001Hey, good afternoon everybody. Welcome to the Santaita Union School District board meeting. Like to call this meeting to order at 5:00 p.m. If we can please start off with roll call. Miss Alva Arianiano here. Mr. Neil Patel present. Miss Sarah Turner here. Mr. Jacob Sandaval here. Miss Cindy Lopez is not present this evening. Okay. Let's please stand for the pledge of allegiance. In what direction? Okay, please. Thank you. That way. Ready. Begin. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Hey, can I get a motion to approve the board agenda? I make a motion to approve. Second. All those in favor? I motion 40 zero. Okay. Today on close session we have items
0022.1 potential litigation agreement code section 54956.8 and 549 56.9. 2.2 public employee performance evaluation agreement code section 54957. 2.3 Conference with labor negotiators in their government code 5 section 54957.6. Do we have any public comments regarding close session items? We do not. Can I get a motion to adjurnn to close session? Motion to adjourn to closed session. Second. All those in favor? I. Motion 40. Okay, we'll see afterwards. Hey, good afternoon everybody. Welcome back to the San District meeting. Uh we there's nothing to vote report on. I think it was voted on. We're going to start off with um school district spot. Is that what we we don't have? No. Okay. That's what I figured. I was like we need approval of the consent agenda. Oh, I'm sorry. Can I get a motion to approve
003the consent agenda? Motion to approve the consent agenda. Second. All those in favor? I motion 4 Z. Okay. Uh 7.1 uh SRTA. Okay. CSEA. Okay. Uh Superintendent Cabinet, Dr. Strather Smith. Good evening everybody. Um I'm going to Well, I just want to give a quick update. This Friday is our last day of summer academy, which is hard to imagine. I'm like, woo, it was a whirlwind. Um, great attendance overall. Our students had a great time. I want to say a huge thank you to our staff who again who jumped right in. Um, we will have a taco truck on Friday if anybody wants to stop by one of the two schools. Um, just to really thank our staff for giving us this time um, starting the day after we ended school. And then Kona Ice
004will be here to reward our students for their hard work this past month. Um, so I going into all those classrooms, I can see a lot of learning happening. On top of the learning, I can see a lot of friendships being built because students are coming together from all the different sites and getting to interact with one another. And so it's really exciting for them to get to see kids from other schools as well. And so um, a huge thank you to again Dr. Madonna Katiss for her organization and work in putting everything together. Um, from a very detailed daily schedule where students get PE and art um, along with their academics to staggered lunches. It's it's unbelievable. It's a master schedule in itself. So, thank you. Thank you to all of those staff. And
005then just kind of as a reference, um my other part of my report was just our mobile unit that was out here for those of you who are here. Um which will start working with our middle schoolers next year and allowing us to create media um here within the district using our students. So thank you. Um our chief business officer, Rosa, did you have anything? Yeah, I just have a quick update. As you know, our district office is closed. Um payday is Monday, June 30th. So for those who's still getting life checks, we only have about 17 people who's getting life checks. You can pick up your check at the Gavlin View Middle School from 10 to 12 and I'm going to follow up with an email tomorrow morning. Thanks. Um, Miss Becky Moore, assistant
006superintendent. Um, I have nothing to report tonight having been on vacation for a couple of weeks. I'm just remembering what it is I'm doing here. But thank you. Yeah. Okay. And that's to the board of the superintendent, Miss Sariano. Okay. I don't have anything to report at this time. Okay. Mr. Patel. Yes. Um, I wanted to bring the public uh awareness to a traffic and speeding problem happening on Aadia Way, which faces our primary elementary school, New Republic. Uh, there's been a number of issues with traffic using as a bypass from Bar creating a hazard for our students and parents during the drop off and pickup. Uh, people are running through red lights, people are going 45, 50 down a 25 mile per hour uh zone. Uh right now there's a petition circulating through the
007Selena City's traffic calming uh program. I strongly encourage our residents, especially in the area of Arcadia, to please contact the assistant engineer, Gerardo Rodriguez, at the following phone number 8317587992 to also share your concerns for the safety not only for our students and parents, but for the residents of Sanorita, especially in that area. Um, once again, safety is paramount and the idea that we have students walking sometimes alone and having to cross the street and having speeders go through there. I think this is vital and necessary to prevent hopefully no drama in the future, you know. So, once again, Selenus residents, Arcadia, please contact the city of Selenus, encourage them to uh pass uh the calming project. So they'll put in those low-level speed bumps so everyone can uh reduce speeds and uh drive in
