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002[Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] do [Music] [Applause] [Music] foreign [Music] reporting in progress hi everybody i'm sarah turner i'm the vice president of the school board here our president is participating with us via zoom so he and our other member are able to um hear everything that's been said but we did go through a specific protocol when we before closed session about the legality of holding like a hybrid meeting so again thank you for um being here we are now uh returning to open session and i have not run the meeting in two years so y'all are gonna have to bear with me and i'm gonna apologize right now for anything that um seems a little clunky so we are now at 5.1 approval of the cons oh i'm sorry all right we are at
0034.2 reconvening back into open session oh thank you see i'm already people are like you're doing it wrong yes all right we'll do a roll call vote mr jacob sandoval aye mr andrew sandoval aye mr neil patel okay but i need to do the i didn't report out about what we did in process okay sorry guys um so during close-eyed closed session the board took the following actions to 2.1 appointed krisha kropoul as coordinator of educational technology effective july 1 2022 the vote was 5-0 2.2.2 appointed hillary nichols as principal santa rita elementary school effective july 1 2022 the vote was 5-0 and i have um one more thing that i need to pull up the there is also a vote regarding a legal settlement yeah i'm just and so i'm just reading the case
004number yes okay so we came to a settlement agreement it was a 5-0 vote regarding case number 2022030429 thank you for bearing with me okay is there anything else we need to report out from closed session okay thank you thank you uh 5.1 can i have a motion for approval of the consent agenda i make a motion to approve the consent agenda second roll call please mr andrew sandoval aye mr jacob sandoval aye mr neil patel aye aye captain ms alvariano aye ms sarah turner aye motion passes five zero thank you okay uh 6.1 santa rita teachers association [Music] good evening i feel for sure i'm kate stover the srta president and i would like to speak to you acknowledge our fantastic staff that is here to show that we are united to ensure that
005our students have a safe school that our we have our students have a stable staff that's consistent so that we have professionals that can provide our students the proper education they fully deserve and i also want to introduce to you trustees our future srta president and vice president with heather varela who will be serving as president next year and she doesn't know she's been introduced ashley parker is going to be our vice president next year [Applause] and i also i just want to acknowledge i was able to attend the monterey county honoring the teachers and classified staff dinner with becky and donna last week and i just want to express the acknowledge and knowledge becky for the effort she put in to making sure our little district was heard and acknowledged up against the big
006districts like we regularly heard the high school district and pusd the large districts in the area and then our little seven school district was right there with them so i just want to acknowledge becky for making sure that our name is out there and heard in the area so that teachers and staff and classified know who we are and that we are a district that we are a family and we support each other and that's what you see right here thank you [Applause] thank you 6.2 csea good evening everyone my name is rhonda velez i'm finishing my 18th year with srusd as health aide at gv with no plans to retire yet [Laughter] [Applause] i oh that's a good thank you thank you jan i also hold the position of csea chief union steward and
007we've begun negotiating and we look forward to reconvening tomorrow morning our classified staff is working alongside our teachers preparing and completing the end of year tasks and events and csea stands in solidarity with srtsca union members thank you thank you 6.3 is listed on the agenda as principal is an apartment spotlight but we do not have one this evening so we're going to go on to 6.4 superintendent's cabinet and we're going to start with the chief business officer rosa samudio good evening um these last days we've been working side to side and in collaboration with donna working on the lcap and getting ready for the next budget that's coming up um estimated actuals and also the july 1st budget we've been really busy with them the reports and the goods um good news is that
008we already hire our new accounts clerk so we're going to be full staff pretty soon so that's that's really good and we continue our work on working on budget revisions and meeting with our departments to ensure that our budgets are balanced for our current year and next year thank you thank you any questions i'm uh looking for the up looking forward to the update on friday hopefully that comes out from the state you know and so we can move forward with our financial matters so thank you uh moving on to director of special education miss melanie grundy perfect good evening everybody um [Music] from the special ed student services side of the house we had the opportunity to attend the 3f's legal training last week where we were able to bring all of our school
009psychologists as well as some of our teacher leaders just a really good training with that legal lens for special education most of us in the room have been attending um all of our special education ieps that we've been playing catch up with including our initials triennials and all of those transition meetings so just appreciate everyone's hard work um just getting them in and keeping them so student-centered um planning for extended school year summer school for our special education students that qualify through the iep we're still hiring teachers so if you know of anyone please send them our direction but we do have full staff with speech and ot services um we've been built busy building special education classes and caseloads and just looking at our numbers for for next year and looking at where we
010need to hire and make sure we have our numbers low so we can continue to provide quality services and then just still in full force for recruitment so just appreciate all the hard work the hr department team has been providing special ed with the with the openings um so we are still looking for speech pathologists as well as occupational therapists and two sped teachers so get the word out there all right thank you thank you any questions okay uh moving on to director of parent family and community engagement dr summer rader smith good evening everybody it's weird i want to say afternoon because it's still light outside good evening everybody um i've spent this work week working with our community and i'm hopeful that you'll hear about that soon so i'll leave that to the
011community to share um what i'm going to share with you this evening is um we received the results from our california healthy kids survey all except for one elementary thank you to all the staff who participated in that survey as well as our students and parents we had a great turnout a great response rate um so i'm going to be sharing those publicly as soon as we get the elementary report which i hope is this week but i'll be sharing with our board tonight the ones that we have in so far so that you can see those so i'll pass those down it's a stack it's a stack yeah they're already sold and then the last part that i'll share with you and it's another challenge to our board sorry board members i'm giving you
012guys the work tonight no um we're heavily recruiting for our tk and kinder classes um and so we sent out uh with all of our students or you soon will be sending out these flyers we're going to host a tk kinder roundup on the 20th um which i organized but then i'm not going to be here which you'll hear about later but we'll still organize it so um a tk kinder roundup on the 20th and we really want to get the word out to the community we know that most of our tk and kinder students maybe don't yet have siblings in school so my challenge to the board is i'm going to give you a stack of these if you'll share around your areas and your community and we've placed some in stores um given
013them to neighbors so this is a stack for our board anybody else who knows a tk or possible kinder in the santa rita area also feel free to take some so i'll pass those down and it's also posted on the front of our board there's a qr code that can be scanned there and then just last but not least um there's also our summer school posters up there if anybody here has a child who's interested in summer school so thank you all thank you any questions okay um director of curriculum and instruction donna koenig thank you it's been great this last couple weeks working with everybody um all the school site admin as well as the the district level admin from working with the business office on elk habit budgets and school site master schedules
014and building their class loads also we have the summer academy being built so parents will be getting those shout outs um and and parents square blasts about signing students up they sign the students up and then from there um we will then we have an eclectic sort of offerings for summer academy which is great and so from enrichments to interventions to everything in between with physical education and art and from the elementary school to the middle school level so it's going to be a great offering it's from june 6 to july 14th monday through thursdays and again those flyers are posted and going out virtually girls inc will also be sending out flyers for girls ages 8 to 11 and that camp will take place at mckinnon on july 5th through 15th and that's an
015exciting program as well we'll be having our el cap meeting virtually next wednesday at 6 pm so you'll be hearing that apparently going out with all the links this weekend and just been great to work with everybody collaboratively on the future steps of next year and where we're going with rollovers and hearing that our new hire came in for a tech coordinator that was great as well so thank you very much thank you any questions i'm just looking forward to the offerings that we'll be doing for summer i'm you know i'm concerned about the uh loss of learning that our students that went through so all these opportunities you know we can continue to provide you know and i like the variety so i think students can choose what would interest them but as long
016as they're involved absolutely we also have iready coming to help with their intervention programs and the fev tutoring program is also joining us as well as some of the other intervention programs and i believe we have stem usc coming stem usa coming back as they did in the winter so um really trying to keep those students engaged in in the needs that they need as well as the enrichments that they need thank you assistant superintendent of human resources becky moore thank you um we have really been focusing our efforts on hiring so we're pleased about the two appointments tonight we have one more administrator position that we will be interviewing this week as well as teacher positions and special education positions we've been interviewing multiple times each week with standing appointments and so i really
017thank my hr team for the support on that um and our other effort my other effort has been working with uh negotiations with our partners um ncta and srta and csea and so i'm thankful to our negotiations teams on both sides because i'm grateful that we can have really productive conversations and look forward to continuing those thank you any questions okay we're gonna move on to uh the board and the superintendent mr andrew sandoval can we start with you yes thank you very much i had an opportunity to attend a uh brown act training put on by lozano i learned a lot about brown act and being compliant and making sure that the community is aware of what's going on in our district i also had an opportunity to attend our um concert at uh
018john g which miss uh casa pia did a fantastic job um they played uh you know the concert band played uh or the orchestra orchestra played uh jurassic park and miss cassipia came out in full dinosaur uh apparel and um conducted that and i think they did the students did an amazing job and the teachers did an amazing job thank you uh mr neil patel um you know uh this these past two weeks since your last meeting have been both full of joy and and sadness you know um i always like to think of our district as a very inclusionary district we appreciate all cultures all races and we strive to uh make sure that we're that we try to create a community that is loving and caring and i've seen that grow in our
019community and i love the fact that we're incorporating by the folklorico and then various other models restorative justice programs over the years and you know we're making that effort but on the other hand you know i there's there's there's this thing going on and i wish i could say you know it was localized but it isn't i'm seeing it across districts across places and there's this intolerance and lack of respect that is going on right now and you know we've had two years of students away from social interactions structures examples modeling mentoring and as a teacher myself in ninth grade i'm seeing the effects and the level of disrespect on multiple fronts is untolerable you know and it breaks my heart you know we're going in reverse and i think you know what do we
