve this tonight i will notify the parents soon either tonight or tomorrow uh what what we're thinking about doing if we don't approve it then i will notify them of that as well that we're going to continue in the in the hybrid model or the the virtual model we uh i'm gonna go to the next slide there's a there's another dashboard that we're looking at and dr king put this together because there are other factors that that could cause us to close that are kind of out of our some of them are out of our control um custodial status you know right now we are in a good status there's data behind this dashboard that you're not seeing but we have we know how many people we need and so we've set the thresholds to if we drop below certain thresholds that dashboard is going to change right now transportation status we have we have the drivers that we need but we i will tell you we are just on the edge with drivers we don't have a lot of extra availability we've had some turnover and there are not drivers out there that are applying for jobs right now at least here we have obviously staff school staff attendance says good right now because we're not in session certified teacher attendants we're not in session so we have some thresholds set and as we get started with this we'll be punching data in this to date daily one of the big issues is substitute teacher availability we have secured three subs per building for four days a week just because we're going to need them and we and we may not know we need them until the last minute because of situations that have come up so that's just a precaution that we have in place but we honestly it was very hard to get those people set up so we we're we don't have a lot of subs beyond that that are available um we will keep it we will keep this dashboard on our website uh it'll list all this information people will be able to look on here to see student coveted cases staff coveted cases hopefully those numbers stay very small uh we don't want obviously i i feel personally responsible for any sickness that happens so but you'll see any isolate quarantine numbers and those cases there so we have a an faq document that is pretty uh extensive and the link is on this on this uh spreadsheet or on this uh these slides here that i'll be sending to parents tonight so as we've been getting as we've been communicating together we've been coming up with questions ourselves and we've been getting questions from staff um we've had great questions from parents last night we had a very engaging citizens advisory council meeting and got some some very solid feedback from that group both positive and negative and i'm going to tell you that some people are are like i said before some people are very comfortable with what we're doing right now and are nervous that we're making this change so there are some negatives that you think of families that have rearranged their schedule to meet what we have right now and now we're asking them to change that schedule and knowing that it could go back at some other time so there's some there's some uh you know there's some challenges there and it's it's put us in a position to i mean i feel like we have to plan for this and try to get kids here but i also understand where parents are coming from they don't want to see the constant change i also know that if i if i put a message out that said we're going to be in virtual learning for the rest of the school year i don't think i would have a lot of happy campers either so um you know i've there's been some good a very valid comment is why would we do this now when cold and flu season is getting ready to start so that's a valid question it's just if if not now then when is my i guess the metrics that lake county has given me is saying that we're ready so we started this planning a month ago not knowing when ready would be but uh you know at this point the 13th would be the soonest we could get started with all the things we got to do yet so our timeline would be tonight i send something out to parents i give them until 8 a.m on october 5th which would be monday to fill out a two question survey one do you want blended or do you want to stay in virtual and two do you need transportation or not that's all that's really what we need to know because once we know all that information then we've got a lot of work to do and so we have about a week to get all that ready then but it's i will tell you i i we've got a lot of our administrators here tonight and they've really worked their tails off on all this i think we're all just kind of um we're just we're just strung out pretty hard right now but this isn't going to go perfect and we know that and but we're ready to shoot we're ready to problem solve it as we have issues so i think the phase in with one grade level at each building to start with might seem like might seem like a slow phase in because it's going to take until november 9th to get us there but i think we need those two weeks to kind of see if this is even going to work and then we'll add a grade level and see if that's going to work i feel like if we bring them all back at one time it's going to be a mess so so anyway that's where we're at and i'm open to fire away with questions so apologize that took longer than i thought i guess my first one is what is our protocol if students or a teacher get sick so would we have to quarantine the whole class or just a teacher so if somebody were to get sick there's somebody actually test positive with covid i'm going to read read straight from something here so the person that tests positive as obviously he's going to stay home until uh the illness is over and no symptoms for 24 hours and they get a release from corn or at least from isolation letter from the lake county health department so that's what gets them back into school or work okay so it's not a simple doctor's note they have to work with the lake county lake county health department's involved in that and they get a release letter from them um somebody who's exposed to so if i have uh if we have a case in a classroom um students that they'll do we'll do some contact tracing so students that are within six feet of an individual who's been exp who has been diagnosed as positive students who are within six feet for a cumulative of 15 minutes in a day in a 24 hour period they're considered close contacts so that's why it's important for us to set up our rooms so that we don't have any of those situations so you could we don't want to you know i would imagine and we haven't had to go through this yet but i would imagine that the health department's going to say there's going to be students in a cloud even if we have the six feet social distancing i imagine there's going to be some they're going to want a quarantine but one reason not to put 50 kids on a bus would be if if you have um if you have a situation now you've got a lot of kids that are involved that have to be quarantined um and we have to have seating charts for every room and every bus so we know where kids are at and when they're at those places and this is another reason why the lunch and recess taking it out of the mix eliminates a lot of issues for us so we have this we have a pretty strong guidance from the county i'll give you so here's another example i have a staff member right now who whose son is at a high school and was exposed and was told the quarantine so staff members asked me do i need to quarantine and technically in this case um that's a contact of a contact so they don't they don't quarantine context of context but you watch their symptoms and they make sure that so so we've we've learned way more than this and i want to know about but uh we have a chart we go to that lake county has given us that is is pretty solid to meet the and we didn't have that in august so we were really shooting from the hip in august so which is another reason why we just didn't feel comfortable coming back and then how will you inform the parents then of will you informed all the parents of the students in that class in case they want to i don't know keep their kids home and do virtual instead of being in class or how are you going to let parents or can you not inform the whole class we can uh what we can do and i've i have talked to the lake county health department a little bit about this we do have some guidance on on on on this procedure um so we can make a general notification that somebody in the school has been i don't know if we can go down to the class okay i'll have to find that out we make a general notification and then we let people know that if your child was a close contact you will be contacted like you will know so they do but we will help them with that process but we obviously can't give names and things like that but um but yeah we will we will do a and i think if if there are uh it hasn't happened yet around here but if there if there are multiple cases in a building they would they would consider shutting the building down so they don't have a specific number that i've seen but i mean i've read that two in an area but i don't know the size of our buildings what it would take but if we had a couple cases they could consider shutting it down too i have a question about blended versus virtual so right now kids are all learning remote with a teacher if they choose to stay virtual are they going to continue with that teacher but just not have as much contacts how is that going to work great question they will continue with that teacher the expectation that we're giving the teachers is that they would throughout the week you know there's going to be they're going to sign asynchronous work for those kids and then uh you know they'll there will hopefully be time for communication back and forth but there won't be um necessarily won't be uh zoom contact uh until friday now i i will say this i think it's going to be a classroom by classroom decision because some classrooms may have if a teacher only has one or two students that are remote she can handle it or he can handle it differently than a teacher that might have 10.

okay yeah 100.4 is the cdc's bar but you can lower it to 100. so we think we our nurses felt more comfortable at 100. so have you thought about creating a good so we have a google form that comes out at 6 30 a.m to our email and we fill out the form and submit it so we have to have it done before we get to work and then the parents also get a google form in their email that they fill out and it's you know is your temperature under 100.4 do you have any symptoms and then you submit i don't know if that'll work for you guys i mean it would what what are your what's your been your experience with the percentage of your parents we how do you know when the kid gets on the bus if their parents done that okay so our bus drivers take their temperature when they get on a bus but our buses are carrying about 12 kids so as they get on they take the temperature so when they get to school by trying to get to school the nurse has a printout that she gives us and has all the kids whose parents didn't self-certify so then someone stands out there and takes their temperature and then they're going to school we haven't sent anybody home yet so i mean it works you just have to get your parents used to logging in going in the sky it might be harder getting the email is easier because you can just do it right there otherwise you got to remember to go in but then when they forget we just check it and then the teachers have to contact the parent to remind them hey don't forget to self-certify i mean to me that's easier than a paper but so if we wanted to not do the piece of paper can we do skyward as a parent or is it just like one or two it's gonna have to be one yeah for us we gotta know it's gonna be you for us we just figured it if they're handing us this that their parent has double checked them they know it they're dropping a bucket to go in we're not even keeping we're not keeping track of did johnny turn it in or there's no names on it there's nothing we just it's there if you don't know if the kid had the right one well if they got one they got it from their parent i mean i don't know this is karen at the bus stop for those okay could have i mean we have to rely on some honesty here with parents on this but i just think that i i think you should look into doing temperature checks as they get on the bus i mean we said the most kids on a bus are going to be 20 21 22 where there used to be 70 before and how many kids are actually at a stop that has to mean less stops right well less kids at a stop too less kids that i mean i think there has to be time in the right so what we're doing with the buses is uh because the only way to make this work was to run two different bus fleets so we have so we have a roughly seven or eight buses that are going to go out from middle school and seven or eight buses that are off of primary elementary because the problem is when those buses come back it takes we have to clean them and uh and they're going out eight times because they're they're gonna if or if if we tried to run one bus service for all and send 18 buses out to pick up middle school kids they're going to pick up the middle school kids come back drop them off clean the buses turn around go pick up the primary elementary bring them back clean the buses but then turn around pick up the middle school kids because they're done for their half day do the whole thing over again get you know so it just doesn't work time wise we did if we did that time wise we would be our last group of kids would be out of here after 5 p.m so we did we couldn't do it so now we've taken eight buses for middle school eight buses for primary elementary and uh which means that we can only bus you know under 200 kids for each building and uh so in in the middle school at the most we would have at one time would be around 400 so we'll be close to you know i'd say 40 to 40 or so that we can bus but those routes are going to be a little longer because we only have eight buses covering the entire district they're not going to have as many kids so there won't be as many stops like kevin said but the driving time will be a little longer because we're covering the whole area so does that make sense it's really been it's kind of a logistical nightmare but it was the only way we could make it happen and we can definitely uh explore having resolving this temperature check issue though as you get on the bus i just think every student getting a temperature check they're either once they get into school yeah yep once they get into school they've got a temperature check so we kind of figured if they have the ticket to get on the bus then when they get here we're going to do a check and do their temperature as well um so you're taking double precautions it's a double precaution yeah some are not even doing anything when they get on the bus some are doing temperature checks like on the bus with drivers i just didn't i didn't feel good about and neither does christine when we talked about it just the safety factor of that but if in case an accident happened i just didn't want to be because the driver got distracted um so i i guess that's my question i don't understand i get maybe someone can explain that more to me i don't understand what how the distractions would be greater now than they when they were just by taking temperature if they're going to take a ticket they have to put the ticket in the bucket or had the kid put it in the bucket yeah just walk by and just can't go dude yeah yeah and they don't have their name so you don't who yeah so they don't know who yeah did what so we were just going to have the drive them just drop the ticket but drivers hands off i just didn't want the driver to get it's not that it wouldn't couldn't work because i didn't want them to get distracted and then they uh they take off without checking everything that they're used to checking and just it just changes their routine that's the only thing i was i was concerned about i just i mean and i think if someone comes in and they and you zap them and they're at 100.1 they go home yeah and then because now if the parent does it rip gives the kid the ticket by the time they get on the bus they're at 100.1 now the parents off at work and or they've got brother at the bus stop yeah and now brother's got to walk junior back home he doesn't know i mean i don't know yeah well i would worry about how are they going to get the bus driver like if the kids getting on the bus without the temperature check and they're at 100.4 the bus driver has to bring the kid all the way to school so the kids infecting other kids if they're with around the kid for 15 minutes and then the bus drivers you know okay so it's easier just to get on the zap nope and then off they go back home maybe try to find perez or something yeah that's that'll be our first priority it's just to find some extra bodies and uh to to do that so eight buses right eight at a time uh 16 total i don't know if they could cross over or not i'd have to look at our timing to see if eight people could cross over to the other buses um so we'll we'll troubleshoot that one though so i'm thinking about carpooling so i pick up tiffany's children oh no they forgot to give me the the ticket so we'll send them we'll send them to the nurse okay if it continues to happen repeatedly it's the same families we'll probably have to make some phone calls say hey either do it or we're just gonna have to go virtual because we can't do it every day but yeah if they don't have it we'll just we have you know because some people are gonna forget and uh but yeah we'll have the nurses do a screening and then for the like to check in when you're kind of driving in to pick up like say people do different carpools different days of the week um because pretty much people are gonna have to carpool to make this work yeah yeah um i think that what you'll have to do is this will be a little inconvenient but everybody's going to get a laminated car tag and they would have to you'd have to have the tag for the kids you got in your car you know what i mean so if you're gonna carpool a tiffany you'd have to have you'd have to get tiffany's tag too oh they're gonna give two tags i didn't know that oh so you'd be able to give the tag to another family so i can do it thank you okay and that's just to try to help us speed up the dismissal is what it is so and i didn't see the times because i went by so if you are they is there overlapping between the middle school and no okay no so there's just just enough time to get middle school dismissed and out of here before dismissal for primary elementary if you're picking your students up and you have some at both middle school and there how is that how are you going to effectively get all of them and without children loitering or students loitering around if like so if you have a student middle school student at primary student at elementary how are you supposed to get through campus without there's being a delay at one one of the schools for the students if you have multiple pickups it's going to be a challenge it will be because you have time to pick up your middle schooler first drop them off at home and turn around come back and get the the other two i don't know if there would be a way to because we we couldn't we had to stagger the times because we wouldn't be able to manage the traffic if everybody got dismissed at the same time we thought about it but it would just be too much um so yeah if you have students in both buildings um it would be it'll be more of a challenge to get you'd have to make two trips i think your students can't your children can't be home left home alone so i'm still driving my kids in the morning in the morning or in the afternoon and i'm not will that impede in some of the learning time i didn't have enough time to uh no it wouldn't impede the learning time it's gonna be it's gonna be a big inconvenience for the person that's come back when it's time for them to go to school right and uh and then you an hour later you're gonna turn around pick up your middle schooler so how is a person supposed to work and do this especially like if they're like okay i'm gonna sign on and i'm they're working from home and they're like i'm gonna drive my kids to school because i want them here because i'm hearing that you're prioritizing person learning over remote learning just with direct teacher time contact time so how are you supposed to like for the parents that have the ability to kind of work at home to do that yeah it's it's going to be hard so that's why we're talking tonight if you if you don't think that's worth it then we can we can turn it down and just say because because i don't know it is going to be hard i guess i'm just when i hear that the that the their prior prior the teacher is going to prioritize in person the in-person learning yeah i mean is there a way to like live stream so the kids at home can be engaged with the teacher with the kids that are in person i mean i think it's going to be more possible at the older ages i just at the camera at the early grades i just it's just too much to expect k through four yeah yeah i understand that that would be k4 would be really hard i'm just thinking i guess yeah middle school that that be able to live stream it so then families that choose to be home they're not missing out because they don't want to send their kids to school that they you know best of both worlds kind of thing might necessarily be a choice if you can't if you have to come four times right also if you have students in different buildings yeah and i would assume that you would coordinate siblings on the same a b day right yeah now some parents may not want that like you might want to put them on the opposite you know opposite schedules but uh because of this because of all the driving but uh i mean as far as morning afternoon but then you're talking a whole day of that so you you go once in the morning drop them off in the afternoon and then pick them up in the morning then turn around and do the same thing in the afternoon for the other children so you could do that we'll you know we'll try to make we'll try to work with those kind of requests but right now we have a we have it pretty we have to go stay pretty we can't take recommendations for uh a.m or pm we have a lot of people who just prefer am and we just have to cut the alphabet and just schedule it and um but these are the concerns you were giving me are very valid and like i said this plan is not perfect it's just it's like the best of bad plans like there there's no great plan for this and uh um if if if the if the parents uh tell us that fifty percent of the kids are going to stay home for virtual we'll scrap this right now we'll go we'll we'll bring we'll do something completely different because if that's the case we can do other things and we can we can give more attention to the kids that are on site and we can have virtual teachers the kids that are off-site because we don't because of our numbers but uh but we're not we can't make this plan based on that because we don't know and i gotta wait for the parent survey yeah yeah so our plan is based on having you know 20 to 30 percent of kids maybe going virtual and uh the rest of them coming on site um yeah it's it's not there there are there there's gonna be issues either way we go on this it's just really hard do you have much more room for students that want to do that stay that safe space because the parents they can't coordinate with their driving we don't have a lot of room for that yeah i think it's at max right yeah do you feel like students are going to miss out on a lot of you know school time if you will being you know because of the driving time transporter the transportation time the transportation i mean it's definitely going to be it's definitely going to eat into the day we still have five hours of work two and a half hours here two and a half hours at home in their schedule but it's definitely going to eat into like time that they're not on the road right now so yeah that's going to be an issue and then what did the ca see in your other groups the cac input um you know i think that i had there's some really good comments regarding uh questions similar to what lauren had uh there was some concern about uh and kevin your wife's teaching in a district that's doing an ampn model was somebody who had who's who has a relative in like zurich because they're doing something similar and they felt like that was hard there's concern over if i want to stay full remote and now it's not going to be as good as it is right now and here's here's to be really honest with you i mean the families who are doing really well right now are our families that their kids have a lot of support at home and there but there are kids that are really struggling hard and if we make a decision to just stay remote we're really doing those families a disservice those kids a disservice so it's just a hard hard thing right now and i wish i could say we're going to bring some of our students back and but and anybody who wants to stay at home you're going to get the same support you're getting right now we just with we can't possibly do that with the personnel that we have the the number of personnel but like i said if once we get the numbers back from parents we'll have a better idea of what we're dealing with but then how are we fulfilling the state guidelines for each kid five hours yeah a day but now i think it's two and a half has to be synchronous a day right right how are the remote learning kids getting that per day i know how they're getting it now yeah how are they going to get it if we go to this michelle i'm going to ask you on that one because is it i have to is opportunities i forget the exact language but we have to offer either synchronous or asynchronous or combination of both or some more than the other it just has to be five hours of instructional time being provided it's very vague i'm gonna check on that too kevin essentially what it's saying is if we provided apex learning to a child or imagine learning to a child for five and a half hours or five hours with that but obviously that's not our goal do they say a percentage of how much has to be like live like no i wish i had so i'm going to repeat what michelle said because it wasn't hurt on the mic um that the the state is their guidelines are for the five hours um we are gonna i know that i know the recommendations are for the two and a half hours synchronous and two and a half hours asynchronous but i think we're going to have to double check some things on that to make sure but um so it's just a recommendation i i'm gonna honestly i'm gonna have to i'm gonna have to double check i think that's just recommendation but what about our channel five hours yeah but what about our standards for our students right that are remote learners like there's a different set of standards and if they're not getting in in per if they're remote learners i guess can you can you guys figure out a way to have teachers teach remote only so the kids aren't getting no instruction pretty much you know what i'm saying so here's another thing here's the challenge here's the challenge i'll just i'll kind of troubleshoot this with you middle school we have two i'm gonna use math we have two sixth grade math teachers and they each serve 100 students a day so we bring them back in a blended and they're seeing half of their students each day i don't have i don't have another math teacher to teach sixth grade math to only those kids that went virtual and i can't give if i have thirty percent of the kids in virtual and seventy percent of kids here i can't give all 70 to the one teacher because then i can't do social distancing in those classrooms and 30 to the virtual teacher you know what i mean so that's that's the logistical issues of it at primary elementary it's possible if we have enough parents to choose the virtual model it is possible but then we're going to have to take kids that are currently in one class and peel them away from that teacher and put them in with a new virtual teacher you know one trimester into the school year so that's the issue with that so that's why we didn't want to say that right now but it really is the number of virtual students that sign up are going to drive that decision i think but that's that's i'm just telling you what like we've had to work through i'm not saying we're right on it i'm just saying it's what we're trying to work through i think that's for me as a parent that would be a better option than my kid doing apex learning or imagine learning for five hours and not being able to talk to the teacher until friday or i mean you feel like getting a new teacher i would rather have that and it did yeah right because right now they they don't have any physical relationship with the teacher other than what they see on zoom zone right so i think that that relationship can be transferred to a remote learning it would be just like if you moved to a different town and your kid attended a new school they would be meeting the new teacher the uh so the the middle school we don't have we don't have a good solution for it because they don't have enough you'd have to have content teachers in every one of those content areas to teach those clients then i think the live stream comes in that's what i said yeah i think that we can't have the remote full remote learning kids be staring in front of the computer and doing worksheets for five hours a day i think that yeah they'd definitely be missing out on them they'll be missing out on a lot because some of those parents don't have choices like that there's kids that have illnesses or their work schedule and they can't drive them they can't drive them right they're turning into like second class okay i i don't think that any of this stuff derails you your plan yeah it doesn't i think yeah that getting the option for parents to get kids back in school is the most important thing we can do right now yeah the social emotional aspect just to get them some kind of normalcy or just to feel like a kid again yeah they've been home since march i mean yeah and that was our that was kind of our purpose for dinner i just don't want the remote learners to be forgotten about either yeah right yeah and that's been the that has been uh to be honest with you it's been the probably the biggest concern that's been shared even amongst our administrative team and it's what i've heard from parents i just i can't i can't promise you right now that that is an easy option at the middle school to fill we can try you know we're gonna have to work on it obviously um the the live streaming mm-hmm is it just not technical are we not ready technologically for that um we can do that it's just teacher's comfort level is that the concern i think that's part of it uh trying to deal with uh again i think at the middle school it's gonna be easier uh but it's it's dealing with the uh i got part of my students here i got part of them here and trying to manage both you know you got student in the room that's doing something that i shouldn't be doing or trying to manage that behavior you don't know what's going on here so i think there's just i feel like what's going to happen is that our middle school teachers are going to figure it out and it'll work well but i can't i just i can't say i don't want to promise it to anybody right now because i didn't you know we haven't it's not something we've ever done and i have i'll i have a staff that's just kind of teetering on the edge right now there's of stress and i just didn't want to promise it if we can't deliver it and that's that's what uh i'm concerned about be honest with you but we we do have time so you know we're bringing fifth grade in first for two weeks and then sixth grade for middle school and you know so we have time to to work on it figure it out and see if we can do it and we have time to shut it down if it can't happen but i know we're going to be asking parents the challenge here is we're asking parents to make a decision soon by the 5th of october if they want this virtual or not and if we can't i mean for me i think shutting it down for reasons for health is different than reasons of people being uncomfortable with their teaching environment and i fully am immersed in teaching environment at my house um so i fully understand the stress and the stresses that it causes but i know that i i see countless teachers around this district adapt every time they did it in march they're going to do it again now um i think that we have it all over the building believe in higher standards and i think i do believe that and i do believe that for this school so i i don't want to see a kid not have any access to a teacher for five hours a day i don't think that that accomplishes the goal of our district um it would make me sad if they make a choice well parents fully know like if you were to choose to keep your child home remote learning that you're not getting the same quality education i mean i'm gonna make it i want to i have in my my message to them that uh on the email that i have drafted that the expectations won't be the same i don't have it that it's going to be you know i don't want to we don't know exactly how it's going to look you know because i it's like i said a lot of it's going to be teacher by teacher and uh and it's going to develop over time but i don't i don't disagree with you i mean i don't i don't want there to be no contact for five hours um this teacher is going to be teaching for for two different sessions two and a half hours in person the only way to do it would be for them to stream them into the classroom can you use your building sub in the rooms to help the teacher out manage the class that is in person so you'd have two adults possibly yeah i mean that would be one way to help yeah or i mean like in k through 4 if you don't have enough if you have the 70 30 plan and that means you can't release a teacher then a higher eighth permanent subs i mean at this point i think that we have to look at things we've never done before i think you guys are doing that every day and i i mean i don't yeah we have we that's one we did hire the we've hired uh nine permanent subs and we were able to get it barely we had some of them wouldn't do the four days a week so we had we paired up two and two and filled weeks and um i just think those people are going to be needed for when teachers have a child sick or because all kids have to stay home now with any symptom at all so that means parents got to stay home with them and so yeah that's where we get into the adult the number of adults the issue there but so it sounds like the so the really the big the biggest concern for the board and and i totally get it because it's it's on our list too is the quality of the virtual education if a family chooses that yeah okay and the busing yeah the cell certification the self-certifications yeah be a little better okay does anybody have anything else so we gotta um how i'm trying to think of how to proceed because i uh well i think we have a model to vote on we have the hybrid model i think that that's what we're voting on we're voting on i think everything else in here is district um procedure that i don't necessarily think that we control we have input but we don't have control over that so you're uh really but then what you're doing then is really charging us though is to try to figure out this virtual in a better way yes figure um and yes and the buses okay and i think are we saying i i don't think it's okay to ever hire people i think that that's okay too i think that foreign even if you get retired teachers who can only work 120 days i mean that would be worth it yeah right yeah okay or like you those leave teachers that you may have if you've got four of them or however many of them it's that they do their leave they're not doing their leave now they're the remote learning teacher and that may change what they teach or what grade they teach but you know yeah you know what we are certification area right yeah yeah okay all right we can go to the drawing board with some things on that and uh we'll just uh we'll do some troubleshooting this week i'm gonna have to think about how to message it with parents i have to be honest and say at this point you know we're going to do what we can to make it a better environment than what we have on the paper right but uh all right we can do that sounds good all right um anybody have anything else no no can i please have a motion to approve the return to school model as presented by the administration second julian tiffany yes does anybody have any questions on the board policy 4 one one zero uh regarding the busing what are we no we're suspending we're just suspending it for the this school year just in case we have to turn people away because we might have to i don't know how else to yeah if we only can do it yeah we just can't bust everybody right now unless we're unless we're willing to put 40 kids on a bus that would be the you know and i just that'll be really hard for the bus drivers good idea right now driver would be out there right no i think that that's okay unless we go back to full opening right then i think yeah right yeah uh so if we go back to full opening do you have to bring this back to us to enroll i i think i think that we will we're just suspending it yeah you're suspending it until we yeah i think i'll probably will bring it back but uh we will just go ahead and just start busting everybody yeah okay okay i please have a motion to approve a recommendation to suspend board policy for colon 110 for the 2020-2021 school year motion vivian and doug okay yes peter yes yes yes yes yes does anybody have any questions on the employment of miss mcmillan nope can i please have a motion to approve the employment of melissa mcmillan bus driver effective september 29th 2020.

