001Good evening. Thank you for being here. Welcome to the April 17th regularly scheduled meeting of the San Carlos School District Board of Education. I am calling the meeting to order at 630 p.m. We have two trustees absent, Sarah Casanego and Boris Lipkin are both not here. First thing on the agenda is approval of the agenda. Dr. Frentress or the board, are there any changes you'd like to make to the agenda? Is there a motion to approve the agenda? Motion to approve. Second. Okay. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Okay. Agenda is approved 3-0. Before we get started on the rest of the agenda, I'd like to state that the board appreciates and supports stakeholder input at our meetings. Part of our role is to listen to what members of the public have to say
002and everyone should have a chance to express their opinions within the guidelines that the board has established. So we're able to conduct the meeting effectively and efficiently. During tonight's meeting, there will be time for public comment, both for agenda items and as well as those items not on the agenda towards the end of the meeting. Please wait to speak at the appropriate time. If you'd like to address the board in person, yes, that you fill out a blue card over there. And if you're online, please use the raised hand feature. According to the board bylaw, 9323, each speaker will have three minutes to address the board unless changed by the board. Okay. So the next item on our agenda is special recognition on special education district advisory council feedback. And I will turn it over
003to Jennifer. Thank you. I am thrilled at the opportunity to celebrate a special education district advisory committee. Recently, the district celebrated Ability Awareness Week, and I feel like we had more events than I remember in any year past. It was really super amazing. Director Vizier is here with the members who have really helped us boost that awareness in a really wonderful way. So I will turn it over to Director Vizier. Okay. All right. Well, thank you, trustees. And I'm also delighted to spotlight our amazing group of parents and administrators that form our CDAC and put on the amazing Ability Awareness Week event every year. In addition, I'm going to highlight some other things that CDAC does throughout the year. So what is CDAC? Again, we're a group of parents and administrators that come together once
004a month to share ideas, opinions, resources, and issues related to students in special education. Some of the things that CDAC does is give input on the local control accountability plan. We're actually doing that tomorrow in our monthly meeting. And a huge reason why we have CDAC is for advocacy, for inclusion and belonging for our students. And we also host many community events. So some of the examples, one I think my favorite event is the Jasper Ridge Farm Day. I think, are we on year three, Tricia? So Jasper Ridge has therapy animals. And so they invite our families to come to the farm and the kids get to hold chickens. They get to pet sheep and bunnies and guinea pigs. So it's just a really magical day. I've even had parents come up and say, you
005know, thank you for hosting this. This is a place where I feel like my child can be themselves. I don't feel, you know, any sort of judgment. Just having that kind of special place for families to gather. And then we also put on parent education nights. We have one coming up on the 28th. And then there's also a lot of parent resources that are shared. Some of our members operate a Facebook group where they're able to share resources. And one of the members also hosts a night at her house where parents can gather and sort of have that community and talk about resources and issues that they're facing. And then really what I wanted to highlight tonight is our Ability Awareness Week. And our purpose is really to educate our student and learning communities about
006the ways we can honor each member's unique strengths and differences. And so here's some of the fun events that we were able to host this year. The Urban Jazz is a team of dancers. They are deaf. So the people you see standing or sitting in front are the interpreters. And they were able to come to a Rundle, Heather and Tara Linda this year for assemblies. And then we were also able to bring Jasper Ridge Farms to Heather. We have done that for quite a few years. Okay, four years in a row. And that we let the students in our Learning Center classrooms at Heather and Leap, our preschool program, the kids are able to come and interact with the animals on the site. Tracy got to be there for that one. And then at Britton
007Acres and White Oaks, they had Special Olympians come and speak to the students. That was a first for us this year. And then at Arroyo Down Syndrome Connection was there. That's this picture to talk about people with Down Syndrome and raise awareness. And then we didn't have a speaker for Central and Tom Domer decided that he wanted to talk about his recent illness and share with the kids his experience. So he was the guest speaker this year. All right. And then I just really wanted to thank our very dedicated group of parents, the countless volunteer hours that they put in for Ability Awareness a week alone. We hosted a movie night. Gina, I don't know how many hours you spent on the phone trying to find speakers and, you know, just a big thank you
008to Gina Snyder, Trisha Leibis, Jennifer Lopez, Sylvia Lexington, Nicole Rios, Kate Finnegan, Sana Hunt, Vera McCandless, and Sibylla Mariano are all very active members of CDAC and have contributed countless hours to really support our community. Thank you. Does anyone want to say anything? And Diedrich is here too as well. He's one of our, he is one of our administrative representatives, Diedrich von den Meyer, the Heather principal and Kim Norgaard is also a member of CDAC this year, the Arundel principal. So thank you to them as well for supporting CDAC. I just want to say that I want to thank just the district in a whole for all your support, because we're here, you know, as Megan mentioned, wanting the kids, the staff community, a sense of belonging inclusion, but that wouldn't happen without so many
009of you. staff without the kids themselves actually doing all these great activities, the staff that puts a lot in the classrooms that are, we don't see but they do. So there's a lot going on at the schools during this week, we do our part, but everybody also does theirs. And it makes it such a great event that we look forward to every year. And because of that, I feel like, I mean, I've been a parent in the district, my son, 2008, or I'm sorry, he was in kindergarten at the time, and he's now a sophomore in high school. And that's when I started CDAC. So I've been around, I've seen it evolve. And it's just pretty amazing. And it just keeps getting better and better. And I just want to thank everybody here for all
010yours. And just the support is outstanding. And we can't do it without all of you. So just want to thank all of you for that. And I just want to thank everybody here for all yours. And just the support is outstanding. And we can't do it without all of you. So just want to thank all of you for that. I'm very happy for where we're at. But there's, we want to keep doing it keep every year gets better and better. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. And I agree. I mean, thank you for all the work that you guys are doing with the CDAC. And I also think that like the PE teachers, they really love to do things that help where you have to limit your ability for that particular activity. And
