001We have translation services available this evening. If there is anyone present in the in the audience who requires translation services, please see the gentleman in the back and he will help you out. And if you need uh translation on Zoom, if you're joining us that way, you can take a look at your screen and there is an a globe icon at the bottom of your screen and if you press that uh we have translation services available and that will now be translated. Thank you. Right. The board met in close session immediately prior to open session and we discussed our conference with real property negotiators regarding Mororrow Elementary School anticipated litigation and personnel matters. Is there consensus on the order of business this evening? Okay. Thank you. Right. We will now have our wonderful student representatives
002to the board the best part of the evening. And let's see who I'm going to let you decide who'd like to go first this evening. You going to do uh rock paper scissors over there. Okay, there you go. All right. Thank you. >> Hi, I lost rock paper scissors. My name is Zoe Fuji. I thought you won. >> This is obviously obviously what I hoped for. >> Um, and I'm So High School's ASB president. Um, just give it a second to have the slideshow go on up. Just as a fair warning before we get into it, these past couple of weeks since winter break have been pretty light. We haven't had a whole lot going on. We've had a couple of sports and we're really excited to see them thrive in that regard, but um
003we will have a lot more coming up in these next couple of months with all of our clubs picking up and all of our winter sports getting into their championships and finals and nationals and whatever else they may do. Um yeah, but if we're all ready to go. All right. Then for our first slide, we have we continue to recognize our students for both their achievement and opportunity. And so this month, uh, we're recognizing our ELK students of the month for December and January. Um, these are students who demonstrate leadership, character, and commitment. Uh, the students are, as pictured above, it's Z Malama, uh, Georgia Keeling, Skyler, Skyler Katex, and Lilian Huarez. And we also had the opportunity to celebrate our academic excellence award recipients. Uh which is just our students who had a 4.0
004GPA or higher for three consecutive trimesters. Uh we're so proud of them to see them thrive in that regard. And then our FFA and AG students were thriving as well. They continued to have some strong community support through their programs like the drive through uh try tip barbecue that directly funds student opportunities and scholarships. So that's really exciting to see happen. All right. And then going into our sports for winter sports, we have a lot of excitement at slow high school right now. Our boys basketball defeated Mororrow Bay in a full program sweep and hosted the future of Central Cali tournament. While our girls basketball earned a big win over Napomo and saw Bailey Hartford become the leading scoreer in our program history. We also had soccer have a strong season with our girls soccer
005picking up a league win over St. Joe's and boy soccer defeating Regetti. And then our wrestling continues to dominate with Emry Serabia going undefeated to win a championship at the CIT tournament and multiple Tigers placing at major competitions. Uh just be sure to check those schedules and show up at games and support our teams as the season continues. All right, and then moving into the arts, we have not a whole lot going on these past couple of weeks, but um we had a winter choir concert which was a huge success. That's just the picture you're seeing on the screen there. And then uh we just want to give a big shout out to Mr. Robbins and the entire choir class. They all work so hard and they have done such a wonderful job working together
006over the past couple of months. Um and then we have our next choir concert coming up on February 24th. So be sure to everyone attend. And then looking at our ASB updates, we have a lot of energy on the campus right now thanks to uh ASB and our other student clubs. Uh so we had club rush happening tomorrow January 14th at lunch uh with over 50 clubs getting ready to get students involved and this is just an opportunity for all the clubs to set up tables and get students interested in what they might have to offer. And then we also have our winter formal coming up pretty soon. Uh this is February 7th in the big gym and we're all getting ready for our rival spirit week and setting up for this event just in
007ASB and the theme will be winter wonderland. We also have tig a tiger teams app put on by our athletics commissioners which is just a way to incentivize students to go to more sporting events. ASB is also hosting a lot of lunchtime activities throughout the trimester and so we'll just be showing what those happen to be. They happen on Wednesdays during lunch and they're a fun way to have students who have to stay on campus get more involved in student life. And then looking at our upcoming events, we have our club rush tomorrow. And then we have our trimester 2 progress reports just to check in and see how students are doing with their grades sent home. And then next Monday we have no school. We have a principal's coffee. And then we go into
008our rally and we have a fun rally day. We have our winter formal. And then we have a couple of no school days just for fun to give our students a break. And then we have a choir concert on the 24th as I mentioned previously. And then we have our finals. It's scary to mention now, but they are coming up. And then we have no school after that. And then we have the first day of our third trimester. And that is all for so high school. Thank you so much. >> No, it's not. Okay. Hi. Um, my name is Dawson Okmpo and I am the ASB president over at Mororrow Bay High School. I'm so glad to be back and I'm really excited to see what this semester has to bring. Um, again, we've also
009only been back for a week, so we don't have a lot going on, but we have quite a few updates. So, there we go. Um, last week three girls and two boys were in the opening race of the 2026 K1 Speed Teen GP at K1 Speed in Clovis, marking what is believed to be the first officially organized high school team to enter the series. Um, and then our choir, our choir students traveled to Sacramento and were able to sing in the California State Capital Ratunda. Um, and they attended Disney's The Lion King, uh, the musical at the Safe Credit Union Performing Arts Center. And this was quite literally just last week. And from what I heard, it was just an amazing trip. And as someone who was in choir, uh, two years ago, we got
010to go down uh to San Diego and see a show as well. And it's just a really cool experience, and it's amazing to see live art performing. Um, our mock trial team, our mock trial team travel to Menllo this weekend to compete in a highlevel preseason competition. Uh, they go into county competition next month. And the girl pictured on the right and the left photo um won best overall witness at the competition called Bay Area Bash. And speaking to students, they had a great time and really felt like they were getting prepared for what is to come this next county season. Uh, and then for sports, our seventh annual girls CIT wrestling tournament was this weekend and we are proud to say how well it went with almost 400 girls competing and one of the
011fastest growing sports. The weekend of the 24th will be our annual boy CIT and we anticipate almost a thousand wrestlers competing this year. Our basketball and soccer teams are now in league play and our teams are doing very well. Boys basketball opened the league with a last second victory by two points. Our girls basketball has only lost four games this entire league season. And our girls soccer defeated Nepomo last Friday night and improved their league score to 21 and one and one. Um and boys soccer faces Nepomo tonight as they continue to have one of the best seasons yet in over a decade. And in girls basketball, our team has just been having a phenomenal season as they always do. And in our recent game, senior Zoe Fitzwater broke a school record by shooting eight
012three-pointers in one game. So, congratulations to Zoe. And then coming up, our drama club is hosting their second annual Miscast, and this year we are doing Newsies. Um, if you don't know what that is, it's about the newsboy strike in the 1800s. And that's actually where I just came from and where I will be going back to after this meeting. um since it is this weekend both Friday and Saturday. Tickets are free but donations are highly encouraged and it's just going to be it's going to be so fun. So please go. And then our drama club is having their Mama Mia auditions January 28th to the 30th and ASB will be putting on a football tournament for students at lunchtime January 28th to 30th. That is all. Thank you. Thank you. So, I have a
013question. What is footballs? Footsol. >> Oh, footballs is an indoor soccer tournament. Um, pretty much the same rule as soccer, just inside. >> Okay. Thank you. All right. Thank you so much for coming. You both obviously have places you would I'm sure you would not rather be, but need to be. Uh we thank you for coming and filling us in tonight on all the um great things going on at your schools. Thank you and we'll look forward to seeing you next time. Thanks so much for coming. >> All right, next is item 5.02. And I see some Los Rancho students here. Okay, you pass you passed the first test. Very good. We lined up in order here. Good evening, school board. Thank you so much for the opportunity to come and talk about our yours
014and mine and theirs. Wonderful school. Um listening to the high school uh student leaders talk just really brought personal joy. They mentioned names of my former students that I had um as principles of other schools and teachers and pictures. So what a tremendously amazing district that we are in now, where we will be and where we've come from. Um, you know probably by now that I love to come here and tell you about Los Ranchos and how amazing it is, but I've done that enough and you probably are tired of hearing me say it. So, I brought reinforcements to tell you about it tonight. And I have just a few slides uh to help our conversation. I want to talk to you about student leadership at Los Ranchos. So, we have a pretty significant vision
015for student leadership and and this is honestly the most important part here. Um, it starts with some of the philosophies of the leader in me program which you've heard me and other schools talk about before. But the first part of our vision is that everyone in capital letters has genius. And that literally means everyone on our school campus. Um and and to go further than that, we used to have a student leadership program like many schools have had um in the form of a student council where we would hold elections and students would give speeches, but it was it was limiting with how many students could participate and also not always fair. And so our new leadership program allows for so many more students to participate. And that leads to our second point because if
016students have opportunities to lead, we know that they are going to be more engaged in school and you know that we take the youth truth survey and one of the items on our youth truth survey that students surprisingly mark at Los Ranchos is that they don't always feel engaged with the school. They're very capable as you know and so we staff and I thought well what are we going to do about that? Well this is what we're going to do about that. You know that there are seven habits. You saw him on the last slide, but did you know there is a sneaky and fairly new eighth habit and it is to find your voice and inspire others to find theirs. And that's why I brought these students. You're going to hear their voices and
017they are inspiring us daily. They're going to tell you about five leadership teams amongst our whole entire school leadership team. And that's enough from me. You ready? >> Yeah. >> Come on up. Good evening, school board members and district administrators. My name is Scarlet and I'm in fifth grade. Our school model it motto is we take care of ourselves, we take care of each other, and we take care of this place. The last part is where our green team comes in. Do you know how much waste is generated each day in our school? It's bonkers. So, we work to make sure students know what type of waste goes where. Check out our latest reminder video that we showed to all the students at our last assembly. This is what happens when you put an open
018milk carton into the trash. And we don't want that to happen. Instead, you can pour your if you have any extra milk into the red bucket. >> And when you put open milk cartons in the trash can, it'll release bad smell and it'll get moldy. Also, even though you're not going to be the one cleaning it up, Mr. Marshall will have to clean it up. And I don't think he wants to do that. So, remember to respect others. >> And if your milk is full like this, make sure you put it on the share table. And also, wait, don't put any of your trays in the trash. If they have no food on them, you can put them in the blue. If they if they have food on them, you can put them in the
019green. >> Be green forever. It's gonna be like really tall, but okay. Hello, my name is Indie. I am sixth grade and I'm also a student senator. We have monthly awards assemblies at Los Ranchos and I'm on the assembly team and I love it. We start off each assembly by leading with the pledge of allegiance. Then we perform a skit to reinforce a school expectation or to encourage thinking about one of the seven habits. Lastly, we secretly watch all the students and pass out leap slips to students who are being the most responsible and respectful during the assembly. You will hear more about leap slips a little later. My name is Ellie and I'm in fifth grade. I'm on the announcement team this year. Leaders on this team help Mr. McMillan with Friday morning announcements.
020We film short We film short videos to show during assemblies. We are going to create a news crew within the leadership team this winter. Um, and we'll send out news video reports twice per month. One of my fa and one of my favorite things about announcement team is telling a joke of the week. Would you like to hear a New Year's joke? What New Year's resolution should a basketball player never make? >> To travel more. >> Hi, my name is Burke. I'm in the fifth grade and I'm on the new equipment team this year. Mr. Kirsten is our team supervisor and he helps us take out special playground equipment every now and then to make the playground a little more fun. We have pingpong tables, pickle ball, and we are about to unveil cup stacking
021activities, wobble tetris, and cornhole this winter. My job as a leader is to help with the equipment and to help other students learn how to use it. That way, everyone learns rules and the equipment lasts as long as possible. Hi there, my name is Anley McMillan and I'm also in fifth grade. One of the reasons I love being a ROI representative is that we get to go around to lower grade classrooms each Friday to pull leap slips and give rewards to celebrate student behavior. We also make posters to advertise for upcoming school events and we help organize school le charity events. My name is Emmy and I am also in fifth grade. Another activity that the rodeo reps do is a special greeting on some Tuesday mornings. We have school colored pom poms and sometimes
022we play music and we greet students as they come to school in the morning. It's a great way to start a school day. And many teachers even and even our custodian walk through the front gates with a big smile on their face. My name is Emma and I'm in sixth grade. I'm also on the road representatives team. We are doing something new this year and I want to tell you about it. You've heard one of our leaders mention LEAP slips. Leaps stands for leadership. Everyone tries their best. Always always safe and proactive. Teachers and staff give leap slips out to any students they see, setting a great example around our school campus. This past fall, we created a student store so students can buy rewards with their hard-earned leaf slips. Students can trade in leaf
023slips for mints, stickers, 3D printed fidgets, and special privileges like teachers chair for the day, or even pinball with the principal. For now, only fifth and sixth graders are trying out the store so we can see what works and what we still need to figure out. Hello again. Coming soon, we hope to expand our student store to other grade levels. Star studentled clubs offer formal leadership opportunities to fourth grade students. My support team is fully made of fourth graders and have more student leadership on the playground. Thank you school board members for um for your leadership in our district. Thank you for letting us come tonight and tell you about our great school. Um, I see Mr. Clawson's light on. >> Oh, thank you guys for a great presentation. I have a question for you.
024Um, my question is with all these teams, how do you figure out which team to be on? And is everyone on a team and are they on one team or do you get to do multiple different teams through the year? How how's this all work? Um, so in the beginning of the year, um, our teachers pass out these forms and it says, "What team would you like to be on? Why do you want to be on that team? And what would a second choice be?" Um, and most of the time students get in. If there's too many kids, they might not get in, but it means that they'll get in next year. >> There's also a rigorous interview process involved um to make it formal. Um but it is meant to be inclusive and so
025if anyone wants to step up to be a leader we try and make it happen. They need their teachers approval and their parents approval of course as well. And so um we have the most students participating ever in fifth and sixth grade formally and we hope to let fourth graders and the big vision is to see if we could even make formal opportunities for all grades but that's the process so far. >> Okay. >> Mr. Vanfield. >> Do I understand that there can be clubs? >> Yes. And they keep asking me about said clubs. And I keep gently asking teachers if they're ready to be the club advisors during their precious lunchtime. We're going to start very soon. Um it's a model that is suggested within the leader and me framework and the idea is
026that they are all studentrun except for the adult that's present for legal reasons. The students have to plan get materials and um I'll tell you what we'll invite you out when we launch them Mr. Banfield and if there is an alpha Romeo repair club um I'm going to tap you to be the adviser for that. But some of the ideas that have been floated so far are a dance club, a drawing club, a chess club, a Pokemon card trading club, the only time that Pokemon cards will be allowed. >> Um, and quite a variety of other pretty um unique ideas. >> Neat. Well, your your students, you did such a great job tonight. My oh my. Great. >> Thank you. So, thank you so much for taking the time to come out like and and
027join us this evening. We really appreciate the great amount of activities and information you provide us tonight. We all know more about Los Rancho School. Thanks to you. >> Thank you, board. Thank you for having us. >> Thanks very much. >> You know what? I knew it was going to happen because it wasn't on the slide. I have amazing help to make the student leadership program run because I wouldn't be able to do it. I just can look you in the eye and promise we would not be here with cute kids with some things that we've already accomplished. Mrs. Shaka is our SQL teacher. She doesn't like attention, but she's getting it right now. And and a busy principal can't really can't really facilitate a a fully functioning club. So, a busy principal is thankful
028for staff like her and um again, thank you. >> So, our next item 5.03 is the annual report by the county superintendent of schools. Dr. Brussia, welcome. >> I don't need that. I could use the stool, but James, how are you? >> Good evening. That's a hard act to follow, but it's it's kind of fun. Uh James was a former student of mine at the university, and I think this is what we're talking about as it comes full circle. Um so much of what I'm going to speak of this evening is how we can uh all support our county, how the county office does that. And first of all, I want to thank you for serving as elected officials, as trustees and my colleague administrators um for public service. It's um not always acknowledged, but
029what you do is very, very important. So, thank you. You want to cue that up? So, just start off again a little bit about our county. Just reminding people, we're about 4,000 square miles. um with the uh the 13 agencies, we've had uh no change there with the the three charters and the 10 districts as well as Qua um throughout the county. Um interestingly, a little bit on I guess I could do this now. Do this correctly or no? Yes, there we go. Okay. Um uh a little bit on the stats overall as far as enrollment across the state. It continues to drop uh gradually from the high uh that we had back in the early uh uh year and I think 19 hit the peak right there. Slow county interestingly uh we went up
030about 56 students across the county compared to last year. So a slight uh change. I think we've actually sort of plateaued and um are our hovering. I mean, 56 students is is negligible, but it's not a a drop that we've seen. Um, and possibly it is because of the the following slide. When you look at the median home prices, um, we've kind of slipped below the median across the state. Not by much. Um, but uh, believe it or not, compared to the Bay Area or Los Angeles, we end up being more affordable. That's hard to believe. Uh, this still is a challenge for public sector employees. If you just look at that change in 20 years of housing and um our wages have not done that in that same period of time. So that continues
031to be one of the biggest challenge for all of our eleas is uh affordable housing for employees not only the school districts but the cities, county government and any other public sector. Um, as far as population overall, the county population continues to go up. And this is the first time uh since I've given this report in the last 12 years that we're seeing um student population and county population grow at the same time. Uh, and again, it was a very small amount, but by the about 56 students across the the board. Um, interestingly, um, you saw the fringes of the county with elementary growth and then the core of the county here more with secondary growth, which again, if you think about it, it's socioeconomics. The closer you get to St. Louis Abyispo, the coast,
032the property values go up, the further away you have more affordable housing uh, stock in there. Okay, go to the next one there. I'll let you do that. Um, I wanted to start off a little bit about the the chopped classic and um, Dr. Koski is here with me this evening and one of the areas that that his department works with is student services and this particular program uh featured students from across the county. And can you run that clip there? Hopefully we don't get a commercial first. No. OKAY. We're in the middle of the Chop Classic right now. Uh there's five teams, five teams cooking right now and then we've got three more that are waiting. >> Very exciting. We're all set up. The grills are lit. Uh we are ready. We're rocking. Team
033A, team section A, start the timer. Team A, 5 minutes. >> I'm having to adjust today because my partner is not here and so I'm going to have to make the whole dish by myself. Times four. Kind of scared, but I think I can do it. >> In 9 minutes, you're going to be starting your judgment. The plates will be brought out, and they'll be brought out every 5 minutes. May I suggest a pace yourself? Let's pace yourself cuz you got eight plates to eat off of. Okay. When they signed up to agree to compete, they had no idea what they're going to be making. They knew that they could do chicken and whatever was going to be in the Tally Farms box. So, you know, they have lots of ideas at first and then
034as soon as they get the box, then all of a sudden going, "Okay, we got to go back to the brainstorm." >> These kids have never experienced anything like this. >> Going for a more of a southern traditional style of dish. We wanted like a unique type of dish with like some basic staples that would come in southern dish but also like making it our own. Make sure you have that communication with each other. Okay, you guys got one minute. >> I'm an alumni from Royal Grande High School. Uh I started cooking at Roses when I was in high school here at AG. We didn't have anything near like this when I was here. And this is absolutely beautiful facility. Doug's uh he's a brilliant mind in the kitchen, man. He's a wonderful businessman. >>
035So, I just wanted to get it goes on a little longer than you want to watch tonight. I just want to give you an idea. This involved high schools from across the county as well as uh Santa Maria High that jumped in on this. This is part of our uh career technical education program. Every one of the comprehensive high schools in the county has some form of culinary program. Um it was very interesting that young lady from Paso placed all by herself and the other three teammates didn't show and she handled it. If you it's it's online if you want to watch a little more of that. Um so I just wanted to share with you some of the good things that are happening around the county. Um I'm happy to report that all of
036our districts are solvent. Um I'm in the process of sending out um our letters. I want to thank you for making the difficult decisions to balance your budget. I know it's not easy, but I appreciate you uh you working through that. Um as many of your neighboring districts are having to do the same thing. Uh as far as the state budget goes, um I I I think we're in a slightly better position than I would have thought maybe five or six months ago, but kind of status quo. It could have been worse. Let's put it that way. It it could have been worse. Um we will see some cola funding, some other things. Um and fortunately the deferrals are going to be kind of sidelined which could have really impacted every district across the county.
