SCSD Regular Board Meeting 3-13-25

001Good evening. Thank you all for being here. Welcome to the March 13th regularly scheduled meeting of the San Carlos School District Board of Education. I am calling this meeting to order at 630 PM. First on the agenda is approval of the agenda. Dr. Frentress for the board. Are there any changes you'd like to make to the agenda? No changes. Is there a motion to approve the agenda? Another approval of the agenda? Second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Agenda is approved. Aye zero. 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. Everyone should have a chance to express their opinions within the

002guidelines the board has established that we are able to conduct the meeting effectively and efficiently. During tonight's meeting there will be time for public to comment on matters both on the agenda during each agenda item as well as 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 here in person, we ask that you fill out a blue card and if you're online, please use the raise hand feature. Okay, so next up on the agenda is spotlight on excellence and I'll turn it over to Jennifer. Thank you. I am excited to introduce principals Mindy Shelton from Arroyo, excuse me, and Teresa Fox from Mariposa to tell the board a little bit about project-based learning or PBL. PBL is a strategy

003for learner engagement, but it's also a way to organize instruction and the educators of these two schools have interwoven standards-based teaching, the learner profile under the leadership of these two principals and I'm so excited they get to be the ones to tell you about it. Hello, thank you. Thanks so much for having us tonight. It's always such a great opportunity to be able to come and brag a little bit about our great programs and our upper elementary model. So I'm Mindy Shelton, the principal at Arroyo. And Teresa Fox, principal at Mariposa. And while we're here mostly to talk about project-based learning tonight, we wanted to start with some cornerstone features of our upper elementary school program because our upper elementary model is so unique to San Carlos. It really feeds into why project-based learning works

004so well at our schools and we wanted to start with that. So we have on the next slide, thank you, just a few of the things that sort of really highlight our schools and our program and the things that we really spend a lot of time focusing on as a staff, as an administrative team, with our community. First and foremost, supporting both the social, emotional and academic needs of our students really is at the heart of everything we do. We want our students to be successful humans both in the classroom and outside of the classroom and to provide all the support needed to do that. And another important part in the upper elementary program is fostering ownership in our students of their own learning. It's a great time developmentally as kids are becoming 9 and

00510 and 11 year olds to start setting their own goals, monitoring their own progress, tracking how they're moving forward, making some decisions about what's next in their learning steps. Another part of our program though is also engaging them with really rigorous teaching and learning and that's a big part of PBL. It was a big part of that choice in selecting PBL. Building community is a really important part of what we do and not just community but their own identity within the community and so having a real sense of both themselves and their peers and where they fit in that group and really building a culture of belonging is super important. And then finally just the desire to spark curiosity. That's one of the things I love most about working with fourth and fifth graders is

006they still have that joy and that love of learning and coming to school and we want to keep it alive, keep it well and continue to spark that curiosity and keep them asking those really great questions. We don't want that to fizzle out. It's such a sweet spot of like they still really want to know they want to please adults, they want to do the best they can and there's a certain amount of sort of naivete and joy and learning that we love to see. So this is hopefully an image that you've seen before. It's an important part of our strategic plan and really keeping the learner at the center of everything we do and fostering voice and choice goes along with that ownership piece of we really want students not just to be learning

007but to take responsibility for their learning and to be actively engaged in their learning and and to own that. So that starts of course with rigorous standards based instruction. PBL is a great way to do that but it's not the only way that we do that. It's definitely first and foremost. We also offer a lot of leadership development. So opportunities for students to step up in different ways within their comfort level whether that's joining our Eagle Council or Monarch Council, being an Arroyo or Mariposa ambassador to be a tour guide for incoming families. We have both schools have student-led clubs where students really own that and take a leadership role to find other students that they have common interests with and and do some weekly lunchtime activities. Social-emotional learning is a huge part of it.

008We use Sown to Grow as our social-emotional learning curriculum and all classes have weekly lessons on top of extra things that come up as needed and then project-based learning is is a really key part of what we do and how we keep students voice and choice at the center. So as we were preparing we came across in a slide from a few years ago linked to what the strategic plan work that we did but we really love it because it really is true. We aspire to engage students deeply. I love this phrase unapologetically cause learning right that's what we're all about in our in our program and this the next two are especially a key part for me with PBL, deprivatizing teacher practice and fostering teacher collaboration. That's a really important part. Project-based learning can't

009happen if your teachers don't work together. It's a big lift and it requires them really working together to work through all the plan and execute it together, learn from each other, add to each other's ideas. Another important part for us you know we saw the strategic plan model on the previous slide but of course the learner profile and project-based learning gives us a chance to dig into each of these strands. I'm not going to go into it much here because our next few slides will help unpack that for you but just know that that's another great way that it really lines up beautifully. Project-based learning, the strategic plan and the learner profile. Great, next slide. So we've been mentioning PBL, project-based learning. What is project-based learning for those who aren't familiar? It's a teaching method

010where students really dig deep to engage in inquiry and problem solving and real world kinds of problems and so they investigate, they collaborate, all the things that we talked about through the learner profile. They really have to be curious, they have to wonder, they have to use that. It's no one telling them how to solve a problem and then they go and solve the problem. They have to figure out how to solve the problem and what they need to know. So PBL often starts with what do you know, what do we need to know, what do we need to learn to be able to get to the answer to our driving question. It starts with a driving question that sort of leads the work and then really helps students develop that authentic deep knowledge that

011we hope they will want to have and they do because of PBL. So a few other key components and I'm going to keep us moving because I know we want to really highlight some student work at our schools but some key components of PBL include the voice and choice we were talking about before that sustained inquiry. A couple of other parts that are really important are the critique and revision. This is where students start getting feedback from each other, they get feedback from experts, feedback from parents, but they take it then and refine their product and it's not at the end. Critique and revision is built part way into the process right so you're part way through now is when you get that feedback so that your final product can actually show some progress and

012growth aligned to your goals. The reflection part is also another important part getting kids to stop and think back what worked, what didn't work, what am I going to do different or better next time and then that public product and process. We'll show you that in a few upcoming slides. So PBL is one of the ways that we build that strong culture and sense of belonging. Part because of the collaborative work that happens in the classroom and teachers are actively teaching collaboration. It's not something that we can just expect that kids coming in knowing we have to teach all the skills that they need to be able to do this work which can be challenging sometimes and that's where the teacher collaboration comes in is them supporting each other and working together. But on top

013of that we sort of build those skills by starting the year with a school-wide PBL on culture and identity and building that sense of belonging while learning how to do PBL. And so you can see up here some of the ways that we do that across both schools with learning about what is identity, who am I, how do I fit in this school while learning those skills that Teresa talked about earlier. All right so jumping into some of the key components. We just wanted to highlight this in project-based learning we do talk about gold standard practices teaching practices and they're called that because they're true in PBL but they can be generalized across the curriculum and that's our hope as well is that even though we we do implement project-based learning at our schools the

014the teaching practice is embedded in it and it can be used in any curriculum area and across the year. But they all start with an entry event and a driving question remember how I talked before about sparking curiosity that's where PBL does it is in that entry event. So the driving question on the left imagine you've encountered an ever before seen creature in California dun dun dun right nine-year-olds are like what and this is what we try to do throughout the different projects. On the right is an example from fifth grade at Mariposa doing a what's your geek PBL. The things that the topics that came out of this and the kids own passions and interests were amazing so it's all about really aligning with what what do kids want to know what what's what

015are they curious about what are the questions they're asking and how do we engage them so that it's not us top down on them but they're fully partners in this learning process. And then also just really aligning that with standards-based instruction so I just want to kind of go back to that fourth grade question which may seem fun and exciting for fourth graders but it ties in the history work we do on California history and how we early Californians adapted to the land where they lived in the climate so they learn about the regions of California then in science they learn about animal adaptations and how animals adapt to their environment and then they put those things together to say if an alien landed in this region of California how would it adapt what would

016it be like and so they created these animal creatures. In some cases even used AI to they wrote descriptions that they plugged into AI graphic things that designed their animal for them which then they had to go back and critique and revise and say like that doesn't look how I thought it was going to look maybe I need to change my description and add different things to the writing to then make that come back to look how I wanted it to look. So all of that kind of goes together. You know the next slide and that covers the sustained inquiry piece of it as well which really taps into that curious problem solver piece of our learner profile and so drawing that out over time. Sometimes with projects traditionally teachers will do teach teach teach

017teach and then we do a final project and with PBL it's really about sustaining the inquiry throughout the project so it's do a little teach a little do a little teach what they need to know to do the next part do a little more teach what they need to know to do the next part critique and revise all along the way. All right so there's that critique and revision and you can see the students in these pictures working together in groups working to take a look at the work that they've done. As Mindy said before about collaboration same thing we don't assume just because we can hear doesn't mean we know how to listen right so we actually spend time teaching our fourth and fifth graders what does it actually mean to listen what how

018how can we tell that you're actually listening to other people so that you can then take that feedback and incorporate it and that goes along with being self-aware learners in our learner profile helping them be aware of how do I do this what are my own strengths what do I need to get better at in order to be able to to be able to participate in these and learning how to give feedback is a really important skill in and of itself you can see in that picture of the sandwich like what something good some some constructive and then something good again so they learn those skills too and obviously the collaboration and communication piece is so important because all of this happens as group work where they really are dependent on each other to do

019that inquiry to solve their problems to do different pieces and that takes work it takes effort it takes a lot of masterful planning on teachers parts to decide how to group students where they get some voice and choice but also they're paired with the right peers which makes it challenging but that's where the kind citizens part plays in is they have to learn to be kind and respectful to everyone whether it's their best friend or someone they had a fight with in first grade that they're still holding on to which happens a lot but but then coming together to have pride in their final project together really creates that sense of community all right so another part we focused a lot on the learner profile and the ways that pbl supports that but another part

