001Good evening. The uh Sanatel Foster City School District Foster City. All right, I'm going to call this meeting to order. It is now 5:32. Um, and we will convene to regular meeting. If I can have the children from Bersford to come and lead us in the flag salute, please. Please stand for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge algiance 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 all. Thank you. Uh, we're going to now do roll call. Uh, Trusty Hull here. Trustee Trent here. Trusty Proctor here. Trusty Kim here. All right. And Trusty Brooks, I am here. Um, may I get a motion to approve uh agenda for uh May 22nd, please? Uh, I'll make a motion
002to approve the agenda, but I'd like to move up items 3D and items 3F to the top of the meeting because I know we have a lot of folks here specifically for those items. One second. All in favor say I. I. Uh, may I get uh an a motion for an approval for minutes for the January 23rd and February 27th minutes. A motion to approve the minutes for those two meetings. Second. All in favor say I. I. I. All right. We are now going to move to um SMFCA updates. Good evening, Superintendent OOA, trustees, district staff, honored retirees, and community members. My name is Jaylen Chang, and I am the proud principal of Bearsford Elementary School. I have with me tonight some of my amazing fourth graders. We have Harrison, Dolan, Maria, and Margot. and
003they're going to speak about some of Bearsford's highlights for the year as well as some of our wonderful as well as our unique wonderful community. One of the great and unique things that Bears does is the all school field trip. Every year each class in the school goes to one place and gets to explore and learn together. Next slide, please. This year we we went to the Exploratorium. There each group got to explore and interact with the things there. We also got to learn about how things worked and have lots of fun at the same time. Next slide, please. Last year, we also had an old school field trip to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, SF MoMA. There we got to walk around and look at the art there. We're looking forward to
004where we'll be going next year. Next slide, please. Next slide, please. One activity that we love is the Lego Lab. Every other week we go to a place called Lego Lab. People look forward to this time because first it is very hands-on and requires a lot of fun creative ideas. Second, people like it because we learn things like coding and further strengthening our Lego building system. Lastly, people think it is fun because in every lesson there are topics like making a Lego car go through a maze and building a race. People want this to continue because it is a very educational and entertaining time in school. Next slide, please. We also have great partnerships and support at Ferrisburg. One partnership we have is with the high schools. This year we worked with Samato and Hillsdale
005high schools. We had student volunteers help us with math science and field day in our after school ELO program. We are very thankful for your time and their time and support. Next slide please. Another unique thing about Beersford is beer business. Bear business happen every Monday morning in the LGI. We gather first thing in the morning as a whole school. At Bear Business, Mrs. Chain talks to us about birthdays, school expectations, school business, and what's happening in the week. We also learn about heritage month and kids can make slides and present important people who are celebrated during the heritage month. We end each business with our school model. Take care of self, take care of others, and take care of the environment and our school song. Next slide, please. We love our neighbors. So on
006May 1st, we make May flowers and go out to our neighborhood to pass out the beautiful flowers to share happiness. Next slide, please. At Bearsford, we play games after we finish eating at lunch. So we needed a place to put all our games. The Bearsford Hillsdale Neighborhood Association found out find out about our need and made us this beautiful cabinet. We are very grateful for their support. Next slide, please. One thing I think is unique about Bearsford is the community helpers. The community helpers are people who come to our school and help people with reading or come and read us a story. For example, during literacy week, firefighters and policemen come to read to us and sometimes we even get to try on their hats and fire gear. The CSM football team and women's basketball
007team also read to us during literacy week and they play with us during recess. Next slide, please. We also have people from the neighborhood who come and help us with reading, writing, and spelling. Lastly, one of our neighbors, Trisha, comes every week to volunteer in classrooms and help with our green team. Last year, we all learned about landfill, recycling, and composting. We took our landfill trash bags from 12 bags down to three bags. Next slide, please. We also have partnerships with Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts. This year we had a boy scout and a girl scout who wanted to do their Eagle Scout project at Bears. We had a Boy Scout make sandboxes and a Girl Scout make sensory boxes that move around through different classrooms each week. Next slide, please. I'd like to share
008some things that we are looking forward to. Next slide, please. We are looking forward to the installation of turf and repaving our playground and hallways over this summer. We're excited to have this wonderful new playground and play area. Next slide, please. We're also looking forward to our school's 100th birthday next year. We having a centennial celebration on Saturday, September 13th, and we hope you can all come. Next slide, please. Looking ahead, we are thrilled to pilot project-based learning with our third through fifth graders next year. This innovative instructional approach offers a meaningful opportunity for our school community to grow together, encouraging deeper exploration and making learning more relevant by connecting it to real life experiences beyond the classroom. As we close out the school year, we wish everyone a wonderful finish. We also extend our
009heartfelt gratitude and congratulations to all of our district retirees. Thank you for your dedication and for years of service for our students and families. Next slide, please. Thank you. [Music] Good evening, Superintendent Joa, President Brooks, and trustees. My name is Carrie Betty, and I'm the principal at Highlands Elementary School. Um, on behalf of the Highlands community, I just really want to express my gratitude for the new NDR. It is awesome. We opened in February and we've been using it every day. It's great. Um I hope community has seen pictures of it. It's a spectacular building for our community. Um we had our theater production, Beauty and the Beast Jr. on campus for the first time in many years. That was really great to see. And our grade levels have been doing their reader theater production
010in the multi-purpose room. And this I'm not so sure I'm excited about, but the staff against fifth grade on the new kickball field's happening. I'm going to try and be the referee this year at the age where it's like running around those bases. But last night we had our open house and it was a great event. The whole community comes out to see students projects on display. Um it was a really special night. Um, and next year, just looking forward, I am saying goodbye to Highlands as the principal this year. Um, welcome Carrie Hazelton, and I'm looking forward to moving on to Park. But at Highlands next year, they'll continue the work of building an inclusive school and so working with partners in our special ed department. Um, I'm really excited for uh the Highlands
011community to deepen that work. And we got fifth grade promotion coming up. And it's always sad to see fifth graders go, but it's a right of passage, right? So, thank you very [Applause] much. Thank you. All right, we will call um CSA. Good evening everyone. Brian's busy so you're stuck with me. Apologies. Um, so it's classified school employee week. So I just wanted to take a moment to thank all of our classified employees throughout the district for everything that they do to keep our campuses running. We are everywhere. I'm not going to name all positions. There's just too many of them. And yeah, um, we actually did something a little different this year and we had a party like a preclassified school employee week party. Um, so I did want to take a moment to
012thank Iana Bagara, um, Jennaline Villan Noea, and Terry Benabites. I see you. Um, for everything they did to make that party happen. Um, it was very, very much appreciated. Um, what else do I got? Short and sweet. We're really happy was able to um, settle negotiations with the district. We're hopeful that we will be able to do so as well soon. Um, other than that, congratulations to all the retirees. You deserve it. Thank you for everything you've done. [Applause] Okay, Smeita. Um, good evening everyone. I'm going to give what is probably going to be my last meetup update as president since I will be out of town during the June board meeting. Um, first of all, we have had our elections [Laughter] [Applause] President is Megan Freeman. She's returning to the executive board after some
013time off. Brenda Cooks is going to continue on um as she'll this time she'll be our secretary. Any Wasco will be our treasurer and joining the executive board for the first time will be Andrea Benis. She'll be our member at large. So our current team will officially end um June 30th while we work on transitioning to all the new positions. Uh, Spina is also happy to announce that our collective bargaining agreement was ratified this week. Um, pending adop adoption from the board of course. Um, this past weekend between 3540 or so uh, SEIA members, some of their friends and families joined the statewide fight for schools rally and march in San Francisco. It was a beautiful day. gave us a chance to get out there and fight back against the federal government's attacks on our
014public schools. And I want to personally thank Trusty Kim for being there as well. Our members were really excited to uh see you and take have you take your time out on a Saturday to march along with us. So, thank you from all of us. I know a lot of people were especially appreciative of that. Um this of course is the time of year where we have endings and promotions and SMIA is continuing its tradition of offering social justice awards at promotion time. We award one student in each fifth grade uh class or 35 K uh K uh SDC class and then two up to two eighth graders at each middle school receive this can receive this award. And this year about 40 fifth graders and 11 eighth graders are going to be were nominated
015by their teachers to receive the award for showing um their willingness to stand up for others uh doing what's right for demonstrating empathy to those around them. And so we'll be or those amazing students are going to be awarded with uh for fifth grade books and certificates at their promotion and the eighth graders will receive a $100 check from SMEA and a certificate as well at their promotions or award ceremonies. So congratulations in advance to those uh still secret amazing and welldeserving uh students. Last week, uh 41 of our uh teachers were honored by the district for completing their induction program. So, congratulations to them and uh hearty thanks to their fabulous mentors as well. And last but not least, of course, uh what you know, we have to say congratulations to all of our
016retirees today. uh your lasting dedication to the profession uh and your support of other staff members just leaves a lot of impact on students and staff alike. Um make and you make a difference every day. We look forward to celebrating you at our speeda social in two weeks, but for now I'll say congratulations. I know a lot of people would love to go with you and we hope to see you around after that. But um thank you everyone for uh wow it seems like 13 13 days seems like a short amount of time but the amount of things that have to happen between now and then are pretty astronomical. So uh you know I hope everyone has an enjoyable couple of weeks and a restful summer. [Applause] Thank you. I want to invite our HR
017team up. Uh it's certainly 13 days left. Um to people that work in the office, they go, "Oh, that feels like 35 days or so." The last the last 13 days of school. Um but a message to our retirees and and you have principles here and friends and family and we're going to give you an opportunity to be recognized. Then afterward, we're actually going to take a pause so that we can take some photographs and things like that. But you can also change your mind. You can the HR the HR office is like really you're really you're really close to the HR office. I've already made I'm making eyes at a lot of you out there. You can change your mind. So with that, I'll hand it over to John. Good evening, Board of Trustees,
018Superintendent Oello, and guests. Um, great to see so many people here this evening for this celebration. Tonight we are proud to take a moment to honor the remarkable dedication and service of our retired, certificated and classified staff. These individuals have shaped minds, supported our schools as they make made lasting impacts on generations of students in Sonteo and Foster City. Their hard work and commitment to education represents the foundation of our school district. Please join me in celebrating and thanking them for their years of outstanding [Applause] service. We call up our first principal. Um I thought all right with that uh the first principal to present this evening is Maria Date Academy. You guys thought I have a loud voice. Good evening, board of trustees, superintendent ooa, colleagues, friends, and fellow lovers of recess. I'm Maria
019Datee, principal of Baset Academy, and this is Tomas Prito, elementary assistant principal. Tonight, we stand before you to celebrate the one, the only Mr. Mark White. After 35 years in education, 25 of them spent here in our district, Mark is officially graduating to retirement. That's right. No more lesson plans. No more recess or after school duty. No more trying to convince 10year-olds that yes, fractions really do matter in real life. Mark is trading in report cards for postcards, parent teacher conferences for pool time, and school bells for family and friends. Mark's passion for teaching has never been in question. He believes in every student, even the ones who tested the limits of human patience and probably a few district policies. He's a teacher who doesn't just teach reading, math, and science. He teaches kindness and
020perseverance. He teaches how to laugh even on testing days. That takes talent and lots of caffeine. And I mean lots of caffeine. Now, as Mark heads into retirement, he does have big plans. Swimming, traveling, and rumor has it he's going to dominate the local pickle ball scene. And let's not forget Mark White gives the best hugs. I'm going to miss your hugs, Mark. Thank you for the energy, the humor, the heart, and the honest goodness magic you brought to the classroom every single day. You've inspired not just your students, but all of us lucky enough to work beside you. So, enjoy this next chapter. You've earned every single minute of it. Congratulations, and happy retirement. Thank you. That's great. We are Mark, but that's okay. We're Mark, you're gonna come back up. You want me
021to take this one? That's what you waiting for each other. Congratulations. Congratulations. Okay, next. Jessica, we're open. Yep. Good evening everyone. I'm Jessica Nadi, proud principal of Brell Middle School. Thank you so much for having me tonight. I'm here to talk about Julian Nano who levels up at every moment. Julian Nano came into our district as a national national board certified teacher as a PE tossa and she leveled up in working in teams to make health and physical education consistent across the district and rigorous. PE teachers respect and appreciate her. She transitioned to Tupe and leveled up knowing the power of students teaching students. She organized peer advocate groups of students who have done presentations to the whole sixth grade science to parents and the lunch activities. Then she transitioned to restorative justice TOSA and
022leveled up with the implementation by building a team bringing so much scooter ball joy and crushing staff professional development and parent education units making it fun and relevant. I have no doubt in retirement she'll level up taking tennis and RVing and more to the next level. I'll keep my fingers crossed that keeping in touch with us will be part of this next phase. Thank you so much. So much love from the bro [Applause] team. Congratulations to Julie MacArthur. [Applause] here. If you take me with you when you So, I am Julie MacArthur. I'm the principal at Brewer Island. Tonight, I am honored to recognize Kelly Hopkins and her outstanding contributions to our district. Kelly is known for being a creative out-of-the-box thinker. So, we thought it would be fitting to honor her in an equally
023unique way. I asked her um colleagues, press past and present, as well as a few students to um provide her with a Yelp review. So, here are some of the things that our community had to say about her teaching partner, Vanessa Zelanac, gives her a five-star review. She has been a source of inspiration for students, parents, parents of students, and has fearlessly danced her way into everyone's heart. Her teaching career wasn't just successful, it was legendary. She mixed laughter and learning like a pro, turning her classroom into a place where smiles and aha moments went hand in hand. That was from Sharon Dennis. Cali Williams also gave her five stars for her fearless, authentic, bold personality that has touched the lives of so many. Lisa Behe shares that Kelly has Kelly's years as a colleague
024deserve the highest five-star rating for her precision when advocating fiercely for students and colleagues. Her quick wit transformed tedious meetings. I take issue with that into entertaining sessions much like her dancing transformed school fundraisers into after dark nightclubs. She is one of those rare people who makes every day a little brighter and every challenge a little easier. Melissa Pedro also gave her a five-star rating. Her laughter is contagious. Her energy is unmatched and her ability to ne connect with both kids and adults is truly a gift. She taught with heart, with purpose, and with a belief in every child's potential. Her impact immeasurable. Ms. Hopkins is a one-of-a-kind sense of humor that could turn even the mostish Mondays into something worth smiling about. Our district's Pam Bartfield also shared a five-star rating for Kelly um
025saying that she was the best and funniest master teacher ever from her classroom. Noah Chargard and Aramis um give her retrospectively infinite stars and 10,000 stars. Um noting that whenever the class does something bad, she is still patient with them and she is one of Noah's very favorite teachers. I cannot emphasize to you enough how much our community is going to miss this fabulous educator. Um, but I am confident that she is going to be back to bother us a little bit and to uh continue to entertain us with her dance moves. Congratulations. [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] I was say, are we like dancing queen, [Laughter] David Chamblas from our educational services department. Good evening. Uh let me call Gloria Erlick up and Mark, why don't you join us? Mark, can we get Mark?
026Mark won't join us, but he's the guy sitting there next to where Gloria was. Uh so I'm sure you've you've heard the expression that oh she's an institution or he's an institution. Um and uh Gloria is an institution. Um as all the nodding would attest to um when I came to the district seven years ago um as a assistant superintendent, you know very quickly that you are lost and stumbling unless you have somebody by your side who knows everything. Um, and I quickly discovered that I was very fortunate to have somebody who knew everything. Um, when it comes to who was where 20 years ago doing what and how, Gloria knew it. When it came to how do you get that out of Aries or what is that thing about instructional minutes, Gloria always always
027knew it. Um, she has been an amazing uh colleague to me. Um, and I have seen her touch the lives of, you know, literally hundreds of people in the district. Um, I think you've probably mentored more people in this district. Um, she's constantly on the phone with a new AA who's at a school site. Um, new principles who can't figure out their ZIPSA budget. Um, we we principal we had her in we had her in a principal meeting today about instructional minutes which just you don't want to know. It's just very obscure and and when they said could we possibly do she just stood there and said no. So never afraid to you know lead these difficult situations. Um and um you know in the last couple of years there's been um some new administrative
028assistants in our department and I just I nearly broke down in in tears laughing when I heard um in I thought a very clever reference to the Matrix that they were calling her the gloral. So um we are going to miss you terribly. Um I know you're going to be on your next river cruise mark. you're going to have her by your side all the time, which I know you're thrilled about. Um, and we just congratulate you on um, so many years of of high quality, ethical um, amazing service to this district. So, thank you very much. [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] Carrie Betty from Highlands. This is the amazing Joan Anderson Rad Radflip. Thank you. I just want to thank you for being an amazing teacher. Um, you've had an excellent 34 years in
029education and 18 years she's been at Highlands. So, you are Highlands. Thank you for being an extraordinary primary grade teacher. Um, I've loved seeing you work inside your perfect TK classroom this year. Um, it's such an inviting space uh for students and adults, too. Whenever I need to feel joy, I always stop by Miss Radzliff's class. Um, what I really love about you as a teacher, um, is that you are fully present with your students all day and it's rare and it's unique and I love it. So, thank you for being there for students 100% of the time. You're all in. Um, you these are big shoes to fill at Highlands and TK. Um, I think you're kind and you're caring. You're very straightforward with kids. You have fun. I love catching you when you're
030laughing and your students are laughing with you. It's really sweet and there's a lot of joy that comes out of your room. Um, Joan quietly speaks Spanish. She'll say no, no, no, no. But you've been a great advocate for our Latino community up at Highlands. And so I really appreciate that. Joan has uh led our ELPAC testing. she comes to every single ELAC meeting and so you are a partner and an ally to the Latino community and I appreciate that. Um you're a great teacher leader and we're going to miss you. Um I'll miss seeing you every day. That's for sure. Um and I know that the Highlands community will too. But hopefully we'll get you to come sub. All of you. Um but I think you've had a great career. So, I'm really happy
031to have known you and they don't build teachers like you anymore. So, you're one of the greatest. Thank you. [Applause] Jessica Murphy from Laurel. Carolyn. I need Carolyn Franco. So, good evening everyone. My name is Jessica Murphy. I'm the principal at Laurel Elementary and I have the pleasure tonight to speak about Carolyn Franco. She has a love for math and her hands-on approach is inspiring. Her words are creative and generous. She has a sense of humor and a positive outlook that always makes coming to work and teaching with her fun. These are just a few of the things that your staff has said about you. Oh, thank you. Um, I have only gotten the chance to get to know Carolyn this year as I'm new at Laurel, but I will tell you, every time I
032see her in the hallway, she has a smile on her face even after a long day with her kinders, which is remarkable. Um, she has been a constant on Laurel's campus for over 20 years, and I know that that is going to be missed. Your dedication to your students and your community, the collaboration with the staff, and supporting new teachers are just a few of the things that Caroline does on a daily basis. Some students who had her for kindergarten even shared about her kindness and how she taught them how to read. So, you've definitely made a lasting impression on our campus. It is one that is truly going to be missed and we wish you the best in your retirement and please remember that Laurel welcomes you anytime you want just to come back
033and support students or even sub as well. Um it would not be the place it is today without you. Um and we hope that you enjoy your retirement. It is definitely welld deserved. Thank you. Thank you very much. [Applause] Christina Haley from preschool. Hello there. I get to speak about our wonderful preschool teachers who are retiring. This is Shala and this is Sonia. Shala has been in our district 20 years teaching the most adorable ages three and four. It is really amazing just so you know to watch both of them teach and just I have appreciated that you decided at kind of a later kind of stage in your career to open up a new classroom at lead and be kind of the face of preschool and the growth that preschool was going to be
034growing into. So thank you for that. It was amazing. you are just a stellar teacher who has a big heart um and loves what you do and she's getting ready to come back and sub for us. It's almost been six months and we can't wait. We're like any minute that you can just come on by. So, we're ready. And Sonia is retiring from Parkside Monastery and she's been there 12 years loving Monaster. And what I love to remember Sonia about is going into her classroom and her singing songs with the three and fouryear-olds. So incredibly wonderful to be in that moment, her sitting on the floor and just singing with them and just loving being there with them. Thank you both so much for caring so much and putting your heart and soul into teaching.