i think it would have been just easier to name the group but there's no name as i read it it's the first paragraph page 17. the top it's at the top the first paragraph yeah the first paragraph page 17. it's under mental health support that starts at the bottom of page 16. there's like two sentence two lines that it starts on page 16 at the bottom so can you just give me the name second harvest food bank thank you okay did you have more questions trustee travis yes it says on page 15 that there's a plan in development to provide support um do you have something in writing as to what the plan is second paragraph of page 15. last line i'm going on pretty soon on 15 yeah that uh plans mine reads ongoing modifications of supports and services will be made based on student data on page on my page 15 of 24 it says this plan is being developed to provide support such as basic case management and referral brokerage is there a plan in writing right now and if so can we see it yeah you are going to be seeing it by october trustee chavez this is the plan that barbara campbell is working with some principles to address students who are recent arrivals to the district english learners yeah i guess my question is it's always better to see the plan ahead of time to see and know what we're approving well the you're approving the lcap you're not approving that english language learner plan okay thank you and if i could just uh remind you all that this is a plan for 2020 2021 school year so it's for the whole school year and there will be some things that are still being developed so we can meet the needs of the students so i do have another question and it's kind of the same framework that it's still being developed that's all thank you okay thank you um any other questions or comments from the board on this item i do have a comment this is trustee marquez go ahead um because um sandra just said that this is a plan or template um for the 2021 um that's what i was dreaming right as you open it when the 20 when the 21 comes around um are you going to come in with new things or just what you have implemented so i'm the lucky one that gets to write two plans in one year so we will begin the process of writing an lcap in um january 2021 to bring to the board by june okay and so i'm glad you you you just worded it like that because tell me what the difference is uh on the uh the learning the continuity and an attendance plan template and then the l cap i mean we all know what the l cap is but we're not calling it an l cap anymore or we are so so um this plan is replacing the lcap for this school year yes only this school year during this time of covet and distance learning and school closures and things like that so it is only replacing it for this school year because it is more specific towards the pandemic and the time we're in and how we're addressing student needs and then we will go back hopefully we will go back to using the lcap as our guide for the school year for next year thank you for the information it's clear functional to me thank you okay thank you any other questions or comments from the board okay i um i just also want to thank everyone parents staff administration for all the hard work that's gone into putting this together as i continually talk about this is new for everybody from students on up and and it's not easy to put together an entire educational plan using an entire different model you know in this short of a time but everyone has come together to to get that done so i want to just appreciate that work from everybody um and my only question is the plan as it's laid out um i'm assuming that's why it's coming to us for approval that we do have the resources or the partnerships or or whatever it may be to to implement this plan going forward but are there any particular areas of the plan that um that may need us to to keep our eye on in terms of the sufficient support for implementation or you know any challenges that we do need to keep an eye on in particular um go ahead not not that i know of i mean if it's in the plan it's something that we definitely feel that we have the resources to do of course we're always looking for more resources to improve and add to what we're providing but um unless dr bauer did you want to speak to it more no that's that's the answer that's the answer yeah excuse me one last question sorry i missed it so on page 12 uh where it says the tech support so it says that the on the last uh block it says that the tech support for parent staff the i.t staff provides extended evening and weekend tech support to parents so the additional 80 000 is that because you did a new hire or are you now paying time and a half to the it time and personnel half to ait personnel trustee travis so um isn't it more cost effective to hire somebody else as a consultant and that way you're not paying time and a half no no i'm answering that's okay people will say otherwise thank you very much i know this is trustee marcus uh yeah before or before you trustee marcus i just kind of wanted to add on to um you know i understand it's a good point of you know making sure that we have enough support i t support but i in terms of um you know hiring a new person i i know that the cost to onboard a new person is often you know it seems like it makes sense up front but at least in my experience um in government agencies that cost to onboard and get people you know up and running often um out exceeds the amount that it costs to to pay existing staff who are familiar with all the processes and everything to move forward so that that's just been my experience in other areas trustee marquez um yes in your comment on it just reminded me of a concern that i had when i was reading this because um over the weekend i was talking um at a function i was talking with um with a couple of parents um from ellen rock and they were saying um they're always getting thrown out when they're trying to log in and i had to explain to her that 8 500 people were trying to get on and so that was going to be happening and then then the parent she said um but i don't think it was that uh just imagine i think that it was the fact that i what the the computer or whatever what whatever she had that we gave her it is the problem it's too old or it needs to be refurbished or it needs to be fixed because it happens way too many times so when you say we need to keep an eye on something that may have may reoccur or is reoccurring right now um she's not the first parent i have heard that from a couple of parents that are employees and have children in the district i've also mentioned to me that that they they think that they need to take in whatever was given to them at their school and have been checking out or give them something else so i think we need to stay on top of that because it doesn't sound to me from where i'm at that um every single uh laptop or whatever we gave the children um is is working all that well so i think we need to really keep an eye on those um on those those that equipment so thank you okay thank you i had uh raised my hand a while ago but i don't think you saw it oh i didn't see it but is it can i just do a follow up on that particular comment or do you have something yeah yeah oh no yeah i'm sure okay thanks uh mr gil is there any way that you could of all the devices that we have and you're muted by the way so oh there you go of all the devices that we have handed out whether they be hot spots or laptops or chromebooks whatever is there any way that you could just very generally speak to the um not necessarily the condition but the like how recent or how new or how what is the the not the quality like are these devices that are old outdated and you know likely to to have hardware issues so if i make comment more video generally any device when it is working is working but this part of its age right there are many other now we have seen most of our learning is a distance learning and there are factors of internet there is a factor of a zoom itself even if the internet is good and we are experiencing every day so most of our devices are pretty new newer three years or less there are few devices which have aged uh four plus years three plus years but most of the devices are premium less than three years okay but we're confident fairly confident that they are sufficiently functional um and we just kind of have to come to terms as we've seen in tonight's meeting with the reality of you know maybe i didn't it was my fault because i didn't put my you know password in right or maybe the internet or zoom or something else external was the problem and that's you know part of the picture it sounds like it's just the reality that we all are learning to come to grips with but it sounds like the device end for the most part is sufficient then in your estimation yes it is sufficient and as you stated that there are some user cases too where sometimes it is a password issue and if i may share there because we hear a lot of incidents from families through our tech support and my technicians share with me so there's one incident i would share is a student has an ipad what he did is he took a screenshot of his home screen and then when his parent comes to him why you are not connected he just click on the screenshot and stating that my ipad is not working see i'm clicking on the icon and it's not going so those are a lot of human involvement this is one example i share i go i'm gonna go back on my statement about trustee chavez i want this kid hired i want this kid hired for our itt he's brilliant oh but yeah so you know that's a good point of how and also so did santa are you taking that statement back no i'm not i'm not even gonna go there again this month but trustee um quintero uh i know you have comments i apologize for butting in there nah no worries um i i just want to express my gratitude and uh for for the the staff and the team that put the plan together the collaboration i think that um by working with all the stakeholders uh the the the folks that are you know impacted by this plan uh he got some really good input and so very very much appreciative of that um i've been able to observe firsthand some of that um interaction and i've had an enhanced appreciation for our teachers uh for the district staff and everything that they do um man that's a lot of patience that teachers have with with the students and uh my god that's their saints um because of uh because of some of the things that go on uh during during the sessions i'm not not that i'm peering or anything like that but i'm there to lend support to my kids and i'm able to observe some of the things that take place and um i i do feel uh um [Music] thanks to taftar and the entire i.t team because um the uh the teachers do feel very comfortable in saying reach out to the it folks remember i told you to do that last week and then or or remember that you know they were able to resolve this issue and so they're they are pointing the students in the right direction and they actually have examples of of issues with technology getting resolved when they point to the iep department so very uh i'm grateful to to to have a firsthand look at some of the um things that our our staff is doing and seeing them actually work so thank you all for the work that you're doing that was it okay thank you any last questions or comments and if not we'll go ahead and call for the vote for the approval i just wanted to make a comment that um when when i when i said my comment it was only for step to keep an eye on that not to examine it whether it is true or whether it's going this way or whether it's human error or whether it's technology error only to keep an eye on that because i i talk to people over here in all different kinds of places and every once in a while something will pop up and that was my only comment for that just to have the staff say we're going to keep an eye on that that's it okay i don't know can i just say something real quick um i just wanna you know i think uh the lotus for doing that because you know a lot of parents you know some of us are connected you know with the commanders some of us are connected you know by family and so that's great that they felt comfortable and letting you know um the lord is you know of course we could always improve as a district um and then the only thing in which you i'm sure you did but you know just continue to remind them that we have people like our amazing staff that can support them they don't go another day without you know being logged on to school so thank you to everybody you know we're doing our best so let's keep moving forward thank you okay thank you so i just realized that we don't have a motion or a second yet for this item to approve this item approval okay uh hold on your answers so we do have a motion i heard trustee quintero and second i heard trusty chavez but i'm sure what you have um um for the second that's what i heard first before justice either one is fine go ahead and put chavez i'm okay with that okay so i will go ahead and call for your vote as always as i see you here on my screen for the approval of item 3.01 trustee marquez yes trustee yes trustee chavez trusty quintero hi and myself i motion passes unanimously thank you everyone keep up the good work um and with that we can move on to item 4.01 update presentation and discussion on potential district solar power program initiative so at this point um as i mentioned we'll do the presentation first and then we'll allow for public comment um after that followed by board member discussion and questions this is an information only item so no action will be taken on this tonight um so with that being said um mr ruiz are you taking over oh he's going i'm you um rogerio and there you go are you able to share your screen um let's give it a go can you see that yes okay great um good evening board uh superintendent bauer members of the community um so i have been working with the staff and preparing this update uh for you uh regarding where the district is and looking at and examining the possibility of a solar power or solar pv project for the district and after listening to the discussion and the comments from board members and comments from members of the public we we thought we would try to structure this update to address some of those questions that concerns that we've heard in the past and hopefully we provide we can provide some answers to those questions and some more insight and so to do that i thought it would be helpful you know to lay out the goals for this brief presentation uh and those are really four things that we would like to cover the first is how did we get to this point how did the district get to this point to where it is right now in terms of its examination of a possible solar program for the district and what has been so done so far and what i'm referring to there is that um you know part of this process is is remembering that the solar program or a potential solar program is not a standalone item in itself the district has actually been looking at renewable energy sources and possible energy savings for about five years now and so we wanted to sort of update the board and remind the board of the community what steps have been taken along those ways along that way since then so and then look at where are we now in that process other renewable energy projects um and how it fits in with solar and then what the next steps look like in this process so um let's talk about how we got to where we are uh right now um so um in 2015 uh the board approved a program development agreement between the district and optera energy services that was in october of 2015 so almost exactly five years ago the purpose and i'll get into more detail into the purpose of that agreement but the thrust of that agreement was for the district to bring in a consultant to make an assessment of how the district uses its energy how much energy you the district uses both gas and electric and then uh what possible savings might the district achieve if it implemented some energy conservation measures or or other types of renewal renewable energy programs and again that was in 2015 after that ng services you you us incorporated acquired optera energy services and so as a result that program development agreement between the district and optera basically went over to ng in connection with that program development agreement ng then prepared an energy program savings report for the district that identified the district's usage of power both electric and gas and also looked at some possible savings solutions and then after that the district issued a competitive rfq for solar and energy savings program in 2017.

i'm sorry what was that how about 2021 the new year and we can have some presenters for both sides please thank you we leave the savings on january 1st okay so um so i know that i also want to just um say that as we're considering this um you know whoever might come to us i think that um we heard that it's very possible to um to include those upfront costs into the the longer term and still have significant savings over the length of that agreement so that's you know knowing that that's a possibility and we would not have to come up with any of that money out of our pocket and so um you know that's very significant part of the consideration that i'd like for people to have on their minds for no money literally no money i mean not literally figuratively no money but obviously attorneys costs and things there will still be cost there but minimally or some of those costs could be rolled into the agreement so that's an interesting part to consider to to receive um a benefit ongoing um did i hear someone else marcus trusty marquez um earlier when we were in full discussion um you said the general counsel had said that we could go back to uh to the community for comments or questions or input um i'd like us to do that so before we leave this um this item okay anyone that has not already spoken um if they would like to uh and let's get the clock ready mighty bell in case we have someone and uh mr gill do we have anyone yes we have i'm sorry who we have two people first one is kim espinoza okay miss espinosa when you begin speaking your time will begin hello hello i'm sorry mister i thought you said kim espinosa um yes you can stop the clock please mardi gras or reset the clock okay we can hear you so when you begin speaking your two minutes will begin okay all right good everybody good evening everyone um so you know we we literally just had a presentation from the bonds committee about the status of our facilities and um some recommendations were made about how we can reinvest in our schools and our facilities um you know like like maksa for example you know but here we are again talking about solar panels and i understand that there's no action today um but at some point there will be action and those actions can potentially have you know lasting impacts that supersede all of your terms we're having conversations about putting in solar panels at our schools but not enough conversations about how our kids will go back to school safely and not enough conversations about you know how the structural improvements uh needed for our facilities as a kid my parents always told me that nothing in life is free and many of us already know that to be true so i'm really skeptical about the implications that this project will have um and what the true cost of these solar panels would be once all is said and done and in the end the ones who pay our children um so obviously just like a lot of parents um i'm very concerned and i'm looking forward to hearing more you know not just from experts but from the rest of the community as well thank you hi thank you next person mr gill so the next person is josue garcia okay mr garcia um at this time when you begin speaking you have two minutes and those two minutes will begin when you start talking and i just want to make a few points which i can email to you out of the interest of time but i want to say that you first make sure that the computer they said that you select it's securing any and all possible incentives for the project that they should make sure that whoever they select is capable of providing strong warranties and performance guarantees independent independent of the financial structures taxable taxable leases are a great way for the district to make some savings and also tax exempt leases are a great savings and in summary it is important that the district has have their respondents propose many procurement financing solutions as possible i am representing a group that uh possibly can even provide funding for their uh fixing issues and implementation issues as well uh like i said i'm happy to send an email with these people so you can take a look at them look at them tomorrow thank you thank you just quick clarification because you broke up there you said you're representing a group that could possibly provide something yes again on top of the financing for the project the energy project we can possibly provide financing for the electrical to fix the electrical problems and the hvac problems as well as part of the whole package okay thank you very much any other comments mr gill um we i think the hand raised by veronica but as for maryville she already yeah she provided public comment earlier on um on this item okay thank you public for um providing your feedback and so i think at this point um the the suggestion or the recommendation from um trustee quintero has been heard it seems reasonable i would agree haven't heard anything to the contrary so i think we can start closing this down now unless there's any last comments trustee chavez yeah my internet went out when he said it can you please repeat whatever the motion or whatever he said [Applause] okay so you heard that part of it right i've heard a portion of it and then when i hear them say i think december then that's when i said 2021 january oh yeah so i think we just said at the earliest at the earliest november since that would be after the election that more information will be brought to us and at that time we would um decide how we move forward based on what is brought to us in that meeting okay and also um there was a um i guess a text with uh a comment that i made and dr bowers that i can always ask for for that as well when you bring that presentation um i guess i could email it but i would also like to say it now to put the 10 mistakes that districts make so that way we can be aware of not to commit the same mistakes that's it thank you so you said to put it what do you mean to put it as part of the as part of the materials when when and if it comes or when it comes as an item after the election just as part of the the supplementary materials yes in january 2021 preferably thank you next and next week fine um have you provided that to dr bauer already or can you provide that to dr bauer so that it can be included trustee travis have you provided that to dr bauer already or if not can you provide it to her i'm texting i i'm providing it now let me finish my text thank you okay thank you want to be on the text or on the email i mean i would imagine email would be better but you can work that out offline with that the thing is on my phone from the computer i don't want to lose it so as soon as this meeting's over it'll be emailed thank you well that doesn't need to be right this second but however i never know okay thank you okay trusty marquez yeah i i am i just have a question because um i.t director said that there was one person only that wanted to speak and if i heard right i think he said veronica and were there any other ones if it was just her why did you allowed to speak i mean i can't understand if you know 10 or 12 or whatever was you know ready to say something but if it was just one i i wish to do to let you know her speak because she so faithfully comes to these meetings and he gives us our input and he's been very respectful um so he's he didn't say one i think he said there were two and actually um those two and i don't even know if maybe one more spoke but um as i'm sure you're well aware of um the brown act doesn't allows for someone to um provide public on an item and so i don't know that we can um allow people to make continuous comments on an item well i just thought because she had heard all of the board members input and and comments that she probably had a burning comment to give us or her her you know opinion or a question that she can leave us with and anyway just i just wondered why he didn't call just on one okay thank you all right so then at this time i think we can go ahead and adjourn this meeting um thank you everyone for your participation and um we will see you soon at our next regular board meeting coming up here soon so thank you everyone and have a good night this meeting is adjourned at 8 22.