020of our strategic plan includes you know we've got learner at the center surrounded by our educators and so that teacher collaboration part so just some highlights here of the ways that we've really used pbl to bring in some great professional development for our teachers strategically it was intensive at first in the first year of implementation and each year it scaled back a little bit more relying on some coaching but also just a lot of work together a lot of time at the table to sit and say okay here are standards in fourth grade how are we going to dig into this what does this look like and then just like we do with kids giving them time to get critique and revision and to reflect back right how did this go what are we going

021to do better next year absolutely and then the next layer of that is the community support which is super important with pbl both in the real world application and in the audience and having a public product so you can see here some examples our fifth grade at arroyo just had an acts of courage pbl and so the larger picture in the top center is actually we invited parents in to share their own acts of courage and stories so drawing on the experience of community to kind of spark the curiosity in students of like what are acts of courage that we can do at our level it was such such a powerful panel for students and then you can see in this bottom picture here just last week we had a showcase where we invited all

022of our fifth grade parents to come in and see those projects and so not as not only is it really special and wonderful to see parents interacting with students and hearing about their work but the community it builds amongst parents too as they walk around the room and chat with each other as well as the other kids and they get a chance to see their children's friends that they may or may not know well. It really is a special culmination of the work that they do. That's what we have for you tonight. Thank you so much. Yeah that was great. Thank you Mindy and Teresa. It's amazing how you guys are on two separate campuses yet you're so in sync. It's impressive how you're able to talk so smoothly through the like it almost seems

023like you've been doing this road show for a while just the way you guys collaborated and to speak the same language so thank you. Okay next on the agenda is the consent agenda. The consent agenda contains items that are routine in nature and for which no board discussion is anticipated so we act upon them with a single vote. Do we have any public comment on the consent agenda? No. Any changes or motion to? I move to approve the consent agenda. Second? I'll second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Okay consent agenda is approved by zero. Next we'll move on to information and discussion and this the purpose of this section is really just to get information and not make any decisions and so we'll have staff present and then at the end of the

024presentation we can ask any clarifying questions that we may have. So with that the first item is teaching and learning update student services. Thank you. Okay so thank you trustees for the opportunity to give an update on important areas and student services such as school climate, student outcomes, as well as ongoing key initiatives from the department this school year. So first is my student services slide. Why is it not advancing? Thank you. Okay all right and this is just again a slide I've shown at a few board meetings now but just kind of shows you what all is involved in student services in our school district. Right so as you know big focus of the district this year and in many years because our funding is based on our student attendance and we know that

025it's one of the biggest ways to improve student achievement is if our students are at school every day. So due to the work of our principals and our community liaison we have been able to improve our attendance significantly this year and I know you've seen a lot of this data this year already but I really wanted to highlight some of our student groups that have needed the most support in the areas of attendance and to highlight how the work of Jenny Salazar community liaison in particular has been able to to show improvements especially for our students who are learning English, our students who are Hispanic Latino, students that are socioeconomically disadvantaged, and our students with disabilities. We've seen a five percent up to almost eight percent improvement in their attendance from 2023 to 2024 so

026a great achievement. Another measure of school culture and climate and ways we're improving is their suspensions. Overall we have a very low level of suspension but we've even seen an improvement from 2023 to 2024 on the California state dashboard and really I would attribute it to our principals continuing to implement restorative practices and alternative means of correction designed to address and correct any misbehavior that might occur and this is in alignment with changes in California Ed code for suspension that we're really trying to teach kids figure out why maybe a misbehavior has occurred and really trying to work with that student so it doesn't happen again before considering suspension. Right and then some other positive outcomes I wanted to share come from our annual determination letter and and what that is is each year San

027Carlos school district receives a letter from the California Department of Ed and it's really looking at our compliance and performance related to the individuals with disabilities education act so that is really looking at how our students with IEPs are doing across multiple measures and how well our staff is compliant with the requirements of that law. So the next two slides are performance indicators from that letter that I wanted to highlight for you. So the first one is student outcomes and you know I'd always felt like there's such a big achievement gap which there is right our students with disabilities are not performing at the level of all other San Carlos school district students from third to eighth grade that take those state performance tests and it made me feel quite a bit better when I

028received this letter because even though we're at 37 percent for English language arts proficiency and 32 percent for math proficiency and it's definitely an area to work on we're actually scored a rank of 10 which means we're actually compared to other districts in the state we're performing in the 90th to 100th percentile of districts for our students with disabilities achievement on those tests. So again still area focused but something to feel good about that we are you know making some progress there and then another area of success that I'm really proud of is you know we have a very inclusive model of special education. The state sets targets for including students with IEPs in general education for more than 80 percent of the day and so the target has ranged from 60 percent up to

02964 percent and year after year as you can see we're exceeding those targets. So really that's due to our efforts in providing co-taught English and math classes in the middle school that's where we have students with IEPs in the general education setting with a education specialist and a general education teacher partnering together to teach those classes and then we're really trying to provide push-in services as much as possible as we can at the tk through fifth grade level and that's helping us meet those targets in addition to providing training for our teachers on best practices to support students in the classroom. Okay so what's next we have a lot to celebrate but of course we're always trying to improve and there continues to be a lot of work to do. So three big initiatives that

030have been the primary work of the student services department this year has been again improving on inclusion, increasing inclusion, a strengths-based approach to student meetings and to further reduce our significant disproportionality. So while inclusion is a strength as I shared at the tk8 level preschool is an area where we did not have a wide range of options for students with IEPs to learn alongside their peers. So in order to address this need last year we wrote and were awarded the inclusive early education expansive program grant which comes with about six hundred thousand dollars and this money is allowing us to open an inclusive preschool program that will be co-taught by an education specialist and a general education preschool teacher and the the spots that are going to be filled by the students in general education

031will actually be spots that are California state preschool program spots which means they are free to families that are eligible based on income requirements. So that was another goal of ours was to be able to offer free preschool to more families in San Carlos and to be able to provide a longer day in that program than we had previously been able to offer. I'm excited to say we're in the licensing stage so we've submitted all our paperwork we're waiting for the fire department and everyone to come out and do inspections but we hope to be able to open the class hopefully this school year but definitely next school year. And then the grant is further allowing us to have professional learning opportunities for our early childhood educators. And then another area we're working on inclusion

032is we're partnering with Dr. Amanda Gull she is from inclusion plus and she is working with a small group of principals to foster inclusive environments at their school site so she's meeting with them monthly and she's able to tailor her support to the unique needs of each school site and each principal. Right and then a big initiative that we've taken on this year is a strength-based approach to student meetings and so I led a training for our staff in August our special education staff in August and our preschool teachers in November that was what if individual education programs were like seed packets based on the work of Dr. Shelley Moore or any of you gardeners seeing those seed packets at the Home Depot or grocery store yes yeah so if you look closely at a

033seed packet you know the front captures your attention you see this beautiful picture of the plants and all the wonderful things that make you want to buy that seed packet and grow that plant and then on the back right it tells you all the things you have to do to make that seed grow and thrive and so we really worked on talking about what if student meetings were like seed packets where we really celebrated that child and all the wonderful things that they bring and then you know the the meat of it a little bit was focused on what does this child need to grow and thrive in the classroom and focusing that instead of traditionally IEPs are kind of on a deficit-based model so really trying to think about what strengths the child brings

034to the classroom and how we can capitalize on those strengths to see success academically socially emotionally and behaviorally and then we're going to continue the work we have real 2e an organization we have the founder Kelly Turk and another Stanford University professor coming to speak to our special education staff in April and the title of that professional learning is disrupting ableism tipping towards strikes right and then lastly I wanted to inform you of our continued work to reduce significant disproportionality of our students who are Hispanic Latino and have an IEP under the category of specific learning disability so this is our fourth year of identification and what that means is we're three times as likely over three times as likely to identify a student who is Hispanic Latino as eligible for special education as a

035student with a specific learning disability than any other races or ethnicities in our school district so what this means for us is that we have to set aside 15 percent of the federal individuals with disabilities act funding which accounts for about I think it's almost like 96-98 thousand dollars for the next year that we set aside towards this plan and through the plan in the past what we've been able to do is provide training to our school psychologists and best practices and assessment of multilingual learners we were also able to purchase some curriculum we purchased the Hegarty Phonemic Awareness curriculum for our elementary sites we were able to focus purchase some additional phonics materials that were needed for the classrooms and we were able to have additional intervention time with staff at some of our

036target school sites so now that we've been identified for a fourth year this means we're going to have to redo the entire plan we're going to be doing a big root cause analysis with multiple educational partners in order to find our root cause and then draft a new plan to address these areas of need all right well thank you so much for your time are there any questions or future topics you'd like to learn about in student services I can say one thing yeah um go back once my face um this is amazing growth and and for Megan has been very humble um in representing the work of the teachers the education specialists and psychologists um everybody involved in the program we went to a mandatory training at the county office a couple of weeks

037ago with a variety of different school districts from throughout the state most of them from the northern California area and the majority of those districts were similar to us and that they were in year four and they were un-similar to us because their numbers were not doing this they were going up not down um so we had an increase to 3.63 and that held for two years and then when you see a dramatic loss of 62 hundredths um that's because of the efforts in early childhood education and in the lower grades because obviously we're graduating out students that were previously identified right so your seventh and eighth graders are leaving if you're still identifying that number is going to maintain or go up and we're really working hard not to identify doesn't mean it's perfect

038there's still a lot of education that's necessary out with our teachers to really truly understand what's happening and at that meeting we also had a chance to discuss that a little bit with a small team of the fund around that so um just wanted to point out that it's to be commended this is amazing growth um to go down that much in a year really points to we're really pinpointing what part of our issue is and really trying to make sure that students get all they need previous to identifying them as having to worry so appreciate all that work of you and of all of our folks out in special and general education thank you hans thank you megan um does anyone have any questions just to piggyback on and then once we get below