020do you know and to me it's it's an issue of hey you know what deal with it we're teachers we're education that's our job you know it is up to us and so for our district to take the steps that we have done so far and not just short-term but i'm asking for long-term comprehensive support and development of programs and outreach that we can get back to this growth phase of being more inclusionary and more loving community um you know from these events that are occurring and they seem to be occurring more and more in the last year or two we have to fight back every time ugliness is raised we as educators have to fight back and so i want to thank the teachers for being here i want to thank the parents for
021being here the church mr pastor smith i want to say thank you but once again this is not a short-term solution this has to be comprehensive it has to be long-term it has to be sustainable if we're really going to make an impact so i'm looking forward to hearing from all the voices tonight because i think the first step is to listen and really understand the hurt and pain that has been caused in our district and then to look at some of the solutions we're looking at some of the outreach you know what are we doing to create a better environment so this doesn't happen again and here's the thing it probably will it will it's the nature of humans you know we came to forget lessons learned and so i hope we have the
022tenacity of a long-term permanent baked in situation where we across the board from our students to staff to teachers that we have this level of respect and understanding that we communicate and model and stand up for so um once again it's it's been a a a mixed feeling of the last two weeks you know so uh thank you for everyone being here thank you teachers thank you parents you know but um it's it's been a bittersweet week thank you thank you um ms elvariano um thank you i'm very well said mr patel um i think we all have the same feeling on the board um i wanted to report that i went to go see at gavilan view middle school the ballet folorico the three very good courageous girls and brave young ladies who really
023uh performed and they they led the it was there was three of them the others were a little shy but i'm hoping that it'll grow into something bigger um it was one of my uh favorite things when i was working as a teacher at sherwood school that was one of the greatest pride that the children really developed but and there's a lot the arts part of the arts so it was a really really nice um the other thing that i went to was a webinar today at one o'clock and the name of it was how to modify your dress code to meet title ix limits for the 2022-23 school year very interesting a lot of good points great presentation a great powerpoint um and i'm looking forward to looking at our policies on the board
024um there was a lot there was a lot to to take in a lot to digest and i'm hoping that being part of the behavior task force that we'll be able to make adjustments and really look at our the wording on our policies so that was great um and that was it thank you um i'm sarah turner the vice president of the board um i attended the monterey county school boards association meeting um where we had a great meeting talking and that's attended by reps from the school boards all over the county um we had a great meeting about trying to get um things going again ramping up you know now that we're moving into a theoretically postcovid um times that was a really good meeting i also went to the monterey county uh education
025coalition meeting there's a lot of huge bills that are up in sacramento right now that some of them that have moved out of committee that could really potentially reshape um education in california so i my eyes are wide open come june 30 of what actually happens and and there are a bunch of legislators some of whom are not running again um but have basically said like before i leave office i got to fix this and they've got you know their projects that they want to move forward including um dealing with how we fund schools basically things transportation other things so it is going to be a crazy summer and keep your eye on what's happening in sacramento i also had a bunch of teachers reach out to me about things that are happening locally in
026our district and i'm incredibly grateful for everybody who calls me or emails me i always want the first-hand information you know until i say i had talked to somebody today and said you know it's i'm not promising to fix your problem in three weeks but i'm promising that i'm not giving up on your problem you know so we're going to just keep moving together um best as we can alrighty uh going over to jacob hi good morning everybody my apologies that i couldn't attend in person um i'm actually in in michigan so we're three hours ahead so i actually might have to leave a little bit early just because of the space um that we're in but uh i was able to also to attend the the musical conference at john gutierrez it was it
027was really great to see the students out there performing you know the parents that were proud they did a really awesome job it's great to see things opening up again and just having those um activities that our students uh enjoy um i also was able to speak to some some teachers and also some some parents and stuff and one thing i want was really important for me when i came on the board and i appreciate the district office is an open door policy to the community you know where if there's an issue at the very least we're going to listen and try to figure out a way to to resolve it so i do appreciate the district staff and also my fellow board members to um when the teacher emails you or a parent emails
028you or calls you that everybody's always very receptive and as best it might be to to confront a situation is you know it's important to have those conversation it's the only way that uh that growth happens so i appreciate the community and teachers that came out today as well so thank you thank you um superintendent i promised diane gaylin that i would give the board an update that our middle school music visits have started over at our elementary schools to hopefully recruit some incoming students our upcoming concert uh thursday may 19th i can send you some more information via email and the cmea ccs honor concerts are now streaming on youtube i wanted to give you an update on where we're at with our inter district transfers so we have completed 227 into our district
029228 out of our district we have another 14 who have submitted but we're working with them on getting some missing information we send out a weekly email reminder and nine additional people have started their process online but haven't submitted yet thank you okay we're going to 7.1 um public comment thank you guys for hanging in with us i really appreciate it um i'm just going to go through the cards that i have where um if if you haven't filled out a card and you want to talk please bring it forward if i say your name wrong i'm so sorry i'm apologizing in advance and we are asking people to try to keep each comment to three minutes just that everybody can be heard and we did also receive things via email that we're gonna read
030at the end so that we're not we're not forgetting we're just gonna we'll get there eventually um so um miss tamesha smith you're at the top of my pile thank you [Music] good evening everyone good evening board i appreciate this time to talk to speak and my voice is already shaking um all right so um i wrote a few things for most of you who don't know who i am i am a parent of a student at um jgms i'm also an educator at salinas union high school district and so i see both sides so i commend you teachers we're almost at the end and i just i know where you are i feel you okay um but i'm just gonna i wrote some things down so i don't miss mess it up so we
031know of what happened and the racist remarks that were made by a young lady and the hurt that it caused for a certain community um my daughter being a part of that community young african-american black ladies and it's just time that we start to educate to eradicate this hate that is just happening stop making excuses and i'm talking when i'm talking to teachers i'm talking to parents i'm talking to myself stop making excuses start making lesson plans if they don't know teach them if you don't know let your pride and guard down and go learn then be courageous to fail forward with the important information that we need to impart on our youth so we can change this behavior we've got to change these perspectives we've got to change the laser fair attitude by like
032it doesn't matter if it didn't touch me it doesn't really matter but don't be afraid of the follow-up question why i think we as parents and educators are very afraid of that question we get some information we throw it on the kid and we don't expect them to ask well why because we don't have the answer but that's our job to go seek that answer speak it even if your voice shakes you heard me when i first came up here feel comfortable and knowledgeable enough to admonish racist behavior in the moment we have to unlearn things as educators first we have to unlearn some things and re-learn and if there's information that you know that is contradictory to the textbook please please use your heart your soul and your mind and teach these kids the
033right thing and i want to speak specifically and this might hurt some feelings and i'm not here to hurt feelings but i'm here to speak on behalf of my child and the other young black ladies that were affected we know the weaponizing of white tears happens and it happened in this situation when the girls non-violently confronted the young lady that said all you should not be breathing when they non-violently confronted this young lady she immediately started crying ran to the office and was consoled consoled for threatening lives really you shouldn't be breathing but she's consoled oh it's going to be okay yet the young black ladies who were in the office were told you need to sit down and wait for whoever it was that took them to the office not consoled when they were
034the victims of unwarranted hate that person woke up and chose violence that day they woke up and thought it was a regular day to come to school but they experienced hate and i just have a suggestion we need to create experiences for staff students parents so they know how this feels we can't always cuddle feelings i want to thank you summer for being very there i don't want to say reactive i want you i want to say thank you for being prepared you already knew what you were to expect you were very welcoming when parents called you and you've created an opportunity and experience for our students who were victims in this you gave them an opportunity or you're giving them an opportunity to go heal to go talk about this usually when this happens
035they're just reprimanded oh it's okay they shake it off and they live another day and experience it again so we stop this cycle i appreciate you being reactive proactive ready and let's continue to create teachers i urge us to really really really take the time to learn if you don't know so we can educate to eradicate this hate thank you for your time i appreciate it marquita grant sorry hi good evening i'm going to piggyback on what chimesha said thank you so much summer for everything that you've done for the kids thank you melissa for coming down and and and speaking to the class too i think you said things that they needed to hear as well um i'm here because my son was in his classroom minding his business on it every day and
036for who knows how long because i wasn't informed at a district that i work at that my son every time he went to raise his hand to ask a question every time he went to to answer a question he was told to shut the f up by students in his classroom shut the f up the teacher did nothing about it the only time that she did something about it is when the two when the student finally said shut the f up monkey and this stuff has been going on all week in the school with the kids calling them monkeys there's all kinds of just and just in their face with it and then the teacher finally said something but it's like it's it's too late how long did my son have to sit there and
037suffer and two students came and told me about it not my son my son was because i've you know we have to teach our sons i have to tell you this we have to teach our sons because you are a black man in america you have to be quiet you have to sit there you have to consult you have to carry yourself a different way you can't be aggressive you can't be yelling you can't so he didn't even think to say mom they're attacking me and that's not okay either two students came and told me what was happening in the classroom and i was like this doesn't make any sense that two students are crying left out of the classroom crying because they were feeling the hurt for my son and the hurt in his