so if you are brought into litigation either through the office or administrative appearance or a court court litigation and has you maybe what it is a pending um class action lawsuit filed in california and there's also one that's been filed in new york that is named a lot of school districts and employers that you will be able to use your staff will be able to use support the decisions that were made during this time period of the school closure we've also provided advice to your district regarding sample communications to parents if your district decides to provide assessments in person as opposed to virtually in that communication includes a letter to a sample letter to the parents the parents acknowledgement of the risks safety protocols and the covert risk factor questions checklist 48 seconds left um i'm sorry now you can yield your time if you want okay i i i've exhausted my what we've been doing for your district uh and will continue to do for your district during this um strange time of the closures thank you f3 same question thank you very much miss jamal my name is carlos viegas i'm a partner in the los angeles office of fagin friedman and full frost i want to begin first with a few clients um pretty close to azusa that i think you would recognize and if you represent pomona across all different practice areas rialto hacienda la puente south whittier west covina and upland and i'll defer to my colleagues to include some of the notable cases but also start with a little bit of my passion i come from an education family and my dad was a superintendent my mom was a 40-year teacher a big part of what i do is labor and employment work and so part of the kind of in this era of covet is doing a lot of the collective bargaining agreements and coveted mousse over the last six months we've been constantly negotiating and i think that's a big issue that the districts are all going to be facing another part of what i do is teacher dismissals and so you may find yourself in a situation where nobody wants to end up in a teacher dismissal but i've been in some truly heartbreaking and gut-wrenching dismissals involving um truly horrible things that have occurred to small children and that's become an area of passion because i feel like my mom was a teacher and so we're honoring the profession by making sure that only the best teachers will remain in the school districts i also do a considerable amount of public records act and so and when i say me i mean the entire firm these are all areas of specialty for our firm as well as student work i did want to talk a little bit about the area special ed and i'm going to hand over to my colleague lindsey rogers but before i do it it's it's sometimes not something that you think about but i think one of the biggest issues you're going to face in special education is how do you collectively bargain to have all of these different competing state and federal obligations met by your employees so we all are aware what the federal laws are but one of the biggest challenges to special education during covet has been what are our employees going to do what are their expectations how do we collectively bargain with our employees and how do we meet the legal requirements but also meet the expectations of our communities i'd like to hand to my colleague lindsey rogers to speak a little bit more specifically about other challenges in special education lindsay you were on mute there we go did it happen that time okay sorry about that so yes lindsey rogers here and i i do do primarily special education and student work at f3 i'm also from an education family a superintendent's daughter and a speech and language pathologist both retired and so i i come i come by a special education through my family and so we um you know we've been i also do uh work in pomona unified that is i do their special education work and i also do one one client that i don't think was is that is in your area that you know the client uh call carlos mentioned is walnut valley unified it's another client that we do their special education work and la canada unified goodness i you know this this question is there's a lot packed in there as ms gilliard certainly demonstrated there are a lot of different areas that we could touch on and i'm trying i was trying to kind of hone in on one what is the biggest thing that i'm thinking about in terms of in-person instruction things that are coming back right now i can say the things that i'm working the most on that i hear most um that i get more most questions about right now are staff coming back for in-person assessments and or if they're coming back to the in-person cohorting so yes so i agree with carlos that's kind of the first thing that we're all going to be dealing with is going to be talking with staff communicating developing new emojis if we need to or communicate communicating with our labor partners to discuss how we are going to be bringing back special educators and general educators when that comes as well um and how that cohorting how that's going to work equitably amongst our staff and bringing them back and i do see that coming up right now even in the special education world because so much focus is about right now bringing special education teachers back to do special education teachers and providers back so i do think that that is one area um from the beginning that we're going to be seeing right away is working with our labor partners and bringing back as we bring back the other another issue with them for me in particular near and dear to me is there's a lot of talk right now about how we are going to be assessing student progress and possible and loss that's happened over this time so right now i'm working with um i work with i work with school psychologists and work with our directors and with the clients to really start thinking about where are the areas what assessments can we be doing virtually what assessments can we be doing in in person when we can do that and how do we do that safely developing protocols for both staff and for family for bringing students back in to do in-person assessments we really at f3 i would say our a major focus of our special education department and the way that we think about our client relationships is that we engage in in preventive law to the extent that we can meaning we uh i tend to have relationships with my clients where we're talking about we're talking about potential problems before they arise so we're definitely here for due process complaints we're here when you get those um the ocr complaints and the cpu compliance movement from those issues we certainly have been handled many of those but we also focus a lot especially in this covet time that we've had these months where everybody is reacting to to the newness and to new to law to new situations that we're in where we're kind of where we talk with our clients about how do we prevent some of these legal issues from arising so ways we do that that were already mentioned is a clear communications with parents and prior written notice letters sometimes we assess uh especially in special education we will assist with developing template letters that then we give to our clients to use themselves in that are not necessarily the formal legal private and notice letters but are just good practice to have good communication with your parents uh with your parent community during this time um during this time that is that can stave off a lot of uh litigiousness a lot of litigation a lot of anger and angst that can come about when there's not that communication so we try to work with our clients to ensure they have good parent communication in the special education community i would definitely say that's something that's applicable to the to us coming back to in person right now as we are we're getting i'm sure you guys are too we get we're getting questions every day about what what's the plan what's the plan for in person we heard you can do that now what are you doing next so it's really you know right now we do a lot of i would say non-traditional legal work working partnering with our clients to talk through the legal implications of the different in terms of teachers and children so those are the um the major issues that i'm seeing right now uh in terms of planning all of that is really is developing uh clear protocols for staff and clear protocols for parents and parent communication ah let's see you have about two minutes remaining yeah i wanted to do raise two is that that we we are just starting to i would say in the last couple of months last month maybe see more and more due process filings starting to trickle in so that is starting to happen um and we so in that situ in those in those instances obviously we are so we have i actually just was notified that we had a few uh successful f3 attorneys that successfully argued to stay put motions where parents were trying to get some in-home services uh as stay put meaning the parents were saying i get an aide at home i should get i get an aid at school i should also get that aid at home and that we have we've had a couple of successful stay put motions where oh has agreed with our argument that the district does not have to provide that service in the home if that's not what the iep said was that the service was required in the home now the law that the oah is handling cases is uh deciding cases in different ways so one of the things that we certainly have in f3 is a robust special education department up and down the state that we are weekly if not bi-weekly phone calls uh just you know with amongst us attorneys to keep each other apprised on the latest and greatest uh briefing that we're doing the latest orders that we're getting out of oah that aren't published anywhere else so we can share that information amongst each other and use that to our clients benefit uh throughout the state and if we still have a minute i would like to lindsay give jessica and leslie an opportunity to speak about the district they work within some notable cases you have 30 seconds that's so fast just thank you for having us my name is jessica ehrlich i head up our business and facilities and litigation practices in our los angeles office as carlos mentioned we work with quite a few districts in your area as well as up and down the state and handle cases um you know with regard to construction and facilities disputes to brown act matters um if we have public records disputes as lindsay mentioned special ed litigation so we really run the gamut of representing public schools thank you next we will have lozano smith and miss lieke will let you know when your time starts your time begins now hi there my name is darren kamaya i'm a partner in the lozano smith's los angeles office um i have on the line with me my colleagues trevin sims of the los angeles office who's a partner he works on facilities matters labor and employment matters governance matters and everything else that kind of comes up desiree serrano is the colleague in the la office she works on labor labor and employment matters student matters and governance matters mark waterman is a partner in our los angeles office he provides litigation support and special ed due process hearing representation uh aaron fraser is on the line from our firm she works on special ed and student and charter school matters and amanda cordova is one of my colleagues in the los angeles office and she works on special happy to be we represent almost 100 percent of our clients as school district or education clients 100 are public sector clients and we're well versed in all things related to school districts we take an approach to our practice that provides our clients with support not only with legal issues and providing uh analysis analysis and statement of law but also partnership with them to help them achieve their goals and so we do as others have mentioned especially nowadays provide support in terms of advice regarding uh the implementation of laws and rules and regulations that seem to be changing every day and uh it's it's uh interesting work we all come from uh seems like from education backgrounds and that serves us all well my mother's a school teacher my brother and many relatives are also teachers on our staff we have many attorneys who are teachers as well and so they they bring to the craft the knowledge of what has happened and is going on in the classroom and bring that perspective representative clients that we have in the area include burbank unified school district where we do personnel and labor and employment facilities matters and some board governance matters san marino unified school district we do personnel and board governance and public records matters west covina unified school district personnel matters los angeles unified school district we work with them on special education matters and labor employment matters realtors unified school district we are advising them on many different subjects and there are clients up and down the state that we uh provide uh assistance to um we have many notable cases related to education um dealing with layoffs of certificated employees discipline of employees and the appeals of those matters first amendment issues um including things uh like prayer in school where we actually just helped file an amicus brief today on an appellate uh case involving football and prayer we are involved actively in helping schools and districts provide distance learning to students and to help them when students and staff are coming back to the classroom into the school site so every day it seems like we're all involved in negotiations with unions over the return to work uh notably today the i understand the board of supervisors of l.a county has announced that they are going to or will soon be accepting petitions for uh waivers for tk through second grade and that's my that might be something that you folks are interested in and we can certainly help you with that as far as schools coming back to in-person instruction and special education issues that might come up uh i'd like to i'd like to introduce amanda cordova who can speak to that along with uh aaron and mark my name's darren good evening my name is amanda cordova and i'm an associate here in our la office i spend 100 of my day advising and working with school districts throughout the state including some local ones including burbank unified westside and lausd my work focuses primarily on providing advice counsel and trainings for district staff on special education matters and while my clients and i try to work collaboratively with families to meet the needs of children with disabilities there are some instances where that may not be possible and i regularly assist districts with due process matters compliance complaints and federal special education cases recently i've been working with districts on coverage related issues particularly for distance learning including assessing students remotely or in-person social distancing and using personal protective equipment we've also drafted some sample language to include in assessment plans and assessment reports addressing addressing the validity of assessments that are done remotely or using ppe that may not be falling in conformity with assessment protocols i've also been working with districts on finding creative solutions to provide instruction and services to students during the physical school closures through distance learning as well as bringing students on campus for small cohorts some of our school districts have already reopened particularly up north and our firm has been providing guidance to those districts on special education issues some issues that we're facing in addition to the assessments and the distance learning services and instruction is providing mainstreaming and inclusion opportunities for our students to have those in our in their ieps while maintaining cohorts as required by the guidance from cde and we've been working with districts to identify creative solutions on how we can keep those cohorts together while still ensuring that students have access to typically developing peers to get those peer models in accordance with their ieps in addition we've been assisting clients with responding to requests for me remediation intervention services for students with disabilities and uh responding to requests from both parents and attorneys who feel like their students were not receiving all of their services in their iep we've been working with special education directors staff and iep teams to develop protocols for assessing the need for remediation intervention as well as best practices on how to communicate with parents in providing those either addressing those requests through iep meetings or through prior written notices we also anticipate an influx in special education due process filings and we've been working with clients on those due process filings as well as recent class action matters both in new york and california and we've been advising clients on how to deal with when you get you know notice of service whether whether they've been served or not um and dealing with that we've been assisting clients through uh due process better specifically on distance learning issues already and of course that includes you know the regular representation of drafting pleadings motions as well as participating in mediation and settlement negotiations and when necessary proceeding to due process to defend the district's distance learning program and finally our firm has a special education legal consortium that's scheduled for next month where we'll be providing a half day long training to school districts throughout the state on how to address covid 19 special education issues as well as recent covid 19 decisions that have come from oah you have a minute and 20 seconds left mark is there anything you wanted to add regarding due process hearings or things that are coming up for uh special ed students that are returning thank you karen good evening my name is mark waterman i'm one of the partners in the la office and for 26 years i've been representing school districts and other public entities with my expertise being in administrative hearings in special education and employing discipline um as amanda alluded to one of the key advantages of lozano smith is that we represent school districts up and down the state um so this puts us in a unique position to know all of the issues that school districts are facing including those school districts that have already started back to school we also are in a unique position of knowing pretty much all of the opposing counsel and the judges in the youth process proceedings so we're able to have a good understanding of what is and is not working in in the administrative proceedings uh for special education it also means that one of the issues and one of the places where we often are is at the forefront of law most recently for example amanda and i just finished a special education your time is up okay next firm will be pnc and linka will tell you when your time starts your time begins now are we unloaded let's put the video on thank you my name is steve montenez and i'm a partner with the firm of parker and covert parker and covert was first established in 1978 and was the first exclusive educational law firm to exist in the united states our clients include locally glendora unified and bonita unified school district we also represent orange unified la habra city school districts long beach unifor fight and newport mesa unified i have represented orange newport mesa and long beach for over 20 years um long beach unified is where we do most of our special education work and i'm going to defer to cynthia yant at that point uh so that she can explain the special ed emphasis before i go on i want to send um expression of our heartfelt uh expression for those in the local community of azusa unified who have recently been the victims of the bobcat fires near the angeles national forest and and we know that that impacts students and and their their ability to come back to school and feel safe and i think an answer to question number one we know we have done negotiations for both the hybrid instructional model as well as the distance learning model and we know that the first emphasis for these special needs students is going to be the district's ability to make sure the students and the communities feel safe and well on all safety protocols are implemented in order to do that and we have done that with other districts and we fully operate with the intention of doing that also for azusa unified and i think that mous that have currently coming out in the various areas that are opening in various stages is an important element for special ed students and those that are you know tk and kindergarten and first grade in the elementary because we find that most schools districts either using an av model whether students are coming to school on separate days or the am pm model where you have a student population come in the morning and come in the afternoon we've seen various hybrid models of those as well and i think that we are able to support the school district in either model depending upon which suits the community azusa also has been identified as one who serves basically hispanic latino community and i know this board is facing decline in enrollment and we have assisted districts and also dealing with those issues so not only do you have a pandemic not only do you have fires not only do you have you know special needs students from the latino community whose families are really subject to you know the hardships that have been paced in this environment we have catered to those students that are small to those school districts that are small that have a minority community population you know we advance for you know proposition i think it's 16 that would allow for school districts to to service their minority communities without having the hampering of currently existing proposition 209 that bases you know the ability to provide services on on race which prohibits that so we're in tune with those broad range tools that will advance the district's need to service those at need students with that cindy if you could uh address the special ed issues good evening my name is cindy yant i don't know if you can see me i turned my camera on and my microphone can you hear me okay yes we can excellent um i have been uh with parker and covert for over 30 years and my main area of practice is indeed special education all throughout southern california my partner stephen montanez comments reminds me that just a couple of years ago it seems our client at wai nimi school district um suffered in their community a devastating fire and some of the decisions that we helped that school district with were unfortunately a precursor to this unprecedented set of events that we've had during covid19 so we were sort of a couple steps ahead in in some regards because of that unfortunate situation our focus has always been to promote proactive measures as you've heard my esteemed colleagues talk about tonight we want to be able to mitigate the number of complaints that are filed through due process or because of a section 504 alleged violation or a compliance complaint any type of complaint like that is going to cost the school district in resource resources and time and perhaps even legal fees to address the issues raised in those complaints so our focus has always been to assist our clients with proactive measures such as training staff making sure that as we keep up with changing law guidelines that are coming down that we're able to pass that information along to our clients and offer trainings to suit the specific needs of our clients we do that on a regular basis and and on a pro bono basis so we want to begin uh working with our clients on a possible dispute at the iep level to make sure that the staff knows going in what the what the current law is how they want to prepare for that meeting as best they can we want to make sure that if there is a complaint filed that we can represent the client fully by thoroughly examining the records talking to staff who are familiar with the case who are familiar with the student so that we can help the district make good decisions nip things in the bud if you will to keep things from from getting to an unreasonable level such as a due process hearing if a filing for due process is filed we assist the district in preparing for and we represent the district at the resolution meeting to hopefully narrow the issues or address some of the issues perhaps even come up with an interim agreement so that we can come to some conclusions before we get to that hearing level however at times we go to mediation fully prepared as well but we're not able to resolve all the issues of the case and then we work in earnest with our clients to prepare for due process hearing and try to keep the um the costs uh to a minimum um we try to stay five steps ahead all at all times with special ed issues and of course during covet 19 um this was something that that uh was unprecedented um we assisted our clients with drafting prior written notice letters to parents and we've really spent a great deal of time with our clients in helping them to not only maintain good relationships with the parents by keeping them well informed by having them be full participants in the decision making as we've been able to determine what services can be provided in a safe manner we have assisted then with the surge in due process filings that we have seen over the last few months we've seen a few of the law firms that we're familiar with take advantage of the fact that we are not providing in-service uh service excuse me in-person services and they're trying to opt for district uh funding of private services that are providing in-person services same thing with assessments because we're not sending our staff into students homes to observe them and to do in-person assessments we find that they're asking the parents are asking for independent educational evaluations from assessors who don't have any restrictions on going into the home and providing in-person assessments so what we've been advising our clients is do uh all parts of the assessment that you're able to do that don't require in person and we will follow up when we are able to do that to enhance those assessments as best we can the other issue that has come up as our clients are preparing for um return to in-person or hybrid formats is making sure that we're making individualized decisions uh for students who we anticipate will have a lot of problems making those transitions back to an in-person format or whose behavior we feel may be problematic in terms of safety measures so we're making sure that our clients are looking at each of these cases in a very individualized manner that we have good documentation supporting the decisions that are being made by the district in terms of what can be offered in the same training i'm beg your pardon 30 seconds oh thank you very much um so we're just trying to help our clients as best we can make those individualized decisions so that if those due process filings occur we can defend all of the positions that the district took thank you so much appreciate the opportunity to speak with you this evening thank you we will now move over to question two um i would just ask these questions when you'll have five minutes to respond to each and there are three remaining questions i ask that you also um if you can track your time we will track ours um so that way but i apologize we can't display the time but that way you guys can know exactly where we are okay question two we will start with f3 f3 your time starts now thank you very much i think one of the biggest challenges of the new title ix regulations is from our perspective they've changed almost every way that we're going to go about investigating title ix allegations and so i want to highlight that our firm partnered with an illinois law firm to provide national training on title ix issues and to kind of unpack the thousands of new pages of regulations in title ix and the training that that our firm provided which by the way we gave discounts to axa members um it is a training that lasts at least three hours and that's just the initial round of trainings and just to kind of give you a sense of where that begins is identifying title ix coordinators within your districts identifying investigators decision makers appeal decision makers and informal resolution facilitators and i think that really changes the traditional way that school districts have looked at title ix in years past where you may have had one person handle all of the different title ix issues for the entire district and so it's definitely going to be a new day when you're looking at title ix issues now apart from just the complexity of the new title ix regulations i think you also have to unpack you know what's the new definition of sexual harassment the new title ix regulations have changed that and in some ways i feel like it's made it so much harder to identify what sexual harassment is under the new regulations and one thing that i think overall when you're looking at the new title ix regulations i think one of the biggest takeaway is the boost to the rights of those folks who are accused of sexual harassment and so what does that really mean for the school district as you're doing your investigation it means that you may have to contemporaneously in real time disclose evidence in interviews and things that you normally would keep as a confidential investigation you will probably have to disclose that to the person who is accused of the sexual harassment at the same time you're trying to conduct your investigation now the district's question is how would that uh how would that impact student rights well imagine if you have students who are making accusations of sexual harassment what we know traditionally is there's only a fraction really only a percentage very small percentage of students who come forward and have the courage to even make these allegations if you look at the new regulations and you look at the way it boosts the rights of the accused i think what you're going to see overall is probably more students i'm sorry less students coming forward with these allegations and it puts the district in a much more difficult place to hold these people accountable when they get engaged in sexual harassment so apart from just looking at the definition of sexual harassment the scope of education programs and activities you have to really start wondering how are we as a district going to respond to formal and informal reports of sexual harassment i think that landscape has completely changed under the new regulations and so our firm we really pride ourselves on providing professional development to the extent that you don't need us anymore and we we consider ourselves true partners with public school districts i used to be a teacher in linux school district and the idea here is that a district that's dependent on its attorneys is not a healthy district so one of the things that we enjoy most is providing that capacity to reduce the footprint for the district and reduce the amount of money that you need to spend on attorneys and we do that in our partnerships throughout the state with both csba and with axa now we're looking at the question i want to unpack just a little bit we talked about student rights but also employee rights and so what would this mean for the collective bargaining agreement what would this mean for employee discipline i think the reality is it's going to be that much more difficult to discipline employees who engage in sexual harassment because ultimately we have to disclose all these issues up to them up front and we're probably going to be tied at the hip with the attorneys for the union so i think the districts are going to have to look long and hard at is a new allegation truly sexual harassment can it be processed under some other complaint procedure i think all of that is going to come into play and when it comes to the the title ix regulations it truly is uncharted territory but i think overall you want to err on the side of protecting potential victims within your district whether they're students or employees and i think the training that you're going to need to fulfill all these roles is probably going to be pretty rigorous you're going to have to teach your administrators how to serve impartially including avoiding any type of pre-judgment or preconceived notions about allegations you're going to have to also avoid conflicts of interest how is that going to play out for for the district's employees i think the union attorneys are looking at this and they're they're seeing that it's already difficult enough to discipline a teacher and we're all aware that in less than one percent thank you lozano and smith your time begins now hi i'm desiree serrano um thank you for having me here tonight i actually grew up in covina and live in san dimas so i really appreciate this opportunity to tell you about our firm you know this is a lot you know mostly we've been doing covid but this has also been a really big thing on our radar we've done several webinars on title ix in helping school district learn all of these new rules and regulations for investigations i just did one this morning for school districts so one of the big things that's changed is that process for the investigation and sharing all the information that we normally would keep a little bit more confidential having the exchange of information and evidence but also allowing each side to submit questions that they would want to ask of the other party that's very different um from what we did before um the roles that we have you know we now we have three to four to five different roles there's no more one man or woman show often you know your school district's a little bit larger so you might have a couple of people doing that some school districts only had one person doing this entire process so school districts are rethinking who do they want to be that title knight coordinator because there's rules about if you're the title ix coordinator you can't be the decision maker you can't be the appeals body so who do you want that title ix coordinator to be is it still the same person or do we need to move that to another position in order to make this process work the way it works best in our school district i'd also say you know one of the big changes here we used to be able to put it all into our sexual harassment policy whether that be for students or for employees and now we have a different definition of sexual harassment under title ix than what we have under california law so we're going to have to process them a little bit different and re-learn how we handle those complaints um you know does it fall under title ix no okay does it fall under one of these other policies and we use that so kind of reframing how we look at those and then also looking at you know we often had at the school site level as to students a school site principal assistant principal gets the issue someone comes to them and they just start running and they investigate and they solve the issue they address the issue and i don't know that they were always really thinking about you know first checking in with the title ix coordinator and i think that'll be really important to talk to your all your school staff about their obligations and reminding them okay if you get a report that looks like any form of sexual harassment let's report it to the title ix coordinator first before you really dive into things the other thing i would say is we you know we work with csba and other statewide organizations and help give input on those model policies so we are kind of involved at the state level the other thing that's different is the rules about exclusion for students we used to you know just investigate discipline right away and now we need to stay take a step back and look at whether that is really allowed under these new title ix regulations or do we need to finish the investigation first before we make that determination on whether or not the student has violated the ed code and that this discipline is justified for employee rights i would say that same issue about sexual harassment and what policy is violated i'll also kick it over to darren in case he has any additional thoughts sure with regard to the implication to employee rights uh you know every day i think all of us are getting calls regarding uh demands to bargain over things that are are new and impacting employees and their terms and conditions of employment this is no different and i foresee either um demands to bargain uh or just having new terms introduced in bargaining over the regular contract that implicate both your complaints against employees uh or public complaints articles seven o'clock and uh also apologize for that that's my computer um also uh your discipline uh articles that apply to either classified employees or if you have discipline short of dismissal in your certificated uh bargaining agreement but you you do have issues with respect to um the evidence that's uh obtained in a hearing uh that's not required under your title ix policy that could third time is up thank you p and c you will be next pnc your time begins now um the new definitions under title ix have been in effect under the cleric for community colleges for quite some time the new regulations on sexual harassment are consistent with supreme court precedent the clery act and the violence against women act and and they have broadened the definition of sexual harassment but they make it more difficult to substantiate the allegations during a title ix investigation so how do we address this well you know to address the change school districts need to update their board policies administrative regulations and title ix documentation to include the new definition of sexual harassment additionally title ix staff including title ix coordinators and all district investigators should be trained to the new standard of sexual harassment for consistency and compliance with the new regulations what's new under the old regulations and constru under under the old regulations any constructive notice of sexual harassment sexual assault or quid pro quo triggered the title ix district's title ix response under the constructive nota standard schools were responsible responding to all incidents of sexual misconduct if the school should have known about the misconduct the new regulations have increased this standard from constructive notice to actual notice this means the schools are required to respond to the incidents of known sexual misconduct rather than incidents that were not known but should have been known how do we address these issues the district can properly address the regulations by training all district employees to immediately report any and all incidents of sexual harassment to avoid district liability for inaction employees should seek assistance from the title ix coordinator if they are unsure whether the specific incident is sexual harassment the title ix regulations formally required each title ix complaint to be evaluated using the preponderance of evidence standard of proof under the preponderance standard the burden of proof is met with the and the evidence supports are finding that there is a 51 chance that a claim is true this standard is often referred to as the 50 percent or feather standard it is the same standard approved used in civil cases the new regulations allow school districts to decide whether either the preponderance of evidence standard or a stricter standard of clearing convincing evidence is necessary the new regulations state however that whatever standard is adopted it must be used consistently for all title ix complaints we have produced information on our firm blog that is consistent with what i've just said now the implication for employee rights to the new changes are implications that need to be addressed under the collective binding agreement because this in effect is a term and condition of employment as a standard for discipline of discipline discipline of both classified and certificated employees um you know what happens you know as a result of that well you just need clear and unambiguous language in order to articulate what standard the district will use for disciplining students now remember that you know sexual harassment sexual abuse and allegations made by claimants and respondents under this new standard require additional scrutiny and therefore the collective bargaining agreement must specifically we believe articulate the standards by which the district will follow and and then in order to do that effectively not only must it be clear but it must also be fair and reasonable um in this day and age of all the things that people