San Marcos Unified School District's Board Meeting 3-12-26

001It's over here. Okay. Yep. >> Good evening, everybody. I would like to call this meeting to order. Today's date is Thursday, March 12th, 2026. This is a regular meeting of the governing board of the San Marcos Unified School District. Please let the record reflect that all board members are present with the exception of member Ahmad. The San Marcos Unified School District Board of Education meeting is a business meeting of is a business meeting of the board held in public. While we welcome and encourage public participation, the expected behavior is that this meeting will be conducted in an orderly fashion. Only the person recognized by the board president may speak. While that member of the public is speaking, members of the audience must not yell or speak out, regardless of whether you agree or disagree. While

002public comment is in progress, if you speak out, you are out of order and will be asked to leave the meeting. As adults participating in a public meeting, we need to model civility to our children and students. On behalf of the Board of Education, we thank you in advance for helping us conduct this meeting respectfully. 4.1 mission statement. The San Marcos Unified School District is an innovative and collaborative community providing an unparalleled unparalleled educational through an engaging and supportive environment. All of our students are challenged, inspired, and poised to excel. Please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance. >> Ready? Begin. >> I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for >> Do I have

003a motion to approve the agenda? >> So moved. >> Second. >> Moved by Carlson, seconded by Meem. No. Yes. Yeah. All those in favor say oh, wait. Yes. To approve the agenda as presented. All those in favor say I. >> I. Any opposed? Motion carries. No. I don't know if I do that. Yeah, okay. Tonight the board met in closed session to discuss matters in pertaining to conference with labor negotiator Joel Garcia. No action was taken. Next, the board discussed student expulsion case number three 032526. No action was taken. Before our student rep makes her presentation, this is the last opportunity to fill out a speaker card if you wish to speak during public comment. Please complete a request form located um in the alcove to the left of the double doors as you enter

004the board room. Please complete a white speaker form if the item you wish to speak on about is on the agenda and a blue speaker form if the item you wish to speak about is not on the agenda. Please ensure that the speaker form is placed in the designated bin in in the alcove. Presentations. Report by student board representative. Yeah, Tom. Tom. >> Good evening. Hi, my name is Madison Sasu and I'm the Mission Hills High School student board representative. Um tonight I wanted to start by highlighting our um new event that we had in February. Um we had a lowrider car show um that was put on by the Mariposa program. Many different clubs um schools and different programs came out to participate in this. We had performances, um different vendors come and it

005was really fun just to really see the community um get together with our school as well. Um next we wanted to highlight um our class of 2030. Um yeah, last night we had our showcase, our Grizzly showcase, where we um put out a bunch of tables to see all of our clubs. And um just kind of what what Mission gave Well, just kind of what Mission has to offer to the students. Um today we had our eighth grade welcome. So, we gave Woodland Park um and Double Peak and then other SMUSD schools tours around Mission Hills and we had a pep rally and a bunch of different tables, so all students could come in and get connected and see what they are excited for for next year. Um for Grizzly spirit, our annual spring fling

006for the underclassmen is coming up. Um our theme this year is Coachella and our sophomore class officers um are hard at work putting on the final touches with lots of advertisement and um excitement around this dance. Um not too long ago we also had our um student versus staff basketball game. This is one of our pep rallies for second semester. Personally, it's my favorite pep rally just because students get so excited and have like so much hype around it. We also had a surprise halftime show that included the teachers and students just went wild. It was so much fun. And lastly, our student belonging project is coming along. Um we kind of started this project to help improve relationship between the staffs and students. Um the students in this project come up with different goals

007and ideas um that they can real implement into our curriculum and they presented these ideas to the staff not too long ago. And right now their main focus is on rebranding the idea of Mission Hills, coming up with new slogans and visuals for our school. And that's all. Thank you. >> Thank you, Madison. Next we have San Marcos Elementary Principal, Christine Gray Gurley. >> Good evening, President Carlson, board members, Superintendent Johnson, and members of cabinet. My name is Christine Grayley and I am the proud principal of San Marcos Elementary School, our district's very first community school. This year our theme has been rooted in community. At San Marcos Elementary, we believe future-ready students are not only academically prepared, they are connected, supported, and empowered. Tonight, we'd like to share how our school and community help

008our students grow into resilient learners, collaborative leaders, and compassionate community members. When we say rooted in community, we mean that every student and every family is known, valued, and supported. As a community school, we organize our work around four key pillars that guide how we support students and families. Integrated student supports, enrichment and extended learning time and opportunities, family and community engagement, and collaborative leadership. These pillars work together through our MTSS framework, aligning academic, behavioral, and social-emotional support for every student. In practice, what this means is that we work on removing barriers to learning while expanding opportunities for students to grow and succeed. Our goal is to build systems where every child can thrive. Ms. Espinosa, our assistant principal, will now share what that looks like in action. >> Good evening, buenas tardes. Future-ready learning

009begins when students feel safe, supported, and connected. At San Marcos Elementary, strong partnerships allow us to meet the needs of the whole child. We collaborate with organizations such as TrueCare, Rady Children's Hospital, Easter Seals, Champions, the Boys & Girls Club, the Cal State San Marcos School of Health and Human Services, and Feeding San Diego. All to provide health services, early childhood support, extended learning opportunities, and family resources. These partnerships help remove the barriers so students can focus on learning. Building the foundation for resilient learners who are ready to grow and persevere. Because being present matters, attendance is also a key focus for our team. Through our improving chronic absentee absenteeism network, also known as I CAN, our attendance team, we implement proactive strategies for strengthening belonging and encourage students to show up every single day.

010Our efforts include monthly school-wide attendance challenges, spirit rallies that celebrate showing up, positive recognition and class incentives, proactive family communication, and ongoing data monitoring to identify patterns early on. And these efforts, they're not just about attendance. They help students feel seen, valued, and connected to their school school community. When students feel supported and connected, they develop into collaborative leaders who work with others and who work with others and compassionate citizens who care for their community. And now, I'd like you to hear from one of our very own tigers, Elias Lucio. >> Hi. >> [cough and clears throat] >> Hi, my name is Elias and I am proud to be a student at San Marcos Elementary. At our school, we get to learn in so many different ways, not just in the classroom. I'm part of

011ASB, green team, and skate club, which started last year. In ASB, we help plan events and practice leadership by representing our classmates in In Green Team, we work together to reduce waste and take care of our environment, and we'll even be featured in an upcoming Scholastic article. Skate Club is one of my favorite things because it gives students a fun way to connect, build new skills, and encourage each other. Being part of these programs help us learn how to work as a team, solve problems, and take responsibility for our school and our community. Those are skills that help us become future-ready students. It also makes me feel confident and like my voice matters. It makes me feel proud of my school. At San Marcos Elementary, I feel like I belong, and that makes me want

012to do my best. >> Thank you, Elias. Family partnership is at the heart of the work we do as a community school. I'd now like to invite Margarita Osorio de la Torre, one of our San Marcos Elementary School parents, to share her perspective first in Spanish and then in English. >> Buenas noches. >> Sorry, sorry, sorry. We got so excited. There we go. There you go. >> Yeah, buenas noches. La escuela nos invita a participar y nos da herramientas para apoyar su crecimiento >> At San Marcos Elementary, families are not just part of the community. We are true partners in our children's education. Through ELAC, connections to adult school, family workshop like IEP and counseling seminars, S rate data listening sessions, we feel that our voices truly matter. The school invites us into conversations about

013decisions that impact our children. And they give us tools to support our children's growth at home as well. We are not just informed. We are included and empowered. When families feel valued and equipped to support their children, students feel stronger, more confident and more motivated to do their best. That sense of belonging of belonging and unity truly makes a difference. Thank you. >> To continue, I'd like to introduce our coordinator of community schools, Adelita Gonzalez, who will share how we sustain this work through collaborative leadership. >> Thank you. To sustain this work, we lead collaboratively, bringing together staff, families, students, and community partners to guide our work. The collaborative leadership pillar of community schools brings together administrators, teachers, classified staff, families, students, and community partners to shape the school strategy and decision-making. It acts as

014the glue that connects the other pillars, ensuring shared responsibility, trust, and equitable decisions grounded in student needs. Through our teams, the school site council, the community school council, instructional leadership team, restorative practices and PBIS teams, and our equity team, certificated and classified staff work together to strengthen our school as a community hub that supports the whole child. One moment we are especially proud of, just yesterday, we learned that San Marcos Elementary has been selected to present at the 2026 National Community Schools and Family Engagement Conference. It's super exciting. Our session is entitled Igniting the Power: How the Community School Model Fosters Parent Leadership, Strength, and Success. We're excited to represent our district this May, where Principal Grayley, Margarita Osorio, Ana Lilia Lopez, and I will share how the collaborative leadership at San Marcos Elementary helps

015build strong parent leadership within our school community. And now, Principal Grayley will share how our commitment to educator wellness supports the adults who make this work possible. >> This year, our commitment to wellness was recognized countywide when San Marcos Elementary was named one of America's healthiest schools for staff well-being. We intentionally prioritized educator well-being by creating a dedicated wellness space and cultivating a culture of care. When adults feel supported, students benefit. Healthy educators foster regulated classrooms, consistent instruction, and emotionally safe learning environments. When adults are rooted, students grow. Thank you so much for the opportunity to share the work of San Marcos Elementary School in our community. Thank you. >> [applause] >> Thank you, Principal Brylie. Thank you, Mrs. Espinosa and young Lucio, our future school board member there and uh Gracias, Margarita y Adelita.

016Thank you. Next report by Superintendent Dr. Johnson. >> And while Thomas is bringing my slides up, I will say that that last slide of SME about the wellness This was the first one of the first schools of maybe the I think you guys were the first school who used one of their empty classrooms to create a staff wellness room. And Veba helped with the Veba's our benefits provider. They helped outfit the room with yoga mats and sound healing and all kinds of cool stuff. And then we went shooting our mouth off and said you know that that I said my vision would be that way every one of our schools has one of these as as space becomes available. And Veba came back and said we're going to help you make that happen. So you

017guys are are the start of a of a hopefully a little snowball that that goes through the rest of our schools. Very excited about that. Were you going to say something? >> Congratulations on on both both being like presenting at the community schools and also the the wellness. You guys have done so much work. Thank you. >> And I think we jumped right into the agenda and didn't let our public know Uh, as you can tell member President Carlson's feeling a little under the weather tonight. That's why Andre stepped in to read the script and run our meeting tonight. So, thank you. Okay, a couple of updates for the board this evening. Before I get into the kind of main topic I want to talk about, a few really fun things have happened just this

018week. So, just yesterday San Elijo Middle hosted their second annual inclusion basketball tournament. Last year it was just SEMS and Oak Crest Middle School from San Dieguito. Oak Crest came again this time, but this yesterday we had all of our all three of our uh uh traditional middle schools there, Woodland Park and San Marcos Middle. And it was a so much fun. I stood kind of off to the side under the kind of under the basket. And um every time those kids got the ball the the the look on their face is just worth all the money in the world. Um and I want to just also say it's it's so fun because you have special needs students, you have general students, and they're all just having fun. And if a if a student down