039three times then we are no longer required to do the yeah three is the threshold so if we get below three then we don't have to continue to do the plan trust me that we asked i know you did something to shoot for next year yeah yeah yeah does anyone else have any questions uh i have some wonderings about um thinking about the outcomes for students with disabilities and as we move forward with our inclusion work particularly in preschool and early grades wondering if we have data on the impacts of preschool and early intervention and um you know there's research out there that shows that that approves later outcomes and beyond but i would just be curious to know within our own district playing out if there are early practices that that results for students

040with disabilities yeah i i could share some anecdotal data i i met with the speech and language pathologists and occupational therapists yesterday and uh one was sharing just doing some intervention uh speech work with just articulation and just you know she was saying just doing 15 minutes of okay go go go go okay playing you know she's like this child is just taking off right and she's like the power of just doing some quick little intervention that young um is meaning that child is not continuing bad habits as they grow older where they are going to need an iep later on for speech or articulation and then also we are seeing a lot of our kids that are identified early being able to exit from the iep after a couple of years um just because

041they're getting what they need early on and then they're they're not needing that level of support any longer but i can get look into some more concrete data for you yeah i had a question about the um six hundred thousand dollar grant yeah well awesome that we got that like how how long is it for uh it's for three years three years yeah that was a competitive grant so um it wasn't a guarantee that we would get that and we were up against you know applicants from around the state applicants within the county so it's a big deal but our little district got that and has very cool plans for it that's awesome yeah because we have new trustees i uh am going to say that we had a high scoring grant that was fully

042funded and the original amount was 1.5 million yeah yeah yeah it was it was pretty high um we had advocacy from uh very high levels including lots of professors at stanford um because it seemed really unfair that the high score would get the same cut as everybody else once the money's contracted but kind of to your point too sarah this opportunity that we have with the cotot class and also equity of opportunity of participation for youngsters there's this opportunity to intervene and do action research about those promising practices so even though it was cut um i feel like we are moving forward with really good work as a result of that process so i'll just say it's really exciting to see you know the being on the cutting edge of new things coming and the

043you know that positions you well in competitive grant applications and things like that so i think it's um seems like some great success and i'm excited to see the results and outcomes once you actually get them get going are there any public comments so we will move on to the next item which is updates to board policies yeah once and i will take this together um the policy committee did meet and we continue to review our policy against the csba policies uh for updates and so we have kind of a hodgepodge here um one was a recommendation i believe trustees who attended some csba training heard about which is in these days it's good to have a civility um policy i don't know tracy or sarah whoever brought that forward if you wanted to say

044something about that one in particular we didn't have it so it's not a change it's a new one um yeah i think this was when i was at the csba conference for the board president workshop and i was saying how we should yeah have this policy in place just because um there have been some kind of turbulent um board meetings out there and and and things happening potentially on campuses as well so um just safe to have us all being behaving civilly in the district so sorry did you want to add anything to so as a reminder to the board what we do is we bring these together for information discussion and then if there are no changes we bring them back for approval and consent and that is the one that we didn't have

045and so uh that's why there's no red line there are um there's a policy on l cap that had some changes of dates uh an addition of the district english learner advisory committee and uh some minor changes on the lcff so that's minor changes but again recommended by csba that we update them and then there was a policy on the student success team ssts and it had a change in language from mal to from made to shall mouth made to shall regarding student data and history uh being part of the process and we agree with that change that um that that data should be used i think you just heard about an asset-based approach and so that's consistent with um our practice anyway so we recommend those changes and then i'll turn it over to

046hans to talk about the balance um the immigration one is that you too um i think that was just uh codifying um i yeah i was i thought it was your group but i can't remember who looked at that well i can tell you about employee safety okay um which uh really just added there's a new workplace violence prevention program that's required in all workplaces so there's a an update in that way it's called out specifically along with the ipp which is a required plan from osha um and it also um has several um i think there's six areas that were talked about um about basically that if someone reports an unsafe condition you cannot retaliate against said employee and all of the three policies had that remember that there's three of these because they

047apply to all the different groups we have classified or certificated classified and management so it looks like a lot of policies they tend to look almost exactly the same with some change in wording um also bargaining units um just updates that i want to say that the previous version was probably many years old so there are significant updates to what you see there um those are still being reviewed i believe that scta has finished their review but csa is still reviewing um if there would be additional changes we'll bring this forward um before we um we um when we redline for the next meeting make changes before that um as far as immigration enforcement i think sarah remembered it wasn't in our language right this is a separate policy it was new right yeah yeah

048it's a new policy well it's new to us it it is based it was it's based on a law that was passed in california in 2018 um requiring or essentially permitting schools from collecting data on their students immigration status um and so we should have and that schools you know in other public places are safe spaces from immigration enforcement so that is still the state law and we don't you know we don't know why the board at that time didn't adopt this policy um but we sought legal advice and that you know advice that we should have this on the books of the district and as long as that is the state law thank you for reminding me in enough updates to visitors and outsiders we remember that well so i think we had a

049line in our visitors policy that related to this but this is more inclusive as trustee castanegos pointing out and we just didn't have it on the books and added it um it makes sense and our our visitor i think you know this has come up because of the potential for right immigration enforcement or immigration officials to show up at school campuses and our visitors you know it's recommended that you have a visitor's policy and that anyone who shows up to campus is you know treated according to the policy and our policy was 10 years old so right we you know felt like it was the right time to just update it based on recommendations from csa it was it was a month ago he met at the last board meeting he met that that morning

050um yeah i think we got it covered um so so it sounds like at least for next steps um well i guess we'll first open it up for any questions you may have on these policies and then i can talk about next steps as well after that do you have any questions about any of the policies or askew or sarah maybe not a question but a comment that i'm glad to see that we're adopting a immigration enforcement response policy i think that in today's world that seems very pertinent and important and so uh whatever happened before it seems very timely to do that one so i i'm glad to see that one coming forward with the visitors everything else as well but that one seems especially uh critical um so for the ones that are

051related to the employee groups we you will take it further and if there is are any changes then we won't be necessarily um yeah if there are no changes then we'll just pass it forward as a um action item right consent consent item um if there are changes then we would we would pull that one changes after union review after union review yeah um it doesn't seem like we have any changes that we want to incorporate so um okay and then i think uh jennifer did you want to talk a little bit about the what the other things that are going on yeah thank you for reminding me we did talk about this that uh we're trying to um expedite our update process and uh thanks to veronica rickson she did a comprehensive audit of

052all of our policies and uh the the csba comparisons regards the dates and how dated ours might be but she also compared it to mandated policies so as a group we're prioritizing the mandated policies with the exception of you know sometimes like for instance jen gabrie had one that she wants us to consider based on the bond work but otherwise this group would prioritize the mandated ones we thought we would look at bylaws uh but otherwise to just start moving these along as a policy committee and bringing them to the board uh more expeditiously so that we can get updated since many of these are minor uh we also discussed that um we could make a shift where the superintendent would make recommendations about those and the policy committee wouldn't have to um spend time

053looking at them the chalmé for instance is a good example of that it makes sense of course we are using data and so the sst would be an example of something that the policy committee might not necessarily review the superintendent would make those changes but the more substantive where there are options um and sometimes that comes from csba then those would come to the policy committee any questions on that on that update okay great so now we will move on to the discussion of action these actually do require action from the board and so after the information is presented we can ask clarify questions and then also have any discussion that um wait i didn't check for public comment okay so let me go back make sure there aren't any public comments okay all right

054onward um so yeah so i don't even know what i was saying but let's let's go on to discussion and action and the first item is um approval of the 2425 second interim budget report and that is ralph yeah thank you president park and fellow trustees um i want to first publicly thank chris and acknowledge him for his hard work behind the scenes on preparing the second interim as an accountant behind the scenes he makes sure everything's in the right place making sure everything's coded right making sure the resources are there so he's the meticulous one behind the scenes doing all the hard work so thank you and i also want to thank denise for her time because she was the creator of the budget when it was initially adopted and so whenever someone takes

055over a budget in the middle there's some things in gaps you just want to make sure you have knowledge of so i want to thank her for for her time and willing to spend with me and chris making sure that we have everything covered and there's nothing nothing missed in the process of the transition so those are two things so as we go through this second interim report we can go to the next slide just in case yeah so here's an overview of what we'll be talking about today and presenting so it's the 2425 second interview interim review and approval so we're talking about reporting requirements the multi-year projection summary of other funds and any considerations and risks to the budget and then next steps next slide thanks so what is second interim second interim

056is a snapshot in time of the budget at january 31st as of january 31st so where are we as of expenditures and revenues what has actually been booked in the system and then what we project to continue to happen if things continue as planned obviously there's variables along the way that we can't predict but hopefully minimal changes you'll see end of year projection that is very close to what end of your actuals could be the budget cycle as you can see here it's a continual process from budget adoption in june and then you have a 45 day revision period after the the budget is finalized from the governor you have an opportunity to revise that to that adopted budget based on any changes that are going to be of major impact to the budget so

057you have 45 days to do that and then you have the first interim in december as presented and that's october for 31st is the date for that so it's the beginning of the fiscal year through october 31st is the first interim period and then the second interim period is all the way up until january 31st and that's presented now in march and then you have the estimated actuals and then adopted budget will come around in june and then we get to the unaudited actuals in in september and then we just start the whole process over again so as a school district we're required to certify the interim reports and at second interim we have three choices we can be a qualified budget we can be a negative budget or we can be a positive budget

058a negative budget means that we will not meet our obligations and fiscal obligations with this budget presented in the in the current year and or subsequent years a qualified budget means we may not meet those obligations but a positive budget means that we are sound and we we will meet the obligations of the current year and the subsequent years. So happy to report that our second interim report will be a positive certification for 24, 25 second interim. And as we look to align, it's really important to make sure that the budget is aligned with the district goals and the board goals. So if you look here, here's the slide that indicates what the goals were set forth for this year and future years, you know, expansion of TK, you know, fund interventions, extended learning in

