001third meeting of the Santa Cruz County Board of Education with a roll call, please. >> Trusty A. Costa. Trusty Larson >> here. >> Trusty Roth >> here. >> Trusty Van Allen >> Trusty Williams >> here. >> President Sanchez >> here. Thank you. So, I see we do have one board member that is joining us online, which brings me to the next item, board member remote attendance approval. >> So, President Sanchez, this uh so um Trusty Larson actually is uh not doing it under AB2449. He's participating u because his his location actually is part of the board meeting. >> Okay. And uh so that was uh and was uh we've notified the public of of uh that location. >> Perfect. And then with one opening. So we don't have any requests, right, for remote attendance approval.
002>> Correct. No request. >> We do not have a request. Okay. Got it. Moving along. We're going to go to section two, pledge of allegiance. I'm going to ask those who can to please rise and ask our superintendent to lead us on the pledge of allegiance. Ready? Begin. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Thank you. Uh, next we have the approval of the agenda. Second. >> I'm sorry, that was Van Allen. Okay. And Williams, right? As a second. Okay. And uh because we have a remote attendance, I'm going to ask for a roll call vote, please. >> Trusty Aosta. Trustee Larson. >> Hi. >> Trusty Roth. >> Here. >>
003Trusty Van Ellen. >> Trusty Williams. >> Yes. >> President Sanchez. >> Yes. Thank you. All right. Now, we are in section four, public comments. This is an opportunity for anybody in the public to address the board. If you guys have any items that you would like to bring to our attention that are not included in the agenda, we're going to ask you to uh please fill out a form if you haven't done so already, state your name, and limit your speaking up to three minutes. Is there anybody that would like to address the board? President Sanchez, we have a request from a Martha Balanchar um for public comment. >> Good afternoon, members of the board. My name is Marta Blay and I'm a member of the public who has been observing recent meetings of the
004Paro Valley Unified School District Board of Trustees. There has been a troubling number of governance defects committed by the board with continuing defects still occurring. The state of affairs has prompted me to speak today. For historical context, last November, three incumbent trustees were defeated in re-election bids and replaced by new candidates with limited experience in public governance. There are some obvious prominent policy differences among the board trustees. Not surprisingly, there have been a number of contentious public meetings. Nonetheless, there is a reasonable public expectation that minimum standards of governance would be maintained. Yet, that expectation has failed, undermining public trust in the process. A critical catalyzing moment occurred during the April 16th, 2025 board meeting during which the board acted on items that had not been posted on the meeting agenda. Such action constituted a
005serious Brown Act violation which generated public controversy and a measure advisory intervention by Santa Cruz County Office of Education Superintendent Farah Sabah. That situation culminated in remedial action by the PBSD board in response to a formal cure and correct demand letter sent by me. Since that time, the PBSD board has committed continuing Brown Act violations during their June 11th, June 25th, and July 16th meetings for which I've served respective cure and correct demand letters. A new threshold of defect was broached on August 11th, 2025 when the PBSD board chose not to respond within the statutory time frame to my demand letter pertaining to their June 11th, 2025 meeting violations. Their silence on this demand letter constitutes a refusal to cure and correct the Brown Act violations. To the degree that this board considers compliance with
006the Brown Act to be essential component of good governance, and I believe you do, I've made this recital for the purpose of properly informing your board of the current state of affairs in the Borrow Valley. I will follow up with more detailed documentation on this matter. Thank you for the opportunity to speak on this. >> Thank you. Do we have any other members of the public that would like to address the board? >> No comments on Zoom. >> Okay. Next, we are moving on to section five, board organization. We received a letter uh this past month. One of our board members uh decided to step down and uh which creates a vacancy on our board and he happens to serve as or served as the vice president of the board. So our first action is
007the uh filling that uh position and I think we're going to talk a little bit more about that later in terms of what that uh what that process looks like but the immediate need because he was serving as the vice president of the board is to uh choose nominate make a motion to uh for somebody else to fill in that position through the typical through the rest of the year. So typically December is when we have the board organization just to fill that vacancy until then. So with 5.1 I'm going to uh ask for nominations for the vice president of our board. >> Is President Sanchez trustee Larson has his hand raised. >> Okay. Yes. Larson. >> Well, Mr. President, it would be my honor and privilege to nominate fellow trustee Rachel Williams to serve
008as our next next vice president. Her uh communitywide leadership and volunteerism and her active engagement with the county board of education and volunteering with the county office of education makes her well suited to follow in former trustee Estrada's footsteps. So, I'd like to nominate her. Okay, thank you. So, we have a nomination on the floor. Any questions, comments? Van Allen, >> I second the nomination. >> Okay. Do you accept trustee Williams? >> With honor, I accept and um and appreciate the confidence of my fellow board. >> Perfect. Uh, seeing as we have a motion and a second, can we get a roll call vote, please? >> Trusty A Costa, >> Trusty Larson, >> Trusty Roth, >> definitely. >> Trusty Van Allen, Trusty Williams, President Sanchez. >> Yes. Congratulations. Okay. So, as is customary uh during
009this organizational meeting, we also have different committees in which the trustees serve. And given uh Estrada's stepping down from his position, there are a couple of openings on those committees. The first one being the agenda committee. Typically this is the one that is the president and the vice president that are >> um so sorry we missed 5.3 which is the appointment to ska >> uh getting ahead of myself uh 53 yes so skzba is the Santa Cruz County School Board Association it's a meeting that is held about once a month different uh board members from the different school districts within the county and uh uh trustee Estrada was our representative, our official representative on the board. So again with him stepping down and now we are looking for somebody to step into that position. And
010if I'm not mistaken, uh Trusty Roth also attends those meetings >> sometimes. >> Okay. Some Trusty Roth would attend those meetings. Okay, perfect. Is there any interest uh from the board in stepping in or nominating somebody for to be our representative on SKSBA? >> I know he's busy, but I would like to inquire if Greg would be interested. >> Greg, you have >> I would be sure I'll take it down. I would be interested, but I'd certainly defer to my seniors on the board if one of them wants to step into the role. I have attended all of the SKSBAN meetings this year and I would certainly continue to do so whether or not I'm appointed. So, if um any of the other trustees would prefer to have the voting seat, I'd defer to them,
011but otherwise, I'd volunteer to fill it. Yeah, >> I would be happy to second that motion. >> There you go. >> Okay, perfect. And that's a good point to bring up uh the fact that any of us can attend the meetings. It's not just uh relegated to a single division from a board. Uh but there is one official representative that has that voting rights and that's the one that we are voting on today. But again, anybody on the board can attend if they if they want to. Okay, we have a motion and we have a second. There's no more questions or comments. Can we get a roll call vote, please? >> Trusty A Costa, >> Trusty Larson, >> yes. >> Trusty Roth, >> yes. >> Trusty Van Ellen, Vice President Williams, >> yes. >> President
012Sanchez, >> yes. Passes unanimously. Thank you. >> Took me a little bit. >> Okay, now moving on. 5.4. the appointment to standing committee. So we have the agenda committee. This one is traditionally uh a meeting in which the president and the vice uh president sit together. They look at the agenda. They bring topics for our monthly meetings. Again uh trustee Estrada served on this committee and now there is an opening and as is customary for the uh president and the vice president, I would like to ask uh trustee Williams to to join me in that committee. I would be happy to join you on the committee. >> Okay, perfect. And because it is a committee, I believe I just I have the authority to to assign people. Okay, so we will add Trusty Williams there.
013And since we're already on this subject, uh there are other committees that we do have the board budget, the policy, the community outreach, and legislative committees. All of them with openings. And in our board packet, chapter 11 lists the people that are currently involved with uh that committee and the openings that are there. So, this is an opportunity. Anybody that is interested in serving uh one of those committees um you can let me know and I'd be more than happy to uh to assign. You know, I think it's always important to be involved. uh understand I I really like these committees because it gives us an opportunity to sit down with staff and to ask questions and to really get into the details as to whatever it is that the topic whether it's policy whether
014it's the budget whether it's you know legislative you know just really get more in the weeds and get more details there >> I have a question of clarification are these just the committees in which we have open seats since we try to get three or that's correct right because we still have the charter Yep. Yep. >> That was not included. So, this is just the ones that have space. Great. >> Yep. >> So, we can't have a quorum. So, it needs to be limited to three. And we do have an additional committee, the charter committee that currently has three people. So, these are the ones that are just uh have less have less than that number. No, no, no. Um, yes. And that's fine. I just wanted to give you guys that opportunity if you
015guys if there was interest in in that use your >> Yes. So, I'll get to that because that's one that one is something that we do have to fill. Uh we have two committees that we need to uh establish. The first one being board vacancy and student trustee position. So, for because we have a vacancy on the board, we have the um we have to fill that we'll have to fill that spot. So what this uh committee will do is they will look at typically there's questions that we ask for people that are interested in filing and um based on how many people apply we look at the structure of of what that interview process looks like how many questions and which questions are asked and the same with our student trustee. So because it
016happens to be around the same time we figured it'd be a good idea to combine them both for the current board vacancy and for the current student trustee. We'd probably have to take an action because we really could have a choice of going to an election election or making an appointment vacancies but making appointments but I think don't we have to take some formal action to declare >> correct uh so once the we receive the notification from uh uh from the trustee who's who who left the board uh we have 60 days to make for the board to make a a decision to uh appoint or move towards an election. Uh so that decision would uh would have to take place uh the formal steps could would would have to take place to for that
017appointment or for the determination if you want to do an appointment or an election. However, the establishment of a committee that uh would work on uh defining those questions if an appointment were to be made can be established by the by the board president. I'm not against moving ahead, >> but yes, uh the agenda committee would have to set the date within that 60-day time frame to um for the board to take action on whether to appoint or to move forward with an election. >> And I would say that's a role that the board uh vacancy committee can address. You know, does it make sense one way or the other or recommend recommendation or the other? >> I'm willing for that. Um, perfect. Um, let me talk about the other committee and then we can
018go back to uh addressing and and assigning people. So that's one committee that uh we need to establish. The other one is superintendent compensation review. So this one uh I want to say maybe once every four or five years more or less is when we typically get together as a board and just look at the compensation of our superintendent, how it compares with other counties. Uh it's something that we've uh done in the past and just had a committee as needed. So it's been a while. I don't remember when that what was the last time, but I think it's definitely been four, five years, maybe even more since we've had that. So um so we determined it was time to create that committee again just to take a look just take a look and this
019committee would meet with uh Troy who is with HR and would lead and do some of that those research and and follow-ups. My memory I was on the committee that hired Ferris and set the basic salary structure including the steps and my memory of the last time this question came up to put it on the agenda but then there was reason for some reason that didn't actually put it on the agenda. >> Yeah. So uh to clarify uh Chesse Sanchez or President Sanchez. So, I don't think this was hasn't been looked at uh I I believe it was looked at last time was uh after my election prior to my swearing in. Um you have a a board uh policy that uh that looks at that defines when it's appropriate to look at the superintendent's
020compensation and there's basically a comparison leas that are looked at. when the last time this question was brought up and we looked at that um the my the superintendent's salary was not within when it was not below what other superintendents were. So there wasn't um according to and following our our uh um our policies um it wasn't appropriate for the board to look at compensation. Uh so what this uh committee would do would be worked with uh with our chief of human resources Troy Cop to determine if in fact uh the compensation is now below what other superintendents and similar in in comparison eleas which are defined in the board policy that would then uh require action by the board to um adjust the compensation. Any other questions or comments on either of those committees?