are dealing with i think this issue of putting it in the collective bargaining agreement although the policies administrative regulations need to have arrested immediately uh you know it's my opinion that you know they're bigger fish to fry in this environment because you know you're coming back in a coveted environment where safety and educational distance learning and all the other models i think are taking top priority in the collective bargaining agreement arena and and those emphasis i i think need to be worked out first because you have to bring the kids back and and whether that be through a transition whether it be now or later is a subject that the districts must decide and and and that's the beauty of the assistance that our firm can provide and that it's fluid you know it may be one day away today and another way tomorrow and and we have demonstrated by our long history the ability to be fluid thank you next a-a-l-r-r good evening sharon good evening this is sharon ormond are you able to hear and see me yes excellent excellent um i know we have steve anderson on the line um and before i start uh to address the questions specific to title ix um steve did you want to make some other introductory remarks okay well hearing none i will go ahead and proceed um so my practice has focused on i'm sorry sherry i'm here oh okay go ahead steve yes i'd like to just backtrack just for a moment i apologize for the delay uh this evening but uh we've been privileged to represent azusa for the past 15 years and we have six attorneys working here and with with the district and sharon is one of our attorneys that works in general school law and personnel and she'll be doing the presentation on this topic uh briefly we have been in the public sector representing public school districts for the past 41 years we represent about 450 school districts in california and we have nine disc nine offices and the closest one is about about 50 miles away in pasadena so we're close by we also represent about 62 districts in the only personnel council which is most of the school districts in that area so we have a wide range of school districts over the years i just wanted to provide that background in terms of our our extent and depth of experience and let me then turn this over to sharon a partner in the firm please share him thank you very much so title ix of course has been around since 1972 but obviously this this new change that's been coming um effective august 14th involves the regulations that are intended to interpret the title ix mandate the goals that have been articulated and what becomes very apparent when you look at the different regulations and the formulation of what is referred to as a grievance process is the the goals to not only strengthen the protections for the survivors of sexual misconduct but also to provide greater due process protections for those who are facing accusations of misconduct um definitely there's been an incorporation of the legal standards that came from davis versus monroe county board of education 1999 supreme court decision in which there was discussion about the circumstances under which a school district would be liable for student on student harassment and generally finding that institutions must have actual notice of the harassment and have been responded with deliberate indifference and the harassment must have been severe pervasive and objectively offensive um this standard has now been incorporated into these regulations and um as one of the um attorneys has already mentioned that the definitions for sexual harassment has certainly been changed we have quid pro quo harassment still but it's an employee that needs to be conditioning the aid or service um on unwelcome sexual conduct the hostile environment sexual harassment and other types of misconduct like sexual assault or even stalking um those things are are most definitely now part of the sexual harassment um policies but to get to the question of how they're changed in terms of how the claimants and respondents rights are being treated one thing to look at is that supportive measures uh now have to be offered to the com to the complainant but also to the respondent um the idea here is that when we have this process happening that it's an obligation of the district to make sure that both parties are supported um throughout the complaint procedure that no no one party is supposed to be burdened by um measures that are punitive they need to be individualized in a way that will provide help to those to those students things like modified schedules or extended deadlines or counseling another thing that's um been incorporated and just to back up the the supportive measures is not technically something that's completely new before it was referred to as interim protection measures but because they are going to be applicable throughout the process the the terminology has changed but the obligation to extend them to the respondents has been articulated um in addition both of the parties will have the um entitlement to have an advisor of their choice and this helps them to navigate the process to understand that thank you thank you we'll now move the question three we will start with lozano smith and your time begins now okay well this is an interesting question um this is darren kamaya and um i would ask my colleague uh desiree serrano and my other colleague mark waterman to chime in with your thoughts on this with respect to the question after the completion of a financial review or a federal program the district has been advised to repay 600 000 for awarding a grant to a vendor without participating in the competitive process how would you advise the district with the goal of not paying back this is 600 000 well first i want to thank the board for this interesting question i want to make note that as part of this open session meeting it's typically not our practice to provide legal advice and to applying in great detail on hypotheticals but i would say that if the district had that goal uh and the board directed the uh would you quickly call in contact with uh and see if she can handle this question that's being asked not right now real quick if not contacting it's not leave pause time okay i'm back so if the district uh and the board asked us to advise them we would um first provide as we do with our clients an objective uh analysis of their potential liability for not paying back the penalty um or the uh not complying with the order and depending on on whether or not the the district decided to take action with uh measuring its risk tolerance on on you know facing that potential liability or not we would uh look at the potential options and discuss those options um how to do it see if there's a way to work through the situation um with negotiations to reduce perhaps the uh the amount of the penalty and uh and we we would do a fair amount of um exploration regarding options because it's pretty easy to say well we're just not going to pay the money but that's not what you're asking us for advice desiree and mark do you have anything to add i would add that you know one of the great things about our firm is we have different at practice areas i practice in labor and employment and student issues and board governance i would you know what i would do with this question is get on the phone and call one of our facilities and business attorneys and check in with them because i don't want to know this is not a question that i have personally dealt with before and i'm not going to spend the district's money trying to become an expert that we already have in our firm and rely on them and you know depending on the district i might just connect the district directly with that person so that they could you know you know cut out any extra time that i might add some districts are really tied to the attorney they work with so i might just consult with that so that's something that i would add i think mark is there anything you want to add to that thank you karen no i would just echo what that's where i said this isn't an area of law that that i have dealt with um but we do have numerous attorneys throughout the firm that um we could um bring in having one minute warning area you have one minute left thank you okay yeah and i think i think that sums up what we would do we would make sure that we have um our a few specials to deal with issues like this uh come in direct contact with the district and do what we talked about before which is provide an analysis of the liability and the options uh and risks and then we would move forward and help represent you in whatever you wish to do thank you very much thank you next pnc your time begins now sir you're muted there you go there we go start over um i think one of the first questions i would ask i have not had this particular issue brought before my attention before either is to find out what was the advice of the attorney that was advising the district about the competitive bidding requirement in the first place and was there any exceptions to the competitive bidding process that may have been overlooked or that there could be some way to to justify the process that the district actually followed then i think it's a matter of looking at what the potential liability is of to the district what representations if any did the vendor make during the process i don't know if there was an rfp process or what the selection process was for that vendor but since the federal programs have a number of requirements it would be interesting to find out what representations were made whether they were consistent with the regulations for that particular federal program so the district would have um a legal recourse against that vendor versus the district assuming financial liability for something that they may not have known about and would not have necessarily could not have known about based upon what the vendor's representations were made then i think you know from that assessment of all the parties then the district would be able to make an informed decision as far as how to proceed on either going finally in an action against the vendor for the reimbursement or to turn it over you know if need be even to their insurance if it's something that the insurance for the district might even cover i don't know if anyone else wants to jump in i think that's about it thank you a-a-l-r-r same question and your timing is now well that's very certainly a very interesting question i'm going to turn to wendy wilds to assist in providing a response wendy thank you good evening um thank you very much for allowing us the opportunity to be able to participate in the interview process we very much appreciate having uh the opportunity to answer some of your questions this evening the question that's been asked is rather an interesting one as you've probably already heard from the other persons who have been speaking with regard to this we have had experience more recently we had a school district that had been requested by the state to refund a very significant sum of money because specifically the argument was that they had not complied with the competitive process and what we first did was we went to the basis upon which the district took the action that it had taken so we wanted to investigate what had occurred with regard to the contract that had been entered into with the vendor why had the district taken the action that they had taken um it was in our in the other case we're looking for the facts so we're trying to determine what has occurred previously to determine whether or not the district has in fact violated the competitive process uh in most situations when we are looking at a at a claim that the district has not uh complied with a process whether it's a competitive process in a in an acquisition or in some other regard my experience has been that the districts are relying on prior counsel or a misunderstanding of a particular factual situation and so in most cases what we would be doing would be filing an appeal to challenge the request that the monies be returned to whether it's federal program or state program but but challenging the requirement that the district then have to repay these funds in our experience typically there is an explanation and so while there may be a belief that there wasn't a completely competitive process in the one i most recently am speaking of what had happened is the district had in fact gone through a process of selecting the vendor with whom they had then entered into the contract with and so while it may not have met the initial concern of the state or federal grant that in fact there were facts that would support the district's actions that had been taken and so what we're looking for is first is there a basis upon which the district can defend the position and if there is then of course potentially appealing that decision so that the district is not then faced with the payment of uh the return of the funds now in the in the chance that in fact what happened is the district did not comply with any procedure at all and in fact would be subject to having to repay these funds then we're going to be looking at the potentially council that may have advised them in the past or i think another present presenter had mentioned potential insurance to see if there's coverage for the district so we're looking at other potential sources of funds that might be able to assist the district in reducing the amount of impact that this might be financially to the district but i in my experience it is typically there may be some form of misunderstanding as to what has occurred and the district may be able to appeal a decision and not be subject to having to refund or repay those funds i don't know if anyone else and atkinson wants to add anything but that would be my summary wendy this is sharon and i would like to just uh add on that especially when you're dealing with the federal programs one of the things that i've experienced is that sometimes addressing them directly coming to them to say we have found you know a potential issue on our own and these are the steps we're taking to rectify it um can be uh sometimes effective in avoiding any kind of payback this is something that i was able to successfully assist two different districts in doing with respect to indian education programs where funding was coming to the districts based on um levels of enrollment that just weren't there and there was very high exposure and we were able to get um out from dealing with the problem by basically coming forward and self-disclosing and getting out ahead of things we didn't want the department of education to figure it out for themselves or then to hear things through reporting and that went a very long way to avoiding the the liability of course this particular question is thank you f3 f3 your time begins now good evening thank you again for having us once again my name is jessica ehrlich i'm a partner in the business and facilities and litigation practice groups in our los angeles office and upon seeing this question from the district i think my first action would be to consult our business and facilities practice group because one of the things that we pride ourselves on at f3 is that we work collaboratively and there is certainly someone who's had a question on point on this in the practice and we have over 100 years of experience combined in the business and facilities area in dealing with bidding and procurement and inherent knowledge of the public contract code education code so we really tap into our resources which i think results in a great value to districts in terms of cost-saving measures you know some and one of the other things i think we would do first after you know discussing with the district and doing some investigative measures is is there an informal resolution to this we always work at litigation prevention settlement dispute resolution before we want to jump right into filing an appeal sometimes those things can't be avoided but where we can discuss an informal resolution or other creative measures that's always our first go-to um we also have been faced with successful we've also successfully challenged audits from the state you know in terms of prop 39 expenditures and other issues that would directly relate to dealing with a challenge to a competitive process usually what we try to specialize in is what are the exceptions to the competitive process that we can provide districts so you know when faced with this situation they have a response and aren't writing a six hundred thousand dollar check um as some of the other uh respondents mentioned insurance coverage litigation those are also always always options but our first is going to be to work collaboratively within the resources of the firm to pull and see hey does anyone experience this before what are your thoughts and those are usually where we get the best answers and also to focus on informal resolution one of the other things we always try to say is we advise the district at the outset what are your options for procuring these goods or services what delivery method or competitive process best suits your needs for what you're trying to get and i think that advice at the outset usually ends up saving the district time and money at the end does anyone else have anything they'd like to add this is leslie locker and i am a partner with f3 law and i've been with the firm for over 12 years now and while my primary specialty is in charter schools i do also some business facilities and school construction work and one of the areas that we've had to grapple with is school construction on military bases and trying to reconcile the state and federal grant requirements that sometimes don't always intersect in the same way where they have overlapping requirements and so one thing that has been really helpful for for our clients that are dealing with that overlapping state and federal requirements is to really get out ahead of the process ensuring that they maintain constant lines of communication with the representatives of the state and federal levels for example the office of economic adjustment which is through the federal government and ensuring that they have those open lines of communication allows the district to be 10 steps ahead in terms of identifying any potential issues with the competitive process or whether they could go through a more relaxed process such as an rfp rfq type of scenario and so again really ensuring that we have those open lines of communication is the first step to preventing any type of future dispute or challenge as it relates to any requirements for use of those grant monies thank you thank you we will go to question four and we will start with p and c your time begins now i think our philosophy with regards to working with school boards is to understand that they represent the community and we are at will employers employees rather as a firm to the school boards even though we work with district personnel we understand who our bosses are and and we have worked directly with school boards on past issues involving you know allegations by staff discrimination claims that lead to litigation and working with school boards as to how to resolve and attack that issue that may be complete may become public for example you know i have a school district that i'm working with the board on where a um an individual who was released during her probationary period created a lot of controversy because she's african-american and in the current environment of black lives matter the board is extremely sensitive to that and didn't want and and doesn't want that type of allegation to interfere with the work they're trying to do in this current environment of bringing schools back online and and board members individually and may not collectively have very passionate views and issues that that they as a majority have to resolve and we have to assist them with doing that knowing full well that you know we don't make the decisions the board makes the decisions and i think some law firms forget that and think that we as attorneys are in a position to give them the best advice and and i will have to defer to spencer covert who is not here but he is the master in dealing with school boards because he's been doing it for over 40 years i think personally working with boards is an especial especially difficult challenge especially depending on sensitive issues you know we represented a school district that went on strike and and and the board was torn by the relationship it had with the community the relationship the superintendent had with the community and and we worked through that and and and we understand that dealing with school boards is a very specialized skill because of their commitment to their constituency and commitment to the public and and we try our best to get district staff and departments to work together when there are differences between board members the board and the district we dealt with the district who had a crazy board member and and again when you have one board member that is creating attention from the community to that board you know that is also something difficult to manage so i guess in summary i would like to say that this is not something that is unique this is something that happens with boards because of the nature of their composition in representing you know the community and and and we feel committed to ensuring that whatever the board wants we can help them get and overcome the obstacles that is associated with that unique situation some boards work together and work together just fine no problem some boards do not and that's not a reflection on the nature or character of the boards it's a reflection of the nature of the characters that comprise that board as an entity and we have experience doing that we we know what our role is in doing that and what our place is in doing that and it may be you know the superintendent or it may be other individuals i mean i i've worked with boards that have disagreed with you know our advice in council and we manage that you know we understand what our role is and and do you have any comments that yeah if i can just interject a lot of it just as our firm does always it's kind of the preventive law so a lot of it is education and so i've done a number of in-services on brown act for boards for conflicts of interest to try to thank you aalr same question your time begins now thank you very much i'm i'm steve anderson and josh morrison will be joining me and and also participating i've been in this business for a long period of time and it's an art working with school boards and they're very special and they're important fiduciaries that have high levels of responsibilities uh i have learned over the years that it's very important to connect with the boards and make sure they understand the issues so often for example in the areas of collective bargaining they will take positions perhaps sometimes emotionally and and not recognize the implications of outcome and it's important to spend time with boards for that purpose to make sure that they fully understand the issues and can spend reflective time in weighing the options before decisions are made in that context i've been involved in critical issues involving personnel matters and again collective bargaining issues even now collective bargaining issues with respect to you know how soon a district wants to move into a hybrid model and where the public uh the community is wanting to push the the board to move into the hybrid model and if there's a concerns and issues that need to be addressed because you have the unions not wanting to do it this quickly without the proper safeguards and even today this morning i had discussions relative to that issue and my primary concern was not only do we share with the board the concerns but we give them time to fully understand and assimilate the potential risk involved on both sides before decision is made in this context it's critically important from that standpoint time is of essence uh josh please share your comments yeah thank you very much steve and thank you very much for allowing us to present uh this evening um i wanted to talk a little bit about uh one aspect of of effectively working boards and that is to protect the board there there's a variety of of situations in which uh individual board members can potentially be at legal risk um uh or can you know be be seen as um doing something improper and so for example maybe the starting point with respect to that would be ensuring brown act compliance making sure that the board is aware of the requirements they've got their meetings agendas properly they're doing things appropriately they're not setting themselves up for uh members of the public uh or unions to to push back and suggest that the board is doing something improper um secondly along the same lines um we we do quite a bit in terms of conflict of interest and really work with districts and boards to identify and avoid um conflicts of interest um you know those are situations where an individual board member might have an interest that could be perceived as putting them in a position of uh of having really kind of two or two interests one one the districts but one but on the other hand their own uh personal interest and so um we we work hard to identify and avoid those um also with respect to a number of hearings you know employing discipline charges things of that sort those matters come to the board for ultimate decision in some cases particularly with classified employees and in order to avoid prejudicing the board um we do try to be uh cautious and uh ensure that the board um is not jumping in too early at the stage so as to create due process concerns uh it's important that the board have uh some ability to approach these issues neutrally and fairly uh and so we do try to protect the board in that respect certainly at the early stages of those matters so i mean this concept i think of protecting the board individually is something that um that is significant i would also note that the board ultimately is the client we represent the board we don't represent uh individual administrators and so um you know ultimately you know in terms of working with boards it's effect it's important to recognize uh who the client is um and we we fully understand that and obviously in most districts the administration is representing the board uh the administration is hopefully in touch with the board the administration is carrying forward uh the program uh approved by the board and typically we do uh work quite directly with with school administrators but but ultimately we do recognize that the board is the client and we need to uh sort of recognize uh recognize that and move forward with that um i don't know if anyone else wanted to jump in sorry your time is up okay thank you f3 thank you your time begins now our philosophy is that the board is the boss and you need to have communication communication communication and i think that's one of the most challenging things when you look at certain firms in the way that they interact with the board and they may potentially play board members against one another because their main focus is keeping themselves ingratiated within the districts and i think our main focus is accomplishing the goals of the board collectively and i think it's one thing when you're working with the board is understanding that the board as the majority has to have a single voice so one of the things in and i happen to be the firm's uh chair of the governance practice group that works specifically on governance issues throughout the state and i'm a frequent presenter with csba and i focus on training new board members and what i really focus on is making sure that board members in particular new board members understand civility and how to communicate with one another and ultimately accomplish the goals that really they set out to do when they first wanted to be board members now in terms of our firm we work with boards on a variety of issues and i want to move quickly because i want to make sure that my partners have an opportunity to address the different types of issues they face when working with boards for me i'm primarily a labor and employment attorney so i will advise boards on collective bargaining agreements we've talked to the board on very confidential very sensitive investigations including interviewing board members as well as on teacher dismissals that are going to have tremendous impact on the community and the board is going to have to make a very you know important decision about whether or not to reach an agreement or to pursue a dismissal even if it's going to have ripples within the community i think ultimately for the board they have to have confidence in their legal counsel and so you never want the board to have the sense that this legal counsel doesn't work for the entire board so our philosophy is our mission is to accomplish the board's mission we have to have constant communication constant training and typically when we on board with with a a school district we offer free trainings to both the administrators and the board so we can get a sense of what the goals are and i think the way that we charge for our legal services and point one increments also ensures that a board member primarily the board president who speaks for the board can always have a quick call with one of our attorneys at a point one and doesn't have to spend an excessive amount um for legal advice when they really need it and that responsiveness is absolutely crucial for us i'm going to hand it to my colleague justin thank you carlos just to expand on one of the very unique firms that things we do as a firm is our annual governance training right when the board comes in for the year and i think one of the things that's so important about that is yes we teach you this is what the brown act is and here's robert's rules of order but i think the most important thing is this is how to be an effective board this is how you work collaboratively together um both amongst yourselves with the superintendent and his cabinet and i think it really adds value um to the district and the board and then specifically we support boards in all sorts of areas both in open session and closed session whether it's giving a presentation about a new project and what the proper delivery method should be whether it's addressing the board and closed session um to finalize a property transaction or discuss a pending construction dispute and how to avoid litigation we're really there to help support the board the superintendent and the cabinets really work all together as one unit and i'll turn it over to leslie thank you jessica as i mentioned earlier i am the co-chair of our charter schools practice group and oftentimes we're asked to provide board workshops and training on issues such as charter petitions if they're submitted so even if your chart or your district does not have any currently authorized charter schools those petitions could come in at any point in time and there is a very focused and detailed set of procedural and substantive requirements that surround evaluating reviewing and considering charter petitions so while we tend to work directly with staff and equip them with various resources such as checklists matrices and other tools so that they can build capacity in-house to conduct these reviews we always like to have that opportunity to conduct a board training or workshop especially for board members who have never received a charter petition and don't know what the board's role is as a potential oversight agency or authorizer of a charter school because when those chart petitions come in there is a legal obligation to consider and take action to either approve or to deny those charters so we'd like to get out ahead of that and ensure that the the board is fully equipped and understands again what its legal obligations are what its role is as a board and thank you and the last firm was donald smith your time begins now so we represent you know when we work with school districts we represent the school district and you know on a day-to-day basis that usually means working with administration but on occasion that means working directly with the board um and like any service to a school district the first thing we need to do is really understand what that board needs from us um i like to think about and you know in my practice is what would i want from a professional luckily i'm not hiring an attorney um in my normal life but i still work with professionals and what's important there um and what's important is of course someone that's very knowledgeable someone that you trust so building that trust with the board and making sure we understand each other and also someone that serves as a counselor you know helping you think through those issues do i understand your goals and what's important to you so that i could help explain your options in a way that makes sense to you not every school district is the same not every board's the same so the options that i lay out for you based on understanding your goals and needs might be a little bit different so what you heard there is the importance of really listening that's what we need to do is listen to the board and understand what they want so that we could come up with creative solutions and give the board their options some of the examples of things i've worked with on with the board is you know boardsmanship training that's a good opportunity especially if we have new board members or new senior administrators is to take some time out to talk about what are our roles what are our expectations from each other um how are we going to operate and you know like any job like any relationship that communication of knowing our roles and what's it what we expect from each other is so important other things are advising the board on employee discipline such as you know a classified dismissal and serving in the role of advising the board and helping walk the board through that negotiations is another area or appeal of complaints you know your complaint process sometimes involve an appeal to the board so that's another area that i've worked with boards and helped walk them through um so also invite any of my other attorneys on my team to see if they have anything to add hi this is darren kamea i along with my other colleagues have appeared in closed session and in an open session to advise boards in many districts and um we have many clients and they're all different and our firm's philosophy on the most effective means of working with the school board is two parts the first is to work with the board in the capacity the board wants us to work with them we can't force ourselves on a board and tell them you have to do something if they don't want to do it the board is the boss the board is a client and we work for the board but we do believe that the most effective means of a school board to do what it needs to do would be to um to work towards consensus and to have an effective mechanism for board members to talk to each other and to talk to the superintendent and to talk to council so for us one thing that we use as a model would be your csba board bylaws and the policy regarding the board president being the spokesperson for the board and typically we'll speak to the superintendent and administrators on a day-to-day basis but with respect to the board best practice would be not to have individual board members contacting lawyers and instead channel that communication through the board president or the superintendent also to treat a question from one board member is a question from all provide an answer to everyone so everyone has the same information to build consensus and understanding of common facts we support the masters in governance program and uh are help helpful in terms of providing training to boards on civility and how to work with each other on a professional level even if um we don't agree on everything we know that board members are on stage all the time we need to make effective use of the time they are together so that we're not squabbling over minor procedural issues if we can avoid it we know that members run for office because they care about the school district and we uh believe that it's very effective to have members channel their interests and and their passion in those areas as far as areas that i have advised boards on labor negotiations labor relations employee discipline charter school matters various things and i know i have about two seconds so i thank you very much for your time thank you at this time i would like to thank you all on behalf of the board the superintendent and the members of cabinet for your time and your thorough responses if there's any follow-up questions you will receive those by monday um via email with the anticipated response time by friday again thank you for your time thank you thank you have a nice evening thank you very much yes thank you thank you very much thank you thank you thank you be well everybody uh jerry you're on mute i said so apparent thank you so this is where we're going to go ahead and adjourn and start pondering alrighty yes ma'am thank you very much ma'am 7 50 p.m i think i think um uh board member chris gonzalez had a question i believe oh i'm sorry go ahead i'm sorry i was needed twice so you didn't hear me yeah i just want to ask a couple clarifying questions so just in terms of the process you're asking us if we have any additional questions to send to submit them to you latasha by friday is that what you're asking from us yes please and um your responses will be sent to each firm right and then um and then my other question for you was in terms of us speaking about this because i see we don't have closed sessions scheduled tonight when when would we be speaking about this then our next um closed session which will be on the 20th of october so not in our next clue session which is october 6th then um no unless i mean so i'm i'm just going to suggest that's a really long time to have a conversation about this okay so i i mean i can i can follow i'm offline with with arthur and jerry but i think that's a really long time to to to talk about this that's no problem i will follow any direction given we can definitely do october 6th we just would have to minimize uh two things a the questions from the board and b the time that we're going to give the firms uh enough time to respond we definitely could do the six but we just we would all have to understand that those timelines would have to be uh condensed well can you can you maybe request can we condense our are submitting questions to you to a shorter time oh sorry agent is that what you were going to suggest that's exactly what i was going to say yeah can we make that adjustment now and reverse engineer from the six because i agree i think that that the 20th would be a pretty long time okay so then uh not a pr problem um so what about uh natasha just thinking out loud uh questions from the board uh by thursday um i'm just gonna suggest tomorrow i mean i think we just heard it it's fresh in our minds i mean i think if we have questions we should jot them down now and get them to you by tomorrow perfect concur how does everybody else feel everybody you okay with that did we lose gabriella looks like you haven't looked right yeah we just had a glitch i wonder if she got off when everyone was saying bye that may be it okay um so so so then uh questions by tomorrow uh latasha the questions go to the firms uh thursday morning and say we have to get those responses back would it be too late i'm asking the board of education to get those responses emailed to you by the fifth or do you prefer that they have to submit those by friday so you have the weekend monday's time with me monday's fine with me also all right so i'm just gonna recap uh and we'll send a follow-up uh email natasha to the board of education so any follow-up questions due by tomorrow wednesday the 30th we will submit those firms first i'm sorry questions to the firms on thursday with a response uh on monday or we can talk a little bit more maybe friday's acceptable um and and that way we could we could do the closed session on the sixth and can i just clarify the time that i will receive the question so we can review and make sure everything's out i think any time on wednesday is fine okay you'll still close it so close the business the reason close the business yeah that makes sense latasha is that for you 4 30 what time is that whatever time you send it but but what i mean i mean what are the what are your what are your like i know you work overtime because all every cbo i've known ever does that but um but i mean end of business day is is 4 30 for us if we could have 4 30 is fun yes yolanda has her hand raised jerry oh i'm sorry i was texting gabby to tell her that it would be 4 30.

