SCSD Regular Board Meeting 04-14-2022

001Okay. Good evening, everybody. This is, I am calling to order this Thursday, April 14th, 2022, the Board of Education Regular Board Meeting for the San Carlos School District. First thing is we want to get approval of the agenda and check if there are any changes. And I do believe that there are changes, so. I have a couple of changes proposed just based off of timing issues. I would ask we move 6A to after consent. And we also move 5C to after 6A. Just to ensure, I think those are some topics that allow ourselves enough time for it. So I propose we move those up front. Thank you, Trustee Leyland. With those proposed, are there any other changes to the agenda? Yes, we are asking that we remove 5B, draft 2022-2023 budget assumptions. With recent information

002CFGONG is asking that we review and revise before we present this to board. Okay, so we will eliminate 5B, we'll make 5C, 5A, and we'll move 6A to after consent. Do I hear a second on this motion? I second. Thank you, Trustee Cronnell. And all those approve the agenda? Aye. Aye, any opposed? Okay, revised agenda is approved. We'd like to start off this evening with our special recognition event with a spotlight on our PTAC and CDAC, Dr. Frances. Thank you. I am so excited for this opportunity to celebrate more of our partners. We've been doing this the last couple of meetings. I know that we already have talked a lot about our CDAC and the good work they do, but because some special events happened recently, we'd like to recognize them. And we would also

003like to call out our PTAC and our PTA. They've been just really important partners to us this year in all of the work that we do. And so without further ado, I will be turning it over to my colleague, Suzanne Fast. I believe she is virtual and live and ready. Good evening, everyone. Thank you for letting me join you this evening. Yeah, I'm here to talk about PTAC and PTA. PTAC or PTA Coordinating Council is such an important place. Its mission is to positively impact the lives of all children and families, which is really the mission for all of us here in San Carlos. They are a separate entity responsible for fostering coordination and collaboration across all San Carlos PTA units and the community at large, including CDAC, which we'll hear a little bit more

004about as well. If we look at PTAC and what they really do, they really help create equity across the district. They provide a forum for all PTAs to collaborate and communicate with one another so that we all are aware of what's happening at each PTAs at each of our school sites and that we can share in the joy that each one brings and that we can also learn from each other and bring events district-wide to create more equity. They also seek ways to leverage best practices, improve efficiencies and reduce PTA costs when practical. I think the biggest part really is providing a leadership role and a voice for education in the community. In a lot of ways, they are a sounding board. PTAC is made up not only with the PTA presidents of all the

005different PTAs. Principals also attend as does the superintendent, as does the leaders of SCAF and Healthy Cities and Chickensball. So it's really an opportunity to really be a sounding board for community events and also to listen to any concerns that might be out there in the community in a way that we can kind of brainstorm and share information together. They also work to create plans of action around chosen advocacy areas and really help to identify and address district-wide issues. During the pandemic, they were really instrumental in helping families around the district by collecting and distributing gift cards, shopping for those who needed support and receiving grants both from the San Carlos Community Foundation and the San Carlos Rotary Club. Currently, we've been working on a joint effort with the PTAC and SCAF to examine just

006fundraising. Is there a better way that we can fundraise together? Right now, we've been fundraising separately between PTAs and SCAF. And so right now, there's a joint effort going on with PTAC to examine really if there's a way to streamline this process and experience for donors and improve the outcomes for all involved. And so PTAC's really a great place just to really listen to all concerns and be able to share and really highlight everything that goes on in the community and to really impact the lives of all children and families. And made up of PTAC, of course, is our wonderful PTA president. And the PTAs to me is truly worthy that kind of action happens. That's where family engagement really is critical. And as we know, engaged families lead to greater success for students in

007school. And it's so wonderful to meet with our PTAs. I have meetings twice a month with my PTA leadership. And we really talk about what are different ways that we can really involve our community. And they work to fundraise and implement those events with the helps of countless volunteers that are there. And we have such events such as book fairs and talent shows and welcome day events, fun rounds and fairs. I say Stampede and SOAR happened this past weekend and it was a fabulous event that took over kind of that Burton Park area. It was wonderful to see. And then we had yesterday at Britton Acres, we had a wonderful multicultural event that was really put on by our PTA. And it was just wonderful. We highlighted all kinds of different snacks and cuisine from

008around the world. Students had a little passport and traveled through different stations. We held it after school, so parents were invited and encouraged to attend along with their children. And it was a wonderful event to bring us all together. And that's really what the PTA to me does a lot of is just those community building events. They also though do a lot more. So they also work to provide staff and support through different, you can go to the next slide for me, if you don't mind. They can provide support through different enrichment programs. So they're very supportive of providing funding for arts, residents or art in action that happens at different schools. Our STEAM program is funded by our PTAs. They also bring in lots of assemblies through the various sites. And then really this

009year, we have really been focused on our DEIB initiatives and they have been instrumental in helping fund and support and increase in funding, for example, purchasing books so that teachers can increase their DEI books in the classrooms and allow more opportunities for students to really see themselves in books. And then also helping to provide some outside community events that really support to make sure that everyone feels like a belonging. And then of course, our promotional events. As our third graders move on to fourth grade or fifth graders go on to sixth and our eighth graders graduate, they really are helpful in providing funding to allow those promotional events to take place. And then kind of finally, the last thing I do and they do so much, is really that staff and school day support. So

010they provide teacher classroom grants. They have principal funds for those kind of needed things that pop up that aren't necessarily budgeted, but are things that we typically might need to provide support for. They have great principal funds that allow us. I think staff appreciation is a great, wonderful opportunity for them that they provide. We have monthly lunches that are put on by the PTA. And I don't think you should ever underestimate the value of a good lunch for teachers. And so it's really nice to be recognized at least once a month with a nice luncheon that the PTA puts on for us. And then they help with site beautification projects, whether that's murals around the school or cleanup days. They are so instrumental in just helping keep our schools running. And overall, they are just

011such a great community partner with us. And I don't know how I could do my job and be there to continue to keep our families engaged and with all the wonderful community building without the PTA. So I just wanted to give a big shout out for PTAC and all the members of that, but also to all our individual PTAs, both its boards and all the volunteers who help in countless ways. Thank you so much, Principal Fast. I will say that this year, especially their thought leadership has been pretty amazing. We use PTAC, Hans and I, for just key challenges around calendar, now schedules, any number of events. And it has really made a difference in building understanding and having that kind of concept feedback. Now we're going to exhibit and talk about CDAC and Megan

012Didier, thank you. Yeah, thank you for the opportunity to highlight CDAC, our Special Education District Advisory Council, and the Amazing Ability Awareness Week that they hosted the week of March 7th. And a couple of our representatives are on Zoom tonight, our CDAC representatives, Tricia Leibis, Judy Wu, Beth Lingard, Kate Finnegan and Christy Wegner put together very engaging activities to increase student understanding and compassion for everyone's unique abilities. So they put on activities that were for district wide. They worked with the school librarians to showcase books around all abilities and to choose read alouds for the week that highlighted different abilities of people. The teachers were provided with lessons which allowed students the chance to walk in someone else's shoes. And parents were given a list of resources such as movies they could watch with their

013children or books to read that highlighted characters with unique abilities. Slide. And then at the elementary schools, we purchased books by Simon Calvecchia and his books have themes of inclusion, kindness and never giving up. And then CDAC also created a slideshow for teachers to teach lessons to accompany the books that were purchased. And then at our Heather School Learning Centers and LEAP Preschool, they had a visit from Jasper Ridge Farms. You can see these pictures here, but our students had a chance to work with animals that are used to having people with different abilities, hold them and pet them. So they're sort of therapeutic animals. So as you can see, our students were very happy to have the opportunity to spend some time with the animals at Heather. And then at the upper elementary, we

014brought canine companions to Arroyo and Tamariposa separately. And canine companions has guide dogs and therapy with dogs. And they did a demonstration of the different things that these dogs can do to assist individuals with various physical and mental differences. And the students were very engaged. They loved seeing the dogs. Some of them got to come up and interact with the dogs. So it was a really great event for our four or five schools. And then at the middle school, we did a joint Zoom assembly with Alex Plasky. He's a motivational speaker who is quadriplegic. And then there were follow-up activities in the advisories that week, where students again were able to reflect and talk more about the lessons learned from Mr. Plasky. And then in the PE classes, the PE teachers designed different stations where

015students were able to experience what it was like to have a different learning experience or different ability. So thank you to CDAC for putting on yet another amazing Ability Awareness Week. These moms are awesome. They put in so much hard work to make it a great event for all of our students. Thank you so much. I appreciate that. The inclusive practices that they are helping promote through Ability Awareness Week is pretty amazing. Just watching some of those activities and helping with our DEIB initiative a very real tactical way. So back to you. Thank you. At this point, we are at four, item four, consent agenda. These are items that are typically routine and matter. So we approve them en masse. Do I hear approval for items four A through four L? Moved to approve four

016A through four L, consent agenda. Thank you, Neil. I second. Thank you, Wendy. And all those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? So consent agenda passes five zero. So at this point, we are now moving to item six A, which is the vacancy and board reorganization. Yes, it's with sadness that I share the news that our beloved trustee, Irene Chen, due to personal circumstances and with regret has decided to resign her post from the board. I expect that what will follow here is sharing of options and some reorganization, but I did wanna give a moment to Ms. Chen if there was something she'd like to say in addition to what I've expressed. I, while I will save most of my remarks for the end of the evening under board member comments, I wanted to just say

017that this is purely personal in nature. It is due to kind of concerns for some family issues that I just found it to be really necessary to take a very hard look and step back at this point. After six and a half years, I wanna say that truly I think that this district is in the best shape I've ever seen it. We have incredibly strong leadership with both Hans and Dr. Frentes. With Dr. Frentes, I am seen and focused on equity with and she's thinking all kids, each and every kid. We've had renewed collaboration with our labor partners, restoring kind of more trust and collaboration across our district. Two, we're in the strongest financial position we have ever been in. And this board and Dr. Frentes' leadership is using our stronger financial condition to make

018sure we can attract and maintain our workforce. And we know that for our kids, what matters is that we have the best teachers and staff possible. And now we are in a better position that we can do that. And thirdly, this team is healthy and aligned. And so I know that although I am going to miss being here, I know that our students and staff are in great shape. So I think at this point we really, my last official day is tomorrow. So I think the order of business right now is we need to just kind of reorganize ourselves, reorganize the team, and then we'll address the big question. Thank you. Yeah. In light of Trustee Chen's resignation, the governing board must elect a new board chair. The chair will be chosen from among the

019remaining board members and will serve. Thank you. It's giving you a very, very interesting effect. It's like I'm good like, you know, with the president. Thank you. The chair will be chosen from among the remaining board members and will serve until the board's reorganization later this year. Any trustee who is present may nominate a fellow trustee or nominate him or herself to serve as the chair. A nominee may decline nomination. No second is required for a nomination. So are there any nominations for chair? I'd like to make a nomination for Neil Leighton to resume the position of president of the board, which he previously held. Neil did a great job steering us through the superintendent transition. And also he's an elected member of the board. And I think that that's important to make sure that

020the voice of the people are best represented. And my understanding is that whoever's chosen in December timeframe, there would be another opportunity for reshuffling or reorganizing after the election. Thank you. Are there any other nominations? Hearing no further nominations, we will now hold an election for chair. Election is by majority vote of the trustees present at today's meeting. Is there a motion? I move to approve Neil as chair. Any discussion? Then all in favor, please note by saying aye. Aye. Aye. So at this point, we would change chairs and Irene will exchange with Neil. And I think Neil also has a few things he'd like to say. Take all my stuff. Bye, neighbor. I'm back at the end again. So Irene, if you look at your chair to the right now, you'll see a gift

