October 16, 2025 County Board of Education Meeting

001Good evening everyone. Um, very impressed by how quiet this room is. I would like to start the October meeting of the Santa Cruz County Board of Education with a roll call, please. >> Trusty A. Costa. Trustee Kyle here. >> Trusty Larson, >> present. Trustee Roth. >> Trustee Van Allen >> here. >> Vice President Williams >> here. >> President Sanchez >> here. >> Student Trustee Guan Martinez >> here. >> Student trustee Emmore >> here. >> Thank you. Did we get any requests for board member remote attendance participation? Remote. Yes, >> we have no requests for remote attendance. President Sanchez. >> Okay, moving along. We're going I'm going to ask our superintendent to lead us in the pledge of allegiance and I'm going to ask those who can to please stand up and join us. >> Ready?

002Begin. 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. Moving along, we're looking at the approval of the agenda or if there are any modifications that we want to make to the agenda. >> I would like to make an modification. >> Okay. >> I would like to move 11.7 to before 10.1. >> Okay. So moving up the resolution 25-45 to the reports and discussion 10.1. Uh I >> I'll move with that modification. >> Okay, perfect. We have a motion. Is there a second? >> Second. >> And just for clarification, it's being moved to before when M which >> uh 10.1. >> Thank you. >> All right, we have a first and

003a second. All those in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Perfect. Passes unanimously. Uh item four now uh public comment. This is an opportunity for anybody in the public to address the board on any matters that are not on the agenda. We will have an opportunity later to uh for a public comment for a specific agenda item, but I do want to open the floor and listen to anybody that wants to address the board again on items not on the agenda. And if you do, we ask that you please share your name with us and keep your comments to uh 3 minutes or less. Is there anyone that would like to address the board? >> President Sanchez, we do have a number of requests for public comment. >> Okay. Um, starting with Maximilliano Barasa. >>

004Is it this one? >> Okay. Yeah. Um, hello board. Um, my name is Maximiano Barasern. Um, but you can just call me Max. Um, I go by he him pronouns and I am part of the superintendent student advocacy council. I go to PV High. Um, and I am a junior. Um, I believe that the most important thing when it comes to for student advocacy is to make sure that students voices are heard and that students are represented because often times um students um are just there and their voices aren't heard or it feels like students are talking to adults but the students don't feel like anything meaningful is coming out of it. and I feel like that needs to change. Um, but yeah, I I trust you guys and I think, you know, it's going

005to be pretty successful. >> Thank you. Next, we have Isel Parasa. >> Uh, hello board. My name is Isel Barasa. My pronouns are she, her, and I go to PB High School. I'm an I'm a sophomore and I come as a member of the uh superintendent student advocacy council. Uh I think it's very important for schools to have equal opportunities, equal resources, and like have like attention evenly divided amongst them. And I think it's important for you as adults in power to listen to kids' voices and not like ignore us and get our opinions on decisions before they're made. >> Thank you. Next we have Joe McGinty. Hello, my name is Joe McGinty and my pronouns are she, her, and I'm a senior at Delta Charter High School, Aabrio. Um, and I'm a trustee there.

006Um, and I'm also part of the the AV cassette council that a lot of others here are a part of. Um I my issue that I think is really important um to like basically the basis of like what we like schools are about is like making good critical thinkers for the community so students can help change the world and just I think it's really important for the students to be able to learn a variety of information and um be able to determine sources and things like that and just help the world. So, yeah, thank you for your time. >> Thank you. >> Next, we have Natalie Scott. >> Okay. Um, hi board. Uh, my name is Natalie Scott. My pronouns are she, her. Um, and I'm a 12th grader at St. Francis High School and,

007um, I'm a superintendent or superintendent student advocacy council. I'm also ambassador for um tobacco use prevention education for the county and also a youth representative for the anti-fentanyl youth organiz youth organization. And the most important issue in my school is probably addressing student disengagement and finding solutions for student absences and encouraging a more um like encouraging a more um inclusive uh class environment. >> Thank you. Next we have Jose Lopez Munoz. >> Good afternoon everyone. My name is Jose Luis Lopez Munosz. I am a junior at Escola Ketal and uh my pronouns are he him. And uh one thing I want to uh I would like you guys to hear out one of my concerns is more student engagement, student well-being, more hand-to-hand teaching. I've noticed from being tossed around in small schools and bigger

008schools, a lot of students tend to disengage and almost disconnect themselves from actually participating in class. Whether it's playing video games on their computers, using their phones in the bathrooms, or even resulting to using illegal substances in the bathrooms, I believe that these problems should definitely be addressed. And this is definitely a concern for not only the school's safety but also the their own well-being and whether they realize that this is actually more harmful than they think. I think it's should be standardized that we should practice self-care. We should encourage them to basically how do you say it? um basically acknowledge that their own feelings, their weaknesses are just a part of them, that it's okay to for them to be like this. As for the concern I have about more hand-to-hand teaching, this is

009regarding of some a little bit about my own personal experiences. I used to have a seventh I used to be in seventh grade. I had an eighth grade level class math. All they did was put a math program in front of our computer and that's all they the teacher would do. Teacher would not help us do any lessons. Teacher would not, you know, help us out. A lot of students struggle in that classroom, but they were too afraid to speak out. I don't think it's good that a lot of schools tend to rely on online sources like Khan Academy or Alex. I think we should have a more tailored exper learning experience for every student to have and enjoy. And um as far as everything goes, I'm very happy to be here. Thank you guys

010for having me. And yeah, thank you. >> Thank you. >> Next is Americ Castillo. >> Uh good afternoon everyone. Um some of you may recognize me, but I'll just reintroduce myself. Uh my name is Amedico Castillo. Uh I have he him pronouns and I am a junior at So High School. Um I am a member of my principal's advisory committee within my school and then also an advisor uh in the superintendent advisory committee within the Santa Cruz County District. And then to end off um in my opinion the most important educational um the most important part of the educational system or the school system is equity uh accessibility and advoc >> advocacy among all students. Thank you. >> Apologies I did not reset the clock. Thank you. Next is Desi Selenus Holtz. >> Good evening

011everyone. My name is Desi Selenus Holtz. My pronouns are he, him, and I'm a senior at Watson High School and um the student trustee for the Pajaro Valley Unified School District. Um, as with all of them, I'm with the superintendent student advocacy group uh council and um I share a lot of like the same concerns with them and beliefs about school and stuff. And um one of my themes at PBSD that I'm trying to do is make sure to have a lot of to make sure that each school has like the same opportunities. And um I I've said it like equitable opportunities for different students. So, um there's not things like at one school they have that another one doesn't. But that's along with a lot of other stuff that I'm trying to work on

012and I'm happy to be part of this group and see what happens uh more at the county level and what I can bring back to my school district. Thank you. >> Yeah. >> Next is Amy Vasquez Ortiz. >> Good evening everyone. My name is Amy Vasquez Ortiz. I'm a 10th grader at Watsmo High and I use she her pronouns. I'm here from the student advocacy council and one huge thing for me is student input especially cuz a lot of times we get told that our voices doesn't matter. That all that effort we're putting in is for nothing and that we're not going to be listened to. And that's very a harsh thing to take in cuz a lot of times there's many kids who want to do something, who want to be heard, but we're

013just not taken seriously. A lot of times students are not being listened to. They're being told that they'll not succeed in life and that's a huge thing and I feel like a lot of times we need to be taken seriously and have student input and big school decisions. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Next is Magdalena Rosco Monarees. >> Good afternoon. My name is Magdalene Rosco and I attend to Bajara Valley Unified, no to Parah Valley High School. I am a ninth grader and a issue I think is great is um students show up to school without really wanting to be there and maybe like not not engaging properly with everyone and commun communication skills. Um yeah, that's Thank you. >> There are no additional requests for public comment at this time. >> Thank you.

014Um, >> excuse me. I um we typically don't mention or respond in when it comes to public comments but I guess the pause is uh is good and also I just am happy definitely happy and encouraged that we are uh you guys will keep us accountable you know I think that's uh it's it's good I think we um uh our constituents are the public is are the students are the parents So definitely want to hear and um I don't know about everybody else, but I just feel like this year is going to be a really good year. Like I just get that I just get that that that that feeling uh this school year. I feel like there's going to be a lot of uh good things that are going to come out of it.

015And a big part of that is is the students. So we we look forward to continue to hear from each and every single one of you and uh about all the projects and accomplishments that uh that that that will come. So, thanks again for taking the time to to be here and to uh to speak to us. Okay. Uh moving along, we have the ceremonial swearing in. Uh I also want to give an opportunity if anybody wants to speak to this uh item specific item, make some comments. If not, we can proceed with the swearing in. >> I'm going to ask Dr. for Stacy Kyle to join me here in front of everybody. Would you mind standing right there before? Yes. >> All right. >> So, Dr. Kyle, at its heart, serving on the board

016it means serving the children of Santa Cruz County. Uh it's a solemn responsibility uh to ensure that every decision advances equity and excellence and opens the doors of opportunity for all the students in our county. Our schools are the heart of our community and the foundation of a more inclusive and just society. And now with that same spirit of service and hope uh guiding us, it's my honor to invite you to take the oath of office. Please raise your right arm, right hand. And please repeat after me. I state your name. I, CeCe Kyle, >> do solemnly swear >> that I will support and defend >> the Constitution of the United States >> and the Constitution of the State of California >> and the Constitution of the State of California >> against all enemies, foreign

017and domestic >> against all enemies, foreign and domestic. that I will bear true faith and allegiance >> that I will bear true faith and allegiance >> to the Constitution of the United States >> and the Constitution of the State of California >> and the Constitution of the State of California. >> That I take this obligation freely >> without any mental reservation >> or purpose of evasion. and that I will well and faithfully discharge >> and that I will well and faithfully discharge >> the two the duties upon which I am about to enter >> the duties upon which I am about to enter. >> Congratulations, Trustee Kyle. >> On behalf of the county office of education and the county board of education, we welcome you on to the county board. Please take a seat on

018the days. Thank you. >> Would you um like to take some um some pictures first? Would it be all right, chair, if we take some pictures? >> Wonderful. Yes, we're going to take some pictures first. Could we have the full board um up for a picture of the board and then we can invite family members to join us? Yes. And students, trustees as well, please. >> Sorry. And then we'll have family members join us. family members would like to join Kyle for a quick your refrigerator. >> Stacy, so happy to have you join us. Um, we're all very excited to have you. uh and the fact that you have made that decision to contribute, give your time to this board and for the students of our uh community. Um I we're very fortunate to to

019have you and I look forward to continuing to work with you um for for many years to come. Uh I'm going to ask if there's anybody on the board that would also like to make some comments. >> Yes, >> welcome Stacy. It's nice to work with you um at this different level. We had the opportunity to work really briefly together at Harbor High and I'm so glad that you're joining us and bringing all of your wonderful expertise and your for education and helping our students. So, welcome. >> Yes, Larsson to what the vice president said and also had a wonderful coffee with you and got to know your background and what a great addition you're going to be to the board on top of all the other service you've given to this community. So, welcome.

020Please. >> Uh, would you like to make some comments? >> Well, I'll be brief. Um, because I don't like doing this. I'd like to start by thanking Superintendent Sabah, my fellow trustees, and the staff I've met so far for such a warm welcome. I'm looking forward to working with you all, and I promise to be a good partner. On a personal note, I have felt so loved and supported through this process. It has been truly overwhelming and I am beyond grateful. During my interview for this position, I cited my village as a key reason I'm able to serve in this role. And you can see many members of that village here tonight as well as on Zoom. I would love to thank each of you individually for being in my corner, but we don't have

021the time and I wore mascara. But I do want to thank my incredibly supportive husband who has always said yes, we can find a way. And to my children who are my greatest cheerleaders. And to my parents who are watching on Zoom, thank you for believing maybe more than I do that I can do anything I put my mind to. My heart has always been called to serve children and youth and it's looked different over the years. I am so proud now to serve as trustee for the communities of Live Oak Capital and SoCal. Thank you for this opportunity and you don't have to stay for the rest of the meeting unless you want to. >> Thank you. >> Again, very happy to have you uh join us and look forward to uh a great

022year ahead. Thank you. Okay, moving along. We have item six, uh, student trustees, and I'm going to start with trustee Martinez. Um, the floor is yours. Um, this month has been very busy for me in both like school and just in advocating. Uh, one of the first things that I've done is like in my group, student advocacy group. Sounds very similar to their advocacy uh, council, but we've been like advocating for a schedule change in our school because we did get a class taken out of our schedule and they asked they didn't ask students for their input. They um well they asked students for their input after they made the decision and I I asked my principal like how did that make an effect on what you guys decided on? And he said well we

023didn't you guys we didn't use the and the ASB teacher said well we didn't use your guys's um opinion to make this decision. We just wanted to make it seem like we did. But I was like that's really not okay. But we So we're meeting with them. for having different discussions on how we could um involve students on the decisions that they make because it does directly impact us and we've been doing really good. Our my group of wonderful students I couldn't do it without them because they have really good ideas. I have really good ideas too but I tend to go like very like I'm going to yell at someone and I don't think I should be doing that. But they have like they keep me calm and they tell me maybe we should