got it so governor the reason the reason we asked them to change it is because if we did it by friday we wouldn't be talking about little council until our october 20th meeting it would take like a month to talk about this oh okay that makes sense okay tomorrow by four got it okay any other questions all right we've ended 757 adios

and the discussions that have gone on between 2016 and 2020 have been things that a normal person that's not a lawyer would think could have been dealt with in a couple of months and we're talking about four years here and you know at a certain point you just either got to take care of your business or you got to get off the pot and you know no business is being taken care of and i think what what i would be looking for and i'm not going to speak for any of my other council members but you know i i think we're we're looking for some guidances is it tell us what the most important or the most egregious things in here like i can tell you right now that the first sister lakes discharge bothers me greatly and that i cannot vote to move forward on something on a on a resolution that that includes that now whether or not judge connors will say oh well you were close on other things and we can do this and that i don't know but that's that's kind of my my take on it because that's just moving our problems someplace else and creating a new problem that we don't have any data on yeah at the the end of this they you know i don't know maybe we end up in court but i think you know some of what i i would like this body to give us is things we should be telling our attorneys like this is what we need to see in this settlement agreement i know we've we've given council has given the attorneys quite a bit of direction okay yeah steve this is dan in that presentation that i sent you all i tried to show the the advantages and the disadvantages between the fourth percent judgment and the third for example i pointed out that they threw out the maple road containment objective which would have stopped east of maple road contamination so i would ask people since i can't give the presentation right now to just take a look at what i had sent and i think you'll see chip that there's lots of things in there that they have excluded or need to include well dan i i've shared that with the attorneys so you know i think they're there they've got that information so i've read those um comparison of the third consent judgment versus the fourth consent judgment um changes and uh there seems to be a strong argument for uh the fact that the uh um the pz you know that zone is going to be fixed at where it currently is and i'd like to remind people that uh last time i checked 95 of all the super fund money has gone to lawyers and not to any clown that's not actually true but i'm not here to debate super fun i'm here to look at the fourth amendment judgment exactly so in my mind the risk is if we reject it totally then um we're going to be continuing with things as they are for uh an indeterminate amount of time until something else can happen so that's you're going to be going back to court according to the assistant attorney general yeah but will it take another we already have an example where it might take four years to get something else meanwhile you know the plume continues to migrate to the river under the current conditions so is there any advantage yeah are there parts of the fourth consent judgment that are advantageous to keep my summary sorry again my summary has been that actually the third uh amended consent judgment the current one's better it has more action than the fourth all you have to do is upgrade the drinking water criteria and the groundwater surface water interface criteria and it's much more protective than the form i see but those are the two that need to be incorporated from the fourth consent judgment as you're saying is the new drinking water criteria and the new gis criteria is that correct that that's that's correct and i can't believe the judge wouldn't immediately do that how can the judge sit there and say okay you guys can't come to an agreement but i'm going to let you continue to violate the current state laws no i'm going to issue an order and remember the judge has issued three different orders um that have impacted the the second consent judgment he ordered an expansion of the prohibition zone he ordered uh an investigation into the unity and he ordered additional remediation efforts so it's not like it's um odd for the judge to issue an order where he sees that there's right that's not being done okay so so in other words shannon's been trying to say something i'm sorry shannon yeah um i guess i would like to say that i think that something that was really clear to me with this last round is that nobody was looking at surface water in terms of the solution i think that's what chip is getting at um that it seems like it's been much more oriented to groundwater um but that just to kind of throw this oh by the way we're gonna add you know four and a half inches a day to the first sister lake every day i mean it's like that just has enormous implications and so i feel like that i know we don't have any access to what people are talking about but one of the things that i would suggest in terms of some sort of tangible movement going forward if we're going to ask for anything would be that surface water understanding and hydrology at the surface would be part of the negotiation as well besides just the the groundwater contamination piece because i i it's just incredible to me that they would that they would um i mean it would it would fill up fast so it would basically spill over you know into into honey creek because there's a connection under wagner there um but we don't know where that where is that there's all kinds of things we just need to understand it and and it's like there's just no mention at all of of what's going on there and um some sort of i mean if that's going to go forward some sort of at least pre-study and and post you know to understand what that impact would be i mean that's huge so i want to make sure that moving forward that surface hydrology um is part of the is part of the discussion um because it just seems like it's uh has been more focused on the on the groundwater piece which is obviously super important as well but i would like that to be included so maybe that's um you kind of get at that somewhat in the in the resolution um uh but maybe to call it out a little bit more directly in terms of how the the issue was understood okay uh chris um if if you take paul an australian company at their word but this is the bottom line um and i given the nature of this judgment and it's really awful ramifications i think one needs to take them at their work it means an australian company that's abandoned our town is about to stop cooperating and that is a big gravity um if we could get it to be a super fun site then maybe 20 years from now there'll be some money there that could help us um it means in my view that we the people of ann arbor are going to have to fix this problem as best we can i wouldn't waste money on court i would get busy trying to figure out how to deal with it and raise the money to do it i you know uh the history of companies abandoning these things and going bankrupt or whatever it takes to avoid obligation is huge and i think that's where we're going right so what are you saying is that um council should not agree to block uh superfund option green okay um let's see so yeah um any other comments at this point so let me let me write down what i have so far here um one is that uh that we recommend the data be uh acquired and uh made public and uh you know well that any data about uh contamination or pollution be done by generated by an independent third party and that it be publicly available how about that okay the second one would be absolutely no discharge in the first sister like any diversion would have to be the other side i'm surprised that they didn't uh propose to take the treated water and inject it into an underground well on the site probably not a not a reasonable aquifer to do that with here and deep wells are very expensive well yeah but that's one way of uh if you wipe your dilution and dispersion you know if dilution is a solution then that's one way of doing it at low levels you know if they treat it down to seven parts per billion john calhoun would like to speak yep yeah so while we're on that point of the water discharge do you still have in the one whereas clause about the 100 year reign event and the reason i asked is i've seen people calculate that in very different ways and i don't know if we want to kind of commit to that without really having the analysis for that but maybe other folks know i'm just thinking i would feel better if that was not in there and the way that we talk about the groundwater discharge or the water discharge impact around there i think would make it stronger no i'm with shannon i'm with shannon uh go ahead um i just would say i was suspicious of it too and so i ran the numbers and i came up with the same thing so i actually feel pretty confident that i mean it is naming something so i get that in terms of um in terms of like it is a little tricky you know to to get in and name that i agree um but i i was also kind of like huh who did the math on that and so um i came up with a very similar very similar number but i think that um we don't have to say a hundred year i mean we can we can we can still get out get at the idea of it uh which is i think yeah yeah it would be yeah yeah no i agree i would be more stringent and just say no discharging to first sister like that's what i'd recommend and then if it's considered it need only be considered further if there's a thorough hydrology study and that there's a reliable and constant monitoring that at least uh it's it's been treated down to 7.2 parts per billion before it's put in there because you know uh what i heard in lumpke's presentation is oh yeah you know the lake will fill up but it'll discharge and so but where will it discharge right into honey creek right so what if they're not treating it down to drinking water standards and running it down here on creek upstream or municipal water intake right so so i'd rather leave it at that and just not even mention any rain events or you know because a thorough hydrology study would give us some better idea of what the hazards were what the flood risks were but there's even there's another risk of uh you know untreated dioxane getting dumped into hunting creek and so okay and then i mentioned the peer-reviewed panel for review of technical data the other one was vapor intrusion we haven't talked about vapor intrusion but there has been a concern that when the plume gets close enough it's going to we might get some potential intrusion of dioxane vapor into uh residents basements down in the water creek uh ellen creek watershed does anybody want to comment on that or does anybody have a uh have an opinion about that or some some closer knowledge now dan well the problem that we have is that they've never done a study to show where are the routes of exposure as this thing moves through the city when they originally set this up they said well the groundwater is going to go from maple road and go into the river but that's not really all the things that can happen to it it actually can go down and now in the old west side in west park it's within 10 feet of the surface so like you say you have the exposure where the dioxane kind of like radon will evaporate up and go into a building causing vapor intrusion you can also get a building that could get flooded and if it's flooded with the dioxin there's another route of exposure and then you have workers in the trench you can imagine a person cutting a trench to lay some pipe and if that's within you know 10 feet of the surface where the groundwater is contaminated that person can become contaminated so yes in the old west side and west park areas there are routes of exposure that this does not dress and also please also please the city of ann arbor sorry the ann arbor charter township has excuse me has wells between the plume and barton pond which we all don't reflect that but that's a major concern of course in our charter township is their residential wells right on that path because the plume moves towards martin pond which is which is where it's partially going yeah that's their concern not the city of ann arbor's i'm not to be blunt but you know i think we given our time restraints right now we should really restrict ourselves to thinking about what you know what what we send to council who's responsible for you know the city of ann arbor not the town yeah i think you could probably phrase it steve that the consent judgment should be protective of these routes of exposure in the old west side with the shallow groundwater contamination yep no i think that's good okay um now uh yeah i'm sorry anybody have their hand off yeah yeah steve there was another point i wanted to bring up to see what folks thought about this as an additional kind of issue to address is the the lack of performance criteria for the fighter remediation plans um it just kind of has a basic you know we're going to plant some trees but no kind of performance criteria in terms of what's what are we looking for what's going to be success what's what's very vague all they are required to do is remove mass which like you say is very big yep how does fighter remediation have to do with removal of mass well technically what they're saying which is partially true is that the dioxane will get sucked up with the water into the plant and like all plants they respire they breathe so the dioxane will come up into the plant and as the plant breathes and respires it's going to go off into the atmosphere so i know a little bit about fighter remediation and usually it's very much triggered by certain plant relationships it's like certain species are actually part of that whole system you don't just use whatever plants are out there there's targeted plants for targeted you know issues you don't just say fighter remediation you you know you would list the things that are specifically set up for whatever 1-4 dioxane is not just general you know evapotranspiration yes yes yes well that's the problem that we have with this a lot of this is in the future they're going to propose their plan you see they don't lay it out for us but generally poplars are supposed to be pretty good at this because they have a fairly deep root system dan you're fading i can't hear you sorry um yeah the problem is is that we don't know uh because they didn't tell us what their plan was but generally poplars are are used for this sort of phytoremediation so they would just plant poplars everywhere i mean it's like yeah yeah that's it well it was for a specific site near the gelman facility if i remember correctly okay well great i'm sorry i'm sorry yes it was in one specific area yeah yeah it was there was the pond one and two area in the marsh area okay the marsh area near the gilman site itself yes all of these all this is going to be on the gilman site not off of the gelman property okay the fighter remediation is for their site okay that clarifies that thank you yes ma'am um i just want to add to that that they they didn't provide any information for success with this method very specific to dioxane at all it's just just stated as a method yeah yeah it's uh it was bizarre so um so dan is there uh so are all the hot spots that you're aware of that have that have been admitted publicly by gelman are all those hot spots being treated in this plan in this future plan or do you think it's important to treat all the hot spots i think they should be treating all the hot spots yes but what they do in here for the groundwater off-site hot spots because they really don't do enough work they don't do enough groundwater extraction so one of the comments that that i would one of the warehouses that i would have is that they need to properly design broad water extraction and treatment system to actually you know halt the plume and clean up the aquifer you got to remember that what they did is to estimate and to put the number of groundwater extraction wells out there and how much they should be pumping they just simply use the 200 gallon per minute uh transmission line that they currently have they didn't say okay here's where you need to put the extraction wells and here's what the rate should be to capture this area they said wait a minute this line can only carry 200 gallons per minute so where should we put the welds so there's never been a remedial design investigation to determine what is necessary to halt the plume which is something they should be doing for sugar yeah i would uh yeah i would add a resolve clause that would say treat all hot spots to halt treat all hot spots using best technology available yes because i heard there already is another one okay well let me put up my screen now does anybody else want to make a comment at this point uh tech you're muted no i didn't have a comment sorry okay all that excitement for nothing think i must have just been going like this this is ian hey ann yes did we want to include maybe on even on that last resolve clause something about the the cj allows for that 500 parts per billion which and then gelman can walk away which was i think one of vince or james one of the callers put out that that's a non-starter that's way too high i'm sorry could you repeat that um they this this fourth cj allows for parts per billion is the threshold that then gelman can walk away and consider it done and that was too high i think aren't those limits set by by state law and federal law no sorry steve but what they said is that if you operate the park lake well to a remediation level of 500 parts per billion as ants talking about then you can turn it off it doesn't mean that things below 500 parts per billion aren't going to cause a problem it'll just allow that 500 part per billion below 500 part per billion plus to move the same thing on-site they have these three uh production wells pw wells on site which are extraction wells and their cleanup criteria is 500 parts per billion as well but but the rub is these other wells their criteria is until they attain the eastern area objectives and you can attain the eastern area objectives by just simply expanding the prohibition zone or using a mixing zone based groundwater surface water interface value so as soon as you attain the prohibition zone objective and the groundwater surface water interface objective then you can turn all the off-site wells off in the eastern area or most of them are [Music] well and that goal right now is 7.2 parts per billion uh that's the drinking water criteria but it's they don't have to hit the drinking water criteria is what i'm trying to say as soon as they find that the prohibition zone can be expanded okay which they can continue to the to expand if the court agrees okay that ident that satisfies their prohibitions on containment objective by expanding the prohibition zone sure the second thing they have to do is there's a groundwater surface water interface value that's where the ground enters the surface water and if they apply a mixing zone based uh groundwater surface water interface value which they can where it enters into the huron river so it goes all the way through the city and then enters the huron river then they're done with that objective so as long as they get those two objectives they can turn off the uh groundwater extraction systems that are off the site except for the park lake which you gotta hit 500 and the ones on the three on the site but you got to hit 500.

so you know a teacher that's only got one or two might feel like they can just bring them into the class virtually without a problem as the kids get older that's a lot easier as the kid you know at kindergarten that's tough so that's why it's hard for us to say what they're exactly going to get i think at the middle school i feel like you're probably going to see a little more of uh of some teachers wanting to pipe their students into the room but uh but but we're not we're not guaranteeing that we just want to see how this is going to go and how what the comfort level is for staff so um go ahead lauren are there any teachers that don't want to return to school in person teaching i'm sure yeah i'm sure there are and uh have you queried the teachers to see who's we did we so as far as don't want to or can't uh so there's because i i know people are nervous and i and i and i i respect it i do and i hope they respect you know what we're trying to do as well uh we're i don't want to put anybody in a dangerous situation that's not the intent at all and just trying to follow the guidance we're getting as well so i know we have people that are nervous do we have some that can't um the number is small and i'm working i'm working through those this week with uh some individual meetings just to kind of talk to people about what we can do to make them feel like they their safety needs are met given their situations but um there are some you know there's some leaves that could take place like people could take extended leaves if they just you know um so i don't have the number yet but this week i'm working doing some individual meetings and talking to people about that so there is a potential that a teacher who has a virtual class now may not be teaching that class come october there's a there's a potential of that yes because they if they if they can't come um there's potential of that that we'd have it'd be like somebody taking a maternity leave or something and having a sub so there is potential for that i don't think right now the the number is very small but uh there is potential do we have staff to fill in to backfill that that's that's one of the yeah we do right now we do but uh we don't have a lot so that's going to be one of the things that we have to watch closely that's why we put substitute availability on that that dashboard because that could tip us at any time so to understand the notepad it slips if example parents drop off their kids yeah parents says oh here's the slip go ahead you can go to you know in school but the kids that are taking buses and sometimes a parent has to go to work and so mrs such and such he'll go with her to the bus stop with her kid too and then they get to the bus stop and that other child doesn't have a slip mother parent forgot to give it to him or something can that other person that's with the kid give them a slip or are they named or how are they um if they just didn't have the slip we'd probably ask that parent to bring that child to school and then we would have our nurses do a screen because if they don't have the slip we'll just we'll do a screening for them and have our nurses check them out before we let them in the classroom okay so can i guess will the campus be open for visitors so well you know it's like in my district you cannot visit the school so no visitors on campus i think in our in our faq document did we put something about that i thought we did yeah yeah we said no okay i thought i couldn't remember that so and have you guys thought about assigning teachers just to teach virtual classrooms if if the numbers of students that sign up for virtual dictate it we could but we'd have to shuffle kids away from teachers that they currently have built relationships with that's what that's what makes us a little bit leery of doing that but if we have a large number of kids that want to stay virtual we we might consider doing that um the friday is uh friday morning there'll be some they'll be touching bases zoom with students and then friday afternoons are all prep in our early release days we are when we have trainings we're making them optional so those can be prep time as well walking throughout the schools we've seen flexible learning spaces and almost a lot of the classrooms and have those been all been eliminated they are i can't say that 100 yet because we haven't set up the classrooms but they they're going to be all on desks uh i think they're so no more sitting on couches or rolling around on balls or anything like that anymore uh balls i'm not sure couches yeah um i will have to check on that kevin i'm not positive i want to make sure i don't want to tell you yes if it hasn't been taken out yet but but yeah we'll have to uh that was one of my big concerns yeah i understand the importance of them and yeah the value they have but if i give a kid a chair with wheels that pretty much defeated the whole six foot good point yep good point all those items they'll be taken out of the classroom right because the temptations will be there right yeah yeah i know other schools have taken them out taking them out we've talked about it we're running out of a little bit of uh i actually haven't talked to i know mr whipple and i talked about it here because that's where a lot of this a lot of it happens too is um we're uh we didn't come up with a location to put some of it but uh he was going to ask some of the staff to take it was personal stuff he's going to ask him to take it home but um but yeah we'll work on that will the will there be those shields at the desk for the teachers we have purchased those for uh staff yes and they we've purchased the uh the k 95 mask but also face shields if they want them so they have face shields and masks and then they also have the dividers at the desk if they i think we bought one for every room so and then for middle school is it still going to continue in kind of a black schedule i realize it's probably on your one of your sides yeah it's it's similar yeah they're doing uh uh so the middle school students have six periods they're they're doing a little different i like what they're doing but uh they're doing so if you come on monday uh your in-person time in the morning is for periods one two three and your afternoon is still periods one two three but your that's your asynchronous time so that day you're only dealing with three classes but you can get get it twice and tuesday you're going to get your other three classes in the morning and afternoon kevin you have a list there go for it one of the slides said it was an emphasis on in-person instruction for ela and math for k-4 does that i mean i know what the word emphasis means but that doesn't mean that it's always going to be done yeah you know i think uh the way our schedules look right now that is yeah there there's a morning meeting right so they're they're doing a morning meeting but then the rest of it's there's no specials everything else is uh from home okay for k through four k four okay so are you guys doing like a a day and a b day like a is math b is reading so just that three hours is the teachers just pick they'll have both okay are they still getting the same amount they did before because it's like a 80-minute block or whatever it is yeah okay um and then temperature checks for the bus i i i see the point of this little ticket i see this as being a disaster though i i mean just seeing the kids because what if a kid gets on the bus loses it on the bus gets it on the bus they get in and now we got back up at the nurse's station i mean i think so they have to they have to actually get it they're going to drop it in the bucket when they get on the bus okay so that's that so they won't get on the bus unless they have it got it okay and then when they get out of their car we'll have people out and they'll just drop them in the bucket go in the building i mean what happened to like doing the temperature checks for the kids before they got i know that was a talked about at one meeting that we were going to have a second bus rider and they were going to just scan the kids as they come in yeah we just don't have the people that's the problem we just we're running out of people can i guess can the bus driver do live you see when the kids are walking on the bus because she's only having 20 something kids technically as they step on she can for us i mean we can we can do it it's just for us it was a safety hazard i just didn't want to distract the driver doing this and then forget what she got out of a routine and you know that that was that was reason we did we talked about it right we didn't talk about parents more accountable what's that so you're holding parents more accountable yeah yeah some so i've talked to several districts about who have who are attempting some in-person just kind of what are you doing because this issue was when i just couldn't get around this whole self-certification thing if everybody like i can get on my phone and it takes me 10 seconds to self-certify on skyward like i just because it does my face identification i just hit submit done but if everybody did it it would be easy but we just can't we have no way of determining when that kid gets on the bus if their parent did that and so um so that's why we had to go this route so what some are doing which i didn't feel comfortable with they're just telling parents if you send your child to school we are assuming that you've done the check so they're not doing any kind of but then when they come they're doing a temperature check when they get in the building um ideally they tell so that that to me was not good enough and and so we're at least by the parent at a minimum by the parent giving them this ticket there it's a reminder of the parent that they have to that you know i know it's not perfect but i don't know how to how else to do it the uh the temperature check ideally they say is you get once they're in the building for at least a couple minutes they get kind of get their because if when it's really cold outside those temperatures are going to read cold until the kid gets kind of acclimated to indoor air what temperature do they have to be to not um i think we have under 100.