021Yes. Go ahead, Larson. >> I was just going to say I'm willing to serve on either one of the ad hoc committees at the uh president's call or like before I'll defer to others. I am already on two of the ad hoc committees. So that's why I didn't volunteer for policy at this time. Okay, thank you. Uh, anyone else from the board that is interested in serving? We would need at least two and no more than three on each one of these committees. >> Um, being that these are ad hoc, I am on three committees now with the now being the agenda, but being that the the last two are ad hoc and it's not an ongoing I you you may place me wherever you see that is needed. >> Okay. Yes. And I definitely
022don't see us going past this year with these committees. If anything, once, twice, maybe three times there might be too much um to meet and and discuss. Roth, >> I I would be willing to serve. >> Okay. >> For you. >> Okay. uh Roth then Allan, did either of you serve on the compensation committee previously on the original hire? >> Yeah. Um just a just a point of clarification. So it's not a hiring committee. Uh I'm elected by the by the uh so it is a compensation committee. Just to clarify, >> what I was on was actually the original thing when you were >> I was at the time it was I was deputy superintendent, but I had been elected uh in June of of 20 uh of 2018. >> Well, June, no, June June
023of 2018 and the sworn in in January of 2019. So, the compensation committee looked at the salary prior to my swearing in in January of 2019. >> I mislabeled it hiring committee. Sorry. >> The people hired you. >> So, because you've had experience with that committee, would you be open to serving in that? >> Yeah, I assume it's not going to >> No. No. Uh last time, how many times did you guys meet? >> Two to three. It's happened a couple times, but >> yeah, like two to three meetings is what we Okay. So, Van Allen, um, I will list you down as a superintendent competitation review and then Williams if that's okay with you. >> Yes. >> Okay. So, then Allan and Williams and then Larson for the board vacancy and student trustee position
024and then trustee Roth as well. Right. >> Okay. You have me also with the >> No, you want it to be on that one. >> Okay. Um, can I switch Roth and and Allan? >> Oh, >> I was excited about the student trustee. >> Okay, let's do that. Yeah, >> perfect. questions, comments, thoughts. Pretty straightforward. Okay, perfect. Thank you guys. Um, so with that, now we're going to consent agenda. Now I'm looking for a motion. >> A motion. >> There a second. >> Okay. And I do want to call out the donations that we did receive. Um we're always grateful for anybody that does contribute that does help and um contribute to the success of of our programs. Can we get a roll call vote, please? >> Trusty A Costa, >> Trusty Larson, >> yes.
025>> Trusty Roth. Trusty Van Allen. Vice President Williams. >> Yes. >> President Sanchez. >> Yes. Thank you. Uh any correspondents? >> Yes, we've received two correspondents that were included in your packet. One from a former staff member and the other one from former trustee Edward Estrada. >> Okay. Thank you. Now we are on section 8.1 reports, discussions, and presentations. We're going to start with the future educator summer academy presentation with uh Dr. Sabah and Troy Cop as presenters. >> Yes, thank you so much uh President Sanchez. It's it's really my pleasure to report on a new program that was implemented this summer. And um I'm we're going to be I'll be introducing uh the uh chief of uh human resources uh officer uh Troy Cop who will be kind of leading this presentation. Uh this
026uh program was actually the brainchild of of uh of Mr. cope. Uh the the recognition that we um are in need of finding special education teachers and educators and other support staff as as something that has been of great concern to us. of of all the positions that we search for in education, uh the the the team that supports our special education students is the one that is really hardest to be able to to hire and support and and uh and train. And so when we we started thinking about how to make this opportunity available and exciting for our students, uh Mr. Cope had this idea of let's start with our high school students and let's create opportunities and interest at as early as possible and hopefully uh we will be able to um capture
027that interest in a way that will get them to continue to be a part of our special education programs as instructional aids and teachers and school psychologists and other kinds of support staff that we need in in our programs. And so here we we're here to report to you how well this program was implemented for the first time this year. This was a pilot program that we're really excited about and and I really would like to uh commend the amazing teachers and students that participated. Uh you're going to be hearing a little bit about how the program looked and what our plans are for the future. So I'd like to welcome Mr. Cop um who works as our chief human resources officer and he'll be uh uh leading this presentation today. >> Okay. Thank you.
028Good evening trustees and thank you for the opportunity to present the future educator summer academy. With me is one of our special education teachers at the COE, Amanda Burnham, and also a mentor to one of our very first academy participants, Alandre Ponce, who is now a senior at Costanoa High School. So, yes, she did spend the summer before her senior year preparing for her future. So, she is amazing. And these two are the best part of this presentation. I promise we'll get there soon. I'm just going to provide a brief overview of the academy. So, the academy is to help high school students learn about the many career opportunities in the extensive support needs programs in special education. There are so many different jobs to pursue. Um, you can have immediate deployment right as you
029graduate high school if you want to do an entry- level position as an instructional aid. You can also pursue many different opportunities after post-secary education if you get a license or credential. teacher, behavior uh support specialist, um occupational therapist, speech and language pathologist, school psychologist, school nurse. There's so many opportunities and all of them are in high demand. If you pursue these and you get the qualifications and the educational background, you're almost guaranteed a position. So, um really important for our high school students to not only learn about all that, but then also get the exposure to see if this is something that they feel very passionate about. So four components to the academy is first the recruitment. So this is a collaboration with our school districts, their uh site administrators, their academic counselors and
030what they do is help um recognize and award aspiring educators and then give them an invite to an information informational night. that allows uh potential participants and their guardians to attend a meeting where we're able to present the logistics of the academy and the commitment that uh would happen that summer. Once the commitment is made, then they have access first of all to professional development from our current staff who are experts in the content area. This is really um really high quality professional development that we provide to our new hires and our current employees. So the high school students not only get this to gain new skills and learn about them, but then they also get to practice the new skills in the classroom through paid field experience. So earn and learn. Um a great
031way to pursue and uh explore careers. Um, here is a master uh schedule to the uh academy. It's aligned with our 4-week extended school year program, summer school for our extensive support needs programs that we serve here in our regional programs during the school year. So again, they have access to the professional development. The first week is an overview of special education, the students, the services, and the programs. They also get an opportunity to meet their mentor teachers and learn more about the actual classroom that they'll be placed in. And then it immediately starts with field experience um which uh that at first you know they're able to observe and kind of see what they um learned about in the first uh professional development. The second week they get instructional strategies provided by our SUPA
032director. And then after that they are definitely working with students and integrating into the program. The third week they learn about behavior support from our behavior specialists. And then the fourth week they learn about communication provided by one of our speech and language uh pathologists. So again really high quality professional development and then a lot of opportunities to practice those new skills. I'd like to take this opportunity to just recognize all the COE staff um that contributed to making this academy possible. Um Scott Meanh Hill was a huge part of helping organize engine June our educator recruitment retention effectiveness coordinator. She organized all of this. Um she was huge and instrumental. We also from our uh Devon Dr. Devon Stark our administrator and leader in the special education program. her and her team along with
033a colleague Jessica Little SEPA director, they really helped us uh plan this out and make sure that the professional development um was aligned to what their uh what their field experience would be and then the future educators themselves and the mentor teachers who were the biggest part of helping them practice those new skills. So you see we had a wide range of districts. Sammy was from San Lorenzo Valley High School. Uh Kira from Harbor High. Amelia from Santa Cruz High. Hayden was from Scots Valley. Daniel uh was from SA Charter. And then Alandre from Costanoa High School and her and was mentored by Amanda. And as I promised, we would get to the best part and hear about the experience from both Amanda and Alandre. So I'd like to hand it over to them. Hi,
034my name is Alandre Pon and I am a senior at Costa Noa Career Prep School High School. I have always known that I want to be a teacher before participating in the future educator summer academy. I thought that I wanted to work with elementary school kids, but after my experience working with the postsecary students, I know that I know that this is the age I want to work with. We were in the classroom and we went on field trips that taught that taught them life skills. It was dur It was during these field trips that I learned more about the student, their interest or dislikes. I truly enjoyed going to work every day. I learned how to use the AAC device to communicate with a student and this helped me create a positive relationship with
035the student. This student attends school and goes to work and uses the AAC device to commun communicate with people. I find this inspiring. He is no different than any one of us. I was able to work with students on their IEP goals and watching them learn and reach goals was very rewarding for both the student and myself. This whole experience was reinforced my goal of going to college to become a special education teacher and I really hope I can participate in next year's future educator summer academy. >> Thank you. >> Hi everyone. Um yeah, I think Alandre said it best. I'm so lucky to have been a part of this program. I think the way that it's structured and having these learning opportunities in the classroom and then having the um the field experience to
036go along with it. I just saw, you know, we would have a behavior training and she would go to that and then come into the classroom and just make those connections. So, it was really cool to watch you grow. um the way you connected with the students and just worked with them. I could really just see your passion and it makes me so excited and I think this program just sets up people to work with this population of students. Um like Vera said, I don't think there's enough people who go into this field and you don't always get that field experience until much later. I mean sometimes you'll go through a teaching program and not even know about post senior or work in these types of classrooms. So, just the fact that you've gotten this
037experience and she's using AAC devices and behavior strategies, I think that's so amazing and special education will be lucky to have you. Thank you. And yes, we're very excited to have you back. Hopefully, you'll be able to spread the word with your fellow high school students and then be a mentor to them next summer. Uh, any questions or comments from the trustees? Williams. >> Yeah, I just have one comment. Um, in general, I I always have felt there's special people that are educators who work directly with students, but this is just above and beyond to expose individuals, particularly high school students, to something so special and so amazing. And um it was amazing to hear you say um I was interested in being an educator, but this just completely opened my eyes to something new.
038And I think that's wonderful. And what an amazing um start to a a new program. And so congratulations to you all and to all of the students. And we really look forward to seeing what comes out of this. Thank you. >> Yes. Uh Roth, >> me too. Uh I am always uh surprised at step forward or steps forward that this county office education and this is almost a non nobrainer but nobody's thought about it. So, I appreciate it and I hope to see that it really grows because I do think having some hands-on experience into these different fields or introductions into um coming out of high school going in college a wonderful way to direct our students to much needed. Yes, I think uh I think Alandra mentioned something very um like something key, right?