021we got for you. You know, we've changed over a bit, but when I first started on the board a long time ago, Irene had mentioned when she first got on the board, she went to CSBA and she learned so much. You know, such a valuable experience to meet other people. It was like her long time goal of like board work to get people back on the board to CSBA. This year, we in six and a half years was the first year that we got everyone to CSBA. That was the first time I think we got anyone to CSBA, more than like one person at a time. So we wanted to commemorate that with you. I know it's hard often in this job to think back and think about like goals that you've achieved because a

022lot of them are teamwork, but I think for you, this is at least one you can look at as a giant goal to remember some of the little things you did to achieve in this kind of big picture thing. So I hope you hang it on your wall proudly, or if not, we'll still think it's hanging on your wall proudly. We also know that this is a family affair, so we got something for you and your family as well and we're gonna be happy to have dinner, but after six years, feel free to use it all in drinks because it has not been an easy six and a half years at that time. I think the one thing, well, all of us will save a little bit more for board comments, but what I think

023I want the public to know is that none of this was easy for you. We all know that you have been worked tirelessly for this district from the beginning, from when your kids entered to now, and you care about it greatly. As personal as it is for you, I know you will not be leaving, so we thank you for everything you've done. We hope you don't forget about us. I'm sure you may not be logging in as much, but take a peek at the agenda every now and then just to make sure it's still going in the right direction. Thank you. This is beautiful. I love it. All right, so I know we have some other business to do as well in regards to this. We have to now figure out, with Irene's last day

024being tomorrow, we're faced with some options on how we fill the seats going forward. It gets tricky because there's an election in November, but I think Jennifer will lay out all the options for us, and then as a board, we're gonna have to discuss what we wanna do. So there's essentially two options. The effective date of Irene's nomination starts, or resignation starts a clock of 60 days where we have to decide between a provisional appointment or calling a special election. The reason we have 60 days is that the county superintendent who did send us a note of having received a notice from Irene of her resignation, that after 60 days, then it's her responsibility to support us in a solution. So that gives us a couple of months to decide whether or not we want

025to hold a special election or if we want to provisionally appoint someone. Both Veronica and I have been in conversations with both the elections office and with county council about this because there are a certain number of days normally that would count towards the next election, but because this is an election year and it is so close, we would not in fact have to hold a special election. It would be in November that that person would run if that's what we elect to do, which is hold a special election for the appointment. If we chose to do that, we would operate as a four member board until the election results were verified and then that fifth member would join us. Is there something I am leaving out Veronica from that description? Okay, so for the

026provisional appointment, just because that's been done a couple of different ways with the present board and that's not unlike other boards as well. Sometimes the provisional appointment is made because there isn't an election year and the election process can be quite costly if there isn't an election year. It's an election year that's shared between all the districts. Nevertheless, whether it is made because there isn't an election year or because no one runs and that can also happen that there isn't anyone running for the seats, then there's a provisional appointment. Regardless, there's a process and our board has gone through that process. It does involve an application process. So we would do an recruitment, broad recruitment. Thankfully, we're in a position right now where we have a lot of subcommittees going, but there's a lot of

027different, I mean, we talked about PTAC earlier. We've got a lot of ways that we would recruit. There's an application process. There is a vetting process whereby we bring candidates to the board of trustees for consideration and then we select someone. I would invite anyone, any present company who's gone through this, they could even talk about this. And Irene, I know that you have been on the board when there have been appointments and I know it's been done differently the last couple of times based on the available board documents that support it. So I'll just open it up to any conversation or questions about that. Then I would defer to persons who've gone through that before so that they can also explain what a provisional appointment looks like. A clear friend question, are we gonna

028make a vote tonight on which to do or we are going to take the 60 days and then decide? So we have options there and it's really the will of the board on this because we have time in those 60 days. If we wanted, we could even, you know, call a special board meeting. We did have a 428 meeting previously that was canceled so we could come back and talk about timeline, process, et cetera. We could decide tonight. If we needed more time to noodle on this, we could wait till the May board meeting and decide. The only consideration I would say is that, you know, provisional appointment will take some time because of the application process and the appointment, but it's my understanding if we chose that that we could essentially go beyond the

02960 days because that's our choice and we're in the process of selecting. Am I saying that right? Veronica, if we choose to do a provisional appointment that we could start that and it might in fact occur in June and that would be fine? No. So we have to do, we have clock starts on the 15th. So basically we have till June 15th a provisional appointment within that 60 day window. If we don't do it within the 60 day window, it automatically will default to a special election. In this case, because the election is within November, within 130 days or whatever it is, it will automatically default to the general election if we didn't get an appointment within the 60 days. So the process we would have to go through is tonight, we have to decide

030on whether we want to appoint or have a special election. So if we decide to appoint, we need to get a timeframe on what we want to do that. We can do that tonight. In the past, what we've done is if we decided we're going to appoint, we'd usually call a special meeting for next week and then we go through more detailed process of setting dates, specifically we want to get back. We have time tonight to have that discussion and see if we can set dates, if that's what we choose to do. If we choose not to do it, then the issue will be should we go to a special election? Should we choose a special election? Then it's just automatically default to November. Go ahead. Neil and Dr. Prentice. So this is my understanding,

031let's see if we think. Let's call provisional appointment option A and special election option B. This board could decide to go straight to option B. So what option B looks like is we announce that there's going to be a special election to fill this vacancy. A member of our community would pull papers in June, July for the election and stand for election in November. The consequence of that is that there is a four person board until you get the election results. That's the consequence. You could choose to do A and B, which is to say we've run rigorous processes in the past. You could start that process very soon. Appoint somebody as we've appointed Wendy and Sarah. We were very rigorous when we pointed you to, Ben, but there wasn't another person that had volunteered

032when you volunteered. So with Wendy and Sarah, there was like 13 different candidates and we had to interview them and make them a selection. Then that provisional appointee might also decide to stand for election and stand for election in November. And the pro of this is you would find somebody and we could be a five person board through November. And then in November, you know, again, the results of the election. Option B, or disable them. So Irene's term ends in 2024. If we provisionally appoint somebody, are they through 2024 or they would automatically be up for election? So if you appoint someone, Irene, correct me if I'm wrong, if you appoint someone, that person, that seat is still gonna be up for a two year term in November's election. So no matter what, if you

033appoint someone, that person would still have to run for that seat for just a two year term. Yes. And then it's back on schedule again. Then run again two years after that. Yeah, correct. Yeah, that's what I was worried about is it being like having these like big flip elections. You're not, yep. Questions concerned. Question, in your history, have you had this circumstance where you had a vacancy for three or four months? Like what would the impact of that be, do you foresee as a board president? You mean if we were just four people instead of five? I mean, the issue that you foresee is you just never know what could be controversial or what could come up and then you're at a deadlock. So things could not be passed or things may not go

034through right with your two-two on an item. It just, that's it, it dies. You know, what that requires then is it just requires a lot more work from the board to make sure everyone's up to date on everything, to make sure you're in touch with the superintendent, to make sure you're in touch with everyone on the forehand and the board. And so that you can come to some consensus, right? It may not be the exact consensus, but that's the fear. In the history of this board, have we ever had contentious items that I think have got there? No. Do I see anything in the future coming up? Probably not, if that's the case. I mean, if you're asking my own personal opinion, it's probably better to always have five people just to get more diversity

035of opinions and diversity of experiences going forward. And it also provides a good opportunity to, I mean, you know, I think you two could pray or you three would be great, so. It's fine. Yeah, you'll get there, Ben, don't worry. But, so yeah, I think those are, you know, and sometimes it gets, I think the three of you all said during your appointment process that, I don't know if I ever would have ran. So it also brings in a different person in that regard. My concern is that, one of my concerns is that it's a lot to potentially have on someone's plate to go through an appointment process and then an election process. And obviously the person who would be appointed wouldn't necessarily then have to choose to go through the election process, but presumably

036if someone's going to go through the process of applying to be appointed, they're interested in being on the board for more than three months. So I'm concerned about, you know, whether there would be people willing to volunteer for that, because it is, I mean, the appointment process is a lot and it's intimidating and so is running an election. So to do have to do both within the span of a few months seems like a lot to ask. I guess I would just kind of admit, I admit it's a lot to ask, but I also think it's like from a board's perspective is we can go down the appointment process and then should no one apply or should you get candidates that you don't have to appoint anyone, right? Then you just don't meet your timeline

037that rolls over your special election. You know, the flip side of that is the fact that we've gotten before is that we have one more appointed member of the board, but the argument to that is, well, we're just trying to maintain or anything else to make sure that we can, you know, function as a board for a major year, no matter what, someone's still going to have to run. So that person would be elected. I have a couple of just clarifying procedural questions. So let me go for the fall election. Will there be, so my understanding is three of the four of us are up for election. And then there's one more slot that would be a two-year appointment. So on the ballot, would it appear to be three slots for a four-year appointment and

038one slot for a two-year appointment? And a candidate would have to decide which slot they would run for? Technically, you're going to have three, three for four-year appointments and two for two-year appointments. For all five seats are on the ballot. All five seats are on the ballot. All five are on the ballot. Because Wendy took over, or Wendy took over for the open seat that was, when Irene was last elected. Okay, I was reading the website, it said you were on to 2024. Technically, she is. Yeah, okay. And so all five are open. And if I, as a candidate, not Ben, somebody else says, I want to apply for spots, do I have to decide whether I want the four-year or the two-year? Correct. That's a really complicated decision matrix for a candidate. It wouldn't

039be the top five people who get votes and then cascading in order of 4442 or something like that. That's not how it would be. No. So you can run for two offices at the same time. You cannot, correct. So even though we don't represent areas, it's a specific seat that you're... You represent a specific timeframe. So just a little of my thinking is part of the benefit of this is recruiting a candidate. I'm not sure, but I thought you ran on a post last time, is that right? So I ran on a post for the appointments. And I know that it was a really contentious set of nominations for the two of you. And I wonder whether times have changed in terms of people's, I don't know. It's really speculative, because in other parts of

040the country, everybody wants to be on the school board. But my view is that having really good quality candidates, even if one of us lost the election, quality candidates are what the citizens deserve. And so finding ways to get quality candidates into the process is a net benefit. And like Neil said, if there aren't any quality candidates, then it auto kicks to a four. So as much as I don't think personally, the forum for the deadlock issue is likely to be something that we experienced we're good at working things out, like talking it through or sending it back and getting it back. But I do think it would be really a shame if there weren't candidates running for each of the spots. Or in the general election, the only qualifying factor is somebody did their

041paperwork to get on the board. So are you advocating for an appointment process? Yeah, I'm advocating for an appointment process. Well, I would say I'm open-minded still. I haven't made up my mind, but how I'm thinking about it just how it would play out is that I agree with your point that it would be hard for somebody to join and then also run. But in a way, that's one of our challenges is getting people to run for a two-year spot. Who would wanna put all the effort in? And then they get a two-year appointment spot only to run two years later. Whereas if you have somebody who's in, that's in the team and thinking about the district, it could be a really great stepping stone for them. And I also do think about diversity, equity,

042and inclusion. And we can talk about what our framework is for selecting people. Often people from marginalized communities have trouble accessing the democratic process or understanding how the different compliance steps works. I mean, for me, just to figure out how to fill out forms and participate, it took a lot of guidance and social capital from peers. So just thinking, hey, we've got an opportunity here to bring somebody on the board that could be a team member going forward. So that's kind of where I'm at. But it's also a lot of work and we all have a lot on our plate. And maybe the other thing I think about is how much work would this be for you, Dr. Frentress, and for the team? Is this a big expense to run that process and a lot

