September 10, 2025 Regular Board Meeting

001call to order. The September 10th, 2025 meeting of the Santa Rosa City Schools Board of Education is currently 4:00. The first item on our agenda is public comment on close session agenda items. Do we have any public comment? >> We do not have any public comment. >> All right. Seeing that we do not have any public comment, we'll be recessing to close session to consider public employee discipline dismissal and release conference with legal counsel existing litigation. Conference with legal council anticipated litigation. We will not be considering item B4, student expulsions. that'll be moved to another date. And we will be considering public employee performance evaluations as listed under B5 and we'll be uh reviewing closed and open session notes under B6. Uh recess to close session. We'll now reconvene the September 10th, 2025 meeting of

002the San Rosa City School Boards to session. Uh we will start with C1 pledge of allegiance. I'll now invite Trustee P to read our territorial land acknowledgement. I acknowledge that Santa Rosa City Schools is on the traditional territory and homelands of the Pomo people, traditional territory and homelands of the Coast Miwok people and honor with gratitude the land itself and the people who have stewarded it throughout the generations. This land acknowledgement calls us to commit to continuing to learn how to be better stewards of the land we inhabit. By offering this land acknowledgement, we affirm indigenous sovereignty and will work to hold Santa Rosa City Schools more accountable to the needs of American, Indian, and indigenous people. Item C3, reports of actions taken in close session. Uh we had unanimous approval on a settlement in

003case number and there's no further actions to report. Item C4 items uh considered in closed session for action in open session. There are none. Uh statements of abstension. Are there any trustees who need to abstain from any items on the agenda? Seeing none, um adjustments to the agenda. We will be pulling item uh G5. Um so that will not be a part of tonight's agenda. Any other further adjustments to the agenda? All right. Seeing none, we will move to reports and we will begin with our California School Employee Association CSEA San Rosa 75 report. Good evening everyone. Can you hear me? Good evening, President Mcnal. Oh, Casten, substitute Casten. Trustees, interim superintendent, August, cabinet, and community members. CSEA stands for students, we stand for working families, and we stand for public education. Tonight we are

004receiving the unodudited actuals for 2020 2024 25. The numbers tell a story that every staff member already feels. We ended last year with a deficit spending of millions. Our unrestricted fund balance is negative in the red and our spending on classroom compensation dropped below the state required minimum creating a 5 million deficiency. Behind those numbers are people. Students, teachers, administrators, and library staff, secretaries, custodians, cafeteria workers, instructional assistants, student safety adviserss, technology assistants, classified staff, fewer in number, covering more ground than ever. We have closed two elementary schools and merged two middle schools into 7 to 12 campuses. But instead of cost relief, we see increasing enrollment causing unexpected crowding, larger class sizes, and fewer support staff to keep students safe, fed, and learning. Meanwhile, the district office is filled with new administrators just learning

005their new roles. In just the first weeks of school, we have already seen too many substitute teachers along with new hires and involuntary teacher transfers, leaving students without stability they deserve. Many of many classified staff who were laid off have been brought back too, but often to different schools and in new roles. HR and payroll are struggling to keep up. Libraries have books, but not enough hands to get them to the students backpacks. We are riding the wave, trying to keep our schools afloat. But the undertoe is the deficit that does not go away. Closing more schools next year will not solve the structural imbalance. It only shifts the pain. Despite this, our staff shows up. Last week was back to school night at the elementary schools. Tomorrow night is the middle schools and high

006schools. Next week, classified employees are there smiling, welcoming families, making it work. We are doing this with fewer people, more stress, and an uncertain future. CSEA urges the board to recognize the budget crisis is not abstract. It is lived daily by the staff holding our schools together. Two, protect our classified positions so students have safe, clean, and welcomecoming campuses. Confront the structural de honest def deficit honestly not just with clo school closures but with commitment to stabilize staffing and restore balance to the budget. The numbers may be in red but the people in our schools are still showing up in full color with courage and compassion. Thank you. This time uh we'll recognize the teamsters local 665 for their I believe first report as a newly recognized labor partner in the district. They may not

007be present. I do not see them. So hopefully we will have them present at the next meeting for their first report. Uh with that we'll go to D3 uh and recognize San Rosa Teachers Association for their report. >> Good evening, Vice President Casten, Superintendent August, members of the board, members of the community, those of you in the room. I'm Katherine Howell, president of the Santa Rosa Teachers Association. We represent about people this time this year. Um, a definite drop in staffing and certificated teachers in the district. Um, I want to start by saying thank you to you on the board. They're continuing to meet with SRTA members and leadership. Um, a special thank you to listening this last few weeks to our concerns about the new board policies that we're discussing tonight. Um, it felt

008really collaborative and we, um, have definitely felt very listened to with our concerns around these policies. We know that their intent is to protect students and to protect staff, but we also want to protect our ability to make connections with our students. um and the ability to celebrate achievements, to acknowledge their life steps as they move through our educational system. And we don't want to have to be worried about a board policy second-guessing our every word and action when what we're really trying to do is create warm, welcoming, and nurturing spaces for our students to learn. Uh we're a few weeks into the school. This is the school year. Um, I'm sorry to report that in my visits to some of our schools, I've never seen such low morale. To be honest, the schools are

009overpacked regardless of what the numbers are going to show you tonight. The schools are bursting at the seams. Um, rooms that were offices are being used as classrooms. Some of our teachers don't have their own rooms. uh our special ed teachers were severely impacted in this way and not having any spaces of their own anymore. Shared classrooms um shared spaces, shared offices and especially at the elementary larger classes than teachers have seen in a really long time. And the constant question I get is, are we really closing Steel Lane? Because where are those 400 kids going to go? They are not going to fit anywhere. um we are being encouraged to be in this together to work it through but honestly it doesn't feel that way. It feels like the burden is being placed on

010the classroom teacher and the the staff at all of our schools. I don't want to diminish what um President Layman said. We still rely very heavily on our classified. We can't as teachers do our jobs without our staff on our campuses. Uh and our school sites are destabilized. we're destabilized by the fact that so many people are somewhere new and having to figure that out. Um, on a positive note, I will leave by saying that I've talked to sixth grade teachers in Bennett Valley and Ranken Valley, and they are reporting that their last year's students, the current seventh graders, um, at our 712 Montgomery High School junior program, uh, are reporting back that they're having a great time, that they're learning, they're feeling safe, they're feeling welcomed, and I'm glad to hear that our teachers

011are definitely stepping up as teachers do. Um, and creating happy kids and happy families, which is what we want. But just I want you to know that underneath that, underneath the positive feedback we may be getting from the community are a whole lot of teachers working really, really hard to make it happen in a way that is not going to be sustainable. Um, so I know we need to make more cuts. I know we need to look at this budget. The classrooms have had it that you we can't cut more. We can't do this job with more cuts to the classroom. So, we need to figure out a way to make cuts farther away from the students. Thank you. >> Thank you. Uh D4 superintendent report in superintendent August. Thank you, Vice President Casten, members

012of the board and our community. I want to start by acknowledging um exactly what President How and President Layman have shared that this is difficult. It is absolutely difficult work and I very much appreciate the um collaboration, the time to meet and talk about issues as they arise so that we can be proactive as we are able to um to address things. There aren't any any things that we can propose or continue to move through from here that aren't going to hurt. And so I I do want to be very transparent that we know and and I know it's difficult and we are we will work through it together to try to minimize that pain and um just know that you are your your teams all of our teams are seen and heard and and

013the work is very much appreciated in in what we do for kids every day. So thank you. I do also want to acknowledge the work of our board. Um I'm incredibly appreciative of the time that they have taken from their regular jobs and and lives to um put in additional time over the summer and on last Monday um a week ago. Um we held a strategic planning session. Um so the the we held a governance workshop at the end of July and now our strategic planning session on September 2nd. Excuse me. Um during that day we did um focus on the important work that sets a direction for our district for the next several years. Um I'm just going to give a few highlights of the work that was completed that day. Um we spent

014time um they updated mission and vision statements established five core values as well as five strategic priorities that will guide the work as we move forward because if we are trying to do everything we are going to spread ourselves too thin and nothing becomes important if we don't focus that work. So um they are the categories of academics and enrichment uh and that is to provide outstanding educational and enrichment programs that motivate and prepare all students for their respective futures. Safety and security provide learning environments that are physically and emotionally safe for all students and staff. Fiduciary act as a trusted agent of the community's educational assets. Recruit, retain, and support student centered staff. Recruit and retain and support high-quality staff who center students and represent the district's core values. And communication. Santa Rosa City

015Schools will communicate clearly, consistently, and effectively to build trust, strengthen relationships, and engage the community in support of student success. Next, uh we will be developing and refining the measurable objectives for each of those five priorities as well as an equity statement that we will weave into all of our work. Uh we will also um we they provided further refinement to the draft governance handbook which will be presented for action at a future meeting. So very appreciative of the ability to to make sure that we are functioning um very efficiently and effectively as a governance team which sets the direction for the rest of the district. Some other things of note I've I we had the selfless superintendence council meeting the other day and our DHH program our deaf and heart of hearing program at

016Hidden Valley which is a regionalized program uh received the exemplar award for a regionalized program for the county. So really excited about that. It was fantastic. Uh last week we did uh hold our back to school night on Thursday for our elementary schools. Uh tomorrow is back to school night for our middle school and junior high programs. And next Thursday, uh Thursday of next week is the back to school night for our high school programs. Each week I am continuing to visit school sites and observe various activities including classroom observations, lunch and passing periods, special events and I do want to share that this is by far the most re rewarding part of my work and so thank you all for um providing the opportunity for our students to learn and I love getting out

017to to see that. So thank you. >> Thank you Superintendent August. Um I will provide the board president report as president McN is not present. Um and for our new trustees that are joining us the board report section is a place where we can report on our activities and the general act things that are occurring in the district. Um we want to save any of our discussions around policy or other items for when we get to those items on the agenda. I want to echo the work and and that we did together um last week. It was actually Tuesday because Monday was Labor Day. Um and so last week Tuesday um you know having the full board come together not just be able to set those five priorities but revisit the vision the mission and

018have the discussion about the fact that we need to make choices at that strategic level so that folks can actually understand why we're making individual choices with the actions we make each day I think is very important and sets the frame for us moving forward into what is going to be um another difficult period of time as we continue to address the the budget situation. So having that guidance, having that north star, if you will, um and you know, the the the work to get to it, being able to be so specific, I think is incredibly valuable. So, I want to thank my colleagues and recognize that our cabinet members all attended as well and fully participated in a way that I think really helped make sure that these were priorities that are not just

019us as the board um waving a wand but also working with the cabinet in the conversation about it and through that entire thread was the conversation of the partnerships. you know, the the collaborative um the the comment from President Howell on the collaborative work that we've done these last two weeks was in that retreat stated as a goal of what we want to see when we're talking about communication. And so seeing that we're actually seeing that in the actions, it doesn't mean that we're going to like the outcomes of these collaborative processes, but we need to make sure that we're better at doing it together. So I appreciate all of that work um in in the direction that I think we now have clarity on. Uh the elementary back to school days were great. It

020was so much fun seeing the um the the kids and the excitement around the the classrooms. My son's now in sixth grade, so that excitement waines very quickly. Um but I it's this is a great time he's in his honeymoon uh period for being back at school. On Monday, we held the finance committee meeting. Most of the um items that we received there were in anticipation of tonight's meeting. So, I'm not going to go into the report, but we did get into more detailed conversations on enrollment, um, on the unodudited actuals and on some of the items we're going to receive tonight. And anyone who's interested in that can review the meeting online on our YouTube channel. Um, and then I I actually end I attended two community events as well. Uh, the Labor Day

021breakfast, the teamsters hosted uh Labor Day breakfast on Labor Day. uh it was very well attended. There were a lot of folks and electeds from throughout not just the region but the state uh that were there and very interested in talking about education policy and our uh struggles and triumphs here locally. And then I also was able to attend Lucen's uh launch of their bridge program which is a great program that's training folks in the community to be able to join nonprofit boards. and they're looking at also helping train folks to be able to join boards like this one. So, uh it was an eventful week. I will wrap it up there because we do have a full agenda of items to discuss and I'll move to board member reports. Um I'm going to go

022ahead and start on this end. Uh Trustee Medina, do you have a report? >> Yes. Thank you. Um see, first off, um sorry I wasn't at our last board meeting. Um, I was actually working really hard uh to impact some of our students. At our previous board meeting that I was at, we had uh talked about the partnership with Fox Pacific Academy on a CNA program and I was working really hard to um finalize the students that were going to be part of that. There was 45 applicants for 30 spots and I'm glad to report that there's students from Santa Rosa High, Maria Core, Elsie Allen, and Piner that are going to be a part of that. and they start their first class this Saturday. It's a weekend program every other weekend for the entire

023year. I'm excited and nervous for them even though they're the ones that are taking the class, but um that was some definite intense work. Um, but it's also something that's um involving a lot of community support with nearly $100,000 of investment from Solder, the Community Foundation of Cinema County, um, CTE Foundation working to make this program possible for our students. Um, so I really hope our students succeed as this is a pilot and hopefully we can continue to provide opportunities like this in the future for our center of the city school students. Um, I did also want to acknowledge some of the stuff that was mentioned during the um the the reports. Um, you know, I'm seeing impact of staffing cuts on our students. You know, whether it be um staff split, you know, half

