SCSD Regular Board Meeting 4-8-2021

001Okay, we should be good. Thanks. Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the April 8th of 2021 regular meeting of the St. Carlos School Board. I will call this meeting to order at this time. Trustees, based off review of the agenda, is there a motion to approve the agenda? I move to approve the agenda. Thank you, Wendy. I second. I'll give that one to Irene. Thank you, Irene. All in favor, please say by saying aye. Aye. And hearing no, oops, sorry, and hearing no opposition, that we will approve the agenda as is. Michelle, we'll start with you then. For 3A, our special recognition with the spotlight on excellence. All right, thank you. Good evening, trustees and community. Tonight, it's exciting to have Sarah Orton with us. She is our coordinator of curriculum and instruction for the

002district, and Sarah is a long-time teacher in our district, has been a curricular leader for many years as well. And over the last two years, we've shifted some responsibilities, and she's become a true leader in sustaining a practice in our district that is well known in our county called Ropes. It's a rite of passage experiences that we provide to our students in fourth, sixth, and eighth grade. It's a very big project to manage. It's an exciting way for kids to pursue their passion projects and apply all the 21st century skills that we want them to apply, and a great way to showcase just the well-rounded academic and its social, emotional, and enriching program that we have in San Carlos, because what our kids produce during these projects is phenomenal. So I wanted to, first of

003all, recognize Sarah Orton. She really took this project over last year as we really have declined the number of staff members we have in our district office, so we've been shifting responsibilities. Because this is a district-wide event, we really needed someone at the district level to take on that leadership role, and Sarah's done an amazing job. And we went fully online this year to do the whole Ropes project. I think we must've just made it last year right before the pandemic, because Ropes happened more like February-ish. February. Yeah, we just made it through. But this year, the whole program was transformed to be completely online with over 100 volunteers, and Sarah just coordinating everything, training through Zoom, the kids, navigating all the technology. It was just amazing. So I want to recognize publicly Sarah Orton's

004efforts and her skills in working with everyone, but I also want her to talk a little bit about the experience and share a little video to give you a taste of some of the things that the kids experienced. Thank you, Sarah. Well, thanks, Michelle. And I will just say the reason it worked so well, we did it on Google Classroom, was because of all the teachers have trained the kids on Google Classroom. So they were just so dialed in, and that was just so apparent of all the work of our teachers. So it was really not that hard for me. It was just fun to see what they could do. So I'll just share a couple highlights, and then I do have a little short video that I'll share with you. You guys can see

005that, over the screen, okay. So just a couple things I will say, if you don't already know, Ropes is for fourth, sixth, and eighth graders. They have to, this is a voluntary project that the kids take on. They have to do at least 15 hours of work. And we have these little categories that they take on this voluntary project. It can be something creative, appreciation of the arts, they can do an invention or an innovation, an adventure, something personal that they're doing. They can make up cooperative games, and we've had a lot of board games and things. There is a lot of service projects, which is really fun to see. And then for eighth graders, they can do a reflection project, like what they've learned at their time in San Carlos. And I will just

006say that this has been going on, I think I've been here 25 years. I think that's about when it's been at least 20 years. We're a couple of us trying to remember when it started, I think with Don Shelby. So it's been a long standing tradition, and it's just a really special part of San Carlos. So it's been fun to watch it grow over the years. This year, we had 168 projects, which is even more than we had last year, but not being in the pandemic. We had about 140 before, so it was great. So this year we had, because kids worked, sometimes they worked as partners or in groups of three or four. So we had 234 kids earn their ropes this year. So that was pretty remarkable. You can see 97 fourth graders,

00773 sixth graders, and 64 eighth graders. And a lot of those eighth graders, this is their third project that they have done. As Michelle mentioned, we had to do it all online this year. So the kids just enrolled in a separate Google classroom for ropes. So we had all 200 plus kids on there, and that's how they turned in their work. And that's how I assigned different things. And I will be honest, I was very nervous about how to pull up judging over Zoom. I'm not as versed as the teachers are. So for me, I was very nervous about all the breakout rooms, and I did have teachers help me, which was fabulous. But we, and we've always done judging over three nights or three days. But yeah, we had over a hundred volunteers this

008year. Some were our principals and teachers and parents and community members. And a lot of these are repeat volunteers because they love it so much. So it's really fun. And we pulled it off. We just had two Zoom calls each night to cut down on the traffic. And we had lots of co-hosts kind of doing things. And the kids, it was like no big deal. They just logged in and presented and shared their screens like they normally did. So that's just a huge credit to our teachers because the kids just had no problem at all. So it was great. And then of course, we didn't do a big ropes recognition night because we can't gather as a group. So I sent the slide deck on to the principals and they did their recognition at school

009assemblies. And then the kids picked up their certificates and their ropes at their school site. The list of these 234, this list is six pages long. I'm not going to read them all, but this list is on our website. So if you want to go pull up on the ropes page and find your name, that is something to be really, really proud of. And I know they got some recognition at their school sites. So that's fabulous. Just a couple of things. There's always a fun variety. In pre-pandemic, there's always a lot of kids doing bake sales and donating the proceeds. So they couldn't do that this year, but there was a lot of helping food banks, donating items, donating to charities. There was writing to seniors. Also a lot of cooking. We have always had

010a lot of cooking. Kids do learn to do this all by themselves without help. But there were a lot of cooking and learning from home, helping anybody during the pandemic with items or teaching kids how to zoom and all kinds of things. A lot of inventions, woodworking. Kids were building computers. Technology. Kids were creating coding games and selling things on eBay, trying out different things, YouTube. And then lots of new experiences, learning how to rock climb and learn surfing and scuba diving. And it was fun. And we did have a lot of research projects. We had kids really interested in the election and researching leaders and such. So climate change. So it just is really apparent like how passionate our students are. So that was really fun. And of course, a lot of creativity. Kids

011are publishing books and doing some art and poetry. So if you haven't had a chance to judge, I would highly encourage you to do it next year. It's just really cool to see all the things that the kids do. And just a quick thing that for to do the project, to earn their rope, they have to do, they turn in a one minute pitch video, which is like a little commercial of their project. And some kids had a parent just film them and they turn that video in. A lot of kids just recorded their Zoom session with their partner. It was just seamless. And some kids made it into an iMovie and learned that tech skills as well. So that was one of the requirements. They of course presented for about 15 minutes to the

012judges. They had to complete a written report and then they had to turn in a time log of at least 15 hours of work. So any questions about that kind of thing? That's just an overview. And then I did just put together a video of just some clips just to give you a sense. So I will attempt to share that. And Michelle, I will say if when I started, if you don't hear sound, just jump out and let me know and I'll restart because sometimes that can be a little quirky. Okay, I'll help you. Okay, so here it goes. Did you hear that? Hi, my name is Ethan and my ropes project is election the board game. Shouldn't players race to get the nomination for the party for president with the opponents becoming the candidates

013for vice president. In the presidential election, players race to win the house, senate and elect the president and vice president of the United States of America. My name is Alexis Bellaradello and I'm Avi Davidovitz. We are fourth graders at Mariposa Upper Elementary School. For our ropes project, we self published a humorous fictional children's book called Baby Bunny. And in our free time, Avi and I wrote short stories about a character we named Baby Bunny in our journals. In second grade, I started to be a bunny doll for Alexis and we started writing another draft of the book. And third. Hi there. My name is Emily Sterling. During the pandemic, I learned how to help out in the kitchen while my parents were working. I thought other kids might be interested in this too. So my

014ropes project, I decided to create a blog of easy cooking ideas to make fun and yummy snacks. In my blog, I'm gonna teach kids how to make pink waffles made out of dragon fruit, bananas with any type of nut butter and sprinkles and a frozen yogurt treat. Real Greek yogurt sprinkled with chopped fresh fruit. Hi, my name is Maddie. Hi, my name is Sarah. And this is our one minute pitch. And then here's some earrings. We've got purple ones, blue ones, golden ones and dark dirt colored ones. And here's a three strand bracelet. Is it high enough? Hi, he caught me practicing for my ropes project. My name is Jacob. And my name is Oscar. I celebrate Hanukkah. And I celebrate Christmas. Over the holidays, we've realized that we are really lucky that we get

015lots of gifts and there are kids whose families can't afford to get them any gifts. So we wanted to help. Hi, my name is Luke and this is Alexa. Alexa, say hi. Hello. I did my ropes project on if these computers in our lives are listening to everything we say and do. Luke, I already told you I don't. Breaking news, you're hearing the inside scoop on climate change with Samantha and Bentley. We have learned all there is to know about climate change and we're here to teach you. Hello, my name is Benjamin M. and I am in sixth grade at TL. After the 2020 election, I got really interested in the electoral college. Looking back through its history, it hasn't always been perfect. Four times in American history, the winner of the electoral college didn't

016win in the popular vote. Hi, my name is Soren. And today I will be telling you my one minute pitch about how I tried to gain 1,000 subscribers on YouTube. Hi, my name is Mira. And my name is Uma. For our ropes project, we decided to give a gift that was both thoughtful and useful to a group of people who have been so vital to our community these past months. The healthcare workers who have been so kind and caring, saving so many lives. My mom is a healthcare worker and she told me about the trouble with having a place to keep masks and how they keep having to get new ones after putting them on contaminated surfaces. So we decided to make mask holders to help with this problem. The mask holders have clips on

017the end to help them connect to your mask. And when you take it off, it hangs around your neck, keeping it clean and accessible. Hi, my name is Alisa Fornier and I'm a sixth grader at Central Middle School. Did you know that I'm from Russia, Poland, Ukraine, Italy, Canada, and England? Neither did I until I started my SDSD Ropes Project. In this project, I decided to find out where I am from and learn all about my family. Then I chose three dishes to cook from three different places in my heritage. What it feels like to not know where your next meal will come from? Well, many people in our community don't know where their next meal will come from. Sam Diggs and I wanted to do something about it. We decided to bag 100 lunches

018for our community. We had to put a lot of effort in to complete this project. We had to research where we wanted to deliver the lunches. We had to spend hours grabbing the groceries at Costco and other grocery stores. And we had to make the lunches, set out a five-hour time slot to do that. But after we completed all, we felt very accomplished and happy. There are three steps in resin casting. The first is making or finding the original copy. This can be almost anything as long as it doesn't react with the silicon. Next is to make the silicon mold. Liquid rubber is poured around the original part and then it hardens. When you take out the original part, the silicon is a near perfect, but negative copy of the shape of the original part.

019The last step is to make the resin casting. The resin is poured into the silicon mold and is allowed to harden. When you take it out, it will look just like your original. My name is Sophia Cirelli and I am in eighth grade. My third and final ropes project is called Letters of Love. I think we can all agree that 2020 and sadly the beginning of 2021 have all been a bust. But I decided to change that by sending out handwritten letters of love to my friends and family whom I have not been able to see during this time. I wanted my project because I wanted somewhere where I could post my poetry and artwork from during the pandemic so that later on I could look back and see how I felt during 2020. I

020started an Instagram account, a place where I could easily post photos of my poems and artwork and also videos of the behind the scenes. It was the simplest way for me to publish my content, but I challenged myself to create a collection of poems that would accurately represent 2020 and to produce digital art and videos to go along with the poems. And in the process, I learned a lot about communication through social media and visual art. Are those our San Carlos kids? It was just fantastic. And I wish I could show you all 238 projects or I guess 160, I can't remember how many, but that we would be here all day and in the week. But that was just kind of a snippet of just different kinds of things. And yeah, every time we

021judge and listen to these projects, I'm just blown away about the kids communication skills and just all their passions and interests. And so it is just really, really fun to be part of that. All right, thank you, Sarah. And I just think this is one of the things that I was so excited about coming to this district is to learn about this tradition and the way the whole community gets involved in this, having a hundred volunteers, we have all sorts of people helping out and it really is a whole community effort. So thank you again, Sarah, and thanks for sharing this tonight. Yeah, thank you very much, Sarah. And thank you for keeping this tradition alive. It's something that I think is very unique to San Carlos, but something that everyone participates in as well.

022And we are glad we have people that keep it going. But more importantly, probably one of my favorite things is to watch all the projects and things come up with. So thank you again. Of course, welcome. Thank you, Sarah. So such a joyful event. For sure, for sure. All right, I will move us on then to the consent agenda. Items for A and B for the public. These are items that we find routine in nature or without a lot of needed, a lot of debate or discussion. So we will move them as a group. Is there a motion to approve the consent agenda? I move that we approve the consent agenda. Thank you, Irene. Thank you, Carol. All in favor, please state by saying aye. Aye. Not hearing any opposition. I will move us on.

