001All right. Hello everyone. We're going to call this meeting to or to to order and um want to let everyone know that uh we will have live simultaneous Spanish interpretation of the board meeting available for those who are viewing online. And so now we will raise I will stand up for the pledge of allegiance. Right hand over your heart and begin. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Awesome. And so um now we will go to changes for uh to the agenda and we do have a change. There hasn't been an addition to our agenda number 22 which will be a discussion item about the board retreat. Are there
002any other changes? Okay, perfect. Moving on. And now time for any board comments. Does anyone have any comments that Oh, I'm sorry. Roll call. I jumped ahead. Okay. Mrs. Alvarez Forest here. Dr. Armistad present. Mrs. Cardi here. Miss >> here. Mrs. Frost >> here. Mrs. Reed is absent. Mr. Walker is absent. Cura. Okay. All right. Thank you. Now we'll go to board comments. Does anyone have any comments they'd like to share? >> I do. Okay. Um I got to attend the governor's perspectives workshop uh the budget perspectives rather um that capital adviserss did at the county ed building uh last month. And um according to Jack Oonnell, it's a good budget for education. So that's that's the good news. 40% of it is protected um by Prop 98. And he determined that it really reflected
003Governor Nuome's priorities, which are around community schools, nutrition, and extended learning opportunities. Um but there is a little manipulation with underfunding. So I'm sure we'll we'll stay tuned to hear more about that. But it was, as always, really enlightening. Um, and it was really fun to see Jack McConnell again. Yes. >> And then I also attended the Santa Barbara Reading Coalition out of curiosity >> and um, interest. And the group is their mission is to ensure that all public school students in Santa Barbara County are up to grade level for um, reading on their California standardized tests. And they they do support the science of reading and support um, quite a bit of professional development. What was really interesting was who was in the room. So there were parents, there were educators, there were community
004members that aren't parents or educators. So there was a real vested interest in the importance of reading and um making sure people understood the various modalities to get there. So it wasn't polarizing and I was really very happy to uh learn just a little bit more about it. Those are two things worth noting. >> Thank you for membering. Anyone else? Okay. Well, I have a a to comment. So, uh on January 30th, I was able to visit uh Olive Crest, our whole branch uh with Bridget Bob and Amy Willis of SEEO, our SV CEO um staff. And the facilities um there are foster girls who have been victims of humanist trafficking. Um they offer housing for girls that are between 12 to 18 years old. Um offering schooling, counseling, and extracurricular uh activities like gardening,
005yoga with a focus on the healing process to transform their lives. So it was really educational. It was great to see the work that um the founders uh Sally and Chuck were doing. Uh, and then also to learn more about the short-term residential treatment placement. Um, the STRPTP, which I learned that acronym while I was there. Um, all we we love our acronyms. Um, and uh, which are programs for foster youth and homeless placement and how they interacted with that. And so it was it was really interesting um, to be able to see the work that they're doing and how it interacts with our our local programs in town. And then secondly, I just want to say um happy Black History Month to everyone. Um yeah, this is the hundth anniversary. Um this month, in
006case anyone didn't know, was originally started and February is started as a week by scholar Carter G. Woodson. Um and it was to coincide with the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln and um Bruce Doug Frederick Douglas in 1926. Um, and it's just a way to celebrate known and maybe lesser known contributions uh to African-Americans in this country. And it just reminds me that this country uh was built on contributions from people from all walks of life and that our diversity and this country is our superpower. And so um so yeah, those are my two comments and then do we have any public comments to submit? Okay. So, um we will now have a presentation from the director of victim uh witness assistance program uh for this from the Santa Barbara District Attorney's Office. Um so, Megan
007Reer Rinchild. Um yes, please come to the podium. And as you um before you begin your presentation, I just want to thank you for being here today um to present this information. was uh also I want to also thank our um superintendent Fosce and your team for bringing this uh presentation forward. Uh I know that um this is very important information for us to know and less or known information about our community and um this population and how it affects our programs and our communities and our students. So thank you. >> All right. Thank you. I don't know if this is on or needed, but yes. Okay. All right. Um, good afternoon everyone. My name is Megan Rinchild and I work in the district attorney's office. As as you mentioned, I manage direct the countywide
008victim witness assistance program. And as part of my role, I also helped form the human trafficking task force in 2013. And so I I think what you want to hear about today is what is going on in Santa Barbara County as far as human trafficking is concerned. And part of what I'm going to talk about which I think is most relevant is what is what can we do as a community and particularly the schools when we suspect that uh a youth is being exploited and I'll talk a little bit about that. Here also with me I have Ilana Anda. She's the manager for North County victim witness assistance and she oversees the grant itself that we have with the federal government uh the anti-human trafficking grant services for victims of crime and um I'm very
009grateful for her. She manages all things grants, which as any of you in the room may know, can be pretty ownorous. And so she also works with our evaluator from UCSB and make sure that we're producing data that is relevant to the work that we're doing. And so, um, I wanted to introduce her, too. and she's very familiar with the Santa Maria community and has been really helpful in helping us navigate um how to best serve the population countywide. So, the first question I often get is, is there human trafficking in Santa Barbara County? And the answer is yes, there is. And over 10 years ago when we embarked on the formation of the human trafficking task force, I was not necessarily a believer that there was human trafficking in the county. And I'll tell
010you why. Because I've I was working in victim witness. I started in the mid 90s working in the victim witness assistance program. And our population, the people that we serve are victims of reported crimes. And human trafficking victims by and large do not report that they are human trafficking victims. And they um survivors show up in all different ways. And so they might show up as um domestic violence victims, sexual assault victims. And unless we're skilled at answering or excuse me, asking the questions or law enforcement or our our social services providers are skilled at asking the right questions, we didn't know that we had an issue. So, um, at that time, I will admit that as the resident grant writer in our office, there was some, um, kind of environmental pressure to look at
011money around this issue. And the first thing you do is is there an issue? So if some of you have heard this story, I apologize, but uh a friend of mine that was working for the FBI and covered the LA region, Ventura, Santa Barbara, she was a victim advocate since retired. And she and I had become friendly through our travels throughout the state, going to meetings, various things. And she's the first person that said, "You know, you have a problem on the Central Coast. you have traffickers bringing victims through relatively unnoticed because law enforcement's just not really attuned to it yet. And so I really oh okay and understand that we already have plenty of work, right? So we're serving the 3,000 4,000 people a year who are victims of violent crime and predominantly 30
01240% of our population is domestic violence. Another 20% is sexual assault, child abuse and so forth. So, we're not in the business of going out and looking for new crime victims. They come to us through law enforcement. On the other hand, we are very interested in staving off a trend or a problem in our county and making sure that we're catching people before they also become victims. So that was kind of I she had a lot of she has a lot of credibility and I believed her and I won't get into this whole long story but very soon after that there was a joint operation between the FBI um the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, local law enforcement and it was a rescue operation rescuing minor victims of human trafficking in the city
013of Santa Barbara. And there were runaway youth. There was several girls that had run away. They were in the foster care system. Um, actually the the particular victim that I worked most closely with at that time had been adopted by an older couple living in Florida and she was a chronic runaway and chronically engaged with the juvenile justice system. Um, and so she was one of the traffickers, a very prolific trafficker who had a record up and down the state of California. She was one of his victims. And and so this was all kind of happening at the same time that we were thinking about writing this grant and working with the sheriff's department, which I'll talk about in a minute. Well, it's just all to say I got a real quick education about first