024time at one site, halftime at the other, and not being available to students full-time. um heard from a student talking about wanting to um withdraw from a class because there's 36 students in the class and it just feels too crowded. Um some of these impacts, you know, they're really being felt. Um but at the same time, we got to keep moving forward with with the situation that we're at. So, I know that everybody's working really hard. I I want to recognize the staff for all you do. Um I know it's difficult. Thank you for struggling through this with us and for doing all this um for our students. Um I you brought up Lucienne and and uh on the 25th um is the uh state of the Latino community address that Lucian is hosting. I'm

025still um I'm working to help uh send a student there. Um and and and so that'll be something that that hopefully will will go well even though it's going to be a long day, but they have some good speakers. Um the Cinema County Office of Education has, you know, started their schools rule initiative, um which raises money for different schools throughout the the county. They're distributing those funds on September 17th. I'm excited to find out how much each school gets. So, uh, hopefully, uh, they were able to raise a lot of money, but I do plan on attending that event. Hopefully. Um, I I'll leave it at that with actually just one more thing. I did want to congratulate the LC football team on their victory over RP. It's their first time beating them 52

026to 26. Um and and with former LCL and principal Alba over there, it was it was good good new little rivalry to have and it was great for them to get that victory on the first game. So, congrats. >> Thank you, Trusty Pra. >> Hello. Um I on Monday I went to go to the SRTA uh trustee gathering and so it was really nice to meet um Miss How on more personal level and the other attendees there and I have two site visits planned for this month and I'm going to be at Burbank and LC Allen and I'm excited to be on the board with you and I look forward to learning more about my position. >> Thank you Trusty Bra. Trusty Kirby. Uh, last week, um, well, let me back up. The local American

027Legion Post 21, um, selected 15 of our high school seniors, incoming seniors, to attend as delegates over in Sacramento this past summer. Um last week they gave a uh recap of what they learned and their experiences at the um Boys and Girls State program uh over in Sacramento. Uh it was really inspiring to hear from them and their uh what they learned and experienced and how it really changed and impacted their lives. Um it's a mock government um program that uh the students learn about how our government operates uh how elected officials like us sit up here and uh and uh make policy and um just it's a great way to um educate our future leaders. Uh, Mayor Mark Stap was able to uh swing by and say a few inspiring words and uh we

028had nice dinner hosted by Chick-fil-A and uh anyway, it was just really great to hear from uh from all of these uh these kids and uh and how um what a great time they had. Anyway, I hope to attend the uh back to school nights uh tomorrow night at the middle schools. Thanks, >> Trusty Deator. >> Thank you, sir. Well, school's back in and uh I got to begin my travels again, so it's pretty exciting. Um really enjoyed being a part of uh took my wife to see Center High School's first rally on August 27th. Um just the energy in that gym, the kids, um the excitement, um walking past the junior program on St. high school's campus where they're out on break and seeing the seventh and eighth graders out and cominging with each

029other and getting some fresh air. Um really encouraging with the things that uh our staff was able to put together for our students. Um still got a hold Miss Bell to actually teach me the fight song. We never got got to it on Friday, but got to learn that Puma fight or the Panther fight song at some point. Um, and then that night I got to wear both Piner and Creo hats and go to a Creo Piner football game. Um, I'm a graduate from Piner High School and all my children are graduates of Korea. So, it's a pretty cool little um rivalry to see both those schools uh student athletes competing on the football field. Uh, last week was last week, this week. Last week was elementary back to school night and I did make

030it to all 10 campuses. Um, it's quite a whirlwind of an afternoon, but to see the staff, to see the administrators, to see the families. Um, really appreciative of City Santa Rosa bringing out a booth and connecting with our families and seeing the community engagement that these evenings provide for our families to get more involved with their students, their students education, and ultimately the community they're a part of. Um, so that's one of my favorite evenings of the year is just seeing that community and seeing the smiles on those kids' faces and meeting with parents and teachers and having conversations of what we're doing um how it's going and what we can do to work better together. Um this week I was also um asked to take part of the special education task force that

031director John Fischer has put together and uh it was a great meeting. Um, we got to meet members of the team, set norms, and discuss strategic priorities for that task force and how to better collaborate. It had a great representation of people involved with special education that want to learn more about special education and have great perspectives on what we can do better as a district to um have that heavy lift and ensure those students needs are met. And then next week, um, there will be the second Sonoma County Schools Trustees Association meeting, uh, which I'm looking forward to to collaborate and continue conversations with trustees throughout the county on how we continue to work together and make all of our districts better and lift each other up and work with each other and not

032just work in isolated silos. Um, so that's it for me tonight. >> Thank you, Trusty Deator. Uh, Trusty Olivera, >> no. No report. >> Trusty Creo, >> no report. >> Right. We'll move to item E, public comment on non-aggenda items and consent items. This is a time for items that are not on our agenda. So, if you have something that's on the agenda, we'll do public comment when we get to that. I have two cards, so we'll go ahead and do three minutes. Um, and we're going to start with Kathy Hayes. and I'll be followed by Jackie Hward. >> Good evening, Kathy Hayes. Um, I work at LC Allen High School. Occasionally, I like to come before you and say thank you for something. Um, so I just wanted to say thank you for the

033recent paint job at LC Allen High School. You know, there are all kinds of studies that discuss the relationship between a student's environment and how they perceive their worth. Our campus until recently certainly hasn't communicated the message that um our Southwest Santa Rosa students were valued by the district or the community. The paint job has absolutely helped change that narrative. Um, the students have noticed, the staff has noticed. We're seeing students picking up after themselves because they actually care about the the the place and the environment that they're in and they have greater pride for being at that school because the school looks halfway decent. So, I just wanted to thank you personally for making the investment in the place and in our students. >> Thank you, Kathy. Uh, Jackie Elward. >> Good evening. My

034name is Jackie Edward and I am an employee at the French American Charter School. I am here in front of you because I wanted to dispute an voluntary transfer that was um forced upon me for years. I've dedicated myself to this program and to the student who rely on the French-American uh program as a French speaker and that is not just a detail uh essential to learn. I've brought a really good environmental and a safe place. Uh I I advocated for to have um staff of different background, color, ethnicity. For years, I've came in front of you and advocated for that. And all of you, the school district, are benefiting for the effort that I've brought in. In March, everybody knows that the budget has been an issue. But in March, I sent a letter

035asking the reason why I was happen to be let go. I asked if it was a a a question, a a um a problem about the funding, but I still today never had an answer. Is it about the LCAP fund? Because it doesn't make sense. the school in that facility have people that get paid from the LCAP fund. Also, the second thing is, is it about budget? Apparently, they told me that it's about budget. That's it. But we all know that you guys have will be moving that school to a bigger facility that will need more employee. And it doesn't make sense to involuntarily transfer the only native uh instructional assistant to a facility that will be hard for me to operate and help the children. I'm here to ask for you the board, you

036have the you are the decision maker to really explain and be clear in front of some of my student are here and will be surprised to hear that that we are I'm being involuntary transferred based on the budget that we knew years and months ago throughout the school year last year and surprisingly it's discovered there's no budget to pay me to stay and work in a place that is native to my language. Education is hard enough to work in a American in English and to impose that to someone uh being native is hard. So I would like for you to look into it otherwise I will contact the California civil right and they will have to deal with it. Thank you for your comment, Jackie. We're only capable of responding to items that are on

037the agenda under the Brown Act, but I'm going to ask Superintendent August to follow up with you on a response. We're going to move to consent calendar. Um, do I have a motion for uh the full consent calendar as presented? >> So moved. Second. >> Moved by Trustee Medina, seconded by Trustee Kirby. Roll call, please. >> Trustee Curio. >> I. >> Trusty Olivera. >> I. >> Trusty Medina. >> Hi. >> Trusty Kirby. >> Hi. >> Trusty De Laator. >> I. >> Trusty P. >> I. >> And Vice President Casten. >> Hi. >> The consent calendar passes unanimously. We'll move to G discussion and action items. Uh G1 is discussion West County Transportation Agency update and uh we have interim superintendent August presenting along with Chad Barksdale. >> Thank you uh Vice President Casten. I'm going

038to go ahead and introduce our director um from West County Transportation. That is our joint powers authority of which Santa Rosa City Schools is a member and u West County provides transportation for all of our for our um home to school as well as field trips and and others. I'm going to go ahead and I will share screen and hand over the mic. >> Good evening. Uh trustees, interim superintendent August, thanks for having me here this evening. Um we are going to go through a handful of slides and give you an update on the agency as it relates to staffing budget and some certain programs that we're working through right now. All right. So, uh this is an update to our routes and staffing. Uh this slide has kind of come to fruition uh since

039the beginning of our relationship due to the uh drastic shortage we had at the beginning of um the uh relationship between Santa Rosa City Schools and West County Transportation. I'm happy to put these numbers in front of you today. Uh it shows great growth in the AY's ability to provide quality service. Um you'll notice that we have several different breakdowns of types of of buses, whether they be sped, amulatory, wheelchair. Uh we do transport uh several students in vans. Um and we have 35 GenEd buses. And this year I decided to put these transportation bus aids so that we can recognize that they are also an impact to our agency as we move to support students. So total staff right now that operates on the school bus we have 168. Last year you could recognize

040we had 159. We were 12 short. This year we're six short. However, we did add five new routes this year. Uh so we've had a um increase net increase of 11 11 drivers in one year and we do have six in training right now. So the six open routes we do have right now will be covered once we have these students train or these trainees trained. uh new school boundary uh bus service. Uh I know several schools um have we've made several changes to boundaries and services that we provide in the new neighborhoods um that have been involved with the boundary changes. Uh right now wrership for the newly implemented elementary boundary routes is is really low. Um, ridership to and from Montgomery junior and high school has been high and actually required an additional

041bus to relieve some overloading. And typically the the middle school was always full uh really full anyway. So I think that we're getting good uh attention to those routes and getting good ridership bringing kids to and from school. Also with the Santa Rosa Junior and High School, it's been fairly steady, but lower than we anticipated. Most of the students that are riding those bus are just are student junior high students. Um and then wrership to and from Pioner High School has been low. Uh we anticipate when the junior high transitions there that the wrership will probably increase quite a bit. We do have some um fairly large wrership to the other the the middle school that's are currently going to be closing. Uh special needs writership. Uh this slide is on there uh because it

042has a direct impact uh great impact to not only the agency but also Santa Rosa. Um we have uh historical numbers here from 23 24 where we had 929 students that we transported as an agency and Santa Rosa had 535 of those and then 986 580 uh in September of this year we had 960 students. Uh just last week we did the numbers 554 of them are Santa Rosa City Schools. Uh at this time of year, we usually show that we're lower from the end of last year. So the end of last year, we actually had 986 students that we transported. Uh which is a a great jump from the previous year. Uh this year, um between last year and this year, uh we're anticipating at least 50 more new students. Um and we will

043probably really close to a thousand students by the end of the year. All right. Uh we do always do a route comparison between the agency as a whole as it relates to Santa Rosa City Schools. You'll see here we have 35 general education routes and 17 of them service the Santa Rosa City Schools. Uh we currently have students 960 which is uh 554 from Santa Rosa city schools. Uh last year I think this came up uh we talked about the general education ridership. How many students do we have riding the the regular education routes? Um I did some numbers. Uh last year we had 1,55 students with bus passes. Um this year is 630. These numbers are going to be pretty low uh because participation in in the bus pass uh requisitions have been typically

044low. Uh we are ramping up that effort on our end to get more participation from uh all schools that we service so that we have some better accountability uh and better numbers to provide our member districts electric vehicles, buses and infrastructure. Currently we operate four e transit vans. Uh when we redid our parking lot or we added uh some parking space we accounted for infrastructure for those. So that is um fully operational at this point. This uh ZESBY grant for school buses which is part of HIBB uh carb. Uh this is the same grant I talked about a year ago. Um this process has been going on 18 months now. Uh we're we're at the end. We're just waiting for a contract from uh the the provider of the funds and then we could start

045moving towards ordering those electric buses. Um funding for this is nearly 100% but it's no longer 100%. Uh you know we're dealing with money that's already 2 years old. Um and school buses have been electric school buses in particular have been uh raising in cost nearly 20% a year. Uh we are currently approved and have contract from the Bay Area Quality Management District for an infrastructure grant of $63,000 that is on a reimbursement amount. So we have to obviously um and it'll be at the end of the construction phase. Uh permits uh for the seven um EV buses that we are going to buy. Permits for the chargers have been completed and are not completed but submitted in June and the completion date of those seven chargers is in June of 2026. Um the buses

046that we are uh purchasing are seven small ambulatory buses. Uh the buses travel right now the manufacturer range is 140 miles and obviously that's ideal conditions with an experienced EV driver. Uh as we go from year to year this slowly starts to rise. Uh there was the target before was 180 miles. Now we're at least getting to 140 miles. Um, like I said, those are perfect conditions. Uh, it's unlikely we're going to be going straight with none of the AC or heaters on for 140 mi. It just doesn't how doesn't work. You know, obviously they regenerate. So, an experienced school bus driver needs to be a part of that process of of regenerating regenerating the battery power through braking and coasting and and doing those types of things. As far as the infrastructure, we are

047installing a 65 kilowatt DC fast charge. Um, and 65 kilowatts will charge these buses in just under two hours. Um, so if we go approximately 120 miles in the morning, they'll come back in the midday, have enough time to get a full charge for the afternoon ride. We will also be strategically placing these buses on routes that uh won't uh butt up against the uh discharge battery, you know, the mileage so that we can make sure that we're appropriately providing the service and we don't get stranded. As far as operational costs on these seven buses here, we'll we'll see some obvious reductions through uh repair and maintenance costs. uh you know your oils uh your fuels parts things like that. Uh one of the challenges that we have as a maintenance facility for school buses