024talk to this person and then that person can help us talk to this other person. It does really work out really good. And right now we are currently working on getting 10 to 15 students and 10 to 15 teachers so we could get a like the committee together and find a possible a possible plan to change the class back to get the class back because it is a problem with students as well that skip 300 students a day skipping just one period. That's a big problem. But those students shouldn't affect the other students that do want to go to that period and do use that period. It's flex so we get to choose any class and um it shouldn't affect how they can use the the time. And also I've been going to like a

025lot of community events. I've been seeing Dr. Ferris's father a lot. They're just very it's always a pleasure seeing him somewhere. And yeah, I've been trying to get more students to use their voice and advocate. I think that's one of my main goals is like show the floor to other people and so they could advocate because I could advocate for something but a lot of people know me already and like oh he's going to say something again and but if other people do it then we have a lot of people doing it. It's a bigger impact. >> Thank you Trusty Emar. Um, I've also had a pretty busy week with school and I've I'm writing this out and I was like, "Wow, I I really did a lot." Um, so I'm just kind of going

026to bullet point it. I at the very beginning I attended the LGBTQIA plus student summit and that was pretty cool. I did a like know your rights thing and I was like, "Wow, so many are being violated." Haha. I'm just not joking. Um anyway, the and then I did a radio show with Vicente and Andreas Ortiz and um that was pretty cool. We talked about like leadership and our experiences as students and with that. And then I also met with Adam Spikler about leadership as um a a public figure that's like also trans. And so that was pretty cool. I had a good conversation with him. Um and then I went to the um uh Y LLA Youthled Leadership Alliance and I met with the Queer Student Union and that was pretty cool. We talked

027a lot about like changes we think we want to make and stuff like that and what are the issues that are going on currently. Um and then uh just last Saturday, I think it was Saturday, uh I went to the um 2025 Baymac Brunch, which is sort of like an organization that works to elect queer and LA uh politicians into like positions of power. just so we know we have like sort of people working to keep things okay for us, you know. Uh, yep. And then I'm working with Stuart Rosentine um to come up with a plan to sort of combat bullying specifically uh for LGBTQIA plus youth because that has been a very big issue. And then coming up, I am meeting with Rob Darrow on uh KSQD uh for the Pride radio show

028this weekend. That's pretty cool. And then I am also going to be further um working like for and with my community by attending the No Kings Protest this Saturday. So, and I'm also a lot more stuff is probably going to add on, but that's what I got. >> Thank you. Very impressive. Um, thank you for sharing and thank you for being out in the community and for standing up for what you guys believe in. Thank you. Uh, moving along, we have uh board organization item number seven. This is a topic that we've discussed uh for a couple of meetings now, but because we do have a new trustee with us, trustee Kyle, did want to add it back to the agenda so that um um we can assign some some some committees. So in uh

029discussion in dialogue with the trustee Kyle has shown interest in joining both the budget committee as well as the community outreach and legislative committee. The good news is that we have space uh these committees we um limit him to three or less trustees uh just for the Brown Act. We want to make sure that we follow the law and then we don't discuss um items in uh forum right with with with four or more people. So given that there is space and given that there is interest then um if there's any questions or comments that you might have um this is the time to to share them but if you don't then I would be happy to add you to to both committees. Okay. Do you accept? >> Perfect. She says she accepts. >> Um

030President Sanchez, can you clarify that was the budget committee? budget committee and the community outreach and legislative committee. >> Thank you. >> Perfect. So then um what we do is I'm sure there'll be an email out and the next time that there is a meeting uh they'll reach out so that it can be coordinated around your schedule as well. Okay. Number eight, we are now at the consent agenda. Questions, comments and if not I'm looking for an approval. Okay. We have an >> move approval. >> Okay. >> Second. >> Okay. We have a first and a second. All those in favor say I. >> I. >> Any opposed? Passes unanimously. Okay. Correspondents. We receive any correspondence. >> None other than the two correspondents received in the packet. >> Okay. >> Or included in the packet.

031>> Okay. Perfect. which we all have access to. Uh moving along, we're going to uh discuss the item that was moved up. Uh the resolution 25-45 recognizing Ruby Bridges Walk to School Day with uh Craig Larson >> and Superintendent Sanchez. Pardon the interruption. We do have one request for public comment on this item prior to the presentation. Okay. >> From Andres Ortiz. >> Okay. Yeah. Go ahead, Andres. Uh thank you members of the board. Uh Superintendent Sabah. Um I just wanted to make a short public comment before this item um to publicly public publicly acknowledge the work of a fabulous teacher um who coincidentally was one of the uh teachers of the year uh recipients uh back in May. Um but I'm of course speaking about Miss Brooker uh Mink Brooker special ed teacher from

032at Baharo Valley High School. Um, and I want to acknowledge her because it really her work in spearheading um, the Ruby Bridges Walk to School event at Baharo Valley High School is what sort of helped inspire other BSUs around the county um to make it a regular event in November on November 14th. Um, so last year we added um, Santa Cruz High and SoCal High um, that also walked to school during Ruby Bridges Day. Um this year both of those uh BSU clubs are uh leading the effort for the second year in a row. Uh and we're hoping to we're working with the BSU atas High to add um them to the list as well for the first time this year. Um and then I'm also pleased to announce that uh Mission Hill and Brans

033of 40 uh middle schools are also going to be participating in the Ruby Bridges Walk this year as well as Live Oak Elementary and Delmare Elementary. So it's uh something that's really growing year by year. Um and I would be uh remiss if I didn't mention Miss Brooker and honor her for uh her her in inspirational efforts. So, thank you. >> Thank you, Larson. >> Yes, this is one of two resolutions that the community outreach and legislation committee is bringing to the board. One of two new resolutions. There's three prior resolutions. This one is just because of the leadership of Miss Brooker starting down in Paro Valley as well as COE staff. And when we saw this was recognized by the state superintendent of public instruction, we brought it forward and staff strongly recommended that

034it be brought forward to the board as a new resolution for your consideration in recognition of what really started organically out of Paro Valley and is spreading across the county now with COE support. And it's just great to have this recognition. So, this is a new resolution and with the chair's indulgence, since trustee Martinez asked to have this move forward, maybe he could be called on next. >> Um, I was at the Pajaro Valley High School walk to school. Um, first of its kind for me. I came from North Mar County, so it's my first time in this county. And it was very impactful to me because I met a lot of new people. I saw Dr. Ferris there. Very pleasures again. Pleasure to see him all the time. And but yeah, I talked to

035Miss Broker and she told me like about the Black Student Union. I was like, "Oh, that's very impactful to have that. There's not a lot of members in it just cuz we're in an area predominantly like Hispanic, but it's very impactful to like tell stories. She tells a story. She brings like um cultural clothes. It was very impactful. And then walking there, people chanting, people walking, I it was really impactful for people like even driving by to see that the schools are doing that and that they're showing pride for everyone in the community. >> Nice. Thank you for sharing. Mhm. >> I would just like to ask Trustee Martinez if you'd like to move approval of this resolution. >> I would like to make a motion >> and I'll second it. >> Perfect. Uh any

036questions or comments from the board? No. I like the again the visibility, the um uh the outreach, right? If if I drive by I was like, why is everyone wearing purple? Like where is everybody going? like it ask gets people asking questions as to what's going on and then you start reading you know shirts and it's like oh walk to school day like what does that mean like it's a really effective way of getting people to start questioning to start thinking and start doing some research as to you know whatever event it is that that that that we are supporting. So super excited to see that in our community and the support that that that that receives. Okay, we have a motion. We have a second. Can we get a roll call vote, please? >>

037Student trustee guan Martinez. >> Hi. >> Student trustee. >> Hi. >> Trustee Kyle. >> Hi. >> Trusty Larson. >> Hi. >> Trustee Roth. >> Yes. >> Trusty Van Allen. Hi. >> Vice President Williams. President Sanchez. >> Yes. Passes unanimously. Thank you. Okay, moving along on the agenda, we have uh reports, discussions, and presentations. And we're going to start with the announcement of a personnel commission board appointed vacancy with our uh own uh superintendent of schools. >> Thank you so much, President Sanchez. Uh so as you know we are a merit district which means that we have a personnel commission which helps to ensure that um our employment practices are fair and merit-based um and this is related to our classified staff. So um in school districts that don't have are not merit-based uh there is

038no personnel commission. So, this personnel commission helps approve uh everything from our um job descriptions uh any uh changes to compensation and um and they help ensure that we have um uh that that our our process is fair, compliant with the law and the personnel commission is represented by three uh different uh members. One member is selected by the classified union. One member is selected by the administration and one member is selected um by uh the board um uh I'm sorry one is I'm sorry I said administration one member is selected by the board one member is selected by the um um uh the the teacher the classified union and one is selected by to represent both that has to be approved by both the the union and by by the board. And so what

039we're doing today is announcing that um we have a vacancy because um uh our commissioner, a longtime educator who uh was a part of I got to know um uh Mr. Lawrence Lane uh over 30 years ago in his work as a as a teacher and a principal in the Bahar Valley Unified School District. And um and uh as as you uh well remember because you passed a resolution in in in support of uh Mr. Lawrence Flynn. He passed away in September and that has left a opening on the on the personnel commission that we um uh are are looking to uh to fill. And so the term that uh that Mr. Lane uh was uh was a part of uh expires in December of 2026. So a year from this December. And um what

040we're hoping to do um is that we've uh initiated that recruitment and one candidate uh Murray Shechman who you may also know who's also a long-term educator in the Pahar Valley Unified School District um has shared that uh he is interested in that position. Now uh for legal requirements the board must hold a public hearing between 30 to 45 days after announcing the intent to appoint. And so our next steps uh is that uh at the uh after the hearing the board would proceed with the appointment to fill this unexpired term. And so this is really anformational item for you to know that we will be um uh making this conducting this public hearing and um and then at a future date we would be able to appoint u Mr. Sheckchman or whoever else who

041may apply in in uh in this time frame to this unexpired term. Do you have any questions for me? This >> one it so does it work just like a similar feeling like a trustee there's an interview process etc or is it a little different? Generally speaking, uh we unfortunately have never had a situation where uh it's there has been more than one interested party and we work hard to recruit folks to this. And so generally speaking uh we uh our human resources department ensures that the nominated person or the interested party uh meets the necessary requirements to be successful. And um of course if if you'd like to uh do you know a deeper dive and and get to know the the uh the the candidates, we're happy to to make that uh a

042part of the process. But in the past uh we've uh successfully really brought excellent candidates who you've approved and and we've been able >> Yeah. Just just curious about the process. That's all. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> So the public hearing will be the next >> correct. We will have a public hearing at the next board meeting. Any other questions or comments? >> I was just um going to add um and Mr. Sheckchman's resume is included in the packet. Um so you have that ability read more about him. >> Perfect. Thank you. And because this is just a presentation, there is no action item that is needed. Moving along, we have a 10.2 two presentation on COE's role in advancing AI education and integration in schools and districts. And for this one, we have

043our uh Dr. Sabah and our CTIO Jason Borgen and Stephanie Sarna. Welcome. if you would if it would be all right for me to uh do a quick introduction. This actually came from a request from Trusty Larson, I mean Trusty Roth, I I mean uh with questions about AI and uh so we thought it was important uh to uh to share with you the kind of work that we're doing to support school districts when it comes to AI. We're fortunate to have um uh these amazing folks uh Stephanie Swarnen and um our uh chief technology and and innovation officer uh Jason Borgan who are going to be sharing some of the work that we're doing to uh lean into AI and also be very thoughtful about how to make these tools uh help students without

044and of course also addressing the the risks that they that they offer to to our students and our school system. And so we wanted to share some information with you and allow you to ask questions about about um the kind of work that we're doing and what AI the opportunities that AI AI offers for for our students and our schools. >> Thank you Paris. Uh good evening trustees, student trustees, staff. Uh pleasure to be here to support uh and give you a transparent appreciation around how we're supporting AI in our at our COE. So uh just so you know AI is a tool and technology as you all aware seen it in the news seen it on chat GPT in Google in front of Google searches now uh it is one of the biggest shifts

045we've seen in education um in the last 25 years I think there's big three big paradigm shifts first thing in like early 2000s in my 25 years in education was email how email shifted the culture of staff and student and family communication the second piece collaborative Google docu ments and Google writing, collaborative writing, integrating and uh creating newsletters. This is the third big shift in education technology we've seen in the last 25 years or so. So, it is a big shift of how we're engaging students, how we're engaging staff and ultimately how uh teachers are becoming more productive and and working smarter not harder. So, thank you for the time. Uh and we're going to really focus on four main themes today. uh giving you a snapshot of what we've been doing around AI education

046at the COE. Uh talking a little bit about big picture AI and education, what AI, how AI is supporting um educational milestones and technologies specifically in our schools as well as uh statewide and globally. And finally, uh how we're supporting schools and districts building guidelines and trying to create regulations and support around AI. uh and finally talking about the future of AI in our schools and ultimately what we're seeing and perceiving to happen in the future uh with AI in our schools. And so let's first start with a snapshot by the way uh trying to build good ethics around here. Some of this slideshow was developed with AI including all these images in here. Uh we used a slide uh slide tool called Gamma. Uh Gamma is a slideshow developing tool. You put a prompt