035Love it. [Applause] So has been gone for about 6 months already and I'm telling you, she came. I'm like, "Oh my gosh, you're so gorgeous. Look at you. You're so rested." That's what retirement does. Congratulations. Dale Rogers from Meadow Heights. Uh, greetings Superintendent Nachoa and esteemed school board. I have the honor of speaking for two extraordinary women. I'm gonna start with um Mary Messenberg. So Mary or Miss Mary as we call her at Meadow Heights has been with us just this last year, but she made an instant impression on our entire community. She was so flexible and so impactful that she worked herself out of a job and was able to move into another classroom and support there as well. I know she's had a distinguished career also at Abbott Middle School. And um I'm
036very thankful for you to be here tonight because both of these women um they're humble and have a hard time with the spotlight, but I encouraged them to come because we need this moment because every part is as important as every other part. And I'm so honored to share this ending with you, Miss Mary. So, I'm going to send you on to [Applause] um the next brilliant educator that I humbly get to present before you, excuse me, is Daisy Nish. Shitani. Um, I have inherited an extraordinary school at Meadow Heights Elementary and Daisy has been a valued faculty member for a long time, 20 years before that at Fiesta Gardens. Um, and you can see so many of her colleagues are here tonight because they value and care for her so much as I do.
037What you may not know about Miss Nishatani is that she is fully triilingual. So, she speaks English fluently, um, Spanish fluently, and Japanese fluently. Um, she is a deeply caring individual. All of the students that come through her classroom are served well by her. she is able to make connections, build relationships, deescalate uh kiddos who have become escalated, and we're so grateful for the work that you have done. You will always have a home at Meadow Heights, and you will be so deeply missed. Thank you for sharing so many years with us. [Applause] Dr. Rubakaba from our student services department. I'm not sure. I don't see her. Is Vivian here? Vivian, come on up here. There you are. Yay. So, I'm here to uh present um some rec words of encouragement and and gratitude to
038Vivian uh Romney on behalf of Tiffany Canary, who is our principal of special assignment for the after school annex program. And in the words of Tiffany who with whom you collaborate on on a daily basis after years of dedicated service in the annex program, uh Vivian is retiring, leaving behind a huge and impactful legacy of passion, creativity, and educational excellence. Her captivating themed projects sparked students imaginations while reinforcing strong academic standards. Vivian's work consistently encouraged critical thinking and creativity, helping shape thoughtful, engaged, heartful learners. She will be deep deeply missed by both students and colleagues who were inspired by her energy, vision, and heart. Thank you, Vivian. [Applause] [Laughter] She's one of the moms at my school. Nema Tahai from Parkside. All right, friends. I'm here to honor and recognize Mr. Dirk Morrison, who told
039me if we clap loud enough for him, he'll do cartwheels when he does his [Applause] [Laughter] We're going to start strong and end strong on this one. All right, Mr. Dirk Morrison, long successful career in Samato Foster City. I've had the luxury of being your principal and working with you the last six years. So, I want to give you a few vignettes of Durk and my time with you, Dirk. Uh, 2019 was my first year at Parkside, my first opportunity to work with Dirk Morrison. also marked by COVID that year. If you all remember my first distinct understanding and memory of Durk as a PE teacher was it was COVID. We had moved to online learning. There was a lot of confusion in the community about what PE looks like during online learning. I was
040getting a flurry of emails of what if my kid doesn't show up to PE and are they going to graduate and can they get into college? And I and I remember having a real heartto-he heart with Dirk. I mean, I'll be honest at that point. I'm like, let's phone it in, buddy. if they're not going to show up, we don't want to. And he really expressed to me, kids need this more than ever right now. Kids need physical education. Kids need these opportunities. And and I'll be darn Durk, you put on an amazing PE program in COVID. And for that, I want to appreciate and recognize you. So that's that's my first experience with with Dirk Morrison. My second experience is over the last several years, Parkside has expanded from a TK5 to a TK8.
041And that doesn't happen without extraordinary staff like Durk who have a vision. And so right when this expansion happened, Durk had two major responsibilities. One, just by job title, and two, by choosing to do it because he saw the need. By job title, he basically developed a middle school PE program for our school that to this day our sixth, seventh, and eighth graders benefit from. and you're leaving a legacy behind you that the next person can step into and will not have the heavy lift that you had because they will just sustain what you've done for our school. The job you chose to take on that was, you know, you're you raised your hand and said you do it was Durk's legacy for Parkside in our community will be our sports program. He stepped in
042and said, "I'll be the athletic director. We are a tiny school, folks." And so he he also said, you know, I don't know if we have enough kids to field sixth grade basketball, whatever, eighth grade basketball, but we can do track and field and we can do cross country, individual individual folks, individual sports. So we started, I think, with five, seven kids that first year. Is that about right? Now we're at 25 30 kids. And so these little seeds Yeah. Let's give it up to do for that. [Applause] These little seeds that you've planted are the legacy that is going to live on long beyond you. And I just want you to know that the work you've done for our school that we are so grateful for. Speaking of seeds, Durk is an avid gardener.
043So if you're wondering what is Durk going to do in retirement, um we hope that he will continue to work in his garden and bring beautiful tomatoes to our school and and and help continue to feed us. You've just been such an amazing member of our community, Durk. and I want to send you off if you all will help me. Dirk has been a coach and an athletic director, but he doesn't get that spotlight. And so sometimes for our our students, we will cheer. We'll say let's go their name. Clap clap clap clap clap. So we're going to do a let's go D. Clap clap clap. Let's go. [Applause] Let's go D. Let's go D. [Applause] Okay, I have to um first of all say congratulations once again to all our retirees. But I do
044need to ask, is there anyone in the audience cuz sometimes this happens that we missed. Oh, Julie, you wish. You wish. No such luck there, Mr. That was good. So, yeah. So, we u we will be taking a break of 10 minutes for some photos. There's cookies out front, I believe. And uh just thanks again to everyone and congratulations retirees. Thank you so much. [Applause] Welcome back. Where are we going? Okay. All right. We will now move to we will move to 3A. Um the Sanel Foster City School Board cannot act upon any matter that has not been included and publicly posted on the agenda except under limited circumstances as permitted by law. The board may refer matters raised in this form to staff for investigation and or action where appropriate. Please limit your statements
045to three minutes. Do we have anyone in the audience? Michael, can you please check to see if there's anyone online for non-aggenda items? Checking. No public comments at this time. Thank you. All right. We will now move to the proposed we will move to 4 a uh the proposed consent agenda. Oh, wait. So, excuse me. 3 B and C. Okay. Wait a minute. Hold on. Sorry. We're moved out of order. So, let's see. Okay. 3B. Excuse me. Public statements related to agenda items. persons will be called on at the appropriate time. Uh we will move to foundation and committee reports. Is there anyone here from I have one for foundation as Karina couldn't be here tonight unfortunately. Um so on Karina's behalf uh for the Ed Foundation, the Harlem Wizards event on May 4th went
046really well. The Ed Fund wants to thank all the families who came, the trustees who were able to attend, the school staff who played on Superintendent Ooa and Assistant Superintendent Shamblas for coaching. It's rare that we get to gather for a fun event across the district, so it felt really special and the kids had a great time. Last week, the Gilead Foundation granted the Ed Foundation $500,000 for use over the next two years. The grant will fund Project Career Map, which will bring new innovative ways to introduce our students to exciting science-based careers. Project Career Map will effectively engage fifth through 8th graders in our district in science related careers through monthly science focused field trips, including university field trips, industry field trips, and field trips to explore nature, science mentorship camps, and career clubs.
047Thank you. Thank you. Anyone for PTA council? Are they usually online? Uh, Michael, can you please check to see if we have anyone for PTA council reports online, please? Checking. No comments at this time. Thank you. All right, we will move to item four uh to the proposed consent agenda. All items on the consent agenda are considered by the board to be routine and may be enacted by the board in one motion in the form listed below. There will be no discussion on these items prior to the time the board votes on the motion unless members of the board, staff or public request specific items to be removed and discussed from the consent agenda. the superintendent and staff. I recommend approval of all consent items. Movement of uh movement of any recommended consent items is
048appropriate at this time. Is there anyone who would like to pull an item? Yeah, I'd like to pull item 4 A4 and 4 A7. Okay. Is there anyone in the public who would like to pull an item? Uh, Michael, can you please check online? Checking. Thank you. No comments at this time. Okay. Thank you. All right. Can I get a motion to approve uh the consent agenda and remove 484 uh -4 A7? So moved. Second. All in favor say I. I. Okay. So for item 4 A4, believe that's the agreement that we had with Newton. Um I just wanted to ask a quick question. So I see that we have this new agreement for I believe it's afterare and I believe um addendum A outlines some of the costs associated with that. I just wanted
049to ask what is our existing arrangement that we have on that site currently and I think I've asked about this before but when we set up a vendor like Newton to come in and to provide these services what factors are being considered in terms of different proposals we receive because one comment we hear from parents and that we've received regarding this item in particular is whether or not cost to families is a key consideration and the concern that we've heard and I wanted the district staff to clarify is whether or not that this would represent I guess an increase in cost or I think the parents flagged that there was a loss of certain discounts for having multiple students or for being enrolled in the annex program in the morning and the afternoon and to
050the extent that folks were prepared to speak to it. I just wanted to get a clearer sense of what exactly is included and I understand the contract will not go into necessarily every single detail about those individual items or discounts but I just wanted to get a sense of whether or not those were considerations made in choosing Newton and what the existing arrangement is on I believe it's Laurel campus and superintendent Joe if you want to comment as well too I'll comment in regards to discounts uh trustee Kim um the conversation we've had with Newton over the years pertaining to discounts is that they are an independent entity. They are a business unto themselves. They so choose to offer discounts and that is their business. And that if we were to suggest discounts to them
051for their business, I think it's it would potentially be an issue. I'm not running their business. They're running their business. They're providing us a service and if they choose to provide discounts, then that's how they're running their business. So my comment to that would be when we interview or look at these vendors for procurement or for partnership, do we evaluate or any way assess whether or not the cost that they are going to be charging our families, especially in a title one school, is that part of our consideration? I understand they have to pass a lot of other checks in order to be partners of the district. But the concern we're hearing from parents, and this isn't only with Laurel, we've heard this some other afterchool vendor programs as well, is that because there is
052a certain lack of transparency with the way that we set up our partnerships, there is a concern that in terms of evaluating different criteria, they're not sure that that's a consideration. And for a lot of our households, especially dual working households, the single parent households, that afterare becomes a significant cost to them. And so if this is an increase from what it was this past year, their question is, did the district take that into consideration? Is that a factor when we choose potential partners? And if we say had three different vendors who were interested in providing staff to care service, is that something that we factor into our process of deciding which vendor will ultimately provide that service without So, so you asked numerous questions, Gene, I'm going to try and go through them respectfully.