043of time? It's board work. I ran it the last two times. So it will be this time me and hopefully you because I recruited Sarah last time because I liked the person who went through the process before to improve on it. So that would be my request if that's where we go. But it's board work more than it's staff work. I think, I mean, and correct me if I'm wrong, Dr. Frentress or Irene or Neil, but even if we don't have an appointment process and the seat is open in November, I assume we would still have information sessions and the various ways that the word would be spread that there's a seat and various ways that people would be encouraged to run. And so there wouldn't just, an appointment process is not the only way

044to do many of the things that you mentioned. And I think, I mean, ultimately this is intended to be a board of officials elected by their community, not less chosen by each other. And I agree with you. I'm not that, I mean, there is a risk of having four of us, but I think we have such a strong working relationship that I don't foresee, obviously we can't foresee everything, but I don't foresee that being a challenge. I do think with the work there is to be done, obviously it's easier if there are five of us to spread the load and share the load than four, but I don't know, I have a hard time justifying going through an appointment process when there's an election so soon. And the person would still be in a two

045year term kind of regardless of how they, I'm sure. Yeah, I just wanna piggyback off of that because I think we have received criticism for having appointment, a lot of appointment processes. We have, it's been based on need and cost that we proceeded with doing those when they came about. Cost is a very, yeah, yeah, cost of special election. So, but I think I would be more apt for A plus B, but sorry, but given that we're so close to this election, a general election, if we think that it won't hinder us, for example, if we were, I think we should think about what do we plan on kicking off in the fall not to say that if there was an appointment process, I mean, that person would have to go up for special election,

046they might not stay. So there's that possibility that there's not continuity of that person, that could be an outcome, but I'm just throwing out, what is the pros and cons here? And if there is work that, a heavy lift that we wanted to do in the, starting in August, really having that extra person at the table to start a strategic planning process or something like that. Or, I mean, I won't say hiring someone new that we would have to hire, but we went through hiring you and without five, that would have been impossible, it would have been really, really hard. So anyways, I'm just throwing out some of those scenarios of what we might think about and the pros and cons. I heard both of you and in one, I wanted to agree with you,

047but then I heard you kind of arguing for let's just go for the special election and not do the appointment process. I'm sort of leaning more towards that, given some of the, honestly, the time commitment, both on the board's part and the individual's part. And I think if we put into place a very clear, transparent process in terms of, for a special election, for informational sessions and things like that, because I think that has been the biggest benefit of the appointment process is the information sharing, I think in people having the opportunity to get to know what it means to be a board trustee and we set up all those meetings. So I'll pause there and see where people are at. Irene, you were gonna say something. No, good points. I wanted to respond, Sarah,

048to some of your thoughts about the candidate experience. It makes a lot of sense to think, is it additional work? I do think that anybody who's serious about pulling papers in the summer to stand for a two-year term, it wouldn't really be that extra daunting to go through an appointment process, because fundamentally, you're just writing down on an application why you want to, and it forces you to think. And it's all the thoughts that you need to go through to figure out, do you want the job? Why are you doing it? And explaining it to people. So I don't think it's incremental work for the candidate so much as it's some incremental work for the board. And the reasons, again, are you'd have five members between now and November, basically to help you with getting

049to like, just like grappling with decisions, better input, better decision, even if it's not a two-two situation, looking at it from all sides. The timeline can leave, because it wouldn't be now until November, and the soonest we could have someone appointed is what? June. June-ish. So it's August, September, October, the rest of this school year, as of November 4, no matter what. So you're, no, that's good. So that incremental work to have somebody, July, June onwards, which is August, September, October, November. I think my fear, my biggest fear is that it was like, no one goes for that spot, or that it's kind of the only requirement is finding the paperwork rather than going through the thought process. But I, like what Wendy was saying, like, rather than some abstract, you know, we'll recruit people,

050like committing to a process of information sessions and so on, would be really important. I do, you know, with five seats open, it just feels like a really important, like whether it's appointed or whether we're recruiting folks to participate just feels really important. And I'm just thinking about all the gains we've had with the new leadership, some of the great gains with our labor partners, all of that stability of the board would be really, you know, a key component going into the fall. So that's where my concern is coming from. The only thing I want to add, because the question came up a couple of times, is that in January and February, Trustee Chen did work with Veronica and the election office to detail a process for information sessions. So kind of the points that

051everybody's raising about how would we build awareness of the seats and the application process. And we do have a plan for that, that was prepared before we knew that we would have this vacancy. And that would happen regardless. So it's really important that we allow the public to know, what does it mean to be a board member? Like, how would you go through the process sort of to the point of, it is daunting the paperwork process and, you know, pulling papers is kind of an esoteric term that not everyone would understand. But we did have a process that we were prepared to execute pretty soon of how you would build the informational session. Now, pivoting that to a provisional appointment is board work that we'd have to talk about. But regardless, we would expect to

052hold those informational sessions for the other seats that are open in the fall. Yeah, we're basically accelerating what we do already, but maybe a month and a half. So most people- When do people have to pull papers by? June, July, I think it's July 1st, it's the first time you can pull papers. Then you have till August, maybe the first week in August. Pulling papers, what that means is you go to the county office of elections and you're filing the paperwork to stand for election in November. Yeah, so it's not- Sorry, I mean, I think a lot of it just is more along the lines of, I don't, I guess my general thought is I'm incredibly low risk, right? So in my incredibly low risk environment, I'm always gonna take the, have five to make

053sure things can be settled. That's just me, just in general. So that's where I stand with it. I think it also takes away uncertainty for staff in the sense of that they can, they know some decision has to be made instead of it just kind of dying sometimes, although despite, I understand how we all work together well in those regards. So that's just my opinion. And I guess I always look in the sense of we can do it and try it. And if the board doesn't approve the appointee or doesn't approve an appointee, then it just defaults the election anyway. The other option is for people to think about it. We can sit here and just talk about some dates and kind of work backwards. And if you guys, we can have a special next

054week, announcements will come out. And if people, the public weighs in one way or the other, then I can maybe weigh your opinion on what you'd like to do then. But we can set up the process tonight of knowing what it would be and then officially vote on it next week as well if people need more time. So one of the other things, another option for me. Is it the four of us deciding or do you also? She gets a vote. But if we decide next week, she doesn't. Correct. Oh. She's tested out the four. Our first split vote right off the bat. I feel like I could go either way, so. I guess one thing I do, I probably should call for, I don't see any public comment online, I'll call the public comment

055on Zoom. I don't see any hands raised. Give people a chance. That'll answer that question. So no public comment. You know, we kind of got to make a direction then of what we want to do. We can't let it just sit by the wayside and go somewhere. So I'll take a motion if you want to have some motions, if you want to do it, if you want more time to discuss, let's keep discussing. Or if you want to work, I guess the other process would be just, do you want to sit here and think about like what the process would be in terms of, like if we were calendaring it, just looking at the calendar, we'd have to shoot what's called the 14th, just to be on the safe side, to get it done before

056then. So we'd probably be looking at an appointment last week of May, first week of June, so we can do two things. So we need to, the subcommittee would have to ratify the questions. Subcommittee would work, we'd appoint the subcommittee. We have a majority of the questions from last time and then we'd review the process together for the forums. That would be done at subcommittee work. And then we'd have to figure out what the process is going to be. So we've done it two ways. One time is you can do it either one way where the subcommittee can bring the candidate forward. So the subcommittee can interview all the candidates and bring them forward. Or there can't, there's no, basically there's no, like you can't cut people out, right? So you can't, but if we've

057got 15 people apply, you either have to hear every 15 at an open board meeting or you have to just bring one person forward. There's no way between. So we have to have a special meeting sometime around that first week of June because we're set to meet the 9th and the 16th, potentially the 23rd, but hopefully we get it all done by the 9th and 16th. So that person would be appointed. Then you could push it up if you really wanted to do it. Last time we've done traditionally two information sessions. So we'd probably try to get one done end of this month. And then first week of May with the applications starting the 9th, week of the 9th, and then running sometime the week of the 16th. So we can give ourselves posted for

058two weeks, maybe depending on how much recruitment we need, give ourselves time to post it that Monday, the review for our special meeting or we can give ourselves more time and post it earlier. It just depends, but that's kind of the timeframe you're looking at in those regards. I think it'd have to be pretty accelerated because I'm just gonna say mid late June is not gonna be ideal at all. We have to do it by June. Yeah, we have a deadline. Yeah, we have to inform the county office by June. Well, didn't you say if it was in process? Well, no, Anil or Irene, one of you corrected that. It has to be done within the 60 days. I thought we had to decide within 60, but we have to execute within 60. Yeah, we

059have to appoint within 60. So Sarah, I wanna be here with what your thinking is like based on what you've heard, what's your... I mean, I guess one thing is when we think about that too, is whoever, if we do appoint fall, it's you gotta look at it from a fall perspective, mainly, right? Because the rest of this year for them is a wash. Yeah. Participate. Yeah, I mean, I was gonna say, I think we appointed you. And this whole year's been a wash, sorry. Just kidding. I mean, I see, I understand the arguments for both options. I think I come down on the side of not appointing. I feel like your arguments are very persuasive. And Wendy's add on of like, if we do all the work to integrate somebody into the team, there's

060a possibility that they decide not to run or... So, I mean, I kind of started, I don't wanna miscommunicate. Like I started off thinking, being a little bit more biased towards the A, but I feel like as we walked through practically, I'm gonna be more towards the B. I mean, I was listening to you about just representation. I get that like having representation is what you want for a board. It's complete representation. But I think in this circumstance, I think defaulting to going for the general election, I think, yeah, I think I'm leaning towards that. Like just doing B. And I think, again, we're gonna have a number of information sessions. Yeah, I mean, what you just pointed out, what I was saying that there's a possibility that if we did the appointment and there

061might not be continuity for that person after all. And yeah, so that's where I'm at. Irene, do you have other thoughts? We had the mantra of restorative restart for this year. And so you can have the mantra of common study, just common study. So which option to use? And I think you can do, I think you could execute option B under common study. And it's also like, what do we wanna spend our time doing in the process or really gearing up for an office? Like this last fall was really like, that was our team. And now we could actually create a really exciting, uplifting theme for the next fall. That was what our board was doing. Jennifer, you get to say, you can share your view. Well, I think everyone is aware already how much

062work there is with five board members. And I've heard folks reference strategic planning, facilities master planning, and those kinds of things that are happening, the policy review. But none of you have shied away from the responsibilities. And so, I feel like I've heard measured balance consideration that sways me with every speaker, which doesn't surprise me because it's consistent with how we've been this year. And I will support the will of the board because I feel confident that the remaining members and our broader leadership team of PTAC and labor partners, central office personnel, school leaders, that we are a team that all pulls together and does the work and shares the work. And I look forward to whether it's an appointment process or the general election, whichever you decide, that our recruitment will be broad and

063encouraging because serving on this board has been a great, great joy for me as part of the team. And so, I'll just be a cheerleader in the public square, getting people to run and teaching them how to pull the papers. So, I'll go with whatever you all decide. I mean, my general category, like I said, I'm always gonna default to do the appointment process as someone who's tried to recruit many people to run and be appointed. I think the more you're out there doing it, the better. That's just my own general opinion. Is it something that I think is gonna, if it didn't work out that way for an appointment, do I think it would hurt us? And does it also have its own set of risks that can be a situation where one person