023I will pass five, zero. And we'll move on to five A, our diversity, equity and inclusion update. I believe Sarah and Wendy will provide an update for us to start us with kind of the process on how we got to where we're at and where we go from here. And I'll let you two take it from there. I'll just do a quick introduction, Neil. I'm just sharing my screen. Attached to the agenda item today, you'll see that we have an equity report that was created by inclusion counts consultants and it's available for anyone to read. It's going to be on our website pretty soon once we build a new page to house our DEI work, but it is available to review. We're not going to be able to do that tonight in the time allotted,

024but we wanted to make you aware of the progress that we've made. And this tonight's really an update just on process. And again, on the agenda, I did list future meetings for the remainder of this school year. So I asked Irene and Wendy, since they attended our first steering committee meeting as representatives of the board, if they could just give a brief update as an informational item for the board. I'm not encouraging a discussion or any work to be done tonight. It's just to keep the board, the rest of the board, up to date on the process of our work. Yeah, that was me and not Irene. So me and Wendy. Oh, sorry about that, Sarah. Well, it's okay, no worries. So we did have our first meeting of the DEI steering committee right before

025spring break. And Wendy and I are the board representatives. The other members are principals and teachers and staff and parents. And it seems like a really great group. Everyone's dedicated and engaged in the process. At that first meeting, we just spent some time getting to know each other and Amber from Inclusion Counts gave us really the very high level takeaways from the equity report that's attached to tonight's agenda. Then for our meeting this month, which is the 28th, I think, or the last Wednesday of the month, we will all be, before that meeting, reading the report in depth and making note of areas that we think are important for immediate and long-term actions and then starting the process of drafting district DEI goals. And we discussed as a group how it's, even though this is

026a long-term process, it's also important to find ways to take action in the near term. So I think we'll be talking about that as well. And we can give another update, I think, in our May 6th meeting if you would like us to do that. And Wendy, anything else? I guess the only thing I'd add, Sarah, thanks, is that just the format of the meetings, I think what's really helpful about this is that I think there's been some careful selection of the steering committee to make sure there's representation reflecting diversity of our district. And that part of the objective is, in a way, I think, sort of, I mean, it's setting a tone, which is around building trust and collaboration. And so the consultants have done an excellent job of providing some great norms and

027tools. And that this is, as Sarah said, I mean, this will be an ongoing process. So they were just sort of setting the stage, and I think there'll be a good amount of interaction, like allowing there to be a lot of dialogue in these meetings. So I think it's a very constructive and beneficial process. And obviously, we as representatives there of the board are trying to learn and hear about what recommended actions, what can we do at the policy level. But just hearing from the members that are there, and everyone having a voice is really important. And I just wanna say, I appreciate Inclusion Counts. They're extremely capable, and everyone has done a great job so far, thanks. All right, thank you, Wendy and Sarah, for doing this work. Before, if we have any questions

028from the board, Wendy, do you have any public comment in regards to this item? Well, let me refresh, but we did not. Six A or eight A. Okay. Yeah, we're good. Okay, just wanted to make sure. Yeah, thank you. Well, thank you both. fellow Trustee, is there any other questions about the process, where we go from here in regards to the process for Wendy, Sarah, Dr. Herrmann? I have a question for Sarah and Wendy, and it's really a question also to kind of inclusion accounts. And maybe you have the answer at our next update. I'm just curious how they think about how, I'm sure Inclusion Counts has seen many organizations try to set DEI goals. To me, sometimes I see goals that are activity goals and then other goals that are outcome goals. And so

029I'll just be really curious what they recommend and how do we also get beyond the activities we wanna track, but how do we really get to a culture of inclusion and we see the outcomes shift? Yeah, I think those are great questions. I don't have anything to say on that tonight, but certainly something that I will bring up and hopefully bring back to you. I don't know if it'll be the next meeting, but in the next, when there seems like an appropriate time and something more we could say about that, definitely bring that back to the board. I was gonna say, I think that each section of the report, which I haven't digested fully, it's quite long. But no, I mean, I think they obviously, you measure what matters and they've tried to help articulate

030some metrics, but this is something that has to be meaningful for our district. So I think that's part of what this steering committee is about, is like to help shape that. But yeah, being a measurement person myself from programmatic work, that's important about there's immediate outcomes, but long-term impact. So we need to aim for both. I have a question just in terms of inclusion counts role. I don't recall exactly what the contract had. Are they going to be continuing to support us in our equity work by participating and I don't know, facilitating the committee or helping the district develop policy recommendations? Do we know what their role is going forward? Yes, we tentatively have a two-year agreement with them. We approved year one for this year with the assumption we would approve year two. So

031we would want to do that probably in June, just to have everything ready to go. The idea was they would help facilitate the listening sessions, policy review and goal setting this year and then help us with the implementation of those goals and actions that are then identified this year during next year. So I would suggest bringing that contract if we wanna continue to work with them before the end of the school year so that we make sure that we are continuing the work without a break. Great, thanks. Yeah, so far they're guiding us very well, I would say. I've been very impressed with them and they did a very nice job. Our committee meetings are only an hour and a half and we got in a lot, I think in that time, just in the

032first meeting, because they're very skilled at running these types of groups clearly. So if we can. And I don't know if we mentioned it, but Dr. Hermeyer, I believe that training for staff is in May, right? So that's part of the contract, is that right? I don't, Wendy, I just don't have that detail right now. So I can't really answer that, but I know that part of the contract, there's many different components involved. And some training is involved. We had talked about some board training as well. So I think part of that is first identifying the goals and actions and then starting to meet whatever those needs are. Okay, we can clarify that too. Sarah and I can bring that back. Yes, and I just got a confirmation. We are having a training scheduled in

033May for staff. Okay, thanks. Here's one last question for everyone. With the committee, what's kind of your cadence in terms of how often we meet over the summer or will be kind of on the school calendar? Right now, I think it's once a month, but we're not meeting in June and July or July and August. I'm not sure, I think we're, yeah, there's a couple of months this summer. We're not meeting. Right, there aren't meetings scheduled for this summer. Irene, Carol, any other questions before we move on? No, that's great. Thank you everyone for that hard work and very difficult work, but necessary. So we look forward to the next update in May and kind of updating us on the process and how we keep going from there. I will move us on then to

0345B, the St. Carlos Chartered Learning Center, 2020-21 Second Interim. Christine, I believe this is you, but I don't know if Michelle, you're gonna give her an intro or she'll just take it from there. All right, Christine. Good evening, I'll be reporting out Chartered Learning Center, their Second Interim report and multi-year projections. So CLC at Second Interim had a decreased change in their fund balance of $103,000. And that is due to $4,000 decrease in their local revenue and 99,000 increase in salaries and benefits and operating expenses. Their total ending fund balance at Second Interim is $992,000. So the reserve level is 19%, which exceeds the 3% minimum. For their multi-year projections, CLC shows an increase in state aid due to the post-colonial increase and their increase in attendance. And they also anticipate an increase to their

035child revenue due to returning to normal operations. The expenditures for the multi-year reflect an annual salary increase and pension cost increase and a 3% increase for supplies and operating expenditures. CLC is projecting an operating surplus in 21-22 and 22-23 and maintaining a reserve level between 24 to 27%. So the Chartered Learning Center is able to meet its financial obligation for the current year and the next two fiscal years. Great, thank you, Christine. Any questions for Christine in regards to CLC Second Interim? Nope. And just to make sure this is just informational for the board, right? We don't need to approve anything, correct, Christine? All right. Okay, I will move us on then to 6A, return to in-person learning on campus update. Wendy, I'll just start, if we take public comment on this first. There is

036one person who wanted to address the board and provide their public comment and that is Paul Bryant. So if Veronica can see if he's on, that would be great. I'm scrolling through, I don't know if Veronica. Doesn't look like he is, just want to go and then maybe go pop on. Okay, then I'll just move on. Yes, you can, I'm unmuted, right? Okay, all right, I'll just start reading then the others. And if you can help me with time, I guess some of these might be a little bit long. Give me one second. Okay, this is from Diana Herman. Dear board members, Dr. Homerian teachers, my name is Diana Herman and my child is a second grader at White Oaks. Thank you for your hard work in navigating through all the challenges during this school

037year. I'm writing out of concern for the next school year and the impact choices you make today will be on the future of public education in our district. Now that San Mateo County Office of Education has released an updated edition of its pandemic recovery framework allowing for three feet between student chairs and with the educators having the opportunity to become fully vaccinated, the district should immediately implement a phased approach for full-time in-person learning this school year, starting with the K through three grades. Returning to full-time in-person learning this school year is our only hope in keeping our families committed to public education and the San Carlos School District. Thank you for your attention, Diana Herman. Okay, the next one is from Amy Bailey. Dear board members, Dr. Homerian teachers, my name is Amy Bailey and

038I'm a second grader. Thank you for your continuous and relentless work this year given a global pandemic and ever-changing circumstances. During the last board meeting, it sounded like the board and the superintendent were not interested in trying to have children return to full-time this year. I realize there's a lot of work that goes into planning for this, but if this planning is not done now, when will it be done? I find it hard to count on a full reopening in the fall if we can't get the plan together now and implement it before the end of the school year. Can you please rethink this? Thanks, Jamie Bailey. Natasha Mellie, please don't give up on full-time learning this year. I hear many other local schools finding a way to make it work. Six hours a week

039for my fifth grader and 10 hours a week for my third grader is not adequate now given our area's low case rate, low positivity rate, mitigation, vaccinated teachers, parent staff, pediatricians, public health professionals, scientific studies agree schools are safe spaces. Being isolated alone during schoolwork is not safe for our kids' mental, social or academic wellbeing. Work with the union, don't give up on our kids. Wendy Moore, with vaccinations and all the evidence supporting full-time school safety for kids, please return to full-time school now and stop wasting time sorting through AV cohort schedules that still don't work. Just open school and kids can wear masks and wash hands and be safe like they have been all year in the afterschool and ACE program that our children have gone to every day alongside the empty classroom. Nia

040Moretti, as a parent of a kindergartner and second grader, I've seen the positive impact that returning to school in-person has had on both my children. With the three-foot distancing ordinance now in place, I would love to see our schools offer more in-person learning time and seeing a reason why we couldn't implement this before the end of the current school year. Chelsea Hatterer, this month many districts in our state will go back to full in-person learning. Not only has San Carlos fallen far behind but our district continues to drag its feet and waste time. Clearly there's no way for children to get back to school safely, but there's a serious lack of will here. My family is so incredibly displeased with how things have been handled here and that like many others next year, we will

041not be returning. Do the right thing here and give these children the school year they deserve for their man-come-of-its-school. John Aveggio, thank you for giving us the opportunity to share our opinions. I am contacting you to plead you for our children's sake to please resume full-time school. Our district's children have lost out on so much education. This will most definitely impact our future and theirs. But just in starting, most people really don't understand how much education or teachable hours have been lost. For an example, I have a fifth and eighth grader who are both taking U.S. history. My fifth grader will not be learning approximately 200 years of U.S. history. As of now, two-thirds through the year, they are still on the colonies. Hold on, I wanna make sure, okay. They are still on the

042colonies. We will be lucky if they make it to any presidents. My eighth grader is missing about 150 years of U.S. history education. They have stopped at the seventh president. As the teacher told us, it's just unfortunate that he can't cover all the material this year. They don't have enough time with distant learning. They are covering less than half the material they normally would cover. It is not acceptable. They will never be able to make up this lost education. Please, please, please resume full-time. Matthew Chang, many parents have anxiety both about the safety of return, hoping for things like campus-wide testing, actually occurring and decreased class sizes, and about ensuring that our children do not end up in computer school again. Knowing that both are a priority without either being neglected is important for us.

043Christine Ortner, dear board members, it is important to note that no, it is not too late to return to full in-person learning this spring. No more excuses, please, like the teachers' unions, the vaccines, the safety, the social distancing protocols. No, dear board members, it is not too much of a burden for the teachers to adjust to get another schedule. I'm wondering who the burden is on. Parents have been asked to be patient for every year now. Parents and kids can adjust to yet another schedule, and so can teachers. It is not too late to return to full in-person learning. Six hours per week for a fourth grader and 10 hours per week for a second grader are not enough at this point. Kids have to immediately return to school full-time. Concerned BA Arroyo parent. We

044are thrilled with the much anticipated news that the San Mateo County Office of Education has officially reduced the distance requirement from 60 to three feet. This less restrictive guideline, along with teacher vaccinations, was truly the answer to the San Carlos parent community that full-time school would resume. After an extremely difficult year of learning loss, social emotional loss, anxiety, isolation, and depression, we truly believe that schools can open full-time and be compliant with all the current guidelines. After an entire year of planning, San Carlos schools should be prepared to return to school full-time. Failure to put our kids first for the past year has led to a parent community that has lost hope for our San Carlos schools. Parents and children are suffering, and San Carlos schools has so far been a complete disappointment to the

045standards we held prior to the pandemic. It's time to make the right choice, which is to put the kids first. We have the science in our favor. We have obtainable guidelines. We have the parent and community support. We are working, sorry, I clicked on something and I lost the train. We have the science in our favor. We have obtainable guidelines. We have the parent and community support. We're working to teach our kids at home where the teachers can't on Zoom, meanwhile compromising our jobs. We are also working at the school volunteering or becoming district employees to put the kids first. The teachers unions and the board need to consider the years worth of damage and repercussions and move forward to heal our children and the community by returning to full-time school immediately. This simply can't

046wait until fall. Please show your support by returning to full-time now. Sorry, some say 8A and some say 6A. What is 8A? 8A is just general public comment. So if it says 8A, we can come back and just do it later. Okay, I might have jumped ahead. Like that one, I just realized that 8A, but it's about reopening. Okay, I'll stick to 6A. This is Garrick, Roof Columns. Schools must reopen full-time with full classrooms now. We have friends in the rest of the state and country whose children are in school full-time with no issues. Teachers are not getting sick. Kids are healthy and receiving a good education. The blame for not being full-time in person lies primarily with the teachers union. And really doesn't that mean the blame lies with the teachers themselves to some

047extent? If the teachers really wanted to move on this, wouldn't their union follow suit? I understand that the union's first priority is the teachers. That is absolutely how it should be. But to all the teachers listening, I think you need to consider the image your union has been projecting over the last year. The union has demonstrated that the interests of our children don't even appear to be a distant blip on its radar. It continues to play politics and ignore both CDC guidance and the positive in-person experiences of other locations. Your union seems to be fine with our children receiving a neutered education in the guise of distance learning. Really our prominent union member went so far as to portray a return to normal as being a literal death sentence, despite all available evidence to the