048is the uh requirements to have uh minimum inspections. So it's every 45 days or 3,000 mi that will never go away whether it's electric, gas or or diesel. So we'll continue to have that operational cost um going forward and obviously there there will be some uh change in cost uh where we deviate from uh using oils and fuels uh to electric service. One of the challenges as we move forward with our EV system is uh available grid space. Um we're at the end of a industrial street where we neighbor Santa or Sonoma County Transit. Uh we are currently at max with the seven new chargers that we're going to be installing with our available electricity. So moving forward would would require and partially because Sonoma County's uh transit is stealing a lot of power because

049they obviously have the same types of movements towards the electric vehicles. um and they got a head start. So, um we'll be looking closer at that. Uh we we're in contact with PG& on what that would entail. It probably be a whole new line and a whole new makeup of of electrical panels and transformers and such. Um, and we're also looking at some alternative sites uh that we may be able to bring from the ground up and and have a better opportunity to uh manipulate the property to service these vehicles a little easier. Budget, uh here's the historical budget. Uh agencywide, we had a larger increase than normal years. Um that increase uh the largest contribution and increases obviously salaries. Our statutory costs uh and we had a a significant increase in our repair and

050maintenance of our vehicles. Uh cost associated with that has significantly gone up when parts and availability of parts and the the cost of shipping those parts from other states and and Canada and things like that because a lot of these parts are coming from Canada has gone up. So the the major contributors to the budgetary increase, we've had additional staffing. Uh our workload is increased, cost of repairs and service and the production and the amount of the amount of services that we're providing. Uh for example, school bus aids we've had to increase from we six in the last year in school bus aids. So, some of those are directly related to IEPs and some are are related to the uh combination of students that are on our bus. Uh we increased nearly 300,000 miles uh

051from the previous year. Uh we're pushing 2.2 million miles a year. Uh those miles uh as I as I mentioned earlier, uh school bus has to be inspected every 3,000 mi or 45 days, whichever comes first. an additional 3,000 miles uh is about additional 100 uh inspections that we have to do on a bus and in that the inspections uh take anywhere from 2 to four hours depending on the bus. Um we've added approximately 200 more field trips than the previous year. And then we we have some additional non-traditional uh commitments like extending learning opportunities, ESY programming, school placements and more. So we added five additional routes. Um you know we had 50 new students from the previous year. uh you know that average about 10 a 10 a bus considering the time and distance

052that we have available and the ride times that students are on buses. >> All right. >> Any questions? >> Thank you. This is a discussion item. So I'm going to go ahead and take public comment first before we start our questions and discussion. Have one card. Katherine how >> good evening again. Um I just wanted to give you a quick comment. It said and this is actually coming from Commtock Middle School from a teacher that cannot be here this evening. Um, this is my third year presenting data on special education students arriving late. Last year, West County transportation was finally more fully staffed and kids were arriving on time most of the year. However, this year uh, echoes last year, the general ed buses and special ed buses have been sporadically late and affected many

053students for days on end. I've had specialed parents complain that her child's bus is either late or doesn't come at all. It also took two weeks on West County Transport and to get it set up even after school started even though he was an indistrict articulation and had special education busing last year. Another student, I'm told, lives 3 minutes away from campus and is in a wheelchair and he's dropped off at school more often than not at 8:50. School starts at 8:10. Per this student's aid, his bus has never arrived on time. The penultimate year had a student late 66% of the school year, and it wasn't until April and May that the buses started to come on time. I hope that this isn't a repeat performance for this school year. Thank you. >> Thank

054you for the comment. Uh if I can ask the two, you and Superintendent August to connect to maybe get some more particulars so we can look into the specific situations. Uh, trustees Olivera or Coreo, do either of you have questions before we start discussion? >> No. >> Okay. All right. Trustees, any questions? Trusty Medina, >> thank you. Thank you for the presentation. Nice seeing you again. That annual routine. Um, I do have a few questions. um you know following up on uh President House comments um I was off campus and and I saw a regular school bus um arriving late after the bell had rung about 5 minutes late so I I I am curious you know um is that being tracked um or do you keep information on how frequently the buses are arriving

055late and then for for our staff would be um what is the impact and that that's having in the classroom room um on the students budgetary if any. Um so the first question is do you all track that somehow? Um usually at the start of the year we do not um because it's it's a typical scenario at the start of the year uh especially in the special needs school district or schools uh we usually get um for example uh in August when we started school we had 860ome kids uh riding two weeks later we had 960 kids riding. Uh so those we had we had basically an increase of 150 kids between August and and last week and what that does is that impacts routes uh you know 150 kids is probably touching almost every

056single special needs route we have and so changes are happening um and it impacts uh uh the timing of the routes. And so first, you know, we we route it with our system and uh depending on how we get to point A to point B based on the system, that doesn't always work. So the first couple weeks, we're working out kinks so that we can get to school on time. Um but we do track the drivers are coming back and talking to their supervisor and the routing and scheduling team about their tardiness and they're making adjustments frequently. And so I heard what was happening there at Commtock. I'll make sure that when I go back to work tomorrow morning that we're addressing that and we have a plan for that. Uh you should not see

057it happening uh long term. >> The next question is is tied to um I believe middle schools and high schools have different start times and I'm wondering with the 7 to 12 schools are there is the buses arriving all at one time? Yeah, start times are um the same. It's the belt time in the afternoon that's the big difference. Uh so we all our kids are the the middle school and high school are riding together >> to the bus and they um you know obviously we had a bit of a challenge at the first week or two. Uh you know it's uh new for a lot of folks at those sites uh getting to the site, the increased traffic, those type of things. Usually the first week of school we have low wrership because mom

058and dad's taking them to school or or parents or brothers. And then uh second week of school is usually the real real first week of school because we have uh students actually riding more frequently and in larger numbers. Um the the afternoon's the bigger challenge because the middle school gets out quite a bit early. Um but we're able to just uh utilize the same school buses um and we just do a roundroin. So we pick up the middle school, drop them off and go back and pick up the the high school students. >> So in in these numbers that counts as one route that just goes multiple times. >> Yeah. So when when you think about routes um uh there are several stops, runs within a route. So a run would be for one particular

059uh for example like like we just talked about, it'll be the middle school students in the afternoon. That's one run. the high school. Uh after that is another run, but those are all part of one school bus route. >> So the So if we have 17 as Santa Rosa City Schools, within that 17 are are several runs and several school sites that they service. >> And and I don't know if maybe staff can help me understand this. So, I'm just trying to let's take the example of last year Santa Rosa Middle School and Santa Rosa High School where uh maybe in the mornings Santa Rosa Middle School would have a that route and then in the afternoon and in same thing with Santa Rosa High School and now is it it would be just one

060one bus in the morning and two um and and and still in the afternoon two two two routes running and I'm trying to see like if there's any cost savings to that that there should be or because of the way that our agreement's structured, we don't see any of that. >> Um, two things. One is um there there there's a potential for some cost savings. Uh right now we're really evaluating the routes and the amount of wrership we had and how much usage it's going to get. There could be a time where we see that we can combine some more stuff uh and reduce it. Uh, one of the big challenges that all members of the JPA will have is the the way the budget is calculated is based on live time and miles. So

061when a student first student gets on the bus to when the last student gets off the bus, that time in miles is uh for Santa Rosa City Schools is compared to the total of the GPA. So for example, if you look at that, I think it's 42.6% 6% the live time and miles that Santa Rosa City Schools has is equivalent to 42.6% of the miles that we're doing as an entire agency. So, as we look at like the maps of Justine, I'm wondering have have we had like calculations on like have the miles increased in terms of the the new maps and and and the adjustments there? And if so, do we anticipate further increases in cost to that? Uh, you know, as as the years progress, instead of saving money, we're spending more. >>

062Correct. Yeah. Um, we haven't done a current evaluation of the miles that we have, but however, it's a a fairly easy process for us to look at the miles, lifetime of miles through our routing software, and we can take that and compare it to where you ended the year last year. And then and ultimately if it's less it should equal savings. >> And one thing you you said is that the bus pass process is slow. Yeah. >> I'm wondering could you elaborate on what that means and what if anything can be done to to make that better? >> Sure. Sure. Uh one of our biggest challenges is getting the participation from uh either the parent or the student to fill out the request form. Uh when they fill out the request form, we receive it.

063we print a bus pass out for the student and then we provide it to uh either the school site or the directly to the student. And so getting that communication out uh obviously we we we utilize our school bus drivers. Um we hand out flyers that have a little bit of a a scan barcode that they can scan. It takes them right to the site. Um, that's the process that I'm talking about is getting getting that word out enough to where um we're getting participation and completing the process to get it issued a bus pass. And and part of the reason we do it that way is we don't have all your student data in a routing software to just print them all out and hand them out. And even if we did, uh, your

064ridership, um, you might have a 100 kids that are eligible to ride a bus, but only 60 of them actually ride. Uh, and and in some cases lower. >> Thank you. I'll let other board members. >> Trusty Kirby, then Trusty Delatory. >> Um, you were talking about the routing. So, some of us are new to the board. We weren't here for last year. Just um reiterate your all your buses are have GPS on them, right? >> Correct. >> And it's all in your database. You can look back and and determine all these routes and the riding. >> Yes. >> To be able to evaluate that. >> Absolutely. Yeah. >> Perfect. >> Um you mentioned earlier that uh the wrership was was low particularly in the elementary schools. Um, can you when you're doing a a

065routing and let's say I can you define what low is? I don't know if you got a 50 person bus is there only two people in the bus or >> uh well in some cases yes in some cases no students. Um we we are our large capacity buses are typically 78 passenger buses and that's three to seat front to back. um which you know if you're small ele elementary students you could probably fit that but most most of the time we're not putting packing them in that tight. Um the where we're seeing the lowest ridership is where schools knew in in last year didn't have any buses at all and now they qualify for buses and I think part of the challenge is is that uh one they didn't know they were buses available and

066I think so somewhere we we probably didn't communicate um out enough um or uh they just are transporting those students to those schools themselves. So ridership uh is low to some of the schools where we have three or four riders. And there's actually one school site that we had zero riders and we actually no longer providing that route uh and unless somebody calls and and says they need service and then we'll reactivate it. Along those same lines, then are are the costs that you uh pass on to to the to our school district I assume that the larger buses cost more than the smaller buses to operate? >> no, it's a flat fee for >> No, no, no. It's uh the cost the cost for the small buses and I'm you know for our special

067education community is much much higher than uh per per student than it would be for a general education route. Uh and the the the reason being is you're putting uh you know on average 10 to 12 kids on a on a special education route and you're putting anywhere from 25 to 65 on a on a general education route. So uh the cost per student is much higher. >> Sure. I was just curious if you know if you've only got a bus that's a 78 person bus that's only got two kids on it. If you put a smaller bus would that cost less? >> I see what you're saying. Um we know the cost of the agency is going to be the same labor-wise. You know staff salary uh time. Uh typically a there might be

068some cost savings uh in the f fuel cost because the smaller buses usually get a greater mile per gallon than than the big ones. uh where we we've actually implemented that in some areas, some rural areas that have a handful of kids that will utilize a small bus. Um but what typically happens is uh that bus is also servicing other schools that have larger capacities on them and so there's no time for that particular route to swing by the yard and then pick up the small bus and then do that that run. >> Okay, that's fair. >> Yeah. Um couple of questions on the electric buses. So the ZESBY um grant is that does that grant expire if we don't order these buses uh within a certain time frame? >> Well um right now there's

069there there's not an expiration date um to the funds that are set aside. uh we we are tier one um as far as the selection process uh given our our needs in our communities. Uh and so we we have funds uh this is based on the information I I have from the representatives of the grant that the funds are already set aside and they they won't expire. The only uh way that the funds wouldn't come if we choose not to get into that contract and choose not to purchase them. And once we I guess order these buses, uh how long what's the time frame before they arrive? >> Um I I've heard uh lots of different things from many different manufacturers. Um you know, I would think it would be at least a year out.