053Right. Um in regards to the process for um the pricing that they're offering, my understanding is that the pricing that Newton is um for their feebased component, that's what you're referring to. You're referring to their feebased program as opposed to the services that we are paying for. If I'm understanding your question correctly, my understand is that the fees that they are charging for the feebased program are no higher than the fees that we charge for our feebased program. So if you if you have information that from folks that that is different than then please by all means I'm happy to have that conversation with you but that's just one data point for you. I can um speak on that as well Patrick. What one process the school district goes through with uh partners is we
054don't want to have a situation where a partner charges theoretically less than the school district in that um it would represent a a real issue for us um because we are essentially pricing our programming so that we can offer it to our families. Um and so you know that also has something to do with the number of kids that are in those programs. So at present our after school program is set at 17 students per adult in our annex program. And so the fee that we calculate um the vast majority of it takes in sort of the historical cost of the program. Uh but we do recalibrate every year for cost of living adjustments and just basically everything's more expensive um year across year. And so we go through a process with our vendors where
055we sit and we show them our fee schedule and we calibrate those fee schedules. I wouldn't say that it's identical, but it's pretty close. It's it's within a range. Um, where it can get a little bit complicated is when a service provider provides services that the school district doesn't offer and offers a discount for those types of services. Um there are service providers for example that do um dance programs or a swim program and the school district doesn't offer that. So that service provider might have a reason to offer a discount on that but not necessarily on the daily after school care. So I think um one thing we try to do is communicate with our partners whether it be the Boys and Girls Club or whether it be um Newton or any other partner
056for that matter and we have several in order to uh get them in contact with families that have unique situations and try to work through those situations on a one-on-one basis. Um, and when there's a transition to a new program, that can be kind of scary because you don't have that relationship yet. You haven't made that connection. Uh, so our staff, namely, uh, Tiffany and Dr. Rubocaba and their team, um, we'll get on the phone with some folks who need to have conversations about this, uh, so that we can essentially put them together. as it pertains to how we choose one vendor versus another. There are lots and lots and lots of vendors out there that want to do after school care. Um, and uh, we have an interest in selecting a vendor that has
057a high quality program and an alignment with the kind of services we expect our vendors to provide. So I think it's more common that we say no to people who solicit our district for um new partnerships. Um and the reason is we need to establish their quality. And so there have been vendors who worked with us 3 years ago and aren't working with us now. Um and and the same is true about the vendor relationships we have now and what process we go through to evaluate um and basically determine where we want them to be. Uh Patrick, I know in our last um negotiation with CSEA, we set new placements for programs throughout the district. Correct me if I'm wrong, but that was a multipleyear agreement. That's right. And so there should be very little
058adjustment after this year. Um, and you know, if you had any additional comments on that, I I definitely want to give you an opportunity to talk about that. I guess one other comment in addition to what the superintendent's already shared um in regards to Newton and their long history within the district. Um I'm aware that um they're they as an organization are very well respected from from what I've heard from families and from uh community members and employees. And um I'm not sure what exact word I'm looking for here, but I know they've worked with families if there's a family has a certain predicament, a financial predicament. I think you may respectfully trust Kim be aware of some families who've reached out to you expressing their um their challenge, but in my conversations with this
059organization and respectfully tell them if you want to make decisions, if you're charging people money, fees, that's your business, not mine. Um, but I'm aware that from, you know, discussions we've had of their efforts to work with the community. They've been around for decades in the community. Um, and um, and so if if that I'm happy to have a conversation with you one-on-one with what you've heard from folks, too. Um, I'm happy to pass that along to them, too. um because I think that they certainly have um made an effort to be part of this community and help the community flourish. And if there are folks that are um experiencing certain challenges, I'm aware they have things like scholarships, but it's not my decision or our decision for the to to suggest them who should
060be the recipient of that. Does that does that help? No, I understand that clarification. Just to be clear, this is not an objection necessarily to Newton the organization. And I understand that thisou is not necessarily the for fee to consumers and families. This is the agreement that we're doing as a district. The reason I flag this issue is earlier this year we had a controversial setup at College Park that also involved after school care that also involved kind of an emerging set of circumstances where a lot of parents felt that there wasn't transparency in the process. It wasn't clear why that particular arrangement came up. And so it feels like a recurring issue we're having where with these very important partnerships for very important aspect especially for parents in our district there isn't a lot
061of transparency there isn't a lot of clarity in terms of how these processes are done and I think the concerns the parents raise is valid again we're not telling any of our vendors how to run their business but if multiple vendors meet all of our criteria have the qualifications have the trust of the community it would be important to me to know whether or not some of those vendors are then willing to also make sure that they're more affordable and accessible to those families ideally in something in writing or a commitment as we decide between say top two top three candidates and also to know that parents had a some say in that conversation and I think that's the complaint that we hear the most for a lot of these after school programs is we
062obviously have our own procurement processes that are taking precedence here but to the extent that we could have engaged parents at most of these sites to have a conversation about which vendors they would prefer to work with one thing we heard from both Fiesta Gardens parents and college park parents and to some degree aid parents is that if their children are in the Spanish or Mandarin immersion program, it would have been nice for the afterchool care vendor to also have a Spanish or Mandarin immersion program or if it's going to be the annex to make sure that we can hire teachers who are able to provide that same type of service. And so I do think that the reason we get so many comments about these types of issues in particular is because parents feel
063like they don't have a standard process. They get blindsided by the announcement and then we hear questions and concerns like these. Uh Trusty Tren, I know you had some questions as well. So, I'll defer to you. I mean, I would just say that this um the situation so we received um an email from a parent earlier today and um I think just raised some of these questions and um I apologize. I just realized that um Superintendent Osho didn't receive the email or at least wasn't on the email thread. Um but I I I think this is a a pretty different situation from what happened um with College Park. But I do, you know, I do appreciate that um parents may have opinions about what after school providers are operating at their school. I think there's
064just also I just want to make clear to um the public that there's a lot of um I think there's just a lot of considerations that are not always necessarily apparent um upon you know just considering the the issue of after school care and and before school care. So, and I also want to to make sure that our you know that we are adhering of course to um agreements that we've made with CSEA. So, um I think just in general there may have been confusion with this parent. I'm not totally sure um with you know maybe they thought that the contract uh was you know I mean cuz the what we're adopting is um what the district is paying but then what the parent was raising was what they were paying. So I think we're
065you know it's not exactly you know what what the parent had raised. Um but in general I think um it it is useful to you know just make sure that we are as superintendent OOA indicated we're continuing you know we're sort of continually evaluating these vendors and making sure that they are providing what we need them to. So that's yeah my my comments. Thank you. That's all on that one unless we have any other comments. Yes. Uh should I move on to A7 or does anyone else have comments anymore? So A7 I just want to clarify. So I I understand what the resolution says. Is this a resolution that we typically just pass as part of routine business every year in terms of just giving us that flexibility to I guess it sounds like move
066unappropriated fund balances around to different classifications. This it's a it's an annual. Yeah. I just wanted to clarify because absolutely yeah we bring it forward every year. Yeah. Okay. Because it does give us kind of flexibility beyond what originally budgeted which seems to make sense to have that flexibility. But it just if it's part of our just annual routine that I have no further questions that one. Yep. Thank you. And thanks for the context on your comments too. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. With that, um, we'll make a Can I get a motion to approve? A motion to adopt items 4 A4 and 4 A7. Second. All in favor say I. I. I. Right. We will move to uh B. Excuse me. 4B. No, no, no. Sorry. I always get this one. So, could we
067uh promote uh executive director Cruz? She's going to be presenting the item on um the school district mandarin plan. Michael, could we uh promote Ala Beretta Cruz to panelist? Yes, she should be now. Good evening, uh, Superintendent OOA and board of trustees. My name is Ala Petta Cruz. I'm the executive director of multilingual learner services here in the San Mato Foster City School District and I'm excited to be here tonight to share with all of you the Mandarin the first ever Mandarin dual language immersion plan that uh we have in place now. So I'm just going to take one minute to um share that with you. Okay. So, uh for tonight I do have a uh short agenda but I plan to make it very um significant in terms of the content. I want to
068start out by sharing the rationale for creating this Mandarin district dual immersion plan. the goals of the plan, the process that the task force, the Mandarin task force took to develop the plan, the current outcomes that we see so far, and some of our next steps to be able to implement this plan. So, to start us off, I want to share um why it was important to us, our district, to create this Mandarin dual language immersion plan. And before I share some of the reasons, I want to share with you some of our student demographic information as far as who participates in this Mandarin dual language immersion program. So, as of last year of 2023 24, we had a total of 552 students participating in the Mandarin dual language program from preschool all the way
069up to 8th grade. But when we think about the majority of the students, these were in our elementary college park kindergarten through fifth grade with a total enrollment of about 364 students. In terms of their ethnicity, uh most of our students participating in the elementary grades were of Asian origin. In terms of their home language, most of the students spoke English as their home language, followed by Chinese Mandarin and uh Chinese Cantonese. And in terms of their language status, most of our students over 50 53, sorry, I can't see the number because I'm blocking it. 54% of our students are English only. 22% are learning English as a second language. 16% are students who were former English learners who have reclassified and 8% of them reclassified at the first time of taking the um LPAC
070assessment. So that's just a general picture of who our students are who are currently in the program. So one of their first reasons for creating this Mandarin dual immersion plan was uh to have an increase in collaboration and articulation across the three schools that serve the Mandarin dual immersion program. First of all, Turbo Preschool, followed by College Park Elementary School. And at the middle school, we see Bayside Middle School Academy hosting um our Mandarin dual language. And just to add another fact, this year we have 62 students participating in the middle school Mandarin dual language program. Another reason why we thought it was important to create this plan was because we wanted to make sure that our Mandarin dual language students experience success and to achieve that we want to make sure the program is
071aligned to the guiding principles for dual language education. So we had a lot of um documents that we used to base our uh creation of the Mandarin dual immersion plan. The second one is to ensure alignment with our newly adopted San Mato Foster City School District multilingual learner district plan which we just adopted last summer. And lastly, we also wanted to ensure that our Mandarin program also has the same guiding principles as our Spanish dual immersion program which is housed at Fiesta Gardens and Abbott Middle School. Um, a third reason uh was to address a current achievement gap that we notice is happening specifically at the elementary grades at College Park. Um, as you can see from this graph, back in 2023 24, when we look at the students taking the CASP ELA and math
072assessment, we notice an achievement gap between our students who are considered multilingual speakers compared to our Asian and white students. And we also see that gap between our students with disabilities. So these were some of the reasons why we thought it would be important and essential to develop this plan to guide the education of dual language Mandarin um in our district. And now I want to share with you some of the goals that the plan has. Uh first of all uh the first and a very important goal is to ensure alignment between the preschool all the way up to the 12th grade. meaning our high school partners. So making sure that we have alignment between all of these grade levels and all of these schools. The second goal is to increase access. So we offer
073this amazing program, the Mandarin dual immersion program, and we want to make sure that we are giving access to more students throughout the district and more families are aware of this program. The third goal is to ensure that we build teacher capacity to be able to uh support the goals of the program and deliver the best pedagogy possible. Fourth, uh we want to ensure that we have high quality dual language Mandarin instruction happening in all of our classrooms across the district. And lastly, we want to make sure that we strengthen the community engagement that happens in the Mandarin dual language program through offering parent education, offering opportunities for parents to learn about what dual language uh programming means. And um as a former dual language immersion teacher myself and dual language administrator, I know that
074um it is essential to be able to develop all of these goals in order to have a thriving and successful dual language program. So now I want to talk about the the Mandarin task force and the process that we took to develop this um document. So as I mentioned earlier uh we had a strong research base to fall on when it comes to developing a program or uh a plan like this. Um the first one being the guiding principles for dual language education which provides us with seven strands that need to be included in a successful dual language immersion program. The second one is using the actful world readiness standards for learning languages. So these standards um offer us guidance as far as what students need to be able to learn in terms of reading,
075writing, listening and speaking and across the five C's to achieve uh success for students. We also used the California English learner roadmap which has four guiding principles to ensure that our multilingual students were being served. And lastly, uh we also based it on our newly adopted multilingual learner district plan. And um our task force represented all of our three schools, Turbo, College Park, and Bayside. We had 22 task force members including our lead consulting consultant Wendy Chong from the Stanford Rural Language Project and um you know we had parents nine parents, eight teachers and five administrators. So we were meeting on a monthly basis. So to give you a brief overview of the timeline, uh we started to meet from August of last year all the way through January of this school year. And um
076our conversations were very rich. Each of our meetings was um about learning what is the best practice in a dual language program. What are the components? And it was a reach rich conversation because we had parents, teachers and administrators contri contributing their ideas, their thoughts about what would make a more successful program. But throughout our meetings, we were able to achieve our goal, which was to develop all of the chapters in this Mandarin dual language program. And um knowing that we serve a wider community, we were able to offer input uh to all the families and staff members who participate in the Mandarin program by sending out surveys to them and having an in-person session with families. We did the same with the staff members. They were able to provide their feedback on the program
077through a survey and as a task force we were able to come together with every member to give our final input on the development of this plan and all of the all of its chapters and recommendations as well. So now uh to mention some of the outcomes that we see so far and that we hope to achieve. The first uh and our biggest outcome is the completion of the Mandarin District plan which has 11 chapters covering all of the main domains of what makes a successful dual immersion program from um the history of our program to the benefits of dual language education to the assessment staffing professional development enrollment guidelines And lastly, we finish up the plan with a summary of our recommendations. And I just want to share a couple of those recommendations. So
078the first one is around the program model itself. Uh the task force is recommending that the Mandarin program be a 5050 model. Um, and we recommend this because we do not have currently the student population to be able to offer a different type of model. In a 9010 model, we would need to have a balanced of native Mandarin speakers, bilingual speakers, and English only speakers to be able to offer a 9010 model. So our recommendation is that we continue to be a 50/50 dual immersion program and specifically calling ourselves a one-way dual immersion program which means that we mostly serve Englishonly students who want to learn Mandarin as the target language and we do that to achieve the goals of bilingualism and biiteracy academic achievement and social cultural competence. Another recommendation that we make as
079a task force is that we continue the traditional Chinese writing system at the elementary grades and then transition into the simplified Chinese writing system in the middle school grades to be able to provide access to our speakers of both writing systems. Um, in addition to that, we also recommend that we continue the creation of thematic units in the elementary grades. And this work started this year with our lead consultant, Wendy Chung, who has been working with our College Park staff around being able to develop thematic units that integrate content with learning language and literacy. Another recommendation is around professional development. Our teachers at College Park have been participating in professional development over the last few years, specifically around strategies for teaching the language and also constructive conversations, which is one of our district's signature strategies
080for supporting multilingual learners. And so we recommend that this professional development keep happening in the coming years to be able to support our educators to be effective teachers of dual language. And in terms of staffing, we are also making a couple of recommendations. The first one being that we transition the middle school pathway and the middle school uh role to be able to teach content and language, meaning that we want to see Mandarin being taught in a content area. And in our plan, we've made the recommendation that that be in social studies, which means that we need to hire a teacher who would have the credentials to be able to teach both content and language. And in addition to that, because our plan is making a lot of recommendations around instructional support, curriculum development, and
081professional development, the task force is also recommending that we hire a Mandarin dual language immersion teacher and special assignment who can support programming across all three schools, preschool, elementary, and middle school. And uh a final recommendation is around family awareness and learning. Um dual language programs we require a lot of parent orientation. And the reason for this is because we don't want to see attrition happening at the middle school level. So that means that families that enroll their children in these programs need to be aware of the commitment of ensuring that their child remains in the program for the duration which in our district is from preschool or kindergarten all the way through the end of middle school. And that requires having parent orientation, parent education around what are the guiding principles for dual language
082programming. Uh what are the um standards that we're teaching besides the common core standards? We also teach language and culture standards and also um the enrollment commitments and the assessments that we offer in our program. So in our dual immersion program, students do have to take assessments in English and in their the target language. So families need to be aware of that as well. So, just to summarize and offer some of our next steps, um just like our Spanish immersion district plan in our multilingual district district plan, we envision an implementation timeline that will take several years with next year being an installation phase in which we want to focus on professional development, training our teachers, our school leaders, ers around these guiding principles, being able to offer um more support to our teachers specifically
083around those thematic units and also being able to look at how we monitor and track the progress that our multilingual students are making in our Mandarin dual language program within our district and then outside of our district when they go out to high school. So, we know that we have to be able to track all of that data um long term and to be able to offer more um information to our families and district leaders around the success of these programs. And again, we envision this to happen across several years to be able to implement all of these recommendations. Um, so that is all that I have for you tonight and I welcome any questions or feedback from all of you. Thank you for that wonderful report. Do we have any board questions? Um, yeah,
084I have some questions. Um, thank you, um, Miss Barera Cruz. I have a question regarding the um you you mentioned that expanded access is one of the goals. Um and then by expanded access I think you had mentioned basically um making sure that families um are aware of these programs and are able to to at least apply for them. Um is there any discussion? Um I know that we've made a lot of strides with respect to the um fiesta deion which has been really great for for kind of um letting more people know about that and access those programs. Um but then uh you also mentioned that there and and I apologize if this is a you know an incorrect paraphrasing but um basically that you know we don't really have the um this the
085population to be able to do 50/50 and so it's it's uh the program as it is currently is um essentially focusing on Englishonly students. Is that correct? We um Yes, I would love to answer that question. So um to go back to the uh increase access, yes, we would like like to recommend that we provide more information about our Mandarin dual language program to our families when they are first registering in our district. So that's something that we can work as a task force to be able to achieve. And in terms of the dual language program model that we offer, we currently offer a 5050 model, which means that the number of minutes that students spend learning Mandarin is about the same as the minutes they spend learning English. So we balance some subjects in
086English and some subjects in Mandarin. um we do not have the student population to offer a 9010 model which requires having more Mandarin native speakers in the future if we were to see more Mandarin speakers enroll in in the Mandarin program. We would be able to shift to that model. Got it. Thank you. Thank you for the clarification. Um I also had a question. Um, regarding um you mentioned that one recommendation is basically to have one of the core subjects be taught in the target language. Have we done any um I mean I can only imagine that there's not that many people out there who have both the language skills and the social studies middle school credential. And so I'm wondering, have we figured out whether there is even like a big enough pool of
087people who could potentially fit these qualifications? Um, we have not done that research, but from speaking and working in other districts that do offer Mandarin dual language, I know that um, if we go out and, you know, specifically search and work with our human resources department, we might be able to recruit and retain someone with those qualifications as we're currently doing it in our Spanish dual language program. Okay. Thank you. Um, and then I think my last question currently is the it said in the report that students in the gate program have been receiving Mandarin as a world language um as of last year. Is that continuing? Cuz I had actually heard feedback with that that we it wasn't consistent or wasn't necessarily h I don't know. I just that I just had just heard
088from um a parent in the gate program that this wasn't it didn't happen this year and so I just wanted to clarify um I don't have information about that specifically as our task force focused mo mainly on the Mandarin dual immersion program but I can certainly get back to you on that. Thank you. Um I had a similar question as um Trusty Trin about just kind of outreach and access. So, just reading the document, the district plan, master plan, um the first sentence under background says, "Dual language education offers powerful opportunities for students who may be furthest from educational equity." So, I'm just curious how we are reaching out to those that are furthest from educational equity to make sure that they're part of this program um early on. Yes, that's one of the recommendations
089that we're making as a task force is to be able to develop more opportunities to make families aware of these educational uh opportunities which are certainly very uh successful and um in when it comes to educating multilingual students, dual language programming offers the best outcomes for multilingual students. So that's one of the the recommendations that we would like to make. um it's not currently happening, but we hope that um we can start doing that. Do you know how many students enter this program um that are like demanding that they enter because they know about it versus how many we've reached out to and brought in new like from the community? Um I'm not aware of that information yet. meaning like people who come in being aware of the program already versus I mean a lot
