001all right calling the meeting to order at 4:45 apologies everyone we had some yeah just some challenges with time tonight we are uh roll call trusty Proctor here she's here I am here and trusty Tren is on her way I meet a motion to approve the agenda for the special board meeting motion to approve the agenda for the special thank you for that I will second thank youor for the motion trusty Brooks for the second all those in favor say I I I all right uh opening it up for any audience in person audience public comment on the agenda which is to discuss the interview process okay uh Joe can we open up public comment on Zoom please yes uh president uh excuse me president there are no other attendees at the moment so there
002are no comments Perfect all right we will move on to discussing the interview process for selection for the provisional appointment to the Board of Trustees now that's a twister superintendent as a as the board will recall um nine months ago we went through a similar process um the applicants who are coming before the board this evening have answered a series of questions that were um really intended to get at the heart of their interest in service what they felt were the district's strengths and weaknesses um and then as a board you all have the capacity to make decisions tonight in this deliberation that really determine how you will take them through this interview process um you have their written answers so you have a good place to start from and if each candidate comes forward
003and speaks to the board uh from the podium then each candidate has an opportunity to in a way tell their story sort of explain why they believe they're the best candidate um we did that at our last process it seemed to work very well um the difference here is you have four candidates this evening nine months ago you had 10 so you went through a process nine months ago where you narrowed down to three finalists you might want to consider doing something different because you have basically four total so that's where I'll leave it to the board for the three of you all and when truste Tren arrives for the four of you all to just discuss you want to have finalist you want to ask each questions the way you did nine months ago
004and if so um the process from there would be one of the members of the board would make a motion to to make this provision appointment um and then the board would deliver it as whether or not that person has the support and it would require three votes with that I'll pass it to the board thank you thank you so I think um I think unless you all are opposed I think it makes sense to keep kind of the plan or the process that we plan F that we used last time which was to have folks as superintendent oo mentioned like give whatever amount of time you want you know 3 minutes of just kind of like their intro and then we can all ask a question um which is what we did when we
005narrowed down but probably makes sense just to do for all four I think from if that's good with you all and then I think the only then then kind of to superintendent oo's point we need to determine whether or not um we are going to if we want to at that point then everyone give their top two and we pick like the top two from there to have a discussion or ask followup questions or if as said we also could just make somebody could make a motion after that do you guys have a preference on which of those do you want to narrow down to two and then do like another round of questions or deliberation or do you want to pick after the first round um I was thinking after hearing from everyone if
006we if we felt like I I almost feel like if we're like if somebody felt like if we all felt like there's were ready to just go with one if someone felt like they're ready to just put a nomination out there and we were ready to vote we could just go right then and there but if it was like people were like teetering between two then me go so I don't know if there's a way to kind of test it out at that point to see if people are feeling strongly one way or the other at that point but yeah we could TW test it out we could also have folks write down their top one or something and pass it to superintendent CH if it feels you know I don't I don't know to
007me or whatever however we want to do it um I was kind of thinking the same thing Alison okay uh just mentioned so I I just feel like if we are feeling pretty confident with one we just move forward um okay sorry yeah and then and then if there is you know maybe some things that we want to further discuss I just don't know how that should happen once we are done with the interviews so maybe then what I'll propose is like after we do people give their three minutes we'll have an opportunity to ask questions I'll just ask at that point of someone is ready to make a motion to a point and at that point if someone is like if you all feel strongly or trust you TR feel strongly you can make
008a motion and we can like at that point if that motion passes and other people feel similarly strongly then we're done and if at that point if nobody here feels strongly can say like we like to kind of move forward with the second round and we can at that point I'll have everyone write on that t two we'll pick the top two out of those and then we'll we'll determine whether or not we want to have a discussion or whether folks have additional questions that they want to ask to help them make a decision okay sound good sounds all right um we don't need a this is just discussion and then we just have toj this yeah and I'll go back and put some things into charts and show the process so when you're all
009up on the days you'll know yeah awesome okay well that is it so we will I can bring trusty Tren up to speed and then we'll adj um we just finalized uh kind of the the process so just want to make sure you're good with it so the plan is similar to when you were appointed um everyone we have four people so everyone will have an opportunity to give kind of like their overview to say whatever they want to say about themselves we're going to give folks three minutes then we'll each have an opportunity to ask them a question um um and then at that point um we will the option will be on the table for someone to make a motion to appoint someone so if people you if anybody here feels strongly like
010I really want you know one this this individual um and then we can we'll vote on whether you know if there's a second then we can kind of move forward with that and we might end up appointing somebody just after that kind of initial round but if folks feel like they want more information or want to do another round then um everyone will write down their top to candidates we'll pick from those top we'll we'll pull those together and then go with the top two um and then at that point we can have a discussion or if people have like additional questions that they want to ask those candidates in order to help them make a decision we'll do that so that's where we landed we were just about to adjourn but any does that
011sound good that sounds great okay yeah right I don't need a motion to adjourn then the special meeting I'll make a motion to adjourn the special meeting a second thank you trusty works for the question trusty Pro second all those in favor say hi hi hi um and then we need to wait until 5 o'cl okay perfect so we'll wait until 5 o'clock minute break I'm GNA go type and put in the charts wel Christmas I saw those and get because they're they're warm too I mean it's like kind of right a lot of rebranding effective well how are you to ask yall is there public comment specifically for our item or will it be a general public comment at feel good this time of the year oh [Music] really public comment because so every
012item has [Music] not okay are we still live yes president Watkins you're all set okay cool okay I'm going to call our meeting to order at 501 um we are conving [Music] to regular meeting no I think it's no we are but okay we're gonna start with the flag salute flag of the United States of America stands one nation God indivisible with liy and justice all right roll call trusty Tren here trusty Proctor here trusty BRS here and I am present motion to approve tonight's agenda I will make a motion to approve tonight's agenda second thank you trusty Proctor for the motion trusty BR for the second all those in favor say I I and also approval of the minutes from last month's meeting I'll make a motion to approve say thank you trusty Tren
013for the motion trusty Rooks for the second all those in favor say I I I okay I now opening it up to public comment on closed session before we recess to close session any in-person comments on close session Joe can we take Zoom audience questions on close session yes thank you president Watkins good evening we're calling uh for speakers for public comment on closed session items if you would like to speak please please use the raise hand feature on the zoom meeting platform now speakers will have 3 minutes to give their remarks president Watkins there are no public comments at this time great thank you okay we will recess to close session and we'll see you all back here at 5:30 have you reti a or a friendship okay so that's a good happy people
014[Music] oh yeah yeah okay yeah going to go ahead and get started by way we're going to go ahead and get started we're not used to having such a full house so nice everyone in person but we're also like wait how do we get people to like quiet again thank you all um we are reconvening to open session with nothing to report out a close session um we will start tonight with public statements related to non-agenda topics the San Mato Foster City School Board cannot access on 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 raising SP to staff for investigation and or action were appropriate please limit your STS to three minutes so again this is for
015anything that is not on the agenda so if there are any blue slips if folks have public comment or things not on the agenda you can bring those up here do you have any I for non agenda uh this is on the agenda uh so seeing none for the iners let's do a Joe can you do Zoom please yes thank you president Watkins good evening we're calling for speakers uh for public comment if You' like to speak please use a raise hand feature on the zoom meeting platform now speakers will have three minutes to give their remarks president Watkins I don't see any raised hands at the moment okay great thank you so much all right public statements related to agenda items persons will be called in at the appropriate time moving to Foundation committee
016and PTA Council reports any foundation or committee oh sorry any committee reports from the board um I did I was not able to attend but Nancy to put you on the spot do you want to have like a 30 second overview of the equity task force meeting that I missed love to oh I didn't see right in my eyes so we had a really wonderful meeting um very recently and the Tas Force spent time discussing a protocol for future presentations so we made parameters about the length of the presentation the type of questions we ask and then we are anticipating the first task force to present to us in January and we're excited to hear about the wonderful work that's happening in the district as it relates to that golden R CL that was under
01730 seconds amazing thank you all right um Foundation go for it you can stand there or stand here wherever you want okay so for this um this January January 19th through February 2nd will be our eth annual um Sano Foster City Education Foundation readathon this year we are including preschool through 8th grade we got some feedback from middle schoolers saying we can't do this anymore so theirs is going to be a little different uh but we are working on all the materials and the kickoffs are at the suil main library on Friday January 19th and I'm looking for Sano based principles to read and then um the next day we have the Foster City kickoff at Foster City main library and that's from 2 to three so thank you for all your support with our
018our readathon in the past and we were doing a new platform and we are hoping that it is way smoother and um easier for everyone to to do so thank you thank you do we have anyone from PTA Council here or online if you're online and you're Foundation or PTA Council you can just raise your hand Joe any hands anyone from PTA Council um no I don't see any raised hands okay you can let me know if if they do in the next minute or two and we can still Circle back okay move on to SMA CSA at snfca updates SMA hello good evening school board members all of the the potential Schoolboard Ms and district office and those in the attendance both in person and virtual I wanted to give a few updates on
019where we are right now in Spa um a couple things that I know everyone is wondering about is calendar we were lucky to meet with the uh District the other day and calendars are coming soon and our votes are our um speeda members will be voting on that on the return from break so hopefully we will have two three years of calendars coming fairly soon um I wanted to thank all of our members that are part of community schools that are working to give their feedback and hear their have their voices heard on uh creating their site plans for Community Schools I know that especially right now it's been a very busy time getting it together but I know that um our members have a lot of great feedback and are um working together with
020their sites to make sure that their voices are being heard um I really wanted to congratulate our 47 teachers tosas counselors Librarians uh Speech Lego Pathologists that have now reached their permanent status some are here personally here tonight there's a lot of you out in the zoom world and not here present but I just wanted to um really acknowledge the work that it takes to become permanent status and all of the work that especially in these past couple of years which have been fairly difficult years to be teaching uh and working in our schools I really think that um it's a great accomplishment and especially for those who this is their brand year you know this is their first year uh first couple of years of actually in education but to everybody as well so
021I wanted to make sure that um they were publicly acknowledged um through spa and I want to thank them for their dedication to this uh profession and the students that they serve I really am wishing everybody has a wonderful um restful and safe holiday and we are looking forward to continue to working um together in the coming year so much happy and thank and congratulations to all the employees uh CCA who's representing for CSA tonight anyone here in person no oh can we check on Zoom yes uh thank you president wat I don't see um any Representatives raising their hand at this moment let me know we'll turn over to smcaa good evening members of the board superintendent oilla and all of us joining us this evening um for those of you that don't me
022don't know me I'm dog Garrison I'm the principal at oton and school in Foster City last night many of our students participated in the script spelling B this is our 10th anniversary so it's really EXC thank you trusty proor who was a judge um for the spelling be um we had over 50 participants that participated in the junior spelling B and the senior spelling B and although everybody couldn't be a winner in our hearts everyone won um I do want to like um congratulate our third grade student who won the overall spelling be who was Kalani um and uh it was it was a nailbiter at the end the championship round um went on and on on and every time a student went up there we were like H the word right um it was
023really exciting so um that's the the big thing that's been happening in oton this week as we prepar for the winter break um and on behalf of the Sano Foster City administrators I want to take a moment to celebrate our school did district and the wonderful team that we have um I want to start by thanking the teachers and our tosas who have engaged in extensive professional development this year over the summer um around equity and instructional practices and really aim to increase better outcomes for our students we' really had to shift our thinking in many ways and uh it's been challenging at times but everyone has been remained committed to the work big appreciations to our counselors our psychologist and other Specialists to contribute to care teams and provide targeted academic and emotional support
024for our students and I want to thank our classified staff as an administrator I have a front row seat in the diversity of our classified staff from The Office Team to maintenance and operations custodial teams Food Service teams technology all the parent educ s who provide services such as Library PE Annex care special education there are so many classified workers who just come together to make our schools run behind the scenes and directly impact students and we cannot dra our jobs without all of you um thank you families for everything that you do to support your students at home your partnership is key in the accomplishments that we've achieved and your students have achieved superintendent OAA and for um thank you so much um for setting this vision of achievement equity and wellness and for
025supporting us through this journey and I want to thank all of our students You' proven yourselves to be dedicated in your learning committed to kindness and recognizing that being a student's not easy can we all make mistakes and what's important is when we make mistakes and we feel overwhelmed we step up to those mistakes okay and that's part of growing up okay what's important is that we have these learning opportunities and that they help us become better for ourselves we want to celebrate all of our students and all of their accomplishments and want you to know that you inspire us every day we are truly stronger together [Applause] evening everybody I am princip ofest Gardens international school thank you for having us here tonight school board and district office leaders and everyone else for joining
026us I'm also joined by our fabulous assistant principal I'm assistant principal Max director our school this has been a fabulous first year for me as a principal seeing the uh embodiment of Fiesta Gardens in terms of our commitment to achievement equity Wellness this is something that permeates through all of our school Community through our staff our teachers our classified staff the engagement that we have with our parents and the support our students receive as well this year we're really fortunate in that we were able to host a number of community engagement activities through the Partnerships that we have with our community organizations and the work of our fabulous community service specialist teams we were able to host the fia the fiesta we were able to link up a lot of our community members with access
027to different resources that they might not know about and to provide them with um this support that they might need we also havec C we were able we were able to donate 30 bicycles to many of our students and this was done in h connection with our safe R to school program and our PTA so we're really excited about the work that is done to support our community we have something that's really important about super sabad where we work to ensure our parents have access to our um online resources we do this in both Spanish and English whenever we have events we have Spanish and English as a program that is celebrating 30 years as a dual emersion dual language immersion education school we are very fortunate in that most of our staff is bilingual
028in both English and Spanish and that helps us to also address the needs of our students and our community members we're working with the Community Schools project and we hope to expand what we already have and to grow we have through our help witha many of our team members which is made up of staff and teachers uh I'm sorry staff teachers classified and community members and we're really looking forward to what the year holds and what's coming for us thank you all also it's our first year with TK so that's fabulous thank you all so much for sharing it's always so great to get a little bit more of a glimpse into each of our schools and also music to my ears to hear achievement Equity Wellness like always right so like the Strategic plan
029like in full effect and being like Incorporated so um Joe just wanted to Circle back to csca do we have anyone before we move on um thank you president wat I still don't see any Representatives uh with raised hands okay um moving on to board announcements any board announcements notes just announc just wanted to say happy Hanukkah those who are celebrating and think tomorrow night is the last night yeah then happy all right superintendent aelle over to you for your report I plan the see time um in just a second here but if you if you ever go to Fiesta when they have this bicycle event and you don't have a tear in your eye you're dead on the inside W all these all these bikes are just lined up and all these CH you
030you just you just get reminded about the goodness that is out you know so you know cheers with the es Gardens international school for doing that because takes a lot a lot of work for them to be able to you know to put something like that together but um but tonight I'm seing my time to our HR staff um we have 47 Educators as you heard who achieve permanent status um that's a really big life Cher for a lot of our employees um and and it's a it's a real celebration for them so I want to pass it over to our assistant superintendent thank you superintendent NOA uh first thing I would like to do is acknowledge the three ladies in the back who did all the paperwork behind making sure everybody gets registered and