070>> A year out, you say? >> Yeah. >> Um which is which is okay because our our construction is not due to complete until June of 2026. So, the timing should work out a lot better that way. >> Otherwise, we'd have these electric buses sitting on the yard and no way to charge them. >> Yeah. Gotcha. Um, so these buses, you said they're they're fully paid for. Are they still warrantied? Also, >> uh, they they'll come with warranties. Uh, the the regular manufacturer warranties that come with them. Yes. >> So, we're anticipating once the buses get here and we are able to use them, is there going to be a significant cost savings then? Since there won't be any parts, they're under warranty, no gas. >> Yeah, I like I said, the g there will

071be savings uh when it relates to the fuel usage, the the the uh oils um parts. Um it's really going to be there's going to be warranty. Um you know, in some some instances the warranty like the batteries are up to 10 years um with normal battery degraation degraation. Um, so it for me to to say if it's going to be significant or not, I would say with the seven buses that we have, it's not going to be significant considering our fleet size. Uh, and as we start to transition more, uh, the the the savings will obviously uh, get greater. Um, some of the savings will also be transferred to more costly items. For example, electric buses. we're going to utilize a lot more tires than we do with the regular buses. And so tires

072are new tires for a big school bus or, you know, close to 800 bucks for one. So, um, >> and you planning to are most of the electric buses going to be used in our district or all over your >> They're all over. What's what's unique about our our special needs programs is that we're able to utilize buses to service multiple school districts on one route. uh you know being that we we have SCO programs and non-public schools and we um we have several sites here in in the Santa Rosa district uh where other districts your feeder districts are also sending students to and so we're able to pick up three or four different school districts kids and drop them off in one location. So uh we don't which is cost benefit to um the

073agency as a whole. So we don't general education is a little harder to do that way. um just because of the amount of students that are going and and the turnaround and time and distance. But >> Trusty Datory, >> thank you very much for your presentation. Um some concerns. Obviously, we're all dealing with uh fiscal realities of what we have and don't have and to see a budget increase required and the only way we make money is with students in class and we don't get funded for chronic absenteeism or chronic tardiness. So, if I can't get a kid to school on time, I can't get funded for that student. So to hear that it's typical delays and rerouting and it just takes time to get figured out, I'm sorry, but to be as transparent and

074honest, it's just unacceptable once the school year starts to hear that this is a typical problem that we run into every year. We have to find a better system to collaborate and work together and figure out what deficiencies are happening and where we can better assist the agency and get clearer communication and connect with those families better so that these problems don't happen. because we need to get the we need to find a way to get these students that were required to get to school to be able to get to school on time. Um I you you know your job so much better than I do and I appreciate that and your presentations are very thoughtful and thorough. Um but if I see something that's concerning, I got to throw up a flag and bring

075it up and talk about it. Um, another thing I'm worried about with these EV vehicles once we do get a hold of them, especially with the battery degradation, is are we going to be shortening that warranty by fully charging that bus twice a day because we have to get it out and get it back in, or is that just part of the 10-year window? Obviously, technology advances. Um, my family's been EV drivers for the past 10 years and we the 10 year vehicle, 10-year-old vehicle, it really affected when you how much you charge that vehicle and what you had left in your battery opposed to what's available now. Um, but those are definitely some concerns with EV vehicles. >> Uh, yes. So, a question I believe I'll start with the EV. Uh, so no, that

076there is no violation or avoiding of warranty by doing the DC fast charge. In fact, manufacturers are anticipating they do that we're most of our vehicles are going to be on the DC fast charge. Um, we did 65 kilowatts. Um, the charging rate for these particular buses are are sitting close to 60. 61 is the max. Uh, and that's a 2-hour turnaround. Um, so the they're building that into the engineering of of the batteries and the in the school bus systems. Um the way they and and you may know this, but the way they they kind of uh determine um degregation is by how many full and dis full charge and discharge that that vehicle will get. Um with our process, we will do two full charges or nearly two full charges and discharges in

077a day. So yes, um you know, we are going to probably uh have a faster degragation than your typical bus that might be able to do the mileage and and get a single charge overnight. Um and and to my point earlier, if we can work better with our partners to try and figure out how to get our students picked up in school earlier, however that the engagement needs to work, um that's really something we need to focus on cuz if we're spending more for this contract and the service isn't being met cuz students aren't getting to school on time, that's something we'd like to work on however we need to. >> Absolutely. Uh I I understand. actually asked superintendent August, can you address the funding relationship between tardy and on time? >> Yes. Um, actually,

078so there's a couple things in that question. So, the the importance of the minutes for instruction, that's that's really where the impact is in the in the tardy. Um, there's not a difference in the con in the revenues that we receive if a student is tardy as long as they arrive and are marked present for the day. But that's lost learning definitely. But I I wanted to point out something that was on one of the slides earlier that I think is really important for our for our conversation which is around the increase. A lot of that has to do with extended school year and field trips which we're not. So extended school year as far as the expanded learning opportunities program is grant funded. And so that's actually separate funding from our general fund. So

079some of that increase actually has no impact to our general general fund and that's where a lot of those the increased costs and mile and miles are from. So I just want to make sure because that's a really important point that that is actually in fund 12 in our early childhood education um fund and field trips are typically not from just our unrestricted general fund. Often they're from donations from grants from different things like that. So, in the past, West County has not been able to provide transportation for many of our field trips. And so, that's actually a positive that we're seeing that that increase. Um, so I just wanted to to share that because it's important for the conversation. >> Can you also speak to the reimbursement rate for the costs that we do

080incur? >> Yes. And for our home to school um route costs, uh, we are reimbursed at so we get a small amount. It's very minimal in our local control funding formula for home to school transportation, but over and above that for our home to school transportation, we are reimbursed at 60% of our costs. So, as we talked about capacity with charging sites and the need to find alternative locations for the agency, um are those discussions we might be able to foresee in the future of providing any charging on our locations if a bus is going to sit there for 2 hours and we have a route in the afternoon whether it's our district office or the other facility master plans we're putting together. maybe start putting the forefront of those discussions together to see if

081that might be an opportunity to help the agency, not have to travel all the way back to the homeard, but have some centralized locations for charging. Um, that seems to help other EV customers the more opportunities they have throughout the geographical area to charge if we can partner with that in some way, especially with our solar opportunities. >> Uh, I appreciate that. That could be an opportunity moving forward. Um, as you mentioned, you know, we have a a facility master plan oursel for for growth and so um we are currently working on that um as as we speak to provide those future locations and um available electrical uh grid capacities. So, um, yes, and I think that's one of the biggest challenge with electric vehicles is infrastructure and and and if you seen there was

082a bill to try to postpone that 2035 deadline. Um, uh, I think it was initially initially 10 years they were trying to postpone it to 2045 and making it mandated to purchase all new ve uh, school buses as electric. It got chopped up a lot inside the different committees and and now the only thing there is uh an option for a waiver, a one-year waiver, I think, if you meet certain criterias. That's if it passes. I'm not sure if it's going to pass. So that 2035 deadline is still there. The infrastructure or lack of infrastructure is still there as well. >> Thank you, director, uh for your presentation. I know that it's a JPA, so we can't always control the slides, but if we can have a corresponding SRCS slide with the revenue side whenever

083we have uh budget information in the presentations, I think it's helpful for context. Um otherwise, unless there's any further questions, Trusty Medina. >> Yeah, thank you. Do have a few more questions. Um, in in the past when you were kind of low on drivers, there's been issues on being able to provide uh field trips, so at least a distance of field trips. It seems like you're down a few drivers. One is about when do you think the trainees would be ready? And two, does that issue with field trips and how long how far field trips are available to travel for still kind of exist? Um, you know, we we have significantly increased our offerings uh in transportation. Uh, at this point, we're able to uh book full day field trips where a driver goes and

084stays uh on site with the the the students and staff and then we cover that route through one of our our um standby or substitute drivers. um the so yes we were able to do those like trips to to San Francisco and you and all those different things like that. So when the other challenge that we ran into uh were the late night trips um on the regular weekday because we were restrict our drivers restricted on the number of hours they can work in a day. And so, um, if we know we have a late night trip, we're able to allow that driver to sleep or be off duty in the morning, uh, we cover their AM route and then they're available for their PM and their trip in the afternoon. We're doing that now

085where we didn't used to do that and it's called a sleeper, you know, that's just the term the technology that are what we use in transportation. It's a sleeper so that we can utilize them for those late night trips now. So, we are offering those now. Um, I would anticipate that we we're we're kind of in this test phase on what we can do. Um, you know, we're trying to see how many we can add so we don't start to impact the service of the the the students that we're here to do and take them to and from school. Um, the six new trainees, uh, they're fairly new, um, and it takes anywhere from two to four months to get them, uh, certified. However, uh the program we have now is we're actually utilizing those

086trainees um to help support our current shortages. For example, uh we train them and we give them the proper training and we'll do uh first aid training and all the other stuff that we do with our normal school bus drivers. Uh and we'll utilize them as a school bus aid or u we'll utilize them as a van driver. And so where we might be short uh on in the van routes, we're using five trainees there to and u to to drive those. So we're not actually uh short in those areas. And then we train them in between in the middle of the day and after routes >> and in also on the field trip issue. Um I imagine the answer is no, but do do you all have any of the buses that might have

087restrooms for those longer trips? Yeah, unfortunately us uh those school those we can't make school buses with bathrooms. There's they're pretty restricted on what we can use. Yeah. And technically those would be what they call a SPAB driver or driver that uh uh drives one of the uh bigger transit style buses with bathrooms and they would have to be certified to transport students. And that's the they call that a SPAB certificate. >> Um and and this is for the superintendent. if maybe we could get data or start tracking from Oh, where'd she go? >> We're going to need to hold on that question if you need a response right now, but otherwise, I know we have folks taking notes. So, >> I Yeah, I do have a couple questions for the superintendent. So, >> any

088other questions for director Weiser? >> Are they questions that we can follow up with um uh after the after the meeting? Um I I am curious about in terms of planning for the future. Um and and I think there's lack of clarity and maybe future board item will address this in terms of transportation next year for um the LC Allen with with clarity on on what those routes and what that might look like next year with um what the map might be and and increases in cost based off increased mileage or whatever. That's kind of what I'm interested in hearing. I I don't know if how aware you are of that um and and what might happen on that end. >> I could tell you that I am currently not um in that discussion because

089those are ongoing with you and and your committees that you have. Uh however um superintendent August keeps me updated on what what's going to come about. It's actually a question that I have um put in front of the team as well like hey what's what's LCL and transportation going to look like next year so we could start planning uh especially when it comes to uh planning you know potential budget uh reductions in lifetime and miles. So yeah that's something that we're interested in as well. I guess in terms of your planning, like how far in advance do you need an answer to effectively plan for the future year? >> Um, well, if you're taking away, uh, that can happen pretty quickly. If you're adding, that's that that takes a little bit of time. Our our

090board currently has a policy that any major changes uh, in your school district's transportation needs to be uh, notified. they need to notify the joint powers board by February of the of the 2026 for example. >> Okay. Thank you. And um superintendent, what I was going to um ask is if we can maybe track from all our sites specifically as it relates to field trips and maybe also sports. um how frequently we're using um West County and and also when we're using like private charters um and and maybe the miles associated with each of those. Um, and also the other question that we were just that I am curious about is what it might look like next year with um, LC Allen and I imagine maybe we'll get into that later, but what transportation would

091look like um, will we provide it? And um, it sounds like based on on his answer that they would need to know potentially changes by February. All right. Thank you. >> You're welcome. >> Um, and I'm just capture the followup item of uh, Superintendent August and President How connecting on the specifics around comtock. And so, thank you for your presentation and we're going to go ahead and move on to the next item. >> All right. Thank you. Thank you for your support. >> Item G2, um, action 2024 25 unedited actuals. We have LSE Carrerez, our interimm associate superintendent of business services, as well as Joel Dontos presenting Here we go. Good evening everyone. Oh, could you please? >> My name is L. Caseres and I am here along with Please introduce yourself young man. Joel

092Dantos, executive director of fiscal services, >> and we're going to be presenting the unodudited actuals. And so there's a slide deck. Um, and while we get it ready, um, we will note that we are at the point of the reporting cycle that I often tell folks is my is my least favorite. My favorite part of the reporting cycle is budget development. That is when things are aspirational. We get to think about all the wonderful things we want to do, the programs and the services we want to have for kids. Um, unudited actuals is a bit more tedious. Um, and it really is just about figuring out what exactly happened over the the fiscal year. Um, one of the highlights of this point in time is this is the last point in time that we will

093be reporting to you from within ourselves about our books. Once we've closed books and we have our unodudited actuals, we will hand those over to our independent auditor who's an independent external third party and then they'll go through the process of essentially reviewing our books with the high level, right? that the reason an auditor audits our books is to determine whether or not they agree that our finances are what we say they are. And so we'll await the answer to that question um come December. And so if we can move over to let's see if we can skip to the next slide. >> I just shared it with you by the way. Sorry. >> Okay. We'll PDF it. This works. >> Um so that's where we are in September. Um and the the audit report

094will come to the board in January. Um if we can go to the next slide. Um Joel, do you want to take over and talk a little bit about the general fund and I'll summarize? >> Yeah. So here we're looking at the unodit actuals um how we closed the books in relation to the last uh budget presentation that we had in the um 2526 adopted budget where we had our estimated actuals. So um you can see the revenues came in close to budgeted. There are some underlying stories. Um, one is, um, the local control funding formula came in at about $800,000. Um, about 300,000 of that is our special ed property taxes. So, that's not all um entirely uh unrestricted to the bottom line. Uh, we did get um an increase in other state revenues.