090of people know about the program they it's it's you know popular um but I'm just curious how many families new families are we going out and saying hey we have this wonderful program you may never have heard of it we'd like you to be part of it and um you are one of the furthest from educational equity um groups of people that we would like to include. And if I can um executive director Baretta Cruz, if I can talk for a minute on this um one of the initiatives that we've had in place now four years, um and is predicated on wanting to reach families who um about half the time they don't actually have a student in our district yet. They'll have a three or fouryear-old or 5-year-old. Um, and so they're our neighbors,
091but they're not yet our students. And so when we hold the fiesta option event in North Central, we send uh invitations to all residents, not just all students. And that is a very important distinction because it ends up creating um a buzz in the community about the event itself. Um perhaps Dr. Wuakaba would know the exact number, but our first year um at the Fiesta, we had 140 families come through and sit with us. College Park, Fiesta, Northshore View, and Parkside all had uh presentations and had um uh folks there talking to families. And then we staff the event with uh community service specialists who actually help families apply on the spot that day um to take barriers away that might otherwise get in the way. And so we were happy that first year with
092150 and then if you recall Dr. Ruba the second year there was this awful rain. It was like the rainiest day of the year that one Saturday. Uh, and we still had almost 250 people show up, but I think this last year was in excess of 550 families. Just under 600. Yeah, just under 600 families. And many of them actually, the interesting thing is they'll show up and they'll say, "My child is one or my child is two." And so the I guess you could say the engagement or the outreach starts even before they're anywhere near school age. And we do keep documentation on everybody who comes through the door. Um, so we have like address and zip code and like what quote unquote neighborhood school they would attend. But what we don't necessarily have
093cuz they're not our student yet is whether or not they would qualify for a free and reduced lunch program or whether or not they're um their dominant English speaking at home. So those you kind of figure out once the kids start to apply. I think um I don't know. I think we always want to just create more access. So, I don't know that we would ever necessarily feel like we achieved that goal. Um, but we would always want to aim for it. Thank you. Anyone else from the board? All right. We will have uh Esther Chen. uh guenino superintendent orcha and members of the board of the trustees and u district directors no leaders yeah my name is Esther Chao I am the third grade mandarin teacher at college park and a member of the
094uh mandarin task force team I've been teaching in the mand immersion program for over 17 years and 14 years is in uh right in the college park. So tonight I'm speaking on behalf of our staff know especially the men team you know with deep gratitude you know thank you you know superintendent archa and assistant superintendent and chamblies and executive director Berea Cruz you know for your leadership and commitment to multilingual education in developing our district the first preka manding master plan. Woohoo. This is a milestone that many of us know we have been hopeful since the early days of the program know and this plan give us the foundation we need um to align the instruction in both English and mandering you know and maintain the consistency across school you know from preschool and elementary
095school and then the high school you know and also help our student grow confident you know bilingual and bilitur uh biculture sorry bicultural learners. So as a teacher, you know, who cares deeply about the multilingual learning, you know, I'm incredibly grateful for this opportunity, you know, for teachers to collaborate and strengthen our program, you know, we really really appreciate. So while we celebrate the process, you know, um I noticed, you know, that the in the master plan outlines in next school year know 2025 to 26 is a installation phase, you know, which is um next year. We are really really exciting about that but we would like to know more about what does it look like and what does he including in and then what kind of staffing or professional development and al like onsite
096support that we will get you know we would like to know more about that and I also noticed you know um in the master plan you know they recommend a manding to sign you know for our school district you know so I am um someone who leading professional development through the Stanford world language larger without consultant know so I I have been seeing firsthand know how much impact know a full-time TOSA can have in supporting instruction development curriculum and mentoring teacher that kind of support know will really meaning you know for to enhance uh the education for our teachers and students you know so um I just want to say again I thank you so much you know for your time and listening to our teachers no voice you know, and for ongoing investment in
097multilingual learners. I'm really proud to be part of this important work and this amazing community, you know, thank you so much, you know. Yeah. Thank you. Next, we'll have uh Bernard Thai Ben. Oh, join. Sorry about that. All right. Um, good evening trustees, superintendent, and staff. Thank you for the opportunity to speak today. My name is Ben Thai. Um, and my daughter goes to College Park. Uh, I also served on the Mandarin Master Plan Task Force and was able to attend each session of the of the task force. Uh I first want to express my gratitude for the leadership provided by Ala and Wendy uh on the establishment of the task force and guiding it over the course of over six months. Uh I am also very grateful for the welcoming and collaborative environment that
098principal Estanina provided so that we could do our work. And last but not least, I want to thank the teachers and parents and administrators who took time out of their busy days um and evenings uh to develop the master plan. Participants spent a minimum of 3 hours and I'm guessing my best guess up to 40 hours um between all the meetings and taking feedback from parents via surveys and listening sessions. Uh I'm proud to say that the result of this work is a master plan that will benefit all students, teachers, and and families. For parents who are new to the program like I was 5 years ago, um this gives valuable insight into the program and sets parent expectations for student performance. It provides structure and support for the development of teachers in a dual
099language immersion program. Um, it prevents students from being left behind, whether they're a Mandarin or English language uh, learner. Overall, the master plan sets a vision for great teachers and administration to do their best so that our children can achieve their fullest potential. A great way to implement that vision is with the recommended TOSA role that this allows teachers to focus on students and principles to focus on the school. Uh instead of needing to independently develop curriculum and assessments and track the progress of a dual language immersion program um and doing it by themselves. uh having someone to think and act tactically in the early stages will be critical to the program's success. I'm truly grateful for the funding um that allowed for this master plan to be made. Um, and I hope that the
100board approves the master plan in its entirety. Uh, so that Turnbull, College Park, Bayside are all able to build upon the success that they've had uh, with a comprehensive program from PK to 8th grade. Right. Thank you. Thank you, Emil. hi. Um, my name is Amy Laauo and I have uh two students who uh two girls who came started at Turnbull. One is at College Park this year and the other one is at Bayside. Um and we have had a great um experience. Um before I begin, I want to sincerely thank Miss Raer Cruz and the district and the board for genuinely considering community input input and inviting both parents and teachers to be part of this um task force master planning. So, I I really want to recognize how special and how rare this
101is because so I was a high school teacher in New York City on the East Coast. And when I told my old educational friends, they're like, "What is your school district doing?" Like, they thought we were crazy. But honestly, it was great because I've never seen a district proactively proactively engage the community and parents in master planning in this way. And as someone who has taught in both high need schools and gifted and talented programs in New York City, for me, equity and access informed every question I asked during my time on the committee. And I really want to express my sincere appreciation to Miss Bara Cruz and the district for bringing Miss Chong in from the Stanford World Languages Project to ensure that we are aligned with the latest best practices in bilingual Mandarin
102education in the US. Because at College Park, frankly, many families bring valuable experience with Mandarin instruction. However, the experience of learning Mandarin in America is fundamentally different than learning it in China or Taiwan or somewhere else where it is the dominant language. And this expert guidance from Miss Chong has been essential in helping us balance the high aspirations for language fluency with the realities of second language learning in an English-speaking environment while also prioritizing equity so that every student has the support and opportunity to succeed in bilingual Mandarin education. And so as the committee explored um these researchbacked best backed best practices for bilingual Mandarin and English education in the US, we g we gained as parents and task force, we gained a clear understanding of what it truly takes to support all learners and
103we were very intentional about re trying to recognize the diverse challenges our students may face. For example, limited exposure to Mandarin speakers outside of school. if you don't your home language is not Mandarin, you know, and we were very very thoughtful about in trying to incorporate initiatives like more community outreach to promote more equitable learning opportunities. And so my goal personally in joining this community was to support the ongoing efforts to ensure that every kid entering College Park can receive a high quality culturally responsive education regardless of the language spoken at home, family financial situation, or access to outside resources. And having participated in almost every single meeting for this master plan, I am confident that it is both researchbased and shaped by community input and it sets up a really strong foundation for a
104learning environment where every student regardless of background can thrive in both Mandarin and English. Thank you. Thank you, Miss L. Michael. Can you please check online to see if we have any online comments? Checking. No public comments at this time. Thank you. We will now uh move to item 5B and we will open uh public hearing if we can. I think yes. Oh, we have to go. It's it's a it's a review of the plan. It's just a review of the plan, but board comments and then I did want to do a quick intro of our two new principles. Yeah. Um why don't we have board comments and then when we wrap up our board comments, I'll invite our two speakers. Thank you for being patient with us. We're kind of moving around a little
105bit. Um any board comments regarding the master plan? I didn't ask questions earlier, so I do have some comments I wanted to provide. Uh first, I did really want to thank all the folks who are involved with our committee. I know we have some of the task force members here. Um, thank Elena and her team. Principal Banina has been giving me updates every single time I run into her and how excited she is about the plan and the kind of expertise we brought in. I think also, you know, folks on DIS know I have a lot of concerns sometimes about the way we operate, our level of transparency, our level of engagement, but especially when it comes to how this task force was put together or the work we've done around community schools and so
106many other things we're doing around our housing task force. I feel like there's a very concerted effort from this administration, from this board, and from a district as a whole to make sure that community, parent, educator voices are all a part of these decisions. And so to see something like this that is a very difficult topic to take on. It's not something that we have a lot of peer districts to lean on for this come together in a district like ours. I think it's just a really exciting program to see. And I did want to echo some of the comments that the speakers made earlier and also the staff recommendations in the presentation. You know, as a College Park parent myself, I know that we're facing a lot of transitions, one of which we're going
107to talk about shortly, but we're moving sites. We're changing principles. We have a new mandaring plan. Having the appropriate staffing, professional development, and Atossa to ensure that we have the alignment and the training to make sure everything moves forward, I think is going to be very important. And then just one last comment I want to make. You know, I grew up in a district um in Southern California that had attempted to do something like this and it faced a massive backlash. um of people concerned about basically making xenophobic comments about that kind of investment. And so again, I've said this many times, I'm very proud to be part of a district that recognizes and celebrates our diversity, that understands that multilingualism is an advantage and not a threat. And the fact that we are putting
108our resources and time and our community and so much effort into making sure we build out a viable, strong, meaningful, robust program is something that I think is just a great sign of our district and the direction that we're headed. And President Brooks, if I can follow up with just a few remarks. Um, I think sometimes watching the course of a whole year worth of schoolboard meetings and and thinking about the different times throughout the year where um where big presentations are made and big celebrations take place. Um, it it can just be a lot. You can sort of forget. I mean, it hasn't been that long, but you forget what we were celebrating in January and February because, you know, tonight's um review of the Mandarin Master Plan, it's it's a major thing. It's
109really going to change the education that 500 kids get every single year in this school district. But tonight, we also had a group of students from Barisford Elementary School come up, and it's just the sweetest little neighborhood elementary school you ever saw. and you can just skip around when you're there and it's lovely and it's absolutely nothing like College Park. If if a parent from College Park went to Barersford and watched the kids learning at Barisford, they would say, "Oh, this is really lovely." But I want my child to get a dual immersion program at College Park. And the same is true of Barisford families who would go to College Park and be wowed to see kids um learning in two languages but say no I want my I like Barisford a lot and I
110think that's a really hard thing uh for other communities to achieve and it's something that happens every single year here. Our schools are all really really different. Um, and they the schools also change. You know, College Park today is not the same school that it was seven years ago. And those demographics change and the families we serve change. Some of our teachers, hopefully they'll make it to 27 years, not just 17 years. So, we hope they don't change very much. But, um, but some of these families that have been with us a really long time, they'll say, "Oh, yeah. I've been at the school 14 years, and I've seen the the transformation happen." And we are on the doorstep of a new transformation. So, uh, much of what was was remarked upon tonight about support
111for the master plan, I think we have some really good, um, some good, um, opportunities ahead of us to bring on support for TOSAs, um, and and really to facilitate the key components of the plan. One of the uh, requirements of of the plan being uh, implemented and succeeding is having a really strong leader. And um you know she's not here tonight but the current principal um Anginette Estanina is just a phenomenal human being and um a total advocate for kids. Um she's transitioning into a new role with us next year and we're happy for her and it's really great for her. Um and when you lose a really strong leader like Anginette, you you know you allow yourself a moment to think, "Oh man, what a bummer. We're not going to have her." Um,
112but through an interview process, we were able to find a new principal. She's here tonight. This is the easy part of her night because she just had a back to school night at College Park. She literally drove from there to come here, but I want to give Betty a few minutes to come up and introduce herself to the board and talk a little bit about yourself. You didn't know I was going to speak, so it's just going to come from the heart. Um, first of all, I'm really excited to be here with everyone tonight. My name is Betty Chong. Can you hear me? My name is Betty Chung and I am absolutely honored and privileged to be the new principal of College Park next year. Um, a little bit about myself. I've been in in
113education for a little over a decade. And um whether I was a teacher or a coach or an admin um my actions and my driving force was really rooted on the core belief that every child deserves a high quality education with equit each and every I'm sorry each and every child deserves a highquality education with the equitable supports and equitable access that meets them where they're at so that they can thrive and become the best versions of themselves. Um, with that being said, I just want to continue that vision that I have for myself and have for the schools that I lead with by working and supporting teachers and engaging the community and families and working with you all in the district to make this a reality. Um, and I look forward to building on
114the great work that's already existing here for the next school year. So, thank you everyone. [Applause] Uh, one other approval that just happened, we also went through another um another interview process uh at one of our uh monastery schools at Northshore View Monastery. And uh again, what a an incredible school, a California distinguished school and um the kind of place anybody would be so proud to have their kids uh go to school. And I want to introduce the new principal who was just approved during the consent agenda to come up and say a few words. Lisa Hollowa, please come [Applause] up. Thank you. I too was not exactly prepared to speak tonight, but I'm super excited to be here. I'm also somebody who's been in education for about 15 years now. I've always been a
115monastery teacher. I'm super committed to public monastery and that equitable vision that we've all been talking about tonight and bringing that to more students. So, I've been at our parkside community and I'm super excited to be joining our North Shore View community and I'm happy to serve you all. Thank you. Thank you and welcome. We're going to now move to item uh 5B and this is an item where we have to open public hearing. Um the purpose of this hearing is to provide an opportunity for the public to comment on the proposed Sanel Foster City School District 2025206 local control accountability plan. That's our LCAP. By state requirement, the board must hold a public hearing and then uh receive information for discussion on the LCAP. Then the board will take action to approve the 2025,
1162026 LCAP at the next board meeting on June 26, 2025. I will now open the hearing. It is uh 7:44. Okay. Thank you. Um David Chamblas, assistant superintendent for ed services. It's my privilege to kick off LCAP season for the board um and for the community. Um just to provide a couple of framing comments before um diving into the LCAP itself. Um the LCAP of course most importantly in our district is an expression of our strategic plan. Um so it provides us another opportunity to communi communicate to our community um you know our priorities around achievement, equity and wellness. Um and most importantly it's a place where we connect those uh those strategies to specific dollars. Um so it's an important moment of of transparency where you we can tell our district you know what
117are the things we're funding and and what are the actions we're hoping they'll they'll support. Um, it's also an important way that we communicate to our state, um, specifically the California Department of Ed what our plan is as a district. And, um, in that respect, the state requires us to, um, in particular in the LCAP dive into the equity questions around how are we particularly um, supporting our unduplicated students. This would be our English learners, our students from uh families that are struggling economically, our foster youth, and our um homeless youth. So, uh I invite you to hold those uh priorities as we have this discussion. And um and so let me take a moment and I will share my screen and I would like to uh spend a few moments talking with you about
118the LCAP. And again, uh, thank you, President Brooks. Basically, I'm going to provide that overview. Uh, obviously begin conversation tonight. Um, we can take continue to take feedback both from the board and the community over the next couple weeks and then we'll come back at the end of June hopefully for uh approval of the final draft. So, make sure. Okay, there we go. All right. Um so um the LCAP begins with uh with an overview overview of the budget for parents and um it provides us kind of you know like the pies right it gives us a sense of what's the various slices of funding that are available and then it quickly turns to um to the plan itself and I'm going to just I'm going to skip through and just kind of hit the
119major portions. Um it is a long meaty document. Um you know um some of us love to spend hours pouring over it. Um I welcome you to engage with it in whatever fashion works best for you. Uh but um one of the some of the key pieces are um for example the uh reflections on our annual performance. It's several pages where we take the data that is um that is provided in the sections that are goal one, two and three. Um and we do an analysis of it and we talk about where we think we are being successful and where we see continued challenges and then kind of highlight the priorities that um we we are engaging in through the LCAP. Um there is I do want to call out there is one particular place
120where you can see here it's actually a link um and that that's a document that um provides a summary of how uh the strategies in the LCAP address the specific needs of certain student groups of uh certain schools with those student groups. Um so it looks something like this and it's found at the very end of um the LCAP. So you can use the link or you can go to the end of the LCAP and see this document. And basically it calls out it's the so-called red dashboard indicators. It's places where based on our mostly on our CASP data but uh also like our absenteeism data where we have student groups outside the sphere of success and how we're attempting to um support them. So I just wanted to call out that as a as
121a place that you can find some interesting information. Then just moving along there is the section I mentioned briefly before uh that are the three goals in our LCAP and they line up exactly with our strategic plan. There's goal one around academic achievement, goal two around equity and goal three around wellness. Um you will see in each goal area there's some basic overview information and then uh the indicators that we use in the LCAP to talk about um how our students are doing based on the data. Um I'll just take a moment to show you that for this first metric 1.1 which is our literacy CASP data. You can see uh there's a baseline year there's a year one outcome. There's a target for the third year because this is in uh technically a three-year
122plan and then there's a column that sort of provides you the difference um and and gives you a sense of a progress indicators. So welcome you spending time looking at that um that data and then um right beyond that there are are several sections which is a goals analysis and this is a deep dive on this year's LCAP of every action we took um and basically answering the questions of you know what's the substantive difference that this action uh made um was there any change in how you know how you implemented the action from what you planned the action to be. Uh any differences in actual expenditures uh that you associated with that action and then also um you know the the question of effectiveness or ineffectiveness. Again a lot of detail um welcome you
123to spend time looking at it. It is a place where you can get a lot of perspective on the many things that we do in the district that are captured here in the LCAP. And then finally is uh in this goal se uh section is then the recommended actions for 2526. Um so some of them in fact many of them are carryovers from the prior year. There's a few cases where we've basically sunseted an action because we accomplished what we uh set out to do or we were able to shift um the action to a regular part of our district operations and didn't need to be calling it out separately. So that leads us to so there's goal one which again it focuses on academics. There's goal two which focuses on equity and there's goal
124three which focuses on wellness. They're organized in the same way as the uh in all three ways with the data up front with the analysis of 2425 and then the recommended actions for uh for 2526. And then finally there's there's a couple sections here which uh call out kind of the equity goals of the LCAP. um we we indicate the actions that in particular are meant to increase or improve services for unduplicated students. And so they're kind of called out. It's not necessarily new information, but it it distills out of the three goal areas, the actions that um particularly will move the bar around um around our our equity goals. And then um there is finally um several sections that are about um the money um that summarize um in this case you know the
125all of the different um actions we're recommending for next year and the funding associated with those uh and there's sort of different breakdowns of of that funding. So let me pause there um invite any questions and um and any discussion. Thank you. Do we have any board uh questions? Um thank you for the presentation. I wanted to um talk a little bit about the chronic absenteeism. Um I know that you know potentially um due to things happening at the federal level we're seeing just overall um you know in I think increases across the district um of of absenteeism whether it's chronic or not. Um but obviously like if absentee goes up so does chronic absenteeism. Um and then you know but our our data says that or it says that most key student groups have
126approximately 2 to 3% drop in their chronic absentism rate compared to last year. Um, but I'm just wondering like what um if you could talk a little bit about the strategies that we're implementing to try to address those um issues where you know it looks like there's a couple of schools where it's a big um where it's an issue and I think um some of it has to do with just overall um you know soio economic factors and and other factors that are just related to the circumstances of the families and not necessarily um fully within our control, right? But if you could talk a little bit about the strategies that we're implementing or what other strategies are being considered for that, that would be great. Sure. Um so appreciate you, you know, bringing this
127up. Yes, we are making progress over the last several years in bringing chronic absenteeism down, but if you look at the the rate compared to particularly pre uh pandemic, it's much higher um than and so it it's an ongoing an ongoing challenge. Um there's a variety of strategies that I think begin to get at this question and and I would be happy also to defer to my colleague Dr. Rubakaba. Um, let me just say some of it at first is is just the the systems within the school. We we call them the the student study teams or the care teams that pull the data. Um, we now have a chronic absenteeism report. Um, we've had it now for about a year and a half that is live on a daily basis. It constantly is updating.