019there and it's going to take them four or five or six shots to make that basket, everybody else just stands back and they're cheering them on and we don't get we don't care. Make that basket. So, just a really good feel good time. Uh for the month of May I had t-shirts made this year as you can see the the principals are all wearing them. So, that was a lot of fun. Um also, just two days ago we found out that SEMS has been awarded the 2026 California Distinguished School Award, which is a big deal. So, Dr. Campbell and I got to go up to their staff meeting yesterday and help their staff uh celebrate. And as uh their as their principal uh Trisha Story got to make the announcement. Um and they were very

020very excited. I will say that um one of the things that I shared with them, and I don't know if the board is aware of this, that way back in the day when this program was initially launched uh by the state of California, schools could apply for this award. And you would write a you would write an application and you'd do a whole write up on all these are all the the reasons why I think we think our school is so wonderful. And um if you had a good application, they would could send a team and spend the day there. And then they would agree with you, yes, your school is just as wonderful as you're describing it and they'll give you the award. They have done away with all of that and actually the

021bar is now much, much higher. There is no application anymore. It is purely are you producing results? So, SEMS is has gotten this award um and they were named a distinguished school for uh closing achievement gaps at their school. And that's pure data and that's actual results. So, I just want to say it's um it's even even more special now than it had been in the past. And we were able to share Dr. Campbell also that, you know, closing those closing achievement gaps is really hard. It does not happen by accident. Um so, we're really, really proud of this team and um uh we'll we will be celebrating them. Also, Twin Oaks High School was uh renewed their their Model Continuation High School award was renewed for 2026. So, uh congratulations to them. We know

022they do really, really good work up there with those uh with those students and um getting them ready for their next steps. And so, we were happy to uh really re- receive this press release that came through just yesterday. Okay. With that, I want to take a minute and just talk a little bit about uh budgets. We've been we've been discussing budgets in the district now for well, for as long as I've been here, 5 years. Um but in the past couple of meetings, we've spent a lot of time talking about uh the district's budget situation. Last month, Aaron did a deep dive on um on declining enrollment and how that impacts the the district's financial uh position. I wanted to kind of zoom out for a minute. We have a lot of questions from

023folks, really, really good questions about like, how does this all work? Because school finance can get very complicated very fast. Um but if you zoom out and you understand a couple of the big kind of big rocks or the big levers, um I think it's much, much easier to get a grip on on how uh school districts face their um their budget situation. So, I want to do that tonight and kind of like as I said, kind of zoom out and and talk about some of the basics and then I'll talk about the road ahead. The first thing I want to say is I I this is my own conception, but I really do think if I zoom zoom way, way out and talk about the past 25, 26 years in this district, I really

024feel like there've been three distinct chapters and we're just getting into the third. The first chapter I would considered being those those early 2000 years, right? 2000 to roughly 2019. This area, the whole North County was blowing up. Affordable, family-friendly housing was being built all across North County. San Marcos was experiencing rapid enrollment growth. We were building schools, right? There was a There was a good period of time, it's two decades worth of of of time, roughly, where we were growing. And people who have been here for a long time remember that. And and that was a that was a remarkable time for our school district. I was not here, but it was a great time for our school district. Then we entered at 20 2019 is when we hit our high water mark. And

025we entered that next chapter that I'm going to call the COVID years, and I'm going to call them maybe four or five years there, I'll explain why that is. In 2020 In 2019 we hit our enrollment high water mark. We're about 21,000 students at that point. When we went into the COVID shutdown, that one year, 20 the 2020 2021 school year, SMUSD lost 1,100 students all in that first year. We also then had, along with a lot of districts, a big influx of state and federal COVID relief money that helped fund staff and programs and kind of keep us all afloat while we were recovering from the pandemic. You we called it during that whole time. I President Carlsbad was just just talking a minute ago that when those funds came in, there was a

026real clear understanding these are temporary funds. They're going to be great, we're going to enjoy them while they last, and they will sunset at some point. That point is now. Those COVID funds have sunset, and we are in declining enrollment. >> [clears throat] >> I consider, this is just me, but I consider right now 2026 the beginning of like kind of the next phase of our district. The COVID money is now Excuse me, the COVID money is now all spent down. Our enrollment is predicted to continue declining. Our last Our We we demographic report every year that goes out 7 years. Um it'll renew and it'll continue to be 7 years out and we do have predicted uh enrollment declines just in the next 5 years by 2030. This year we're at 18,500. By 2030

027we're we are projected to have 17,300 students. Um people ask about new housing. Yes, there is still new housing coming uh online in the district, which is helping to slow the decline, but it's not going to turn it around to to Oh, sorry. To be where we were in those in those other years. So, I just I just want to kind of frame that as a big picture in my mind. Like it's time for us to embrace and understand we are entering a new era and we need to we need to enter that era thoughtfully. So, I want to just talk real quickly about like as I said, some of those big budget levers. I'll talk about some funding inequities in California, reserves, COLA, and decisions we need to make, and then and then a

028road forward um as I think we need to we need to pursue. First is funding inequities and I I mentioned this because, uh you know, the public who doesn't um live in schools, you know, 10 hours a day and don't doesn't do this for a living, uh may not know that school districts in our state are not funded equally. There is a group of schools we don't talk about that much. I'm not going to spend a lot of time, but I will um talk it briefly about. There is a a type of district called community funded, aka basic aid. Um these are school districts in our region and in California that tend to have a very, very high property tax base. These are some of our coastal friends. Um they are not reliant on their

029attendance and and enrollment for their funding. So, their property taxes tend to stay high. That funding tends to stay pretty strong and pretty stable. And so, declining enrollment actually doesn't impact their revenues. Now, I we have amazing colleagues out in those districts. The superintendents out there I know very, very well. They're doing a phenomenal work and if they were standing here right here, they could give you a whole sheet of the challenges they've got and fiscal things that they have to think about as well. But with respect to funding stream, they're in a different position than we are. Um their funding is always going to be a little stronger, and they're not going to feel the same kinds of pressures that we are going to feel. The rest of us are all funded primarily through

030the local control funding formula, which is LCFF. It's been in place for 13-ish years at this point. This is our funding that we get from the state. It is tied to attendance and student demographics. And this funding is not equitable across districts, either. And this is really important to know. I know the board has heard me say this, but I wanted to kind of walk it through again. You have heard me describe the LCFF funding formula as a three-layer layer cake. The first layer is the base grant, and that is there's just a dollar amount that every school district gets for the students you are serving, the students who attend your schools. Everybody gets a base grant. On top of that, the second layer of the layer cake is what's called the supplemental grant or

031your supplemental allocation. This is 20% additional funding for English learners. EB means emergent bilingual. I've been around so long I I at least I don't I don't refer to them as LEP students anymore. That was the '90s. Uh but English learners, low income, and foster students, right? So, for all those students, we receive 20% extra funds to provide supports for their learning, which we do receive. Now, if the students in those categories make up 55% or more of your school district, you get the third layer of the layer cake, which is concentration money. And that's a big allocation. Um we do not receive that money. We are at about 40% unduplicated, 40% of students in that in those categories, English learners, low income, and foster. Um which means that the need is significant. Four out

032of every 10 students in our district falls in those categories, and we would love to have the support for them. Um but we don't receive any concentration money. Who does? Many of our neighbors. Uh many of our neighbors right here locally, San Ysidro Unified, of course, and others do. San Marcos Unified, as you can see, we only get those those bottom two layers. Um I'm not going to say that Vista, Oceanside, Escondido, San Ysidro, I'm not going to say they don't deserve that money. They do. They need that money to serve those students 100%. It's just important to note that because of these because of the structure of the LCFF, San Marcos Unified will always be funded at lower levels and which means we were always going to be have to be a little more

033disciplined, a little more prudent, a little more careful with our expenditures than some of our neighbors are. Um So, when people hear me say that, often they will say, "We get it. Money gets tight. What about reserves? Isn't that what your reserves are for?" That's a great question and yes, we do use our reserves. Um and the use of reserves is not a long-term solution. So, let me give a a quick example. This is This is school finance as simplified as I can make it with nice easy numbers. Let's just pretend we have $500 in the bank in our reserves. We get a $100 allocation from the state and our expenses are $120. That right there is your definition of deficit spending, right? When your expenditures exceed your revenues. So, you can see already we've

034got a problem. If you're only getting 100 but you're spending 120, you're going to have to go into your reserves to cover that and you can do that once, twice, three times but you can't do that forever. So, people will often say, "We get that. We understand that but don't you get a cost of living adjustment? Isn't Doesn't the state increase your revenues every year?" Glad you asked because yes, they do but here's how that works. As we have discussed before and I know Dana did a phenomenal job of this last month. Our fixed cost starting on the right of this of this this graphic here. Our fixed cost increases in the district and this is standard for all districts is going to go up 4 to 6% uh every year without us doing anything

035different. We could do everything just the same next year as we do this year and our costs are going to go up because uh employees are moving up on the salary schedule, pensions are getting more expensive, benefits are getting more expensive, insurance, utilities, all those things that we don't have any control over. And our funding increases from the legislature over the past couple of years have been in the 1 to 2% range. So, you can see right away that's a problem that every year when we open the doors on July 1st, the hole gets deeper. I think it's also very important to note, in particular again for our for our public, that school districts cannot control our revenue. So, we're not a kind of business where we can just raise our prices or launch a

036new a new product into the market. We we don't we can't do that. We are reliant on the state for our funding, and when they're only giving us a 1 to 2% increase and our costs are going up 4 to 6, that's a problem. And I will say, with all respect to our uh elected officials in Sacramento, when the public sees it's a it's it gets tricky if you're not following this, but if the public when the public sees headlines that say things like historic funding for school districts, more money than they've ever gotten before, this is what they mean. Right here on this slide is what that headline means. In other words, we funded you here last year and we're going to give you 1% more next year. That's fine, but my expenses are

037going up three times as fast as that funding increase. So, it just gets tricky in the in the public sphere in the in the in the news feed, right? Um when you see those headlines. So, back to our simple example, we had to take $20 out of reserves to cover that cost. Next year, great, we got a we got a 2% increase, so now we're going to get $102. But the expenses went up to 127, so I had to take more money out of the bank. Next year, wait, we got another 2%. Now we're at 104. Awesome. But our expenses went up even higher, so we took more money out of reserves. So, this is just the situation that we're in as long as that the state is continuing to fund us under that 4%

0384 to 6% increase, if their funding is any less than that, the hole just keeps getting deeper and deeper. So, that's that's like the point I'm trying to make is yes, reserves can help, and yes, we use them, and yes, we draw off of them, but it it won't work it won't work forever. Um this is why we're advocating and if you go back to the my three-layer layer cake, when you see um uh articles and you see headlines about advocacy to raise the base, that's what they're talking about. Raise that bottom level cuz everybody benefits. We had a raise the base campaign, what was it, two or three years ago, and we were successfully the the legislature did raise the base for it was great. Um I haven't heard any talk about that um

039recently, but we'll continue to advocate. So, I just wanted to kind of walk through that as a general kind of understanding. Which means we have to make decisions. Since we cannot control our revenues, we can only control our expenditures and we can't even control all the expenditures cuz some of them are fixed and they're just going to we're just going to have to live with them. We have to make decisions. So, I believe that that this is this is the point we're at in our school district. And I'm going to say that I think this this coming year is actually a really unique window of of opportunity because the two things you have to you have to talk about side by side are what do we want to accomplish for our students and what resources