095Um when we closed the books, we got um more uh transportation uh reimbursement. It's kind of piggybacking on the uh >> prior previous presentation. Um we used uh assumptions out of CDE's uh principal aortionment projections and then they were updated with our P2 uh ADA and that's what we used for actuals and the good thing about those revenues is they're ongoing. So we will see that increase in 202526 uh second interim update as well. Um with that specialed property taxes, we did see a reduction in in uh SUPA revenues and other state uh revenues as well. Similar to um property tax when they go up then the others somewhat go down. And also we did uh see those final SEPA revenues come in with P28 ADA as well after the SEPA went through and identified

096all the SUPA districts revenues and we got those with the closeout uh from packet from SUPA as well. So those are the major um items in the revenues. So high level takeaway here I do want to highlight something is um if for us our primary source of funding is LCFF the local control funding formula formula and I just want to note how tight that projection is right so I I tell folks if we're going to excel at one thing on the finance side on the revenue side it is in calculating that LCFF and estimating it properly and so my hats off to to Joel and team in doing such an excellent job of of estimating where that revenue venue is going to come in. Um and then that other takeaway is a key one that

097the transportation piece, right? So this is going to help our bottom line in the 2425 year and then we also get to add it to the 2526 year and so that that increase in transportation is going to help us on an ongoing basis. >> For our three new trustees, can you just uh acronym SULPA and just explain the the SULPA and the revenue that you're referencing? >> Can I acronym SULPA? >> Yeah. Uh >> oh. Special education >> special local area plan. >> Yeah, special education local plan area. So we belong um to the Sonoma County SULPA. So it's u many of the districts in Sonoma County essentially run SULPA together. We are required to be a member of a SULPA. if we can move on to the expenditure side and I I'll high level

098first for us. Uh so just a couple of items to point out. So one um what you see here is an overall decrease in the spending that was planned on the um since estimated actual. So, we spent about $5 million less than what we had anticipated to spend as of estimated actuals. So, one key note is there's a chunk of this that happens on the restricted side. And so, we didn't spend some of those restricted dollars we receive. We don't lose them. They become available to us next year. So as of estimated actuals we had predicted we would have a restricted fund balance of about 10 million. Oh yes and then I'm sorry as of estimated actuals we thought we would have a restricted fund balance of about 10 million. It's actually at 15 million

099now at at unodudited actuals. And so that is, you know, I recognize some of those swings might catch your eye and I want to be clear, we didn't lose anything. Those are restricted dollars we didn't spend. They become a part of our legally restricted ending fund balance and then they become available for us to spend in the current year. This is one of those changes you'll see come first in. By first interrum, once the board approves unudited actuals, that carryover becomes real. We will then post it usually by first week of October and you're going to see then an increase in the spending at first interim and you will note why did we go up from adopted budget in our spending to um first interim and this will be one of the reasons I will

100highlight. We've posted carryover the money we didn't spend in the prior year becomes available to us in the current in the new year in this year. Okay, let you go over anything else. >> Yeah, no that's a great point there. That is great overview of the unrestricted and I can I'll add to the unrestricted um we did see some if we recall over uh last year we came to the financial reports with updated special education um at first interim, second interum and third interim And um John Fischer and team worked pretty well when we closed the books and they found some um cleanup in the budget and worked with vendors and we got the final invoices in. So there was some some reduced costs and services in special ed and um that along with the

101revenues addressed are really um what will compromise the improvement in the 2425 closeout books and and the other item I will address is that we did have so this final year this 2425 was again um we had a number of one-time monies um we had a discretionary block grant we spent the we spent one last year two years ago and and the final one this year when we used those to um prevent uh we we we moved um salaries into those and not the budgeted services and operating expenditures. So that's something I think would explain more the variance in this area in unrestricted and restricted. And one other highlight here is we did see an increase from estimated actuals to unodudited actuals in the cost of our utilities. Um so we will be interrogating that

102increase in part because we want to determine do we need to adjust our 2526 budget given what we might learn in looking at the 24 or 25 actuals. Next slide, please. So, there's a bit of red here. Um, this is where we're ending the year. I want to note a couple of things. So one on the unrestricted side, we are still ending with a negative fund balance. It is an improvement from where we were at estimated actuals. So we're about $2 million better than where we were at estimated actuals. Still in the red. I don't want to lose sight of that, but we are in a better position than we we we thought we were going to be. Um, this is probably it's it's definitely not for celebrating, but I do want to note that

103it's going in the right direction. Right. So, I'm going to guess that here there was probably some belt tightening that happened as we as we were sort of crystallizing, you know, where where we were with the year. And that's where some of that ends up showing that we end up with a little bit more there in that bottom line. Our 45day revise was also better than what we thought were going to be in the adopted budget. I think Joel and team did an excellent job in holding back any of those revenues that were a question mark. And so if it was a question mark, they didn't put it in the budget until they saw the whites of the eyes from the budget act. And that's once we saw it, then we knew it's okay to

104include in the budget. And so that's another adjustment that's helping us out. Um, we will be looking at other solutions for the current year. We're going to be looking at opportunities to limit some of the spending that was otherwise planned. So, just additional opportunities to to tighten tighten the belt to ensure that we're able to maintain the cash balances we need and to try to move ourselves closer. Now, we don't want to just be out of the red, right? We want to be able to maintain that 3% reserve. If you go to the next slide, we can see get a sense of what that needs to look like. So, we're we ended the year with a minus1 mill just over $1.1 million hole. Um, which means we we didn't make our 3% reserve. So, we

105are short $9.2 million. So, we would need 9.2 million more in order to make our 3% reserve. It's not a small amount. So, we will definitely have our work in front of us. Um, and I am clear from my conversations with everyone from staff to leadership to just um, everyone I'm talking to that folks understand the work that needs to get done. We're all willing to do that. And um I have no doubt that we are going to be able to work ourselves into a fiscal stabilization plan that the board can approve, that the county will be satisfied with, and that will get us back into a place where we not only have our 3% reserve, but start moving in that direction that aligns with what the board the board policy that the board recently

106approved where we we're aspiring to get to 10 a 10% reserve for economic uncertainties. I know that was a lot. I'll pause there um in case there are any questions before we move on to other funds unless you want us to >> Oliver and Creo. Any questions? Other trustees? Any questions? Let's continue. >> Okay. Go to the next slide. Highlight anything here my friend. >> Yeah. So, um the student activity special revenues fund ending with a $1.3 million reserve. That is the local uh school district sites that we account for in our uh unedited actuals. Um charter school special revenue funds. Those are our four dependent charter schools combined. looking at a 3 point $3 million reserve. Uh child development fund that includes our uh preschool program and our expanded learning opportunities program close to

107a $4 million reserve. Uh cafeteria fund 13 a $6.4 million reserve. they um I think you know this there's a really investment in uh food services which you know we hope continues and you can see there um deferred maintenance special revenue fund all the other funds really came in with a good uh close I don't know if we want to go through every detail but there's any questions um but yeah >> I I'll highlight just a couple of things there are um a couple of funds that sometimes we we'll keep our eyes on because they can in some school districts require support from the general fund. And so you'll we'll have the general fund supporting other funds. That's fund 12 and fund 13. The child development fund and the cafeteria special revenue fund. Um what

108I see here are two healthy funds that do not I do not anticipate we would be needing the general fund to support these other funds. um quite the the contrary, the it's the one of the um hopeful, helpful, um calming pieces of being able to see these these balances is knowing that they have cash available to support the general fund if and when we were to need some support in cash for the general fund. And so we have some balances. These are ending fund balances, but we know they're also cash balances there. And so to be able to have some of those cash balances to re rely on if we were to need them um is helpful as as a strategy that's probably about plan C or D. >> Just just to confirm that similar

109to the actions that we took at the previous or meeting before around being able to borrow from the county um for cash flow because we get our property tax revenue all at once. What you're saying is that this is a place where we could borrow with the intent to replenish because of that annualization of our revenue and that borrowing would not cost us in the same way that traditional lending would. >> That's exactly right. And so one of the one of the benefits of having cash balances available to us in other funds and we wouldn't be able to borrow from all of them. So like the bond fund for example is offlimits u but it allows us essentially we're we're living within ourselves. Um, and it's our first choice and that was one of the

110I think the the board approved that resolution as well to allow us to to do that inner fund borrowing. And so it allows us to rely on ourselves before we rely on an external source which is where we want to be. >> And we spend a lot of time talking about the general fund because it's the thing that's in the red and we've been doing that's where a lot of our staff and a lot of that's managed. But can you just speak to the care in the management and the decision-m in each of in how we run these funds? Um you know our diligence and making sure that we're getting the highest return for what we're spending on. >> Sure. Um I'll touch on just a couple of them. The um they while these don't

111these other funds don't get the same um love and attention publicly internally they get the same care. So the same care that goes into projecting our revenue for the general fund goes into projecting the revenues and the expenditures for these other funds. Um the our bond fund would have a Thank you. The bond fund would have a facilities master plan that goes along with it. Um, I did notice our deferred maintenance fund is is a little on the low side and I'm imagining that's because we've been relying on our bond funds, but eventually we want to get to the place where we're making a steady contribution to that deferred maintenance fund. Um, that's one of those places where if you if we don't take care of our facilities, we will pay for it. um and

112that that the invoice comes in a lot higher than if we had just maintained the the seal of our facilities, right? It's the it's a schoolhouse, right? It's a house and we don't want water to get in because that causes a lot of a lot of damage really quickly. And so protecting the seal is really important and part of that work happens with the deferred maintenance fund. Um, and if our director of facilities, uh, Eric is watching, he's probably applauding that I mentioned that the deferred maintenance fund, um, will be needing some love and care and we should look at making a contribution on a steady basis. >> Any questions? Just Christine Medina. >> Thank you. Um, on these other funds, uh, first off, fund 8, student activities, is that the same thing as ASB,

113>> right? We get all the ASB uh balances and we report them in our SAS on our actuals as part of financial submit. >> I'm I'm curious. I I know there's a lot of rules with that. It's like 300 plus page manual on those, but um do we ever kind of like audit like is there I don't know like a club that hasn't existed for like 20 years that doesn't do anything and what happens with those funds especially now that our sites have like their budgets drastically cut? Is there something that can be audited and they can look at that? >> That's a great question. So, our independent audit does include auditing the ASB funds and our my department gets their balances and we do reporting. It is a fairly large district. There are a

114lot of uh activities that happen in the site. Some things we discover um and we address. Uh I know that Lisa, you can attest. We've had uh in some cases in addition to our independent audit, we've had forensics audits on ASB accounts. Um we do manage them and and we make and we we continue to make improvements in that area. I know LSE uh has worked on some issues since she's been here. Um, and yeah, so that hopefully that >> I I know that we got I think a new system to deal with ASB funds recently and I'm just curious. Basically, I'm wondering is there a way to identify funds that have stood idle for years, maybe decades that can then maybe be repurposed? If that's even allowed within the rules, I don't know. Um,

115I mean for our sites. >> Yeah. So these funds are not actually So these funds are not actually in our uh county treasury account that we we so these are not a balance that we would use. They are in local uh accounts at school district like exchange bank accounts and we we enter those into our system. Um they there is fairly uh standard law against uh applied to the ASB council on their their allowable uses and their governance. Uh I know FICMAT has a very specific manual that we follow and the auditors. Um I would think it would it it would be challenging to for districts to look at those and repurpose them. and they're really sight specific and they really have stringent rules. >> Yeah. >> The the second question I have is around

116and this might be more to superintendent specifically fund 73 the scholar is that like a scholarship fund that we have that we're not issuing anything out of. Um I I know that in the past as a board member we've voted like on scholarships very specific ones. I don't know if that's through this specific fund here or or what is that? >> The fund 73. Yeah. So that is a scholarship fund. It has a specific scholarship reg um I guess whoever created scholarship who they have very strict uh rules we have to follow as well. um and ed services and different I know that uh different departments utilize that scholarship to run them throughout the year. Um yeah, I don't know if what's your specific question on it? >> Well, I see money going in, but

117I see nothing going out. Um are we not issuing school? That's kind of where the question's going. I I think that this is the way to describe this is it's a fiduciary account where donation donations are made or scholarships are made that we manage for some of the donors. So these aren't district funds that have been designated for scholarship. They're typically ones that are donated that you know it's a the interest is essentially used in mo in many cases at least that's what I've seen with with these types of funds and I don't know if loose has some Why don't we do some additional research and uh include in a future board agenda um on the on fund 73. Um one question on the self-insurance dental fund. I know a half a million of that

118was a transfer out as a part of our fiscal sustainability uh plan for this year. Um is a ending fund balance of 968181 healthy or is that a concern? I so it's the answer to that question is going to depend on what the actuarial valuation says about how much we need to have in the fund balance and I've not read that report yet to see how we align >> well if you've read it I'd love your opinion >> let me do my homework >> trusty medina another question >> just were you talking about fun 67 self insurance >> yes >> I I I am wondering like I think I recall something about that fund had a ton of money in it that we were going to take some out and put I don't know if

119towards the general fund or something and I'm wondering if that's if this high level of expenditures is unique to this year um because of something like that that we did as an action or is this generally the amount of expenditures we have and that's why it's so low. >> Yeah. No, that's a great question. something we definitely will look into after now we close the books and have the actual um totaled expenditure. So, this is our we we we provide a self-insured dental uh program to our staff where we give them a certain uh amount cap that they can spend on dental and then they go out and get the dental work and the dental work uh pays us the actual, you know, we pay the actual cost. So, we don't know if they'll use

120if our staff will use the full cap amount or not. Um, and we we we transfer money from the general fund into the fund 67 to cover those costs and then we have an ending balance. Uh, I think that it the reasons for a reserve are for cash flow. You know, we send that money out and if we we we we transfer money in every month with the payroll. We we tax our payroll like we tax um workers compensation insurance and other things and we bring that money in but anybody can get dental work throughout the year um and we base it on our um our salary our our our personnel costs. So that to say is that a good reserve I believe yeah I think those and the expenditures are within reason. I think

121this is something that, you know, we'll look at now that we close the books and see what we want to use that $968,000 equity for, but it is transferred out of the general fund. So, it could be transferred back to the general fund. This fund really only needs to cover expenses. >> We can bring back more information later. We can do it as part of a Friday memo an update on whether just directly to answer the question. What was was there a any pull out of the equity into the general fund? Did we transfer anything out of 67 into the general fund? Okay. You know, there's one other thing I'll add because I was looking at it go, "Oh my gosh, did I make a mistake there?" There's a $36 million balance in the bond

122interest and redemption fund. That's one that we should probably address. um that is unique to unaudited actuals. We get that is something that it's held at the county. I'm less familiar with it, but we have to we have to report it in an honor actuals. It is not in our funds, our county treasury. That is not one that we could borrow from. It is something that they want us to include in our end of the year financial report. So then we can pass that is how the state then receives the balance throughout all the counties and that is at a county level. So I we just make that entry when we close out the books. Um is it >> fund 51 is it's an interesting fund for school districts and that we don't manage it