128So, um, our sites can see immediately what's going on and which students and and work. So part of it is getting the data in front of you know in the in the sense that a student is rising to the level of chronic absenteeism. So so getting those systems in place and and I know um our student services team has been working on that. Um I also think that it's the work we're doing for example around the community schools that wouldn't necessarily on the surface say oh that that's going to change chronic absenteeism but actually you know I think it's going to have a profound effect on it because it engages our families. It provides afterchool opportunities that are fun and engaging and and it's a draw to bring kids into school. Um and then third,
129I think uh you know there's a um there's a narrative we have now about school that if you get a cough, you should stay home um because of the pandemic. And we're still living that narrative. And we have to uh we have to continue to send the message. I think usually in a kind and supportive way. I think one move we've made as a district is we we used to frankly send those kind of scary punitive letters that said to people if you don't come to school you're going to you know and we've stopped doing that because that's not actually the message we want to say our schools are inviting if you got a cough still come to school. So um so I think you know combating that narrative and that's that is still the
130legacy of pandemic and we just have to keep kind of hammering that home. Um a last point just to acknowledge is that um with Gloria Erlick's retirement that um we have a much more robust independent studies program than we have before. So when kids are out particularly when families have to go back to home countries and things like that where we're doing a much better job of having them sign up for independent studies which actually they're out of school but they're technically still still allowed to be counted for attendance purposes. And so that's another aspect that can help um with our chronic absenteeism. If you want to add anything. Yeah. No, I think you summarized it pretty pretty well. I would also add that there's you know the family engagement component. Um we have done
131just a tremendous job and with a lot of targeted efforts to bring in the families that have children who are having challenges right with attendance. And as we know, a lot of our families and kiddos at our title one schools, which happen to be our community schools at the elementary level, um have really been beneficiaries of a of the PK program, have been, you know, uh I know LEAD, as an example, holds, you know, attendance breakfasts, right? Uh to kind of encourage and provide knowledge to our families about the importance of of of attendance, right? Um, as uh my colleague David mentioned, we have, you know, CARES teams and chronic absenteeism is one of the most important, if not the most important data point uh that that is presented and discussed uh to develop improvement
132plans uh for the child in a wraparound service kind of kind of mentality, right? Um and then three, you know, I also want to put in a plug for, you know, a grant that my department's working that I am working on in my department, um which is a local communities grant through the CDE. Um and in reviewing that with our superintendent OOA, uh one of the key aspects of that is to address chronic absenteeism at our school sites. And we're doing it through a restorative approach. Um, I think what's great is that we get to not start from scratch, but we get to build on so many great personnel and supports that are already in place from restorative justice teachers on special assignment, uh, you know, you know, across all grade levels, um, to just
133the assortment of, you know, the the the the kinds of professional development that we're providing on restorative justice for all staff. Um, and it's really right coming together as a community of educators, uh, uh, and making that link to the engagement that we provide our families. Thank you. Anyone else? I just have a two quick follow-up questions. I did want to clarify. I think David, you said that certain goals as we meet them may roll off of the matrix or, you know, essentially become kind of practice as usual. Is there an easy way for us to see, I guess, year-over-year which of those benchmarks we've essentially hit or we, you know, aren't listing or identifying or calling out in LCAP proposal anymore? Yeah. Uh, and and just to be clear, the the LCAP actions within
134the goals that and so I say that to draw your attention, you can if you go through the LCAP, you will see certain actions where it says, you know, basically we've sunseted this action. So there's no funding associated with it and it it's labeled right there. It's only a handful. Um, but a good example we called out early on with our strategic plan, uh, a focus on on equity measures both of academic achievement and social emotional learning. Well, we've we've they're so embedded now in all of our reporting that it didn't it didn't seem necessary to continue to call those actions out because we've essentially accomplished those and at least in the reporting sense. Obviously, we have to we have to do the actual equity work, but um the the but it's been integrated into
135the way we already address these issues. And then specifically, I think I I talked about this previously um item, I believe it's 110 on the algebra enrollment. I see that the second bullet is percent of eighth graders completing algebra with a C or better. And I know that's in progress for this year. I was curious, is there any other type of external objective metric we're using to ensure that there is proficiency moving on to high school on that topic? I understand that we're kind of using grades as one of the benchmarks, but I know for other topics we've have, you know, external validation, we have other proficiency exams. Is there anything else that we use to confirm that all of our students graduating are ready for the next level in terms of high school? I
136mean we have the so we have obviously our internal district interim assessments right so the the the common formative assessment we do specifically for algebra so that's the first um and then we obviously we we use the we look at the CASP assessment as well those are the two main ones I guess I know CASP is listed elsewhere as one of our benchmarks is there a reason it's not part of the algebra one benchmark um just a choice in terms of you know proliferate eration of data, you know, how many how many indicators do you want? Trying to be a little bit economical with that. We felt it wouldn't wouldn't help to include it and we call it out um separately anyway. So, and and one of the changes that's happened in in the last
137decade is a shift um during um the No Child Left Behind years of course specific assessments where you could have nth graders and one ninth grader is taking a geometry exam, one ninth grader is taking an algebra exam and one ninth grader is taking algebra 2 exam at the same school. Um and now the state implements a grade level associated exam. So, if you're in eighth grade, you're going to take the eighth grade math assessment. And if you're in seventh grade, you're going to take the seventh grade math assessment, whether or not that's the quote unquote the course that you're taking. Um, and so I think you we haven't pursued an external noncurriculum based assessment for algebra. Um I think as a followup we could provide some data on um how well our students uh
138because we actually have that relationship with our high school district and it's not perfect because some kids either move out or go to privates but um to be able to show their success beyond um 8th grade um would actually be a pretty interesting thing to look at now going into our end of our third year in that program. Um, one thing I will mention too, uh, with the LCAP, um, specifically because we're talking assessment results and things of that nature, is one of the real misalignments at the state level is the requirement to adopt this plan at a time where we don't have data related to the current year. And so, uh, David and I were furiously looking at our very initial CASP results. We have about 65% of our student test score results are
139in. Um, but we're missing, you know, a lot of data. So, it's really not fair to look at it yet. Um, but we could have used it a month and a half ago uh or two months ago and then we could have had that be part of this plan and actually won't be ready to evaluate fully until the beginning uh to middle of August, which by then we have an LCAP. And so you're sort of trying to like tag it in a rears like, oh, this was the goal. We thought we did it, but here we are now with this new percentage. Um, and that makes it a little bit hard. I I understand why from a funding standpoint because we're doing budget adoption, but in terms of our assessing, um, it does make it
140really a different kind of conversation because it's not aligned in that way. Agree. And then I saw that we have some placeholder percentages and others here because we're operating on incomplete information. And I do want to echo what the superintendent just said. I know several trustees have discussed this as well, but given the close relationship we do have with Sanonteo Union High School District to the extent that we are able to track our students as they move on and to identify any other potential issues that we may need to address or any other shortcomings. I do that be helpful and just another way to kind of strengthen that continuity we talked about with the Mandarin plan, but a lot of the other work that we do. So appreciate that thought as always. Um, I just
141wanted to echo that. I've asked before about like communicating with the high school and getting data. Um, the high school district, I think math is one, you know, algebra is one of them. Um, foreign language, you know, where we have kids taking two years of Spanish in middle school. Are they actually ready for Spanish 2 in high school or Mandarin or whatever the language is? Um, so I think there's a couple different areas we can look at in that terms of that data. Um, I thank you for the presentation by the way. Um, David, I always like reading this LCAP. Um it kind of like gives me a a nice picture of what the district what we look who we are and who um who are our students and what are our goals. I did
142want to point out this is like just a very picky thing but in the first um like box about general information. I was curious why we say foster cities in New York City mostly middle to upper middle upper middle income families. We don't talk about the income of Sonteo. I'm just wondering what's the value of saying like we are we're two cities but we consider ourselves one district. why we're like kind of calling out something about one city um that maybe doesn't really isn't necessarily to be there. Anyways, that's my thought, like my question and um I don't know, it feels a little bit like two cities instead of one district. I can we can do some editing. Thank you. I want everyone to feel welcome and to be part of this. Thank you. Do
143we have any inperson comment? Michael, can you please check online for public comment? Checking. No public comments at this time. Thank you. Um, we don't vote on this. This is for next meeting and we just close the hearing, right? Okay. At uh 8:06, we will close the hearing, the public hearing. We will now open we will go to agenda item 6A and we will open another public. This is an opportunity for the public to comment on the proposed Santel Foster City School District budget for the 2025 2026 school year followed by public comment. The budget adoption draft will be presented next on the agenda for information. I will hand it over to business. Thank you very much everybody. Um I wanted to start by uh again thanking Blanca and the business team for their incredible
144work. Um this year in addition to um producing this budget for us, uh we are migrating to a new financial system which I'm really pleased about. When I first came on board in this county years ago, I made a recommendation to the county at that time that I thought we should migrate to a new system. So, I'm really pleased that we're migrating to it, but it's an extraordinary amount of work. So, I want to and Ruy's over there smiling because she understands she's been through the drill. Um, and we're going to talk to Ruie briefly. So, um, wanted to acknowledge the tremendous hard work of the the team. Um, I wanted to share with you just a few comments too about the uh presentation I attended yesterday, which was the school services May revise presentation
145talking about the uh governor's proposed budget and just give you a few highlights because we didn't have time to integrate into these slides. Um, on a positive note, there's a couple positives that um we're looking at um which is um we anticipate we may receive up to $2.9 million in learning recovery emergency block grant funding. Um, we understand as well too that we should receive some student support and professional development block grant funds, which we haven't put into the budget as yet. Those are both positive. Um, we uh heard yesterday as well too that for our district we can expect to lose about $360,000 in Title 3 funds. Uh the good news is if those other dollars materialize from a state level, we think we can offset th that loss of funds with the flexibility
146that uh districts have with uh those other two sources I mentioned to you as well too. Um ELOP, we anticipate some additional funding from that. We don't know exactly what that's going to be as of yet, but we expect we will receive some additional funds. And we have some partners. Um we made some changes in our um expenditures for the 2526 year because we had sustained a loss in funding. Um and there are some folks who are interested in if we receive some additional funding, might we be able to do more with those dollars. So we'll keep those folks posted too. Uh and in a little while too on the slide deck too, we share with you too on the community schools uh funding source. Um we have some expenditures which we can still move
147into restricted dollars from unrestricted. So, we're looking to do that, too. And that will result in your funding balance going up your, um, in your general funding and restricted side. Um, and another item, too, uh, which we will integrate into our 2526 budget for you is we, um, move dollars that we receive for transportation into fund 40 in anticipation of the project we're going to do out there at Bayside. And since that um we've got a different um plan in place now, we're going to move those dollars back into the general fund unrestricted. That's about $4.2 million. Okay. So, that's another item which will be incorporated into um into the budget. Um and uh I'll talk about transportation as well in a few moments. Let me just um put this into slideshow mode. Okay. And
148again, there we go. Now it's saying document recovery. I'm not sure why it says that. Close. We had that. Just let me go back. I'm sorry about that, folks. Let me try it again. Stop share and bear with me just one moment here. We're going to go back to sharing screen. PowerPoint. It's there. No. Huh. Here we go. Sorry. I did I did slide show start from beginning and it's not it's not cooperating. So, I'm going to go back and do it another way. Okay. Um, so here we we give you kind of the budget and the cycle where we're at in the cycle where this is the adopted budget. We're seeing a draft uh of it this evening. We highlighted for you in addition to the narrative. We gave you several pages of the
149narrative. We've just highlighted some uh budget highlights for you here too. We capture what the colas are looking like. Again, as of yesterday, that 2.43 is going to go down to 2.3. These are um state numbers. Um property taxes, we built in growth at 4% for 2526. And when we looked at historically what our district averages are over a longer period of time, we've put into here a 5% number for the outy years. And um we can make changes to that as we move forward, but um we've got built into the growth model for the outy years 26 27 27 28 at 5%. Our averages are higher than that over the past 20-year period of time. So we we slid this up a little bit from 4% to five. Um and um and so I
150want to highlight that for you. Special education expenditures. Again, our special education expenditures continue to increase. Uh we've incorporated reductions in our NPA costs starting the next year. Uh these reductions will continue into year two and three in our multi-year projections. Okay. Community school funding. Again, I talked about this a moment or two ago. We anticipate being able to move and realign some of our expenditures on the unrestricted side into restricted sources on the community uh schools funding model. Partial tax planning. Again, just as a reminder, what we were doing in our partial tax, we're actually deficit spending, but we're it's totally fine. Um, we have a reserve, but in the out year is 2627. Um, we're going to need to make sure we make some modifications, adjust some expenditures to align with the funding.
151Okay. Um, and we're doing planning for when that partial tax expires at the end of 2728. So, just we have it on the radar. Um, we've included planning costs for when a measure v partial tax expires in 28 and begin preparations for the election process to renew the expiring partial tax. Okay, so we've built a placeholder in for the renewal and the cost associated with the election. The next item here is expansion of TK. Tomorrow there is a hearing, the mandated uh cost claim hearing is at 10:00 tomorrow morning. I'll be dialing in. I'll keep you posted on what we hear. But basic a districts don't receive funding for TK, although the state budget talked about funding for TK. We don't receive that. We're hopeful that the the outreach we did and the petitioning we
152did results in us seeing some funding. So that'll be a positive influence on what our uh reserves are um for our multi-year planning. Okay. And then we just kind of walk you through as we've done in the past budget assumptions. These are high level and read through all these, but you're familiar with this format. Um we've got integrated into here. We anticipate some reductions in administrative expenditures in 2526 and um we expect we'll see experience some decline in enrollment. So we'll make some adjustments to staffing associated with declining enrollment. So that's a small number built into the multi-year projections. We've got other things in here like stepping column and what the stirs and purs rates are health and welfare rates. Those are all pretty boilerplate for us. Um and again the property tax growth we
153put four and 5% into the model based on a long-term history what the district has typically seen. Okay. Um and this list also to what the values are for the parcel taxes etc. Okay. Um this is adopted budget general fund projection at a glance high level revenues and expenditures what our ending fund balances are and from both an unrestricted and a restricted perspective and our total ending fund balance is. And then um let me go to the next slide here. Uh this is again a summary of adopted budget general fund revenues, what that aggregate number looks like for us. Um in terms of LCFF sources, federal and state, we've adjusted the federal revenues by the loss of the title 3 funding. And I think there's some speculation too that um you know, the current administration
154is only 120 days into their administration. So we might see further decreases. Um we're not exactly sure what those might be, but just uh we're cautious of that. Um we've got a high level here for you adopted budget adopted budget general fund expenditures what the breakdown of those different dollars are. Okay, the total expenditures and then we've got for you here in adopted budget general fund multi-year projections combined and um and then we have also for you too in the next slide we have the general fund unrestricted fund balance projection projection for that multi-year and when I look back at the adopt budget for 2425 the multi-year projections and the annual fund balances actually for 2526 and the outy years um are u higher than what we used uh when we adopted the budget for
155the current or 2425. Okay. Um again here adopted budget other funds a highle summary of revenues and expenditures what the ending balances are for those funds. And then this last side really just talks about kind of next steps in the process. Right? So that's really a highle summary for you. Um and when we bring back the budget for you for adoption in June, um if the uh if there's been a budget adopted at the state level, we'll try and integrate that into it's a timing issue for us. Right. The other thing just to share with you too um is as we go through we've been a we have a a very conservative uh practice in the district in terms of modeling expenditures. um we have um for several years and my experience has been in
156in my I hate to tell you my 640th board meeting tonight uh 26 years but each of those um each of those years I've experienced when we close the books there's always a few dollars that come back onto the balance sheet for us I expect that'll happen again for us uh when we when we put together this model for you okay so that's a quick summary for you of the budget um and looks positive for us even though there's some challenges um at the federal level and at state level too. Okay, a quick summary for you. And again, this is not an action. This just information for you tonight. Um, so I'm happy to answer any questions you might have. Thank you for this high level presentation. Appreciate it. Hi. Yeah, just one just one
157question. Um, can do you mind um explaining a little bit more about um the 2526 deficit of 10 million and how we get from 10 million to the next year, much smaller 700,000. And then um in a year and Blanca is on with us too and she can she can articulate on a lot greater detail but it's a combination of a couple different factors uh Allison there's some there's some revenue growth there's some one-time dollars are being spent down um as we've done in the past um and there's some expenditure reductions which we've integrated into the process as well too I mentioned some of those superintendent we talked about some reductions some administrative expenditures we expect some reductions in some of our NPA expenses as well too um we're working with our transportation organizations too.