038eyes and they're upset about it i go and tell the principal nothing happens i go and tell somebody else nothing happens i tell summer something happens summer informs melissa something happens but why did it have to take that so that long and then i understand the things me working at you know john gutierrez and then that too john gutierrez did not represent anything that's happening in that school right now at all period if he was alive he would be disgusted and for his name to be attached to the things that's happening in that school right now is discussing me like because i know him as a person and i love him as a person and so knowing who he is it's just ridiculous but what i wanted to say was also what was going on
039in that school that the teacher didn't feel okay that she could go and talk to somebody about it you know these things are happening in her class and i see in that school kids attacking teachers every day verbally aggressively and nothing's being done so i also understand her side as in you know she didn't feel comfortable enough to go and tell somebody that kids are attacking my students kids are saying stuff to me and that needs to be taken care of as well so i want that to be addressed and i don't like like i said i wanted to be addressed my son being called all these names and the way that i feel that that's something that can help it is if the kids that are doing these behaviors have to come up to
040the kids that they hurt sit in front of them and let the kids that were hurt explain to them how they hurt them and how it made them feel because when you're in front of it and you're seeing it it's different melissa came she told and she was stern she was not playing with them babies and she told them look we're not okay with this we're not accepting this we're not accepting that but they came out of the assembly like and with the with the like a lackadaisical i don't care attitude so something else has to be done they have to be sat in front of the the children the teachers because i've seen teachers crying in regards to children yelling at them and saying rude things to them so they need to sit in
041front of the people that they are hurting and actually have to deal with upfront and personal what they're doing and i think that that's what needs to be done and their parents need to come in too they need to sit with the other parent and they need to hear what's going on because where are they getting it from just like my son is sitting there quietly because i taught him to be respectful i'm sitting there quietly because i was taught to be respectful by my mom so you're what are you teaching your kid you know what i mean so they need to there needs to be some type of workshop something so that it can be handled and not just left to the side thank you [Applause] um luis sago juarez good evening everyone teachers
042i really appreciate the union showing showing up community um born and raised on the east side of salinas the alaska union school district southeastern high school district uh product and just really proud to be able to call this place a home to be able to afford a home actually um you know to be here physically even be here after the two years of the pandemic we're recognizing that this isn't just exclusive to to this school we're still trying to work out what happened at salinas high school last year and we're recognizing that it's it's nationwide and we're recognizing a lot more things about this this moment and how it's embedded in the history of this country it's deep and that that pain that it's still surfacing the anti-black racism amongst the mexican community goes back
043all the way back to the colonization of that country at one point there was one spaniard to enslaved africans in mexico i i had the opportunity the privilege to do a little dna check i found that i'm three percent of african descent three percent from west africa and then i realized and i do a little more searching it's like oh it's four percent on average of mexicanos have african blood but i'll tell you right now how challenging that would be to have to explain that to a family member or to one neighbor because we've never had that safe space to really go in on that to talk about that to talk about the colorism how i might stand in one on one point and how my darker skinned cousins might have to stand a little
044bit farther than me or how my lighter skin cousins get all the privilege this is how complicated it is it can be but i think it's the complication is the resistance of embracing the education the tools the resources the materials the approach to begin teaching from kinder in the united states and yeah i'm going to say this critical race theory a year ago that was that was a call for a community to rally against that type of learning that type of education ethnic studies and as an ethnic studies teacher myself i'm like wow how how was it that i'm suddenly like uh viewed as an enemy of the state how did it get to that point if racism were like something like dental work and we talked about this oh you have a cavity are
045you gonna go to the doctor you're gonna get that you know drill through fill it in oh sometimes you gotta do a root canal you gotta go all the way in there and so how do you but then how do you like on the daily what do you have to do on the daily maybe ethnic studies is your toothbrush and maybe critical race theory is your floss i'm i'm really appreciative of this moment and be able to have this conversation and it feels like a conversation because i feel like there's some agreement on it but the hard work is going to be tomorrow the hard work is going to be on monday morning on tuesday afternoon after lunch you know those those moments right there where you know where we're all just done and tired
046can we find that place that time that space to him to just to embrace our reality we have to learn about ourselves there's some i look at i'm looking at right here folks right here there's there's white people here that weren't considered white at one point so that that colonization that that type of abuse it's deep it runs so deep and it's and now it's produced here in in the valley in the silliest valley where a lot of the food is actually actually goes around the world so what are we doing to make sure that this soil this ground is healthy enough for all the folks we're sharing this food with thank you [Applause] thank you pastor smith thank you thank you thank you very much to the board and superintendent trustees to you who
047are here in the in this board meeting it is uh i have notes and i i want to read off my notes but uh i think tanisha said it best is is that it's unnerving for me to stand before you and to speak on this issue and not only is it unnerving but when i was listening i think to tanisha i i fought back to tears because i i have felt personally the effects of racism from children in in in this school district personally i have i have prayed over children who have been called and monkeys and who were told that they're not the worth the air that they're breathing i i have counseled children who i'm sure may have been on the verge of suicide because some of our children on sunday told us
048that they just can't take it they just can't take it anymore and so where does it stop where where where does it stop where where are we failing our children at one of the common threads in all the children that spoke to us on sunday was that they told an adult they told a teacher and the teacher the adult that they told failed to do anything about it and i'm looking at a sea of teachers whom our children said that they told and nothing was done about it either you don't know what to do about it and that's something that we need to fix through education or you just don't care and then that's something we also need to fix because our children are telling us that they just can't take it anymore and we
049as parents we can't take it anymore we can't continue to have our children our black children come home to us and say to us that they're being racially bullied in schools a place where we send them to be safe to learn to be the citizens that we have trained them and taught them to be only to be discriminated against and really the sad part is is that they're being discriminated against other by other hispanics by by children whose parents if they're not still in a field picking their grandparents are in the field picking they're no different than our children think about it another hispanic young lady tells another black kid that he's a slave he's a cotton picker where in the hell do she think that her parents are came from you see and i'm
050getting a little emotional but because i don't want to attend a funeral of one of my children because we refuse to do anything about it dr smith i thank you thank you superintendent alderman becky for for uh being so swift in in and making sure that this is eradicated and that there's consequences to the causes of what the children has done but it's not enough it is not enough just like the teacher said this immediately after the the assembly children went back and said what was that all about we have got to educate our children we have got to set up programs moving forward where this includes implicit bias training sensitivity training conflict resolution training peer support groups where they can feel freely able to discuss these challenges among their peers and then they need
051to be held accountable they need to be held accountable because if we did that and i say we we will be held to a different standard i live it every day and so it is unfair for us to entrust our children into a system that's going to raise them to be angry black men and women it's unfair that we pay our taxes it's unfair that we send our children to to a place of education where they come home and then go in the room and pull the covers over their head because they just can't take it anymore and guess what we can't either we refuse to take it anymore and so if i have to load up my bus of all my parishioners all of my colleagues and come and protest santa rita but i
052don't believe i have to because i believe that we have the right people in place here here here but but it still is not the opportune place for our children to be because they're being discriminated against blatantly discriminated against teachers are not even coming to their defense and i believe it's because they just don't know how to i really believe in my heart that they don't have the tools that they need in order to squash it at the lowest level possible and then our children they need to be held accountable one day suspension is not enough for you calling a child a that's a terrible word i see somebody cringe just as me saying it for you calling a child a monkey for you telling a child that he's not worth the air that he's
053breathing one day suspension is not enough that child needs to come to my church amen and sit there on sunday mornings so that we can try to help him or her because they're hurting as well they've been heard they're crying out and it's it's it's it's essential that they know the hurt that they're spewing to other children thank you [Applause] thank you lavasha from building healthy communities hello everyone um [Music] well like tamisha said black women black girls go through a lot we endure a lot in this world and just like pastor smith said he didn't want he doesn't want to see one of these children die i don't know if you all are aware of a small town called demopolis alabama but it's where i have a home my family's at but if you
054look it up there was a little girl she was 12 years old and just four years ago she hung herself because she was being bullied in the same manner anti racism in the schools and the school's staff didn't do anything about it and the girl came home went in the bathroom and hung herself and her grandmother found her just like that at 12 years old she hung herself and she had been telling people at the school but just like um just like marquita's son she was afraid that her mother would react and respond because you know us black mothers we have to be lioness we have to protect our cubs and that gives us that classification of angry black women and so our children are sometimes afraid for us to protect them so they take
055the abuse because they're afraid of the repercussions and the consequences of us protecting them and just like pastor smith says we we trust our children with the schools to educate them and it's mandated because if we don't take our kids they are going to take our kids from us you know i mean it's like it's what is it you know um what what do we do what do we do i mean we're asking like what do we do we don't know what to do we want to be able to trust the education system we want to be able to trust other people with our children because it takes a village and i want to tell you one thing i don't care whose child it is but if i'm outside and i see a child fall
056and hurt themselves i'm going to protect them i don't care whose child it is i don't care what the color is i don't even care if we speak the same language because i'm a mother that's what mothers do and um i i i want to i want to ask some hard questions you don't have to answer but i'd like to know how many people how many non-black people in this room really have a black friend like a like not a token a friend a girl let me tell you what happened black friend because we're good friends to have and i mean and i'm gonna tell you something it will show it will show because i guarantee you if there was a teacher in there that had a black friend a real sister girl a black