123the way we manage all of our other funds. All of our other funds, the ins and outs, all of that is our responsibility for fund 51. It's really managed at the county level. They report to us and tell us here's the revenue, here are the expenditures, make these entries in your books and then we comply. The um specifically this fund is to um make the the debt service payments on our bonds, right? So that's why it's kept separate and managed separate from us. So it's they'll let us know the the tax rate they're going to be collecting at they'll let us know the dollars. They'll let us know all that information, but we don't manage any of it. So just last highlight here. So we've got lots of work in front of us over the

124next few months. The next big report you'll be receiving from us will be first interrum and that comes in December. Um that is much too far away for us to not have more just regular contact over here. And so we will be updating the board on a regular basis about some of that work that needs to happen. Um, the next big step is to update you on what, you know, what does our MYP look like with the unodudited actuals closing, with the effects of the 45day revise. Um, and now that we have a better sense of where our enrollment is landing to be able to update that, yes, there was a bullet point up there that we missed in the final edits and we'll make sure we get that correct and apologies for that. Uh

125the next slide is going to be questions anyway. So questions on the timeline from any board members or questions in general. We do have an action item on this. If I can have a motion. Did we do public comment already? We have no cards. Okay. I'll move to uh accept the 2024 2025 unodudited actuals. Second. Right. Moved by Trusty Medina, seconded by Trustee Deator. Roll a call, please. >> Trusty Curio, >> I. >> Trustee Alivera, >> I. >> Trusty Medina, >> I. >> Trusty Deator, >> I. >> Trusty Kirby, >> I. >> Trusty P. >> I. >> Vice President Casten. >> Hi. >> Thank you both for your presentation. >> Thank you. We'll move to item uh G3 which is discussion and action. This is a second reading consideration of board policies 4119.24 uh 4119.21

126and 1114. Uh we are going to take these board policies separately. So we'll start with 4119.24 and then we'll move through each of them. So I have Dr. Vicki Sans and Patrick Ganon presenting. We'll start in the order as they are on the agenda. So we'll start with 4119.24 and then we'll go to the 21 and then to the ones. >> Okay. Thank you, Vice President Casten, Superintendent August, members of the board. Um, we are bringing these three board policies back for a second read after taking into consideration some of the input that was gathered at the last board meeting. Okay. So, we did um make some changes and actually as I was going through making my notes, I did it in the opposite direction. So, I haven't quite gotten to this one yet. >>

127I we can we have enough time to reverse that. We'll start with 114 and we'll go in the other direction. So, go ahead in your notes order. >> Okay. So, um 1114 is district sponsored social media. Um we have changed in places where it refers to accounts andor some places referred to accounts some places referred to platforms. So in every place that that's mentioned it says accounts and platforms. Um there were some questions about approved social media sites. And so on the third page um in number two we have gone ahead and listed some examples of platforms that are approved district platforms. These are only examples. There are other platforms that are approved. I know a particular concern was the Remind app which is district approved. There is a web link where people can look

128up which platforms are district approved and which are not. Uh platforms that are not district approved are usually because that particular platform is not willing to sign a student data privacy agreement and therefore we will not enter into an agreement with them and or they're redundant to platforms that we're currently using such as parent square. >> Where did you say that link was? >> Excuse me. >> Where did you say that link was? So, actually, I was looking for the link on the website because I could not find it. I do not see where to find it. So, I'm going to work with Adrian to have it put under the staff hub and the public technology page. >> I did have a question. Um, trustees Oliver and Core, do you have questions before we start?

129Trusty Medina, frequently you hear you see official district accounts and I think the question is how do you define official? There's so many accounts out there. How do we as a member of public know that one's not? Is it a badge? Is it? >> Uh so so social media platforms have introduced those badges. Um for for public agencies, there are price tags attached to those unfortunately. Um, however, as an internal practice, um, we're hoping we're hoping to tighten up how these accounts get created because all all school accounts um should be approved by ASB and the principal, all district accounts ideally should be approved by cabinet. Um, Parent Square is our primary is our primary uh communication platform that we use from the district all the way down to the teacher in the classroom. Um,

130so that that really should be the primary tool. I mean, it it it doesn't have to be the only tool, but it is available and a platform that we have a privacy agreement. >> Are you referring to Parent Square as a social media platform? >> Is that is that what I heard you say? >> No, Parent Square is not a social media platform. Um I I guess the the other question you know because we don't have that clarity on official accounts or as a member of the public I can't look at an account and know that's official that's not and from an accountability perspective from the district I am curious as to how do we know who's managing account for example I obviously Tik Tok I think is not one of the platforms we're able

131to use right but there's accounts that represent our schools on Tik Tok. Um, and how do we know who's running them? And how can we enforce or hold people accountable for that if we don't know that information? I'm just thinking about it from that perspective. Will that be included in AR or >> That's honestly a huge it it's honest I' I've worked with other districts and it's it's it's an issue everywhere because anybody can create a social media account. Um and it's very hard to get those accounts taken down. Um so you bring up a an important issue um but it's a very difficult one to wrap wrap our hands around effectively. Superintendent August. >> One place where we start is by setting the expectations with our staff, setting clear guidelines, policies around how and

132why those are or are not created. So that's the first step. And yes, we will have to develop how we go past that. And it will be a little bit like whack-a-ole, unfortunately, with some of those that are unauthorized accounts. And we've been actually working through that over the last couple of years since we created the district-wide website and have been slowly pulling away from all of those random sites that that were created by individual sites or teachers or staff. >> Trusty Deator. So, we're being asked to discuss and possibly take action on these board policies tonight, but I'm still hearing too many unknowns to effectively take action. Um, we don't have the link up of what the approved platforms are. We don't know how to determine what an official site is or is not,

133but yet we're being asked to take action on what our policy is, and we're still asking questions. So I have concern of having something in front of us we're being asked to take action on and we're still not sure exactly how we're to move forward and make these proper identifications. So I think the the approved platforms is a document that's published annually in our student our family handbook that every single family receives. Um so the the link is a that that that's a simple fix. Um the I think the the um the concern the question around whether a an account or platform is approved or not. Um I think that is kind of an ongoing kind of checks and balances thing. It's it's it's always going to be a question and concern, but until we

134have something like this in place, we won't be able to address it. I get that. But if we have no way to determine what's approved or not approved, how are we putting something in action to move forward? I just need clarification so I know what we're trying to accomplish with the board policy. Superintendent August, and then we'll go to Trusty Kirby. >> The approved or not approved is something that we put out specifically. So the policy allows us to have the guidelines around what those expectations are that we set. So the approved is essentially if the district is paying for it and it's on our approved list and we've authorized somebody to create it with their SRCS email account, that would be an approved account. if it's something that they are creating on an account,

135you know, a separate personal email account, that would not be an approved um account for as an example. So, it's but without the policy that clearly delineates, that's where we leave ourselves open for, you know, allowing things that that really are outside of what our expectations and parameters are. >> Trusty Kirby and then Trusty P. Um, yeah, that was basically what I was hopefully going to, you said it more eloquently, but this policy will then allow us to then put in an AR and perhaps we can get the list of approved platforms in an AR that would be more uh definitive, you know, and to drill down on that. This is the overarching policy. And then the AR will go even further and say, "Hey, these are our >> Yeah, our current ones, right?" >>

136Of course. And I think that those those platforms change so so rapidly. Um we I mean we the lists are published on an annual basis because new ones come up all the time. Um so that's not something that we would necessarily want to publish or set in stone in a board policy. Miss Dra, >> thank you. Um, I understand why this is in place and why we're trying to create here, but my concern is that there are social media sites that are created by clubs and ASB and other organizations on campus that may not be that are created by the kids to share on their platforms about updating information for the week or spirit spirit days or sports events. Um, and yes, they are not employees of the district, but they're still representing the school.

137And so that's my concern of like, well, it's okay for them or if it's not run by an account or a SRCS account. I mean, if there's an issue, who's held accountable? So if there was an issue with an account that was being run by kids um to represent a club or a group um that would be taken through the channels of discipline with the kids talking to the kids letting them know that this is not acceptable um things like that. So in terms of the kids using it one thing I want to mention as well is that this is not a new policy it's an update to an existing policy. So, we're not putting in something completely new. We're just trying to update the language based on what CSBA has said. Um, I also

138want to go back to it involves training. It involves informing our staff of what is acceptable to represent the school officially and what is not acceptable use to represent the school officially. So training is definitely a part of that and making sure that everybody understands the policies. >> And if I can add one piece to that as far as clubs have advisors which do have SRCS emails that's where these should be initiated. Students should not um be specifically controlling those sites. That's one of that's one of the concerns is related to the student data p privacy and that's why um and so I we actually have um what excuse me we have someone who is in a technology um TOSSA role who that is what and I have I'm sure mutilated the name of the

139the title of the position but that is a big part of her job is making sure that all of those all of those are appropriate that reviewing the student data privacy and those are documents that I actually sign um making sure that they that they comply before they're put on that list to use and I get those almost at least weekly. So that that list is constantly being updated. Uh okay that well that's good to know. But for the clubs that are running their own pages would they be then told to like you have to delete these accounts? Is that the hill we want to die on? >> No. I think so. So so the the clubs actually they're approved through the ASB. Um so as long as they're approved through the ASB, they're they're

140fine. I think the schools have a frankly a better process than than the district districtwide. >> All websites are supposed to be from the school from the district website. So there should be pages for for ASB and their clubs off of the school district website. So there are not that was a directive that actually came out I believe two years ago that those sites were supposed to be taken down and transferred over and so we do find them as we go along where there are specific teachers or clubs or groups that that has not happened and so we address those as we find them and and correct them. You said websites from social media. >> Okay. So, I thought you were talking about the the p when you said the pages. I would that's where

141my brain went. >> No, but you just showed your age. >> Yes, I know, right? Yes, I am Gen X. Thank you. >> MySpace is not an approved. So I I want to recenter on these changes in front of us uh for social media. Um also recognizing that um a lot of times we want to have all the questions answered before we pass policy, but we also want to recognize that policy is often the first step in actually being able to pursue those changes and actions because until we direct that it's something that we want to do, we can't we don't put the resources into doing it. So there's a lot of things that happen after we pass policy. Um, with that context, is there any further discussion or do I have a motion? Trusty

142Kirby, >> just a real quick question. Hey, on on page three, bullet three, um, there's a typo or something on my copy. I can't quite make that word out. Um, on the third sentence, is that supposed to say considered a form of? >> Considered a form of >> Okay, just want to clarify that. Okay, thank you. And do you have an >> trusty go ahead Kirby >> Kirby? >> I was going to make a motion. >> Oh, I make a motion to approve the board policy. Gosh, what is this number? Sorry. district sponsor social media as uh presented. >> As presented. >> Is there a second? I'll second. >> It's been moved by Trusty Kirby, seconded by Trusty Pra. I do believe there's further discussion. So, Trusty Medina. >> Yeah, I was going to ask

143um part of this is I think involving communicating with parents and I'm I don't recall reading about this in in the information handbook and I think it would be important to put some of this information in the handbook the next time around. um and and I think doing a more effective job at it. Um how we maybe on our websites if if within the schools through ASB or wherever um the approved accounts are being approved. Um if on our websites somehow we can make sure we list the officially approved ones there. Um, I think that would be good. And I I imagine then then the sites individually have information as to who runs them and all that cuz the other thing that we we run into is that as students leave and people leave then

144you lose access to accounts and passwords and all that like I don't know let's say Club X there's three different social media accounts for that same club and you don't necessarily know which one's the the current one per se unless you look at post of course but um I just wanted really highlight that handbook part including this in there as well. So roll call please. >> Trusty Curio >> I. >> Trusty Alivera >> I. >> Trusty Kirby >> I. >> Trusty P. >> I. >> Trusty Deator. >> Hi. >> Trusty Medina. >> Hi. >> Vice President Casten. >> I. We'll now move to BP 4119.21 21 professional standards. >> Okay, thank you. Um, so some of the things that we were changed on there based on the feedback is the purpose section. Uh the purpose

145of this policy is to provide that is an addition um the addition of during work hours in the first, second, third, fourth the fourth sentence um where the black writing starts. And then um before um director Kirby brings it up, there's a typo on number five. where it says uh employees shall not post identifiable images of students or students families on a personal social media site. That should say without parental permission. Um on number seven, I want to call your attention. Um there was a concern about using social media during work hours. we have added except if during breaks and duty free time. So that would cover um when staff is at lunch or on a break um or a prep period, them being able to um look at their Facebook page and see what's

146going on. Um those are the updates that we made since the last time. >> Questions. Hi. Um, for the sentence or each employee is expected to acquire the knowledge and skills necessary to fulfill his or her responsibilities. Can you please replace his and her to there? I think people would appreciate that. And then as well as in social media guidelines number three, uh, employee shall not discuss um their private social media accounts with students or provide information on how to access. Can we change the wording to employee should not discuss their non-educational social media accounts? Is there room to revise that? There's actually it it is the separate if there's a if there's already some familial relationship, you know, that goes back. That makes sense. But there's this is really to set the the parameters

147of the difference between >> the non-educational. Okay. Just >> Yeah. the the private is actually very intentional. >> Okay, perfect. Then that's all from me. >> Trustes Creo and Ala, any questions before we move discussion? Uh discussion or motion? Trusty Medina. >> Yeah, I have a question regarding um under social media guidelines um four um employees may not knowingly grant students access to the personal social media sites. So, does that mean that then we're demanding our employees have all their accounts private? For example, an Instagram account, that means you then have to make your account private. Cuz right now, if you have it as public, someone could just follow you. You don't have to follow them. But then, are we imposing that on them? >> I don't believe so. It's knowingly granting, meaning putting your