011I think it really opens up, at least my son's eyes were opened up. He's like, Oh, my gosh, the next day his arms were so sore because he could not utilize the rest of his body for something. And I think I think it's great that we have Abilities Awareness Week and, and that the work that CDAC does throughout this year. Thank you. Okay, moving on to the next item is consent agenda or items. The consent agenda contains items that are routine in nature and for which no board discussions anticipated so we act upon them with a single vote. Do we have any public comment. And, or is there anything that the board sees on the consent consent agenda. They'd like to move off. All right, if not, can someone make a motion. All right. Second,
012all those in favor. Say aye. Aye. Okay, consent agenda is approved three zero. Okay, now we move we'll move on to information and discussions. And the purpose of this section is really just for information and discussion. And we will have staff present and then at the end, there's time for clarifying questions. The first item on the agenda for that is teaching and learning update California healthy kids survey results. And I will turn it over to Han. All right, well, we get this queued up real quick for you. Here we go. All right, well, I'm really happy to be here tonight with our wellness director Sheila Brar, who has developed tonight's presentation based on results of the latest student staff and caregiver surveys that were conducted during February and March, you probably took them all yourself
013and recall for the most part. And we're pleased tonight to present many highlights and a few areas for improvement from those results. Thank you for being here, Sheila. So Hans pretty much elevated what we're doing today. So we'll go over the California school climate health and learning surveys, it's known as Cal Schools, but is also known as the California healthy kids survey or checks. And that's pretty much how we refer to it throughout the LCAP plan. So that's how I'll refer to it for the rest of the evening. All right, so we wanted to start the presentation today by framing what the survey actually is. So this is one assessment tool that we use to get data and feedback about student belonging school purpose, academic motivation, mental health and some other measures. Students complete the
014survey online annually starting in third grade, parents and staff at all school sites are shared the survey link and they complete their survey. We use the data at the district level to assess our LCAP plans and our goals. So there are several LCAP goals that have CHICS measures in them to track year by year, and that we have a goal to increase or decrease over the three year LCAP plan. And we'll go into some of that in further detail. At the school sites, school site principals go over their school data with their staff for goal planning as well as school plans for student achievement or CPSA plans. All right, so this is an overview of what we'll be going over today. Okay, so our students report really high levels of academic motivation, caring adult relationships
015and school connectedness. So this is our middle school report card for this year. It's a little bit small but the bottom bar graph of each scale set of questions like under school connectedness is the 2025 and the orange bar is the state average. Staff report a positive school climate and effective collaboration, parents and caregivers report high levels of feeling welcome and effective school communication. So we'll talk a little bit more about some of the specific measures but we found some opportunities for learning more. So we want to talk to students about their perceptions of belonging and what they think meaningful participation actually is. And for staff, we want to hear more about the support that they need to have culturally and linguistically diverse students to provide an environment that they can support those students. Okay,
016so our participation rates. This is, they're really high I know some of the numbers are kind of all over the place from 50 to 100%. But grades three through six are opt in. So parents have to give active consent for their student to take the survey. So getting to 77% is a pretty good goal. This is not where a lot of our counterparts are in the county or at the state level. Seventh grade is opt out. So we obviously have a very high percentage of students participating in the survey. We had more staff participating in the survey this year and we got to close to 75% participation, fewer caregivers, but we're still at about 50% participation and the denominator for caregivers is a little bit difficult to actually get a perfect number for. This year
017I took out email addresses from power school to get the denominator of what I think caregivers are so that they would show up multiple times if they had multiple students in the district. The problem is, they could have multiple kids at one school. So then they'd show up twice, like if they had two kids at the middle school level, but you'd really only want them to complete one survey. So it's not a perfect denominators. That's why there's an approximate percentage there. Can you have two caregivers from the same family also fill it out? Yes. Well, that was my denominator because I went by email address. Yeah. Ideally, you want both parents? Yes, we want all parents noted. Yeah, I know for myself too. Okay, that's probably didn't happen at my house either. Alright, so let's
018get into the data. Two of the measures that we look at to assess our first LCAP goal. Our adults at school care about me, and I feel like I'm a part of this school. Our results are pretty similar to last year, a little bit of a change, not anything statistically significant. This is our starting point for this LCAP plan, so we want to see this number go up by 5% over the next three years. I wanted to also provide some nuances to the data. So compared to the county, we are reporting higher levels of favorable responses. So these questions are asked in either a four or five point scale from pretty much true, very much true, somewhat true, not at all true. That's what students respond with, or it's depending on the question, strongly disagree
019to strongly agree. These are everything presented today is going to be the top two favorable answers. So if it was a strongly agree question, it would be strongly agree and agree is what you're seeing. And you want in that question for it to be an agreed upon question because there are some reverse questions, right? You want people to actually disagree in the staff survey. So again, compared to the county level, we're slightly higher. It should also be noted that there is a dip between sixth, seventh and eighth grade compared to elementary school. And because we have more seventh and eighth graders taking the survey, the survey data gets weighted towards the results that are saying less that they agree. Does that make sense? Because it's not a perfect. We did a weighted average, not just
020a grade level average. So for LCAP goal two, in terms of differentiated learning and setting ambitious rules, the metric that we track are meaningful participation scale questions. So this is a set of five questions that students are asked under the umbrella of meaningful participation. I'm going to go to my notes because we're going to do a little board activity. So I'd like you to think about yourself in sixth grade and how would you answer the following questions? At school, I do interesting activities. At school, I help decide classroom activities and goals and your answers are very much true, pretty much true, a little true or not at all true. And any of you can answer first. And with a sixth grade mind and taking this on a single day, right? Do you want to share?