037Um the uh the next slide just shows the the good things website and uh St. Louis Coastal is featured on there multiple times uh for many of the things that you are achieving across the district. Go ahead, you can click on that. This website is up and you don't need to play the video there. Um but it features all of the different things are happening in schools. Louis Abyispo County. Our schools have an incredible impact on shaping St. Louis Abyispo County's unique character and we're proud of our success. Through innovative education, we're addressing the needs of learners in a rapidly changing world, embracing change and creating inclusive, equitable, and engaging learning experiences. Further, we're forging pathways for students to live and thrive here into adulthood, equipping them with career ready skills and qualifications to meet
038the demands of local employers. Beyond the classroom, we know the success of our schools extends far into our local communities, contributing to the prosperity, safety, and health of future generations. I hope you'll join me in recognizing and amplifying the positive accomplishments of our schools throughout the county. Good things are happening here. >> Learn more at good things.slowco.org. >> So, this is a spot where I have been featuring activities of positive action for all of our districts across the county. Your district is is featured there multiple times for many of the wonderful things that St. Louis Coastal is doing. I think it's important that we continue to um champion that message about how education is doing well. We have challenges. We always have challenges. We have cost overruns. We have all kinds of other things we
039have to address. But there's far more good going on than the negative that gets a lot of the press. And so I've tried to continue sounding that bell for everyone. Uh we'll continue to provide board support and uh help you to the best of our ability. I understand that the um CSBA networking lunch that we hosted was was well attended by many of the board members and just appreciate that. Uh we'll continue to work with you on the trainings and and uh Dr. Ksky's department is is working with all the schools. I noticed a couple of things that were acknowledged today were some of the programs that are very integral with with his department um across the county. This next piece here uh talks a little bit more about some of the things that the
040county office does. In addition to running Court Community School and some of the high special needs programs and being your your oversight agency, um we're really pushing for the that gap between uh Qua Pauly postsecary and I keep reminding people that out of 10 adults really it's three to four depending upon where you live that have a bachelor's degree but it's 10 out of 10 that need to have job skills to move forward. And we have to the question needs to be what are you doing next not just what school are you going to and that's the question we should be asking 11th and 12th graders university is very important I mean I have four college degrees and it it but it's about what are you going to do next and there's many paths and
041many journeys to take um this next group um ranges from 16 to 60 year olds and it was a women supporting women network across the county. And if you clip up on that, I had taken the slow partners course and I had gotten an email about this and I needed some more female community in my life. I think it is just networking and meeting other women in the area and just from all different industries across the board and kind of seeing what they're up to and just kind of maybe taking some of their feedback how I can grow professionally. I talked to a few friends and they go, "Oh, I'm not a leader." And I go, "You own your business." Yeah, you are. But you don't have to own your business or consider yourself a
042leader or have the title of leader. You just have to be willing to share your experiences of what worked and also what didn't. Say, "Oh, I'll tell you something. I tried. It did not work out and yet I'm still here." It's really wonderful and I think so needed now more than ever. So, you hear a little bit about the the slow CTE Foundation and uh one or two of you might have been it might have just been Mark or Chris that was around when the um RO dissolved and I was challenged by I think it was Nelson Yamagatada at Templeton who was the board president at the time said, "Jim, you got to do something about this." and and um so I started the the slow career and technical education foundation meaning St. Lucispo County
043with uh three mission purposes. one to promote the arts and support that. So many of the things that you've seen here, your students going to Calpali, some of the transportation covered for that, the outreach with Michael Novak at uh Qua College that your district as well as all the others have participated in. We've tried to fund and support um career and technical education and then slow partners um trying to keep these activities going. Um that's what that foundation uh supports across the county. We continue to promote disaster uh and emergency preparedness uh along with your district and all of the other eleas, private parochial schools and government agencies throughout the county. Um and the one piece here on employee education matching fund, Coastal has been a good partner in that and I'm committed in this
044fiscal year as well as the next fiscal year to continue putting that half a million aside for match dollars to upskill employees. Three questions. Do they work for us? And when I say us, I mean any of the LEAs, the county, is it beneficial for the employee? And is it beneficial for the employer? And then you have access to those match dollars to help them upskill. Um, we have people and training programs across the county. I mean, James is a perfect example. Had we not taken the chance to have a double cohort and to fund that, he wouldn't have necessarily been in that program. Um, bus drivers, this is any employee. It is not just teachers. Um, this works. We have to invest in our own. If we think we're going to recruit people from
045out of an area to come live here, um, we're being naive. We have to invest in our local workforce and and and bring them. So, that that is there and I'm committed to that. Um, as far as the the fiscal planning, we'll continue to uh to train. I'm very pleased that Erin Aspund is my assistant superintendent of of fiscal. Now, having been a district assistant superintendent and district superintendent, I think he's probably one of the best. He's leading the state. He helped with the state message just like Sheldon Smith did previously. Um our county is in good shape compared to many other counties largely because of your stewardship and because of the teamwork going on. Um the housing project is is completing up at uh the the property behind the school district and it's a
046replicable model that you could look at if you have property. I know you have some other coastal commission challenges that we can push ours just out of that boundary. Um, but there's some possibilities. You can look at that. Um, Selpa governance continues for all of the county. I would like to say that the the encroachment on our general fund is is stabilizing, but it is not. Is continuing to go up, but collaborating and working together is helping mitigate um ongoing changes there and and encroachment on our funds. And then the superintendent's council bringing everyone together. We collaborate on the legal consortium. We're sharing information. um Joe's department is is helping to to disseminate information to the other divisions and we we'll continue to do that to the best of our ability to to support you
047and support everyone else. Uh I just came from the Grizzly uh board meeting prior to this. It we are now in cohort 57. So if you look at that is I think it's it amounts to about 28 years of Grizzly. I remember that being started when I was a teacher, a beginning administrator in Paso School District. Um, and to see that that's 500 young people every year that are at risk moving and we're still hitting that 80 to 90% success rate measured by post completion. two years out they're either in school or working and they haven't re-engaged with law enforcement um in a negative capacity. Um and that's how we're looking at that. So I'm very pleased a good relationship with the guard and and that's been a been a great partnership there. Um our
048court community school students are taking uh career technical ed for some of the first time in juvenile hall. So you're seeing some of those students get those experiences and learning skills so that when they reintegrate into the general population, they'll have some more of those skills to move forward. Very happy with our partnership with probation, sheriff's department, and other law enforcement agencies. And those are our students, everyone's. Just happens that the county is in charge of with them while they're with us. Next slide, please. And then I wanted to end um just on uh some of you I think Eric's been to this facility. We we took that last time I was here. I showed you the building that used to be the instructional media center and how we took and repurposed that and turned
049it into a training facility. Well, this was the Car Quest Auto Parts building in downtown Pasarobels that um I took and between the foundation that I started and the county office, we have a 10-year lease on this building which has turned into a North County facility. And uh we're we're having a dental assisting boot camp there. We're having a um training camp for young people. I got a C3 Yamaha piano donated and uh we're having some arts groups there and performances. Uh you'll all get an invitation to come to this at some point, but a second facility in the other part of the county and eventually looking to do something possibly in South County. Again, providing that space between Templeton School District, the city of Pastor Robels and and even at Tascadero. Now, we're we're
050booking the place up through April already, which is interesting. Has 5,000 ft², a 2,000 foot room and a 3,000 foot room. And I had it designed just like this, so it's completely open. And the requirement was all of the furniture needed to be mobile and one person with back troubles should be able to set it up. Those were my requirements. So everything and I can tell you I can set up all the furniture by myself. I don't need an entire crew. That's what we wanted was something easy and safe. Um and Joe, your department's used it quite a bit for for workshops and and groups across the county. So those are a few of the things going on. I was just trying to hit some of the highlights. Um again, I want to thank you.
051Very happy with where our school districts are in terms of of solveny and fiscal stability across the county. Um, if you think about it, we have almost a billion dollars of payroll in school employees across the county. That is a huge impact to our economy and to our well-being and and the the schools across the county. You throw Paulie in there that, you know, goes up another 25%. So, um, if you just look at the education workforce that's out there. Um, and then the last thing I wanted to say is this will be my last annual report to you. Um, I've decided that uh at the end of this my term this year um I am not going to seek re-election and this is my 40th year in the field and um I will finish
052the calendar year out but next year in January someone else will be reporting to you. We don't know who that might be. Who knows? So, any questions? Mark, >> I'd just like to say thank you for your service. >> Oh, it's it's it's been the >> I never would have imagined uh that 40 years ago, this is where my career path would would. I started as a custodian at the university and instructional assistant and teacher, principal, all kinds of things. But been an honor and a privilege. >> Thank you, >> Mr. Claus. Brent, >> did you do it? >> Um, you have I have two quick questions. Sure. I guess first I would be curious if you could just characterize how the relationship um between your office and St. Louis Coastal, how would you characterize
053it compared to the other districts in the county? What makes it uh unique or different? And I guess correlary to that, are there any policies or programs you recommend we embrace differently? >> Well, Paul Faucet takes me out for lunch. Eric, no, no, I'm just joking. Um, uh, your your your district is is collaborative, supportive. Um, I I think that, uh, I mean, I've never had any issues. I I I worked with with Eric and your team when I was a district superintendent, and it's it's been positive. I mean, I can't think of anything where we haven't been able to reach a decision or agree. Um, sometimes I, you know, little little push back every now and then if my letters to you are too harsh, but usually Ryan or Eric or you, well, Russell
054always didn't like what I wrote, so we don't have to worry about that anymore. But no, uh, uh, positive. Your your teams participate in in what they can. There's generally someone from St. Louis Coastal present at our events. I mean, anything you're seeing differently on that, Joe? I mean there's usually participation from this district. >> Yeah, I think I would just reiterate the comments I made a couple months ago. I think we can always one more question. I was wondering if you could just touch on the housing project a little more. I I mean I'd be curious to know how that's progressed. Um how many people are being being are benefiting from it and uh what's the makeup of where they work or come from across the county? >> Um we're still waiting for county
055government and they wanted us to do another well test and and there's some politics going on there, but we're we're in the approval. We have one unit occupied already and there are two two county employees uh living in that and then seven more will come online at some point this year. We're taking modular classrooms and repurposing them. The cost is about $1 to $150,000 per modular building, but remember we own the dirt, we own the infrastructure and the utility improvements were already there. So all of really it is taking a modular building and refitting it. Um the idea is that those go into a lottery. We had the first lottery. There were four people that put in from the county for the the one building and uh had a little bingo ball at the board
056meeting and the board president spun the thing and and Drew I'm hoping it's a model that other agencies can look at. Um these are modest 900 to,100 square foot dwellings, a two-bedroom, two bath. Um, and the idea is that the individuals would rent them for five years as long as they're an employee in one of our agencies in the county. Um, and they're renting at 50% market rate. So, if you looked at what the market rate in St. Louis Bispo would be for a 22, it's half of that. >> Anyone else? >> Okay. Any other questions or comments? I know I will see you all at our professional development in February. I hope our dinner Ellen you've already plugged that I assume. >> Yes, we'll be having a professional development opportunity in February. We're working
057on planning it now. I would add that Mandy has been participating in the executive assistant academy that uh Carla Knuckles and I have been putting together and um you know I have a relationship with Dr. Brush and the county as an employee that I have very much appreciated the work I've been allowed to do. uh with all the boards throughout the county. But yes, look for at your inbox for >> and the consensus was here and slow again. So I think did Madano in one out again? Was that it? >> Say that again. >> Madonna in was the location that you all Yes. >> seems to be. >> Yeah. I voted for North County, but I was overruled. >> We'll be we'll we'll do something. Our next executive academy opportunity is meeting is in North
058is at the Encore Center. >> There you go. All right. Well, thank you. >> And Dr. Prager. >> Yeah. I just want I don't want you to leave before I I just say I appreciated we've been through so much through the years. um Jim and uh I think you've when you took over from Julian, you know, it was um those are big shoes to fill and what you made it your own and I just want to say I really appreciate your collaboration especially in the areas of uh equity and inclusion. I know that some of those um um um decisions were tricky uh politically, but you leaned in and your team um joined in with some of these um collaborations that we were able to do with the county as well as all the other
059districts in the county that wanted to participate. And from that um we've been able to expand so many things here um just systematically. and and I just want to say I appreciate that so much and um you've been just a great collaborator and I really appreciate working with you. So, >> thank you. Well, I'm not I'm not out the door just yet. >> We still have a full year. So, >> yeah, we still have a year. >> I can harass. >> This will be my my last report on this matter to you, so you all know how to get a hold of me. Thank you again. Appreciate your public service and um just I know you have a meeting to get to, so I don't need to talk anymore. >> Thank Thanks for coming. Okay,
060the next item on our agenda is correspondence. And at the time the agenda was published, we received several um items of correspondence with regard to uh budget cuts that we made. Uh and those are all attached to the to the agenda to that they are all available for the public to read. We will now move on to item 6.02 public comment. Uh this is for public comment is is here for people who wish to address the board at this time on items that don't appear on the agenda. And uh or if an item does appear later on the agenda but you don't wish to wait for it, you can address the board now. You will have three minutes in which to address the board. If translation is required there, we allow six minutes. We do
061uh time have a strict timer and uh we will that appears on the screen as you're addressing the board and we you may not seed your time to others and we will request that if you wish to address the board there are yellow sheets on the table back there. if you would fill one out and bring it um take it to um Miss Dawson, then we will collect them from her. At this time, Mr. Clawson, you are on. I believe you have some sheets. And >> yeah, the first um first person we'll be hearing from is Mave Holden. >> Hello, board members. Um, I have a couple things. I know I only have three minutes. I am a school nurse and I saw the food and nutrition on your um, agenda today and I am
062very pro making sure that we have good nutritious food. That means like class snacks. That means like birthday parties. That means that everything on the campus um that is brought in during the school day does meet some kind of nutritional guidelines. Um there have been a lot there's a lot of kids who bring in things from home. That's great, but it's just just for them. So I just really want to support that this is a really important thing for our students to have healthy food available. we can't control what they bring, but we can control what's offered in the classroom. That means what teachers bring and what parents send as well. So, I'm really supportive of any kind of guideline that moves towards uh healthier foods. Um, the other thing I was going to mention
063was talking about the uh budget again, and I just kind of want to revisit a couple things. Uh, I had written a letter to the to the board and Mr. Mr. Pinkerton had responded. Um, when we were talking about the Prop 28 funds, you had said that they were through the student site councils that they were Yeah, I was on the student site council at LOMS for two years and they never came up. I never heard boo about them. I didn't even know that that was something we were supposed to do and that was under both Mr. Bloom and Miss Contrarus. So, I'm not sure the principles are aware that that should be coming through the student site councils because I was there every meeting. Um, so I think that that could be something that
064could be um shored up for like how we could access these funds as if we get a million dollars a year and we have $1.4 million sitting in our uh budget right now for that. That means that they're not being spent. Maybe it's an access problem. Maybe it's a communication problem. I'm not sure how, but it seems like it should be offered more than once a year that you can access those. I mean, if they're funds specifically for the arts and things change through the year, um, budgets, etc., maybe there's a way that we could find a way to access those specific art funds for arts things. Um, so that's one things. Um, the other thing I just wanted to bring up is, you know, making sure that some of the cuts were first tier
065and not second tier. Um, music was really impacted. No one ever told me. I could never find a budget for athletics. I doubt it's 66% of athletics that was cut with the 100,000. But I think that again, we should uh just make sure that our first tiers are, you know, the important counselors, librarians, and music. And then again, just making sure that um, you know, transportation uh is available to all the core curriculum classes before extracurriculars as well. If extracurriculars gets busing, then music the music program should also get busing. For instance, that trip to Sacramento she talked about was would be important. >> Thank you very much. >> Thank you. >> Uh next we'll have Ashley Hern. Hello again everyone. I'm Ashley her high school counselor at LOMS and I'm back one last time
066to complete my hat-tick of board meeting visits. I hope you all had warm and fabulous holidays and I promise I'll leave you alone for a little while after this. I want to start by taking a moment to express my gratitude for the communication, grace, recognition, and appreciation that I personally have received throughout the budget cut process that impacts me. I'm truly moved by the kindness that I have received. With that said, separate from my personal position and just with a passion for school counseling, I want to take one last opportunity to summarize some of my past points and make some final requests. Last month, I said that the middle schools can sometimes feel like the proverbial middle child of K12 sites. And today, I want to expand that comparison to school counselors specifically. We can
