November 20, 2025 Board Meeting

001Good evening everyone. I want to thank everybody for your patience and we would like to start the November meeting of the Santa Cruz County Board of Education with a roll call please. >> Trusty A Costa, Trustee Kyle >> here. >> Trusty Larson >> here. >> Trusty Roth >> here. >> Trusty Van Allen >> here. >> Vice President Williams >> here. President Sanchez >> here. >> Student trustee Guian Martinez >> here. >> Student Trustee Amore >> here. >> Thank you. >> Did we get any requests from board members for remote at appro attendance? >> We did not receive any requests, President Sanchez, but um Trusty Aosa didn't inform us that he is not feeling well today. >> Okay. Thank you. Next, I'm going to ask those who can to please stand up and join us as

002we pledge allegiance to our flag from our superintendent. >> Ready, begin. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Thank you. Uh item three, approval of agenda. Looking for someone to approve the >> I did have a request. Uh, President Sanchez, um, for the, um, item under county federal impacts. I'm wondering if we can, uh, set that as a time certain at 7 p.m. U, uh, Erica Padia Chavez is going to be joining us at that. That's item N 8.3. >> Okay. 8.3 at 7 p.m. >> Thank you. >> We'll move to approve with that change. Second. All right, there's no other questions or comments. All those in favor say I.

003>> I. Any opposed? Passes unanimously. Item number four, public comment. This is an opportunity for anybody in the public to address the board on items that are not on the agenda. If the com if the public would like to make a comment, we ask that you please uh come up to the podium, announce yourself, and we will limit your speaking to 3 minutes. Is there anybody that would like to address the board? >> President Sanchez, we do have several submitted public comment requests. >> Okay, >> starting with Larara Schultz, our Tupe project coordinator. Well, thank you so much. Um, like Nick said, my name is Larara Schultz and I am the TUPE coordinator, which represents tobacco and cannabis prevention education. Um, and I've met many of you, I'm happy to say, lots of familiar faces.

004So, thank you already for the work that you've done and continue to do. Um, I'm really here today to introduce the high school students that I've been working with. They are um tupe youth leaders and we are just beginning this work together. Most of them I've worked with for about 6 to n months but they have been committed. Some of them have been zooming with me um meeting on site and I just commend them for continuing to do the work they are going to talk about today. um they basically have chosen to educate themselves about the impacts of substance use on adolescents and we really spend most of our time talking about how to create change whether it's on their campus or in their community. Um, like I mentioned, we do hold bimonthly meetings. And

005in those meetings, we focus on peer-to-peer education and outreach, service learning opportunities, and today advocacy. Um, so the students you'll meet today, I'm just going to mention a few of the things they've done. They've volunteered at the Pinto Lake back to school barbecue. Um, they've shared substance-free athletics information at sports physical events. They've learned about environmental policies related to tobacco waste and attended a related city council meetings. Um they've engaged with community partners at PVPSA to learn from the Pajaro Valley Toupe leaders who have been doing this work um as high school students for multiple years. Um and then we've received support from people like Nick Abara um on the power of public speaking and advocacy work which is really why they're here today. So, I really encourage you um to come to one of

006our meetings if you're interested because they are exceptional students and if you're interested in hearing more about their opinions and experiences, I think they'll get a little time to share today, but please join us and again, thank you so much for the work that you do. >> Thank you. >> Next, we have Scarlett Roberto. Hello, my name is Scarlett Berto. I am a sophomore at Cypress High School and I am a toupe leader as well as being a member of Friday Night Live. These groups are centered around substance use prevention. When I was young, my mom struggled with substance use problems, which led me to having many questions at a very early age. And although I was lucky enough to be brought up in an environment where I had support, there's so many kids, teens,

007and even who adults who don't have support and believe that turning to substances is their only choice. So as a youth I am looking to you for leadership in finding solutions. I believe a good place to start is that there should be more education for children who have been brought up in these circumstances where they have a parent and active addiction and are unsure how to cope with that. Right now, in hopes to help this issue, I am working towards going to Delmare Elementary School to talk to the fifth grade students about this topic by setting up a table at lunch, welcoming them to play games, and offer substance use prevention information. In conclusion, addiction doesn't just affect the user and it is not something to be shameful for. And is it is unfair that

008this topic has been wrapped around so much stigma when in reality these people are just like me and every other person in this room. Um, so again, I ask you to be on the lookout for educational opportunities for youth at risk and bring these resources to the attention of organizations to help substance abuse. Thank you and have a wonderful evening. >> Thank you. >> And next we have Natalie St. Okay, cool. Um, good afternoon. My name is Natalie Stall. I'm a high schooler at St. Francis High School and I am also a member of the behavioral health advisory board and a youth leader for TUPE, which is tobacco and cannabis use prevention education where we inform our peers on the effects of tobacco and cannabis use in order to help them make more informed, healthier

009decisions. What would spark my interest in advocacy was the accessibility of tobacco/cannabis in my middle school. From the sharing of vapes in small groups being very common to the distribution of cannabis products being equivalent to that of like sharing food. And it was almost this way of social connection and this bonding and this one time thing or this thing that we did for fun in middle school would turn into experimentation when they hit high school. And to me, I believe that tobacco/cannabis are gateway drugs that encourage the experimentation of these part of harder drugs which like these hard drugs including like stimulants uh and other uh substances including like opioids and with kids being and this is because a lot of kids become more comfortable with this idea of trying these new substances and this

010can ultimately lead towards addiction. And for me, I've been sober for the past two years. I used to do some stimulants uh when I was in middle school towards my high school years, but I know that's not the case for everybody and that a lot of kids come to the state of acceptance, especially as they when they attempt to quit, they tend to relapse and they lose the sense of hope or motivation. I don't have the answers nor the solutions, but I do believe that as a county we do need to come together in elevating youth voice and peer initiatives and that teens are more likely to or sorry that we should have more peer education in schools to cause this ripple effect as teens are more likely to listen to their peers and their

011friends other than an older generation or age group. Uh thank you for your time. Thank you. We have no additional requests for public comment at this time. President Sanchez. >> Okay. Anybody online? No. Okay. Great. Now we have the student trustee reports and we will begin with trustee Gen Martinez. Um, I've been doing a lot this month, so I'll try to stay under 30 minutes or however much time I have. But with having college applications and um, scholarships to do since I am a senior, I've been really busy. But one thing that I did this November, yeah, November was I hosted an event for it's right there. student listening session at PV High School and it was with me, PBUSD, student trustee and PBUSD trustee and we it was just for students to voice their

012concerns to ask questions to the PVUSD and to ask me questions cuz I also know some of the board policies at PVUSD. And well, we went over, they had like safety concerns, what it means to have an SRO on campus on campus since we all the high school, Pey High School and Watmore High School have a um SRO on campus now. Um we barely got one today, an SRO. And I also hosted an a pumpkin spice latte event/ mental health during lunch at Watamo High which we got over 70 people to come students during lunch and it was um it surprised the principal cuz we don't have that happen. They they hosted some event and they got like 15 people to come. We got over 70 people to come and we give out we were

013very busy. We were giving out pumpkin spice lattes to every single person that came inside. It It was a lot of people. And um also uh I have compliment boxes going now. that compliment boxes just to spread more like um just to have more unity and more peace in high schools. We will make student advocacy group. I'm the leader of it. So, we made um compliment boxes and the people who get the compliments get a prize, a gift. Um, one of the gifts is like a North Phase um, backpack and we also have a North Phase um, puffer we're going to give. Um, so yeah, that's a student right there. He's putting a compliment a compliment and we barely put them out today and the bosses are almost already full, but it's pretty good. Um,

014like pretty good progress. >> Who gets the compliments? Like students or teachers? >> Students. >> Yeah. So it's like student on student compliments. Like that student wrote it for another student and whoever he wrote it for. If we choose that paper, the student who received the compliment gets the gift. So you're getting a gift for being you. That's what that's what we like based it to. You're getting the gift for being you. And also I'm hosting another event um December 12th. If you could go to the next slide, please. Another event, December 12th, youth night out, is to show kids and youth what it means to party safe because I think at our age we want to go to parties, but it's also with Dupe, not them specifically, which I do want to talk to

015them cuz I like I like Dupe a lot. Um, but with Empower Watimo, PvPSA, I'm the president for one of their groups. empower Watson and Dup. I'm the president for that group. So, we're hosting an event at the youth center where I work. I work with the city Watson move at the youth center. So, we're hosting an event there and just show PE students what it is to party safe. We're have a bunch of like activities which you usually see at parties or and we're giving our information. And we're having like Monarch services and the food bank. We're giving we're be giving out food because it is like the holiday season season. So, we're going to be giving out food and we're doing a lot. And I think that's it. I'm I'm hosting other events,

016but oh, December 5th, I'm doing a movie night out at Watson High. And I'm trying to like reach out to other schools cuz I know it's for the I'm the county student trustee, but I I find it kind of hard to like reach out to other schools. Yeah. Which I'm trying to do. I'll I have like I'll probably ask Ferris if he could help me with that. Yeah, that's good. And I'm also going to like different middle schools with the student trustee for PBUSD to elevate their boys because our PBUSD district is like 2/3 elementary and middle school. It's not just the high schools. And I see more like speaking up from the high school students and not so much from the middle school students. And I know a lot of middle schools that middle

017schoolers middle schoolers who want to speak up and I hear at my job not even like from schools I feel it's important for their voice to be heard as well for me. >> Thank you. >> Uh Trusty Amore. Um, this past month I've been very focused on schoolwork because finals are coming up and a lot of big assignments are due. Uh, that being said, I did attend the Mascu Libin uh with Vicente and we were on a panel. Um it was very uh I think enlightening about the struggles of masculinity and like kind of dealing with your emotions um and the isolation of it. Then I met with uh uh Jen Isant Gonzalez um about the sort of alternative education department and we are planning to like for me to go to the different programs

018and for me to meet them and kind of learn about their program and also I really am excited to connect with the students and hear what they uh have got going on and like what they might want me to bring up here. Um, and then also I am planning to meet with Lauren Fine about the mental health uh services and stuff that we provide because that is something I'm very interested in um learning more about and also promoting. And then also I'm planning on going to a visit to the Hope Forward Crisis Center uh just because um I am also very interested in that and I am looking forward to it like helping our community. >> Thank you. >> Sure. >> I was just going to say like a little win that I had this

019month. Um I did apply I've only applied to one scholarship but I got the scholarship. They called me like prior. That's uh it's the good tidings foundation. I've never heard of them. It's my first time like but it's $10,000. So >> that is good. >> Superintendent. >> Yes. I' I'd like to share something that uh Trusty Moore u uh he provided us some feedback on um our health class. Um and um I hope it's okay that I I share this this uh this story. Uh so Trusty Moore notified uh me that uh that he felt that the tr our our health class um is not aligned to uh the California Healthy Youth Act um and uh was not u did not have certain components especially when in with regard to sexual health and we looked

020into it and even though the uh provider assured it was in uh said that they were aligned to California standards and of course that includes the California Healthy Youth Act when looking through the curriculum um we determined that that in fact was not the case. And so thanks to Trusty Moore, we are actually going to be utilizing a different curriculum um that uh um uh that actually Shell Kobanas is who's here has uh helped uh to develop for for uh and for our alternative education program. And uh we're going to be ensuring that the the curriculum that we're offering to our students is is fully compliant with with the law. And so I just want to give that shout out to our trustee for helping us to improve the quality um of our of our

021programs and make sure that we're we're providing uh curriculum that um that they deserve. >> Glad to hear that. Thanks for sharing that. >> Moving along, we have item six, the consent agenda. Any questions, comments? Yes, Trusty Larson. >> Don't really need to pull the minutes. There were some minor corrections I've given to vet under the trust trustee reports. It's the nexties event, not the Nestle's event. That's a big difference. And then also Baych and then uh I believe you attended a dyslexia simulation simulation. So just some minor corrections. So I'd like to move approval with those corrections embedded so they don't have to come back. We have a first from Larson, a second from Van Allen. If there are no more questions or comments, all those in favor, please say I. I. Any opposed?

022Assess unanimously. >> And that was inclusive of the whole consent calendar, just to be clear. >> Perfect. Got it. Correspondence. Did we receive any correspondence? no additional correspondents um that weren't included in the packet. >> Perfect. Now we are on item 8, reports, discussions, and presentations. And our first one today will be our annual reports of Williams legislation, the status of a desile one to three schools in the Paharo Valley Unified School District and Santa Cru City School District. For this one, we have uh Superintendent Sabah as well as Brian Wall. >> Yeah. If you want to say something first, that'd be fine. >> Yeah, I'll do it. Green button, right? >> Okay, I can handle it. >> Well, it's a it's a pleasure to uh welcome Brian Wall. Uh, as you may know, uh,

023Brian Wall was the deputy superintendent when, um, I, uh, for for for several years and was part of the county office of education and before that, uh, a longtime teacher and administrator in, uh, Santa Cruz City Schools and of course also was involved in our in our RO program. uh he was really one of my mentors when I came onto the job as the deputy superintendent and uh supported me through through those early years and uh has been a great colleague and friend for uh since then. Uh he has uh taken on many special projects and uh one of the projects that he has been leading for the last few years has been the Williams visits and as you know the Williams visits uh are the ones where we ensure that our facilities are are

024in a good place. uh the curriculum is available to students and that the teachers are properly credentialed uh in in the jobs that they're uh in in in the classes that they're teaching. And so I just want to uh thank uh Brian for always being ready to to step up and help out the county office of education and uh in this case helping to make sure that our students have the resources and the programs in place that uh that they deserve. Welcome Brian. >> Yeah, thank you Ferris and uh good evening. Um, one of the one of the things that's kind of interesting about this is that as a little bit of an aside is that um, you know, COE's are responsible for this across the state. Um, this was actually a lawsuit that was

025um, brought forth by the ACLU um, many years ago back about 2000 uh, because uh, a number of schools were failing the kids, you know, as far as facilities and you know, instructional materials and things like that. The thing that kind of it's something that came full circle is actually a former student of mine, Brooks Allen, was the ACL lawyer that did that tried the case and he was my student at Santa Cruz High and ran track for me for four years at Santa Cruz High. So, it's kind of funny that I'm the Williams coordinator now for for Santa Cruz COE. It's kind of kind of cool actually in some ways. Um anyway, I just want to run through this with you a little bit. Um ask me questions as I go if you'd like.