021I was going to do a board average. See how we all scored. I would maybe say a little. Okay. Yeah. I'd say probably a little too. Okay. Would you say a little or not at all true? Okay. So we would have had a zero percent up here for the three of you. Our NF3 is small, but these are the top two recorded percentages. So students actually saying very much true or pretty much true. And just to give the example of some of these questions are really hard and broad to answer. Right. So to even get these numbers is pretty good. So I would want to talk about the sixth grade dip. There's a couple of things going on here and we had talked that we need to do some more student feedback. And this is
022our opportunity for learning. But as students transition from fifth to sixth grade, they're going from one classroom to six. Right. So then do they get to decide class activities in every single classroom? Might they respond only some of the time? There's a lot of variability there. And also, if you look at this particular cohort, so go back to how they responded in fifth grade, they actually responded at 37 percent. And so now they're at 34. So it's not as big of a jump as kind of some of these statistics look if you actually track the class. And so, yeah, this is one of our areas of inquiry. We want to go back to students and talk to them about what is something that you get to decide in the class. Is there something? And I
023did a student feedback session at both middle schools. And the first answer from every student was we don't get to decide. And then they thought about it a little bit and we're like, oh, well, we actually do get to decide what type of project we do. Like, I know seventh grade had a biodiversity project. They could do a poster. They could do a community flyer. They had options and they didn't really think about that as having voice and choice in the classroom. But when we had a conversation with them and it was reframed, then they really did see that there was some way that they could have their voice heard in their classroom experience. So a couple other student survey measures that we went to our school admin teams and looked at some of the
024checks questions. And these were some of the ones that our principals were interested in to look at. So the top two are hopefully the same question asked slightly differently. So in eighth grade, sixth or eighth grade at middle school, it's I'm always trying to do better in my schoolwork. And then the closest equivalent question for fourth and fifth grade is, do you keep doing your schoolwork even when it's really hard for you? So, again, these are answered on that pretty much true, very much true scale or all of the time and most of the time. So 90 percent of our fourth and fifth graders say most or all of the time that they try to do well on their schoolwork, even if it's hard for them. And that shows a lot. It's a really great
025statistic to show how high their academic motivation is. And then this one is also very high and could speak to more nuanced belonging, right, that a teacher at school wants me to do my best. That's I think a more specific metric than someone at school cares about me. So we just wanted to highlight those. So overall, our students report feeling safe at school. They feel that teachers set high expectations for learning the self-reported current use of tobacco, marijuana and vaping was at zero percent. I think a lot of people might look at that number and think it should be zero percent, but I was just on a call about vaping and cannabis and really 10 percent is what many districts are looking at. That's self-reported. So that is often lower than what's actually happening. So,
026like we said, we're going to go back to students and do some student feedback sessions as a part of the LCAP plan. Middle schools have implemented some student focus groups. So they're meeting with students that sometimes aren't the most vocal and actually asking them targeted questions. So that's happening now at both middle schools and then we'll continue that next year to get some feedback on all these measures. OK, so moving on to staff, the LCAP goal three is basically a staff goal. So we have a couple of things that we're tracking here. So we did see a decrease in the support provided for teaching culturally and linguistically diverse students. And this is something that we want to learn more about. What does that mean? What support is needed? But overall, we have really high numbers
027for so many of these metrics. Above 90 percent feel that they have a place in decision making, that they get time to collaborate regularly and that school is an inviting place for students to learn. High promoting academic success is something that the school does and that it's a safe place that motivates students to learn. So there's not a whole lot to move up in here because we're at 95 percent or greater. But again, there is some areas that we want to learn a little bit more about. So Dr. Fentress and I will be going to school sites and having staff input sessions to really focus on anything at the school site data that we saw that maybe we wanted to have some more inquiry on, but definitely at the district level for supporting those linguistically
028diverse students. And so finally, our caregiver results. So we track a couple of measures for LCAP goal two and five. Again, this is a student learning environment scale questions. This is a set of 12 questions. Some of them improve. We'll talk about is this place a is the school a safe place for students to learn? Does it promote academic success for all students? So again, we're scoring really high in the 80s of strongly agree and agree. There are many of these questions where parents also say they don't know. So you have to take that out. But it's less than 10 percent are saying that they disagree or strongly disagree. What we wanted to see in the LCAP goal is how many people are actually saying strongly agree. So there was an increase of three percent
029and strongly agree for TK to fifth, an increase of eight percent to strongly agree in sixth and eighth grade, sixth or eighth grade. Right. So more people are reporting strongly agree. And so our goal five is really about community partnerships and engagement with parents. So school actively seeks input from parents before important decision making. While this is still a relatively high number, this is another place we'd like to do some more inquiry on and maybe engage with parents that aren't a part of our typical engagement groups. But that school encourages parents and caregivers to be an active partner at 93 percent and communicating what students are expected to learn in class at 88 percent are all quite high. And so here's a couple other metrics all above 90 to 95 percent. Parents feel welcome to
030participate at school, that staff treats them with respect, that they have a supportive and inviting place for students to learn and that they take parents' concerns seriously. So this was 85 percent, but 10 percent reported not knowing. So only five percent actually disagreed. And for that kind of metric, maybe they haven't had a parent concern that they needed to relay to their school site. So again, we want to continue our partnerships that we have with PTAC, with other parent groups, and expand those to sometimes parents that we don't always get to. And that's the presentation. So let's open it up for questions. Yeah. Can you take questions? I have a question. Is the sixth grade dip, while it makes logical sense, is it in the last few years always the one that gives us the
031biggest dip? No, there is a kind of natural dip that happens in sixth, seventh, and eighth grade, a decreasing trend of meaningful participation. But this sixth grade dip was a little bit more, not compared to how the cohort responded in fifth grade. But we usually don't see that significant difference, that significant of a decrease. And that's a place that we'd like to learn more about. Can you tell me, is the staff survey sent to all staff? I went through participation rate so fast. Sorry. The staff survey is sent to all staff. And school site principals also take time in their staff meetings to complete the staff survey. But not all staff go to those staff meetings, so they do share that survey link with everyone at their school site. So give me a thumbs up
032if that was right. I would love to know the results of some of the listening sessions, what you are finding through some of the areas where there's deeper inquiry. I don't know if we get that through the LCAP process or how... We can provide something, right? I assume what we'll do when we finish is we'll come up with some themes. Sometimes we also pressure test those with our union partners. Sometimes we try to triangulate other ways. But yeah, you'll hear something at least on the themes that we uncovered, if there are opportunities for improvement that we need to do. For me? I had a question on the question related to meaningful participation. If it's so difficult to gauge the meaningful participation piece of it, is there a different metric within checks that could help with
033the LCAP Goal 2 metric? Or do you feel that this is the one that is the one we should be tracking? I think they're broad questions. I think we could focus on specific questions, but they all are like, again, classroom activities and rules. They're hard because every student would interpret them differently. So I think what we want to learn more about is how they're interpreting that question and why they're giving the response that they're giving, not necessarily how the question is asked. I think it's an and situation. We take this as one way to assess with numbers, but then add in the anecdotal input from students. I guess that leads me to my second question. I know that in the past we've asked sort of custom questions you can add and then we've kind of
034eliminated those. Is there a thought to add some back in or are we still kind of okay? So one of the things about working with a group like WestEd is that they do comprehensive assessment of each question before we put it on. When we design questions, you know, I've had a lot of experience with this and a lot of education in this. I still would want to make sure I pilot it. I test it because what you otherwise get is you sometimes get spurious data just because of the construction and it's never been tested with big audiences. So because we don't have a strong research and evaluation arm in our district, I want us to be really careful about that. Now, that said, we could work with some of our partners like at Stanford to