047in, it'll spit out a slideshow for you. Of course, we did some revision revisions and vetting on that tool as well. Uh and so really their focus is students first, right? How do we support students in driving their futures, their career development and their uh their their future lifelong learning experiences? Uh second piece in this effort is community. How do we support our community and and and in educational mindsets and ultimately understanding the the future of the workforce, the future of jobs here locally and globally around AI specifically in the in this in this aspect. And finally supporting the work we're doing and boasting it statewide and globally. Uh Stephanie and I will talk a little bit about the presentations we've presented at and work we've done with Stanford University and uh a global firm

048called the night of the ideas that is based at the French consulate as well. And so Stephanie will share a little bit a snapshot of our numbers in the last couple years. >> Hello board. Hello Dr. Sabah. Thank you for taking the time to listen uh and learn and hear a little bit about what's happening in terms of AI education in Santa Cruz County. This slide represents some different numbers that gives you a picture of some of the work that we're doing. So, since Chat GPT was launched in November of 2022, we've been working really diligently to help our educators and our students understand what tools like this are, how they work, how they can use them. And we've had the pleasure of training over 600 educators in artificial intelligence. We've supported local schools and

049districts in developing guidelines that um offer opportunities to support ethical and responsible use of AI. And we've partnered with four um different school districts. In our own COE, we've also been supporting our staff in terms of thinking how tools like this might support their work. Uh and we've engaged with order over 58 COE staff employees and uh we've been lucky enough Joe was here earlier she's on my Yeti group this year but we've been lucky enough to work with students as well and working with them to understand where they see the potential for using AI helping them to understand how these tools work. So we've worked with over 30 students and we wanted to give you just a little overview of sort of where AI is falling in the current educational landscape. So there's three

050pieces to consider here. Rapid growth. Um you may have saw in this image uh it took chat GPT 5 days uh in production to hit a million users. Just put it in perspective, it took Netflix 2 and a half years to hit 1 million users. And so it took 5 days for AI to become a a consumable phenomenon. And so that was back in uh the fall, November, just about this time in 2022 uh just three years ago and it's gone quite a far distance from them. And so what kind of opportunities it provides? We're going to talk a little more about the opportunities it provides to improve efficiency to as I mentioned earlier work smarter not harder and really focus on unprecedented innovation right we look at how it's used in the medical field

051we're looking at how it's used in the software development field it is shifting the workforce today as we know it just in the last three years and then some challenges to address um misconceptions the ethics the environmental factors all play a role in all these elements so how do we make sure we balance that and making sure there's knowledge for our students and staff around all these challenges that these new technologies do face. And so just to put a a a number to this uh McKenzie uh research group uh put out a report January 2025 on AI in the workplace. And as you can see from this graphic uh already this was again in January so just about three years after uh uh chat GPT generative AI came out into the consumer world uh 80%

052of age 35 to 44 year olds felt comfortable using it already in the workforce and again if you ask their employers their their their uh supervisors the need for AI literacy is a must in the workforce and so that's a shift of how we're than training our students and our staff to train students to be able to utilize AI ethically, effectively and successfully. And again, you can see uh of course with any new technology, there is kind of some age factors involved in that. But again, you look at that middle range as you see about 90% is that 90% of age 35 through 44, I'm sorry, it's 90%. And then uh as you kind of get uh up and down, that's kind of the impetus of use cases as you're most trained with the new

053technologies with these in in these in these uh in the in this workforce data set. Uh and then we look at some data around teens access. And so this came from Common Sense Media. As you probably all heard of, Common Sense Media is the non national nonprofit, the standard for rating uh TV shows, media, digital media for parents and families. There's also uh scope and sequence curriculum for K12 students and teachers to utilize in their classroom to teach literacy a digital media and digital literacy uh around that. They also do uh plenty of surveys out there across the nation. And this latest survey, the dawn of the AI era, said seven and 10 teens uh said they have used at least one type of generated AI. And this this came out when Stephanie, do you

054recall? >> In 2024. >> 2024. So this is about a year old as well. And again, uh, some of the data from this said six and 10 teams reported that their school has no rules for a general AI can be used. So that's a big shift. So again, as these new tools come out, they're coming out faster than the regulations are happening. And just last week, you probably heard Governor Nome signed a bill around um um limiting uh the amount of time chat bots can say they're actually not AI. They have to every three hours for for youth, they have to say they're you're talking to AI. And that is new legislation that Governor Nome just signed last year. Um, this graphic right here, which might be hard to see, hopefully it's in your packet.

055Uh, this came out from UNESCO, which is the United Nations uh um, uh, organization. They basically put out ways AI can be used in education. Some of the items here is a possibility engine, a Socratic opponent, a collaboration coach, guide on the side, a personal tutor, immediate feedback. Uh these tools like chat GBT have a thing called guided learning as does Gemini. It's a way to give you qu to help you question to get the answer rather than just giving you the answer. So these tools are kind of backing up and not just giving information but helping you think like a thinker. >> We wanted to share with you just a quick snippet. Uh we were lucky last year to engage a group of educators from across Santa Cruz County who opted in to exploring

056what this might look like in their classroom. Uh they were called the AI Explorers. We have a second cohort running this year. This is one of our explorers. Her name is Miss Wind. She works in San Lorenzo Valley as a middle school English language arts teacher. and she decided to explore how she could use AI to support her uh supporting her students in preparing for CASP. So, we're going to make sure that our audio is working. Um, and CASP is the annual standardized test that students are asked to complete. We'll see if this >> Okay, we're going to check it. >> The success in the classroom to our cast scores at our site where my students were doing incredible things all year long and then we get our cast scores back and it was like

057wamp wamp. And so like how can we translate that? And I was like okay. Um one way is maybe just to like change the style of questions, right? like use the CASP vocabulary, use the CASP um question uh formats. But then that felt really daunting and overwhelming to like first I had to figure out how to use CASP.org or whatever, which is like not a friendly website to click around on. Then I had to become familiar with the kinds of test questions that are asked. Then I had to be um with whatever brain power was left do the actual rewriting of my curriculum. And I was like, that doesn't sound like something I can do as a human being. Um, and so enter AI and it was amazing. My favorite was also Brisk. Um, because

058it will write CAS CASP style questions with the language um, and it'll do hot text. It'll do choose to. It'll do um the matching. And then I would take that and put it on my LMS and attach the rubric or attach the standards that each question was um assessing. And I was able to really track student growth by standard that way. So what we're trying to do is create these uh teacher leaders around AI. As Stephanie mentioned, we had a grant from Stanford last year, uh a small grant from Stanford to actually create AI leadership in writing specifically. So we brought in six teachers across our county to build teacher leadership around AI so they can be the ambassadors at their school site. And thanks to uh support from our COE and a uh 21

059CSLA grant which is part of the the region and and support from uh uh associate superintendent Russell, we're launching a uh AI explorers this year with 19 teachers uh to support that. Uh and we had our first meeting last week uh with a we're partnering with a nonprofit called Write the World. Right. The world has an integrated AI feature for students to learn about writing. And for those so CASP is a uh the state testing support. You probably just saw the results come out as of last week and uh Santa Cruz County made some large improvements as well. >> I we would like to share this graphic. It's from a person named Matt Miller who works in educational technology and he represents um here what what he calls the spectrum. So, I think one of

060the elephants in the room that comes up when we talk about AI in relation to students, I see people nodding your head before I've even shared what it is, is a lot of people are concerned about the issue of cheating and how is this going to align or misalign with academic honesty. And so Matt Miller presents this idea of maybe it's not binary. Maybe there's a spectrum in which students are supported in understanding where it is or is not appropriate to use AI. So we're really trying to work with students and teachers to help them understand what what benchmarks they might develop along that spectrum. Just like Jason shared, when these technologies were available to consumers, it was widely adopted, but the guard rails hadn't been put in place yet. So, we're trying to support

061our county and thinking through what those guard rails might look like. >> And with that comes a shift in teaching as well. And so, part of our role is to help teachers think differently about the role of how do we evaluate students now that AI is in there, right? So, cheating's not new. Cheating's been around since the dawn of time. Students find a way, some students are not find a way to cheat through their system. And uh how do we mitigate that? How do we focus on shifting classroom practice and supporting still evaluating students in a successful manner? And so one of the uh uh one of uh a professor from the innovation for in teaching and learning uh has developed kind of three modes. Uh design and develop refine authentic assessments. So refine the

062assessments. Don't just have them take paper assessments or write an essay where they put everything in a Google doc. Have them actually do a performance task. Do it live in front of these in front of their their peers where their peers are evaluating them. You know, student voice in the evaluation process is very important as well. Uh look at student works in multiple ways. It's not just a a summit of assessment, one assessment at the end. How do we continue to evaluate students on what they do and show growth over time every day, not just at the end of a unit. And so that will truly tell a teacher if the student is learning or not. And finally, it's not about that for formative assessment. Lower the stakes. Don't base a grade off one test,

063two test, three tests. Ongoing assessments throughout the day is key. And so this is how we can truly evaluate students. And these are the conversations we're having with administrators as well as uh teachers on this method because this is AI is not going away. That's one thing we know. So how do we mitigate the use of how we truly evaluate students in authentic manner? And so with that though, there are plenty of benefits and there's also challenges. Uh there is a national organization called Teach AI that's put together some guidelines to guide schools and districts on developing their guidelines. Uh and so you can see some some potential benefits they they highlight including uh creating content uh by snap your fingers. Teachers can create worksheets uh instructional text level instructional text. If the instructional text

064is at a eighth grade level for an uh English teacher in eighth grade, but the student reads at a fourth grade level, you can easily take AI and convert that to fourth grade reading level. Making sure it's the same content they're reading very very quickly with AI. We can do that now. Uh assessment uh building assessments as you heard from Megan. Uh but there is also some downsides, right? All these AI models just scour in and the internet for information and then they generate new content. Well, not not everything on the internet's true. So it might generate content with false information, what we call hallucinations. So sometimes you can get misinformation. How do we still teach students and staff how to be AI literate? How to make sure they balance that with other and they

065site other resources that can they they validate their their information they're gathering. Uh again, making sure there's that balance. You saw that Matt Miller spectrum. It's not about using AI or not using AI. It's how we're going to use AI to catalyze the thinking but not supplant the thinking. And so again, the idea of the balance and the accountability piece and making sure there's still accountability and creativity involved in the process. And so with that, again, we still need guardrails. We still need to create guidelines and best practices. Uh we a couple years ago, about a year ago, so now created our own Santa Cruz County Office of Education artificial intelligence guidelines to guide our staff. This is just kind of a guide book to guide what are the tools they should use, what they

066should look out for, and what are some things they should be careful on and how how are some ways they can use it to make their lives more efficient. Uh again, the focus on comprehensive ethical use and uh and regional impact. And so with that, we kind of develop all of our programs in our edtech department. So Stephanie and I are kind of are the edtech department here. uh education technology department to support this effort. We do all of our work aligned to these three pillars. First, student and community focus on students and how do we support student growth in education technology and artificial intelligence and how do we build awareness and transparency and growth in our community? Second, district and system support. How do we support our districts and ultimately our teachers and our

067staff and the students of those districts? And third, how do we build leadership and and internal capacity within our county office of education student body as well as our staff here at the county office to grow them? And so everything we do across all those three ecosystems aligning to our strategic plan and the bridges model we have aligned to our strategic plan. It's one thing to talk about how we're supporting students, our community, our staff, and our teachers, but I think it's another thing to hone in on some particular examples. So, it can be helpful just for us to share some of the work that we're doing to support those different community partners. Um, in terms of district and system support, we mentioned already that cohort of teachers, um, the AI explorers that happened last

068year and is continuing this year. Those are teachers that opt in and want to be early adopters. We also have districts and schools that are connecting with us that want us to push into staff meetings or to support for more o ongoing professional learning. Um we also have partnerships with districts like Paharo Valley, Scots Valley, um and Santa Cruz City Schools in supporting their teachers in learning again what these tools are and how they can support education. In addition, um, we opened a community of practice called the AI think tank for teachers that maybe weren't ready to design lessons that included AI, but they wanted to connect with other teachers who are AI curious just to ask questions and have an opportunity, a time and space to talk with each other. Um we've also hosted

069since AI has been um available we've hosted two back to school reboots which is an annual virtual event that we offer free for all educators who are interested. It happens just before the school year starts where it's teachers talking to teachers about ideas that have worked in their classroom and getting those ideas crowdsourced and shared right before the school year starts so that they have an opportunity to get some ideas before the fall. In addition, we've hosted trainings for our own COE staff um which is always fun and we've hosted some opportunities for students, families, and the community. We've collected resources on our website that have resources around AI and AI literacy. We host a computer science education week community nights in partnership with Paharo Valley that help expose um students, parents, and families to

070computer science and AI. And in addition, um, thanks to Andreas, we have a a cohort in the Youthled Leadership Alliance called Yeti, which stands for Youth Empowerment Through Technology and Innovation. This is our second year of exploring AI with students. This year, the students are really interested in drafting their own recommendations for what guidelines and um, safety should be put in place in our county for AI. >> And that image, Stephanie, you want to talk about >> Oh, yes. This image comes from last year's group of Yeti. Um, we were just exploring different tools and the students asked if they could work on making logos for their own business. So, one of our students, Avery, was really interested in baking and generated this um idea for a logo for their baking company using AI. So,