014of all the difficulties with the services and supports. Uh at the time the child welfare in the 300 code did not cover this population of runaway youth. And so that has since changed in 2015 the law changed. So, um, and I say that because when she, being that she was a runaway and she was already adopted, services were not available to her that would have otherwise been available. And there were a whole host of other things that I learned along the way. One was that I thought I was trauma informed and I had a lot to learn. So, um she she was just um just such in some ways just such a um gift in terms of learning what we still needed to know. So, we ended up prosecuting that particular trafficker. He's in prison
015now. And um she testified. It was it was very um oh, what is the word? It was it was difficult because a lot of the dynamics that we see in domestic violence, the trauma bonding, her um perceived loved love for him, dedication to him was like nothing I had ever seen before in domestic violence cases, which I had worked for several years before that. So why am I telling you this? So, I'm telling you this because much of what we've tried to do with the task force is working alongside our law enforcement partners to identify possible victims and survivors and maybe successfully investigate those case such that we get a prosecution. And so, since that time that we wrote the grant, the first grant, I think I was 2016. Yeah, 2016 we really didn't have
016any case load to talk about. So, fast forward now, um our our stats just relative well relative to the grant and the things that we've been able to accomplish, we've had 280 investigations, 100 about 100 suspects identified, 60 arrests, and about 280 victims and survivors that we've identified. So, yes, we do have human trafficking here. So really what we started to focus on is this puzzle and network of services and support and how we could fit our various resources into I'll just say like a tapestry of support to wrap victims and survivors around. I'm talking about both youth and adults. And so you mentioned Hope Refuge. Uh one of So we formed a human trafficking task force so that we could bring all of our collaborators together. And part of that was training and outreach
017both internally and externally. So we brought partners from other parts of the state that had been doing human trafficking work much longer than we have. And so like Alama County and Los Angeles and other counties came to teach us what um we needed to see and what we needed to do. And um and then we had other folks coming to the table. And by the way, I in in my career, which has spanned now a long time. Um, probably don't need to say that anymore, but anyway, it's been a long time. I've never seen the community gravitate towards an issue like I've seen in this. And it's it's really I've thought about it a lot like what is that? What is that? And I think first of all it's people can't wrap their heads around
018it for one, but secondly I think I like to think it's people it's the general public is this desire to help. Oh my gosh, this is so terrible. What can I do to help and the focus on you and what we can do? Like how could these terrible things happen? So um so I digress. I know I have I don't want to go over time, so somebody yell at me if I'm going going off on tangents, but I'll I'll try to move on. So, um, Hope Refuge was a good example. Sally Cook and before that, another person came to these meetings and said, "We want to," and I had, you know, our our thinking in this first case was there's no place to put these girls. And so, people came literally out of the woodwork.
019The Junior League actually was the first entity to to step up and got a house open in South County and that's been an incredible learning experience. If you know anybody associated with the Junior League that has told you about that, um it's had some intersections with the schools in Carperia. There's there's just it's a lot. So, we realized really soon like there isn't just a one oneizefits-all for these issues. Later, Hope Refuge and and Sally and Chuck came to the four and managed to get Hope Refuge open, which I'm just tell you, I never thought that was going to happen. It was unbelievable that they got that done. So, now we have two STRTPS in the county, which is unheard of. Now, just to be clear, um the referrals to those STRTs are mostly out
020of county girls referred by child welfare and there's there's a mandate they have to take them if they're vetted and they're in the child welfare system countywide. They have to take them. We have had girls there, too. But, um just want to say that and it's nice that Hope Refuge has the educational component up there because that can be a challenge, right? in in South County, it's big challenge. So, um, as far as our advocates are concerned, I think the the thing I want to impart to you is that we have in-house advocates that work now with human trafficking survivors and victims. and um our north county advocate, her name's Bonet Garcia. She has been embedded in the Sam uh Samurai Police Department, co-located there, co-located at juvenile um the juvenile justice center and intersecting
021with juvenile probation, mental health, and looking at the whole picture, not just the cases that are coming to us from law enforcement. So, we have a South County victim advocate who has a depth of experience as well. She's worked all over the country including Vegas and DC and um also works with this population. A lot of times what'll happen is we'll get a referral from law enforcement. They're doing a proactive investigation. They identify a pimp and there's a victim survivor with them and maybe they're doing um intel and they identify, hey, there's a there's a victim here. can you come out and assist us talking to this individual instead of having not necessarily uniform police officer but a police officer doing the vetting and our advocates are very traumainformed and um do a beautiful job
022just meeting people where they are with what they need in the moment. Uh so we've been looking really keenly to um fill the gaps that exist. So, a couple other things were partners with Good Samaritan early on. Um, Sylvia was amazing in setting up a space at Good Sam for adult survivors. We've also been working more closely with the LMPO community and have a drop-in center there. This is all through the work of the task force at large, not necessarily Ilana and I, but just the network of individuals that have come forward to help make a lot of this happen. Noah's Anchorage is also another entity. I was reading about the board members and I think somebody was part of the foundation St. Barbara foundation roundt maybe. Um so we had done a presentation about
023a year ago to the foundation and uh Noah's Anchorage did in fact get some money to fund a case manager. A lot of the running way youth, not surprisingly, have these factor vulnerabilities that make them sus susceptible to exploitation, sexual exploitation. So Noah's Anchorage is now a great resource. We also have survivor mentors. So, they've been through it um and have come out the other side and now have been a real asset to us when we're working with abuse and survivors and needs somebody that really walks the walk, talks the talk. Um, how am I on time? Excuse me. Couple more minutes. Okay. Um I think one of the things that's important as well is our partnership with child welfare. We have um we are recipient of all the cross reports from child welfare as
024the DA's office. That's a real advantage for us. We also under Ilana's uh oversight have stood up a program that is an integrated database of child welfare reports coming through and we're we've been in the process for the last last couple of years getting law enforcement on board to be looking through this portal to see real time what's happening with some of some of the referrals that we're getting the repeat referrals and making sure that all of our partners are aware when there's a youth or a family that is really at high risk and you have multiple agencies touching that family and trying to assist. Some of those cases are criminal, not all, but there's things that we can do from the perspective of DA's office to prompt the agencies. For example, hey, have you
025thought about doing a child forensic interview on this child who has disclosed? That's another program that we oversee, which is the sexual assault response team. Uh what you should know about that is that we have a forensic team that does child forensic interviews and nurse examiners that do sexual assault exams and child exams where it's appropriate. And that sometimes is incredibly helpful in investigation and prosecutions, but also very important for the family and the child. I'm okay and I'm going to be okay in terms of their health and wellness because leaves it often in a lot of fear in a number of different ways about um what happened to the individual. So that's that's another resource that we bring to the Okay, any questions? >> I have a question Megan. >> Sure. Um, you had
026mentioned that um, Bianca Garcia was the north county advocate. Who was the south county advocate? >> Her name is Tiffany Carti. >> Oh, yeah. >> Yes. Congratulated. >> Um, my question is that was lost on me by the way. >> Yeah. >> Until I thought about it. Yes. um some of the small business owners who may have experienced an occasion where they suspected >> that one of their clients was being trafficked. And I'm thinking right now about nail salons, places like that. >> Um and this I don't know if it's urban legend, but I've heard quite a bit that >> traffickers will often take um girls through. Is there if there is a suspicion, is there a phone number? Are they trained? Is there any outreach to small businesses who may be in that category
027of >> Yeah, that's a great it's a great question. So, um, our our talking point is that if somebody sees something says say say something, right, report it, >> report it to the human trafficking, well, report it to law enforcement. There are some challenges with that >> and I'm aware of that. So even if if it goes out as like a call to 911, hey, I see this. Well, what is it? What do you see? >> It makes it a little difficult to get immediate law enforcement response and also a lot of our agencies have suffered from attrition. So you have younger officers out on patrol that may not have had this training. So Iana, do you want to talk about another avenue for that in terms of reporting directly to the hotline or that?