158Um, we've got a small reduction built in. I think that'll be even greater. Um, and so we've got some property tax growth built into there as well. So, um, that's a high level Blanc. I don't know if you want to add anything into the just to the my high level recap since you were in really involved in all the level of details. Good evening, uh, board and, uh, superintendent OOA. Uh, yes, I apologize my camera is not working properly. Um but I'm hoping you can hear me. Okay. Yeah, we can hear you. Uh yes. No. Um I our 2526 um fiscal year also includes some of our um reallocation of restricted staffing into unrestricted like our TK Paris and uh assumptions of losing the learning recovery funding which actually um uh we estimate is going
159to be fully spent. But, uh, with the, uh, new learning recovery funding, we expect that we'll be able to shift some of those, um, staffing back to restricted dollars. Thank you, Blanka. Thank you. Again, this is just a information for you tonight. If you have questions between now and next board meeting, I'm happy to spend time with you oneonone or Yeah. Yeah. Um, no questions, but I just wanted to first thank you for the presentation. Um, I think given what we're all seeing on the national level and other local school districts, you know, I really think what we're doing here is very wise. Um, I think I can speak for everyone here that we, you know, all want to keep our schools open. We want to keep as many jobs as we can in the
160district. We want to keep serving our students. And so seeing a generous ending fund balance to really be able to help us, you know, weather whatever storms are going to come and hit us for the next four years, I think it's just it's really wise. So I wanted to thank you and, you know, your leadership on this and also Superintendent Choah, the previous board and setting us up in our district financially in this way. Um, we we I really appreciate it. Superintendent, you want to say anything? You good? Okay. Are we ready to move on to the next item? Yes. Yeah. Okay. I will uh jump on here. Oh, it's all right. I'll close. Um I'll go ahead and close that public hearing at 8:20 and then we'll reopen another public hearing. Yeah. Okay. This
161is for 6C. Yes. Thank you. I was doing 6B first or do we have to open a public hearing on 6? You're just opening a public hearing on on this item as well too and you just opened it and I can just jump in and do the presentation. Okay. For 6C, we'll go ahead and open the public hearing at uh 8:21. Thank you. Okay. Share screen. This is um the components of the ending fund balance for 2526. And again, some of these will fluctuate based on us going through the process of closing the books. Um, and we expect that um those dollars will will result in um this number being a larger number when we go through we finish the process as a beginning balance for 2526. Right after we close 2425, we expect that
162the 2526 beginning balance will will grow. But again, this shows you um some components of the ending fund balance. Um, we've got uh the 3% economic uncertainty reserve called out up above there of $6 million. And again, our district has a practice of maintaining a 6% reserve. So, a little bit down below there, you'll see this $6.4 million below. Um, and that um those two numbers combined are your 6%. We've got other components in the ending fund balance here too. We've called out in this ending fund balance a set aside for negotiations, a dollar amount. Um what we expect that we will um see in in the form of dollars. Um we as I said too um some of the dollars will be moving into this reserve as well too will be from the transportation
163dollars. Uh that $4.2 million will get shifted into this dollar amount. Um we expect that we'll see some dollars again after we close the books in 2425 and that will get when those dollars get moved back over it will go towards what we've held in the past as a payroll reserve. So um again this snapshot of your uh of your components of the ending fund balance for 2526 are very similar to what we had for 2425 and we've seen that pattern in the past of those dollars being um uh materializing and being added to your ending fund balance here too. Okay. So, we've got um reserve for vacation payout, reserve for payroll of a million dollars, a set aside for election costs, and then reserve a set aside for negotiations cost in 2526. And we've
164got the $6 million down below, which is another 3%. And then that million was a special reserve fund for other than capital outlay projects. Um and that's Blanca's got that set aside as a reserve for economic uncertainties in addition to your 6%. That's another value that goes towards that. So, those numbers combined um uh add up to that $16 million and that $6 million above that gets you to the $22 million assigned and unassigned ending fund balances for 2526. Okay. Okay. So, again, this just an information item for you. The next board may be taking action on it. um and uh part of the overall process for the budget. We'll close this hearing and we will move to item 60. Okay. Oh, that I just shared that with you. 60 is what we just went
165through right now was the uh Oh, let me just see. receive information from access just on 60. I had a quick question on um and it's applies to the other one too, but the set aside for negotiations that's like pay payroll increases. Exactly. So then the next year that's already built into the salary built in. Yeah, we called it because the all the things in the tax report had all been done. So we had to call it out this way else in the future years those dollars are built into your out years already. Cool. Yeah. Thank you. Okay. Thank you so much. All right, to item 6E. Yes, this is um again uh enabling us to proceed with uh the cash flow needs we have for projects related to measure T. Um and so this
166is a resolution we ask you to adopt this evening which enables us to move forward on uh selling the next set of bonds. Um we are meeting on June 4th with the rating agencies. We'll be reviewing our financial information with them and uh subsequent to that rating agency process we go through we'll be proceeding with selling the bond. So this is going to enable us to move forward for selling the bonds and this is a resolution that requires that you take action in the form of approving the resolution which will enable us to move forward on doing more projects. Any questions from the board? Do we just Yeah, you take take action. So, it's a you do a roll call vote on the Do we need public comment on this or Oh, if you want
167to. Yeah. Uh, Michael, can you please see if there are any public comment? Checking. Thank you. No comments at this time. Anyone in person? All right. I'll go ahead and take a motion. Oh, yeah. I had a comment real quick. I just was on a plane, so I took a cool aerial shot about it. We're coming in. So, I'm excited about, you know, more bonds and more money coming in so we can continue. Yeah. Thank you. Awesome. That's cool. Yeah, that's fun. Drive by. It's wild. No, driving by is cool, but seeing from above the gym is so tall and the roof is on there. I mean, I wish we could fly over all the schools. I know there's like drums and stuff, but Yeah. Trusty H. You want to vote? Yes. Yes. Trusty J.
168Yes. Trusty progn. Yes. Trusty Kim. Yes. And I vote yes. Thank you so much. Super 10. Would you like to talk about this next item? The BA. Yes. Thank you. It's it's under your department, but I definitely want to talk and I want to invite one of our colleagues up um to the podium. Um tonight's item is um the start of a very important process for our school district um that will have a lasting impact on the kind of education students receive in the San Monteo Foster City School District. And um what is before the board this evening represents a very important first step between two organizations, ourselves and the Bay Ed Fund. Uh we do have one of our colleagues from the Bayad fund here. So I want to give her an opportunity to
169introduce herself and u make introductory remarks um that she feels will help um set the table for the for the item and then I'll go through the nuts and bolts of the actual so you don't feel responsible for doing that. Perfect. Thanks so much, Superintendent Atoa. Um good evening trustees. My name is Ruy Bao. Uh, I have spent most of my career in public education, most recently as the CBO at neighboring Belmont Road School District doing Patrick's job. So, I'm sure you were missing all that just now. Indeed. Indeed. Um, and uh, I'm here tonight as a partner from the Bayad Fund. So, Bayed Fund was created to help local communities, so educators, families, and local community leaders um, come together to co-create a vision for what they want to be true for their students.
170Um and our role in that is to provide both the funding and the access to expertise to allow this visioning process to happen. Uh over the past few months uh we have been able to meet with over a 100red community members right here in Sato Foster City families uh educators and community leaders including a number of you. Um and we have just really we've really enjoyed hearing about the amazing things going on at this district. Um notably the community schools. Um, and we felt really energized by your commitment to equity, to power, parent empowerment, and to whole child. Um, so in front of you tonight is theou uh that reflects the same process and partnership that we have spent the last several years going through with South San Francisco Unified as well as Ravenswood City
171Elementary um which begins uh with this visioning process. So I'll turn it back over to you, Superintendent Otoa. Thank you, Ruie. Um the crux of the work over the next 12 months is going to focus on two really really big and important projects. And the first is a process where the Bayad fund helps us facilitate a series of open, transparent, public, rigorous meetings that result in our school district arriving at um a northstar um a really really high level um visioning outcome um that helps us think differently and um really advance our work uh related to what kind of educational future we want all of your kids and all the rest of the kids in the school district to be able to experience. And then the second is the initial component of what we're calling
172the community strategic plan. Um so that that's actually that in and of itself is a change for our school district. I think um our our schools and our our um stakeholders really know what the strategic plan is in our district. Um you heard about it in the LCAP, you heard about it in Patrick's pres uh presentations tonight. Um, when our schools invite people in to observe us, we talk about our strategic plan. And in the future, that's going to sound different. And we're going to um make the important uh step of adding the word community to that plan. um moving forward as part of our our partnership with the Bayad Fund, but also I think just a new awareness on our part of how important it is for the plan not just to belong to
173the people who um happen to be in the room at that time or happen to work for the district but actually belong to the people who are served by the plan. Um and you know so I think you know in some ways when I meet with uh and our teams and our stakeholders meet with the Bayad fund they're really good at making everything feel very poetic and very sort of um you know just there's an there's a sort of an air of of a really exciting possibility when we meet with the Bayad fund. Um, I think what sets them apart as as a group that wants to um work with us is they really have this 360°ree vision of what constitutes a school community. So, um, in as much as they knew it was important
174to meet with members of the board and, um, I think those meetings are really, really important. uh you know initially one of the very first uh folks they wanted to meet with were our employee groups and um and I know those meetings were really important to their process as well but to their credit the very next request that came from them was we want to meet your parents and we want to meet parents from all over the district and um you know she's mentioned it in her remarks tonight Ruie did that you know close to a hundred individuals coming in and that really means something to the people here to sit across from somebody um who basically, you know, they want us to tell them our story. Um and they also um have credibility in
175what they do. Ruie, I worked with Ruie over the last four years as she uh was in her role in in uh our neighboring district. Uh but Ruie works with some really really talented people including Ash Solar and including uh Paul and and really everybody else that we've come into contact with the Bayad Fund. So tonight'sUO is a representation of the two organizations wanting to engage in this work together. Um the financial commitment for the Bayad fund is significant and um you know over $700,000 um in services to the district and the $150,000 commitment for us to be able to bring on leading educators to help us. Um you heard Barisford talk about it tonight, how excited they are about the the reforms they want to make to teaching third through fifth graders. um and
176leading educators going to have um something to say about that and assist us with that process. Um but also just generally connect with our um classroom educators and with our principles and with our um ed services staff throughout the district. Um and the 12 months is going to seem like it just flew by. And if we do it right, we'll be sitting here next year with the components of a community strategic plan talking about, if we do this right, a 10-year commitment with the Bayad fund um where we both can't imagine not doing the work together for the next decade and then ultimately re uh writing the district's community strategic plan for U 2027. 7 to 2032, which is going to look very different than the current strategic plan. And what's exciting about the partnership
177is that with their support, the people in this room, last time we did it, there were 40 people in this room. With their support, we'll have 80 people in the room. And the 80 people in the room will represent our magnet schools, our Title One schools, our Latino families, our white families, our longtime educators, our new educators, our uh African-American educators, our principles, and it'll be a true um engagement about what we all want. Um, and I think that's a hard um, goal to reach for, but with the partnership we have in place now and and the quality of the people who are doing the work, I really think we're going to achieve it. So, with that, I'll turn it over to the board for any questions. Ruy and I are both here to answer
178any questions the board may have. Um, and with that, I'll pass it back to you. Thank you. How many questions? Uh, no questions, but um I'm just really excited for this partnership. I think um you're providing something for us that is just so valuable um and access to so many voices of so many stakeholders and I'm just really excited to see this take off. Likewise. I just a quick question and comment. Um and I just want to reiterate what Trusty Ho said. I think many of us have had a chance to have these conversations. is we understand that with these resources. I think as superintendent alluded to, we're able to build out our strategic plan in an even more inclusive and large scale way and have a much grander vision moving forward. And we've already
179seen the incredible results we've achieved with the prior 5-year plan we had. And so to be able to take that several steps further now with the support of a fund like yours would be hugely helpful. I did have just a clarification. I believe on page eight of theou under district specific intern assessments that term is still highlighted and bracketed. Is that something that's still being resolved or is that the final? We left it in in that format simply because in the upcoming year we're going to have multiple um pilot adoptions for math. So that we wanted to make sure that it it didn't specify one versus another because we are going through an adoption process with that. And then I I see there's a you know a large section obviously given sensitivities around our student
180data and the transfer and use agreements is the intention to track cohorts individuals both both. Okay. Yeah. And the reason I bring that up is I I see that we've done a good job of breaking out whether or not you know they are so outcome disadvantaged or have any type of disability status race gender. I think I said before, but one suggestion I may have is especially for I'm thinking specifically of our gate program, but also there's maybe additional programs in our district where it would be helpful to recognize a certain cohorts even on the same campus might be coming in at different levels or dealing with different types of programs. So sometimes I've se I've noticed helpful when instead of seeing an aggregate entire institution, you bayside elementary versus middle is very different. And
181then within the middle cohort, I believe what is it a fourth or a third of the students are in the gate program as well, which also has tends to have different outcomes. It's been helpful for me to see that breakout so that we're not looking at aggregate picture of math passage rates across the board, but also within specific programs. I don't know if we have other similar pockets that might make sense, but to the extent that we're in designing our ability to access certain data, having that as part of what I would tag is something that I would suggest. Thank you so much. Um I just really appreciate the thoughtfulness that we uh that you know I've just noticed so far from um having meetings with with members of the team and um I really
182think that this is you know it's really exciting and I also want to shout out former trustee Char Watkins for making the introduction and kind of um setting us off on this path. So, um yeah, thank you so much for being here. Um any in person comment? Good. Uh Michael, can you please check online to see if there are any public comment? Checking. No public comments at this time. Thank you very much. Oh, I need to vote. Yes. Okay. Motion to approve thisou second. All in favor say I. I. Thank you. [Applause] Take a break. Yeah. Uh can we take a five minute please? Thank you. Thank you everyone um for your patience. We will move to item 7A, human resources. Thank you, President Brooks. Uh good evening everyone again. Uh we're uh the item
183is approval of AB1200 public disclosure of collecting bar collective bargaining unit agreement with Satale Elementary Teachers Association. And just a very brief explanation of this item is that before the approval of any collective bargaining agreement, a school district is required to disclose costs associated with the provisions of the agreement. Those costs are included in what's attached in the agenda, the AB 1200 public disclosure document. Uh these documents have been approved by our county office of ed and tonight we are asking for your approval of AB1200 documents. Any questions? Any questions? Any inperson question uh comment? Michael, can you please check online for any in person, excuse me, online comment? Checking. No public comments. Thank you. All right, take a vote. Motion to approve. Second. All in favor say I. I. I. We'll move to 7B.
184Okay. uh the approval of our tenative tenative agreement with SMEA and uh this evening I'm very pleased to report that on May 1st the Sonatel Elementary Teachers Association and the Sonteo Foster City School District reached a tenative agreement on a three-year successor contract for the years 2025 to 2028. The TA was ratified by SMEA members this week. Um, I do want to say on on behalf of the school district and of our negotiations team, um, we want to acknowledge and thank SMEA, uh, their negotiations team for really what was mutual trust and respect at the table the entire time through. Um it was just a very productive and um just a real positive uh negotiations and I uh want to credit Kathy and uh Lisa Fehee who uh stepped away a little while back but
185I think she's watching online for their work on that and just wanted to um really say thank you for uh a real collaborative effort on both sides. So thank you so much. Um and so yeah, it's with great pleasure that we bring the tenative agreement forward and um we ask for your approval. Thank you. Any questions or comments? Just wanted to make a comment. Um you know, I hear the words trust, collaborative, positive, and you know, in my experience with a lot of um with other public school districts, this is not always the case. Um, so I just wanted to appreciate the efforts on both sides to really um have a harmonious and uh great relationship that's, you know, built in trust and communication. It really um it makes it makes everyone's lives better. Thank
186you. Yeah, I'll just echo that. Also just want to thank everyone for their hard work on this. Um I was looking over at Kathy to make sure she was like nodding her head while you were talking and just to like confirm stories here and and and she was. So, um, you know, thank thank the district for all your work on this. I know negotiations can get a little, um, tough sometimes and and when we like center what's best for the kids and what's best for everyone, um, I think it's a win situation. So, thank you, um, for everything. Any online comment? Mike checking comment. Oh, excuse me. Okay. Okay. No public comments. All right. We'll take in person comment. I just want to echo and thank uh the district for our uh negotiation sessions. I
187feel like that we were able to have some very good conversations during that time and we look forward to approval. All right. Thank you. Thank you. With that, I'll take a vote. I'll make a motion to approve. Second. Stacy. Good. All in favor say I. I. I. I. Thank you. Thank you. All right. We will move to uh let's see 8A. Uh this is the approval of the 202526 board meeting dates. I mean, my calendar is probably what I Well, I don't have any of Just put them on the calendar. All right, we're going to put them on the calendar. Go ahead. I'll take a I'll take a vote. I do have a quick question. So, I see in our study sessions that our second one is going to be focused on AI. I know
188that's one of the issues that I've asked for previously. I was just curious, do we have a sense of what angle we're tackling that from? because I know for example the CSBA conference it's you know it's we talked about it in terms of identifying AI usage among students who might be using it both for learning but also potentially for academically dishonest purposes. We've talked about how it could be used possibly for teacher prep or support. And so I know there's a lot of different that phrase you know can be used in 100 different ways in education setting. I wasn't sure if there's been any discussion yet in terms of how we're going to frame that topic for the purpose of that study session and that can be an ongoing conversation. I was just curious kind
189of when it was put on the list, did we have a sense of how we wanted to unpack it? It is a bit different because we're a K8 district and so um at a at a high school level the AI conversation um you know it really is dominated by that question of what to do about these young people who have you know in in many cases they have multiple tech devices on them whether it's a phone or an iPad or a laptop um and you know access to um AI tools is really ubiquitous for kids that age. I think especially because the vast majority of the students in our district are not at that age and don't have that kind of access. Um ours will lean more heavily towards the teacher utilization side and we'll
190be able to devote some time to those middle school age students and what the introduction of AI tools might be like for them. Um, so I think you know to use statistics it might be like a 75% focus on the adult component of AI and then that 25% would be the middle school students. That's great. And and I would note I mean my fifth grader has you chat GPT it's going to become more and more ubiquitous in these student settings. And I'm thinking about if we had those tools, you know, when we were that age and you could write a book report by just prompting the AI, it does set up a lot of potential challenges down the line. And so it might have, again, it might be not so much how it's used in
191the classroom, but how we kind of shift our assessments and others to make sure that we're actually capturing student learning and not reading something that was generated by essentially one of these sites. And so I think that can be a longer conversation down the line, but I am glad it's something that we are going to be addressing because at that last convention we went to school boards across the country, but especially in California, I know this is a very hot topic and about being ahead of the curve and having policies in place and being clear about what is and isn't appropriate usage, I think is something that would be great for us to outline as a whole. Yeah. Along those lines, I actually saw um someone made like a Tumblr post or something about how
192to avoid use of AI and it was just like a picture of a blue book. So, I mean, just putting it out there. We may want to This is a pencil. Um Yeah. So, that is so funny. Somebody I was watching the show. Our kids doesn't don't even know what the um encyclopedias are. So weird what we're doing here. Okay. Oh, I'll take a vote for this item. Motion to approve the uh 2025 2026 board meeting dates. Second. All in favor say I. I. I. I. Thank you. And oh 8a. We will be discussing updates on um weekend access and I think we do have um our director of facilities ready for us. Ryan, Dr. Haven, you're up. All right. Hi everyone. My name's Ryan Haven and I serve as the director of administrative services
193for the Sanonteo Foster City School District and I am going to present um this mini report on open school campuses pilot program which was the initiated by the superintendent and you all the board in response to community interest in opening campuses on weekends and during school breaks for public use specifically playgrounds, turf fields, and basketball courts. Um, so I want to make sure that I'm sharing this uh presenting. Okay, let's see here. Can you all see that? Yep. Okay, terrific. So um the program we just started and we began it in mid-March, so about eight nine weeks ago and it has continued through this past weekend and it will remain in place um through the end of the school year. Dr. Haven. Yes. Sorry to interrupt you, but there's an issue with your uh presentation.