071a as we mentioned, our focus also is to support and boast the stuff we're doing here locally to bring it to a statewide national attention. And uh Stephanie and I had a pleasure of being invited to the Stanford AI Summit at Stanford University that brought uh together researchers uh uh practitioners and uh uh academia together and Stephanie sat on a panel around AI and education specifically. Um, the French consulate puts on an event all across the country and the world called the night of the ideas and we were asked to uh sit on a panel at 11 pm at night in San Francisco on AI and education and uh that was an experience as well. Wonderful experience uh sharing what we're doing here. Uh so again we're trying to share the work we're doing. It's

072been uh noted and and and and supported and shared out across across our local community as well as the global community as well. And um I mentioned the AI pilots. mentioned the grant we received from Stanford recently as well. We've been working with a lot of so the the education technology market is a is a multi-billion dollar market where you know these vendors try to sell uh software and they develop software and the use of AI in this there's a lot of specific programs and tools that are startup companies specifically marketing to education and developing AI tools specifically for education as well and we've talked to a lot of those vendors uh engage with them and actually uh had a couple teachers pilot some of their uh some of their tools to ensure uh efficacy

073uh effectiveness as well as uh use cases for them or their students uh as well. And so let's quickly bring you to the future of education. Uh again, we're going to continue the work we're doing uh partnering with districts. Uh this year we have a partnership with San Lorenzo Valley Unified School District, helping build uh run a uh AI task force that includes students, parents, teachers, uh board members, as well as us facilitating. It's five uh five five meetings and we are uh uh the develop we're developing that that that task force and facilitating it as well as uh the end goals to create guidelines for San Lorenzo Valley School District as well. Uh as we mentioned we already did that last year at Paharo and Scots Valley Unified School District. Uh really focus on

074building our Yeti program and getting these tools to students and making sure teachers are aware because it continues to evolve. Right? What happened last year? We're going to have brand new tools and integrations and support this year and making sure number one, student data and information is safe, secure, and people are using these tools ethically. >> We just wanted to invite you all to stay tuned because as Jason mentioned, things are continuing to evolve and we will be there supporting um our community as they do. uh we our second AI Explorers cohort has a showcase scheduled for May 7th. So we'll keep you uh in in tune with that and extend the invitation for you to come see and hear from the teachers directly um sort of the ideas that they have for how AI

075can impact education. And uh again we just want to support you uh just extend an appreciation. Thank you so much for taking the opportunity to learn and to hear a little bit about the work around AI in our county. And um that is a self-portrait that was created by one of last year's teachers using AI. >> You want to explain what how they created it? >> I don't remember I feel like I'm not prompting it. >> Oh yes. Yes. So we worked on one of the key skills with AI of course just like one of the key skills with searching online is knowing key search terms. So we worked on the craft of prompting. So we had to work with teachers um to support them in understanding how to craft a prompt to generate an

076image that approximates your likeness which is more challenging than it seems like it should be. And it's a great little activity you can do with students because it helps students write details because you have to be very very detail oriented when you write your prompt. Making sure your self-portrait looks like you and the iteration process and making sure you iterate and continue to add details to your writing and you actually have this nice little product at the end. So, thank you for your time today and happy cyber security awareness month. >> Thank you. I appreciate the uh report. Uh I want to start with our uh student trustees. Do you guys have any questions or comments to the presenters? >> Um, yes. I do have comments about AI. I would say that I personally hold

077a very different view than my peers on AI. I um understand how it can be beneficial, but I think that there's a lot more harm than good that's happening right now. I don't know if you've heard of this, but there's something called unlearning that happens with the eye. So, basically AI um or unlearning basically threatens critical thinking by encouraging cognitive offloading where individuals rely on AI to do thinking for them which can weaken uh reasoning and problem solving skills. Over reliance can lead to uh superficial engagement, passive learning and a decline in the cognitive effort required to do required to analyze information. Um, also there's very large like environmental impacts such as um for the people that live near there like there's these big AI centers where basically there's increased utility bills uh depletion of

078local water supplies, noise and air pollution and potential for disruption of quality of life and property values. And then environmentally um through it uses high energy consumption which leads to greenhouse gas emissions and significant water usage for cooling. So I think that um with the sort of ethics behind just how it's being used and produced I think that particularly for students there is sure you could be saying oh this is how we want you to use AI but AI doesn't exactly get that. It doesn't say oh this is this is your intent I'm going to do it that way. Like I know for me like when I was looking for like note-taking apps, a lot of them were AI and it was really just like giving you the answers and it's advertising it as oh

079it's a helpful tool but no it's doing your work for you. It's making it so you're not really learning. I think that AI can be useful in detecting AI like for teachers to be able to see, oh, this AI was used. And I think it is very important to sort of come up with a policy for what we do when we find out that AI is used. Because I've talked to my professors, I was like, oh, what do you do when you find out AI is used? and they're like, "Oh, we can't really say or I think there's a really important to like target that cuz there is a lot less learning going on because of AI." And I think that there there might be the distinction between, oh, this is how it could be

080greatly used. But I think that is also kind of leading to a you know the unlearning of oh I'm just not I'm going to basically forget this critical skill because it's easier to just let AI do it you know and so that's my personal opinion on that. >> Yeah. Oh thanks for sharing. I don't think that is talked about enough but important to keep in in mind for sure. I felt like it was very interesting like all the pictures I saw very like high quality in my opinion. I couldn't rate that very bad with art. But um for me AI is very useful like I use it because I I for me like learning is very like I need to be talking with my teacher. Not all the teachers have that possibility because they have

081a bunch of other students. So, I use it for like notes. I use it for like bullet points. And off of that, I have seen like when I started like using AI for certain things, I started getting my like my test scores up. Obviously, you can't use AI during your test because the teachers, they're monitoring you. But I I saw a jump in my test score grades because I was learning like with like a way that I like to learn. It's also very helpful for like art classes, graphic designing stuff. I really like it. I like the presentation. >> Thank you. Thank you. Questions or comments from any of our trustees? Thank you. >> I'm sorry. Uh how fast it is developing. You cannot go on to Google now without getting AI first. And uh

082I mean and that is what within months really. Uh I last time I used it was a few days ago. I I read a book called brother's cave uh which is crafted around the brother's carv the Russian novel but 70s and I used it for a character description because it was just like the Russian novel where and instead of having to handw write all this I was able to get it but also add to it. So, I mean, I can I see where we've got to go, but I I do Ash, I really appreciate what you're saying. Um I I feel we we're on this edge and how we're going to determine uh whether uh a student or somebody old like me is verifying what they're seeing from AI. I think it's hard enough uh

083to get the information from AI, but then how do you go and check it uh and verify that that's probably where the gist of this is going to be. So I think that our students and me all everybody uh has to again learn how to seek out information And I don't know in this computer world because it's all I mean Google how many years ago actually copied all the books in the world. So that is all in there and as I understand AI uh you know they use what is put in. So they have the original text of a lot of stuff, but how is it going to be used and and how can we seek that original text through a computer to verify what we're seeing in AI? I might be getting a little

084bit too complex here, but I really appreciate appreciate. >> Great. Thank you. I think it's a real going to be a real challenge, but it can also be extremely good. >> Yeah. Anybody else? Williams? >> Yes. >> Wow. It's it's it's a lot. And I do use AI. I help develop a logo for my husband's business. So, it's it's amazing. I love it. Um, and um, I'm glad I heard Asher say a few things that I had on my list and one of them was like the environmental impact. Um, it's such an incredible and it was a discussion I had with my daughter, but of how much power and to cooling that it takes to run these networks that compile all of this information. And I know it's not going away. So the question is

085is you know um and this is probably way above like what we're doing here but thinking ahead of you know how do we mitigate all of that those environmental impacts um and I don't expect for us to have a discussion but it's just something that was on the top of my mind. Um my question specifically is is you mentioned a couple times successful use what does that look like for teachers and students? Um it was mentioned a couple times like you know training them for successful use of AI. What you know what does that look like for a teacher or for an educator? >> You know I think you heard from Megan uh share a little bit of anecdote how she used it to save her time to develop test questions. So that's how does

086it save you time to do the administrative burden task that teachers do after hours or during the school day so you can spend more time with students. That's a big piece as far as productivity. How can it be you know they don't have a assistant or a secretary it basically becomes a teacher secretary or assistant right in this aspect. So that's what we see has been very successful use drafting short communication to parents and families when a student misbehaves to quickly draft it because sometimes that can be a headache for a parent. This will quickly draft it and catalyze their thoughts and then they can just vet it change a couple different words and then get it into an email. So that's a quick shift of how they can change and not spend 45 minutes

087writing a one paragraph email because they're concerned about what it can say and how to how the tone is going to come across. And so when you prompt open uh chat GPT or other tools write a friendly email to a parent because blank blank and blank it will draft out and give them an idea quick idea that they can then build upon. It's a scaffold. It's not again I mentioned this earlier. It's not a supplant. It's to supplement or catalyze their thinking and thought process. So that's what successful looks like. How does it catalyze the students thought process or creating a open paragraph or getting feedback on their writing? That's success. We saw a fourth grade student um use magic school, one of our a explorers last year, which is a uh specific safeguarded uh

088ed education technology AI tool. They copied their writing into that, said, "Can you give me feedback on my writing so I can get help writing two more sentences or can get more details?" It gave them some ideas to think about. They took that, thought about it, and then wrote their own ideas. So again, it's a catalyst in that aspect. So that's what we say success looks like. >> And so thank you for bringing up that the age group of the fourth grader. Um so will there be training and teaching at different grade levels because I imagine you know this again is not going anywhere. It's just going to get bigger and faster. It's it's just not going anywhere. But teaching like at our elementary students on this is how you use it. These are the

089sort of the pitfall. You know what I mean? Is there going to be some kind of leveled education for our students on how they're going to how they should be using it? >> Yeah. What you're articulating is what we as teachers like to describe as differentiation, right? And understanding who the user is and then trying to modify the tool or the strategy based on the user. Um, and yes, and you're asking all the right questions that the teachers that are opting into the professional learning are asking and and uh talking amongst their colleagues to try to understand what does success look like, right? Um, and we're already seeing that teachers are selfident identifying like thinking back to that spectrum of my students are this particular age, these few bullets feel appropriate and these maybe not

090so much. and then as they get older adding on some specific tasks. So Jason's example of a fourth grade student using it to support their writing I think is helpful. Younger learners are may could maybe dabble by starting with something like image generation to help them understand the idea of prompting. But yes, teachers are thinking through like what would the different activities look like for different age students. Yeah, >> Larson, >> three comments. Uh, first, I'm just ecstatic that you're diving into it and you're doing it broadsp spectrum looking at statewide and national resources to directly involving students, teachers, districts, and schools and the work and thinking it through from that that broad spectrum. So, just ecstatic for the report and how you're approaching it. Second, on the personal front, I've since June have been

091trying to do my own broadspectctrum experimentation with AI using several different engines for medical research, for writing a children's play, for writing an op-ed, for ancestry and graphic design. Um and I must say twice the whole notion of um AI hallucinations just has come back so strongly that you cannot rely on it or trust it once in terms of describing its own capability to me after about six hours of it failing to deliver what it said it was going to deliver. It finally said, "Well, I told you what I wished I could do. I really can't do it, you know, and I had been relying on a product to come forward and it couldn't do it, but it was trying to make >> to other just um actual inaccuracies from what it's told me previously,

092>> you know. So the real concerns and third third comment is is just going back to what Ashente said, my kids are abhored. you know they are have as much antipathy towards AI as they do to many things in the world. Um so much so that if I mention an idea or a subject came from AI to one of my children they don't want to hear about it. The the other funnier story is when my son was telling me about the environmental and futurist concerns of AI's growth and how he now believes that's of greater peril to his generation than climate change. So I crafted an op-ed for him and I to submit which he was all on board for after reading it until he learned it was co-drafted by AI. Well, that ended our

093joint oped. >> Um, I just wanted to begin by thanking Trusty Roth for requesting this presentation. It's for me a great introduction to what you're doing and I'm so um thankful for the work you're doing out in the schools. I think it is important. It's, as Trusty Williams said, it's not going away. And the perspective of schools to just sort of push it to the corner and say it's not allowed is not realistic. We have to teach our kids how to use it responsibly because it's waiting for them in the work world. And Stephanie was the first one to introduce me to AI as we were working on newsletters for the Live Oak Education Foundation. Um, and now I have experimented more and have clients that actually will say run it through AI. they're more

094proactive than other people. But certainly, um, as a grant writer who works outside my field of expertise, um, if I'm working for a health care institution and I do not know what this piece of equipment does, running it through to, you know, what are the benefits, what are the pitfalls, what are the patient outcomes, super beneficial. And then because I don't know if it's accurate or not, I have to ask the experts, okay, please review this before we submit anything. Um, so it it and and you know, great tool, very handy and useful for students as well, I'm sure. However, I share trustee Amore's concerns and I'm wondering if um the environmental implications in particular are expressed u to the teachers as well as the students as they're using it because this generation I feel