028Um yes. So usually what we recommend is if you see something, say something. Obviously, we don't want anybody intervening um in a dangerous situation, but we do have the national hotline and we can provide that number. Um it's a 1-800 number. Now, they even have a texting option um that you can do uh to report it. And those referrals come to law enforcement, including us at the district attorney's office. And so it's another mechanism that we collaborate with law enforcement to vet to see if anybody else has had a referral like this, has had interaction with this individual and if there's immediate um attention that needs to be done to it so that we're not um duplicating work and working together um the appropriate agency. The other things that we recommend is, you know, if
029it's a it's it's a minor, obviously calling the child welfare hotline and making a referral, they will flag the referral of suspicion of sexual exploitation, labor exploitation, etc. Um so that's another mechanism obviously always referring it to um child welfare services. In terms of your question about uh small businesses, um I know there's a threshold um there's certain labor laws that have passed in terms of education for human trafficking, but if you're an aesthetician in the state of California, when you get your license, there's certain um training on human trafficking that you actually have to take. And so for people that you know are doing nails, that are doing hair because a lot of these um victims are getting their hair done, are getting their nails done, right? Um, one of our, um, outreach mechanisms
030was we made, um, certain type of material that maybe had information that catered to this industry, um, so that we could better address that without being overt about the messaging. Um and so we try in with our task force uh educating our code enforcers uh sorry business uh the um code enforcement for businesses because they're going into businesses right >> making them aware of what the signs are what to look for especially in some industries where you might be more susceptible to seeing them. >> That national um hotline is that federally funded. Is the funding in jeopardy at all? >> No, still and I think we brought you Yes. And I can make those. >> Oh, thank you. Thanks. >> Any other questions? >> A question in terms of um schools, in other words, especially
031junior high and high schools. Um do you see a lot of um interaction there with having the knowledge to do something about it um with the educators having the information that they might need just in case they see uh someone that they think has been trapped? So the task force actually has a educational program primarily right now that's been proactive in LMF folk working very closely with the schools in LMP folk and that is um largely a partnership with the North County Rape Crisis Center and a couple of our partners. one who is she's not at uh behavioral wellness anymore but she was but she manages the clinical program at Noah's Anchorage and another individual that have done a lot of proactive training in Lombpoke. I've also done some training myself um that's been organized
032I I'm not sure how long ago to superintendence a couple different times. It's um so that's that's where we are as far as the educational piece is concerned. >> If I could follow up with that actually with Susan, if a teacher has suspicions about a child in their class, do they have to go through are they is it recommended? I don't want to use the wrong word here. Is there a path to go through the school administration or can they go directly to a helpline? I not can they but what is the process? >> Yeah. >> What's the process? >> Yeah, both. I know both are um acceptable and and of course as as a mandated reporter you'd want to report. Um and I'm looking over at um Bridget and to see if you want
033to say anything about our um if you want to come to the podium if you wouldn't mind. Thank you. Yeah. through um transitional youth services. Yeah. >> Yeah. I'll just say that our transitional youth services department who supports foster liaison and homeless liaison throughout the county. So Amy Leis, director, they provided um CESC training as well to all of those liaison in all of the districts. So they're also receiving that training. Um what to look for, how to support, as you indicated, foster youth are um a target population. And so um that is some training that is done on an annual basis as well. >> Great. Well, do you have >> Okay. Thank you. >> If I may just say yeah, thank you. I I just wanted to first of all to the board, thank
034you for the opportunity to have this presentation and to um Megan and I thank you so much for the work that you do. I've had an opportunity to work with Megan for quite many, many years together and um I feel so fortunate, I know we all do, to have people who are humans, you know, working on this task force throughout Santa Barbara County um together with many, many organizations and education, too. But just wanted to say thank you. Thank you. I do have I do have another question. This came to me. Um, from what I remember in the seminars and things that I went to like in 2013, 2014, um, probably 2016 when the task force was first started had to do with uh, and then what happens, you know, what's what's the post support
035for the victim and how difficult that is because there isn't a place for them and there isn't um enough support to work with them to get them through their transition. So, in your work, have you seen a lot of repeaters that that just go back to it because they don't know anything else? in various ways and say we're familiar with some of the use that uh we explored and he really found those um I think we've moved the needle from that with the services resource that he needs to be able to develop and I would say some of what I see in my last enforce that are surv survivors now in this space that understands that, you know, putting a roof over someone's head is not the answer is having someone that can resume experience
036and listen without and not reinvesting in the best classifications. Um, knows the language, knows what it's like, knows all the vulnerabilities. I feel like that somebody is saying this, I just feel grateful for somebody now who are in this space and I'm so um vulnerable in their telling us those stories and this is really the son of disease and in these moments and one of our um mentor is the last office in Santa Barbara County but from Venezuela she works out as a home and so she's working some of these youth instead of cleaning my house and I love that because we often the system involves we feel saf that's that's just not and our our philosophy is in our line as long as someone wants to talk to us and you said obviously phone
037numbers your values will leave out there along the run and then you'll lose that thought was amazing. So I think that's that's a great >> and I do have one last comment. I think I should probably because there are success stories and um last June I was at the Carpa Unified um scholarship awards for seniors and there was a student who had been a former resident of the safe house. It's located in in KARP who was receiving a number of awards who had been she was an emancipated minor. She had gone from that safe house experience into a stable housing and um we were able to she she actually was a recipient of an award scholarship award we established in my mother's name and she was interested in nursing and women's wellness specifically and she
038was quite an advocate for young women. So, count that that as a a win. >> Thank you. Thank you. Well, thank you all for all your questions and comments and very illuminating and informative and um it's great to hear all of the collaborations and partnerships um that they have uh with the community. So >> now we will move on to the superintendent report. >> Thank you so much. Appreciate it. And uh I did hear from uh Mr. Board member Walker who is unable to be here so we'll not expect him to come in at this time. Okay. Um so in the report to you the first item there is a huge exciting congratulations for the Wasque accredititation for the juvenile court in the community school. Yes. Yes. Yes. Um, a lot. Exactly. My goodness. I