040do we have to put to towards those efforts, right? Next year, both our LCAP and our strategic plan are both in their final year. So, they're up for a refresh. So, it's time to start talking about in the next three to five years, what are the goals we want to continue to work for work towards for our students and what resources do we have to put to them. So, I'm calling this uh just for sake of calling it something at this moment, a strategic alignment and sustainability plan. It's going to need to be a long-term plan where we can discuss these things. Here is the purpose as I see it. Uh strategic alignment sustainability plan is designed to bridge the gap between our fiscal reality, which we've been discussing, and our educational vision. Our mission

041as a staff is to recommend a budget, a strategic plan, and a state required LCAP to the board that protects core instructional goals, thoughtfully considers impacts to staff, and ensures the long-term fiscal solvency of the district. That'll be our high-level goals. Um objectives. There are five of them as I have them right now. First and foremost, instructional focus. We're going to need to prioritize programs that have the highest measurable impact on student achievement. And we're also going to have to talk about programs that may need to be eliminated or phased out as our resources continue to shrink. Secondly, we're going to need to continue right-sizing. This is not something brand new. We've been doing this all along, but we're going to need to continue to align staffing levels with our current and projected student enrollment

042as it continues to decline. Third is risk mitigation. It's going to be very important to maintain essential district and site functions to prevent legal, financial, and operational liability and potential risks to students and staff. Fourth will be input to engage our stakeholders, elicit feedback on priorities, and then fifth will be transparency to provide the board and all other stakeholders with information that cabinet generally uses so that we can foster a depth of understanding and shared ownership of those solutions going forward. Roles are there would be various roles. The governing board will be the final decision makers. This is what you're elected for on strategic goals through our strategic promise and priorities for resource allocation through our LCAP and our annual budgets. And I don't want the board to worry. We are not going to ask

043you should we buy copy paper at Office Depot or Staples. We have people to to worry about that. What we're going to need from the board is those high-level, this is what is very important to us in terms of how we want our students to be learning in our district, and then these are the priorities for for how we are going to be aligning our resources. Cabinet, our role will be to provide technical data to the budget advisory committee, which I'll talk about in a second, our employee associations and our parents and community. When I'm talking about technical, sorry, talking about technical um data, we're talking about revenues, expenditures, staffing, enrollment projections, student achievement. It'll be our role to coordinate committee sessions, gather and analyze stakeholder input, analyze legal and compliance risk, and then draft

044final recommendations for the board. We will be convening a budget advisory committee, which will have a cross-section of SMUSD stakeholders to review our budget realities, our current expenditures, and provide input on priorities for resource allocation. Uh we'll engage our employee associations, that's SMA and CSA, as collaborative partners to provide input on our priorities and explore creative solutions to address some of our budget shortfalls. Um and then we want to engage our parents, communities, PTOs, DELAC, and our students to define the community values and provide input on what they see as the highest value student programs. Now, you can see that there's going to be some overlap in there, and so when I get to the timeline uh in this in the spring right now, we're going to need to engage the board in defining again

045that high-level kind of priorities, core values, what's what's important to the board. And then our staff, we're we are already working on finalizing the process for how do we select members for the budget advisory committee, how many people are on that committee, how does that interface with our LCAP um input that we'll be working on, strategic plan involvement input. It'll be important to There there will be some parallel tracks running here, and we're going to make sure that they're they're woven together and they're not working at cross purposes. So, we're we're working on that. Um when we get back in the fall, I'll hit the ground running right away and begin engagement of stakeholder groups for learning and input. I think it's going to be kind of half and half. I think they're going to

046be part learning where we can share information and kind of open up the refrigerator doors and let people understand kind of how things work, and then also get the input. Um on our strategic plan, LCAP um community meetings, uh certificated and classified staff, administrators, secondary students, higher ed partners will be important in this as well. And then we are also thinking that that second square bullet, I guess it is, uh there are a couple of committees that are going to be important um probably to peel off and have uh their focus on on these particular items. So, educational priorities through the LCAP and strategic promise, and technology. The board is aware that we are uh already in a 5-year kind of human What do we call it? Human-centered technology plan. Okay, thank you. Um and

047that's that's um that's important, and there's probably enough to talk about there that we want to make sure that gets the attention it deserves. So, we will probably have a group just working on that. And then again, make sure that they are woven in with the the broader the broader conversations. And then, convene a budget advisory committee for learning and input sessions. Uh at the end hopefully by the end of 2026, maybe beginning of 2027, synthesize all this input for development of our L Capitan student to promise and bring bring recommendations back to the board to approve as early as we can in the in the new year. So, that will be Yeah, that will be the overall plan. Um again, it's not easy. Um nobody likes the making hard decisions, but we have to

048do this on our own our own family finances. And I just want to say also that when I when I go through when I'm when I was going through these slides over here about about costs, I I just want to acknowledge that like our our individual employees and families are feeling the same costs feeling the same pressures. Bread's getting more expensive, gas is getting more expensive. So, that's all real, too. Um so, all these things together, we're just going to have to get into a room together with respect, with honesty, with transparency, and and a willingness to to talk, to learn, to give and take, and listen to each other, um so that we can chart a chart a path forward. Before I kind of close up, any thoughts or comments from the board on

049anything that I have walked through this evening. >> I don't I don't know if this has been planned yet or if it's just kind of um in draft stages, but for the committees, so there's three different committees that you're talking about? >> Kind of what how we're penciling it out at the moment. They may merge, they may split, but yeah, that's that's kind of what we're thinking about. >> And is that going to be like put out all call? 50 people >> Yeah, I think that I think that's part of the process is how do we how do we do an all call? How do we select members? I mean, a committee with 78 people on it is not going to get anything done, but two is not enough. So, we'll have to figure that

050out, too. Like, what's the right the right magic number in there? Um so, all that's the team's kind of working on that right now. >> Yeah, thank you. Um I this this is really helpful. I think that this um synthesizes really well the discussion that we had at the last board meeting and after the last board >> Okay, so on tonight's agenda, you've already heard from San Marcos Elementary. Uh we also have sunshine proposals so negotiations can commence with SMEA and CSEA. So you'll get those proposals. Um Erin does have her second interim budget report that happens every March uh every year. I want to just uh call out the hard work that Erin and her team do on this. This takes lot of time. Hours and hours and hours and hours and hours. This

051is the one where you're going to get the fine-grain kind of details. I will I just just do want to preview for the board. Um we have been talking over the past say month or so about an $11 million anticipated deficit. The team has been working really hard. What you'll see tonight is that's going to that number is now about nine and a half. Um and we're going to continue to work. Um we've been identifying even this week some more savings. So I'm I'm confident that and confident and hopeful that that number will continue to come down. And again, zooming out, this is very very very important point is that we are on pace to post when the books close this year a larger deficit than we posted when the books closed last year. So

052this problem is still one that we need to have a long-term solution for. You'll hear it in just a minute. Partly because of that and other things that we're still working and we are still working and we're still identifying more savings. Yeah. Yeah, the reason why we had the the yes, the the the the last meeting was cuz we were up against those Ed Code timelines and we we had to but the work continues all all spring. Um and then finally we have the second read and adoption of the use of school facilities board policy and I want to thank Preva I just want to thank Ted and I know Ted's here somewhere or will be uh for the good hard work. This one has been months and months and months and months and months.

053Um and I will just introduce that one right by saying the board recalls at least some of the board members were here in 2023. We did a global adoption is what is called a global adoption of a kind of a an a refresh uh or an updating of all of our board policies cuz many of them board policies over time they just get barnacles on them and um we did a a full refresh and there were a handful of policies that we pulled out and did not refresh at that time because we wanted to take the time on them. This was one of them. So this one's been two and a half years in the making at this point. Um board first heard a first presentation uh of a first uh a first presentation on

054this one last June. So that was what seven eight months ago. Um and very pleased with the the good hard work the staff has done with input from from some of our user groups and we're um uh excited to bring you the final draft this evening. Questions? Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Communication session. Per Education Code 35145.5 and Government Code 54954.3, members of the public have the opportunity to provide public comment on any agenda item as well as any non-agenda item that is within the subject matter jurisdiction of the board. Per Board Bylaw 9323, individual speakers will be allowed up to 3 minutes to address the board on each agenda or non-agenda item. Except for our our union representatives who have 5 minutes. In accordance with board bylaw 9323, public comments will be limited

055to 20 minutes per topic. In an effort to hear as many speakers as possible, comment times may be shortened depending on the number of comments received. Generally, if there are seven or fewer speakers, each speaker will be given 3 minutes. If there are eight to 10 speakers, each speaker will be limited to 2 minutes. If there are 11 or more speakers, each speaker will be limited to 1 minute. One speaker's time may not be succeeded to another speaker. If there are more than 20 speakers, which would consume more than 20 minutes, all speakers who are not able to speak during the 20 minute allocated for each item will have the opportunity to opportunity to address the board at the end of the meeting. This will allow the board to conduct the board's business during the

056meeting. Per the Brown Act, members of the board are very limited in their ability to respond to statements or questions made during public comment. Unless an item has been placed on the published agenda, there shall be no deliberation nor action taken. The board may one, acknowledge the receipt of the information or report and comment. Two, refer to staff for further study or three, refer the matter to the next agenda. A recording is made of all open sessions of the governing board. Again, on behalf of the Board of Education, we thank you in advance for helping us conduct this meeting respectfully. Lisette, do we have any speakers? >> Yes, we do. Dale Pachenik. >> Okay. >> Good evening board president Andres Martin temporarily. Hope you feel better. Vice President Stacy Carlson, clerk Heidi Herrick, member Lena

057Mume and well Sarah's not here today. Superintendent Dr. Johnson, Deputy Superintendent Dr. Tiffany Campbell, Assistant Superintendent Dr. Joel Garcia, Assistant Superintendent Erin Garcia. My name is Dale Zigman and I'm president of the San Marcos Educators Association. SMEA represents over 1,000 members, not only teachers but also counselors, social workers, nurses, speech language pathologists, school psychologists and other certificated staff. As we enter into another season of negotiations, know that our main objective is to provide our members with good working conditions and to help retain and recruit the finest educators to our top ranked schools in San Marcos Unified School District. Remember, teacher working conditions are student learning conditions. As we sit and support measure J JJ to improve our schools physically, we ask the board to recognize that our members are consistently asked to do more every

058year. We want you to value our time inside and outside the classroom and value the quality public education we provide. I want to also talk about the special board meeting on February 26th. I recall when items for both classified and certificated staff reductions were up for discussion by the board, board members openly were opining the difficult decisions that had to be made within the financial environment. Now that we are at the second interim, it will appear that the budget projected deficit has decreased. Also want to point out that as we move through the years, budget difficulties could be made what much worse if we do not maintain the current tax structures that fund it our schools. This is why SMEA and CTA has endorsed Proposition 55, which continues the current tax rate and funding for

059our schools. Also our brothers and sisters with CSEA have also endorsed Proposition 55. If this expires and doesn't pass, our district will lose over 29 million dollars yearly, or roughly 10% of the budget. To put this number in another way, losing this funding would mean losing one in every seven educators. I repeat, one in every seven educators we employ. This would be truly catastrophic. I know this would make the current situation a true crisis. So, I'm asking every board member and every member of cabinet to please sign the petition to put Prop 55 on the ballot. I actually have a bunch right here. You guys can see. Look. Come see me right after the board meeting and I will have I'll get your signature for this. Um I have blank sheets for the for them