067be sort of caught in the middle a bit wearing many different hats and we have for example the salary rates of teachers but with longer hours and excluded lunches. We host events, attend re-entry meetings and communicate with parents with almost adminlike importance and yet we are often some of the earliest on the chopping block and as seen this year at a higher rate. For example, the approved budget cuts include seven full-time secondary teachers which is 3.6% 6% of the 192 that I counted on our websites. On the other hand, however, three full-time secondary counselors cut was a whopping 23% of our total secondary counselors. When the budget vote occurred, there was messaging about approving it, but with the goals of creating a plan for maintaining music and other items that were rightfully fought for. And
068while I hate this internalized feeling of us versus them when it comes to departments, I just want to leave here with the final request that our district shift its view of counseling in the direction of seeing it as a truly vital resource and that we ask some of the same questions about counseling that were asked about finding every which way to supplement things like music programs. Uh my dream vision is that counseling case loads are looked at like class sizes. Sometimes they fluctuate, but the goal is always to keep them at the recommended level set forth by the American School Counseling Association. That is 250 students to every one counselor. I can tell you that having that case load this year has been a dream come true, but also disheartening because of how much work
069is still left to do at the end of each day. With my cut, my teammate, whose bilingual abilities are a vital resource to our EL families, will be underwater. If the elimination of my position were to happen right now with staffing the way that it is, he'd be left with the second highest student to counselor ratio of middle schools in St. Louis Abyispo County, which of course would make it harder for those to support those families. So, moving forward with whatever magical money might fall from the sky this year, the next year, the next year, I just please hope that you'll keep school counseling in the forefront of your mind. I could go on about why it's necessary, but I just hope that we'll continue to shift the narrative in an area that for generations
070to come, we'll see an increase in counseling because it can help with chronic absenteeism, suspension rates, academic success. There's a lot of great articles right now on districts who are increasing counselors and seeing these successes happen. I hope that moving forward, our district will prioritize that in any way possible with any funding possible. Thank you so much. >> Thank you. Uh, >> our next speaker is Katie Schlott. Hi. Uh, my name is Katie Schlaugh and I represent members of the community of Mororrow Bay and I have a few comments regarding the budget cuts and the sale of Moral Elementary. Um, there is still a grave concern regarding the reductions voted on at the last board of trustees meeting. The friends of moral elementary believes, excuse me, the board of trustees has within its grasp the
071potential for rescending some of these budget cuts by successfully concluding negotiations with the city of Mororrow Bay for the purchase of Moral Elementary. This can be done by the April 2026 deadline or sooner, what happens on the property will no longer be a burden to the district. rather the district can decide how to use its financial agreement for a one-time savings of programs and personnel. Additionally, last spring when the school district discussed a waiver for the Naylor Act in regard in regard to this property, it was stated that this waiver would allow for negotiations with the city to be simplified. It was presented to us as a positive move in order for the city to eventually obtain this site. I am optimistic that these statements were not misdirection and that it is with sincerity that
072the school district is holding negotiations with the city of Moray. There has been, excuse me, an immense amount of effort from constituents and representatives alike in preserving this site for the betterment of our community, brought forth in a way decided by the members of our community. It is my hope and the hope of many others that a positive outcome will soon be achieved. Thank you guys. Thank you. Our next speaker is Dr. Low. Good evening. I come here this evening to advocate for two concerns that I believe require immediate board action. However, I offer first a metaphor from an educational researcher who has guided my own practice. Imagine a group of people seeing young children drowning in a river with a strong current. Their first impulse would probably be to try to save them or
073to search for help. However, what if they looked up the river and saw many boats throwing the children in the water and these boats were multiplying by the minute? How should the group move forward? save them, stop them from being thrown, arrange for honoring the dead, raise awareness, or understand why the children are being thrown. The answer is yes. With the same urgency and care, our community has to come together and decide how to solve our problems by first being willing to see and understand the root causes. My first concern involves the high school wrestling program. Our wrestlers work hard every day devoting physical, emotional, and psychological discipline to train for the opportunity to compete. But all that goes away with an infection. I'm advocating for awareness and proactive measures to protect our community from
074a real existing community health risk. The current way of sharing the wrestling room compromises strict hygiene protocols and regular disinfection of the facility. The CDC recommends that shared environments be cleaned and allowed to dry after each use, and the responsibility cannot fall solely on the wrestling program. With its current arrangement, it is impractical or safe for the wrestling room to be shared. Prevention and reduction are going to require a commitment from school leadership, district operations, and the community. My second concern involves the very topic raised in a recent Tribune article that discusses a fiscal trend plaguing Central Coast public school districts that is costing communities thousands of dollars in legal fees and settlements. And I do believe that we need to talk about this as a community. I echo the author's sentiment and urge the
075school board to act on its fiduciary duty with complete fidelity and require Dr. Prader to publicly produce ledgers of all legal council fees and settlements over the last 5 years. Then engage the community on their experiences and the conditions for learning and get to the root problems that are now removing programming and services from our youth through our budget. I have been advocating for three years from this district to engage the community outside of the controlled exclusive processes that Dr. Prader operates. Board, remember your service to your constituents. When your community comes to you with a concern, remember that it is an act of care. Rather than operating for perception management, remember your duty to gather input, share ownership, and work with your constituents for better outcomes. There is a real misalignment between the district
076and the community it serves. And we heard this tonight. Regardless of intention, we didn't get here by accident, but by design. As the author closes, I too urge this board and Dr. Prader to choose accountability over the status quo. And you cannot do this work alone. So work with us and not against us. Thank you. >> Thank you. Our next speaker is Michael Low. >> Good evening. Participation in the wrestling program at slow high school has increased by over 300% in the last two years. The growth begins at the junior high level, particularly at Laguna Middle School under coach John Andre, whose program has created a strong pipeline into the high school. My own son wrestled for coach Andre for three years and is now a freshman on the varsity team. This year, Slow High
077team has two wrestlers with current state rankings, and we are entering the most competitive and important part of the season with major tournaments ahead. Uh, at the same time, Calpali has a division one wrestling program and we have former division one wrestlers and all-ameans coaching our students. Wrestling is part of the community's identity. Coach Brandon Ducker has been coaching at Slow High for 18 years. He donates hundreds, if not thousands of hours each year to our students and community and receives only a modest stipen. This year, when more than 80 students signed up, Coach Ducker chose not to cut kids. Instead, he volunteered to coach an additional period of wrestling with no increase in pay, so every student who wanted to participate could. Parents and coaches have also stepped up. Over the past two years,
078we've started a nonprofit wrestling club to create free opportunities for kids, support our school's programs, and raising funds to support CIF events, feeding athletes, and recognizing students efforts. Despite this growth, we face arbitrary barriers. We're being told that the wrestling room at Slow High is no longer a wrestling room, but a multi-purpose room, and that wrestling must share it with a new dance program. Wrestlers are expected to roll up mats, perform extra cleaning, and absorb the burden of this change. At the same time, staff are irresponsible with mats, ruining um by ruining them by dragging equipment across them, costing the district thousands of dollars to replace them. These decisions are affecting students health. Wrestling requires a clean, controlled environment. Students are getting staff infections and as a result are being medically excluded from participation, including
079seniors in their final year who are now missing opportunities they will never get back. This is what I mean when I say that the district appears out of touch with its community. How is it reasonable to limit facilities for one of the fastest growing programs on campus that allows anyone to participate? Coach Ducker is volunteering to coach our kids, not to work as a free custodian. And I do want to speak as well. Um, we talked about an athlete, Emory Sarabia, who won the TR girls CIT tournament. She is a freshman and her sister actually got second place in that tournament and lost to last year's uh, state champion. We have an incredible opportunity to do something great for our students and we are creating arbitrary barriers for them by not working with the community.
080as this program continues to grow. Um, it is one of the most empowering sports, especially for a young woman, to be a part of, and I would encourage all of you to come and see it for yourself. Next Wednesday at uh 6:30 p.m. is when the varsity tournament starts against LMPoke. It's the last home duel. We'll be doing a senior recognition night to recognize the seniors for their efforts. Doors will open at 4:30. Uh, JV wrestling starts at 5. Thank you. Uh, next next we'll hear from Sus Susanna Brown. >> Good evening. My name is Susanna Brown. I know many of you from many things. My hats. Um I am a local parent and community member and for many years I've been involved as a PTA leader, a school site council member and by regularly
081participating in parent leadership meetings with uh school district leadership and um communicating with board members. Um also I've recently entered the assembly race and I want to be here to listen and I think that's really exciting. I just had to do that little introduction. Um, but I really wanted to come here tonight um because after years of local investment in understanding and like a lot of other parents um there are clear challenges facing our district that require attention beyond the local level and I learned a lot when we've been advocating for TK funding um going up to Sacramento um that funding didn't come through in time and that showed me that both the importance of state attention can get on a topic across, you know, the whole state, the whole district, the the whole community
082was involved. Um, but it also showed me that there are consequences when that attention falls short and you are the people who have to see those consequences and you're pitted against our community members who are in chaos because they're fighting for one thing or another when you guys have to balance our budget. Um, I want to acknowledge that for many years now, you've been required to make these significant budget changes and carry out very difficult decisions. And I know you all care so much. Otherwise, you wouldn't be here listening to parents and teachers and classified staff for months and years and doing this very thankless job. And you all continue to go out and listen and learn. And I've seen Ellen at the school and I've seen Mark out at community learning and engagement events.
083And I know that all of you really do care and that is so important to have a board of trustees that is there and wants to do the best thing. Um, but meetings like the 7-hour budget discussion in December reflect just how serious and complex these decisions are. And I appreciate the care, time, and endurance that you bring to this work. And I don't know if you get enough thanks for that. For many of us who have been engaged for years, it's difficult to watch our school district repeatedly placed in these no-win situations. They're complex. Having to cut music programs, I'm a musician. I hate this. I hate seeing that. Um, it requires more attention than I think that you've been given. And I really hope that uh through ongoing conversations and learning from people
084outside of this room that you will continue the good fight because it is not over. There will be hurdles to come and there will be angry parents and angry teachers. But keep going. Don't get discouraged. And there are parents who are listening and supportive of these difficult conversations. And keep having difficult conversations because it means you care. Thank you. >> Thank you very much. >> Our next speaker is Christian Rivas. Hi there. Good evening all. My name is Christian Rivas. I'm an ELA, but I'm also a concerned community member. Now, this is regarding cuts to non-intervention um uh programs during the budget cuts last month in December. And while the concern and the acknowledgement is deeply appreciated for what is going to happen to our programs, we just need to re-emphasize that we are here
085and we are concerned. Okay? It needs to be made very clear first and foremost that eelss are not just numbers on a spreadsheet. They're not just ones. They're not just twos. They're not just threes. They're not just rfs. They're real students with real needs. And I feel it's like I just need to reemphasize that before you stands a product of ELD. Right? Later this year, I'll be defending my master's thesis. Something that would not be possible without the support of my ELD teachers when I was in elementary school. Right? I did not RFP until sixth grade. That would not have been possible without the support of my ELD teachers. I just need to emphasize that importance. And my personal anecdote aside, I can have a cadra of the sweetest first through sixth graders here to
086recount you their positive experiences through ELD here in perfect English just like that. So you let me know how we feel about this afterward. And now um anyway, back to my original point. the decision to choose non-classroom intervention as the kind of the root of this uh or the big piece of the pie that was going during these budget cuts I think is deeply irresponsible and not at all reflective of what the district commits itself in its form of academic excellence because the academic excellence would not be possible without these EL programs these non-classroom intervention programs and we need to stop and consider for a second is this a long-term solution Have we considered why the EL numbers go lower the higher the grade goes? That is because of the intensive support that is given
087to students at the elementary level. Right? Our numbers are higher at the elementary level until the students ARFEP through such intense support, such critical support during these years that by the time they get to high school, they're already ARFE, they're already good. They get that extra elective. they get that chance to look toward a more uh career oriented elective or maybe even do a sport right now. I really want us to to understand how this might ripple right because we may see an increase in long-term English learners as a result of these cuts. And it's just something to keep in mind. And just to be frank, the fact that the district even considered and worse yet that the board approved this budget cut is just a disrespect to our community. I have to be honest
088and the decision has been made. There's nothing that I I or we, you know, can do about it. We're going to keep petitioning, but that decision has been made by you all. >> But I would like us to urge I would urge us to consider forward. >> Yeah. Thank you. >> Our next speaker is Darcy Castro. I don't even think I'm taller than the podium. Okay. All right. My name is TRC Castro. I am a resident of Mororrow Bay and I'm also a parent. Um, in light of recent budget cuts, I would assume every dollar counts at the moment. Currently, it seems you have no intention of renewing leases at Mororrow Bay Elementary. I'd like to ask why. I encouraged the board to renew the leases of the tenants at Mororrow Elementary with the primary
089lease holder being the family partnership, a tuitionfree monastery school. Reports showed that even after maintenance, these leases generated revenue. While not a massive amount, it is certainly better than leaving the properties vacant, which is exactly what the board was advised not to do on a special meeting September 12th 24 by your own lawyer consultants. This board was warned of the dangers of leaving this building vacant due to massive liability, mold, vandalism. Vacant buildings still cost money. The city would like to see these leases renewed and to have those tenants stay if the sale is to go through. The issue being is that the negotiations go for 180 days. These leases, if you run out the clock, will not be renewed by that time. Better yet, accepting a city's offer to buy this property. While a
090developer's offer may seem more enticing, developers like entitlements for developing land. Entitlements mean or entitlements that you don't currently have, and they can take years to acquire. There are many creative ways that this property can be used. 20% of it is still eligible for development even if a historical designation goes through and there's been discussions of the city actually moving in to the historical building and then their property being able to be used as housing. So Mororrow Bay still gets housing. You guys still get your tax revenue which I know you guys want. Um you guys get some funds. That's great. you guys lessen the severe liability of leaving it vacant. We get to save our soccer fields that parks and wreck really can't function without right now. Um, and you don't send a school
091with children in your community destitute. I would say it's a win-win. I think leaving a building to rot is not the answer um to go back to it and for a few years. Um, and I think the most important thing at this point is having the community still have faith in their school board. So, I think it's a win-win. And I encourage you guys to work with the city to have this come together. There's lots of creative solutions. I know that the city has brought it up. I heard housing that I wasn't planning on talking about here, but I know that I have been involved with Friends of Mororrow Elementary and I think the first thing that we did when we had a land use attorney is ask your lawyer with the city lawyer about
092housing, giving priority to teachers and I was told they care about the money, not the housing. So, I would like you guys to come back to the drawing board. Thank you. >> Thank you very much. That is all of our speakers today. >> Is there anyone else who would like to address the board at this time? >> All right. Thank you. Right. It is now time for our business and budget updates. Uh first we have business before our superintendence updates and first on the list is business and budget. Mr. Pink. >> Yeah. So I just wanted to update the board after our last meeting. Of course, we heard a lot about musical instruments issues at our schools um and particularly at slow high school. Um Dr. Prader, myself met with a group of band leadership
093students um last Wednesday. Great meeting. Um they had actually come up during the meeting and requested to to be able to come meet with us. Absolutely. Let's you know, you know, talk about the issue and move forward. So again, it was a great meeting. The kids, I mean, amazing, fantastic in terms of their, you know, hearing their perspective, what's really going on, those types of things. um for the board to know again we there's three things and and again we are following up on them. Um a lot of a lot of the follow-up is requires the teachers to come up with plans and inventory and those types of things and so I I'm I'm c you know cautious about again it was break they're just back they have their jobs teaching you know those types
094of things. So um but I have met with principles uh Mr. F is going to be following up kind of with this plan, but the first thing is just broken instruments. Like if we have broken instruments that we we need to buy new ones right now, like what are we waiting for? Um and so uh we have heard from both Moro Bay and Los Soosos Middle School so far that they're okay. They don't have any in that case. Um Lagona, uh we just heard from this week and I actually just got Mrs. Jes inventory today. So we'll be following up. Mr. Nef will follow up with with the principles um and the teachers. Again, broken instruments. Let's get that taken care of right now and make sure that we're set. Next steps, of course, is
095again, musical instruments are kind of like textbooks. So, we need an inventory of that and uniforms and, you know, there there should be a replacement plan and five-year plan, you know, those types of things. So, that that we'll work on that on the side. And then on top of that, uh, the teachers will work with the principles and Mr. Nef on again the needs of the program. When I say needs, repairs, cleaning, consumables, you know, reads for clarinets, oils, those types of things, right? That you have to have to have a band program, music, those types of things. So, he'll be coming back, Mr. Nef will come back to to um to myself, to the team, and we'll be sharing all of that information. Again, the principles and teachers will be developing that with Mr.