026Um this year they tripled our number of schools because um essentially more schools had qualified a couple of years ago, but they kept it even for a while till they could figure out how in the heck they were going to triple our number of schools in each county. Um some of the schools like in LA County, um they doubled the number. So some there are there are counties that have two two to 300 schools that they have to monitor. Um really we're we're fortunate here as 27. So anyway, just just to get started. So we had a number of school districts that got added this year. Um it wasn't just PV and and Santa Cruz, but it live oaks. Uh we went all the way went out all the way to Watsonville Prep. Um you

027know, a lot of there were a lot of additions this year. Um and I they would have been it would have been sooner. Um but the CDE delayed a little bit to try to figure out how to handle this. acceler accelerated pace. So, one of the things that we we look for when we go to our do our visits is that we want to ensure that there's sufficient instructional materials including textbooks across corecurricular areas. We also want to verify the schools are clean, safe, and in good repair using facil the facilities inspection tool. Uh I have a partner usually that that joins me for for um for the facilities piece from our u maintenance department and it's been a really good um it's been a really good pairing. Uh so I do the instructional side,

028he does the facilities side. We also uh check teacher assignments uh because one of the ways that you can end up on the Williams list is if you have a certain percentage of uh not properly credentialed teachers. And then we also confirmed that um everybody has posted the uniform complaint procedure uh in English and Spanish um in every classroom. So what we found is um really our county does a good job. Um you know there there are glitches here and there but for the most part our county really does a nice job. Um all the schools had sufficient instructional materials this year. Um any of the shortages that we saw in the past had been remedied. Um, we go in as as a helper. We don't go in as a punitive thing. We're not, we

029don't do an I gotcha thing. Um, some people, some counties kind of view it differently. We go in and we try to try to assist and make recommendations that are doable. And, um, actually, we don't leave there as enemies. We we leave there as friends. So, it's it's kind of a nice process. And I learned that from my predecessor kind of uh, you know, how to go about doing that. Most of the schools have good or exemplary ratings and facilities. Uh there are a few schools that have been neglected and we made sure we pointed that out. We always have somebody from the maintenance department with us and from the instructional department from each district so that we can pass on that information to them directly. You know, we include it in the report, but

030we we give them a chance to remedy it before we put it in the report. If that hasn't been remedied, then it goes in the report. But for the most part, everybody's really cooperative and takes care of things pretty much right on the spot and they do a work order immediately. We had we didn't find any schools that had conditions posing urgent threats to safety. And I that's that's the key for um really for for the Williams visits is that there is no ominous threat to students or staff. We we do a fit report for every school. Um this year we do we did a little bit different. Uh, we did a digital um, we used a digital system this year. It took a little longer, but it's actually more accurate. So, I I have

031to hand it hand it off to really Brian Slugget who helped to develop this tool. Um, and a number of, uh, number of other counties are using it now. So, we're kind of like cutting edge on that. We also work together uh, our HR department here and the districts work together to make sure that, you know, people are properly credentialed. um you know there were a couple of schools that um had some had some credentiing issues that got remedied and um you know that we that that's because we work together to to make sure that that happens. So we didn't really find any major mis assignments. Uh, one of the pieces that we do also is we look at the school accountability report cards and for every school and to make sure that the the

032information is reflected accurately there and we found that everybody had accurately portrayed their information. So, I've already kind of covered the fact that everybody kind of kind of came out pretty clean. Most of the facilities were wellmaintained. What I have to say is that they're all really clean. the custodial staffs at every school really do a dynamite job. Um some deferred maintenance is happens because you know as all of you know schools are underfunded. So it's pretty hard to fix things right away. But um what we found is over the last four or five years that I've been doing this is that when I go back to a school that uh and something that I reported or found the year before has been remedied. So I'm pretty pleased to see that we're all working together

033on that. And I think that's it. Um, any questions? >> Um, what does follow-up look like or is there an element to that? >> Mhm. Yeah. So, every every district is supposed to uh send me a quarterly report. Um, and so I have to I have to, you know, ask for a quarterly report from each school district. And in that report, they have to they have to let us know if there's been a a Williams complaint if it was facil on the facility side, credentiing side or instructional material side. Um, and for the most part there are there aren't any. Every once in a while there is there is a there is a complaint and it has to get resolved and it it starts at the at the site level first to resolve it. Then

034it goes to the district level to try to resolve it. And if that doesn't happen, it comes to me and I do a I do an investigation and uh make recommendations and if the complainant isn't satisfied, then it can go all the way to the CDE. Does that does that answer your question? >> Oh, okay. >> Could I could I ask a clarifying question to um Yeah, Brian. So, if you you mentioned there were a few school sites that had a fair you found that they there on their fit report that there that there were some issues. Yeah. So what is the process um to ensure that those issues that you identified get resolved in a time? >> Oh sure. Okay. So basically what we do is we do a revisit. So we we make

035contact um with the district midyear and to make and we then we we ask them you know have you remedyed those things. So I'll get for instance in PV I'll just contact their maintenance department directly um and just say okay these are the things that we found. Do those things get remedied? they haven't then um you know then we give them another another you know couple of months to remedy it and uh if it hasn't been resolved the next year then they get dinged for it. >> That that answer your question >> and and you and you said that generally speaking they they're upon your revisit they've been they've been >> Yeah. In fact, they kind of like it. I mean, you know, I I find it hard to believe. It seems like it'd be

036painful, but uh they tell me they like it because it gives them the impetus to do it. >> Yeah. Anything else? >> Um, I'm wondering how you guys uh like check to make sure that the water fountains are safe for the students to drink from. I personally have realized recently that like the water fountains look kind of sus just on school campuses. So, I'm wondering if you guys actually are checking those for safety. >> Yeah, our facilities person, you know, checks checks those kinds of things. Um, essentially we're we're required to do 25% of the classrooms and so they do 25% of the facilities. So you won't always get the same, you know, they won't always check the water fountain for instance at at each school because it's based on the year before and we

037recheck to make sure that all those things got done. But it's something I that I can bring up actually. Um because yeah, you want a kind of a hygienic drinking fountain, don't you? >> Yeah. the um it seems like almost sort of at some of them they look like eroded or rusty sort of especially near the part where the water comes out. So I think it would be important to maybe remember about the waterfronts and >> yeah definitely and that is a safety concern for students definitely. So I I'll mention that that it would be good to consistently do that at each site. Good idea. Thank you >> uh another followup on the prior questions. So the career advancement charter uh was one of those schools you visited and had some work orders submitted on

038the basis of your visit. Um will you wait till 6 months for that review or since that's part of our family is that >> it's pretty easy to check on that one. >> I was going to say I was going to say >> and yeah things got remedied pretty quickly. In fact uh our the facilities person that was with me actually remedied two things while we were there on the inspection. So that was well taken care of. Yeah. >> Perfect. Yeah. Thank you, >> Van Allen. >> Um, I had two questions, although I think one of them was answered. Um, uh, is there is there any process by which a student could identify an issue such as the drinking fountains, you know, during the year? Is there a way they could, you know, turn in

039a slip or >> Yeah. >> talk to somebody or something? >> Yeah, it's part of the uniform complaint process, actually. >> So, I wonder if people realize that the complaint policy could be about >> Yeah. Um, that would be and that's fine, you know. Uh it it can be student driven, it can be teacher driven. Um what they need to do is just report it to the office and then that office should report it to their maintenance department and it should get remedied. If it doesn't get remedyed, then it comes to me and I make them remedy it. Yeah. So maybe more student awareness that they um my second question sort of touches on what um Trusty Larson brought up about the um >> career advancement >> about our school. Um yeah, >> keep in

040data today the election. >> Um so the um I noticed that our score was the lowest of all of them although they were all very high. It was like 89 out of 100, which is still my is a good score. But at this point, given what you just answered to Trusty Larson, it would actually score higher if you went back this week. >> Well, it would. And and you know, basically, um, when those two repairs got done, uh, it remedied a little bit of that percentage, too, just on that very day. One of the things that didn't get fixed because it was going to require a locksmith was there was a there was a door that you couldn't access the gym and or the restrooms in there and that had not been remedied and I

041I know I know it has now. Yeah. But that was a that's a significant issue that if if a staff member can't get into the gym and there's a problem, right? So we uh we we reported it because we just wanted to make sure it got done and it did. >> Just always like to brag about the CAC. So >> yeah. So, we're all good. >> The score. >> Yeah. >> Ken Martinez. >> Yeah, that was my question. So, like you as when you guys go do like um site visits, do you guys ask students like what do you think? >> No, we don't because um we don't want to disrupt the the instructional process too much. You know, we try to go in talk to the teacher a little bit, but we don't we

042don't want to really intrude too much. So, what we try to do is we try to be somewhat invisible as we go through. Um, and we always have somebody with us from the district to point out where the textbooks are, where the, you know, if there are any inadequacies, they'll point that out for us and help us with that. But, um, we try not to disrupt things too much. >> Yeah. >> Okay. If there's no other questions or comments, I want to thank you for the work that you do. Uh, thank you for always looking out for our students, our school sites, and for making them a better place. >> Yeah, my pleasure. Thanks, folks. Take care. >> Thank you. >> Thanks, Brian. >> Next, we have item 8.2, our 2025 CASP and California school

043dashboard presentation with Dr. Sabah and Dr. Russell. >> Yes, I'd like to uh introduce Dr. Marshall Russell, our associate superintendent in charge of ed services. This was actually uh by request by our our county board members who uh wanted to know um exactly what is happening with the accountability system in California. One of the nice things you're going to be seeing um learning more about uh really three areas. the state assessment that is utilized for for uh measuring the academic progress of students. The dashboard system which was recently released um uh and also differentiated assistance where we uh where certain districts or charter schools are identified for uh some special attention and support from from the county office of education and person leading that effort is Dr. Russell and so we're really grateful to have

044her uh share some information with you today. >> All right. Thank you. Um, so not to throw you um for a wrench, but we're going to start with a pre-assessment today um only because as good educators, we should start with a preassessment and follow with a post. Uh so first, just think to yourself, you don't have to answer out loud. Um how are Santa Cruz County students performing on CASP? Another question you might think is what does CASP stand for? Second question, what does the California school dashboard measure? And third question, what does differentiated assistance from Santa Cruz County Office of Education look like? And now I'll ask you to rate yourself. No clue. Not sure. Or do you get a gold star? Okay. Excellent. >> Excellent. make your PowerPoint. >> See that? That was

045the hesitancy in sharing it in advance because you might have the answers, but that's okay. I hope you learned from reading the PowerPoint. And Dr. Sabi, I do hope you have a gold star already. All right. So, we're going to share um CASS does stand for the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress. and it assesses uh math and English language arts. It's in grades 3 through 8 and 11. So every single year 3 through 8 and 11 students are taking this assessment. The thing to note about the assessment is it's actually two in one for both math and ELA. There is a computer adaptive test. So if you get a question right, it's going to give you a harder problem next. Get a question wrong, it's going to give you an easier problem next.

046And it's basically going to calibrate. So students don't all take the same number of questions on any particular test and that's why some students might be able to complete it more quickly than other students. It also has a second assessment that is a performance task. So that usually is a multi-step kind of problem in which students need to start with one uh example or piece of data, start doing some solving, use that response to solve another. Um and on both of these within any given question you can get partial points. So if you complete the first step of a problem accurately um and then move on to the second step and complete that inaccurately you can still get points for that first part that you did um answer accurately. And then there are varied item

047types. So gone are the days of scantron bubblein sheets or fillin sheets. Um the the assessment is actually quite interesting and you can look at sample problems online, but there are things where you need to drag numbers in. You need to actually use a visual calculator sometimes and punch in the numbers you would punch in on a calculator. Um there's uh written response where you move um sentences or paragraphs in different orders to rearrange text. So quite a variety of uh response types. So now we're going to take a look at some of our results on the cast data this year. So this uh data source is our data portal that's on our website and I'm going to just share some few highlights in the limited time that we have today. But we can see

048um first thing across left to right we have some key student groups from English learners, socioeconomically disadvantaged students, Hispanic or Latino students, Englishonly students, not socioeconomically disadvantaged students and white students. And you can see the order selected on our particular um portal is it's from lowest performance to highest performance by those student groups. One of the things we can see very clearly, this is the data from 2018 to 2025. We still have persistent and significant achievement uh gaps between our various student groups in our county. This matches performance across the state. But I do want to point out a few things that are significant here. First, um on the left hand side, this is for the English language arts CASP assessment. We have English learners. English learners of our key student groups are the lowest

049performing student group with 7% of our English learners in 2025 meeting or exceeding standard in English language arts. Now, that may be expected. They're English learners. When we move up to the other student groups, we have for example, white students at the far right are actually 64% are meeting or exceeding standards. So you can see there is significant disparities across our student groups. And you can also see those three student groups on the right, English only, non- socioeconomically disadvantaged and white students are performing at the higher end of the scale and the other three student groups are performing at the lower end with significant disparities. We have a lot of work to do um to reduce achievement disparities across our student groups. Even among our highest performing students, only 64% just over half are actually

050meeting or exceeding standard. So we're looking at many students who are still not meeting or exceeding standard. So in English language arts, our performance is comparable with the state performance. It follows the same pattern and roughly these same percentages of students meeting or exceeding standard. In math, you can see um some similarities in the same student groups in the same order. In terms of disparities in the percentage meeting or exceeding standard on the CASP math assessment, we have 6% of English learners meeting or exceeding standard in mathematics all the way up to the white students um at 53%. Now again that's still saying even amongst the highest achieving student group we only have half of our students meeting or exceeding standard. So still quite a bit to do. Yes. >> It also seems apparent in

051both those math and the LA that we haven't recovered from the pandemic yet. Right. That's what those dips. >> Yes. There's a couple of points I want to make about that in just a moment. You're absolutely right and that's a good thing to see. So, one of the things we can see is um actually in ELA um in those three student groups on the right, we're actually very close to prepandemic levels. We're within 1 to two percentage points of prepandemic levels. Math, we are not yet at prepandemic levels. We are more like four to five percentage points um below the prepandemic levels. Um as a county, our math performance continues to remain below the state performance on average. And so we do have fewer students meeting or exceeding standard in all student groups as a

052county uh compared to the state. Um we are seeing some improvement though and one of the things I want to point out is if you look at these lines they follow this sort of wave pattern of coming down and then to your point back up just not quite fully to prepandemic levels. One of the things I'd like you to take note of that's really important um especially on the math on the ELA every single student group followed this wave pattern where it comes back up in the last couple of years. In mathematics you can see there is one student group that does not follow that wave pattern. They have the wave come down and then it's flat and that is our English learners in mathematics. And so this is a student group that we um

053have persistently needed to provide additional support to. And the the one thing is it is about the same as it has been, but we are starting to see small gains. They're just smaller than what you can see from those higher performing student groups. So again, higher need and more that we need to do to address the needs of English learners um in mathematics but also in ELA. So, that is a really important point. Um, and although we're getting close in some student groups to prepandemic levels, we're still further behind in other student groups. So, the CASP data actually feeds into the California school dashboard along with a lot of other data. So, I'm going to share with you a few of the metrics that are measured on the California school dashboard. The California school dashboard