148Instagram page up on the whiteboard in your classroom so that everybody can follow you. So, it's it's doing it in a p purposeful way. Um, students can always find you, right? If they look hard enough, they're going to find you, but to not to invite them to it. >> And so, I imagine an AR will be developed for this. I don't think I saw one. Can we make sure that that's clear what that means? >> Any further discussion? Trusty Deator. So, who makes the determination um for items seven and eight? Uh singling out a particular student or students for personal attention and friendship beyond the professional staff student relationship. Who's making the determination of what a professional staff student relationship is? Um, is that on the site administrators? Is that on us? Like >> trusted,

149we're on policy policy. >> Yeah, we're on policy 21 right now. >> Any further questions on 21? >> Is there a motion with the uh edits that have been presented? >> Sure. I'll make a motion to accept uh board policy 4119.21 professional standards as presented. >> I'll second >> as presented with the two edits. >> Sorry. Yes, with the two edits that were suggested. >> Excellent. >> We have a motion by Trusty Kirby, a second by Trustee P. Roll call, please. >> Trusty Creo. >> I. >> Trusty Alivera, >> I. >> Trusty Kirby, >> I. >> Trusty Pra, >> I. Trustee Deator. >> Hi. >> Trusty Medina. >> Hi. >> Vice President Casten. >> Hi. We'll now move to board policy 4119.24, maintaining appropriate adult student interactions. Uh presentation, please. >> Okay. So, this is

150one where I believe most of our conversation came from last time. Um there were some questions that we did address on page three. There were some questions about communications from coaches and adviserss to teams or clubs. Um, so we added some language shall concern only legitimate educational interests and shall be sent in a single communication to all participating team or club members except for communications concerning an individual student's medical or academic privacy matters in which case the communication will be copied to a school administrator, athletic director, or the parent or guardian so that it's not just between a coach and a player or between a staff member and a club member. Um number seven and in to address um director delator's question. This is a matter of um understanding professional boundaries and that is part

151of our responsibility as a district and part of the responsibility of our staff to understand what is a professional boundary. Part of this comes through the mandated reporter trainings that we do um and some of the harassment trainings that we do where those things are described to a certain extent. Um is it always going to be possible that every single person is going to understand exactly what this means? it's possible that they wouldn't and that is where an administrator would step in and say this is a professional boundary that's being crossed. Um for number eight, we went from um using overly familiar to using personalized terms of endearment pet names. So, you know, it if you call everybody sweetie, that's not a big deal. If you call only one particular student sweetie ever, then that

152starts to cross a line. And again, that would be something that would be continuing education with our staff and followup from our administrators. Um, so socializing or spending time with students, we gave some examples, going out for beverages, meals, movies, shopping. um outside of school sponsored events except as participants in community activities. So if there was a you know Wednesday night market that the whole community goes out to, that would be an exception. If there's a pride parade, that's an exception. It's a community activity, so that would not be prohibited. Um, this is more geared towards taking one student out shopping or taking one student to the movies. Um, then number 12 for non-guidance or counseling staff encouraging students to confide their personal or family problems. If a student initiates such discussions, employees are expected

153to refer the student to the appropriate guidance or counseling staff. And so in either case, employee involvement should be limited to direct connection to the students school performance. Um this is an effort just to try to move um these types of conversations to the people that are most trained to address when students have certain kinds of issues. And I think that um and then number 13, number 13 I know also was a question. Um this is in line with um all of the other board policies 4119.24 24 that we were able to find, which is just a general guideline not to um discuss personal family or other private matters with students or share personal secrets with students. >> Before Trusty Kirby points it out, if we could add a period at the end of that

154sentence, that'd be great. Um, before we go to discussion here, I don't have any cards on this policy for public comment, but I do know we have folks that were part of the discussions between last meeting and this one. So, I will open it if there's someone who wants to provide comment for us, even if they didn't put in a card, right? I don't see anyone. Uh, with that, I'll come back to us. Uh, trustees Olivera and Creo, do you have any questions on this item? Creo? Um, when it comes to student relationships with their teachers, I understand the whole premise of putting these kinds of things to protect us and make sure that these teachers don't cross a boundary that can unfortunately turn to inappropriate behaviors or things that shouldn't be happening on a

155school environment. But sometimes we students have more of a how do I put this? we can share more personal relationships with our teachers because most of them have been in our shoes or they understand what kind of circumstances we're in. Yeah, I'm not going to tell all my teachers everything that I like personally having, but some actually can relate to what I have and it makes it so much easier for some students. Students are all different and we all have different issues and sometimes we can't go to a guidance counselor and just telling them everything immediately. We need to have like that what's called that somehow understanding that connection that makes us feel safe and I feel safe with many of my teachers because they actually know what I they listen they understand they can

156relate to what I'm feeling and to me that makes me not feel only special it's not special cuz I'm not having a fullon one connection with them cuz they also have more connection to other students, but it makes me feel safe being able to talk with somebody that's understanding of my circumstances. >> Thank you for sharing that. And I totally understand that. Um, especially having been one of those teachers that a lot of students came to. Um, I think the key word in this one is encouraging it. So trying to get a student to maybe share things that they don't want to share. Um and then referring if there's a student that you know you're not feeling equipped or you don't have the training to help referring them. And that doesn't prohibit that relationship between

157the student and the staff member, but it does at least give the student the opportunity to talk to somebody with more professional training in that area. If a student chooses that they don't feel comfortable having that conversation or doesn't feel comfortable with that adult, at least that step has been taken. >> Okay. Thank you. you know, uh, go Trusty Medina and then I'll come over here to De La Tori and then we'll come back over here. I think following up on Stim Trusty Kario's comments, you know, specifically on item 12 there. Um I don't necessarily see um that within this language cuz it says um so the second sentence if the student initiates the discussion uh the employees are expected to refer it to the appropriate guidance of counseling staff right in either in either

158case the employee involvement should be limited to direct connection to their school performance and so so I think that's kind of where it gets iffy because, you know, for the past year or two years, we're talking about um the connections that students develop with adults and often times they feel safe with their teachers and based on those relationships that they've built. And so this feels like now it's it's making it tougher for teachers to kind of have that relationship. um you know if it's inappropriate of course it shouldn't happen but sometimes distrust that students look to teachers for for guidance it's it seems like to me it's discouraging it and so I kind of worry about that just cuz I also had you know good teachers that that I think I was able to connect

159with. Um, so, so I I think that needs to be a little more clear like are they still, you know, if the student really wants to talk to that individual, are they really supposed to say no? How do they document that? I encourage X to go see whatever. I mean, I imagine that'll be brought up in an AR or something as well. Um because how do you how does the employee protect themselves in an instance like this? >> Yeah. So one way to do that would be an AR. Another way would be to document Aries referred student to guidance counselor. Um that is a way that they can you know protect themselves by putting that in there. Um it it is I I get it. It's really tricky. It's a sticky thing and we have

160to put policies in place sometimes because even though 99% of our staff is not going to use this as an opportunity to do something not appropriate. we have that 1% or that 0.5% or hopefully 0.1% even that would would use this as an opportunity. And so we're trying to draw a hard line and make sure that it's very clear what is and is not appropriate to protect our staff and to protect our students from um any kind of inappropriate relationships developing from sharing you know your home life experience. And like I said, 99.9% of our staff is is their 100% wholesome intentions. And then there's that.1%. And I'm still like with this with this specific section, I'm still just, you know, it's not necessarily clear to me. Um the you know, in in their referring,

161you know, and this again could be coming later, like if they document Aries, what do they document? Just that they referred, why did they refer? Would they then potentially be violating that privacy and trust that a student entrusted in them? Um like I I I'm I'm concerned as to the implementation of this. I totally understand the motivation. Um but but there's I feel like I lack clarity on on on how that'll be implemented and and I worry about some potential backfiring of it. The second part of this is that I think that because it talks about volunteers and community members as well. um how are they informed of this? If people are volunteering, they obviously need to be provided this in some way. Will this be included in the mentor platform? Which by the way,

162I really don't like um but >> yes, for parents and because it seems like this is addressing them as well. So, how do we acknowledge that they've been informed of this? Um, and because this is again a new policy, um, is that part of the implementation plan, I feel like like I I want to see more of that before like I'm >> forward on this one. >> I think that would go back to what I was saying with the earlier policy. There needs to be training and especially with this one.24 is not a new policy, but it is a new policy for our district and so there would need to be training on boundaries. We are going to be doing training on boundaries um with our staff through resig. We did it last year. We're

163going to be bringing it back again um this year. So training with the with the staff um putting it I think there was a suggestion to put things in the staff handbook. I believe that was your suggestion. Not the staff handbook, the parent handbook. Um, so really making the policy clear and um, training people on how to use the policy and what it means. >> Is this a mandatory training, a suggested training? When does the training happen? Who's paying for the training? But before we walk down that road, I'd suggest that we need to discuss how policies are implemented and get in and on all these policies get some type of report back on what those implementation plans are. Um, Trusty Medina, on on your point on item 12, I actually would like to see

164if there's some suggested language that might address your clarity um concern uh for the final sentence. If if it read instead of what it stated in there, if it instead read, "In either case, employee involvement should be professional and related to their job role and responsibilities." Would that be a clearer way of expressing that compared to this related to student performance language? >> It doesn't address that that same issue that now you're taking away a trusted adult for this student to confide in. Right? That's oftenimes, you know, we talk about like mentors and and people that students can trust and now this is taking taking that away from many students, right? And and that's kind of my concern. Um because so many students, you know, look to teachers for that. Um I again I totally

165understand all that that 1% issue that we're trying to deal with, but I also worry about the impact on students. And so thank you for that suggested language, but I think the still the issue still remains. It's just >> in a different way. >> And I was just thinking of it from the fact that an individual teacher's role in responsibility could be broader than just the students performance. So it may create space for that mentorship role that you're talking about. >> And and and I know it's not necessarily the teacher's job to do that per se. It's just something that happens. But I also don't want a teacher to get in trouble for being someone that a student trusts per se with with you know some of the personal struggles that they're often dealing with.

166So that's all well heard. Uh, Trusty Delator, >> thank you very much. And I commend the work that the staff has put into attempting to reword this and get this closer to um, an acceptable policy to be interpreted appropriately. Um, it's just not there yet for me. And again, my challenge is um, simply because we say you're not allowed to is not going to stop bad people from doing bad things. what this document, how this document still reads is it's going to scare the good teachers from being great teachers from making that personal connection with their students. Um, the lived experiences that we've all been through as adults to come through bad situations and neighborhoods. I've shared personal stories on this mic to all of our students through my lived experience and it has encouraged

167and mentored and guided them that things are possible if they in the same if they're living the same situation that I lived 35 years ago. The fact that they can see somebody sitting in the seat that was going through the broken home that they went through. We need to be able to have opportunity to talk about those things. Otherwise, students are not students don't have the adults they trust in their homes. They don't have the adults they trust in their communities. But so many students, you had those students, Vicki. Others of teachers have had those students throughout time that you were that trusted connection for that student that helped give them the encouragement and confidence that they could be more than they thought they could be because of the circumstance they're in. And I'm still

168worried that this language is limiting. I understand we need to set a tone and we need to set a bar, but we're not there yet. And simply because we use this language to help bad people don't do bad things, that's still going to happen. Unfortunately, it's just going to scare the good people away from making those connections and providing that mentorship and guidance. So that's where I am at this. I just we talk about training and implementation, but we haven't used clear wording yet and exactly what that means and how that's interpreted. >> Trusty Kirby, I'm sorry, Trusty Pra. >> I'll remember that. Um, yes. So, I like to echo what Omar or Trustee Medina and Trustee Delator have said and I think about for me it affects my foster son who's almost 18 years

169old who's been in and out of foster care his entire life. And for him, there are certain teachers that he truly has connected with that he goes to their classroom. he leaves class and goes to their classroom because if he has an issue with another teacher, but there's those teachers where he confides in and shares his stories with and I it would hurt me more knowing that if a teacher felt uneasy about building that type of relationship with their students because as an educator, you know, you've made it in life when all the kids come to your classrooms during lunch break. You know, they want to be there with their students or with their teachers. Um, I was hoping if there's a way you could somehow change the language to read more of a student

170initiate such discussions. Employees are expected to use their professional judgment in referring the student to appropriate guidance and staff to where it might be more comfortable for a student or for a teacher to still feel okay with um allowing kids to initiate conversations with them because uh as Trusty Delator said, it doesn't this isn't going to stop the teachers that may make that poor decisions, >> right? just going to scare the good teachers. >> We had the opportunity to to talk about this with any of the teachers on how they would interpret this and if this makes sense and this is what they would go by. Has that been able to happen at all yet? >> We did have the opportunity to collaborate. Um and um I I think I like uh Trusty Pre what

171you said and the way that you said it um made sense to me. Um, I think that that aside from number 12, I I'm hearing that everything else it seems okay. It seems like number 12 is the um the sticking point. Um, one thing that we're trying to to avoid is oftentimes as educators we we want to hold what our students are telling us and in a lot of instances that's the that's an okay thing to do. In some instances it's not. And by having a clear line of saying that if a student tells you something, refer them at least has a second set of eyes on some things that really do need to be reported because oftentimes students will tell us things that we can't keep in confidence. And um but I do really

172like the way that you worded that and I'm going to have to listen to the recording because I didn't write it down. Well, we're we're going to be writing it down because we need to finish this tonight. So, but before that, we do have two more trustes sets of questions before we say that we're just on number 12. So, trusty practice, did you have any other questions or comments on any of the other sections of the policy? >> No, I was fine with everything else, just number 12 of >> Trusty Kirby. Rewarding it a little bit. >> All right. First, I have another punctuation problem. Hey, on uh on number four under inappropriate conduct, could you add a period after the word principal there? It's like a runout sentence. Sorry. Um I know just a