059summer, you have expanded services for learners. The HVAC system is important because you need a comfortable learning environment, not only for the students, but for the teachers and educators as well. So, and we're investing on recruiting and retaining qualified staff members, making sure that we have the best of the best out there and increase health and pension obligations, you know, grow staff through professional learning, build sustainable budget practices. So it's also important to look at what we're currently doing and making sure it's sustainable. I know that our current budget will have a projection of deficit spending, but we can qualify as positive because we have a fund balance to support that. Now that's not a sustainable model for the future, right? For the long-term future, but for the near future next couple of years, it

060will give us some time to write the budget, to make sure that we can have some adjustments, look at some programs and make sure that we can turn around a non-deficit spending budget. So a budget that is a positive. So this slide is just a summary of revenue and expenses. You have two categories, the unrestricted and the restricted. So I'll start with the middle column, the restricted, and it looks like a really large deficit, but that is a result of spending down a fund balance that was already allocated to schools. So for instance, some of the grant money that we're learning emergency recovery or the arts and music block grant, those dollars were allocated to the school in prior years. And so that fund balance is sitting there. So it looks like we're deficit spending,

061but we're just drawing down that balance. And so we're not negative in a fund balance, but it does look like we're deficit spending, which is natural for restricted funds that are issued and they give you multiple years to spend those dollars. The unrestricted side, you see that we are deficit spending. The deficit spending is mainly as a result of a few things. You have parcel tax that when it was initially passed, it was about a $3 million revenue source and that funded about 25 FTE. With inflation, cost of step in column, salary increases along the way, increase in health and welfare, that no longer funds the 25 FTE that originally was established. It's now down to about 18 FTE. So the remainder of that wasn't cut throughout the years because they're important positions for our

062programs and our students. So that was picked up by the general fund. So that's what contributes to a deficit spending model. The other is just contributions to restricted funds. So sometimes those restricted funds get overspent. Special education is one that's widely known, is funded by the SELPA, but that funding doesn't always cover all of the services and needs of the students that have IEP. So you have a contribution from general fund that also contributes to that deficit spending model. As an LCFF district, we are staffing on enrollment. So if we have 2800 students, 2788 students, we staff based on that number, but we're not funded based on that number. We're funded on our ADA, average daily attendance. And our average daily attendance is about 96%. It's trending upward, as you saw, which is positive and

063will be good for the overall fiscal health of the district. But if your ADA is 96%, you're not getting fully funded for what you initially staffed for in the beginning of the year. And if you do some rough math, each percent of ADA, roughly here, because we're such a small district, is 250 to 300,000. So if we were to increase the ADA by a percentage, you're looking at almost a $300,000 increase in the budget every time we increase ADA by about a percentage. There's variances in there because each grade level has a different allocation of dollars based on whether they're kindergarten or eighth grade. So those are some nuances with the deficit spending and LCFF versus ADA. In going back to the slide here in the summary of the revenue and expenses, you see that

064there is a transfer out of $1.2 million. That transfer out is to support future textbook adoptions and also the resurfacing of the tennis courts. So that was earmarked for those two programs. And then a transfer in of roughly $1.5 million. And that transfer in is to support increases and to support the deficit spending. And that money comes from Fund 20. And Fund 20 is a special reserve that was set aside years ago and established by the board. And money contributed in Fund 20 are one-time dollars. So one-time dollars that come to us, not all the time, but the bulk of Fund 20 was about 20, was 20, 23, 22, 23, I should say. And it was when the district flipped into basic aid. There were supplemental tax that was issued to the district in the

065tune of about, well, I don't know the exact amount, but we deposited about $4.2 million into Fund 20 at that time. And so that was set aside for these times when we need to draw on it for deficit spending and also post-employment retirement benefits, because that could be quite costly. So that money set aside to support that as well. Currently that comes out of the general fund. So transferring back in a general fund to offset that cost is often done to make sure you're not deficit spending or to try and alleviate as much of the deficit spending as possible. We can go to the next slide, please. The next slide is just a summary of the components of the ending fund balance. So on the previous slide, you saw that we had an ending fund

066balance of combined $5 million. The restricted side of that was $2.3 million. And I described a little bit about what that is. That's funds that were grants that were allocated to us that we're spending down regularly. And the unrestricted ending fund balance is about $2.7 million. And so you can also see a sign. So when you have an ending fund balance and you have future expenditures, you are assigning those dollars to make sure that you can account for that and make sure you're supporting those programs. One that we assign out is vacation accrual because it's a liability for the district. And so you're looking at about $173,000 worth of vacation accruals that we would be liable for. So we make sure we have those dollars set aside. Technology is another one. 150,000 is set aside

067for technology purposes. So every teacher has a device. They have a laptop. Teachers have projection systems in their classroom. Students have Chromebooks in their hands. So those have a life expectancy of about five years. So every five years, we have to go on the cycle and refresh those machines. So that's set aside for future. And on a side note with technology, we're building in a refresh schedule to make sure schools know when they're going to be issued refreshed computers. And so we have that schedule and that's part of the technology plan we're trying to develop. There is an insurance flood assessment. So since MIG SIG has an additional $100,000 that they've issued to us, it's $100,000 bigger districts. That's a little bit more. So that's just something from our insurance group that we have to

068set aside to make sure that we're accounting for that. And then the TK expansion. So with the universal TK and the reduction to a 20 to one classroom ratio, 10 to one student to adult ratio, we have to make sure we have adequate space for the TK classrooms as well. So we're setting aside money to make sure that the additional classrooms are funded and make sure we have the resource to make sure they have space for those classrooms and teachers. And then the unassigned economic uncertainty. That's the required, that's $1.653 million is the required 3% reserve of a district our size. That's what's required for us. Move to the next slide, please. So when we start to plan, that's the current status at second interim. That's the main report on that. Now we're kind of

069moving into multi-year planning factors. So here you see adopted budget, you see first interim and you see second interim. And these are the assumptions we made at each of those stages. And you can kind of track how that goes. And then you see that we have planning factors for 25, 26 and 26, 27. Those may change, but these are the assumptions we're using to build the multi-year projections for the district. So you can see the second interim, we're still using the 1.07% COLA because that's what was issued for 24, 25, right? A really minimal COLA. And for 25, 26, the estimated COLA in January, the governor came and his update was a 2.43% COLA. When you attend school services workshops and you talk to the people that are following legislation in the legislature of the

070House Office, there's a sense that that may drop. There's a sense that that may be more around 2.3. School services, they had a bet with each other and they're thinking it's about a 2.3% COLA, which is where that will land. That's pretty significant to understand that. COLA for us is supposed to account for increasing goods and services, right? Our contracts with our partners, those go up three to 5% a year, depending on who the contractors are and the staffing that they have. The CPI, the Consumer Price Index, this January for January, 2025, it was up 2.38% from January of 2024. So that's the inflation factor that we're dealing with in our area, the Oakland Bay Area CPI was 2.38%. So you can see if our COLA for revenue goes down any further, goes down below

071that 2.38 or the CPI at the current time, the COLA gets eaten up by the increase in inflation, right? That doesn't even account for some of the other factors out there, like the natural disasters. The governor has committed to supporting the Los Angeles area and Los Angeles County with the devastation that they've had. So he's delayed tax filings for them. So that has an impact on the state budget. LA County is a huge county in California. It's the size of probably the fourth largest nation in the world. So you can see the impact that that tax base has on the budget for the state of California. So we're not sure how that will impact the state budget, which then impacts the school district budgets. Other factors are enrollment. You can see our enrollment is projected

072to go up slightly. I know in recent years, it was projected to be a declining enrollment, but with TK, that's kind of held and allow the district to say, we are keeping steady and also increasing a little bit as far as our enrollment factors. Universal TK is another factor that we are using right now. The add-on to implement the universal TK mandates is about $3,077 per student, 88. The governor has a proposal to increase that, but that's not gonna be finalized till May. And the legislative analyst office is really not in agreement with the governors as the total dollars that it would take to implement universal TK district-wide. So they think it's gonna cost a little less. So we're not sure where that figure is gonna land with the overall state budget come May revise.

073STIRS, PERS, unemployment, those are factors that are not in our control. And you can see the levels there. STIRS is holding steady at 19.1% and you have PERS that's increasing to 27.5% by 26, 27. We did get a bump in restricted and unrestricted lottery funds for 24, 25. And you can see there's no planned increase for 25, 26 yet or 26, 27. Mandated block grant shows a slight increase in out years, but not a lot. This is a very busy slide. This is the multi-year projections slide. So you can see where we are for second interim and then where we are for projected budget for 25, 26 and 26, 27. You'll note that we do have a net decrease in each of those years and the ending fund balance is continuing to decrease through the

074out years of the next two years. And so that's why a deficit spending model is not sustainable. So some of those other things I mentioned, the parcel tax is one, right? So beyond this multi-year projection that's looming out there is the expiration of the parcel tax. So that's gonna be in 2028. So we need to do some work to plan for that and make sure that we're accounting for that and making sure we're putting things in place to hopefully have that renewed to continue to support the $3 million. $3 million in a small district like this has a huge impact on programs and learning. So it's important that we have solid plans and we're addressing that appropriately. The line item that's called out there in yellow is the amount that we're anticipating would be required

075to support any increases and deficit spending. So that money is coming from fund 20 and then by the end of 26, 27, fund 20 would pretty much be depleted. There'll be a tiny bit left over according to this model for 27, 28, and that's where we have fund 63 that could potentially pick up some of that shortfall from fund 20 expiring if we're not able to write the deficit spending by that time. I think we can move on to the next slide, which is a summary of our other funds, another busy slide, but you can see all the other funds other than the general fund 01 that the district has. Student activities is mainly your middle school, central, and TL. They're the ones that have a student body and student activities account. Your child development

076fund, that's the one that supports a CSPP that's integrated in with the early learning and our preschool programs. You have your cafeteria fund, which has a healthy fund balance currently, which is a result of universal meals and the national, we have not only the federal government contributing to reimbursement for meals for students that are free and reduced lunch eligible, but also the state's picking up the difference. That's why we're able to offer free meals across the board for any student with the uncertainties of the federal government and some of the mandates and direction. We're not certain how that would affect the national school lunch program and the reimbursement rate from the federal government. So it's great that we have that healthy fund balance because we can support a transition into a different model of food

077service and what lunch may look like for some of our students. And so we're already starting some plans. We don't have any concrete in order and written down, but we have been discussing and looking at potential options if some of the funding is reduced or eliminated altogether. You have your deferred maintenance account there. Your special reserve is fund 17 and that is money that's set aside. You're not only for the textbook adoption, but other things can be used for that, like technology purchases as well. Fund 20, we mentioned before, that's your retirement benefit fund, your OPEB. And you can see that's got a $4.8 million balance and that's what would support us for the next two years. So this year, next year, and the year after is what that would support with very little changes.