095is so motivated to solve the world's problems. Um, and I hope they do a great job with it. But I could see them tackling the mitigation of the environmental impact of this in some, you know, real real substantive way. So I guess that's my question is um, is that part of the outward education on this? >> We get a lot of questions from teachers because it's on the teachers minds too. Yes, we definitely uh mention the the amount of power the Nvidia graphics cards and graph processing units do take in these big data centers and that's a big shift and we're trying to you know how do we regulate the use when do we do a and again this is part of the ethical use when do teachers or students use uh generative AI for

096a search or query or when do they just use a traditional search engine and moderating that and that's kind of the conversations we do have in in our meetings and again this is all about literacy Right? It's all about big picture umbrella digital literacy. When you use this digital tool, when you use this digital tool, when you use that digital tool, or when you use no digital tool, um, and this is all under that umbrella of digital literacy that we've taken a big leadership role on as well, because it is a bigger picture. It's not just AI. It's not just Google. It's it's a bigger bigger picture. How do we become efficient and proactive and ethical with all of these digital tools? Um, and then I love that idea. I think we need a subcommittee

097of of Yeti and and YA as well to that forms together, right? And so the environmental group together with the Yeti group forms a little subcommittee around this >> anymore. Um I would say like what uh Trusty Roth was saying about the input. Um I have watched sort of videos on how the input and the way it is coded is actually racist and the sort of input that it is getting and it has put out stuff like that. So I think that's one thing to keep in mind. Um, as well as just in my personal experience with the people that I have known that I'm in contact with, my peers, uh, a lot of them it's like, oh, our teachers like, oh yeah, let's use it for inspiration, but it's really like that's really what's

098encouraged, but it's never being used that way. I It's not It's like, oh, this is the goal. This is the idea, but it's really not. It's like, okay, I'm just going to take this. It's whatever, you know? or even when I've put in my own like writings of like, oh, could I how could I like maybe this isn't exactly the tone I want. Maybe how would I do it in a different way. It just completely takes my work and be makes it something that's like not even my own. It doesn't even sound like me or anything like that, you know? It takes away from that. Um, yeah. Also, I think it would be important to see just how much of an impact us adopting it as an county would bring. Like one conversation with II

099is like a water bottle's worth of water that is used. And so even like one person that's an impact, but with us like adopting it communitywide, like countywide, that would be so much more of an impact on the environment. Um, with AI, I would say that when we were talking about, oh, Google searches, um, I currently use the search platform Aosia, I think that's how it's said. It's like E C E S S C O Y, something like that. Anyway, it like uses your searches to plant trees and it doesn't automatically give that AI. So, I think a lot of times that initial AI has people not doing any further research. like even though it says, "Oh, I can't necessarily be trusted like down in the corner," it's not actually people aren't actually then going

100forward. um there's an option to like you know how there's like the images and just you can roll scroll to the side for any search you have. There is an AI option but it doesn't automatically give that to you. So it gives you the opportunity to then go for more like doing your own research sort of thing. So I think that would probably be a more sustainable idea for a search engine just because we do have like an already set like Google or something. So yeah, >> thanks for sharing Martinez. >> Well, for for me, one of like the concerns I may have was like I've heard cases of a student using AI for the whole work and the teacher using AI to grade the work. like so I'm like how is that beneficial to

101anyone? I mean that's the only thing that I would say obviously like justice said um a lot of students do not use it the correctly way. So probably like teaching them how to use it at a very young age. Also getting like more student input. For me, this is my opinion, like getting more student input onto how people can use it, how to train other students to use it because it's not going anywhere. Like said, it's not going anywhere. Students are to find new ways to use it. If the district or the county blocks a website like let's say there's new ones coming out in this area there you could use something that get help. So getting like oh you could use it in this way and learn like since or it could be like

102in mind use it this way is better than just saying you can't use it. >> Um I think teaching kids to use it when young is particularly harmful because they are at such a developmental stage in their life. Like Stanford even had this thing that they're like, "Oh, kids shouldn't really be introduced to screens until the age of five because their brain doesn't need that such like stimulation because we're not really meant for that, you know, and it kind of takes away from our cognitive ability." Like I don't know if you've heard about the like especially younger generations that um basically kind of grew up a bit during COVID like that's all they know. they are very um behind in ways, you know, like educationally and just with social skills and stuff like that, especially

103because like these kids, they're growing up with basically always knowing um internet and stuff like that and not really having a break from that or really sort of differentiation. Like I've heard multiple sort of like fear mongering stories, you know, about this guy who's like, "Oh, how do I treat this?" and it told him to treat it using this very toxic thing and he almost died. He got like septic >> and like had to go to the hospital >> cuz I I just I think definitely with youth it's very detrimental. Um especially cuz they're so impressionable and it is really teaching them to not necessarily use their brain. So I just think with youth especially it's not great. >> Yeah, it's a very hot topic that applies to all of us. I think all of

104us one way or another are impacted by that um by generative AI and how much it's grown just these past couple of years. Um we have to move on but before we do I want to make sure that Van Allen has an opportunity to share as well. >> Thank you for your presentation and I also really appreciated all the board members um comments. Um, I have a couple specific things, but I do want to second Ash's um, general thrust that there's a big problem here with the energy consumption, the environmental impacts, and what we're mostly focusing here, which is really social impacts, and it's a big unknown, but it's there. And I guess where I come down with it is that it's not going away. So, we have to problem solve how we deal with

105it. And so, in this in that sense, we have it. Um, I've done a fair amount of work in I I develop software and I've used um a couple different um so-called AI tools that are designed around software. And what I one of the things I found is that um and this is a potential as a a a way to learn or a learning opportunity is that crafting the prompts is really crucial to what results you get. And so the whole and that's probably going to stay with AI for a while even though AI will probably you'll probably be able to eventually or maybe even right away say AI could you tell me what would be the best prompt to find out such and such and it'll give you something and then it'll so um

106but um one of the things I found is that um with programming in particular if you're really deep in it you have to be pretty clear and pretty precise about what's supposed to happen or what's not supposed to happen. And that helped me learn my languages better because I had to learn how to describe what I was trying to solve. And if it's a complicated program, sometimes that takes a few paragraphs to say this section is meant to do such and such, you know, um, but I need tests to be sure that some other input isn't going to screw it up or something like that. And AI has been very useful, but it's also really misled me a couple times and where I had to just abandon something that I had hours of work with

107the AI and start from scratch and do it myself. Um so to definitely it's not all there yet. Um my concerns in addition to the the kind of the bigger environmental and social impacts uh first of all are privacy. Um this is an area that it's so easy to slide into using AI for all kinds of things. And if you start revealing your own personal information, that is now out there in the world and could even be showing up in someone else's AI eventually because the AI keeps tapping the internet and everything AI creates is going on the internet. So, it's feeding on itself. Um, so to me, the privacy aspects of at every age level got to be primary to protect students and their families um and even protect the classroom experience. Um secondly,

108it seems to me that a kind of an educational thrust would be the idea for to put in students minds of what is authorship? What does it mean if you have a paper that you submit or that you write for the paper the newspaper or something like that and you claim to be the author of it? What exactly is that? Because just like an artist could use some tool, some digital tool and create amazing, good, true, emotionally evocative art and they say, "Yeah, I did it and I used Photoshop, you know, or whatever." Um, uh, that's legitimate, but that is the author acknowledging how they came to be, I mean, the the artists, how they came to be the author of that work. And so authorship is maybe a concept that needs to be promoted

109more um, in this. Um, and then the other thing with facts is I think we're all learning that if AI gives you some facts, you can't ask the same AI to verify them or what their sources are because they'll make them up. Um, and so, um, factchecking, um, and what I tell students, and I've done this a couple times, like in the student trustee academy, is say you've got to look for the facts that are somewhere not in the computer. That is there's got to be if you if there's a claim about some um situation, somebody somewhere has paperwork about it on file or there is a library that's got the actual book that has that covers that subject as opposed to a madeup excerpt or something. So being able to jump out of AI

110to get facts is to me a really important skill to to include there. You can't just ask the computer again for verification. Everybody else has covered everything else I wanted to say, but anyway, thank you very much. >> Thank you, Trusty. >> Um, again, we could talk about this all day and still not be done, right? I feel like there's a lot to to discuss. Um, I think there's a couple things that I also want to talk about as well. Uh, going back to that uh the last comic that uh that Allan mentioned is the fact that I remember when Wikipedia came out, when Wikipedia came out, everybody was on board and said that you cannot source from it's not it's not a legitimate source. Like you cannot reference Wikipedia, you know. It's good. It's

111a good tool to use, but you cannot like be be cautious, be wary of it. I feel like we we don't get that with generative AI. Like I don't feel like there's that consensus of like, oh, be cautious of what's there. >> Um, take it with a grain of salt. A lot of people take it as as as facts. And I think that's very dangerous. It's very um fascinating to me that the same tool can lead to learning or it can lead to unlearning, right? like it's it's it's the same tool, but there's a big difference between give me the answer versus explain the answer to me. And I just feel like it gives us it what we want and it just uh uh helps us grow in in in that sense, you know, whether

112again it's to grow to learn or to um to not, you know, to to to unlearn. So that that to me it's kind of hard to comprehend. Um I think a a lot of people are using it and I do have a lot of trust going going back to that. Um, a lot of people are making really big life choices based off of what generate tells them, you know, this is my situation. Like what do I do? Should I break up with them, you know, or should I like should I move to a different town? You know, it's like there's these really big life choices that people are making and they're basing it off of, you know, what the generative AI AI tells them and there's no disclaimer, right? I I feel like again it's

113a lot of people take it for for for for facts and you know we have psychologists we have these people who spend years learning how to read people learning how to listen uh and and help and and you don't get that through technology. Um you can't see someone's emotion right like you can't you you just can't you just can't replace that you know but a lot of people are replacing it with um with generative eye. So again, there's a lot there. Um, a lot of different topics, a lot of different questions, uh, uh, that I think we're all going to continue to have and continue to learn to to use. And then last one, cuz I just came up with another one. Um, it just changes so rapidly and it changes so quickly. Like just

114this past week, I don't know what happened. There must have been an update, but now I'm getting a lot of these videos through Sora that are extremely realistic. And I've I feel like it's gone to the point where it's like I can't tell the difference anymore. Like before you can say, "Oh, well that's fake or that isn't fake." But now it's like now I don't know. And I consider myself techsavvy. Like I consider myself as someone that like, "Okay, you can't fool me." But like I was fooled and that's dangerous because now I can't trust anything. Like before if you had a video, if you had a picture of somebody like that that was evidence like you can't you can't negate that. But now it's like no, I can't. But there's people out there who

115again who just blindly trust. They're like, "Oh, this, oh, this is a picture video that I saw. It must be true." But it can be easily manipulated. So again, um, very fascinating. It's a topic that I'm sure we're going to continue to talk about for many years to come. It's going to continue to impact us as we learn how to deal with it and and use it in in in our daily lives. And um thank I thank you guys, you know, for being here and for helping us navigate uh us in this crazy time of confusion and a lot of uncertainty. I think we're going to have to rely a lot more on on you and your guys' expertise. Thank you. Thank you for you do for us and for our students as well. >>

116Thank you. It's honor. We'll be back in two years with brand new updates on AI. >> No, no, no. Six months. Yeah, exactly. In >> two years you may not have to do it. >> My AI will come, right? Okay. Uh, moving along 10.3. We have a presentation now on the support uh, efforts to ensure continuing of encompass community services's head start program with our county superintendent of schools. Dr. Sabah. >> Yes. I was hoping to share a little bit about what is happening. You probably been reading some information about Head Start. Uh, that is a program that has been impacted significantly by by uh the federal administration's actions. Just as a reminder, the Head Start program is uh a federal program under the US Department of Health and Human Services that provides comprehensive early

117childhood education, health, nutrition, and parent involvement services to low-income children and families. In some counties, the county office of education runs Head Start. Uh but in Santa Cruz County, they're run by Encompass Community Services, which is their office is right right next door over here. It's the oldest and largest program of its kind and here locally um it serves about 250 uh students in the head start program and additional 100 or 30 students in the early head start which is the younger students. So what has happened uh is that in April we started hearing that the federal administration was determined to make cuts to the to Head Start and uh and it was one of the recommended programs for elimination from by the White House. There was a movement to take that program off of

118the list of of potential uh programs that could be cut in July. the Health and Human Services um put out a memo stating that services were only for US families, meaning that families that come from mixed status uh who who are mixed status families would not be eligible to participate in the program. This was challenged in court and has not been resolved by the courts at this time. And so at this point there is not uh there is not authority for the administration to eliminate services to families based on their immigration status. the um and one of the steps that the administration took was to uh lay off the um federal uh technical assistance team that was stationed in California and and assign a new technical assistance team in Oklahoma that has been applying new

119restrictive policies that have been impacting the the local Head Start program. So in September, Encompass was notified by this new technical assistance team that they would not be able to utilize their uh carryover funds, which is something that every car every Head Start program in California has been using. It um meant $2 million of unspent monies from last year would not be um would they would not be able to use this year and would actually be returned to the federal government. They also were waiting that for what they call a scope change because the utilization of the program was less than the funded amount. They were being funded at $10 million for a higher number of students to be served. However, they were not they didn't have that many students being served. And so they