039And uh Williams already touched on it briefly, but it's the exposure to being inside the classroom to a certain age group that makes you open up and realize that, hey, this is uh something that I could enjoy doing. I think that that hands-on experience definitely goes goes a long way. So, sounds like the program's a success. So thanks uh everyone for helping uh make it be what it is uh today. I definitely see a lot of benefit and uh future leaders and uh educators come out of it. >> Great. Thank you for the support. >> If I could just add one more thing as as uh our our presenters are are stepping down. I you know we've we as you know we have a SULPA in North County and and we've reached out to the
040Baja Valley School District because they have a different SULPA to look uh at their implementation of this program next year and they have shared that they are interested in doing this and um and one of the things that was also mentioned you you heard uh Mr. cope say extensive support needs. Um so there's different kinds of credentials in special education and in many cases you know about 15% of the of the student population qualifies for special education but a smaller group it gets that that extensive support needs those additional supports that that really you know uh the IEPs include a wide variety of of supports for for those students to help them meet their IEP goals and um and so we're really excited about not only bringing in folks into the special education world, but
041also into that extensive support needs, which is kind of what we specialize in at here at the county office of education. So, want to give a shout out to to Alandra and Amanda. They made an amazing team. Um, and and of course, Mr. Cop and all the folks that that were mentioned who who worked on this. Thank you so much. >> Thank you. Next 8.2, we have the K16 Central Coast Regional Collaborative Presentation. And for this one, we have as presenters uh Dr. Sabah, Leopold, and Sulk from the Central Coast K16 Regional Collaborative. >> Yes, it's my pleasure to uh welcome somebody who's probably no stranger to the folks in the room, Mr. John Leupold uh who is a longtime friend and and has been a community leader for for in you've probably seen him
042uh involved in a wide variety of different uh efforts and initiatives and I've had the pleasure of working with him and with Ashley Selk who is a coordinator who works with the K16 collaborative on uh this this K16 collaborative which is really has been an opportunity to create exciting new pathways for students and um and this collaborative ative has I think of the different collaboratives in California, we're probably the furthest ahead um compared to everybody else bringing together high schools um community colleges, universities in all areas from Santa Cruz all the way down to Ventura County. And so it's it's been an exciting project that I think uh we are going to be seeing some amazing opportunities uh being available to our students and helping them um opening up a lot of doors uh for
043their for their careers and their futures. So really grateful to Mr. Leopole for his leadership and for being here tonight to talk to us a little bit more about this program. Welcome. >> Thank you Dr. Sabah. I really appreciate it and uh welcome to all the trustees on the county COE. Um it's been an amazing organization to work with and I wanted to share with you what we've been working on and how we're supporting schools here in Santa Cruz County and in the six county uh region of the central coast from Santa Cruz all the way down to Ventura. Uh there's a lot of work that's gone in uh uh to what we're doing and I don't want to take up all your uh evening. So I'm going to give you a short version of
044it, but I'll be available for questions. Um coming out of uh the COVID pandemic, uh the governor of California uh uh engaged in two major efforts uh to address economic recovery uh with equity. And one of this was uh they divided the state up into 13 regions and one of it was an educational collaborative like I will talk about here tonight and the other is a project that's now called California Jobs First. Our Central Coast region has a organization called Uplift Central Coast. Um when our group started meeting four years ago, uh they really looked at what they could do uh with resources to address equity in the recovery uh from u the uh downturn after COVID. Uh and when you look at the uh what what you're trying to do in education, you look
045at uh who's being left behind. And this chart shows that when we look at the roughly half million uh students on the central coast, uh we see that um uh Hispanic or Latino students make up 65% of the students uh in high school, but as they move through the post-secary u uh educational continuum, um they become fewer and fewer. And so therefore they also have less opportunity to access highwage high impact jobs. And so our collaborative chose to use a collective impact model to advance equity uh to ensure that the students who were most in need uh would access resources and could uh we could build career pathways uh that would lead them to high wage high impact jobs. Uh the collaborative is in some ways pretty simple but pretty unusual too uh because the
046they're designed to include uh all elements of the educational continuum K12, community college and four-year universities and also industry because uh it was interesting to me as I started this work a little over a year ago when we talked to educators about what jobs they were training students for there were a lot of blank stairs um and they had not been talking to industry and when we got industry in the room there was lots of great uh uh communication uh but it's not something that educators always think about is what jobs they're trying to prepare students for. So what we h have tried to do is bring that all together and our collaborative we have a 30 plus member steering committee which I'll talk about in a moment. Um, our key goals here are to
047increase the alignment of the K16 educational system to make sure that there is a seamless transition for students to be able to have the greatest mobility and the shortest path to their education goals. Uh, and that takes some works to make sure that the system is set up uh well. One the other uh goal is to disrupt inequitable systems and structures in our institutions. Um there is lots of ways in which kids get tracked into certain jobs or or certain e educational um uh portfolios uh that don't necessarily benefit them. Uh we also wanted to address the kind of supports that's needed for uh students with uh with different needs whether they be language, income uh or transportation. And lastly, we wanted to build upon student strength assets and the rich cultural and linguistic contributions
048to make sure that we were honoring the people that we were working with instead of telling them how to do the work. Uh our governance structure is we have uh we have um 10 uh K12 uh representatives. All the six COE's are represented on our board as well as four districts. We have the eight community college districts. Uh we have the three CSUs and the two universities along with six members from industry and four student representatives. Uh that group meets monthly. Uh we can only really do it virtually. Uh once a year we meet in person. We just had a a convening just two weeks ago. Uh and then we also have our regional leadership group which is made up of the program managers from the uh pathways that we funded which I'll talk about
049in a little bit. Uh students voice is very important w with our group. Uh and we have selected four students uh and we have worked to train them and encourage them to be involved. And uh three out of our four uh trustees do an amazing job of just getting in there and and mixing it up in the best way possible with uh our educational leaders and uh our uh industry partners. And it's been a great uh learning experience for everybody involved. After uh establishing this uh governance structure, we also uh began to look at labor market information to figure out which were the jobs that we should be training students for. Using labor market information, the collaborative decided to focus on two pathways. One engineering, computer science, and the other is healthcare. uh we looked
050at the the wages for these jobs and the amount of openings and we thought that these are the these are the careers that we should focus on to be able to support students. Uh we had uh just under $10 million to give out uh as part of this. So last year we developed an allocation system and we did two cycles of funding. We tried to center it around equity. We tried to create a low bar uh uh uh for application to especially support schools that are low resourced and maybe don't get all the the grants all the time. Uh we wanted to make sure that we uh were advancing some level of systemic change within this group and that could be the establishment of new uh dual enrollment courses or systemic change or support systems
051for students. uh we wanted to make sure that we were building a foundation uh for success and really encourage and incentivize intersegmental connections. And when I say those intersegmental partnerships, we wanted them to be actual instead of just aspirational. So, when we have a high school that's having classes introducing uh students to health care, that's nice, but if they're not getting credit for it or isn't helping them get to the next level in in the uh in their educational goals, um it's not doing everything it could. And so, we wanted to make sure that we had real intersegmental partnerships. And we also tried to prioritize stakeholder and community involvement. And there were lots of community meetings and lots of work with school districts. We also focused on K12 districts that met certain equity criteria, which
052means they had at least 55% of their students were on free or reduced lunch or homeless and foster youth. This meant here in Santa Cruz County, there's only one school district that meets that qualification at the Pyro Valley School District. But together um we've reached every school district in the threecount area uh that meets that qualification and throughout the um the region I think there's 36 school districts altogether about 53 schools who are involved. We also did a non-competitive allocation process where we developed uh with the help of uh uh Cababrio College President Matt Wetstein, a great formula maker, uh a a formula that guaranteed a certain amount of money for everyone and then uh we built in some equity criteria based on the number of students that met the criteria and the number of
053students in their school. Uh this meant that f that the partners could focus on collaboration instead of competition. Uh so uh this strategy worked out pretty well. We made $9.8 million worth of grants. Uh we supported 10 career pathways that focused on engineering, computer science or healthcare. Uh it involved over 50 institutions, over 30 employers in new or expanding intersegmental partnerships. Uh we developed new dual enrollment um guaranteed admissions for some students at at some CSU campuses. It also supported family engagement activities, academic support, transportation assistant, new equipment. Um, lots of different schools did lots of different things. We even had one rural school in St. Louis Abyspo who set up uh who we helped set up a print shop so their so their students could get uh work experience because there wasn't jobs in
054their rural area that they could get to. Uh, and it's a fascinating program. Uh we also added uh this year another we got nearly a half million dollars from uh the state and we prioritized paid internships for the students in our pathways in economic development projects that were funded by the California jobs for first partner uh uplift central coast connecting our two efforts together. Uh we also uh wanted to um uh encourage and the adoption and use of the California College Guidance Initiative CCGI and we set up communities of practice in both the northern region and the southern sub region and uh they met month they've been meeting monthly since the fall and uh it's a great tool. You may be familiar with it. I'm looking to see if you're familiar with it. CCGI is
055a tool that uh tracks A throughG completion. Um that helps with FA uh application. Uh it has a career exploration module and it also uh will I think it does college applications a as well. And so it's a stateup supported free tool for schools. Schools have you have paid for things like Naviance which you may be familiar with. A lot of schools use that here in Santa Cruz County. But this is a free tool for students uh and their families to use and for school districts. Um I see that in my slide here I left off an important piece. Here in Santa Cruz County, we've uh funded nearly $2 million in grants and other uh work for pathway create uh creation uh pathway creation or um uh the support necessary to to maintain this uh
056uh collaborative. uh UCSC acts as our fiscal agent and in which several of us are hired by, but we also have two backbone organizations who uh where our regional coordinators are based. Our northern region coordinator bases here at the COE. Uh Ashley Selk is a very talented uh member of our staff uh who is actually a COE employee. uh worked closely with Ferris, Christine Chopra, um and everyone here to make sure that the efforts that we're doing here are coordinated with the efforts that the county office of education here in Santa Cruz and also Monterey and also San Bonito. Uh and I'll talk a little bit more about that in a moment. Uh we also have our southern partner is UC Santa Barbara and then uh a third partner backbone organization is Cababrio College which
057does all of our data and evaluation. Um what that has led is the this is one of the pathway maps uh which we can get you uh better copies of so you could actually read. Uh but one of the requirements for the state is they wanted to create something that they call student journey maps. And uh as with many parts of this program they said they wanted it but they didn't tell you what it should look like. And so we did focus groups with parents and students to find out what they would want to see in a map about a career pathway. And what they told us is cut out the acronyms. Um uh they care less about the name of the degree, but they wanted to know what a student would be doing at
058each part of this continuum, what kind of supports they would receive, and what kind of uh work opportunities there were. And so we've created this oh and and most importantly what kind of jobs were they going to get and could they know how many there were and what would the range and so this uh is an effort to map one of our pathways which is the land air space and sea or something very close to that uh name uh in that order some order uh that is Pyro Valley Cababrio College and UCSC uh there's a second pathway with those same three organizations around healthcare um that lead to the global health program at uh UCSC. Um there is all sorts of work opportunities along the way uh and also other career exploration activities. Um, and
059then at Pyro Valley, just this past year, we paid for a health care uh series uh so uh students and families could learn about their health care pathways when they presented each of their high school uh and bilingual presentations uh to ensure that parents and students knew what the opportunities were in their school. So, we've done a lot so far, but we got a lot more that we're doing. the just this past month uh we did a uh one of our data collections. This was the first time that all of our schools were involved with it. So we're just starting to piece through what that data tells us. But in the six county region, it means 36,000 students are involved in some way with one of the classes in our pathway. And so our goal
060is to track that and to see that the interventions that we have been making are making a difference. uh but we'll have more over time. Uh our next uh data collection is in the right at the after the beginning of the year and that'll give us the first sign of whether we're seeing the needle move in some way. We are also uh going to be launching a major initiative over the next year, a million-doll initiative to help teachers in high school get their master's degrees so they can teach more dual enrollment courses um in high school. We believe that's a very effective tool. Um, it gives uh students a real leg up. Uh, it shortens their path to uh to uh college and so hopefully that helps them complete college. Uh, and it also helps
061them uh access the the highways job that we're focusing on. Lastly, we're going to be launching an effort in all six of our counties with community organizations to go into the community and talk about the pathway work that we're doing to make sure that parents and and communities know about these opportunities. If we're trying to reach folks who may have never gone to college or haven't traditionally thought of themselves in these careers, we have to do a lot of work uh in and and and speaking to community members and talking uh to them um and and providing the information. So, that's a very exciting part for for the coming year. So, that's a lot that we we're we're doing a lot uh and I didn't want to bore you with lots of granular detail, but