057friend that wouldn't happen like miss summer and you know i mean not like i mean i know that there's a lot of uh biracial children and okay you may be a mother of a biracial child but it's still not the same experience and not even just a not not even just a i mean a different a classification of black people you know not just rich black people you got to know some real black people who struggled and get to know us and that's that's that's the training that's the necessary tool that's what it would that's all it would take if you know you can go take all the anti-black racism classes you want and it's not going to give you the same experience as a conversation with one of us a day with one of
058us we are human beings we that slavery was a circumstance brought upon us it was not a choice that we made okay um the the cycle that we've been born into is a circumstance and there's not one person on this planet that is responsible for this circumstance that we're in but we're all responsible for changing the conditions and that takes uh effort and intention that's all like you can say okay uh i i have this class this class this class this classes i know about anti-black racism and then little johnny that's okay you know and then you can cover that's not that's not enough it's not okay we want to break the cycles our children are loving kind patient gentle and the only reason why we are classified as a rowdy race is because we're
059protecting ourselves that's all we're like hey just stop abusing us we love you can you love us that's all i want to say [Applause] thank you um carla viviana gonzalez hi everybody hello i too have prepared remarks um honorable members of the board uh district leadership it's really good to be with you all tonight uh i am carla viviana gonzalez co-founder of the salinas valley ethnic studies collective co-founder of the monterey county black and brown solidarity coalition i'm known to my students at alisa high school as miss g and known to others in this community as district 1 salinas city councilwoman carla gonzalez and i'm here today to to speak on the recent incident of harassment racism and anti-blackness inflicted upon one of our students and i hope that in my remarks and in everyone's
060remarks uh we're able to help illuminate to you all the urgency and attention that this requires of all of us of all of us this is a pack room but there should be more people here of all of us and i hope you pay attention i saw people upset in the audience i hope you are upset i hope it sits with you i hope what you hear today follows you home i hope that at night you really digest this that you process and and you feel that feeling of discomfort because i can guarantee you that it's a fraction of what those students felt a fraction i'm here as an educator as an advocate for our youth and and more important than as a member of our city council i'm here as a lifelong member of
061this community of salinas racism anti-blackness prejudice and so forth all of the isms are not an uncommon phenomena i'm sure that each of us can point to incidents of these isms these microaggressions or outright aggressive behavior that we've either witnessed or experienced for ourselves you know uh chao mentioned the lighter cousins i'm one of the lighter cousins at the party and you know my little brother um went to the same high school as me you know grew up in the same neighborhood he's very dark skinned he has much more indigenous features and i've been in this community and and had folks be racist to him and then look to me for approval my brother my little brother and so for better or worse i i always felt like his protector and felt like it was
062my job to learn and to unlearn you know it's widely known that these ideologies these destructive ideologies and these harmful behaviors are taught to us this is not a natural occurrence this is taught learned behavior right and as a history teacher as a student of history i can tell you that these isms are deeply deeply embedded in our history in our institutions and in our daily interactions with these institutions i'm also a product of this school district i graduated from elsa high school i serve my community because i love my community everyone here i guarantee you is here because of love it might not sound like that but i can guarantee it it's because of love you know what we learn as as members of a society what our youth are taught as acceptable behavior
063or tolerable behavior by our teachers by our elders by leaders directly affects how we treat one another how we coexist and how we relate to one another anti-blackness is a particularly perverse ideology i say this is someone who has long devoted themselves to the study and now teaching of race culture and history and what i want you all to know is that the damage of incidents like this touch on a long long history of subjugation of oppression of dehumanization of colonization and of so many other phenomena to know that incidents like this continue to occur in my home is disheartening to then hear from my good friend pastor smith that this was done by a latinx student it's heartbreaking you know i as a proud chicana i can fully testify to the power the true
064power of black and brown solidarity and the promise of collective liberation because best believe my my liberation is tied to yours it's tied to yours it's tied to all of us no one is free until all of us is free yes and you know i to conclude i hear that you all as a district have have a resolution coming and then that there's good work coming this way you know when this happened at our other school district with high schoolers swift actions were taken um i commend your dedication and i implore you i really beg you don't sweep this under the rug no one wants this tied to the district to their name i understand oh i fully understand but please do not sweep this under the rug don't give staff and students a cookie
065cutter lesson on culture and diversity and we're all going to hold hands as this symbolic act you know i've created k through 12 curriculum it takes a little more intentionality than that engage your students and staff in critical public discourse we're having a conversation right now in anti-racism and so forth demonstrate to your youth what it means to take a hard look at yourself to unlearn to relearn to grow and it's not an easy process it requires all of us individually and and collectively to play our part your community encourages you is watching you is here to help and we wish you the best in this endeavor thank you thank you antoine brown hello thank you uh i'm glad i'm here i wouldn't expect you to say anything but uh after sitting here listening to
066people uh voiced their opinion i think that my pastor and my friends i kind of get emotional because as a black man it's kind of hard it is and they hear my nephew explain how he was disrespected and called names and nobody came to his defense it hurts me and the same week a week later my my daughter was sitting in the living room she come home and she tells me that people was calling her shaniquas and disrespecting her with all kind of different names and we said at the kitchen counter we spoke and she asked me she said antoine have you ever been bullied and at the time i told her i said no i don't think i've ever been bullied but then again i'm thinking i'm reflecting but i have been called names
067or whatnot and i grew up on the east side i grew up on sunrise street 581 sunrise street in between del monte and gardner who was the only black family on that street there was four of us my brother jonathan my brother willie and myself and my sister camira we were all with the alisal high or whatnot so growing up on that street and growing up in that area as my pastor said is called the what you say cross lateral racism horizontal racism i've experienced that or whatnot i've been called i mean called go pick some cotton i've been told all this at the same breath some of my friends mothers that i grew up and father they was out picking lettuce which was no different from what my grandparents and everybody had done now
068people that know me i went to prison for a sentence for a period of time for 20 years and even within prison there's racism between the different races not only just blacks and whites hispanics and blacks it's everybody segregated from each other and some schools today are segregated from each other you can walk on different campuses and you can see hispanics hanging out with hispanics black's hanging out with blacks whites hanging out with blacks and some of we got designated names that they call these areas and if we was parents and teachers and we knew this or what not we want to do something about it you know and uh just sitting back and reflecting on on everything that i've been from uh growing up on the east side slings growing up in uh uh
069going to prison and seeing all this the one thing that i learned is that in order for all this to change we got to be willing to change it starts at home if we can't reach out to our kids or whatnot we need to reach out to somebody that that's more understanding like she was saying find a friend that you could talk to you feel me and open your eyes open your ears because teachers y'all is is the tools you guys are the gateway if you see a child fighting in the hallway you're gonna go down there and stop them from fighting you're going to call the campus supervisor to break it up same thing when children is being caught out of their name being disrespected in a way that you know you wouldn't wonder
070why disrespecting yourself or we're not you need to step in and like somebody said this room should be more full with with teachers and parents and whomever so i say from this point on we need to find a solution and we've been trying to find solutions for many years but we got to stand on our word if we can't stand on our word this solution is never going to work and i i applaud my pastor because as soon as this came up he said he's going to get out there and he's been out there and we need more men like him more women like him yes sir i see you yes but i'm just saying excuse me my bad uh but yes racism is is runs deep and we can do something about it but
071the first thing going to have to happen is education and when we're in schools are our students your students they need to feel comfortable they can come to you and tell you tell you things and something's going to happen and if you feel the person that you need to tell and they don't do anything you need to take it to the next level i shouldn't be a parent have to be like oh i need to go do all this which i can but you guys are on the front line and you know when somebody's going to do something somebody's not going to do something by the way they react to the situation if you come and say little jenny call him uh the n-word or whatever and she's okay and she's him or her or
072taking notes or whatever and not really looking at you in the face you need to move on to the next person even even calling the parents of the of both children and sitting them down because the parent might not know so i say you know as a black man here um the only other than my pastor and uh i thought i was seeing one other person but he left but uh i felt i needed to say something i couldn't just sit down and just let her all all my women get up here and say something you feel me and and let you guys know that it's everything starts at home and at school because we entrust you guys with our kids on a daily basis yet i want them to go to school and be
073proud to go to school be happy to go to school knowing that somebody got their back and i just asked you guys that love all your kids i still remember my fifth grade teacher miss dalton and she wasn't going for none of that no i went to this this middle school right here before we moved to the east side they weren't going for none of that so you guys don't need to go for none of that you feel me you say uh we are stronger together you gotta live by that you just can't wear it on your t-shirt you know in prison uh we had a slogan it ain't on me it's in me you feel me it got to be in you to have the courage to stand up for your child they got
074to be in you to stand up to your your vice principal your your principal your superintendents if they're not taking your needs and taking you into the account it got to be in you it can't be on you you can wear the t-shirts like you want to but it got to be in you if it ain't in you sit down i want somebody that got it in to stand up for my child for the kids in my neighborhood and i'm not just talking about blacks i'm let's not talk about hispanics i'm talking about all kids you feel me it worked both ways that's all i have to say thank you [Applause] dalmia torres um first of all i want to say thank you for taking the time to allow me to stand here thank you
075to the board and and to the parents i want to say thanks for coming out but for speaking from a perspective on being the front line i'm in the trenches i'm at john gutierrez i am the history teacher there for the eighth grade i make it a point to make sure i teach it from both perspectives i teach tolerance for that same reason of what's happening today it's not right and so i come here today and i'm just my heart is breaking by hearing all this right now i can't believe it i think the thing that i see lacking the most right now in anything is accountability we are there every day to make the students safe i cannot stand to hear this my room is a safe place black white lgbt whoever you are