096F so they will have the information to be able to share with bamb boosters and their kids and and students those types of things but we'll be sure to also share that with the board kind of you know the information how they how we came about what the budget is what we expect it to be um and then of course that will be part of the budget process the board will approve a final budget in June and we'll we'll have that information so I'll keep you updated on all all three of those aspects as we move forward um and uh and again it was good to hear I mean it's hard and tough to hear those things and what's going on and um but it was also enlightening right as well so to make sure
097that we have systems and protocols in place to you to make sure that our our kids are taken care of and our our staff. So um as much as it was tough to sit through that that night, I feel like now we have better understanding what's going on and and we'll put a better plan in place to to move forward. Um so I'm I'm kind of happy about that and again meeting with the kids I think was was really good for us to to know and to hear their perspective. Um, a couple other things, the governor came out with a budget last week. Um, you know, again, January is just a first blush. Hey, here's what we're kind of thinking, big picture, those types of things. Uh, he was very conservative, I would say, overall
098in terms of, you know, the economy has been really good in terms of the stock market, um, Prop 98 side of the budget, the amount of money coming to, uh, to school districts right across the state. Um, and so, you know, for us as a basic aid school district, there's talk of some one-time funds. They haven't really told us like how much is it per student or, you know, that hasn't come out yet, what they're expecting. Um, and so it'll be really, but again, overall very conservative on the governor's behalf in terms of this budget picture and and where they're at. So, putting more money into, you know, the the rainy day fund and those types of things, stopping, you know, getting rid of deferrals, those things. It is interesting that the governor in his
099um verbiage says that um the the uh the state is fully funding transitional kindergarten and know that when they put together the budget for transitional kindergarten um it includes St. Louis Coastal Unified School District students. Okay. So when they put that number together what transition they look at all the students across the state of California. That said, we know that basic school districts don't receive transitional kindergarten funds and and so what happens is those funds then are diverted to other things. So, we have we've reached out to some of our um our people that we we know in Sacramento to see what that number is. We'd like to share that information with the new um Monique Leone, right, who's who's leading the Senate there. Um just to make sure that people understand that premise and
100what's happening um in terms of that TK. So, you know, we I've already kind of heard today CSA, oh, hey, the governor said they're fully funding TK and so they think we're getting No, time out. Like, hang on. First of all, we would tell you if we were getting those funds, right? Like we would be the first to make that known and um and move forward. But so, so again, interesting. I'm hoping that by May revise, right, which is kind of the next time when the governor comes out, um again, that there's more specifics. I know there's going to be a lot of pressure from um you know the teachers CTA those types of things for him to invest more into um education from kind of the plan that's currently there and so I'm hopeful
101that that that advocacy will mean more funds for all the school districts um and I do think that a lot of that is going to be onetime funds which for us means that we would receive those um and so I'm hopeful that again that that story is better. Um, but right now today, I don't there's not like a lot of great news in terms of St. Louis Coastal with this current January budget. Um, it doesn't really change a lot in terms of where we're at financially at this point. Again, hopefully that gets better by May. Um, and then lastly, just so you know, we we the board um we're on, I think, our fourth year of our hazard mitigation plan. Um, and so I'll be looking to update that plan and go through all the
102processes and federal steps that we have to do to uh update our hazard mitigation plan um by 2027. But it's a long process, so I I have to get started now as we we proceed. >> All right. Next is uh educational services update. Here's Yamasha. >> Good a good evening board. Um, happy new year and our team continues to be as busy as we can be. Um, continuously improving our processes and supports to students in schools. Notably, the technology implementation task force continues to meet regularly to implement the action steps that we outlined last spring in the technology implementation plan. In addition to that, I'd like to highlight with you and all of our community members that Thursday we're kicking off our artificial intelligence uh technology group here in this room from 4:30 to 6:30.
103It is an open public meeting call if people would like to join us. The first meeting we're going to be doing kind of an orientation to the work reading some articles that are recent articles from 2025 about artificial intelligence and education. And then we'll be looking at what our current um mission, vision, and technology statements are and how we think the role of AI can play into that. And then the following week, we have established a group of AI experts. They're currently parents of our students that work directly in the AI fields and we're going to hold a a discussion panel um with those experts in front of our AI technology task force team. So, more exciting news to come on that. Also, Dr. Prader and I got to meet with Matt Pennan, the diversity,
104equity, inclusion manager for the city of slow and they are requesting collaboration with us and our students on civic engagement um projects and upcoming through tutorials in our high school etc. So excited about that collaboration. Our athletics action steps continues to move forward with Aaron Black and Dan Nef leading uh the way in terms of ensuring communication through our athletic directors to our coaches are consistent developing coaching training for this May June timeline. We're working on combining our safe sports policy which is now our extracurricular and safe sports policy into our athletic handbook. So there's only one document that defines all of the ways things operate. So that is still moving along with regular meetings with all of the appropriate team members. Um I also did a very specific I know chronic absenteeism is of
105high interest to our board and we continue to show lagging results as compared to precoid numbers. So Chris Dowler and I personally met with each of our non-title one elementary schools. So that's Los Rancho Sinszheimer Teach and Bishop's Peak and went through their actual list of currently chronically absenteeism students and soon at risk of becoming chronically absent students to make a timeline and an action plan for each of those students. And we felt like those meetings were so successful, we are now setting up meetings with every one of our principles to run through their very specific list of students. To that end, just today as I was reviewing the Sarkcs, I came running out of my office to share with the executive team that uh Pacheco has a 7% chronic absenteeism rate. That is hugely
106lower than any of our other schools last year. And interestingly enough, I know many of us were very concerned that they are the school that houses likely the majority of our undocumented students that are being affected by the ICE engagements around our community and yet they are coming to school regularly. So I did want to shout out and celebrate Pacheco, the entire school team, the parents, families and kids about how wonderful it is that they are regularly attending schools. Um, I've had a couple parent concern meetings and more information will be coming to the board as necessary. And another great celebration is on the California dashboard. There is a new metric that now has started and it's looking at student growth over time by student group. Not just are the kids passing or are they
107a three or a four, but how quickly are you removing those barriers and closing the achievement gap? And I'd like to specifically celebrate Baywood in English language arts had exceptional growth. So the highest growth category for their English learners, their homeless students, and their socioeconomically disadvantaged students. So while we know Baywood's overall score is challenged compared to some of the performance of our other schools, they Miss May, Miss Denelli and their team are significantly moving forward. Specifically the students that we are also concerned about. In addition to that, um, English language arts at Lagona and Losos Middle School, their socioeconomically disadvantaged students grew at an accelerated rate. So that is the second to the highest growth rate. So that's fantastic news that both of our middle schools in English language arts, they're seeing above average
108growth as compared with the rest of the state. Um and in math, all but one of our schools, our English learners were again in that accelerated growth category. So, we are definitely impacting um our English learners and their math performance with some of the changes that we're implementing and making. So, more information and the links for you all will be coming in the Friday focus information. and to the public that are here. Um, you can look this all up on the web page at California school dashboard. Um, and then just Google St. Louis Coastal or put the search bar the actual elementary school your children attend and you'll be able to get all this information for yourself. But there is much to celebrate about the work our leaders and our teachers and all of our
109staff is doing in terms of accelerating the growth of our neediest students. Thank you. >> Can I ask a question? >> Um, >> so just a two questions. Um, first, I noticed that one of the highest rates of chronic absenteeism with was with our special education students. >> Yes. >> Um, are you also meeting with special education teachers and and talking about about those particular impacted students? >> Yes. So in those um four meetings I had specifically for example at the elementary schools, it was very apparent that the elementary school population um that is significantly challenged with attendance is our special needs students. And we did talk about um the need to intervene at the classroom level and on the inter and on the individual IEP level with those students to try and support and
110figure out what barriers there are to them coming to school regularly. We know some of them have health challenges and that may be their area of special need and they may have medical challenges that prohibit them from coming to school. But we also know that we provide transportation for all of those children to come to school. And so whatever barriers are going on is likely not necessarily related to transportation. And there are other things standing in their way. Um, as you know, um, we've been identified as direct assistance by the county office of education for our foster students group for being chronically absent, being read um, in two or more areas of the dashboard. And so we are kicking off next week with Melanie Crawford and the county office, the cabinet level team, as well
111as an educational services team that's going to be talking about the absenteeism of our foster youth. But as you know in St. Louis Coastal that's like 40 kids. It's really small. And we're going to choose to expand that group to include English learners and students with disabilities. So whatever planning and design work we do around chronic absenteeism will actually be around all three of those groups. >> Right. And I think just for the public's understanding, I don't know if they realize that we have classes that serve medically fragile students who have extreme medical needs. And and I I've walked in those classrooms and I think some people would look at them and think they were in a hospital actually with the kind of care that our the kind of wonderful care and that that our
112staff provides for first all of our students. Um the second thing I just wanted to comment on the growth that that you're talking about. Um, a lot of people talk about the Mississippi miracle, you know, and I think I think we we've looked at that a little bit ourselves. And one of the things that everybody focuses on is the science of reading. But in fact, one of the things that Mississippi looked at specifically was growth of students and and encouraging student growth. And I'm really pleased to hear that because I think Mr. Buckman has has talked about that, you know, the cohorts for for many years. And so I just want to say I'm really excited about that as well. So, thank you. >> Measure C update. Back to Mr. >> Yeah, I look I
113look forward to meeting with the board. We have our Measure C um upcoming. We're going to be at St. Chimera Elementary School. Walk through the phase one as well as I'll share um kind of an update of all the phase one projects throughout um new construction of course at Pacific Beach High School and kind of our status for Baywood, where we're at and and next steps. So, we'll we'll see you very soon. Thank you. >> Okay. >> So, will we have I'm kind So, we I went to the Christmas event at Pack Beach, which was great, and I got to walk with some of you onto the new campus, and then I was starting to think, well, what's going to happen to that piece of property? So, are we going to start disc having a
114discussion about the use of that the remaining piece of property that's at the probably the most valuable corner in the city. Costco, Home Depot and Target. Okay, great. >> Yeah, we can we can start that conversation actually at our next meeting. >> Thank you. >> Sure. >> All right, we're moving on to item 8.01 1, a public hearing regarding resolution 122526, a public utility easement to PG&E for electrical service improvements at Sincimer. >> So, at the last meeting, the board um approved our intent to move forward with uh an easement at Centimer Elementary School, of course, moving some underground utilities or some utilities underground, which of course is a safety and long-term uh benefit to um both PG as well as our school district. So tonight this is a first part is a public hearing
115and then the second aspect of that is actual approval of the easement. >> I will open the public hearing with regard to item 8.01. Is there anyone from the public who wishes to address the board? Does not appear to be. So we will move on to 9.01 which is the resolution authorizing >> Yeah. So again, asking the board to approve the easement um at C Stro Elementary School um with PG& uh this again it's a two-step process. We have to notify we have to post throughout the the school district. Um and so tonight we're asking the board to approve um the easement. >> Is there anyone from the public um seated who wishes to address us before we vote on the resolution? >> All right. Any board comment >> questions? >> Yes. Oh, >> I
116think Mr. Banfield stronger than Mr. uh Buckman. >> Just a proposal to approve. >> Okay. Let's see if this I'll come back to you on that. Um >> I was I was going to do the same thing. So, >> okay. Uh and Mr. Buckman. >> Yeah. So, I am I have to say I'm very inclined to vote against this because as I continue to hear no from PG, I just feel like one of us should say no. So, I'm waiting for the vote. And the reason PG is saying no because our funds from P Gen were cut off and have thrown a a huge monkey wrench in the operation of the school district. And I'm still not sure why they're not coming forward and helping us. >> Thank you. Right. So, I will go back
117to Mr. Banfield. Did you wish to formally make the motion? >> I move that we um approve resolution number 122526. >> And Mr. Anger, >> I'll second that. >> All right. Um Mr. Banfield, >> yes. >> Mr. Anger, >> yes. >> Mrs. Roger, >> yes. >> Mr. Clawson, >> yes. >> Mr. Buckwin, >> no. >> Miss Baltadano, >> yes. >> And I am a yes. So that passes six uh six yes, one no. And we will now move on to item 10.01, our audit report. >> Yeah. So Jonathan Clement is here from ID Bailey. He's going to come up and present the uh both the financial audit for the uh school district at St. Louis Coastal. And then the next item, of course, 10.2 is the building fund measure C. So he'll present both of
118those. Katie Ecklund is here, director of physical services to answer any questions board may have along with uh Mr. Clement um about our audits. Thank you. >> Good evening school board, members of cabinet. It's great to be here. Always enjoy being up in St. Louis Bispo. I love the drive. It was a beautiful day today. And also it's a new year. So exciting. That means an audit audit is done and on to the next. So, uh, yes, there is a report, uh, in front of you and you probably had the opportunity to read this amazing 105 paid report. Very exciting stuff. Um, but there's a lot that goes into it and that's, uh, yes, you're seeing a final end product. Um, but there it's an ongoing process which actually starts about springtime and what we
119and that's where we're actually going out to the sites and and performing state compliance testing. So attendance uh and all those aspects of which we we I will jump into in a little bit uh and working with not just the business department but actually it's it's pretty far reaching to actually the school sites and teachers and attendance um personnel to help us uh work through this this ongoing process. So and after the springtime we kind of get into the summer and we jump into our middle phase. we we refer to it as second interim. Um but that's when we jump into wrapping up state compliance and also focusing on federal compliance. Now this year there was a little bit of wrench with the government um but we were able to work through that and get
120meet these deadlines u for issuing these reports um by the by the regulatory or statutory date of December 15. Uh and then but on well here or there about the government shutdown. Um but then then comes the year end which and this is a huge part and thanks to the collaboration with the the business team getting us all those financial numbers and working through all those year-end um amounts to provide the disclosures and the financial statements for the the district. And with that I have said a lot I will have you turn to one of my favorite pages of the report if you have it in front of you and that would be page 96. And the reason I say that is it's yes it's towards the end but it gives you a great idea
121of the overall uh how the audit went and actually what what's within this audit report. Is everybody good to go? Perfect. So this is what we refer to as a summary of auditor's results. And as you can see we have three criteria or three sections and we're opining on all multiple areas within uh within the the the audit as a whole. So the first section is the financial statements and we issue u multiple types of opinion but unmodified is in its simplest form referred to as a clean opinion and so no changes to the um opinion which is always great. Uh and then from there we have uh where we have material weakness. Now this year there was a material weakness that was identified. Uh and as you can see no significant deficiencies were reported
122uh and then there was no non-compliance. Then we go to the federal awards. Now this is um single audits uh or the federal funding that is provided. There are thresholds that are required. So if spending is over a certain amount it triggers this process and so compliance is required. And so in this case, if you have federal funding that is above the 750 threshold as you can see and so we also appine on this area. So we go through a assessment of which programs and they are weighted usually based on total activity. Uh and in this case we tested child nutrition uh cluster uh for our federal testing for fiscal year 2025. And we also issued an unmodified opinion and there were no material weaknesses and significant deficiencies noted for uh the federal programs for
123the district. And last >> Oh. Oh, I'm so sorry. I apologize. PDF number 104 and report page 96. Excellent. All right, just real quick recap uh for now that everybody from from a visual aspect. We have the financial statements uh which we're appinging on. We have the federal awards which I just went over and then lastly we have state compliance. And all three of these areas we are apping and providing an opinion for. Now with state compliance uh this is the state of California puts out required areas that we we have to test and those are very familiar attendance uh anything attendance related arts and music is uh those after school oh paces is not part of this one EPA unduplicated pupil counts and ELOP and within those list we are we're performing those tests
124over those compliance areas and um I would like to point out there was also an unmodified opinion uh for for those programs. There was no material weakness. However, there was a significant deficiency and also and other matters reported. And with that, I will have you turn to the next part which is gives you an idea of the overall audit and it's the financial statement findings. And so if you turn to the next page and so as as noted earlier there was a material weakness which related to some adjustments u specifically to uh as it relates to the fair market value of um or and even more more in detail on that related to gaze which is the governmental accounting standard board pronouncements 31 which requires the gain or loss of investments as at a particular
125time and at the and so for two funds those those amounts. So, one was overstated the building fund was overstated and then also the bond interest and redemption fund was also overstated and those amounts have been included in the audit and so those those adjustments are so the financial statements are are reflective of that and fiscally accurate as of June 30th 2025. And if we continue on you'll see we have the federal findings section and there is none to report. And lastly, there is the state compliance section. And so in reference to the significant deficiency that was noted or other matters, this is related to the classroom teacher salaries. And so in the compliance uh it comes down to yes or no. Did something happen or did it not happen? And in this case, the
126threshold for the unified district or for the district was 55%. And that threshold unfortunately was was not met by I believe it was 2.2%. 2%. So just below and a lot of that stemmed from the additional funding. So as the result so significant source of new funding from the state and um specifically for programs that are not typically um included in the minimums uh classroom compensation. So with that and then we continue on to the prior prior um prior year findings and very similar to so it was a very similar um financial statement finding which was included for overall financial statements and also there was a federal award finding in the previous period which was implemented and then the state compliance finding still is related to the classroom teacher salaries. And that wraps up um
127the audit report. Is there any additional questions? >> So I So I'd like to further understand the the 52% and the 55%. Um, you just help me understand how this district with its with its high health benefits are health benefits included in that in that income because we're not talking about numbers of teachers, right? It's not like we have only 52% teachers and we should have had 55%. We're just talking about dollars if I understand this correctly. >> That is correct. And so it was a so relates to salaries and so specifically a required threshold is met based on total spending and it is affected uh unfortunately by additional funds and with all the and really we it's a pretty common finding uh historically over the last five years because of those COVID or esser
128dollars or those additional one-time funds that were coming in which is having that impact. Um so but to speak on exactly how we got to that percentage uh or that exact amount I would defer to to management uh on the specifics or the detail. Um but ultimately it is very close. Um but what I would also like to highlight is the corrective action on that. And so although a percentage is you are short, there is a waiver process which is um I believe is followed and that's uh actually in in process of going through the county uh which ultimately it's more of a documentation because of compliance. We're just required to report this. So >> thanks. >> Yeah. >> Uh to answer Mr. Bugman's question and Katie can jump in. Our district hasn't met that
129requirement for probably the past 10 years and so we get the waiver each year. We've gotten the waiver this year from the county moving forward. Um it's it's a common thing like Mr. Clint said throughout. So Luc Tascadero, Lucar, Santa Maria are also, you know, kind of faced with the same aspect of it. So it is based on salaries specifically for classroom teachers tied in and so I think there are some things that aren't included in the salary percentage such as benefits um that are health benefits or the high. >> Don't add to that aspect. Yes, >> our health benefits are the highest in the in the county. So, if we added those in, we'd probably easily meet the 55%. >> I just my guess. >> It's just a different calculation. They don't they don't
130include that in the 55%. But, >> and then then my understanding also is what I'm hearing you say is that we haven't met that and we get the waiver, but I can't remember this being at the end of last year's audit or the audit year before or the audit year before. >> Yeah. So I think maybe two years ago was the first time that the auditor actually your your management above you said no you have to include this in the audit itself. So prior to that this had been again because we get the waiver you meet the requirement right so it's not >> but they still again so our auditor felt like that needed to be one of the findings that we move forward on and so it was there last year it was there
131this year and it'll probably be there next year and >> unless unless we meet that mark. >> Thanks. Then when I was looking at this, I there was this made me fall off my seat and it was so as we look at this the general fund budgetary highlights the district has a plan in place to rectify the structural deficit. That's great. And then this second uh the district's property tax based revenue is approximately 12 million. That's great. And this one really kind of stopped me and it says Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant has continued has continued operation and is trying to renew their 20-year license. this process may result in an increase of unitary tax at uh previous levels. This could generate and when I first read this I read it as the auditor was
132telling us that we actually got the money. >> Yeah. No. >> Oh, okay. Well, I just it was just it did it was best audit ever. >> Okay. So, I was sorry I was sorry to see the I just wanted to make sure the public understands this is not a deficit of teachers. It's a deficit of funding and probably just the way the funding was. >> Yeah. >> Thanks. >> Okay. Um I' I'd like to go to the public before we come back to the board. Is there anyone from the public who wishes to speak with us on this? >> Okay. Then um next Mr. stronger followed by >> so I just to reiterate so that 55% could is related in some ways to onetime money as well and the availability of onetime money or
133not so if the onetime money wasn't there that that figure might be different as you were said you were explaining that the co money runs out this year right so can you tell me a little bit more about that >> well it could be any one-time money we've had a DLI grant we've had um other uh >> electric buses >> well yes we've buses. We've had the um educator effectiveness money that's come over multiple years, but it was one time that we've spread out over the years. And any resource that we don't pay a teacher from, we can exclude from this calculation, but we have used a lot of our one-time money in included staffing. So, it increases the total expenditures and revenue. So, it's throwing that percentage off when they do the calculations. So
134if we took for an example let's say ELOP and we didn't pay any certificated salaries out of that or classified we could exclude >> exclude that >> we could exclude that but with ESSER with all of the COVID funding we did not do that and we are not doing that with a lot of our one-time grants or multi-year grants we pretty much charge certificated or classified to all of our grants but I do go through it and try to see if there's any we could pull out and um I worked with Allan um the audit one of the audit team members that is here in the fall and he went through it as well and double checked and we just didn't have anything we could pull out to bump us to that 55%. >> So
135so the minute we would put one certificated staff member in a grant for example >> or classified yeah any instructional >> any any any instructional grant that's that's it. Mhm. >> So it could be one or 20 or something like that, >> right? It will throw off the percentage. >> And then the other question I've been pondering and I asked Mr. Pinkerton about this >> um the other finding about the overstatement of the bond funds, >> I I just don't get why that's important. >> When when when we do the calculation one day and then it reverts back the next day and it's and it's and it's an audit fighting. I mean, and I'm not criticizing. I'm just thinking what is this craziness, right? >> Yes. So as it relates to so it's really specific
136to monies held in the county and under Gazsby it fall so the definition of cash and county falls into an investment and under Gazsby 31 you're required to assess or the fair market value at at a close of a period and so that's what's driving this number now unfortunately it was significant and whenever it is above a certain number which is there's materiality thresholds it triggers uh in this case it was large enough to where it needed to be uh it was above that threshold so we have to have to make light or call call it out or required adjustment to be included. Um but more importantly it was included and so management made the decision to include this to make sure it was uh properly presented as of the end of the fiscal period.