054reports both performance and progress. So what you saw on the CASP was the percentage of students meeting or exceeding standard. That was their performance. The progress you saw was the overtime progress. The dashboard actually provides a color-coded rating based on not only students performance but their progress from the prior year. And so that's how they get a color-coded rating. So, a few key areas that are highlighted on the California school dashboard. First, there's academics. So, we have the math and the ELA CASP assessments, the ones we just looked at. We also have the English learner progress indicator. That is the students who are English learners who are taking the ELPAC exam, and it's measuring their progress in learning English over the years until they're reclassified as English proficient. And then there's the college and career

055readiness. That particular indicator on the dashboard is a compilation of 17 different metrics um including things like a CTE pathway completion A to G completion um a wide variety of metrics go into college and career readiness and then in the category of engagement that's looking at how engaged students are in school. That includes chronic absenteeism. So that's students who are missing 10% of the school year or more. and it also includes graduation rate. So those are both metrics of student engagement. And then there's a final metric of conditions and climate and that is suspension rate. >> And on that if I may. >> Sure. >> So conditions and climate is a big concept. Suspension rate is one smaller metric. >> Will that progress to be more inclusive somehow? There's a few other items on the

056dashboard that are um part of conditions and climate that don't get a color-coded rating and those fall under the local indicators. So, every school um is required and every district is required to issue a school climate survey um and and they're required to report on that survey uh data. So, that is a part of conditions and climate. It gets reported, but it's not a color-coded rating. This is the only item that currently is an actual color-coded rating. >> If I could add to that, um, looking it up, it's so that includes, uh, parent and family engagement, access to a broad course of study, and suspension rates. >> And so all of those other things, the parent engagement, um, and the broad course of study, that is, uh, are you providing all of the courses across

057all of the schools, for example, so do students have access? Um, and all of that is reported in the local portions of the dashboard. So, they don't get a color rating. Great questions. So, this color-coded rating you see looks like a a speedometer here. Um, you have colors ranging uh from red to orange to yellow to green to blue. This is our state of California data. So, you at a quick glance can get a a visual on how we're doing. and chronic absenteeism is yellow, suspension rate is green, English learner progress is yellow, graduation rate is green, college career readiness is green, English language arts is yellow, and mathematics is yellow. So, this gives you a quick color-coded rating just to see you can dive much deeper into the dashboard and get to look at

058some real specifics. An additional new item that is on the dashboard with a color-coded rating for the first time this school year is the CAST assessment. That's the California assessment of science. And that assessment um I can say in California notice they say it's justformational purposes. They do give it a color-coded rating uh which is both how students performed this year and how much better or worse they performed than last year. And it does sayform informationational purposes only because this will not count for accountability purposes in terms of differentiated assistance qualification. Uh it's possible the state board will take that back up next year. Uh one thing I can share is that yellow is the rating in the state of California. Um and in Santa Cruz County, uh virtually every single district scored in the

059green. So we're actually doing quite well in science compared to um other places. So that's great. Um I do want to share a little bit of data here and this is um looking at our region. We're part of what's called region five and so that includes our contiguous counties of Santa Cruz County, Santa Clara, San Bonito and Monterey counties. One of the things we look at it overall is across all of those metrics I just shared. How many reds do we have? How many greens do we have? How many yellows? How many um oranges and and blues? And so what we can see here is if you're looking across these are our combined four counties. Ideally what you would want to see from um the first year 2023 to 2025 is you I would ideally

060would want to see those red and orange categories coming down because that would mean more students are going into the other categories and you would want to see those higher colors moving up. Uh you do see roughly that pattern uh here. So that's good news. This is by individual county and so you can see that same metric and you can see some variation. Um we can also note that in our 4ount area the two counties that are most similar um are Santa Cruz and Monterey County uh we've have overall similar performance. Santa Clara is obviously a county five times larger than us uh with much different student population and San Bonito is a much smaller county. Um so you can see um in Santa Cruz County we have that red coming significantly down which is

061good. We have the orange moving up which is hopefully some red moving up. Um and we'd like to see more in terms of the blues and having more of the blues moving up. So a goal would be sort of to shift some of those greens and yellows to the right. So now we'll move on to we have the cast data. The cast data along with all of those other metrics I mentioned feed into the California school dashboard. From the California school dashboard, we then get determinations for Differentiated assistance is an additional and I bolded collaborative support because it really is not about punitive uh accountability. This really is about genuinely collaborating with LEAs to support them and that now includes charter schools, so districts and charters um to help them with any student group who's

062performing in the red in two or more priority areas on the dashboard. And that's what this can look like. So I showed you earlier there's several metrics that go into the category of academics. There's several metrics that go into the category of engagement and there's one metric that goes into the category of climate. And so what that means is is you have to have a single student group in which that student group is performing in the red in two of those three categories. So you could have a student group performing all red in academics, but if they're not red in engagement in climate, then you're not going to qualify for differentiated assistance. Doesn't mean we're not necessarily still offering support. Um, but that does make a difference. So this is an example of what that

063could look like. If we took homeless students, for example, that's one of the designated student groups, and they were red in English language arts and red in math, it only takes one of those plus another category. in this case, suspensions, red, then they would qualify for differentiated assistance. Now, here's what differentiated assistance um can look like and some updates for this year. Uh differentiated assistance is something that we've been providing for several years. This year, there is a new category of differentiated assistance. If an LEA, so a district or charter qualifies for differentiated assistance three uh year more than three years, so three plus years, they are eligible for additional differentiated assistance from what's called the geographic lead. So we're in region five um which is a broader mid-state region and Terary County Office of

064Education is our broader mid-state lead. So they would then qualify to be the differentiated assistance provider for any district that qualified three or more years. Um again this is designed to be a collaborative process and not one in which another county office comes in and says we're here to take over. Um so this also is a very collaborative process. We hold a consultative meeting between Tallery County Office of Education, the district that's qualifying and us. And we have a conversation about what we have been doing to provide differentiated assistance support and do we want to continue on this same course or do we want to perhaps shift and have Tiller take the lead? We would still be involved um in that collaborative effort. Um we can anticipate um in our case that and it has

065happened in the past with other forms of differentiated assistance that our eleas have typically wanted to remain with us with just additional suggestions and support and technical assistance from the other organization >> and I'm on this slide is it with the same student population or the same metrics or is it just any way you got into red if >> any way you got into red. That's right. That's a good question. Uh long-term English learners. Um a new difference this year, we had a large number of eleas statewide that qualified last year uh for long-term English learners because that was a new separate student group. And one of the things people found that was a little bit of a a double whammy on long-term English learners is that long-term English learners counted as their own color

066uh student group on the dashboard, but they also are counted in the English learner student group. And so it sort of made it so you could actually qualify in two ways, right, for the same data. So they've changed that this year. So now the English long-term English learners um their CASP data will only be counted as part of the English learner group. Um and what would qualify a long-term English learner group explicitly from the academic area for differentiated assistance is their red or orange on English learner progress. So, we have students that are going to be long-term English learners. That's something that is to be expected. And that means that they can be taking six or seven or more years to be English fluent, proficient. And so, in this case, what we're wanting to see

067is that even if they're long-term English learners, they are making progress in their English language development on the LPAC. And so, that would be the goal to qualify um to keep long-term English learners from qualifying. So the process um the process is um and I will say the process was sped up this year which is actually a good thing. So as the dashboard has been coming out a little bit earlier every year uh then all of these things have come together. We used to not get notified on differentiated assistance until December or January and so the process didn't really get started until January February. So now we actually had the dashboard come out um on the 13th. We got notice within two days of who qualified for differentiated assistance. The calf data was made public

068in October. So much tighter timeline than we've had in the past, which is very helpful. So we notify the district or charter if they've qualified. Uh we work with them to form a team from the COE as well as a team from the district or charter. We analyze their data with them. We help them identify the areas of need specific to the the student groups. We then do some root cause analysis to try and identify what might have caused this need. And then we do some research-based action planning. That's in a broad um process. These are examples of some of the kinds of activities that we might do. Data visualization, which our data team is incredibly helpful with here at the COE. Strategic planning, lots of professional development. Um we have been doing classroom equity

069walks in multiple uh districts and charters. Uh we are working on coaching principles. Our team is actually coaching every single principal in Pahro Valley Unified School District as part of their differentiated assistance this year which is excellent. And we also have started providing proactive support for LEAs um or who may be about to qualify. So, we did an example with an LEA last year where we noticed that their um students with disabilities had a high percentage of students who were suspended. So, we reached out to the district uh let them know that with this increase in suspensions for students with disabilities, they were very close to qualifying. Um they researched it. They actually explained part of the situation was unavoidable. They had a very large um situation in which it was a mandated suspension based

070on the fight amongst a large number of students. Um they were required to suspend but they still then took action to make sure that they were doing additional things in their district um to ensure that they were supporting students and they avoided uh differentiated assistance as a result. So we'll do a lot of more proactive training and support for that. These are just some examples of pictures of what it can look like. Um, lots of analyzing data and lots of professional development. Uh, what you don't see here is it's lots of huddles and one-on-one and small group with the differentiated assistance team really analyzing the data and pouring over our plans. Yes. uh part of the work we've actually been incorporating in our differentiated assistance for the last year and a half all of the

071teams at the COE so that we're doing a much more strategic and integrated approach. So the new teacher project and our equity team has been doing uh the antibbias anti-racist professional development and work in districts and charters around our county and that's using Zaretta Hammond's culturally responsive teaching in the brain. It involves professional development with school leaders, with district leaders and with teachers. And that it involves actually identifying student uh student groups bas student stu specific students based on the data to go into classrooms with teachers with leaders and observing what does classroom instruction what's the classroom experience look like for those students. Um so are students speaking often? Are they getting the opportunity to turn and talk? And so you actually identify students um everybody is following some students based on the data needs

072and then you're observing what kind of experience they have across classes. So at the secondary level it's as they move from class to class and it's fascinating because you see that students sometimes have different experiences in different classes and then we look at applying that to back into the teaching. What kinds of teaching moves can we as teachers make to try and improve and engage students in the instructional experience more? All right. So, a couple of shifts in differentiated assistance qualification. Um the big harrah and great news is uh our team has done an extensive amount of work to increase the amount of support that we've been providing for differentiated assistance including incorporating the other um departments and divisions within the COE. So we went from nine LEAs in our county qualifying to five. And

073you can see it's uh the great news is we have um these remaining eleas qualifying California online public schools, Monterey Bay Charter, Career Advancement Charter, Live Oak School District, Paharro Valley, and San Lorenzo. All of whom knew in advance that they would qualify because we were working with them with their data. And then very importantly, exiting Alansa Charter and Saba Charter have done extensive work to be able to improve their outcomes. Santa Cruz City High School District and Santa Cruz COE Alt Ed are all exiting differentiated assistance. So that is great news. Yeah. Yeah. We're very excited. Okay. So we're on to the post assessment. So our Santa Cruz County students performing on the CASP. Think to yourself, what does the California school dashboard measure and what does differentiated assistance from Santa Cruz COE look

074like? Okay, I'm I'm hoping every single person will give me no Ferris. No, no, no, no. >> That they all have earned a gold star. Have you all earned a gold star, please? Okay, excellent. I actually had ordered some gold stars for you, but they didn't arrive. So, I'll get those to you. So, congratulations. Um, any other questions? Yes. >> Um, I would say that with English language learners, uh, I guess I have like sort of a comment slashquest. Um, the way I've like kind of interpreted the like their scores and doing uh poorly is us prioritizing them learning English over their education. I am wondering if it would be possible for us to provide some uh bilingual services. That way we do prioritize their education as well because I think we're doing them a

075disservice by um like more focusing on them learning English than actually helping them succeed with uh learning the like math and that kind of stuff. >> So that's a great point. the um piece I was mentioning earlier with the steps of differentiated assistance. Um when you look at this uh step right here, root cause analysis, that's actually something that we've done with some eleas that qualified um for differentiated assistance for their English learner group. And it's really important to the the cast data is one measure, but then it's really important as a a next step is to analyze additional data. And as an example, I think that can certainly be um a benefit for students and we need to look at our practices. One example we found was we had an LEA that was qualifying

076for differentiated assistance for English learners. And when we examined their performance, what we found is this particular school was actually a dual immersion school, a dual immersion Spanish English school. And when we analyzed their data and looked much more closely at both their local assessments as well as their CASP data, we found that it was certain grade levels that were having more difficulty than others. So third grade, the first year where students are taking the CASP assessment was actually extremely weak. And when you got to fifth, 6th, 7th, 8th grade, it was actually much more improved. In that particular case, it was a very unique situation of a dual immersion school in which over the course of the grade levels, they actually increase the amount they're teaching uh in Spanish and decrease the amount in

077English until eventually they get to 50/50. What that means is if you're in third grade and you're at the point where we are teaching uh for example by third grade in that school it was 80% in Spanish and they have not yet by third grade been doing much English then the students on the ELA portion of the assessment actually performed quite poorly. That was a very unique situation to the design of that school's dual immersion program. And so that's why it's really critical to actually analyze the specific data down to the site level. And when you're at the site level, you can even go down to the student level to see is it that have we been prioritizing teaching the English as opposed to the rest of it or is there something else unique to

078the program that we need to be aware of or adjust. So I agree. I think there's um that's exactly what we need to be doing is we need to be looking at that data, gathering more data and then trying to find out okay what is the reason is it that we need to have more bilingual. um would it be possible to do that regardless of if they qualify for that um differentiated like assistant because I think overall uh even if they don't qualify necessarily for that that this is a a problem like with all the schools um pretty much uh and it doesn't necessarily have to include like the other parts like I think this could be something that could be like looked at throughout the whole uh district instead of just for those schools.