048contrary. I certainly do not take the health and wellbeing of our valuable teachers lightly, nor do I minimize the seriousness of COVID. But when your union engages in such hyperbolic, cynical and transparent politicking, and it directly affects my child, I'm disheartened to find my child upon in your union's game. The union does not start advocating for a full-time in-person school. I, and I expect a lot of parents will remember this the next time the union starts asking for pay raises or better benefits, which will doubtless be marked as, after all, what's good for your teachers is good for your child. Why should we support this? We will wonder when during the pandemic, the same union seemed utterly content with, and indeed seemed to fight for, a subpar education for our children. It is hard to

049write all this since we have had some great experiences with some of the teachers in our school who have gone far above and beyond the call of duty in helping our son. Regardless of the above, we will be forever in their debt for their kindness and caring. I can still remember to make those points. Britta Ellis, dear San Carlos School District Trustees and Dr. Harmar, my family wanted to express our gratitude to our principals, teachers, administrators, parents, supervisors, and kids for an incredible two weeks back at school. We recognize what a huge endeavor this has been and commend our incredible school district. Our family is in awe of the work being done at White Oaks. Our teachers are working tirelessly to provide a meaningful and engaging curriculum. Students are continuing to build the relationship with

050their teachers and each other, finding strength and resiliency and are intrinsically motivated to learn. As we end the school year and start planning for a full-time return in the fall, we are grateful to be in San Carlos, a community and district that has chosen to lead with empathy and support one another. We are all still in this together and we just wanted to share our support and gratitude for the safe reopening of our schools this year, as well as the thoughtful planning ahead for 2021-22. Thank you to Ellis family. This is from Christie Juliachi. Dear board members, it is imperative that our children be back in school full-time now this school year. In light of the most recent developments where teachers have had the opportunity to be fully vaccinated and the county has reduced the

051physical distancing to three feet, we are losing families by the day to private schooling. And even if we ourselves do not leave this district, I'm fearful of what we will have left to come back to. We have spent more than a year hearing about the need to pivot and now it is San Carlos School District's turn. By saying you do not wish to burden the staff and administration with another schedule change, you are once again not prioritizing the children and all of this. Now is the time to act, not this summer and not next school year. Oops, I still have several more. This is from Joe Gray. I would like to advocate for a return to full five days a week and full days return to school for all kids in the district. The morning

052afternoon schedule has worked very well. My child has been very thankful to be back in class and able to see some of her friends. But now the county has changed the guidance to three feet between children. And I think we owe the children to do our best to return to full in-person learning ASAP and not wait for the fall. As we did with the hybrid schedule, we will learn more from returning to a more normal schedule before the end of the school year. Almost 50% of adults in San Mateo are now vaccinated and it's increasing every day. We now have an additional day to get our kids COVID tested. Our children deserve to be back to school and now the risks are significantly reduced and the CDC and county have confirmed three foot distance is

053safe. Carrie Burchard, good evening. I have been a strong advocate for our kids return to school for this year and I'm disappointed it seems we won't be getting past phase four. I was hopeful that once the state and county lowered the students facing guidelines, our district would have a plan to get more kids on campus for more hours. I'm worried about the fall. Can the board give us parents the assurance that our kids will be full time next year? Thank you. Jennifer Perrazzo, dear board, first I would like to thank you for the hard work you, our principals, administrators, and teachers are doing to educate our children throughout this pandemic and navigate the reopening of our schools. I have one son at Arroyo and another at Central. Both are learning and thriving. Mindy Shelton, Jamie

054Skinner, and the fourth grade team at Arroyo have absolutely blown me away. Tom Domer, Ms. Banfield, Ms. Williams, Ms. Burton, and Ms. Weisinger and Ms. Tumilo have gone above and beyond to educate and support my seventh grader and even me. I'm exceedingly grateful. My comment here this evening is both the above thanks and a question. I think there's a lot of confusion in our parent community. Many parents, myself included, assume that the children will be returning to school full time in the fall. Many other parents do not believe we are in a past reopening fully in the fall or ever for that matter. Can you please clarify for us? I'm hopeful we are all parents, teachers, admin board on the same page and are planning to fully reopen in the fall of 2021. So that's

055not the case. I'd love to know what, A, what the barriers are and B, how we parents can help break them down. Thanks for taking the time to address my comment. And again, for your dedication to our children, Jennifer Plaza, Jennifer May. I honestly don't understand why we are not back full time in person learning now. Teachers are vaccinated and we can do three feet. I'm not sure what more we are supposed to do. Why do we have to beg and negotiate to get us back to where we are supposed to be and always have been when we are finally at a place where we can be back there? I get that everyone is tired. My husband and I are both essential workers who cannot work from home. We have been working triple time to

056get our own work done while we basically have to be home most hours in the day while the kids are not in school. But now is not the time to lose motivation. To do that simply says the kids don't matter and the two full months left of the school year don't matter. We can do better, be better. Julia Kynes. I urge the school board to continue pushing forward for returning to full-time instruction in this school year. Yes, we have made progress. Yes, we had to renegotiate the MOU several times during this pandemic. These are admirable steps forward. Stopping now and settling for full-time return in the fall is not putting our kids first. Putting kids first is the commitment that this board has made to our community and I'd like to see that commitment be

057upheld despite how administratively difficult this task may be. There are still two months of school left with San Mateo County in the orange tier and with distancing guidance reduced to three feet. We have all the tools that are at our disposal to come back to full-time instruction. Just like many of our surrounding districts. Please put your and our San Carlos kids first. The Kamala Amenbauer. Hybrid and DL are having detrimental effects on urgent learners and at-risk children. There are many who are thriving in DL but there are also those who are failing. What is the board's answer to those children's families for how they're going to provide an equal and fair education? Next year when teachers are dealing with classes where they will have students who thrived in DL due to assistance of parents could

058provide or due to their own abilities to learn in the online environment, these students could be a year more ahead of their typical classmates. Then teachers will have those who didn't thrive but did not struggle. They may be about grade level. Then you will have those who struggled and were not able to learn during DL. The teachers will have students who regressed during DL and will be a year more behind. How is a teacher going to teach a class with maybe two class years of abilities? You cannot harm the children who struggled during DL and hold them back. So what is the plan? What tangible things is the board and the school district going to do to address the widened education gap? The answer cannot be to hold those children back or put them in

059a special class. They are to have access to a fair and equitable education. The district has failed that for many students this year and it needs address what they will do to start undoing the harm done during DL. Or I'm struggling just with the format here. These families need to know how it is going to be addressed. Thank you, Kamala. Okay, this is the last one on 6A, Jennifer and Scott Rudy. Dear trustees, as parents of a third grader and a seventh grader, we want to acknowledge the complex work undertaken by teachers, principals and district staff to return kids to school in a hybrid model this year. Amid the ever-changing landscape of the pandemic, the days our kids are on campus are highlights for them. We are grateful to your efforts and managing the nuances

060created by changing schedules. Thank you also to the board and Dr. Herrmeyer for stating the intent to return to a full schedule in the fall for 21-22 school year. Okay, Neil, that completes that list and there might be a couple 8As that we can address later. Thanks, I think we'll go back to, I think we had one comment, Paul Bryant, and I think he's online. So we'll end with that one because that'll reach our limit, but I'll try to unmute Paul and you can go ahead. Hi, how's it going? Can you hear me? Awesome. Yeah, so as the parents of two children in the district, we also strongly encourage the district to open up to full-time. Over the past year, there's been numerous reasons given why the students can't be back in the classroom. However,

061now that the COVID levels are very low, the teachers have all of the opportunity to be vaccinated and social distancing requirements have been reduced to three feet. We feel like there's no reason why the kids can't be back full-time and there's obviously many positive reasons to bring them back. The positive benefits include better academics, social emotional learning from their peers, stemming the loss of students to private schools and other districts that are open and keeping San Carlos a desirable place for families to live. We, the San Carlos community, have spent years building a reputation for being high quality, especially with our schools. I think that's probably the biggest drawford for living in San Carlos and we don't wanna see that get lost because we can't pull together and be unwilling to get the kids back

062full-time. San Mateo County has really turned the corner in COVID. It's now time to invest in our kids' futures. Numerous other districts in the Bay Area are doing it so we can do it also. Thank you very much. All right. Thank you, Paul. We will go through a little bit, definitely maybe this time, board, just to talk a little bit about, try to get, I think, clear to everyone, get kind of the answers we need and then I'll call for kind of questions or discussions as Dr. Harmer and I go through it a little bit just to make sure we're clear to touch anything up that you may not understand. So, Dr. Harmer, a couple of things we can start with. Just to kind of guide us is, can you give us just kind of

063a breakdown of what is the new guidance? I know it came out recently from San Mateo County but there's a lot to it besides distancing in those regards. So you can just start there and kind of give us what the new guidance is. Yes, Neil. Essentially, I think it came out yesterday, day before. I'm kind of losing track of time but the San Mateo County Office of Education updated its pandemic recovery framework and that's based on the San Mateo County health guidelines. So that's what they were waiting for is the county health to update their recommendations so that we could align in the county school districts. So the biggest change is moving from having students at a six foot distance to a three foot distance. So that is the biggest change. The recommendations still suggest

064that adults should be six feet away from children and six feet away from each other. So that distancing will remain for adults. It's also one change in there is about how many contacts a teacher can have in the day with different groups of students. And so there are no limitations now on numbers of contacts. We, in the former guidance, it was suggested to really restrict the numbers of groups that teachers were exposed to. Now, what they're saying is that there isn't a limitation as we plan for next steps. So I see those are the two biggest changes in the guidance. And I think it's an important reminder when we approved our plans and put together our different phases, there was no known mention of any kind of a three foot distance, not in the fall,

065not in the winter, not even in the spring as we were ramping up and preparing to come back in hybrid on February 22nd when we started implementing our hybrid or our phase three schedule and then our hybrid schedule. So the federal government for the first time came out with that three foot distancing, which was a new metric that none of us had really prepared for. And here in the county, as I talked with other superintendents, we were waiting for the guidance to come from CDPH, the state who then also recommended the three foot guidance. When, as soon as we got that information, we really all went back and said, what does that mean for us? Because our assumption was we were going to go from a hybrid model right to a full return. And we

066didn't know there was going to be yet another intermediate metric that we were going to have to meet. So there's a reason why we didn't have a plan for a three foot return. So I think the guidance piece is really important to understand. When I immediately talked to principals right before the spring break, when we started hearing the CDPH guidance, I actually visited schools, talked with principals, we went into classrooms with tape measures and said, what does this mean for us? What can we do now that there is a three foot distancing requirement? So that is what I'll talk a little bit about next about then what does that mean for us? And then how do we prepare for that next stage? But those, I think that's the most important piece of the guidance that

067has been adjusted. And then I have one question too, it's just in terms of the guidance is that if I read it correctly, I often don't, it still requires distancing of six feet at unmasked times, right? So during lunches, that's still the requirement, correct? Yes, thanks for bringing that up. And that was another challenge because we talked about if we're gonna eat lunch in the classroom, what does that look like if we're gonna be at three foot spaces? And then we realized once we started getting into the guidances, we still need six foot distance between students during lunchtime or unmasked times. And so that is something that we have to keep in mind as we plan our next phase. All right, trustees on this point of just the guidance alone of what the changes are.

068Do you have any questions for Dr. Harmeier? Just questions on kind of clarifying points on just the change in the guidance. All right, seeing none. So Dr. Harmeier, the board at the last meeting had, our biggest commitment is full-time in the fall. That's our biggest commitment, but so let's just kind of start there and work backwards. Let's say with these new guidelines, kind of walk us through what needs to be done between now and before summer hits to make it so we can get to that point to meet our goal. Well, that's our absolute goal and we feel confident that we can have a full return in the fall. So we didn't realize that on the 25th when I talked to you last time, but that was clear direction that I'm very clear about what

069the board's desire and the community desire and frankly, our teachers too. The teachers association was very clear when we met last that they are really hopeful for an absolute full return in the fall. We believe we can achieve that now, now that we've had a little bit of time to look at the guidance and also a key factor is that we are receiving significant one-time dollars from both the state and the federal government just to help support the return to school. So what does that mean for us? Number one, what we're going to have to do when we go into our elementary school classrooms, the majority of our classrooms have paired desks, essentially two desks or one table that students share and they sit shoulder to shoulder. That doesn't meet that three foot spacing requirement.