064who does wanna be appointed for the seat may not be someone that we know would gel with us. That's also a risk as well. So, I'm happy to go along with the will of everyone else. But I guess the question before, if we take a motion or vote is, do you need more time to think about it, let people weigh in between now and next week, or do you wanna make a decision tonight? And if you wanna make a decision tonight, just make the motion and then we'll just go from there. If you want more time, then we can table it and pick a date next week to take. I'd like to make a motion to vote on it tonight. Go ahead. I move to go forward with a special election in the fall. All

065right. Thank you, Wendy. Is there a second of 6A to default to the special election, which will be in November of 2022 for a two-year term? I'll second. Second. All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right. Five, zero. It's good, everyone, because it gives you more time to think if you need to come back. Okay. We are now then gonna move to five C, our DEIB update just for timing-wise. So I believe that's to you, Jennifer. Actually, this is to Assistant Superintendent Barber. All right. Well, thank you, Neil and Jennifer. And out there in space, I do see our presenters tonight. We have the pleasure of two of our subcommittee leaders, giving an update on DEIB instead of it being myself or Jennifer or Sarah or Wendy. We really thought it was

066a great opportunity to allow the subcommittee leaders to do this. So tonight we have with us Jen Lau and Annabel Ortiz, who are going to present us with an update as far as our work and specifically focused on their work in their subcommittees. So Annabel and Jen, are you out there and are you ready? Yes, I'm here. I'm here, too. Could we put up the slides? I can do that. I actually wasn't sure whether you were going to do it, but I can do that. And good evening, everyone. I'd like to let Jen go first and let her tell you a little bit about herself and her role in our community. Thanks, Annabel. So hi, everyone. My name is Jen Lau. I'm a parent here in San Carlos and I have two kids, one at

067Central and one at Britton Acres. And I fairly recently joined the steering committee, the DEIB steering committee, and I'm co-leading the Subcommittee on Discipline and Achievement, which you'll hear a little bit more about in a few minutes. And hi, again, my name is Annabel. I'm one of the SPED teachers within our district. I started volunteering with kind of a group that had a DEIB background where we were talking about what was happening in our community. And then the group, the steering committee was established and I was so excited to volunteer. And today I actually volunteered to present because of Jen, because she brings in a lot of enthusiasm and she's very positive and she's knowledgeable. And so I'm really thankful to her and all the things she has brought into our group. So the DEIB

068in the San Carlos School District is a diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging group. Next slide, Hans. All right, so let's just start our update. Since the last, since this past year, we've actually established a mission and vision. I think it was presented already to the board, but just so that the community knows that we didn't have a language, a universal language within the district. And so with the help of inclusion counts and the steering committee, our group was able to establish a mission, which so just to summarize where the school district commits to the values of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging in our educational practices. With our goal is to incorporate diverse perspective within the five Cs, which the school district was already implementing so that every student feels the help of others, feel safe, valued,

069respected, affirmed, and included and connected. And then goes along with our vision for our whole school district in our community that every individual is free from bias for every student by providing the tools every student needs to engage with a variety of perspective, utilizing empathy, understanding cultural awareness, critical thinking and advocacy. We will prepare students to positively engage in a diverse world. So this is good. And Jen. Great. So onto the next slide. So since I think Mindy gave an update back in October. So in March, we actually launched, or the committee launched seven subcommittees. We had great participation with over 60 people kind of throughout our district and community volunteering and expressing interest in joining these subcommittees. And these groups are focused on sort of the seven areas that inclusion counts had identified as

070areas of priority for our district. And you can see them listed here. And I know a lot of our board members are also leading or members of these groups. So we wanted to spend a couple of minutes today just talking about two of the subcommittees. Basically where we are now is that we launched in March. Most of the committees have met one or two times and are kind of getting to know each other, looking at data, forming action plans for the next, for sort of this year and beyond. These are meant to be multi-year groups. And I know that there are a couple of changes, I think that Hans will talk through about some of these groups. So these are just the areas that we're focused on. So I'm gonna talk about on the next

071slide, a little bit about the Discipline and Achievement Committee that I'm co-leading with Dr. Fentress. So we're a group of about, we have about six members in addition to ourselves. And our goal is we know that discipline is disproportionately applied, particularly for BIPOC and students who are in special education. And also we want to, and we want to eliminate that disproportionality. We also wanna foster academic success for all students. That's the goal of our subcommittee. So far we've had two meetings where we've reviewed a lot of district data, both from Dr. Fentress and also Megan Vizier, who presented earlier tonight, just pulled together lots of great data about not only sort of achievement, looking at test scores and how we have done as a district, but also looking at discipline. So this is not only

072referral information, but kind of mental health data as well as how we actually foster positive behavior. So we're looking at some of our reward systems. Our committee is mostly parents at this moment, although we would love to recruit a teacher if anyone is interested in joining or looking for new opportunities. But some of the preliminary takeaways and discussion points from our meetings is the first is that looking, especially at the achievement data, our district looks pretty solid and the numbers look pretty good. But when you start cutting into the data and looking at it by different student groups, there's actually pretty big disparities. And I think there's an opportunity there to think about goal setting, which is actually where our committee landed on as far as trying to set goals from an equity lens. But

073again, I think the lesson here is that even if the average looks strong, there can really be a lot of, there's really big gaps or very big gaps when you kind of go a layer deeper. We also talked a lot about the importance of using inclusive language and how everyone is a student first. We're very careful about kind of what terms we're using and how we're referring to different student groups. And we definitely don't have all the answers, but I think just the fact that we're really cognizant about it and having that conversation and also feel comfortable to admit when we don't know what is sort of the right term to use has been really good. And then the last is sort of, we've seen a lot of really great examples, not only within our

074own district, but also beyond. And I think there's more opportunity. And personally, as a parent, I see a lot of like parent-led, PTA-led initiatives that I think are just really fabulous and could be shared more kind of across the different schools. We've also looked at some of the, there is an interest also in benchmarking kind of like other districts and seeing what we can learn from them. So our current next steps for, we're gonna look at a couple of district goals and try to recommend and come to some principles on how to set goals, again, with an equity lens. I think, and so I will stop there actually and turn it over to Annabelle to talk about culture and climate and some of the great work going on at our schools. Thanks, Jen. Next slide.

075Thank you. All right, so I help lead culture and climate with Amica and Tom, a donor. Our group's goal is for our district to commit to creating a positive school climate culture where all people feel valued, celebrated, accepted, and affirmed with consideration and appreciation for differences. I'd like to mention that my group consists of parents from, of students of our district, teachers, also some, just members of our community, but also principals within our district and outside of our district. Some of our members identify as immigrants, working moms, stay at home moms. And I say this because although we're a small group, it's a representation of our whole community. We all identify as different things. We're all very diverse. And so it's good to have these different insights as we go into our planning. For example,

076when we looked at the data that inclusion counts had provided, and we've met a couple of times in the last meeting that we had, we talked about the celebration and values that our members have experienced growing up, what celebrations and values do they celebrate and experience at home versus what they were seeing at school and versus what we see now. And we really have made progress. I just heard one of the speakers said that there was a multicultural event at their school. I believe it was BA, but Heather has her own. Every school within our district has their own multicultural week. They just have different takes on it. What we would like to see the group is talking about is really highlighting and representing each different backgrounds. One of the things that we've heard from

077each other is that one school or one teacher would do something, but they might not know about. So I feel like we felt that when the inclusion counts was surveyed, some of the information was not accessible to our community, that all the schools, principals, and teachers were actually doing these amazing things and celebrating the diversity that we have in our community. So these are the things that we hope to take away to our next step and really implement some of the activities and events that the parents and the community members would like to see more of. And also looking into just another thing is looking into maybe slogans and languages that we are using across our district. But yes, which leads me to our next slide, actually. Which is another example of how we've been

078implementing our mission and vision. Stamp for Kids is a book that our whole school district was implementing with the fourth and fifth graders this year, or just this past month, actually. Stamp for Kids, Racism, Anti-Racism, and New is the title of the book by Abraham Kendi and Jason Reynolds. They kicked off this event or curriculum in January, I believe, with a parent book club. Julie Jobak and Vivian Garlick led a four-week book club, and parents and guardians of our community were excited for this curriculum and were very supportive. And then parents' involvement was so imperative to this work because it really clearly supports our value for inclusivity, social justice, equity, and clearly states where we are and stand with anti-racist work. And so it was very imperative, and I just would like to thank all

079the parents and guardians here at San Carlos School District for supporting our district with implementing this book, which leads me to the teacher implementation. We should note that Tara Linda was able to implement the stamp curriculum last year, and Ada Lee adapted the reading response book digitally for all our fourth and fifth graders this year. So the teachers at Mariposa and Arroyo was able to implement this book. So every student had a copy of the book. Teachers utilized the audio book, which was great because it was read by a child, so all the kids were able to relate to it. And the teachers were able to connect the message of the curriculum to other subjects, such as social studies and history, missions, and really utilize the resources that came along with this curriculum. And so

080with this, all the students were engaged and they were really using, they're promoting their critical thinking and they were having Socratic responses. I've heard from some teachers where they were engaged in discussion from 30 to 60 minutes. And what was really cool is that I was also hearing it in the playground and really all the students, I think we're taking away that word matters and your identity matters. And so all the students were really engaged and excited for this book. And so do you have any questions? That concludes our update with our DIB work. Thank you for the update. Board, do you have any questions, comments, questions as well? I just wanna say thank you to Jen and Annabel for volunteering your time to come and give us an update tonight. I know there was

081a call out to the committee and you were both willing to stand up and heed the call, so to speak. So we appreciate you doing that and hearing from you. Thank you. And thank you, Jen. She really got me excited to present today. So thanks, Jen. All right. I've been a little bit of voluntoldism involved in this too. So again, you're here. You were here, we wanna recognize that and really thank you so much for a fantastic presentation. There was one update we wanted to give and Jen talked a little bit about that and that we are for no other reason than we've had some waning of participation. It just seems to make sense at this point that we merge a couple of our groups. So we're planning to merge discipline and achievement with policies

082and systems and parent education with culture and climate. So we will have, instead of seven, we'll have five groups which seems a little more manageable too, a little easier to get our arms around. And we certainly wanna thank all those folks that have stepped up to be part of those subcommittees. It is definitely a commitment. And I know from leading one that it's really difficult to try to get a lot of really busy people to schedule some time at any point, whether it's morning, afternoon, evening, to get everybody in the same spot's really tough. So wanna thank everyone for stepping up and there'll be an update going out to the group about that tomorrow morning. I had a question. First like comment, love the work that the group is doing and just, I always learn

083a little bit from the presentations as well, just the scope and how we're thinking about things. But I really am proud of the parent plus child engagement. Like often I try to encourage people to think, hey, we're serving families, not just one learner at a time. And with reading stamps, it feels like a shared experience that we could create for the family. And then a lot of students got to read it this year. So I'm wondering, what's the book for next year? And is there something the board could do to rally people around it? Or are you thinking this eventually becomes like a fifth grade thing everyone does? Or like just thinking about one time versus ongoing, I would love to see this kind of effort, especially at a family engagement level continue. So have

084you thought about that or what's the perspective? I don't think we're there yet, Ben, but this book is really well known and was, I think, very well received across. And sometimes it's difficult to find something that folks won't have feelings about whether that's one way or the other. Our main goal was trying to have as many folks and children participate as possible. Now, with that said, stamped could end up being part of what we do for a number of years. Granted, it would end up being probably with our fourth grade group because the fifth graders would have already experienced that. So Jennifer, do you want to add anything there? Well, I do know that the other schools have books as well that they've done book studies with. I'll get the title wrong, but there was