194There's a dialogue box. An audience window dialogue box. There you go. Now, thank you. Is that better? Yes. Okay. Sorry about that. Um, so it began in mid-March and it'll continue through and it's continued through this past weekend and it will remain in place through the end of the school year. Depending on board direction, it we could potentially extend it into the summer and next school year. And so this brief presentation summarizes what we've experienced, observed, and gathered over the last 8 to nine weeks. The three schools that are participating currently are uh College Park, Sunny Bray, and Abbott and College Park. So, we have a weekend monitor, and I'll just sort of paint the picture for you, who opens up uh College Park first and then heads south and then opens up Sunny Bray
195at 9:30 and then opens Abbott at 10:00. So, that's every Saturday and Sunday. And then, um, our weekend monitor bases themselves at Abbott where our uh new gym is also open. And this monitor remains at the gym throughout the day, closes at 4, then proceeds to close Sunny Bray at 4:30 and College Park at 5. And as you can see, in terms of attendance observations, Sunny Bray has had the highest turnout, averaging about 25 visitors per day, not all at once, but throughout the day. College Park has averaged roughly 20 visitors and Abbott saw around 12 with about three to eight in the gym and five to 10 using the outdoor facilities. Um so again, Sunny Bray is the most clearly the most well attended. Community members often wanted to stay there later. And at
196College Park, most users appeared to be adults, likely teachers playing pickle ball, which I know is taking over. uh our nation. Um Avid Avid gym saw limited use and served more as an experiment. Um so we've just had a few people there. General observations was overall reception has been positive. Um although turnout was modest. uh principles noticed that the communications were clear and that they were involved in the process and then the planning uh and um areas of concern as we'll talk about uh dogs on campus uh some litter, some parties and some noise from soccer games. But the benefits, as you can imagine, they offer a great opportunity for families and for the neighbors to connect. uh they offer opportunities for exercise and recreation through the open playgrounds, fields and courts and it's a
197safe place for um such activity. Uh and then also interest from other sites. We have had other people from um several other sites that I mentioned here, Laurel, Barisford, Foster City, and San Mato Park to name a few who said, "Hey, we want to get in on the action too." So I I'll get different calls like that from different community members. So I wanted to report on that challenges. Um and I don't know if this is challenges but just costs. We do pay for this school monitor to open all three sites and to supervise the Abbott gym which is attracting a relatively few community members. Trash. some reports of increased trash, poop on turf, broken glass, presumably from bottles, which creates extra work for custodians. And I should note, um, because our monitor is at
198Abbott through the gym, they're not there to really supervise. So, we don't really have supervision at the outside sites. It's more opening and closing. So there's uh there's potential risks uh of of um you know uh mis you know mischievous activity or or um partying and vandalism noise. There have been low level of complaints at Sunny Brace. Some concern from neighbors about increased noise and people from the play area and then confusion regarding access and security. So in some cases people are trying to enter through the front gate which is not currently open and uh and the reason for that is is because we want to direct people as um as efficiently as possible to the fields and to the courts and not through uh our classroom areas which could uh become a security risk.
199And so uh that could create a potential risk for vandalism um and uh graffiti. But we thus far we've not had serious problems uh related to that. The biggest I would say widespread thing we've seen is maybe an increase in trash. Uh but uh it hasn't been terrible either. And then uh in terms of other logistical concerns, we've noticed and I've talked to our monitor and gotten his report and I talked to all the principles, but starting later, ending later, very few people are coming from 9 to 11 and many people, especially at Sunny Bray, are asking, "Hey, we'd like to stay later." So, um there's been that bathrooms, a few people have asked for bathroom access, although this would present new logistical concerns. Right now, bathrooms are not open except in the Abbott gym,
200which it just makes sense to have it open. And then gates, um, I mentioned the gate situation and the a little bit of confusion there. Suggestions for moving forward. Uh, consider the need for the gym. It it right now it does not appear that there's really a need and if we freed up the monitor, they could be there to really be more of a supervisor for the sites. Secondly, we could monitor and open more schools throughout the day if the monitor was not at the gym. Um, that's a possibility also. Also, starting later, ending later, such as 11 to 6 or 12 to 7, that's a possibility. And then we can clarify about which gate is open to the community. That's just that's more of a communication thing that would be fairly simple and easy
201to do. So, um that concludes my mini presentation. Um I'm certainly I'm going to uh stop sharing, but uh I I'm happy to answer any questions uh that you might have. Thank you, Dr. Haven, um for the presentation. And I wanted to make I just maybe have a few questions about um what you know in terms of um letting the community know. Um I I think we've heard some feedback that the that it's not sort of well publicized or that we haven't necessarily like reached out to everyone that we could reach out to. And I and maybe this is in part because it is a pilot project. And so, um, I would be curious to know if we have, for example, like reached out to our partners at, um, the city of Sanonteo to kind
202of get the word out about this or if that's just something that we're just sort of, um, letting the information trickle out because I think that there's still a lot of people who live in the community directly surrounding those neighborhoods don't necessarily know that this is available. And I wonder if we could potentially see more people using um for example the Abbott gym if we did like more of a concerted effort to publicize the information. Yeah. And uh I certainly want to open this if Superintendent OOA wants to uh jump in. Uh I right now what you're absolutely right. we've sort of targeted the communication to the school community. So the the main communication that uh that has come out at least um and and we've coordinated with um uh director Perez and and their
203team but and as well as through the school site about what's been happening. Um there is uh there is absolutely the potential to do much more widespread communication to the city to um the community to the neighborhoods. Um, and uh I I agree with you that that would probably uh increase, you know, having been a a a for a former teen who loved basketball, I'm sure that that could increase the uh the interest in um opening a gym for for basketball or that sort of thing. So, it it sort of just depends on on what the the interest is from the board and kind of who our target uh group is. So, thank you. Um, I mean, I'll hold some of my comments, but um, and let some other trustees ask questions if they would
204like to. Um, I had a couple questions just um, really quickly. And is there some like unofficial school openings happening? because um I drive by Foster City Elementary School every day, weekday and week nights or weekends, and there's people constantly playing there. I am very close to a 14-year-old and and friends that go to Aottabon and Brewer Island um all weekend long. And so I'm just curious, um I guess the question is one, why are some schools open or why do I see people there and they're not on the list here? and um be a wild wild idea. Why don't we just open all the schools and let everybody play all the time if it's happening um in one city and not another? So, those are my questions. How do they get in? And um
205well, I I'll take Go ahead. Go ahead, Superintendent. Um you know, in some cases, the access is is um an unlocked gate. In other cases, kids will either jump a fence or or, you know, be able to access the campus that way. Um, I think one of the um one of the drivers behind trying this pilot project was um hearing so much feedback from our communities that we didn't have access. And at the time we chose three schools in San Monteo given the lack of open park access in the city of Sanato versus the city of Foster City. Um and that's had something to do with it. um over the last several years being at school sites either in a board community workshop or at a parent meeting or at an LCAP meeting um there
206is sort of some interest in like not opening schools but there's also a lot of interest in opening schools so I wouldn't necessarily say that the advocacy all fell towards opening the school campuses and um as an administrator I'm always like I want your kids to go to school on Monday and have a clean campus and have working bathrooms and not see graffiti. Um because I think we just have to sort of be adamant that that is a really important standard to keep. So these first three schools represented just just opening the door to it and the results in my opinion have been very very positive much more positive um than I thought we would get after after 2 months. Um so my feeling is with the board's um support and and you all will
207make your remarks tonight, but to open more campuses and to think about it in a way to um just create more access for more people in our community across as many schools as as possible, including Foster City, now that we've sort of initiated this very first run. Um, I guess I'll just respond to what you said by um what I see when I drive past Foster City Elementary School, and I'm only picking that one because it's on my route home every single day, is on the weekend. It's moms and dads with little toddlers on the playground. It's kids, moms and dads with their um, you know, kid riding their bike around on the black top. It's um, families playing soccer on the soccer field. So, it's all like very positive. I don't and I and
208I would like for us to kind of go into this with assuming positive intent that there's not going to be graffiti and there's not going to be trash because people care about their schools and we're going to have plenty of trash cans or whatever it is and um and to be more open to trying it than um worrying about what might happen and then you know obviously we can adjust if if stuff is happening but I think assuming that a community cares about their school that these families want a safe place to play even by the way foster cities literally next door to a park, but um people choose to go to the school because that's their school and it's safe and it's fenced in and all all sorts of things. But um but my
209my uh I guess point here is to just kind of assume that the best and we'll see what happens. Thank you. Uh Dr. Haven, thank you for the report. I have a question regarding the gym. Uh right now if there were um say pickup teams who would like to just access the gym to pick up games um would that um is there an opportunity to reserve it or is it just come first, you know, first come first serve? Um yeah, right now it's it's it's whoever wants to come and um it that it's done just like that. It's pretty much pickup and um we have the potential to uh organize some sort of leagues. Um, we also, as you know, we partner pretty closely with San Mateo Parks and Rex and Foster City Parks and
210Rex through our JUAS. And I'm sure that that's almost a separate conversation because we're in negotiations with them uh, presently for the Bayside gym. They they want to use our gyms as much as possible. So the whole gym conversation um with the parks and rex is sort of I I don't want to get off off track but that's that's uh there's a lot of interest from parks and rex to use it. Uh but once you do that then then it becomes a whole different um animal that's sort of out of our control. Um but yes there's there's potential where the district could do some things. I know uh uh assistant superintendent Ru Cababa with his community schools I believe they're planning some athletic activities through the weekend maybe uh I I could be wrong but
211possibly into the weekend that involve basketball and things like that. So I haven't we haven't really disussed it um formally but um you know there there's there's potential there. Again, all of these things would there'd be more of a cost for supervision and personnel. Um that would be the cost, but uh but there's potential. Thank you. Um yeah, I would like to see um if possible maybe the gyms uh be considered as um potentially a source of could be revenue. I mean that we can bring in by renting the gyms. Um and then uh perhaps just the uh playgrounds uh since they are free, you know, obviously we're um um paying for the gym to be supervised and if we are uh able to um you know get a string of income coming in from
212there, right? Yep. Thank you. You absolutely could. Um Dr. Haven, thank you for the presentation. Um, I wanted to, it's not really a question, but just something I would love for us to consider. Um, your, you know, recommendation of starting later and ending later. I think it makes sense given that these are, you know, spring summery months. Um, but I do think that we should consider, you know, if we continue this pallet into the fall and the winter when it gets dark by like 5. Um, we might need to alter the times. Um, so I I I am hearing the family responses and agreeing that they might want to start later and end later, but I do think we should um consider what it might look like um in the winter months. Yeah, thank you
213for that feedback. That makes sense. Dr. Haven, uh just a few other logistical questions. I know several trustees and administrators have received comments from families. I will say this is something that's been overwhelmingly positively received. Um, and I think I agree with Trusty Tren's comments about trying to do what we can to inform the broader community and not just necessarily parents at specific sites, especially because we have a lot of parents who go to schools through our multiple magnet programs or elsewhere or just other high school students and others who may want to take advantage of these open campuses. I did want to ask I know in the presentation it addressed you know logistical constraints around bathroom usage which is something that I think every you know parent who reached out to us had commented
214on and I understand in addition to supervision safety um cleaning up making sure it's ready on Monday morning there's a lot of concerns there I guess understanding this is a pilot what were the kind of discussions we've had specifically around whether or not we'd open access to something like the restrooms on our campuses for us the bathrooms were a line in the hand um in initiating the process. Um the first and biggest concern is a is the li legal liability like what what it represents to have a bathroom that isn't monitored and and that no one's checking on. Um and so that would be a really difficult thing for our insurance company. Um and to to some extent even the gym that's why we have an employee physically in the gym in the event that
215there's a medical emergency and you know these people our age they think they can do more than their bodies want to let them do but you know you need to have somebody who has a set of keys who can go and unlock for a fire truck that needs to get on your campus. So that's where when you start to open facilities, there's a an just an increase in in legal liability that um would then preclude us from opening more sites or from you know, we're almost directing the resources that way as opposed to creating more access. Um as a father of five, I would say um you know, we're going to go potty before we leave the house. And yes, we all have that one who says, "Well, I need to go now." And we
216just got here 2 minutes ago. So I'm like, I get it. I know it's really hard to make that work every single time. Um, but that was that was the biggest challenge with the restroom facility itself. The cleaning it, that's not as big a concern because, you know, that takes let's call it 20 minutes per restroom or something like that. We can always facilitate that. Um, but also, you know, as as uh Trusty Proctor pointed out, we have a lot of schools. So like in a in a kind of in a really awesome scenario, we open 16 schools or 18 school, you know, just depending on how many we can we can facilitate. Yeah. And and we get them open, but then that's, you know, you're going to increase your costs there as well. And
217as you know, we have a lot of responsibilities in the district. So that's something we need to sort of think about and plan for. And if we were to add restrooms, it would greatly increase um you know the fiscal liability to the district. I think that makes sense. And I think another comment we received was specifically around communicating summer hours of access or holiday hours and I think that speaks more to a broader point understanding we're only in the pilot stage at the moment but having some kind of central space where we can provide that kind of open and if we do change our hours later as you suggested Dr. Haven, finding some way to communicate that to the broader community so folks aren't finding out on a sign when they walk up and bring
218their kids over to our school. But I I did want to echo something earlier. I agree with Trusty Proctor. I I think that and Trusty Chin has been advocating for this for a long time. I think opening up our campuses is just an amazing thing to do. We've touted all the beautiful spaces you've created, the kind of public good that these sites can provide. Uh I respectfully disagree with Trusty Proctor that I have any faith in um folks to always respect our school properties. And so I think my concern is understanding that the the cost situation that we're in is very sensitive. I do want to expand access as much as we can. But to the extent that we publicize codes of conduct or expectations, to the extent that we've made it clear that if
219we keep finding dog poop on our fields, if we keep finding food tossed by our fences, if we encounter vandalism repeatedly, we may have to withdraw or revoke these privileges. and to the extent that we can communicate to our community partners and those who access these spaces that we are counting on them to help enforce those expectations and to be there because we won't be able to provide staff at every single site to monitor that behavior. I do want to make sure that's expressed somehow upfront to the extent that we can and maybe again if there is a central page that lists out the rules, expectations, availability, a reservation system if we ever have one that might help resolve that issue because even with the pilot if things had gone south and we had decided
220to claw things back. I would have argued that maybe there was a way we could have conducted that better to really communicate that this is not just open free time but that we are you know expecting you to hear certain behavioral expectations by using these public spaces. Again, this is a harder problem to solve, especially without the resources or budget. But I am curious to see, knowing that this is a common practice among our neighboring school districts, how they've been able to essentially self-monitor and self address some of these issues to the extent possible. There will still be an inconsiderate dog walker. There will still be an occasional teenager or someone else who may cause some issues. But I do want to know if there's a way without taking on significant budgetary constraints that we
221can essentially expand spaces without then seeing our cleaning and maintenance costs rise in parallel. Well, I don't know why you had to call out teenagers. I guess you don't have any. I have a soon to be teenager. Um I want to I would say that I think that you know when Okay, my kids play baseball, right? And so a lot of times we'll go to a baseball field and they'll kind of like list out like these are just kids or whatever. I'm thinking if if you put up a sign that says this is a school and kids come here and they're going to be here on you know Monday morning kind of thing like please respect our spaces. I think people will be a little bit more respectful. I don't really like I would ask
222I guess where I see people on campuses in Foster City what has been like what's been the issues because those were not part of the pilot program. They're literally maybe people climbing over the fence and getting in. Definitely teenagers are there because I know they are. Um like what kind of problems have they caused? And if it's really like nothing or minor then maybe it's not as big of a deal as what we're worried about. Um just and just to give a a sample of a situation that actually does pertain to Foster City Elementary. we and that is really big beautiful field and that school has really nice facilities and spaces for kids to play on on you know just different structures and things like that. But um we had a a family go out
223and hold a barbecue on our on our turf field and they used a small grill that was so hot that it burned the field and so we had to go in and replace the the field and there was no way for us to determine who the family was or you know like we didn't have that part of it but you know when staff showed up on Monday it was a bummer to be like you're really not going to have a barbecue on this field like there's asphalt 20 ft away. So, and that's that's the exception to the rule. The 90% of the families go and they play and they hula hoop and they jump rope and things like that. Um or play pickle ball. Um but those are the kind of situations where I think
224we just like some sort of messaging that says, "Hey, remember 560 kids come to school here." you know, with some pictures of kids using the C, you know, something to sort of indicate um some messaging around just help us keep this place clean. And actually, our teenagers in as much as they, you know, in in certain areas they can sort of get excited and horse play and make a big mess, they'll actually help us keep the place clean, too. So, I think there's some opportunities to get some student leaders around some initiatives where they come and help us with this kind of a weekend program and it would be a really fun way um to get students involved in their own local neighborhoods and saying, "Hey, you know, I'm part of this group, you know,