motion second vivian and julia peter yes ryan yes yes sasha yes yes we accepted a resignation from kimberly yates a bus driver effective september 13th and we've set accepted a resignation from mitchell coates middle school paraprofessional effective october 9th to mr coats he is going into the united states air force thank you guys thank you thank you thank you all in favor of favor oh all in favor aye aye are you opposed eyes have it you

so the purpose for that was to take the analysis that was in the program development agreement and the energy program savings report that was prepared by ng and then the next step was to examine or to start looking at possible partners or contractors who could implement uh some of those recommendations so in connection with that rfq a committee was organized consisting of the bargaining unit representatives teacher representatives principals representatives from the business office staff who conducted interviews um of from the firms among the firms that proposed and uh that committee recommended and ng as a finalist and then the the board approved ng or approved the selection of edgy on april 12 2017 and then two years later in 2019 the board approved resolution 39-18-19 approving an energy services contract between the district and ng and i'll talk about that in a second too but that energy services contract dealt primarily with the implementation of of lighting measures replacement of district lighting and the use of prop 39 funds to pay for that project so let me go back to the 2015 uh program development agreement because it is directly related to the solar program so the pro the the program development agreement the purpose of that was for optera now ng to perform an energy assessment of the district facilities and then provide a recommendation identifying potential energy improvements and operational changes that could be implemented at the district sites to achieve energy efficiencies and cost savings so specifically in that agreement optero was or ng was to look at six different uh possible savings measures or areas for savings they included lighting building ottoman automation handling systems equipment modifications solar pv and electrical vehicle charging stations of course the district wasn't that was just a an examination of possibilities it didn't mean that the district was bound to go forward on any of those and then the second important part of that program development agreement was that the district in optera would then enter into good faith negotiations for an energy services contract following the assessment for installation of energy conservation measures and again that was in 2015 and that was approved by the board after that agreement altera acquires is acquired by ng and then ng proceeds and prepares the energy savings program report that is required by the program development and so this is a page from that energy program savings report and again the purpose of the report was or one of the purposes of the report was to provide recommendations identifying potential energy improvements and so as part of that process part of that analysis of course ng had to identify how much energy was used being used at each of the district's facilities and sites and so you can see here in this chart on this slide there's a very specific analysis of each of the district sites and the actual electrical energy usage and building and billing rates as part of that analysis ng also prepared uh recommended energy improvements for consideration by the board and there were three separate areas of improvements the first one was led lighting at eight sites the funding of which would be through prop 39 grant money and ng prepared an estimate of lifetime net savings over the lifetime of that equipment or that program the second area of examination was a potential solar program solar photovoltaic system at all of the district's sites the funding uh was because of the district's uh capital facilities program and needs and really you know um the overall uh unavailability of capital resources the funding in the energy savings program report was as was a power purchase agreement and i'll get into that in a little a little bit more detail but under a power purchase agreement the uh customer in this case the district does not pay for the acquisition of the equipment it doesn't pay for the installation or the construction or the maintenance of the equipment it's more in the nature of a contract for services in that ng would or the the contractor would set up the solar pv system and then the customer the district would then buy power from the contractor so the lifetime net savings estimated from that program were 43 million dollars and then the third program that was looked at by angie was led lighting at the remaining district sites but as you can see from this chart um funding or potential funding source was indeterminate at that point but if it could happen there the district could achieve additional lifetime savings over the life of that program so in connection so again this was all i anticipated this analysis was all anticipated in the original programmed agreement it was fleshed out a little bit more in the energy savings program report and as part of that energy program savings report and i believe this is a slide or a chart that you have all seen in one form or another ng did prepare an estimate of net savings if the district was to implement a solar pv power purchase agreement at 22 of its district sites and so you can see on the chart on this slide these estimates are based on 22 district sites and the term of the power purchase agreement being 28 years and you can see in the second column from the right the net savings every year at the bottom of that column based on this analysis that the net savings over the uh the 28 year life of that agreement to the district would be just over 43 million dollars so again this was part of the energy savings program report which was a consequence of the program development agreement so uh again um in april of 2019 the board approved the energy services contract with ng as i said earlier uh the purpose of that agreement was the implementation of the lighting measures and the contract amount in that case was 2.823 million dollars the and you can see here that the scope of the work were facility interior and exterior lighting efficiency upgrades and retrofits at eight schools the eight schools listed on that slide that work was completed in february of this year and again the funding source for that was prop 39 funds so that gives us that gives us the framework of the program development agreement and the energy services contract so that brings us to solar because that's that would be potentially the next step in this process okay so uh so as i said earlier the energy savings uh program report looked at potential savings um if the district was to implement a solar pv program that was uh slide number five and then uh the slide the green chart that we looked at uh included an estimate of cost savings from implementation of a power purchase agreement framework for this kind of program at the district and again it's all based on a power purchase agreement so what is a solar power purchase agreement a solar pv ppa um and this is a definition that i have just pulled from the epa website and a power purchase agreement is a financial arrangement in which a third-party developer owns operates and maintains the photovoltaic system and a host customer in this case the district agrees to site the system on its property and purchases the system's electric out output from the solar services provided a provider for a predetermined period so in this case what we talked about uh or what what angie put together was an estimate of savings over over a power purchase agreement with a term of 28 years and i think one of the points that that has been made in the past by district staff and others is that this is the point at the bottom of this slide is that because it is the um because it the the customer in this case the district doesn't pay for the system for its installation or construction but rather just simply purchases power generated by the system at a predetermined rate lower than what it would normally pay to the utility in this case pg e one of the benefits of this structure is that it can be cash flow positive for the for the host customer the district from the day that the system is commissioned so the concept of the uh so again the concept is the district would not purchase the equipment we would not pay for its construction installation or maintenance the developer pays all of those upfront all of those costs up front what the district would do is it would lease portions of its sites to the solar pv developer at a nominal p lease rate for the installation and operation of the solar equipment on the district facilities to generate the solar power so we have to keep in mind that you know not every solar agreement works for every customer so what would how how could it benefit the district in this instance so two of the principal points are is that it would benefit the district if it provides a stable source of electrical energy to the district over the term of the agreement and second that it provides that electrical energy to the district over the term at a cost less than what the district would have paid to utility over the same length of time and if that's the case then that would result in general fund savings to the district in this case so applying that that principle to the to alum rock um the district currently pays approximately 1.65 million dollars annually to pg e so if the the if in this case using the uh a solar pv program at all 22 district sites as as has been looked at previously let's assume that the developer installed solar at the dis in the district at all 22 of those sites the district using that analysis the district would continue to buy some electricity from pg e uh or power but not at the rate you know or the volume has had been done previously and if that amount is 250 000 annually to pg e and one million dollars per year to the developer the owner of the solar pv system i'm sorry you you um you went you know silent for a few minutes so um can you back up a couple of seconds yes so on this slide what i'm looking what i'm looking at is sort of uh implementing or putting together all of these principles uh and how it would work at alum rock specifically can you hear me now still yes so currently the district pays approximately 1.6 million dollars to pg e annually for power um but let's assume that the district installed solar uh solar power program across all 22 sites and that in this case the district would continue its its its utility bills paid to pg e would be reduced dramatically to fifty 250 dollars per year for electricity and one million dollars per year would be paid to the developer for the solar power generated by the solar pv system on the district property so in that case once the solar pv system is installed the district's electrical bill would be 1.25 million dollars that would be a 400 000 savings per year initially um under the solar power purchase agreement framework and again that would be you know a long-term agreement and what we've been looking at here is possibly 28 years one of the benefits or a couple of the benefits of this agreement or this type of structure is that the developer remains responsible for maintaining and repairing the solar pv system um for the term of the agreement in in this case 28 years in addition in the agreement itself the developer guarantees the amount of power that will be generated or the minimum amount of power that will be generated by the solar pv system over those 20 years and the reason that customers like the district and other school districts ask for that guarantee is your interest or one of your interests is locking in savings to your general fund over the course of the agreement and so though that power guarantee is critical uh to your interests so the district would pay only for the power produced provided that it meets the minimum guarantee at predetermined prices over the life of the agreement and then the agreement can also be structured with an out with an option to purchase so that if uh if it makes sense financial sense for the district at some point to acquire the system then it can do that those can all be built into the agreement okay so uh it so is all of this free and the answer to that is no it's not all free there would be costs in entering into a solar pv power purchase agreement so you would continue to have to purchase some electricity whether it would be through some of it through pg e and or some of it through your developer you would still have to buy some to power your systems but again the point of the agreement is that you are buying it the electric the electricity at rates lower than what you were you would otherwise pay and which are locked in for the term of the agreement there would also be some transactional costs associated with this the first would be dsa certified inspectors so in california whenever construction takes place on a school site most projects require a dsa certified inspector who is there to represent the interests of the district there may be some additional costs for permits and approvals there are transactional other transactional types like attorneys fees uh and other consultants to negotiate a solar pv power or purchase agreement and then um as the site the last category would be as the details of this of an agreement are being worked out there would be a more specific assessment of the district several several sites to determine to make a determination that the solar pv equipment can be installed there fully and easily there may be some issues that might have to be addressed of course as part of this um as you know with you know the the the school sites have to be accessible uh to disabled persons and these are not these would not be roof mounted solar systems they would be canopies they would be shade structures in the parking lots and potentially in other places at the school sites so there may be some additional uh minor cost associated with some necessary site improvements that would have to take place at about the same time some of these costs still remain to be determined but in you know in you know in terms of an order of magnitude um they are not uh you know they don't appear to be more than uh you know a million dollars at this point um but that this information would still have to be determined so what are the next steps uh for the district um so uh you know the staff the staff is working on getting answers to the following critical questions excuse me to help the board make a decision about this type of project these critical questions include would a solar pv system be implemented safely without disruption to the district's educational program second can a solar pv system be installed in the district that fits the requirements of the district's current and planned electrical structure and future needs so for example you would want the district has an interest in making sure that if if it is going to enter into a power purchase agreement for solar energy that the district does that the district doesn't have to spend exorbitant sums of money upgrading its existing facilities in other words the solar system can be can be installed and operated using the district's current electrical system and structure also taking into account um some planned improvements hopefully in the near future things like hvac and heating projects third what would the phasing of the installation project look like what is the period of time of build out which schools would go first those types of issues fourth would a solar pv system save money for the district and if so how much fifth what is a firm estimate of the transactional costs to the district in entering into the solar pv agreement so those are all critical questions um that and there may be some more that the board has but you know we think these are critical questions that we need to be able to provide uh the board uh answers for uh as part of your decision making process once we have those answers then uh the staff will make a presentation uh present its analysis and recommendations to the board under the government code for these types of projects the board cannot approve them unless and until it holds a public hearing with at least two weeks advanced notice to the public at which time the the board uh considering the staff's analysis and recommendations the potential benefits to the district the board would have to make a finding that the solar power purchase agreement is in the best interest of the district and then secondly generally that the anticipated cost to the district uh for the solar for the solar energy uh will be less than the anticipated costs uh for energy to the district in the future if it didn't have the solar power program so again that determination uh can only be made uh after a public hearing at a regular board meeting that's uh you know with at least two weeks advanced notice to the public so that's the presentation that's uh we are really at the point now of answering these these five questions uh that i walked you through uh to try to get to this the points in this last slide to develop a firm analysis and recommendation to the board so thank you for your attention and we're happy to answer any questions okay thank you mr ruiz and and staff everyone that that has worked on this report very thorough and very informative um and so uh before we get to questions and comments from the board as i mentioned we will go ahead and take public comment uh from our public and then we'll move into the to the board discussion or questions on this item so mr gill i am assuming that there are public comments so maribel um if we can get the timer up we can get going on those comments my assumption is correct right mr gill we have public comment yes there is one okay and there's leonika okay so uh the timer is up so veronica when you begin speaking your two minutes will begin you look great thank you so much for and thank you rogelio for giving this presentation um i do have a couple of questions one is um my first question is why is rogerio doing the presentation we usually have other staff just being him the lawyer um and then another of my questions is i know that governmentary newsletter is moving towards you know um more innovative electricity more innovative um uh stuff sorry um and and so would it be possible that maybe later governor newsom might put out a grant for districts um to receive um money to make sure that this installation you know whatever that we have to put up front does not come from our own money but rather than it comes from a brand that the government might put and it's not something that as parents we can definitely advocate up to um sacramento but just because it is essential that we know that there's other priorities that need to be handled before we put solar panels um and as we heard i know that before it was like oh no it's going to be free but it turns out like there is the cost and you know we kind of didn't know about that cost and we don't still even have an estimate of how much so i really want to keep us on that loop of like we know that governmentism is very progressive um and we're hoping to have him hopefully more and longer um and should a grand calm um should that really alleviate us because we are at 26 million dollars and also you know as the board moves forward with some of these things um i also want to remind everyone that there is still a mistrust right there is something that happened before that hurt our community and those war members for the most part are not there anymore and so just keep in mind that you might not be here and what it what is that that you're going to implement going to affect our families ourselves and our children so thank you thank you next speaker mr gill mendel hi um good evening uh board members um superintendent um i do have a comment over this um i appreciate the slideshow and the information i think that it gives us a lot of it answers a lot of the questions that we have um i do see that the expenditure is 10 to 20 000 that we at this point don't have i would love to redirect the staff to student achievement and um ways that we can support our students because right now as we see we are in dashboard at orange which means we're close to red which is not great as much as i would love to see solar panels i would love to see our student achievement go up and since this does require money maybe we could push this um a little bit further until hopefully prop 15 passes that can give some money to the district so we can do these things i would also love to see more companies i feel like this whole presentation was based on ng and um i would love to see more local companies that come from uh our area where the money goes back to the community and see what partnerships we can get to cover some of these expenses because i know that this can happen if we create great partnerships that or grants that can help us pay for this but i do want to concentrate on student achievement because right now we are in covit 19 and we still have a lot of issues that need to be covered and i would love this presentation to be done in a school board meeting not in a special board meeting where not a lot of attendance are and i find that that it's kind of um a red flag that this would be giving in a special board meeting not last time we had said this was going to be brought in october and we're in september 29th so i don't understand why there's this big pressure right now for this when we have a lot of issues with our student learning virtual learning thank you thank you next comment mr gil gonzalez when you begin speaking your two minutes will begin good evening members of the board um once again superintendent i have to echo what veronica and brenda had said before me one can we weigh a little bit more into governor and houston brings um a little more help for our students and for our help i know that he's an amazing leader and he's doing a lot for especially for our schools and education wise second i don't understand why we bring in this item this awesome presentation i have to i have to acknowledge that and thank the staff for bringing this and answering most of the questions that our parents had to a um to this kind of meeting instead of an open public meeting which is gonna happen in two weeks from now um it gives a lot more opportunity for more audience it gives a lot more opportunity for people to know and to hear the presentation and to acknowledge the work that i have been doing and not in a in in this in this kind of setting i i as a parent and as a as a community member that have been in every single board meeting will um don't understand why and i i really want to ask that to the board to why today and not waiting to october how it was planned before and what people are expected to hear um and also let's focus on another things that we have to focus based on our schools based on reparations that the schools needs before focusing on bringing solar panels so thank you very much and have a good evening thank you next person mr gill none okay thank you everyone so we can now open it up to questions and comments from um from the board are there any questions or comments off the top um from board members to direct courts staff or whoever trustee i see your hand and then trust me i see you after that uh so and i'm assuming it's a question for uh or the staff you know the answer um back in and you went through the timeline i want to say maybe april 2017 um when uh you know whether it's ng or at the time that the agreement was made whether it was the previous uh organization or not or at the time it was ng is there a uh like a legal binding agreement that was made is there a legal contract that was made at that time that we need to continue with this organization no um no that and that's why i thought it was to to go back to the program development agreement from 2015 because that just laid out the original structure of somebody taking a an analysis or doing an assessment and analysis of what possible energy conservation measures there might be the agreement for the lighting retrofits was specific to that to that project it doesn't bind the district to move forward on the solar uh program with ng or or at all with anybody okay and then um the next question i have and i you know kind of did my calculations with your approximate 1 million dollar dollar cost um at the beginning so that would mean that after the third year then we'd see um gainings from it uh money back to the to the district that we can then implement into you know whatever else we decide at that time is that correct that's correct assuming that savings level it's it's also possible so as as i noted in terms of the transactional cost there might be some site specific or for example ada costs those may actually never materialize with respect to the dsa inspectors there is a way to and no contract has been negotiated with ng or with anybody else so there is a way to try to build those costs in order to negotiate lower amounts uh to offset some of those costs so i i you know i i was probably being a little very conservative with the one million dollar estimate my my gut tells me that the transactional costs won't come in nearly that high and then even if you can't get rid of all of them there are some there there is some room to try to continue to push those costs down okay those are just the questions off the top of my head as you were talking that came out thank you okay thank you um and obviously you know more opportunity if other things come up to any other board members as we discuss uh trustee quintero um yeah so i appreciate the work that staff did to to bring uh this information i think it's good information um and uh you know um one of the reasons why we brought it forward i assume is because we wanted to dedicate more time uh because at a regular board meeting it kind of gets a little bit more of um there's other there's other items in the agenda but i would be glad to see it on the regular boardview agenda but not just the information that staff provided because what i assumed we were going to get at this meeting was other uh potential options beyond um what we're seeing and so there's a good information but i also wanted to see other options and so um other organizations that do power purchase agreements and what uh what what opportunities are out there and so um while we have an rfp in place with ng i'm i was more inclined to get uh more uh you know to find out what other opportunities i know it's been a while and so there's always new things that are popping up new programs new new technology and so that was my interest just to get more information um as we move forward that way we make sure we do so without you know with the wealth of information so those are my comments okay thank you any other questions or comments from the board uh trustee chavez uh kind of tapping on a little bit of what our trustee just just spoke on uh was this board has not seen three bids and so i know that they've seen them in 2015 but this board has not and also i want to remind you that in 2014 or 13 there was five schools that needed repair and they put it on a priority list and to this day they still have not done that first and it was priority then it's still priority over this um and the those schools were promised that and i just see us passing things and not following through i think we should follow on through on those things first because that is you can use the bond money there and um another thing is i don't know if i this may not sound too good but if we do this just go with this one company it sounds again like we're only going with one company and we're not vetting them properly and are we there i'm gonna be told something by the state because this is what happened with the last previous board um that there wasn't um several bids out and also i want to remind um everybody that i mentioned months ago that we haven't heard the alternative side and one of them is being that in one of the presentations on the facilities not only did the mot guy state but as well as the ng representative stated that we needed to upgrade the electrical before they put the solar in and so that's going to be a lot more cost in in the previous meetings when it was written down on the agenda no cost or very little cost that wasn't true and to me the way it was written it seemed deceptive so i didn't agree with that and also um i want to thank mr roger for the presentation and it seems like they have a new salesman but the thing is is that nobody on this board is a solar expert neither is the superintendent nor any of the admins any other trustees or the legal team so i would like to have a presentation of the 10 mistakes that districts make and i had recommended this before and there's things that you can guide yourself on it's done through the csba who has a team of lawyers and this particular law firm did it and i'm not advocating for them so i'm not going to put their name up but we should also get that presentation and an overview of solar power purchasing contracts including ppas and alternative ownership of options because as everybody knows anything in say in the phone world in communications within five years it's obsolete and so i believe that the solar power uh is being redone and in in a better way year after year and so this was done 2015 i don't want to get a system and put it in place and then ten years later it's gonna be a leader you can't get the solar panels and all the different mistakes that districts have made in trying to pursue solar power and and how to help the districts avoid all those mistakes i think we should look into that too because this is a good project but not now because we should be focused on student learning this distance learning has put so many kids behind and when i see the presentation and i see ng on the agenda month after month after month that tells me that the administration that's their priority when the priority should be the students and their learning and if they're not learning put all that you have towards that because before the coping the children were 68 below grade level so you can imagine after six months where they're at now if we spend the money on this it's at the cost of something else and it'll be and affect the students and their learning and i'm just requesting that you table this for months before you can get an expert telling you the other side before we see how much learning loss has been done during this period so that way we can help the students and the teachers in the classrooms thank you thank you uh mr ruiz mr chang or dr bauer are you um would you like to or are you able to respond to any of the questions that trustee chavez had or trustee quintero or i guess anyone up to this point with regards to um you know the bidding process um the the way that monies are allocated and whether or not that would distract from um the the academic focus that we need to take with the district any comments or responses to any of that in general well um this has not been for months and months it's not it's not you know trustee chavez you said that several times this when board with different trustees ask the board president and myself to bring items to the agenda we bring them to the agenda so that's how these happen we are focusing on student achievement and you're absolutely right we have to look into some some of the things that are happening to our students um we opened this special board meeting uh talking about the tremendous hurt that is it that that is in our community and we are obviously looking for ways to support them we have brought to this board numerous ways on how we are um addressing those issues and having said that this item has been requested by a trustee and we brought it just the way the rest of the board has requested other items and they are brought to the to the to the agenda so i just want to clarify that this particular effort in terms of it's it's a cost saving efforts um i know that there are many many steps before the board before we are ready to present to the board to um whatever way the board decides to go and i just want to say very clearly that you're absolutely right i have been working with the staff i've been working with rogelio to remind everybody that this particular board has not seen other rfps and i agree with that i agree 100 with you on that and that is the that is the reason that some of these conversations are being had right in public with plenty of time for the board to ask all the questions that the board has um we this this uh special war meeting was set up to answer questions regarding this effort not regarding ng and i just want to make sure that everybody understand that this is not about is the ng proposal being considered because that is not this is the beginning of the conversation if the board wants to have it maybe the board does not want to have this conversation and we are fine with that we will look for other ways to continue to bring savings to the district but in terms of student achievement this is not a distraction we still have to address facilities needs very soon we're bringing to the board because the board requested to go over all the rfps for program managers so we need to do that that's another step we need to and and by the way that's a great opportunity for the board to look into these scopes of this program manager to be able to address some of the the potential projects that that the district has to have mr edwards or mr chang anything to add to that um yeah so um so the government code under the government code these types of projects for energy conservation measures are not required to be bid as i mentioned and i think the last slide is although they're not required to be put out to to bid they the board does cannot award this kind of contract except to have after holding a public hearing and making a determination that the that in the board's view it's in the best interest of the district and that you're going to save more than you spend over time that being said it's the board's decision on whether or not it wants to issue an rfp or call for bids or an issue in rfq the government code gives you that flexibility that is a board decision the only reason i included the ng slides in that analysis is because frankly over the five year period ng is the only uh only one of your contractors who has prepared that analysis under that program development agreement um so it's just the intent there is just to give a framework for the discussion and an understanding of how that agreement would ultimately work but again it's it is a board's determination of whether or not the board wants to put it out to bid to an rfq process an rfp process and as i mentioned to remember there is nothing in those contracts that compels this district to either uh contract with ng on a solar program or even to implement a solar program in any way shape or form so this is really just about presenting the information and letting the board know this is your judgment call okay thank you um i'll go ahead and make a couple comments and then i see your hand trustee chavez well after after that you you can go um first of all i want again i want to thank everyone for the work that's been put into this so far and i just wanted to address a couple of things from my perspective so in terms of just this idea of of why and not necessarily why make a decision right now obviously we're not deciding tonight or next month or anything to make a definitive decision to move something forward but to me why this is important why not why this is now is a couple of things number one as dr bauer alluded to even as we focus on the academic part of our responsibility and obligation that doesn't mean that all focus needs to come off of everything else a district as as a quote-unquote business still needs to run there's still hr functions that need to happen operational there's all these other things that need to continue happening so to me i mean i think it's a little bit of a stretch to say that pursuing you know options in in some of these areas are going to be detrimental significantly detrimental to the academic program programming that we have and additionally um a reason why i you know continue to be supportive of moving a a solar program forward whatever that might look like is because based on information that i you know we've received now from staff and a number of different um places in my own research it's very clear to me that there's a a fairly significant or or reasonable assumption that can be made that there is money annual money and significant money over the lifetime of an agreement like this that can be saved now when we talk about needing resources for the district obviously our district and many other districts are challenged with millions of dollars in deficit and when i see the opportunity to year over year put 400 500 you know 600 whatever it is thousand dollars on the table every year to help with to help you know with some of those costs of running a district i take that very seriously i think that that becomes a priority to me because if you want to address issues of you know um whether it's academic programming or or social emotional learning all those types of things money that we don't have right now is potentially up you know to be to be available for us to do that kind of stuff and so this knowing the situation that we're in financially time is of the essence to me and some in some respects because i feel like i don't i i feel like i have the obligation to the to the district to the community to not leave money on the table as how i see it in terms of um what's available to us and how that could impact the learning of our kids um and the last thing i'll say for now is that with regards to like the hvac um and the electrical panels which i know was a concern for me also and i brought it up during that initial meeting that trusty child has alluded to i believe if i'm not correct and um and i think we do have some subject matter experts in this room tonight but i believe that the cost for the replacement of those solar of those um electrical panels there's a possibility that that could be worked into the agreement that we could do for a ppa and um and in that way we would still pay for them but we would pay over the course of 28 years but we need money in the immediate to put in air conditioning and heating and all those facilities things and that money in that way which i believe was um 4.5 million dollars would be freed up from our bond money to use on other things that we immediately need to address um in our facilities so getting into an agreement has the potential to delay those costs we still pay them but we will pay them over the course of time and again that frees up that money to address the concerns about the panel and the um the air conditioning and heating it frees up more of our bond money that needs to be used for those types of things so those are just um some of my thoughts for now and the last thing actually sorry is that the reason why we're bringing it to this meeting is to allow for more time because i know there's been some concerns about this taking too much time during a regular board meeting so given that feedback we've tried to be responsive to communities concerns and we brought it into this forum um so that there could be more time to discuss it so with that um trustee chavez i know i said you would be next okay so um dr bauer mentioned that you know we do have facilities needs we do and the money that they pass for the bond was exactly for that what had been allocated what had been voted on agreed on promised to those schools those students and six or seven years later down the road we have not done what the district voted on to do why is that if the bond money is sitting there it's just sitting it could have already been implemented put and already using all the age back systems but instead it's just sitting there in the bank account and it's doing no good learning very earning very little interest and when all of these five facilities and even the district mot person said that there was five schools that really needed them and some of them were safety issues and even mg said that there were safety issues we asked them what schools were they what priorities were they and still after all these years it hasn't been