085one at TL about the cactus that was about inclusive practices. Yeah, I can't remember. I can't remember the title of that. Jen or Annabel, did you have any other recollections of other books that have been used? I know that there's pretty broad use of books in the different levels, but did you know any other titles? No, but the talks of having another book like this amongst teachers and administrators, just like what Ben was saying, where the parents were engaged and the students were engaged and we were able to connect it is something that is being talked about. But what's unique about stamped is that it does take something so heavy and relate it to how kids relate to it. And it's really hard to do that. So this is one of those most unique books

086that we were so lucky to have and be able to implement. But there are other books that the teachers are implementing within their schools. I know the lower elementary have like book of the month already too, that Ms. Leia Scholler had presented last, I think a few board member meetings ago, but a lot of the schools, each schools has had a take on what they can do to engage parents and the students in. So this is an ongoing work that I'm so proud that the district is doing and I love being part of it. Yeah, and I love the comment about how it's an experience, I think with the families, because I think the more that we can engage parents and have them kind of like reinforce and talk about it with students at home,

087it will really help, I think, as far as like having tough conversations or having great conversations, hopefully. The other thing that, so Stamped, I think there's a lot more like books that are being, that start out as adult books like Stamped did, that are kind of getting simplified for kids so that they can also read in kind of like easier language about these tough topics. So I think that's really great to see and I just see more and more kind of kid versions of these books come out. So I think there'll be a lot of possibilities for schools to use going forward. Anyone else? No? Jane Animal, thank you very much for your work on this. I know it's a lot and then it's also even a lot more too, just given the kind of

088national climate around it, but we appreciate every volunteer that's willing to put in the workforce. But I also want to thank you personally for helping guide the board a lot with your work in the visions and the missions because I think as you're probably aware, we also have our own work to do as a board around diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging. And a lot of your work helps guide us as well. So we appreciate you both for that and the committee's work as well. So that's just a big thank you for making us look good essentially. So thank you for being with us tonight. Thanks again. We're gonna now move to five. Oh, I also need some information item. I didn't see any public comment on the sheet. I'll see if there's anyone who wants

089public comment. That's online. Seeing none. All right, we'll move on then to five A to Christine from the San Carlos Charter Learning Center 2021-22 second interim. So good evening. Part of our fiscal oversight to charter is reviewing their interim reports and multi-year projections. So based on the reports that were submitted, charter at second interim will meet its financial obligation for the current year and their two subsequent years. So at second interim, their fund balance increased by $93,000. And that's due to a small increase in the revenue and then a decrease in their expenditures. Big portion was aligning their salaries and benefits to actuals. And there was also an increase in special ed services. For their multi-year projections for revenue, charter shows an increase in their state aid and that's their projecting an increase in enrollment.

090For expenditures, they reflect the step and column costs and the pension increase and a 3% increase in supplies in their operating services. For second interim, charter is projecting an operating surplus and maintaining a reserve level of 34%. Thank you, Christine. Trustees, any questions? This is on for information discussion. We don't need to take action on it, but if you have any questions, we do have an oversight over the budget to make sure we're physically solvent. Any questions for Christine in regards to the budget? Okay, seeing, hearing none. I don't see a public comment on it. I don't see any hands online. Okay. We'll move on then to 5D, the 2022-23 bill schedule. All right, and that's me, Neil. Thank you for that. This is simply an FYI for the board. There's no action required. It's

091more to keep you in the loop, so to speak, and make sure that you're aware and if anyone in the community should ask, you have some awareness around what may be happening with our bill schedules next year. I believe that most of you are most likely aware of a bill that came through a number of years ago to move start time for high schools to no earlier than 8.30 and middle schools no earlier than 8 a.m. And there is some confusion around it because folks say, well, Mike, I have a child that starts at 7.30 or 7.45. It does not preclude you from offering a period that happens prior to that, but any mandatory period can't start earlier than that. So for example, we offer zero period. So theoretically, we could start our zero period.

092We could start school at 8 a.m. and start our zero period at 7.10. I don't know how popular that would be with students or families, but theoretically we could do that and the high school could do the same. Carlmont has chosen a new bill schedule and Sequoia has already moved their start time to 8.30 that will require most likely some changes to the bill schedules. Obviously, we are all very aware of the traffic up on the hill, and we really try to stagger charter Mariposa, TL and Carlmont around that time. So, you know, we also recognize that there's a desire in our community to have start times aligned period because our community is small and we do have folks that travel to different places. Just because you live on this side of town doesn't mean

093you might not have kids going to school on the other side of town. So we started some discussions with our leaders and we've also talked with PTAC and leaders are talking with their PTAs as well to gather information. We've had a few meetings with our group, including CLC has also been engaged in this work. So just so everybody knows, we're working with Jennifer Pellegrin as well. And, you know, at this time, we have not landed on a definite start time, although we're getting close. It's likely that there will be a change. It seems as if we only really have two choices and we can move our start time at TL Mariposa later, or we could put it earlier, just to avoid the 830 rush up at Carlmont. So, you know, I think the most important

094pieces are just to know that we're having these discussions. We're really trying to get as much information as we can gathering that and putting it together in the best plan that we can devise. We're gonna be taking significant time on Monday's leaders meeting to talk about this with principals and really consider the other factor that's involved in this, which is our meals. And as you know, we have to serve universal meals and we have to serve breakfast and lunch next year. And that's another factor that we have to consider as far as what's doable for us. If we decide to start school at 815, is it doable to allow ourselves 20 to 25 minutes prior to that to serve breakfast, for example? And then again, if we move our start time to 845, for example,

095well, then students would be arriving around 820 or 825. So there's a lot of things to consider and the breakfast service certainly complicates it even further. So as we gather more input, we'll bring this back for an update as necessary or possibly a board memo to let you know where we land. But we're looking forward to having time to discuss it on Monday at our leaders meeting in depth. Trustee, questions for Hans? Is charter included in the discussions too? It's coordinated with them as well. Yeah, yeah. We've had three meetings I think today and they've been a part of all of them. On Monday, they don't generally come to our leaders meetings, but that doesn't mean that we won't move them in following as far as giving them an update on what we discussed there

096too. They also brought up the breakfast issue, knowing full well that they'll have to do the same, so. And then the parent avenue to give input is through their PTA? PTA, yes. And obviously we talked about this at PTAC, not everybody is part of that, but certainly anyone can join PTA and give that. They can also give their input directly to the principal if necessary as well. I just, as a parent at Mariposa, I think over-communicating that we're considering a change and there's a time for input will help with the change and accepting as I'm sure you're aware, like some people who are gonna love earlier is that people are gonna hate it or some people are gonna love later and some people are gonna hate it whichever way you go. There's gonna be some

097people who aren't happy and just giving people a chance to weigh in would be helpful. Yeah, that's a really important thing. I know we can actually push out something to the school leaders tomorrow. Just to build this awareness, that's what we're trying to do. That's what we did at PTA is, there's so many moving parts to it, but I think you raise a really good point, which is over-communicating there's going to be a change and here's what we're considering. We'll also open up that dialogue. Thank you for that. And just to clarify, does this only impact the Tierra Linda, Mariposa, Arundel, like those campuses? We really want our schools to align as closely as possible so it could impact the other side of town if you will as well. As it stands right now, Arroyo

098and Central do start a little later already than Mariposa and TL. So should we move that direction, there may not be the same impact. If we move earlier, then there may be an impact. And on that, I just want to mention, I think it would be interesting if you were to find out how many kids are doing zero period. Like how many kids would that impact our families if you moved it earlier? I am a parent of a zero period child. I don't really think I know what we were signing up for. Luckily, they're at middle school, able to get themselves out of the door, but it has a real impact when it's early. Me too. I'm not in this district, but yes, it's quite an impact. I guess I also want to surface the

099issue around our children who are part of the Tinsley Transfer Program. And the earlier that bus runs, the harder it is for them because they're already getting on the bus really early. So it is a consideration as well. Good point. Yeah, so think of these different groups of students that would be more impacted if you moved it one way or the other. Yeah. I guess the whole question is what's the timeline on this decision? Well, certainly we want to try to do it as quickly as possible. That's all the reasons Ben said. At the same time, we want to make sure we have all the input. So, I mean, I would think by our next meeting in May, we would have something definitive so that we can move forward with our planning. We also need

100it for the nutrition side of things to move forward in that, so. And for the board level, we approve the wealth schedule? No, no, it's just an FYI. We're just bringing it forward as an information item for you. So from a board perspective, we should be more paying attention to communications being sent out from principal staff teachers to make sure that this is included so that all input is going to be heard. But if someone was listening tonight or want to go back and review it, you would tell them to, this decision we made by. Within the next few weeks. So contact principal, PGA leaders, you know, as soon as possible to get their input. It dawns on me Veronica can help me take a portion of the board brief and push it out to

101all the principals to include in their newsletters. That this was a topic that the board discussed and that this was a recommendation to make sure that we're over communicating the impact and that it's our hope to have the decision sometime in May. There is this variable around breakfast that we're just trying to also work out as well. So, but we're going to get there. We're working on it. Yeah, on the breakfast side, some of the charter schools deliver in class too. So, you know, if you're looking to push in. That's one thing we plan to discuss with principals on Monday. That's an experience I personally had as well and it works pretty well. Any other comments, discussion? Not seeing any hands online and no public comment. Thank you, Hans. We look forward to update where

102it lands. All right, it's 8.06. Usually we take a break around 8.15 just because we're going out for a little bit. You guys won't take a break for five minutes. We'll keep going. You want to go till 8.15? Let's go to 8.15. Let's do it. Okay, we'll then move to 6.B. Approval of established fund 40 resolution to Christine. So, at second interim, I spoke about the excess redevelopment funds and these funds are restricted and can only be used for facility needs. So, I'm asking the board to approve the resolution to establish fund 40, special reserve fund for capital outlay projects so that we can transfer these excess RDA funds to fund 40 and start building up that fund and invest in our capital infrastructure needs. I have one question if you can help clarify for

103Christine. Just the economist in me. It seems like we have lots of accounts for facilities now. So, if I'm understanding correctly, we have bond funds, right? Then we have- Fund 14, that's for deferred maintenance. Deferred maintenance and now we're going to have- Fund 40. Fund 40. So, my question is with deferred maintenance and fund 40, why can't we lump them into one account or can they be used fully for certain projects? Deferred maintenance is for long, not the short-term maintenance, but long-term like replacing a roof, HVAC, carpeting, windows, things like that. Whereas fund 40 is for like bigger projects. Let's say in the future we might pass a bond and the bond doesn't have enough money, we can dip into fund 40 to support projects. Got it. Okay. And then fund 40, revenue into fund

10440 comes annually, comes how often? It depends how our RDA funds come through. And also if the board decides to, any of the rental income that we receive from facility use can be transferred to fund 40. Okay. To help establish bigger projects. Okay. And this is my question, trustees. So it's not necessarily set up as a distinction of like what money goes in there. Like that only RDA funds can go into fund 40. I mean, it's sort of that in a way you're separating, like putting those RDA funds in a separate pot and for a particular purpose. So, I mean, I'm glad you mentioned the three different funds because it's like helpful to remember what we're doing and why. Where does the facility rental income go now? Currently in unrestricted general fund. Just another way

105to help long-term planning. With these funds, if we decided that we want it by putting them in there, they're restricted. Can the board enact a resolution to pull funds out in the case of like a fiscal crisis? You can pull from fund 17. But not from fund 40? No, not from fund 40. Because RDA funds is strictly for capital needs. Got it. So whether they're in fund 40 or not in fund 40, they're restricted. Correct. Okay, so the net of the decision is moved. No, I mean, per Ben's point, it's not, you're not adding any restrictions onto the funds. Maybe you're making it easier to identify and track them. I move that we approve item 6B, approval to establish fund 40 resolution number 12, 21 slash 22. Is there a second? Second. Thank you, sir.