225the green team, the you know, whatever the branding is for the school." And we show up on Sundays and we we we do a check around the campus and make sure it's clean for the following Monday. And teenagers are really good about like volunteering to do that kind of thing. Um, yeah. Yes. I will draw my earlier comments about teens in particular. Um, but I did want I I actually did love that point because I know for example at Foster City when they did science fair recently, a lot of high school students were there doing science demonstrations. There's a lot of volunteer groups. And I think there is a way to practively engage the community, whether it's just local community, neighborhood associations, teen volunteer groups, our high school volunteer groups, and others to essentially create
226the kinds of checks we're trying to do without necessarily imposing additional costs on the district. I mean, some will be unavoidable, like making sure the schools clean on Monday morning. But I think that there are opportunities like that where we can be creative and open up these spaces while also finding opportunities to engage the community at large. And I think that was one of our goals in opening spaces to begin with was to essentially strengthen our relationships with the community uh that we serve. And so I definitely love that type of idea and agree with Trusty Proctor's comments. And that barbecue thing happened like 3 years ago when that field first opened. So I feel like statute of limitations is about to expire on that on that one to move past it. Actually, sorry. One
227point of clarification. I know we have camera systems on all of our schools. Are they active on the weekends? Okay. It never hurts to advertise that fact. Yeah. And you know, I think the we we utilize them because, you know, they're a very good tool to be able to identify things happening. Um, but I also think the way that we are able to ask our community to be part of this bigger conversation so that now it's not really the barbecues. Now it's more like the ebikes and the bikes that are motorized and teenagers going in. And Highland's the most recent example. We we get about four to five visitors after 900 p.m. every night at Highlands. Mhm. And they do wheelies and they go on the field. They bring their dogs at night. Um, it's
228really problematic. The following morning, you know, there's some really beautiful landscaping in front of the the new building. Um, and you know, we have kids. First of all, what they're doing is dangerous. They're at night in the pitch black. They're riding their motorized bikes. Um, and you know, these are these are little kids. They're probably 11, 12, 13 years old. So, it's about us figuring out a way to get into that communication channel with our our friends in the Highlands community to say, "Hey, help us pass this message along so that we bring down some of that um, you know, the lights turn off and the lights go down type of behavior." That said, that's not what we're seeing at our, you know, when we open up our campuses between 10 and 5. So that's
229that is in and of itself a separate issue but connected to the overall idea of hey let's partner with our communities and and get this conversation going saying you know we've put a lot of money into making these campuses beautiful and we want people to use them. All right. Any public comment? One public comment. Hold on. Thank you. Okay, Pablo, are you ready? Michael, we can't hear. Can you hear me? Yes, now I can. Great. Thank you for um for having this meeting and and holding this space and and having this agenda item uh to discuss. I wanted to share a quick testimonial. I'm Pablo Kintani. I'm a parent of two kids. Um I live on Magnolia Drive which is close to Sunny Bray and yet my kids go to uh Fiesta Gardens just a
230few blocks away. And um I I wanted to just um share how much we've benefited from this program over the last four weeks. Um, and so what started with a couple families who really wanted to just get together and have a space to play soccer on Sundays has really grown to about 12 or 13 families each bringing two, three, sometimes four people. And so e even at in looking at the stats from that great presentation shared just a few minutes ago, um I I think that actually underounts the number of people um that that are actually using this just in at at Sunny. I think uh last weekend we were there from 9:30 to 11 and we had we probably had 22 or 25 people and the weekend before that that was probably three times
231that. Um and so this is this is great news in the sense that I think people are using it um and are really benefiting from it. And maybe the the the benefits that I see are are sort of like two or three-fold. one is, you know, some some community members that there are issues with morbidity and and and uh poor health and so forth. And so this is a great way to encourage parents and families in a multigenerational way to really um spend time together and exercise, build community, build trust, etc., etc. Um do I still have a little time or am I about one minute? Uh okay, great great. Uh, sorry, I wasn't sure how long. Um, and and you know, um, maybe a couple of other thoughts that that we're thinking with with
232this group of parents is we really try to do our best to leave this place better than what we found it. And so it's I'm I'm really sad and it's unfortunate to hear that at other sites like there has been a problem with trash. But maybe a mitigation for that could be to um both with like really good signage as it's already been mentioned to to really remember that this is a community asset and a gem to really take care of. I think we can do things like um setting up buckets with those pickers as as you might see at Coyote Point or other places. Really encouraging people to sort of pick up behind um after themselves. Um that that's that's one option. And um so so I just want to end by saying that
233I really appreciate this program exists. We're taking advantage of it. We're building community. We're really trying to also encourage a muscle of health on a regular basis every Sunday. And um and and look forward to this program continuing. Thank you. Thank you, Michael. Are there any other public comment online? No public comments at this time. I thought I thought of a comment I wanted to make. Um, you know, in when we're talking about supervision and different possibilities and ideas, um, something that just popped up as we were all talking, you know, there are a number of schools, um, that require parent volunteer hours. Um and so I think it would be you know and a lot of parents have shared you know over time that you know of usually the opportunities are during the school
234day that they conflict with parents who have working schedules. So to have you know potentially parents sign up to you know volunteer to you know help supervise their schools and can feed into kind of existing programs already that exist at schools. Thank you. Um, another comment I wanted to make was that um the we had a couple of um people email us I think particularly from the Fiesta Gardens community and they had some really great suggestions. I understand, you know, some of the reasons why we cannot make all of those suggestions happen, but I think um some of the suggestions that I really appreciated were, you know, requests for multilingual signage um where that isn't currently being implemented. Um, and then I I'd be curious to um kind of look at a map of our
235district of where students live or like where they're clustered. Um, particularly for example um, Hillsdale Gardens where there's a lot of kids. I think um in addition to North Central and then just making trying to think through what our if we're going to prioritize certain locations like maybe looking to see where we have the most school-aged children or or middle schoolers and then um like having that be part of the the conversation. Um but definitely I I really appreciate this program. Um I know specifically at Sunny Bray and um it's it's um at least when I've gone it's it's been pretty well attended and uh although I think where possible we should open the gates close to where there is parking. Um and specifically at Sunbury I'm just speaking to that because I that's the
236one that I've been to the most. But um the back gate like most people don't know to go there and it's kind of out of the way and it's around um the back. It's just not obvious. And so I think more a lot of people try to get in through the front gate which is um the same it sort of like opens to the same space and um although there are some classrooms that um face onto that space. There's just there's not that many classrooms and I think it just m like I'm just thinking from the perspective of a community member who hears that a school is open. And I would just try to make it the um like easy for people to identify where to go. Um because I think there's just been a
237lot of confusion about about that at some of the schools. So um that's just one item of feedback. But in general, I agree this has been a really positive thing for the community and I just really want to expand it um and and just like invite people in and and have them feel invested in in what the school in in the school and um I've seen actually a lot of people who have um really young kids like toddlers um really appreciate it because it is you fully enclosed. They can't like get out into the street. Um so that's I think a a big selling point is that there's like more room for them to run and there's um all these there's playground equipment, but um it's where the parents can can readily supervise. So I
238appreciate all the work that um that this team has been doing to to facilitate this and thank you very much. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Mr. Haven. My pleasure. All right. We will move to item uh nine uh board member requests for future agenda items. I would like to request that we uh prioritize uh Tulsa uh Tulsa um focus on um a strategy that will bring awareness of bullying in our district. Um there's been two recent um student very young student suicides that has occurred um as a result of bullying um not in our district but in our um local districts. And I would like to see how we can uh implement a strategy that will help to prevent um any of these uh occurring um in our district and also just educating. So,
239um, given um, some of the conversations that I've been hearing tonight and at our last board meeting, I would really, um, welcome a deeper look into some of our districts, not some into our district's afterchool ELO offerings. Um, those partnerships, the processes, attendance. Um, I think, um, I would welcome, you know, kind of in in communication and I think kind of opening this topic would be important. Thank you. We'll move to item 10. Uh any board member statements? I have a few. Um since we're kind of heading into summer, I want Well, first of all, I wanted to just um thank our classified staff. It's classified employee week. So, um, thank them for everything they do and, you know, couldn't run our district without them. So, um, wanted to say that. Also, we, um, we
240talked earlier about, um, the Mandarin program and I just wanted to kind of say that, you know, our magnet school, our magnet programs are really special. Like, it's, you know, our district is unique in that way. And I just want to make sure um, that it's clear. I mean, I think you all know me that it's I'm all about like making sure everyone feels welcome and included. So making sure that our magnet programs do include everybody and that we are reaching out beyond like the people that just know about these programs and are eager to get in um is really important to me. So I I don't know if I like fully expressed that earlier, but that's that's kind of the point I wanted to make. Um, and then at this time of the year,
241I always like to just congratulate our eighth graders and um, as we send them off to um, high school very soon. I just want to like congratulate them, tell them that um, if anyone's listening that, you know, you're always welcome back. and um to just really give them the encouragement that going on to a new school district is exciting, but also an opportunity for them to if they didn't have the best year or they didn't make the they weren't the person that they wanted to be, they have the opportunity to go and make new friends and be who they really want to be, be who they are and um and you know, come back and tell us how things are. And um as uh Trusty Kim and I have talked about, we'd like to see
242the data. I'd like also to hear um that kind of qualitative like how's your experience going and and all that kind of thing from from our graduates as they go on beyond and then just in general wishing everyone a happy summer and um a a good rest of the school year for everyone but really hope everyone enjoys their time off and gets to do what they like to do all summer. um to tag on to Trusty Proctor's um comments about the the Mandarin um plan. Um I just I want to flag for people who are maybe not familiar too that Mandarin is really difficult to learn, especially if you you don't grow up in a household where you're learning it. Um, I remember touring College Park and the principal at the time um basically laid
243out um languages and how you know how many hours of study it takes to reach working proficiency in those languages if you're a native English speaker. Um and you know a lot of the romance languages French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese is close. Um is around 700 hours and man and so that's like group one is like sort of the languages that are closest to English where there's a lot of overlap and it's easier to learn um because there's just so many words that are similar. Um Mandarin is group f four or five. It's like really it's like the hardest um language be uh one of the hardest languages because it's so different from English and working proficiency is 2200 hours. it's like really really really different and really um and we just don't have you know
244more than three times the number of hours in a school day right so I think we just need to also recognize how difficult it is um to reach the same level of proficiency for those students and um while we may not be able to like triple the the support like I think we should recognize that like we um we do need that support in order for the kids to actually like take advantage of that program. Um, and so and then second item I wanted to make a statement about was that we are we're having these workforce housing meetings um with a lot of stakeholders that we have a staff survey that went out and we have data back from that um and it really just um emphasizes the need for workforce housing and and support
245around that. And then lastly, um again echoing what um Trustee Proctor said, you know, congratulations to everyone um who is going through fifth and eighth grade promotion. And then thanks as well to everyone who's making like all the open houses, all the end of school promotion, um celebrations and parties and and everything happen. it doesn't, you know, it takes a lot of work and it takes a lot of volunteering and um staff and and buyin from everyone. So, I just want to say I'm really appreciative of that. I think it um it's just a really positive way to end the school year and um yeah, thank you. Um, I also wanted to recognize um on Thursday, May 15th, the board um and a lot of people uh among us on the district got together to
246honor and celebrate our teacher induction program graduates. Um it was really amazing to hear how our district comes together to support and mentor our new teachers um and the impact, you know, that we get to see of those new teachers making on our schools. I want to thank Susie Riley and her team um for their deep dedication to and very thoughtful execution of our teacher induction program. Um and also I didn't have a chance to say it earlier with the consent agenda, but I wanted to just make a comment um about consent agenda 4B1 and two about the approval of crossing guard agreements. Um I was really really excited to see that. Um I I think um having you know crossing guard agreements in both the city of Foster City and Sonteo is just a
247wonderful example of you know effective partnerships between our district and our city. Um you know all of us just want to make sure that our kids are safe and can get to school safely. And so I was really so encouraged to see that. I think it was really um very resonant for me. I I just want to echo all of my prior trustes comments on all fronts and also apologize in advance because it's been a very busy uh month since our last board meeting. So I do have a couple of thank yous and updates I want to provide. Um first I wanted to talk about the trip that superintendent Machoa, President Brooks and I took out to go to DC with the California School Board Association for their coast to coast federal advocacy trip. I
248think the mood this year was obviously very cognizant of the fact that all of our public schools are under attack, are under threat, and we're dealing with a constant sense of uncertainty. And so to be out there in that context, being trained on a lot of the issues that matter most to California students, to our title one schools, to a lot of our special ed students, and the programs that mean the most to our most vulnerable. Uh it was great to be out there. I also want to give special thanks to our congressman Kevin Mull and his team that met with us and a lot of other uh reps from Sanonteo County to talk about some of the issues that are front and center for our district and for our students. I also I think
249um as Trusty Trin mentioned earlier wanted to thank the Ed Foundation for the really great event they put on with the Harlem Wizards. I know Trusty Trin was there, Trusty Ho was there as well. Superintendent Vo was doing a great job coaching. Um, it was great to see some of our students and administrators and others uniformed up and playing on that court and it's always just a very fun event to bring our community together. I also want to thank our county supervisor Noelia Cororso who hosted a cafe community meeting to meet with folks from this area. Um, Trustee Proctor and I had a chance to join her for that. Um, our former superintendent um, Roses was there as well. And so it was great to just be out there with community folks talking about some
250of the exciting things that we're working on in our schools and in coordination with the county. Um, also echoing the prior comment, really wanted to thank Susie, David, their whole team for that wonderful induction ceremony. Congratulate all of our teachers, thank all of our mentors for the time they put in. I think from our retirement ceremonies to induction and just the kind of community we built, the kind of supports we put in place, teaching is one of the hardest things that you can do and the fact that our district recognizes that and tries to do what we can to help support that work and honor that work, I think is incredibly important. I also wanted to thank a separate supervisor uh uh board supervisor president um David Canipa for hosting a great celebration last week
251for the 169th anniversary of Santo County. I know a lot of us were out there as well to help uh break in the new building that they've just built for the county. Supervisor Corzo and others were there as well. I also want to thank the California Teachers Association. As Kathy mentioned, I had the privilege of joining about 30 to 40 of our members and their families out there. You know, as we talked about, there are a lot of threats to public education right now. And to be standing out there with so many of our teachers, especially on their matching Smita shirts, marching through the streets advocating for this issue, I think, you know, I know KQD and a bunch of other reporters are talking to our educators who are out there because we were very
252visible uh even across the Bay Area forces that had gathered. And I also just wanted to say that, you know, especially for Kathy, if this is the last time we're interacting in this context, just want to thank you for your partnership, for your leadership. You know, earlier we alluded to the fact that so much of the progress we've been able to make in our partnership with SMEA has been because of the relationship and trust we've built. But also, I think I really want to call the fact that you are unwavering in your advocacy. You are zealously fighting for our teachers and our students. And even if that puts you at odds with the administrators or the board, I think everyone here recognizes where that passion comes from. We respect that. And I think that having
253that type of conversation with you for at least as long as I've been on the board has been incredibly meaningful, has made us better trustees, has made us a better district. And so we just want to really recognize you, not just for your ability to work with us, but also to push back when we're not doing the right thing and holding us accountable. And I think that's the kind of partnership that we want to see. And you know, when you and I were at the uh CTA meeting last year, hearing so many districts who couldn't even sit at the same table with their trustees who were just had fallen so far apart with their administrators that they just did not have that type of relationship to know that even in the middle of difficult conversations,
254we're all moving in the same direction with the same mission. I think is something that is just incredibly invaluable and we couldn't do what we do without that kind of relationship and it's one that we'll continue to build this meeting moving forward. Um, and then I think lastly, you know, this is classified school employee apprec appreciation week. I know we spoke about our last board meeting. I just want to also call out May, even though we're near the end of May, is mental health awareness month, which I know is a huge priority for our district. It's also Jewish American Heritage Month, Asian-American, Native Hawaiian, uh, Pacific Islander Heritage Month. And then looking ahead to June, which is going to be Pride Month. It's just again great to be a part of a district that really
255values investment and support, inclusion, especially at a time when it feels like those values are under assault. It's something that we've doubled down on and I think it's an important part of who we are. Thank you. And I would like to echo that. I'd like to echo all my uh fellow fellow trustees and also bring um awareness to it being foster care awareness month. Um and with that we are going to move into our future meeting dates. Our next regular board meeting will be on June and we will um recess to close session. Comments. Oh, any public comment, Michael? No public comments at this time. Thank you. Uh it is 10:24 and we are reconvening from close session. Item number 13B, a majority of the board vote 5 to zero to approve uh an agreement
256and stipulation for expulsion for a student pursuant to education code 48900. Item number 13A. Uh the majority of the board vote 50-0 to approve the um compromise agreement of office of in the office of administration in administrative hearing case number 2025040785 to resolve claims between the district and student by maintaining students current educational placement for the remainder of the 2020 24-25 school year and providing 1,000 and as reimbursement for education expenses. And with that, can I get a motion to adjurnn? Motion to adjurnn. Second. All in favor say I. I. I.