done how can you start a new project or even start talking about another project when you haven't even finished what you already voted on approved and what the bond money was supposed to be for thank you trustee quintero is that you wanting to say something yeah um you know we we've gone through we went through the facilities assessment and you know because when comments are made they need to be addressed you know if we don't stand out here people are going to think that this is true and the fact of the matter was that those those very those emergency situations were dealt with uh with them with the bond monies that we do have and so as far as i can recall that that's what took place um and if dr bauer if you can respond to to my to my comment and let me know if in fact it happened because that's right that's the report that i received and those those uh basically emergency issues the health and safety concerns that were raised in the in the um facilities report uh where the ones that were targeted and were dealt with correct and when i left colvera i i'm thinking that i can barely hear you so i don't know if mr chen uh got all of that i have a lot of noise here in the street um board president were you able to hear me or was that yeah you came across fine but it looks like mr chang heard and he can respond if we can unmute him yes so uh trustee contains um can you be more specific in terms of what um you were referring to so i can when we received the facilities report there were some very very serious safety issues that were highlighted in that very in-depth report that we got and what we said is we're going to take some of the bond money that we do have and go ahead and target those health and safety issues i want to make sure that i'm at least from what i was told that did in fact happen and so it did it take place that were those health and safety issues addressed right off the bat i remember the the the list of needs was massive in the report but the the ones that had to be taken care of immediately was obviously a smaller number and so my question to staff is was was my understanding correct that we went ahead and dealt with those health and safety concerns yeah there's there's a few items that we dealt with not particularly with bond money but with some deported maintenance money um and the two um that i that comes to my top of my head right now are some immediate um uh hvac system where we did install some temporary units uh because we did have some really old ones that wasn't working um in addition to that we also addressed all the locks that were needed to be replaced for security reasons at all of our sites so those were the immediate needs i know that the report also identified you know some electrical issues uh to be fixed but remember when those are those are big ticket items and we haven't had a program managers who to operate or oversee our bronze program and so back to the comment where things haven't been done over the last seven years that's really not true i mean we just had the hvac at dorsa and lucha um and the roofing projects about two years ago and up until now we haven't had a program manager and um you know we desperately need one in order for them to provide some support um and some uh facilitation on um identifying the needs and where we would need to address some of those uh urgent issues and that if you recall we asked the board and the board wanted to vet all the companies that have already submitted their paperwork and that's going to be another special we're meeting if you recall we asked that of the board in september and you wanted you didn't want the staff you didn't want a committee the board wanted to get all the companies so that's what we still need to do okay trustee and then myself and then trustee chavez after that and i just want to also confirm because i know i heard uh linda mention you know ask a question about you know pretty much there's been all this money kind of sitting there and why hasn't it been been used um and also i just want to you know ask you know just so we can refresh our minds as as board members and the community because i think if i was just in the community hearing that then i'd be like you know raising arms and bringing my my uh you know signs um to protest because um you know it just doesn't make sense right to have all this money just sitting there and not um making sure that our children get what they need um and i know we've you know turned this rock over and over but apparently we i think we forget that um part of part of the problem was that we weren't able to touch those bonds that bonds money um at one point right so you have you have in the bank the five million dollars that trustee travis is talking about but five million dollars do not cover the those hvac systems that were lined up to take care of the schools that's why corvette colvera was talking about that school that still doesn't have hvac and we needed to buy those units now all of this is pre-covered 19 right so we we were working thinking that we we were going to need them if we had been in school right now we definitely you know would have felt it because of the heat right so those five million dollars have not been touched as colebera mentioned we have used these other uh maintenance funds to be able to provide somebody uh and i apologize my system is also being delayed and there's an echo but the other the other bonds there's the the other uh issue that were that was paused by the county and i don't want to re leave all of that we are still we are going to be coming to the board to begin that process you know we are going to need a new count born counsel we're going to need uh people a financial advisor we're going to need a number of people to be able to put the district in a position to reissue bonds so that we can finalize some of those major ticket projects that the board needs to do it's just that at this point five million dollars last uh and and i need coverage to refresh my memory but that does not cover all of the the five schools that are still waiting for the hvac so that's that's the main thing that the the what we have right now in the bank does not cover for what is needed in terms of those five schools that i think trustee chavez was um uh alluding to okay i don't know where did you have anything to add to that no i was gonna um agree with dr bauer's comment in terms of um the the cost of the vice hvac system because when we went out to bid um those five hp's this is what's going to cost us approximately 25 million dollars and so um we were hoping to issue some measure eye bonds but at that point you know with all the stuff that was going on um we weren't able to i mean with with the county's involvement with the all the investigation so we kind of have to put that on hold for a little while so the cost that we got was 25 million and we have 5 million right now correct okay okay so just real quick um i had a a comment and a couple questions for um so the comment if and and i could be wrong on this but i believe in terms of the electrical panel what i remember being reported to us was that the reason that they were a safety issue i mean acknowledging that they're many many years old and our staff has done an amazing job apparently of keeping them functional up and running and able to to operate things but i believe that the the safety concern that was stated was that um it was that if the power went out then we could potentially have students and staff and parents on campus and that could pose a safety risk but in at least in the very immediate if that's correct um obviously that that's not a an immediate safety concern for the most part although we do have some staff and students on campus so you know that's partially true i guess the question that i have um for mr release number one in terms of those administrative costs and those um upfront costs that that would be included um in an agreement are there ways sometimes in these types of agreements that those costs could be there's other ways to cover those costs that it the district would not need to come up with that money um from their own funding or are there other strategies that have been used to your knowledge to um to handle some of these types of situations because i would imagine there's other districts that you know don't have you know money laying around that they just can you know put towards things that they want to do well one one possible way would be to build them into the cost structure of the agreement but then that would lower your savings over time so i'm not sure how palatable that would be in terms of grant funding and things like that remember these are really transactional costs including primarily the dsa certified inspectors special inspectors for this type of project so i'm not aware of any available grant funding that would cover those costs these are really just project costs that a district a public agency or school district in particular doesn't have any options on it has to have these types of inspections on this project okay but there might be options then that would cover that potential yes okay and then the last question i have is um it appears that we have at least a couple of either construction or solar experts here in the room tonight so at some point during the meeting is it um possible to allow them to speak as subject matter experts if they have anything that they want to answer questions that the community or board members have no well i mean they're they're perfectly entitled to some kind of members of the public so so would they but as much so they don't need to be like as public comment then they would yes they would need to have the two minute um yes requirement okay okay uh trustee chavez so with whatever money we have now get the worst one and situation and the one that is the biggest safety issue and put the money towards that one but at least do something if you can't do all five we already know that we heard that at the facilities um meeting but we were asking just do one of them or something to at least get it going and get that done start you know checking off before we want to go and forget the ball rolling is what i'm asking and also are we gonna also allow for another response contract i mean the uh if you're gonna allow for supposed experts are you gonna also hear the other side and i think we already hear public comment i think it's only fair that we hear both sides as what i was asking in the beginning that you know because again none of us are solar experts and um i think that both sides should be heard in all fairness thank you i don't i mean for me i don't know that there's a both sides to this like there's nothing this is just still information gathering um but to your point about getting the ball rolling on on you know just getting something going and just just doing something and throwing something out there i think i would be very cautious about that because as you know to your point about experts nobody that i'm aware of in our district is an expert on on project management in terms of these these construction projects and facilities projects so the fact that we have um put out requests for project managers and now we have them they're going to be coming back to us and we'll be voting on that um to me that is getting the ball rolling so so that's a necessary step that we need to take for um you know getting the ball rolling in terms of managing projects because we can't in my mind we can't take that on as a district without having the proper knowledge and and um person who can coordinate that work and make sure that it's being done properly um and so uh as i heard from mr ruiz we can still take some public comment for anyone that does so can i say one more thing one that does have um of the two mr garcia or or mr baldwin you don't necessarily need to say anything but i just want to make sure that you have the opportunity um are you going to recognize this excuse me i have the floor i know but i'll call on you when i do you see your hand i have the floor so please respect the process thank you so you know just raise your hand in the room if you need if you would like to make a comment if not the ball rolling there were six years that it wasn't rolling and i'm just that's just a frame a few words but what i'm saying is if we do vote on something or the previous book that we should we could is what i'm saying when we had the experts there we had the bond person that should have been priority that's what i'm saying that's the only thing i'm saying i know we don't have those people now we're trying to look to hire somebody and hopefully once we do that gets implemented before all this other solar uh more meetings on solar thank you for president yes trustee quintero you know um there are there's uh you know there's a president united states that tends to repeat uh uh certain things over and over again with the intention of making people believe them and uh unfortunately that seems to be a practice that's coming into alimock school board we just heard from uh kovara who let us know that there has been work that's been done the last six or seven years contrary to what was just mentioned and so when these um when when these attempts to go ahead and uh and steer the community in a different direction than what in fact take place and i'm going to continue to make sure that the community is made aware that we were we were we were putting on roofs we were doing uh things here in the district and so to say that six or seven years nothing happened is uh an effort to go ahead and obfuscate the truth and uh i don't necessarily appreciate it i would hope that some of my other colleagues would be able to speak up when other other members of the sport are attempting to mislead the public thank you any other questions or comments from the board yes i do okay trust me marquez so um first i'd like to request from rogelio the um the presentation that i did not get one um and so i was just writing notes as you were giving the presentation so if i you know staff can make sure that i get one i'd appreciate that and then um there was so much being said here you know from both sides from from everyone and i was just um i didn't know where to start i had comments for everything that everyone was saying but i'm gonna tell you what i know of the decade that i have been here and i think there was a mention about um covering he says we haven't had a bond direct bond director for a while and and then karina says well we weren't able to touch that five million dollars no that's not true that five million dollars we could touch it up until the office of victims was the one who stopped us but prior to them that just happened okay prior to that it was dr bauer who stopped everything everything i was here and we kept saying why is it not moving forward why is it not moving forward we couldn't move it forward because the administration is under her and we cannot order the administration the board members of the administration so it did stop everything stopped and then when you said cavero we don't we haven't had a bond director in a while well yeah that's right because um they gave him a letter saying that his services were nowhere no they weren't needed anymore because there was no funds there was lack of work and i forget the other one you still there hello trustee marquez we can't hear you if you're talking um yes yes okay we can hear you now we lost you for a second there yeah i had left rogelio like that when he was doing his presentation that's why i requested it but getting back to the we had an mot and then he was let go for those reasons and yet we're talking about five million dollars still being there you know the priority list that you know had input from community and and it was made and it was dealt with on the floor for the board and things that could have been done for you know ten thousand a hundred thousand here or maybe you know here and there but things could have been gotten done you know roofing roofing continued could have continued but that stopped too so i've seen it all i've been here i haven't gone anywhere and i've seen it all so roger says that the state we're losing you again trusty marquez so then can you hear me there you go the last thing we heard was can you hear me yes the last thing we heard was rogelio said something yeah the state will allow us to decide for the board to decide um that um that for the energy savings part that the board can decide okay okay and yeah and i'm getting feedback any feedback can you hear me can you hear me yes we can hear you yeah so we um there was a there was a public meeting with the mot director that was there at the time and he spoke in frustrations he was real frustrated because he says there are so many things that need to be done and he goes and then they won't let me um they won't let me do it what they have me doing and these are his words is that they have me putting band-aids on but there are there are things that need to be done you know um he was very concerned and he spoke and he pleaded at this at this mot meeting that they let him do his job and let him because these things need to be done but it did not happen because it was stopped at the superintendent level that's where it had stopped then there was other comments but um it's way too much and i have already taken a lot of time and i don't want to go there but what i do want what i do want to say is it i'm going to support my community who spoke today and said this is just um why can't we wait um why is it that when this first started was no cost no cost but now we're looking over a million dollar cost so but that kind of gets people's attention you know when they said there's no cost and then there is and um i just i just believe that this discussion is best saved for a later time and only because in less than 40 days i think it is um there there may be a new board or there may be different board members the you know the facets of it is going to change or may not change or in either case we make a decision right here right now and whatever happens if there's another board or whatever they have to deal with the aftermath down the line you know and it says well why did we get into it well because back there back then it kind of reminds me of this situation about what our president wants to appoint you know at the supreme court and we're saying oh not right now not right now we're in an election you know and he's hurrying it up and he's hurrying it up because he's got the vote because he can do it now and it's like this is what i'm projecting that this is happening right now and and i know that that we need we need to put the brakes on the brake on and to at least get some other companies to come and put in a bid and then do the presentation for us because the companies are the experts my general counsel he's not an expert but the companies they we need to get and get them going for you know get the bids going and you know hey let me go where it's going to go let it forward it's going to fall but not right now i want to focus more on the issues of this covet obviously it is a big problem for the you know for the entire state and everyone every district seems to be focusing on that and we're going off in a tangent with uh wanting to save money and bring money in and the parents and i can hear care my community and they have a lot of confidence in me because of the decade that i've been here in the 30 years on top of that that i have worked in this community and so they know me with confianza and they keep saying um give up assad what's going to happen what's going to happen and say we just we all have to work together and we'll have to wait to see how but we have to think of the safety of their children first and you guys want your children back in school but is it safe for them to go back what are some of the safety things we have to do just to bring them back so all of that takes time all that takes money and right now you need to know we're in deficit spending we were in deficit spending last year and it cost us our libraries and when deficit spending now who knows what it's going to cost us now so this book um i thank you for the information rogelio and the staff that helped you with it but i'd like to hear from um you know the people that know and that understand it and that's their job their work day in and day out so those professionals need to come and give us a presentation and not only that but give us the pros and the cons you can that's the community professionals thank you thank you um there's a number of inaccuracies that i heard in in that statement and i'll just um excuse me i have the floor but more thank you so we will you've uh trustee marcus you've had the opportunity to speak just as all of us have you have not demonstrated show raise your hand or anything to show that you wanted some to say something so that's why you haven't had the opportunity to speak to this point but you certainly will as much as you need to here but the only inaccuracy that i wanted to address specifically is that because it was made in public comment and it's been made by um at this point now trustees is that it was stated that this was no cost and from the beginning it was stated that there would be administrative costs that's in writing i mean in presentations that um have been given that this it says it was stated that there were administrative costs and that's indeed the costs that um that are have been indicated this evening and so i just wanted to correct that so i saw trusty um i saw trustee quintero and then after that trustee marquez if you have something to um continue with you'll be after trustee quintero and we can unmute the microphone for now mr jill thank you thank you uh so i just wanted to also clarify that i never mentioned the five uh million dollars specifically but uh the staff um you know talked about that money that um we were under an investigation um and so anyways all that that we've had to go through um and work to where we're at now anyways um i just want to bring us to like our point you know i keep hearing two sides and the other side and the other side um i think you know we are all on the same side right of providing our our students and our our staff um with what they need um including energy you know in safety and so i would just like to kind of regroup you know and bring ourselves back to our focus um and that today is just to um talk about this there is no action so i keep hearing you know you guys and i don't really know who you guys are but really i haven't seen anybody put it on the agenda for um action today and it's just conversation you know part of our duties as uh trustees to um you know sit down and go through the information and figure out is it the best for our district now or not and so it's just a part of that hard work right that some of us were elected or appointed to do and so um here we are you know again another long meeting i thought you know i told my husband i think i can have dinner with you by eight you know and it's okay he knows that i might not um but it's the work we get to do and so there's no actions happening today um and i've already heard from at least two trustees and i'm in agreement i think i said this last time um and that i want to see you know at least three or here you know we have ng and we can invite them back to give us the details but then we invite at least two others to give us the details um and it doesn't have to be next you know month it doesn't have to be i'm not like rushing for it and i don't think i've heard any one of us rushing for it i just want that in the near future um and so i look forward to doing that you know i look forward to focusing um on you know things like you know how our children doing and test scores and things like that that we don't spend on just you know lying or just turning you know words around um so that's it that's all i want to say thank you trustee quintero and then trustee marcus after that board president um keep on hearing about uh this uh program uh the the bond program person that used to be here i want to thank the citizens oversight committee for doing a very thorough job in the report that we got uh at the last meeting where they they very very aptly pointed out some serious issues with the last uh pro um bond um what's the official title cover bond manager or bond director bond director director yes yeah and yeah and so we saw that this individual signed off on uh jobs that have been done with zip ties and and things that have gotten us into a lot of trouble so for the public and for my fellow colleagues here um those are the reasons why you know we had a part ways unfortunately we we're seeing the the results of the work that that individual did in uh these in in these in these projects that were signed off and that were done in a horrible manner and so for somebody to sit here and go around uh feeling horrible because this individual was let go it's it's very sad and i think it's due to the fact that uh certain board members obviously aren't paying attention to the reports we're getting during the meetings because we would have you would have been informed that this individual is signing off on zip tie uh projects and so um that's part of those are part of my comments i i a lot of folks have asked for experts and we have individuals here that we would be able to call upon to inform us more about these opportunities i know you mentioned mr baldwin we also have so garcia who works with the um trades and has been informed of what opportunities are out there um i think that we can go ahead and bring folks to talk about uh what opportunities are out there and and what uh what things that what what things may be available not not too in debt but you know just enough to inform us as as board members as to what other opportunities are out there so um i would like to hear i would like to hear from you hey thank you thank you can we unmute her microphone um mr gill i think she wanted to continue or after her comment trustee marquez can you hear me yes okay so um you know it's really a shame it's always a shame and i'm always saddened by andres quintero when he always goes back to make reference to a good job these these zip ties you talk about i'm sure he wouldn't have never done that he's a professional you know and uh and he's a licensed architect and so he know he would never have done that if anything people in our staff and our emoji staff may have gone over there and just put a band-aid like their emoji director was saying you don't know you know but that you know it's like that's been done you won you guys won you wanted him out of here because he was he knew deltera he worked for deltera and our superintendent went and stole him from deltera but in the end you won you let this gentleman go when it was no fault of his every job they had while they were doing here came in on time there was no accidents it didn't cost more than then it was said it was going to cost but nobody speaks to that nobody speaks to that but he did give a report and saying every time something was done there it is and he would show you all the pictures of all the schools that were being done that he came in on time no accidents and it was at no additional cost so you know these things happen you know and that you know we we have sides i unfortunately i don't know how else to put that but um i i just i just wanna move on but my colleague never wants to move on he always wants to bring it back bring it back and we had a study session on how the whole board was going to get together and how we were just going to move forward then we can the last argument or the argument for that that i got in with him on it you know it again is because he went to he went to the past and he judged up stuff you know and it just seems to me that this is never gonna finish is this it unless we can all come together and just say i don't want two or three people to apply and put a bid in i want five or six people to put in for a bit i want a bigger and a bigger one i think that i think that community community see that there are other you know other companies out there that can come in here and i don't know them and andres doesn't know them and the lady doesn't know them and they had ano doesn't know them and you know none of them know him they just came and applied but i don't think that's the case anymore because nobody ever wants to touch this district with a 10 foot pole after we've done what we have gone through in the last six years you know it's like nobody wants to really come only if one board member or superintendent or a cbo reaches out to them and say hey you know come on over i think you have a good chance we're not getting any fights but in either case i just i want to apologize for raising my voice and um i'm not going to comment on what you had said but i do want to leave you with this one comment for you the head honor is it you talk the longest than anybody else you talk the most and it's not it's not to direct the the agenda and move it forward it's to make your opinions is to make your comments your personal comments you know it's it's and i really think that you know you need to be more aware of that and you need to maybe just control yourself a little bit more because you you do um you do speak quite a bit thank you thank you um so i do see a couple things but i'm not even going to dignify that comment with any response on my end but i do want to just speak very specifically and bring us back to trustee point that you know it i don't see the value in going back and doing all this other stuff but in terms of this a solar agreement or moving forward on a solar program that would benefit you know in the 30 to 40 million dollars in these scenarios over the course of the agreement to to make that easier to understand you know if if i have to pay someone one dollar up front and in the next coming years they're gonna give me forty dollars back for my one dollar then that's something that i want to take very seriously and if i know that not only are they gonna give me forty dollars back but they're gonna start giving me parts of that forty dollars back immediately so every year they're gonna give me a dollar a dollar fifty cents whatever it is then my dollar that i put forth up front is well worth it to me because i could then use that 50 cents or a dollar every single time they give me that that that money to spend on other things that i want to do so that's um all that i saw so i did see um um and uh if there is any public comment um from mr baldwin that i think he wants to provide as a subject matter expert um also the floor as i mentioned is open to mr garcia but can we unmute mr baldwin for now um or i'm sorry mr gill and let's see if he wants to speak and again this is a public meeting so everyone has the opportunity to attend this and provide public comment mr baldwin i believe thank you can you hear me yeah can you hold on a second though we do have to do this under um a public comment so um can you get the two minutes up so for now we have um because we don't have presentations and at some point you know if we continue this process then um you know we might have the opportunity for anybody who is in such a matter expert to come and be a part of the discussion but for now you can have the two minutes um as a public comment to go ahead and say what you wanted to say so whenever you start talking the two minutes will begin thank you very much yeah um i'd like to just make a couple of clarifications um rohingya transaction comp and ng actually got proposals for all of those types of costs except for the attorney fees and uh we have included all of those costs in the savings number that were shown tonight so all of those costs are embedded in those savings numbers mr president one thing um the second is that as a general contractor ng ran a competitive process with local labor for the electrical and mechanical scopes and invited numerous uh local union shops to um bid on that work so that's also part of the proposal um the solar tax credits that go into providing um a portion of the the lower rates that you're getting will drop where they're at now 22 on january 1st first um regard uh meter mains the the electric panels the main panels um well we don't need to replace those to actually connect the solar because we connect uh in front of them and not to the panel itself we can replace at the district's request really old or dilapidated panels as part of the project um it would just be a a slight increase in capital costs which would um raise the ppa price just slightly um so i just wanted to make those few clarifications there truly are no costs other than the attorney fees and we could include those if we if you wanted us to as well thank you thank you mr baldwin um i don't know is um his title or his company or who he is if someone can he didn't he didn't say anything like that so can you please tell me who he is um well as part of public comment an individual does not need to identify themselves i'm just asking if anybody knows yes frosty marquez thank you mr baldwin is the first the representative for ng thank you thank you okay so um it looks like that is all the unless there's any further comment or questions from the board it seems like the discussion has kind of um gone it's course and so we do at this point it sounds like and correct me if i'm wrong anybody but um we we do have it looks like an and request or a desire on the one hand to just not do anything um and that's you know that has been heard some people are of the belief that we just don't do anything and just wait until some non-specific point in the future i have also heard that there are trustees who are interested in having more information brought to us including other individuals who can present as subject matter experts um and so so that's something that i think would need to be considered those those opinions that were voiced um and i'm trying to think what else to kind of capture everything trustee quintero did you have a comment that you wanted to make yeah i just wanted to agree with uh the second or the latter uh that um i'm not on the side of not doing anything because i think that we can realize savings um but i wanted to make sure that we go ahead and get more information as we move forward um you know if not necessarily full on rfp um but more information that could potentially lead us to a new rfp if we get some really really uh very different information um and then you know because i don't think that i don't think that we i i i i i i am concerned about the loss and savings that will result as of the because of the january 1st deadline but i do believe that there's a bunch of politics involved around this not not from you know there's an election and people are you know fact they're concerned they're raising concerns this probably wouldn't be a big issue had it not been the the election time i think that after the election happens we can go ahead and move forward as a board and a lot of the issues are going to probably drop off and people are going to be able to focus on the actual savings um so i'm good with leaving until after the election so that the board can go ahead and focus on it on just just on its merits and um and so in the meantime i would like more information whether that's in in writing to the board or in a in a workshop in some way or another i want i want to um make sure that we we get more more information on what options are out there and then you know once this this whole issue uh passes on november 3rd uh we as a working you know regroup and then make an informed decision whether it's to to move on with the options that we have or move with the full-on rfp because there's other opportunities so those were my the points that i wanted to make okay can you just clarify a little bit what you say you want them to bring back more information but um are you saying that we want to hear back from specific um companies or entities that that are experts on the knowledge of this or are interested in other groups that can provide us options such as other groups that do ppas and so if i can get that information we can review it um and then make you know make a decision as to whether or not we we move forward with the rfp that we have in place or we go with a full-on other rfp again i don't think anything precludes us from doing another rfp if we find out that there are opportunities out there that we should we should look into so you basically mean that maybe in a regular board meeting staff would present to us that they went out they sought more opportunities that might exist and those and here are those opportunities and in a public meeting regular board meeting then we would decide whether we wanted to look more into those opportunities that were brought at that time or given the information at that time to just decide to maybe take an action on what we have currently to limit uh you know that report i don't think that we should go back and read relive this this study session again um but uh you know short and sweet to the point uh obviously while beforehand give us a thorough presentation to us and the public so that we can go ahead and come in and have a good dialogue but i have to take several hours to to make a decision okay um and does staff understand that is that clear because and oh the other thing i just wanted to add on to that that i think i heard you say is this would occur um in the i guess the november meeting at the earliest because the election would have happened by that time um what about the earliest that would happen november i think the election is the is it the third yeah so our meeting would be after that and so that would also give us time to regroup and make sure that we are able to take advantage of the savings that are going to disappear by january 1st if in fact the board wants to pursue that route if we want to let savings go then you know we as a board will be able to make an informed decision thank you thank you um i agree and i think that's a reasonable step forward unless there's any other comments from my colleagues okay 20 21.

you

can i just say that you know it's kind of hard for me to ask questions because you know the reception was really bad and they were cut off a lot for a period of time i even got cut off maybe that's when gabby got kind of like got then i have to come back again i don't know what happened just but just just saying it it'd be hard for me to ask questions because some of the i didn't hear some of their conversation because the reception was was i don't know who just and my side but a lot of it was cut off in and just it's it's going to be hard for me to to um get any clarification this i just want to put that arthur generally how long does it take to get the the youtube video is it live right away or did it take you a little while to put it up to review once it's completed it it takes about 15 minutes to load onto youtube so it will be up tonight so i think i think um for most of us we heard most of it there was like one lady that was sounded very sounded poor but the rest of them i could hear very clearly so i mean there is the video if you want to re-watch it so we'll send we'll send that uh uh board email uh today before we leave here um requesting that all questions come in uh by tomorrow wednesday 30th by 4 30 p.m gabriella's back on again if we want to so i don't know what we talked about oh okay yeah i just finished texting her yeah i my understanding was that we were just only going to listen and then we were going to not speak about it until further notice so yeah no what we're doing is just uh when we want our questions in by that's got it justice summer in the timeline joseph memorized um we're going to send an email to all to the board of education tonight uh requesting that any questions that you might have be submitted by tomorrow september 30th by 4 30 p.m we will forward those questions to all four firms and request that those get uh submitted back to us um probably by end of day friday um then we will share with those we will share those with you all and then we'll have a closed session item on tuesday october 6 uh to further discuss uh the firms and the next steps okay thank you or through thank you channeling for uh you know for expressing that for them to share that with me um so we'll be receiving the email tonight and then by friday we'll go ahead and submit the questions by four o'clock no later right no by tomorrow submit the questions tomorrow at 4 30.