106All in favor, please state by saying aye. Aye. Any opposition? Seeing and hearing none, that'll carry five, zero. For the record, I did not see any public comments come in. Okay, before we go to the, let's take a break now just for five minutes before we start on 6C. So let's reconvene at 815. Yeah, we're getting stuff done. Okay. Okay, I'll call us back to order. And now we'll move on to item 6C, approval of staff to enter a contract with Chainlink Fence and Supply Inc. for the Rundle Fencing Projects. Eric, welcome. Trustee, thank you for letting me to have a quick presentation on this project. I'm gonna share my screen. I should actually go to share screen first. Okay, this Fencing Project is actually at Rundle Elementary Schools. It's followed with the previous projects

107that we had before. Of course, the previous projects before my time, so I should not, I cannot say too much about it, but the thing is, that's when I was first here, people asked me questions like if the previous project been complete or still have any outstanding items not completed. After I discussed with the previous interim director, the facility director, Michael, and I find out actually the previous project was completed already as what it was. So, and when I reviewed the projects at the end, if you look at the green fence, which is the existing fence that they have right now, and it was completed by the previous projects, and even though the previous project was completed by itself, but it did not give the site a fully-secured site, I mean, at that time. So

108when I reviewed the project with principles and get information with different teachers and staffs, I start with looking at this project, the fencing project at Arundel again, and I find out that they actually at the stage right now, the campus pretty open. If you've been to Arundel, you would totally understand what I'm saying. So I followed with some pictures right now. Okay, so this is the entrance basically next to the administration buildings. You can see that both area, the stairs, and the stair on the right-hand side, and the opening on the left-hand side is basically open to public any time. You don't have any security, any locks or any gates right there. This is on the other side of the campus. If you see the house on the left-hand side of the pictures, that's actually

109a neighbor's house already. You can just walk to your neighbors without any fencing, without anything. So, and the only thing they have is the low fence around the campus. And of course, you can just jump over it if you want to. This is the area of the new paving area. In fact, that's some new paving we did already if you want to look at it right there. But the fencing, the existing fencing behind those solar panels is open. So sometimes they have hiking trail above that area. Of course, the trail doesn't go down there, but actually you can cut through the glass and just walk down into our site if you want to. And this is the area behind the parking lot of the tennis court, I'm sorry. And you can see that's wide open.

110You can just walk down the hill and then go into our sites anytime. So the purpose of this project, of this fencing project is actually secure the whole site in a hole so that we don't have any loopholes to go into the site over the weed ends, over the school course time. And also add security for student control, right? So that we have fans. I know that we have panic hardware if you want to escape from site, you can still do it because you can open up the panic hardware and come out, but at least that you have more visual control on the fencing with the students. If you look at the red lines of the fencing right now, this new project will cover the whole site as a whole. So it incomplete. Also the

111planning of this fencing, I try to stop most of the fencing into the buildings so that it doesn't affect the egress of the building itself. It just go into the corner of the building. It doesn't close up any doors of the building. So it doesn't affect any west issues. Per DSA IR 22, security fencing is exempted from DSA approval. So we are, and all we do is security fencing and so we are good with the current code. And all the details of the fencing I submitted to for bidding are all pulled out from DSA approval drawing. So we are good and safe for the project itself. So that is my presentation. If you have any questions, let me know. Go back to your first slide real quick. Sure. I just wanna know there's, you said

112green. Oh. Is it blue? Okay, that's a good question. Yeah, you have also good eye. Okay, the blue color is representing the existing fencing we have right now. The red color fencing is actually chain link fencing that we asked them to put. The green line is actually iron gates for iron fencing because you can see the green colors only at the entrance because I do not want to put chain link fence at the entrance. It would be look really ugly, right? Or like a present, right? So I put iron gate, iron fencing at the entrance. Okay. That add a little bit cost but I think it's a long-term thing. Well, you're gonna add my next question. I have to say, if you put iron gates there, it's gonna dramatically change the run those fields but

113it doesn't sound like that's gonna be the design. Okay. And I also asked them to match the color with the existing green color with their fencing. So it will not look too obvious. And this isn't replacing, we replaced some of the fence last year. So this is just, the red is the add-ons. Exactly. We are not taking out any existing fencing. I'm sorry, I take it back. The fencing at the after school site right there, that's existing fencing but they are only FIFA's fence. It doesn't give you any security, right? So those are fence we'll take out and put out, put into new five foot fence. Okay. All right. Thank you. Those are my questions. Trustees, any other questions? The question I had when reviewing the description on board docs was it mentioned reducing the

114amount of panic hardware. I'm curious why there was panic hardware if it's not necessary and just making sure that the safety of our students and staff is still. Yes. Thank you for asking that question because I'm sorry that in the board doc is a little bit misleading. What I want to say is because this project is a wee bit, because we sent it out the first time and come out with a very expensive price and only one bidder did it. At that time, I put panic hardware basically at every openings I have. After I review it, for example, the location at the tennis court, the pavement at the tennis court, we actually don't need the panic hardware to go up to tennis court. That area, I took it out. So I only took out where

115we don't, where is the openings that we don't need it. And I took it out from the previous bid, not from the project itself. I'm sorry, that's a little bit misleading, but that's a good question. Okay. Thank you for clarifying. If we ever wanted to add portables or expand the number of classrooms on the site, does the fencing limit our flexibility looking at the aerial photos? It looks like there's still plenty of room to do that if we needed to, or if you had to adjust and encompass some of the parking lot, some future date, we could do all that. The fencing we have been putting in right now basically is actually at the perimeter of our property lines. So we have not like cutting in any areas that are inside our property line. So

116if we're gonna expand or anything that it should be still inside our property lines, right? So it's inside our fencing centers. Yeah. My comment would just be, job number one, we don't always dialogue about it, but is safety. Everything else, the learning, the social emotional experience, the great environment, all like is after the first priority, which is learner and also educator safety. Just really glad that we're making this a priority because anybody who's been to the Rundle campus is like, this is pretty open to anyone walking in at any time. I agree. That's why we tried to push this project like so early. And I just have one more question about timeline, if you can remind us. So will this be done by the end of the school year? Will it be? Because I'm sort

117of piggybacking on what Ben just said, in terms of like getting the school community to then, I mean, if it impacts egress and flow on the campus, I saw that at the campus that my child was at. And so getting the parents and the students, like everyone to understand where you access, how you access and after what time gates are locked and you can't access. So all of that communication is really important. So I just think communicating about the timeline and then having the school community understand is really important for security. Yes, the thing is we do not have a real schedule because what happened is after, if the board approved the project tonight, after I awarded the contract with the contractor, I will start negotiating the schedule with them. One advantage of it is

118like, this is like more like exterior like projects. So they may still able to do it like after school work, after school hours for it doesn't affect interior of the school too much. But again, still I have to negotiate with them and talk to their site and the staff. We may have to push it to the summer honestly, because we don't have another like long, like for example, breaks right now. So, and we're actually pretty close to summer already. So maybe we just have to push it to summer. Right. And I mean, this probably isn't your responsibility necessarily when I was alluding to, but it's more like just so that the principal understands when it'll be done and then how it's communicated to the community, as far as how they're gonna, I mean, I just

119noticed there's that one site where you were showing where it's right up against the entrance to classrooms almost, that you're gonna have a gate there now. So in terms of how people are supposed to access the campus, it's really important that everyone's gonna follow the new rules and it's gonna be safe and people are gonna respect the new boundaries, I guess. Yes, of course. And also like what I mentioned that this plan, I did not make it up by myself. I actually revealed the plan with the principal already and we designed, we walked the site and we designed where the gate should be together. So it's no surprise to them when I put it in, you know. Thank you. Thanks for your careful planning and it looks great. Yeah, another thing I might add just

120quickly is we have talked about the possibility of phasing this a little bit and maybe starting some phases sooner than later. Although as Eric said, part of it is supply chain issues and what's available. So, but that's another idea that we've been throwing around a little bit too. And I also just wanna give kudos for the bid process and then the rebid. Like often people think you're locked in or you have to make a choice. You know, we're really trying to be smart with our resources and so I appreciate the effort there. Sure. And yeah, that's when we have one, only one bidder and we have a price that we don't think is make sense to us then. We cannot just say, oh, you know, it's embarrassed to not do it, you know. We just

121have to say, no, sorry, you can't do it this way. And then we just, we engineer it. I mean, value engineer and we did it. Any other questions, comments? Nope. Would anyone like to move to approve 6D to show or 6C for Eric's hard work and design principles? I'd like to move that we approve 6C approval of staff to enter a contract with Chainlink Fence and Supply Incorporated for a Rundle fencing project. Thank you, Ben. Is there a second? Second. Thank you, Sarah. All in favor, please state by saying aye. Aye. Any opposition? Hearing and seeing none, that will carry 5-0. All right, Eric, thank you very much. And that will allow you to move on to the next phase. Okay, we're gonna move on then to 6D, which I believe Hans for the revised

1222022-23 instructional calendar. Thanks, Neil. You might recall that at our last meeting, we asked you to approve a instructional calendar contingent on review with our associations, which we did conduct and at the request of SCTA who reviewed two options, one of them being the one that you looked at, the other being one that starts, the start of school date is moved a week later. So from the 17th of August to the 24th of August. And we reviewed that with other partners, PTAC being one, PTA leaders. And as we reviewed it, what came out in that group was more about, well, it's really important that the breaks match Sequoia. The start of school date, not as important as the breaks. And it's also important to note that in the past few years, we have started school

123a week later than Sequoia, this year included. And this start date would put us one week later for then Sequoia start date as well. And we're asking you to approve this. Also wanna let you know that for next school year, we already have the Sequoia calendar in hand. They did a two year adoption. So we have the 23, 24 calendar already from them. And we intend to engage our associations much earlier and have that to you as early as September or October. Okay, trustees, questions, concerns, anything? Does that push then it pushes the last day of school a week later? Correct. So the last day of school off the top of my head, I wanna say it's June, would be June 16th? 15th. 15th. 15th, right. All right, is there a motion to approve the

124revised calendar then that's been presented? Calendar items. Thank you, Irina. Is there a second? I second. Thank you, Wendy. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposition? Seeing none, that will carry by zero. I still have been checking online for any comments, but I have not seen any. Okay, approval of the district's pool of qualified architects. I wasn't 100% sure. Let's go back to you, Eric. Okay. Hello, trustees, it's me again. Okay, this one should be pretty straightforward. Basically, we are as the district, we basically try to establish a pool of architects for the future projects. Main, of course, mainly is like we are going forward with our facility master plan. So before we can, you know, before we pick architects, because we have like, even though in California, we have like hundreds of architects,

125right? So by California Education Code, we got the districts allowed to basically have our pool of architects. The good thing is that is for the futures project, not only for the facility master plan, for the future project with small project or big project, we can have a pool of architects that we can actually send out our fee to. So this pool of architects that we have the proposal came back, it doesn't mean that we need to have contract with them right now. It basically just collect numbers of architect that they are interested to work with these districts. And also under the RFP, we are as the district, we can reveal this pool of architects every three years. So it doesn't log into that for the life of the district, we only have these architects. So