078Building fund, which is 21, that's the bond fund. So that's where the bond funds are deposited. What else gets transferred into there is the reimbursement from the matching funds from the state OPSC, those dollars that matching funds for construction that were granted to the district. It was for the TL renovation. So some of that money gets deposited into fund 35 and then it gets moved into fund 21. So it could be used and help support the master plan that was created in 23. And so it makes those dollars go a little further and helps achieve some of the goals on the master plan. And the capital facilities fund, fund 25, those are your developer fees. So we do have some developments that are coming online. You can see new construction. And so we're hopeful that

079we're gonna get some good revenue from those dollars there. And so those are restricted funds that we have to use on supporting increased enrollment and increased students at schools. And it's a restricted fund. You have your special reserve for capital outlay fund. That's fund 40. And that can be used for a capital outlay, which is projects, construction, facilities, improvements. And then the enterprise account, which supports your T-CELT program and your preschool program, your early learning program, which was touched on a little bit. And also where the CSPP program is integrated in. And that integration is a unique model that I think serves the early learners really well to have that integrated model and they have blended resources. Thank you. So moving on to budget considerations and challenges. We touched on a little bit, but rising

080costs due to tariffs and inflation. We see every day the economy is suffering from inflation and people are getting in line for eggs, right? And they're worried about the cost of that and the supply chain and for various factors, right? Not just the tariffs, but there's other factors out there that cause those. The uncertainty of the federal funds. So federal funds for us are Title II, Title III. Title II supports our teachers induction program. So when teachers are new to getting a teaching credential, they have to clear their credential. So that money's there to support that process, help teachers clear their credential. Title III are your English learner dollars. So that's another federal program. National school lunch program and special education. Those are the main federal fund dollars that we receive that we're just not

081certain about moving forward. Mandated universal TK staffing and budget requirements. So we talked about that a little bit, the LAO and the governor are not agreeing, but those are mandated requirements that are, poses not only a budget challenge, but a staffing challenge because there's special certification for TK teachers. And so what cost are we gonna incur, if at all, to try and support teachers to get those certifications because those are hard to find. I mean, TK teachers are not, we can't just move a third grade teacher into a TK classroom without some extra units and extra class. And what strategies do we have to support that? Expiring one-time grants. We have arts and music block grant, which is expiring in June of 26. And then we have the learning emergency recovery, which is expiring June

082of 28. So those dollars, we have a plan. We have a solid plan for that, but those programs that are being supported by that plan, those expenditures will have to be shifted to another budget, or we have to just look at what's needed and how we support those programs moving forward with the expiration of those dollars. The risks to the state and federal forecast. The governor also talked about the Prop 98. He went over how Prop 98 has a certain guarantee, that's a calculation, and he has not committed to that full guarantee because if the state doesn't realize its revenue projections, then that guarantee may drop. So he's not fully allocating that at first. He will allocate it out if the revenue is fully realized. If the revenue doesn't get fully realized, then he doesn't

083allocate the whole amount, and that prevents him from pulling it back from district, which is a little more difficult. So he's not committed to fully funding the guarantee at this point. Reduction in COLA estimates. We talked about that and what future COLA might look like. Wildfires, we talked about, and we talked about the LCFF versus community-funded. I'll touch a little more about that. More students we get, so the higher our enrollment and higher our ADA makes it more difficult to jump into a basic aid funding formula, right? Because basic aid is your property tax base. And so if our LCFF calculations from enrollment and ADA factors surpass that, then we won't jump into basic aid. Supplemental taxes have not really been announced yet. We'll know more in April. We don't anticipate that to be really

084high based on early indications. So we're not seeing that and anticipating that supplemental taxes would help us flip like we did in 2022, 23 into basic aid where we would get some one-time dollars to help support the programs and the budget a little bit more. Can we move on to the next one? So the purpose tonight was to answer any clarifying questions, request board approval for the second interim. So at this point, I think I can entertain questions. Or comment or concerns. Anyone have any questions, comments or concerns? I have a couple. Okay. So I wanted to be sure I understand the reserve for TK expansion, is that for the facilities or the staff or both? All of the above. So we've set that aside to make sure that we had enough funds to support

085the program and its entirety. So if we need to expand, we have a little bit for expansion, but we also know that staffing, depending on the final TK enrollment numbers, the staffing could be a challenge because it's a strict requirement, not like our other grades where we have a little more flexibility with the staffing and the ratios in the classrooms. We really have a strict regulation on that and we could get audited and we could be fine if we're not following the strict class ratios. So it's for both. And is that something in the out years once TK is fully implemented and stabilizes, could we reallocate those funds to other uses if we determine we no longer need to keep that reserve? If I may. Yes, you may. I think one of the things to

086remember is that full implementation was supposed to have full funding. And so right now there's a possibility we get 6,000 per child, but if it's true we only get 3,000 per child, that makes a huge difference. So I wish I had a crystal ball on a lot of these things, but the staffing model, that's a big part of it, I think, is whether or not we get the full funding for it. Yeah, I'm not questioning the wisdom of having the reserve. We just don't know. Curious. Yeah, it's really hard to say, especially since there's some differences of opinion about how expensive this is. And yet the penalties for breaking any of the rules are quite high. So some of that reserve is also in the event that the bathroom ratios aren't quite right or the

087setup isn't quite right. I think we're just really trying to hedge ourselves on that. And with new, I might add, with new TK classrooms, there's specific regulations on the size, the accessibility, but they can be in current classrooms without those square footage requirements and bathroom requirements. So when we add a facility and we put them in a new facility, there's additional costs in just a regular classroom because we have to meet those requirements. Yeah, good reminder on that. And then you talked a couple of times about some of the expiring one-time funds and how that is related to the deficit spending that we are pulling down funds that were received in previous years. At what point in our budgeting do we need to start making decisions about activities that were related to those one-time funds

088and whether we keep them and fund them in another way or start changing the services that we're offering? Yeah, that's a great question. Those are ongoing discussions that we're having now, but the final decision will really have to be made by June of 2026 for the programs that are funded by the Arts and Music Block Grant. And by June, well, our learning emergency recovery money is fully expended by June of 27. But if for some reason that money increases like the governor say it might, we have till June of 2028 if the funds extend beyond June of 2027. But right now we're scheduled to expend all of those funds by the end of June of 2027. Thank you, those are my questions. Go ahead. You can go first. A couple of things I wanted to

089comment on. Well, first a question, do Boris and Q know what STRS and FERS are just because those acronyms get thrown around a lot and the percentages that you probably do as a- I don't, I don't. No, I don't. Now state featured retirement system, STRS, FERS public employees, STRS is just for certificated, FERS is for any government employed telephone. And we have to pay a certain percentage of an employee's earnings. On top of their salary. And that's set by the state. Correct? Yes, that's correct. I just wanna say, I feel like I should channel my inner Neil. Maybe you can help me do that if there's other things you think you would say that I don't remember. But I feel like one thing he, and I now have seen it too in my years that

090I've been on the board is that, of course best practice is not to deficit spend and not to spend one time dollars on ongoing programs. And yet the way education is funded in California, that's sort of what we're always doing. And that we, when we have funds, we can set aside. We do that because we know at some point we're gonna need to rely on them to continue doing what we wanna do and get the raises that we wanna give. So it's not sustainable, but it's also not unusual. I think we've been, our NYP has been projecting deficit spending the whole time I've been on the board. And I don't know how we foresee that changing unless something changes about the way that education is funded in California or we'd go so drastically into basic

091aid that our financial situation looks really different. I think I've even thought about that. No, I think you're right. It is a model that many districts are in. The one time dollars that the discretionary dollars the state has that are not part of the base grant funding do help with that. And I think that the governor maybe knows that. That's why you see some of these grants to help support that. Some of these grants come with strict regulations, some a little looser regulations. So I think those are really good observations that you've made. And unless we use that awful C word that we probably would have to wait for our district to be basic aid and not just barely basic aid, but a few years into basic aid to really make an impact where we're

092not reliant on the state, we're not reliant on the COLA, we're not reliant on enrollment, we're just reliant on the tax base. And so if we get to that point, we would definitely be in a better state. The Bay Area is a really unique situation because you have feeder districts that feed into basic aid districts. So we feed into Sequoia high school district and they're so large and they have a tax base that is large that they're a basic aid district. San Mateo Union is another basic aid districts that has many, some of their feeders that are LCFF districts. So we're kind of in a unique situation. I was gonna say one thing to your point about deficit spending, and I won't be able to cite the statistic but maybe you can, is the number