079>> You're on the same page. So the LCAP which districts are creating um the LCAP actually includes that whole process and the LCAP is before you qualify for differentiated assistance. It's your strategic plan. The LCAP actually does expect and include and we provide training and support on that on analyzing your data. Same thing trying to find the root cause analysis and then more importantly including in your strategic plan which is your LCAP. what are the steps we're going to do to make improvement so you're you're right on the exact right page >> and are we doing that analysis and are we implementing those things cuz I know this is like a sort of theoretical of like the steps that we are supposed to do but it seems like a lot of oh we say we're

080going to do it but uh maybe it won't actually get done so every district and every charter school creates their own LCAP that's their strategic plan we don't create it for them. But we are extremely heavily actively involved. I can assure you. We just had a training last week where we had districts from across the county come together, including both the fiscal team and the educational services team. Um, so this is an extensive process that we have a whole team dedicated to here to doing that. So I can assure you we're definitely doing it and we we'd actually it's during the school day, but we'd invite you to come to our trainings. >> Yes. Uh, that's Larson. two comments and one question. I'm not sure it's for Leanne, you or Dr. Sabah. Thank you. This,

081you know, as a newbie to all of this, this is really helpful. So, thank you for the clear, concise presentation. Um, second, uh, second comment was just having spent most of my career in government, to have data turn around this quickly and to be actionable is amazing. um the 2025 data becoming actionable is just that's really impressive. So great. And then the question is all this differentiated assistance whether it's for five districts, 10 districts or 25 districts, is that just part of our base funding or is there differential funding that comes for increased differential assistance? There is there's a whole separate set of funding and the current formula is about to change but the formula traditionally has been we get a base set of funding for differentiated assistance and then based on the number of

082eleas that qualify and the size of those LEAs we get a different amount per year. um they are looking at changing that because that model actually hinders small counties like ours. And so they're looking at changing the model to make a more equitable um funding formula that will actually potentially increase our DA funds by about 25%. so that we can provide and the goal would be to shift to providing more proactive in advance um similar to what Trustee Moore was talking about that proactive in advance support so that we're not actually doing this after the fact in differentiated assistance. Yes, just be >> there. >> That's a great point. So there is there um school districts when they qualify they automatically qualify for two years and that's so that we can have enough time to

083provide enough support to have lasting change as opposed to they they leave DA then they come back in they leave they come back in. Uh charter schools are eligible for one year because they're newer but they're likely going to end up qualifying for two years in the future. And then um you will continue as long as and this partially meets a federal accountability requirement. Um you can remain in differentiated assistance but there's different levels. There's this new second tier that is the geo lead differentiated assistance. So three or more years you can qualify for this additional support from the regional county office. Then there is a qualification if you have three um or more student groups. three out of the last four years qualifying in the red. So that's multiple student groups, multiple years in

084a row, then you actually qualify for support from a completely different organization. It's an organization separate from CDE called the California Collaborative for Educational Excellence. We actually do collaborate with them with one of our districts. So we have Pajaro Valley has qualified for direct technical assistance and what that means is in this case we collaborate with the California collaborative for educational excellence with Paharo Valley and in this case the collaborative has not come in and sort of taken over the DA process but they are consultants to us and so they've provided us with tools resources professional development leadership development um and they're available to us um to support the efforts that we're doing. And I think a big piece of that was um was helpful in us being able to do the much more intensive

085work in coaching site leaders at the district level and we've been working very collaboratively with the district on our um differentiated assistance now and they are seeing improvement. So they actually no longer qualify for that that higher level. >> There is a federal influence as well. So the California school dashboard, the local control accountability plan that every district makes and the differentiated assistance qualifiers all part partially meet federal requirements for accountability under ESSA. Um so for that next level, the California collaboration, how is that funded? Is that it's is that are they they funded on their own? How is how does that work? um they're funded on their own and they were created by Governor Nuomo several years ago to be an entity that is fully separate from CDE and that was so that we

086could um have basically an outside view. Um they are um very accomplished leaders in the field of education. Uh the person that was our consultant with CCE was actually the former deputy superintendent of public instruction. So they're extremely high caliber uh team that they have. They have a whole separate funding stream separate from CDE. >> Any other questions or comments? Great. If not, uh, thank you for the report. Really appreciate it. >> Okay. So, we're going to move item 8.3 uh, as previously discussed to 700 p.m. or shortly thereafter. So now we will move on to item 9.1. I hereby declare open the public hearing regarding the appointment of Murray Shechman as board appointed personnel commissioner. The board is here to listen at this time and will not be asking or answering questions from the

087presenter until later in our meeting today. Staff will make their opening presentation to the board regarding the board appointed personnel commissioner and the public comment and input will be received by the board from individuals wishing to speak. Each individual will be limited to two minutes. The public hearing will then be closed. Dr. Ferris Saba, our county superintendent of schools, you may now make your opening presentation to the board regarding the board appointed personnel commissioner. Yes, it's my pleasure to uh welcome uh Yeah. Okay. Uh Mr. I was like Troy Cop. Uh I was I thought you you were gave me a look like uh you were surprised, Troy. So I was like, wait, am I doing the right thing? All right. Our uh chief human resources officer who is going to be uh uh talking

088to us a little bit about about the this process and why they um the personnel commission plays such an important role. um and supporting the work uh of our county house of education as a merit district. And so I'd like to welcome uh Troy Cop, our uh chief human resources officer. >> Yeah, thank you. Good evening. The personnel commission is a small governing board that oversees all things classified for our employees from hiring to salary studies to creating new job descriptions. Um and it is very important to our relationship with the employees and the classified bargaining unit. Uh in the October 16th meeting, you announced the attended appointee. Um the next step uh per ed code is in the following meeting to have the public hearing. So to receive any sort of comment or input

089uh prior to making the appointment, I really before that occurs, I really just wanted to take this opportunity to thank each trustee for supporting the personnel commission and our classified employees. It's been a rather challenging time for us uh with Larry Lane's sudden departure and um we're still reeling from that. But for you to find uh Murray Shechman who has extensive educational background and experience in Merit districts is um it's rather amazing that we found somebody. I also wanted to thank you just uh for adopting the resolution honoring Commissioner Lane. Uh Dr. Dr. Sabah was able to present that to his wife at his celebration of life and uh so just a heart that heart heartfelt thank you to all of you and glad we could do the public hearing. Okay, we will now invite

090members of the public who are present or have requested online to speak. Is there anyone from the public who would like to speak about the petition for material revision? You have two minutes. >> Hi board. My name is Shalot Cavanis. I'm not here representing anyone uh other than myself. Um I highly support and think it's uh a wonderful fit. I've been able to sit on a few of the personnel board commission meetings. Um Murray Shuckman, Dr. Murray um is an amazing pillar of our community. He served in so many different facets of supporting our students in this community and I don't think there could be a more excellent choice in this community. of someone who knows it so well and has been so dedicated to our students. So, thank you very much for considering this

091appointment. >> Okay. Anyone else in the public would like to speak? >> All right. Not at this time. So, we will now move on to trustee questions and comments. Do any trustee or student trustees have questions or clarifications? All right. Seeing none, I hereby declare the public hearing regarding the appointment of Marie Shechman as board appointed personnel commissioner by the Santa Cruz County Office of Education closed. The County Board of Education will consider the appointment of Marie Sheckchman as a board appointed personnel commission. At the next item on our agenda, item 10.1. So with that, we'll transition to new business in action. 10.1 Appointment of Marie Shechman as board appointed personnel commissioner. >> Yes, Van Allen. >> We'd like to move that the board appoint Marie Sheckchman as the board appointed personnel commissioner. >> Second.

092>> All right, we have a motion and a second and any questions or comments? If there are none, then maybe a roll call. Okay. All those in favor say I >> I'll just say it didn't seem necessary to say much given who we're talking about. >> Okay. >> I haven't read >> agreed. All right. All those in favor say I. >> I. Any opposed? >> Perfect. Passes unanimously. Congratulations, Mr. Sheman. >> Okay. So, now we are going to item 8.3. uh uh item on county federal impacts and for this one we have Dr. Sabah as well as chief executive officer of the food bank Erica Padia Chavez. >> Thank you so much uh President Sanchez. It's it's a I wanted to start before uh giving an opportunity for Erica Padia Chavez to speak to you.

093Um and it's really wonderful to have uh her in the room uh somebody who's who's really doing so much on behalf of our community. I wanted to give you a a brief update as to some of the the different actions that the federal administration has been taking that is has been detrimental to our community. And you've seen this presentation before. I've shared some aspects of it. And of course, if you want more detail, you'd be able to look at the details on the on the oops this here because so looking at um some of those updates. Uh as of course you know uh the government shutdown did end uh recently. However, the disruptive uh results of that of that shutdown uh continue to persist impacting our community. Um included in that in those impacts is

094of course uh disruptions through the Head Start program uh which we've spoken about nutrition services to our community housing and other kinds of services that that um are going to take some time to be able to get back online. Uh in addition, we've talked in the past about the discussions about discretionary funding and discretionary spending. They are uh Congress is beginning the process to talk about the the budget for next year that includes educational funding. Uh the White House is proposing some major cuts where where the Senate is looking to maintain uh those those services um as we've had in in the past. And so we're we're anticipating this these discussions to be taking place uh in the next few weeks. Um the the the they have been working to eliminate the US Department of

095Education which we anticipate uh to have an effect of they are the ones that put together the allocations for our for educational funding as well as overseeing the office of civil rights where many cases have already been dismissed outright. um including we anticipate delays in FAFSA processes which is financial aid for higher education and um and they're parsing out different responsibilities to other uh agencies uh that have never worked with these these programs and so this is something that is going to take uh quite some time we anticipate to be able to to be functioning effectively. We've talked in the past about some court decisions and also the health and human services effort to deny services to our undocumented community. the major impacts of our of HR1 um on especially on health care on nutrition

096services and and other important safety nets. And um a new component uh we've um added to our analysis is the impacts on our LGBTQIA plus community which include limiting health care uh limiting uh access to services for uh members of of the queer community in the military and and veterans and um and also uh limiting access to uh gender affirming care. And so all of these components are limiting the safety net systems that are in place. And this is an image that comes from the the county's core initiative. They talk about the diff different social determinants of health, things like stable and affordable housing and shelter, safety and justice, healthy environments, economic security and mobility, lifelong learning and education and health and wellness. uh you know all the different components and you know we could

097add more to these but all these different important fundamental institutional uh components that that are really the the foundations for having thriving healthy families. And what we're seeing is a variety of different efforts to undermine these safety nets for our community. everything from um reducing access to housing and and um homelessness assistance, of course, ICE raids and militarized enforcement, um reviving public charge, um attacking uh LGBTQIA communities, uh uh deregulation of environmental and FDA um regulations, uh compromising and undermining vaccine protocols, cuts and conditions to health care, uh reducing access to mental health and gender affirming care, dismantling the Department of Education, um reducing access to higher education funding and services, and reducing cash assistance for for those most in need. And of course, the most impacted folks are the folks, the vulnerable members of

098our community who who need those services. Now, we are really fortunate to have an organization in our community uh that has historically and consistently uh been uh foundational in supporting and advocating for one of the most important aspects of the safety net system, which is food and and addressing food insecurity. And we are really fortunate to um have Eddie Kapadia Chavez who is the chief executive officer um of of the Second Harvest Food Bank leading this this organization at this time. Um the Second Harvest Food Bank has been working hard as they always have to provide amazing services to our community. Um they um and I might be taking a little bit of Erica's uh uh you know her her her message to you tonight, but they serve over um uh a third of our

099community every month with with food. And that number has been increasing significantly with the uncertainty and instability and fear that has existed in our community. And um I was uh fortunate to be a part of their their their campaign over the last couple of years uh and learned a lot about and heard so many of the stories um really um stories of of families that are are needing to um you know they working in our community uh or commuting large long distances and needing that extra support to ensure that their their family has access to healthy food um on a daily basis. And so, and I can't think of anything more important when I think about education. I think about the classroom. I think about what students need to be able to have uh to

100to have that reassurance uh of of knowing that they are cared for uh that they are have the nutrition that they that they deserve, that their families are are have that u those healthy meals and being able to participate actively in their schooling. And when I think about the whole family and how important what's uh you know, Second Harvest, what they represent to our community, um it's been something that I I uh so grateful to the leadership of Erica and and this this organization. Now, because of the great need that we uh recognized was occurring, uh the County Office of Education uh has contracted with Second Harvest Food Bank to support their school-based food distribution system. And it really is a system. It's an a very serious operation if you haven't been to their to

101their facilities and uh or maybe uh volunteered uh helping to prepare uh the food. That system is is is a mechanized amazing wonderful resource that uh generates uh huge amounts of of uh of food for for our community. And so we have contracted with them for a uh which is unprecedented $250,000 to support their effort to be able to ensure that those food distributions uh school-based food distributions for our school community are taking place. And um and the county has also participated in a in a contract for another half a million dollars. Um the the uh the um Santa Cruz County Foundation um has also uh is also participating as well as city governments are also providing uh support uh really to reinforce this this this organization which has already taken cuts from federal from

102their federal uh funding and to ensure that they can continue to uh provide that support to families as as we enter this uncertain time. And so I'd like to welcome uh Etica Padia Chavez who is a who was a a good friend and uh an inspiring leader in our community and and uh thank her uh for being here and joining us and talking to us a little bit about the work that's that's taken place. >> Well, thank you Dr. Sabah, members of the board, uh student trustees. It's a pleasure to to be here. I just left the fairgrounds. We were holding a mass distribution of food um that started at 3:30. We started early because we had traffic all the way backed up to Highway 1 and up into Mount Madonna. We prepared food for

103what we thought would be the COVID like demand and we surpassed that today. Uh we ran out of food thankfully. Um through a partnership with Safeway, we were able to start issuing gift cards. Um, and while SNAP benefits have been restored, what I shared with KSBW, who was amazed, they it took them over an hour to get there because of the traffic jam in town. This is a sign of what Dr. Sabah just highlighted is happening to the safety net of those who who depend on these additional supports like food and like healthcare and like so many other areas. I would be remiss to not share with you that as I was talking I was helping register people so that they could be uh proceed to pick up their food. I had an opportunity to

104talk to some people, namely because they saw me and they're like, "Oh, I just saw you on TV." Um, and that allowed me to to really ask um, "How long have you been standing in the line, right, in your car, over an hour? Is this really that important to you? It's how I'm going to eat next week, right?" Um, yes, I got my SNAP benefits back, but I don't know that I want to keep them. And I looked at the lady, it's for my daughter. I can't get it. What she was telling me is, I'm undocumented. My daughter gets the benefits. I want nothing to do with this program cuz I'm scared. She didn't say it that way, but I could infer just based on the conversation I was having. the impacts that HR1 and

105that all of the federal decisions that are happening right now really trickled down to the most needies of our family. This is a this is a almost war against the poor. That's what we're living through. And when I think about education and I think about who makes up the student community in our schools, many of them represent these households. And I think about these students and the stressors that they're coming to the classroom with. And food is likely one of them. So, it's why it's so important for Second Harvest to be in partnership with institutions like yours, to be in partnership with institutions like the county and the cities, which we haven't historically necessarily needed in the way that we need now. I want to provide just a couple of very important facts for you

106to take away. I used to be before coming to nonprofit, I used to be an administrator in the health department in a county. So certainly understand county systems and county funding. When I um before Second Harvest, I was administrating another nonprofit. And most nonprofits, their financial makeup is about 70% contracts and government support, 30% philanthropic. Your food bank is the reverse of that. 70% philanthropic and a very small sliver is dependent on government, right? which in the current environment that's a great thing except for the fact that I'm already raising millions to pay for all my staff to pay for the truckers that deliver the food to pay for the fuel to pay for the trucking maintenance to pay for the lights to pay for the electricity to pay for the salaries I'm fundraising to