076come as you are and if you have a problem come to me i will help you and they know i will extinguish it but to hear somebody to sit by and just let it go like this like it doesn't sit right with me because what's going to happen next year is that same occurrence going to happen again how do we solve it so i just want to take this time right now to say you know it doesn't sit well with me you know and we need more inclusivity in our schools i am an afro latina who left and this is my second career these kids flock to me and they tell me things that they will not tell half of their teachers and the one thing i do hear is there's a lot of racism
077going on and it has to be remedied it needs to be exterminated we can't look back without looking forward but what we can do is take that footprint that we have laid in front of us and step into it and carry on with it in a way that's going to make it safe for everybody i am fortunate this year i do not have the problems that a lot of our students and other teachers have experience because i stop it in my classroom immediately and i will like to say at this time that i can be a representative on campus if you guys are troubled you can come to me and call me or email me and i'll have you i'll be happy to try to help if that teacher is not taking action because it's
078not right whether it be this year or next year i'm there for you and i'm happy to if that's okay with you all be a part of this process and just make sure that we do things right i'll step up okay thank you um melissa if you have the letter that was sent to us regarding this okay thank you if we could have it at this time and take a drink of water um this letter was sent in to our public comments from miss asia gary hopefully i said the last name right um greetings to santa rita school board trustees administrators parents and community members as a single parent of a teenage black male student that has spent his entire educational experience in salinas california i am very well well aware of the dearth of
079community mentors and instructors that share identity and can relate to our culture and social experience the recent incidents that have gone unattended at the santa rita's administrative level are reflections of the lack of sensitivity as well as the urgency to incorporate verbiage and accountability protocols to our student body our school staff and community members to address racially charged bullying use of derogatory slurs inward usage and disrespectful social media posts my son and i have been on the other side as victims of race-based bullying other times students are not made aware of the process to report such incidents and administrators do not always inform parents of these incidents this must change throughout our county school districts at the foundation of any educational setting every student needs to feel safe at school should trust the educators and
080administrators to provide space that assess for safety and should not feel further isolated after sharing that they have been harassed whether online or in person parents also are also not always clear on what to do what the processes are and every teacher administrator or community liaison has a responsibility to provide these steps and assist parents and students with reporting any racial reference microaggression or hate posts our students should not feel further isolation or lack of trust when teachers and administrators turned a blind eye to emotional impacts of social media furthermore or belittle or play as if the incidents are out of their control i ask that the santa rita school board provide better oversight over student online accounts to develop transparent reporting processes and to distribute information create meeting spaces and opportunities to further educate
081our student body and parents about the impacts of racism racially charged bullying cyber bullying and social responsibility when having access to social media platforms as a student and member of society hate can be stopped at home i love and respect and can be nurtured and thrived when cultivated in a community thanks for taking action and modeling respect accountability for our students sincerely asia [Applause] um okay this public comment is moving on to a new topic is there anybody that that still um needed to be heard okay um may from srta regarding class size and teacher compensation good evening board members and superintendent aldermen my name is may pankaniban and i'm a fifth grade teacher at newark public elementary school i have been a teacher there and in this district for seven years now excuse me
082this is also my 25th year of teaching and my 30th year in the field of education i'm not saying these things to flaunt my my expertise but rather i'm sharing my years of experience it is with this experience that i would like to address the areas of class size and compensation at new republic each of our four fifth grade classes are fortunate to have on average 21 students this has been extremely helpful for my fifth grade team since we have returned to teaching in person after having had the last year and a half of distance learning this smaller class size has helped us pinpoint our focus not only on our students academic needs but also on their social and emotional learning not only has there been academic learning loss as we know but learning loss
083on other levels on my team we have had to re-teach our students how to treat one another in person we have had to help our students re-learn how to keep something basic like supplies and materials in their own space and not spread across their classmates desks we have had to re-teach our students the concept of physical boundaries around their peers however this small class size has afforded us the ability to see what our students needed and be able to differentiate to be able to meet their needs on all these levels in both academic and non-academic areas by having just 21 students on whom to focus we were able we are able to fully use our expertise our training our instincts our knowledge and of course our hearts to help our students experience success during this
084first year back after being away while i fully realize that not all grade levels in each of our seven schools can have 21 students in each class or in each period the point is that smaller class sizes allow us to more completely reach each of our students without the added stress of making sure we are actually reaching each of our students many studies as we know have been done to support the concept of reduced class size this is this is even more crucial during this time of a pandemic at my previous school i had upwards of almost 30 students in my class of course there were more papers and assessments to evaluate that goes with it but there is another added stress i was always worried that i did not have enough time with each
085student to properly evaluate and assess if they were making the appropriate progress during that year so i ask that the board members in the district consider keeping our class size at a number that is manageable for my colleagues and myself so that we can continue to focus on our students and their needs we may have made it through this first year back to in-person learning during a pandemic it's not quite over yet but we still have next year and the year after that and who knows how many more years to rebuild that learning loss the other topic that i said i was going to address was compensation as you may have seen from my colleague signs we are hoping to see an increase in our compensation it is not just for those of us whose
086spouses or partners may have been laid off due to kovid but it's for all of us i have colleagues here who are hoping to purchase their first home others have a growing family others are becoming caregivers for a family member and need to expand the physical size of their home some of us like myself have two kids starting college in the fall and possibly an unexpected major home repair there are those of us who are possibly putting off seeing a doctor because they are worried about how to pay the balance of that bill the balance that the insurance does not cover we have already seen an increase in the cost of basic necessities for my family of four our grocery purchase has increased by 150 dollars more a month and that's with store brand and
087generic products no fun stuff and the list goes on and on for why we need and may i be bold enough to say deserve and increase we also want to entice new teachers to our district we know there's a teacher shortage and the monterey peninsula as we all know is an expensive place to live please increase that starting salary let's get those great new teachers in our district now and on the opposite end of that spectrum we want to keep our awesome experienced teachers in our district and not have them look for another teaching position elsewhere or maybe forced to make a career change because their salary isn't just enough personally i'm going to be 60 next year and while i am an old dog who can still learn new tricks i don't want to
088have to go someplace to learn those new tricks i want to stay in this in my little circus in room 403 and i want to add to the tricks i already have i don't want to have to get a bag of new tricks that i can't even figure out how to take out of the bag but in all seriousness board members and district i hope that you will support our article for an increase in compensation mr patel at the last meeting you mentioned that everyone on the board holds the teachers in our district in the highest regard i believe with all my heart that you are sincere i do believe that everyone on this board and in this district supports us and believes in us but i ask the district and the board in addition
089to supporting and believing in us please invest in us invest in us [Applause] invest in us the way people say we need to invest in our children because they are the future we teachers we play a critical and essential role in helping our students get ready for that future invest in us as we prepare our students for their future we are the little district that can and that does our district is now in a position where it can move from words to action what will you do thank you [Applause] thank you i am gonna move into the business of the meeting unless there's anybody else who has something for a public comment and thank everybody for being here i really appreciate it [Applause] okay just gonna give people a minute um [Music] thank you so
090much i hear that in years of going to meetings and speaking at meetings myself um you know i i want to thank you madam president um for your openness and allowing the people to speak their mind and granting them the time you know i it's very important uh and we didn't limit so i appreciated that and i want to acknowledge that thank you and i i was overwhelmed by how helpful and positive and real people were i mean this is terrible and we need to talk about the fact that it's terrible because unless you're talking about it you're not changing it so but i appreciate everybody being here um we had changed the agenda before um we started so we're gonna uh do 13.1 first um and then we're going to go back to 8.1
091so um in keeping [Music] with what we have been discussing this is a resolution condemning racism and affirming the district's commitment to an inclusive and safe school environment for all i am going to read the resolution when we're done but i just wanted to ask if the board had any questions or statements that they want to make beforehand okay just personally okay if i get to you all are going to bear with me but um teaching and being on this board those are the core of who i am and school is a sacred space to me it it's our challenge every day um to do better and we're gonna we're gonna continue to make it a goal and continue to work every day this is santa rita union school district board resolution 22.05.09 resolution denouncing
092racism and supporting equity safety and well-being of black people whereas the santa rita union school district is committed to providing a physically and socially emotionally safe school environment that allows all students equal access and opportunities in the district's academic and other educational support programs services and activities the board of education prohibits at any school district or school activity racial discrimination including discriminatory harassment intimidation and or bullying of any student based on actual or perceived characteristics of race or ethnicity color nationality national origin immigration status ethnic group identification age religion physical or mental disability sex sexual orientation gender gender identity gender expression or any other characteristic identified in education code 200 or 220 penal code 422.55 or government code 11135 or based on association with a person or group with one or more of these actual
093or perceived characteristics whereas we value and teach equity diversity and inclusion the santa reading union school district elevates goals of equity and we actively teach our students conflict resolution to communicate their own feelings of injustice without prejudice and to be upstanders in their community whereas we believe that silence and inaction perpetuate injustice bias and racism whereas recent events the united states remind us that hundreds of years of prejudices injustices and inequalities are embedded in our societies from social structures to institutions to cultures to individuals decades of civil rights legislation and education have not obliterated racism and its breath has a negative impact on the safety health and well-being of black individuals families and communities whereas black community members continue to report that they regularly experience microaggressions racial profiling hate instances incidents and racial bias in