093of qualified and negative budgets in this state has grown considerably. Deficit spending is not unusual. And I think kind of to Trustee Kinnahan's point, we are building our budget on 3000. We're not banking on 6000, right? But we could build it on 6000, but then we're in a huge pickle if we expect that money. And then we have reserves to pay for it but we don't put all of that into the budget. So we have a model that's pretty conservative. And so even though we're doing deficit spending, we're really thoughtful about the reserves we have because we still have a board commitment to being comparable and competitive. We have some of the best teachers and staff, I think, in the whole region. And we attract talent through this strategy. It can feel really nerve wracking,

094but the executive cabinet looks at every single vacancy and asks hard questions about, do we need to fill this position? Do we need to build this thing over here? Is there a way that we can use what we have? Move some classroom equipment around. It's just that now the double-edged sword, I think on community-funded, is the advent of districts who are community-funded and saying, we're not going to do TK. You're not funding this. And for me, that would be draconian. I think early learning is our way out of equity gaps. And so there's part of me that fears that, that you get to that position and you say, we're not funded for this. We're not going to do this thing. I don't know if it's defensible, but strange things can happen, right? So it is

095something we've been doing for a while. You're right to surface it. I think Ralph coming in is pointing it out a lot, but I want to normalize this a little bit, that our budget really is still in good shape comparatively. And we're thoughtfully looking, as I said, at every position that comes up and we're asking those questions. Yeah, and I feel, I mean, that I have every year I've been on the board, I feel very confident that we take the appropriately conservative approach to all these things, all the moving pieces and how they might move and how we adjust accordingly. No, no problems about what you're presenting at all. I feel it's a good budget and things are looking good. And I mean, just not to then counter that, but I did notice that the

096fund balance reserve estimate is down a little bit from what we were looking at last year. So it's just something for us to be conscious of, that a 5% reserve is not a lot of room. Something that I always look at, I'm gonna change my P, right? As what is that percentage going out for those three years? Boris? Yeah, I'll jump in. So first, I think, Ralph, thank you very much for the presentation. Having looked at the slides before today, having somebody explain it to you is very helpful. And I feel like I have a much better understanding of just how all the numbers kind of move around and where the money goes. I guess the thought that it brings for me, and maybe I know we have a study session in a few weeks

097on the budget. So that might be a place to have this conversation is sort of thinking about that parcel tax renewal. And while I see that we're able to sustain operations, I guess, for the next couple of years, and maybe even all the way to 2028, we are starting to tap into a lot of those one-time funds. And maybe the enterprise account is sort of where, which gets replenished, can help us kind of bridge the gap. But I do think it's worth having a conversation and think about sort of 2026 versus 2028 timing on some of that, and starting to at least approach the subject. I guess I'll say it that way. And so for today's report, I think great information, good, I'm glad we are where we are, but looking ahead, I think it's

098worth spending some time maybe at the retreat if that's, or not the retreat, the study session to talk about some of that. Yeah, and I want to remind the board that Trustee Kinnahan attended a session at CSBA where you learned about evergreen parcel taxes. And I'd love this board to explore that and learn more about it, because I appreciate that maybe we could reduce spending, but at the end of the day, if you thought you were gonna pay for 25 positions, and you're now at 18, there is some concerns when you're not tracking at least with CPI. So I'm hoping that we can think about that too. Is that it for us? That's all I have. Okay, Hugh, do you have anything? No? Ralph, I just want to say thank you. It seems, I know

099you thanked Denise, and I would say thank you for coming in midway through this and being able to kind of explain, walk us through the slides and really shed light on things that originally looked a little like a bunch of numbers, and I'm comfortable with numbers, but it's still really helpful to hear that. So I appreciate that. And Chris, thank you too as well for your support on creating the second interim report. Okay. I will check for public comment. Great. So we actually do need to approve the second interim report. So, can I- I'll move the item, please. Boris, did you say you- I would like to move the item. Okay, is there a second? Okay, all those in favor say aye. Aye. The second interim report is approved five zero. Next item is the

100approval of the transportation plan, the Home to School Transportation Reimbursement Program. And I believe Jennifer Gabbaree is presenting on that. Good evening. Thank you so much for taking some time to look over our transportation plan. And so if you want to know a little bit more about it, I'm just gonna give you a brief update. So it's due every year to update this plan by April 1st. So that's why we're bringing it to you this evening. And so it does contain nine sections, and I'm just gonna briefly highlight each section with some of my favorite parts. So there, in the section one, the overview gives you an idea of why we are doing this. And it is mandated so that we can access some funding related to transportation. And so the part that is most

101highlightable in here is that we want to be environmentally sustainable with our transportation. And so that means that we're route planning with expertise to make sure that we are grabbing as many students on our local route as possible, and really being thoughtful about how many, what we call double backs, so we do. And so with one bus that has all the students being able to get on for LEAP, preschool, and all of the schools that we serve in our local route, that is one of the ways that we are environmentally sustainable, as well as providing the out of district transfer students, the voluntary transfer bus. We are providing basically a carpool for all of those students to be able to access and bringing those cars off of the road so that we can bring them

102safely to school altogether. And so we are really proud of our bus driver, Teresita, and she does a wonderful job being an ambassador for our transportation department every day for our students. And she is an excellent coordinator of the transportation services too. She's very adept at interacting with also our first student partners and making sure that they feel welcome and a part of our transportation department as they are serving in that role as partners alongside of us. So I just want to say thank you to all that she does to support our local route, as well as the first student route to make sure everyone gets to school safely. And we also wanna just highlight it's a voluntary program. So students who wish to participate in this, they may. And so we certainly involve the

103parents in the ways that we reach out to them is every year we provide a welcome letter and we wanna make sure that they have my contact information as well as the drivers so that they can follow up with any needs that they might have throughout the year. So in section two, we talk a little bit about the types of students who may be riding on our buses. And so we always want to make sure we review requests that students who might be experiencing homelessness or other complications to getting to school. We wanna make sure that if our route can be redirected to pick them up, we definitely try to do that. And so we do that free of cost. We also partner with SamTrans to give free passes to really a wide range of

104categories of anyone who really does need that. And we can certainly make a case that we can provide it for any student that really asked for one. And so that's been a wonderful addition to our services. In section three, we talk a little bit about IEP services. And so each IEP team at a school site might determine that transportation would be a benefit to the student and would allow for more access to our programs at school. And so that is another component of our bus passengers who ride with Teresita every day. So we also do provide students who might not be served in our schools. We do provide some alternative transportation but that is rare. And so the free passes are in section four. We've already talked about those. So they're in the youth unlimited

105ones. And then I highlighted briefly already our outreach for our Tinsley transfer students and the ways that we put them on the bus. In section six, we added some reminders about how to stay safe. And also it's always helpful as somewhat of a public safety message that when you see that flashing sign extended, make sure to stop. That is one of the most popular complaints I hear from parents, which is unfortunate because that is the law to stop for the sign. And a lot of drivers these days might just kind of go around. And so just anytime I can get the chance to talk about that, I do. And so just as a brief reminder, when you see the sign, just stop. And so general guidelines are provided to families to be reminded by that.

106We know everyone's in a hurry but it's very important to stop when you see that sign. So we do review these rules with the students in our annual bus evacuation drills. So every single bus rider gets to have a little fun exit from the bus to try out that little scoot down and jump off the bus from the back. And so it's probably a highlight. We all enjoy that drill. And so it's great to practice because you never know when you might need it. So, and the final part is really just talking about the rules and that is part of, you know your conduct on the bus, it relates to safety. And so Teresita does a wonderful job explaining to the students how their behavior really impacts her ability to get to school on time

107and safely. And so we are just really proud of our bus driver Teresita. So there's a consultation process that we go into down at the bottom. We have a little routing of how we do that. So we talk with our classified staff member who happens to be Teresita. And then we work with classified staff members too. And so those are our principals to kind of consult with them, what their needs are. I also go to the local collaboration meeting with SamTrans, which is our local public partner every year. And that just happened on February 6th. And then we have our leadership team that weighs in in a meeting that we talk about the plan. And I give the brief highlights similar to what I'm doing tonight. And then we also have a Bay area air

108quality management component of this. And so that is listed in here so that we are aware of the requirements for emissions. And that concludes my presentation and brief highlights of the transportation plan this evening. So I am asking for approval tonight so that we can listen. Thank you, Teresita. Does anyone have any questions or comments? I think next year we need pictures of the emergency. Oh, jeez. Sounds like a good addition to my presentation. Maybe even a video would be fun. Yeah. All right. Thank you. There's no hands. Okay, great. Thank you, Sarah. Okay. Someone like to move this? I'll move approval of the transportation plan. I'll second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. All right, thank you. While there is no cost at this time related to this item, we do expect to

109bring a first student contract to you. We have one more year to renew with them and that is our plan. So we'll be bringing that forward in the next couple of board meetings to make sure we're set for next year. Thank you. Thank you. Moving on to item 6C, Hans Barber will discuss the new CSEA job description. Yeah, thank you, Tracy. We're bringing this new job description to you for approval tonight. As you may or may not know, currently transitional kindergarten aides, TK aides, are working under the general education instructional aid job description, which is quite old and really was more focused on being the second adult in a more mature classroom. The duties of a TK aid are quite different given the age of the students and that'll be even more so with incoming

110three-year-olds coming in even next year. There will be a group of students that are three until they turn four shortly into the school year. So we wanted to make sure we developed a job description and actually represented the duties of the TK classroom instructional aid. So we work with CSEA to do that, be a process that's required as part of the contract. Where I'm really happy to report that it's ready to go as of press time, if you will. It was still pending a vote. It's been voted and this is the final step in the process is your approval. And we can officially have that as a new title in the new job description. Okay, thank you, Hans. Does anyone have any questions? Motion to approve? No hands. No hands, thank you, Sarah. I'll move