035design some questions. But I think one of the things we're finding is we have a new curriculum. In fact, we had teachers from TL come and talk about the curriculum they have, and those have some assessment tools in there. So maybe what we could do is find one of those assessment tools that we could correlate with this, the Wayfinder curriculum that they have. And those are a little bit closer to the student and maybe come up with some of those pieces. But I know that we tried to design questions and because of that inability to do the right research on them, I want us to be really careful there. Yeah. Okay. I guess another thought related to the custom question would be, you know, now that we have AI, I think listening sessions are great
036for when you're talking to the students as well as the staff, but there's no real listening sessions for, say, a caregiver survey. So is there an opportunity? I don't know if Wested offers an open-ended question. Because that would be similar to sort of a listening session where you would just hear, rather than them answering about, you know, whether they agree or strongly disagree, but just something a little more open-ended and then using AI to put it all together. Yeah, we did that when we were doing our strategic planning sessions where we collected feedback. I think it's an excellent suggestion that we can talk to Wested about. I know there are other tools that districts use that do provide an open-ended question, and so that is something we can definitely talk to them about. Just one
037more wondering, which I don't necessarily expect an answer to right now, but maybe it's more as you're in sessions with colleagues and other parts of the state. Is there any, has anyone analyzed children's ages, what they were during COVID and responses to these questions? I'm just wondering if there's any sort of relationship to how children are experiencing school now and what age they were during COVID? Yeah, there's some reports we can look at going forward. I think there are some, I mean, and Wested does a, once they agree, at the end of the school year, basically, when all the district data is in, they do have, like, sessions in which you can come and ask questions about the school site, the overall state data. So that might be a place to. Yeah, if you come
038across. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sure there's definitely something we're interested in. Thank you, Sheila and Hans. I don't see any raised hands in the Zoom room, so we can move on to the next item, which is 5B, San Carlos Charter Learning Center 2024-25 Second Interim. That will be Ralph. Thank you. So it is the responsibility of the San Carlos School District to regularly review the interim reports for the San Carlos Learning Center, which is one of the charters that are sponsored by the district. So, this is a letter in the file as well that you see the second interim report from San Carlos Learning Center. So a couple highlights, there's about a $30,000 increase in revenue from first interim. About a $7,000 increase in expenditures from first interim. About a $107,000 increase to their ending fund
039balance due to a decrease in expenditures, increase in revenue on audited actuals adjustment and adjustment to receivables from state special education revenue. Their enrollment is 377 students. The LCFF funded ADA is 361. This is an increase of nine for the ADA from prior year. So attendance rate is approximately 95%. So based on our review, San Carlos Learning Center's second interim and multi-year projections appear to be sufficient to meet the charter school's financial obligations for current and subsequent two fiscal years. Yes, and it's just an information item. It's responsible just to report this to the board. Does anyone have any questions? And I don't see any raised hands in Zoom. So thank you, Ralph. Moving on, we will go to item 5C, which is Updates to Board Policies. All right. Well, I will accept feedback from
040my co-pilot on the Superintendent's Committee to look at policies. We have several that were entered on the board, and this is your opportunity to recommend any changes, any additions, et cetera. And I'll go through each of these and the language that we discussed and kind of the primary differences. And as I said, Tracy, please jump in. The first one is about contracts. Language was added about the board not entering into contracts without consideration for conflict of interest. That's also included in our board bylaws. So it's not as if we didn't have that before. It's just duplicated here. There's also additional nutrition rules in contracts, as we've learned from our nutrition presentations from Jennifer Gabri and our wellness director. It's important that we not enter into contracts with non-nutritious food vendors, for instance. So that's in
041there. There's also language added around internal controls. That's something that we take pretty seriously at San Carlos already. Detailed rules about entering into contracts with cloud-based service providers that might have student-sensitive information in there. And agreements with contractors, like PSAs, personal service agreements. There's some additional information there. You will note that CSBA recommended elimination or that the CSBA language did not include amounts, whereas previously the amount of $30,000 for the superintendent to approve with ratification by the board, that language was removed. Tracy, anything you want to add to the conversation about contracts? I think you did it. I got it. Yes, I got it. I thought you have them in front of you. I had to review them again myself today. Okay, I'm going to move on to response to immigration enforcement. You might recall
042that we brought something before you that teased out this language a little bit. Obviously it had been included in the visitor policy. Now it's its own separate policy, and this is a further revision that goes further and more explicitly includes issues related to immigration officers and the things they may or may not do. It includes the opportunity for the superintendent to provide training and detailed response efforts on our campuses. Again, we do have a good visitor policy that oversees this, but it's more explicit. It encourages elements of non-discrimination language. It excludes non-district others from accessing information in student files. That again is in other policies as well, but very explicit here. And it provides clear language about the records schools may not collect about immigration status for students or their families. Well, I just wanted
043to say this was on the other was a version of this in the March meeting that we had and but this because CSB actually the one we looked at in March was from 2018 and between when we looked at it in March and this meeting, CSBA had some recommended changes. So that's why it says first read for us that it's kind of looking at this again. But so the changes reflected here are more between the one we introduced last time and now we don't actually have a current board policy in place yet. Yeah, I think it's important that Board President Park pointed that out because it's very likely policies like this will go under revision. And so my hope would be we would bring it back for a second read and approval and then just
044make changes as we go. One thing we've learned through this whole process is once code has changed, Ed code has changed, we are held to that. But I do know that the backbone of policy as a district can be helpful in these times. All right. Board member electronic or no wait. Yeah, public statements. CSBA recommended some changes that reflect our practices. We already have a great governance handbook that has governance agreements and also follows the Brown Act. As a governance team, we recently reviewed these in our handbook at our public retreat at our board retreat, but I don't remember there being any changes related to public statements. Is that right? Anything else you want to add to that? No. Okay. Then there is this bylaw on board member electronic communication. This one here details allowable
045communications and clarifies what is not permissible or, you know, some of the things around social media likes, for instance. The new language does detail that a board member may use social media platform for answering questions, but details how to avoid Brown Act violations. I liked this CSBA note, so I'm just going to read it. It says the following bylaw is optional and should be revised to reflect district practice. The Brown Act requires the governing board members conduct a district business at properly noticed and agendized public meetings. In general, for purposes of the Brown Act, electronic communications are subject to the same conditions, same rules of confidentiality that are applicable to other forms of communication, such as individual conversations, telephone calls, paper copies of documents. The governing board recognizes that electronic communication is an efficient and
046convenient way to communicate. The reason I wanted to read that is that we do have all of this in our governance handbook. And while we're not obligated to have a bylaw, I think it is a best practice, if your practice is this, to have that detailed. Okay. Organization reflected our practice, matches our current practice, so I didn't have much to say about that. And then on governing board elections on this board bylaw, it added some language about board recall and consolidating elections. Well, I think what is also noteworthy is we are now as a district will be paying for the cost of printing, handling, translating, mailing, and or electronic. So basically the candidate statement has been the financial burden of the candidate. And we thought in order for it to be more equitable for those
047who may not have that advantage of having fundraising ability from the get go to be able to still put their name in the hat for running. So the district has changed its policy related to that piece of it. And then the other change is we originally had in our bylaw that we would be doing a runoff if there was a tie and runoffs are extremely expensive. So we've changed the format of if in the event of a tie that it will be decided by bylaw, right? Yeah. Determine the winner bylaw. So pulling the name out of a hat or however. I mean, I did assess some of my colleagues who said they have had that happen. Yeah. So those are some notable changes to sort of how we will be running elections in the future.