031credential [Applause] all right and secondly I would like to invite my colleague Maria de up here um and we have two teachers in the audience that I know of that are here to be talked about tonight for their amazing accomplishments of becoming permanent teachers so um do we have um Gina Mia here Gina come on [Applause] up to piggy back on what superintend CH said this is a huge amount of work and and what Miss Kathy Pratt said as well this is a huge amount of work to get to this place where you've achieved permanence you've done your induction you have jumped through hoops you have done everything amazing for kids and I just want to thank you from the bottom of my heart and recognize what a wonderful job you're doing um at Bayside
032and at Abid school so with that I'm going to turn it over to Maria she's going to talk talk her a little bit oh okay A little overview well Gina I hired Gina what two years ago um and and she was amazing she just have to say I hired her for a different pH so when she came in to go through the campus I said something's changed I hope you can go with this change and so talked to her and I just talked about what an amazing staff we have at Bas our Elementary staff said you will have the best partner I will tell you and then everyone collaborates and she was scared and I gave her some curriculum look at it I'm gonna give you your um your colleague's number they talked and it's
033been a match in heaven every time we see J like thank you thank you she loves said so we are so happy to have her here and then Abbot I went to Abbott Middle School so you know it's just amazing and I was a teacher myself at pest Gardens so I know how hard it is to be a new teacher go through induction go through the program so I'm just so proud of us we're all Educators right we take this job because of our kid so congratulations to you as well um and um it's our lovely district and so I'm proud that we're all family here so congrats to you too congratulations thank you so much thank [Applause] you uh we will move on to our proposed consent agenda all items on the consent agenda
034are considered by the board to be routine and will 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 be removed and discussed from the consent agenda superintendent and staff recommend approval of all consent items movement of any recommended consent item is appropriate at this time any board member I would like to pull item 7 A3 please any others any audience inperson audience members want to pull any consent agenda items for discussion see none Joe can you check on Zoom please yes thank you president Watkins if any uh attendees would like to pull any uh consent agenda items at this time please use
035the rayan feature on the zoom meeting platform now president Watkins there are no raised hands at the moment okay great so I will need a motion to approve the consent agenda with the exception of 7 A3 I'll make a motion to approve the consent agenda with the exception of 783 second thank you trusty Trin for the motion trusty Brooks for the second all those in favor say I I right trusty proor 783 um I pulled 783 because um this is the report for contracts are items under 45,000 and um as we've been looking at this over the past few meetings there are um a couple of items where the um the vendors ekc Enterprises and if you add a um the items they add up like they total about I think 10 and something thousand
036when you combine them and so I just wanted to ask chck if he wanted to give us a little more info on those items than youer so as you said there's three line three line items referenc for the same and it's all the same so the report that's in the board docket we have a person on team gener there's actually a contract um for a larger dollar amount that has been signed off on and the way the report was run with pulling substance of that larger contract and pulling out those individual dollar Nots um on that course so instead of ping uh the total po amount which is for I think it's 12 sites Al Together part of this overall po um the report pulled individual light items that were below $45,000 so we spent
037time with the county we spent time with a team to revisit how the reports generated um and I worked with the team this afternoon we'll bring back to the board a revised report for both November and December in January um the report good news is that that information is on this report so there's visibility we want visibility and transparency to these things um had the report been run for just POS that were R $45,000 this then wouldn't have shown up it's 45 or less because the overall Dom was greater so we're going to rerun that report for you we'll bring back to you in January um and and it it's going be corre I spend time they going through all the selection criteria from the report generation and we've got that resolved and I saw
038a version of report today reran that addresses this so you won't see this repeated in the future in the same so hope your question any other board comments discussion on this item you have something else so should we not vote on this one or we should um it's um I think you can go ahead and accept the report move on it I said it's all these individual LS are part of a larger Po and a larger contract that was sign off on so I think you go ahead proove it is knowing that we're going to bring you rision for the same time frame most of these items will be on there but there may be some that are a subsets of larger POS and until I do the side bys side comparison I don't answer
039that yet just looked at about had me with the county at 3:30 so and will we see the ekc um that larger cont a motion for this I will make a motion to Second thank you for the motion trusty TR for the second hi this was 783 all right we are moving on to interview and selection of candidate for provisional appointment to the Board of Trustees I believe uh just one point I believe we have two speakers to this item so I think last time we had them speak after after the candidates foke I just okay yeah maybe we'll do maybe we'll do the same thing and I'll just go through and talk about process just for folks that weren't here when we um had that conversation um so what we are going to do
040is we'll um be asking every candidate to come up and you'll have three minutes to kind of give an overview of we've all we've read all of the applications that have been submitted Etc but to give any you know overview or any additional information that you think would be helpful for the board I just do want to elevate to the board there has been uh requests for to be five minutes I think a couple of the candidates you know in my communications with them prior to tonight I said you know within a range so if it would be okay with the board a couple have asked if we can extend it to five that's fine yeah um okay so you'll have five minutes um I like to be efficient three um you don't have to
041right feel free seconds all right no this is all Jo okay five minutes um and then every Uh current trustee will have opportunity to ask a question um and then um after that uh we will kind of take a pause to see if there are trustees if anybody would like to make a motion to appoint someone at that time if we feel like someone feels really excited about somebody we feel like we have enough information if there if somebody makes a motion and there's a second we will vote if not what we'll do is um collect names of kind of top two candidates and then have the top two candidates come back for a second round which might include just board discussion or might include asking additional questions of those finalists um so just to
042let you know that there's kind of two paths um so superintendent TR remind me we took public comment when I think we didn't we take it before you took it before before like now Okay cool so we will do that as well we will take um I just gave an overview of the process we will start with public comment we'll take iners public comment and then we'll go to the zoom audience for comment and then we will call candidates in the order that was posted online so Salvador Allison Chan uh one person who is listed has pulled out then it will be Jean Kim and then Martin Jen okay all right uh so Jacob followed by phoei just want to come up to the podium please good evening Este teed members of the board I'm
043Jacob and I'm a senior in high school at carmont high school in San Carlos in Belmont and also a student board member for the SEO Union High School District which spans from East pal Alto to red City I speak to express my full support for Allison chance candidacy for the vacancy in the S Foster City School District during the past six months I've had the privilege of working closely with Allison in her capacity as programming director at the national student board member Association in this role Alison consistently demonstrated to be a deep commitment to enhancing educational experiences for all students of all ages her empathetic approach and Keen understanding of diverse student needs make her a standout advocate for fostering a high quality education environment Allison's exemplary leadership skills extend well beyond her professional D
044duties she possesses a remarkable ability to inspire and guide teenss towards achieving Collective goals and this was especially evident when she led the movement to expand student board members to Charter School Districts and Beyond it is clear to me that Allison's every action is driven by a sincere desire to create an educational environment where each student is empowered and encouraged to excel as a student myself I have a unique perspective on how alon's efforts resonate with my peers it is clear to me and others that all students who meet her genuinely admire Allison and look up to her for everything she does her ability to connect with and earn the trust of students is a testament to her genuine advocacy for our educational welfare Alison's blend of experience empathetic leadership and unwavering commitment to educational
045Excellence positions her as an ideal candidate for the trustee position I'm confident that under her guidance this district will continue to flourish profoundly benefiting from her contributions while I've never attended this school district I know many that have currently do I still remember back in elementary and middle school when I went to chess tournaments all over the District most notably at Bish and Abbot and I remember being absolutely destroyed by bayside's basketball team three years in a row I love this community and want what's best for this community most notably the students and I can tell you beyond doubt that you will never find a candidate that cares more or is more committed to the students and improving the student experience than Alison Shan thank you thank [Music] you I have to follow Jacob that's
046good evening board superintendent I'm just here to express my strong support for Ali Chan to fill the board vacancy I've gotten to know her really well over the past few months and I'm truly impressed by her passion to serve our communities her thoughtful Communications and experience which is past and present with school boards in general additionally I think her past experience serving on the S County Youth commission and the Sano County Board of Education um she was the student rep on that board can help her hit the ground running in the trustey role thank you so much for considering Ali and um letting me speak tonight thank you Joe we can check uh the zoom audience please for public comment yes thank you president what there are four raised hands at the moment and I'm
047sorry could you confirm lost you what am I confirming oh sorry uh is it three or five minutes length of time public comment is three we'll do five minutes when the candidates come oh okay thank you this my last okay um thank you first speaker is Joyce jyn Joy please go ahead good evening everyone my name is Joyce Jen and I am calling in support for aliceon Chan I met Ally when I was a sophomore at Hillel High School um we worked together on use vter turnout during the pandemic and also during that time Ally was sitting on the sto County Board of Education this background allowed her to become familiar with the board governance spe specifically in this area in addition to that experience Ali is a former student from the SE H Foster
048City School District this experience is a new point of view for this board from a recent student about the impact of board decisions I know Ally cares about this District personally and her empathy and expertise would be valuable in this role I strongly urge you to select Ali for this positions thank you thank thank you next speaker is uh zenan Crow I'm sorry that I mispronounced your name um please go ahead hi yeah sorry my name is definitely not easy to pronounce my name is zenan alate Crow um and I just wanted to talk today uh and voice my support for Ali Chan for school board um appointment and I I really want to speak to to my experience in working with Ally especially in the the higher education advocacy space um alli's been a
049huge um supporter and also Advocate on behalf of students in that space at the Statewide level doing really important work and really crucial work to to represent the interest of folks um in a lot of spaces where uh we've seen that we need to have student representation and student voices and so when I think about Ally and I think about her quality as an individual she is seriously one of the hardest working people I know one of the most amazing friends in terms of her ability to go ahead and create connections among folks and also she really knows and gets the the different issues that we face as students and I think she has a really strong track record of advocating on behalf of students uh to prove for that so I just really wanted
050to voice my support for Ally because I I've worked with her in the space for a while now and I'm I'm really really constantly um astounded by just how incredible of a person she she is thank you next speaker is Rudy Espinosa everyone Hi everyone thank you for the opportunity to speak um hello trustees uh and fellow members of the public I'm here to speak on behalf of Ali Chan I had the honor of meeting Ali coincidentally in Sacramento I was there advocating for gun prevention and she was also there advocating uh for good Progressive policies um and we got to chatting and I got to know her very quickly in all the work that she does and sorry that's my daughter who's singing uh I'm I'm I've just been so impressed by Ally and
051her dedication her passion the work that she does and I think there are very very few people that could come to this Board of Trustees already having a board experience someone that can hit the ground running and we've heard a lot of comments from the people people before me um but Ali is someone who's definitely gonna be a voice for her community for her experience and I hope you really do consider her thank you thank you next speaker is Hector kamacho hi there good evening everyone oh hi good evening everyone my name is Hector kamacho I am a trustee on the SEL County Board of Education uh but here speaking independent independently as a member of the community uh but it would be hard to not mention that I was allowed to serve alongside Ally
052when she was a uh the youth commission liaison to the SEL County Board of Education we have had uh approximately six youth commission Liaisons to the S County oh we lost um let me see if I can get him back can you hear me okay sorry about that Hector please go ahead um I don't know did you hear anything I said or not yet uh the first like 10 seconds first 10 seconds okay Hector kamacho SEL County Board of Education it's great to see you all I uh had the great opportunity to serve alongside Ali Chan on the SEL County Board of Education when she served as youth commission liaison to the board um just thinking about all of the members that have served in that role from the youth commission Alli was by far
053the most effective that I've seen just as a trustee not only as a student trustee but as a member of our board as asking plant questions that were really relevant to the needs of students throughout this County um I continue to be impressed by her professional work as well um she has done incredible advocacy work uh in the world of higher ed and on student representation on boards Statewide um when I think about the role the the role that we fill as trustees in in uh a provisional appointment we think about what is our board um what are the what are the roles of a board member Ellie has those already down and the ability to Advocate at a state and federal level is a tremendous asset on any board particularly one that is uh
054working on behalf of children and students while during appointment process there are usually some really excellent candidates that come to the process it's not often that we get some that are so uh not so far removed from the actual experience of being a student within the district and so I think this is a really great opportunity to elevate a Young Person's voice uh someone that brings a tremendous amount of experience to this role um and I think she would be a great advocate for students so thank you so much for letting me come by thank you thank you next speaker is Zach Ritter okay please go ahead okay great yeah thank you everybody I am a lecturer at uh UCLA um and I had the privilege of being the professor of Aly and she's hilarious
055she's personable she's super hardworking she wrote a 40 page paper about this very topic of being of school boards for high school students um I've never seen a paper with so many charts and graphs and you know she compared Maryland to California to Texas uh and we would just have endless conversations after class about systemic racism sexism classism within RK through2 system uh the school to prison pipeline she's so aware of all the inequities um that are facing our society and she's the best equipped of of any of my students um and I'm sure anyone in the room to take on this position um and I I can't say enough good things about Ally um she elevates any room that she's in she's such a team player uh we and she's so dedicated we we'd
056be staying in class until so late with she'd lead discussions even after class and the janitor would have to come in and kick us out um you're you're you're just signing up with the best of the best with Ally and so I'm so happy that she's in this position um and her candidacy is being considered and please please please choose her because um she's she's the best and uh I'm so proud of her thank you everybody thank you next speaker is Ava havik please go ahead hi everyone my name is Ava habich and I am currently the president of NS BMA the national student board member Association and so I am supporting Allison Chan for this trustee vacancy on the San Mato Foster City School District board I've worked with Allison for some time now
057throughout nbma and I've been able to recognize how she has an undenying love for education and for helping students K through 12 and so while I was adjusting to my position as president and making sure that I could oversee over I would say so many different school board members up to around 80 of them and making sure that I could cater to them and provide the communication that they need Allison was right there beside me ensuring that I had all the resources and toolkits that I needed to get started with my position and not only that but she performs her own role so well in connecting with the students and making sure that she can also have that intergenerational connection with adults and students at the same time so she provides that voice and she
058still serves as an amplifier for just policy and ensuring that there's Equitable access throughout education I'd also want to elaborate on just who she is as a person she's so caring and kind and what she supports and what she goes for is always in the best efforts of those that she's representing and so I think that she will be a great asset and honestly will change the course of you know how much change she can bring for student voice in The Best of ways thank you so much thank you next last speaker is Isabella Diaz please go ahead hi um I'm Isabella Diaz and I'm calling in support of Ali Chan um Ali was my freshman year roommate at UCLA one thing that everyone on our floor knew about her was that she was very
059passionate about education advocacy um as her roommate I would always see her in Zoom meetings with staffers about educ ation policy um she'd also be tutoring students and she even became an NSA a new student adviser for the school uh Ali's passion thoughtfulness and experience uh in her field with these positions would be a great asset to the board thank you thank you so much president Watkins there are no more speakers great all righty thank you everyone for your comments so we will return to the process so again uh folks will be called up in order up to five minutes to speak and then the board will ask questions um so we will start with Salvador [Music] Delo so you'll have five minutes to begin Jo are you gonna do timer great thanks oh yes
060yes one perfect thank you yeah hi everyone uh so hi Bo um and I feel the most qualified because um I I also have experience um with the equity and Public Safety commission and I'm a father of two daughters um at burel Middle School um my priorities are around um staff you know teaching affordable housing teacher affordable housing um continuing inclusiveness at all levels with students um uplifting um low-income students my concerns are around families living on the fringes um I see them you know in the community overcrowding in small spaces um they pay the high price their parents work um hard to the phone um every day um multiple jobs um you know and another concern is the students once they graduate their ability to contribute to their self economic sufficiency and contribute to