137Um but when it comes down to it it's a book entry so it is a reflection. So yes you still have that money. So let's say it was a a loss a fair market value loss as of a certain time because the investments went down uh because of the market but in this case it went up uh or no actually I I'm which which way it went um ultimately uh it's what a reflective of whatever happened at that time but it is a entry to reflect that but ultimately it gets in the next starting of the next period uh gets reversed back to its actual what the cash account balance is >> it's that particular day. >> Correct. Yeah. >> And and is this a remnant of the Orange County debacle from the 90s? >>
138I am not >> where there potentially. Um I'm not sure though. >> Oh, okay. This was this was in the 90s where >> money was invested in county funds in in what I guess it would be unsafe um investments and counties lo counties, cities, entities lost millions and millions of dollars. It was a huge scandal actually. So I think actually I think there was a >> Gazsby is sorry sorry sorry to >> I was gonna say I believe there was actually a school district in our county that lost some money on that one too years and years ago. >> That is terrible. Uh and but as it relates to so gazsby or governmental accounting board puts out standards to try and as best they can align with other other types of accounting. Uh and so
139there's gazsby fazby and um international accounting. So you have financial accounting standard boards, governmental accounting standard board and international. Uh and so there's three different types of accounting out there or standards or pronouncements. And so a lot of them they've made a huge effort which is a strain on everyone. Um and when I say that it's because it's requires a lot of accounting or understanding of how to report um appropriately and so when just to give you an idea this is Gazsby 31 and this year we implemented Gazsby 101. So there's a significant amount of gazsbies or implementations that are happening in standards to try and align and as best report the financial statements as accurately as possible. And so that's where this this um stems from. Um but it h has to specifically rate
140to relate to the definition of an investment. And so as as relates to the Orange County situation, not quite sure if that's what drove this, but ultimately because this classification of asset falls under an investment, uh it needs to be in in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles, it needs to be um reported in this way. >> Well, I just want to say I I know and I think the rest of the board would like to acknowledge Mrs. Eklan's Mrs. Ekan's work on this and for this particular one, your your your your efforts to try to mitigate this finding from last year. Um really above and beyond, but you know, I just here we are again. You're so close. Next year you'll get it. >> Okay. Um Mrs. Roger, did you >> No, I'm satisfied.
141>> Okay. Mr. Buckman, anything else? And just to move a little more on that investment part, um I was trying to put a hat on where I I didn't know the answer to this. So, um if I'm looking at the cuts that we made and I'm looking at the district that's spending I don't know between I came up with several numbers, but $200 million in investments. Um, what would I tell the the the public that says, "Well, you just cut. Why would you have money to invest? And why can't you use that money to to deal with the with the cut you made?" >> I'm just I'm just trying to hope if anybody else saw this as a problem. I think I know. >> Yeah. So, it's a little bit of a misnomer to say
142it's investments, right? In some ways, it's we have um bond dollars from our bond in a separate fund, right? that can only be spent on bond projects and so we put it in the safest place possible with it which is the county treasury. Um so but the county treasury does invest those funds. So but it's like putting it in a kind of I mean for us it's like a checking savings account your bank type of thing. So um again it's just those bond funds that we have remaining that we're still going to spend down and then of course when we receive property taxes those go out every year. we have some reserves as the board knows, right? And so those reserves are are all held into county treasury. >> so that's that's where the money
143is held. It's not really an investment or we don't have and again we have to keep a certain amount of reserve levels by law. >> So when I when I went in and talked to Katie today, one of the things I learned is in this in the audit and maybe I didn't get this did I get this right? The the money that we're looking at it's all mushed together. It's often the bond money and our general funds and we can't necessarily see it differently. So, as you said, this is bond money, but it looks like it's our money. The other question I had for Katie was somewhere in here, it's like page 35. I'm sorry. It said the cafeteria fund and then it showed it as a deficit and I was like, Aaron doesn't ever
144have a deficit. What's going on here? And Katie, do you want to give I mean, I was so embarrassed, but here's the answer. It's so embarrassing. No. Um, so in the child nutrition program, uh, she brought in I I don't remember the numbers, but she brought in a certain amount of money. She spent a certain amount of money and then she had a large fund balance going into the beginning of 2425 and she spent some of that that down. So in the report on page, no, it wasn't this one. I think it was 35 he was referring to. Maybe let's see if it's 35 in the report. >> My understanding was there that the cafeteria was the name that we use for other funds. >> Right. It's an enterprise fund that it wasn't had anything
145to do with Aaron. >> It's just it's our child nutrition. >> It's an accounting term. >> Yes, it's an account. >> No, the one you asked about was our child nutrition program though, but they call it a cafeteria fund because it's an enterprise fund like Chris said. But um it was Oh no. Right. >> I can't find it now. But yeah, that was just the difference. And it was >> just wanted I wanted everybody to know what I wasted your time with today. >> No, it was a chart. It's fine. >> It's okay. Can I can I make a motion? >> Well, I need to Is there anyone else who has any questions or comments? >> Okay. This is an action item. So, yes, we do need a motion. So, I'd like to move um
146approval of the audit for this year and um it just made such wonderful and exciting reading that I can't wait for next year. >> All right, we have a motion by Mr. Buckman. Is there a second? >> I'll second. >> Thank you. Second by Mrs. Roger. >> Right, Mr. Buckman? >> Yes. >> Mrs. Roger? >> Yes. >> Um Miss Balsadono? >> Yes. >> Mr. Anger? >> Yes. >> Mr. Clawson? >> Yes. >> Mr. Banfield. >> Yes. >> And I am a yes. So that motion carries. Thank you for all your efforts. >> Okay. >> We want to totally clean one next year. >> That's that's the goal. That's your charge. Whatever you need to do in there, you know, just feel free. >> Okay. >> Got one more. >> No, I I I see we've
147got we've just begun this process. >> All right. >> So item 10.02 102 is the audit report for our um measure C. >> Correct. >> You are on again. >> All right. So, similar to the the very extensive report we just looked at, this one's a little easier read. It's a little lighter. Uh but what I would like to focus is there are two components to this report. There is a financial u statement portion and also the performance audit portion which is similar to compliance. So we are and as it relates specifically to bond measure C22 and so the Prop 39 fund. So we will start with just going through the first section of the report where we appine on the financial statements. Now this is specifically related to your fund 21 and it is
148only related to that specific fund activity. And so if we continue on to flip through the financials very it just highlights the one fund and it has all the fund notes to disclosures to the financial statements. Then we get to what I would like to highlight which is the last opinion and also so this would be and I don't know the PDF number but if it's a few pages off the report page 12. So if I had to guess I'd say like 18 Oh, just just off. Sorry about that. So, there is similar to the district report and it's because of that same fair market value adjustment that it it is also related to fund 21. So, that same comment is also included in this report. Um and then if we continue on to the
149next report which is a performance audit which starts on 22ish. All right. And this is related to the compliance portion or the performance audit where we are testing uh were the funds spent in accordance with the bond measure and the ballot measure. And one area I would like to highlight if you continue on to the last few pages and is going to be probably 23 or 24. >> So what's the page of the document? >> Uh 20. So yes, I apologize. So 18. >> Thank you. >> Excellent. So number three of the methodology, what I always like to highlight is of the the $ 48.5 million that were spent in fiscal year 2025, we tested 29.6 which represented 61% of those overall expenditures and there were no compliance uh issues related to that if you
150continue on. So with that that concludes the bond report. Right. Is there anyone from the public who would like to address this on the uh bond audit? Now we'll come back to the board. Any questions or comments from the board? This is another action item to approve uh this audit. Anyone would like to make a motion? >> Oh, Mrs. Roger. Thank you. Um I do since we had the same finding with with both measure C and the district in general with regard to that um fair market value. How will we avoid because it as I'm interpreting it it's it's a non-issue but it needs for your purposes it needs to be noted. So how do we avoid having that noted in the future? Is your firm able to assist us in coming to the correct
151number? >> So there there are services that we can do. We as auditors we are required to maintain our independence. Um but we c we have uh we can provide support but ultimately the calculation does need to come from um the district and management and uh that understanding. Now, we can definitely provide tools and help and assist um but ultimately that calculation would need to come with from from Katie and her team. >> Yeah, Katie is extremely competent and capable. Yep. >> So, this must just be a a wild exercise trying to get to the right number. I don't No. Um yes, it is a calculation I do. I did miscalculate or I didn't miscalculate it. I misposted it. So in the system when I went in and posted it and I did have assistance
152but it did not process through the financial system like we expected. So as you can see and noted in the audit we did make the correction. it has already been corrected. But at the time when they were doing their um their final part of the audit, it the system just didn't catch the posting it when we hit certain objects and it didn't it didn't work because within I should say this within the calculation of the journal that I do every single year, we also were correcting the audit finding from the prior year. And so that is where when we were doing it all in one fell swoop, probably not the best um choice, it just didn't post correctly and we've made that correction. And going forward, hopefully if we get this one, this one's all
153taken care of, we won't have it in the future and my calculations will post and be calculated correctly. So I do ask the auditors to review it, but like you said, they have to remain independent. So they'll say yes it looks good or try again but they do um it is my responsibility to figure out the calculation. So but it's really a non >> there's no material value. It's um a number reflecting June 30th at the county treasury and that's why we reverse it on July 1st because that value changes the next day just like the stock market. It's an investment. >> Okay. And and then with regard to the other finding um just keep >> it does not reflect um teachers who are not in currently working in the classroom. So we would meet
154the 55% threshold if um some of our toes for example were in the classroom or were counted. They're just not being counted. No, not necessarily with our It depends on coding and how someone is coded and then what um like I said what resources they were coded in the one-time money. So if PTOSA is doing support with students, then they get a code that dictates that they're doing support with students versus myself who doesn't have direct contact with students. And so my code indicates that I'm in the district office and I'm doing administrative work. So it it would kind of depend. So I wouldn't want to lump them all together that way. Um, so it it's not as cut and dry when you're getting to that percentage. Our bigger issue is using one-time funds and
155putting certificated salaries in there. It's throwing off the ratio. >> Right. Right. Okay. >> But it's not about the individual positions. It's that would be how they're coded >> if that I'm sorry. >> I get it. It's probably not very clear. >> Um, >> okay. If Oh, let's see. >> Mr. Clawson. Oh, I would love to move approval and acceptance of the 2024 25 audit report for building fund measure C. >> And I would be utterly thrilled to second that. >> Okay, we have some pretty excited motion makers here this evening. Um, so we have a motion by Mr. Clawson and a second by Mrs. Roger. Mr. Clawson. >> Yes, >> Mrs. Roger. >> Absolutely. >> Mr. Banfield. >> Yes. >> Miss Baltadano. >> Yes. Mr. Hunger. >> Yes. >> Mr. Buckman. >> Yes. >>
156And I'm a Yes. So, thank you for all your work on this. And that motion carries 70. >> Thank you and have a good evening. >> Okay. I believe we have earned a break. Um it's 8:22. if everyone could be best by 8:30 and then we'll we'll move on to use truth. Thank you. >> Okay, so I need Okay, let we'd like to uh reconvene, please. Okay, Mr. Buckman, >> our next item is uh 10.03 and it is our youth truth survey presentation. So, Dr. Briter. >> Yes, Madame President. Thank you. And um I want to in a moment I will introduce the our new youth truth um leader. Her name is Heather Smith. And I know she's joining us via Zoom tonight for this presentation from San Francisco. And I just want to remind
157the board that Youth Truth was Youth Truth was the result of our efforts as a district to elevate and honor student voice. And from that we created the superintendent student senate. We started 9 10 years ago um kind of in a fledgling way. I was trying to create it and in a way I was faking it to make it for a while. And what I realized was we lacked a a um legitimate survey tool to really align our data to look at um a real um um viable tool that could give us information about how our students across the district were actually feeling in the areas of engagement, the areas of wellness, trust, trust um academic learning and um and overall um sense of how they are experiencing their school um during the year and
158whether you're uh elementary, middle, or high. And so this tool is for uh grades 3 through 12. Uh you'll hear tonight there's numerous slides. So, what I've done is I asked Mandy to make note copies for each of you at your desks. That way, as the presentation goes through, you can highlight a certain um slide that you have a question on. And then when we get to the end, I would ask that we then have you engage and ask questions that might be helpful. Um and um so at this point um you know our student senate has grown um originally we started just middle and high school and now we've expanded it to ele upper elementary. So all of our schools are involved and committed to the student senate. We are a serious group of
159of people when we're there. This room J2 is filled with over 150 students and we meet um just about every month and um the things that we do are serious. They're intentional and um empowering as you know because you've participated in it. So, next week, tonight, you get to hear really the thousandfoot view, which is where the board should be on this particular data, this survey data. Next week, each of the student senators representing each of the schools will be meeting with their site leader and they will break it down by grade level, by student group, and they will really start asking questions about um really what's the root cause of some of these responses? Are we seeing trends that are positive? Are we seeing trends that are concerning? And um and so these things
160lead to the students in our district, our student senators representing all the schools coming up with annual smarty goals. And in those smarty goals, they are intentional. They're trying to get to the the areas in the survey that are concerning that impact student wellness, student safety, student um sense of agency at the site. And so our student senators don't just engage their peers, they also engage their teachers, their administrators, and they ask tough questions. We also have expanded Youth Truth to include staff and parents. We've also expanded in Youth Truth um access to LCAP questions. So we annually now have far greater reach into insights from parents, staff, and students that can help influence how we design goals within the LCAP specifically for our targeted groups. So I'm super proud of this. I, you know,
161it's a state and national model program. It's amazing. I can't say enough about it. And um and so I'd like to introduce Heather Smith from Youth Truth. If you could come on, Heather. Thank you, Dr. Prader, and thank you, board, for having me. Um, I'm going to go ahead and share my screen really quickly. And as Dr. Prader noted, you will have, can everyone see my screen? >> Yes. >> Okay, great. Um, you will have slides that correlate with what I'm going through and I really ask that you jot down questions about specific data or insights that I'm sharing so we can return to them during the question portion. So, as Dr. Peter said, I'm Heather Smith. I'm the youth truth representative for St. Louis Coastal. I used to tag along with Jimmy the last
162few years when he was leading the work at St. Louis Coastal, and this year I get to step into that role. So really excited to spend time with students um during the student senate and to be here tonight presenting to you all. For those of you who have seen a youth truth presentation before, this one might look a little bit different this year. So I like I said, please jot down questions and I'll make sure to answer them at the end. All right, so just a moment of celebration before we kind of dive into the nitty-gritty of data. St. Coastal is in their ninth year of student, family, and staff feedback. So, this means nine years of trend data, which is really powerful, and you'll see that later tonight. And it also means that we've
163surveyed thousands of participants in the community. So, I think that's really powerful and just something I wanted to celebrate here. Tonight, we'll be looking at a quick overview of Youth Truth. I know most of you are familiar to Youth Truth, but just a quick explanation about why this work is important. We'll look at who we heard from this year. We'll do a highlevel but slightly deep dive into our staff, students, and families. And we'll look at things like comparative data to other participating schools, year-over-year trends, and statistically significant change at the question level. And then we'll have some time for questions at the end. So, as a reminder, Youth Truth surveys students, families, and staff on their school climate and culture. These are the participants perceptions of their school and they answer questions that are
164bucketed in these themes that we'll look at tonight. So for our student survey, we have things like academic challenge. Do they feel like their coursework is relevant? Do students feel like they are challenged by their coursework? We have things like relationships with adults. Do they have a trusted adult on campus that they can go to with a problem? And things like belonging. So peer relationships. Do they feel like they're a part of the community? And then we also have the additional topics emotional, mental health, diversity, equity, inclusion. And you can see those repeated at the family and staff level as well. You'll note that a lot of the themes are similar across each survey group. And that's so we can look at those comparisons across not only how students are feeling, but how families are
165answering similar questions. So just a reminder about why this work is so vital. And I've heard a lot of these themes come up in the board session tonight, but we help decision makers go upstream by surfacing data that often goes unnoticed when systems are only looking at those sort of downstream measures. So thinking about things like graduation rates, assessment scores, chronic absenteeism, students are answering questions that are help to predict how they're feeling about these core measurements. And it really helps leaders and also students themselves think about how to improve before students kind of fall into some of these other categories. All right. So this year we heard from over 7,000 community members. So these were the total respondents for San Louis Coastal in the October 2025 survey. We had over 5,000 students. This is
1663rd through 12th grade at a 92% response rate. just over 1500 families at a 23% response rate, which I'll note is fairly typical and then close to 600 staff. And I put a note here that the response rates did not change very drastically from last year. They were all within a 3% similar like difference from the year before. All right, so I'm going to start us off with our student data first. So before I dive into kind of the numbers for each of these, I've pulled out a few highle findings, these are things that I noted across all levels of our participants. So a great example of this if you look at all of our student surveys is that belonging was the highest rated theme and this was true for elementary, middle, and high school
167students. We can also see here um we test for statistical significance at the question and theme level. And in the theme of diversity, this one question around um my school teaching me about how people with a disability have been treated differently. This one decreased. So it went down. Perceptions of this went down. And that is only a question asked at the middle and high school level. There was no statistically significant questions at the elementary school level. All right. So we're going to head into our elementary student data from this year. And this chart gives us again that high-level view of our core themes for our elementary students. We can see here the themes on the side with belonging as our highest rated theme which I noted in the slide before. The way that we get
168these rankings is that students are answering questions on a one to three liyker scale for the elementary students and we take the average rating for the questions in the theme of belonging and that gives us we put that with all other participating elementary schools that 2.45 and that gives us a ranking compared to our other elementary schools that survey with youth truth. So we can see here that San Louis Coastal Elementary students are in the 78th percentile for the theme of belonging. If we look in the middle, we can see how this trended from the year before. So last year we're in the 75th percentile. We went up three points from the year before. Our lowest rated theme on the other end of the scale is academic challenge. So we can see here is our
169average rating on that 3-point liyker scale and we can see that that puts us in the 25th percentile and we trended up from last year by 4%. So this is kind of the highle theme that I'm going to give for all of our students, all of our families, and all of our staff. And then I'm going to take some time to dive into our highest rated theme and our lowest rated theme with a few questions from each of those themes. So first starting with our lowest rated elementary student theme. This is academic challenge and you can see that the theme measures how strongly students feel that they're challenged by their coursework and their teachers. So those are the types of questions that are in this theme. We can see our trend data from October 2021.