039There are and you all are familiar with Wasque accreditations and Yes. And you know that you can receive a one-year or threeyear and max is a sixyear. So to have a six-year accreditation says a lot and a real big appreciation for our team. >> Yes, Judy. I want to make sure I read this right. Uhhuh. The only ding we got was for not having one of our staff members participate in a WASK accreditation. I think it's uh deserves to maintain is conditional upon um requirement that an accredited school annually contribute members to a visiting committee. Condition upon Yes. Yes. Yes. >> Okay. a reminder. >> Yeah. >> Yes. Oh, like maintain that ongoing commitment. Yes. Okay. That's right. Good. Very good. So, a flawless six-year meditation. Yes. And so, thank you for that. Um I
040did uh put in the uh reminder for the state of education, but it's on your action agenda as well in Santa Maria. We'd love to have um a board presence there. and the um wonderful and um I'm really looking forward to sharing. I mean it's it goes so quickly. This is a fast state of education. I'll have opportunities have some remarks around the future of education and the current status. Um, I'll be um I'll be uh what do you call it when you're the person moderating there he goes moderating the the panel of the four superintendents here in the valley and then Kevin Walters will have his time to share about the future of education as well. So, um, wanted to make sure that you all know that you're not only um, invited and welcome,
041but be so great to have you. And, um, the employee service awards, those are anniversaries of our employees. It's online. It used to be in different formats, and now it's separate from a board meeting. It's online. We're having watch parties and different rooms and celebrating. And, um, Nadra is going to be there to say a few remarks on behalf of the board. Thank you. But if any other trustee is able to be there online, we'd love to know that in advance and have you say a few words to to the group. Um, and it's a smaller whole group this time and it's just a fun event. Yeah. opportunity to celebrate our employees. And then you'll see the next item there. Um, uh, we have our new chief technology officer here with us who I'd like
042to invite Brandon Weber to the podium so that you all can meet him formally. Welcome, Brandon. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> So, I just want to say thank you so much for the opportunity. Um, you know, I've I've been able to, you know, talk with, uh, some superintendent and staff, and I'm just really excited to come on board. Um, a little bit about me, uh, I've been married to my wonderful wife for 18 years, and we have a seven-year-old boy, 11-year-old girl, a dog, and two cats. So, I'm just really excited to kind of dig in and and start, you know, um continue, you know, the uh the legacy of support that we have and and keep forging forward with uh all the opportunities and challenges that we see with all the things that
043technology brings us. >> Thank you, Brandon. Appreciate it. Yes. Welcome. Welcome. And I have a few additional items that I'd like to share with the board as well. Um, speaking of welcomes, um, I, uh, have had an opportunity to meet with the new college superintendent, Ian Tjo. Um, wonderful. He, boy, does he have a wealth of experiences. So, he follows Moren Donner, who had a long history, um, at College School District. And so, um, a great opportunity to welcome him. Um, a few more updates that I think are important for you to know. Uh months ago, Bridget Boditz here in this um boardroom shared with the board about charter schools in particular state board authorized charter schools and in particular Olive Grove charter charter school that was going to be up for um approval or
044renewal. So, Olive Grove Charter School operates in multiple school districts. Um, and they did go through the re the the approval process. Um, that went to LMPoke Unified, Santa Maria Joint Union, Santinez, and Santa Barbara. Um, if approved, it gets approved. If denied, it it bypasses the county, goes to the state, okay, to for um for approval, and then decisions on who will authorize that charter. So, um three of the four approved the petition and Santa Barbara denied. So, where we are right now in the in the in the time frame of things is um this kind of state authorized charter that is now going out to the districts. And remember, this is a new thing for the state because they're they're backing away from authorizing. And so these are new new laws. So, um,
045the Santa Barbara School District denied it is it went to the first advisory council of the state board of education. That advisory council determines whether or not it should go forward to the state board of education and they decided it should. This petition should go forward. Now the state board of education and the cal board and department of education are reviewing and analyzing the petition with the ultimate decision of will it author will it be should it be approved and who will authorize it. We know that we have learned that the CDE is um going to um put forward the idea of a fiveyear approval. So we we know that already that they're they believe that it should be approved. Now it's about a matter of authorization. Um Bridget Bobitz and myself, we have a
046meeting with the CDE staff on Wednesday and we'll be reviewing our analysis of the petition and um we'll be sharing with them our our thoughts around who might be uh the appropriate authorizer. I I will say that um I'm I'm eager to to I'm eager for that conversation. I um you know I think um the state board meeting for the decision is March 11th or 12th um because they have a two-day uh board meeting. So we'll know we won't know which day. And so we we do not get a say in this. We don't get to you know they're just simply going to be asking us our opinion. And I I will say I think that you know the three districts that approved I I I think they they approved on on fair ground and
047I I I would want the CDE to consider that ground similarly for um Santa Barbara's decision as well. So we will um meet with the team, share with them our analysis, give them our recommendation and I'll keep you posted on how that that goes. So, I wanted you to be aware of the time frame. Okay. So, that's um olive growth. Um couple other updates. So, um, wanted to share with you without sharing all of the resources with you at this time and happy to if you would like, but wanted to simply set say that our our team our our our team at SBCEO has has spent a lot of time on unpacking the laws that have been um, you know, that have new laws I should say that impact safe haven schools and um, protecting
048of children within our schools in California. We've been unpacking them, meaning there's there's myriad rules, you know, there's myriad reports and make sure you're posting this and make sure you're training these folks and, you know, make sure that you're telling the parents, you know, these things. So, there's lots of um intersections with four new laws that have been passed. But I I simply wanted the board to know that we are spending the time It's really important that we spend the time to unpack what the rules say, the laws say, and provide resources to our districts in a way that they don't have to spend that time, but they can take it and use them. Okay? So, that's what we do as a county office and that's what we're doing here. So, when I say types
049of resources, I'm talking about things like the difference between a judicial and uh administrative uh uh warrant. I'm talking about caregiver affidavits, you know, who can pick up a student from from school. Um talking about what is a public part of the campus and what is non-public, what what what can public have access to and what public cannot have access to. So you can see the the many different aspects of the laws and we're providing the resources and training out for resources and templates I should say for districts who want them to be able to use them. So, um I say that it's been a multi-month um effort and um we um and the the laws are meant to protect our children in our schools and make school be a place of learning and safety
050and fun and growth and not have any of that distractions enter onto anything related to campus activities. So, wanted you to know what we've been up to there. Um two more uh updates. one is before the board meeting um the many of our staff who are here and those not yet here in the room went to the air park facility um and what we're doing with that air park facility is to really hone in on what it is that the test fit the AV the you know the data you know all of these things that we we need to hone in on. Um great uh tour. Again, it was a validation that the board made the right decision. Truly, I mean, we really it's a really great space. So, now we're getting into the nitty-gritty.