120had requested a scope change which had has in some cases been approved in other counties saying give us the same amount of money but we'll serve less students because the costs of providing these services is higher in this area. And they were notified in that same meeting that the scope change had been denied meaning that they were uh expected to lose $4 million uh from their budget allocation. At that point, the Head Start program was because of the lack of the carryover funds. They had no cash to continue providing services and they signaled to the community that they were planning on shutting down in early October. Now the way Head Start programs work is if you shut down the program even for one day it is considered a relinquishing of your program which means that

121you no longer are Head Start program and the funding goes back to um the federal government and then they instead of getting the the funding year after year uh they make it a competitive uh RFP process and um and that's a situation that makes it more difficult and competitive. you're competing against other folks who are applying for the funding and you never know year-to-year uh well actually I think it's a fiveyear it's a five-year grant allocation but every five years you have to apply for that funding um and so we recognized the importance at that time uh to not allow for the Head Start program to shut down and so we worked with the Santa Cruz Santa Cruz County and first five to um uh to raise uh 362,00 000 to keep the program open

122through October 31st so that there would not be a disruption to the program. Um that meant that we um are contracting with Head Start um to support the continuity of services through the end of of of the month. Now the government shutdown has meant that the that encompass has not received their award letter for the next cycle which starts on November 1st. And so there is a possibility that um if the government shutdown continues, the technical assistance team which would provide that is not working or answering phone calls at this time. And so um so that could mean that there would be a new shutdown that could occur on November 1st. Now, once the government reopens, we anticipate that Encompass and all the other programs that have November 1st opening dates would receive the reward

123letter and this would fund their services from November 1st forward at that lower $6 million rate, meaning that they would have to make reductions. Now, there's other partners such as Community Bridges that are interested in possibly taking over the program from Encompass at at that at that lower rate, but at this point, um that process could also mean relinquishing the program and going into a competitive RFP. So that's not something that um uh that we would want to occur in terms of the competitive RFP process, but if there is a a way for the handoff to happen um then that's something that we would we would want to support. Now, this is not something that we did budget for and so this it's it is important that um that you uh be notified of this

124new contract that we will be will be uh on the agenda uh for as part of as part of uh our budget updates next at the next board meeting. But we wanted I wanted to give you an update about this. We've been working closely with Head Start and supporting them in terms of their communication uh to the community, working with the county um and uh the importance of the the hundreds of families that are that could be impacted. Imagine if a low-income family that relies on these effective uh preschool services, if that program were to go away, how that would affect the family, their income, their livelihood, and of course the care for their children is something that we feel is of the highest importance and we feel it's part of our responsibility to support

125these families um and support this program to ensure continuity of services for for the students and families that they serve. Um, and so I'd like to uh ask if there if you have any questions. >> Thank you for that update. Um, so the current funding that we are participating in is through the end of October. If the federal government still is down beginning November 1st, are they not in the same situation and what is the plan for that? So, it's a little bit different. They would be in a different situation if they do not open November 1st. Um, it would not mean a relinquishing because they would be doing it because they have not been funded by the federal government. And so, that would not mean a relinquishing of their federal grant because they haven't

126they wouldn't have a federal grant. So, we believe that what would happen is that the the program would have to be closed and then would open once um and they would be able to continue providing services once the federal government opens and they receive their their letter. And so, uh but if had they closed during their service uh period that they were funded for, then that would have been a relinquishing of the program. So it would it's bad news and it's going to be very uh detrimental for families but it would not mean that the that the program would cease. >> So it was just intended to be a bridge so that they would not be forfeiting the program. So >> I think the best case scenario is that uh before November 1st that the

127government uh were to were to reopen and that the funding were to be provided uh the funding allocation were to be provided and that there would be no disruption. Second case, the second kind of best case scenario would be that the program continues through November 1st. Um there is a temporary shutdown uh until the government reopens. They get their funding and they reopen as soon as as they're able to. Um and then of course you know the worst case scenario in our mind is that somehow there would be that the federal government would consider it that they have relinquished their program and the program would uh go back because it will take some time for them to issue an RFP and for for a program like community bridges to be able to apply for that

128funding. So that could mean a year or so of no services to these families. Now, one of the backup plans that we do have is that several districts have uh preschool, state preschool programs as well as TK programs that could serve these students and they have space in them. And so we have reached out and the programs are very interested in taking the students and uh possibly taking staff because in many cases um having qualified uh preschool teachers, TK teachers um these the folks who who could um take on a a new class of students is they're they're in high demand. And um and so there are there is there are some alternative um uh solutions that we're looking at to support these families. >> Sorry, you mentioned state preschool. >> That you said funding

129state. >> Correct. So the uh for example, PVSC has a robust pre uh state preschool program and and our understanding is that they have uh available spaces for some of the students uh that they would be able to take on take in to the state preschool program. Okay. Uh, not keeping the current sites but um allowing the sites that PBUSD has. Okay. >> Uh, Van Allen questions, comments. No. Okay. Um, yep. I guess that was my question was what other resources are out there? Is there's anything from the state? Um, so it's good to hear that there's other resources. Um, I think location is also very important. So, uh, limiting disruption as much as possible. And I'm glad to hear that there is a plan B. But, you know, if if your if the, uh,

130if the Head Start program just happens to be down the street, but the PBUSD is several blocks away, then it just like is a little bit can be a little bit more challenging, a little bit different. Um, one of the questions that I did have is I know that Encompass does a lot more than just a Head Start program. like they also are play a big role in affordable housing amongst other things. So this reduction from 10 million to six million uh that's enough to continue at least the head start program in some form. >> So um so they're you know keeping in in the same way that we try to do with with our restricted funding they really try to and I I see Melissa Lopez here. She's she is one of the uh

131great champions that make sure that we uh that we spend the funds based on what we are gr what our grants allow us to spend the right and and so um and that's really important to stay in compliance to make sure because otherwise we um you know that could put us in a situation where we would lose the funds and so encompass does that they they have an allocation they use their head start funds uh for head start services So the $10 million to $6 million they are not they don't want to or unable to take funding from another part of their program which makes sense and so they would have to make reductions. That means less programs that means combining uh centers. It means letting go of leases uh that they would have to

132that uh to to basically uh curtail the expenditures to limit their the and reduce their expenditures to be able to to uh work within their these these new means that that they're beinged by the by the government. >> Okay. So the program will most likely look very different than it currently does and that does mean that there will be a reduction in staff and we are committed to supporting them in finding appropriate um work opportunities. >> Okay. Um early childhood education I think is very important. I think there's multiple studies and that have shown that the importance of having students learning at uh at at a young age preparing them for for for school. And I think it's unfortunate. I think it gets overlooked a lot. I think that early childhood staff to get paid

133very well either um for the amount of work and impact that that they have. Like I don't think it's I don't think there's a big correlation there, but I think that's a whole another story. Um, but I'm glad I'm glad to hear that we as a COE uh see the value of this program and not only us but the county as well uh other uh organizations like First Five and that we are um getting together and helping in in supporting them like I I'm really happy to hear that. >> Yes. Go ahead. Um it was kind of answeredish where you said like we'd support them by taking them well you're saying it's not completely determined that we take them in to our prek programs. Um and then you said most I think it's really important

134especially because they are low-income families that that like even missing one day of work could be like completely detrimental to them. I think there's a way that I don't think most is really enough. I think it has to be a way to make sure all every single student is able to be uh taken care of. >> Agreed. That that's exactly what we're we're hoping to do. And uh you know the really the way since we we don't offer those programs. These are offered by other service providers. What we see would be our role would be to um identify the locations where there there are openings and connecting students and families to those uh to those uh openings uh helping to communicate with uh with families to minimize the disruptions and uh because as as President

135Sanchez said the importance of these programs is also not only the educational experience it's also the nutrition it's the family component um the engagement, the the the re the the navigation of resources, everything from Second Harvest Food Bank resources. Um so these are these are important uh safety net systems. Uh students also get to qualify for uh can can be identified for special education services at an early age. Uh these are fundamental safety net programs. So I I agree with uh student trustee Moore. We need to do everything we can to ensure that that our families are and our and our and these children are getting the services they deserve. >> Okay. Thank you. No more questions or comments. Then we will move on to new business in action. We'll start with 11.1. The appointment

136of the associate of California County Board of Education Board Representative. We uh as a board talked uh several months back as to whether we wanted to join this organization. the ACCBE, we uh chose to um enroll and since then we have been involved and uh one of their asks is to elect a representative of the board and I believe Trusty Larson is the one that has had the most uh experience has been the one who's attended uh several of their meetings, several of the services that that that they offer. So, I'm curious to know a little bit more as to what you know of this uh position of what the commitments are. >> It's a very low-level time commitment. Um you'll basically get an email every week. Um they're thematic, a different one each week.

137They ask that board members under your board member reports highlight ACCBE, whatever the acronym is, um, events that are coming up just to encourage other board members to go. I have attended about a dozen of them. Um, and I've generally found them to be good. It's really trustee to trustee, so that makes it interesting, but I'll attend the ones that are of interest to me anyway. So, if another board member would like to jump in and take the representational, it'd be great for us to have a couple touches with ACCB on the board. So, I wasn't going to volunteer unless no one else. >> Those things you attended, are those virtual or >> they're all virtual? >> Um, being a board representative, their goal is to have one maybe two meetings in person a year.

138That hasn't gelled yet. Don't know the timing of it but talked about at one session >> questions comments from the board on what that looks like anymore. >> Um can you explain to me what the program is and what it will do? >> Sure. Um, we're part of the California School Boards Association, which includes the 58 county off Boards of Education as well as however many hundred or thousand local school districts here. Aaro Valley School and Senate for City Schools. There used to be a separate organization affiliated with CSBA that only represented county school board members. That kind of semi-independent group has gone away and it's been brought more fully into CSBA's line of services, which are great as well. Nonetheless, some people that were involved in the prior grouping of just county school boards

139have set up a separate nonprofit that only represents county school boards of association. And its mission seems to be primarily training that's targeted for county school board members and um legislation, but they're just starting the legislative process now. and it's kind of representing that county boards are a bit different than regular school boards and so they're trying to bring voice to that. We as a board chose to join this startup group a because it was cheap and b because county boards are different. And what I've personally found to be the best benefit from it is the trustee to trust share. And I think they also hosted student trustees session that you were both invited to about two. I think that was put on by ACC. I don't know if either of you were able to

140attend for student trustees from across the state. Andreas was >> I >> no I think that it was an invitation for a future meeting where they um Andreas was looking for students to go to be on a panel I believe to speak as representatives of county boards. I believe that hasn't happened yet >> for ACV. I think that's >> Did either of you get any information from Andreas about about a future panel? >> Um I also recall discussing a future panel opportunity with Andreas. I wasn't aware of of anything recent. So um I'll confirm that with him, but that's my understanding as well. >> I I do believe um Trusty Larson is correct. a ACCBE did offer sort of a new student trustee kind of situation and I think that's why it's important that we

141have a someone associated with the organization so that when these events come up we can share them along but even when I saw the notification I think it was like a week before I got an email it was like a week before and I really quickly thought oh I wonder if they got it and came in and just you know but >> that's an importance for us being on a board and being connected so that we don't miss these kinds of things and we stay involved and active. >> Thank you, trustees. And just to just add, we will look into that and make sure it's on our calendars for next year. So, if we missed it, we will certainly not miss it again. Thank you for highlighting that. >> New organization, who knows? >> I

142think it's important to reiterate that uh we as members, any of us and all of us can attend, you know, any any of these events. it's we're not limiting it to a person, you know, it's it's it's it's more just having a name to kind of represent our county in more of like the state level. I think that's what they're what they're looking for there. So, again, it's open to anybody that would like to attend. Um, I do think because it's information sharing, I do think it's important for somebody that is actively attending, I think that would be the most effective uh way to be able to uh be a representative. so that uh this information can be uh relayed to to to the board. Roth question comment >> these two CSBA are coming together

143and I do think it's important that we really and thank you for being so but it'll be interesting programs that look interesting I just go to because I can Yep. Uh I think that's a that's a key point to mention. Uh the ACCBE has been around a year maybe two whereas the SBA has been around I don't even know how long before any of us were born probably. Um is there okay any other questions or comments from the board? If not is there a nomination? Somebody volunteered and >> okay >> I'm doing SCSBA and that they're both pretty low work because that's county school board members. >> Okay. >> And then uh I'm willing to do it but if somebody else wants to >> I Okay, perfect. No. We have a motion uh by Bruce.