170These are our percentile rankings to October 2025. So, this has been a theme that we've seen decline over the last few years. A few questions within this theme. Um, we're going to show our our greatest strength and our greatest challenge compared to other elementary schools that participate with Youth Truth. So, our greatest strength, does what you learn in school help you in your life? 39% positive. In terms of our comparison to other participating elementary schools, we can see that we're four points below the median elementary school here. And we trended up two points from last year. Our greatest challenge, does your schoolwork make you really think? We have a 41% positive. So although a higher percent of students are agreeing with this question, we can see that we're nine points off from the median score
171here. the median score of a 50% positive and we trended down two points from last year. So that just gives us a sense of some of the questions that are in these themes, the percent of students that are responding positively to these questions, how we compare it to other participating elementary schools, and how we've trended from last year. On the flip side of that, our belonging theme is our highest rated theme. And something you'll note about belonging for all of our students is it is high rated and it has consistently been high rated. You'll see sort of a flat slightly upward trend line for most of our for all of our student groups. And I think this is a really positive indicator of belonging at St. Louis Coastal. So this is measuring how students how
172strongly students feel welcomed at their school and if they have collaborative relationships with their classmates. And here we can see the greatest strength is around safety. So 69% of students emphatically said yes, I feel safe at school. We can see this is six points higher than the median elementary school and we trended up from last year. On the other side of that, can you be yourself with other students? 53% positive. We are still one point higher than the median and we trended down from last year. All right, moving on to the middle school students. So following the same sort of cadence of data, we can see here that belonging and pure collaboration at 86th percentile is our highest rated theme and academic challenge in the 50th percentile is our lowest rated theme. We can see
173here that all of our themes trended up from last year. And we can note that these average ratings are now on a 1 to5 liyker scale where elementary is a 1:3. Diving into academic challenge, here is our trend data for academic challenge at the middle school level. We can see we hit a dip in 2022 and have steadily been increasing since then. And here we have our two questions. So in most of my classes, we learned to correct our mistakes. 75% positive. We are seven points above the median for for middle school students. And we increased four points from last year. On the other side, in order to get a good grade, I have to work hard in my classes. We still have a 78% positive here. So, a strong response from our students, but
174we can see that we're three points below the median on this question. Here again, we see that strong consistent belonging trend for our students at the middle school level. So, a slight dip in 2022 and 2023, but we have gained back up to the 86th percentile in 2025. And here are those questions again. So, how often do you work with your students for your classes because your teacher asks you to? So, teachers fostering those collaborative um relationships, 65% positive, 17 points above the median, which is really notable. And then greatest challenge, I really feel like a part of my school's community. 52% positive and still five points above our median middle school. Moving on to our high school students again belonging 88th percentile really high. You'll see the trend that we saw at the middle
175school of all of our themes increasing from last year continue with notable gains in academic challenge and relationships. And we can see that college and career readiness is our lowest rated theme here. So for college and career readiness, how strongly do students feel equipped to pursue college and careers? This is just for our high school students. Notably, the lowest rated theme, but really big progress over the last few years. So in 2021, 23rd percentile compared to other participating high schools. This year up to the 63rd percentile. So a lot of change for this theme over the last five years. questions in this theme to note. My school has helped me develop the skills and knowledge I will need for college level classes. 64% positive, 14 points above the median, and we trended up from last
176year. On the other end, college, my school has prepared me for college entric exams like the SAT and ACT. 46% positive. And we can see we're six points below the median here. for belonging. Again, this trend line very consistent from elementary and middle. Super high has stayed consistently flat with some gains. We kind of see that similar dip for 22 and 23 that we saw at the middle school level. Questions here to note. How often do you work with other students for your classes because your teacher asks you or tells you to? This was the same as our middle schools and we can see 71% positive, a whopping 25 points above the median and it gained from last year. And then I can usually be myself around other students. 63% positive and still eight points
177above the median, but this is our one that's closest to the median even though it's above it. All right, moving us along to our family reports. So, from a high level, two things that stood out to me. All of our themes for families are above the 50th percentile. So, that's a really strong indicator from our families. There were three questions that were statistically significant for elementary, middle, and high school families. These are, "My child's learning environment is safe. This increased." And then these two questions around communication and feedback around child's progress. Those both also increased for elementary, middle, and high. So really strong indicators there from families. We're looking now at our elementary family survey data. So we can see engagement here at the top is our highest rated theme compared to other participating elementary
178school families. We can see that we trended up five points from last year. And again, we have these average ratings which are helping create those percentile rankings on the right. Our lowest rated theme is school safety for elementary school families. But we can see that this one trended up 13 points from last year. And I really want to note that that communication and feedback where we saw those statistically significant questions trended up 30 points from last year for our elementary families. So I think those are both notable gains and were reflected in those statistically significant questions. Here we have our school safety. So this asks families both about their child's safety and about how safe they feel on campus as well. And we can see here our trend data from 2021. We had a dip
179in 2022 and we've increased since then up to the 69th percentile. Here are some of those questions for school safety. So I feel safe at my child's school. 90% of families who responded to this survey said yes. We can see that this is eight points above the median elementary school and we trended up from last year. And then the question, my child is safe from bullying at school, 62% positive. We are still three points, St. Louis Coastal is still three points above um the median here at 62 with the median at 59. Elementary family engagement. So questions around how how strongly families feel they're engaged and empowered to influence or make decisions um in partnership with their school. Again, our trend line from October 2021, sort of this consistent trend upwards over the last five
180years. And here are those two questions. So, greatest strength, I feel engaged with my school. I feel engaged with my child's school. 84% positive. And we can see that 16 points above the median. And then parent or family members are included in planning school activities. 76% positive, still nine points above the median, which means most of these qu all of these questions were above the median by quite a bit, but we can see trended down four points from last year. All right, moving on to our middle school families. So, communication and feedback, we've already seen this sort of trend. Highest rated theme for our middle school families. relationships, our lowest rated theme, but again, every single theme trended up from last year. So, looking at that lowest rated theme, relationships, this is about how um
181strongly families experience positive relationships in their schools based on respect, approachability, also teacher student relationships, things like that. And we can see a dip here in 2023 and sort of steady progress gaining again in this theme since then. These two questions are greatest strength teachers and students care about each other. 81% positive from our middle school families 12 points above the median middle school and trending up from last year. Greatest challenge. I feel comfortable approaching the school administration about my concerns. We can still be an 84% positive here. So, really high. We're just two points above the median, which is why it's that lower rated question, but still really positive here. Middle school communication and feedback, the greatest strength. Um, two questions. I receive information about what my child should learn and be able to
182do. 78% positive, 18 points above the median and a large trend upward from last year. 17 points. And then teachers clearly communicate expectations for my child's progress. 75% positive. Still 16 points above the median and trended up 16 points from last year. So really strong here. And then moving on to our high school families, we can see resources is our highest rated theme at the 77th percentile. And then relationships at the 63rd percentile is our lowest. Again, this is just thinking about our comparative data here. And we can see that all of these trended upwards. Notably, communication and feedback. Um, similar to our other survey levels had big gains from last year. So relationships the lowest rated theme. Again, even though it's the lowest rated theme, we can see our trend data moving positively here
183from 2021. And then those two questions, I feel comfortable approaching teachers about my child's progress. 82% positive, nine points above the median high school family response. And then greatest challenge, I feel comfortable approaching the school administration about my concerns. 78% positive. And we can see just three points below the median nationally. So we're seeing those patterns continue in relationships. Resources was our highest rated theme. So how strongly do families believe that their school deploys the necessary resources to support students? We can see that since um 2021, we've seen some big upward trends in this theme. The two questions pulled out here, my child's school sets high expectations for students. 79% of high school student of high school families that responded said yes. This is 15 points above median. And then the bottom question, my child's
184school provides the guidance necessary to help my child succeed. 75% positive and still eight points above the median. All right, I'm zooming us along to staff so that we have lots of time for questions. So, some key themes to pull out across all of our staff surveys. Professional development was lowrated across all levels. It wasn't the lowest rated theme for every level, but you will see it was low rated. And then we had one statistically significant question that was the same a decline for all staff levels and that is staff and families care about each other from the relationships theme and this question went down. So looking at our elementary staff, we can see our relationships theme is our highest rated theme. We trended down two points from last year, but still the highest rated
185theme. And then we can see that professional development um is lower here, but school safety with one point is a lower rated theme at the 56th percentile. That being said, you can see that both professional development and school safety improved quite a bit from last year with these percentile changes. So, elementary school safety, the lowest rated theme. This is an interesting trend line. We can see it's declined a little bit, but it's been kind of an up down over the last 5 years. The two questions for our elementary staff. I feel safe at school. 91% of staff agree with this question. This is an 11 point difference from the median for elementary staff. And we can see trended up 12 points from last year. And then at my school, there are clear rules for students
186against hurting other people. For example, bullying. We still see a high percent positive 80%. We're one point below. St. Louis Coastal is one point below the median and trended down last year on this question by three points. And then the highest rated theme relationships. So this is relationships with teachers, families, and administrators. We can see this has a very consistent sort of trend with a decline, a slight decline from the last few years, but high. Our two questions here, my school is cooperative and team oriented. 92% of elementary staff agree with this question. That's 13 points above the median and went up four points from last year. And then I feel comfortable speaking honestly to families about their child's progress. 80% of elementary staff agree with this question. This is three points below the median
187and did not change from last year. Onto our middle school staff. Culture is our highest rated theme in the 63rd percentile. We can see and I think it's notable that engagement went up quite a bit. School safety and relationships we can see went down. The percentiles went down. And professional development is our lowest rated theme for uh middle school staff. Here's that professional development trend bar. So again, kind of that we've seen it go up and down over the last few years. And here are those two questions. So greatest strength. I receive regular feedback from my supervisors. 69% of middle school staff agree with this question. That's 12 points above the median middle school and went up 14 points from last year. And then greatest challenge. My school encourages me to seek professional development opportunities
188to improve my practice. 25% of staff agree with this question. And this is 34 points below the median middle school staff. and we and the score went down eight points from last year. And then middle school culture. So questions around the school fostering a shared vision, respect, and effective communication. We can see from 2021 a pretty steady downward in 2023, but overall steady increase. The two questions here, discipline in my school is fair. 65% of staff agree. This is 13 points above the median. And then my school's employees are committed to the success of my school. We can see 79% of staff agree, but we are six points below the median here. And this went down 11 points from previous year. And then on to our high school staff. So we can see engagement our
189highest rated theme 75th percentile professional development lowest rated theme at the 42nd percentile and we can see that except for engagement all of these themes trended down from last year. Here is the high school professional development trend bar. So in 2021 in the 29th percentile went up to the 50th last year and then dropped to this year. Again really interesting to see these questions mirrored at the middle and high school level. I receive regular feedback from my supervisors 69% positive with a 13 point difference for the median and up seven points. And then my school encourages me to seek professional development opportunities. 44% positive, 16 points below the median and went down from last year. And then finally, our high school engagement. So this is engagement for high school staff asking questions about how they
190feel engaged in their work, empowered to influence their school. The two questions here, I am proud of my school. 91% of high school staff agree with this question. 11% difference from the median and up from last year. And then I feel empowered to play a meaningful role in decision-m 54% of staff agree. And this is 3% low lower than the median high school. And this trended down from last year. All right. So what does this all mean? So we just looked at a bunch of data that was a really highlevel view. I hope it gives you a taste of how this data can help inform decisions and also it is a very high level view as Dr. Prader said. So I think what's really meaningful about St. Louis Coastal is that students, families, the board
191are all really involved in looking at these reports and data from the survey. I was with students um in September for their pre-ervey workshop and I'm attending the board meeting now. Next week we will be doing the second follow-up se um student senate session where they're looking at their reports at the school level with their principles able to really disagregate the data by different student groups and apply sort of their own lived experience to that data and that will help inform their smarty goals. Um there's a parent leaders meeting. There will be an endofear senate meeting where students get to sort of finalize and present the smarty goals. There's LCAP planning in June and board priorities. So just wanted to give a sense that this is just one piece of this very involved work that
192St. Louis Coastal takes on to look at their climate and culture data. All right. I want to open it up for questions and reflections to all of those numbers I just shared you with you. >> Okay. First, I'd like to go to uh the public. See if anyone would like to address us on this. Right. We will come back to the board. Um Mr. Anger. >> Yeah. I I have two really kind of two questions. The first is do we see s and I'm not asking for specifics but do we see significant differences between the schools in terms of the responses that we're getting especially well just in general >> Mr. I'm sorry. Could you say that one more time? >> When we look when when we look at the data, this was data for
193the district, >> do you see significant differences between schools in some of the responses >> and and and what lessons do you learn from that, >> Heather? So I think two a few answers to this one is at the board level or sorry at the district level yes district administrators can look and disagregate by school level and see how students at one high school or another school are comparing to each other. And I think that also within their own reports there's a district cohort bar. So just although they're not looking at their um other schools like immediate data, they can see sort of that median for the district and how their school stacks up to the median for the district. So yes, that is possible. I think there are so many answers to how schools
194are responding differently to these different questions and different student groups within those schools. And so it's a little hard to to answer that question in this moment. I think that's really the work that happens with principles and with the student senate where they're really diving into their data and understanding it for themselves and making those recommendations to their principles and to their school community on how to change the questions that are most important to them. Is that is that helpful in addressing that question? >> Yeah, I think it is. And and I guess my my my understanding is that that they learn from each other um when they have significant differences between the test the the survey results. >> Yeah. In in our student senate meeting next week, we're going to have the kids by
195school. They're going to be examining their data, coming up with key um learnings, and then they're going to stand up and present it to the whole. And there will be poster paper on the walls. And then we're going to do a gallery walk. So everyone, including the high school kids, are going to walk around and look at all the schools. So not just their own. And so it's a powerful moment for kids to look to self-reflect on their own school and then ask those critical questions and then see how their peers did. And so uh and then that continues on through April. Uh so it's it's a um it's the the answer to that is it's a leadership development group and we learn from each other along the way. >> And and my next question
196really is a painful question for me to ask but um one of the things that our budget cuts focused on was a reduction in the uh frequency of the youth truth survey. And given the importance of it, particularly, you know, thinking about our smarty goals, our LCAP goals, the conversations that that staff and students and and the administration have each other from the learnings that they get from this. What at this point um do you see as replacements for that data, that important data that we're maybe not going to be receiving as in depth as we have been? >> Yeah. So much of it depends on on um what comes our way in the May revision and in the budget and the board's um the board's sense of this value. Um my thinking at this
197point is we could go a couple different routes. One route would be a multi-year smarty goal process where you just use that data and build on it for two additional years. Okay, that's one way. Um the other way is we could uh replicate what some other districts have done which is create their own survey instrument, their own survey tool. Um I have many questions about that. I have to do more homework. Um I have I have concerns about um well a few things. One is um developing survey tools is is a science. It's very difficult. What I like about youth truth is that it's nationally valid valid. So when you look at a middle school, seventh or eighth grade group and you look at what they're saying, what what's important about that is those questions