051So, just wanted you to know that. And purposely said, let's just have our staff go because this and this was a about twohour tour of of nitty-gritty. And then finally, uh you received an email about the school boards association dinner. It's a Santa Barbara County School Boards Association, April 16th. And I wanted to to share just a complexity with you. It's nothing it's not complicated, but it's a really interesting I think opportunity. The dinner's at the Red Barn um in Santz and it it's a max capacity of 54 to 55 people. preceding that we'll have the the school boards association has said let's um buy tickets to the Chumash Museum for anyone who'd like to go. It is a nohost museum tour though it's not going to be a dosent led so it's just kind
052of open there and but that one's going to be limited to about 30 people. So, when those um when we'll get we already sent you a save the date, but when you know you want to be able to go and save a save a a reserve a seat, we'll want you to know we'll want to know if you want to go to the museum as well. We've got to reserve fewer seats for that. So, um it's about a 4:00 opening at the museum and then um dinner will begin at 5 not dinner but um mingling hour 5:15 at the Red Barn which is only two blocks away. Okay, those are my updates and I'm open for any questions. I wanted to ask you really quickly, Susan. At one point we talked about maybe having a
053meeting at the Chumash Museum. Is that still in the books or should we go to this tour in that? The meeting hasn't we have spoken with with the Chumash um staff about a meeting. It hasn't gotten anywhere yet. And so I I'd say I'd love it if you would go to the museum. It's beautiful. It's wonderful. It's a It won't take you a full hour unless you really want to, you know, stop at all of the exhibits. So you you don't need the necessarily full hour, but it'd be great for you to see. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. You're welcome. All righty. So now we are going to move on to the cons consent agenda. So we have um the meeting um December uh registration of c credentials uh the central office calendar accepted donations uh
054def declaration of surplus and issuance of high school graduation diploma. So, can I get a motion to approve all these? >> I'll move to approve. >> Okay. Perfect. Um, all those in favor? >> I close. All right. Then passes unanimously. And then next we're going to move on to our action item. And so this is um similar to um what superintendent was speaking of uh for um the I'm sorry, that's a different event. This is for the embersment of uh board members to attend the state of education. So, this is um a consideration of whether to improve the reimbursement of actual and necessary expenses in accordance with board policy 9250 for board members to attend the state of education event February 24th um 2026 from 4 to 6:30 p.m. Uh the cost is $50 for
055chamber members and educators and $65 for non-members and it's going to be hosted by the Santa Maria Valley Chamber of Commerce. So when we So I'd like to make a a motion to make a motion. I'll second. Any opposed? All in favor? I >> I um so vote passes unanimously and now excuse me we'll move on to our information items and excuse me frog in my throat. So our first item is going to be the 202526 local accountability control and accountability plan for the midyear monitoring report. And we have um Elise Simmons is going to provide a presentation. Afternoon. Um my name is Elise Simmons and actually go to the other slide. Okay, good. Um, I'm I'm happy to be here today to present our midyear LCAP updates and you've received an accompanying report in
056your board packet. Another lot of pages. Um, this report was a collaborative and has always been a collaborative effort. Up there on this main slide, you can see um part of the team that collaborates that is so we got thank you to Bridget Bobbletz, Renee Wheeler, and Amy Willis. But there's a lot of behind the scenes that happens. I just want to acknowledge um Nicole Everson who's here. She's a great help um with our fiscal. Lauren Lucas has also helped. She's a senior administrative assistant. And then for the JCCS team, we have Renee Willer as director, but we also have Andreo Bolico, Maria Pacheo, and Janelle Hansen for all their work. Um and then the TYS um also has a team led by Amy Willis. We have Alandre Rodriguez and Charmaine Nory. So, I want
057to acknowledge that this is a the biggest group project ever that I've had to do. Actually, that's not true. Wasque at Santa Barbara High School. The biggest group project. This is another group project, but it is a true collaborative effort. And so, although I am here presenting it, behind me are all these other people and voices and time. So, I just want to acknowledge that. Okay, next slide. Um just as a little bit background, I'm not going to read this to you, but uh a few years ago, the a new bill had been passed you see in 2023 where there's a requirement for us to present to you the annual update um as well as a budget overview for parents. So we are fulfilling our requirement. Although we have learned that it is actually really
058really helpful to check in halfway through the year to see how we're doing. It allows us to do midcourse adjustments or mid-year adjustments, have some conversations even about what are we going to do next year. This seems to be working great. So, it's actually a really wonderful beyond compliance really wonderful time to be together and discuss how we are doing and what changes should we make for the rest of the year and looking forward into the future. Um so you can see here this is what we're required to share with you which we have in our report and this presentation is just going to do a highlevel overview. Next slide please. Just as a brief quick reminder again I'm not going to read this whole slide to you but this is a piece of the
059larger local accountability plan. Um and the the local accountability plan is a three-year plan and we are right now in year two. So, we are in the year two. We we're starting to think about and write our our year three, which will be the one that we present to you in June. Um, and as the culmination of that, we'll start over again with a brand new three-year plan. So, just so you know, we're just right now in year two, looking forward to year three. Next slide, please. Quickly go through all of this one. I don't want to give you that. Yeah. So the LCAP process it's a it's a year-long process. We are here you could see the little which is at the first stop um where we are we've done some analyzing and we've
060done some reporting shared with you. Um we have the educational partner feedback. We're already doing that informally and then as well as formally we have some um surveys already scheduled and some check-in sessions. And so we're we're already in the middle of the educational partner feedback. And then you can see here we're going to we're LCAP season really starts picking up around March and April. It gets very very LCAP heavy. And that's where we do the the year three the third and fourth step which also which is also the budget. So just want to share that with you. We're just sort of at the beginning of this big process. Okay. Next slide. Um, and I want to just before I jump into the high overview, I want to just ground us in a moment in
061our and our students and who we who this plan is for. Um, and every year our JCCS students and staff, they participate in the great kindness challenge. Um, last year we saw chalk paintings and then this year what they did was they did they made tiles and they baked bread. And so these are some pictures of the tiles. And I just wanted to elevate um one wise wise um statement that a student made and I think it's really great just to think about um life. She says give back, help the plants grow, help the world and be kind, right? I mean if we all could just do that. >> And so I wanted to begin there to just again lots of pages, lots of data, but it really is about our students and serving them.