060to sign. When this gets on the ballot, I also ask the board to consider formal resolution to support this proposition. Thank you. >> [applause] >> Brian Jones. >> Thanks, guys. That's my beautiful wife, Amy, passing out uh just a really quick um request. Uh I'm a pastor at The Hills Community Church in San Marcos. And first, let me say we love the district. Um our church exists to serve our community um and we are so appreciative of people like you who serve our community. And so, uh I'm grateful that we get to partner with you, and um we we've always seen the district as a great partner. Um but there's something coming that I believe is maybe um making our partnership more difficult. Um so, you all know about the change in rental fees that's

061coming um about a 121% increase on the auditorium that our church rents next year. Um and even with the update that's changed, it's still going to be a 121% increase by 2027 next year. So, I'm representing not just me, there's Doug Lovegren from SD Church, Kyle Veach from Discover Church is here. I guess he got here before the the cards were filled out. If he's still able to speak, that'd be great. Greg Barnes from The Bridge Church, Nate Gushwa from Salt Church, and us at The Hills Community Church. So, we're asking you to please table the the increase um for another month. Last year, we paid $42,000 in rent to the school. We're so grateful to partner with the school. We're happy to do it. Um the increase next year in 2027 would lead to

062us paying 66,000 next year, which is just beyond what we can pay. And it's even bigger for churches like uh Kyle and their church. Um I also I want to say none of the pastors have seen the calculation of the direct cost and indirect costs. And so, we'd love to see that. I know Ted is probably more than willing to share those with us, but we haven't seen it. Um and I think there was a miscommunication because there was a committee that was supposed to represent churches. And there was a member of that committee that was I guess thought representing his church, but the pastor of his own church didn't know that he was on the committee, didn't know that he was supposed to represent churches, never heard anything from this committee member. And so,

063I'm asking you to table it so that the church just can have a chance to speak into the issue and find something that's equitable for all of us. And so, listen, our church wants to continue serving. So far this year, we've done trash pickups at our school. We've painted the stage. We repainted the stage. We've served the teachers breakfast lunch. We We love serving our school and we want to keep doing it and we want to keep partnering. Um but the cost increase is going to keep us from doing it and I think that it's actually going to hurt the district in the long run by churches not being able to afford um to meet in the school. So, that's all I have to say. Thanks. >> Greg Barnes >> [snorts] >> Well, I'm following

064Brian representing the churches. Uh my name is Greg Barnes. I've been a pastor of the Bridge Community Church for 25 years renting the Woodland Park PAC many years now and first of all, I want to say, you know, from the bottom of my heart, San Marcos Unified School District has been a blessing to my church. And you know, I I just I want to thank you for for renting that auditorium to us. I also believe our church has been a blessing to the to the school and to the neighborhood. Last 25 years, we've run basketball camps in the neighborhood. We didn't charge the kids anything. I personally ran a surf camp. I've been teaching kids how to surf even though I'm from Texas, I know how to surf pretty good. Uh never charged the kids

065anything. Um the North County Food Bank, we've done more food drives in that neighborhood. Our little church has given thousands of dollars to the North County Food Bank. So, the school certainly helped us, but we've we've been a light in the neighborhood. And the reason we've been able to stay in the neighborhood cuz we could afford to rent. So, what I really like to say is I believe churches make better students and I'm living proof of that. I came from an educated family. My father was a doctor. But I was getting stoned before school. I was dropping out. I got invited to church. Uh my life changed after I graduated. Even my math teacher, he said, "Greg, can you come back and talk to to the students?" Little did I know that's going to be

066the next 50 years of my life talking to kids, trying to help them stay in school and be better students. That's That's why, you know, when when they said our rent, Greg, the rent's going from $75 an hour to 166, I go, "Oh, man." Because after COVID, our rent almost doubled. I kind of knew that was coming cuz we've been on a sweetheart deal for a while. But it doubled, and now it's about to double again. So, uh Dr. Johnson, I I know y'all have money problems. I know it takes a lot of money. But try to run a church, man. Okay, it's And like I was talking to this mom this week, she said, "Greg, my kid plays baseball for Mission Hill." She goes, "You ought to see that baseball field. It's like a

067professional baseball diamond." So, I told Ted, "You guys are the rich kids on the block." I'll wrap it up. I know you can't promote religion, okay? That's not what we're asking. We're not asking y'all to promote us. But let us pay the electric bill. We're willing to pay the AC bill, the whatever the bill is. But if you raise the rents on our our auditoriums too much, we're not going to be in the neighborhood. And those auditoriums are going to sit empty when if you let us get in there and rent those auditoriums, we're only going to make your job easier. We're going to make better students and make your job easier. Thank you. >> Thank you. Thank you, Greg. >> [applause] >> Eddie Von Neumann. >> Good evening, board members. I'm Eddie Von Neumann.

068I'm a parent at the district. This district has no ADA policy for parents or adults in the community. Uh I know this from a public records request. And the district has declared there is no guidance. There's no training. There's no framework for how accommodations are handled. And it shows in the way that community members are treated. And this this is because of the absence of policy. Um I attempted last September to engage the district around a simple accommodation request. I encountered resistance rather than assistance. Hostility rather than help. Curtness rather than kindness. And nothing even remotely resembling empathy. I I do want to acknowledge that on March 6th nearly 5 months after my initial request for a formal determination in the accommodation the district has finally initiated a ADA interactive process with written questions. Um

069I hope the process continues in good faith and in compliance with federal law. And board members, if you had anything to do with that thank you. Very much. Seriously. Um However prior responses from the district leadership illustrate why we need policy so badly. On February 10th Joel Garcia told me that because I'm able to speak up here at a board meeting, my written request for my request for written only communication is unnecessary. In correspondence from district leadership, the implication's been made that my ability to speak here publicly somehow invalidates the need for an accommodation that I have requested. This reasoning reflects a profound misunderstanding of federal disability law. Is this how SMUSD administrators properly administrate federal law? Many disabilities involve things that you cannot see. Stress regulation, processing, demands, situational impairment, not the total absence

070of an ability. The legal standard for whether a person The legal standard is not whether a person can stand here for 3 minutes. The legal standard is whether the requested accommodation is reasonable and re- whether whether the providing it would be an undue burden for the district. However, the issue before you is not my health. The real issue is district governance and compliance with federal law. These are highly paid educational professionals professionals entrusted with authority, respect, and compensation. Their job is to properly administer the law. When accommodation requests are dismissed without proper analysis required by law, when there's no clear policy guiding admin, and it takes 5 months to get on the right path, it it exposes the district to unnecessary legal risk. It raises serious questions about whether district admin are functioning properly at

071all. Tonight, my request is simple. Establish clear ADA compliance policy and a framework so parents' requests are handled lawfully and consistently. And ensure that district leadership follows ADA obligations and hold them accountable when they fail. >> Thank you, Mr. Newman. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Reports by board members. Does anyone have anything they would like to report? >> [snorts] >> I do. Um, we had the Grizzly Showcase. Can you hear me? Grizzly Showcase, I know Andre went also, and I have an incoming Grizzly, so it was extra exciting for us. The the thought that they put into that is pretty impressive. They have counseling sessions for parents to go with their kids, and then they have all of the clubs, and it it's just it's a great way for these eighth graders to get

072ready for that that next step, so really proud of that. And then today we went to see Zenzens for board tours, and those sites are wonderful. It was it was great to see the engagement of the staff, and obviously celebrate the recognition. And so that's that's about it there. I did want to note I just saw online that the bond oversight committee has some vacancies, so I just wanted to make sure we got that in the board brief. Um, so that the community can submit applications. That's it. >> I got to see Dr. Johnson do a very complicated math problem today with some fifth graders, so it's good to know our superintendent knows solid fifth grade math. >> [laughter] >> No, it was great. We had a wonderful time, like Lena said, at Zenzens, and

073amazing programs, super engaged teachers, kids big smiles on their faces, so it's it's a joy to just be reminded that we're doing this work for the kids, and we have amazing staff. And uh it was a great tour, so thank you. >> No, I'm >> Okay. You You didn't catch the time that we got to see and play the ukulele, so I think that that >> [laughter] >> But no, but thank you. Thank you, board members. Yeah, I agree. Last night was wonderful. Uh counseling session was wonderful. I know we have a lot of nervous uh incoming uh ninth graders uh uh and parents as well, yes. So, uh kudos to to Mission Hills High School Grizzlies. Thank you. Did you want Okay. We'll go ahead and move on to action items. Uh 8.1, candidates

074for the 20 uh 2026 California School Boards Association CSBA delegate delegate assembly. Andy, Dr. Johnston. >> So, as the board I I believe the board is aware, the delegate assembly is the primary policy-making body of CSBA. Delegates adopt the association's legislative platform. They take positions on other critical issues that may come before it. They elect officers and directors and adopt changes to bylaws. Delegates typically serve as a uh as two-way communication link between board members in the region and the regional director. There are normally two delegate assembly meetings per year. Uh and San Marcos Unified is part of Region 17 with CSBA. And there are currently nine vacancies in this region. So, the board may vote for one to nine candidates. Um and you can see on your nomination ballot, you've got one, two, three,

075four, five names and spaces for write-ins if the board wishes. >> Great, thank you. Um Do I have a motion to nominate a candidate or candidates for the 2026 delegate assembly? >> I would move to nominate the 1 2 3 4 the five who who applied. >> Okay. >> Melissa, just so you know, Melissa is an incumbent. She moved off of the delegate assembly for for a minute, but she has served on the delegate assembly twice. I think that her specifically being from War Springs and being a rural district >> Rural district, right. >> she actually brings a really unique perspective about the difficulties that rural districts face to CSBA. So, um technically, she is an incumbent as well. I would call her. Um so, I would I would vote to to nominate all five.