061their families which is you know I think you know we're we're we're going towards in that direction yet I've seen it so much you know even in my generation it's a very sad thing and you and you know how expensive that um the area has become um yeah what motivates me uh through college and through school being a product of college of SEL uh was my was my family um you know my my family set the set a great example and being a son of immigrants um and um experiencing you know firsthand um you know Landing in in the area was wasn't easy and we didn't know what was going on at the time um so yeah what motivates me is creating a cycle of a the Next Generation and seeing you know f u
062focusing in on the underserved families that I believe have the passion like myself to to work hard and and contribute um once they once they do graduate what I can offer is a professional ethical stand a high profession professional ethical standard I'm with currently with star Vista working U with CPS families and the crisis center with the suicide uh youth um and I'm a team contributor I I I'm really Mindful and um take you know my team's um workload as my you know it's um I do I do what I can and and and I'll work as hard as I can to to contribute to the team and um yeah I think um yeah that's what um that's what motiv that drives my passion is my family my two teenage daughters and um yeah just
063um making sure that the next generation is um progressing that's it thank you so much and I'm realizing um were we going to do questions immediately after or have everyone do their first round and then do questions Salvador perfect okay so everyone will have an opportunity to ask questions the door for your um and then we'll we'll do questions now so who wants to start don't go Sam you're just gonna stay in the hot seat for a few more minutes and then then you'll be done um thank you for sharing all of that information um as a school board member is there a specific area that you would want to focus on um in this next year since it would be a short term yeah um you know um I'm really overextended also you know
064with my with my family and you know um also being part of um a clinic a health clinic a pre Health Clinic as a you know mental um Health you know and that capacity so um really when I was part of the school uh San sfusd were really um there my the teachers and the teachers and the staff their voices what they were voicing was a lot of like housing you know like being like Homeless looking for somewhere to rent so that really that really worried me you know and um because I would have never thought it you know like oh you know like oh wow you know we're we're living the dream we're helping kids we're working with kids and then hear those stories not too long ago was kind of concerning so something
065around you know like um inovative Solutions around housing and no Skyline um or like the CCs in the area are kind of testing you know that ground thank thank you Salvador for sharing your experiences and your passion to one serve um my question is around students you uh appear to be very passionate about want to help students and we have a really big um you know immigrant population uh here in our district and my question to you is what would be your number one area you would like to focus on with our imigrant stud um you know I think that the newcomers are like really um are kind of always in the background and like you know just there and just um I remember seeing that those newcomers in high school and middle school and
066actually U later on like they're they were just you know always like they they um they didn't receive much support you know whether they have no parents in the country or single parent or they've experienced um trauma um so um yeah I think around you know something around like a yeah find finding more more support whether it's mental health or counselors that could speak you know speak to them um Mr Delo um what do you think is the the most the strongest um asset that you can bring to the board um passion yeah like I'm totally like um my family is everything to me you know and I everything to my family so for me to cycle that back to my daughters is you know work is everything to us so I don't mind like
067sitting or staying up you know as stand up as much as I have to to um contribute to get you know to get to do whatever task is out there thank you again so much um I'm hoping that you can talk a little bit about um some of the recent four decisions be recent in the last whatever you consider to be recent um and um tell me about either tell us about either a decision that you kind of really agreed with and and sort of why or something that you disagreed with and why yeah so I watched the last uh few board meetings on on YouTube and there were several presentations and um yeah I mean the like the a program that was like supporting the newcomers or like you know the Spanish speaking students
068um I had no idea it was being um champion and being moved forward and and um I think um yeah one of our middle schools um so that really you know made me excited made me excited because um like I said well I'm still I'm still graduate school also so um I just um you know yeah and something I don't I didn't agree with uh I don't remember seeing anything that I didn't agree with great thank you so much next up will be Alison Chan start the awesome good evening superintendent choa trustees oh cha sorry trustees and community members my name is Alison Chan and thank you so much for the your time and for this opportunity to share more about myself today I would be honored to be the trustee appointed to the Sano
069Foster City School Board and today I although a lot of this has been mentioned in my application today I want to share more about my experience and background that would make me a great board member I come here today as a student who grew up in this district and throughout my public education system being in California most recently receiving my bachelor's degree from UCLA through my experience I have witnessed Equity systems firsthand and believe in the power of our public education system as a product of this school district I've experienced much of its services personally I remember honing in on reading more as an English language Learner in elementary school and receiving counseling services in Middle School much of what was touched on today by different community members such as the readathon or different School
070sports are things that I experienced first hand as well I remember so much of the valuable Educators along the way who have taught me indispensable skills and created meaningful experiences within and outside of the classroom by going the extra mile the education that I have received from this district has shaped who I am today and has inspired me to focus on education equity and ensuring that all students can have a meaningful education and I hope to take the chance today to take the next step as a board trustee while lived experience is valuable my technical knowledge of school systems has also grown as I have in high school I sat on the SEL County Board of Education as a student board member in this role I prepared for meetings by reviewing agenda items clar asking
071clarifying questions during meetings and comprehending specifics of very nuanced items such as the budget that would translate directly into this position here I sat on the legislative subcommittee and worked with my board on covid-19 reopening policies amidst the pandemic I brought legislation to my board to extand student board members to County and Charter Boards of educations to provide students with meaningful representation as the main constituents of the education system I've also worked with students who sit on school boards both in California and throughout the country as the programming director for the national student board member Association incubated under the national Center on education and the economy I have learned about the activities of different boards throughout the country and work with both students and adults who sit on school boards as well as education partners
072and can bring such knowledge back to this board such as practices to engage with the community or successful policies that can be applied to our district I want to emphasize that outside of a specific focus on school boards I'm passionate about Community engagement and have taken different roles in pitching and advocating for legislation organizing events and working on the ground with others when I was in LA I focused on working with youth in the changes program and focused on housing advocacy with the social justice learning Institute now I'm a volunteer lead for urban environmentalists focusing on the intersection between envir the environment and housing specifically focusing on affordable housing which is something that I believe can be translated into our district as well my passion for public service and experience in community building will be
073effective in working with our smfcsd community in the position of a trustee as a board member I would be interested in expanding our school's counseling services and ensuring that each campus has at least one full-time counselor I would be interested in visiting at least 50% of the 21 schools in our district every month to engage with staff parents and community members that isn't limited necessarily to the visitations facilitated by the board but also engaging with school events like science fairs or other events put on by the community in doing so I hope to engage with the voices of the community we might not hear at board meetings or as loudly generally but have meaningful and important perspectives as Mandarin and Hony speaker I'm also able to connect and Bridge Community with College Park while also
074focusing on connecting with its surrounding neighborhood I would also be interested in working more community members Beyond parents faculty staff and students by building stronger local relationships our district has already done a great job at doing this but can expand to provide more of an understanding of what the board is doing and to further integrate the community m experience and background and focus on school boards makes me qualified for this position as a product of this school district with governance experience I believe that I bring a new and valuable experience to this school school board my background as a student in this school district causes me to care deeply about the school district and I feel a personal investment and drive for Community engagement and service that makes me the best candidate for this position
075thank you for your time and consideration questions let's just go in the same order to keep things consistent Alis I need a second I was listening I didn't think of my question does somebody else have one ready to go um you mentioned advocacy on housing issues um which is important to definitely me but and do you have um any suggestions um on on a direction that the school board could go to to better support housing I think it's difficult to find a specific policy or something that the board could work on but that's something that I would kind of be interested in working on specifically as a member of the board I think an issue that I see that we can work towards is that people need to be able to work close to where
076they live and being able to provide affordable housing in our communities especially as mentioned where there is really high levels um and really high cost here is one way that we can kind of work on that and making sure that our students our staff our teachers and our whole Community is supported um through that lens thank you for sharing um during your experience uh as a student board member Association can you describe some of your most challenging issues you had to deal with and yeah definitely I feel like there were a few things the first thing was that starting in that position you're coming in as a student perspective into a board that has already kind of been working as like an adult board um you're providing a student perspective and connecting with students to
077bring that input back to the board but at the same time I think for me trying to build understanding with adult stakeholders as well within that position and understanding the different communities that were affected by the school board um was something that I originally didn't have a lot of knowledge of um there's a lot of people that the school board works with there's associations there's the PTA all of these different associations that really bring the school board together and there's different committees that really make that happen I think originally stepping into that role understanding that governance structure at first was something that I personally struggled with um especially with a lot of technical knowledge such as um where budget funding comes from um and really how that operates and how I could be successful in
078that role was something that I struggled with but I worked specifically in talking with the superintendent in my position as well as really members of the community just to seek more impact input and grow within that role um I wanted to just ask you um and I hope this doesn't come across wrong but so you you are very young and so I wanted to just say I we don't have currently have like a student board member and so I think you would right now you're kind of the closest that you have just based on like your proximity to when you graduated from the school district so I wanted to just ask you is there anything you can share from like a perspective um point of view that you could share with us you you share
079that you were um or at least I know from information that we have that you are from boster City and then you went over to Hillsdale and so you obviously crossing the sto um is there anything you can share from with us about um maybe differences you experienced from like an equity perspective you you went to in the school district before we had our strategic plan where we are and where we've been focusing so heavily on Equity um that you can share from before our we've had this focus and um maybe where we've kind of grown and Chang since then so that we can kind of hear your perspective and um I'd love to if you join this board kind of hear more about that and where we can make even further improvements definitely so
080as a student growing up in Foster City I attended Foster City Elementary School and then bage Middle School um and in both of my experiences there I I learned a lot and I had a really valuable experience when I started at Foster City school we were in the portable classroom so it was back during that period of time um when I went to Hillsdale I would say one of the main things that really I focused on especially while I was serving as a student board member was to understand the perspectives of students who come from different backgrounds and who are in different areas of the district so especially going to Hillsdale I'm connecting with students who went to Abbot um or who just come from different schools generally um one of the things that I
081learned about from the students at Abbot was that if they wanted to take like an advanced Math course for example they would have to go to Burell in the morning and able to be able to access that whereas at bage we had two classes of that so that was one thing that I saw as a huge Equity barrier in terms of how students are actually able to access course offerings and I think that that's something that the school board has worked on and built on since then um in terms of thinking about course offerings and thinking about curriculum from an equity lens um I also think that I know you mentioned that this board doesn't have a student board member but I think that the board is already doing a really great job with youth
082engagement um having a committee to really focus on youth voice and building out those systems even more incorporating youth voices into different work is really important to make sure that as we work to represent youth the youth feel represented as well thanks so much again um would love for you to share um ask the same question everyone so um uh would love for you to share like in in thinking about kind of recent board decisions like talk to me about one that you felt like you really agreed with and talk to me about one that you would have made a different decision sure one that I feel like I really agree with or I thought was a really valuable choice of this board was specifically working on anou with the uh police department in looking
083at SOS on campus I think that as mentioned by one of the public comments I focus really specifically on the schools prison pip line and having a specific that focuses on the way that the district and the police department are working together is a really valuable way to set that up um I wouldn't say that there's any recent policy that I disagree with or but one thing that could I potentially propose something instead sure amazing um one thing that I would be really interested in looking at is creating a community engagement policy for this stud District um from what I saw within policy I don't think something like that exists and that's something that I would want to focus on as a board member um I know we have like Service Learning but I think
084Community engagement especially outside of a classroom and looking at different ways that that can be done is something that's really important in a child growing up and kind of establishing that knowledge early on um and so I'd be really interested in working on that as a policy thank you all right Jean Kim president Watkins trustees superintendent Ooa everyone else gathered here today thank you so much for this opportunity and thank you for this time to speak a little bit about what I think I can bring to this district for those of you who don't know me my name is Jan Kim I'm an attorney at an MBA I have more than 15 years of experience working in public policy specifically on education issues I have a background working for Community organizations startups small businesses i
085h senior leadership roles in DC and federal government and also in Nationwide Community organizations specifically advocating on behalf of communities of color and issues related to social justice to speak first off I'm here as a parent tonight my wife and I are both lifelong Californians we both graduated from univ of California Berkeley go Bears um and when we we're thinking about where we wanted to settle we chose this community specifically because we were looking for somewhere that was safe that had great schools that had diversity and this is where we decided to be my wife is now a physician she's a medical director of UCSF s t um and my daughters go to we gone to George Hall they've gone to boster City Elementary and my oldest just started at College Park in the gate
086program and so connecting with parents in each of these campuses seeing how deeply invested they are in their children in these classrooms and everything that's happening they may not be people who come out to our monthly meetings but these are folks who be tracking everything that's happening at that level deeply plugged in to all of that information and having those conversations and the conversations with them is what encourag me to really come out here today I think I bring a number of unique skill sets in particular coming into this role but really what excites me the most is I'm somebody like many of the other candidates right who deeply understands the transformative power of public education I'm somebody who grew up in a low-income household living paycheck to paycheck relying on public assistance and if
087it wasn't for those schools those teachers that really help to lift me up I wouldn't be standing before you today I wouldn't have the opportunities that I've had throughout my career and so for last 15 years I worked in education policy as a congressional staffer working on the reauthorization of the elementary and secondary Education Act or as many folks knew it back then No Child Left Behind making sure that teachers the Congressional Black Caucus Hispanic caucus Asian Pacific under caucus Native Americans those voices were part of that conversation I was one of the least Statewide Consultants to pass prop 55 which was governor Brown's effort to extend prop 30 to make sure that we had more funding for public education and my role was to go meet with Chambers of Commerce and push them on
088this tax incentive and really try to convince them to come on board and despite those being some of the most heated and hostile meetings I've ever had in my life and I work as a big law attorney but despite those hey conversations I was able to convince more than half of them 60 organizations across the country to come on board and support that initiative because they knew how important that was for our students and for our schools and for our teachers and then most recently I was a senior advisor to the Los Angeles Community College District I work with them on crisis Communications related to cyber security breaches I worked on their construction Bond measure both in the passage of the bond but also in the followup accountability and Reporting um and the thing I'm