107do that and so for every million that I am hit by government every million cut in government, I'm just slapping on another million to my annual philanthropic cost. So, if my goal is already raising 10 million a year, I'm going to have to raise 11 million, 12 million, 13 million. When is it going to stop? Right? And this is true of most food banks across the country, by the way. This is foundational to how food banks function. Food banks are the vessel for community engagement, which is why you see me a lot on TV, why you hear from me on the radio. It is foundational in the way we are shaped. Can we change that? Maybe. But maybe we don't want to right now, right? Maybe the right thing is to depend on our community

108to help us nourish the most basic of fundamental human need, nourishment. And I'll just say to you that I think that working in partnership with you all is how we're going to take care of our kids who are already dealing with so much all the things that Ferris just highlighted. And let's just let's make food not be a stressor. Can we just focus on that? Alleviate that from the reality of what many of our childrens in this in this county are actually going to bed thinking about. Will I have enough to eat tomorrow? Right. So, I'm forever grateful to the leadership of Dr. Sabah, the superintendent of across the county who I've been working with very closely. Dr. Sabah was able to bring me in to have a conversation with the superintendent and we have

109coordinated mass distributions of food at many school sites. We will continue to do that for the remainder of the school year because I think the indication of the over 3,000 households we fed today and they're still doing it right now via gift cards is a sign of what we're about to see for the incoming year. There is going to be a lot of need and we're going to have to work together. But that's a silver lining. I think that what the food bank does in your with the partnership with you is that we demonstrate how we can get it done right. No and if or buts. We don't have to overthink you. We don't have to create bureaucracy for it. We just get it done. We get it done. We take care of people and

110we do it every day, every year, every month. And unfortunately, I think that 70,000 we're going to start to see it inch closer to 100,000, which I actually think that's what we did in the last few weeks. We've probably hit 100,000 people already, but I'm happy to entertain any questions. I again I want to thank you. Um it's really really um it's really heartening for me in the midst of what has been a very whiplashing experience to know that there's a community there standing with the food bank to take care of business and that is feeding our community. But I'm happy to entertain any questions. questions, comments from any of the board. Mr. >> Thank you first for the for your presentation, the information that you provided, and for the work that you and all

111of your staff do. Um I think we all um know someone that has struggled. I I personally have a a son who's in the military and during the SNAP benefits and and not being paid, they were in those food lines and it's heartbreaking. These are people who work really hard and I think there's a misconception out there for a lot of people that people that are online is because they're not working because they're not doing their part and that's absolutely untrue. So, um I'm really moved by the work that you guys do. Um I've been a supporter of Second Harvest Food Bank for over 25 years from, you know, working with a large organization to run their programs um for their annual holiday food drive. And um I the question I have is is it

112still more preferable for monetary donations because you guys have a better buying power and supporting our community. >> Yeah. Wow. Um maybe a month ago I would have said automatic yes. >> But but here's the reality, right? Um and and we actually the last few weeks have been asking the community to step step up with shelf stable food. So let me just provide like sometimes we don't think about food systems and how they work and I get pretty fascinated when I start to learn things and I like to share what I learn because I think it it makes us better in terms of preparing for the future. Imagine all the food banks across the nation having to immediately source food from the same vendors that we all source food from. Imagine all of us using

113the same trucking companies to try to get th that food to our warehouse all at the same time. The system was not able to respond fast enough for us to get the food into our warehouses. And there's 200 food banks across the nation. Not because there isn't enough food, but because we're not designed to all of us have to become all of a sudden the only source of nourishment for communities across America and the volumes of food that we were ordering was creating havoc on the transportation system because they there was only so many trucks they could get on the road to get to the warehouses, right? So, what we started doing realizing, oh my gosh, our food dome really gets here in two weeks. Now, it's looking like it's going to be a month.

114We had the money, but now we were dealing with new barriers. So, we pivoted and said, "We need shelf stable food from the community, right? Because I have to feed people tomorrow. I can't wait a month and tell people to wait a month for the food to arrive." So, new things that we uh did not realize we were going to be dealing with, but this is what a shutdown of SNAP benefits did to the the food sourcing system that food banks tend to depend on. So, what I'm saying is that Rachel, we have invited our community to continue to supporting us with food. Um, at the same time, it is more efficient and effective to receive financial donations because think about it, that can of food that you donate, I have to have a staff

115member inspect it. I have to have a staff member enter it into our system, shelf it, and by the time that can has gone through that entire process, I have spent a lot of money having that be processed and recorded. So, from an efficiency perspective, not the most efficient way, but we just happened to be in a situation where we needed like literal food to be coming into our warehouse. So, we're inviting the community to support in any way that moves them. um because I suspect like I am seeing today um that we're going to be in this uh vast area of need for food for a while. So I hope that helps. Thank you. I would be lastly I would be remiss if I didn't um share that the food bank we are the

116bank that sources and banks the food and we have distribution sites that our staff manages but we have a whole network of agencies that we contract with to really help us get the food out. We opened up a pantry at the hospital for example we at Watsonville Community Hospital that's a distribution point. We have pantries at some schools that those are distribution points. We deal with a lot of churches and a lot of other schools and Cababrio College and UC Santa Cruz and the list goes on and on. There is beauty in the collective way in which we nourish our community. It's true collective action, right? It's true collective structures that have been functioning for 53 years in our county and it works. So, I want to just acknowledge that there are other organizations that

117are pulling their weight to also make sure that the food that we're busy sourcing and asking you to support us with um we get it to them and then they source their volunteers to help us get the food out. So, I want to also acknowledge that there's a whole network of agencies that are a part of what we do. Thank you. >> Any other questions or comments? Yes, Kyle. >> I'm just so grateful for you and you being in the role you're holding right now. >> Very lucky. Wish I had had my camera rolling up time because >> talk about truth to power. I would love to just broadcast through that wider world. People understand how that longest government shutdown we've had the ripple effects of it. It's not like it just Yeah. >> Not

118just our community, but you're saying there's 200 food banks country that are all >> Yes. >> Well, thank you. >> And I think we do have a camera. You were on video. >> Okay, there you go. Snip me. Snip me and share me right next. >> And since I jumped in, I'll just say it's great to see you again and it's just so appreciate your leadership and what you're doing in this incredible time of need and every year. I'll just say it's we work part. I always say your food bank because it doesn't belong to me or my staff. It's really the community's food bank. 70% of what we do comes comes and it's fueled by community, right? So, we're just happen to be the shepherds of it all, but it's it's your food bank.

119>> Ken Martinez, >> I personally like volunteering at the food bank a lot. Like I volunteer almost everywhere, but the food bank is like my main spot to volunteer. I know Adriana, she's one of my favorite persons. She just started working there, so I follow her everywhere. >> Like uh she's my she's the person that got me into like community in general. So I follow her everywhere and she just started working at the food bank. So I followed her to the food bank and I started doing more things there. It's great to see you in the warehouse packing food. Thank you, Vente. Yeah. >> Could you share what the most in demand u food is for that you need right now? >> Rice and beans and pasta and pasta sauce and non-sugary cereal cuz kids

120love to get a box of cereal. And we actually at the food bank have a no sugar policy. Um, I can tell you that I've had to turn away frosted flakes multiple times. I know. But I'll call Kelloggs and I'll say, "But I'll take cakes and I'll take, you know, corn flakes, right?" Um, we do it really because we believe wholeheartedly that if we're going to nourish the community, we're going to contribute to their health and well-being, right? We have a choice in that matter and we choose to make sure that we're going to if we're going to invest money we're going to source good wholesome food and if we're going to accept food we're going to give food that we know will be nutritious for the community right so I know kids don't necessarily

121like that but we sent sorry but um I'm doing it because I really love you right >> but those are the the main the main items tuna is another big popular protein. In fact, I'll tell you, I just learned yesterday that there's two women who for the last two weeks decided to coordinate a tuna fundraiser in front of Trader Joe's. They've been tableabling for tuna. So, there's a table in front of Trader Joe's. As the shoppers are going in, they're asking people if they wouldn't mind buying two or three cans of tuna so that they can in turn take that tuna to the food bank. We didn't coordinate that. That was driven by these two amazing women that I'm yet to meet that I just learned. Um, two community members stepped up to help us

122in that way. So, protein is such a expensive commodity for us. We have we have access to produce, not right now because we're not in season, but um, protein is such a difficult product. So, the tuna, the canned chicken is another popular one. Peanut butter. It used to be that USDA would send us volumes and volumes of peanut butter. We've actually seen a reduction of USDA product coming our way. So, peanut butter is a good source of protein and peanut butter can go a very long way for families as well. I hope that helps. Go shopping. >> Thank you. I really appreciate again everything that you do for our community. >> Yeah. Thank you. Um, I have a question for the board regarding uh food. Uh, I was thinking about this a lot the other

123day and I realized that we have like leftover food at the end of the day like from the school lunches that we provide and I'm wondering if it would be possible for us to in turn donate that to the families like especially the um like the perishable foods like we could tell the students like hey uh if you're like in need like we have the food that's left over and you can come and take it home to your families. wondering if that would be possible. >> Yeah, I'm I'm sure it's something that we can coordinate with the different sites directly. >> Good idea. >> What I can do is provide the superintendent with the particular regulations around food safety and food handling and food that's been purchased with USDA dollars and federal monies. and then

124perhaps you could um form your decision based around some uh information first. >> Yen Martinez, >> I this is not related to the food bank or food but I remember that the um board gave head start money and but they meant Mr. First of all, he mentioned that they we had to October they had to October 31st and they were shut down. Did they shut down or um since this is not on not currently our topic I don't want to it would be a Brown Act violation for me to switch uh to talking about that topic but I do have a update during my superintendent report which is coming up and I'll I'll I could address it then. Thank you for the question. Okay. So, let's move the agenda along. We have 10.2 consideration for

125approval to adjust the county superintendent salary schedule. For this one, we uh had a committee specific compensation committee that was formed. Now, we're going to have Trustee Williams with her report. >> Thank you. Um, thank you, President Evan. Um so we are presenting to the board consideration for approval to adjust the county superintendent salary schedule for the 2026 year. Um the committee consists of um trustee Sue Roth, myself along with the help of Leanne Reyes and Troy Cup. According to our education 1209, it is our responsibility to authorize a fair and reasonable salary for the county superintendent. And uh these guidelines are set by our administrative regulations 4360. All this information is in the packet. So I'm just kind of summarizing for um for discussion. Um a little background, Dr. Sabah has been a dedicated

126leader for over 25 years in education and has a deep commitment for equity, access, student centered um diverse education and so his experience and the work that he's done in our community is well documented. Um the salary for Santa Cruz superintendent um has not been adjusted um since 2018. That's 7 years. Additionally, I wanted it to be noted that Dr. Sabah did not elect to accept any previous year's annual bargaining agreement raises. So, that is elective and he chose not to accept it. So, that should be in consideration as well. Um, as part of our education code 2020 129, um, we must determine what the SC the salary schedule looks like. Um there is a process by which this is determined and that is um a study that is both generated by our chief HR

127officer as well as certification by our deputy superintendent um of business and uh so the committee met to discuss um the the steps um and the formula is based upon average salaries of superintendent two large districts in the Santa Cruz county as well as two closest COE's that are geographically similar as well as their ADA. So that is just the basic general process. Currently we are rep we are proposing a starting salary to begin January January 1st 2026 and that um schedule is um in the packet. um that will start with the salary increase as well as um the preceding steps to be at 2 and a half% increase for the preceding years. Um all subsequent benefits um are granted as with the management employees of the COE. So I guess that's open to any

128questions, clarifications. >> First, thank you for the great report with staff support. It was really clear and helpful and I think you've answered my question. So with what we'd be approving tonight, um the other management benefits that are provided would include annual cost of living increases in terms of what we're approving. It's up to the superintendent to choose on his own like he has in the past. Is that correct? >> Correct. Yeah. So it includes all of the >> cost Yeah. the health benefits, all of those. So whatever cost of living management employees get this schedule would go up by that same amount in future >> could elect to accept it. Yes. >> Except okay. Um that was one question because I thought that was important and it really linked to the bigger issue. If

129there hasn't been a pay increase since 2018, compaction has to start to be an issue at some point. I think in terms appropriate ratios and >> well the five steps hasn't been adjusted. >> Okay. >> Adjusted in some. >> Anyway, good report. Welld deserved. I like the policy that you provided and you're following it and seems to make sense. Any other questions or comments from anybody? No. If not, then we are looking for a motion. >> I'll motion presenting as the committee. >> Motion from Williams and a second from Ross. >> Excellent job. >> Okay. Uh because this is a resolution. No, it's not a resolution. Okay. Um, all those in favor say I. >> Um, sorry to clarify, President Sanchez, this is a motion to approve. >> Yes. Correct. Okay. >> Didn't hear the

130approve. >> Yes. Sorry. >> We have that. >> All right. All those all those in favor signify by saying I. >> I. >> Any opposed? Passes unanimously. >> Thank you so much. I appreciate the support. Thank you. Next 10.3 we have resolution 25-29 authorizing use of bridge financing and for this one we have Leon Reyes. >> Hey, good evening board. Um you had a little glimpse of this a few months back when we were talking about our special education project that we are planning to put together over on the SoCal High School campus. Um, and this is a final or a Yeah, I think this is the final resolution that we need the board to pass that would authorize the county office of education to enter into an agreement for bridge financing um, as need

131to put the uh, construction together on this building will certainly come well before funding we received back from the state will happen. Not to mention funding dollars now for construction is going to be a lot more cost-effective than waiting five to seven years for actual funding from the state to come in because with escalation costs everything that we're experiencing now. We know why it's better to build now and then enter into an agreement for bridge financing. Um it once bridge financing is secured and once uh funding is received from the state for both modernization and hardship funding, that's what we're applying for. uh then those costs would be applied towards um any known purpose. However, generally speaking, most people use that to pay down their debt. And so I'm what I'm bringing forward to you

132today is not the actual amount that we are planning to borrow, but rather the authorization to research and go up to a specified amount of $7.5 million um for this particular project. We do have early estimates in. We don't believe the project will actually cost us that much, but we wanted to give ourselves a little cushion. Again, that doesn't mean that's the exact amount we might be borrowing. It we're anticipating that it would be um a lesser amount. Um, one other thing that I want to just make the board comfortable with and um I know it's a little bit uh scary that I'm going to be leaving uh and retiring soon. And so I want to make sure that you're well aware that I've been elbow partnering quite closely for several months now with Michelle