062I'm happy to answer questions. I do want to just say though before we start that um this collaborative is in part successful because of the support we have from all of our partners but we have an especially great partner in the in the Santa Cruz County Office of Education. Um although it doesn't involve many schools uh Dr. Sabah has been an active part of our uh steering committee uh and backbone committee. uh Christine Chopra is uh also involved in our steering committee and our data committee. She brings a lot of great experience and then the the hiring of Ashley Selk has been um really transformative to our collaborative because she has done the important work of threading together relationships uh that can strengthen these partnerships and introduce new ideas in a way that's not confrontational
063but collaborative. um and the the kind of work that we have in Santa Cruz, Monterey and San Bonito. We have some amazing pathways. We have a pathway in San Bonito that is uh we call uh three plus three where they students start taking dual enrollment courses their sophomore year. So when they graduate high school, they only have two years of at CUSMB uh to get their megatronics uh degree. if if you live in a rural community, that kind of pathway gives you a greater chance of uh success. Um we have u some other work on the Monterey Peninsula that's also uh fantastic around tech and other other pieces as well. So it's been it's been very exciting. Um and I just want to express my appreciation to Dr. Sabah, uh Miss Selk, and Christine Chopra,
064uh who've been great, uh partners in all this work. So with that, I'll leave it for questions. >> Questions, comments from the board. >> Um, that's a lot, but it was all great information. And, um, one of the things I'll say is I had a list of questions, but they were all answered >> through your map, you know, the map. I had, were there focus groups? Were there, you know, what does the pathway look like? And so, thank you for providing that. I look forward to looking at that a little bit closer. Um I was curious about um the committee itself and you said that there were industry members um there are students and I was just curious you know sort of the background on how those individuals um were selected and how that all
065came to be. >> Well uh the the the collaborative uh group as I say started meeting four years ago. There was a tremendous amount of planning a lot of conversations before I got involved. Um and uh but there was a real strength of relationships and it was amazing. It's amazing working with 30 plus people and finding more agreement than disagreement. Um it's sometimes helpful to have disagreement because you learn a little bit more about who you are. But uh you know when you can get this many institutions rowing in the same direction that's a good sign. And so there's been a real commitment uh to the equitydriven uh mission that we have uh and there people have reached into their networks to find representatives from industry to participate early on. And then when we did
066our second round of funding last fall, we made it a requirement of the partners to come. We had this non-competitive uh allocation formula, but there was a requirement and the requirement was you had to come with all your partners and you had including your industry partners to in order to get the money. So that was great incentive for people to to establish relationships. And um we had a convening just recently. Joby Aviation for instance was is in involved with maybe one or two of our partnerships. Uh and uh they and we just funded an apprenticeship with Joby um that will happen through Hartnell College uh as part of that um uh workbased learning uh grants that we just gave out. And so we're gonna we're we going to continue to grow the number of industry
067members because it's very important if we're thinking about career pathways that educators are actually talking to industry members. When we got together first and had an industry member from Southern California talking to the their group, he said, "Where are you talking about um computer security?" And the faculty at that all the folks were like there was what you know and he said every every person to come here has got to know about security at this point. So you you should be teaching that in schools and it's just it's like a light bulb moment for some folks. you know, you there's a there's there is a uh delicate balance that has to be brought between um good strong academic freedom and and and giving a broad education as well as uh providing the tools necessary for
068people to be successful in careers. And so that's a constant um uh scale that we're trying to to balance. But having those conversations make educators aware of what people need for the jobs that they're trying to train students for. >> That's that's amazing, especially for our students who really want to see what the endgame is. It's like, I'm here, but what can I do with this? And so, that's really important. And I just had a um I know that over the four years, you're probably collecting a lot of data. And so are there being, you know, outcomes, student outcomes being tracked or number of students being served or sort of like tracking of that sort of cradle to career, especially particularly with the high school students. >> Yeah. So one of the challenges is uh
069that this is uh this this isn't we we don't know how long the state will fund this. So we really just got everything set up by the end of last year. So, as I say, the the the data collection that we did this uh past July was the first time we were hearing from 20 of our partners. So, it's too early to for us to know. Um and uh we have funding probably through 2027. Um and so we'll get some idea. What we're trying to set up uh is the systems to be able to track this. So right now we are using uh uh basically publicly available I mean we're we're getting reports from each of the schools about the demographics about uh uh about uh uh race and uh uh whether socially economically uh
070disadvantaged students uh and gender. Uh we are also looking at completion rates. Uh but we want to get student level data and uh that data sharing agre agreement wasn't worked out uh before we gave out the money. So now we're doing it afterwards and we're starting with a data sharing pilot uh that we hope to have uh completed by the end of this calendar year and serve as a model. some of the other collaboratives. This that the state told us that we really wanted you to track data, but we didn't know how to do it. And we figured one of the 13 would come up with it. You know, Sacramento, their collaborative is spent $3 million on it, including a half million dollars for lawyer to negotiate agreements. We have chosen a different path and
071we've chosen to put the money into the students rather than the lawyers. No offense to anybody sitting here. And um and so uh we're we're we're a lot of this data is already being collected and in some cases already being shared but maybe not with all the partners. And so we're trying to set that up and we'll have down the road we'll have more complete information. We do have a publicly available data dashboard on our website that you can check out uh the information uh about what we found. I could give you a whole 15inute presentation on that. Uh Ben Allen. >> Uh well, John, first of all, um one more step in your long career of public service and I appreciate it. Um uh I just had two comments. One is that I to
072me your emphasis on the relationships is crucial, you know, among the districts and the industry and the universities and so on. that's got to be a central piece of the ongoing work, not just the setup kind of, but the ongoing cultivating and nurturing those relationships. Um, and then secondly, the thing that I really like is the idea of making the pathways clear because I think for a lot of people, especially families that hadn't had any members in college before, uh, maybe have language barriers, things like that, to not even be able to sort of picture what the steps would be or where would I go next or who could help me if I get up to here and need help or something like that. That's so crucial for people that don't have that background. um
073especially but also for anybody that's going what's this world got for me right now and what am I going to do to make a living you know and so having those really clear and I think I like the the flyer thing that you showed you know that one pathway but as many different ways to express like what the pathway involves which maybe not just on paper you know what I mean but help people get that because I think that's going to be a major piece of motivating people to want to >> go up through the program so congratulations Thank you. Just two two comments. One is relationships are very important in this and that helps uh uh conversations, but you really have to make systemic change because if we count on that professor to do
074it or or that dean to be supportive, they go away. And if we don't if we haven't created a a systemic response, uh then all of our good work is is is like the sand. It'll go it'll blow away. Um the second thing that uh about the the maps is this is the what you've seen is sort of the first iteration of it. Uh one of the things that we also heard from the folks group is some people look at paper, some people look at their phones, some people look at their web and we we are going to have to um prepare them in all the different ways. uh one one of our goals is to create as much of a seamless transition so the student doesn't have to navigate the system that the system
075is designed for people to be successful. So, think of that map uh uh with a guidance counselor with a decoder ring that says if the student wants to take this, he's got to take English one and math five and and engineering three or whatever whatever the classes are so they can get through and that and then we know that the community college is going to accept it and and we know that that might lead to guaranteed admission at a CSU or going to be accepted at the UC. Uh because it's hard, right? Right. I mean, any student who's gone through the system, anybody who's gone through the system, parent trying to to navigate it, you know, takes a certain amount of Indiana Jones sometimes to work your way through uh the the obstacles that are
076that exist. And so what we're trying to do is is try to deal with that. Um so it's a lot smoother for a student, especially for someone who uh may not have a family with a lot of experience in higher education. Larson. >> Thank you, John. Sorry I can't be with you there tonight, but it's great to see how you're continuing to lead and serve, particularly in a very important area. So, thank you for the presentation. I did go to your website today and I was poking around trying to learn a little bit more and I thought several of your slides tonight, particularly the pathway and some others just provided a a much meteor understanding of of what you're doing. One issue I wanted to raise you've kind of already touched on, but that's the
077sustainability program. Um it appears like you're primarily state funded, no federal funds, so you're not facing that threat, but you are facing state uh challenges. What is the total program throughout across all the collaboratives statewide in terms of scale? You have a ballpark on that? >> Well, I don't I don't I I'm not that quick in math, but there are 13 collaboratives. They each received about $18 million. you know, the state they they did they did some odd things in the setting of the they they created 13 regions >> and they gave each region the same amount of money. Now, ours is the size of Illinois and we have a half million students. You could have a much bigger geographic area in the northern part of the state and have a lot less people and
078get the same amount of money. If you're in LA, you could have a lot smaller and have way more people than we do on the Central Coast. So, um, you know, that's the Solomon's, uh, uh, way of giving out money. >> Um, one of the one of the ways that we're looking at s sustainability is we've already established a partnership with the Golden State Pathway Program and their technical assistance center who is working in the same sixcount region. And so, they're providing us some resources. Uh we are been working with the Bay Area Community College Consortium on the K12 SWP process to be able to support our pathways uh because the work that the someone like Ashley does um is really crucial to the success of the pathway. And so we're looking to that and
079we'll look to CIG. One day the federal government will be back in the business of career education. I don't know when uh but we hope that uh it's sooner as opposed to later. This is one of the things they're supposed to care about. Uh but we don't know. Uh we've also had um major presentation to the Gates Foundation and we are talking to other foundations to support parts of our work as well. So that's our long-term sustainability and when a new governor comes, this may be what they invest in as well. We are partnering with our California Jobs First partner because economic development is usually high on everybody's list and if we're the training arm of their economic work, we're trying to work in partnership. >> Thank you. >> Okay, Roth. >> Overall, I am
080really pleased to see what this is. It's huge and very difficult I realize but I do think that the focuses that you have established are really good. >> Thank you. >> And especially the equity and uh that communicating between uh industry, the education system and the students you're including too. Um those are really difficult but hopefully with what we're facing in the future education is in I don't know it's good word term what uh but this is a a a program that if placed right and accepted should help direct how we go and I'm I'm glad we're part of it and far as federal government only knows but I'm glad that state of California at this point in time is backing it and at least until 2027 because I think pathways are extremely important uh
081for both families who support their students and for the students to have an idea where they might Thank you. Uh, you know, I when I first got involved with education, it was, uh, through my work with Cababrio College. I served on the board there for eight years. Workforce development, what we called it then, um, is, uh, was one of the reasons I got involved with doing it. So, I've really believed and cared about uh, career pathways and career technical education for students. It really you I've I've just seen so many people whose lives have been changed um and have worked hard to make sure that these opportunities are available for students in Santa Cruz County and it's um it's very fulfilling to have it happen over a sixcount region. >> All right, have no other
082questions or comments. I just want to thank you for taking the time to uh come and share all the great stuff that the collaborative is doing. >> Thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you for your work. Okay. Item 8.3, we have the Soal High School special education project. For this one, we have uh Dr. Sabah along with Reyes and Laru. >> Yes. Thank you so much, President Sanchez. I'm going to ask our deputy superintendent uh to do a brief introduction, but um I would like to give a warm welcome to Ralph Laru who is um the CEO and um principal of Stacked, which is a uh uh architectural firm. And um Mr. Laru uh is basically the architect for Santa Cruz County. Pretty much every c every district in the county uh is working with
083him uh to develop their master plan. Um, and we're really fortunate uh their uh their facilities master plan and we're really fortunate to have them support us with the SoCal High School uh uh uh services that we're developing for our special education students. We currently are our students are currently housed in in some antiquated uh facilities and we are really excited that through this project which you you'll be learning about our students are going to have uh some some beautiful cutting edge uh facilities that are worthy of them. And then uh Leanne, would you like to share a little bit more before Ralph takes it away? >> That was pretty darn good. Um I will say that Mr. Laru's firm did respond to our RFP and won the bid to do the architectural work for
084us on this project. Um, some of our board members will have seen pieces of this prior. We had to work through some um, agreements with Santa Cruz City Schools, but Mr. Laru and I actually presented to the Santa Cruz City Schools board and they were um, very receptive to this building plan that we're presenting. And I do just want to uh reinforce that the uh current facilities that our uh regional program students are housed in on campus at SoCal High School school are in dire need of being um scraped away and replaced with something a much more suitable learning environment. And that's been a very strong uh tug on my heartstrings to make sure we have the best facilities for our most needy students. And so with that, I'd like to turn over this very