008a sensible way that is uh responsible uh uh drivers period, you know. So thank you very much. What was the number again? You want Sorry about that. The phone number is 8317587992. That is the phone number for the assistant engineer for the traffic calming project and his name is Gerardo Rodriguez. Thank you very much. Okay. Thank you, Miss Sarah Turner. Interesting that you mentioned that because I reached out to our district representative Andrew Sandville yesterday about uh uh things that were going badly on East Lamar Street that leads into Sanorita and I was concerned about our children. So, um the these were garbage and other things that had grown up there so that there were health hazards where the children were walking. So, um, he I told him I tried to address it through the
009city website and there's not it didn't fall under the categories of we're going to get out there and make that road safe for children. So, he told me he was going to work on it today. But, it does really matter and just we encourage people to let us know especially roads that children walk absolutely every single day or that parents are on absolutely every single day. So, I appreciated his um responsiveness. Thank you. I don't have a team report myself. Uh Dr. Arden, um I also want to thank our district office staff for working in various locations throughout the district. Some folks um are working from home. It's been a few years since we had to be um in such strange work locations, but I can say having our office actually repainted is a much
010better circumstance than what put us out about five years ago from our offices. So, um, appreciate everyone's flexibility in in doing that and scheduling appointments to meet people where it's needed. Um, there there was no better way to get the work done. And so, want to appreciate Victor and his team for helping us get everything out and then they'll help us get everything back in um, in a week or so. So, thanks everybody. That's it. Appreciate. Thank you. 8.1, is there public comments regarding non-aggenda items? Is there public comments regarding agenda items? Okay, moving on to item 9.1. It's the first reading of the resolution 25.06.11 uh providing for the issuance of sale of 2025 bond anticipation notes of the school facilities improvement district number 2022-1. Thank you. So, um this is just a first
011reading of the resolution um that we could bring back for the board for action at a July meeting for the um possible sale of bond anticipation notes. So, that's being able to sell those anticipation notes against our series C so that we can access those funds earlier. As everyone knows, rising cost in almost every sector, but for us most um impactful is the uh extremely rising cost in construction and um delays in projects are costing not just us but every school district um a lot of funds. And so being able to access the series C at least um a portion of that as needed to get as many of our projects going right now or continue them immediately as quickly as possible instead of waiting for our originally anticipated uh series C sale in 2030
012um may behoove us uh to move forward with that and it is definitely a more cost-effective measure than if we found ourselves um considering taking out a loan to handle that shortfall before 2030 and so we're bringing that forward for a first reading. Okay. And then so what would be the process? So this will be the first reading and then we have a second reading. So, our um we would do it like we did uh this resolution for our series B. Uh the backup documents and the process is very much like what we're bringing forward for action tonight, which is the sale of our series B uh bond. And um so you'll see a lot of the of the same kind of documents scheduled um for the upcoming board meeting. So, we would um be
013bringing that forward again for our uh July 9th board meeting for um consideration for the board to take action for that. Okay. So, we have any questions? And so, do we have to open it up as a hearing or is it just the first It's just a first reading for the board. Okay. Perfect. Okay. So, we're going to move on to item 10.1, approval of the 2025 26 26 LCAP. Thank you. So, um, at the last meeting, I'm very grateful to Melissa and Summer for presenting on the LCAP annual update for me during the public hearing. Um, I was able to watch the recording of that board meeting and they represented all of our work together. Well, um, so tonight, now that the hearing has been completed, um, it would be time for you as
014the board to approve the LCAP for the 2526 school year. I have additional questions from last time unless the board has any other issues. I I just want to thank everyone and the committee members, everyone who came together to provide input and directive to the board. Um having said that, unless there's thing I motion to approve. Second. All those in favor? I motion 40. Okay. Item 10.2 is approval of July 1st budget for the 202526 fiscal year. So, pretty similar to what Becky was mentioning, we had the um the budget the budget hearing on our last board meeting. It's been out uh for inspection since June 6 in our website. And uh per ED code, we're required to um approve the first draft of the budget for 2526. And just a reminder that this is
015not a um a done deal. It is the first draft. We're going to keep updating as the new information comes up. Motion to approve. Okay. Second. Roll call. All those in favor? I I motion 40. Okay. Item 10.3, approval of the EOP plan for the 2526 school year. So, it's plan approval night. Um, so, as you are aware, each year we're required to bring the updated ELOP plan to you for approval. Um, I just want to highlight a few changes that we've added um, for this upcoming year. Again, remember that we went from serving about 60 students to at the end of this year over 900 students in expanded learning across the district. Um, so what we've added is the Mistco program which has been at Sanorita will now expand over to Mckennon as well.