133Kennedy who's present here this evening. U Michelle had been a CBO in a local district for over 10 years. Michelle's knowledge of construction and building is as extensive as mine. Um we've been great elbow partners. We've been able to bounce a lot of different ideas off of each other. I'm sharing this with you because I'm very confident that she has a very deep understanding of how this has to work. what the next steps are, what's coming down the line. So, I want you to feel comfortable with moving forward and approving this resolution so that we can continue to move forward with our application with the state. >> Thank you. Any questions or comments? >> One question and I'm sure I asked it the first time we had this discussion, but um just you know there's

134always there's no guarantee, you know, of it. So I immediately go into what is what would be the impact or burden to the CU in our budget should that money not come in or significantly less than what we're expecting. Good question. Um you know we do we have been running multiple scenarios with um varying costs as far as uh duration of the loan if there's a buyout uh possibility of the loan or not. Um do we want to go long and have shorter payments? Do we want to go short and have higher payments but save millions of dollars in overall cost? Um, part of the reason I pulled this before was that interest rates were extremely high and the scenarios that we were seeing I felt were um, not attenable. Um, we have new estimates

135that we received because rates have been dropping down and they're definitely in a more favorable position for us to go out for bridge financing right now. Um, I really uh I've been we've been looking through these quite quite deeply, Michelle and myself. Um, and we can certainly bring forward some scenarios when we're closer to the time that we actually need to borrow the money, which we're anticipating to be more in the springtime frame. That's our calendar. And then we will bring forward here's how much we'll also know how much our our um costs are going to be at that time since we're planning to enter into a lease lease back agreement which means we can actually have a GMP or guaranteed maximum price on the project. So it's not like we'll be going in and

136not really having a well-defined established box of how much will the project actually actually cost us. So then at that time then we'll know what are our rates as of that time frame how much would it be and um going in forward with recommendations but um we'll have various scenarios the last round we went through there were about six different scenarios um the overall cost of these scenarios were much more favorable than what I was seeing in the summer which is also why I wanted to pull it because as a if I were a board member I'd be like whoa it'd freak me out. So, these don't freak me out as bad, but I'm seeing I think there you'll be pleased with some of the numbers um that we've currently been looking at. So, when

137that time gets closer to actually decide if we're going to enter into that loan agreement, then we'll bring all those scenarios. Those scenarios will come forward for your this again just allows us to apply for funding. >> Any other questions or comments? Okay, Kyle >> for answering all of my questions via email. >> All right. If there is nothing else, I am looking for a motion. Okay. Motion from Williams and a second. I'll take a second from Kyle. All right. Uh, can we get a roll call vote, please? Student trustee guan Martinez. >> Hi. >> Student trustee amore. >> Hi. >> Trustee Kyle. Trusty Larson. >> Hi. >> Trusty Roth. >> Yes. >> Trusty Van Allen. Vice President Williams. >> Yes. >> President Sanchez. >> Yes. >> Passes unanimously. Thank you. All right. Uh we

138have a couple of uh more resolutions that we have coming up recognizing uh important people in our community and uh we're going to start with 25-46 and uh going to pres uh give the time to uh Trusty Larson. >> Thank you, Mr. President. I'd just like to do a quick introduction of all three next resolutions and then turn it over to our presenters of those resolutions. Um, you have four resolutions from the community outreach and legislation committee coming before you tonight. Um, President uh Sanchez will be presenting the first one given he's the longest uh serving member jointly with our recognition. Um, Trustee Van Allen will be presenting the second one uh for outgoing county executive Carlos Palasios and then student trustee Amore will be presenting resolution uh 10.6 on special education day and we

139can just proceed as you wish Mr. President. >> Thank you. Okay. Resolution 25-46 in remembrance of Rose Felicity. I consider myself very fortunate to not only have worked with uh Rose Filici but also to have considered her a friend. I think she has a big heart you know not for the community I would say for the people for everybody really. There's a way that I could describe her is like the word that comes to mind is bright. It's not just her personality, you know, but al it's also like reflected on her hair and her glasses, you know, that that she would use. It was it was very hard to talk to her, meet with her, interact with her and not remember, you know, her and and everything that that that that she did. And again,

140she she loved her community so much. She had so much passion that she dedicated her life to it. um looking through what what what she's done and what all of her accomplishments. It's it's it's a lot, you know, there's a lot that could be said, but she was very adamant about uh like public office and making a difference. You know, she spent a lot of time working with assembly members, working with senators, um encouraging people to vote. She dedicated a lot of her time on school boards, not only with us here in Santa Cruz, but also in Santa Clara. And most recently, you know, she saw a need for bringing again people together, specifically in the nonprofit world to the point where she saw a need uh a vacuum in the community and she started

141started her own nonprofit with the purpose of bringing everybody together to have a collaboration and to be able to help and and and and support one another. So that's how I will always remember, you know, Rose Rose Felicetti. uh she wasn't uh she was selfless, you know, she didn't really think about herself much. She cared about about other people and I will always appreciate her for that. Uh I didn't realize it at the time, but you know, when she started it, it really felt like she was taking me under her wings. You know, it's like she tried to she set up appointments with Robert Reebas, with John Lair, so that I can start talking to them so that I can start having those relationships. You know, she knew the value in that. And without me

142asking for it, you know, that's something that that that she did, you know, uh uh on purpose. Um again, I think she really cared. She really cared not only for for me and my position on the board, but like my personal life, too. Like I I I I'll always remember the fact that like I don't know if people knew this, but like she would set me up on blind dates and we would and because she was she was, you know, she was she was really she really cared about me, you know, she wanted me to find the the person, you know, and and um >> Beyonc. >> So I know that she'd be happy. I know that she'd be really happy. um yeah, to know that I just recently got married and um and just

143where I am today, you know, and and who I am and I'm very grateful to her. And that's just my story. And I know that there's dozens, if not hundreds of other stories of other people in the community, in all these organizations that have worked with her that have received uh a positive, you know, impact, support because of her. So we will always remember I will always remember Rose Facetti. She will be missed terribly and um just really grateful to have known her all her friend. So with that I want to make a motion to approve resolution 25-46. Can we get a roll call, please? >> Student trustee guan Martinez. >> Hi. >> Student trustee Omore. >> Hi. >> Trusty Kyle. >> Trusty Larson. >> Hi. >> Trusty Roth. >> Yes. >> Trusty Van Allen.

144>> Vice President Williams. >> Yes. >> President Sanchez. >> Yes. Passes unanimously. 10.5 resolution 25-47 recognition of the service of Carlos de Palasios. For this one, we have Van Allen. Thank you. I've been involved in politics in this county since the early 70s. And one of the things about being a political activist is you run up against staff a lot, city staff or county staff. It's not always um happy. It's not always um well it's often in fact confrontational or disputative and um uh difficult and staff has a particular perspective on things is not the same as a political activist or an elected official or a citizen who wants good service from their government. um because they have to do something very complicated. Operate an an institution just as Ferris does here um that um

145has many employees, has many different responsibilities and many different um uh complications about where its money comes from um dealing with its uh labor organizations, dealing with um uh different interests in the community and and so on. And so I've come to appreciate over the years that when we get a good city manager or a good county administrative officer or CEO as it's now titled, um that's actually a really special thing to have in the community. And I first worked with Carlos Palasios when he was the city manager of Watsonville on a tax measure probably about 25 years ago. Um, and it was it was just a pleasure to work with someone who knew what he was doing about running a complicated city organization, but also knew why. And that was for the sake of

146the community. It wasn't about property values. It wasn't about um his own advancement or wealth or or getting credit for things. It was in the interest of the community. And that's what Carlos has been all along. So when he moved from Watsonville to being the top administrator of Santa Cruz County, I had a a feeling of okay, we have a good solid administration in place now with him as a leader. And that has been true even though I've sure had some disputes with the county over his time. And I've most of that though is really with the board, not with the administrator. So, I just want to um I I asked if I could be the one to speak up here because I come at it from a point of view of um this isn't

147what I would choose. It's not who I would be. Um and um I probably will fight him again at some point if he stays. Well, he won't be staying, but um uh I have a deep appreciation of Carlos Palasios and his service to our community and to the people here. So, that's my introduction to the resolution and I'm happy to hear from others or I'll make the resolution. So, I'll move uh resolution 25-47 recognizing the service of Carlos Palasios to the county of Santa Cruz and the city. >> We have a first from Ben Allen and a second from Kyle. Can we get a roll call vote, please? >> Student trustee Guan Martinez. >> Hi. >> Student Trustee Omore. >> I. >> Trustee Kyle. >> Trustee Larson. >> Hi. Trusty Roth, >> yes. >> Trusty

148Van Allen, >> hi. >> Vice President Williams, >> yes. >> President Sanchez, >> yes. Passes unanimously. Next, we have resolution 25-48, recognition recognizing special education day. And for this one, we have trustee board. Um, something I really appreciate about the public education system is that everybody receives a free public education uh no matter what uh their like needs are. And the fact that we provide special education for students I think is really important uh because everyone deserves a good uh education and it's really important and I uh this resolution is just recognizing uh national special education day. This is uh really important for like everyone because uh special education really helps all of those with disabilities and uh with uh people who've struggled with a lot of like traditional school settings and all of these

149people have usually gone through something to need these services and the fact that we can provide them like free of charge I think is uh necessary. very and like very important and should be recognized. >> Questions, comments? Motion. >> I motion. >> Okay. >> Second. >> We have an emot a motion from a more and a second from Williams. Can we get a roll call vote, please? >> Student trustee Gian Martinez. >> Hi. >> Student trustee Amore. >> Hi. >> Trustee Kyle. >> Hi. >> Trusty Larson. I >> Trusty Roth, >> Trusty Van Allen, Vice President Williams, President Sanchez. >> Yes. Passes unanimously. 10.7. Uh now we have the first reading of board policies uh 2000 series with artificial intelligence BP0441 with trustee Van Allen. >> Thank you. uh trustees, we have several policies coming

150and um the policy committee which is newly formed um uh is kind of just getting its feet wet and um some of these policies probably need further work. So we're recommending that they be um that the action item be limited to a first reading and not a final adoption um for most of them. Um the first one under 10.7 um relates to um kind of a high level of what our category of policies are and this one is about artificial intelligence. When the committee looked at it, the resolution is based on recommendations from CSBA. Um it's very general um and somewhat provisional in the sense of it it does recognize that there's a lot of change happening in the area of artificial intelligence. My own opinion is that given that we have a um uh

151our chief technology officer and a working group on artificial intelligence within the COE that um I wanted to be sure that we didn't establish policies not in sync with them. Um and he say was good enough to to um let the staff know about this. My expectation is that this policy on artificial intelligence will come back after Jason and that that team do some work and refine it into more specifics about our situations and how we want to address things and also just keeping up with the evolution of the technology. So, um again, it's a very general resolution. Um, but I do think it serves and I think it's time for our board to um, establish begin to establish policies knowing that this is beginning, not not the final. Happy to take questions about that.

152>> So, a clarifying question, we are approving what's in front of us, but could potentially get a newer updated version in the near future. Um, yes, but I don't know when that is and I and I that's up to the team that's working on the artificial intelligence, you know, principles and pol and practices and um so to me this one suffices now, but it's just kind of general um >> meets the minimum requirements. >> Okay, got it. Larson. >> Um, I was actually pleased to see this coming forward so quickly after last month's great presentation, but I totally support the notion of before the second reading, it spends time with the staff that works with it directly. You did answer one of my questions. For most of the policies, you are following some of CSBA's

153guidance at least as a starting point. That's good to know. I was really pleased with this just what I called the threes ethics, equity, engagement, and evaluation being embedded clauses in there. Um, and I was happy to see that in there, but I look forward to the updated version coming back with staff input. I did want to share that Scuzzba, the Santa Cruz County School Boards Association met Monday and there was discussion about having a future meeting focused on artificial intelligence, both a policy such as this as well as the presentation we had. So I could see sometime in early 2026 that being a focus open to all schoolboard members in the county, not just Kuzva representatives. Wanted to tee that up there for you. >> Good idea. >> Any other questions or comments? No.

154>> I'll move the the resol the uh item. What is the resolution? >> Oh, I'm sorry. Move approval for first reading of board policy 0441. >> So to come back at uh for the second >> actually on this one. I don't think >> Yeah, I this one I don't think it it needs the first reading. It's just that we know that in the future we will probably be adding to it or amending it, >> but we but it I think it stands fine just now. >> Okay. >> Does that make Rachel? Um I think with um this particular one um since we have identified potential sub policies that are referenced and the fact that it needs to be reviewed by our um IT department in their view that as a first reading it it doesn't

155require any approval. It's just um a discussion and people's feedback as a first reading and then when we bring it back for the second reading that's when we vote. Oh, okay. That I'm fine with that process. Yeah. So, this isformational at this. And um Rachel brings up an important point that I missed when our committee met, which is that a couple of these policies actually refer to other policies that it turned out we didn't have or that they need updating and so on. So, that's part of the reason we're coming to you a little bit wet behind the ears with our committee work because um we need to do some further um analysis of it. Um, so 10.8 um, uh, has to do Oh, I'm sorry. >> So, no motion. 10.7. >> Yeah. So, am

156I right? Is that right? >> Well, so so you really have two choices. You either uh make a motion to approve the first reading, which is not to finalize it and then you you approve it. you will have a second uh action at the at a future board meeting where you would approve it the second reading and its its implementation or you you uh don't make any motion at this point and then um at the at a future board meeting you would um make a motion that uh does both a first reading and it's its final approval. actually think of a third one which would be to refer it to to um Jason. And >> so so my point is only that um you have to have a first and a second. You could do

157it combined or you can break it down. You can break it apart >> procedurally. I had always gone on the idea that if you do a first reading then you have to specify when the second reading will be. Is that do we have to do that? >> Um I don't think so. >> Maybe that was a city rule. >> I I don't I to my knowledge that's not necessary. um a first reading would just as you're you're saying knowing knowing that you're going to get feedback. I also know that I I had a conversation with Trusty Moore who had some some other recommendations. Maybe another E for environmental responsibility for example was one one of the things that um he mentioned. So I think Trusty Moore would would like to participate in providing additional guidance.