070When I talk to the principals, it's gonna be nose to nose is what we're looking at, three foot distance between students. So our challenge there is with furniture and the majority of our K-3 classes have tables of some kind or shared desks where kids are forced to sit very close together. That is something that we can remedy. We're getting about two and a half million dollars of one-time funding. Number one, we're getting the return to school grant because of our efforts and our close work with the teachers, we started returning all of our students in February and all K-8 were back on campus in some level by April 1st. Because of those efforts, we just received an $885,000 grant to support a full return to school for next year. That's gonna help tremendously. The second

071pot of money that we're getting is called learning recovery grant. And there's a lot of flexibility in both of these grants on how we spend the money. It's about getting the kids back to school, using the funds for whatever you need, whatever constraints you're challenged with to support the full return and also to help with learning recovery. So that's a grant that's about $1.7 million for us. That's an estimate right now until the final numbers come in. And then the federal government through the CARES Act gave states, counties, cities and districts monies to also help with the return. We're getting a few hundred thousand dollars from the federal CARES Act. It's not significant, unlike some districts that are getting $10 million from some of these funds in districts in our own county. But we have

072a very low Title I population, which means high poverty in the city of San Carlos and in the boundaries of our school district. Therefore, we don't qualify for Title I funds at a very high rate. So we are getting a few hundred thousand and so we're really happy about that. So all combined, it's somewhere around 2.5 million. So knowing we have this money that is coming in to support the return to school, this will drive our summer and fall guidance. So number one, we need to address the furniture problem. Our fourth through eighth grade schools all recently have pretty new furniture because of the modernization projects that we had. We're feeling that the fourth and through eighth grade furniture will likely work for us because the way we can work with some tables and reconfiguring

073classrooms, but there may be some additional things we need to buy for some rooms, but it's not going to be as big a lift as our elementaries. Our four elementary schools have not had new furniture probably for 20 to 30 years. So it is time anyway for us to update furniture. It's something we would have done in the next phase of our general obligation bonds if we were going to move forward with the next phase of our master plan. So furniture is something that's needed. It's something that we would have been purchasing within the next several years. So my recommendation is to buy new single desks for our K-3 schools. It's important that we have the flexibility with desks so that we can sit the three feet apart, but we also want to, once the

074pandemic is over, be able to push those tables together for collaboration. That's why we have tables in the first place. We really want to encourage partner work collaboration. So I've already been on the phone with a furniture project management company that has helped our district in the past. We've been working on this for over a week now, and we have an opportunity to buy desks and chairs as needed for our elementary classes for sure, and then also to supplement our fourth through eighth grade as needed. So I would say that's the number one thing we need to do to get to a full return, is get the right furniture so we can meet those guidelines. Secondly is staffing and hiring more teachers so we can reduce our classes a little bit. Our classes normally are

075filled to 25 in our K-3, levels and up to 30 and 32 in our fourth through eighth grade. The 32 and 30 don't fit into the classrooms that we have now, unless we, there's just no way. And we'd have to take out all the furniture and the kids would be wall to wall spaced out, which won't work with the tables that we do have in those upper grades. So we'd like to bring the numbers down in our fourth through eighth grade classes to a reasonable number. So drop those down a few kids so that, because every room is different also. In the middle schools, Central is pretty consistent. Tierra Linda is very inconsistent. We have some very small classroom portables at Tierra Linda that will hold about 20 students, but most classes will probably be

076okay with about 26. So it really varies in the fourth through eighth about how many kids can fit into a classroom. Right now, we couldn't go back with our current class sizes of 30 and 32. So that is a challenge that we have now, but it's absolutely something we can overcome for next year. The challenge with the middle schools, both sites are already pretty full and we have classroom space challenges there. So I'm really working with Tom and Kristen to really look at what will this look like? Can we fully return all of our classes for core academic subjects, number one, so that we can have a full five day schedule on campus? And the answer is yes, we will figure that out. The challenge that we're trying to also manage right now is how

077will we work with PE and elective classes? In a middle school setting, we have 40 to 65 students in our PE classes and our orchestra and band classes. Those are large classes just because of the dynamic of the class. So we have to likely adjust how we do PE and electives next year. So though I'm committed to getting all of our kids back full time, what the day schedule will look like will be different. We cannot commit to a full menu of electives and the same kind of PE we've been doing. However, we will have a plan for those, but I don't have a plan yet. That's something that we have to work on. So that's kind of our middle school situation. Some furniture, definitely some staffing so we can reduce the numbers of kids

078in our fourth through eighth grade. In our K through threes, again, we're not going to have a problem with size of classes. We already try to average about 23 kids. Our max is 25. So we feel if we just hover around those lower numbers that we can sometimes have, somewhere around 22, we feel like it will be comfortable in the class where the teachers can still keep their regular furniture, their bookcases, their teacher desk, small group desk, and still have individual desks for their kids with maybe a little bit of carpet space for that floor work that sometimes happens as well in a classroom. So we're very confident about space, class size, and furniture in K-5 right now with the addition of the new furniture and also with the addition of more teachers. When we

079look at the cost of the two items that I think are the biggest cost items, and that's where I really want some clear direction tonight from you or really a stamp of approval, we'll probably spend a million to a million three on additional staffing to reduce class sizes. That's a significant cost across the district. So I'd like to set aside about a million three to have our one-time funding for next year, just to have those lower class sizes for one year so that we can assure everyone can come back full-time. The second part is the furniture. Right now, initially I just had an estimate of furniture for the K-3 schools, and that cost was looking at around 500,000, but now talking with four through eight, knowing there will be some adjustments or help that they'll

080need to fit everything in uniquely, maybe a blend of tables plus desks. We'll probably need to add in a couple hundred thousand more just for initial budgeting. So I'm guessing seven to $800,000 for furniture possibly. Those are the two things that are the most important for us to return fully. The law that SB 98 that directed our work this year gave us flexibility with instructional minutes and allowed us to do distance learning. That law is sunsetting in June, which means we'll revert back to the regular standard instructional minutes and instructional days according to Ed code. So we have to look to bringing our kids back to pretty much the normal schedule. So again, when we say return to school fully, what I'm referring to is having kids on campus during the normal instructional time that

081we would normally have them on campus. So they're eight 30 to two 30, for example, except for Wednesdays where we have the early release day like normal. But when I say return fully, I'm not talking about programmatically returning to pre-COVID times. And I think this is really important that we're learning from our fourth through eighth is we likely will not be able to offer the same type or level or number of elective classes and PE will definitely look different. There may be some kind of a blend with PE just because the large number of kids in a class and how we normally staff things. So I think that is important. And what we're going to prioritize is having kids on campus fully. And then second, and then we're going to prioritize our core instruction, language

082arts, social studies, math and science. And then our second priority in those upper grades will be electives and PE. PE is an absolute requirement. The state's going to continue that requirement, but we're not sure if the minutes will be the same as it used to be. So we're waiting to see if there's going to be some kind of flexibility with the number of minutes that the older kids must engage in physical education. The master scheduling is another critical piece of what are we going to have to do to come back next year. We cannot still have gatherings or large groups of kids together or people together. That is what we're expecting. And that's in the guidance now, even for next year. So what that means is in a school, when you have four or 500

083kids on campus, you tend to have everyone have lunch about the same hour and then you go back. That's what we're going to have to figure out how to stagger that. And our recesses will also have to be staggered. So if you look at a typical K-3 day, every kid has a 15 minute recess in the morning, about a 40 minute lunch and another 15 minute recess in the afternoon. Management wise, in order to make that happen, they all can't go out at the same time. So therefore we're going to have to stagger all the recesses and the lunchtime. So for a principal on site trying to, who is required to supervise during recess and lunches, they are the certificated supervisor while the teachers are on breaks. The principal just cannot manage the entire day

084supervising outdoor activity without teachers. That's why the critical need for campus supervisors will continue for next year. And we're in the process of onboarding over 80 campus supervisors right now. It's a huge lift right now for our human resources department to bring on 80 new employees. We only have 350 employees in the district as it is. So bringing 80 more on is a real lift right now. We're also onboarding more than 20 new substitute teachers, which are, I'm talking about all parents who are contributing to our return. And I'm so grateful for that. But we're gonna need to continue this campus supervision model. So we have to budget for that. So we wanna use some of our one-time funds for campus supervision and support and also for increased needs for substitutes in some unique ways.

085Looking at possibly having more full-time substitutes assigned to sites instead of just on-call substitutes because substitutes are incredibly scarce right now in our county and will be again next year. And I had two principals teaching school today because teachers got sick. So therefore the principal was completely consumed teaching a class and then couldn't do the other responsibilities they need to do. So I think that is something we have to acknowledge and then invest in another substitute model that will help us through next year as well. Another part of the return that is really important that we need to address and to come back is how to deal with learning recovery for some of those kids that have some gaps and they have maybe fallen behind. Our data initially that we've already started reviewing with our

086principals looks very positive. I need to say that because what we are surprised to see when we look at our March data from last year and our March data from this year, it's very, very similar. So the good news is kids are still learning at high levels and there are though kids who have some gaps, there are some kids that have significantly dropped. So we need to put into place both a summer academy which we're surveying our staff for right now to look for interest, to make sure we have enough of a labor force to help us with the summer academy. And also we need to build in academic supports for learning recovery during the school year. That means support during the day, support after school with after school learning, just expanding learning opportunities for

087targeted support for identified students. So we wanna set aside some of those funds for learning recovery and especially looking at the areas of literacy and math, those are the key areas. Also for next year, we already are seeing so many kids coming back, having some real struggles with just learning how to do school, having anxiety, having behavior challenges, a lot of work avoidance, school avoidance, because they've really, a lot of them have checked out. They just are so struggling with the Zoom world that they've been with. So we're already seeing a high need for more behavioral support and your mental health support. So we wanna enhance what we're doing and we'll use some of those one-time funds for additional support for students on sites. We do need K-2 technology devices now. And so we've done

088a great job of getting our Chromebook fleet upgraded third grade through eighth grade this year. They're still on backorder. We have not received those, the majority of them. So we're still waiting, but there is a need for additional tools. So we'll be able to use those one-time funds for some K-2 technology. And SKEF is also committed to help a little bit with our K-2 technology through their gala events and their fund to need. This is critical because now we have K-2 kids that are using technology fluently. And the teachers are really relying on some of these digital tools now to be ongoing and continually integrated into our program. And just as our 21st century strategic plan demonstrates and what we are striving for is more of a blended learning environment. And this pandemic has kind

089of launched us into a new era of actually implementing some of those strategies. So I think there are a few silver linings in this but what we need realize now is we just can't have shared technology and use it when it's available. Every classroom needs to have these devices hands ready to go. And so we're working with our principals and teachers to find out what is exactly is that need so we can purchase the materials that will support them. With along with this, we'll look at using those funds to help with some professional development. We are implementing a new science curriculum next year. As you know, we approved to purchase all of that earlier this year. Well, there's a lot of professional development that we need for that, but we also need it just on

090how to support the learning recovery efforts. How can we help our teachers better manage small group work, targeted instruction, while at the same time, keeping our kids engaged in self-directed work and more project-based learning work. So that takes some skills for teachers to be able to manage and juggle many approaches in the classroom. So we wanna provide some more support for our teachers to enhance the good work they're already doing, but just to be able to realize they've had a year now of using tools now, how do they wanna integrate these tools? How are they going to do small group differentiated work now maybe a little differently, because we're gonna have to really rely on our teachers to provide that intervention learning recovery for their own kids. So by having a little smaller class sizes,

091providing some more support for them so that they can do that during the day is gonna be really powerful. And our goal is to accelerate learning for our kids, not just intervene. We wanna accelerate and have that learning recovery. So those are the key things. I know that other things are surfacing. We are in the stages of our LCAP engagement with teachers and parents and staff. And these are some things that have already surfaced as needs for next year. Some are already identified for operations and logistics, staffing, furniture, campus supervision, summer academy and intervention. Other things are surfacing as what the teachers and parents are identifying as needs that we can use some of these funds for. So what I think our parents really need to hear, and I feel I can say it today,

092but I didn't know if I could say that on the 25th is we can absolutely return now that we have our guidance as three feet, we have money to address what would have restricted us to come back. So we're expecting a full return in the fall, but as you can see, there's a lot of work to do to get ready for these new guidance. And so that's what we need this next eight weeks. We only have eight weeks left in the school year. And what's happening right now is the principals in elementary have launched hybrid, but as you know, it's a lot to manage on the site. What we have to realize is, yes, it's three foot, but we still have all the four pillars that we're managing. We have fever-free symptom screening. Kids are

093not coming all always ready to go. There's a lot of communication with parents that needs to happen. We're having sub shortages. So there's a lot of demands on site that require the principal to do their principal job. And they're also gearing up for state testing, which we'll be doing in May on sites. And also we're preparing for next year. These are all things that are really taking a lot of time, energy, expertise, and devotion from our principals right now. And I directly called every one of them this week. And I met with every principal and I said, can we do this? Can we figure out the three foot this year, or are we gonna have to wait for next year? And just universally, all of them said they do not have the ability to meet

094the guidelines, first of all, because of space, size of class, and furniture. And secondly, they, their own capacity, they don't have to pivot to yet another fifth schedule and implement that in these last eight weeks. So I have to honor that input from our experts, which are our principals. And I also consulted with our association and the feedback from them is our expectation was we're going to finish out this year in the hybrid. There's been a lot of change. The teachers are working very hard and they don't want yet another change, which will take away from the teaching that is happening now. One quote I heard from a teacher was, just let us teach. We're finally getting into a rhythm. This is an elementary and the kids are flourishing and we have systems in place.