198have been developed um by statistitians very carefully to make sure that they are they're valid. And so we kind of know that that um these norms make sense, right? So we're going to be looking at all kinds of things this spring about how to hobble along without this tool. And I talked to Heather about it. I don't know, this week, last week, I can't remember now. Um but um trying to come up with some options. Youth Truth said they'll work with us. Um, and I'm still and I'm gonna engage our foundation. I'm going to look at all different kinds of ways that we can maybe reduce the cost and maybe find alternative ways to continue this data set. And um, I just think it's super important. Um, but without the funding, we're going to have
199to come up with an alternative mechanism. And it could be a variety of things, but right now we've got ourselves embedded in the data. It's embedded in our LCAP. It's embedded in site goal making with our single plans for student achievement. Um, now we have our staff feedback which is critical and our parent feedback which is growing. So we have you know very interesting I mean I have a million and one questions based on this data. For example, why is it that elementary parents view positively their child's experience with engagement, with relationships, with learning and safety, but the kids are rating it much lower, right? But in the middle school and high school, you see those numbers are really moving. On the staff side, clearly professional development and decision- making agency, those are two things
200that stand out for me. And that's an important thing for us to think about as we move towards the LCAP and as we move towards the board having their annual workshop and thinking about priorities. And so these are the things Youth Truth actually does for us, >> right? that I think is super valuable. We can do it every third year, you know, it's just I I'm not really 100% sure what I would do in the middle. Um, and that's what I need to reconcile with my team over the next few months as we move along. But good question. Thank you. >> Yes. >> Looks like Miss Yamash, did you want to add something? >> Yeah, I did want to add Mr. Anger. I pulled up the um Youth Truth dashboard and I can look by
201school and each school has an executive summary tab that immediately tells you compared to other participating elementary schools. I happen to be looking at Bishop's Peak survey results. Um your highest rated core themes are X and X. Your lowest rated core themes are X and X. And then it also has your highest and lowest rated questions as compared to all the rest of the nation. So know that from the principal landscape lens it is very um quick and easy to kind of summarize these are the two celebrations. These are the two areas that are moving in the wrong direction. What do we want to do with it staff? What do we don't want to do with it parents to move it in the right direction? What do we want to do with it? Students to
202move it in the right direction. So we have a very sightsp specific look at it on our side. >> Hey um Mr. Banfield. >> Yeah, >> two two slides um called me to something and it's 26 and 42 and they both had to do with bullying. Uh greatest challenge. This is slide 26. Elementary school safety. >> My child is safe from bullying during school. Now, even though there was a a positive on that, still I I wonder about that. And then the other one was I think from the student standpoint it was um elementary school safety. Oh, this is from the staff. At my school, there are clear rules for students against hurting other people, for example, bullying, hitting, or pushing. And I'm just wondering is could there still be a situation that exists? I
203don't know. What do you think? >> Yeah, without a question. We live in we live in complex times and Mr. Mr. Banfield, you taught for what, 34 years? 31 years. Sorry, I overshot it a bit, but 31 years, three decades. And um what I see is um that we, you know, continue to work towards um safe schools. we continue to work towards um working through problems that come up and that is not an easy process. So our our our schools are invested in um PBIS training. We are working through problem solving and in trying to resolve conflicts and we think we're finding great success. However, um as reported in slide 26, you know, some families don't feel that it's being resolved. Their kid might come home and feel harassed or bothered or bullied. Um and
204some of that is um within our control and some of it is just part of growing up in our society today and learning how to resolve conflict. And um also I will say we One of our core values as a district is in inclusion. And so some of the challenges that our staff faces, some of the challenges our administrators, our teachers face, our parents face is when we um actively try to integrate and include kids of all different walks of life. And some have greater challenges than others. And I'm proud of that. In fact, these numbers are pretty darn high. Standing back and looking at it from a balcony perspective, you know, would I like 100% safety? Of course I would. But we are we are a public education agency that is really trying to
205teach youngsters how to um problem solve and get along in this world and learn from each other. And that is sometimes a messy process and it's not perfect. But I think our um what I will tell you is our teachers do an amazing job. Um our administrators are constantly vigilant trying to work through these things. Our counselors, our whole apparatus is really designed around making sure kids find a sense of belonging, a sense of safety. when you see those numbers on belonging, they're off the charts high. Now, it's like, how do we bring that safety indicator along, right? And that's such a perception. Um, you know, some kiddos I see are absolutely thrilled to be in school >> and others are reluctant participants. And these are the things I see and I think it's reflected
206honestly in this data. Um, we welcome everyone. I >> I wonder if bullying has always been that everlasting whack-a-ole problem, you know. >> Yeah. You know, I former teacher, former principal, I and quite frankly, lover of kids, you know, I just love having that environment. And it's um it some kids some students really feel um the ability the sense of agency that they can you know get in there and mix it up and others are so reluctant. >> Yeah. and then you put a survey in front of them and they're like, "Man, I'm not going to go over there because those kids are too rough or I I want to go on the swings or on the the slide, but there's five kids there that scare me with their behavior because they're rough and they're
207aggressive and and so the perception of that um we try really hard to create safe spaces for kids um safe environments, but boy, it's an everyday day. You're at it every day. >> Sure. >> And um I I think this data reveals that complexity. >> That's what I would say without making excuses. I I think we're going at it the right way. I just think it's a it's a it's an an it's it's an a persistent sea that we need to keep at um all the time. >> Yep. >> I to interject and just to add two things. I think that's also the power of like looking at student perceptions and staff perceptions like are students reporting the same experiences around bullies as what staff is saying they are seeing on their campus. Um and
208then also just in the theme of bullying every year youth truth puts out research on some of the kind of like most potent themes or things that we're hearing from students and staff and family and our most recent one actually was just on bullying. So this is sort of like right I think an ever an evergreen topic but also something that has caught our attention last school year and we wrote like a whole research report about it just because we we saw some shifts in our data that we were curious about. So I don't know if that helps kind of add a larger context but yeah >> um Mr. Clawson. >> Yeah. Thanks. Um so a few a few thoughts. Um, first I just want to comment that I I like this data format. Um,
209it kind of gives you the state of the union of everything. It's it's long but uh comprehensive or felt comprehensive. So, I liked that. Um, I guess when I review this data, I mean, the thing that stands out to me first is just how proud everyone in our organization should be about the belonging and engagement um, responses. I think that's just something every member of the school district family should be proud of. So that um was super exciting. I think that was my biggest takeaway looking at this. Um so just that's cool. I guess is not a question, but uh >> yeah, >> isn't that cool? >> Super cool. >> Um so so I mean part of why I like this is it shows so many positives. Um and then of course there's just a
210couple negatives that stand out. It seems like I mean my takeaway was um elementary um academic challenge and secondary staff um professional development were kind of the opportunity areas. >> Is that the right assessment or are there other things that should I mean >> that's my takeaway I guess and I guess I'll just look forward to seeing how we address those but um um anyway I'd love it maybe a couple thoughts on those two topics. Yeah, that's exactly my takeaway at this point. But I I want to reserve judgment until I hear the students because they're going to dive in and they're going to look at it through subgroups, not just the gestalt of the whole, but they're going to break it down by gender. They're going to break it down by subgroups. And I
211think what you're going to see um especially if you are able to join us next week at Student Senate, I think what you're going to see is when kids break down the subgroups at their schools, you're going to the world will open up and what you're not able to see here tonight because it would be a super long presentation. >> And I tried to reduce this with Heather. Um I I did there was nothing I wanted to take off because >> it has a consistent amount of information across the board right now. >> I thought this is the information I wanted the board to have to get started with. >> But as we move into the students and the site leaders looking at their data, >> they're going to look at it very carefully and
212with intentionality, especially as it relates to the subgroups that we know struggle struggle academically, struggle socially, um have barriers that we may not see, but they live with. And we're going to be able to unpack that. Right now, when I say we, the site, the the student senators and their administrator, their site lead will guide them through that. And the questions that I will have and I know they will have um at a 100 foot level or a 30-foot level as opposed to a thousand foot level will be I wonder and Heather I don't know if we're going to keep using that term but I love it and it's the I wonder why the the um all the students at this school 80% of the students said that they feel safe. But when you break
213it down, um, our SED student population, our socioeconomically disadvantaged subgroup, only 50% of those students are feeling safe. I wonder what why that is and what then we can do about it. And that's when you get into um you carefully engage your peers at the site and begin asking those questions and really start pulling that data. So it's a sort of a qualitative way. So from the thousand foot level, Mr. Clawson, you're exactly where I'm at. >> You know, why is the academic challenge at elementary level through the lens of students three-year decline? Why? I wonder why that is. And then on the other side at the secondary level, I wonder why um I think I know why, but I wonder why our staff feels like professional development and agency with decision- making is a
214a deficit declining area. So these are things we can target at the site level. And this kind of gets to Mr. Unger's question. At the site level, what you're going to see is a very different conversation. because some of well I'll just tell you some schools are off the charts. they're really doing incredible. I mean, you can just see it. And other schools, it's not going to be as pronounced. And then in some schools, you're going to really begin to pick apart those subgroup student experiences that deserve a a spotlight, like what are we doing here? And because that's telling us something. And that's what you're going to see next week. And eventually, that's what you're going to hear when the students present their smarty goals. And hopefully that will be reflected in the ECAP
215as a priority. And sometimes those things, addressing those things don't cost money. And I want to emphasize this. Some of the changes we see have to do with awareness and intentionality more so than they do about adding more programs. And what this will help us really better understand sort of fine-tuning um experiences for kids with great intention based on the information we have which makes this really powerful. That's what I would say. >> Yeah. So just a couple final comments. I guess let me rephrase my my point about um about um the two areas. They're not negatives. I think they're actually opportunity areas. I mean the fact that our elementary students want more academic challenge and our um secondary staff want more professional development. Those are positive opportunity areas to embrace. >> Um I think
216just to the point about the data also, I think the comparisons to the the other the medians and to the schools outside our district is really valuable in this case. I was looking at some of the data where you know a 3.98 in one case was very high score relative to the medium in another case a 3.98 was not particularly high. Yeah. I think doing the survey without external data would be much much more challenging. Um I I don't think I'm advocating putting funding here instead of in the classroom. I mean where what those other cuts are, but I mean I I think figuring out a way to get um data that's compared to other districts and medians is really valuable. >> Thank you, >> Mr. Buckman. >> Oh, thank you. amazing amount of data.
217It's got to I mean I'm just thinking from principles. This just has to be great. This is this is real. This is not perceptions. Um several questions. When we look at the respondents, I'm looking at 1500 families and I'm wondering if they tend to come from three schools. >> So is this a cross-section that we can say represents the district? I don't know if that's a question for Heather. I don't know if it's a question that can be answered tonight. >> Heather, um I don't have that answered. Um h have you are you able to break down the parent responses or the family responses? Um is it I'm certain it's not evenly distributed, but is there a distribution analysis? Um, I don't have like a pretty chart for it or the exact numbers, but one
218thing I can say is that elementary families often have a higher response than our middle and our high and we see a discl a decline in family responses at the especially the high school level. In terms of like comparing high school to high school, that is data that is available in the reports, but I don't have that in front of me right now. So, yeah. that. And so along those same lines, parent parents by subgroup I think would be very interesting because yeah, I'm sure this is real representative. >> Yes, Mark. Um Heather has been great working with Stephanie, Dan, and I because we did do the LCAP survey in the in the youth truth format. Um we're working with their developers and programmers to be able to get our data pulled out by subgroup
219identity of the respondents of the parents and families. And so we're expecting that, Heather, that's going to come this week or I think Stephanie is saying she got it. >> It's ready. Okay. So, yes, we do have that from Youth Truth and we're very excited to be one of their guinea pig programs and schools to be developing how to do this um across the nation. >> And then thank you. >> Oh, so that's specifically for LCAP questions, but every school site can go in and look at like students grade families students grade level. We can look at primary language spoken at home. We can look at income. So that is available to see what percent of your population from those different groups responded to the survey. And that's both by percent and actual number like
220the number of total families that are represented in those groups. Um so yes. >> So I'll work on getting that >> in a way easy way for you to look at and make sense of. >> That would be great. Y um and then just I've got other questions but Heather is the 23% for families is that put us high, low, medium in terms of parental response? >> I would say it is typical. Um I think that it is typical and could be higher. >> Okay. And are there districts that >> Sorry, >> I'll let I'll let you answer ask your question. Yeah, >> sorry. And are there districts that have come out I mean the LCAP was was brilliant. Are there districts that have come out with other I mean do they have pizza parties
221for the parents? Other ways to generate responses. >> Yeah, I think that there's a few things that I know St. Louis Coastal is already doing that helps improve response rates. So sharing it out with parent groups, which I know like that's on the agenda every year. I think um thinking about how information is shared in bite-sized pieces as well for at the site level can be helpful. Um but our schools that do see the highest response rates do create like a competitive culture around it. Um that I think is something we've seen be very successful. I think there's lots that goes into that and I think a lot to consider about like how you make that feel inclusive and equitable for everyone, but I we we have seen um districts that have sort of that
222type of model that you're talking about. >> Yeah. >> And then there are people right now that are trying to convince us that public schools are hell holes. I'm they're it's they just want to beat up public schools. Um, the safety data that's in here, the other data that's in here about feeling good about your school is is it's like magical to me because it's like a flag that we could wave. In fact, I'm going to ask Dr. is this data that we that we go out and we share with I think we speak to the chamber, but there's other groups like the does the real estate agents get the get some kind of report from us? to other other people that are out there that need to know that we are safe schools and
223do we make a a specific news conference where we bring the media in and have them report um responses? This is great news. >> Yeah, it is. It's really there's so much in here that's good and and positive. I'm proud of it. >> Yeah, >> I'm super proud of it. To your question though about communicating it, um, this will be broken down probably in a in in two pages on our annual report which comes which comes out. Yeah. >> It'll also be um >> something that our site principles produce at at their achievement sessions and in their regular communications which that's where the majority of parents go to learn, you know. So, it's a celebration and and we're going to see that. Um there's probably other ways I can um inject this into the community.
224Um one of the goals I have um this winter is to um find things that we're doing that um and it won't be hard to do that that we are excited about and we're that's showing that's that's challenging the narrative >> that sometimes is out there. Um, and um, you know, I I hear and see the things too, but I also see so many good things so that are out there. So, um, but yeah, that's something I'm working on. >> And Heather, I have one last question. Is there a does Youth Truth have a community? So, we have the family, we have staff, we have the students. Is there actually a community survey that would follow along these lines? So, the reason I'm saying this because there's perception out there. There's perception about bullying. There's
225perception about belonging. There's perception about safety that would really be nice to be able to >> see what the community thinks about that. So, Heather, is there something that that's out there that you guys do? >> We don't currently have a community survey. It's something that we've like toyed with. I think we definitely see the family survey as a great tool to be representative of a large group of the community. Um, but yeah, I could definitely see the benefit of having also another group that's answering similar questions. Yeah, >> thank you, Heather. Thank you, Mr. Buckman. >> Okay, Miss Boson, >> thank you. Um, thank you, Heather, for your presentation. Um, and also, you know, I know the district puts a lot of effort into trying to get this out and and get the results
226that that we need. Um, so I appreciate the highle overview and I'm really glad Dr. Prader that you talked about the subgroups because I think that's a huge missing picture from the presentation we had today. Um, and so I'm glad to hear the data is there and we can parse through it. And so I'm just wondering um at what point will we be seeing that data and what was the decision making behind not presenting it tonight? >> Yeah, great question. Tonight we've already spent an over an hour on this so I have to decide pick and choose. So this is a thousand foot. Next week the students will break it apart along with the principles. So, um, whether I bring it back, um, as a presentation to look at and break it down by site
227and by subgroups, I'm envisioning a schoolwide report, like a school report that's broken down um because that's invaluable for the work our principles are doing. Right. >> Right. especially as they develop their um single plans for student achievement while they work with their um their decision- making partners at the site to figure out what to do and what's a priority there. Um so what we've typically done with with Youth Truth is done a board presentation at a thousand feet, right? And so um but we haven't what we haven't done yet is create um a report or um a board presentation where we break it down. That is a multi- that's probably a half a day to go through 15 school sites breaking it down um within those subgroups, maybe even a full day. >> Yeah.