016So we'll be offering the MCCO program here at Mckennon. Um, in addition to Sanorita, we looked at our student numbers and where to kind of expand that to. Um, we also are adding scouting as part of our program. Um, Scouts of America came to us and is really interested in bringing scouting back and so we'll be adding that. Um, we are going to be having afterchool counseling services through Sticks and Stones. So, we will be split funding Sticks and Stones. They will do 10 to six. Um, meaning that they will serve students during the regular day, but then any students in expanded learning will be able to have their counseling services and not interrupt their instructional time. as well. We've added an expanded learning TOSA, a teacher on special assignment, who really is going to
017focus in on making sure that our special education students have access to all the benefits of expanded learning. And as you all know, that's Amy Chot, one of our amazing teachers from La Hoya, um, who will be there for that. Um, we also are adding four, um, the positions are posted on Edo, four, um, expanded learning teachers. Uh this year we're able to use expanded learning to recoup ADA. So that's new for us. We could do it on Saturdays, but we couldn't do it in after school programming. So now students get the benefit of both coming to afterchool programming and getting that support. But we as a district also get the benefit of recouping any ADA that we've lost. However, that can only be recouped if it's provided through a certificated teacher. So a certificated
018teacher has to provide that direct service to students. Um, I think it's a perfect position for any teacher out there. I'll put a little plug. Um, the position will go till 5:45, but it'll start late. So, I think it's 10:15, 10:45, something like that. Figure of 7 hours and 25 minutes, however that works. Yeah, 10:30 um to 5:45. That morning part, I've already worked with the state. That morning pot will be an opportunity for that uh teacher to really connect with students at the school site and encourage especially those students with chronic absenteeism to build a relationship and get them into expanded learning and then coordinate with their teacher to really figure out where that learning loss is and design lessons for that student in the afterchool program. The benefits of the position are you're
019not doing report cards, you're not doing any of those extra duties. If you're out sick, you're out sick. You don't have to even do a lesson plan. Um, so anybody out there really looking for a position that allows for some of that flexibility um in time and really collaborating and working with teachers, please consider. There'll be one at each of the elementary sites. Um, and the position is posted. I just expanded till July 4th. Um, so um, let me see, let me make sure what else here. Um, we're adding the mate. I'm like there's a bunch of other things we've added this year. The mate, which is that mobile unit that's out there. Um, we'll be starting with our middle schools. They are going to be filming all of our social media ads, they're going
020to be filming um ads for attendance. So, for example, why attendance is important, instead of contracting somebody to do that, our students will lead that. They'll do the filming, they'll do all of the production, and then we'll be able to run that um within our social media, um they'll be running our district, filming our district campaigns as well, and then those will run on KSBW. Um but will all be done by our students. Um, this year we added and we're expanding Girls on the Run, which is amazing program for our girls. Any of you um who got to see them out there, it's always a fun event to support them as well. Um, I know there's more. I feel like we keep adding at every opportunity um for our students to make sure that they
021have those their needs met and that our students are encouraged to stay in school and build on those skills um as well. So that is our updated expanded learning plan and again a giant thank you to Dr. Madonna Katis for all her work on that document and in this planning. Perfect. Thank you. Now I did read through the expanded learning opportunities. It's it's amazing to see where it's the direction it's going. So any questions or comments from the board? No. Can I get a motion? I have two comments. Um I had we'd mentioned we talked about it just really briefly as a board. Um precoid we had a commitment to um talking about giving our children a live theater experience of being able to do that. And I would love to see if we were