076No one No one requested any writings this time. I didn't see anybody. >> [clears throat] >> So. >> And I would agree. Uh I would also like to shout out for Don Perfect and Ramona only because it is semi-rural community as well, and it she does represent that area well. Thank you. Do I have >> I second. >> Yes. >> Thank you, member Herricks. Okay. Moved by member Carlson, seconded by member Herrick, um to nominate uh the five candidates uh for assembly uh student board uh um rep- Oh, yeah, sorry. All right. Um all in favor, say I. >> I. Any opposed? Great. Motion carries. Thank you. 8.2 presentation uh and public hearing initial proposal of the San Marcos Educators Association to the San Marcos Unified School District. Dr. Garcia. >> Yes. Uh good evening,

077board members. As the district prepares for upcoming labor negotiations, we begin tonight with the statutory sunshining process required under the government code. The primary purpose of this process is to ensure public transparency by formally presenting bargaining proposals in a public meeting, we allow the community to stay informed and provide input on the issues that will be addressed at the negotiating table. This item marks the formal introduction of the initial proposal from the San Marcos Educators Association or SMEA. Because the current contract is set to expire, the district and SMEA will be negotiating a successor agreement. Unlike a reopener, which only addresses specific articles like wages or benefits, bargaining a successor agreement may include a comprehensive negotiation of the full contract. Following the public hearing, this proposal will be officially sunshined. In a subsequent item, the

078district will present its own initial proposal to SMEA. Once both parties have completed this transparent exchange, formal negotiations for the new collective bargaining agreement can begin. At this time, staff recommends that the board conduct the public hearing on this item. >> This public hearing is now open. Liseth, is there anyone who wishes to speak? >> There are no requests to speak. >> This public hearing is now closed. Presentation 8.3, presentation and public hearing, initial proposal of the San Marcos Unified School District to the San Marcos Educators Associations, Dr. Garcia. >> Yes, following the previous item regarding SMEA's interest, the district now formally presents its own initial proposal for a successor agreement. By sunshining these items tonight, the district maintains its commitment to the transparent process outlined in Government Code 3547. Upon the conclusion of this

079public hearing and the board's formal adoption, the district will have met its statutory obligations, clearing the way for the parties to begin their collaborative work of negotiating a new agreement. At this time, staff recommends that the board conduct the public hearing on this item. >> This public This public hearing is now open. Liseth, is there anyone who wishes to speak? >> There are no requests to speak. >> Thank you. This public hearing is now closed. 8.4, initial proposal of the San Marcos Unified School District to the San Marcos Educators Association, Dr. Garcia. >> Yes, uh board members, in accordance with the government code section 3547, the district and SMEA's initial proposals were made available for public review this evening. A public hearing on these items uh has now been conducted, providing the community with an

080opportunity to stay informed and provide input on these issues subject to collective bargaining. Having met the statutory transparency requirements, this action item calls for the district's proposal to be adopted. This uh is final step concludes the sunshining process and authorizes the district's bargaining team to commence formal negotiations with SMEA. This is an action item with a recommendation to adopt the district's initial proposal as presented. >> Do I have a motion to approve the initial of the San Marcos Unified School District to SMEA? >> So moved. >> I'll second. >> Moved by member Meem, seconded by member Herrick, to approve the initial proposal of the San Marcos Unified School District to SMEA as presented. All those in favor say I. >> I. >> Any opposed? Motion carries. 8.5, presentation of public hearing initial proposal of the

081California School Employees Association and its San Marcos Chapter 413 to the San Marcos Unified School District, Dr. Garcia. >> Board members, bear with me, it's going to feel like a little bit of Groundhog Day here. >> [laughter] >> Um I'll keep it a little bit more brief this time. Um in accordance with government code section 3547, uh CSEA and its San Marcos Chapter 413 formally presents its initial proposal for reopener negotiations. Unlike a successor agreement, this process focuses on specific articles within the current contract and according to our collective bargaining agreement language. CSEA's initial proposal is attached to this item for the board's reference and was posted for public review in advance of this meeting as was SMEA in the previous board items. At this time, staff recommends the board conduct a public hearing on

082this item. >> This public hearing is now open. Liseth, is there anyone who wishes to speak? >> There are no requests to speak. >> This public hearing is now closed. 8.6 presentation and public hearing initial proposal of the San Marcos Unified School District to the California School Employees Association and its San Marcos Chapter 413. Dr. Garcia. >> Yes, following the association's presentation, the district now sunshines its initial proposal for reopener negotiations with CSEA. This provides the community with notice on the specific contract articles the district intends to negotiate for this upcoming cycle. This item is now ready for the public hearing. >> This public hearing is now open. Liseth, is there anyone who wishes to speak? >> There are no requests to speak. >> The public hearing is now closed. 8.7 initial proposal of the

083San Marcos Unified School District to the California School Employees Association and its San Marcos Chapter number 413. Do I have a motion to approve the initial proposal of the San Marcos Unified School District to CS CSEA? >> Second. >> Moved by member Carlson, seconded by member uh Miyam. Uh to approve the initial proposal of the San Marcos Unified School District to CSEA as presented. All those in favor say I. >> I. >> Any opposed? Motion carries. 8.8 2025-2026 second interim report and positive budget certification. Mr. Garcia. >> This is the 2025-26 second interim financial report. We're in the home stretch of budget season. This is the fourth time we'll be seeing the budget for 25-26. And the second interim report benefits from having 7 months of actual financial data. It looks at actual data through

084January 31st with projections through June 30th. The total revenues in the general fund are projected at $311.7 million with the bulk of that coming from the local control funding formula driven by the number of students that we serve followed by state revenues about 40.2 million local revenues 32.4 million and rounded out by federal revenues of 8.8 million that we're expected to receive this year. Just want to walk the board through the changes in revenues since the first interim report. In total, there have been no changes. So, we're still at the same projected revenue figures just a shift in the different sources that we're getting. So, in federal revenues, we're expecting a drop there of about half a million dollars. Just we've gone through and looked at what we're expected to spend by the end of

085the year in some of our restricted programs, particularly our title programs, and we believe that at this point some some of that funds will be carried over into next year. So, we those programs have to balance. So, if we think we're not going to spend them, then we also can't recognize the revenues in this year. So, we've reduced those revenues. And state grants, we've had a couple of our smaller grants, um we've received um notice that they will be a little bit less than originally expected. And then in local funds, we're expecting another $600,000 there because we received um additional medical billing funds from prior year claims that have been submitted. Um that just comes in randomly. We don't ever really know when it's coming in. When it comes in, then we recognize it. For

086expenditures, we're projecting to spend $335.4 million with all as always the bulk of that um comes is for salaries and benefits for employees, followed by services and operating expenses, then books and supplies, and then capital outlay expenses. I'll also walk you through the changes here. Um in total, we are now projecting $3.4 million less um revenues than we were at first interim. Been able to go again um the second interim has much more actual data than the first interim does. We're able to really go in and um reduce based on what's happened so far this year. So, both for certificated and classified salaries, uh what we're seeing there is our substitute budgets um are less than we expected, which is great. Um means our our staff is our our is well um coming to work

087more frequently, and the students are coming more frequently as well. Our attendance rates are up. Um so, we've been able to reduce those also in both certificated and classified salaries, we're recognizing some vacancy savings for positions that um have not yet yet been been filled at this point. Um for benefits, we have made some adjustments between the restricted and the unrestricted side, but in total in net total, um no changes there. Um and then books and supplies and services and operating expenses have both um reduced by a million dollars. Um um I have some words of that um explanations for all of these on the next chart. I'll I'll shift to that. Um so for books and supplies, so we've dropped by a million dollars. We have gone in and 200,000 of that is uh

088reflective of district office department budgets. We've reduced supply and budgets for. And then the bulk of it comes from restricted programs. Um about 800,000 of that is like the most federal title programs that I talked about earlier. I'm not expected to spend those will um will reduce the expenditures this year and we'll add them to next year's budget. They'll become carryover and be spent next year. For services, um but um all of the $1 million reduction there is related to restricted programs. About 200,000 of that reduction is um due to less and anticipated costs for um our students that attend non-public schools. And then 800,000 of that reduction is due to the Golden State Pathways Farm Lab. Um we have been delayed in our approval for that Farm Lab from CDE. And so we thought

089we were going to be able to do the bulk of that work this year. That will instead be next year. So we're reducing the expenses now and we'll um include them in the budget for next year. And then finally in the under capital outlay, it's really the other piece of um of that particular um expenditure category, um we have increased tuition for our students attending the North Coastal um Academy program. This is the results of those new projections for revenues and expenditures. Um we show here the unrestricted and the restricted budgets um separately. There is our 9 and 1/2 million dollar deficit that was referred to earlier. So at first interim, that was 11 million. We've been able to go in, look at what's really being spent, what we think is going to be realistic

090to spend by the end of the year. Um and we're um now deficit spending in the unrestricted portion of the budget by 9 and 1/2 million dollars. Restricted um continues to um have a deficit, which is normal. Uh we expect that. Um in total, we think we'll end the year um with a 71.4 million dollars, which represents a 10% um reserve. That does include 4.6 million dollars for commitments. If we remove the commitments, our reserve percentage is 11.4%. But it's still dropping from last year because we're deficit spending. >> Okay, so does this include the resolution that we passed? >> Great question. So, this does not because that the resolution for for the layoffs and the reductions of positions relates to next year. So, as we get into the multi-year projections, that that's where it's

091included and I'll um point that out. >> Okay. Okay, so that that's not the the certificate and the classified salaries >> No, it is not. That's for for next year. This is the current year budget um which doesn't include those um reductions. >> Thank you. >> Okay, so I wanted to show this chart. I haven't showed anything like this before um that shows the unrestricted general fund deficit, the trend that we're on for last year and this year. So, what happens naturally in a budget when we start at the beginning of there? So, we start um our our budget for the fiscal year in June. But typically before the state approves our budget, before we know all the details, um we have to approve a budget. And so, we it's typ- typical at that point

092in time that we include a full budget, right? We assume all of our staff are going to come back, be hired, and start on on day one. And um you know, we have to include you know, our insurance deductibles for different you know, emergencies that may happen. So typically you're going to see our largest deficits or largest expenses at that point in time in June and as we go through the year we're able to reduce that over time as we see you know, certain things don't happen and we can recognize vacancy savings and different things like that. So you can see for both this year and last year by the time we got to the first interim we were able to reduce that down that deficit down a little bit. And again at second interim

093we able to reduce that deficit. Last year if you recall what happened at the second interim time in March as I was presenting this the budget last year we were also approving salary increases for employees as bargaining negotiations had come completed at that point in time. So when we went into the estimated actuals in June budget for last year we brought those expenditures up because we had to pay the salary increases for the employees. And when we actually closed the books in September that came down again to $3 million. But again last year was the first time in several years we posted an actual deficit in the unrestricted fund and I hope what you can see is that we're on a trend for that to happen again. This year I fully expect the final deficit

094number to be less than 9 and a half million but higher than the $3 million that we posted last year. So we'll continue working and see where we end up landing by the time these books are closed in September. Okay, as we transition into the multi-year projections just the our our budget is driven by the number of students we serve so we always take a look at this chart of our enrollment and average daily attendance of our students. Um this chart starts back in that 2021 COVID year that Dr. Johnson referred to earlier where we lost 1,100 students. So this um this year in 2025-2026, we had a reduction of 365 students and for the next 2 years, based on our demographer study, our own internal projections for next year, we think we're going to

095reduce another 300 students. And then in 2027-2028, 150 students. So that's kind of where we've been um and what um the multi-year projections are based on for our enrollment um that we're going to look at just a minute. The multi-year projections um are required at each of our our budget periods. So we always take a look at that. Um the multi-year projections are only as good as the assumptions that they're built on. Um things change um all the time. So um this um this chart represents the high-level um main assumptions that the projections are based on. Um in the actual, you know, 130-plus page budget report, there are about um five pages of very detailed assumptions um that are are detailed out there. Um for revenues, um again, we focus on our LCFF revenues there.