228Yeah. And so my thought is on this we can share with the board um um site reports that we can come up with that you know paint that picture, share that information. There's so much in this that you could spend all day on one site. >> Yeah. Right. >> No, I appreciate that. So, I'm just trying to respect the time, the process, and um and really my focus is making sure our principles and their um student senators really unpack it and that that is their effort and that is their priority to make sure it gets into their uh SPS, it gets into the cultural fabric of their school. And I think we've seen evidence that it's actually working. Right. So, are you suggesting as a in your in your um questions, are you suggesting um
229a more comprehensive report? >> Well, I you know, I think the board is asked to review lengthy reports all the time. I mean, we read hundreds of pages in preparation for this board meeting and we read hundreds of emails in preparation for the last board meeting. So um asking us to review a a written report is not unreasonable. I think it's important information to have and we I think a highle overview of that demographic data or the subgroup data is probably something that could be a little bit briefer. You know it doesn't necessarily need to be school by school, but it can just be subgroup by subgroup. So I think that could be very helpful and and I would just be mindful um because I see the value certainly at the site the principal level
230of utilizing that data and I appreciate that whether that we're getting whether the public is getting that presentation or not I expect that the principles are going to be using that data. I caution us to put too much pressure on our student senators to be the main ones to parse through it. Not because they're not capable but because this is a district issue. This is I mean it I think there needs to be some sort of um you know if if there's a consist if the data is showing consistent deficits for one subgroup or consistent um disparities between certain you know a a 80% positive answer for for these groups but if you parse it out by SED or something else um it's a it's a big difference differential then I think that's something that
231we need to be looking at as a district, not just at a school site level. >> Well, and you will >> and you do >> every year. Um, every year we use we take that data. You may not have recognized it this way, but we fold it into our LCAP. I mean, it's part of our discussion and it's broken down that way. like we'll say on Youth Truth, this demographic really, you know, alarmed us with what we saw. Mhm. >> But what I think what you're saying, and I don't disagree at all, and I I'm actually thrilled to put it together cuz it's not not um it's not difficult to do, and it's just a sight by sight breakdown um of Now, Heather, do you have um templates by chance um for each site? I'm
232I'm having lots of thoughts about how you could put this together and create it into a packet that would be manageable. I think one thing about this level view is um wanting to not do disservice to dis student groups by zooming so far out that we're not looking at like the qu the question level data for those different groups. Um, so I think that thinking about how to put that together in a thoughtful way so that it's um looking not just at the theme but also some of those like pertinent questions for those different groups. >> Yeah. So I think we I'm happy to chat about that offline. >> I I appreciate the concern. I appreciate the nuance. Um, I I just I think it's worth thinking about and worth worth figuring out how to
233present that data just because I think it contributes to our legitimacy and trustworthiness in the community if people see a full picture even if it's got some warts on it and we know that it does. So, you know, I think it's just a more full picture would be really helpful. Um, so that you know that's that's sort of where I'm coming from. Um, let me see if I can read the rest of my notes here. Oh, I Heather, I was wondering when we talk about the comparison data to other districts, so we're looking at where we are compared to other districts. Um, are those districts are those similarly situated districts? Are they districts that are similar percent of SED students for example or other similar demographics or or is it just similar districts across the
234nation? >> Yeah. So for that presentation that I just did that median score is a national ranking but in the reports um you can change the reports are much more dynamic right so you can change the cohort to look at by state or by um some of those subgroups that you just talked about. So thinking about like uh a suburban school versus an urban school. So those types of things are you're able to change that comparison cohort. Um I think there's like 10 cohorts that are available to compare to. >> Yeah. Um thank you. I you know I think data is always important to have and and I remember as a common ground advisory task force getting a member getting presentations on the youth you truth survey data and I do remember demographic breakdown subgroup
235breakdown with that data and it's important it's important for policym for decision making for um so you know I recognize the financial implications of continuing to do this survey year after year. But I'm hoping that we can find some creative way to to uh continue. It's also helpful we now have a trend. We have, you know, multiple year trend that we can compare from as well that I think is also valuable. >> Well, Mrs. Baltoano, I you know, I'm I'm a scholar at heart and I appreciate what you're saying. We'll get there. I just we just haven't had a chance. We've been sort of through the meat grinder over the last few months and so this is gonna this is this is going to be >> the next thing I lean into as part of
236our LCAP development >> and it'll reveal um some things that are going to be really important. I'll work with Heather Lisa and the team to put together a template that I think will help the sites. Um and uh and by the way by the way I'll just say this. You mentioned it's not fair to put this on just the kids and believe me, we're not. >> Yeah, >> this is actually a >> this is very intentional. Our students are are being given appropriate tasks by and large and um and but this is really a a site leadership uh core of data that will be used in principal meetings. It'll be used, as you mentioned, in common ground. We're going to break this apart in a million different ways. >> But I do really value what
237you're saying that this putting it together in a in a way that isn't overwhelming. It isn't too complicated to understand that it it it makes sense and I just haven't gotten there yet. >> No, I appreciate that. And and I and I've been to student senate meetings and I plan to be there next week. Um, the students do great. I mean, it's really great for students to have the opportunity to look at data, parse data, and come up with recommendations based on data. So, there's I'm not discounting the work that they do there. Um, and I also appreciate I I always think of Mr. Minard in particular at Laguna, but I know all of our teachers are looking at data on a daily basis and making decision- making based on it. And so, um, it's
238it's good stuff. Thank you. >> Yeah, you're welcome. Okay, I just have a couple of comments and a question. Um, so I really appreciate this. You know that I don't need to I just echo my colleagues comments in that regard. Um, I'm interested to know one comment I have and it doesn't really be need to be remarked upon. Perhaps it's a reflection of my own um inability to see the nuance in some of these things. It's just interesting to me that we can be uh have relationships up and engagement down in the same site. And I guess I think of relationships and engagement being connected somehow. And it's interesting that they can be there's that disparity there in in the same in the same group. So that's just something I need to explore, get more
239detail about how the actual questions are phrased because that just didn't make any sense to me. And it's something I saw a few times just that the re the results didn't seem to didn't weren't coherent to me with the with the topic or the question. So that's um something I'd like to learn more about at some point. Um I'm curious to know if it's possible uh with on the with the percentile rankings or ratings to learn. Do we have any way of knowing about schools? We do this in other areas in academics and other um learning from each other. So, schools that districts that score much higher in some of these areas than we do, do we have any ability to know what those school districts are so that we can learn from them? Why?
240If we're in the 40th percentile here, that means there's other districts that are scoring that are ranking much higher. How can we do we do we have the ability to know who some what some of those school districts are so that we can learn from them? How come you're scoring so high in this? So I guess that's a question to Heather. >> Yeah, I think twofold and feel free to jump in Dr. Prader. One thing I will say to that is that we are we definitely believe in you know learning from each other and having um resource sharing and if you go on our website there are some of those present um like writeups from other schools. We can't share other school districts data. It's confidential and we don't we don't share anything externally um
241unless we get approval to do so from a district. I also think that a lot of the movement that we see with our partners is kind of under the theme of like you have your medicine in your community and turning towards um the folks who responded to the survey to learn more about what they what they meant from their responses and what they want or need is also you know kind of our model that we really share and believe in for our partners. ers. So, I think we do have some resource sharing and we do try to like share stories of impact and things like that and newsletters and resources on our website. Um, and also I think a lot of the work that St. Louis Coastal is doing to like turn back to the
242community and do a deeper dive into that and get kind of that street level data is really powerful and and where we see a lot of success with our our other partners. >> Okay. I guess I just also wonder I mean it's it's Some of that is the um it's the the reason to some extent for the existence of organizations like CSBA so that we can learn from each other. I mean I don't want to I mean I think it is important to to examine our own community and our own district and see what we can do better and continue to gather information. But that's part of what you does and the LCAP does. So I think it's important to also look outside ourselves and not just engage in a lot of naval gazing about
243you know what what are we doing. I think that it is important to learn from each other and other districts. I mean I'm those percentile rankings have to come some from somewhere. So I'm curious about what others are doing to be more successful. I mean I that's a lot of what we engage in. you talk frequently about, you know, other districts and what you've learned and that's that's um if we are a learning actively learning board and community, then we go outside ourselves to see what other what other people are doing. So that's um maybe this isn't the right tool for that, but I I'd like to get more information from I'm curious about those that are do that are scoring much higher about what they're they're doing. Um so I think and Miss Baldano
244to your point about you know maybe we learn things warts and all and I think that's a really important thing. We need to know what our warts are so we can continue to grow and learn from those. So um so the note I wrote was seeking answers for growth, you know. So that's additional information gathering both internally and externally. And um and I would just say if if we're not able to do that, I mean I think we we are going to learn a lot. We will work with our students. I'm a huge fan of student fan of student senate but if if we don't have access to additional information and I would see that as a weakness in youth truth that we we get this data but don't always know where else it comes
245from. So that's just a comment I would make this point. I will I will say that if you want to see we do have a full list of participating districts. So if there was a district that you have a relationship with that uses youth truth like you you have the ability to reach out to them. We just can't share data from other districts. >> Oh that's useful. >> You might remember this. We did a we did a co-presentation with um Davis Unified. >> Yes. >> On youth truth. >> Are they still using youth truth? Yes, >> I assume so. Yeah. Um, they've gone through some different iterations of leadership, but um, >> what I learned is that their methodologies >> on how they use their the youth truth tool is very different than ours. >>
246I mean, just different, right? >> So, I think that's really interesting >> and it's interesting, right? >> But, um, but the superintendent I became friends with is retired and so I lost touch. But um you know that Davis uni unified it's a it's kind of a interesting place right Mr. Clawson. >> Yes I'm a proud alumni. >> Yeah. Well so yeah they they're doing some really cool stuff. Yeah >> I know Western Plaster who we work with now toured a student senate at St. Louis Coastal and now is modeling like creating a model or or hoping to create a similar model. So we have yeah we we we share who our partners are. they just don't share their data. >> Okay. Yeah. So then if if the partners are shared then we can ask questions
247>> and we've we've had people come visit us and and look at what we're doing and and and and we haven't um recently we have not um sort of done that but um but um we did apply for um a presentation at CSBA recently and it wasn't accepted >> which is a real shame because um we're we're taking it I think to another level. >> Yeah, I think Easter is is fabulous. >> But you know, I agree with you. I mean, you know, we're a very collaborative group and we're trying to be continuous learners and there's some ideas out there that we may not have even thought about. Um and so yeah, I mean there is a community out there. I just haven't I personally have not uh connected with it in the last few
248years. So, >> okay. Well, I look at it like the California dashboard. You know, I want to be in the green or whatever it is on blue. >> Yeah. >> On everything. And we're we're far below that in some areas. >> Some areas. So, >> it's just learn just makes me curious about what others are doing and how they're >> how they're seeing success. Yep, I agree. >> Okay, so this was an information item and we will move on. >> Heather, thank you so much for joining us. >> I'm so sorry. >> Thank you all. >> We'll talk later about the template. >> Okay. Really appreciate it. Have a good night. Thank you all. >> Thank you. >> All right. 10.04. Initial proposal of SLCTA for negotiations with the district. Dr. Puchia. >> Yes. Good
249evening board. Uh so we are here tonight to share with the board and the community the proposed topics for bargaining with uh between SLCTA and SLC uh USD based on government code section 3547. So basically again just sharing this information and seeking any uh feedback or input from the community andor the board. Is there anyone from the public who would like to talk to us about item 10.04? >> No. Just here. Okay. Any any questions or comments from the board? >> Right. Thank you for sharing. All right. Next, we have some um proposed revisions to board policies. Miss Yamasha, you want to just take them over one at a time? >> I'd be happy to, Miss Shver. Um, the first policy for the board to consider is a first reading. The board policy subcommittee had
250looked at this item back in October, Novemberish. Um, this is different than the wellness policy which I brought before you also in that same October, November timeline. Um, specifically, this is being recommended for update by CSBA and that it requires districts during each school day to make available free of charge one nutritionally adequate breakfast and one nutritionally adequate lunch to any student who requests a meal regardless of the students eligibility for free and reducedric meals. However, it's amending the part that's being changed is a school is not prohibited from selling an additional nutrition nutritiously adequate meal that qualifies for federal reimbursement. So, that's one of the major updates to this policy is that we do the normal two meals a day, but if students request a second meal, we can elect to sell it to
251them. This is being recommended for your consideration and I think we should bring it back for a second reading if there are no further amendments or adjustments. >> Any questions or Mr. Clawson? >> I have a quick question. So when I read this I it almost seemed to me like um we give them a meal and then we give them the meal again and charge for it. That that's not what we're talking about. You're talking solely about someone gets a meal and then they're like, "I'm still hungry. I'd like a second meal." >> And we charge them for the second meal. That is what we're talking >> interpreted more as like a reimbursement type scheme, but um that's great. >> Squeeze Kenny out of those kids one way or another. >> Okay. >> We try
252and avoid hungry children. >> Can I ask a question about that? Um, speaking of hungry children, if a hungry child asks does need a second meal and can't afford a second meal, I mean, is that the the policy is to just charge them? the pol the standard policy would be to charge them, but I'm sure you have all met with our food service um workers in our cafeterias as well as our principles and school staff and and I am very confident we will all ensure that a child would get the food they need to be able to be at school and be prepared to learn regardless of their ability to pay or not. Um there's lots of outreach and work that our family advocates can do, our principles can do, our teachers can do um
253to ensure that that's not an ongoing issue or concern for a child and their family. Thank you. >> Great. Okay, the next one. Um Oh, do you have to vote on each of these to bring it back to the second reading or >> are we in agreement to that's just what I >> Yeah. Okay. >> Okay. To bring it back. Thank you. Great. >> Thank you, Miss >> the academic honesty policy is one that has now come before you all a couple times. If you remember, it was brought at first per an update um regarding AI and the updates through CSBA to AI related policies and then there was a robust discussion with Dr. Prader and Mr. Clawson and some issues and concerns that was brought forward and so it went back to the board
254policy subcommittee again um for some refinement. So this is the recommended updated final um recommendations brought forward to you >> but it's still a first reading. >> It's still a first reading. It does include um explicit prohibited and permitted technology use per this policy which will continue to be refined as the work of the artificial intelligence task force does their work and we come up with handouts and guidelines for student use that teachers can use to direct students when they can and they can't that standardizes disciplinary procedures and actions if kids do it when they were explicitly told they can't do it. All of that is housed within the work of the AI task force that we'll bring forward to you all later this year. >> Is this the one that had the inadvertent repetition?
255>> It did. Okay. So, we'll we'll correct that. >> So, that will be correct. That that was noted and will be corrected. >> Yeah. Okay. Thanks. >> Any other questions or comments from >> I have a quick comment. Sorry. Um so I I agree with the concept that artificial intelligence shouldn't be used as a primary source of um creating creating work and people taking accountability for it which is how the policy reads. It also says it shouldn't be used for math problems and things along those lines. And I mean, I think there's a scenario where it becomes like a calculator and and and I I I don't I think this just has to refer to an AI policy, which I think we're saying it does, but um I feel like we could nitpick some of
256the stuff because it's changing so fast. And um I would hate to create a policy where someone put in 50 times 100 and they violated this and now I don't know if that makes any sense. I share your concerns, um, Brian, and it says that permitted use of technology may include language learning applications, LLMs, it may include Grammarly, it may include. So, this allows students for appropriate technology supports if it's been allowed by the teacher, if it's been explicitly. Yeah, I think I'm just pointing to how difficult it probably was to write this policy because prohibiting using using it for a math problem and then enabling it to be used for comparable things. I it it's really hard. I think I can stop commenting. You understand how hard it is probably. >> I I schools
257are dealing with this. Just today I was at Lagona Middle School. There were students in an English class actively writing papers. The light speeded portal that the teachers were using to watch the kids work in their Google classroom flashed up a red on one of the screens because it suggested they were using AI. The teacher was able to go in and look at version one and version two to try and establish what the student had just entered that popped up the AI flag. So, this is um a very complicated and time-taking task right now for teaching staff. And I'm hopeful that the work of the artificial intelligence task force will be able to set up some clear guidelines and parameters that our teachers can follow and then students can follow and it will make things
258much easier. And I'll just I I'll get to you in a minute, but I wanted to just add that I'm sure Mr. Buckman recalls, we talked at length when discussing this about what a moving target this is, and by the time we bring it to the board, it could be different. So, I think it's one we will most likely see uh perhaps on a somewhat regular basis for a while. and um we're just trying to keep up with um uh the appropriate use in the school setting. So, Mr. Hunger, Miss Baltadono, >> I think you were first here. >> Thank you. >> Um no, that's okay. Um yeah, I appreciate the work that the policy committee had to do just to get this this um policy in order. And I I assume it started with
259a a model policy. Okay. Okay. So you start. >> Yes. This was the update from CSBA that we had started with and then there were some concerns actually that were brought forth by the board um when it was came to a first reading as well as Dr. Prader. And so that's what leapt it into the redoss. >> Got it. And I appreciate the concerns Mr. Clawson on math because I had the same thoughts regarding um translation for world languages. And I was about I was kind of drafting a question about you know have we consulted with the world language teachers and then I reread the policy and it I think there's enough there's enough room in there to you know for teachers to prohibit or allow you know to allow it in this context but
260not in that context. But the point is is that it's constantly going to be shifting. And so I I appreciate the complexity and I think it's a pretty pretty good policy given the um complexity of it all. >> I I would just like to sort of follow along with this. I I think what we need is a policy that will allow us to write administrative regulations that we can more rapidly uh revise >> adjust. Yeah. >> Yeah. Yeah. We use AI. >> Yeah. And we did hear from our own student senators, if you remember when we were discussing AI and technology, that they self-reported that some kids were cheating and then other kids said, "Yeah, I need it because I'm using it in the the right ways." And that's exactly the space and landscape. Our
261entire secondary PD day was about um AI, AI detection tools, how teachers are using it. So this will continue to revise, but this is so that we can get something on the books that is broad enough that if if staff need to use it, they can. But also philosophically, we are not about punishing dishonesty, but instead teaching about academic honesty with our students. So, it's not meant to be a gotcha thing until it's proven that the child knew they weren't supposed to be done it. They've done it before and got told not to do it. Then they do it again and then we move into a disciplinary stance. For the most part, we are trying to engage in a learning conversation with children who we will assume accidentally committed an act of dishonesty until proven
262otherwise. >> Okay. So everyone okay to bring this back by which time it will the whole the whole the whole land the whole landscape will have changed >> in our two readings. Yes. >> Thank you all. The third board policy again I'm bringing forward to you from a couple months ago is actually this started back when Leslie Okconor was still a director in our school district. It did come from a CSBA recommendation. It is um trying to tie into prohibited and permitted use of student technology and artificial intelligence as it relates to student assessment. Um it also includes long-term English learners because LELS was a new student group at the time as a numerically um significant student subgroup for demonstrating comparable improvement in academically achievement. So, they're trying to draw attention to that um subgroup
263moving forward. >> Any questions or comments from the board? I will I will note that there's no one from the public left in the audience. >> Oh, I I said I I just wanted to note that there's no one left in the public in the audience. So, that's why I'm not going to them. So, I wanted to see if there were any It used to be you, Erica, were the last one here. Um, any questions or comments from the board? All right, then this will come back for a second reading. >> Thank you everyone. >> Okay. All right. We will move on to the action consent agenda. Please let me know if you'd like something pulled. 11.01 approval of school accountability report cards. 11.02 approval of minutes. 11.03 approval of warrants for December 2025. and
264payroll for December 10th, 31st, and January 2nd, 2026. Acceptance of donations. Oh, 11.04. Acceptance of donations. 11.05. Approval of furniture and equipment request 1210 25 to 16, 2026. 11.06 Approval of purchase orders and Calard purchases for December 10, 2025 to January 6, 2026. 11.07 Approval of certificated and classified personnel item. 11.08 Approve updated job descriptions for certificated site administrative positions. 11.09 Approve updated job descriptions for Prop 28 funded positions. 11.10 Approval of quarterly report on uniform complaint filings. Williams settlement. Wow, we did it. All right. Then if someone could please make a motion to accept uh 11.01 through 11.10 of the action consent calendar agenda. That'd be great. >> I'd like to approve 1101 through what was the last one again? >> 11.10. >> I second that. >> We have a motion by Mr. Buckman.
265A second by Mr. Banfield. Mr. Buckman. Yes. >> Mr. Banfield. Yes, >> Mrs. Roger. >> Yes, >> Miss Walter Donn. >> Yes. >> Uh, Mr. Clawson, >> yes. >> And I am a yes. And, uh, Mr. Anger has left the building. So, we have that motion carries. 6 with one absence. Move it. Anything for advanced agenda? Any board reports? Mr. Clawson? >> No. >> All right. We will be adjourned until our next meeting. Thank you very much.