085exciting plan to Mr. Laru. Yeah, good evening Ralph Laru. Good evening, trustees, superintendent. U very excited to be here. Um I've been in this room many times presenting to school uh Santa Cruz City Schools and I I wanted to uh tell you a little bit about my history because it pertains specifically to this project. um during the last bond for Santa Cruz City Schools, we we modernized um SoCal High School and uh spent 30 million on that campus, but left four portables in place that weren't the school district's program. So, this is really an opportunity to to do a a great project there. Um and um I've been involved with education for 25 years as as Dr. Sabah says. um worked with most school districts. So I've got the perspective of the uh prevailing wage
086and the management um of of projects. I tried to look at projects holistically. So what you see tonight is a is a plan that um that I've worked with Leanne to budget and schedule a realistic project to create an awesome facility. So we're going to um look at the site layout today. And remember this is schematic design. So we're still in the development process. It's the an early day. We'll look at some um modular topology solutions, the building program and layout options. Um and then again we'll talk about the program management aspects which is the costs and um and we want to work hard to offset your costs with uh funding a availability for new construction. And Leanne will talk a bit about that later. And then uh uh you know should we move forward
087I've put a schedule together a little aggressive but I think where if we work together closely we can achieve that. So the building side is SoCal High School. I'm assuming um most of you familiar with it. Um it's right adjacent to the new pool that was built. So, the portables on the on the right there have been in place um I can't remember exactly, Lean, but I think they're at least 30 30 plus years old and they have what you'll notice that they don't really have any access to outdoor quality space. Also, the drop off of those portables are right on in the fire lane that that um rings the campus. So we work with the um the school district to allocate a site that was actually slated for some development um early on in
088their bond and we didn't land up building there. So we know the topography well um it's it it's right adjacent to the A program. So we've had uh some discussions of how maybe uh the SDC classrooms could maybe do something with with a as well. So, um excited with that, uh piece of land because what we'll focus in is not just the buildings itself, but the the a and beautiful courtyard space that will support outdoor education. Um, so the classroom uh program, I won't go through every detail here, but the classroom program really replaces those four portables, but also uh replaces um a program called the hub, which is located at 313 Swift Street right at this minute. And that that uh site is going to be developed for educated workforce housing. So that that
089those buildings going to be um demolished in place there. Uh so we combine um those uh those classrooms with with the hub including uh therapy spaces, purpose design therapy spaces and then we have a small space for the uh staff to to take a break. Uh this is just some uh pictures of the existing hub. Um we'll definitely set it up. It's for life skills like a a typical studio unit almost where um every part of a living unit can be explored by a special ed um student. Uh currently in the hub there's uh you know there there's various uh rooms. Our space will be one room uh so that you know there's good visibility and good access to to everything. So we we will create a great teaching environment. We work closely with with
090Devon in incorporating all those elements. Um modular buildings. This is another passion of mine is uh modular construction. I got really frustrated many years ago with work construction of modular buildings. Um 2008 especially a lot of modular companies went out of business. So it's really captured by a small group that um that do very specific um kind of portable but a little bit better portable. My my goal is to give a modular solution that really is equal to any stick built and in fact during our our um bed process we're going to test the price for against stickuilt as well. So for instance, if if during our bed we find that stick built is is equal or cheaper, we we'll just build it on site. So I'll I'll walk you through that process in a
091bit. But you'll see um we uh some keys key to the environment that we're trying to create some high ceiling. We want to incre incorporate sustainability features. Uh good um vision out the windows, comfortable um you know comfortable uh spaces um and and not it is not going to be another portable um so uh some aspects of the site plan the site layout I think works really well. Um so there there'll be a place for a small bus or any drop off vehicle to um park adjacent uh to to the units. The buildings itself create a positive outdoor environment as you can see with various uh spill out uh education um opportunities I would say. Um, obviously we include lots of shade, access to water, all those important things, a comfortable seating. Um, there will
092be a a low fence up front and then at the back there will be a higher fence that matches the Santa Cruz City School um standard when they do an 8-ft fence that is difficult to climb for anybody coming from the back side of the campus. Um, we we are looking and incorporating a swing. I think that was a Devon wish list back. Yeah. Um Yeah. And again, access, you know, um adjacency to the egg program. I'm not sure how that plays out from the teaching, but I think it's a real opportunity to have some raised planter beds in that courtyard, but then also to be able to walk over and be fully immersed into the in the campus. Um just some progress really. I'm not going to go over this. We've started drawing up
093the uh the drawings to be able to go out to bid. Um again, we are in schematic design. We'll we quickly will move into what we call design development and that'll be a the drawings that are form the basis of a solicitation package. Um that's that's this is that same plan with um the the kind of the the floor plans broken out. So you can see it's two buildings. They are set up in um a typical modulation of the 12x40. That gives us an opportunity to both explore the modular concept first uh stickuilt u concept. Um so these are the enlarged plans. Um you can see the SDC classrooms both with full uh restrooms uh and changing table. And then we have small breakout spaces. Those um on the left, those breakout smaller rooms would
094actually probably just be a a curtained off partition space for for a teacher and student to have a one-on-one in an event of of that need. Um the on the building on the right um the classroom on the right or the building on the right is the hub and that as you can see is got a full uh horseshoe shaped um kitchen and uh we haven't populated with furniture but the next presentation we'll actually do some 3D rendering showing u how that that works because furniture for a spare program is really important picking the right type of furniture. Um and then on the right of um you'll see various size uh therapy rooms. Okay. So this plan has been reviewed by um Leanne Devon and Ferst I think has seen it and I think this
095is this is our basis um to proceed with um some views. So we make it look finished but it's really schematic design. still chance for color, different colors, different uh different finishes and different shapes. Um generally we're really happy with the way the um buildings sit together. I think it creates a rich uh environment. Uh just some uh lower view, some welcoming environment. All of these classrooms would require two exits. Um but the vision of this facility is that um students would be dropped off in in um at the gate and then actually enter the classrooms at the rear side of those classrooms. Um of course there might be instances where um they could come through the the other door, but the front doors you see are really just exit doors and they're required by
096code. Uh, and that was and that was um kind of for for security. Um, we also focus on lines of sight and be able to see every every corner, make making sure there's no hidy uh holes. Um, yeah, I think that explains the layout. Uh well, you'll see with the roof form, we we're finding opportunities to bring in a lot of lot of natural light through every space. Um and then in the center part of that courtyard, there'd be a gathering space. >> I like that slide because it shows Devon's swing in it. >> Oh, yes. Yes. I don't know how to go back. I >> was going to go back. You don't. That little green box is actually the slide the swing. >> Yes. Yes. And we'll work on that. It's exciting. Um my
097wife's a s was a sulper at Baharo and she always ask for swings at schools and I'd say no because when you do it at a regular school there's too many students but I think at a sped program it works amazing. Um so this is a program management piece. I really look at architecture not just from architecture and engineering the program management the the design and then the construction management I look at I try to look at the whole um the whole story um so when when we're looking at cost you never focus on just the construction cost um we've got to make sure we have allowance for the furniture um there's soft costs there engineering fees division estate architect fees and then um in this budget. Uh key to note that we've had a
098lot of contingency. So we're we're we're trying to be conservative, make sure that there's no budget overruns. So we have a good uh we got a design contingency of 20%, we have a construction contingency of 5%. And um and of course as the project gets de developed, we'll have refined estimates for you. some some of those contingencies will reduce. Our goal is to execute this project in much less than that um that amount that that budget range but not anymore. We definitely want to be below the the budget that we're sitting at this point. And also um there's a time factor. So every year you wait the escalation um is really impactful. You get less building for your budget. Um, so I'm I'm managing the workforce housing right now for Santa Cruz City Schools and
099um we you we're using the alternative design build um method. It it was some um a new state law in 2023. I think it's a what is AB 185. Um and it's been really good. It it allowed us to actually design the building through design development and then use that package. So you could think of it as bridging documents. So that's how we solicited that um the contractor for that project. Um it puts a lot of control um in the COE's hands in terms of design but then also in the back end of budget. So, I'm I'm recommending that this uh this method um be used and we'll be meeting with the legal on this to to start to structure those solicitation packages pretty soon. Green. Oh, there you go. Um uh some something else
100you should note. uh you do have a facilities master plan but recently the state um upped their game in terms of the requirements of facility master plans. So there uh there are some aspects that um we would have to update to be able to apply for the state funding. It's a requirement. So this is kind of a checklist of of information that we'll be working with. U it doesn't need to be obvious. you you we've definitely done all the inventory of of all of your sites already. So that's great. We have to run the capacity uh look at your enrollment and all of that. So we'll work closely with you on that. Uh and lastly the schedule. Um so you know should we should we move we have been moving ahead. Uh so this is
101our schedule. We we aim to do a design development package pretty soon early next month and then um we'll work with the attorney to put a solicitation package together so the contra the contractors have enough to to go on there be parameters but some of it will not be exactly defined because we also want to get a contractor with some that they bring their innovation and their cost control but we set the standard and the design expectations within the package. Um, with all that going well, we uh cut the ribbon on 11 uh 27. I hope to be there and execute for you. Thank you. >> Oops. >> Any questions? >> Questions, comments, >> Larsson. >> Well, first, uh, those don't look like any portables I've ever seen. Those look uh fantastic. So, thank you
102for that. I was particularly excited about the hub being colllocated at this site and you've answered some of my questions about that. Um the base that's being vacated by the four portables, I'm assuming that will go back to SoCal High to repurpose and reuse. >> Uh yes, I forgot to mention that. So on some of the other projects we've developed at that school, they lost a lot of parking. And with that pool right there, I think it's going to be a really good um row of parking. I think at least 20 stalls that that will go back in there cuz right now those portables are set on asphalt which so it it should be an easy transition. >> If I may add another Oh, >> that's okay. I was just sneaking in here. Um, another
103positive about this project is because we do already house students in that area, we wouldn't have to pay extra money for temporary housing, which is a huge cost that we're avoiding by executing this plan in the in the order of which we've chosen. >> Makes a lot of sense. A follow-up question is it seemed like the portables, just looking at the aerial were probably a lot more square feet than the 4800 square ft. that's being proposed. But I'm assuming the 4,800 is just a lot more efficient and effective space and not open source for it. actually not. It's it's like for like. So, um those portables are 960 square ft and I don't have my calculator, but 5* 960 I think is the 4,800 and um so it's it's there would not be less space
104be equal. Exactly. >> Okay. Okay. And that's all my questions. Looks good, >> Williams. >> Uh yeah. Um thank you for the presentation. It looks beautiful just to start with. Um just a couple of questions regarding um the students that it'll house. Is this just going to be rehousing the the students in the existing or are there other students going to be coming in from other schools? What is I guess I misunderstood that part where there was a mention of like space from on another part of our county. >> Yeah. The only other space I was mentioning is the hub >> which is that lifestyle space which is being demolished and on swift street. >> Okay. Got it. >> And it's really a space that you gets used occasionally by students coming from various places.
105Yeah. where where the other classrooms are direct transfer from the on-site programs. >> Okay. And then I I noticed and I know that this is just a mockup, but the the spaces for intervention um is that to be used for students even coming from the main campus area or is this more of the higher needs students? >> This building is for our regional students program. So, I think it's a little misleading in that the title says SoCal High School, but really I think we should flip that alone and say this is our special education regional program >> located at SoCal High School. >> Thank you for the clarification. That does help. >> Give us a little Yes, >> that does help. Um, all right, that's all I had. Thank you very much. >> I did
106want to just add one one piece. Um, I see that Trusty Roth has a question uh which is one of the the strengths of our program and a requirement is is our mainstreaming uh component. And so the students do uh participate and uh with students from from SoCal High School. And I also wanted to share that uh if you looked at the time frame for a January 2027 opening uh just three years ago, 5 years ago, that would have been unheard of that we would be able to do it. And one of the reasons uh is the law that that uh Ralph mentioned, but also the fact that he uh he he brings expertise in designing these modular units. And so, um, the fact that that we have Ralph working with us is is something
107that is going to allow us to be able to implement this program, this this, um, building in in a much quicker, uh, time span than normally would it would take. >> Roth, >> uh, yes. Will this facility >> do Soel or I realize you know it's on their property but will they be the the oversight >> through city schools >> right no it's I mean it is you know the the the ground on which it's it's is you know part of soal high school but it is that this is going to be our program right and so these these these will be our facilities ities. Um, and with our agreement with with Santa Cruz City Schools to have our program and and this is true for for most of our regional programs is that we're,
108you know, located um on, you know, district uh campuses in some in some cases. Um, but these are these are our structures. These are it's county office of education structures. But who will be oversight on city schools or >> This is our program. Our >> I also wanted to let you know that as a condition of being able to receive state funding which we'll talk about in a few moments here. Um we will be entering into a long-term lease with Santa Cruz City Schools for the property. Um, and that lease cannot be any less term of than 40 years, which makes sense because the state doesn't want to lend us money to build a program to have a district that that program is located on, you know, have an issue or grab it or whatever.