126we are actually a bit flexible, but at least within this period of time, these are the architects that interested to work with us. You just indicated a period of time, you're saying for three years? Yes. But you're saying you wouldn't entertain during that period, any firms that are not in this pool? Within this period, if architects that were interested to work with us, but not in this pool, we have a process they can still send us their proposal, and we will review it as individual and see if we'll accept their proposal as their architects. Okay. Yeah, we try to make ourselves flexible, but at least the thing is when we send our RFP, we don't have to send like 1,000 to 1,000 people, we can focus on the pool of the architects. And also people

127other, it's also a legal things because that means other architect, which is not in our pool, they cannot complain to us saying that we did not send our RFP to them. But again, if they want to be in our pool, they can still do that. I'm understanding the last part here, basically this, with the bidding process for any facility, this limits any sort, we don't have to send out so many of them to everyone for the lowest bid, we have a general pool of people. Right. And then people leave it that comes to us to do it. Yes. Got it, okay. Yes. Similar to contractors, but they are architects. Got it. Do we have to later approve a contracting pool? We already have a CACRA, so that approved it by the board previously. So we

128are okay with the contractors. Okay. Correct. Any other questions? Is there a motion then to approve the pool of qualified architects that Eric has presented? I move to approve 6E, approval of the district's pool of qualified architects. Thank you, sir. I second. Thank you, Wendy. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Thank you. Opposition? Aye. Okay. That then will take us to the end. Future agenda items. I know June gets pretty packed, but anything anyone wants to bring back for May. No pressing issues. All right. Then I'll move us on to AA public comment. First, I am seeing nothing in anyone wishing to see public comment. There's no one here tonight. So no blue cards. So then Mr. Lanier, are you out there? We'll go to you. Hi, I'm here. Can you hear me? Can.

129Okay. I think Angela Naughton was going to speak first. And let's see if Angela is there. Can you guys unmute Angela? Yep. Thank you, Dan. And thank you, Veronica and Alejandro for unmuting me. Good evening, everybody. My name is Angela Naughton. I'm the SCTA bargaining chair and I'm really excited to speak tonight. I wanted to start off actually with just a personal note to Irene that I've worked with you as both an SCTA leader and also as a parent, I had your son in my fifth grade class. And so I wanted to start by thanking you for your many, many years of service to the San Carlos school district and our greater community, your leadership, your commitment, your countless volunteer hours, both in my classroom as an art and action teacher and volunteer, and then

130as a board member and just in our greater community has been greatly, greatly appreciated. I know this was not an easy decision for you to make and I do wish you and your family the best as you continue to move on to those new experiences and to taking on the responsibilities that you need to address both in your personal and professional life. So thank you from the very bottom of my heart for everything that you've done. So, and then I also wanted to, the larger thing that I wanted to address tonight was I wanna thank the district and in particular, the members of the SCTA bargaining team, Patrick Morris from Tierra Linda, Michelle Robinson from Arroyo and Brandon Roslyn from Britton Acres. They are members of the SCTA bargaining team that we have met with

131the district continuously about once to twice a month this year. And I just wanna say from the beginning of this process, I've been really grateful for the positive and collaborative spirit that both our teams have brought to the table. We moved this year to interest-based bargaining, which was a shift for all of us. We've never done that before. But I do feel from the beginning, it allowed us to have more honest conversations around both what our team wanted and representing our members, the district wanted in bringing the best for our teachers, for our members, for our students around professional development, around leaves, and all the other little intricacies that come with a contract. So the biggest thing for me this year has been the restructuring of the salary schedule. For those of you who have

132been in this district and part of our board, this has actually been a long-term goal of the SCTA. We have worked on this. I've been on the negotiations team for approximately nine to 10 years, and I've been in the district 17 years. And this was something I constantly heard come up. And so first and foremost, the salary schedule, just being able to restructure it, that we are comparative and comparable to neighboring, or pardon me, comparable and competitive with neighboring districts. Offering this competitive salary, our increased health and welfare benefits, the timely and applicable professional development is really allowing us to attract and retain highly qualified individuals that I know we want for this district, those individuals who embrace the goals of the strategic plan and the values of the San Carlos School District. So moving

133from 90 units to 75 has actually allowed a number of individuals who were previously frozen on the salary schedule, meaning that they could not move along the salary schedule short of any kind of across the board increase. It basically means that now, instead of having to spend the time and money to get 90 post-baccalaureate units, that they can now go into longevity and have their time in the district recognized. It's another way for us to celebrate the loyalty and commitment to the students of San Carlos. So I thank you for that. I also wanna be thankful just overall, we've been able to finalize this new contract within a timely manner. Previous practice has been that it's taken over a year, sometimes 18 months to two whole school years of being out of my classroom twice,

134three times a month to be able to do that. And so I really think this speaks to the collaborative spirit between SCTA and our district leadership at this time. So I just wanna thank again, the negotiations team and Dan Lanier, our SCTA executive board, and especially Jennifer Francis, Hans Barber, Jennifer Smith, who have all worked tirelessly to help us make this happen and put it into place. And I can just say that I wanna close with, we had 100% positive vote to ratify this contract, which I can say is the very first time in my history on the negotiations board, that we've had 100% agreement. And I really think that speaks to the collaborative effort that has taken place with this new contract negotiation. So thank you very, very much. Hey Angela, now Dan, you

135have comment too, right? All right, we got you. All right, good evening. The San Carlos Teachers Association would like to publicly thank Superintendent Frentress and Assistant Superintendent Hans Barber for fostering a collaborative leadership model between the district and the SCTA and CSCA, our sister association. We appreciate the support of our school board trustees with this model. Jennifer Frentress deserves a special thanks for this amplified spirit of collaboration. It's brought more oxygen and hopefulness into our district. The SCTA appreciates our amazing Angela Naughton and our excellent bargaining team for their achievement of a tentative agreement with the district. On behalf of the talented educators, or on behalf of my talented educators, I wanna thank you, our school board trustees for a bold investment in teachers. The restructuring of the salary schedule substantially increases our salaries. Our

136agreement includes a 2.5 increase next year. The increase in our health and welfare benefit is a very positive development for our educators. After three extremely challenging years due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this increase in our salaries is a big shot in the arm for all of us. It's fun. And help myself. So clever. All right. Are teachers and educational professionals still grossly underpaid? Yes. So to think that you have to go 23 years to make $119,000 in our area is still kind of shocking. But that is a societal problem that needs to be changed at the ballot box. So that's not your problem. And again, we're very thankful to Jennifer Frentress, Hans Barber, and you, the trustees, for this increase in our compensation. Trustee Chen, you will be missed. You've dedicated so many years to

137the San Carlos School District, both as a parent, a volunteer, and a leader, and also as a school board trustee. We're grateful for all the countless unpaid hours you've done, unpaid hours you've donated to our students, their families, and educators of the San Carlos School District. We thank you and we wish you all the best. Finally, I wanna thank all those who make it possible for teachers to have such a fun and rewarding job. Each day as a teacher, it has its magical and heartwarming moments and challenges, and children are the best of us. Good night, thank you. Lisa, I saw you out there as well. Hi, everyone. Good evening. Thank you, Trustee Chen, for your years of service to the district and our community. We wish you and your family the very best. I

138wanted to thank the district for their continued negotiations with CSEA regarding updated job descriptions and the full contract. We look forward to continued productive conversations. Classified School Employees Week is almost among us. This week is designated by our state legislature, recognizing the essential work of all the extraordinary, of all the extraordinary workers, what they do day in and day out. The third full week of May is designated as Classified School Employees Week, and was signed into law April 1st, 1986. This year's CSEW will be celebrated from May 15th to May 21st. Classified School Employees make a difference in the life of every child. From preschool to adults, all students are someone's child, and we never forget that. Classified Employees' commitment to our students and communities is undeniable. Our work is essential to our schools and

139contributes to the academic and personal success of all students. We're dedicated to our professions. We're celebrating this year's Classified School Employees Week under the theme name, We Bring It Every Day. With that in mind, I wanted to thank all classified and certificated staff for the continued hard work year round for the Betterment Number District and wider community. And thank you all for bringing it every day. Thank you. Thanks, Lisa. Okay, there's no other public comment or employee group comments. So we'll move on then to board member comments. I will start. So, you know, my theme has been for the year as always, what makes San Carlos better? Irene, the short story is people like you who can do it themselves make San Carlos better. You started off as just a parent volunteer, someone who believes

140in education, someone who believes in public education and its goals and its missions. Then you, I wouldn't say graduated to the board because it makes it sound like, you know, it's an education, but I think you've levitated to the board in the sense of the work you put into the classroom to want to continue to put in work and put in more work as well at the policy level. You know, and you look around nationally what other districts are dealing with and they don't have board members like you who are dedicated to public service. You know, they have people that may be pushing this specific agenda completely unrelated to schools and the mission of schools and children that are related to more global things of their own personal interests and anything else. So, you know,

141I like to say that to mention that what that end does is it sets the tone for a board, it sets the tone for how you operate, it sets the tone for how you communicate as well. And, you know, those are little things that I've learned over time in watching you, but in terms of, I think, the attitude and culture you brought to this board and what makes this unique. You know, you and I ran against each other in 2015 and then I was able to join the board in 2017. You know, the stories always tell us, you go around, you knock on doors and Irene and I must've walked, I don't know, a lot of miles that summer. But it'd be funny, it's like you'd go around the block and I would drop a

142flyer and then I'd go back around the block and like, Irene flyer me on top of my flyer. And then we'd run into each other at the same blocks. So, you know, one person, you knock on someone's doors, oh yeah, I think I just met like Irene I think she's run into and like, they'd be holding your flyer and her flyer next year's. And it's just, you're tireless. And I think that's the attitude that we went after. And, you know, the biggest thing you always should be remembered for is you had a constant focus for our board and keeping us focused on teaching. And that can often be sidetracked in this position. So, you know, that's not something that's lost on me. I know it's not something that's lost on the board. So you will

143be missed. The hard and difficult this situation is for you because it's something you enjoy and something that you are always want to be a part of. So don't forget about us. I know it happens quickly. So just keep looking at the picture. Wendy. I just want to start off applauding efforts of our staff, Dr. Fentress, Hans and Jennifer for working with SCTA on negotiating this new salary schedule. I just want to say, I think it's been one of, you know, my highest priorities is to focus on teacher recruitment and retention. And that is a critical area across our state. And so we are thrilled to be in this position and to have had a unanimous vote by the SCTA on this agreement. So thank you to all parties involved. It was, you know, a

144lot of effort, but it really, really paid off. And I just want to, you know, also highlight what Angela and Dan were saying about just the spirit of collaboration and the trust that has been built in this process, which I think is critical and will stead us well, for then over the coming years when we face challenges, we don't know what that challenge will be, but thank you again to all of you for really focusing on that trust and collaboration. And Irene, I had to prepare some remarks so that I wouldn't forget what I wanted to say because there's just certain things that stand out in my memory of you as I was even considering entering this role as a trustee. It was really because of you and like your leadership as a role model

145to me that I wanted to be a trustee. So I just want to say thank you for your fellowship as a school or trustee. You served as a great role model, which I was just saying, which is one of the reasons I wanted to join the board. And you've really gone the extra mile serving on numerous committees and dedicating countless hours to this volunteer position, underscore volunteer. In your leadership role over six and a half years, you've influenced various policies and decisions. And in doing so, you've demonstrated a steadfast commitment to doing what is best for all of our kids. You've also advocated strongly for administrators, teachers, and staff to ensure that they're recognized and supported throughout the year. As trustee and as board president, I appreciate that you facilitated healthy debates over the years