089most proud of when I work with that District was I was part of their program to support and documented students in the first year of the Trump Administration that was a period of extreme uncertainty and fear especially in latinx communities especially in immigrant communities these students dropped out of school they did not want to be found by their campuses they were afraid for their families and to be a part of that effort to bring them back to their education and back on track is one of the proudest things that I've done in public life beyond that like I said I think I bring a number of unique talents as an attorney I work on complex corporate matters I know uh trusty Tren is also an attorney and they hold it against either of us but
090the work that I do is in a separate field much more related to corporate contract type work reviewing thousands of pages of documents agreements betting companies as an MBA I served on multiple boards including one National Bar Association now we review millions of dollars of contracts purchase orders financials and have fiduciary duties to review all those documents and just after everything that I've seen I think what I'm most proud about in our community as we focus on achievement as we focus on equity and wellness is that this is an incredibly difficult time I was watching the trusty meeting last week or last month and I saw the stories of anti-Semitism I saw the fear and we all know that feeling this is not that far removed we come out of covid we come out of
091wildfires we come out of all this rhetoric Global conflicts we know how that affects the mental health of our students we know that affects teachers we know how that affects faculty and staff and everyone else I think if there's something that I can do to bring my experience my advocacy my skill set my profession skills to fight to Bear to really Advocate on behalf of our students teachers and everyone else who a part of this great District I would love the opportunity to do so thank you thank you I opening it up two questions I'll start I want to shift a little bit you have a lot of accomplishments thank you for sharing um and your background really um signifies your ability to be a great asset to the board our kids are um in
092terms of the kids they a balance very serious you know obviously business but for me I really love to see how the kids how we can also offer the kids a fun place to learn what are your thoughts about some fun uh things that you can bring to the board to help shift how we do business with the kids in terms of have a fun have fun learning environment I'm going to try not to read that as I showed up in a suit that seem like f to you a few different things one of the things that I love our district does currently my daughters are obsessed with Legos and so a lot of legol lab work that type of work that we've done a kind of visual way especially for those of us who
093grew up in a very traditional sort of map seeing how that's evolved both on their common core but all the other initiatives with blocks with visuals to kind of evolve I thought that was great but I think one of the biggest things I push and my daughter is a fourth grader now so I've been biased about this is really doing more outdoor activities is's doing more things in nature we get the benefit of nature P here in California but I think having those opportunities especially after several years of interrupted education several years of being in lockdown at home not having those types of opportunities that's something that I would love to spend more time doing looking forward because I feel like that opens up a ton of new avenues and we're all blessed to live
094in California it's one of the best things about being in the Golden State I'd love to see more of that incorporated into our programs which opportunities extended but also when we talk about opportunities extended it always hurts to see the same stakeholders taking advantage of those and so many who still feel left out in the cold um especially for certain communties of colors outdoor activities hiking others we just don't see the same type of numbers of participation I'd love to partner with organizations that are specifically geared to is trying to make sure that every community has an opportunity to take advantage of types of outdoor activities and I swear I'm fun you know Magie goeing okay I was thinking you want you guys want to do like a tury talk or something um could you
095expand a little bit more on what um I guess what area in this um next year would you want to focus most on as uh truste I think especially after the last trustee meeting that issue that came up at anti-Semitism so much my previous work was rooted originally working for diverse coalitions on issues of anti-racism that eventually involved a lot of work especially on anti- API hate when that became faci during the pandemic and obviously the conversations we had during BLM now that's transitioned over with recent conflicts to a spike in anti-Semitism and I also think a lot of issues related to anti-muslim bias anti-arab anti-ck bias that I think are going to be important conversations and I think especially as trustees as P publicly visible faces of the district it's incredibly important for us
096to be very sensitive during these kind of difficult moments and to be out there to be visible to show our support not just in press and social media but in our participation in our activity and to also make sure that we're fostering an environment where no one feels unsafe or unwelcome in our schools whether they're students teachers administrators just because of how they look or who they worship or who they love I think fighting against that Surge and hate and I hate to say it next year is an election year I fear deeply for what type of rhetoric or what type of other agitation may come out of that I think in that context it would be a huge passion for mind but I believe the entire board to really be out there to be
097visible and to show that we stand with our students and with everyone else in this district with the same share set of values that I know brought us here tonight um I promise not to take this personally but is there anything that you believe the district or the board specifically um either the district as a whole or the board could be doing a better job with I think one of the things that I'm most passionate about and I think I kind this as well is this idea of reaching people where they are I think one of the things that I learned having worked with so many government figures is that there's a tendency for the same 30 people to be the ones that we're talking to and I think especially in a district as diverse
098as ours with so many English language Learners and other immigrant communities and people coming from all backgrounds and just the level of diversity within the district within our 21 schools I think trying to find people where they are whether that's WhatsApp whether that's other types of events I do love all the efforts that district has done through different types of initiatives copies podcasts whatever it may be to help do that but I think to the extent that we can help amplify and do that further that's an important one for me one thing I didn't mention is I used to be an advisor for a lot of organizations California endowment first five uh cover California and also three presidential campaigns and my specific role was Outreach the communities of color especially those with limit English proficiency
099finding ways to communicate in Spanish radio Chinese newspapers whatever it would be and so one of the big passion projects I've had throughout my career working in Multicultural marketing and engagement is this idea of you can advertise in the San Francisco Chronicle and expect to reach everybody here you can't just advertise in cemeterio Daily it has to be something that you make a concerted effort to do to reach people whether it's meth grocery store whether it's a community event whether it's a church whatever it might be finding ways to meet the community where they are so that we can bring those voices in actually one thing I really appreciated when there was a conversation happening about the relocation between College Park and uh Festa Gardens I remember one of the comments that the board made
100was specifically even if there may not be an outcry In This Moment like there is understanding that this is going to ruffle feathers and that we want to make sure we go out there and seek that out I think that kind of perspective is what I really appreciate about this board because you understand even if someone could have make it here on this evening they probably have a strong feeling they probably have strong opinions about it and we want to make sure we go out there and listen to those before we take any major actions I'm gonna hit you with by same million dollar question here talk to me about a a board decision that you agreed with and one that you didn't agree with I think like the previous speakers I don't necessarily have
101one I disagree with but I think one that I heard the most about well I was saying caveat the one that I heard the most about um from other parents was specifically a sixth grade math incident just the controversy around it and I don't know for question for that for the relocation for a lot of major decisions the board makes I don't disagree with the outcome I think there always going to be feathers that are ruffled I think we do as the best we can to help with the engagement to build that public trust to have the conversations provide the rationale I do think not just for our district but across the country faith in school boards faith in schools is fading it's being politicized people are being attacked recalled I think there is a
102general deficit of trust that we're pushing up against and there's nothing we can do to make that 100% but I think that is one area where I think it was very clear we lost trust with a lot of people a lot of very engaged parents who didn't quite understand the rationale didn't quite understand the impact and not saying the board didn't try their best to get that out there but that is think something that I would be focused on trying to figure out how could we have done better on those types of policy initiatives and there's several throughout the past few years especially related to covid um Rel safety and reopenings and others in that ve where I wonder if there's something more we could have done and having those conversations again trying to meet
103people where they are is something that I would be more fixated on and I think in terms of decisions that I agree with Alex to the one I was going to talk about but I think I going back to the relocation piece I think I really appreciated that it's not often when I see these decisions being made that I see that kind of let's let's stop and take a breath or take a beat and I think that kind of thoughtfulness is something that especially for our community is something that we value a lot knowing these types decisions even if we ultimately agree with it have to be rolled at the right way the way I said this growing up in DC or working in DC is um a lot of times right about the policy
104but wrong about the politics and a lot of times easy to dismiss the politics but at the end of day politics in school boards means that parent engagement means that engagement with stakeholders and so even though it kind of has a conserv connotation I appreciate that our board is trying to do better about engaging those stakeholders and bringing them into the conversation thank you so much thank you all right Martin Chan good evening members of the board and attenda and fellow members of the community my name is Martin Chan uh I've actually been a San City School District Parent for almost decade now I was a freshman over in Aragon and currently have a uh a third grader in Highland um before Co I would uh spend time at highs I participate um I I
105I actually read with the kids when uh my oldest was uh in actually in kindergarten I read with a lot of kids uh every other day like twice twice a week and uh it was very um it was really interesting getting talk to like little little kids like from different backgrounds and some of them were not very good at beaing and one of them actually broke my heart uh he said that like I don't need to know this like why I need be read I'm like and and I'm trying to convey to him that reading is really important um and I don't know what happened to him but I hope he's doing well um I've also spent a lot of time Highlands uh going to different field trips uh I spent I I one on
106sleepover trips at SOS uh that was annoying the kids did not really sleep very well and uh and then the pen my son was in at home sixth grade and my other son he was in a uh kindergarten uh on zoom and it was an interesting Dynamic uh fortunately I was able to help them actually uh help my I actually learn come and call myself to work with with my sons growing up uh and being able to do that I I very fortunate a lot of parents don't get to do that and um and after the P pandemic uh when everyone back went back to school um we received notification from Bell that they needed a volleyball coach so I my wife is like hey you play volleyball at high school why don't you go
107and see and so I signed up um and I coach these girls uh the 7A girls volleyball team at B uh and the the biggest Joy was that I I boy so I I'm not a girl dad and getting to interact these girls uh really gave me a sense of Pride like it's it's a very different Dynamic um and being able to to talk to them see how they are um and of course uh the biggest compliment was like was was them asking me to coach them again in eighth grade and that's exactly what I did I I was able to coach them again when they were in eighth grade uh my coach also the tennis team and then uh the school district the athetic director asked me to coach basketball which I am terrible
108at and uh I was just at a basketball game earlier this evening uh so I I hopefully I didn't disturb you guys as I came in um and more recently I actually became a substitute teacher so I am now subing I sub that uh bage uh and I sub that uh for real um and I'm actually still still coaching even though my sons are no longer at I Bor uh maybe because they like me but I really enjoy talking to these kids I really enjoy meeting them meeting with them uh just yesterday I was talking to one of the kids um I was in one of the uh classes and I notic that two of the kids weren't participating at all and they were done with their their work the school work and then I
109talk to him like Hey like do you guys like not want to participate like what's going on and one of them tells me that they're just afraid to be laughed at like I'm like it's okay to be laughed at cuz like you you grow when you fail right that's when you figure out what to do um and I was talking to her and she actually told me that she uh she failed three classes last year um and then this semester she's actually faing in four classes um and I was like well what's going on and she's like I'm a little tired like are you eating okay and she's like I had an apple in the morning and I was like what else and she was like I've had candy I'm like that's you're having a
110sugar crash like like it's really difficult for them to excel if they're not um if they're not focused if they're not ready for school and I feel that um if I'm on the board I can help them with nutrition I can help with like uh uh just the the overall experts the pride in how to become Pride being a student so much questions um I will just ask the same question I've been asking what is what would be your main um top priority as a trustee for this year uh since this a really brief tenure um I think my my main goal would be to bring back compact math um I I remember last year um I was going to one of the kids at tennis and uh because my son was in compacted math
111he was in eighth grade at the time uh he was bragging about hey I'm in compacted math and the sixth graders is like we don't get that and and I was one of those confused parents uh didn't know why of course I've read about about Equity about making sure all the kids are learning I also read that and and there are kids like who would take like two math classes and and that actually takes away time from lectors so I think that's my main initiative like trying to bring back compa math give the kids the opportunity to take the math that they want to take and then then they have time to do an elective or do other things with the time thanks thank you Mr chair um I want to first uh thank you
112for all of the work that you do in the district currently and I don't have a question but I just mostly have a comment that um I want to applaud you for acknowledging the um nutritional value with the kids and how important it is for to be able to focus I'm also invol with a lot of nutrition [Music] um um is there um you know understanding that this is a is a is a shorter term but um in terms of big policy Chang are big um things that may take more time than your term um is there anything that you really would be interested in um you know I I know you've brought up the compacted MTH but is there anything else that you feel uh the school board should be doing um that you
113know might take a little bit longer but like you could be part of starting um abely absolutely um so the general sense I get from kids who are kind of failing is just lack like like a like they just don't care um they don't care where they're going they don't care what they're doing at the moment um and really like that that needs to be instilled in them over a very long period of time uh I I grew up in Hong Kong I was born and raised there I went to a private school so Excellence was like a real big thing we pushed on uh and it was and I do see some kids here especially like outage I go I I play sports and like and watching kids play sports you can really get
114a sense of like who really focuses and and just in sports alone uh the bage teams tend to be always really well like doing really well and then then I looked at like PR schools and then like they at the rankings prob is always pretty good um and it's not that um it's it's hard because like I I I see I know you guys like you guys work with kids and like you guys like um talk to these kids get get like surveys and and talk to them but it's also very like self- selecting uh where the ones that are doing well or the ones that want to contribute they they always contribute so the last the same 30 people or so right um and the ones that don't contribute you don't really hear the
115voices and those are the ones that that I talk to when I'm sing I get to talk to them I see where they are I really get into there uh the like like of course like my five minutes of conversation with them it's not going to change them not much uh maybe a little bit hopefully uh but that's that's something that we all need to kind of be be aware of um sometimes I see teachers are just like just running through the the the schedule just like getting through H Point AB BCD e g and and they're done for the day and and they're not really interacting with the kids um at least not on the level where they want to be interacted with and and it's unfortunate because like we have a really great
116school district and I think we can do a little bit better thank you right um over to me so um would love for you to talk about a policy decision the board me has made recently that you agree with um and then why don't we start there I know you talked a little bit about one that you disagree with so I have a followup question on that okay um so being on the board I I used to be on my HOA board and it's always the policies are all kind of it it's it's Democratic process right so uh you weigh the pros and cons and then you kind of side together and I really don't have anything that I truly disagree with I mean granted removing contact of math was was something that needed to
117be done at the time uh and I do agree with it at the time time uh after reading more about it but now that I see it like our our grades are going up uh and and most recently they point that our grad are going back up and I think a lot of these kids are ready for to come back in so that's something that we should be able to do um so really like I I can't say that I disagree or agree with what you guys have done in the past I think I think what we done like it was right at the time okay thank you so much thank you so much all right um so we are at the checkpoint where there's a possibility to make a motion to um appoint somebody
118or we can make a decision to kind of bring back to finalists um for additional question and board discussion um is there a leaning one way or another here from folks about what they might want to do I'm really leaning towards two so I feel I mean I would be in favor of maybe another round or I was hoping that would I would want one but I feel strongly for two right now but I don't know bring back for another round um does that work for you all mie yeah okay um do we Alison do you want to share the two or what's the best process for making sure do we want CH should be write down and then you summarize the two what do we think each member could just vocalize it or you
119could fill it out pass it down and I could report it to you okay do does everyone feel okay with just vocalizing okay I'll say it out loud because um I'm transparent um in order of appearance Alice Chan and Jean Kim are my top two choices those would also be my top two choices um Allison and I was really conflicted but I have to go with my number two for sou and um for me it would be the same as trusty Tren and and trusty pror Alison and and Je um so it seems like we'll have those two that will come back for a second round um I just want to say thank you so much Salvador and Martin for putting throwing your hat in the ring I think these processes it's a lot it's