095I don't think parents always understand that a three foot on campus all day involves figuring out recesses, lunches, ingress and egress. We would have to stagger our start and end times. That affects our busing. It affects a lot of operations. We have a lot of complex schedules to manage hundreds of kids on one site with unique needs, particularly special education and all the special services they receive. And our principals just went through a huge jump to start this hybrid phase. And it's like starting the whole school year over again. And they just don't have the capacity to do that again in the next eight weeks. So I hope that helps you as a board understand and helps our parents understand that though we would like to be able to move quicker, we just cannot do

096it yet. But the idea is that we will be fully prepared for the fall, but we are gonna really rely on our parents to still continue with supervision support. We will hire as many people as we can through our SMARTy program and through the Legarza who will come back and help us with PE. I've already been on the phone with them, got a draft contract ready to go so we can expand their services and use some of those one-time funds to add more of that Legarza staff on our sites, the K-3s, to help manage all of the outdoor playtime and things like that. So I think those are the key things that we need. And the last little piece, I need to do a quick little checklist for the county office to update our plan

097to return. And I will do that as soon as I can get some more specific details from our schools about how our planning will impact next year. And I'm confident that the county office will approve our plan because we're one of the early districts that did return. Our plan was approved very early. So they're making it very simple for us to update our plan, get that board approved and submit it to them for a checklist and then we'll be ready to go. Michelle, I do have a couple of questions to clarify as well. So it sounds like all we're saying correctly is that it seems like everything for us as we're in place to have a full-time return in the fall may look a little different, but the full-time return for you is still the

098timing of everything will be like it was normal, just may look a little different on the campuses. That's correct, right? Yes, programmatically things will look a little different, but we're gonna have kids on campus the same amount of time as we did pre-COVID. The one question I have as we go through this, other districts in our area are coming back, not necessarily I think full-time like it never existed, but some people are coming back for longer periods of time. Can you elaborate a little bit on the differences between us and them or what they're doing now or what their facilities look like compared to ours just so the board can have kind of a comparison as we kind of work through all this stuff? I reached out to some of the superintendents today then I

099talked to Nancy McGee the other day. I don't know of any other district right now who's going to come back based on this new three-foot guidance and be able to come back and have a full day. There may be someone who's trying to plan that. They may be negotiating with their unions right now. I just don't know, but no one has announced that they're coming back fully all day long just like normal with three-foot. There may be someone. I think Menlo is working on something I think because they kind of set themselves up at the beginning of the year with very small classes initially so that when the time was right they could come back, but there's a few districts especially some of those five affluent districts they already set themselves up with classes of

10016 from the beginning of the year. They had a lot of supplemental staff that taught specials and they reassigned all those teachers to teach regular classrooms. So they already had classes of 16 to 18 and they've been on campus already from let's say 8.30 to 12.30 and then they go home at lunch. So those schools have already been operating in a unique way due to their unique funding and having lots of staff available to redeploy to have very small classes. They also had lots of space on their campuses. They've been in declining enrollment for several years and had a lot of empty rooms. So they were able to spread out and go back and that's what's been happening with those five districts that we all know about. So I don't know if they're planning to

101come back and have lunch and be there fully. I have not heard that yet. So I can't speak to that. What I am understanding is most districts like us are right in the middle of implementing their hybrid. They are just now coming back into a hybrid plan and that's the big lift for most of us and the plan is to stay in that model for the remainder of the year. I do know, I talked to a couple of superintendents who said they're trying to find out now that the guidance has changed, maybe find a few little ways to maybe tweak our schedules a little bit to maybe bring kids on campus a little longer or have our urgent learners on a little bit more. There's some things that we can be creative with and I'll

102continue to pursue that with our principles and also with our teachers association to see if there might be some things we can do in these last eight weeks just to help maybe focus in on some kids who have some greater needs and if we have some capacity to do that. But up to this point, I don't know of anyone in the County of San Mateo with those 23 districts that are coming back fully with the three foot. Nick, I think we wanna make sure trustees, first we just started with kind of any clarifying questions from the new guidance and what it would require from us first in regards to what Dr. Harmer said and then we'll kind of move on to questions about what else may be needed or what else may be working toward

103the next year. So take it away anyone in firms with clarifying questions. I have one clarifying question about the one-time funding for staffing. So that means those staff would be hired for one year. Yes, it would be. And I didn't go into great detail, but we did a staffing and enrollment meeting Tuesday during the break for the three of us that were here with Amber and Amber's our enrollment person and Jennifer director of HR. We went through every school to say, if we were going to bring down these numbers, how many more new teachers would we need? And then how many known vacancies do we have right now? So between those two, we came back and I met all day, I think it was Tuesday without a break, then I met with every principal to

104review their staffing and enrollment needs. So that's how we identified how many more teachers that we would need. It's approximately eight for the K-5s and we have not a clear picture of what we need for middle school yet. So I'm estimating two to four. So that's why it could be anywhere from a million two to a million three. And the principals are already screening applicants for their known vacancies and they're already scheduling interviews next week for teachers because we're all competing for teachers in the whole peninsula. There is a shortage and I do not wanna wait. So we are jumping on it. We're a little ahead of the game. We've had a education, I mean a pool open on EdJoin for two or three months now. So we've been recruiting a pool, getting ready for

105this day. So now we're actually screening to fill actual true vacancies from people retiring, resigning. And then also now with direction from the board, I can then give them the go ahead to hire for those additional class size reduction vacancies as well. I have a question Michelle, when you're talking about programmatic shifts and differences, you didn't mention libraries. And I was just wondering if there's any restrictions on libraries being open or how they're used and if we have an intention to return those to being open for students. Well, when we ask people for next year in our engagement meeting, what do we need for next year? Almost number one comes libraries, please bring our libraries back. And we're really, really missing them. The public libraries have not opened yet. I just read something today that

106San Mateo County libraries are ready to do something at the end of April. And so they're kind of dipping their toe in. So we're waiting for that kind of guidance for school level libraries, with different kind of a mass that goes in and large groups of kids going in and out in and out handling books and things. So I don't know exactly what library will look like next year, but I would like to propose that we bring some level of library programming back. Maybe it doesn't look the same and really look at our one-time funds and maybe some other resources that we have. Skeff has contributed to libraries in the past and we postponed that. So they've done a portion, the district has done a portion, but we have to remember, we still have a

107fragile budget and we cut over $800,000 again last year. So we're up to about $2.4 million in reductions because of our declining enrollment that's happened for three years and our education is continuing and the lack of additional funding from the state. So remember, the whole state has put us in a situation where they have been flat funding us, but our expenditures are increasing without additional money. So this year, we did lay off our library crew and to capture those savings. So we do wanna look at how can we utilize our libraries financially, can this financially work? And I did find out we can use our one-time funds to help support libraries. So I think that's a really good news. My question for all of us is then how do we design a library program that

108might be sustainable once that one-time money is gone? And I really wanna find a way to prioritize that even though we're really struggling right now with finances and continue to do that and we'll see. Maureen and Wendy. I don't have any clarifying questions at this point. Okay, Michelle, as we start our discussion here just to help guide the board, you're looking from us tonight to, if I'm understanding correctly, give direction on kind of this plan of the things you need to start purchasing and the people you can start hiring now to meet this new guidance. That's kind of the main direction you're looking for, right? Yes, I would like that because really the furniture person just said if I get a purchase order by April 15th or 16th, whatever next Friday is, I can have

109furniture to you May 28th at the earliest and hopefully, so it's gonna be a fight. I think most of the districts in the county are looking at buying furniture and it's all the same vendors right now. So I wanna get going on this furniture and I talked to a parent today who had great insight. They said, great, on June 15th, Newsom's gonna say, everything's back to normal, no color tiers, who cares about the three feet? We're all gonna go back to normal. You know what, even if that happens, I can't roll the dice though on that. I need to buy this furniture and we need the furniture anyway. We have a lot of old junkie mismatch furniture, so we might as well take advantage of this one time money to improve our capital, which would

110have normally come out of our general fund. So yes, I want direction to spend that money on furniture knowing it could be up to $800,000, but it'll be a worthwhile investment and I want direction to staff appropriately for a full return and to use whatever dollars we need to make sure that we have the proper staffing. And one question on that regard, just in terms of how we use the money in one time, because some of the furniture would be identified for the middle schools as well as the upper elementaries, can some bond money that we may have access be used for that as well? Just what I use it for is not necessarily dipping into that first, but if we need more money on the other end, then we have some flexibility through the

111bond funds if we need to, that's what I'm trying to say. Yeah, I believe we can. I just talked to Christine a little bit about that and I just learned that we're still paying off for the last furniture order that we bought and that's how we used it. And I guess what we're using now are those developer fees because that's what it's for, it's for growth and things like that. So yeah, we have some sources for that. So we could shift away around how we distribute that expense. And so Christine will help us maximize our opportunities. And last question, just so the board knows, obviously you're leaving us at the end of June. Give me kind of your timeline, we don't want your last meeting to be, hey, you gotta do 45 things as I

112leave out the door. Give me kind of your timeline to make sure the board knows when all of these things and decisions will come back. So if kind of spending needs to be approved, we know when that's gonna be coming up so we can kind of keep it on our radar. Okay, I'd like to give you an update on our next meeting, which is the 22nd. I'll just do an update through this return to school update like I normally do. And I wanna let you know where we are with these purchases and staffing. So these are the two most critical pieces. And then on the May 6th meeting, I'd like to bring a draft to the board of how we're gonna spend all of those one-time funds. Just a rough draft of that. That's gonna

113be based on the LCAP engagement that we get from teachers, staff, parents, and bring that one-time fund, all of those funds to you for feedback in any other direction. Because on May 20th, I want a, we have to have you approve those plans. Those learning recovery grant plan has to be submitted to the county office by June 1st. So I'm gonna lump all three of those things together, have them all approved by the board on June 20th. So that will really drive our return to school. That really will. So I think at that time on the 20th, the money will drive our value. And then also I'm asking the principals to really do their best, especially our K-3s to get together in this next week or two to start to really hammer out their schedule

114during the day to confirm our management of a full return and how we're gonna manage recess and lunch and all of that stuff. So they just have some technical work to do because master scheduling is complex. And I think that's what people don't realize is the scheduling piece. Our middle, our four or five in our middle schools is much more challenging because they also share staff. And that's one of the reasons four or five stuck with the two day a week versus an AMPM model. They looked at both. And they really had to go with the two day model just like middle schools because we share so much staff between them. They're almost like one school that way. So I think we'll have a strong, before I leave, I'd say by June 3rd, our LCAP

115public hearing will be happening. Our goals will be set. I think we'll have probably draft schedules on how the day will overall look as a general look for our kids. Middle school kids, they won't be scheduled probably until August. I don't need that granular detail of scheduling for middle school, but I do need middle school to keep us up to date about what that shell of a master schedule will look like so that we make sure we have enough space and have enough staffing. And if we run into problems, it's gonna be in the middle schools. That's my biggest worry because of space. And that's my worry. So if we can't fit all of our kids into a regular classroom, then how will we use the learning commons? How will we use the gyms? How

116will we use the libraries? Because we're gonna have to maybe repurpose some rooms and make room for our core instructional program. So how does that sound? Does that feel like it meets your needs or what other details should I be thinking about? Well, let's go through it. Ford, I've talked a lot. So the question in front of us is, Dr. Harmar has given us her guidance, kinda how she wants to finish off the year to make sure that she can meet that goal for us to return fully in the fall. But obviously, a lot of these decisions are us. We gotta talk through and figure out what we wanna do. So is there anyone that would like to lead us off or start? Let us know where we're at or where they're at and then

117we kinda go from there. I have a quick question. Maybe this is a clarifying question, but because you were just talking about, you would bring a plan as to how you're gonna spend the one-time fund. So I am wondering about the Summer Academy that you mentioned. So how, where does that fit in? Does that have to be also, I mean, if it's for summer, I would assume it has to be part of that plan that's submitted by June 1st, or is that separate? Yeah, so you're right, Wendy. In our budget plan, if we're gonna set aside money for Summer Academies, which I would like to do for this summer and next summer, it'll be a line item. Summer Academy, X number of dollars. That's the extent of planning for budgeting that is required. Today, we

118drafted a survey that we're gonna be sending out to our teachers tomorrow to survey staff for interest for working during the summer. We're hoping we'll get a handful of teachers and paras to help out. We are already running Extended School Year. That's called ESY. Extended School Year is a 19-day program that we do each summer for students with IEPs that qualify for that extended learning. That program is already going to be running. What I'd like us to do is just attach on some Summer Academy learning for students who don't qualify for that program, but have been identified as students who are significantly behind academically that could really benefit from having that support. So we did some planning with our principals this week on what that would look like, what we need to do. Number one,

119we need to survey staff, make sure we have a labor pool that would like to work extra. And the program is like a 8.30 to 11.30 in the morning. So it's a part-day program. And so it's just a half day. So teachers work from like eight to 12 on that kind of program. And then number two, we need to identify those students and then reach out to those parents to see if they would like to participate. So two things have to happen. You have to have the labor and then interest from those families that are being identified by teachers and principals for needing some significant intervention during the summer. So that's Summer Academy. And then another line item will be learning recovery during the school year. And that's where we will have intervention programs, additional

120paras, reading teachers, EL teachers, and pushing in during the school day and supporting in class or small groups pullouts. Also some afterschool opportunities, especially for the youngers. The youngers tend to benefit for some extended day, not our olders. And so that doesn't always work with middle school, but maybe a little early morning for middle school. So we're gonna look at what's gonna work best for middle school, building it into the master schedule so that we have those RTI, response to intervention classes is what we've done in the past with middle school, but increasing the number of sections so that students can double up on math, double up on literacy, depending on where their need is. Great, so that'll be factored into the 2.5 million and that'll be part of the plan that you'll propose. Okay,

121thanks for addressing that. Go ahead, Erin. Hi, Dr. Harmer. I was happy to hear you talk about mental health being a priorities for those funds. And so I was just curious what you thought we needed to do on the mental health front for next school year. Those discussions, we started with our principals, Brenda and our director of student services, Brenda Bekecki, Mindy Hill, and said, we first have to identify what are the needs and then let's look at what those needs are and then match the staffing or program to what the needs are. We will have four full-time counselors again next year. Remember, we have four full-time counseling positions. This year we had a late resignation, so we filled that with a retiree and a contracted services person, but we're gonna fill that vacancy. So