048So we will now field questions or comments. Yes. While we were on that last one, how would a candidate know that the district is going to put the cost? I think the county elections people wouldn't basically say this cost is covered. They wouldn't ask for you to write out a personal check for the. What was it in 2020 for like $1,200, right? So, yeah. And our information sessions would include that as well. Who to contact, for instance. Any other questions on? I have another question on the contracts one and the fact that the former policy had a dollar amount at which the superintendent was designated signed contracts up to a certain amount. Now that's been removed, but I find codifying that somewhere to be the most transparent and straightforward thing. So if it's not here,
049I wonder where it is written down or if we would consider putting it back in this policy. And that's a practice that I'm fairly familiar with from, you know, my work in government agencies in the province, but the executive director, the agency head has a certain signatory authority, but it's just clearly outlined in policy somewhere. Yeah. We discussed this in the meeting and I think we were trying to, you know, we definitely want to have that authority designated and it needs to be. And I think the way it's currently written in the new policy or the proposed policy is that the board may, by a majority vote, delegate to the superintendent or designate the authority to turn into contracts. And then we discussed like how, how does one go about doing that if it's not
050in the policy? And so I think we talked about a document that we would approve potentially as one way to do it, like where every annual document where we essentially every year kind of said this is the amount that we are authorizing the superintendent to enter into contracts with. And then I looked at the CSBA notes section and it says here the following optional paragraph may be revised to specify any desired limits to the delegation of authority to enter into contracts on behalf of the district. So we can modify this contract. We can always modify the contract. But CSBA is saying like if we, you know, it's fine if we want to articulate it specifically in this board policy and we could do that and maybe do it now so that on the next reading
051we can go ahead and approve it. So would you like to do that? Sarah, it sounds like Sarah does. Yeah, I am all for delegation to some, to a limit. To a limit. Okay. And then the amount that we want. So the previous one, it was 30,000 and I have the previous one here. And do we want to use, so the old contract language said pursuant to its authority, the board authorizes the superintendent or designee to enter into budgeted contracts subject to board ratification for amounts up to 30,000. So do we want to include similar length, that same language? Or do you want to check? And then we have to figure out the amount. As a reminder, all of those would come back for ratification. And on the consent agenda where you see normally it
052says contracts of 30,000 blah blah blah. That's where I have approved it. And then it comes back to you for ratification. So if you adjusted that amount, the only thing that would change is the amount to which I could do that without coming to you. And also as a reminder, because we have measure H and the number of contracts that are pushing through on this, that it would be a best practice to consider making sure that Jen Gabri can be fleet afoot, especially during summer session when the board doesn't meet as frequently. Yeah, I mean, the number I feel like I've seen commonly is 50,000. And I feel like I saw somewhere that that is one of the thresholds in terms of construction contracts and when a certain deeper bidding process is required. 30,000 seems
053too low. I'm comfortable upping that amount. Well, so I did some digging. Okay, and Kafka, which is California Uniform Public Construction Cost Accounting Act, which you can voluntarily opt into and which we are a part of has limits and there is a point, a threshold in which beyond that you have to do. Go out for bidding informal or formal and then above a certain another threshold, you have to do a formal bidding process. So, and it was up until the end of this year 60,000. And as of January 2025, they've upped it to 75,000 as the amount. So, I don't know, it's like, at least some way for us to kind of peg it to something. So I don't know if that amount feels like. That was helpful and for I mean I'm fine with
05475 seems it's a good data point so thanks for that. So, and then the but the language which you do want to kind of keep the language that we had from our old contracts policy, because the new one is just there's like no language at all on it so do we have that same sentence. Yeah, the second paragraph. The second paragraph with the old policy right also talks about budget, budgeted contract amendments. Right, so, which I guess would be like change orders, potentially. And that one says, again, no fiscal obligation maximal fiscal obligation by no more than 30,000 or 5% of the contract amount. And I also think when I looked at top. And we can have staff go and look at it because I actually couldn't find the information for 2025 so maybe we
055can come back but put that. I saw that least for 2024, it was 10% and not 5%. So, if you guys are comfortable with like, kind of keeping that number is like a TBD and then have staff come back and tell us what that amount should be but then to articulate it within the policy. But it won't be anything that is, it won't be very different from what is in our current policy into our new proposed policy. Any other questions on our policies. And I think for the next board meeting, we would put all of them on the consent agenda. Do you, would you like to do that or would you for this one would you like to put it in non consent. Discussion action discussion action. No, I mean, it's. Normally we put it
056on consent but if you wanted it and discussion action. It sounds like if there's an external entity that was trying to reference that that's sort of the industry standard. Yeah, I'm fine. I will say that in my landscape analysis of what was out there, many district policies said 60,000, and it was tethered to this and so we do anticipate that districts will be changing that to the 75,000. Okay, perfect. Thank you. Are there any. I don't see any raised hands. So we can move on. Okay, so we have a lot of the last time we met was March 13 so it's been over a month so we have a lot of things under this thing and so a lot of them Hans owns. Okay, I only have six. Okay, so in this one we'll have.