okay yeah 100.4 is the cdc's bar but you can lower it to 100. so we think we our nurses felt more comfortable at 100. so have you thought about creating a good so we have a google form that comes out at 6 30 a.m to our email and we fill out the form and submit it so we have to have it done before we get to work and then the parents also get a google form in their email that they fill out and it's you know is your temperature under 100.4 do you have any symptoms and then you submit i don't know if that'll work for you guys i mean it would what what are your what's your been your experience with the percentage of your parents we how do you know when the kid gets on the bus if their parents done that okay so our bus drivers take their temperature when they get on a bus but our buses are carrying about 12 kids so as they get on they take the temperature so when they get to school by trying to get to school the nurse has a printout that she gives us and has all the kids whose parents didn't self-certify so then someone stands out there and takes their temperature and then they're going to school we haven't sent anybody home yet so i mean it works you just have to get your parents used to logging in going in the sky it might be harder getting the email is easier because you can just do it right there otherwise you got to remember to go in but then when they forget we just check it and then the teachers have to contact the parent to remind them hey don't forget to self-certify i mean to me that's easier than a paper but so if we wanted to not do the piece of paper can we do skyward as a parent or is it just like one or two it's gonna have to be one yeah for us we gotta know it's gonna be you for us we just figured it if they're handing us this that their parent has double checked them they know it they're dropping a bucket to go in we're not even keeping we're not keeping track of did johnny turn it in or there's no names on it there's nothing we just it's there if you don't know if the kid had the right one well if they got one they got it from their parent i mean i don't know this is karen at the bus stop for those okay could have i mean we have to rely on some honesty here with parents on this but i just think that i i think you should look into doing temperature checks as they get on the bus i mean we said the most kids on a bus are going to be 20 21 22 where there used to be 70 before and how many kids are actually at a stop that has to mean less stops right well less kids at a stop too less kids that i mean i think there has to be time in the right so what we're doing with the buses is uh because the only way to make this work was to run two different bus fleets so we have so we have a roughly seven or eight buses that are going to go out from middle school and seven or eight buses that are off of primary elementary because the problem is when those buses come back it takes we have to clean them and uh and they're going out eight times because they're they're gonna if or if if we tried to run one bus service for all and send 18 buses out to pick up middle school kids they're going to pick up the middle school kids come back drop them off clean the buses turn around go pick up the primary elementary bring them back clean the buses but then turn around pick up the middle school kids because they're done for their half day do the whole thing over again get you know so it just doesn't work time wise we did if we did that time wise we would be our last group of kids would be out of here after 5 p.m so we did we couldn't do it so now we've taken eight buses for middle school eight buses for primary elementary and uh which means that we can only bus you know under 200 kids for each building and uh so in in the middle school at the most we would have at one time would be around 400 so we'll be close to you know i'd say 40 to 40 or so that we can bus but those routes are going to be a little longer because we only have eight buses covering the entire district they're not going to have as many kids so there won't be as many stops like kevin said but the driving time will be a little longer because we're covering the whole area so does that make sense it's really been it's kind of a logistical nightmare but it was the only way we could make it happen and we can definitely uh explore having resolving this temperature check issue though as you get on the bus i just think every student getting a temperature check they're either once they get into school yeah yep once they get into school they've got a temperature check so we kind of figured if they have the ticket to get on the bus then when they get here we're going to do a check and do their temperature as well um so you're taking double precautions it's a double precaution yeah some are not even doing anything when they get on the bus some are doing temperature checks like on the bus with drivers i just didn't i didn't feel good about and neither does christine when we talked about it just the safety factor of that but if in case an accident happened i just didn't want to be because the driver got distracted um so i i guess that's my question i don't understand i get maybe someone can explain that more to me i don't understand what how the distractions would be greater now than they when they were just by taking temperature if they're going to take a ticket they have to put the ticket in the bucket or had the kid put it in the bucket yeah just walk by and just can't go dude yeah yeah and they don't have their name so you don't who yeah so they don't know who yeah did what so we were just going to have the drive them just drop the ticket but drivers hands off i just didn't want the driver to get it's not that it wouldn't couldn't work because i didn't want them to get distracted and then they uh they take off without checking everything that they're used to checking and just it just changes their routine that's the only thing i was i was concerned about i just i mean and i think if someone comes in and they and you zap them and they're at 100.1 they go home yeah and then because now if the parent does it rip gives the kid the ticket by the time they get on the bus they're at 100.1 now the parents off at work and or they've got brother at the bus stop yeah and now brother's got to walk junior back home he doesn't know i mean i don't know yeah well i would worry about how are they going to get the bus driver like if the kids getting on the bus without the temperature check and they're at 100.4 the bus driver has to bring the kid all the way to school so the kids infecting other kids if they're with around the kid for 15 minutes and then the bus drivers you know okay so it's easier just to get on the zap nope and then off they go back home maybe try to find perez or something yeah that's that'll be our first priority it's just to find some extra bodies and uh to to do that so eight buses right eight at a time uh 16 total i don't know if they could cross over or not i'd have to look at our timing to see if eight people could cross over to the other buses um so we'll we'll troubleshoot that one though so i'm thinking about carpooling so i pick up tiffany's children oh no they forgot to give me the the ticket so we'll send them we'll send them to the nurse okay if it continues to happen repeatedly it's the same families we'll probably have to make some phone calls say hey either do it or we're just gonna have to go virtual because we can't do it every day but yeah if they don't have it we'll just we have you know because some people are gonna forget and uh but yeah we'll have the nurses do a screening and then for the like to check in when you're kind of driving in to pick up like say people do different carpools different days of the week um because pretty much people are gonna have to carpool to make this work yeah yeah um i think that what you'll have to do is this will be a little inconvenient but everybody's going to get a laminated car tag and they would have to you'd have to have the tag for the kids you got in your car you know what i mean so if you're gonna carpool a tiffany you'd have to have you'd have to get tiffany's tag too oh they're gonna give two tags i didn't know that oh so you'd be able to give the tag to another family so i can do it thank you okay and that's just to try to help us speed up the dismissal is what it is so and i didn't see the times because i went by so if you are they is there overlapping between the middle school and no okay no so there's just just enough time to get middle school dismissed and out of here before dismissal for primary elementary if you're picking your students up and you have some at both middle school and there how is that how are you going to effectively get all of them and without children loitering or students loitering around if like so if you have a student middle school student at primary student at elementary how are you supposed to get through campus without there's being a delay at one one of the schools for the students if you have multiple pickups it's going to be a challenge it will be because you have time to pick up your middle schooler first drop them off at home and turn around come back and get the the other two i don't know if there would be a way to because we we couldn't we had to stagger the times because we wouldn't be able to manage the traffic if everybody got dismissed at the same time we thought about it but it would just be too much um so yeah if you have students in both buildings um it would be it'll be more of a challenge to get you'd have to make two trips i think your students can't your children can't be home left home alone so i'm still driving my kids in the morning in the morning or in the afternoon and i'm not will that impede in some of the learning time i didn't have enough time to uh no it wouldn't impede the learning time it's gonna be it's gonna be a big inconvenience for the person that's come back when it's time for them to go to school right and uh and then you an hour later you're gonna turn around pick up your middle schooler so how is a person supposed to work and do this especially like if they're like okay i'm gonna sign on and i'm they're working from home and they're like i'm gonna drive my kids to school because i want them here because i'm hearing that you're prioritizing person learning over remote learning just with direct teacher time contact time so how are you supposed to like for the parents that have the ability to kind of work at home to do that yeah it's it's going to be hard so that's why we're talking tonight if you if you don't think that's worth it then we can we can turn it down and just say because because i don't know it is going to be hard i guess i'm just when i hear that the that the their prior prior the teacher is going to prioritize in person the in-person learning yeah i mean is there a way to like live stream so the kids at home can be engaged with the teacher with the kids that are in person i mean i think it's going to be more possible at the older ages i just at the camera at the early grades i just it's just too much to expect k through four yeah yeah i understand that that would be k4 would be really hard i'm just thinking i guess yeah middle school that that be able to live stream it so then families that choose to be home they're not missing out because they don't want to send their kids to school that they you know best of both worlds kind of thing might necessarily be a choice if you can't if you have to come four times right also if you have students in different buildings yeah and i would assume that you would coordinate siblings on the same a b day right yeah now some parents may not want that like you might want to put them on the opposite you know opposite schedules but uh because of this because of all the driving but uh i mean as far as morning afternoon but then you're talking a whole day of that so you you go once in the morning drop them off in the afternoon and then pick them up in the morning then turn around and do the same thing in the afternoon for the other children so you could do that we'll you know we'll try to make we'll try to work with those kind of requests but right now we have a we have it pretty we have to go stay pretty we can't take recommendations for uh a.m or pm we have a lot of people who just prefer am and we just have to cut the alphabet and just schedule it and um but these are the concerns you were giving me are very valid and like i said this plan is not perfect it's just it's like the best of bad plans like there there's no great plan for this and uh um if if if the if the parents uh tell us that fifty percent of the kids are going to stay home for virtual we'll scrap this right now we'll go we'll we'll bring we'll do something completely different because if that's the case we can do other things and we can we can give more attention to the kids that are on site and we can have virtual teachers the kids that are off-site because we don't because of our numbers but uh but we're not we can't make this plan based on that because we don't know and i gotta wait for the parent survey yeah yeah so our plan is based on having you know 20 to 30 percent of kids maybe going virtual and uh the rest of them coming on site um yeah it's it's not there there are there there's gonna be issues either way we go on this it's just really hard do you have much more room for students that want to do that stay that safe space because the parents they can't coordinate with their driving we don't have a lot of room for that yeah i think it's at max right yeah do you feel like students are going to miss out on a lot of you know school time if you will being you know because of the driving time transporter the transportation time the transportation i mean it's definitely going to be it's definitely going to eat into the day we still have five hours of work two and a half hours here two and a half hours at home in their schedule but it's definitely going to eat into like time that they're not on the road right now so yeah that's going to be an issue and then what did the ca see in your other groups the cac input um you know i think that i had there's some really good comments regarding uh questions similar to what lauren had uh there was some concern about uh and kevin your wife's teaching in a district that's doing an ampn model was somebody who had who's who has a relative in like zurich because they're doing something similar and they felt like that was hard there's concern over if i want to stay full remote and now it's not going to be as good as it is right now and here's here's to be really honest with you i mean the families who are doing really well right now are our families that their kids have a lot of support at home and there but there are kids that are really struggling hard and if we make a decision to just stay remote we're really doing those families a disservice those kids a disservice so it's just a hard hard thing right now and i wish i could say we're going to bring some of our students back and but and anybody who wants to stay at home you're going to get the same support you're getting right now we just with we can't possibly do that with the personnel that we have the the number of personnel but like i said if once we get the numbers back from parents we'll have a better idea of what we're dealing with but then how are we fulfilling the state guidelines for each kid five hours yeah a day but now i think it's two and a half has to be synchronous a day right right how are the remote learning kids getting that per day i know how they're getting it now yeah how are they going to get it if we go to this michelle i'm going to ask you on that one because is it i have to is opportunities i forget the exact language but we have to offer either synchronous or asynchronous or combination of both or some more than the other it just has to be five hours of instructional time being provided it's very vague i'm gonna check on that too kevin essentially what it's saying is if we provided apex learning to a child or imagine learning to a child for five and a half hours or five hours with that but obviously that's not our goal do they say a percentage of how much has to be like live like no i wish i had so i'm going to repeat what michelle said because it wasn't hurt on the mic um that the the state is their guidelines are for the five hours um we are gonna i know that i know the recommendations are for the two and a half hours synchronous and two and a half hours asynchronous but i think we're going to have to double check some things on that to make sure but um so it's just a recommendation i i'm gonna honestly i'm gonna have to i'm gonna have to double check i think that's just recommendation but what about our channel five hours yeah but what about our standards for our students right that are remote learners like there's a different set of standards and if they're not getting in in per if they're remote learners i guess can you can you guys figure out a way to have teachers teach remote only so the kids aren't getting no instruction pretty much you know what i'm saying so here's another thing here's the challenge here's the challenge i'll just i'll kind of troubleshoot this with you middle school we have two i'm gonna use math we have two sixth grade math teachers and they each serve 100 students a day so we bring them back in a blended and they're seeing half of their students each day i don't have i don't have another math teacher to teach sixth grade math to only those kids that went virtual and i can't give if i have thirty percent of the kids in virtual and seventy percent of kids here i can't give all 70 to the one teacher because then i can't do social distancing in those classrooms and 30 to the virtual teacher you know what i mean so that's that's the logistical issues of it at primary elementary it's possible if we have enough parents to choose the virtual model it is possible but then we're going to have to take kids that are currently in one class and peel them away from that teacher and put them in with a new virtual teacher you know one trimester into the school year so that's the issue with that so that's why we didn't want to say that right now but it really is the number of virtual students that sign up are going to drive that decision i think but that's that's i'm just telling you what like we've had to work through i'm not saying we're right on it i'm just saying it's what we're trying to work through i think that's for me as a parent that would be a better option than my kid doing apex learning or imagine learning for five hours and not being able to talk to the teacher until friday or i mean you feel like getting a new teacher i would rather have that and it did yeah right because right now they they don't have any physical relationship with the teacher other than what they see on zoom zone right so i think that that relationship can be transferred to a remote learning it would be just like if you moved to a different town and your kid attended a new school they would be meeting the new teacher the uh so the the middle school we don't have we don't have a good solution for it because they don't have enough you'd have to have content teachers in every one of those content areas to teach those clients then i think the live stream comes in that's what i said yeah i think that we can't have the remote full remote learning kids be staring in front of the computer and doing worksheets for five hours a day i think that yeah they'd definitely be missing out on them they'll be missing out on a lot because some of those parents don't have choices like that there's kids that have illnesses or their work schedule and they can't drive them they can't drive them right they're turning into like second class okay i i don't think that any of this stuff derails you your plan yeah it doesn't i think yeah that getting the option for parents to get kids back in school is the most important thing we can do right now yeah the social emotional aspect just to get them some kind of normalcy or just to feel like a kid again yeah they've been home since march i mean yeah and that was our that was kind of our purpose for dinner i just don't want the remote learners to be forgotten about either yeah right yeah and that's been the that has been uh to be honest with you it's been the probably the biggest concern that's been shared even amongst our administrative team and it's what i've heard from parents i just i can't i can't promise you right now that that is an easy option at the middle school to fill we can try you know we're gonna have to work on it obviously um the the live streaming mm-hmm is it just not technical are we not ready technologically for that um we can do that it's just teacher's comfort level is that the concern i think that's part of it uh trying to deal with uh again i think at the middle school it's gonna be easier uh but it's it's dealing with the uh i got part of my students here i got part of them here and trying to manage both you know you got student in the room that's doing something that i shouldn't be doing or trying to manage that behavior you don't know what's going on here so i think there's just i feel like what's going to happen is that our middle school teachers are going to figure it out and it'll work well but i can't i just i can't say i don't want to promise it to anybody right now because i didn't you know we haven't it's not something we've ever done and i have i'll i have a staff that's just kind of teetering on the edge right now there's of stress and i just didn't want to promise it if we can't deliver it and that's that's what uh i'm concerned about be honest with you but we we do have time so you know we're bringing fifth grade in first for two weeks and then sixth grade for middle school and you know so we have time to to work on it figure it out and see if we can do it and we have time to shut it down if it can't happen but i know we're going to be asking parents the challenge here is we're asking parents to make a decision soon by the 5th of october if they want this virtual or not and if we can't i mean for me i think shutting it down for reasons for health is different than reasons of people being uncomfortable with their teaching environment and i fully am immersed in teaching environment at my house um so i fully understand the stress and the stresses that it causes but i know that i i see countless teachers around this district adapt every time they did it in march they're going to do it again now um i think that we have it all over the building believe in higher standards and i think i do believe that and i do believe that for this school so i i don't want to see a kid not have any access to a teacher for five hours a day i don't think that that accomplishes the goal of our district um it would make me sad if they make a choice well parents fully know like if you were to choose to keep your child home remote learning that you're not getting the same quality education i mean i'm gonna make it i want to i have in my my message to them that uh on the email that i have drafted that the expectations won't be the same i don't have it that it's going to be you know i don't want to we don't know exactly how it's going to look you know because i it's like i said a lot of it's going to be teacher by teacher and uh and it's going to develop over time but i don't i don't disagree with you i mean i don't i don't want there to be no contact for five hours um this teacher is going to be teaching for for two different sessions two and a half hours in person the only way to do it would be for them to stream them into the classroom can you use your building sub in the rooms to help the teacher out manage the class that is in person so you'd have two adults possibly yeah i mean that would be one way to help yeah or i mean like in k through 4 if you don't have enough if you have the 70 30 plan and that means you can't release a teacher then a higher eighth permanent subs i mean at this point i think that we have to look at things we've never done before i think you guys are doing that every day and i i mean i don't yeah we have we that's one we did hire the we've hired uh nine permanent subs and we were able to get it barely we had some of them wouldn't do the four days a week so we had we paired up two and two and filled weeks and um i just think those people are going to be needed for when teachers have a child sick or because all kids have to stay home now with any symptom at all so that means parents got to stay home with them and so yeah that's where we get into the adult the number of adults the issue there but so it sounds like the so the really the big the biggest concern for the board and and i totally get it because it's it's on our list too is the quality of the virtual education if a family chooses that yeah okay and the busing yeah the cell certification the self-certifications yeah be a little better okay does anybody have anything else so we gotta um how i'm trying to think of how to proceed because i uh well i think we have a model to vote on we have the hybrid model i think that that's what we're voting on we're voting on i think everything else in here is district um procedure that i don't necessarily think that we control we have input but we don't have control over that so you're uh really but then what you're doing then is really charging us though is to try to figure out this virtual in a better way yes figure um and yes and the buses okay and i think are we saying i i don't think it's okay to ever hire people i think that that's okay too i think that foreign even if you get retired teachers who can only work 120 days i mean that would be worth it yeah right yeah okay or like you those leave teachers that you may have if you've got four of them or however many of them it's that they do their leave they're not doing their leave now they're the remote learning teacher and that may change what they teach or what grade they teach but you know yeah you know what we are certification area right yeah yeah okay all right we can go to the drawing board with some things on that and uh we'll just uh we'll do some troubleshooting this week i'm gonna have to think about how to message it with parents i have to be honest and say at this point you know we're going to do what we can to make it a better environment than what we have on the paper right but uh all right we can do that sounds good all right um anybody have anything else no no can i please have a motion to approve the return to school model as presented by the administration second julian tiffany yes does anybody have any questions on the board policy 4 one one zero uh regarding the busing what are we no we're suspending we're just suspending it for the this school year just in case we have to turn people away because we might have to i don't know how else to yeah if we only can do it yeah we just can't bust everybody right now unless we're unless we're willing to put 40 kids on a bus that would be the you know and i just that'll be really hard for the bus drivers good idea right now driver would be out there right no i think that that's okay unless we go back to full opening right then i think yeah right yeah uh so if we go back to full opening do you have to bring this back to us to enroll i i think i think that we will we're just suspending it yeah you're suspending it until we yeah i think i'll probably will bring it back but uh we will just go ahead and just start busting everybody yeah okay okay i please have a motion to approve a recommendation to suspend board policy for colon 110 for the 2020-2021 school year motion vivian and doug okay yes peter yes yes yes yes yes does anybody have any questions on the employment of miss mcmillan nope can i please have a motion to approve the employment of melissa mcmillan bus driver effective september 29th 2020.

i'm sorry what was that how about 2021 the new year and we can have some presenters for both sides please thank you we leave the savings on january 1st okay so um so i know that i also want to just um say that as we're considering this um you know whoever might come to us i think that um we heard that it's very possible to um to include those upfront costs into the the longer term and still have significant savings over the length of that agreement so that's you know knowing that that's a possibility and we would not have to come up with any of that money out of our pocket and so um you know that's very significant part of the consideration that i'd like for people to have on their minds for no money literally no money i mean not literally figuratively no money but obviously attorneys costs and things there will still be cost there but minimally or some of those costs could be rolled into the agreement so that's an interesting part to consider to to receive um a benefit ongoing um did i hear someone else marcus trusty marquez um earlier when we were in full discussion um you said the general counsel had said that we could go back to uh to the community for comments or questions or input um i'd like us to do that so before we leave this um this item okay anyone that has not already spoken um if they would like to uh and let's get the clock ready mighty bell in case we have someone and uh mr gill do we have anyone yes we have i'm sorry who we have two people first one is kim espinoza okay miss espinosa when you begin speaking your time will begin hello hello i'm sorry mister i thought you said kim espinosa um yes you can stop the clock please mardi gras or reset the clock okay we can hear you so when you begin speaking your two minutes will begin okay all right good everybody good evening everyone um so you know we we literally just had a presentation from the bonds committee about the status of our facilities and um some recommendations were made about how we can reinvest in our schools and our facilities um you know like like maksa for example you know but here we are again talking about solar panels and i understand that there's no action today um but at some point there will be action and those actions can potentially have you know lasting impacts that supersede all of your terms we're having conversations about putting in solar panels at our schools but not enough conversations about how our kids will go back to school safely and not enough conversations about you know how the structural improvements uh needed for our facilities as a kid my parents always told me that nothing in life is free and many of us already know that to be true so i'm really skeptical about the implications that this project will have um and what the true cost of these solar panels would be once all is said and done and in the end the ones who pay our children um so obviously just like a lot of parents um i'm very concerned and i'm looking forward to hearing more you know not just from experts but from the rest of the community as well thank you hi thank you next person mr gill so the next person is josue garcia okay mr garcia um at this time when you begin speaking you have two minutes and those two minutes will begin when you start talking and i just want to make a few points which i can email to you out of the interest of time but i want to say that you first make sure that the computer they said that you select it's securing any and all possible incentives for the project that they should make sure that whoever they select is capable of providing strong warranties and performance guarantees independent independent of the financial structures taxable taxable leases are a great way for the district to make some savings and also tax exempt leases are a great savings and in summary it is important that the district has have their respondents propose many procurement financing solutions as possible i am representing a group that uh possibly can even provide funding for their uh fixing issues and implementation issues as well uh like i said i'm happy to send an email with these people so you can take a look at them look at them tomorrow thank you thank you just quick clarification because you broke up there you said you're representing a group that could possibly provide something yes again on top of the financing for the project the energy project we can possibly provide financing for the electrical to fix the electrical problems and the hvac problems as well as part of the whole package okay thank you very much any other comments mr gill um we i think the hand raised by veronica but as for maryville she already yeah she provided public comment earlier on um on this item okay thank you public for um providing your feedback and so i think at this point um the the suggestion or the recommendation from um trustee quintero has been heard it seems reasonable i would agree haven't heard anything to the contrary so i think we can start closing this down now unless there's any last comments trustee chavez yeah my internet went out when he said it can you please repeat whatever the motion or whatever he said [Applause] okay so you heard that part of it right i've heard a portion of it and then when i hear them say i think december then that's when i said 2021 january oh yeah so i think we just said at the earliest at the earliest november since that would be after the election that more information will be brought to us and at that time we would um decide how we move forward based on what is brought to us in that meeting okay and also um there was a um i guess a text with uh a comment that i made and dr bowers that i can always ask for for that as well when you bring that presentation um i guess i could email it but i would also like to say it now to put the 10 mistakes that districts make so that way we can be aware of not to commit the same mistakes that's it thank you so you said to put it what do you mean to put it as part of the as part of the materials when when and if it comes or when it comes as an item after the election just as part of the the supplementary materials yes in january 2021 preferably thank you next and next week fine um have you provided that to dr bauer already or can you provide that to dr bauer so that it can be included trustee travis have you provided that to dr bauer already or if not can you provide it to her i'm texting i i'm providing it now let me finish my text thank you okay thank you want to be on the text or on the email i mean i would imagine email would be better but you can work that out offline with that the thing is on my phone from the computer i don't want to lose it so as soon as this meeting's over it'll be emailed thank you well that doesn't need to be right this second but however i never know okay thank you okay trusty marquez yeah i i am i just have a question because um i.t director said that there was one person only that wanted to speak and if i heard right i think he said veronica and were there any other ones if it was just her why did you allowed to speak i mean i can't understand if you know 10 or 12 or whatever was you know ready to say something but if it was just one i i wish to do to let you know her speak because she so faithfully comes to these meetings and he gives us our input and he's been very respectful um so he's he didn't say one i think he said there were two and actually um those two and i don't even know if maybe one more spoke but um as i'm sure you're well aware of um the brown act doesn't allows for someone to um provide public on an item and so i don't know that we can um allow people to make continuous comments on an item well i just thought because she had heard all of the board members input and and comments that she probably had a burning comment to give us or her her you know opinion or a question that she can leave us with and anyway just i just wondered why he didn't call just on one okay thank you all right so then at this time i think we can go ahead and adjourn this meeting um thank you everyone for your participation and um we will see you soon at our next regular board meeting coming up here soon so thank you everyone and have a good night this meeting is adjourned at 8 22.