120a lot to be like put on the spot and be asked questions and um you know so I I thank you both I think it was great to learn about your experiences and your perspectives um that you all have bringing you know diverse experiences and perspectives and like I've said I mean at this point I think this is my third or fourth round of like appointments from this board um and so you know like I have said every other time like it is I think one of the things that's always um please stay involved and I say it every time and people never do so hopefully that will be different right because it's like one thing to come and say I want to be appointed to the board but this is like one of like
121many many many ways to be involved in our district um and I think you know this is like a short term and there's like a lot of good that can be done then but there's going to be an election that's coming up in the fall and like even if it's not in that capacity there are so many ways to be involved and if you want to know how to get involved I know both of you are already involved in your own unique ways um but hope that you will stay involved and come to board meetings um that you know uh and and just continue to stay engag and learn about the work that's happening and where you can be plugged in it's just it's a really important piece like I think about the number of
122people that like ran when I ran in 2017 many of whom like didn't stay involved and then folks that you know when trusty chin was appointed I think we had 17 people apply for that most of whom I haven't seen since so like one day I will say this and people will stay involved but um yeah just hope to see you guys in our district and thank you so much for taking the time to um to to be here um you are welcome of course to say the entire time but also just want to let folks know that you don't have to I'm gonna actually request that we take a quick break folks can go to the bathroom um and then we will come back and deliberate on kind of how what the process is
123going to be like for Alan and Janie all right thanks [Music] everybody [Music] I was surprised I didn't expect that having you're be sworn in tonight just unless somebody wants me to say all right absolutely absolutely we are going to go ahead and get started thank you all or get restarted all right we are back to do a finalist round with Allison and Jean um we didn't we haven't discussed kind of exactly what this process will entail are there follow-up questions that folks have that would be helpful do we want to have a discussion as a board is it a combination of both um I would like to um just like what maybe understanding what people are thinking or what maybe um things that are maybe leading people to lean one way or another can
124I ask one like quick question um and you guys can come up or not um can you share what trustee area you all live in and whether oh both oh all one I was going to see which I just want to clarify which then means neither would be able to stay unless you don't but you're not up for so neither would be able to say that would that would that would have some impact for me decision that's okay discussion unless are there other questions either of you want to move maybe trust is Ken's area that's vacant right it is an at large correct vacancy no but for yes four in in 2024 trust the areas three four and five are up for all the not moving to S and just thinking about like you know
125there's there's been a lot of change on our board you know and so like the consistency is helpful um but that doesn't that's not realistic so um okay other questions that you have for them for them that would help one one uh you know significant component of the board's service is the fiduciary responsibility you carry as a as a trustee that hasn't been a big topic of discussion tonight you could have a followup that ask that question because that is would you like ask question be one of your new bosses CH in ask the question yeah so for both of the trustees you take on for both of the candidates you would be taking on the responsibility of playing an important fuer role to the community as one of the stewards of the close to
126$200 million budget for the district and the district has a set of priorities you mentioned them and you've heard them tonight from the administrators and others Equity wellness and achievement so my question to the two candidates is um describe your priorities as they pertain to the district's goals and to the fiduciary that fiduciary respons and either can answer Alison you spoke for so maybe sure um I would say that my familiarity with the California Budget comes from my experience as a student board member um a lot of the budget policies that apply there also apply here in terms of like the lcff and the lcap um and one way that I think we can focus on the ideas of equity diversity engagement and specific with our budget process is looking at lcab stakeholder engagement and
127making sure that we're including more voices within that process I think that's a very effective way that we can build diversity within the structure of what our budget and what our board is looking at right now additionally I think that measure x and t are two big things within this District that are also focusing on kind of student achievement student advancement student wellness and ways that we can also look at those fact factors so I think continuing to kind of work through those ideas is something that is important for this board to do as well just to make sure I have the question correctly um so obviously IO a lot of what Al said but I think one important thing for me on the whole achievement Equity Wellness when I was going through the document
128strategic plan a lot of the other data that we collected I appreciate just how disaggregated data has been by different groups by English language Learners by different campuses I think that's very helpful I think it was kind of alarming for me when I first started being familiar with the district to see the level of disparity between different campuses between different groups and I think it's very easy when you hear our general reputation of being great school Safe Community of thinking that everyone is ex selling but then you start seeing even schools that my daughters have attended there's a dramatic gap between campuses not to name any by name but there might be know four times AR meeting standards it might be 10 times as many and another on as well and obviously you know as
129we all know a lot of that disproportionately falls on certain communities on certain communities of color foster children English language Learners and so a lot of the work that we're talking about both on the achievement Equity side I think go hand inand and I think really focusing on that kind of early stage intervention there was a lot of emphasis in recent reports on intering that Pre K level pre level but also on especially literacy and how the trend is both on the math side but also the earlier you catch it if you don't catch it if you don't intervene early it's a lot hard to catch up later on you see those um inequities continue year after year and so I think a lot of the districts doing making sure we investing more there I
130think also in the line item of the budget I mentioned produ sh responsibility when I was doing my remarks earlier because I saw the level of breakdown item by item and you can see exactly how much you're spending on STM you can see how much we spending on different issues for me the big issue is not just the kind of picture of what kind of return are we seeing on those Investments and that's something you see long term frankly Ali and I may not see it in the year that we're on the board but I think constantly having those conversations accountability making sure that we're getting the best return on dollar spent and understanding that part of we're doing is experimentation trying to fix these crises that we're seeing but also as we're going along
131if something isn't generating the kind of returns we like to see exploring all the Alternatives finding best practices I think I mentioned earlier that the California Schoolboard associ anual conference I used to be a presented on Dei issues for several years in a row and one of the things I love most about that conference was that ability to share best practices just St why seeing what other schools are doing how meeting maybe the program we're using isn't the one that's having best results so I think that addresses them both on the wellness side I think I touched on it at length especially for me um it is focused on the mental health side I think given all that's happening in the world all that we happening on the election and just constant threats that you
132know many of us student inv Al have I didn't deal with when I was in school issues like cyber bullying social media the threat of gun violence these things are very real to these students in a way that weren't when I was going to school 30 years ago and I think being mindful of that I love how much this board invests in those issues and trying to address those issues staing for them making sure that we have professionals help intervene at the same same time I think we can always do more especially again I hate to say anticipating a storm next year making sure that we are well equipped and well sa to get through whatever comes our way I have one more questions made me think do does anybody else have questions um sorry
133I think I'm still just kind of like taking into account the fact that neither of you can run again um and that this is like very much a short term so I'm curious kind of like knowing that um what is the biggest asset you think you can bring in a short amount amount of time and what what will success look like for you in terms of like your role on the board um no over the next year let's switch up the order um I think to be honest the the termination of this is probably the only reason my wife agreed to let me my name for this in the first place um one of the things that I mentioned around my career I really SEL that is in that kind of Multicultural diverse engagement especially
134in language and other pieces and I do feel like I appreciate all the efforts that made in that space But I do think that there's more that we can do and especially being at large having the flexibility to go to every single trustee area not be confined to one and really build those relationships and try to meet people where they are I think now they refer to it as an engagement plan but I think that's a big gap that we both see is this opportunity to bring new stakeholders in I think again my big concern complaint being in public life for the years that I've been involved is this idea that the same people every time and we know those aren't the only stakeholders they just the most visible they just the on might be
135free on Thursday night and so to the extent that we can spend this year especially going into this election not worrying about our own campaigns but worrying about how to bring those people into the conversation I think that goes a lot way to build spoke about earlier because at the end of the day when things when you do have a controversial decision it matters whether they know you it matters whether they trust you it matters whether or not they've agreed with 90% of the other things you've done and at the first time you're hearing your name is because of controversial decision that's when people start getting inflamed on WhatsApp that's when people start you know losing their minds on like next door and then we're doing with that after MTH and that fire not that
136I've seen any of this and so I think it's very helpful when we have the flexibility and I don't have quite Ali's energy but I do have some flexibility is to really go out there and be visible and be a part of these conversations so that they have that friendly face they can turn to who's less concerned about winning the next election and more concerned about making delivering on behalf of District okay um I would say the first thing that I want to say about this is um one thing that I want to keep in mind is that as someone from Foster City but representing an at large position that would mean that this board has three people from Foster City and two from s which I think is really interesting um considering the way
137that like the board is originally set up the other way I think that that's something that I would really want to focus on in kind in terms of addressing really the differences between the communities in Foster City and S I think we see a lot of differences and as someone who grew up in Foster City I didn't necessarily understand that until I went to Hillsdale focus more on these Equity issues and so as a board member that's something that I would focus on during my one year I think additionally a big thing for me especially as a young person and being like having a recent relation as a student um bringing in more youth voices into our work is something that I would value and work on during my one year um even though this
138term does end up being one year I personally am very invested and passionate about education and I think that especially with the school board having continuity and having those types of conversations and making sure that as whoever's coming into the role in the future is stepping into that role that we set up a platform for them and that it's very like there's a good transition there so that it doesn't feel like everything's changing so much um and with that being said within the one year I would say my main focuses like I said would be on youth engagement as well as Wellness um I think that this is something that the board is already working on a lot and something that I can step into not necessarily as a new idea but building on the
139work that the board is already doing I'm just one person but this board is made up of five people and so making sure that I'm working with everyone else on the board so that these ideas can be passed and with well specifically focusing on student wellness staff Wellness making sure that we have a counselor at every campus and that these resources are available for our community that's what I would want to focus on for my one year any other questions what do you guys thoughts um I mean I think something that I think was really valuable when Ken was on the board was like how we all kind of came in from had like different strengths and different um areas of focus I guess um different perspectives and so that that to me having that
140diversity of experience is really um that's that's one of the factors that I'm thinking about as we make this Choice um so I don't know we have two really good candidates you know we're lucky um does anyone feel ready to make a motion or do we I'm not sure how to exactly move this forward we do have two incredible candidates offering incredible experience and we cannot pick two um so I'm just wondering if F if anyone feels ready to make a motion for one individual or if there are other things that would be helpful for us to discuss as it pertains to like Maggie to your point around diversity of experience and perspective totally agree I think they also have like very diverse experiences and perspectives neither of which are already represented right um besides
141the attorney Factor but like different attorneys different ATT um but you know so I don't yeah you would also potentially need a second and then at that point discussion with would follow so you still have an opportunity to talk through it um one of these two folks will be the new trustee um it really just comes down to who's ready to um to make that motion if we have a second and then the discussion that follows I'm ready to make a motion um I want to make a motion to Point J J we have a second I will second that um do we want to open it up for session at this time latisa do you want to share a little bit more about your kind of rationale and then uh Alison your second and
142then kind well listening to both um Ally and Jean they both are highly qualified to functioning in this world and I believe they both bring their own unique opinions and um skill set that would be a very strong contribution um in terms of experience I believe both are very equal in its own unique way I think what kind of is driving me more in favor of Jean is his experience in terms of the fiary responsibility that is absolutely um um you know necessary mandatory and I believe would be the biggest asset and I think that's what BR my decision um I actually appreciate both of their um perspective and experience and I I don't want to um minimize Ali's experience at all and so I want to make sure that I'm very clear that I
143appreciate both of theirs and so um what I want to say is that um I think that because we're looking at a short term here um and Gan you were kind of clear that you know this was your your wife was wanting you to do this short term um I think that it would be valuable to us to have someone like you on this board for this short period of time I would love for um Aly to move out of Foster City or get into an area where you can run for um Run for the board um and join us for a longer period of time um and really get on this board where you can do some work um and and be part of this in for the longer term I think what I
144really appreciate about you is that you can bring that pers respective the the younger like closer to being a student you know we've talked about bringing the youth voice to this board and maybe not having a student board um member but having somebody that is close to having being a student would be awesome and I really appreciate the the perspective that you bring especially your your experience with um student board members across um the the country would be awesome so um that's kind of where I'm coming from I think think that either one of you would be a great addition to the board I would love to have both of you if you could have six I would say both of you for sure um I think even if this vote doesn't go um the
145way that I think it will go either one of you would be wonderful so that's what where I'm coming from really makes sense but I think you don't so that's what that's what I think Mag if you want to share anything about where you are right now and we still need to actually vote on the motion that's on the table but I think for me like I think you know we've talked about continuity um I think actually leaning towards Ally because I think there is more of a possibility that she could continue and so just like not having like you know potentially she could make a decision to to like to move into one of the other districts and then we wouldn't have like additional turnover because I feel like we've had quite a bit
146of turnover so it actually is an asset to me to have someone like like not turn over one more time um and then also because I think you know even though she is so young she has like had way more experience that I would have ever had at that age um directly related to these issues and it and her background and experience are um are different like pretty different from each of our experiences um and so that's why I think I would support Aly although I agree that both would be excellent choices yes so valid points for everyone um I feel super conflicted I mean I think your points I I I think your points are really valid uh Maggie in terms of like the potential continuity they reality is that there's going to be
147three seats open in a year all of unless only three people put their hat in the ring like there's going to be like there's no guarantee right for anything in terms of like Ali moving in terms of like who actually gets elected who the voters decide right um and so like yes I think if we at this point if we could guarantee continuity given all of like the turnover and we had like two excellent candidates I would absolutely be like vote yeah that would be like what would break the tie for me right like guaranteed continuity because I think we need it um but we don't have that um and so then I think I'm left with thinking about like what do we need like right now in this moment um is really hard to
148be honest with you like I I don't know I mean I'm just I'm this feels like one of the more challenging appointments like I feel like I've done this I think this is the third um it feels really hard okay so we have a I don't know that I have that much else to say um that hasn't already been said um you would do a roll call yeah which is the provisional appointment to the Board of Trustees yeah all right uh latisa so the G uh yes this the motion would be to provisionally appoint Jean Ken to the board just that's a motion that is on the table to make a motion you already the motion so I'm just doing rolles you say yeah your name trusty Brooks trusty TR no trusty Proctor yes come
149on man this is like the one benefit of going last they don't have to be the timebreaker until you do [Music] it so [Applause] hard I've literally in six years I have never been a tibre vote like this or been like so conflicted about a decision so thank you guys for both being [Applause] awesome staring sending me their thoughts through their eyes what' you say I consider moving I currently live at home so a campaign and oh my gosh what we do if I can't decide and the motion fails and someone else have to make a motion to Y to v n to obain an exstension would leave the the vote um as not as not meeting the majority requirement um at which point in time any other member of the board um would be