122we will continue to have four full-time counselors again, but that's not enough for next year. So we already know we wanna set aside funding for additional help, whether that's maybe MFTs from One Life, maybe. And right now we have a lot of slots that we bought extra time for and they're not fully filled. So that's a good sign. That means there's a little bit room. But also what we're seeing is behavior specialist needs. We have an ABA and a behavior specialist, Melissa Sandlin, who has been overwhelmed with a lot of work even before COVID and now she's really, really in need of really helping with behavior support. And our principals are already expressing a need for another Melissa, right? And also we hired, remember last year, we shifted our mental health support on how we

123used our budget and we hired behavior techs, two classified behavior technicians. And so possibly like another ABA specialist like Melissa, and then maybe a couple of behavior techs. So absolutely what we need are the principals and teachers to tell us what do the kids need and let's design a program. And I know you need time to have this conversation. So I guess what I'm flagging is that, I love it to Neil's reminder or suggestion that maybe there are bond dollars that can pay for the furniture and potentially then you can use some more of these like recovery funds for mental health. Thank you. Carol, Sarah, anything? If not, I think, I mean, I'll just give everyone kind of where I'm at. So with it, I think, I guess I've been during this entire COVID process,

124rightfully dinged for, you know, it's hard to focus your communications to make sure that what your thoughts are and how the guide is difficult during this time. So I'm gonna try my best to kind of give kind of my general thoughts on what I've learned. There's been a million lessons I've learned and probably a million things I do differently being where we're at now, compared to where we were June or a year ago from now. One of the biggest lessons I think I've learned is kind of having a set plan and going with it, but knowing what the goal is to get back to, right? During this entire time, it's never been 100% clear what it is we could do, but now it's fairly clear we can get light at the end of the tunnel,

125whatever you wanna call it, we can get back to full time. So I guess I think what's the most frustrating thing for me as a leader, as a board member, as board president is that you tell people to go out and advocate for the positions you need, get back to full time and to everyone's credit, they went out and did exactly what they needed to do, but to still come up kind of short on time is probably one of the hardest things in that regards for me, just because it is big lifts to go from the three phases we had, which were, I think, the right decisions overall, but who would have thought we would have dropped off from red to orange in just a couple of weeks? So it's just been incredibly hard to

126do that. The lifts that the teachers and the principals have done has been amazing to get us here. So I guess the one thing for me is, Dr. Harmar, I agree with your direction and I agree with where we're going and that that's what's gonna get us back to full time in the fall, that's what we need to do and focus that mainly as well. The one thing I would like, I guess, to advise everyone and to have you do to kind of take into account is, what I learned last year, we take, once the school year ends, everyone kind of takes the summer off and forgets about it, but then you don't ramp up till August. If we can do something now along the way, learn, right? Even if it's one classroom, if the

127furniture comes by May 28th, even if it is a classroom right here, just so we can practice and have it now, right? I think that's kind of the biggest thing for me, what I've learned is, when we have the tools in place, utilize them and don't just wait for it to be the most convenient time because things fall apart. So, I agree with the direction you're providing with us based off of my lessons. It's not ideal, kind of given the regards, but I would like to see, still have the opportunity if those items do come in, if we are able to do it, then at least move some of our classrooms or maybe with the youngest kids, whatever it may be, if it can be done, to get certain kids on, even for just a

128short period of time, just so we know what we can do, right? I think that's the biggest lesson I've learned with it. So, that would be my only addition to what you have suggested and kind of getting my short opinion on things. And I'm always more than happy to talk to any community member about the lessons learned and it'll take a long time, but that is one lesson that I would like to learn and focus on going forward. Okay, thank you, Neil. And Nancy McGee, Superintendent of the County, said to us as a group of superintendents a couple of weeks ago, it was probably a few weeks because before the spring break is, you have got to get your kids on campus before the end of the school year, for those of you who don't

129have them on yet. And there's several districts that don't have kids on campus yet, at all. And she just really emphasized the point that you just made, Neil, that you have to do it to get over at that hurdle. It is such a big hurdle to get that first wave getting on campus, the anxiety that everyone had to get over, teachers, principals, kids, that whole anxiety of making that big change. And I feel really good that we did a phase in especially our middle schools, the middle schools are doing an amazing job. They've had three Mondays where the kids had a chance to come on campus for a couple of hours, play, do work, do problem solving things together and just have fun and want to come to school and want to be there. We

130still had about 30% of our kids who didn't come and they weren't quite ready. So I'm really glad we did that because now as we're going into phase four, which is gonna be more of a fully operational endeavor on campus, our teachers are on campus fully operating from 7.30 in the morning until four o'clock in the afternoon, they're there. That's been a really important thing for us to experience. And I agree with you, Neil. And if there was some way to maybe pilot or experience what that full day could look like before the end of the year, I'd love that opportunity to try that out. And that is something that I just have to make sure our teachers and our principals are ready and willing to do. And I'm kind of waiting for them. Like

131if this is something you're ready to try, let's see how that goes. I just need the board to be really clear that if we do it for a few classes here, a few classes there, then we have to manage the other challenge of, well, how come my kid doesn't get this? And I run into equality issues whenever I try to deal with equity issues. Those are things that we have to balance. We have a whole system. So it's hard for me to say, well, this school or this grade or these classes can experience this, but nobody else can. And then there's this pressure from our parents who really kind of have a expectation of equality in situations like that. So I think that's something we need to talk through as a board, if the opportunity

132comes up to try something or to shift our model a little bit with some agreements from our teachers and principals, we have to be okay as a board with allowing some piloting to happen. And our parents are gonna have to be okay with that too, because it's really, it would benefit a system. And so what we're saying is we're trying to really help our system out by practicing a full day on campus, for example, that's what I'm hearing. But people have to understand what system piloting means. It doesn't mean that everyone's gonna get that chance to try it. So just as kind of a foreshadowing of what might happen. I'll just piggyback just on that comment from Neil, but I'm not gonna jump in with the list of things, but no, I really do think

133you have to be able to vision something to be able to do it. And so I really like that idea of maybe piloting something and it is dipping your toe in the water. I mean, we've already, we're phasing in and so kids are getting acclimated again and everyone's kind of getting over that anxiety. But I think what I hear Neil saying too, which I agree with is, for preparing all of these things, but then certain other things shift again. I mean, just knowing that we know how to do this and we can do it, I think will give us all a lot of confidence that we're gonna come back in August and do it. And I think that's what we're hearing from parents too. So, but I did wanna say that this discussion has been

134helpful, Dr. Haramardy here, and have you explained to our community, all of these decisions and all of the things that are required to return to in-person learning fully, because I think we need to remind ourselves that we are still in a pandemic. And I'm not saying that to be, cause fear, but it's more about the fact that we're not going back to 2019. We're not going back to pre-COVID. It is not going to look the same. And I think that's really hard to sort of digest, swallow, understand when we've been yearning so long for school, right? But it's just, it's still not going to be the same. And it's gonna take us a while to acclimate. So I appreciate, I think that we are looking at this comprehensively, the mental health, social-emotional learning, like all

135of these pieces that we wanna ensure that we have the staffing. And that is not something you can flip the switch on. The staffing is critical. So I just appreciate hearing all of the complexity because I certainly have been really advocating for urgent learners and because of the mental health, those issues, I have been wanting to see full return to school this year. And I was hopeful for that, because we are where we are now with vaccinations and the COVID rates being, the transmission rates being so low. I don't think any of us thought we would maybe be where we are now in April, six weeks ago. And here we are, hopeful, but I'm just hearing from you tonight is really helpful. There's a lot more information that we have now that we didn't have

136two weeks ago. So I just wanna say thank you. I think thank you for putting us on the right path of fully reopening in the fall. And all I would say about what that looks like is, again, if we can just be as creative as we can with staffing, like for PE you mentioned, I get that those are larger class sizes, but if we can squeeze as much as we can out of this 2.5 million and prioritize the staffing, and obviously the space, you mentioned the furniture, but be creative as we can and keep some of those core things that we really did lose. We lost PE, a lot of kids opted out of it. We know that's critical for health and wellbeing. So anyways, yeah, I mean, if we can get a few more

137LaGarza staff, if we can work on those staffing ratios too, I would really appreciate us just trying to be as creative as we can. So I'll stop there, but I really appreciate your presentation tonight. Thank you, Wendy. Sarah, Carol, Irene, anything else, Sarah? Yeah, I just wanted to say how much I appreciate all the hard work of our principals and our teachers and classified staff, and every person who has had to change how they do their job this year, not once, but multiple times. And I think Dr. Harmer, I appreciate you outlining a lot of the things that will need to be done to prepare for the fall, because I think it helps all of us as a board and the public understand the lift that's been put in to get us to this point

138and the lift that still needs to be done. So thank you for going through that detail. Obviously we heard from parents tonight and have been hearing from parents in recent weeks that some are frustrated. And as a parent myself, I fully understand the want and need for school to be like it was. And I really do, I hear that and I get that. But I also trust our leadership team and our professionals and our administrators and principals who are the ones who run these programs on the ground and are operationally offering the best that we can at this time. And I don't think it would be the best thing for our kids to push for more than we can do successfully right now. And so I also wish that we could return to full-time school

139right away. But pushing us to do something that isn't, we know isn't going to set us up for success is not the way to go. And if there are opportunities to try to pilot certain things, I think that's worth considering. I do, I understand the equality concern and that's also worth considering. But if there's bandwidth, if there's interest in that, certainly let's think about that. And yeah, I think that's everything I wanted to say. Thank you, Sarah. My question for Dr. Harmer and Carol, go. Okay, I just wanna say thank you to all the parents and community members that have signed up to be our lunch supervisors and subs. Wow, what a really resounding commitment by our community to support returning to school. And I just wanna just point out that schools, without the people

140that lead our schools, the teachers, the staff, the secretaries, educators, the noon supervisors, they're just buildings. And we have to keep in mind that what makes a school a special place is the people that are inside of it working with our children. And I just am really, really grateful for all the people in our community and for our educators or staff that are really committed because we know that they wouldn't be here if they weren't 1000% committed to our students. And I just wanna make sure that doesn't be left on set tonight. Plus 1000, so no additional comments. Neil and Dr. Harmer, did we answer specifically the questions that Dr. Harmer raised to us about the furniture and staffing? Did she get the response needed? I believe so, Michelle. You have the direction you need

141going forward with our priorities, but also with still continuing to work on what we can do this year to pilot to get back. So is that clear? You got everything you need from us? That's great. It'll be in the minutes that I have the okay direction to go ahead and start hiring these teachers and ordering some furniture and get that going as soon as possible. Okay. Well, thank you for identifying the ways that we can meet these new requirements. And we'll see what changes on June 16th when the magical Gavin Newsom makes his decision. So I will move us along then to- Neil, sorry, there are a few additional public comments that came in. So I'm not really sure how to handle that in terms of the time that we had allotted. So just a

142lot of policy, 20 minutes of topic. We'll just to make sure we get through everything because we have still a couple of things to talk about in the next closed session. We'll take them with 8A, Wendy. Okay. I'm gonna go from there. So I'll move us on. Christine to 6B, our final audit report for 2019, 2020. And I believe you have someone with us. Okay. Well, Sheldon Chauvin of Chauvin and Associates is here tonight to give a brief overview of our audit and answer any questions the board may have. Good evening, everybody. Can you hear me okay? We can. Perfect. All right. So I'm gonna go ahead and do a brief overview of the audits and then leave it open to questions as Christine mentioned. And so really the one thing that I wanna touch

143on is the standards that we follow when we perform a school district audit. And those standards include the statements on auditing standards from AICPA, generally accepted governmental auditing standards from GAO, Government Accountability Office. And then for your particular audit, we did not have to perform a single audit, which is when you spend $750,000 or more in a single year of federal awards. You did not meet that threshold. So we did not have to follow uniform guidance, which is another set of standards. However, we did have to follow, of course, education code, which really means education audit appeals panel audit guide. And so there are numerous procedures that we perform related to different areas of compliance, such as attendance, teacher miss assignments, school safety, and CEA teacher salaries and whatnot. So there's about 14 different areas

144with numerous different sections and procedures that would perform over those areas related just to state compliance. So those are the standards we follow. I'm gonna go ahead and give you the results of the audit. Mostly good, almost perfect, non-technical. Technical, unmodified opinion, right? So that means a clean audit opinion. And keep in mind the objective of the audit, the basic, most mundane objective is to tell you whether or not the financial statements are issued with any material misstatements, right? That's our main goal, whether it be from error, fraud, or anything else, the main objective is, are these financial statements fairly stated? Now the key is within a reasonable assurance, right? So that never changes. So we can't provide you with 100% assurance, but we can provide you with a high level of assurance that the

145financial statements are not materially misstated. Within all of that, we have the extra compliance. And so we look for non-compliance in the areas that we mentioned, in the compliance areas that we test based on those governmental auditing standards, right? And then you always wanna keep in mind too that the state audit guide that we follow is really a subset of the generally accepted governmental auditing standards. So everything falls into that area. And then with that, so we did not have, again, we did not have any material weaknesses to report, but we did have one what's considered a significant deficiency with regard to state compliance. In my opinion, it's not that big a deal. We've had this finding quite a few times in the last couple of years, and it has to do with the comprehensive

146school safety plan. There's a certain timing that you have to approve that plan as a board and at the school site, and it was missed by a few days this year. So it's a pretty simple thing to fix is just next time around, make sure that the comprehensive safety plan is actually approved by March 1st at the school site and then at the district, the board level, right? And so it's not a complicated one to fix. And so we'll give you guys a reminder ahead of time. Of course, we're already behind that because we're so far behind for the COVID-19. So hopefully we're good for this year. We'll take a look and see where we're at. And that's one thing to mention too, by the way, I should just take a moment to say that

147COVID-19 changed the whole audit arena. It was 100% remote from the day we hit the pandemic until right now, we are still remote until all my staff are vaccinated and all your staff are vaccinated, we're going to be remote. So it was a different dynamic, a different way to audit. And it really was very complex because your staff, they're dealing with all the nuances of having distance learning and having to deal with CARES Act and funding, different funding coming through and having to deal with budgets that were kind of falling apart. And so here you have an auditor that's just bombarding you, bombarding you, bombarding you. And so the information, they provide it as soon as they can, dealing with your daily business and provide it as soon as you can. And so what you

148end up with though is extended due dates from the state. And along with those extended due dates, you have bottlenecks. And so you end up with audit reports that come to board meetings in April, right? And it's really difficult to deal with. I'm always telling people it's a history lesson, but looking back to June 30, 2020, we're looking at financial statements and you're already almost at the end of it, current fiscal year, June 30, 2021. It's bad enough coming to you in January, here we are in April. So there you go. So with that said, the one significant deficiency for the state compliance finding on the comprehensive school safety plan, clean audit opinions, we're saying the financial statements are good. So overall, it's a very good audit. Any questions or comments? Any questions or comments?