111approval of item 60. Second. Okay, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Okay, the job description is approved five zero. Next item is the chief operating officer job description update and contract renewal. And Jennifer, I'm just, we'll be talking about them. Thank you. We are here to ask the board to approve a revision to the chief operation officer. That's a lot of words. Job description, salary schedule, and furthermore to ask that the board extend COO Jennifer Gabri's contract to June 30th, 2028. To facilitate measure H, we have been reorganizing internally to keep the project management in house. While many districts might hire contractors, we've experienced speedy implementer in Jennifer Gabri's leadership. With a recent addition of a financial analyst, Ralph Crame will be assuming responsibilities for some of the things previously under the former COO

112position. That includes nutrition and technology, among other things. We also ask that the board approve the attached salary schedule that reflects the merging of the COO and CFO salaries. Finally, to continue, as I said, our forward momentum, we hope the board will approve an extension for Jennifer Gabri so she can complete phase one and phase two and fulfill our promise to our voters on measure H. Thank you, Jennifer. Any questions, comments? Full hearted support. Thank you, Jennifer, for all that you've been doing. I mean, the font on this job description is so tiny because you do so much. Okay. No hands? Thank you. I'd like to move the item. Second? Anyone have a second? I'll second. Thank you, Sarah. All those in favor, just say aye. Aye. Okay, the job description and contract renewal are

113approved by zero. Thank you. Related item is next, which is 6E, approval of confidential employee job description and revised salary schedule for administrative assistant to senior management. Hans, would you be taking this one? That'd be me again, yeah. Yes, definitely related to the previous item, related to the staffing up, if you will, that's necessary when you're trying to spend $176 million in a responsible and expedited fashion. We're recommending your approval of this confidential position that will report to senior administration. So that includes Ralph and Jennifer and me to really assist senior management, us to prepare reports, conduct research, analyze documents and other important record keeping and reporting requirements of the bond. And also other confidential duties related to negotiations and construction projects. Thank you, Hans. Any questions or comments? This would be funded by the

114bond. Yeah, so one of the things we're doing right now is analyzing each of the positions that have a hand in the bond. As you can imagine, there's quite a few that includes Ralph, for instance, and the financial analyst and then working with our auditors about the reasonableness of each of those because we also have facility funds that we can apply to some of that under, I forget, Fund 40, is it Fund 40? Yes, Fund 40. So yes, the funding for a lot of these positions, especially the COO's position and financial analyst and this new administrative assistant will be funded by funds related to Measure H, whether they're Fund 40 or under the bond. Do we have a motion? Move approval of 6E. Second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Okay, 6E is approved,

1155-0. Okay, final item on discussion and action is the approval of trustee leave of absence. So our trusted trustee, Sarah Casanego, is requesting a 90-day leave of absence and under the board policy 92-23, we have to, it has to go through board approval. If it was 60 days or less, it wouldn't be required, but because it's 90, we do need to put it before the board. Sarah, I don't know if you have anything you wanna share about it or not, we can just go, okay. I'll just, I'll be out of the state and for that time, that's an opportunity to travel with my family, as you all know. So I'll be out of the state and unable to attend board meetings, but I don't want that to result in a vacancy on the board. I

116do plan to resume my duties as a trustee when we get back with the board's approval. Okay, so I think what, yeah, oh, sorry, I thought that was a hand raised. Do we have any hand raised? Okay, so what we're gonna have to do is we'll first approve, we'll hopefully approve the leave of absence and then because Sarah is the current clerk, we will also, upon approval of her leave of absence, we will have to also assign a clerk, a temporary clerk while she's gone. And yeah, those are sort of the two actions that we need to take separately. Yes, so would someone like to move for- Motion to approve Sarah's leave of absence. Second. All those in favor? Aye. Aye, okay. So that passes four, zero, yeah. With Sarah, that's an ego abstaining. Okay,

117so then the second piece is, you know, for those three months that Sarah will be gone, the clerk is a necessary role, has to sign a lot of documents and so we can't have that role be vacant. So I'm the president, so I can't do it. I think Sarah, can I hand this vice president so she can't do it. So Q or Boris, would you like to? Sure. Okay, so Q has- Sarah can motion to nominate Q, please. Okay, can I second? I'll second. Okay, all those in favor? Who votes on this one? Who's allowed to vote on this one? It's still- Okay, and Q can vote on it as well? Yeah, I think so. Okay, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Okay, so Q is the temporary clerk passing five, zero. I did

118wanna mention that we're gonna keep the board policy committee seat empty. I think Sarah and I are gonna have another board meeting before, board policy meeting with the superintendent prior to her departure and then maybe keep things slow between while you're gone. And similar to the two plus two committee, Sarah and I are both on that as well. And we're meeting on March 21st and then it's just like a quarterly meeting generally. So you'll be back before the next one. I have yet to attend to it. So, and I just wanna wish you well and hope that you have an amazing leave of absence and you come back refreshed. And I also appreciate that you are not, yeah, creating a vacancy on the board. Thank you for that. And I guess also, I think another

119thing to mention is with Sarah's absence, that means it's especially important that the four of us try our best to make it to everything and if, when possible or with enough advance notice so that we can plan accordingly. So do you have anything to add? No, no? So that ends discussion and action. We'll move on to future agenda items identified. So as you mentioned, we have a study set, well, the first thing coming up is actually our governance for the board retreat, which is on March 27th. And then we'll have a board study session on the budget on April 3rd. And then we'll have our next meeting, April, regular board meeting April 17th. So it'll be about a month until you be here in front of zoom cameras, et cetera. Do you have anything to

120add? I just was going to give a preview of coming attractions. There'll be contract renewals. Jennifer Gabbard just talked about the transportation and also nutrition. We'll also be seeing some policies, additional policies. And I know one at least related to CUPCA and there will also be some things on the GMP coming. And then LCAP will have an update on the California Healthy Kids Survey as a teaching and learning component. We all look forward to that survey data. So that will be in April. Thank you. Okay, moving on to eight, a public comment. There's no one in the district office here. Is there anyone in the zoom space that would like to make a public comment? Well, then we'll move on to employee group comments. I think I saw Dan. Yep, there he is. Hi, Dan.

121Good evening. This is for teachers, a very busy time. We've been assessing our students and working on our report cards, which will be going home soon. And both evaluating kids academically and their social and emotional wellbeing. It's an important time to share with parents about how kids are doing. And teachers appreciate our district's focus on educating and nurturing the whole child. And that comes through in how we assess and share about how our students are doing. Many teachers have serious concerns for the survival of the US Department of Education and the possible loss of teacher induction program funds, EL dollars, school lunch money, and also a special education funding. So at the same time that we are concerned and worried about these things, we're continuing to bring our best to our students every day. All

122of us celebrate kindness and respectfulness in our students, which is innate in them. And then we also teach those things as well. We teach our kids to be good citizens. And that's one way that we can have a positive impact on the future. Thank you to Jennifer Frentress and Hans Barber as well as Jennifer Long for including teachers and all stakeholders as we hire new principals for next year. Teachers have felt valued and listened to during this process. And so we wanna say thank you for that. Thanks, that's it. Kamala, can't hear you. Still on mute. You're muted, sorry. Okay, now am I? Okay, good evening. Yesterday I was at the district office and I was struck by a large sign that is on the wall behind y'all. It highlights our district goals, which I

123don't reflect on often. As I pondered them, I realized that I had witnessed the first two of these goals in action last week at Heather. The collaboration between teachers and classified staff was truly remarkable as we all worked together to meet each student where they are, helping them develop both academically and socially. So I'm gonna share a specific example. In Ms. Steele's TK class and Ms. Tinney's third grade class, we saw a beautiful collaboration in math. During this activity, paraprofessionals were actively engaged working with TK students and third graders, helping them to interact with one another and create patterns from strips of paper. It was great to see everyone so involved and dedicated to the task at hand. Ms. Steele read a book that managed to keep both TK and third graders engaged, which is

124no small task. Prior to this, Ms. Tinney had prepared her class on how they could introduce themselves to the TKers and ways to get them involved. This kind of teamwork is what makes our educational environment thrive. I also wanted to shine a light on another group of classified staff who can be overlooked. These individuals have been crucial to the success of the Rokes program. The tech team dedicated many hours to set up 10 classrooms outfitted with both student and adult devices. It would not have been possible without the dedication and hard work of our incredible tech team, Inger, Tom, and Pegan. They worked to ensure that everyone, everything was set up properly. They arrived before the Ropes judging started and stayed after to put all the devices away. Their commitment did not stop there. They

125also provided tech support throughout the event, ensuring that everything ran smoothly. It is important to recognize the vital role that classified staff play in the success of our district. They work behind the scenes, making sure that our programs and events can happen without a hitch. Classified staff contributions may not always be front and center, but they are essential to our mission. As we reflect on what makes our school district successful, let us remember to appreciate everyone involved, especially those who do the hard work quietly and many times without recognition. Together, we can continue to create a supportive environment where each member of our district feels valued and appreciated. Thanks. Thank you, Kamala. And now we'll move on to board member comments. Who would like to start? Sure. Okay. Last week, I got to volunteer as

126a Ropes judge, which was amazing. It's my first time and I recommend it for all of you if you haven't done it. Just the variety of projects that kids did and their ability to stand up in front of three adults that they don't know and talk about it. It was just really inspiring and something that just showed me what incredible community and district we have. And I also experienced it from the side of being a parent. My fourth grader did her ropes for the first time. And that's just a really cool, she grew so much. I was really proud of herself for doing it. So I really appreciate our district office that. Thank you to all of our teachers for your hard work right now, getting your report cards done. And special thank you to

127my kids teachers who in addition to doing all that are helping us think through what we need to do to keep our kids on track while we're traveling so that they're ready to come back to school next year. And they're both the teachers and the principals have been so supportive and responsive. And I know that's on their own time and just because they care about our kids and want them to do well. So I really appreciate that. Thank you, Sarah. Morris, you're looking at me. Well, I was gonna talk about ropes also. So I was gonna piggyback off of what Sarah said. I also got a chance to be a judge and I didn't really know what I was stepping into but I was massively impressed with just a variety of projects that kids came