144Uh a second by Ash. And all those in favor say I. >> I. Any opposed? Perfect. Passes unanimously. Congratulations, Larsson. We look forward to finding out when the next student trustee um meeting is at the county and all the other trainings and services that they that they offer. 11.2. Now we have the resolution 25-40, the GAN amendments of the appropriation limits. And for this one, we have uh Melissa Lopez. Is this one on? Are we good? Okay. Um Dr. Sabah, President Sanchez, members of the board, thank you for having me here tonight with this audience. Um, I once again get to come to you at the end of the evening after lots of really fun presentations and conversations and get to talk to you about the GAN amendment appropriations limit. Uh, this is what we

145usually refer to as a housekeeping item. This is an ED code requirement that we bring you this resolution every year. Um, the GAN limit uh was originally Proposition 4 back in November of 1979. Last year when the GAN limit turned 45, we had cake. So, um, I think we'll do it at 5-year intervals. So, when GAN turns 50, we'll have the cake again. So in November of 1979, the GAN limit established a limit on the amount of tax money that state and local governments, including school districts, can legally spend. The calculation is adjusted annually for changes in inflation and population. The GAN limit calculations are performed not only at the agency level, but also at the state level. Therefore, if an agency is determined to be over their GAN limit, the agency may adopt a

146governing board resolution increasing the GAN limit by the amount needed. The agency would then need to notify the director of the state department of finance who would in turn reduce the state's GAN limit by an equal dollar amount. To calculate the GAN limit, you can envision the dollar amounts as a bucket. We'll say for instance, the bucket can hold $50 million. First, you would add in your local property taxes included in your local control funding formula. Then, you would add in the district's all the other unrestricted state aid into this same bucket. The amount of state aid that would fill up the bucket counts towards the school's GAN limit, while the amount of any overflow from the bucket would count towards the state's GAN limit. By reducing the amount of the state aid that counts

147toward the state limit in this manner, the process helps the state to avoid being over its GAN limit. In your packet, you'll see the Sachs form GAN and the numbers that are listed are highlighted for your 2425 from our unodudited actuals and for our 2525 2526 um anticipated GAN limit. So for the 2425 the appropriations limit was $19,730,2347 the 2425 inflation rate of 3.62 uh the population adjustment of 98.6 six uh for the CD COE's ADA and 96.77 for the county ADA since overall ADA and enrollment have declined and our 2526 preliminary aortionments uh I'm sorry our preliminary appropriations limit is 20,835,712.78. That is all any questions about the GAN limit or form SAX form GAN >> questions comments >> resolution. >> Okay, we have a first from Benellen. Is there a second? >> Second

148from Williams. Um because this is a resolution, we do need to have a roll call vote. Can we get a roll call vote, please? Student trustee Gian Martinez. Student trustee Amore. >> Hi. >> Trustee Kyle. >> Hi. >> Trusty Larson. >> Hi. >> Trusty Roth. >> Yes. >> Trusty Van Allen. Vice President Williams. >> Yes. >> President Sanchez. >> Yes. Passes unanimously. Thank you. >> Thank you. Uh, next up we have resolution 25-41 recognizing United Against Hate Week. And for this one, we have uh Trustee Larson. >> Well, I'll just uh introduce the four remaining resolutions is chair of the community outreach and legislation committee. One of our resolutions has already been heard. We have one other new resolution that will come at the end. And we have three that have been heard by the

149board in prior years. And this first one, resolution 2541, was discussed last week, which was trustee Amore's first meeting uh with the committee and he made substantive changes to the resolution and I've invited him to present the resolution and to make its motion tonight. Trusty Amore. So resolution number 25-41 is recognizing United Against Hate Week. Um basically we recognize that he has no place in our society and least of all on our school campuses. Uh basically we come together to reject hatred, racism, prejudice, violence and bullying in all forms and are committed to ensuring our schools are safe and welcoming spaces for learners of all identities. Um, we are encouraging recognition recognition of United Against Hate Week at all schools within our community from Sunday, October 19th, 2025 through Saturday, October 25, 2025. And I

150would say this resolution is especially important at this time and place because of the uh growing sort of hate towards certain groups. And I think it's really important to um make sure that our schools are a safe place for everybody no matter their identity or like who they are, what their background is. >> Thank you. And >> if I would just highlight the whereas and the be it further resolved that are focused on bullying as a form of hate came out of trust. Any comments from the board? Any questions? >> No. >> If we could defer to Trusty Amore. >> Absolutely. >> I'll motion. >> Perfect. We have a first and a second. Can we get a roll call vote, please? >> Student trustee Gian Martinez. >> Student Trustee Amore. >> Hi. >> Trustee Kyle.

151>> I. >> Trusty Larson. Hi, >> Trusty Roth. >> Hi, >> Trusty Van Allen. >> Vice President Williams. >> Yes, >> President Sanchez. >> Yes, it passes unanimously. Thank you. Next resolution that we have is 25-42 recognizing November as National Homeless Youth Awareness Month. This is a resolution that's been adopted by the board previously and it's brought back forward to you again tonight on recommendation of the committee. The only substantive change this year is adding the federal clause that we've been adding since early in the year, recognizing that federal budget policy and staffing changes are putting so many in our community um at risk and uh facing fear and uncertainties. So, we've added that clause here and it comes to you from the committee with the recommendation for approval. >> Also move. >> Any questions

152or comments? If not, can we get a roll call vote, please? >> Student Trustee Guan Martinez. >> Hi. >> Student Trustee Omore. Trustee Kyle. Trusty Larson. >> Hi. >> Trusty Roth. >> Yes. >> Trusty Van Allen. Vice President Williams, >> yes. >> President Sanchez, >> yes. Passes unanimously. Thank you. >> Uh, next one we have 25-43 recognizing National Native American Heritage Month. >> This resolution and the final one will be presented by Trustee Van Allen. >> Thank you. The committee um looked at this. It's one that we have um included in past um resolution or kept past um board action. Um and I think probably this board doesn't need much explanation about this, but the the legacy of colonialism and the idea that you can own land that you stole from someone else. And I

153think of those things every day because that still shapes the world that we live in and um it still hurts some people. Um so to me it's very important that we recognize um not just quote unquote Native American contributions but recognize the um real history of how our culture came to occupy this space. Um, so this is really important to me personally and um I expect the board will pretty much agree with me. So um but happy to take questions if anybody needs any clarification or anything questions, comments from anybody on the board if not is there a motion? >> I'll move the motion resolution >> second. >> First and second from Kyle. Can we get a roll call vote, please? Student Trusty Guan Martinez. Student Trusty Omore. >> Trusty Kyle. >> Hi. >> Trusty

154Larson. >> Hi. >> Trusty Roth. >> Yes. >> Trusty Van Allen. >> Hi. >> Vice President Williams. >> Yes. >> President Sanchez. >> Yes. Passes unanimously. Thank you. And then we have one more resolution on the agenda 25-44 recognizing school psychology week. for that one. Do we have uh I believe it's Ben Allen who's gonna talk to us about it. >> Well, it's interesting because National School Psychology Week has actually been around for a long time and in the committee we took note of the fact that these days there isn't always a quote unquote school psychologist. On the other hand, what our county and I hope other counties and education systems are doing is we are increasingly paying attention to social emotional learning and to mental health of of our students. And so whether there

155is somebody in a position of school psychologist at Bayiew Elementary or not, it's still that school is addressing these concerns. And so kind of in the broader sense of what it means to have a school psychologist recommend that we pass this resolution and honor that profession and its important role in our schools. >> So we have a motion. Do we have a second? Okay. Second from Roth. Any questions or comments? If not, can we get a roll call vote, please? Yes. Student trustee Gian Martinez. Student trustee Omore. >> Hi. >> Trusty Kyle. Hi. >> Trusty Larson. >> Hi. >> Trusty Roth. >> Yes. >> Trusty Van Ellen. >> Hi. >> Vice President Williams. >> Yes. >> President Sanchez. >> Yes. Passes unanimously. Thank you. With that, we finish our new business. And now we're moving

156on to the 12 superintendent report. >> Yes. Thank you uh President Sanchez and thank you for allowing me to provide a update of a superintendent's update uh to the board. I recently we've been providing updates on the federal impacts on education and you've seen this chart before although it continues to evolve on an ongoing basis. Uh the most recent edition has been the government shutdown impacts which is on the left side now. Uh we the but it is tied closely to discretionary spending. So the the budget that the um that the House and the Senate have not agreed on is the funding for government spending which includes the the 12 to 16% of SP of educational funding that schools receive as well as programmatic funding like Head Start. And so this disruption does um has

157a short-term impact which I'll be sharing. Also of course we are looking to what discretionary spending will look like for the future. Most of the funding we get is uh what we call forward funded or or you know funded in advance meaning that we um the funding that we are currently utilizing for our schools was was approved last year uh and and so the disruption is not affecting the majority of the of the of the programs that we have in place. So most California schools and students will not see an immediate change to the government shutdown impacts uh for as for the impacts of the government shutdown. Most of the funding uh will continue to flow. Um however 87% of the US Department of Education staff have been furled and we've uh which means that

158there are no new grants and also no civil rights investigations occurring at this point. We also learned this weekend, this last weekend, that a large portion of US Department of Education staff have been permanently laid off. Uh so we anticipate that those folks who are responsible for once Congress does approve our federal funding, the folks that are going to put together those award letters that are going to calculate the formulas that are going to let us know how much IDEIDA funding, how much Title One funding, uh if those folks are no longer in the office, we're we're concerned about long-term impacts. We already talked about Head Start and how those uh those many many centers including the ones in Santa Cruz County are funded through the end of October and we're concerned about what what

159will happen to those programs if the shutdown ex uh extends past November 1st. There um uh I already talked about uh funding for students with disabilities that will will continue. However, the Office of Civil Rights, which investigates uh complaints that where the civil rights of of of students have been violated, those investigations have been paused. Um currently programs for homeless students um those continue to be funded but any new um grants um have been delayed and we are we are seeing that there are some higher education impacts PEL grants and student loans are unaffected. However, uh several um programs that uh higher education programs are are being disrupted um including research um and pay for for some some staff at higher education um uh positions. We anticipate that there will be delays in financial aid

160awards for the 2026 27 cycle uh possibly early childhood services and nutrition programs as a result of of the shutdown. and um also the recommendations we're hearing from from our uh leaders in terms of what they're uh planning to do once uh the uh the discretionary budgets are approved. Um I wanted to share with you some of the legislative uh legislative update related to education. The governor has signed um uh the bills, several bills, dozens of bills, and I wanted to share with with you a short summary of which bills have been approved as they and how they um will impact our schools. Uh I'll keep it real brief, but you'll you can look these up and and um and and or ask for a deeper kind of explanation about all these different bills. Uh

161the first one is AB49 which limits immigration uh agents or ICE uh access to our schools without a judicial warrant. This is already our protocol but this strengthens those limitations. SB98 which requires notifications if there is immigration action around schools. We are required to notify our communities, students, parents, staff and the community at large if there is any immigration um action. and AB495 uh expands the caregiver rights and to protect families information and also uh formalizes a lot of the childcare safety plan affidavits that that allow families to identify uh caring adults that can help care for their children in case they are detained or uh otherwise unable to care for their children. When it comes to um some safety and inclusion and well-being programs, uh there's a AB727 which requires uh the Trevor Project

162hotline to be added to ID cards um to support LGBTQ students to ensure that they're getting the services uh um that they that they deserve. Uh there's AB715 which is a u a new um provision that uh limits the that requires that all content in the classroom be based on um help me out here Marca it's based on Nick no this is um based in fact that's the that's the term that is used which is a term that is uh extremely unclear. This this item um this bill has been opposed by every educational organization by the Cal by the county superintendent uh by CTA because of the lack of clarity of what base in fact means. Um the concern is that it's going to have a chilling effect on on free speech within classrooms and

163what contents uh will what kind of materials we'll be able to utilize. the intended um the the intent was to uh limit uh anti-semitism in in in the classrooms and in materials. Um it also establishes a new offices a state office of civil rights that's for schools. Um but there is there is concerns about it's and in fact the governor once he signed uh this bill stated that there is going to have to be there they're required to have additional legislation to clarify the contents of of of this bill which in itself is problematic. Um SB510 African-American history uh requires inclusion of African-American contributions in in early California history to be included. Uh SB19 makes violent threats towards uh locations, daycare, schools, universities, workplaces, houses of worship, and medical facilities a crime. Uh currently there

164is a loophole that said if you couldn't tie a threat to a person then it wasn't a crime. And so if somebody makes a threat towards a physical space, it could it is now considered a a crime in itself. Um there is AB1454 which is literacy reform expanding phonics based reading. This is about the science of reading. Um AB 1123 which is uh teacher credentiing adds early childhood educators to the uh California teacher credentiing uh process. 12AB 1264 phases out ultrarocessed foods um and when it comes to nutrition in schools and um SB 640 which now will automatically admit eligible students to CSU campuses without having to complete an application which is very exciting. Um these are vetoed bills. Um and I thought hold on one there was one that I there it is. um

165their uh AB1390 which um increases the minimums for board member compensation and so um that is something that that um also passed. Now the vetoed bills that were are of importance is SB 414 which is uh for charter accountability. It was one of two charter accountability bills. one that never made it to the governor, the other one that did make it to the governor and was vetoed. Um, and would have tightened charter oversight um and also um address the um uh the um the limits that has been put on the establishment of non-classroombased charters that is going to expire um in December 31st of this year. Uh that means that um charters, new charters could apply for non-classroombased charters. Um and that is going to occur starting January 1st. And so there was hope that

166this accountability um bill and um or a a bill would help ensure that that um the the uh uh implementation of these non-classroombased charters is done in a way that was compliant with the law and in the best interest of students. Uh, another bill that was vetoed by by the governor which was supported by all the educational institutions including the the California Teachers Association and the County Superintendent was AB1224 which would have I'm sorry was not supported by um the California Teachers Association. I apologize but by AXA and other u um entities uh would have allowed for uh schools to hire uh substitute teachers for 60 days instead of 30 days. uh that was uh vetoed by by uh the governor and um and that's um the of course the reason for this bill was