149Sheldon, this is my one comment just for kind of a learning point. And since we have you here, can you give us some of the things that would be as like if something was wrong or something was bad that would pop up that we should be aware of as trustees should issues arise that you see? Yeah, so the last couple of years, the main type of findings that we've had, we've had issues dealing with deposits and cafeteria plans the last couple of years. So that's been an area that we've been focusing on. We've had issues and areas of concern related to vacation tracking. And some of our clients, we found that unauthorized vacation has been happening and not only unauthorized, but you have employees taking vacation when they don't have balances. They don't have vacation

150available. They came back from leave and then took vacation, things like that. Typically, the major concerns that we have are operational. I shouldn't say concerns, the major, for example, we send out questionnaires and we do interviews with employees and staff throughout the year. And typically the response that we get will have to do with operational issues. And the problem with that that we run into is that we don't deal in the operational side. We document your control control, we test controls when needed to, but we're not actually technically required to test controls. And even if we are testing controls, that's not an operational, right? And so it's a different scope. And oftentimes what we do take from that though is what risks do we have in the audit? What risks do we have that the

151financial statements won't be materially misstated? What risks do we have that there will be an internal noncompliance? And so that's how we address those. And so when we do that, we often find that there's gonna be some control deficiencies related to checks and balances, approvals, authorizations. Even if you have position control in place, sometimes we find that your budget system, this is an area of weakness. Your budget system does not pick up that same position control and therefore they don't match. They're not one to one. And so you might have FTE in your budget process that's way off because it's not true. It's not realistic. Now, mind you, we don't audit your budget, right? We don't issue an opinion on your budget. However, we do kind of audit your budget, but not in the year

152you're in. So the year that matters is 21, 22, 23, when you're projecting. We're looking at the budget as it compares to actually going back last year, right? So by the time we get to it, it's old news and it doesn't do anything good. So that's why we basically don't issue an opinion on your budget. But those are the areas I would be concerned about if I was on the board. All right, thank you. Any other questions from the trustees? Not seeing any. Christine, we need to approve the final audit, correct? Yes, okay. Board, is there a motion to approve the final audit report of 2019-2020? I move to approve the final audit report 2019-2020. Thank you, sir. I second. Thank you, Wendy. All in favor, please stay by saying aye. Aye. Any opposition? Hearing

153none, that'll carry five, zero. Sheldon, Christine, thank you very much for your work. And more importantly, thank you for being here tonight, Sheldon. Of course. For the process. Have a good night, appreciate it. Thank you. You too. All right, we will go on to Michelle for the 6C approval of the CSEA seniority list. This is a routine item. We'll bring to you each year just to make sure that we clean up our seniority list. We have Jennifer Smith, director of HR, verify the seniority list with all of our classified employees to make sure that the right years of service are on there and they're in the right order. So this is a good practice to do every year so that if you are going to have some kind of a reduction in force or there's

154other transfer requests and things that you always have an updated seniority list. So we're not proposing or anticipating any classified layoffs at this time, but this is just a routine item at this time. Okay. Any questions, Dr. Harmar, regarding the list? Seeing none, is there a motion to approve the seniority list? I move to approve the CSEA seniority list. Thank you, Wendy. I second. Thank you, Carol. All in favor, please state by saying aye. Aye. Any opposition? If you say none, that will carry none, that will carry five, zero. Okay, 6B is our stakeholder panel. So as we prepare for the next superintendent, we had agreed earlier on that we'd have a stakeholder panel of stakeholders throughout the community that would help us as a board to, I would, Irene puts it best, to kind

155of see the blind spots and help us guide strength and weaknesses of a candidate as well. So kind of the process, it was, as Irene and I on the subcommittee went through, as we were looking, obviously we went out and reached out to our principals, our classified, and our community partners like SCEF, PTAC, and Special Ed to have them nominate someone that they felt would represent them well. That's reflected as well as the teachers' union and reached out to Dan and Angela, thank you both for your group as well. And they, you know, we asked them to get a variety, including Special Ed, but from the middle schools, four fives, as well as the K-3s. So those are reflected from all of their nominees. There was two that we had that were ad hoc nominees

156that Irene and I kind of went through. We asked the board for names. I reached out to everyone that was asked to kind of get availability or if they, some did not respond to me, but that's okay. And then, so we try to get a diverse group, I guess in the sense of people that know the district well, either through volunteering as parents or just their unique kind of positions as being a community member in this regard. And those were the two names we had with Hazel and Brett. For some of you who don't know, Brett is a teacher at Hillsdale High School, is also a coach with two kids in the district at Arroyo and I believe it's Central, but he kind of has a unique perspective as an educator outside of the district

157within San Mateo County, who has worked in, you know, a high school that's of large size, but also in comparison in his district to ours as well. So Irene, am I missing anything, kind of the process we went through in trying to identify everyone? Okay. So there is a board committee, so we do have to approve the committee upon approval. Should we approve it, then they will be part of the process on the 16th and 17th, it will be via Zoom. Additionally, as I had reached out to them and let them know, it will be bound by confidentiality to create the process fair for the candidates to make sure any information that they learn is kept within the candidate process as well. So for them to participate, they will have to sign and return the

158confidentiality agreement as well, just so the board is aware. Are there any questions that Irene and I can answer for you about the panel, about the process or anything like that? A question about student participation. I can't remember if the consultants had said whether the majority of these types of panels would have students on them or not. I don't remember how common that is and I know that our intent was to try and have one, but so I was just curious if you can explain why it was recommended that we don't. Irene talked about literature. I got that. I spoke to our consultants and turns out that really in all of the researches, it's really done at the high schools and I think they had like one middle school student participate, so it's really a

159common practice when the students have more maturity and as I was reflecting upon my own children and my own eighth grader and their ability to maintain focus on a very adult setting, it just seemed wisest in everyone's interests and the kids' interests to pass. Okay, thank you. And I think if we had maybe more time, we could have had a more of a formal process to vet out that candidate, but just given kind of the rush with everything else, but I think it was gonna be difficult with the advice of the principals as well. They recommended against it. Great, I appreciate you all. You both thinking about it and weighing in on it. That makes sense, thank you. Right, if no other questions, I do need a motion to approve the panel. I move to

160approve the panel for the stakeholder panel. All right, thank you, Wendy. Is there a second? Second. Thank you, Sarah. All in favor, please state by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Carried none, that will carry five zero. All right, and I appreciate everyone and Irene, especially too, for your time and effort into that and all the groups that were able to get us their nominees. Yeah, can we just thank, let's just thank everybody who's kind of willing to kind of like stepped up. It is a significant kind of like two-day commitment. A lot of these are educators who have just been working so hard already. So just thank you, but know that we so appreciate in advance, I think the thought that you're putting into it. The next one is for 60 is our board

161retreat. And I'll take this one and I do apologize to everyone. There's probably some confusion in regards to the contract that I put up there and why it's there and what it does. So annually we meet as a group. It's been difficult with COVID, but things are looking better to meet and discuss, especially with Dr. Harmeier retiring and a new superintendent soon. The kind of the goal is to have a little bit of goal is to kind of focus on a few things, but also the discussion tonight is around what you would like as well. And then if you do like would like a facilitator, it's kind of giving me the authority to work within the context of what you want to go out and try to find that facility or to work with a

162facilitator or like get a contract that you would approve later on for us to do. I put the contract with Nicole there as kind of a placeholder to identify someone that we could use for it and kind of just the cost. So you have it, the details of it aren't set in stone. The details of more it could be, if you'd like me to engage to find a facilitator to tell me what it is you'd like me to engage for, then I can go back and bring it back to you guys as well. But it was mainly to kind of show you the costs and kind of my thought plan around it. My idea behind it when I initially thought about this was kind of a three step process. The first process would be for

163us to focus on how we transition with the items that need to be done as Dr. Harmeier retires. As part of our contract with McPherson is they will help us with the initial goal setting with the superintendent as well. And then to dovetail once that kind of initial goal setting, if we need another kind of meeting retreat area to focus and how we go forward. A lot of it for us is I know when we hired Dr. Harmeier, it was to be kind of focused on the strategic plan. Does it need an update? What does our facilities update on it? My initial thought kind of in doing this process would kind of focus us as a board before the new superintendent was hired to understand what it is that we want kind of as a

164group to focus on the strategic plan. Obviously there may be some things that we don't need to focus on all of it, but some things we want to dive into more and same thing along the lines with the facilities plan. Is there certain things we need to update or we still on track, but we just need the money? Kind of that idea as well. And then how that piggybacks in with transition in those regard. Why I have Nicole in there is because she has done a lot of work with our board and knows us well. I think we're a unique district that it's easier if someone knows us to facilitate this process if that's what we want, then it is necessarily to go outside and get someone new. But I'm open to anything, but those

165are the plans. So that's kind of the general background of what to talk about in those regards. But I would like to get kind of some guidance or ideas from the board. How you, A, would like me to focus if we want a facilitator, what you want that facilitator to help us with, and then B, what topics, if any, outside of the ones we talked about, you would like me to cover in that retreat. It's usually something you do offline, but the Brown Act requires us to do it publicly and record it. So here we all are. Any thoughts, I guess, suggestions first on the facilitator? Is that something we would like to have, I guess, first? And then if so, how would you like to have us help them or help us? Neil, I

166have a question. I think it makes sense to have a facilitator, but looking at Nicole's proposal, it's for four dates. Is that what you envision that we would find somebody to work with us multiple times over the coming year, or is this just for May? It would first be at least for May with the potential for something when we brought on the new superintendent. Obviously that time horizon can change, right? If we don't think we can nail these things down between now and May, then we can push it out to July and just have it one time as well. My initial thought was for two, but I may be entirely overambitious to accomplish that goal. Okay. And along with Sarah's questions, are these just a menu of workshop topics that we could select from? And

167that's like, but do we need to define the agenda now? Like we need to... No, you don't need to define the agenda now or a menu of workshop topics. Nicole's work, I know is something that's important. The board is mainly focused around diversity, equity, and inclusion. For a contract, it looks like it's gonna take over the inclusion count stuff, but that was just more for kind of general contract to present on kind of her background experience, but it would really be more of a reworking on the areas you would like us to focus on as a board in the retreat with her. So we don't need to set necessarily the agenda, but I do need some guidance on the areas you like me to cover. Neil, I also support having a facilitator because I think

168it allows, they help with the, hear everybody synthesize, and I think it also allows you to fully participate in the work that you're doing. I understand that, I mean, she's getting, she's been getting to know our district well through this search process and we'll get to know us very well just in the next few weeks. So I think that rationale makes sense. I heard you propose at least three topics and two, like one was like the goal setting for like next year's superintendent, and we haven't had that as a group. I think those are two meaty topics for the coming retreat. I like what you laid out. Is there anything else, I guess, in that regards that you think should be added or, you know, just even if it's general governance questions you may have,

169right, there's things you can add. I know one thing I thought I may add is I can't remember, Carol, you can correct me if I'm wrong. I think in the past, sometimes we've just had a, like staff come and give just a general update on what their plans are, just to kind of involve them. So we're all on the same page. Oh, you reminded me. I can't remember what we did in the past. Sorry, you reminded me of what, I was like thinking in terms of who would be there. And like in the past, we've, you know, like is Hans gonna be there or is Christine gonna be there? Something you might. In the past, we've opened it up to everybody, maybe not for the entire time. Usually it's kind of in the big meaty

170topics like you talked about in the strategic plans and facilities, we'd have Hans and Christine and Jennifer as well, just so they can kind of weigh in in those regards. But if there's kind of general governance things, usually that may just be where we break out to the board. Well, how about I propose this, go ahead, Carol. I was just gonna answer your previous question. To be honest, I don't recall if we've had our outside partners as part of retreats. I don't recall that. But I do think having like, you know, like a Christine and a Hans especially, so we can get under the same page and for continuity. They're open meetings, so people are, you know, anybody can come that wants to. Yeah, exactly. We haven't had any takers yet. No, not yet, still