057Yeah, we'll actually have to take action. So, first item is six a approval appointment of Brit makers school principal. Well hi folks. First of all, it's really great to be here to present the next two items very exciting time in our school district. Well, it's always difficult to lose a principal it's equally as exciting to hire somebody new. We had a really extremely capable applicant pool that we chose from, and we held interviews with a panel and so I'd like to thank the panels very much for being part of that in a panel for both Britain acres and for white oaks and we did it together. It's really good process and so I'd be remiss if we didn't thank the panel and all the time they gave us a full day of interviews about seven
058and a half hours so publicly thank you very much for being part of that. So after that, very rigorous and thorough process. We're excited that we're able to hire two very qualified extremely highly qualified and experienced principles to join our, our school district, especially given the administrator shortage on the peninsula, which you may or may not be aware of but it's not just a peninsula it's also Santa Clara County. And there are a lot of vacancies out there, so we feel really fortunate with the folks that we put forward. And, first of all, for Britain acres were putting forward for your approval, Jude noise tonight. First, first. Wait, first I have to actually ask, see if there's public comment before we take a vote right being none. Do I have a motion to approve motion
059to approve. Okay, all those in favor. Aye. Aye. Okay. The BA principles approved three zero. Jude would you like to come up and say a few words. Well thank you everybody I am so honored to be able to speak to you tonight and introduce myself to everybody. I'm really looking forward to getting to know everybody working with the community the parents the students the staff, and I'm eager to roll up my sleeves and get work done. And I'm just really, I feel very fortunate to be joining this district and to joining such a wonderful school. And I really look forward to being part of this whole team. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you, Jude, we're happy to have you. Go on. Should I know the approval appointment White Oaks school principal. All right,
060so once again I think I've said pretty much all there's it's a shame there's nobody on zoom to watch tonight. Kidding. Really excited now to introduce the White Oaks principal. Similarly, as I said we had a process that was very rigorous and thorough. Tonight we're putting forward Rosina Tong for your approval. All right, let me check for any public comment being done. Do I have a motion to approve. Motion to approve. Okay, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Okay, the White Oaks principal is approved 3-0. And Rosina could not be here today. Little thing. So, Rosina sends her regrets for not being able to be here tonight but she's at the AXA the Association of California school administrators awards for region five she's being honored tonight as the elementary school principal of the year.
061For the region currently in San Francisco unified so again, highly qualified individual, she does send along a short message of gratitude and excitement and I'll read now. So, Rosina says superintendent for interest President Parks and Carlos school district trustees and audience members. I'm both honored and excited to step into the role of principal at White Oaks. I'm grateful for your trust for the trust you've placed in me and look forward to collaborating with teachers, staff, and families. Together we will foster a positive and supportive environment for our students continue to achieve and thrive. I cannot wait to meet all the White Oaks students and community soon. I'd like to note too that we have some welcoming events planned for next Wednesday for both principals. There will be, let me make sure it's right at White
062Oaks it'll be Wednesday morning at welcome Wednesday, and there will be a little meet and greet with the staff prior to that, and then at 830. And they'll have welcome Wednesday and after the welcome Wednesday, they'll have a little PTA coffee event. And at BA, Jude is going to meet the staff on Wednesday at lunchtime, or is it after school I can't remember which. And then, in the evening we're having a PTA event at 6pm and then he'll join another Wednesday morning assembly that he and Suzanne will work out the time for that. Exciting. That was fast too, right? Like, finding the principals. Good job. All right, moving on to six, the approval of established CSEA job description for STEAM associate. That's me again. We're really excited tonight to be adding a new position, the
063STEAM associate to our CSEA bargaining team, sorry, bargaining unit, to support the implementation of our strategic plan, to provide supplementary instruction in the arts, design thinking, introductory coding, and digital literacy, to supplement and strengthen STEAM instruction that's already in place at our P3 school campuses. These positions will be supported by state proposition 28 arts and music funds, which was approved by the voters. I want to say two plus years ago, maybe three years ago. Does anyone have any questions? No public comment. Do I have a motion? I'll move approval of the STEAM associate job description. Second. All right. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Okay. The job description is approved to be zero. Moving on to 60 approval of the 2024 2025 declaration of need. That's me again. The declaration of need is an annually
064required by statute. And the 2425 was actually already approved. It was part of the July consent agenda. And as part of our ardening process for credentialing, we learned that it cannot be approved as part of the consent agenda. So we're bringing it back to you to be approved as part of an action item. We will bring the next declaration of need, the 2526 declaration of need at a future meeting, likely in June. Any questions? No public comment. Do I have a motion? Second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Okay. Declaration of need is approved to be zero. All right. Moving on to 6E approval of management and unrepresented employees salary schedule. That's me again. These items might all sound very familiar. I just want to warn you ahead of time. After performing a comparable
065study of management and unrepresented employee salaries and surrounding comparably funded districts, Recommended approval of the updated salary schedules for certificated and classified management, confidential employees and unrepresented groups, specifically psychologists and speech and language pathologists retroactive to July 1st, 2024. Any questions? Any public comment? Do I have a motion? Move approval of the management and unrepresented employee salary schedules. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Management and unrepresented employee salary schedule is approved three zero. Moving on to item six F approval of enterprise salary schedules. Sure. For the benefit of the public enterprise program is considered not part of the school district. Our enterprise programs are considered private on some level. So these, these salaries are actually funded within the fees that we collect for the services we provide. Similarly, after performing a comparable study of
066management and unrepresented employee salaries, sorry, not management, wrong item. Enterprise salaries and surrounding districts were recommending approval of the updated salary schedules for enterprise preschool and TKELP specifically. Employees retroactive to July 1st, 24, excluding assistant director position, which is the next item. As we noted in the executive summary, we're recommending a slightly higher raise for the director of preschool. And the preschool teacher position. As our study revealed a higher discrepancy for those two positions. Do we have any questions? Board members no? Any public comments? Sounded like someone wanted to say something. No? Okay. Do I have a motion? Motion to approve. Okay. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Okay. Enterprise salary schedules are approved 3-0. Moving on to 6G, approval of enterprise preschool assistant director, revised job description and salary schedule. Final item of