096We have the Cola projections, our enrollment, our unduplicated pupil counts, uh what we think our TK ADA is going to be. All those numbers is what the that's built built on right now. Um for expenditures, um at this time, we don't assume any salary increases. Um health benefits. This is a change from what we typically um assume in our multi-year projections. We have increased our assumptions for health benefits to increase 5% for the next 2 years. Um we typically have historically have been using 2%. Um we recognize we've looked back that that's just not enough our health benefit increases have been even higher than 5% but that's this is what we're building in right now. Um person stairs are pretty stable at this point person is expected to increase just just slightly next year. We

097also assume attrition saving savings were a large district and we always have some of some staff retire that we replace every every year. Um I have also our F staffing FTEs. So when you can you can see in a next year our F our full-time equivalent staffing are going down by about 40 and then by about five or six the next year as well. Um these represent reductions in staff paid by one-time funds as well as right-sizing as well as the some of the layoff resolutions that the board approved a couple weeks ago. And then we also have a line item in here for $1.5 million reduction that that was approved a couple weeks ago. So I just have it categorized out here. So non-personnel we were reducing $445,000 which is 29% of the total

098reduction. Certificated salaries there at about almost 25% of the reduction classified salaries at 16% of that reduction and then management salaries represent the largest portion of 30% of that $1.5 million reduction that we're planning to implement for next year. Um we're past the point at doing that this this year. Um so we have not offered one this year but is certainly something that we could look into for next year. Yeah, that's definitely something that the maybe the budget committee will look at. Mhm. Yeah, we The last time we offered one was was uh 4 years ago. So, definitely not something we want to do all the time. Um but it uh maybe something we look at in the future. Okay, so with all of Well, with all of those assumptions, um this is where we

099are. You can see revenues are dropping um next year overall. Our expenditures are dropping a little bit, but but not not by as much as as we'd like them to. Um the unrestricted deficit, 9 and 1/2 million for this year, um we're at right about $8 million for next year. And then 10.8 for the '27-'28 year. And our reserves, um because we're deficit spending, drop from 10 % to 9% to just below 6 for that third year out. Again, this is This is an improvement because we've now gone through and made those reductions for next year. This is an improvement um across all three years for since the first interim. We show graphically kind of where we've been um with our reserves and ending balance. Um we have maintained that 10% reserves because we have

100commitments built in for the last several years. Um as we spend down, those commitments won't be in there anymore for the next next 2 years. And then finally, just always like to end with um talking about how the the low COLA and our declining enrollment impacts our LCFF revenues um in the multi-year. So, this year, uh when the LCFF was funded by 2.3% COLA, what that means is the per student funding amount goes up by 2.3%. But then we apply that to fewer students because our enrollment is declining. Um what that actually results in is is $2.4 million to us, which is only about 1% more funds than we received in the prior year. For next year, right now the COLA's projected at 2.41%. When we apply that through the calculation, it's only a 1.17%

101increase or $2.7 million. Um and then the third year, 3% COLA represents 1.13% increase um for that year. So again, when our natural um costs go up by 4 to 6% annually, when we're only receiving funds of 1 to 2% from the state, we're already in a hole um at a at a starting point. So that's why we're seeing a structural deficit run through our budget um throughout the multi-year projection. That's it. I do recommend approval of this um second interim report and positive budget certification. >> Thank you, Erin. Are there any questions? Okay. Good. Thank you, Dr. Johnson, also for the school finance and simplified charts. That that makes sense to me on the visual. Um do I have a motion to adopt the 2025-2026 second interim report and positive budget certification? Move by

102member member Herrick, seconded by >> I'll second. >> Seconded by member Miyam. To adopt the 2025-2026 second interim report and positive budget certification as presented. All those in favor say I. >> I. Any opposed? Motion carries. 8.9 adopt revisions to existing governing board policy. Board policy 1330, use of school facilities. Aaron? >> This board policy is presented as an action item with staff recommen- recommendation to approve as presented. Um our goal in going through this process was to have policies and procedures um that are clear to all of our user groups, that are aligned with the statute and the Civic Center Act. Um our aligned to best common best practices across the industry, are fiscally responsible, um that recoups actual direct costs, um that do not encroach on our the core mission of instruction during

103the regular school day. Um and we wanted fairness um for all of our community partners and no more ambiguity. Um at the February 12th board meeting, Ted Norman, the executive director of MNO, gave a detailed presentation um that in that the district's been engaged in over the last several several months. Um um again, this updating this board policy is long overdue. It hadn't been updated in in decades. Um so definitely needed a a refresh to be very clear. Um and Ted has a updated presentation tonight highlighting the changes that have been made particularly to the fee schedule since um the board met last month. >> Thank you. Thank you, Aaron. Uh members of the board, staff, Dr. Johnson, um it's a pleasure to be back here again with you for for the third time. Um

104at the top I I do want to point out a couple um items. I made some notes as the speakers were talking. Uh four four really critical points that's that's driving um a lot of the cost increases. Number one being the adoption of the by the governor in the state of AB 503 in October of 2025, which allows the district to recoup the capital direct cost, the replacement value of our of our facilities for the Civic Center Act, right? So, that right there is really driving that cost calculation, which I'll try and get into a little bit more here in a moment. Number two, and specific to our religious community partners I've had a chance to meet with and and communicate with. The statute also says that religious organizations shall pay direct costs. So, they

105shall pay the direct cost which includes the operating costs and the capital direct cost. A third point through this transparent calculation that we've utilized. This is not a revenue maker for the school district. It's really a cost recovery mechanism that the state has implemented for school districts to recoup the cost to maintain facilities and to manage facilities. A fourth point, we're spending a lot of time talking about the facilities rental fee. That is not inclusive of the custodial overtime. So, in addition to the the rate increases, the renters, if it's Sunday church, are also paying an additional fee for custodial staff to be on site. So, I just want to make sure that we're we're clear on that part. That's in addition to the rental rate for the actual facility. I was looking quickly. We

106went through this process back in 2021. It was the last time we did a fee study. And as an example, the middle school performing arts center rate at that time was the $75 that it is now. The breakdown for that cost was $18 for operating costs, right? Keep the lights on. And $56 for the capital direct cost. The district at that time was able to utilize statute to go through the same calculation process that we've gone through here in in 2025 2026. Okay, so that's how they came up with the $75. Fast forward to 2026 2027, the operating cost for that same facility has gone up to $40. And the capital direct cost has skyrocketed to $118. But it's at the same escalation rate, right? The the operating cost has doubled. And so has The

107capital direct cost in 2021 was about three times the operating cost. And the capital direct cost in 2025 2026 is about three times operating cost. So, therein lies the challenge with the costs. And what is the driving factor behind those rates? Um So, I I wanted to present that at the top. I made some notes. I think it's important to distinguish some of those those factors. So, >> [clears throat] >> timeline, you've seen my timeline a few times now. We started this process in June. I did add one note here. We started the community engagement process actually at the end of the summer in August. August 29th is when we reached out to the various community members that we invited to participate in our stakeholder engagement process. We held meetings on September 19th, October 15th,

108November 14th. I also met with the city of San Marcos Youth Sports Council, gave them a presentation on November 4th, and again met with the Youth Sports Council on February 3rd. Why that's important is because of the long-standing joint use agreement with the city, those groups have had free use of our athletic fields for a number of years. Board approves this policy, we're going to dissolve that MOU with the city and and those users will now pay a rental fee for those fields. Um, so this has been obviously a a long process as Aaron alluded to and we're happy to be here today hopefully for a vote of this evening. At the conclusion of the board's vote, staff will take time to communicate with the community and provide updated information about the new policies and

109procedures, the different rate categories as you all seen we've gone from essentially two or three rate categories to nine. We really wanted to find a landing spot and home for all of our different community users including our own school related organizations. Just to circle back again on the process that we went through to to develop these policies and and procedures and fee schedules and and whatnot. Um, we convened a dedicated community to ensure the proposed updates to board policy 1330 were equitable, transparent, and reflective of community needs. The committee's primary role was to review and refine, actively review and provide feedback on draft versions of the board policy, administrative regulation, and fee schedules. We also asked them to advocate for their stakeholders. We we felt we had a good cross representation of the community. As

110Dr. Johnson mentioned earlier, how many people, you know, seven 25 is too many, two is too little. We thought we landed on a good spot in the middle and we had a good representation of the community for our community and we really asked them to think about the community at whole and not just their own organization. And then ultimately the goal was for the committee to help the district provide formal recommendations to district leadership so we could bring information before the board. Um, we held a number of uh structured meetings uh participants were included from district leadership, site staff, City San Marcos, youth sports council, faith-based organizations. We also had PTO representatives on there. The formal sessions that we had were focused on information sharing, and we did have guest speakers. Yet, the heavy lifting

111uh occurred between meetings via shared collaborative documents, surveys, and draft reviews. All mat- all materials and draft versions were housed in a shared Google Drive for the committee to access throughout the process. We maintained a comprehensive FAQ sheet where every stakeholder question was compiled into a living document with district responses ensuring that no concern went unaddressed. Whether those questions came in via text, email, online, offline, we we really made a conscious effort to capture all of those questions. Some were more in the form of statements, and we still tried to address those those questions as best we could through a shared document and FAQ. Meetings were structured to prioritize data and efficiency using chat-based Q&A and post-meeting follow-ups to ensure a complete record of the feedback. This We tried to capture the the the number

112of engagement opportunities um really have been striving for feedback throughout this whole process. Um and after February 12th, we we got some, and we'll talk a little bit more about some of the the the the recommended changes uh since the last meeting, but this just captures some of the attempts and efforts on on on uh the district's part to reach out and communicate with staff. We've had uh virtual meetings, uh a number of follow-ups to the meetings, general communications, survey and data collection reminders. Again, all of this information was provided on a shared drive from September to January. Uh again, two meetings in person with the City of San Marcos Youth Sports Council and a number of conversations with the City of San Marcos staff by district leadership uh and and myself. You've seen this

113slide before. Um and again here what I really want to highlight is this is a cost recovery mechanism, right? Our operating costs, our program costs, our capital cost divided by the total square footage gives us the facilities cost per square foot. You take that times the average square foot per facility divided by the utilization hours, which we have that data from from four or five years of data uh when our facilities use platform, and that's how we come up with the facilities cost per hour. So, this in our estimation, this is what it costs to run a facility in San Marcos Unified. So, where are we today? Uh again, based on feedback from the February 12th presentation, the recommendation is to transition to a full cost recovery over 2 years, still beginning in July 2026.

114To achieve this, the district feels it's critical for us to capture 100% of the operating direct costs. And while we recognize the capital direct costs as the driving force on the rates, we will cap that at 50% in year one. And the again, as a reminder, the fee schedule that's before you uses 24-25 budget data because that's what we had available to us when we started this process. In year two, will be a catch-up year. Um 100% of operational direct costs and 100% of capital direct costs. We've provided a fee schedule for year one, July 2026, year two, July of 2027, with no cost escalation, again using 24-25 budget data. Okay, we will hold those rates and cost escalations firm to to what you see before you. Year three, uh the district at that time,

115you know, would review budget data from 26-27 to see if there are any cost escalations. And if we were to implement an increase in year three, we would notify the community in January of any increases uh that would be effective in July. So, try and give as much of a window there as possible. We could probably even move that up to the fall once we have um uh budget data from the 26-27 school year, we can get started on that uh early in the 27-28 year. So, we're we're freezing our cost for uh two years based on 2024-2025 data. And again, those rates are uh provided to you in exhibit C. A two-year phased-in approach reduces the duration that the district's general fund is used to bridge the gap for community facility wear and tear.