146and maintained the board's decorum. In this day and age, that's much easier said than done. And we are very fortunate that you've led the way. I've also appreciated your ability to truly listen to staff and your fellow trustees and determine your decisions based on input from various stakeholders. These decisions have not always been easy and we have held discussions late into the night, but in the end it was worthwhile knowing that everyone was heard. We'll miss your fellowship, your leadership, your empathy, and your passion you've given to our school district. And as Neil was sort of alluding to, we know you're not going too far. We know where to find you in case we need to tap into your reservoir of knowledge, but you deserve well-deserved separation from the board. We want you to spend

147personal time that you need and we're just so thankful for your leadership. We'll miss you. Thank you. I also will be looking at my notes to make sure I don't forget what I wanted to say. Irene, I have really enjoyed working with you over the past year and a half. Your calm leadership, your level head, your deep knowledge of the district have been huge assets for our team, especially with so many of us who are so new. It's clear from how you approach this work that you do it because you genuinely care about serving your community and you are dedicated to our students and our staff and our families. And I just don't think there's a way to really say thank you enough for your years of service and the leadership example that you have

148set for all of us. And also to the rest of our team, I look forward to continuing to work with all of you. I think we have a really strong governance team. We have a lot to be optimistic about and I look forward to serving on this board with you in the coming years. And I do feel really energized tonight, sorry, I almost had my face cut off in the camera, by the spirit of collaboration and trust that our district leadership and our labor partners have built this year. I think it sets a really positive tone for everything that we are doing together and I don't think it can be understated what an impact that has, I think all the way down even to our kids that we're leading by example for them. So I

149thank you all for doing that and for really making that a priority this year. For tonight, my comments, I am focusing on a theme of together anything is possible and kind of just taking a second to a little past, present, future. So about a year ago was when I was applying to be on the board and we were in pretty rocky shape as a board, as a district partnership between the San Carlos Teachers Association and our board and parents and we were at home, we were wearing masks, we had just started rolling out the back to school and it's just amazing what together we can accomplish in 12 months. And so here we are today with a record labor agreement on the table with unanimous mapping, some really inspiring leadership on both sides, both on

150the administrator and also on the teacher leader side and congratulations to Dan and team. You really, you've rallied our community to come together and but also this is a great, it's pretty ironic and apropos that tonight is the night to have this deal come through and also to be your final meeting Irene. Do you think when you came six or seven years ago, but also just even a year ago and then how you're leaving the district, you mentioned your opening comments on financial health, the health of our community today is so incredibly improved over just a year ago. And then the future really together anything is possible. So I'm really excited. One of the things, one of my big takeaways from the negotiations was when everybody said, what interests are we most aligned on? It's

151the interest of the learners. And so now I think the challenge is what's possible. Like let's bring our educators and our leaders together and say, hey, sky's the limit here, we're united. And I know Irene, you're gonna be both a cheerleader and amplifier and a supporter of that. And going forward to, I think all of us, including the person that today we start recruiting, you leave really big shoes for all of us to fill. So together, so much has been possible over the last year. And now as we head out of spring break, sprint to the finish of the school year, round the corner towards next year, just really encouraged, excited and also grateful. Thank you, Ben and all. I would say that right now, I started this evening feeling a little sad at 6.30,

152but right now I will just say that my heart just feels full. I wanna first say that my children have received a tremendous education from here in San Carlos. And they are well-prepared for the future because of our incredible teachers, staff, our principals who know all the children on their campus by name, our librarians, our school secretaries that like welcome our parents. I'm ever so grateful. And Sarah, I just wanna, you said something about, the words of appreciation are so meaningful, but the work is the reward. I am feeling that I'm just here with each of you as we link arms, we're just here to serve our students and to serve our kids. But what really draws me to this team and this work is that it's about public education because we know that education

153is a human right. And here in the United States, you have to work so awfully hard to make sure that our kids get a high quality public education. And I have been learning at every step along the way. Ben and Sarah, you are not new, the new fell away so very quickly because you both ask such incredibly good, thoughtful questions. You put your fingers on the pulse immediately. And I was looking to many more years of learning from both of you. Wendy, we kind of grew up at Britain Acres, volunteering together on the PTA. And your focus on equity is one of the reasons why I thought you've just been such a great addition to the board. Neil, I'm particularly fond, there are many stories we could tell, but I'm particularly fond of this one

154story. Neil and I were on a subcommittee and they had a very specific task. I mean, it was the hiring subcommittee that resulted in Dr. Frentress being selected. That we were, one of our earlier tasks was to pick the search firm that would assist us in the process. And you and I both went into that task thinking, okay, it's one of these three firms, A, B or C. And I think we both went in, I was like, I think A makes sense because they've known us, they have history, that's a good thing, it's a good thing to have history with San Carlos. But then in the conversation, as we were talking about what qualities do we really need and what did we really want out of this decision? Just like this evening, right? You come

155to the table, you come with an idea, but then through discussion and through listening to others, like we are like, C would be better. Really, C is what we want because we really want that collaboration. We really wanted the involvement of all the stakeholders, whether it was parents, teachers, administrative staff, to be part of one of the most important decisions that a board member can make. And that is in the selection of who leads our district. And Dr. Frentress, Jennifer, I am leaving knowing that we are in such incredible hands under your strong leadership. I walk in to your office and you can see how you're tracking the kids, our achievement of all of the students, how are the English language learners do? And it is so clear that your focus on equity and teaching

156and learning is going to just carry this district to a very bright future. And as Angela and Dan highlighted earlier tonight, the big headline for tonight is this incredible new labor agreement because we know that kids learn when we've got like the best staff possible. And with our stronger financial position, we are really putting our dollars where it matters the most with our staff. So this is really an incredible time to join the school districts. Let the recruiting begin now, send folks my way because I can truly tell them that when you serve, it is so rewarding. And I will look back upon these six and a half years with very special memories. So thank you all. All right, Jennifer. We've got a copy back. Yeah. This is rough for me because I knew that,

157well, I always feel like I have to have my comments prepared, but I'm glad I wrote this down. I obviously, I wanna start with thanking Irene Chen for your partnership this year. Together, we visited schools and solidified a practice that gets all of the trustees into our schools and builds that partnership. We took walks where you shared the history of San Carlos, but where we also built a better understanding of where we are now and where we could go. We went to CSBA as a whole team and had this learning experience that was so amazing and planned meetings together. And as an anchor in our governance team, you really helped us shape a handbook that will withstand all sorts of work that we have ahead. We have goals. You've provided steady leadership as our chair

158most recently through the finalization of our negotiations. And you bring your head and your heart to your service work. And that really came through when we met with leaders on Monday and shared that you were leaving that to the person they talked about how honored we've all been to have served with you. So thank you so much for that. This year, as part of the governance team's priorities around supporting our workforce, we embarked on this collaborative leadership model that involved Hans and I meeting regularly with Angela Naughton, our SCTA negotiator and Dan Lanier, our president. This work wasn't always easy. As you know, we started the year with some uncertainties around the pandemic. We certainly had challenges around substitutes, but together we worked through solutions and came up with responses that were right. These bi-weekly

159meetings, provided the foundation that I think led to this new way of labor negotiations, this interest-based bargaining. It allowed us as a governance team and a district to be open and transparent about our interests in investing in our workforce and providing a competitive and comparable compensation package. One of the interests that was drafted by the district and approved by this team said that the district has interests in recognizing the quality work and many contributions of teachers and staff and demonstrating our concern with their health, wellbeing and quality of life. Throughout our negotiation process, a revised salary schedule became a priority because we want to incentivize teachers to begin and maintain their employment in San Carlos School District. I personally want everyone to feel great pride that they work here and also to feel as if

160they're compensated for that. Through the interest-based bargaining process, we collectively considered models, designed an elegant four-column model that lifts the beginning salary in our district to a competitive almost $65,000 in the 2022-23 school year and a maximum salary of 122,000. Our process has led to a pilot of a new professional learning model where we plan to provide more relevant and ongoing differentiated professional learning on a repeated cycle to be designed in partnership with our teachers and leaders. And I'm already receiving comments from the CTA members about how we can make that look. I'd like to give a nod to Hans Barber because when I started here, I asked him like, what do we gotta do? Like, what are the priorities? He says, we need a new salary schedule. And so I wanna allow some space

161for him to talk about this because we did reach that goal and I feel like we reached it in record time. And so Hans, did you wanna say something? Thank you, Jennifer, much appreciated. I would be remiss if I didn't also have a comment about Irene, just a quick story. I'm here mid July. I'm welcomed to the school district of, I think it was 2018. And I come to my first board meeting maybe two weeks later and Irene, I'm sitting right next to Irene and she just kept reassuring me that everything's fine. And after the meeting, she says, you know, it's like you've been here for years. You're just a natural fit. And that really stuck with me as, you know, not just as a employee, but as a person. And that describes Irene's attitude

162with most things. So I appreciate that. And I know that others feel exactly the same way. And the welcoming attitude that you had for all of us is recognized as Jennifer said. So piggybacking on what Jennifer mentioned, yes, she asked that right away. I said, we need to restructure a lot of our salaries. We're not able to attract and retain employees, you know, whether that was on the certificated side, classified side, it's very similar. And, you know, given that what we came into was a really rough situation with the budget when I started here, it was really difficult. And to have the opportunity to even think about this was great. And when we started thinking about it, we thought it would be a three-year process and we're not gonna get there right away, right? It's

163gonna be three years or so before we can really sort of maybe we'll do a phase-in and we'll do some pieces here and some pieces there. And to have, you know, kind of a windfall come our way and able to be able to say, wow, I think we might be able to get someone here. That was just an amazing opportunity. We would not have been able to do it without our team. And certainly without the collaboration and Christine joined our team as well to really sit in on every sheet. An idea would come up and Christine would say, well, let me see if I can run the numbers, literally doing it right there. But the collaboration with our team and with SCTA has really, you know, been notably different. Part of it is process and

164part of it is people. And, you know, it's just been a fantastic piece to be a part of. The last thing I wanna add is, you know, compensation is only one way to recognize the thanks for employees, right? It's probably the most notable and recognizable way to say, we appreciate you. And, you know, just saying it is equally as important. And so I know that everyone appreciates it when you all say those words, you know, and certainly when Jennifer and I, Christine, the leaders in the district say it, their principals say it. And, you know, getting back to the story about Irene, that's what made it, that's what makes it special here in St. Carlos. So thanks for the opportunity to say a little bit, Jennifer, I appreciate it. But so we want to thank

165our negotiations team and their CTA leadership for a collaborative process to develop this competitive salary schedule. And I personally want to extend a heartfelt thank you to Dan Lanier and Angela Naughton for their continued partnership as part of our broader leadership team. They represent their members honestly, they tell me the hard stuff, they practice confidentiality and they always, always pick up my calls. In my listening sessions with teachers and schools, I hear pride for our schools, our staff, our students, our families. This will be yet one more source of pride that together we reached a multi-year agreement. All right, maybe April showers outside, but it's sunshine and rainbows inside here. No. Okay, we need to move into closed session. So right now I'm taking a public comment on closed session, not seeing any in the

166spreadsheet and not seeing any hands raised. So we will move into closed session and we'll report back out and make sure that it's recorded out later. Thank you everyone for joining us and we'll see you soon. All right, I'll grab us back in from closed session. At this time, there is nothing to report out of closed session. So then I will adjourn the meeting at 1016.