150able to make an alternative motion yeah yes as well welcome Jean thank you ali um yeah I mean I think it's already been said about both of you but I think like honestly like really incredible this like makes me think about people that are like interviewing for one position and you're like I have two amazing candidates and then you're like sitting somewhere just being like you want to be able to hire them both um but yeah I mean I will Echo what like Allison shared like I really really hope that like there are three seats open that will be open in a year um and I like s sincerely hope that you will like throw your hat in the ring and like be in this Bo on this board and in this district for like
151for the Long Haul like I think you'd be such an incredible asset you do bring like incredible experience in perspective I think you know there's been a lot of work in terms of student voice in perspective but like something that we definitely can continue to focus and grow on in um as we continue to move forward with like implementing integrating all the goals in the Strategic plan I think you'll be such an incredible and valuable asset in that regard and to the extent that you have like immediate ideas that we can think about integrating now like do not be a stranger I will say the same thing as I said to the others like stay involved come to board meetings like share those ideas make us better now even though you're not sitting on the
152dis right now and I really um I wouldn't as I think most people know like I wouldn't say it if I didn't mean it like I sincerely hope that you what it is true um I really sincerely hope that you'll you'll throw your hat in the ring um come on over to well you city now head on over to Sano um and uh thank you so much um and to the all the folks that I know are still sitting online that were you know that spoke on behalf of Ally and some of the folks that were still in the room thank you for sharing your perspective with her I mean we think all saw that like really shine through um and all right anybody have anything else they want to share thank you this tough
153this was tough um okay we will now move to the swearing in and administration of the oath of office [Music] for come over to the um this is the of office for the office member S I raise your I repeat after me J Kim do solemnly swear do solemnly swear that I will support and defend support and defend the Constitution of the United States the Constitution of the United States and the constitution of the State of California the Constitution the state of California against all enemies born and domestic that I will bear true faith that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution and allegiance to the Constitution of the United States of the United States and the constitution of the State of California and the constitution of the State of California that
154I take this obligation freely that I take this obligation really without any mental reservation without any mental reservation or purpose of evation or purpose of evation and that I will well and Faithfully discharge and Faithfully discharge the duties upon which duties upon which I [Music] [Applause] about all right um from like one one intense thing to the next yeah thank you so much ahome many which district Su the right what they're all they'll all be open all right we are just gonna keep drinking along since it's already almost eight and we haven't even started like the meeting um all right we are moving to recessing the regular meeting we are convening to our annual organizational meeting oh man starting with wild it is but you know my my job here is almost okay um we
155are electing officers so we are electing a new president vice president Clerk and trusty representative um so we'll need motions and votes for each one of these so we'll start with President um I'll actually put a motion on the floor for this one as we already talked about um we've had a lot of transition and we have a lot of new board members um and um I know it's not typical that we would kind of like Circle or cycle back to someone that has recently served but I would like to make the motion to nominate Allison as or trusty Proctor as president just kind of given um I know both trusty Brooks and trusty Tren are pretty new and obviously you're brand new um and uh just to maintain some some semblance of kind of
156consistency um as we kind of move forward with some more um ups and ups and downs here so I would like to put that motion on the floor second so we don't need a you need a roll call we need a roll call for this trusty yes trusty K yes trusty TR yes trusty Proctor yes there's always Downs I will also vote Yes okay so welcome president Proctor now at this point do I finish this agenda item or does she she goes now she's pres well because you started it you're finishing this one item this one item okay one last item still have your vice president your clerk okay all right so now we will need to move on to make a motion to appoint a vice president I would like to make a motion
157too trusty Brooks as vice president second okay we need a roll I'll vote trusty Brooks yes trusty yes uh trusty Tren yes trusty Proctor yes I will vote Yes as well welcome vice president um we will now need a motion to appoint clerk I'll make a motion to nominate trusty Tren second all right trusty Brooks yes trusty K yes trusty Trent yes trusty proor don't know what order I'm going and that's why I'm like who's next okay perfect trusty Tren as Clerk and lastly trust I did okay I think I did no I voted yes I didn't well now I did um don't worry guys you only have like one more thing and then I'm done okay trusty represent you need to make a motion to appoint someone as representative I don't actually even know
158what that means nor do I think that we've ever actually utilized it but it's on and it's there you don't have to appoint somebody what is it it iser yeah it's a des you haven't used it in the past but it's a designation you use in the event that that a board position is not filled at that time so you know you could there are circumstances is where a person is away from their board service for an extended period of time the board representative could you know but we haven't had that and and this board hasn't appointed anybody as a truste okay so I would can I do we make a motion you can just close out this item okay move on to the next it we're gonna close out this item then uh my
159job here is done get ready because buckle this is going to be crazy is it going to be as fun it's on to item number n b we will go to the appointments by the president um first of all let me know if you want to do anything um these are the um appointments generally the secretary of the board is the superintendent is that all right with you if I appoint you to that please do great superintendent Ooa will be the secretary of the board okay I did um write some things down um okay I don't know if anybody has any strong feelings about what they are interested in so here's what I come up with and then we can wheel and deal if there's anything people don't like or want to trade um and
160I didn't know Jean you were trusty Kim I didn't know you were going to be her so um I assigned her a few things but you're not into any of these so we'll see I just wrote new person so I'll fill in your name um okay so legislative rep I did trusty Brooks um S leaon I said trusty Tren and I put myself as the other person um Foster City liaison I said trusty Brooks and myself since we well now okay we can talk about that okay um Ed Foundation I said trusty TR um PTA Council new person which is Trusty Kim sense okay um okay uh cedak I put trusty Tren okay do like I put new person trusty Kim yes okay is that okay yes okay um oh wait okay you're coming up
161I just the one yeah I was not done with the board yet okay uh Sanctuary task force I myself Equity task force okay Sanctuary tax Force trusty Proctor Equity taxk Force trusty Watkins home for all I put trusty Brooks Communications trusty Watkins and LMI trusty Watkins okay does that anybody have any I would like to add somebody else to the equity task force because I it's only been me that's been it it's Inception well in trusty Coro when she was on the board and so just for like yes somebody else that yeah anybody um interested in joining trusty Watkins on the equity task force um okay um actually hold on let me see something great I think you're I only put you on two so why don't I is it okay if I added him
162on um Equity task force for this time and then um okay so we'll add juste Kim on the equity task force this year wait just one that's your your seats you're up as well any I'm think these things okay okay all right anybody else have any thing issues comments okay um I have it written down in case you need to see Maggie should go in that sorry not to kick you just because if Maggie's running are you running yeah say all this continuity and Maggie's running then just I think with it's just like a really I mean all of the stuff is important but I just think having the continuity especially because I feel like it's the only task force that like literally I'm the only person still on the sport that knows anything like
163that has been involved okay um so I think it'd be good for her to stay on and then get elected again is that okay I can give a different one if you let me just see quick what they're also open meetings so well I guess actually probably should have okay well let's just keep it at that for now and then we can if there's something you want to switch later I actually didn't write down like when all these meets so if you find out that there's some sort of conflict then maybe we can swap um I didn't write down the times and the days of everything so there may be some conflict um but I will send that over to you okay thank you um that concludes that item we will move on to 9C
164oh which is a journey the annual organizational meeting and the item that we vote on motion to adjourn thank you trusty Watkins for the motion and trusty Brooks for the second all in favor please say I I and I I for to vote we all voted I so we both move on to item 10 which is reconvening to the regular meeting and there's nothing so we'll move on to 11a which is approval of the 2023 20244 first interim report thanks everybody share my screen here want to start by thanking Blanca and the whole Business Services team for U all their incredible work putting all this information together for us to take a look at great um so we provided you a written narrative tonight we provideed you copies of our saxs reports in the book
165that we provided to you a little narrative at the beginning of it I'll walk through some of the phip points in here too at a moment there's a couple bullet points I included in the executive summary which we didn't capture in the slides right now um two of those had to do with when we were looking at the first interim and the adjustments to both revenues expenditures and forecast expenditures for the current year one of the trends we noticed was that we had anticipated the special education expenditure category we would see um increase in some of the expenditures we were incurring for some of the vendors we have on board helping us in our classrooms in fact we haven't seen the decrease we had anticipated and that's due to a whole variety of different so
166we made an adjustment to our overall expenditures for special education associated with those third party folks who are on board helping us um and that's also effect of the overall contribution contribution has to do with unrestricted utilized to cover expenditures on the restricted side and all the special are considered on the restricted side the other thing I share with you too is we've made an adjustment to our property tax forecast for the current year um and the there's a there's a tool that we work with with the tax assessor uh they have a tool called the assessment role tracker and that en us to look at what's happening to the growth in our property taxes from year to year and the assessment role tracker was forecast that we have a little bit of a higher
167growth in our proper taxes current year budget that has actually materialized to this point in time and there are a variety of different factors which are associated with that Capt some narrative for as well too which we look at interest r turnover properties in our district I I shared the example that my significant other sold her grandparents house that were in that house since 1949 when she sold it the tax base gets increased um but because of some of the rate increases interest rates we saw a littleit slowing of that turnover in our district too that's associated with some of what we saw the actual growth through our property taxes which are the fun Al basis of funding for our project for our community funding district and so we're very very focused on what's proper
168in the past uh two weeks I start three hours with the tax assessor and with the county controller as well too talk about the tool that we have in place currently and talk about the process for us moving forward not just for our district but all districts in the county and I had some suggestions as how we could modify continue to work with them but that's something that's not capture the slide this first slide just shows where we're at the budget cycle this time of year we're doing the first report which takes a look at our R expenditures an adjustment to our budget as of the end of October so we incorporated that add into we've captured also some first highlights unrestricted Lottery the increases for that restricted Lottery increases we go over those in
169the prop 28 Arts education programs there's still some clarity we need on that that's still unfolding we speak exactly how that's going to translate into exact dollars for our community uh the next item here too the cost of living adjustment when we look out at 2425 in our multi-year projection we had Shar with the cola factor which is built into the lcff calculation at the time in the adopted budget State col was anticipated 3.94% when we were putting these slides together for the legislative analyst office suggesting that the cola for next year may be as low as 1% so we're incorporating that at some point in time if you're new trust if you want time calculator time open session spend time to show you how that works and and why property tax is what we're
170really focused on as a district I'll just as a quick commentary for next year this Cola decrease in 1% just pushes us further into basic Aid status than we are current all right the other two Arts and Music and stretch materials discr Block band it was reduced by a factor 6% recovery State origal Grant so we've adjusted that this slide for you just shares assumptions for a whole variety of different factors these These are what the core factors we share with you each time we're looking at the budget and each of inter reports so these data points with the col information enrollment factors changes What's happen property taxes and other factors in here as well to par this shares with you a snapshot what's built into the projections for us um this next slide also
171shows first assumptions too um these are routine for you as well too we bu the budget te restricted maintenance contributions our steping column increases our St pers increases Etc all standard information we sharing variation this we4 Capt here to our okay these next slides take a look at a couple different data points for you take a look at total revenues and expenditures on both the unrestricted and restricted side fund balances are anticipated for the current year and both the unrestricted and restricted categories and then the next slide is taking a look at um all so the first general revenues both unrestricted restricted and that contribution number is an increase for us relative to I sharing View at the beginning of the discussion uh related to what of our special exp associated with the nonpublic agency
172program that we work with and again there's a lot of complexities associated with the needs of individual students that are incorporating these adjusted being lower than this in our adopted budget we are conservative in that number and I anticipate this will fluctuate throughout the year so we get second year we get to the May estimated actuals we're going to adjust those the prize of what those adjustments are as we walk through the fiscal year okay and as a side note to superintendent and I have been having conversations with our count Partners as well too about opportunities in special education and looking at programs overall expenditures and opportunities that we have to partner together within the county and also having discussions with vendors who Supply services to the district what we've seen in the past few
173years increases as high as 30% so vendors so I'm having conversations with some of our key Partners talking about in the upcoming year where there 1% Co don't come knock on our door for a 10% greater increase okay just another snapshot for you looking at revenues this again is just another way to look at the expenditures from both an unrestricted and restricted category and that's built into current year okay and then this is again your multi-year projections looking at what we're looking at in terms of total revenues total expenditures and beginning fund and ending fund balances in each of those respective years the current we are spending some one time money we s down some of the partial tax Reserve that exists we had a conversation at the tail end of last year we partner
174with Folks at LMI you know some of the expenditures being Cur this year that were part of the reserve of the par tax are being spent down this so you see that these are plan expenditures a plan reduction in some of our resources and show this from a snapshot the out you'll see the 2425 and 25 26 uh the expenditures access of revenues is at a lower dollar am reserves are relative similar okay so current plan one this is looking at F multi projection unrestricted fund balance projections um it shows you F balance and it shows the components of the ining fund balance one figure see like so this looking unrestricted side we walk through the fiscally of this year as there are changes that's a quick snapshot for you this is looking at some
175of your other funds Child Development Fund see Bond money the bond in the current year2 beginning balance project again thanks to our voters and tremendous support all right so that's and then we at the cycle next time we're come back to you report last yearing that January Time March next reporting we'll be doing with you looking at audit that's been completed a quick snapshot for you again this is action always happy toight some new team members if you want want one to have to spend time with you and I always tell a story my my youngest is 24 she just turned 24 and when her mother was pregnant couldn't sleep mother used to say can you just talk about the budget for a while she okay than thank you Patrick thank you um are there
176any board clarifying questions on this item um are there any public comments this in the a I think I almost like jumped into just tell me what to do okay um Joe are there any public comments on Zoom uh yes let me check I don't see any raised hands at the moment okay then are there any board comments all right well then this is an item we need to vote on so if anyone wants to make a motion go for it motion to approve the first interm report second thank you trusty Watkins and trusty Brooks all in favor please say I I I okay that's five yeses we can move on to 11b we will hold public hearing on the intention of the district to increase developer fees yes I is be brought forward to
177okay so we'll open the public hearing at 8:16 p.m. and we will um have a go ahead com next oh Joe should we um he should check on see if there any public comment okay yeah Joe can we check online to see if there's any public comments yes uh at the moment I don't see any raised hands how about in the audience any public comment on this public hearing here no should we close it okay we're gonna close the public hearing at 8:17 pm and Jo um with us because I can speak to it as well too if is that she here I'm sorry could you repeat that can you bring Amy rupo forward Jo so she yes he's coming over virtually it's I can speak to a two good evening board in front of
178you you have a report by drack Jack Shader and Associates they've studied um our facility needs and looked um at the needs of also of the homes being built in the area and uh um the data supports us raising our fees let me know if you have any questions about the report anybody have any questions on the report look like there's no [Music] questions or coms right because we any comments now from any okay I'm gonna um I think we're gonna move on second item is the resolution sorry sorry sorry the the second item is a resolution approving the increase of the fees 87 okay am I going on to 11 C I just need some clarification am sorry I didn't have my board agenda kind of collaps on my screen here so thanks to
179Diana but yeah this is 11c your adopted resolution which is off so you receive the report you held the public hearing and now you taking action to adopt the resolution which authoriz the district okay we're on 11 c um are there any clarifying questions public comment on this one now you already did say I'm getting a yes so let's just go through each step public hearing but you need to take public any public comment on 11c it seems like the same thing we just did any public comment on Zoom for 11c yes let me check no raised hands at the the moment president pro thank you um all right any board comments I'm ready for a motion I'll move to approve this resolution ad this resolution approving the increase in school facilities Fe second for