116Um high-use assets, specifically synthetic turf fields, performing arts center, require consistent funding to ensure they remain safe and operating for students. A two-year phased-in prevents an immediate 100% increase on July 1, 2026, provides organizations a full 12-month calendar cycle to adjust your registration fees or fundraising efforts before reaching the full rate. And finally, this approach more aggressively meets the intent of the Civic Center Act and AB 503 I talked about earlier, which enables the district to preserve public assets through timely cost recovery. These slides you've seen before, how we've broken down um the user groups in group categories 1 through 9. Um starting on with group 1 being school sponsored, group 2 being school connected, our PTO and booster partners, uh school 3 being school related. This is a new category. This is going to

117be a bit of a shift specifically for our high schools, right? We have a lot of great activities that take place 12 months out of the year. Those off-season sports, they will have free use, but they will need to put in their own permits. It's It's no longer a school sponsored activity. So, there will be some some uh communication and training and adjustment that will need to take place there at the at the high school level. Categories 4, 5, and 6, City of San Marcos, um will be able to rent any and all of our facilities. The city uh the youth sports council will be able to continue to rent our sports fields. Um and and pay the uh the operating cost for the sports fields. And then our school affiliated nonprofits, these are the

118nonprofits that directly serve our students, after-school programs. Uh Students on Stage being an example, Fit Kids. We have a number of partners that work directly with our our school sites and serve our school community. Uh they would they would pay the operational direct cost. And then we get into the third tier, groups 7, 8, and 9. Uh group 7 being your community nonprofit organizations, uh group 8 being our religious organizations, and then our for-profit um partners in in category 9. Uh 7, 8, and 9 pay uh operating cost plus capital direct direct costs. And then for the the uh for-profit groups, they're paying 150% above the full direct cost rate. And again, this is all in exhibit B for you. And that is all I have for this evening. >> Can I ask a question?

119Um I'm I don't know what slide it is. The the one where facilitator cost analysis equation. I don't know if you can go back to that one. Um I just I don't fully understand how No, I'm right. I don't understand how we're calculating the cost um per square foot. Like is the capital cost are we saying that's how much it would cost to rebuild the school? And that's why it's gone up so so much or >> Yes, the amortized replacement value of of a specific facility. So, gymnasium has a replacement cost, a classroom has a replacement cost, a performing arts center has a replacement cost. And so, we've used those industry average averages for those specific facilities. >> Thanks, Pat. That was thorough. Um for you had the slide above that one, outreach and engagement

120overview. Um just out of curiosity, what what was learned from the committee? What feedback did you receive that helped steer the the current proposal? >> Yeah. >> [clears throat] >> That is a good question. Um there were there was a group or two that was that was vocal about the cost increases. Um part of the challenge was that some groups had been considered free use cuz the the current board policy allows for free use. It's it's spelled in there. And we feel it had been misused and so some groups were entitled to the free use. And so when they're looking at a potential facilities use cost and they had been in the free use category for so long, there was there was some concerns and some challenges. I think the board's heard from from that

121group specifically. Um but this the responses, the surveys, the engagements were not overwhelming. It was extremely underwhelming. And so I'll be honest since the February 12th meeting, we've had some dialogue. We've had some input. Um and it's extremely unfortunate um that the the member of the one religious organization that we did reach out to didn't didn't hear our calls. That that's feels like a real missed opportunity. So I I do appreciate um the team for showing up and reaching out to me and having some conversations directly about this. Um but we've started this process back in August and reaching out to folks in in in dozen of email communications. Um but to your point I I really give credit to staff. Um we we I think we really presented a really thorough case throughout the

122whole process and it was kind of like, "Okay, let's get on with it." was was kind of the sentiment along the way. Um surveys, you know, survey reminders, uh responses were not overwhelming, but everything was in favor, right? If the governor passes AB 503, should the district include that? Yes or no? Majority of vote was yes. And and that's kind of how the survey questions went, right? Um so yeah, it it it a number of outreach opportunities and and some missed opportunity there um obviously with with the religious community, but um, I I really feel we we we put out a good effort to communicate and and we had a lot of city engagement and again the youth sports council, right? Going from zero free use for a number of years um, to really understanding,

123you know, where we are through this process. Um, so I felt that was some good work on our part. >> Okay. I appreciate that. I I agree that it's it's um, really unfortunate that the person on Sounds like the person who was on the committee just didn't like share that back out with with the group, like what was happening and to try to get the feedback that, you know, when you're on a committee, you're kind of trying to like you know, get that feedback um, and you're a representative of the group. Um, and it sounds like that didn't happen, which is really unfortunate. Can you uh, talk about um, the phase-in? I um, that's new, right? When when you presented this for information, the phase-in wasn't there. I think that after that you you all

124saw that presentation, there was a concern. Um, and I appreciate that, you know, there was a response. I I was the finance director of our church for three years and I get like the budgets and when you pass your budget and, you know, especially when I was I've been on the board for nonprofits and, you know, that budget is really important and you need a minute to kind of like figure out what you're going to do to to cover the costs. Um, I appreciate the phase-in, but can you talk about um, what that what that really means cuz it still feels a little bit confusing. In terms of like where we are today >> Yeah. >> today >> Mhm. >> [clears throat] >> in July and how that how all that is going to go.

125>> Yeah. Um, so taking the middle school performing arts center as an example, uh, it's $75 currently. Um, after we ran it through the calculation plus the 5% religious organizations it jumps to 166. Um, we looked at a couple different options. Um, by taking 50% of the, uh, capital direct cost portion, that takes that rate down to, you have in front of you in year one, 106. >> 104. So, from 75 to 104 would be that soft landing on July 1. Uh, and then the following year it would come up to the full 166. And so, we looked at that across the board for each of the different facility types. Uh, go ahead. I thought you had, okay. So, some of the some of the facilities it didn't pencil out to do a phased-in approach

126because, um, we'd be actually charging less than the current rate. So, it's not consistent across the board, but there's definitely, uh, you know, gymnasiums and and and uh, multi-purpose rooms and the libraries and the PACs where you see, um, that large cost escalation again due to the capital direct cost. Does that help? >> Um, kind of. So, so we're in How many months is it? We're in March. Sorry. >> [laughter] >> I'm trying to keep my head in the game. Um, so we're in March and what we're talking about is in June, or sorry, in July there's going to be a 50% increase to what I'm going to be paying. >> Not exactly. Um, >> No, I think more than that cuz it's Right? >> So, the operating cost goes up. Uh, the capital direct

127cost goes up. We're going to give a a 50% discount on the capital direct cost portion. And so that discount will vary from facility to facility. Um in the example of the multi-purpose room, currently it's at 75, July 1 it goes to 104. >> 104 which is a 38.6% increase for then that is the facility that the majority of the churches that spoke tonight use. They use middle school performing arts centers primarily. Some use different >> Well, yeah. Yeah, we have representatives from high school theaters which is a much different rate, right? Mission Hills High School theater is going to be a much higher cost per hour because of the type of facility. We do have church groups at Richland Elementary School in the multi-purpose room. That's a lower rate. Um but but a number

128of the groups represented are in the middle school performing arts center rate category. >> Okay. And so so in July it'll go up by 38%. And the following July >> Yep. >> it will be the full cost. >> Right. Yes, 17 months from now. >> Correct. Okay. I have a couple questions, Ted. Um I have a few. So if we look at tier three group seven, can you give us some examples of who those community non-profits are today? >> I know that Universidad Popular is one for sure. >> Who is it? >> Universidad Popular. They use SME >> Okay. >> um frequently. Um the the thing with them is they I think particularly they use a classroom space to meet which classroom is very, [clears throat] you know, inexpensive. >> Yeah. >> so that's a

129great point. Um the statute does not allow us to take the capital direct costs on classrooms and classroom-based programs. So, that rate actually will go down from $10 to $8 to to to have have how have a program in a classroom. >> Okay. So, I'm trying to to zoom out and and get my head wrapped around who is this impacting the greatest? I know um a lot of groups that we've [clears throat] heard from are going to fall into group six, which will have the operational direct costs. We're hearing from the churches tonight, they're proposed to be in group eight. Are there other groups that are being impacted significantly that um that we haven't heard much from? >> Um so, we do have a couple other uh sports nonprofit sports organizations um that do use

130our facilities um that aren't directly serving San Marcos students. The the coach, the club doesn't have an affiliation with San Marcos Unified. Um they're not part of the City of San Marcos Youth Sports Council. So, there could be nonprofit sports clubs, sports leagues that could qualify for category seven. Um there's also it gets a little murky, but there's a caveat where, you know, you talk about admissions, right? I'm hosting a tournament, I'm charging participation fee, you're no longer eligible for that nonprofit rate, you go to the for-profit rate. >> Okay. >> So, it has to deal with where [clears throat] the following the money um in some instances. Um I'm struggling to think of other examples of category seven. We don't have a lot of just nonprofits. I guess um other government entities, uh other

131civic organizations, um charitable organization, true nonprofit charitable organizations, you know, I think, you know, my wife and I work for American Cancer Society Relay for Life. You know, even that's a community fundraiser, they would get the non-profit rate, which would be the category seven. >> Okay. >> If if that helps. >> Yeah. The Democratic Club um uses Double Peak School a lot. They would fall in that category. So, group seven. >> Okay. Um, so to Stacy's point earlier, um that it was unfortunate that the churches were a part of this or it didn't get to be a part of this. Just hypothetically speaking, if they would have been a part of the committee, how if if this is a statute and it is required by law that religious organizations, because of this this this bill

132that was passed, um what how might their feedback have influenced our conversation tonight? >> Yeah. >> Are they Sorry, [clears throat] second question to that. Are religious organizations required to be charged in tier three or is there a gray area between them falling between tier two and tier three? >> Um, so tier Yeah, tier two is just the operational direct. The statute requires the school district to charge them the full direct cost. Operational plus capital equals your direct cost. So, we have to charge them the full cost. We cannot charge them less than tier three. >> Okay, so even if they would have been a part of the committee, it wouldn't have changed the outcome that they would be facing this pretty steep increase. >> The calculation is a calculation. I mean, we certainly could

133have revisited the numbers. I'm I'm sure had these individuals been part of that we would have looked at a phased option. Uh when the when the final calculations were presented back to the committee in January, we went through it very thoroughly, category by category and what the impact was going to be. Do we look at a phased approach? Do we Are we still, you know, July 1 of 2026 seem reasonable? I imagine um that some members would have encouraged the district to look at a phased approach as they did tonight. But really the calculation is a calculation. Like I don't know how else to say it. That's the cost to run a public school facility. The And the And the driving force of that is the capital direct cost. And the state is allowing for

134the district to recover that cost. >> So my question there is Is Is this the statute, is it allowing or is it requiring? >> Uh >> I think it requires. That's my reading of it because it has a definition of what the direct costs and it includes both operational and capital costs. And then right uh directly above that is this the the line I'm that says religious organizations must be charged um at at least direct costs. >> So that's my question though. Is if they're required to be charged at least direct costs, could that theoretically place them into tier two? Because that's operational direct costs. >> The Yeah, I I see the confusion. The definition of direct costs is operational plus capital. It's It's what it is. Direct cost is those two things. >> That's

135what I was trying to say. In the statute, it has the definition of direct costs. It includes both of those. >> Yeah. I think if I'm if I'm tracking the conversation back to your original question of like I think what you're trying to say is like where's the wiggle room? >> Mhm. >> It's how I I think what the wiggle room is is the timing of the of the phasing, which is what we're trying to work with. >> Yeah. And And again, if I may point out, going back to the 2021, the the rates have increased at the same pace. Right? We've We've doubled the operating cost, we've doubled the capital cost. Two different fee studies, two different M&O directors. We paid a an outside consultant to run those calculations for us. It's the same