022able to include that in our extended learning opportunities. even the possibility of be able to doing Saturday field trips so that you could see like a professional um show like for our eighth grade students for example. Um, and then the other thing that I want to say, I I'm excited about the positions and I hope you fill them quickly. If if we do not have interest, um, something that I would suggest, these are positions that could easily be one job could be split between two people without really a loss of service to children, which is not always the case. So potentially advertising them on Ed Join as two part-time jobs rather than a full-time job. You may get interest that you might not otherwise. And I will say Sarah, we took a group of students
023and parents to see Peter Pan in San Jose. Um it it was great for many of them. It was their first ever live performance. And yeah, our goal is to do more of that as well. We just need transportation. So if anybody else also wants to be a bus driver. Sarah, could you share just a little bit what came to the idea of the performance impact? Um I went to a performance of Honk at Hartnell College last weekend which was amazing and I highly encourage everybody to do that. I was there with a uh a teenager who just graduated from high school but graduated from our district and she got very emotional when the lights went down and I later asked her at intermission and she told me she had never been to a play
024before. So this is someone who went through our school district K through 8 and then went to four years at the high school including being at Rancho where they don't have a theater and never has gone to a play before. So, I know it it hurt my heart and I thought to myself, well, I can't fix the high school part of it. I can advocate and I absolutely will, but in terms of I would love at least to have the understanding that if that we were providing opportunities um for our students to get to experience live theater. Thank you for sharing that. Can I get a motion to approve unless there's other questions? I make a motion to approve. I got a second. Second. All those in favor? I I motion 40. Okay. Moving on
025to item 10.4. Approve adoption of resolution 25.06.10 providing for the issuance and sale of general obligation bonds in election of 2022 series B. So um as you remember we can start the process for series B uh bond sale and as I before this is to obtain the funds to follow up with construction of this new year and to be able to lock the price now and not wait until price keep going up we won't have enough funding. Um, so this is just the first step. We're starting the process. There's more to it. It's it's pretty similar to what when we did um series A. Um they're going to be reviewing our credit score for the district. Uh we're going to be uh having meetings. There's a lot of documentation, a lot of reporting back where
026they're going to be asking a lot of our financial information. Um, and um, like I said, this is just the beginning of the process so we can move forward. And I think kind of like we discussed before is it's also important for the public and the taxpayers just to remind them, hey, this year these are the things that we did with the with the money and the funds, you know, because we also need to have show that impact that what the students are getting. So yeah, I'm worried about the interest rates and possibly going up with the markets uncertainty. So time is of the essence. So with that, unless there are any changes, motion. Second. All those in favor? I I motion 40. Okay. Approval of designation of Premier Construction as the best value contractor
027and award lease lease back contract for the GVMS portable replacement project. I am representing Victor Sandaval on this um major effort that he put into um getting our very first uh lease lease back contract in place for our large scale um portable replacement project at Gavlin View Middle School. As you can see, we had um three uh contractors who uh had responsive bids and um our our best value score uh went to Premier Builders and that's who we're bringing forward to um take on this very first lease lease back agreement. Um you know, I think this is one of many to come. I'm glad we did see three people, three different entities come and uh try to bid for it. So, um obviously the scoring is it is it is what it is and just
028happened to be the lowest cost. So, with that, I'm I'm pretty pleased with the process so far and the fact we had so many biders and unless any more comments. Motion to approve. Second. All those in favor? I I motion 40. Okay. Item 10.6 Six, approve of annual declaration of need for fully qualified educators for the 2526 school year. As you are all familiar, um annually we file this document with the teacher credentiing department so that if we have the need to hire teachers on special permits, we are authorized by them to do so. So this is our preliminary anticipation which may be updated in the future if needs change. Any questions or comments from the board? to approve. Okay. Can I get a second, please? Second. All those in favor? I I motion 40.