094all systems they encounter including our school district whereas we recognize that discrimination bias and racist incidents negatively affect the mental health and in turn the academic outcomes of black students whereas we recognize that there are employees and students who have felt harmed and who want the board to take immediate action now therefore be it resolved that the santa arena union school district board stands firmly against bigotry prejudice discrimination and inequity in all forms both institutional and individual srusd denounces discrimination racism and sentiments against black people we will not tolerate racist treatment of any members of our community and we will speak out against racism and systematic oppression in our society to help stop the spread of bigotry srusd will increase its efforts to provide a safe and welcoming school environment for all students working with
095the city of salinas county of monterey community non-profits faith communities and other government government agencies srusd will confront the biases in our own school district and actively engage in the challenging work of dismantling the problematic practices that are limiting the opportunities for our black and brown students so could could i have a motion please i would like to strongly emotion for approval second roll call please mr andrew sandoval no okay oh i'm i'm sorry we've lost our members that are participating in hybrid so we'll um just give you mr neil patel aye aye captain miss alvariano aye ms sarah turner aye mr jacob sandoval mr jacob sandoval and mr andrew sandoval are not present motion passes 3-0 thank you and thank you to my fellow board members and i'm going to sign this now madam
096president i i want to take a moment to thank our administrative staff especially our superintendent dr smith for you know addressing the situation in a comprehensive manner and i hope it is sustainable over time you know i really want to make sure that this isn't just something we do and forget about you know that was a common concern amongst the speakers so you know i want to make sure it continues to be a priority year after year after year and make this a permanent part of our learning process having said that once again thank you we have a lot of work to do thank you thank you i appreciate your comments um we are now going to um go back to 8.1 the prospective bomb program and election timeline and thank you for hanging out
097with us tonight i appreciate it good evening board members community staff thank you for the opportunity to address the board today and inviting us here to present some information for you regarding a potential funding program to address some of your modernization needs district-wide uh here along with me is my colleague shin green you see him there we made copies of the presentation and so i hope that that you can find them pretty easily in your packet if not we'll we'll pass them around yeah so everyone should have thank you yeah i left it about you okay great great if not i have to extra if you can't find it i have two extra here great thank you and so as i as i mentioned really for for today we wanted to talk about a uh
098a funding program and specifically in context of what we refer to as a school facilities improvement district and so i'll go into some detail as to what that means and uh some of the steps that are going to be required if you so choose to go in that direction i mentioned that the purpose of the the funding program is really to address some of the facilities needs that you've been uncovering i think over the the course of a very deep study here to uh draw out in a very methodical intentional way your master facilities master plan right master facilities plan and uh and through the course of that plan i think what we all recognize is really that the modernization needs are significant for the district where typically the useful life of a classroom based
099on certain state standards is in the 20 25 year span before you start having to make significant infrastructure improvements most of our schools here i think you know are you know 50 years old or so and so with that i think the big question then becomes how do we address those needs where do we find the resources to be able to put some money into our classrooms to bring them up to date to provide ongoing quality environments for for students and so one step and and most recently i believe in your last board meeting you received some information from a separate consultant looking at dollars that are available through the school facilities program the sfp and that really is uh the state's contribution to local school districts in terms of eligible dollars that you can
100receive through the course of grants they had estimated that approximately 12.2 million dollars are available to the school district in modernization grants right those are dollars that come to the district but for the district's ability to be able to provide a matching dollar and so i think particularly for the sfp program for modernization the state says for every uh 60 cents that i provide you've got to come up with 40 cents okay and so we think okay well you know those 12 million dollars will make a big impact obviously then the big next big question becomes where do we come up with the local match the local match here as i mentioned is available to the district through the course of a school facilities improvement district as a potential local funding source okay and so
101in the past we find that the district in fact has had a great deal of success in in leveraging local dollars right for every one dollar provided by your local homeowners property taxpayers you're able to then get some from the state your fair share of funding from other sources if you look at the presentation there's a couple graphics there on the bottom you see that in the past that the district has previously passed two different bond measures the first one in 1995 for 10 million and then thereafter in 2006 for 14.6 million and so you're no stranger to these local funding programs and so too i mentioned that you've been able to leverage those dollars if we look historically at uh looking at the graph to the right of that you see the uh the
102amount of grants that have been delivered to to the district in the amounts of 5.7 million historically and interestingly one thing that you'll note is that the bond programs that have been approved locally line up with the release of grant dollars that you've secured from the states and so again i think you know one is that you know can we raise local support to get state money you have have you actually succeeded in gaining those state dollars you have and so today i think really the question is how can we go about it again recognizing that yes there's 12 million dollars but obviously potentially our needs far exceed that okay and so some some basics regarding the school facilities improvement district and and what that means a school facilities improvement district essentially provides funding authorization
103to to the district um and specifically it does so by drawing a sub-district within the district-wide boundaries and so the reason for that is that because we're talking about modernization essentially we're talking about existing schools and so as we're looking at the existing schools where they're located for the currently built out community it makes sense that you're trying to tie the benefit of the investment in your school in the existing schools with also those that are going to be paying for those investments and so some question of fairness and equity goes into that okay and so by drying the subdistrict it allows us to tie in those those two the benefit and cost and so it's very typical i think a very common uh funding tool across the state and so employed us as needed
104and so in all other respects a an sfid or school facilities improvement district is no different than any other general obligation bond program very much like you've done so in the past it uh requires voter approval no taxation without representation right and and those bonds the the the funding it actually can be sold in the form of a tax exempt municipal security that provides a benefit to the bondholder in this case it's a it's a form of of borrowing by the school district at a lower cost right and so bonds uh particularly municipal bonds provide a a a public benefit onto bondholders to incentivize investors to put their money into into public benefits and so in this case again that translates into lower interest costs for the district and so the other component of an
105sfid is is really is that those that that borrowing or those bonds are are paid by the district's tax base oftentimes we refer to it as a full faith pledge of the district's tax base on an unlimited basis right so that's those those bonds will be repaid from the collection of tax revenue sources right without any limitation and the way those taxes are levied is that they're levied on an ad valorem basis or per value the per value referring to the the actual assessment of that property such that the taxes per every 100 000 of assessed property value and i'll go more into more detail because that's how we derive how much funding we believe may become available so i mentioned that every time you establish a bond program you go to your local voters
106for approval there's really two funding vehicles through state law constitutional provisions in the state of california that allow districts school districts to implement these programs one is refers to proposition 46 and the second refers to proposition 39 these are election vehicles and so historically proposition 46 gave districts tax or bonding authority requiring two-thirds voter support under proposition 39 most recently approved in 2001 that two-thirds requirement for voter support was lowered to 55 percent meaning that you would be able to get a tax bonding authority with 55 of voter approval right so the the difference between each one of these programs really has to do with how much tax you can you can levy and what the funds can be used for and so under proposition 46 there's no tax rate limitation on the proposition 39
107there's a 30 tax rate limitation okay in the past the district has implemented a program under each one of those provisions two-thirds as well as prop 39 and so i mentioned that the second limitation having to do with the use of funds under under each one of those programs the funds are are specifically dedicated to capital infrastructure projects right buildings brick and mortar that sort of thing you can acquire an asset you can improve it under proposition 39 however it goes a step further such that you can also pay for furnishings technology and equipment i think recognizing that it's nice to have a classroom in there but ultimately you've got to fill it with these instruments and tools to be able to implement learning okay now another manner in which they differ it has to
108do with accountability measures one of the one of the concessions for decreasing the voter requirement making it easier to pass the the bond measure was a a commitment to provide a transparency to the local community in terms of how those funds were going to be used so under proposition 39 the the commitment is that the board will set up a bond oversight committee okay and that there would be provision of annual audits and an expenditure report that's released to the community to make sure that those dollars were used as they were committed to voters at the time of the election and so although that's a big a big commitment or differentiation between each one of these election types we'd like to say that in fact we recommend that without without regard to whatever vehicle election
109vehicle you decide to pursue you still implement those this those uh those oversight and disclosure um our commitments for the obvious reasons i think transparency is good and so too i think the community recognizes that they ask for it okay now the last piece here that i'd like to note is that um under a proposition 46 election you can conduct one of those elections on any given tuesday obviously there's some requirements in terms of the proceedings that and notices to the community when you're going to be having the election uh and under proposition 39 the requirement is that you consolidate with a regularly scheduled election and given as you know i think you know as part of your your how you hold your board elections now in consolidation with other county elections those tend to
110occur on regular scheduled uh years so um even years and so the next opportunity here before us is in 2024 i'm sorry 2022 and this november i think is is what writing okay so when i was invited to come to speak to you i think that i was i was asking well miguel i think the big question is you know if we did one of these programs how many dollars do we believe we could make available so i'll get to that part because i know it's it's the real punch line here but in terms of the building block of knowledge here i want to first reference i think this this this slide here with respect to assessed value so assessed value is the tax base right this this is the really the the revenue source