158>> Then I will make a motion for first reading knowing that it's not obliging us and we will it will come back to us when it's ripe for that. Do you want to say something now? Yes, >> I would appreciate to leave it until further to really put it in like sort of motion. So, I would appreciate it if we could leave it until later to do the first and second then after we've uh really put a lot more like thought and discussion into this. >> Clarify, you're hoping you're asking to table this motion um so not to do a first reading at this point. >> Yes. Technically a motion to table takes precedence and has to be voted on. >> Okay. So we have a first from Ben Allen and we have a second

159from Williams. If there are no more questions we >> we have to do the table. >> We have to do a motion to table that takes precedence over everything else. And trustee he inserted um trusty Moore inserted a table motion. expressions. >> What's the that motion on pause? >> So, now we need a second for that motion. >> Correct. >> Okay. >> So, could you uh state your motion clearly that you you're you're making a motion to table the >> uh I motion to table the policy on the a later date. >> Okay. The thing about a motion to table is you move right away to a vote and that's why it doesn't need a second. >> It just takes that, you know. Okay. >> We never get parliament very often. >> Okay. We have

160a motion to table. >> Can we get a roll call vote, please? >> Asking for a roll call. This could also be a voice. >> It's up to your discretion. I will >> Let's do a voice. >> Okay. >> Yeah. Let's do a voice to table. All those in favorable All those in favor signify by saying I. >> I. Any opposed? Okay. So, motion has been tabled and will be brought at a letter at a later date once all of the modifications and updates that were discussed during uh this meeting are made to the to the board policy. >> Thank you. >> Moving on to 10.8, we have the first reading now of the board policies from the 5000 series. So these relate to issues concerning directly concerning students and um there are three possible

161resolutions. Two of them actually do not have those references to other policies that um haven't been addressed or included. Um the first one the release of directory information I think does have that problem. Right? >> Um which one are you speaking of? 5125.1 release of directory information. And again, these were um mostly based on recommendations from CSBA that we update policies or adopt them if we didn't have um the the big change in this one is about um the role of military recruiters getting this information. I will just add to the board the highlighted yellows are the CSBA recommended um changes. All three of these policies are already adopted exception of the yellow highlights. >> Yes. Yes. I had a question on um on that that line the first line of the paragraph. Um and

162in what context do colleges, employers and recruiters have access to students? >> So generally speaking, you're asking when when do they when do they request that information? So for example, it it can occur at different times. So um we receive requests for student information from let's say the community college requesting information for the recruitment date um to help uh with pre-registration for students for example. So this this policy allows us to um to to provide that information. >> You what were the other groups you mentioned? colleges, prospective employers, including military recruiters, that's the list. Yeah. Shall have access, >> right? So, um we haven't, to my knowledge, gotten uh requests from from uh military recruiters uh at the COE, at least um to my knowledge in at least in the time that I've been I've

163been here. But um so the um they are able to make those requests to to um and we do have an opt out clause that is part of the registration process. And that's true also for the community college as well. And so when families register, they're able to opt out of being of us making those that that information available uh to to them. I do believe that they do make those requests um before uh recruitment activities that they do sometimes on um they come onto campus as they're able to do that and as long as those uh students is have not opted out of providing that or their families have not opted them out of th that information then that directory information is made available to those and to potential businesses as well as and

164of course the community Um what is the information that we are talking about? >> So directory information um includes uh it's contact information. So name, phone number, um address that's uh so that uh fits directory information fits a very specific definition um which is basically how to contact Uh Ben Alan. >> So this again is one of the ones for a first reading. Um and um I think we should do these separately. So um I will move first adoption of first reading for board policy 5125.1 as drafted with the with the yellow highlighted. >> There second. >> I will second as the first reading. All those in favor signify by saying I. >> I. Any opposed. >> Perfect. >> Next one. Um 5145.3 on non-discrimination and harassment. We're adding some significant paragraphs and doing a

165little bit of editing and the committee did some work to make the um descriptions of who should not be discriminated against more consistent. ated DMOR's uh feedback on that when we in the and the committee met. Um again, this one does not, as I understand, um refer to any other policies. So, we could adopt this one. >> I would motion that this would be the first and second reading. >> I would second that question. So, yes, Kyle. >> Um, I had some question where paragraph, but um there's reference to restorative justice. Oh, um paragraph above record keeping incident of racist bullying, harassment, or intimidation opportunity for restorative justice. I'm wondering why the restorative justice is limited to racist bullying in here. We have other acts of harassment bullying >> question broaden the category. >> I

166would certainly be favorable to that. I mean again this this came pretty much boilerplate from CSBA and I think it's I think you're raising a good point. >> You have recommended language to add specifically >> but we if we do a second reading can we do amendments? >> Oh why don't we do that for first reading and bring it back soon. >> So I will make revised my motion to make this as a first reading. >> We'll need a well we'll need that this that I Sorry, I refreshed my motion. >> You accept it? >> Yes. >> Good. Thank you. >> And then Trustee Kyle will submit her verbiage comments online for the second reading. >> Great. And >> Yep. Can we get a roll call vote, please? Uh, no, we don't need it. All

167in favor, I'd signify by saying I. >> I. Any opposed? Perfect. >> Thank you. The next one um is uh regarding the subject of sexual harassment. The changes again I believe are all recommended from CSBA. Yes. Um and this one could stand on its own. I think it's ready to go unless there I'm sorry, Kyle. Can you use the microphone? >> Yes. >> Are we doing first reading right now where we're still editing or >> Okay, I just had some verbiage. There is a place somewhere in here where it says repetitive which I thought we didn't need the word repetitive. It's about >> has the word repetitive. >> Yeah, it has the word repetitive but I don't think we need the bullying to be repetitive. I think we could just say any instance >> in

168the paragraph of record keeping. >> Thank you. That's why that page. >> Um. >> Oh, I see. Yeah. >> The very last line. Thank you. >> Yes. And prevent and take out repetitive harassing behavior. >> Are is it just take out the word repetitive? >> Right. Um any other comments, questions? Well, I will move this one for first and second reading with that amendment taking striking the word uh repetitive from that last paragraph titled recordkeeping H130 in our agenda. >> Second. >> First from Van Allen, second from Kyle. All those in favor signify by saying I. >> I. Any oppose? >> Passes unanimously. Now we're on 10.9 the first reading of the board policies 6000 series >> trustes. This one is about um uh relig recognition of religious beliefs and customs. Um the the u

169main change was adding the holiday of Diwali to the list of recognized observances that may impact attendance. >> Is okay? No. >> Oh no. This one refers to other policies and therefore could only be adopted on a first reading. >> Um, >> thank you. No, I'm on the resolution. They can attest to my word smithing. Um, on page 132 where this is appropriate. Oh, culture, literature, or the arts. I was wondering if we could add the word history. >> You're in the first paragraph. >> Illustrate their relationship with culture, literature, or the arts. Using religious works and symbols illustrate their relationship with I could see adding history there. I I would accept that as a >> and but we are doing this as a first so it'll come back. Yeah. >> Then I had a

170question >> on the last page of this. Um the the top line COE schools shall not prohibit religious activities of the same or similar non-religious activities are not permitted. I was just wondering if you could explain that line. I didn't understand what the sentence >> did come from the CSBA. religious activities if the same or similar non-religious activities are permitted. I think the idea is that if something is considered a religious activity but somebody does the same thing not in a religious context and the one that's doing it in the religious context >> prevented or prohibited. >> I just give an example. So if let's say there is a um let's say Halloween costumes is something that is permitted at the school and let's say somebody has uh part of their religion is to celebrate

171Halloween and that is a religious activity for them that fact that the the Halloween costumes is part of that one student's religious does not make the activity religious and so it's allowed because non-religious it is considered a non-religious sect. Okay. So, other questions or comments? And I will move this one for first reading. This is uh board policy 6141.2A. >> I'll second this one. >> First from an Allen, second from Larsson >> with the change. >> Okay. >> Adding the word history in there, but it will come back for a second. >> Okay. Is that clear? Okay. Uh, all those in favor signify by saying I. >> I. Any oppose? Passes unanimously. >> Thank you, trustees. We'll we'll >> try to be more on it. >> Uh, thank you. Thank you for all the work.

172And it's >> If I could just say that was the most uh engaged policy discussion I've ever seen on any board ever. So, congratulations to everybody. That was really great. I was very impressed. Seriously. Well done. >> Okay. So, now we have the last resolution 10.1025-49 recognizing computer science week with trustee Larson. >> I'll start uh last resolution from the committee and as we did with trustee more and hopefully we'll do uh in the future. Uh trustee Dr. Kyle's going to present this one. >> Thank you. I'm happy to. Uh this resolution is to recognize computer science week coming up and um see I'm because I just got this assignment this afternoon. So um this is a new resolution which I'm pleased to bring before the board. Um it celebrates equitable computer and technology access.

173It recognizes the amazing internal and external facing work that our IT department does. Um I'm very excited about the upcoming uh playgrounds, computer science playgrounds happening in both South County and North County. And um just as with my personal hat on, I've been encouraging STEM in schools as a parent and also in the Live Oak Education Foundation. So just to to have the COE model this and support this and expand the opportunities for all kids across the county is amazing and I'm I'm excited in this step. With that I will move to accept. >> Um this one I just thought was a great one to bring forward. I wanted to second the the notion and the concept of having an IT department that's not just internally serving, but that's broader externally focused as well with

174students and our schools and others that we work with is just a great way to broaden the culture of being student first and student serving throughout the organization. Glad to second this one. First from Kyle, second from Larson. If there's no questions or comments, can we get a roll call vote, please? >> Student trustee Guian Martinez. >> Hi. >> Student Trustee Amore. >> Hi. >> Trustee Kyle. >> Trustee Larson. >> Hi. >> Trustee Roth. >> Yes. >> Trustee Van Allen. Vice President Williams. >> Yes. >> President Sanchez. >> Yes. >> Passes unanimously. Thank you. Moving on, we are in section 11 with a superintendence report. >> Thank you so much, President Sanchez, members of the board. Um uh to I want to share a few things. This picture actually uh was a part of a

175gathering of folks from uh different agencies across the county who came together today uh called by by the county um to discuss the different impacts that are occurring in and in in all the different uh parts of our community. And uh we had a a great discussion to uh gauge the what are the how our community is is being impacted by by the current situation and and what are ways that we can work together to uh to uh provide support as in similar to to the discussion we had with uh with Erica Padia Chavez. I did want to share with you that I got to participate in an activity that uh we were able to support building bridges in indigenous education that was uh hosted at Cabrio College and uh really a wonderful uh opportunity.

176Were any of you able to I don't think I saw I I didn't think uh saw any of you there but really a wonderful uh event to be able to uh really center indigenous voices and um ensuring that we are um incorporating those voices as as a fundamental part of of kind of as the building blocks of our of of our educational experience for students. And this is something that I I hope will expand and and we look forward to partnering more in in this work. I did want to share that recently in the news there was a situation with immigration officials who um uh decided to do something that was also done in um in Chicago which was that to attempt to intercept and detain uh folks parents who were waiting in line to

177pick up their kids at a nearby uh school in Oakland. that resulted in um a car accident and and um potential injuries and uh the school went into a um took steps. They they use the term lockdown. Um uh but it uh was just a reminder of the fact that that this kind of action even though we haven't seen onschool type of activity but can um impact our schools. We have to be thoughtful about this. we have to be prepared and and um we have protocols in place to address a situation like that. Um but it is something that that is a reminder of of of the many challenges our our community continues to face and the this uh and and how immigrant immigration activity and enforcement can can impact our our our school community.

178Um, oh, that's a repeat of it. Um, I did want to share with you that we have reestablished the African-American Student Achievement Committee uh in collaboration with the NAACP. Uh, this is a group that has been in place um since we we reestablished it in prior to the pandemic. Uh, really to look at the experience of our African-American students. At that time, the African-American students represented 8% of the total population in Santa Cruz County. Currently, students who identify as African-American uh African-American represent 4% of the population. But what we have seen is a doubling in the number of students that identify as of two or more races. And so we know that students identities can be complex and students uh may be choosing to um identify as two or more races as opposed to African-American.

179However, um this committee is is uh looks at uh of course the strengths that students bring to to our schools and our our school community, but also the challenges that they're experiencing. And specifically what this in our first meeting, we started to talk about the um the hate speech that students are experiencing on our school campuses, especially specifically the use of the n-word um and its devastating effects for for for those students. And so this is something that we continue to unfortunately um uh witness and um and it is something that is of great concern to this committee and we're going to continue looking at things that we can do to um to eliminate uh hate speech from from our our campuses. I wanted to address uh the disruption to Head Start and lots of

180folks are asking what uh Trustee Guang uh mentioned uh earlier uh which is what is what is happening with Head Start? As you remember, we did provide some funding, some bridge funding to Head Start to be able to to contract with them to be able to continue providing services to complete the their their um their contract. uh because they were going to shut down without completing their contract, which would have meant an immediate forfeite of their contract with with the Head Start program and would have made their um their uh authorization by Head Start uh revert to a competitive process as opposed to a kind of a dedicated process that they that they currently have. Uh unfortunately um they did they did complete the the school year and ended on uh at the end of

181October. Uh they had to do layoffs for their staff and um also uh work to provide different opportunities, different solutions for for uh students to be able to find alternative placements. uh the Paharav Valley School District um partnered with Encompass to try to help those students find uh preschool programs. Now, at this point, they um Head Start has not received its authorization for renewal. Uh that was an impact of the government shutdown. Um and it is unclear exactly when that's going to occur and and um so we are currently in an unknown uh phase because they have not received that notification. I do have a meeting with them for tomorrow and I uh will be able to provide a better update in December. Uh we're hopeful that they are going to be able to uh

182reestablish those services. They were receiving $10 million a year uh for those services. That money would be lost and possibly revert to a a competitive process. Uh however, part of the notification that they received prior to the shutdown was that that the funding was going to be reduced to $6 million. So, at this point, my understanding is they haven't received any kind of um authorization. And so, those families currently, especially those outside of the Pahar Valley, uh we've been trying to work with those families to identify different programs to help them uh get um to to find a program that will help them um help those students be in in a a preschool program. and um and we uh understand that many of those staff are still uh do not have jobs at this point.