109>> So, um, that's another piece that we've been working very closely. I've been working very closely with, uh, Mr. Jim Bonreal, the Santa Cruz City Schools assistant superintendent, business services, and I think believe Miss Superintendent Monroe is also aware of this. their board is aware of this as well. Um, we're just that'll be something you'll be seeing in one of our upcoming board meetings is this long long long-term lease in order to secure the space. >> Any other questions or comments? >> I'm curious, uh, for a modular unit like this one, what is the service life? How long can we expect to use it before repair and potential? >> Um, so the goal is that it'll be equal to a a site built project. Okay. So, um, >> yeah, I mean, we have a few
110classrooms that we built at U Delmare and Green Acres Elementary. You could see them there. They're modular. You wouldn't tell because they set on grade on a concrete foundation. Um, a lot of the portables that are are, you know, terrible in some of the school districts here, it getting the moisture from temporary foundations or too close to the ground. So, we look out for that. We use quality materials. So, so we did raise the um the square foot rate a little bit from, you know, what a what a lesser portable style project would be. >> Okay. Yeah. So, I guess follow-up question. What's the difference between modular and portable? Um that's a they have a lot of conversations about that at state level. Uh well portables were designed to move. Um and in fact there's
111a law that allows them to be on a temporary foundation, a wooden foundation. A modular building is more something that is set that might be built in a factory but once it's set it's permanent building. >> Okay. Yeah. Okay. Uh if there are no other questions or comments, >> uh I want to thank you for taking the time to come and educate us on uh the work that's going on in our schools and our sites. >> Okay, >> thank you. >> We actually have like a part B. We're not quite done with this item. There's a couple more slides. Sorry. >> No worries. >> But Ralph got the sexy stuff once again. The really cool stuff's going to be before I speak. Okay. So, I don't know who could run. Ralph, do you mind running
112the slideshow for me? Unless be can do it. believe we're >> I just need to go through if this is still part I believe of the same agenda item we just had. >> I didn't have the pretty slides. Okay. So, what I wanted to try to do is give you an idea of scope as far as um potential costs or estimated costs for this project. Um but I do want to make sure I remind everybody these were just estimates. These are just some scenarios. Um, and I'm going to continue to work really hard and coming up along with Ralph with a u really buttoned up financing plan because once we get our bids and really get a good idea of that, then we'll be able to really actually move forward with real numbers. So, I
113just threw some numbers together as kind of a whatif scenario and how it might play out. But you will be getting more accurate numbers as this project progresses. So um on the first slide I just wanted to share with you that we will be pursuing um state school facility program funding options. Um we have a consultant who does this work for us. It's very complicated. There's a lot of paperwork involved. And so what we are um currently planning to move forward with is a new construction base grant which would include an upfront design grant in the amount of $1.6 million. Um, in addition to that, we're going to apply for a supplemental grant. And we estimate the amount we would be eligible for there is just shy of 600. It's $591,000. The design grant is
114a part of a subcomponent rather, if you would look at it that way, of the new construction base grant, and it's kind of intended to provide some seed money for the project. Um, the supplemental grants that I have up there are based on project elements. So, they're available to cover associated increased cost of having a smaller size project. This isn't very big when you think about it, even though it's really cool. Small but mighty. Um, it also assists with other construction costs like the site development. So, concrete, paving, underground utilities, connections, fire alarm requirements, things of that nature. That's what that money's um intended for. I wanted to put up there too, modernization grant. Those of you who are savvy to what your SFP or school facilities plan has two different types of grants you
115can apply for. Um we pivoted kind of late in the process here with our consultant um with HPD because the we realized that our new construction based grant would yield much more um funding for us for the classrooms. It's based on a formulary um and the modernization grant would not yield as many dollars for us. So we decided to put zero. We're not going to go for any modernization because it's better for us fiscally to go for the new construction funding. So that brings us to a subtotal of approximately $2.1 million. Next, we move into something called the state hardship match. A lot of people can't qualify in districts for a hardship match because they have the ability to bond. As a county office of education, we do not have the ability to go out
116to our voters and ask for a bond to help pay for facilities, which makes it always challenging for school for county offices to move forward with financing their projects. So, as a result, we would qualify potentially for a state hardship um match, which is the exact amount of whatever the other grants add up to. So assuming that we were able to successfully uh receive the $2.1 million, the state would kick in the other half or another $2.1 million to come up with an estimated total state funding amount of 4.3 million. On the next slide, and again, these were just round numbers. I think when we were talking when I was putting this together, we felt our escalation costs were a little different. And I know Ralph's already crunched the numbers down for us, but we
117went ahead and said, "Well, okay, let's let's just assume let's assume this comes in way over cost with tariffs or who knows what's going to happen economically in the next, you know, 2018 to 24 months. What if the project came in at 7.5 million? Where would we get the money from?" And so what districts and COE's do alike is they go out for what's known as external financing or known as external bridge financing. So, if we were to go out for approximately $7.5 million and if we were to set aside uh which we kind of have in our budget, put money aside for facilities improvements, a half million dollars, we could estimate for, for example, if the total project would cost us around $8 million. Again, I really really don't think with some of the
118work we've been doing that it's going to cost us this much, but just to kind of have a comparative. Um, and this is of course to give us upfront cash to be able to actually go out and complete the project. So, um, this is one of the financing, um, vehicles that we can access on the next slide. It's a really popular one. It may work for us, it may not. We're still kind of looking into that. But the most popular, especially for construction costs, is something called your certificates of participation, or we often just shorten that up and call them COPs. So, um, COPs are often used to finance construction costs until the state school facility program funds arrive. For those of you who've been around though, you know that the state's not really fast,
119not nearly as fast as we're going to be to put this project together. those funds will come to us, but maybe it'll take five to seven years to receive it. And that timeline is primarily driven by how much money is in the SF SFP program at the state level and whether or not the state is authorized to sell their bonds. That makes sense. Okay. So um since we are really limited when we think about bridge financing um some of the key features of a cop is that payments are made oftentimes from your general fund but are intended to be reimbursed when the SFP funds finally do arrive. So um it can be flexible structuring. It can be a shortterm bridge long or long term if needed. Um the other nice thing is this is no
120voter approval required but a board resolution and legal documentation would be needed. So some of the other options outside of a certificate of participation is a direct funded bank loan um which would mean we would have a private placement or a direct loan as an option. This typically costs a little bit more and is oftentimes better suited for a short-term project financing. Um, that's one of the things I know my team's been laughing at me because I'll come out and be like, "Wait, what if it was this?" And then I'll go back in my office and start looking at numbers again. So, I'm trying really, really hard to figure out what the most fiscally responsible um option would be for the county office of education. But let's just go forward one more slide and see
121how, you know, the COE borrowing can impact. Um, what you have right here are three scenarios. These were um provided for us by Dale Scott and Associates. Um, each of these scenarios offer an optional prepayment plan anytime after 10 years without penalty. And that's kind of designed so that while we're hoping you get your state money in 10 years and then you can pay off this loan that you had to take to finish the work. Um, a shorter payoff period can often times be priced. I will be looking into that. But sometimes it comes with additional costs in the form of a slightly higher interest rate. That normally only ranges a few basis points though. So, yes, it's a little higher, but it's not like 1 2 3% higher. The rates that you see here
122on this scenario, the first column represents a 15-year term, the second is a 20-year term, and then the third is a 30-year term. And you can see how the interest rates vary there between 3.86% and 4.84%. So overall, those aren't really horrible, horrible lending rates when you think about what home mortgages and other lenders are offering right now. Um, in addition, those interest rates were based on estimates that the market rate interest would be had we gone to the market to sell by on August 11th. So they're fairly um, you know, current rates. Uh, and as we all know, market fluctuation and credit review always influences at the end of the day what kind of a rate you would actually get. Um, and so you can see our how much the I think is everybody
123able to read that okay or see it on your screens. Okay. All right. So I don't have to read the numbers to you can see them. But the um payments do range anywhere between $690,000 a year up down to 496 depending on if you go with a 15, a 20, a 30 a year. Again, in this particular scenario, there are other options out there, but this is the most common. The um other two things I just wanted to point out to you when you look at the lower cost as far as your cost of issuance is concerned, a lot of those ca costs are pretty much the same. You need a lawyer whether you're borrowing $7 million or or $70 million. You're still going to have to pay for bond council, right? You're still going
124to have to pay the rating agency and all those things. So, the two lines that actually really change at all is the underwriters discount and the bond insurance amounts. And those are changing across the different terms. And the result of these changes or the reason for these changes is because the duration or the terms are different. So for example, bond insurance costs increase as the term of the financing increases. Why? Because you have longer credit risk for the people who are investing in this this paper. Um there are two factors at play, right? Bond insurance premium is calculated as a percentage of your total debt service. So as you go out for longer periods of time, your debt service is higher. Um the longer the term, the higher the percentage and the bond insurance firms
125will charge you accordingly. And then the longer the term of financing, the higher your total debt service amount. So that's why those two lines, you're going to say everything's the same except for those two lines, but those are the reasons why, just in case you were curious. So the real pain comes on the next slide. Here we go. Um, when you start adding up all of those payments though and your total interest, you can see that your uh 15-year scenario results in just over $10 million payback period. Now, those of us who have bought homes or cars, we have the shock. We all know that shock of wait, my my car was only $30,000 and I'm paying how much for it when I finance it, right? Um, so same thing happening here. the 20-year term
126is about 11.7 and then the 30-year year term is around 14. So, uh those total cost comparisons are important and that's another reason why I want to assure you that I'm going to continue to investigate the most fiscally feasible and responsible solution to our bridge financing needs. Um and there will be more on that to come. So the net of you're doing the math in your head and we can see the last slide in this presentation. Um you can see kind of what the net impact could potentially be if we were to fall into one of those particular scenarios. Um the the reality is the state funds will not cover 100% of this project. There's just there's just no way it can. So we will be coming out of pocket to pay for the difference.