111that provides the dollars that we use to repay the bonds and so when we look at the tax base we look at the history of growth over time and you find that for for santa rita that growth has happened pretty pretty significantly and very positively in a robust manner but for that that thing that you know hurt us all in 2008 right when the real estate market fell out and so since then however you've continued a pretty uh positive growth trend you're in your 10th going into your 11th year of of growth and so when you take into account some of the declines with some of the increases you see that on average that the district's tax base has grown about 5.36 let's call it 5.4 annually over a 25-year term okay and so the
112reason i mention that is because going forward we need to be able to make an educated guess as to what we think is going to happen with the tax base so that we can control for the amount of tax revenues that we estimate are going to become available to repay those bonds and so for per our purpose we like to be very conservative in terms of future growth and so specifically for the sfid we recognize that we're looking really at about 98 of the value of the entire district and that comes up to about 2.3 2.4 billion dollars okay and so as we as we make that that educated guess about projections going forward we think that that conservative guess would be closer to about three and a half to four percent annually and so
113again putting that in context of the historical 5.4 mil 5.4 percent annual growth we think it's defensible but obviously we're always going to continue to er on the conservative side and adjust our projections as we go along because because every year there's new data there's new data and so we take that into account so again back to the question of how much money is available right this is the second factor that comes into consideration the district's bonding capacity and so when rosa says hey miguel what is the disresponding capacity i said i want to be very explicit bonding capacity refers to the statutory debt limit right the state says to every government entity there's only so much bonds that you should be selling at any given point for elementary school districts across the state it
114makes no reference to the cost of the school it makes no reference to the size of your tax base they say it should only be one and a quarter percent of your assessed value and so because uh that can be somewhat significant for districts with very modest tax bases such as ours they also make allowances that would allow you to increase that but i'll get to that in a minute so one and a quarter percent of assessed value i think what you find here that in our our current year given our assessed value we multiply that times one once in a one and a quarter percent we have a total bonding capacity of about 30 million dollars today however we subtract that that blue section there on the graph right those are the amount of
115the prior bonds that had been sold that are currently outstanding and being repaid and so we're left with a net remaining bonding capacity of about 10.3 million dollars today again this is the the state measure that says about how much debt we should occur at any given time now what happens is that obviously we know that existing bonds are going to continue to be repaid right unlimited full faith pledge of a district's tax base remember that so they're going to be repaid and so the other component is that we hope and knock on wood is that our tax base or assessed value is going to increase so as our assessed value increases existing debt is repaid that provides additional bonding capacity a five-year outlook we estimate that our total bonding capacity is going to increase
116to about 35 million of which the remaining net bonding capacity will be about 20 million dollars and that's their at the the last bar for year 2026. now keeping in mind that when we talk about potential 20 million dollars or any sort of semblance of how many dollars become available to the district at any given point it's not like we we go out and sell all the bonds at once we establish a bond program of the total funding amount and we only draw down on those on that bond authorization over time based on how much tax revenue is available and how much obviously we need for projects that we can support okay so a couple of moving parts there but just want to let you know that it's not like we go out and we
117max out it's it's we take these factors into account lastly just to reiterate again that that bonding capacity is a state allowance a debt limit however there's a mechanism through the state board of education because they recognize that the cost of building a school is proportionately a greater burden for for smaller districts they are they recognize that that one and a quarter percent should probably be higher and so almost routinely they will hear uh through a waiver process the district's funding needs and uh to date i don't believe that they've uh declined a single one okay so this gets us yes it really i think that uh more so that what's important to the the states is that uh you have the ability to come back within your bonding your statutory debt limit within a
118foreseeable period and so given your funding needs they would not make any distinction or you know they would not say to the district you are overburdened at x percent um i've worked with districts that are exceeding two and a half percent for example um again it really has to do with the amount of funding and when the district can attest that it will come back within compliance over a period of time and so uh not a direct answer but that's because there's there's no set standard at in terms of a maximum level of indebtedness however with that i will say it is important to us with respect to the district's credit rating and so for that reason we also want to make sure that we manage that accordingly and so i mentioned that we sell
119bonds in steps over time as we we pay existing debt and as our tax base grows as our assessed value grows because we want to make sure that we do not you know take on too much debt such that it puts our our district's strong credit rating apparel and so this next slide now now gets us to the punch line right looking at an sfid i think that really that the third component or the third factor in trying to figure out how many uh how much bond proceed is really uh is really available it's it's it has to do with the amount of the tax rates i mentioned earlier that taxes are levied per every 100 000 of us as value and so in this case we presented a a various tax rates between 20
120to 30 to forty dollars and you'll see there that depending on the election vehicle uh because under proposition thirty nine the maximum tax rate is thirty dollars after that under proposition forty nine forty 46 we can establish a larger tax rate and so in all i think what we're finding is that we can get a reasonable amount of dollars at a really at a what we think is a moderate tax rate at twenty dollar tax rate we generate about 16 million dollars at the higher range of 40 40 dollar tax rate generates about 30 32.6 million dollars okay and there you see how we structure the bonds over time and through a period of three years to allow additional assessed value to to grow and also which would allow us to control the target tax
121rate and so we believe that that these i mentioned that these tax rates are actually uh moderate and and in fact i think you know relative to some of your peers i think there would be somewhere in the mid spectrum okay but um ultimately i think what really guides us in terms of the the tax rate as well as the amount of funding is one year needs and certainly what we think the community will support right and so trying to find that intersection of one and the other i think is really both the the art and the science of this and so um that's i think is is something that we will also be contemplating as we talk about the next item that that would be on the on your agenda for today but i'll
122get back to that in a second so in terms of forming the sfid i think there's there's some some process that i think would would come before the board we're seeing that really as a four-step process more immediately it would be that the district first off obviously deciding that it wants to proceed i think the next step would be for the district to adopt the resolution of an intention to form an sfid essentially that you know presents the the initial provisions of what the program may look like in terms of what it's going to fund how the boundaries are going to look like of the sfid as well as uh some um dates that i think with respect to how you're going to notice the public and and establish a public hearing to be able
123to address public input and so that's the first step the second step has to do with the actual public hearing that can happen concurrently with the third step which is essentially the resolution of the adoption of the sfid at that point that the district would would form the sfid asking also that the county board of supervisors to adopt the boundaries of the sfid for taxation purposes the the last piece here that that would be requiring action for the board would be the adoption of the resolution calling the election and so in this case now that we've taken the active steps to formulate the the actual the sfid then it's actually deciding to put it before the boulder so that they can approve it okay in this case it would include a lot of the the
124similar elements of of the formation that the estimate of cost the tax rates the funding amounts and what it's going to pay for okay so those those first those four steps are are you can see here in a uh more elaborate timeline uh from today uh going forward you'll see that the the legend there indicates you know some of the the the items that really have to do with process and analysis what we think would be the sort of the planning phase and that's where we are currently in terms of the exploring of these uh you know the funding as well as lining up some of the project needs the next step would would really be for the the board to go to the community and gauge public input to see if there's alignment between
125what the district's priorities and needs are with what the community sees as being the important things right at that point too i think you know would be appropriate to ask you know is it is now the time to implement a tax because this is essentially what it is and obviously what's happening in the economy what's happening in the headline news those are real issues to bear and so taken together we want to get a real um sense of of what the community is is feeling and what they think is uh is appropriate here as a next next course of action so um assuming that you know you decide to move forward then i think at that point then we would come back to the board with the set of uh of action steps mention the
126resolution to of intention to form the sfid then subsequently the public hearing and then the adoption of the resolution calling the election um what we see here i think is it's pretty a consolidated timeline but very achievable i think that uh for our part it's at one step at a time but i i did share with your superintendent you know let's uh if it is something that you you want to proceed with i think it's going to be um something where we are really going to you know dive in and and be present i think between what we see between now and in august august is is the the deadline for the district to call the election based on certain requirements by the state um i technically we have 88 days before the schedule the
127election to be able to adopt a resolution that would uh place us on the november ballot and so um that's that's essentially it i think i mentioned next steps i think most most immediately the district's you know feedback and any questions you may have um address i can address the the elements of of the poll if that's something that you choose uh any questions from the board um i just want to thank you for your presentation you know i had a lot of questions prior to your presentation and you had a very thorough presentation i love the comparison between the different bond proposals and our capacity um i thank you for your openness regarding the current status of the economy and you know like i said you know i i we definitely need the funds
128you know we need to modernize the question is is you know will the voters uh approve it you know and but i think that's partial that that's partially on us too you know we have to make the case forward so having said that i want to say thank you for your presentation it helped me decide what i would like to do so having said that i'll wait for further discussion all that did you have any questions at this time that was pretty thorough very easy to understand i i totally understand where where we're going to have to start and and by august i guess is when we need to to really submit everything if that's the route that we're going um but other than that it was a a good presentation and i guess we