067the evening. So as you know, we recently approved, I think back in January, for Leah Scholler to become the director of early learning. And as a result, our assistant director has taken on some additional duties. We'll really be conducting the enrollment process is the major change in the job description. So in addition to the recommended 2.25 of the other employees, we actually recommended a 5% increase for this position. Due to the increased responsibility and also to keep pace with our neighbors in terms of being competitive. Any questions or comments? It made sense to me. There's a lot in that job description. So I feel the slightly larger salary increase system of the increased duties. So I'll move approval or public comment, right? No public comment. I will move approval of the assistant preschool director job
068description and corresponding salary schedule. Second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Okay. Enterprise preschool assistant, revised job description, assistant director, revised job description and salary schedule approved 3-0. And now moving on to 6-H, approval of resolution number 17-24-25, establishing parcel tax rate for 25-26. That's me. Thank you. So this resolution is an annual requirement for measure N, stating the intended use and declares the amount to be collected annually, which is $334.60 per year per parcel. The intended use is to maintain small class size, highlighting educational programs, including maintaining hands-on science, math, technology and engineering programs, preserving reading and writing programs, attracting and retaining qualified and experienced teachers, and providing art, music and libraries. And this measure N is not to be used for any administrator salaries and it is to stay local here in
069San Carlos. There is a county controller admin fee of $1.42 per parcel. This generates about $3 million for the district annually and was first established in 2020 and expires in June of 2028. Thank you, Ralph. Any questions or comments from the board? Any public comment? I have a motion for approval. Motion to approve. Second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Resolution numbers 17-24-26, establishing the parcel tax rate is approved 3-0. Okay. Now item 6-i, which is the project with tree trimming at Arundel, Britton Acres and White Oaks, and that is Ben Gabbaree. Thank you. So this will be brief, but we did want to bring it to your attention. So we know that we cherish our trees in our community very much, but we do have a need to trim some of them and
070to prune them as is, you know, required for to keep a building clearance. And so also to just take the weight off the tree for the health of the tree and to make sure that we have a clearance when people are walking through our spaces that they're able to walk safely and it is not protruding over our roadways. And so we established the highest need schools that have the most amount of need there for their for their tree trimming. And that would be Arundel, Britton Acres and White Oaks. They all have beautiful trees that are very large and very much a part of their school campus. So we conducted an informal bid process and we were able to do the job walk and have a responsive bid. And so we're recommending that we accept the
071bid that was put forth from Davey Tree Expert. And so that's what we're seeking approval for tonight. I just want to give a few highlights from the project. Thank you. Any comments or questions? How often do we do trimmings on the trees that we would expect to see a batch done every year? Yes, absolutely. It's a great question. Usually we reserve an annual cycle for this type of work. And so we chose to kind of do it with the schools that really have a profound need at this time. But we expect to touch all of the schools at some point throughout the course of the year by August or by the end of October potentially. And so we took a tour of the sites and looked around and saw that the sites that had the
072most need and went after those sites initially for this fiscal year. Do we know approximately when it's happening? Yeah, so we're trying to get a rundle ahead of the construction projects so we can kind of get in. We've asked the contractor to try to schedule the work on Saturdays and Wednesday afternoons. And just for that one school, the other schools, we were hoping to do it during the summertime so that we could accomplish it. Being mindful that we have limited space and programs happening and it is dangerous work. So we want to be sure everyone is safe. Any raised hands on Zoom? No. Can I get a motion to approve? I move approval. Second. Okay, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Okay, so the tree trimming project is approved 3-0. Thank you. Okay, we're
073almost done. Let's see what's next. Oh, so next item is 6J approval of the 2025-26 board meeting calendar. And I will turn that over to Jennifer. Thank you. We floated this with trustees to check these dates. The dates are prepared by staff based on the things that we anticipate. I know that the board has asked that we reserve some study sessions, especially for facilities, and to explore a parcel tax. But I didn't receive any notices of conflicts, so we're asking that the board approve this calendar for next year. You know Marmiel and Sara is back. She will be back in July. She'll be back for the 17th. Yeah, she'll be there. Any questions? Any more questions or comments? I won't be up for the 17th. Yeah, I think we did a straw poll and we
074do have a quorum for the 17th, correct? Thanks. Do we anticipate having three meetings in February or those are placeholders with the idea that maybe one of the study sessions may not be updated? Yes, we do pack that time, particularly in the event that the board does decide to pursue a parcel tax in June 26. We'd want to make sure that you have ample time for consideration of resolutions. It could be that we have all the information we need to propose a resolution to you earlier. But I know that we will be polling and watching November elections, etc. And also getting a good sense of the governor's budget for the next year. So we wanted to make sure that we had them in places where we might need to meet, but I absolutely expect that,
075as you saw this year, that some of the meetings get canceled. Yeah, because it looks like it's basically January 29th, February 5th, February 12th. Then we go off for President's Day week and then the 26th. Right. So we won't have all of those. It's just the timing of a resolution compared with polling, etc. I wanted to make sure that we had it covered. Right. Not on the board would have any comment, but I'll check. I mean, we'll probably end up having to modify it a little bit. Right. But for now, can I get a motion to approve the board meeting calendar? Okay. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Okay. The calendar is approved 3-0. The final item on the discussion action is 6K superintendent contract renewal and extension. And that is me. We will
076be talking about that. So four years into Jennifer Ventress' tenure, we are seeing transformative impact of her leadership across the district and measurable gains in student outcomes, student well-being, instruction, professional learning, hiring, budgeting, negotiations, facilities, strategic planning, and more. And we are excited and optimistic about the future of the district under Dr. Ventress' continued leadership. While her current contract actually goes until July 2027, I think the board wholeheartedly believes it's in the district's best interest to continue to have Dr. Ventress as our superintendent for the maximum allowable term of four years. And luckily Dr. Ventress has agreed to the extension of her contract. And what I want to do is, so the board policy, the bylaw says that we have to take final action. We've talked about this in her contract in closed session. So