167because of the the the teacher shortage and and and in and key positions that we are experiencing currently. Some COE updates. um our amazing business services uh uh program including our our Melissa Lopez who's here in the in the um uh worked on uh a variety of different things have been very busy preparing our our internal budgets and also notifying our districts of their unodudit actual certification letters. This is a process we do where we look at their um at at how well they did in 2425 and in terms of of uh and looked at what their unodit unodudited actuals look like and let them know um if what they thought they had spent and what they uh and what revenue they received um and how well their reserves are looking. And so these letters

168were sent out to all of our districts this week. Our educational services team has been working diligently with districts to support differentiated assistance um districts um and providing a wide range of support. I think this is the most active we've ever been in providing support to districts. And it's very exciting that we are being welcomed um with open arms and in a wonderful uh uh kind of program improvement uh uh or I should say um uh the um science of some improvement science uh approach to uh to ensure that we are working with the district um listening to their vision and their their um the opportunities and strengths of the district and really complementing that with coaching and support and technical assistance to help them uh in continue to make improvement in supporting students in

169student achievement. We're seeing some of the results of our in mathematics for example for many of our districts and u which is really exciting. uh you already heard from about the formation of the superintendent students uh advocacy council and uh you you met them today and I it's an amazing powerful group of students in in addition to our two uh student trustees who are part of the council as well. I think it's it's um this is going to be a powerful group that is is inspires me as as we face many challenges and knowing that we have their leadership, their voice um and uh and working with them. I did want to also share with you that we are reestablishing or kind of coming together again uh for the African-American Student Achievement Committee. This was

170a a committee that was established in 2019 by me uh because we identified concerns from the African-American uh students and families about the experience that uh students in our in our in our county were experiencing in our schools and to identify recommendations for schools to support students. Uh we've uh continue to hear uh as Trusty Moore uh was talking about the the the concerns about bullying that is that is occurring uh for our African-American students as well as of course our LGBTQ uh plus students and and and and we have a sense of urgency to address these concerns and and wanting to ensure that we are supporting our students and doing everything we can to ensure that they are safe. Um the new um assessments, the state assessments, the CASP results have been publicly released

171and perhaps the agenda committee would consider having uh Dr. Russell come and and provide a presentation at a future board meeting to let you know how well we're doing as a as a county. And uh maybe with a breakdown of our different uh subcommittees. There's some good news and some not so so good news and as as always with with this kind of high level data but um I think it it is helpful to to uh take a look at how we are doing uh compared to the state and looking at how our achievement gap um uh is is doing if and and the and I think in some cases some of the um the results of the efforts of the school districts who are working very hard to to do their best uh with

172our support to improve student achievement. wanted to let you know about some exciting activities, events that are taking place this Saturday. We will be uh CAB is celebrating his 60th uh year anniversary or celebration um uh that will be taking place. I'm not sure if any of you are are going to be there to join me at the event, but it'll be great to see you there if you've already signed up. I know that there's a waiting list, I believe, for for this this event, so it's high demand. Uh we already talked about United Against Hate Week. Thank you for um approving that resolution. And Nick has been uh working on updating our school toolkit um uh to ensure that to support schools to implement uh the this United Against Hate Week. Uh we're happy

173to hear that schools are not just thinking about it as a one-week activity, but really just an opportunity to highlight, but something that is work that we will continue to do on an ongoing basis. And this was something discussed among the the superintendents of all the school districts. We're also going to be uh enjoying college and career family night on October 20th. And um and we will be uh we are partnering to screen the mask you live in which um is a movie or a a um a featured film that is about uh the different um the different pressures that uh young people especially uh young males in our society uh the loneliness epidemic um that is impacting uh the the wellness and health of of our the mental health of our of our youth.

174and uh encourage you to participate. This will be um screened at Green Valley Cinema and also we are partnering with Cababrio College on a Cababrio indigenous education collaboration convening um and uh which will be taking place in at a so uh when you look at the slide deck you'll be able to click on each of these items and um get more information for if if you're able and willing to participate. And that is it for my uh update. I'm happy to take any questions. >> Questions, thoughts? Yes. >> Question. >> I really like the proposition that SB. Oh, >> that one is like I think it's getting more people like interested because one of my things right now like um I'm probably going to get into the ones that I want to but like my

175mind tells me are you like I know I know I am but it's like for that is going to help a lot of people like actually want to knowing that obviously there's I think there's requirements, right? For me, I like a lot of people that think like me college >> that that's absolutely if I if I if I may absolutely true and and uh I think that this is part of that great collaboration with the community colleges as well. More students are are choosing that route to go to the community college for two years and then transferring. And the idea is is as you said, let's bringing eliminating those obstacles, those that are are in the way for for folks not having to complete an application as long as you've completed the requirements and those

176A3G those A3G requirements. um you know by by uh completing the um information the profile on the um the the um TSU website uh the universities that have open open spots would send a notification to let students know that these are the universities that have space for you. >> That's correct. fall of 2027. >> At least for other people. >> That's right. That's right. Thank you. >> Any other questions or comments? If not, uh let's move on to the uh trustee reports and we will start with Roth. Trusty Roth. Um both uh Greg and I attended a group Shakespeare's Sir Herald and the boys shakes um was and it was a programated summer night and also Sir was offered to our high schools in the It was especially har could be heard in that body.

177And uh it just emphasized to me how important the arts are. We all learn in different ways. and uh to see the apt attention of high schoolers at 10:00 in the morning and they um this Shakespeare organization is offering all sorts of programs and it's for students uh Greg and I went to the Democratic Club of North Santa Cruz County and I think no questions answered. Um, also Rachel and I have many Anyway, and just a shout out to Santa Cruz City Schools being recognized nationally for their nutrition program. Yay. and especially since we're passing state things about appropriate foods and it >> thank you trusty Larson >> didn't get my write up in in time so I'll do it after the fact and I'll just try to mention some things that I don't think

178anybody else from the board was at uh CASA did its annual event um at the house at Cababrio and it was a wonderful event and it was the first of two raffles I won this past month. Um, Nexties had its first ever Earth and Sea celebration and I bring it up here because the youngest uh recipient was the science fair winner from last year who went on to place third in the nation and she was one of the honores uh at the nexties earth and sea. Um, I was at the diversity center gala on last Saturday night, I guess it was. And then the very next morning went to the Baymck brunch over in San Jose. And it was great to see Trusty Amore there as well as um several other students from Santa Cruz

179County who uh one of the teacher coaches had brought a handful of students. I guess it was just great to have Santa Cruz well represented there. So, I'll stop there. Uh, Trustee Kyle, >> um, I attended last Saturday, uh, a dyslexia simulation at the Santa Cruz County Public Library branch of the Live Oak Annex, which is my first time visiting that to say that since I live in Live Oak, but it got me there. It was a fascinating interactive rotationbased um experience where and I apologize I don't know the name of the group that actually hosted it but they had um stations set up there were six total I could only go through the first rotation of three and it was to simulate including role playing of the adults facilitators at each of the table

180what the experience of being a child with dyslexia would go through in a classroom in three different areas. this one being writing, one reading, and one listening. And um I I could spend a lot of time talking about it, but let me just say it gave me a lot of empathy for children because diagnosis can come at any age. It's easy to they said one in five people has dyslexia. And I mean, I know of stories where people make it to adulthood before they've been diagnosed. So, um, just this was sort of elementaryaged activities. Um, my other takeaway was all of the good intention and well-meaning um, habits and mannerisms that teachers have that actually can be very disruptive to children who have this um, you know, special ability actually. um where you know you're

181really trying to focus either on your hearing or you're seeing or you're reading and the okay make sure you do a good job it's going to be hung up on the walls for back to school night or how's it coming you should be on the third row by now and I am just like ready to just throw my pencil down I just can't handle it anymore and so it really gave me a lot of empathy for for the kids going through it and also I thought every teacher in the county should sit through this um there were most of the people in attendance were parents of students with dyslexia Um there were I think three educators in the room and I know they they got a lot out of it too and I hope that

182they host this again at other branches because it was just it was fascinating and I would highly recommend anyone who wants a a glimpse into their their life to attend. It was really great. Trustee Van Allen. >> Uh just some committee work with and appreciating uh uh Trusty Larson and um our our staff for their help on that. >> Trusty Williams. Um so attended um Assembly Member Pellerin's second annual mental health heroes celebration that took place um near the courthouse and they had several booths from um providers and um you know um it's a rotating location because of the area that she covers. So this year it was here in Santa Cruz, next year will be I believe she said Gilroy. um but just you know local you know mental health heroes including students um

183that were honored for the work that they do in their schools and so that was really nice to be a part of and see um attended the superintendent compensation review committee and um even though it's an ad hoc and it doesn't happen very often um we have to name a chair so I took the role it's pretty easy um and then um attended um also the Santa Cruz diversity gala this past weekend and really miss sitting at the COE table because I know how much fun they have. >> You know, I won one too that I never win. I said I'm going to buy tickets. I never win, but it's okay. It's a good cause and I won something. So, I was really excited. Um and um and that was the activities I've Thank you.

184um libraries. Um I've just learned to what's the word? Relearn to appreciate them, I guess. U been spending a lot of time with them. Yeah. Public libraries. I feel like they're just very comforting. They're a good resource for our communities. So, uh actually been spending a lot of time in Watsonville, Aposs Capola, Garfield Park on West Side. I don't know if you guys have ever been to that one, but it's so cozy and amazing and I just really like them. I enjoy it's my it's my place of peace, you know? It's they're always so quiet, which I really enjoy and appreciate. Um, and I say that because it's I think this past month, these past two months have been a little hectic, a little challenging for me. Um, not being able to do as much

185as I would like to do with the um with our students. Um I think work is a big challenge there. I think uh in my personal life as well. Um I am next time you see me the next time we have our meeting in November I'm going to be a married man. So uh there's a lot of uh effort that's going into that and taking up a lot of my time. So instead of saying >> contagious around here >> instead of something in the water something in the water for sure. Um, so instead of mentioning the events that I did not attend, I will mention the upcoming events that I wish I could attend in the hopes that somebody can uh join and kind of represent the the the COE. So uh the first one

186is actually tomorrow, October 17th in uh Watville High School. They're having a ribbon cutting for their athletic field. It's part of their uh measure M that was passed a couple years ago raising funds so that uh PBUSD schools can work on infrastructure can work on um their campuses and they're going to have a ribbon cutting tomorrow October 17th 4 to 5:00 p.m. Uh another event that I have attended in the past that I've really enjoyed is a PBSD has a state of the district and that one will be held November 17th on Monday. It's uh from 8:30 to 10:00 a.m. Highly recommend it. It's something that is very in inspiring, you know, being able to uh hear from the superintendent how the district is doing uh seeing some of the students, you know, hearing from

187them and um more often than not they have performances as well. So, it's it's it's really well done. Um they really enjoy attending that one and would encourage anybody who can to uh attend that one as as well. And that's what I have for my reports. Any ad hoc standing committee reports? >> Let's report really quickly on um the uh committee for u superintendent salary compensation review committee. U met with Leanne, Troy, and Sue this past week, and we hope to have a formal recommendation um next meeting with, you know, backup documentation. amazing information that um that both Leanne and um Troy put together. So that will be >> perfect. Larson, >> I think the uh community engagement and legislation committee will have to get a little more formalized as we've quickly grown from two

188to five members um with our both student trustees joining the committee. So, we'll need to go to a more standardized schedule that works instead of just doing it by email as we've done. >> Plus, um, Superintendent Sabah, you know, we've only done one piece of legislation this year and that was the workforce housing workforce educators bill that came from CSBA. >> There are so many great bills up there that you listed, some of which I saw get announced as they were being asked or vetoed. Um, I wonder if there's a way we could draw from the county superintendence bills of particular import and it would be the committee's job to think which ones do we think have particular resonance and maybe bring some of those forward. >> Absolutely. There's I'm I am a member of

189the legislative committee for the county superintendents and so um of course since the legislative process just finished uh when it restarts and the bills start up again the county superintendent provide summaries with support or you know their kind of the stance that they have with regard to that legislation. I'd be happy to share that with with the with the committee um to decide if if you'd like to take a take a position >> and even star the ones that you think may may be particularly relevant for us to consider. Last thing is adding another meeting to your schedule. Um your staff handles the committee great, but I think if we had that input from you, it'd be tremendous like you did on the Ruby Bridges resolution that was great to get. >> Yep. >> Okay.

190If no other standing committees, >> I would I would like to just uh thank uh congratulate uh uh our two uh staff members who uh have tied the knot with separate people. Uh uh important to note, >> Nick, uh who recently uh got married to Lori and um had a wonderful honeymoon in in Montreal and and uh uh congratulations and of course Verice Valentine and and Jesse Figureroa who also tied in on a little earlier. So uh really uh just very happy for them and and as they embark in this in this new chapter their lives and I'm sure uh board members with lots of years of experience can can provide some some guidance on on uh the challenges and uh wonderful uh uh future opportunities that uh of of of this new chapter in

191your lives. But congratulations and so so happy for your happiness. Thank you. And of course to President Sanchez who is also soon going to be joining this uh this group. >> Thank you. Uh reminder of our upcoming meetings. We have our next regularly scheduled meeting for November 20th to Thursday 5:30 and then after that December 18th 2025. And with that our meeting is adjourned. Thank you everyone.