171time though. So is it, go ahead, Sarah. I mean, it sounds like this is clear, but just to be sure that it sounds like the DEI work is not on the agenda for this meeting. And I think that probably, I don't think the timing makes sense on that, given the inclusion counts process, but just clarifying that. It's not, no, it's not on the agenda. It's just, that was kind of Nicole's background. I know the board has expressed having to make sure we're always kind of looking through that lens. So that's why I engaged with Nicole. Okay, yeah, that makes sense. Well, how about we do this? We'll set that as a plan. I'll bring back a better kind of more firm contracts, if I can with Nicole, and then we'll set date. We have May

17215th on the books. I'll try to make sure that works for everyone. If not, then we'll try to get another date and we'll just continue with the plan with those topics. And if there's anything that kind of branches out from there, we can, I'll bring it back for anything else that before the meeting, if we want to add onto it. But it sounds like we have a kind of general consensus. Is that okay? Yeah, that sounded great. Can I just ask, Neil, can you just propose to her what we just discussed, which I think is what you're saying you would do and just make sure there's alignment there between what she can or wants to facilitate and what we need. I mean, again, we all know her and I think, I just want to make

173sure there's alignment there. Yeah, no, absolutely. I think that's, I didn't make that clear. So I apologize to everyone kind of how I set it all up, but I absolutely want to do that. Okay, thanks. All right. Thank you everyone. And then I will move on from there. I guess that brings us to 7A, future items identified for the agenda. Does anyone else we've talked a little bit about bringing back, obviously continue to update on the planning and purchasing for fully reopening. And then DEI is going to come back in May. Sarah and Wendy, was that May 6th? Was that the date you had targeted? Yeah, I think we could do either meeting in May, but we won't be meeting again as a committee until the end of this month. So. Will you tell us

174what's ever easier if you want to do it at the end of the month? Usually, whatever you feel, we don't have to rush it. I mean, let's plan for the sixth and then if that doesn't make sense once we meet, we can change it. Okay. Anything else? All right. Wendy, back to you for the public comment. I'm sorry, Neil, let me just confirm. On Saturday the 15th, are we doing 10 to two? Hold 10 to two for now. It may push just depending on availability, but just hold 10 to two for now. Okay. I'm trying to let Christine and Hans know. So we'll make it a big gap on their calendar. Thank you. Okay, do you want me to proceed? Yeah, go ahead. Thanks, Wendy. Okay, there's several comments that came in and or just

175weren't read before they were under 8A. So Adam Albarque, it is with great sadness that I have to submit this comment. It is with great sadness that I have to submit this comment to the board. As I do so, I ponder my exit from this community that has been my home for 20 years. Sadly, my consideration for leaving the city is for the same reason I signed it out 20 years ago, a quality education for my children. It is clear from the meeting procedures and approach that public comment is discurrent. So I hope that these comments aren't discarded as the many before them have been. So many people have given up on the district and board. Many feel that the leadership has not advanced a safe return, but has instead been boarding it. While I'm

176appreciative of the efforts of so many, the reality is that effort doesn't always equal results. My request is simple. We need to stop letting obstacles dictate our result. The communities who have all returned safely to school have done so by clearly defining the challenges and obstacles for the purposes overcoming them. There was no reason for San Carlos can't do the same, but for the commitment of the board and school leaders, thank you for your consideration. The next is Katherine, sorry, most so weird, bear with me. I'm sorry, one second. My keyboard is where I need to be. In light of the new three-foot rule, please consider increasing the number of hours of in-person learning, especially for K through three students, even just one month of four hours per day instead of two would make a

177huge difference to our kids. Thank you. Katherine Hoffman Flint, what are the barriers to returning to full-time in-person this school year? I think striving to do so this term lays a strong foundation for a successful full-time schedule from day one and every day of the 2021, 2022 school year, thank you. And Bordetsky, dear school board, I know it's been a tough year and even the slightest reopening feels like a win right now, but our kids are in desperate need of five days, full return to school ASAP. We cannot wait until the fall. It's imperative that our schools open up full-time immediately as so many other schools in California have done. CDC and San Mateo guidance on three foot gives us a path to full reopening. Teachers that have long opposed any reopening are doing it

178now just fine. We may never be at zero risk and we have to accept that. The last few weeks have shown that reopening is imminently doable and a lot less scary than the union has made it sound. Kids are behind. If we do not make our very best efforts to catch them up now, the first six months of the next school year will be spent catching up kids that fell behind. That is it, no more. All right, thank you, Wendy. We will go to employee group comments. Dan, is this you tonight? We got to unmute Dan, here we go. I think we might've pressed unmute at the same time, which happens on Zoom all the time. I'm Dan Lanier. I'm president of the San Carlos Teachers Association. Teachers are very happy to be teaching our

179students in person. And I appreciate our superintendent's comments tonight about where we are and all the planning that has to go into our next phase, which will be in the fall. And I just want to commend teachers who are heroes, in my opinion, not just because I am one, but for all of the learning and changing and adapting that we've done in the last year. And as we've come up on the one year anniversary of going into distance learning, I can't believe how much I've grown as a teacher with technology and the communication that teachers have increased to parents about our scheduling and how everything works. So I really want to commend teachers, our principals, school counselors, our nurses, and classified staff. But tonight I want to especially appreciate our parents who are volunteering and

180working in our schools. Parents have been doing traffic duty out in front of our schools. They're helping elementary kids find their parents in their cars. They're smiling, they're friendly, they're warm. And so it's really made reopening work and it's just set a very positive tone. And it's taken some of the pressure off teachers to know that parents are doing that. And they're also helping with yard duty and they're even helping clean our classrooms, which is an amazing thing that they're doing to help our custodians. The support of these parents has made our jobs as educators easier and safer. And I want to thank them on behalf of our members. And the San Carlos Teachers Association, we'd also like to thank Trustee Elliott for her decade of service to our school district. And we wish her

181lots of peaceful Thursday evenings away from board meetings in the years ahead. And I don't know if I'm jumping the gun on this, but it sounds like you may be there for one more meeting, but we appreciate all that you've done. Thank you. Thank you. Lisa, I can see you online. So I will assume you're not here tonight. But if you are, just jump in. And then we'll go to board comments. Carol, if you want to start, if you don't want to start, that's fine too. It's up to you. Just let us know. I can start. I mean, as many of you know, as Dan alluded to, I have come to the not very easy decision that this is the time for me to retire from the San Carlos School Board. After almost 10 years

182on the board, it's time for me to tend to some other priorities in my life. And I do want to share that I made this decision with the fullest of confidence in the district and the board to continue to do an outstanding job educating our students. So I'm going to save my farewell comments from my last meeting on May 6th. So I do have a couple more meetings, but it's really just been an incredible experience to serve our community and contribute what I can. I'm really grateful to have worked with such fantastic and committed people from the board to superintendents to teachers, staff, parents, and the community members. I just really can't understate how, I can't overstate how much I value the ways that our schools connect people in our community together through good times

183and through hard times. And it's just been an honor to be a part of that. So you'll still see me in board meetings till the 6th. And of course, I'm going to be engaged in the superintendent selection process as well. And I just want to thank everyone for the kind words and messages I've received since my announcement. It just, I'm really touched. So thank you. Trustees, anyone want to follow that? I'll follow briefly just, and I'll save obviously comments for later, but when Carol informed me she was announcing, I asked her to just give me a brief summary of the things she's done for the district. And I mean, Carol's dedication and knowledge to the district that was outlined in the letter to the community of, she's dated back to the bonds, the parcel taxes.

184She sat on all the committees. She's been in the PTA. I don't think there's one thing in the past decade that has been done in this district that she wasn't a part of in kind of the major lifts. I mentioned that as being someone that's watched Carol for a while now on the board, and then having the pleasure to work with her through watching her handle the pandemic. And I guess what Carol's career has shown us, but circle back to where we're at today is, there have been dark times in this district where it seems like we will not get out of it. But because of the people, our darkest days are always followed by our finest hours. And we have that faith in the community. Carol, thank you for embodying that faith as well.

185And thank you for your service. Obviously there'll be more to talk about later on, but I thought it was fitting for what we've gone through this year to match to where we're at tonight. If you- Carol, I'm gonna save my gushy words for your last meeting, but you know how much you've been such a role model for all of us. And at every single board meeting, I'm watching and absorbing and trying to carry the baton forward. I just wanted to thank Dr. Harmar for just stating so clearly about our goals and plans to reopen fully in the fall. I felt like you just instilled a lot of confidence by so clearly articulating the issues that you've identified that the staff has identified and how that there are solvable problems. And I mean, we still need

186the time to kind of plan out details and this, and a lot of logistics, but we're on our way. We're on our way. And I just wanted to, again, to say how incredibly proud I am of our teachers, our principals, our nurses, our secretaries, our custodians for kind of putting together a quality program, a quality hybrid program where kids are getting the social, emotional connection with their peers. And we're delivering synchronous, a lot of synchronous learning and teaching time that upholds the rigor. And so I wanted to say thank you to all of our staff. That's it. Professional staff, professional educators. I just wanted to say quickly, Carol, I'm glad that we have overlapped for a few months on the board. And I look forward to cleaning every bit of wisdom that I can from

187you in the next month. So cram as much in as we can. Yeah, I just want to say, I don't think, in a way I might not be here if it weren't for Carol. I mean, I'm just reiterating what Irene said of what an incredible role Molly has been for our community and for our district. So for that, we thank you incredibly. Sad to see you leave, but you were leading us in, as Neil put it, like one of our darkest hours. So thank you for that incredible leadership. And yeah, I just want to say, gosh, I mean, I don't know if any of you have ever trained for a marathon before. I have, and I know what that 20 mile mark feels like. And I think that we have all hit that wall at

188some point in this last year of the pandemic. And I just want to say thank you to our leaders, to our principals, to our teachers for continuing to step up. And teach and transition. And the spring has brought some bright spots with the kids being in class again. And I just want to reiterate my gratitude for all that you're doing to make that happen. And just feeling optimistic as a community, as a school community that we are forging ahead on all of these incredible plans to fully reopen in the fall. So thank you, Dr. Harmeyer for leading that charge. Dr. Harmeyer, you. All right, thank you again, Carol. I appreciate being at Carol's house and having dinner with the board three years ago and having that time together to get to know you. And again,

189I'm so honored to work with such a strong, professional, caring and dedicated board. I was so attracted to San Carlos as a community, not just because of the school district, but the people and how the city and the school district and the community all works together. And yes, we're going through tough times. And I went through horrible times in the recession in my community in the Placer County, for six, seven years that were just dreadful. And we made it through, we made it through. And we dug our way out of that. And I stuck with that group and didn't leave until we really got our feet below us again. And I really see that's where we are now as a community. We are still going to struggle with budget challenges. We're always gonna struggle with

190staffing challenges and trying to hire the best people. Those are the challenges that are happening day to day that I know this community, San Carlos, even though there's frustration, there's some dissatisfaction, I know we'll pull together again, and we're gonna have a great end of the school year. Our eighth grade principals are already planning their promotion ceremonies and whatever that might look like according to the guidance so that we can have a strong finish to this year and have a great next year. I like to tell the principals that let's plan the best year ever next year. We're gonna be recovering and healing next year. Our kids need to recover and heal and socialize. And the whole world has stepped back a pace because of what has happened. We're all in a pause mode and

191we're all going to build back and we don't need to rush that. We don't need to pressure that. We need to go through this next year and celebrate all that we have, work together as a group, heal as a community. And everyone needs to come together. And I appreciate that we've had divergent opinions and people expressing their thoughts and frustrations and that that's okay. But I know people will come together and support our schools and help us through this year and come back, we'll be even stronger. And I know we're going to look different next year and it's okay because I think we're moving forward in education and it's exciting. It's really exciting about what is coming in the future. And I honor our teachers. Like Dan said, we've never learned so much in one

192year. I mean, talk about every week is professional development, right? That's how I felt this year. And so I just think we're gonna be in a better place, a different place next year and our kids are gonna benefit and our kids are resilient. They're going to be okay. I am confident and I'm so proud of the staff and all the work they've done to wrap their arms around our kids this year that really needed it. The kids who needed outreach, the parents who needed outreach. We've done an excellent job with our individual care teams at each site to meet the needs of students who were struggling in different ways. And thank you to Brenda Bachecki and Mindy Hill for really leading that support with parent education and student support services. So I am optimistic. I'm

193appreciative of you, Carol and hanging in there through this and being a partner with me while you were president through these really tough times. And Neil, thanks for taking over. And I just wanna look forward to next year so that we can celebrate and also recover from all of this. So thank you. All right, thank you everybody. Wendy, is there any public comment on closed session? I was afraid you'd ask that, just kidding. No, nothing else came in. Okay. I was being sarcastic there. I figured, but. Just clarifying, because some people seem to think we don't wanna read their comments, but we do. I will adjourn us then to closed session and then I'll come back to the Zoom. Thank you everyone for being with us tonight as well. Michelle, I don't know if you

194sent out a closed session link yet, but how about we give us all 10 minutes and then we'll meet in closed session at 9.30. Thanks again, everyone. Great, I'll send a link. Thank you. Okay, we're recording. Thanks. Thanks, we're back from closed session and I have nothing to report out from closed session. So I will adjourn the meeting. Alejandro, Veronica, thank you both for being with us. Michelle, thank you for coming back and we will see you all two weeks or Veronica, I will see you soon, actually, Monday. So we'll see you then. Thanks, good night. Night.