077we've reviewed it. But in open session, I'm supposed to report on the summary of the recommendation for the final action. So I will have a summary here of sort of what the recommendation is. So the recommendation is for a four-year contract beginning on July 1st, 2025 and ending on June 30th, 2029. The superintendent will receive a salary at the annual rate of $260,050. And the annual salary shall be increased by the board per year pending a positive yearly evaluation by the board as follows. For 2026-27, it's $6,500. For 27-28, it's $6,660. And for the 28-29 year, it is $6830. The superintendent shall receive the following fringe benefits. District paid health, dental, vision, and other fringe benefits in the same manner and subject to the same limitations as other Certificated Senior Cabinet level employees as those
078benefits may change from time to time. Thick leave at the rate of one day per month and then 25 days of vacation with full pay in each year of service. The superintendent may elect to cash out up to 10 accrued vacation days a year. The superintendent shall also be entitled to receive holidays as provided to the district's Certificated Management employees and all other personal necessity, bereavement, or other leaves as provided to the district's Certificated Management employees. So I read a lot of things, but note that the terms of the contract besides the sort of the time the dates is the same as the previous contract. With the exception of the dates and also the we've increased the annual payout of accrued vacation days from five to 10. Just because given the volume of work that
079Dr. Fentress has, it's like really hard for her to even take some vacation days. So allowing her to get that compensation by increasing the allowed accrued vacation from five to 10 days for cashing for cash outing, cashing out. Sorry. Anyone have any comments or questions about contract. No questions, just appreciation that we are having this extension and look forward to the next four years. Thank you. Thank you. So check for public comment. None. None. So can I get a motion to approve motion to approve. All those in favor say aye. Okay, so the superintendent contract renewal and extension is approved three zero. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Moving on to item, agenda seven, which is future agenda items. I will take that the final four meetings of the year in the final eight weeks
080of the year will be focused on planned facility projects. Local control and accountability plan the LCAP and the 2526 budget will also be celebrating our retirees and learning more about our co and extracurricular activities in the district. Great. Thank you. All right now moving on to eight, a public comment. Right. We have reached the portion of our meeting set aside for comments for the public about matters not on the agenda but within the subject matter jurisdiction of the board. Under board bylaw 3223 comments are limited to three minutes, unless changed by the board. Since you are addressing the board on a non agenda item, please be aware that provisions of the Brown Act prohibit the board from having a discussion with you or each other on your comment. We will also not be responding. But
081please note that we will are listening and taking note and appreciate what you have to say. So with that there's nobody in the room that has filled out a blue card, and I will check now. All right. Moving along. We are now at the point where we have employee group comments and we actually have Dan here live in person. Good evening. This has been a time the last few weeks where we've had lots of multicultural events at our schools that parents have helped organize with our PTAs, and they've been a great experience for our children and many of the schools have had either a function during the evening when parents can come with music, dancing, foods from all different cultures. It's a very rich part of being a student in our district. We've also been
082having many teachers did their staff teacher auction items which helps raise money for staff and staff helps fund music for minors. And as part of music for minors, there's a music sharing event. So we just had mine today and had about 30 parents in my room and all the kids and our great music teacher Miss Lydia to did great songs with the kids and they actually had to write up music, and I know that the parents were super impressed. Also, we appreciate the ear advising and updating our policies that they protect our students. And then we'd like to welcome, or I'd like to welcome our new principals Jude noise and Rosina tongue. And, yeah, we're on the home stretch this is a busy time for teachers but it's also positive time because our kids are
083capable of doing more. And we start reminding them they're going to be third graders next year or first graders or you're going to be a kindergartener next year and we kind of start turning the screws a little bit to expect just a little bit more to get them ready. Thank you. Do we have someone from CSCA. I don't see her anymore. No. So now we can move on to board member comments. There's only three of us today so anyone. Okay. I just wanted to make a couple of updates which is on March 21 we had a two plus two meeting with city council that went really well I felt like staff from both the district and the city were very well prepared and worked very collaboratively, and there's a joint meeting away in soon soon
084ish so. And then I just wanted to say thank you. I mean we this is our first regular special board meeting but between the March meeting and this meeting we've had the governance retreat, and the study session which we focused on the budget and I thought those both were very productive. And I just couple of just the day of services coming up on this coming Saturday if you're able to help out I think every school has lots of projects for us to help out with. And then CSBA workshop proposals are due May 2 so if you have any ideas on something that you think, San Carlos school district is doing really well and that we should showcase at CSBA. Yeah, it's a relatively. I don't know what to call it. Lots of requirements for the
085for the proposal etc so I would say talk telling you now so that we can get ahead of it if we do want if you have any ideas I guess let Jennifer know, or me I don't know. I have them to let you know, probably for an active reasons. Yeah, so talk to the time for French if you have any ideas. Okay. And so now it's superintendent comments. Thank you. Well first of all I want to thank the board for their confidence in me, and I absolutely love being part of this district in this community. I was reminded, again, this week, when I was invited by principal Fox for the mayor pose a celebration of their distinguished school status of the hard work our teachers do in this district to create the conditions where our
086students are thriving and as well as they are. And I look forward to the celebration at Britain acres, who will also be recognized for this. The mayor, Sarah McDowell came and read a proclamation that just made me so proud and Tracy Park spoke and those students were so amazing they just filed in they sat down and they were clapping suitably and recognizing their teachers was really a super beautiful thing and I know that we will have lots of events this spring. I've already mentioned a few of those as we're in full swing TL had a great talent show recently apparently resurrecting something that hadn't been going on for a while. And just reminding the board that you have a list of the events in the spring and I'll be trying to get to lots of
087those so please let me know if you'd like to join me. And that's all I have. Great. The board will now go into closed session to discuss items 13 a, b, and c. Is there any public comment on closed session items. So the board will now adjourn to close closed session. Thank you. The board will now leave closed session and reconvene into open session pursuant to California government code section 54957.1 no reportable action was taken in the closed session items on items 13 a, b, or c. Do I say that's it.