183And so this has been extremely disruptive to over 250 children um plus additional early start students and in addition to dozens of staff that that were providing those services. Um I also wanted to share with you that um it is time for us to retire this furniture. Um there we've our staff has been diligent in trying to uh cover up some of the uh the damages that you hopefully have not noticed. Uh and so uh we are looking to um have new uh furniture uh installed in February. And um so we're we're we're looking forward to that uh when when that when that so that'll be at the beginning of February of 2026. I did also want to share with you that uh Sequoia High School has a new a new maker space uh uh

184program. Uh this is something that we're trying to expand to to more school sites and um and students are really enjoying this these opportunities. So, um, we continue to, uh, to expand those those, uh, those those creative ideas and and so I'd love it if if any board members would be interested in coming to visit and we'll share, uh, maybe some times that would work for you to to come and check it out. Um, one of the most exciting things that happens every year is the Ruby Bridges Walk to School Day. This occurred on November 14th, last week. And um you see Miss Mink Brooker who uh is was our teacher of the year uh last year and and uh leading the uh the walk. And of course, Ruby Bridges is the uh six-year-old girl

185who in 1960 in Louisiana uh surrounded by uh US Marshalss uh represent being the face of courage um was uh the uh girl that helped desegregate the schools uh in in the South. And uh and so we honored uh Ruby Bridges and and of course um her not only her courageous walk but also our our commitment to justice by participating. I got to hang out with Trustee Larson as we went to Santa Cruz uh high school in the at lunchtime. But what's amazing is that it spread all over the it has spread all over uh Santa Cruz County. the San Lorenzo Valley, uh, SoCal Elementary, Live Oaks School District, um, Santa Cruz High School, SoCal High School, and of course, the biggest uh, group was at Pave High School where uh, lots of lots of

186students uh, got to we actually walk across the bridge over Highway One and onto the campus and then uh, we got to speak with students and and uh, uh, that who who are allowed to participate from their because it it starts at 8:30 and that's when many many teachers bring their students into the quad. Really a wonderful experience and and uh uh just really grateful for um the the Black Student Union. You'll see that uh some of the students in the in the front there on the left side are are wearing this. That's the Black Student Union uh shirts that Miss Brooker uh helps mentor at uh uh PV PV High School. And just a wonderful event to to bring bring our community together. some important upcoming events. Uh tomorrow night we have our hear

187story ribbon cutting and so we'd love it if you could join us. There's also the uh what's not on here is a day of remembrance that um the uh the diversity center is organizing unfortunately at that same time. And so um not that I'm wanting you to not go to the her story ribbon cutting event because that's going to be wonderful but we'd love it for you to uh to to be there. Um, also of course our computer science playgrounds. We have one in uh Watsonville High School and also one at at the Santa Cruz Mall. This is really great. Families and kids get to play around with some really cool technology and and uh to inspire young people to to think about careers and in technology and just really the the the um have

188fun with that with that technology. For the winter time, we'd like you to um just be aware of some of these great events that are taking place. poetry out loud, Latino role models conference, mock trial, uh our TK prek community forum. Um we are working in partnership with the um the uh county clerk to um organize a civic summit. Uh I don't know if you remember what the last time we did that, but it was a great event uh many years ago. We're bringing it back uh to encourage civic engagement uh for our youth with students from every high school in the county. And uh so that's going to be on February 27th. Of course, the wonderful Steam Expo is going to be amazing and our World Languages Showcase. So, we'll continue to remind you

189about these great events and and hopefully you can get them on your calendars as well. And I will open it up for questions at this time. I thought that um alless my understanding is that uh they may have but I my understanding is that that Watsonville High School students were encouraged to go to Pey High School to participate in the PV High walk. So I believe some of the many students that walked across PV High were actually um were actually from Watsonville High School and because there was a lot of students there if you could see from the pictures and so um I think that some of those students came over from us. >> Yeah. >> The PV last year. Yeah, it was a great event. Yeah. Thank you. >> Any other questions or comments

190on the superintendent report? >> Yes. What was the other activity? I already had plans to go to her story, but what is the other event um through the um Yes. So, this is the um day of remembrance uh for the queer community and this is to honor people who have lost their lives uh from the queer community this year and in years past. This is going to be at the um it's also five o'clock uh tomorrow and it's going to be at the uh resource center for nonviolence. >> Oh yeah, I remember my question. Um I remember that you said at >> KOA they have a maker space. >> What exactly is a maker space? >> That's a great question. So, a maker space is it's I would call it um at least for me,

191it's like it's like a a the a fun playground for for using different tools to be able to create stuff. And so, Makerpace um uh is a place where um different kinds of tools are are made available for for students. So everything from uh plastic pipes to a laser cutter to a 3D printer to uh of course you know computers and so students are able to come up with projects so that uh we work with them after school for this for currently because it hasn't been incorporated into the schedule yet. So if a student wants to make a go-kart for example, they're able to uh get the motors and and create a a go-kart. If uh students are are wanting to create um uh you know kind of intle not quite robotics because we also

192have a robotics program but but um but able to um do um create whatever they can imagine. They not only um get the tools because they're in the classroom but they also get support from a staff member who helps them understand how to use those tools. So like the the the laser cutter. Um let's say um sometimes students want to make a gift for for uh for their family member and they want to create carve let's say the name of their their family member on on wooden box. They would learn how to use those tools to make that to utilize the laser cutter and it actually >> would I be able to go? >> Sure. It's after school and so um I could let you know when when we're doing it. So, absolutely. As as

193a county as a county board trustee, uh you get you get lots of lots of perks for sure. If there are no more questions, then we will go with the trustee reports and I will start with myself this month. And I just want to start by saying that I am pretty happy. um to be where I am today. And a big part of that is is is this year has been challenging in multiple ways, but um it feels like a turned a corner for sure. Um got married two weeks ago and was at a nice honeymoon the week after and then started a new job this week. So, it's just there's a lot of things that are falling into place and and I'm very excited and happy to be able to um contribute and be

194more involved in in in the community. So, um uh haven't been doing much. Didn't do anything this past month other than planning, you know, the wedding and those details. slides. Um, December, I look forward I look forward to the good things that are to come next next month. That's my report. Trustee Williams. >> Well, congratulations on both. I only knew about one of them, so thank you. >> But congratulations on both. >> Um, so I attended um the uh monthly community advisors uh council meeting. um had fun volunteering for the fourth or fifth year with wine and roses for the community health uh trust of Paharo Valley. That's always a fun event. If you haven't been, you should go. Plus, I also won amazing wine that so maybe if we have one an afterparty here

195one time. Um um attended a webinar titled caring for those who care for students and um that was uh put on by the California Department of Education. That was really interesting. I wasn't really sure what to expect, but it was definitely um you know teachers take learning how to take care of themselves and caregivers, but it was just an overall really great kind of just don't forget about taking care of yourself because you can't take care of if you can't right. So, it was really great. Um attended the Ruby Bridges uh event at Live Oak Elementary School. It was their first year was there with Nick and um I just could not stop smiling. Those kids are adorable. They were the teachers and educators did such an amazing job um all week talking about Ruby

196Bridges. And so when they had their little um gathering um after you know any question they had is every student knew the answer and it was just it was so moving. It was amazing. Um and um of course attended the policy meeting. We have lots of work got lots of um uh work to do there. and um attended the Skezba meeting um with um and learned a lot. You know, I'm probably going to try to make it a habit. It's Yeah, I learned what's going on in other districts, which is really helpful when people ask you, "Do you know what's going on?" So, that's my report. Thank you. >> Thank you, Hav Allen. I did uh the uh some committee work, policy committee and also the community outreach and legislative committee and um was part

197of a team that managed to win an election for a good thing for measure C for affordable housing and which can even be included in potential funding for teacher housing or educational workforce housing. Pretty happy about that. >> Thank you, Larsson. >> I submitted a written write up, but I did want to comment a couple things. Um, a little over 80 years ago, we had a president sign an executive order that put 80,000 Americans and 40,000 foreign nationals arguably in prison. And it just struck chords for what's going on today. And for the first time, I visited the Manzanar internment camp over in Eastern California. And it was just so powerful to to see what's going on today just as opposed to 80 years ago. and just uh was powerful. Um Ruby Bridges my first

198time and the powerful story for me there was realizing she was born five months before me and as she's going to first grade she's making this monumental and courageous act and I wasn't doing that in first grade but uh the powerful powerful connection there. Uh yesterday I went to two things I wanted to mention. Uh try to a couple times a year attend the school boards that are in my trustee area meeting just to make sure that I know I'm exist. And so I went to Pacific Elementary School Board and I learned about the principal who's also the superintendent and is also the head custodian uh during the day as he calls it. He does all three jobs because it's a one school district. and he has this vision called the concrete vision which is

199to have Davenport and Pacific Elementary take over the cement seck site and to really transform it. So I'm going to make a future trip up there to learn a little bit more about that and it's just an incredible vision and if there's anybody who can pull it off it's probably this superintendent. Um he's he's quite impressive. Last uh last night after the board meeting, I went to Lookout Santa Cruz fifth year anniversary. And what was exciting was two things. One, they have a cool new uh graphic logo. It's not their real logo, but it's not a bad logo. And I got a black sweatshirt that my son immediately appropriated from me because he liked it. So I I lost my sweatshirt the moment I walked in the house. but relevant to what we do here.

200Uh the founder talked about the next five years and they've started work already by giving students access to lookout and they're launching now literally right now an effort to give teachers throughout the county access. They've targeted 400 teachers initially, I guess, to to target to give access to the old newspaper in the classroom or newspaper and education thing. Lookout's taking it to the next level uh for digital media for student and teacher access. So it was just exciting to see uh that focus and to see Dr. Sabah raise a toast to uh lookouts next five years. So >> thank you Kyle. >> Put my timer on because when I looked at my calendar I actually had done quite a bit which was surprising. I'll start with today. Um, right before the meeting, I came straight

201from New Brighton Middle School where I got to see their new field and it's amazing. They have a track out there at art artificial turf field, a soccer field where my daughter was playing. Beautiful. If you get a chance, go check it out. They did a great job. Um, earlier today, I met with a couple of SoCal Union parents who um are interested in starting an education foundation for that district. So, um, I gave them the the story of my experience and I and I am on tap to answer questions moving forward for them. Um, but I'm always happy to answer questions in that in that regard. Last night, um, X Academy through CS COE, um, hosted a little Zoom webinar, or actually, it wasn't even webinar. Uh, open house, I'll call it, for middle

202school parents who are interested in starting an underwater ROV club. I did not quite read the email all the way through when I signed up to go to that. Um, but it was fascinating to learn about the high school program and um, hear about it. It was it was really um something I hope that there are parents that take take it up and uh it was a great presentation and a lot of resources offered and a lot of support offered if parents have the capacity to take that on. Um I completed my required trainings. I did the CSA CSBA ethics training and the ACA AC ACCBE Brown Act training. I also attended the CSBA's webinar on the county governance handbook. Um, I went on the open house and tours of the Teen Kitchen project, which

203was fantastic. We have friends that have volunteered there. Um, but I'd never been in the settings. And so, I'm really excited about their expansion project and their new space that would help them. I mean, what a wonderful project. It's just a win-winwin across the board. But hopefully they'll have more capacity to produce more meals, serve more people, but also give the teens the opportunity to learn how to do all the the culinary skills and get volunteer and eventually paid work. So wonderful organization. Um I went on a prospective tour of CSUMB and I'd never been to the campus and what an amazing local resource that is for us. and and I don't know where you applied, but check them out. Um, okay, good. I was very impressed. I hope one of my children goes there

204because then they'd be close as well. Um, and then I attended the Tech Trek alum lunchon, uh, which Techre is sponsored by the AAW, who you were speaking to, I think the following week after the lunchon. Um, and my daughter was lucky enough to be a participant. Tech Trek is a one-w weekek long camp for girls during the summer up at Camp Carson at UCSC. Um, and AAW supports, I think it was probably 12 rising eighth grader girls across Santa Cruz County, but the girls who participate and show up at the camp um are from across the state. So, my daughter's roommates were from Fresno and St. Louisispo. And it is um Oh, I'm over time, but ask me if you you want me to keep going. Okay. >> Um you once you I mean

205it's a it's a selection process. Teacher nomination, then you apply, then you're interviewed, and then you have to be selected. Um and then when you're selected, you have the opportunity to choose one of four core classes you want to do. She chose math, um but there was engineering, technology, science, which I think was biology. And um they have I mean it was just amazing. They live in the dorms. They eat in the cafeteria. They did field trip. They did a field trip to the boardwalk to study the giant dipper. But they also had um women engineers from Santa Cruz uh public works maybe department going down to talk to them about the traffic circle down there and traffic dynamics. Um they had large group. I mean it was a all literally an all day thing.

206My daughter, well, decided to wake up at 5:00 a.m. to take showers because the shower at night was too late. She was too exhausted by that time. So, they have a the morning core class and then they would have their um group workshop and then they'd have lunch and then they'd have another workshop and I think maybe core class and then an evening. So, they had panels of women engineers. Joby Aviation was out there. um granite construction came and you know it was just um the core classes were run by usually grad students maybe professors or research research assistants from the university high quality STEM um just all-incclusive experience it was wonderful so anyways the lunchon was where the girls had to get up at a podium and speak for three minutes about their experience

207and it was just wonderful to hear from each of them what they took from the experience that I'm way over time. Thank you. >> Wonderful. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Amazing. >> Rob, >> all I did was go to Oregon and I'll report that is uh very very good helicopters. Uh, it was there was joy in Portland. >> Anyway, >> pardon me. >> It's not a war zone. >> No. And I did keep asking about that where that was taking place. Was it in Portland? All right. Thank you. Item 13 now uh ad hoc standing committee. Any reports or actions? No. Okay. I want to remind everybody that uh our next regularly scheduled meeting is December 18th, 2025. Um there will likely be graduations before then. winter, right? Uh so I'm sure there's going

208to be an email that's going to go out in terms of when and where. Those are always fun. Definitely encourage everybody, anybody who can to uh attend those. And with that, our meeting is >> Oh, wait. I'm sorry. >> Sorry. Um one >> action um for the schedule of meetings um and upcoming events, we do have the option to schedule meetings during this agenda item. And I'm proposing two different dates to the board for our special board retreat on a Saturday where we have our CSBA facilitator come in and do a board governance, board self-evaluation with you all. So both days are on a Saturday. It would be beginning at 9:00 um and it would be between 4 to 6 hours. Um >> does anybody know that they can't if they can't make one or

209>> I I think that there is a special celebration on the 10th. Yes, >> for Leanne. >> There is. So, we would be having a wonderful board retreat and then all heading down the street to go party. >> Come on down. >> Or we could not I'm not sure how you how much energy you all have. >> Oh, it's I forgot to mention it was a surprise. >> I just said a special celebration. I didn't call anybody out. >> Forget what you heard. You know, I was >> Is there a special celebration? I'm not sure. We like to party beginning at 9:00 am and end at end at 10 p.m. here, >> but there are two dates. Um, and I would ask that the board make an action to approve one of them so that

210I can confirm the facilitator and sign those contracts. >> So, the two dates are what? >> January 10th or January 24th? >> Um, I prefer the 24th. They have move college move back day. Um >> okay. >> 24th works. I would just have to leave by >> either one works for me. >> Either. >> Okay. I mean I make a motion I make a motion to have it January 24, 2026. I second. >> Uh motion from Williams and a second by Van Allen. All those in pave for January 24th >> for our special board meeting >> January 24th. Thank you. Okay. >> Thank you. Thank you so much. I will be sending you all information once I get them from CSBA regarding your homework to prepare. >> Homework. You didn't you need to start off

211with that. >> It's a self evaluation. >> Okay. And with that, our meeting is now ajourned. >> Thanks everybody for attending.