180the motion and trusty Brooks for the second all in favor please say I that's five yeses so that has been adopted thank you we will move on to 12a Community Schools up uh initiative update we have Dr will join us in just one second Joe if you could promote hello everyone can you hear me excellent great hello everyone um good evening superintendent uh members of the board and distinguished guests both uh virtual and in person uh my name is Dr Christian rava and I'm the director of school leadership uh here uh providing our third update to the public on our Sanel Foster City School District Community Schools initiative uh quick road map uh into um the information that I will be sharing I'll start us off with uh the planning year one review uh and
181as you recall those board members who were here uh last year you will will recall that I provided to updates last year um I will then go into uh reviewing planning year two uh which is our current uh year uh and then we'll uh I'll kind of give a a quick recap of the implementation plan uh which is essentially uh the steps moving forward uh to submit our application to receive the implementation plan Grant uh I want to start us off by grounding um uh the equity work uh the ground workor that was laid out um uh back in 2018 when the equity tax force was established and then in 2020 uh when our Sanctuary task force was established because that really provided the foundation upon which um when our superintendent Diego choa joined our
182district um you know our multi-stakeholder strategic plan really focused on Wellness uh achievement and critically Equity um this really launched us off into uh applying for this planning Grant uh from that was offered by the California Department of Education um and it really allowed us to use this Equity task force and Sanctuary task force um as a way to uh you know bring out the best in in our Title One School communities uh and and and figure out a way in a very thoughtful and strategic manner to uh dismantle the screwed prison pipeline last year as you can see here circled uh in on your screen is the planning year phase one of the cspp which is a California Community School partnership program Grant and we are currently in the second year um really quickly
183um uh you're welcome to scan our strategic Journey here on the side uh but I cannot overemphasize uh the importance of our strategic plan and really providing that Foundation uh for the multi-stakeholder input process that we H that we engaged last year and we continue to engage this year um these building blocks as I will show you in just a moment and the three goals really come alive and really are uh intertwined really nicely with uh the California Department of education's uh Community School pillars um so here's this kind of uh Community School pillars model uh that is super important uh I I do want to state that the kind of the alignment between the Community School 's model and our strategic plan could not be more um beautiful and more strategically designed right um
184as I I keep sharing right this is what Equity by Design looks like um because we we were very intentional um in terms of ensuring that our integrated student supports pillar really worked on our three strategic plan goals also the second pillar on expanded enriched learning time and opportunities um also brought to life our Wellness our three three goals right Wellness achievement and Equity goal and then these two other community school pillars super important right um they're essentially um it's almost like the language is really nicely mirrored uh to our building blocks that undergirds our strategic plan uh I do want to kind of uh emphasize that the Community Schools initiative um uh aims right to empower all voices uh including historically silenced communities like bip uh communities which stands for um black indigenous people
185of color under the guidelines of the CDE we were provided this planning grant for um our five tital one schools uh and I want to kind of celebrate uh our participating schools because they've really engaged in a lot of uh uh Collective and collaborative uh shared leadership and Community engagement work uh to launch this grant this input plan Grant we have uh our Festa Gardens International School Laurel Elementary School lead Elementary School Cil Park Elementary School and sunny BR elementary school and just uh uh just for so that you can kind of sit on just how many students we're reaching we're talking about uh about 2,000 kiddos uh collectively at these schools uh here you have a QR code uh if you'd like to download our our year one uh review uh video with uh
186featuring our community schools initiative um this was uh the kind of the conceptual framework uh that we follow right um this under the CDE guidelines that we were following right uh they were really encouraging us and it kind of brought out the greatness right of our strategic plan which is to view families right as participatory change agents to view them as educational Advocates to view them as ecocultural entities and critical reformers and on our journey to unlock the voices of all of our multi-stakeholders uh in the first year uh last year uh we held a series of community engagement meetings at all five of our title uh of our Title One participating schools um and it's exactly that right Community engagement meetings we're all are welcome to to be a part of this um and
187what's really important here is the multiple opportunities that our five uh Community Schools uh community right uh had uh to to be a part and and and break bread with one another and really dive into the key aspects of the community school model um over the course of the last year um you know according to our data signature uh collections right we had uh over 830 inperson attendance across all five schools you notice here each meeting had a very specific Focus um and culminated in an all uh uh uh community school end of year celebration um uh where we kind of gathered all of our communities and and really celebrated uh year one work building pride and sense of ownership was super important and so uh uh members of each of the communities who consistently
188attended these right we celebrated them right we wanted to make sure that they feel a sense of ownership um and the level of Engagement and ownership that we saw at each of our schools was just incredibly inspiring um and and really really uh thought-provoking in terms of uh plan you know going into your tube also in our in our first year this is kind of like the overview um uh kind of shows you the a snapshot on on the leftand side of all the community uh uh you know all the engagements that that we took part in and on the right hand side you can see kind of the data Trends coming up right folks you know why you know the communities overall right if we look at five schools um you know they're looking
189for social workers and resource uh centers onsite more counseling support parent workshops uh so this is kind of like a sampling that kind of flavor of the trends that that really were coming up as as um uh really big in the data whether it was multi-stakeholder uh surveys or also inperson Community engagement meetings what's really great is that in the first year we assembled uh steering committees uh at our uh at our school at each of our schools um and really the goals of the school site steering committee uh is to create multi-stakeholder surveys and input plans um for for their for their school right um they know their school best and you know I was just you know um a guide right um and before you know it as you can see here a
190meeting at Sano Park things take off right uh the empowerment process really takes off and and it's been really really inspirational to see this on the ground um we had over 1100 uh survey responses across uh the five Community Schools in the making in the first year which if you take into consideration the in-person attendance um is really kind of impressive um as you know Community School building is really about that right Community uh and building um that sense of ownership for for their school process uh we're currently in year two of the input process um and these again right we're being very intentional about our community engagement uh meetings at our five uh Target schools um and again you can see that the topics are very targeted they're very specific and and purposeful in
191terms of um uh you know bringing in a lot of input qualitative data um that reflects uh the assets the beautiful assets of the communities and the needs of the community so that they can create um uh the priorities for for each of the schools in you know following and reflecting the four pillars model um to date as of actually December 8th this number will be higher because it does not include last night's impressive Community engagement at lead which uh Drew over you know over 50 uh community members uh that's you know a 30 6% increase if we compare it to where we were at at around this time of the month a year ago it's it's really impressive and again this is really um a collaborative effort of all of our site steering committees
192and our district steering committee which I will talk about uh in a moment um so notice here right now I I I move out from this piece right I this is now where shared leadership really starts taking place right so we have here our district uh based District level steering committee um and uh you can you know use this QR code to SC to scan and and download the plan for this year in our dates we've met six times already uh but I want to take you back to the very beginning when um uh uh uh we welcome Janette Ramirez uh principal of special assignment and previous principal of Fiesta Gardens uh who has been a wonderful addition ition to this effort this initiative and who's just really done an impressive job in supporting not
193only uh the district level steering committee but also the site level committees and really pushing uh everyone and and joining the effort so uh major kudos to Janette um and here Janette and I at the very beginning of the year met with our you know we reached out to our Union Partners our union leaders um and we sat with Kathy prad who you know she I know she's sitting in the audience and to get the three of us brainstormed everything like how we would you know frame our district level uh steering committee meetings you know scheduling them from not only the dates but even the times right um and it was a transparent process from the very beginning right and so part of the district level steering committee is to provide input right uh to
194serve as a way to bring sight steering committees together which is exactly what we did and you're seeing here uh in this in this video recap of a Fiesta Gardens District level steering committee where we invited um uh you know Fiesta gardens's team to present their input plan and their process and their efforts at at ensuring that all multistakeholder voices are being heard and and what to do next right if if if we are if you know we need to do more right there's always more to do uh to ensure that everyone feels valued and a part of the conversation um also uh I think it's important to know that this District steering committee is really important um because they you know these folks serve as ambassadors right they go back to their sites right
195they go back to their uh School steering committees and provide that direction and that communication right and I know at our at our most recent District level um Community School steering committee which was held this past Monday we received such an abundance and Rich amount of input on what we can do more right to strengthen communication right to strengthen um how we disseminate information to strengthen how to elevate um the voices of all of our stakeholder groups right uh and such impressive ideas uh such as you know creating site web page for each school right where their communities can go to it right we do have um a district level a web page a landing page but you know what might that look like if we do one for for every site you know that
196was great idea right that came up another great idea came up was a newsletter right maybe you know it's something that Janette and I are um taking into consideration and we be planning out uh because a newsletter I think you know organically our our initiative is growing right and we're capturing more input and we're you know we're lo you know bringing folks into into the process um at higher numbers right and so more input invoices are being a part of the process so it's just great right um and so Janette and I actually in January have scheduled with our title once School communities to do one I want interviews with with staff with teachers um with students right uh during the school day right just pull them aside during recess right and and have those
197key one-on-one conversations with all of our all of our our school community members um so just as um uh as an update right um in this current school year we've received uh over 1,00 survey responses across all five community school meetings so again the the wheels of of change and input are really really immense and and great this is kind of again like that other year one overview um where on one side on on on the left hand side you'll see kind of the data points of all of our engagements and I want to also share like after hearing the uh input data Trends and plans from our five steering committees uh these are the similarities that we're seeing across the five schools now this is a snapshot right this is not the end all
198be all right but this is gives us a really nice compact way of looking at what are the things that are that our school communities want right one is expanded after school with economic support activities and support offerings and go of course that literally falls on that one of the pillars of the community school we have Community School resource center on site with a community school lead right also falls within the wraparound Services um pillar and parent workshops right to empower families and increase shared leadership again that's also a community school pillar in on its own so just a lot of uh ideas here um uh that really support um this process of ensuring that our our our our communities receive the best supports possible I want to really celebrate the tremend this work of
199our site leaders um these uh incredible human beings uh deserve a lot of Praise because they've done a lot of work there you know we've got Daniel robbles Natalie Delah hunt Carrie Hazelton Cindy uh chin and Nelson Hunter you know they're you know on the ground with with our communities and collecting inputs and holding these uh steering Community meetings uh uh routinely I also want to celebrate our community services specialist because they are actually making calls uh to families right and breaking down the process for them and being those culture builders that that we need uh to to invite uh families uh from historically silenced communities right like bip communities so this is kind of the path right um we again submitted wherever you see a little check mark uh we've completed uh those items
200we are now at uh working uh with our School site steering committees uh to uh present us with narratives and present us with data uh uh artifacts to then uh organize and submit uh for that implementation Grant which is due February 9th and part of uh uh learning through this journey is networking with other districts and we have been very fortunate that other districts are coming to us for best practices um and for having those conversations where we get to share our journey um and and what we've learned um I know we when we first started the planning phase we were the only District in the Cil County to County to really be doing this work and um and now we've this second year we've you know there's more districts who are seeking um uh
201for partners right in this work and you know we've been very fortunate um I've been able to present most recently November uh 2nd uh at this acts of Leadership Summit with my uh great colleague uh Diego Perez uh our communications director really kind of delving into the process of how to support families and how to uh use best practices to dismantle the scoo to prison PIP plan um and board uh of Trustees uh that is the end of my presentation I am happy to take I'm open for clarifying questions and comments thank you very much clarifying question time Jump in um thank you drel Caba I have a question about um it was one of the later slides that described the resource center on on site with Community School lead um what is the what
202will that consist of that we don't already provide yeah absolutely um so a community school lead uh is a best practice that the California Department of Education uh Champions as part of this grant this this uh Community lead person right um would uh ensure that uh there is a uh a space where families can go to um and ensure that all students have access to uh not only social services and Community you know services around the community but ensure that they have that immediate access to after school programming one of the um realities of a of a School site is your principal is going to have their phone ringing or have people tap them on the shoulder for a child that gets injured a teacher that needs help a parent that's calling one of us
203here asking for something so a community school lead becomes the point person work that was described having to do with parent uh conferences having to do with after school programming having to do with Extended Learning summer school things of that nature um and they really can own it all because we're going for a five School implementation it also creates a community where these five individuals would basically build on one another support one another and create that that cohort of community schools that each school so are these positions that are in addition to what's already there okay thank you I clarifying question Dr rava one question about some of the statistics you have the slides like the 800 in person or the 1100 surveys I just want to confirm were those all unique contacts or if
204you have 30 Community meetings across five sides you know could it be the same folks showing up over and over or is it you need contacts right thank you so much you're welcome any other questions okay um we will go to public comment and we have several in the audience so I will call up Andrea benitz you want to come here we'll do three minutes so will you do the timer yes good evening my name is Andrea vitez I am a fourth grade teacher at Festa Gardens um I think it's important to say it's my third year teaching um running through the pandemic and and so it's been an interesting um process but first of all sorry good evening to the board good evening superintendent o everyone in the public um in person and the
205uh Zoom um what I wanted to talk about or comment about and it's something that um trustee Kim talked about when applying for his current position was about communication and um Dr chrisa also touched upon that and so I am here because there has been a lack of commun communication um teachers went often ask like I have no idea what's going on what it what's we still are figuring out what is a community school um until recently there wasn't a teacher on the district committee committee for um from pesta Gardens and if it is a community school and um I think every member of the community needs to be present and for it to not have teachers present is an issue and I'm glad to hear that Dr Christian rala and Jana also are working
206on and hearing out about that specific issue because it's a year into into the process or two years into the process and we still have people that don't have a clue of what's going on and so I would love to see um work on that being done on communication with not only the teachers but I also talk to parents um via the district committee meeting this past in this week right sorry my days are it's almost winter break um so uh and one of the parents from s par or yes was saying that a lot of what was talked about she had no idea and it seems like there is a lack of communication and also for her being um a Spanish speaker it's also another layer added to to it and so that is
207who we service at guesta Gardens and hearing that resonated at another another school and other schools it just um leaves me worried so just working on ways to improve the communication with every uh person involved um of all backgrounds would be appreciated thank you thank you um next we have Stephen Morrison um I'm just going to talk about my experience with the last month of learning about Community Schools um it's been conflicting information and I believe we had a meeting with our Union on the 1st of December about another topic which we learned that there will be two meetings in the two coming weeks on December 6th and December 11th presenting our presentation for our school I was with two people who are on our steering committee and they have no idea that that those
208two meetings were going happen so we reached out to our steering committee and our staff and we asked hey we heard about this one is going to be people coming to our school to present not only ours but theirs their schools presentation and uh it was true and we were able to get a hour two twoh hour meeting just before the meeting at our school on the 6th we had not seen our slideshow we had not seen our narrative luckily we were able to reach out to parents who were also not sure this what's happening and get them to the meetings and get teachers to the meetings um and we were able to add to those presentations um we have teachers who have asked to be on the steering committee at our school and they