062Okay. Next slide, please. Speaking of our students, just as a quick reminder, this is an overview of the students in the juvenile court and community system. The majority of the LCAP is about our juvenile court and community students. There are small bits and pieces that support our transitional youth services um department um as well as expelled youth in our county, but the 75% of our plan is about juvenile court community students. So just this is our the most recent data that we have here. Um our current enrollment and when I made these slides so I think it's changed as of yesterday but um I think we have we're about 34 maybe 40 students now at the court school 39 and 20 students at the community but maybe we're at today how many students we have
063at the community school. So 22 here we are. Um and then you can see though those seem so small but look at the range that's the range of students we had for last year. Um and then you can see how many students though overall the communive enrollment meaning those who come in and leave come in and leave. So you can see it the numbers all of a sudden jump out and grow. Um average length of enrollment I think is always important to keep in the back of your mind. Um and then the stability rate. So stability means these are the percentage of students that are with us from the beginning of the year to the end of the year. Only 7.2%. And only 22.2%. If you're if you're at a comprehensive traditional high school such
064as when I, you know, used to lead at San River High, you're probably looking closer to 95% of stability rate. Um, so with so and then number of classrooms you can see there. Um, and with a classroom comes a teacher and an instructional system. So again, and there's lots of other adults that support our students. Just want to give you a quick overview of our of our students that we serve. Next slide. Okay, so budget overview. This is one of the requirements. Um, and thank you to Nicole for putting this together for us. So you can see what our adop our adopted budget was in June and then first interim you can see our budget has grown. That change is due to an increase in property taxes. So Renee and I were just talking about
065this a little bit ago. While it looks like we received more money, it's kind of fake, right? So we have to give back the the overage of property taxes. So we really didn't increase in funds in reality. On paper, yes, but in reality, no. Um, so I just wanted to share that with you. There's our Go next slide. This is an overview of our goals. So we have wrote we wrote these goals at the beginning of our three-year. They haven't changed with the exception of one. So these four have not changed. These are we have three broad goals. They all you can see the first two are for juvenile court and community schools. Um goal three is focused on our transitional youth services program and goal four is our maintenance goal. that is a catch-all
066for a lot of our um requirements. As a county office, we have to serve priorities 9 and 10, which is relates to our expelled youth as well as our foster youth. Um and then you'll see the other goals meet the priorities that we're expected to um meet. I'm sorry, I misspoke. Goal three is also a priority 10, which is another requirement just of our county office of ed. So the next one, if you go to the next slide, is goal five. This is our equity multiplier. This is the one that is fluid. This one has changed slightly. If you looked at our equity multiplier goal last year, you'll see that there was it was a lot shorter because there was just one group of students that we were focusing on and it had to do
067with our Hispanic Latino students and their suspension rate. Equity multiplier funds we receive because of our stability rate or our low stability rate. Um, and so we received these funds to serve this the group of students that had the lowest performance on our dashboard. And that changes every year. And so here's this this is the one we were looking at when we wrote our new plan. Um, so you'll see possibly goal five will change a little bit for next year. You'll see a difference in June. But here you can see our student groups grew a lot. suspension rate. There are lots of suspensions um last year 2425. Um and you'll see if you look at our midyear metric, we have reduced the suspension rate um a little bit so far. So fingers crossed things stay
068the same and we might see a reduction as we've been working really hard on reducing suspensions. So I just wanted to share that with you. Our goal our goal five does fluctuate and it has to do with the um we always have to stay focused on that the students that are performing at the lowest indicator. Okay, next slide. So when we look at metrics there are basically three um kinds of metrics. There are metrics that are unknown meaning we don't have that data yet. Um perhaps it has to do with a survey the California healthy kids survey. We administer that in a couple of weeks. So we don't have that data to look at yet. We will in June just not right now. There's outcome is in progress such as our attendance data. That data
069is going to we have a midyear point. So it's in progress but we're like we're going to look at it again. Um actually end of March is when we collect that official data. And then we have outcome that is known. Those are things that it's not going to change between now and June such as our CASP scores or how our students performed um on the LPAC. So, and that's usually dashboard data that we know and that's so that's the known data. Now, the next slide gives you an orientation. So, if you are when you're looking at this big report, the columns that are in this this sort of salmon color, the this is the information that we put in for you. Um, and so you'll see that. So, this give this is giving you your
070mid-year outcome. It lets you know right up front, is it unknown? Is it in progress? Is it known? And then we give you the data down below. Um, so there's that. So, you know what that is, what you're looking at. Um, what's unique about this, you can see we have you you can see here the baseline year one, year two, we don't know yet. That will be filled in in June. Here's our midyear and you can see our desired outcome. This is where we this is where we want to go. Um, so pretty soon this time next year, I'll be presenting to you and we'll actually have year 1, year two, and then a year three column that says NA. So we'll eventually be looking at three years of data. Okay, next slide. When it
071comes to expenditures and implementation, you all we also have a few answers here. Um, we can say not implemented, meaning this action item, we have not implemented it. We haven't started it. Um, and and usually you'll see there's a reason. We always explain what's going on there. Could be we don't have the staff for it. Maybe it's professional learning. we haven't been able to find someone or a group that's going to fit our needs. The biggest one that you'll see the most of is that middle bucket which is planned partially or ongoing meaning this action item is as it says we're planning on it. We're working on it. Here's our plan. We've implemented it a little bit or it's intended to be a year-long thing. So, we're in the middle of it. We're in progress
072of it. Um, and as a reminder, this LCAP is a three-year. When we ride it, our actions really are looking at across three years. So, we may have something where we're like, we're going to do it next year. We were always going to do it in the year three. So, that's something to also keep in mind, too. And then the fully implemented means we've done everything we can. Um, and and we're we're not that we're done, but we've done it and we're now we're monitoring it a little bit. So, I'd say the one in the middle is the one you're going to see the most often. Next slide. This orients you to how to the on what it looks like on the report. Lots of salmon on this one. Um, and so again, the salmon
073colors are the information that we've entered in for the report. We tell you where we're at in terms of the implementation level. We bring down any outcome data that makes that is relevant to it as well as adding in other qualitative data um that we have for you and then we let you know what we've spent so far in that area. Okay, I will there are any questions so far? I realize I should have said that feel free to stop me at any point and we can also talk at the end and I have Renee here just in case these are the questions. Okay, next slide. Uh, this is a graphic that gives you an overview of where we're at for each goal. My new favorite thing AI tool is Notebook LM. You may have
074seen that they notebook LM is just another tool. You can put in a lot of information. It can create actually a video with a voice over. It's okay. They're they have created they it's still in beta, but they have these um infographics and this is from that. That's why I'm not going to take credit for it, but the infographics that it can it may create is pretty phenomenal. Um, so this just gives you a sense of of where we're at in each full gives you an idea of where we're at in terms of our money spent and our actions in progress. So, just wanted to give you that overview. So, you can see we're, you know, we're doing well in in in we're we're a mid year. We're we're making progress. Yeah, we're doing it.