127The question is how much based on uh what we feel our books can tolerate and uh what we're able to absorb and in what's in the best interest. Clearly all of this is in the best interest of our students. So the next piece of course is what's in the best interest fiscally for us. So thank you for letting me tack on these really exciting slides at the end of those gorgeous pictures. And if there are any other questions I think it does now conclude this agenda item. questions or comments? No. Leanne, always looking at the numbers to make sure that we do okay and we appreciate you for that. Thank you. >> I do have a question um since we're on this particular slide. So, we know that it could potentially be out of pocket
128anywhere between depending on where we're going 5.9 to$10.4 million, right? >> Worst Yeah, >> correct. Worst case scenario. Um, so I know in the information provided it said there is no guarantee that we will be getting state funds. So what does it look like for us fiscally if we don't get that money? >> It'd be the top line. >> Yeah, I know that. But like how how does that affect our viability? Like our >> So you have if you go back to the other slides and you look at what those little amortization tables are. if we went with a 30-year option, which is the most expensive, but sometimes we need that car, so we're going to go with a longterm so we can afford the car so we can get to work, right? So, same
129idea here. Um, you would go with a longer plan that would cost you more money, but you'd only be paying I think the payment was $4.90 something. May I in the $400,000 range um that which is something clearly the COE would be able to manage on an annual basis. We do have other sources of income that we're receiving that we've been looking at and um earmarking for facilities projects. So, I do feel that our ability to pay let's say a $400,000 payment over the span of the next what year are we in 10 to 15 years is >> very doable. >> In addition to which you always at that 10year mark where it says you can pay early. You can also call. Usually I would I wouldn't go into an arrangement like this if I
130wasn't able to be have it be a callable, right? In which case um then we could potentially refinance or refund is the term they use. Nobody understands what refunding means. So I'm going to use the term we all understand which is refinance. We bought our house at 7% but we've got better rates now. Let's go out and refinance for five. We would have the ability to do something like this this as long as we just make sure the deal is structured with callable. here. >> You're welcome. >> Any other questions or comments for Roth? >> Do we have list of other projects that you chosen this one? But >> sure. Um when we put together our facilities master plan, we we have a lot of dreams, ambitions, and hopes. I think between Ferris and I
131um we take turns holding on to each other's strings so we don't float away giddy with all the ideas that we come up with. Um but certainly this one was a large huge priority. Um as was mentioned these portables are in sad sad sad condition. Um they are well have exceeded their useful life. something must be done with these portables. And I believe that's why it kind of has it's been out there, but it really needed to float up to the top so that we could take care of this one um first. But some of the other ideas that we have involve other government agencies um you know, as far as uh getting their permission to make some changes. We have some really cool drawings for other areas, but that would mean we also need
132to work with the agency where that property or where those facilities are currently located. But um yes, we do have ideas for other things. Um but we're they're kind of in the the hopper, I guess, is a good way to say it. >> And in no way, >> yes, I would strongly agree with that assessment. Um we recently moved some of our programs down to the 119 West Beach Street facility, which um some of our programs um I don't even know Ferris, I should say. When I first saw them, I made a comment to Ferris about our students deserve better. And so that's been kind of my thing. I want to make sure our students are in the best possible facilities and we've been working towards accomplishing that in the last few years. >> Uh
133Larsson, >> Mr. President, yes, just if you could jump to the next slide, Leanne. So on the state funding, we may not know it for a few years, but if that were not to come to pass, then just looking at the topline numbers, it would probably absorb most of our facilities funding for 5 10 years. Um, I think what I was trying to say is I know I have a guaranteed revenue stream that would help pay for this for at least 10 to maybe 15 years. >> Um, and it's a revenue stream that we've been setting aside for facilities or for debt service. Um, President Sanchez always was really on me about what's going on for the cop with a 400 in all building, Leanne. And we made some structure changes with how we were
134re receiving and recording and setting aside dollars such that we were able to pay our debt off on this particular building many several years ahead of schedule, saving over a million dollars in interest by making a couple of slight uh adjustments with how we were in I don't want to say investing our money but more so setting aside and then earning interest on the funds in a exclusive way. So that revenue screen then could be applied if the state funds or an equivalent, >> right? Um because the theory too is when you will you will receive I've got like probably the best in the state working on our would you agree with that Ralph working on our state funding application. I actually called her today. We had a very robust conversation just off the cuff
135about funding and different sources and you know avenues we should really be looking closely at that are maybe a little bit out of the box um but available to us. And so she um is working really hard and some of the following adjacent items that we have will help position us to be in line for receiving the state funding and she she knows her business. I'm very confident in her ability to ensure everything that we submit will be uh will be accept acceptable by the state. Um including the fact that this new um AB just passed that Ralph was talking about that requires a whole new litany of um new uh requirements and in so far as submitting what our uh our five-year plan is, etc. Things of that nature. Um they haven't even completely
136refined what that list of things is at the state level. And Regina, that's the gal who works at it, she's on it. She's already trying to identify what do you guys need to have so we make sure this will be foolproof. Um she's really good. She's really good. Trusty Larson. >> Okay. Yes. And Ellen, >> followup question. So um the state funding seems very crucial doing this. Um, what's the timing of >> I'm not sure what they're right because we wouldn't move ahead if we didn't >> I'm not sure what once Regina submits >> go through various phases. >> Can you use the mic so that our board trustee can hear you. Thank you. >> Uh, you go through various phases starting with eligibility and we're pretty sure we're going to be eligible. Um, Regina
137used to work at the state so she knows that process. Um and then um and then once you're eligible it's normally just a waiting game. I've done a whole campus before we waited you know 6 8 years for the money to come but um generally it has in the past. There's no guarantee for future but it has has come. Yeah. Um I would just say one more thing. Um I think the state still has new construction funding. So that's another thing. They were out of modernization funding. So, um, that's why we want to move quickly. >> If if I could just add to that, I I think that there's a high probability that we would get the state funding. We and it's not really an option to wait until approval because we would wait forever
138and we wouldn't be able to to move forward. And so, there is that risk that we're going to move forward. we're going to secure the financing for the full amount and then um there's a high probability that we will get you know this you know this amount from the state. Uh but we do believe that even if we didn't get it we would we would not be in a we would not be in a compromised position from a financial point of view. >> So this item is uhformational only. I believe the next one is when we're going to talk about uh facilities master plan. Right. So with that uh again thank you for taking the time to come here and uh share with us all of the exciting uh projects that we have and improvements
139that we're doing for our students. So with that we are in item 9.1 our first resolution 25-30 authorizing the filing of an application for state allocation board administered programs. For this one we have uh Leanne also that's going to talk about it as a presenter. So, in order to get in line for that state funding, I uh respectfully request that the board approve the attached resolution, which is uh allows us to file our applications um for state allocation board administrative programs, which would get us in the first step of the process of receiving state funding. >> Any further questions or comments? >> Move to approve. >> Okay, we have a motion from Williams and a second from Ban Allen. Can I get a roll call vote, please? >> Trusty A. Costa. >> Hi. >> Trusty
140Larson. >> Hi. >> Trusty Roth. >> Yes. >> Trusty Van Allen. Vice President Williams. >> Yes. >> President Sanchez. >> Yes. It passes unanimously. All right. I have to apologize. Um, I need uh clarifying. I have a clarifying question, but the next item 9.2 is something that uh was asked to table and we should have on the agenda, but if we didn't, can we still What's the process for still tableling? >> You're able to table it uh right now. You would require a motion to table it. And we are uh we are asking uh for the board to table it. It's >> okay. uh table it at a future date uh so that we can get more details material to present to the board. >> Motion to table resolution 2529. >> Okay. First and a
141second. Can we get a roll call vote, please? >> Trusty Aosta. >> Trusty Larson. >> Yes. >> Trusty Roth. >> Yes. >> Trusty Van Allen. >> Hi. >> Vice President Williams. >> Yes. >> President Sanchez. >> Yes. Thank you. Uh, now we go 9.3 resolution 25-31, Hispanic Heritage Month. And for this one, we have our chair of the Community Outreach Legislation Committee, Greg Larson. >> Great. Thank you so much, Mr. President, and fellow board members. The committee has two resolutions we're bringing forward to you tonight. Both of these have been heard by the board in prior years. The first one has the uh key issues uh listed on the slide where the month occurs September 15 through October 14th. This year's theme is collective heritage, honoring the past, inspiring the future. Some key points are
142that 58% of the K through 12 students in Santa Cruz County identify as Hispanic or Latinx. This resolution officially designates those dates as Hispanic Heritage Month in Santa Cruz County and we encourage all students, families, and educators to join us in celebrating and honoring those. The one significant change for both this resolution and the following one is the federal clause that we've been adding since February, which recognizes federal changes in policy, funding, and staffing and how it's creating uncertainties and even fear in this case for our Hispanic and Latinx community. So, with that, the committee moves approval. Second. >> First and second. Any questions or comments? >> If I could um ask for um so we we have started switching to a Latina as opposed to Latin X as a more current. Uh so if
143the uh uh the trustee who made the the motion wouldn't mind uh uh making that adjustment and and the second the trustee who seconded it could we would appreciate it >> and it would be in several places throughout the resolution. Uh friendly amendment accepted. >> Yes, please. >> I'll I'll accept it, Rachel. >> Yes, accepted. Okay. Uh, if there's no questions or comments, can I get a roll call vote, please? >> Trusty A Costa, >> Trusty Larson, >> yes. >> Trusty Roth, >> yes. >> Trusty Van Allen, >> Vice President Williams, >> yes. >> President Sanchez, >> yes. Passes unanimously. Thank you. And then the last resolution that we have 25-32 recognizing National Suicide Prevention Month also with Trusty Larson. >> Thank you very much. Um won't go through all the data that was in
144the resolution. Some of the ones that really stuck out for me was that this is the second leading cause of death for ages 10 through 34, which includes our population that we cover. And that um in particular uh I was also intrigued that nine out of 10 suicide attempts do not result in death which seems to me to lend particular credence to the notion of emphasizing and and recognizing suicide prevention month. So with that on behalf of the committee I'd move approval. Second. >> Okay, we have a first and a second. Any questions or comments? If not, can I get a roll call, please? >> Trusty A. Costa. >> Hi. >> Trusty Larson. >> Hi. >> Trusty Roth. >> Yes. >> Trusty Van Allen. Vice President Williams. >> Yes. >> President Sanchez. >> Yes. Passes
145unanimously. Thank you. Now we're on uh item 10, a superintendence report. >> Thank you so much uh President Sanchez, members of the board uh for I I I think the date on this is the wrong date. We need to correct that right away. >> It is. >> Sorry about that. Yes, it looks like I'm still stuck in summer, but I did like to highlight this picture. Uh I believe that uh Trusty Sanchez and Trusty Williams as well as Trusty Larson uh participated actively in our uh our step the bus campaign and that's what this picture is of. Um really a just a wonderful group. I I feel terrible that I wasn't there, but so grateful to all of those of you who were. So many staff members who came, many who are here present with
146us who participated and stuffed over 2,779. Is that is that the right number? Something like that. almost 2,800 uh uh backpacks uh going to students all over the county and and just really really grateful to the partnership with the United Way and and other partners uh that were there and of course all the volunteers who made it possible. So, thank you for for those of you who were there and participated. And there's Trusty Larson with his thumb way up uh in celebrating after a long day's work uh as as with many of the other volunteers. I wanted to share a few updates with you and um one of those is um that uh the early retirement of of Richard Reid. Uh he's uh our director of maintenance and operations and he's um uh he has
147retired and we are currently searching for a new director of maintenance and operations. Also, um the announced retirement of our esteemed deputy superintendent, Leanne Reyes, who is planning to retire in December of this year after a long career in education and has been uh just a you know uh my deputy and and somebody who I I had to uh almost what I would say beg to convince to come work for us uh many years ago and has done a wonderful job. Uh we're so grateful to her work and uh contribution and you have been able to experience uh her support and her voice here on the board and and just uh we're going to be uh beginning the process of finding a uh uh somebody who will be taking on the position of deputy superintendent.