209have been told that they've already filled up all the spots and that um the people have had their invitations given and those are the people that are on the commit uh we are in need of more parents uh but we've also had people told that they are not allowed to speak at the meeting that they can attend but they need to be silent and this to me goes against what Community Schools is all about is shared decision made and it feels like there's two different topics on Community Schools and then in the last month I have learned more than the last two years so that's my thank you next we have Gabriel Alle good evening board superintendent uh my name is Gabriel leg my pronounce or he him his on fifth grade general education teacher
210at C when you looked at this what you saw was parents District if you notice you didn't see one slide on teachers or staff okay that's very important so let me start off I'm a fifth grade general education teacher C I'm also the state Council representative and the newly organizing chair for Community Schools for when sun R's approach about being a community school I like everyone else did not know what this was all about so I decided to go out and find out more on doing my research I learned of different models across California on how Community Schools can be effective the key component of Community School Community Schools is shared decisions let me explain how this works the for at is one3 decision making by parents one3 decision- making by staff and one3 decision
211making by the district I sit on my s's steering committee as well as the district steering committee I have sat through meetings and presentations there are several issues at hand number one as you've heard from my colleagues information from the district is not being sent down to the five Sid correctly each side is getting different information that is not consistent representation I'm sorry number two representation is lacking especially from the teacher side this is unacceptable this is not how Community School works the third one at our side the district has gone above and beyond to get input from our parents but the same cannot be said about our staff there have been seven or more meetings at our side with parents but not with staff we have invited the district representatives to come to the
212staff meetings and have a robust conversation but there has been no answer all five Community Schools are struggling to get the correct informations as we head towards the second phase of this grant we have asked for improved communication in addition to transparency and accountability the district can and must do better share decision making is the key this will be more successful if you include the teachers and staff inclusion and not exclusion thank you and the last slip I have for in person is Marcel Miranda good evening W noes board member superintendent OA and esteemed attendees my name is Marcel Miranda I'm the director of school Community Partnerships at Sano County Office of Education I am delighted and honored to address you today on behalf of Sano County Office of educ education this invitation uh to
213speak at your board meeting is a wonderful opportunity for me to personally recognize and celebrate the remarkable achievements of your District in the realm of community engagement particularly in in the effective implementation of Community School initiative these events held at five different schools have successfully engaged a diverse range of stakeholders embodying the four pillars of Community Schools as had the privilege of attending two uh Community School um event meetings where I spoke with um the parents um and as well as um a few teachers and it was really wonderful to see um their enthusiasm the remarkable parent turnout and the structured environment for these events have enabled meaningful conversations and insightful feedback this is a clear Testament to your District's commitment to inclusivity and collaborative engag engagement your approach in ensuring that every voice in
214the community is heard and valued as both commendable and exemplary these community events are not just meanings they are vibrant expressions of your District's dedication to integrated student support family and Community engagement collaborative leadership and expanded learning opportunities the success of these events highlights your District's deep understanding of community needs and its ability to address them effectively your District's efforts and fostering strong Community relationships are essential in shaping a successful and supportive educational environment I extend my deepest appreciation for your Visionary leadership and the impactful work you are doing thank you for setting an extraordinary example of community engagement and educational leadership thank you Joe can we see if there's anyone on Zoom that would like to make public comment at this time yes uh thank you president Proctor um there is one raised hand
215at the moment ana ana please go ahead thank you I definitely want to Echo what my colleague said about the lack of communication I also I'm pleased that we're finally doing empathy interviews though I do wish that it had been at the beginning of this Community Schools initiative as a huge part of community engagement is actually learning what the community wants and one of the major steps from most community schools that are successful is starting with empathy interviews and actually listening to stakeholders what's happened at many of these meetings is there's been a very clear agenda the district has presented on a specific topic and then parents have been guided to be asked about specific questions based on that topic unfortunately this is very limiting and prevents parents from getting into what makes their school
216special and what would truly benefit their specific children by starting with empathy interviews you get to the heart of what the school needs what the school wants and what is already working well at that specific School having boilerplate meetings that match at every single School takes out the uniqueness of Community Schools there are five schools which means there should be five separate plans if these schools all end up with the same things it undermines the whole point of a community school they're not the same communities and they don't need the same things I also truly hope that even though it's way past when it should have been there will be the emphasis on staff commitment and engagement without staff actually being on board you can have the best plan in the world but the staff
217need to be implementing it at the end of the day this is truly going to be a huge ask of all the staff at these five schools making sure staff is ready to make this commitment and fully dive in should have been one of the first things that was asked of us and then moving forward with these grants doing all of these steps backwards undermines the success of what could be a truly wonderful thing thank you thank you next speaker is Lisa Mahia Sandoval please go ahead thank you very much hi my name is Lisa Mahia sandal I'm the community service specialist at Sunny BR and also parent at sun bra um I have been with the district for four years and I'm here to speak on behalf of our families at Sunny bra um
218quite of them couldn't make it tonight because they have work they have families and they have time to engage with their kids that they need um um one of the biggest parts of me being here and speaking up tonight is for our family and the reason why I'm speaking up for them and because um it just hits me really hard to know that a lot of our families have committed their time to be um a part of these meetings daily whenever they're assigned to to to come they come they're committed and they're present and so um one of the biggest things is that they're looking for transparency and they would like more um emphasis on being able to focus on what are the next steps for a community and what are the changes that we're
219looking for and um and we're not seeing that and they would like more of that and so we're hoping that out of all this conversation that we've been having at during this time that we may get some transparency and help support our families so we could become the community schools that we need to become thank you very much president Proctor there are no other raised hands okay thank you um we will go now to the board for board uh comments thank you Dr rubal Caba for your work on this um I know it's a comp complex um process right there's a lot of stakeholders um not all of them will be happy with you um I I wanted to comment a little bit on the on the process and I know that there um and
220just speaking from my experience as uh you know like being at some of these meetings um I I think there has been a real um effort to uh make sure that people who don't normally attend meetings show up at the meetings I have seen parents at these meetings that I've like literally never seen on campus and so um to have that many people come and commit their time is um really a big lift and and so I want to congratulate you you know you and your team on on doing that I think there have been concerns some concerns raised about like not understanding necessarily what's what's happening next and so um I think big picture it I think it is helpful to to know for for the families and I and I recognize that there
221are things that each School wants and they may not all overlap but um a lot of the a lot of the as were you know around after school care um which we like have gone over earlier this year we've made a lot of progress on just even outside of the community um schools planning um so I think you know for for me I think I just want to make sure that the parents who come and spend their time and you know take time away from their evening I just wanted want to make sure that those families feel like it is a valuable use of their time and um that's that's where I land in so I just want to you know I just don't want people to feel like their their time is being wasted
222and I'm not saying that that is the case I just think that um you know I just want to make sure that we use that very precious time very carefully thanks um Christian for the presentation I know um you know as I forget um the name Marcel I think who is the um with the with the county um shared you know just in terms of and as you all have stated around just the Innovative work that Community Schools is and the fact that we're one of the first districts in our County to really be engaging in this and digging into that and I think as we know in general with just innovative Community Driven you know work it's it's bumpy right and so you're doing something new and you're trying lots of new things and
223you're trying to um you know to to break down barriers and um and so there's there's going to be wins with that and then there's going to be many many many opportunities to continue improving um and so like just first acknowledging um you know a lot of what has been shared both from par parents and you know and our teachers and staff and and you all in terms of just getting a a diverse group of parents engaged and involved in our schools um and breaking down those barriers and really thinking about all the ways that we can get folks to come and engage with us and our district and um you know to learn about improvements and ways to continue getting involved and engag in our schools I just I think it's like really incredible
224that this is an area of focus and that we we've been able to get so many parents um engaged and so just want to acknowledge and and highlight that and you know just the fact that this really is when we think about you know talking about Equity from like this policy level to really thinking about implementation like this is the work um and there's sounds like there's like some room for improvement and really thinking about how do we engage in the same meaningful way with all our stakeholders and so just really appreciate you know all the teachers and staff and parent who you know ex described and expressed the experience that they've had and hope that we um you know will like really listen to that and think about it sounds like we are considering
225ways to make adjustments already um but that we really think about kind of that feedback as this again when you're doing hard things like there's going to be lots of bumps and there's going to be things we miss and um you know we've done that a thousand times sitting up here and a thousand times right sitting in our classrooms as Educators right like it's it's um it just is the nature of things um one of the things that made me think about is just is there like a short-term opportunity to pull together you know it seems like folks are engaged in thinking about how to make this process even more effective is there a way that in the new year you know there's a we can bring together like a smaller cohort of a wide
226range of stakeholders to think about what might be like some of those quick adjustments that we could make to process that would really yield um a feeling of inclusivity and engagement across all of our stakeholder groups and kind of that meaningful feedback loop and I know it's something that you're thinking about and I know that you know we don't have like this is a massive initiative and you're one person with the help of like I know other folks in the district so um again I think this is just like I see this as as the nature of what kind of again I know said this like five times already like what happens when you're doing Innovative work um but it doesn't mean that there are ways that we can improve and and and with that
227if there are ways that as a board um we can help to support you know continuing um to move things forward here and you know to to support any of the potential adjustments that are made as a result of um feedback one one like I guess specific question I had is around and maybe you said this will forgive me if I missed it the surveys are about what do they entail exactly did you share like what exactly people are being uh absolutely so the surveys um are have kind of like a threep point Focus one of them is gathering assets of the community uh the second one is gathering like needs right uh and then the third one kind of focuses on what are the priorities right like what you know what things would you
228like you know to add to the school Community to to improve it right uh when when thinking about the community school model it president Watkin if I can an hour ago you were trust here you know one one of the one of the interesting uh avenues that was created three years ago um when Governor Nome and the legislature put this in into effect was they actually gave school districts two options they said you can apply for an implementation Grant or you can apply for a planet crant um at the time we weren't a part of either historically our district hasn't applied for these funds these funds have existed these kinds of schools have existed for many years we chose to apply for planning many five to one districts chose to get the money and have
229no plan whatsoever and hold no meetings the Community Schools concept the very premise of Community Schools comes it's rooted from the historical perspective that communities of color are often taking away their assets their what they bring to the table communities of color is often ignored and not recognized by school systems including ours and that was the case historically and it continues to be the case now and we're doing a lot to try to change that and shift that over time at the same time that opening up that conversation comes with a requirement that you bring to parents presentations that help them understand everything that's in place in the district now so Dr Raba didn't focus on this you know significantly in his remarks but the first year of the Community Schools process was heavily weighted
230towards having presentations where District departments came in to discuss multilingual learner Services Education Services special education so that they so that parents who were involved in this process could have a basis of the district's current strategies that is a best practice according to the Community Schools planning Grant uh components in addition to that an equally big part of time was spent on discussing in those spaces the community assets that these families brought that the whole Community brought to the program so I think it's it would sort of be a disservice to ignore those those pieces because what we're doing this year is shifting into planning conversations planning ideas and um and we have time we have time and and I think we have the right people um engaged in in planning this work um so
231one of the things that we'll do you know um following this meeting is just to be able to gather the team come with some different ways to hold meetings at different times in different locations create more access and more engagement we already have our January and February meeting set so those dates would be particularly good for us to open some different Avenues and different times on those dates um and just to continue to get more feedback because I think the one sort of uh you know facet of this work has been the greatly increased engagement and it sounds like we have some ways to be able to to continue to do that more all com I just want to say thank you for the presentation and I don't know that I have anything else to
232say other than thank you and I Echo um you know my uh concerns um that was voiced by my fellow trustees and I'm excited about the work that is being discussed here and forward to us to come thank you um I will just say that um I appreciate the presentation and all the information I'm excited about the Community Schools so thank you for all of this information I just wanted to touch first of all I wanted I was going to save my comments at for the end of the meeting um wanted to appreciate all of the Smita members that have been coming to the meetings because we've been seeing you guys um with your shirts and um it's been nice to have people in audience so thank you for coming but um I wanted to
233just acknowledge the comments that were shared and um kind of reflect on the fact that um hearing concerns um from people that you know are and I'm probably simpli oversimplifying this but just thinking about you know going to your job and and he having some excitement about something new but not having all of the information and and kind of like you know wanting to be involved and included and but not you know not totally understanding something I I can relate to that and so I just want to you know acknowledge that and and want to encourage us as a district to to do a little bit better here and and make sure that we are including everybody and and providing that communication so that people feel like they are part of this and that they
234can be be excited and share this with families that are maybe asking questions and they can be part of the excitement around being a community school that they can be an advocate for families in their community that are going to be students and um go through this community school um you know um I know it's it's kind of you know it can be kind of like frustrating when you want to be part of something and you're you know we're we're here for students but we're also an employer right so we have to make sure that people that work here are um feeling valued and feeling like they're included and feeling like um they're part of the community so I just want to acknowledge what you all said and what you all shared and I think
235that we can we can do a better job here um just to make sure that everybody when we talk about Community Schools that we're including everybody in the community so so thank you for all the comments that were shared um um Dr rubel CBA really appreciate all the work that you're doing um I hope that you know as we move forward but you all can you know feel that too so thank you there's nothing more on this one we can move on to the next topic which is uh item 13 board member statements and requests for feuture agenda items just wish everybody a restful break and with friends and family or alone whatever you choose to do during that time um it's much needed and so I hope everyone has an incredible break all of
236our students and families and teachers and staff and um forward to seeing everyone back in the new year new year holays en number 14 uh future meeting dates those are listed on the agenda so we'll be back uh January 11th for a study session oh on middle schools again School climate oh okay okay forget that school climate um item 15 public comments on closed session items anybody in the audience here uh Joe can we check if anyone on Zoom has uh public comments on Clos session items yes um at the moment there are no raised hands okay then we'll go to 16a or 16 we'll recess to close session where we'll go to 16a government code okay 16 we'll recess to close session I think the screen is not there we go okay okay we're
237reconvening from Clos session with one item to uh report um item 13A a major a majority of the board voted five or all the vot the board voted 5 to zero to approve a compromise agreement with parents of a student to resolve potential and threatened claims against the district in exchange for specified funding for related services for the 2023 2024 school year 2024 summer and up to and including March 31st um okay so it was uh unanimous so now we can take a motion I'll make a motion to Second thank you trusty Brooks motion trusty Tren for the second all in favor please say I I all um approved so we will adjourn the meeting at 9:38 pm thank you and happy New Year and happy holidays okay bye everybody happy holid