075So, um, the next few slides I'm not going to go over. They're there for your reference. It really breaks down a little bit more specifically where we're at in terms of level of implementation and it gives you more sense of the money spent and things like that. So, I'm not going to go over the next few slides, so feel free to skip through all of those, but they are there for you. And the part that we've been waiting for are the pictures. So, like any good story, there's all the pictures are the ones I've always loved looking at. And so, just wanted to share with you a couple midyear highlights. So, here we have the Juvenile Court and Community School staff at their back to school kickoff. Here is um this one is directly related
076to one of our action items in goal five. We are working closely with community action um and this is our case manager. comes in, he supports our our students at Fitzgerald. Students love him heard met him yet, but they bring him in that he is a very trusted adult for our Fitzgerald Fitzgerald student and he's triilingual. So, yes. Um, couple things. one of our amazing parent engagement events led by Miss Ambrosio Euhennia and the Promator. They've already, you can see in there, they've already had, I should go, I have it memorized, six, six, five or six events already for parents and this is just one of them. Next slide. This is another part of the back to school night. Families enjoying dinner. Another action item we have in our goal five, a calming room at
077Fitzgerald. So just this is the calming room. Teachers are also creating calming calming spaces within each classroom. Um just another all a lot of goal five which is great because that's the one that's focusing on our suspension rate. Um any student created studentled activities. Here's an example of a red ribbon week student created art student decorated doors. Yeah. And then also we couldn't forget our TYS group. Here they are. Um this is the beginning of the year leaison retreat um where they bring together a whole bunch of different community partners to train our our leaison. And this is also our TYS staff participating at the basic needs resource fair. So out in community providing support for youth. and just next steps where we're headed. Um I've already alluded to all of these things. We're now
078stepping into our LCAP season where we're going to continue to analyze our outcome um data, evaluate effectiveness, meet with our educational partners, decide are we going to revise our metrics or actions based on our data and our conversations, and then we'll be here in June to present to you the LCAP. And then we'll see you a week later after that where you then um you dec you decide what you're going to have consent on it whichever way you want to go. >> So there that's the presentation. >> Thank you very much. Of >> course it was very good. >> A question about goal three. >> Okay. >> How long have I been on this board and it just has gone right over my head. Foster youth. Aren't they out in the schools in the individual
079districts? >> Yes. So, so this goal is specifically looking at how our TYS department supports all the the liaison who then support all the foster youth. Oh my gosh. >> Yes. Oh my gosh. >> Yeah. If you read their and if you go to their action items, what they do, you're like, "Oh, they bring together this meeting." And then you read like what they've actually done and who they've brought in. It is extensive amount of collaboration and training and conversations around how to support foster youth >> like not directly because but indirectly by then those who do touch it directly. Yeah. >> And and youthwell is involved in that. >> They're often they're one of the a key partner. >> Correct. >> Yeah. They're they're one of the they're a very reliable consistent partner in
080many of of the activities that we do at SDCO and any youth involved that can Yeah. >> Wow. That's Thank you. >> Yes. I'm just I couldn't answer your first part of that question, so I don't know how many years. I was just going to make the comment thank you. I'm just excited that I'm finally understanding a lot of these terms because a year ago I was like what? And so it was really fun to follow along and go ah I know what this is now. So thank you. You're welcome. You're welcome. >> Thank you. Any other questions? Good. >> Okay. Thank you. Thank you. >> All righty. And now we are moving on to the 2024 25 student or school accountability report cards uh for the juvenile court and community schools and special education.
081Um so is anyone having any questions? Okay. Um then we also have the overview of federal funding for small and rural school districts. um the personnel report and then the Williams uniform complaint quarterly report which we have no complaints again for this quarter. Let's just >> madam chair if I can interrupt and interject for just a moment if the board wanted any um commentary on any of the items of course but um the federal funding for small and rural school districts if you wanted uh some just a synopsis this was generated out of a question that um Mr. Walker had last month about, you know, there's something happening around rural schools. What was it that was passed? And you heard us say, you know, gosh, there's there's multiple different definitions of rural schools. So, only
082if you'd like that. Um um Steve is prepared to share about it. If not, we're we're good. Just want to make sure you knew I'd like to have some information about it. If he's prepared, let's >> he's ready to go. It wouldn't be if >> No. Um, thank you. Uh, it's, um, like Dr. Salce said in in, um, response to the question, a couple things around what is the federal funding, um, for small and rural districts that our districts receive as well as definitions. So, uh, what I provided you is just the information that's relative to our district. So that small andor rural definition varies depending on the the funding source. Uh so I provided you with two examples. Uh the one that was probably uh and we started to reference in there before we
083kind of took a step back and said let me just organize it for you a little bit more. Um was that secure rural schools reauthorization act that was passed in December, this past December. Um and what that does is that reinstates funding that had stopped in fiscal year 23. um and that about 14 of our districts and our two community colleges do receive. It's not a lot of funding, but it's associated with uh the land um the federal reserve land that's within their district boundaries. Um so that's a formula that we utilized and we would bring to you every June. Um so the last time we did that was in June of 24 for funds from 23. So this reinstated um uh act will what it'll do is it it will go backwards two years.
084So for fiscal year 2425, it'll fund those as well as going forward for a couple years. So um what you haven't seen us bring to you in June, we will. We don't know when the release of those funds are and if that timeline is reset. So I don't know if it's this June in particular, but um so what I provided with you was the funding levels or the distribution. Um there's a table there from uh fiscal year 23. Um and then the other two uh are two smaller um programs, programs within a program um and districts that qualify for those. we have five. They're only eligible for one or one or the other. Um and they have to do with designated school site areas. There's several definitions which I'll spare you today. They're written in
085the plan, but um a couple of them apply to one grant and a couple of one program and a couple apply to another program. Um and so these um are not currently impacted, nor do we have an indication that they will be. Um so these are uh small amounts that these five districts receive. Um and again um if there's any change we'll keep you updated but uh we're not aware of any plans uh to change these uh this funding source or the programs. >> And this is all federal >> correct? This is just the federal funding. Yes. Uh one of the one of the programs the the funds pass through the state and are distributed but they originate uh federally. Yeah. >> Just a really random question. Um so looking at the different districts um
086for the funding the previous funding in Santa Barbara the total funding was for about 10,000 but it seems like Santa Barbara is one of the least rural districts. So I was just wondering why it re why it would receive so much funding for not really having >> Yeah. The first couple columns um you can't see it on the second page as it relates over but one has to do with the um the number of pupils and the other has to do with the amount of land. So um in some of the areas of the district where there isn't even if there's no students residing there but the actual boundary line is written within a forest reserve land there's going to be funds generated from that. So they'll have less on the student side but more
087on the land side. Yeah. Thank you so much Steve. >> Alrighty. So we will go um on to the added discussion item of the board retreat. So the board organization and governance committee met last week and um our chair board member Flores will give us a report about our recent meeting to plan a board. I want to thank Nadra, Judy and Susan. We had a brainstorming session to come up with, you know, a plan of action for hospital retreat. So that's what I will share with you today. In doing so, I'll let you know a little bit about the why, one of the wise that we had, some of the wins, the wares, and what's, you know, that way as you hear me go through these, you can stop me or you can wait and
088ask more questions for clarity. But it's meant to be a discussion, add to, take away, whatever you would like to as we move forward. Uh, one of the things we started with, thanks to Judy, was to kind of talk about our goal. What what outcome would we want if we wanted to have a retreat and many of us going through so many different kinds of things uh happening as a board member moving through the process, we know definitely we're here to serve and we are definitely part of the community. But as we look through some of the things that we were doing, clarity might be in the retreat um you know what would we use or how we could we serve um better um because we have materials uh we have handbooks, we have different
089kinds of tools here that we need to peruse a little more. We need some time. We need some effort in looking at it and and possibly doing that. We also uh would want to take a look at some governance uh material that has been put together by CSBA and the you never remember all of the letters ACCBE chapter 14 region but there's materials here that we all look at separately but jointly in a retreat setting we probably could have some powerful conversations and that being said I would welcome that because sometimes as we move through it um you know little conversations here and there for clarity uh could really help us serve even better. Um there were um other ideas in terms of a need to kind of look to see what kind of conferences