136process. It's the same calculator. It's the same procedure. And here we are in 2026, and and those are the costs. Had it been skewed, right? And And we're way outpace the capital direct costs that outpace what we were in 2021, I'd be like, maybe we should we could probably sharpen our pencil here a little bit. But we're we're mirroring that same ratio of of operating to capital. And both those numbers have doubled. >> So since I mean, it does sound like we didn't have someone that was involved with at least the church finance side of things, maybe. >> Well, we did. They just didn't communicate back out. >> I don't I don't know that they did church finance or they were just a parishioner at one of the churches. >> [clears throat and cough] >>

137Um an individual was selected from one of our current renters. And it was the individual whose contact information was on the permit at the time. >> Right. But they weren't necessarily involved with the church finances, which makes a big difference. >> Well, and I think I want to go back to your question. Like what would have changed? I mean, I think what I've heard from Ted is the calculation is the calculation. What would have changed is is there a phase-in approach that we could consider, which is what we are considering. Mhm. If I have If I have If I have that right. >> Correct. So, so the phased in is the So, the only thing we can look at right now with the statute is how long does it take till we get till we

138get there? Is that what we're being told? >> That's what we're saying. >> Essentially, yeah. Um then I would extend it. >> And in February, there was no runway. It was just we're going to do this in July. July, and now it's changed to where you did put in a little bit of run- a runway where it will get phased in in for a year. >> Correct. >> So that there's time for people to, you know, with nonprofits, you know, they need to look at their budget and then figure out how they're going to essentially fundraise to to cover their costs. So, they have about a year to do that. >> Correct. >> Yeah. And I mean, is the thought behind this that if if they if they weren't here, if we didn't have the

139the religious organizations using the facilities, then we're at a a net zero? It's not a loss because >> they're not Is that what the idea is? >> Yes. >> Because if they can't afford it and they leave, then we're going to have less income. >> Um it's cost recovery. So, so we're essentially >> the direct cost is the replacement cost. But that's like >> So, you >> If the carpet If the carpet has a has a lifetime of, you know, 20 years, right? And so, we build that in. We know exactly how And but then there are more people on the field, right? There are more people on the field now because people are playing, and that means that we have to pay for it sooner to replace it. So, it is a cost. >>

140Yeah. No, the field part I understand that. I just >> the same thing with everything. You're paying for lights, you know. so air conditioning, flooring, curtains, lighting, rigging, uh you know, these are specialized facilities. >> Mhm. >> And tremendous cost to maintain and and obviously the replacement cost is replacement cost, so um by not having the rentals, we're cost neutral. There's There's lights are off, air conditioning's off, no one's in there, we're not hiring custodial on the weekends. Um obviously, the Civic Center Act is designed and intended for this purpose to invite the community to our public facilities, and then the state allows for the district to recoup its cost. Which is which is the exercise that we've gone through. >> It feels like the opposite of that. The if the statute is requiring a

141certain amount for districts to charge, then that feels like we're pricing them out. Right? As a as opposed to inviting them in or making it Right? Am I just reading it? >> Well, I mean, if you So, if you look at the fair market value of what it would cost to go rent an office building, right? Which is you know, what it would cost it. So, you could pay that or you could pay the direct cost. >> Yeah. >> That's what Yeah, that's what I'm really trying to understand cuz I've I I served on our church's like finance committee, and we rented it out, and it was $1,800 a month. And so, I see these, and I'm like the the costs are excessively higher. So, I just I'm >> I would I would [clears throat]

142just if I may >> not to go too far down this rabbit hole, but I would say when you just in just in general zoom zoom way out, to put a um shade structure in your backyard, I could go to Home Depot and get it for a couple hundred bucks, but in order to put it in the ground in one of our schools, it's going to be 10 times that much or 20 times that much. That's >> why I I I think it's the replacement cost that >> The the Yeah, it's just what it is. the cost for public facilities, public works prevailing wage labor rates. It It's I mean, we see the cost with the bond facility projects, right? >> Mhm. >> You're at a thousand plus dollars per square foot to replace a

143school facility. >> Mhm. >> Um it's it's tremendous. It's As a maintenance director, it's frustrating cuz there's I have to make decisions about what we can fix and what we can't fix sometimes. And we have to prioritize and we have to put things off cuz the costs are real. Um so, this is a mechanism to help us with that replacement, right? As we accelerate the wear and tear, do we have the the funds available to be able to keep those uh facilities up updated? >> I have a quick question. >> The flooring at Santa Ana Hill Middle School and Performing Arts Center was replaced with rubber flooring uh in the last couple years. You know, it's a $175,000 project for for for flooring. >> Mhm. >> It is a 22-year-old facility. It probably should have

144been done a couple years ago, but um >> Then my last question is the the 5% for group eight versus group seven. I I don't want that. I just I don't really understand why. Because cuz in most religious organizations are also nonprofit. I don't understand how their wear and tear is going to be more than other nonprofits. So, it just feels like we're singling them out. >> Uh I I would say that's at the discretion of the board. Um staff is trying to uh differentiate nonprofits from religious. Again, the statute says you shall charge at least direct cost, at least direct cost. So, it is commonplace for school districts to charge something above that. We landed on 5% to have a distinguishing rate above that direct cost rate. So, um again to have a different

145rate category for specific organization it just that's just the way that it laid out. Um so that that that that's at the board's discretion that cost escalation. >> So, I just want I know I asked this earlier, but it [snorts] it sounded like there was some uncertainty. I just want to make crystal clear that we are 100% positive that we are required to be in group three for these religious organizations. Is that what >> Tier two tier three? >> Yes. The operational and >> The I don't have it in front of me. Civic Center Act does um use the term shall in a number of instances. Uh and then there is also reference to may. The board may um uh go through this process and come up with a fee schedule. Um I I don't

146have that language directly in front of me. >> But I I do have it in I do have it in front of me and it does say shall. Shall charge at least direct costs and then direct costs is defined. Direct costs includes all of the following and then it breaks out A is the operational direct costs, B is the capital direct costs. And does with the shall, is that does that mean required? >> The district Yes, it does. It does. >> [laughter] >> I seldomly use that >> not. >> Yeah, there are a couple other instances where the the same statute does use may for other organizations and other groups. So, it is it does say shall, so that means must for religious groups. >> So, there is no ambiguity? >> There is not. >>

147Or is there some ambiguity? No. >> Okay, it just >> No. >> Yeah, shall shall means must. You we we shall we must. Do I have a motion to adopt board policy use of school facilities? >> So moved. >> I would like to make the suggestion Well, we can I mean, I think if we >> If it dies because we don't vote for it, then we try to amend it. >> Yeah. So, moved by member Carlson, seconded by member Martin. >> Okay. >> To adopt board policy use of school facility as presented. All those in favor say I. >> I. Any opposed? >> Nay. >> To uh so so we're >> I have a point the the the I just want a point of point of order that the motion was on the floor and

148Heidi asked for a discussion about an amendment, so I would I would rewind to that to that point. >> Yeah, yeah, is that okay with the board? Okay. >> So, go ahead with the amendment discussion. >> Um given that our church partners are not one-time users, um they're not hosting a seasonal activity or event, um they are regular weekend community stakeholders and they're doing wonderful things in our community and serving our teachers and our kids and our communities. Um I think if if it's the very least we could do is just a gesture of appreciation would be to remove the 5% and bring them down to the direct cost of group seven. I think that's I would love to do more. I would love to put you guys in tier two. I think that's where

149you belong. Um but it sounds like we're legally obligated to put you in group three. And so with that in mind that would be my ask is if we can I know it doesn't mean a lot 5% but if we could at least bring them down to that baseline that would be my suggestion and request. >> I I'd also I have one more question. Sorry. Um if the statute changed cuz from my understanding there is some litigation going through of discrimination of religious organizations from this. If that goes through and the statute is pulled can we bring this back to the table to move them to tier two? >> Yes, any anytime the statute change we follow statute. >> Okay. >> 100% yes. >> Okay. >> And I think to your other question I think

150staff the 5% piece I think we staff is >> Absolutely. >> willing and able to do that. >> So with the amendment or with the proposed amendment from the tier three seven no group eight sorry. Group eight okay. To move strike the 5%. Okay. So do I have a motion to adopt the board policy 1330 as amended use of school board school use of school facility? >> So moved. >> Moved by member Carlson seconded by I'll go ahead and let somebody member Member Miyam, to adopt board policy 1330, use of school facility, as presented. Though all those in favor, say I. I. Any opposed? Motion carries. All right, thank you. 8.10, student expulsion case number 3, 03.25.26. Dr. Kemp. >> Specifics of this case were given to the board during closed session. Staff recommends approval

151of student expulsion case number 03.25.26. >> Thank you. Do I have a motion to approve student expulsion case number 03.25.26? >> So moved. >> Moved by member Carlson, moved by seconded by member Herrick uh Herrick Miyam. To approve the student expulsion case 03.25.26. All those in favor, say I. I. All right, motion Any opposed? Motion carries. Number uh nine. Consent agenda. Do [clears throat] I have a motion to approve the consent agenda for discussion purposes? Moved by member Herrick, seconded by member Miyam. To approve the consent agenda for discussion uh purposes. >> [snorts] >> Uh sorry. No discussion. Or is there discussion? No, okay. Um Oh, sorry. That's All in favor, say I. I. Any opposed? Motion carries. All right, information agenda. 10.1, revision to existing governing board policy 4033, lactation accommodation. Dr. Garcia. >>

152Uh board members, uh board policy 4033 ensures the district provides a supportive environment and necessary facilities for employees to express breast milk during the work day. Updates are being proposed to align with the current legal standards and to improve administrative clarity. Uh key revisions include refined language regarding employee protections and the specific steps for requesting accommodations through the employee's supervisor or district administrators. And also includes updated language to clarify exactly when an employee is eligible for these accommodations to ensure consistent application throughout the district. Uh um as Mr. Martin uh mentioned, this item is presented for information only tonight. We will bring this back for recommended approval at next month's board meeting. Thank you. >> Thank you, uh Dr. Garcia. Um 10.2, revision to existing governing board policy 7000, concepts and roles, and board policy

1537131, relations with local agencies. Aaron, Dr. Garcia, I mean >> Uh both of these board policies are related to um facilities. Um the first one titled um board policy 7000 titled concepts and roles is being updated for clarification purposes only to expressly state that one of the major responsibilities of the governing board is to provide facilities that align with the needs of the district. And in some instances, the best use may be by a third party through a lease or a sale of a facility. Um additionally, uh in order to plan for long-range facility needs, it lists items that should be included in the district's facility master plan. Um board policy 7131, relations with local agencies, is updated to add the board or designee should meet with local agencies to coordinate construction of new school

154facilities or sites. And the district is required to recommend measures to ensure adequate facilities in the city's general plan development. We currently do both of these items, and the staff is proactive at communicating with the city of San Marcos. Um in addition, the policy's updated to include language related to district workforce housing development. Um while workforce housing is uh growing across the state, um SMUSD currently has no plans to develop any work workforce housing even though it's included in the policy for future. >> Thank you, Ms. Garcia. Closing items 11 uh 0.1 organizational matters. The next board meeting regular board meeting will take place on Thursday, April 10th, 2026 at 6:30 p.m. in the media center of the North County Regional Educational Center, 255 Pico Avenue, San Marcos, California 92069. 11.2 Adjournment. This meeting is

155adjourned. Thank you. >> Oh, no. >> Sounds like we need to warn you guys so that >> I have a >> few years. >> I have a lot of years.