129just need to talk about it and and see where we go from here thank you um okay uh andrew jacob are you uh online did you have any questions at this time um i am certainly in favor of doing a poll and figuring out where we are um and i absolutely know that there are so many needs in the district at this time personally i feel like this is too short of a clock um based on where i am personally having i've i've worked on a bond campaign that passed i've worked on a bond campaign that failed and um i can't say at this time that in the fall i can completely devote myself to getting this passed and i would like to be at the point where i could say that um it's going
130to be a crucial election in salinas and i have other things that i need to devote myself to and it's not that they're more important than this but they're crucial to the future of the school district um so that's just that's a concern that i have i also share your concern regarding the time frame um i would like to see what happens with the visibility i think that's the whole purpose of it you know and i would like to await uh the results of that you know if we do pursue it absolutely miguel if we were to go ahead and proceed with the with the feasibility study but determined that we didn't want to do it at this time would that play into doing it the following year it would not it wouldn't we would
131need to do it again it uh i'm sorry just for clarification when you say play into would we be able to if if the feasibility study said that yes the community would support that i'm getting to should we go ahead and move forward with the feasibility study even if the question is do we do it this fall or do we wait and that's that's something that you would explore through the course of the feasibility study okay um i i think that's what we find is that community sentiment changes and so if you're saying would we be able if we implement a poll now and decide not to move forward can we under the same study can we then do something in 2023 2024 i think that we would have to then probably go back to
132the community again okay yeah what i would like to add if i may and hopefully you can hear me is that um by doing the feasibility now it will give us a gauge on where the community's sentiments lie and if it is not the right time it will give us some direction as to what to do in leading into that next potential effort which i think is very informative okay um so um in regards to that so 8.2 approved survey research contract for a bond feasibility study did we have any more questions before we uh discussed approving this contract uh madam president i was just impressed um i like the local coverage i love the fact that other school districts have had success with this group and i like the price point that they came
133in and came in with so given those two concerns you know i i really support the proposal um can i get a motion to approve them i make a motion to approve second uh roll call please is andrew on okay mr andrew sandoval aye mr neil patel aye aye captain ms alvariano aye ms sarah turner aye mr jacob sandoval is not present motion passes 4-0 and thank you very much it was incredibly helpful moving to 8.3 approved resolution 22.05.10 funding of delinquent property taxes yeah that's my item and we do this every three years as you know santa rita and the 24th districts in monterey county county were part of a jpa that helped out with delinquent property taxes so instead of us waiting maybe years months to get those taxes we are part of
134this um of this jpa and we get the money sooner this is linked to lcff we do this every year every three years so this is just to do an extension for the 2022 2023 and 2024 taxes thank you any questions can i get a motion to approve sole motion second mr andrew sandoval mr neil patel aye aye captain ms alvariano aye ms sarah turner aye mr jacob sandoval is not present motion passes four zero okay uh 8.4 uh approve of renewal of the super co-op agreement chuck is not with us this evening so i told him i would handle this item if he didn't make it in time um this uh is our membership in our co-op and we renew it each year so our fee to be part of the membership is 800
135and all other costs associated are based on our products that we order and receive being a member of the co-op allows us to get some pretty good discount and access to different items for chuck's department thank you any questions i just want to commend the naming of uh this renewal it's called super co-op only the best for our kids motion to approve second roll call please mr andrew sandoval hi mr neil patel a super eye miss sarah turner aye ms alvariano aye mr jacob sandoval is not president mission passes 4-0 thank you um 9.1 approval of service agreement with pslf jobs for the 2022-2023 school year thank you psf psfl jobs um is an organization that assists staff members in public entities with loan forgiveness we did a pilot with them the year before last
136um and found that there were significant amounts of debt that some of our staff members are facing due to student loans in order to get their educational credentials so this organization works with our employees to help them maximize the benefits that they can receive through the student loan forgiveness programs they also have a job board in which we can advertise our jobs as members of their or partners with them as an organization that helps our staff with their student loan debt since it's such a burden for many of our employees so it's a relatively small fee for this service that could be a big benefit for us and part of our retention recruitment strategy for staff excellent any questions just thank you thank you thank you i mean you know student debt i mean you
137know that's just crazy having said that uh the cost point is very low considering the amount of benefit and it's targeted so i i think everything you said is absolutely supportable second roll call please mr andrew sandoval aye mr neil patel aye aye captain ms alvariano aye ms sarah turner aye mr jacob sandoval's not present motion passes 4-0 thank you moving on to 11.1 information regarding the student retreat heck the woods so this week i've had the privilege of working with many of the members of the community that you saw here tonight along with some other community partners um i've been able to work with alma cervantes from building better communities with miss arlene de la pena from restorative justice partners um with pastor smith who you saw here um and then ms jordana henry
138um who leads the black girl magic program at rancho san juan um jordana and i missed had didn't meet today but we have a meeting coming up next week together so i've been really excited to partner with each of these organizations on top of that i've had the privilege of partnering with the black youth leadership project out of sacramento and miss laureen pryor who i've known from the past and i really turned to her first support and miss pryor invited us to an opportunity that's something that our students really need right now and so that's this coming up on the weekend of the 20th to the 22nd um the black youth leadership project is taking kiddos on a retreat um for friday to sunday night up in portola and it's really going to be an
139opportunity for students to learn and for me to learn beside them um to meet and interact with other students and learn from each other to develop their own voice and as you heard to heal from some of the events that's happened that happened in our district over the last couple weeks and so um i bring you this informational item i will bring the students back so that they can report back to you about this exciting event i'm not that excited about sleeping in a cabin but it's okay um we're going to be good and thank you again to the district for buying us with the kids of deemed the party bus which is the van because that's what we'll be using to drive up there um and participate in this event so i'm excited for
140the opportunity i'm excited for our students to have it thank you any questions thank you so much you know um these are difficult times and i'm liking the fact that we're being comprehensive we're thinking outside the box we're providing resolution you know we're going to restore the gesture programs i like the programs we're putting in place to deal with the various situations that are coming up so thank you thank you thank you yeah i just i wanted to echo that and and say i appreciated so much the parents saying like yes we were heard you know it's not fixed but um it it could have been a very different meeting if people had said like hey i kept knocking and nobody ever answered and and that's not what happened so i'm incredibly grateful thank you
141and yes i want to hear all about sleeping in the woods which i would be excited about you know to each there and i just wanted to i just want to add to it you said sarah that it's what's really important to me is that um and i've spoken each in the members community that this that this work doesn't stop now and it doesn't stop with this retreat and it doesn't stop with this one training and that i need the support of this community to do the job right and i've reassured them that this board is in support as well and so i'm excited to do the work um and i'm excited to have them on this team with us to do that work because we can't do it without them so agreed andrew go
142ahead oh thank you yeah i do i do want to thank you uh superintendent alderman and summer um my boys also attend uh john g and and they were um on the ground and they did hear uh of the conversation you had with students um i appreciate the fast um action to reach out and have uh pastor smith um you come to the school i think you guys are doing a great fantastic job and and i know there's a lot of healing it's going to be a long-term um long-term project but um i'm i'm happy with the community that came out that also recognized that we we're not going to sweep nothing into the rug and we're going to do whatever we can to make sure people know that it's not okay so and i
143want to thank mr patel for your words and everyone for their support of summer and superintendent alderman's work with this thank you um we're going on to 13.2 which is informational these are letters in support um so i just wanted to make sure that i brought these to the board and we'll be sending these off so we have our letters and support of encouraging the governor and the chief executive officer for calstrs to increase the allowable income for retirees who are returning right now when we are in a pinch all across education in the state to allow them to come back on board and help out their colleagues when they're willing and ready to do so right now there's a cap on how much they are able to earn and so we are asking these
144officials to consider broadening that so that was our first letter and our next one and i really want to thank sarah turner for bringing this to us this is asking for the governor and committees to support assembly budget plan for 10 billion investment in one time general fund surplus to support school facility program as you just saw we talked about possibly needing a bond in order to obtain state matching funds and that's simply to modernize our current facilities so that's not to build some beautiful glass tower or anything it's really to replace failing classrooms roofs updating electrical infrastructure from the 1950s you know we like retro but that's getting challenging and so i i appreciate you bringing that to us so we wanted to include that in in our letters that we're going to be
145sending out so i incorporated it in with the others we intended to do and our final one is to urge the usda authority to expand the waiver for our school feeding programs that have been going on and they're on the cusp of looking at doing that and we just want to let them know that our little district in salinas california would really benefit from that thank you so much any questions or comments i just want to say thank you for working on that i think it's important that our legislators hear from us and you know just urge them in the right direction thank you thank you and and thank you for being um so gracious when i brought forward the the facilities letter that happened at the monterey county school boards association meeting mcoe has
146already sent a letter of support on behalf of the county and they were asking each of the individual districts if possible to do so you guys may be aware there's like a three-year wait right now in terms of money that you are eligible for but getting it to you and they're just trying to increase that the funds that are available you know to to schools that the state already agrees should have the money so you know this is for needed modernization um and construction and certainly we need it and everybody else does too um going on to uh 14.1 our um next regular board meeting will be um two weeks from today and um we will have had our um gv and uh jg graduations by then and we'll have you know big important people
147ready to go to um high school uh under um 14.2 suggested uh future board items is there anything that people would like to agendize okay so we're at 15.1 could i have a motion to adjourn please i make a motion to adjourn um i'm gonna have to second it because mr sandoval over there i think it's 11 30 you know yeah past his bedtime so yeah i i second that motion i i appreciate mr patel taking one for the team uh can we have a roll call please mr andrew sandoval all right thank you it's all about you mr neil patel oh yes yes aye aye captain ms alvariano aye ms sarah turner aye mr jacob sandoval is not present motion passes 4-0 thank you everybody appreciate it jacob already went to bed you