090if we want to go to conferences might be part of a retreat discussion and and how far do we want to go and how simple do we want it to be or do we not want that as part of of our retreat. Um, in looking at that, uh, we probably could use a good discussion on, you know, what might be a joint goal as well as individual goals as we serve and get to know each other a little a little better. Um, one of the things that we talked about also was um, a date. We talked a little a little bit about that, trying to decide if we were going to survey, if we're going to, you know, decide on a date. And thanks Susan. She reminded us that we have a June 18th date,
091which means we have two June dates on our calendar already. Um I don't I can't remember the first one, but I remembered the June 18th date, which could be our possible retreat day. So in saying that, we might have the opportunity to start uh a retreat in the morning because we do need to do a little bit of business uh in the afternoon as a school board. Uh there are some items like LCAP that need to have approval of course. Um and uh so we looked at that June 18th uh to throw that out there because that might be a way to not have to configure our calendars again. Looking at a morning start time um maybe an 8:30 to 1:00 rate for lunch 2:00 do the business we need to do. um not looking
092at an all day retreat but a simple time frame of possibly 3 to four hours. Also um suggested facilitation so we need a facilitator and Susan graciously volunteered please to get one. Uh so we'll know more as we move through the next month or two depending on our discussions as we bring closure to this. uh we want a facilitator that's going to help us move toward those outcomes that we expect or want to get to. the wear part came up and um through an email guy was contacted because we thought midcount might be a good suggestion and he has volunteered to peruse some locations for us and get back to us so that we do have a central um location, not a building per se we're so used to, but maybe a new a new
093venue, a new view. Uh in looking at um the other things that we talked about, we talked a little bit about the budget. We want it simple. We don't need, you know, if we have to do a potluck, we can do a potluck for lunch, but we just want to have some opportunity. it would be uh a a a meeting. We would have um an opportunity to host that and then we would do our business in the afternoon is the plan that we look um to um actually coordinate for you and we want to take away you know a little something. So as we move forward we should decide you know as we move through the items for the topic what might be those things that we want to take away. Maybe we need another
094retreat. Maybe we want one annually. Maybe we need other material that we would like to peruse during that retreat. So with that, I'll stop so that you can ask questions, clarify. Good brainstorming ladies. >> Did you? Um I would just ask um in terms of a facilitator, you're already on that. What we talked about in terms of the facilitator, we talked about the qualities that perhaps the board would would seek and even the content knowledge. So it was both >> and um in terms of qualities what came from the committee was you know someone who could be real down to earth um you know just a opportunity to facilitate but both get to know you you know as well as get to know the work of the county board. So, in terms of the content
095knowledge, um it was um determined that it would be desirable to have somebody with really deep knowledge around county board service >> um while having the characteristics of somebody who's real down to earth and not you know saying how everything should be done but rather >> um you know solicit really great feedback from the board. So, those were the qualities that we talked about. And then it was about um asking um me asking other county superintendents if they've used someone before. >> Um you know, obviously back pocket around using the resources of CSBA and ACC, but first really asking um other superintendents if they have facilitators they've used before. >> Yeah. And then just quick question for Rita. So in determining the content or the agenda for this, we're not going back to vision mission.
096>> Well, do you want to I mean that's why we're do we need we don't need >> I don't think we do but again if you're not familiar with the vision do we just revisit it? Do we >> that's yeah because most of us kind of peak through this and and know where it's located have maybe gone over it. others who have just come aboard haven't even had time to open it. >> And one of the main reasons that you know this binder and the idea of a retreat is that as a county board member looking to move into this position, there wasn't a lot of information to be gotten. So, it could be a review. It could be a place to start. Uh it's a great idea. So I I hope we wouldn't need
097to reinvent one, but that's part of the discussion off to >> move forward >> and if we want to just review that and maybe at the retreat we don't like it and maybe we can do something there. But >> to start with that would be good. Thank you. And just to add on um to uh some of the feedback from the brainstorming um we also did I think discuss a little bit about possibly July too as an alternative because July um board meetings sometimes uh we'll not have them or they're really late. So having that as an alternative um since it's already on our schedule. Uh and then also just uh to add to bring that level of cohesion. So, we did speak about maybe having the first part of it be more of a
098get to know each other a little bit better and to know like our purpose for being here, how we can support the staff, the our students and each other and then what exactly you know a content the content that we wanted to speak in us keep on and also have this time to have the discussion of what topics Um because you know it was us um describing things that we're interested that we wanted to speak about, but were there any specific topics that other board members felt were pertinent to bringing to the discussion as well that we could add to the planning? I'll just weigh in that um I probably won't be able to attend the full time on that date because I run a program and I'm the only instructor. So, I can try
099and figure it out. But I just wanted to let you know that >> June I have that we were meeting at 10 >> and I might have just left early. So that was my the first thing I thought about was trying to figure that out. >> What about July? >> July is fine. >> This is also checking with scheduling as well. >> Yeah. I mean I don't want this to change anything. I was just giving you that head. It's >> important that you contribute because >> and that's why we we put out a couple of different options too. Um, so >> you can have me all day in July. >> All righty. Good to know. Any other comments, questions about the for retreat? Okay. Well, I guess we'll take this information back and we'll continue
100retooling and come back um with more more details. I think one of the things we tossed around was the idea of hate to use the word survey, but to check with our other board members on what kind of topics they would find most interesting. So, I don't know if we're going to do that. We haven't decided how we're going to do that, but I think we're going to do it somehow. Somehow or if we have ideas how to do that. >> Yeah. Yeah. You could even like lead the witnesses in terms of giving us ideas because there's some things I'm still learning. I don't know what I don't know, right? >> Um and so it could even be thinking of buckets, you know, would you prefer this bucket or this bucket or this bucket? You
101know, what do you want to learn more about? That would be helpful in a survey as opposed to just what else do you want to know? >> I don't know what I want. Perfect. >> I'm excited though. I think this is a great idea. I was more just like, "Oh, that date's hard." >> No, that's helpful to know. For sure. Thank you. >> Any idea on how to fill the bucket? I don't know if you want procedural more information or should we just kind of put it out there and see what we look at? Okay. >> Anybody has any ideas, just email Is that okay to do? If you have a suggestion, please >> would not be following the Brown Act. So, I think um if you have ideas right now, anything that you want
102to consider, I would suggest sending it to Nadra and myself >> um together or just Nadra or just myself, but we'll communicate that way >> and not >> not Yes. just a simple way. Yeah. Thank you very much. Thank you. >> I would like to know if you would want more information about or a different way to approach is our budget. >> You know, what would help fill in the gaps if you have gaps in our budget or is everything just fine with the way that we're talking about it now? But I think that's an important concept for the board to have is even if it's just the size of the budget or the pieces of the budget, but you know, so there's a little salt in the >> seasoning to fill the bucket. >>
103I really like that, Judy. It's And when you said a piece of it, you know, break it into pieces. Maybe we focus on a couple pieces, you know, just even having Steve tell talk to us about a piece of something. It's more digestible. >> We're talking about Yeah. >> Okay. Great. >> Yeah. We got some uh >> end of that >> some items to go back through the committee with and keep working. So uh the next uh uh agenda item is future agenda items and um our next future agenda item will be about AB1390 and this is uh board member compensation and just to give a little bit of an overview. So, um, this, uh, um, AD1390 was recently signed by Governor Nuomo, as you guys may know, to modernize compensation levels for California schoolboard
104members. Um, so just as a little back story, um, about this, um, the stipen caps have remained largely unchanged for the last 40 years. Um and it doesn't um require any increase earn compensation but just updates the maximum allowable monthly limits. Um and so we'll have more of a conversation around this what other um board uh are doing locally and I guess that's there's nothing else I will ask for a move to be adjourned. I make a motion >> and a second. I second. >> All right. All in favor? I. >> All right. Meeting adjourned.