029Okay. Item 10.7, approval of position control maintenance, closure of positions. Um and also, as you've seen many times as we look at position control together with the business office on a regular basis, um we have determined the necessity to close some vacant positions. They are not positions that would entail any type of layoff, just positions that are sitting unfilled on the books. Um, and so for best practices, we would recommend the closure of these positions. Motion to approve. Second. All those in favor? I. Motion 40. Okay. Item 10.8, approval of four full-time ELOP teacher positions for the 2526 school year. It's already given my sales pitch for these, but these are the four ELOP positions that I spoke about earlier. Okay, any questions? Can I get a motion to approve? Make a motion to approve.
030Second. All those in favor? I I motion 40. Okay. Item 10.9, approval of agreement with Pacific Oaks College. Um also as you see frequently um this is an agreement with an with a college to provide internship practices or um positions for students who attend this college. Um the agreement allows us to hire a teacher under their intern program and support them and outlines the agreement between the district and the school. Any questions? I guess where is Pacific Oaks College? Let me take a look at that. I'm not sure. I'm helping Claudia out tonight because she was able to be here. Um they are in Pasadena. [Music] But they Yeah, through their online programs. It is accredited. Yes, I know it's accredited. Yeah, I looked it up. Motion to approve. All those in favor? I I
031motion 40. Okay. Item 10.10 approval of contract with Harland School Solutions. I have that for Mr. Chuck Helm. Um so this is with our our um kitchen infrastructure and training grant that our nutrition services department received from CDE. So, Heartland Services, they're providing the point of sale menu planning, inventory programs for the student meal services. Um, and they're looking to get some um additional programs and training with them. So, as they move into more of the scratch cooking in our kitchen facilities, which is a goal uh for Chuck with our nutrition um and our wellness uh policies that he's been working on establishing for the district. So, motion motion to approve. Second. All those in favor? I motion 40. Okay. Item 10.11, approval of SLP contract with Speech Therapy Link Incorporated. I'm going to do
032this one for Melanie. We're send off here. Um, so this is a renewal. This is a speech and language therapist that's been with um, serving our special ed for the past two years. It's just a renewal of that. It's one of two virtual SLPs. Um, again, currently there are um, a total of five contracted SLPs and three district hired SLPs. those positions stay open with the hopes of recruiting internally hired SLP as well. And there was a change in law. Remember that happened last year, right? Where you can hire people. Correct. So they can move from being contracted and they can get hired by the district. Get a motion to approve. Motion to approve. We got a second. Second. All those in favor? I I motion 40. Okay. uh 10.12 approval of the Woodcock Johnson
033B assessment purchase. So the Woodcock Johnson is the assessment that's used to test the academic levels of students uh for special education assessment and this is to purchase the updated version of that assessment tool which is um also fully online whereas we used to have the bubble and bubbles. Now you can just do it all online. I get a motion to approve. Yeah, sure. Is this is is this um you're not on Ella. Oh um is this not this isn't the dibbles. This is in a in a this is for special education testing. So this is uh the assessment that's used to determine academic levels to determine if there's a discrepancy between ability and um academics and determine if the student would qualify for specific learning disability. Motion to approve 10.12. Second. All those in
034favor? I motion 40. Okay. Our next regular board meeting will be July 9th. Is there any suggested future board items by the board? I have a um last board meeting I requested an update. I was still waiting for that. Uh regarding our solar panels and battery backup. I'll bring that forward for you for July. We had people out on vacation. Oh, no. I I just thought it um the second thing is um you know I would like to see a schedule uh of how many times in the next school year we'll be presenting at school sites you know for the board meetings. The more the better for me I I think we need to stay close to our students and their families and so they have an easy transportation and stuff. So, I'm not saying
035now let's leave the district, but I I like to have more opportunities to go to the various sites, you know, and now with the mobile capabilities, I uh I think we can do it, you know. Um I'm not sure how many I would like at the district level, but I would like to see way more at the site levels. Yeah. Thank you, Sarah. Um I it doesn't have to be July. It doesn't have to be until way into the school year, but at some point I'd like to have a conversation about what we're doing uh in regards to intervention in both uh language arts and math at the elementary and the middle school levels. Hey, um can I get a motion to adjourn at 6:30? Motion to adjurnn. Second. All those in favor? I I
036motion 40. Okay. Have a nice evening everyone.