148But I thought it was important for the board to know uh as this is such a key uh person who um and Lyanna has done so much for for uh the county office of education. Uh so we'll have opportunities to celebrate her of course before her retirement uh and um and we will keep you a breast of of uh the process to to uh for our next uh business chief business officer and deputy superintendent. Uh so I'm going to move on so that we don't get I uh we don't spend too much time on this on that item. Uh so I wanted to share with you that we are currently exploring uh a board management uh board meeting management software. Uh President Sanchez has been helping us with that and our hope is to uh
149currently we're we're doing things a little old school with PDFs that you then get and have to have that the have to scroll through. Um, we are looking at some different solutions that we think are going to be much easier to use on iPads, on your phone, on um on any any kind of device. And so we're there aren't a lot of options out there, but we are uh we are confident that we're going to find something that is going to be a lot more user friendly for you and also for the the public when they look at our board our board meetings. Of course, you're well aware that we've opened Centro ace on uh 119 West Beach in Watsonville. And so encourage you to uh whenever if you have an opportunity to to make
150an appointment with us to to come visit and check it out. And it's a it's a flourishing uh uh location with with exciting learning opportunities for for our students and um and a great space really really worthy of our of of our community. Um, of course, we announced earlier in the summer that Project Ascendi diversion program to help students between the ages of 12 and 17 who've had some sort of contact um, citation or arrest with uh, through law enforcement to have an opportunity to to be diverted so that they in fact are able to participate in in pro-social activities, receive therapeutic support uh, also for for for families to participate and then if they complete the program successfully, they um uh will not have anything on their record um of that contact with law
151enforcement. Uh and I wanted to share with you that we have now received uh referrals from every law enforcement agency and so the program is up and running and um already diverting students. Our goal is to get to a point um where we have zero referrals of qualifying um misdemeanor and non-violent uh felonies of uh 100% that used to go to uh probation for that to be zero. That's our goal of course and so we'll we'll continue to uh as we gather data we'll be sharing about the success of the program and its impact. I wanted to share with you, of course, um that we are in in in alignment with the resolutions that this this board has made to protect our our our school community, um our families of m of mixed our mixed
152status families and their children. Uh we are updating our immigration response plans and sharing that information with all our schools. Uh we want to make sure that new staff and um are are getting this the information of what our plan is um how to support families and of course um ensuring that families also are aware to complete a childare safety plans. Uh the um our our colleague Marilena de Lagarsa from uh community action board has uh set out a challenge to complete a thousand of these plans for our families to ensure that um every family especially those who come from mixed status families uh mixed status families um have a plan for their children in case they are detained or deported to ensure that there is a safe adult to care for their children. Um
153we continue to do everything we can to support and affirm and as and um our our community as they they uh uh face this these very very frightening uh enforcement of of immigration that is being conducted by our federal government. Um some student related updates. uh we are have already begun the process of finding a um student trustee two student trustees to represent uh students. So at this point we have four applicants as of right now uh uh including uh uh students from from our alternative education program. The application deadline is August 24th. And part of the process, of course, is that we're going to have a special board meeting where you will be interviewing the different applicants and I selecting two students, one to represent our alternative education programs and one to represent all
154uh schools uh as we've done in the past. And um so we're excited that we have interest and and excitement. I did want to also share with you that we are launching a new program this year uh which is a um uh an advocacy a student advocacy um council that will be working with me. Uh these will be students from all the the all the student trustees um from all the school districts mo mostly high school districts and charter schools and in addition to students who have completed our student trustee academy which will be these students will be meeting with me on a monthly basis and uh we'll be providing guidance and advice and advocacy and helping um to uh uh inform uh us as an organization uh about student leadership and the needs and
155needs needs and opportunities that we want to make available for our students. Um we've been sharing uh about a drone drone program for educators which is a trainer train the trainer program that UCSC has organizing to um help educators uh have developed the certification to be able to train students to receive an FAA licensed drone piloting license. And so that's something that uh we've been uh communicating. We've also uh began we be begun recruitment for a robotics club. We had a wonderful uh a robotics program uh in in u collaboration in partnership with X Academy with Hartnell College and um and uh farmNG uh and we had a wonderful program that was very successful this summer. Um and uh we also are beginning our process to uh identify students for our the variety of different
156programs for that are part of our youthled leadership alliance. Um so we're we begin that recruitment. Andreas is going out to the schools and and um they have club brush days and and different ways for students to to participate. And so in the future we'll like to come back and talk to you a little bit about some some new exciting opportunities for students that are that are being made available. And I realize here that the childare safety plan challenge is here. Our goal is to help contribute to the completion of these childcare safety plans by September 30th. Um I did want to share just a little update on federal impacts on education. Um really I've shared this this something maybe a a variation of this of this slide which is just shows the different ways
157that we've been impacted by the federal uh federal government. um and um the different steps that they've taken. Uh the first one is that you have uh heard of that the the federal funds that were withheld have been released and have actually been been received by by school districts. Um the discretionary budget, which is how federal funding is approved by the by um by the federal government, that process is going to start in the beginning of September. And so this is something that is uh we um I'll be sharing a little bit more about this uh but that is how we get that 12 to 16% depending on what school district of funding um is approved through the discretionary budget. the HR1 which is um is going to have deep impacts on our our families
158when it comes to nutrition SNAP services as well as Medicare and Medicaid impacts on our local community uh hospital as well qualified health centers um is going into um is is we anticipate that starting in in uh September October of next year is when we're going to start seeing the effects of the impacts of of of HR Taiwan, I've talked about US Department of of Education disruptions, also the effort by the Health and Human Services effort to deny services to our undocumented communities and um uh court decisions related to either the Supreme Court or litigation, all of which have have had an impact. I did want to share with you that when it comes to the discretionary budget, the in February, the White House put out a what we call what people refer to as
159a skinny budget uh which which has deep cuts for the federal pro federal educational programs and including um the programs that were withheld this year. You'll also see in that bottom bullet on the left side there programs like Gear Up um like TRIO and other that that support students especially first generation students. The Senate just came out with a proposal that really countered that White House uh uh budget proposal. Um basically flat funds the all the federal funding. Some some in modest increases, a little bit of reductions, but generally keeps most funding level. and um they added language that requires funding to that not to be withheld as it was this year. Now, we know that the this the discretionary budget has to go uh get approved by the House of Representatives and has to
160be approved by the president. Uh but we are uh we are uh relieved to see at least some re response from the Senate in support of protecting educational funding uh for our schools. I did also want to share with you uh one piece of uh litigation that was very important which is that a federal court has permanently blocked the US Department of Education's attempt to restrict diversity, equity, and inclusion under title 6. So this is um really uh showing that the that the effort by the federal government to eliminate DEI programs um does not in fact constitute a violation of of title six and is actually only a recommendation and that there is no authority for the Department of Justice or the US Department of Education to limit our implementation of diversity um equity and
161and inclusion programs and practices. some uh events that we'd like you to know about. Um the county board conference uh in September. Uh the next uh SCSBA meeting um Santa Cruz CSBA meeting is taking place on September 8th. Um we're going to have a COE all meeting that you can join in person or on Zoom on September 11th. that same day, an exciting county administrator kickoff which will be taking place um at Segape Golf Club. Um we are supporting the Rainbow Conference again at Watsonville High School on September 27th and uh also supporting the screening of The Mask You Live In um which is taking place um on November 5th. And um of course uh the as always the the uh California School Board Association annual education conference is taking place on December 3rd through
1625th. And I leave you with some pictures of uh the new facility. That's the entrance on the left side there. Uh really a beautiful space and really grateful for all the the great work that um all our teams really from the our business services team, many of which who are here tonight, um our technology teams, our maintenance and operations teams, and all the staff um working together um from our alternative education programs, from our our career advancement um charter school. um working together to get this facility uh ready and available for our our students and it's really a wonderful vibrant space and I'll open it up for questions at this point. >> Questions or comments? >> The dates back up. >> Couldn't find it in my packet. Was it in the packet? Okay. Okay, if
163no questions or comments, we'll move on to the trustee reports and I'll start uh with myself this month and then we'll work our way up the table. So, attended a couple of those meetings with the management software where we got a tutorial just to see what's available. I think it's uh a lot of good resources that are out there. So excited to see what uh is chosen moving forward. I attended the COE um all staff meeting. Those are always fun to attend and just to see everybody and to celebrate people and their anniversaries and welcome all the new uh employees, the new hires. It's it's it's always a good time. Uh did the stuff the bus as well. Really enjoyed that. Um it's it's a very lively event. It's just very a lot of positive
164energy and and and good to see friends from the community as well. A lot of people from the community who come in and and help us uh achieve stuffing all those backpacks. Was bummed and a little bit upset that I couldn't go to the um to the new facility on West Beach Street. Uh but I will try to find another time to to to to go there. We'll definitely have to check it out. Been hearing a lot of uh good things. uh about that and uh that's my report. Tristy Williams. >> Yeah. Um so also attended um stuff the bus activities including making up the packets which was a lot of fun because you get to um do that with other COE staff and get to know them. Um so that was really nice. And
165then um on stuff the bus day I've kind of had a bum knee lately. So, I was like, "Well, I'm not sure how far I'm going to be able to help, but you know, it's so much fun that you just don't even think about it. You just keep going and it's just so much fun." So, um um went to the Scuzba St uh send off for Edward and that was really nice. We all just kind of just sat around the table and just um talked business really and heard a lot about his plan. So, we're we're very excited for him. Um and then um went to my first COE kickoff meeting and that was a lot of fun. I know it was the first time in that facility, but it was great. Um and again
166like um President Sanchez said um being able to be there to celebrate everybody's accomplishments and how long the years of service is is is really incredible. And then spent a lot of time um getting my daughter ready and off to college. So that took the rest of the month But that was a lot of fun. Um, and then before I move on, I want to say thank you, Leanne. Um, you have such a special gift to put very complex topic into layman's terms so that we understand and that it makes sense to us. And thank you so much. I'm very sad I've only been able to work with you for a very short period of time, but very happy for you to retire and just wish you all the best. Thank you so much. Thank
167you, Trusty Aosta. >> Okay, Trusty Van Allen. Thank >> committee work with but Greg did most of it. >> Okay, Trusty Roth, >> I've been having too much fun this summer and have missed a lot of this, but I believe I will be visiting our new center down in Watsonville next Thursday. At least I have a question mark on Tuesday >> to be determined. >> Oh, to Oh, to be determined. Okay. I I did have a question mark on it. So, um and I hate saying goodbye. It won't be goodbye because she's in our community. But, um I I do wish you the best. I just cross our fingers who comes in who builds >> eat but my retirement finally adjusting despite Thank you, Trustee Larson. >> Thank you. Um, a little bit less than
168usual because of travel as well as illness. I'm just getting over my first bout ever with COVID. So, this has been a joy the last week, but I'm coming out of it. So, I'll just start off saying Leanne, I think I would have resigned from the budget committee the day you resigned from from your position to finance committee. It's just been a joy working with you for far too short, but I look forward to working with you these next several months and then seeing what you do as a retiree. I can't bemoone anybody wanting to follow that path. And so I I'm sure you'll enjoy it and use it for the greater good as you have your career. So more on that later. Um, a few items just stuff the bus has been mentioned. I
169did the packet making which was fun just to be working hands-on. Um, I did cardboard recycling on the day in the arena and then that picture was actually the unloading of all the backpacks here in the basement of uh DOE. I also I think Rachel and I vice president and I tag teamed it as SCBA. I had to leave uh about a half an hour after I got there to fly out. But it was great to be there and celebrate Ed and then also the all staff kickoff at the Grove my first time. But just to see the enthusiasm and energy from the workforce coming together under the leadership and all the executive team presenting in various ways was exciting. Beyond that, I did attend a webinar called Beyond Band-Aids, a root cause approach to
170student mental health. another webinar this week on by CSBA introducing the upcoming education workforce housing workshop which I don't plan to attend but I just wanted to learn a little bit more about it and then also both trustee Van Allen and I were at the Santa Cruz City Council when they placed the workforce housing measure on the ballot that was before this board a couple of months ago. That concludes my report. >> Thank you. Now we are on item 12, ad hoc or standing committee. Any reports or actions to bring to the board? >> Okay. policy committee um uh skipped a meeting but we will be back next month with some policy revisions based on >> okay uh if no other questions or comments number item number 13 schedule of meetings and upcoming events I
171do want to bring to your attention two additional or special meetings that we will be having between now and our regularly scheduled meeting. The first one being August 27th, which is next Wednesday, not a Thursday, but a Wednesday. And uh what we will be doing here is looking at IDTS. So um we need a quorum. Hope that you guys can join us on that day. In order to meet the deadline of when we receive those IDTs, we have to have a special board meeting. I have another board meeting at that time but it may be cancelled. >> Okay. Okay. Yeah. No. So will we have quorum if I don't >> I have received confirmation from everybody unless something has changed >> if I will really number is still the same even if we're down a
172person right >> okay boy >> okay and then another special meeting the week after September 4th this would be on a Thursday at a regular time at 5:30 focused on our student interviews. So, I hope that we can all attend that one as well. Uh because it's going to be uh really important uh time for selecting a student multiple two student uh trustees to join us and then of course our regularly scheduled meeting September 18th after that. All right. And with that, our meeting is adjourned. Thanks everybody for coming. >> Thank you. Appreciate it.