128up with and then executed. And everything from coding to research to structural engineering. So all sorts of really cool things. And especially wanted to highlight Ashley Brown who's one of the teachers who runs the entire thing and she has a huge undertaking to get everyone's projects and all the different submittals and all the judges. It's just a massive effort. So huge kudos to her and the entire team that puts it on. So really enjoyed that opportunity and I'm waiting for when my kids are old enough to participate to see what they might come up with. So, but that was very cool. So that's been my highlight for the last few weeks. Thanks, Morris, thank you. Yeah, just continue to be amazed and thankful for the community. Today I got to go to Heather's school. Thank

129you, Dr. Jennifer for setting that up. And it was just amazing to, it's always amazing to just see kids firsthand in classes and just ask them what they're doing and you just get amazing answers. But it was very, for me it was very educational to also understand how the learning centers work. And today's student services update was like so timely because we got to actually see the different mechanisms that they use to facilitate things like inclusion and learning, which I had no idea even existed. So just things like taking kids from the learning classrooms and cross-pollinating them with other classes. So for the academic side, they might be in their IEPs but then they go for PE together with other kids. So they do project-based learning with other kids. I think we walked into one

130classroom that was doing project-based learning too. So it's just nice to see things on paper and then see them in real life and it's just commendable. So just continue to be amazed and thank you to all the stakeholders that are making this happen because it does take a village for sure. So. Thank you, Kim. Sure, I wanted to share about advocacy activity that I participated in this week was the California School Boards Association's state legislative week. And I joined a meeting with a staff person for assembly member, Diane Pappin. There were, I think, eight school districts from around the peninsula on the call. And CSBA gives us very neat and tidy talking points which we all share out, but there were a few that seemed pertinent to the budget conversation earlier. So one of them

131was pushing back on the governor's proposal to withhold the 1.6 billion in Prop 98 funding. So kind of seeing through this maneuver, this is his second time trying kind of an odd Prop 98 maneuver. So there's definitely organized pushback against that. It was interesting last year, CSBA took a more cautious tone in pushing back and this year they're just coming right out of the gate saying, uh-uh. And then advocacy around fully funding the COLA. And then they also talked about ensuring there's a proposed student support and professional development discretionary block grant. But unfortunately the language right now is not clear enough to show that this would be truly discretionary and would allow us to use it for any operational costs. So they're trying to get some clarification in the budget language to make that discretionary.

132Some of the other ones aren't as relevant to us. I was curious about two bills that are a package related to workforce housing, educational workforce housing. Those are AB 1021 and AB 1381, which would make it easier to establish workforce housing on your own property, going around some of the CEQA environmental regulations if you're infilling on your own property. And then the other would allow LEAs to access pre-development funding to begin planning for workforce housing, which could be an exciting opportunity for us. So those are some of the things I learned about. And then I think we've mentioned before, but Jennifer and I are going to the CSBA Coast to Coast Federal Advocacy Event in late April. So we will go as the emissaries from little Ben Carlos to learn what is happening on the

133other side of the country. Thank you, Dan, for talking about how teachers are feeling. And we wanna make sure that we are supporting our staff and our school community with the best information. So that's part of why we're going. Thank you. So some of the stuff I was gonna talk about has been covered, but yeah, I did wanna talk about ropes and how great it was. And that's my third year judging. And every year I'm always blown away by some projects. And I wanted to thank Ashley Brown. I actually judged on Wednesday and then saw her on Thursday in her classroom because I do healthy city tutoring in her classroom. And I was like, how is she still standing, right? Kind of through all that, but she was bright and energetic and able to be

134there for all her kindergartners. Just really impressed with her. And yeah, thank you to tech support. We had some tech issues in our classroom, really appreciated that. And all the people who came out to judge, the staff that came out to judge the teachers, the retired teachers, the community members, parents, all of that was just such a great event. I highly recommend it. Also wanted to highlight or be thankful for getting to interact with Cub Scout Den Hen from PAC 65 at our last board study session. They came to learn about elected officials. So that was really fun. I also wanted to say thank you to those who were involved with the study session on early literacy and reading Kim Nurgaard, Brenda Taylor and Terry McCann were put together a really insightful and educational study

135session for us. And I appreciate the extra work that I went into that and staying kind of pretty late into the evening for a Thursday. So personally, my son went on Westminster woods last week. And I just, again, that's another extra thing that teachers and staff do to ensure that our kids have a great outdoor classroom experience. And I'm just really thankful to have that in our district. Also went to Healthy Cities Tutoring's Perfect Pairings event, hearing very inspiring stories about the way that nonprofit, which we work closely with, has touched so many lives. So always a good event and to see so many people out there supporting such a good organization. I did also wanna talk about the fact that there is a lot happening. I mentioned this at the last board meeting, but

136since then, even more has happened at the federal level. And I wanted to read a little bit from a joint statement that was made by the California Department of Education and the State Board of Education. But this was back in February 21st. So things have actually moved even further. But I do think that the words as a short statement are, I think, relevant to making us feel a little more stable. So I'll go ahead and read that. It says, federal laws regarding public education remain unchanged as executive orders and memos cannot modify or override statutory requirements or regulations or unilaterally impose new terms on existing agreements. We advise continued compliance with state and federal laws and recommend that administrators and governing boards consult legal counsel regarding the impact of any potential federal actions. If federal

137laws or regulations do change, we will provide guidance and take action as needed in continued support of California students and local education agencies. California remains focused on moving the needle for student achievement, and we encourage all California educators, students, and families to remain focused on what is working in their local communities. So yeah, there's a lot being said, a lot of changes. And I think since just this past week, we're seeing real changes with reduced workforce, reduced funding, shuttering of offices, et cetera. And it can be unsettling, but at least our district, we're paying attention and we are preparing, as Ralph mentioned, as the nutrition program is an example of sort of, we are kind of sitting and continuing to do what we're doing, but we are thinking about things all the time and thinking

138about what the possible contingency plan may be. And of course, we're always committed to our core values and the strategic plan and serving each and every student and ensuring that they are receiving best education that we can provide. So with that, I'm done with my comments. Thank you. It's kind of a mic drop, but I also, I echo what Tracy and a lot of you are saying about our educators and how even in all this uncertainty and a lot of news that can be unsettling that our educators and with all their other things like grading and report cards, there are these small moments that are really amazing and I wanted to share two of them. Recently, I was at the Family History Project exhibit at BA. This is where second graders interview family members and

139prepare a narrative of the experiences of the family member and share both those and artifacts in a presentation style with people who come to visit. And I was just so touched by the stories and one will always stick with me was a student sharing the story of his great grandfather who joined and fought in World War II at the age of 17, ended up surviving the landing at Normandy and escaped through enemy lines. The student read this story to me, shared a photo of his dad on one of the boats or his great grandfather on the boat and then the flag that was used at his full military funeral after he led a long life. And I was so touched, I was talking with the student and over on the side, a hand reaches over

140him points and she says, and that's him and it was his mother and how these multi-generational experiences that our teachers are setting up are just such a beautiful thing. Even in the midst of all the things that those teachers had to do, a thank you to the second grade teachers, Ms. Layton, Ms. Mentor, Mr. Lanier and Mr. Zilmer. And then also today when I was with Trustee Hamurani at Heather, there was that shared project in an inclusive classroom and it was creating a community for leprechauns. And what was so special about this, somebody told me it used to be about trapping the leprechaun, but in true SEL full child manner, it is switched to building a community for the leprechauns and an inclusive community because it's a creative community that is accessible to all leprechauns.

141And so you have an inclusive classroom doing a project that is just so representative of something that makes us so special in St. Carlos. And if there's anything more to say, Assistant Superintendent Barber did want to shout out ropes because he had some statistics on how many people were involved and it was pretty amazing. Yeah, well, I mean, first of all, you've said a lot about ropes. The thing that we haven't said about ropes is that it's one of the signature practices that really makes our district unique. I don't know too many other districts that do anything that's anywhere near this. It's a huge undertaking. It is an extra thing that we have to have a staff member do. And last year when Ashley stepped up to say she wanted to try this, I was

142like, let's go. And then when she was renewing last summer, we were having, you're really gonna do this again? Yes, I was thrilled. And as you pointed out, it got bigger and better. And it doesn't get bigger and better without leadership. And that's why we're shouting her out is that she was leading the whole thing. She truly led it from beginning to end. The tech team was shouting out, yes, for sure. The teachers at CMS giving up their classrooms, right? There's all these things that have to happen in order for that event to just go seamlessly. And it was absolutely seamless, right? There were no issues. Most importantly, we had over, we had about 250 students who participated in one capacity or another and came in and out of that venue to do their thing

143and with excited parents. And we had, well, I wanna say we had 10 rooms and we had at least two in every room, at least two judges in every room. So that's a minimum of 60 judges. And I know that several rooms had three. So we're probably closer to 75 to 80 judges from the community, from teachers, from classified staff, from retired teachers, community members, just truly a display of the beautiful community that we have here in San Carlos. So, yes, of course we shout out Ashley and we shout out everybody that was involved. Just an incredible project and I'm not done. There's still one more short session for students that were in the play on those three evenings. And so we're doing another one. I think it's next Wednesday, we have five or six

144projects that we're gonna go to. And Ashley is so great to remember that and make sure that those students have a chance to also participate. So shout out to everybody and thank you so much for all of your support as well. Four of you were judges and Q, you'll have plenty of years. Yeah. Yeah. That's true. We didn't judge this year, I'm sorry. You've done it in the past. My husband. Your husband. Okay, so with that, the board will now go into closed session to discuss items 13A, B, C, and D as listed on the agenda. Is there any public comment on closed session items? Okay, the board will now adjourn to closed session.