173just a period. on number seven. Um, was there a specific reason I I don't I can't remember our last conversation that we took out the giftgiving section of that. Um, I think we took it out because um there was some objection to how specific number seven was. >> Okay. Is that something that may be cleared up in an AR then further? I I mean just because I I I didn't understand why it was taken out. I seemed >> I was okay with it, but um I don't know just maybe maybe some further definition in an AR would be helpful. >> Okay. >> On that particular thing. Mhm. >> Um actually I also I liked um Director Pra's uh amendment to number 12. I think I'd be okay with that. I I actually had more problems

174with number 13 personally. Um I so I I looked over a lot of other district both SoCal, NorCal. Um pretty good mix. I saw some of them, you know, since this is CSBA language, a lot of them did adopt that. Um, I saw just as many districts that actually did not have number 13 in their policy at all. Um I again feel that it may uh go to somehow restricting the relationships between the teachers and students uh then building that trust amongst each other. Um I did have a potential amendment to that instead. either I would I would like to see it removed or um I was going to uh actually offer a potential amendment. Um this was actually written in by by a teacher in our district which I I thought it sounded pretty

175well. Uh it said employees shall avoid sharing intimate or inappropriate details of their personal lives. However, sharing appropriate personal experiences related to learning, growth, or resilience is encouraged when it serves an educational or relational purpose. I thought that that maybe gave a little wiggle room for teachers to help develop their continue to build trust with their students uh without being overly, you know, them having no ability to share any personal uh stories or matters at all. >> There any objections or concerns from the board about the language that Trustee Kirby just shared? >> No, I liked it. I like it. And just to the point of what's appropriate and inappropriate, like that's what the mandated reporting training is for, for that, you know, specified drilled in training that everybody goes through. So, if we can

176leave this a little more broad so teachers can still have the correct nurturing relationship with their students and that mandated reporting is when you know when you have to report something or not report something. Like, of course, if something's in that mandated reported training, you don't hold on to it. It's by law what you're required to do. >> I'm going to make my question prior to trying to summarize this into something for discussion. Um my question there was a very important specific concern brought to me about how some of our clubs and the rule that faculty or staff and employees have with um with those clubs necessitates a confidential nature. So specifically, you may not be disclosing to your parents your status within the LGBTQ community, but you may be a member of the club.

177And so we do have places in here we talk about, you know, disclosing to parent guardians or elements like that. I know we've talked about it offline, but I just want to have it on the record. We don't interpret anything in this policy as requiring the disclosure of a student's participation within a club. Um, in that in that essence, >> no, we don't require that. We don't encourage it. And actually, I believe that California law does not allow you to do that. >> So, I just wanted to make sure we were all clear on on that. Um, with that, I'm going to try and re Oh, go ahead, Trusty Medina, before I try and restate some of these ideas. Um on five and six um the you know it it references social networking sites um

178for communication and um basically I would like to see if we could just be consistent on the language we're using with the other policies. I think it was social media accounts and platforms. Um so if we could review that make them sound consistent. But um just on this today um I'm not ready to pass today with all the changes. I'd like to see it come back with the the changes and and and I I would really like to see an AR tied to this to just be able to see how that would go. I'm going to try and restate the concepts and and then we'll ask to see if there is action. If we don't get there, then we can come back and take another stab at it. But the the changes that I have

179um that I have gleaned from this conversation was to number 12. Um if yeah if you have it specifically written down. Yes. >> I request that if a student initiates such discussion employees are expected to use their professional judgment in referring the student to appropriate guidance and staff. >> Okay. >> And so that starts on line two of of number 12. um and is is a suggestion as presented by uh trustee PR. And then we had for 13 the new language presented by trustee Kirby into the record. And then we had the recommendations for five and six to say change um the language to be consistent with our policies for social media accounts and platforms. With those three changes as they've been stated, is there a motion? >> I make the motion. It's been moved

180by Trusty Pra. >> Second by Trusty Kirby. Any further discussion? >> Yeah, I just didn't get any followup or clarity on the whole training part of the plan with this. >> So, the resi training on boundaries is not mandatory in that we can only do about 30 people per training at a time. So we run multiple sessions of that and multiple opportunities. There are um they do we work with them to come in and do athletic train um coaches, athletic directors, all of that as well. That that training is free to us because it's actually part of the service that Resig provides that decreases our our costs. >> So Reszi covers the substitute >> or what is that? No, if we do it on our professional development days or in existing meetings or things like

181that, they could come into staff meetings for an exam. I mean, just all kinds of different spaces that that could happen. No, they wouldn't cover the subs, but yes, they do come and do the training for free. So, so that's kind of why I was asking like if we did it on a PD day, you know, you have significant number of people out, when do you do it? Is it mandatory? if not, you know, how do you make sure that everybody's really aware of this? And and that was the the concern if we're putting all these requirements on there. Um is there something where they acknowledge this brand new policy? >> So the boundaries training is an extra above and beyond what's actually required by law. It's for best practice for us. All right. Any

182further discussion? I'm just that I' I' I'd rather wait on this to come back. So, I'll be voting no on this. Any further discussion? Trusty Ko. >> Uh, Trusty Kirby, could you repeat what your um reinstation for number 13 would be like the rewarding for it? >> Absolutely. Um the rewarding would be um employees shall avoid sharing intimate or inappropriate details of their personal lives. Period. However, sharing appropriate personal experiences related to learning, growth or resilience is encouraged when it serves an educational or relational purpose. >> Okay. Uh when it comes to that, I completely understand the fact that teachers should not be disclosing any specific like personal things outside of the school ethic. But in certain circumstances, it's a actual it's a solution and situations happen where they need to disclose to their students

183that something has occurred where they might not be able to show up at all for the following school years or for days on end. I have I don't know if I should share an example of one because I did actually have an instance of that where a teacher Oh. as rewarded. It would allow the teacher to share information if it was a professional or relationally appropriate for the situation. >> Yes. >> So it it provides a better language for the teachers to share things with the students opposed to saying they can't share anything. >> Okay. So, this isn't disclosing teachers to like full on stop sharing these kinds of things, but if it's related to the work and for the students, they're allowed to be able to share that kind of stuff. That's the wording

184that we understand is why we're presenting it that it would give the teachers an opportunity to still have that relationship with students for their growth. Now, of course, if a teacher hears something in that conversation that by law needs to be mandated reported, it's going to get reported. At no point in time should a teacher ever >> um hold on to information that that students could be in danger or within that appropriate training. But this allows the the new language allows the opportunity to still have that communication between teachers and students when it provides room for growth and understanding um and a resiliency. >> Okay, perfect. Actually, it's more understandable. Thank you, >> Stephen. I think um I just again would like to there's been a lot of changes to this and and I think

185I' I'd like to encourage others to to vote no on passing it just so that we're able to bring it back post it publicly and people are able to look at it and then potentially come back and comment to us because what what we're passing is not what was necessarily posted. It's a lot has been changed. So I think it's just to to allow that opportunity for the public. um if if they choose to comment and address it. Like I think the the fact that uh student trustee Kario is engaged so much on the issue like maybe makes me think that maybe other students might be interested in addressing it. So um again I encourage other folks to vote no on passing it tonight. >> So we have a motion in a second uh with

186the amendments and we're going to go ahead and move forward with the vote. Uh if it does pass, then I would still like to see the final version posted as an information item on a f future agenda. Um if not, then obviously we'll get back to the drawing board. Uh roll call, please. >> Trusty Curio, >> no. >> Trusty Alivera. I >> trusty P. [Music] >> Trusty Kirby. >> Hi. >> Trusty Dator Tori. >> No. >> Trusty Medina. >> Just for clarifying the motion. The motion is to adopt the edits and pass the reading, right? Yes. >> Correct. And then it would come back. >> I'm okay with edits, but not passing yet. Is just to clarify. >> Pass it and approve it and then we'd get the final back as an information item. So,

187we' be approving all the edits that we just discussed for the item. Well, regardless if we if we if it does not pass, then we'll go back to the drawing board and we may have to bring it back. We we'll have to figure out what the next step is. >> I'm to clarify, I'm okay with the edits, but for it to be brought back to the board with the edits so that it's posted publicly with the edits to allow for the public to be able to comment on the updated. So, for it to come back to the board is what what I'm hoping that we can do. And to speak to that, in past practice, we have approved edits and been able to approve policy changes in during the meeting. So it's not out of

188practice for us to make edits and then approve them. >> So uh your vote, Trusty P. We can always bring these back and change them again once we get it, but this is approving it tonight. >> Okay, then yes, then I'm fine with that. So, yes. >> All right, Trusty Medina, your vote, please. >> No. >> All right, and that I believe comes to me. >> Yes. >> And I vote yes. Uh the vote is of the non- studentent members 3 to two. So the motion passes and then our student members uh brings us to a 423 vote which would also pass. All right, we will move on to uh G4 enrollment and capacity discussion. Uh Superintendent August, >> thank you. I'm actually in a moment just going to turn it over to our team.

189Um this is just to provide just a little background that um we do have two separate items on here for discussion for elementary and secondary but it is one presentation linked under the parent item. And after the changes made last year with our um school reconfigurations, this is our opportunity to, you know, come back and now say where did enrollment actually end up? Where do we have the students? Where are we potentially overenrolled versus o underenrolled and start having those discussions about what's going well and what adjustments we may need to consider for next year. Before you start the presentation for um for everyone, we're going to receive the presentation. The board will ask questions. Um I'm then going to open up public comment on the full item. So for folks that said A or

190B, it's going to just be item G4 that we do public comment on. Um and then we'll move to discussion um after we receive that public comment. So uh presentation, please. >> Uh good evening everyone. I'll try to be brief so that we can have more time to discuss it. We already at 9:00 p.m. So, um, there we go. So, as you know, we just completed our 19th day of school or the 20th. So, as part of uh the mandated um echo, the beginning of the year activities, we do uh we do a head count for all our students for the first 10 days of school. So today I want to share with you uh what some findings of this work. So what we have seen that we have about 12,000 students enrolled in our

191traditional schools and about 1,800 students enrolled in our charter schools. That is a total of 13,800 students altogether. that is about 500 students below the 2024 enrollment that we observe at census day. Census day is always the first Wednesday in October. Um we in the past usually we experience a increase in enrollment from the beginning of the year to census day mostly related to the harvest and families moving into the area to uh work. And so uh we could be seeing an increase in enrollment as census day comes um this year is October 1st. Um enrollment however is um just about in line with the raw low enrollment projections that were included in our facilities master plan that we shared um we developing three four years ago. Um so these uh decline is not something

192that we weren't expecting. It's just in line with the projections that we uh were working on um as we were planning you know for facilities in our long-term 10-year enrollment projections. And when we look at fiscal projections just yeartoear the enrollment is just around what we use for both staffing allocations and uh for planning for fiscal planning for this school year. So even if we have experienced this enrollment, we were preparing for it. We have staffed our school in response to what we were projecting and all our fiscal projections are based on similar numbers overall. And now since we are talking about um fiscal our revenue is not based on enrollment but is based on what is called daily average attendance. So we get paid for students that actually physically come to school and not

193the students that are on our row. So there is always a little bit of difference. On average over these first 10 days of school we have observed 92% attendance. That comes at around 11,070 students and that is just in line with what we use for our LCFF projections that add 11,65 students. Um as you can imagine attendance we don't always have that number of students present but there is always more and less students present. So usually any given day we have a variation of about 40 students around that average. So some days we have more students some days we have fewer just because the day of the week usually students tend to be absent Monday and Friday and come to school in the middle of the week. Um what we have observed is that from

194the first day of school to the 10th day of school our ADA has been um slowly increasing dayto-day and I believe yesterday was our highest attendance at about 11,300 students. So our attendance has been improving as families um come back realize that school is in session and enroll with us. Um also as part of our attendance we have identified students who were absent during the first three day of school. Uh we call this the missing students and what we have asked all our teams is to directly make a contact or make an effort to make a contact with their families see where they are reminding them the school is in session and invite them in. So this is part of our um enrollment verification process and making sure that we don't drop any students if

195we don't know where they are. So you know some students decided to enroll in a charter school they moved district and just forget to tell us you know the parents just tell us I'm at a different school we moved out of the area and then we can strike them. Some families are still out of the country and they are trying to come back and so you know like we keep them in and mark them absent. Uh some family just said they didn't realize school is over you know it's is in session so I'll be there tomorrow or you know they tell us we have taken extended vacation. So like you can think about you know like life situations that this family experience. Um I do have a little bit more details here. I really don't

196want to go too much into the details here. Uh the only thing that I want to point out from this slide is an interesting pattern that you can observe in the difference between the observed enrollment and our projections. So on the left there you have our projections and on the right you actually have our average enrollment or actual attendance over the past um you know for the first 10 days of school. To me, what uh strikes me is that our projections for our TK enrollments were a little bit lower. That is a highlight for me. Uh this year, this school year is the first time that uh we are offering universal TK to everybody born on or I always get it wrong or or before September 2nd. So, uh TK became a full grade level

197this school year. anybody and we follow the same attendance restrictions than any other grade level. So our families are opting into TK which is really exciting because now we get to build up our TK program. On the other hand though, you can see that our secondary enrollment is coming in a little bit lower expectations and so that is uh specifically related to our 912 program and um this is not unexpected. um if we were projecting a decline in secondary enrollment following our decline in elementary enrollment have we've been experiencing over the past you know 10 years. So as our elementary student students age through the system, the elementary the decline in elementary enrollment that we have experienced 5 years ago now is showing up in our um high schools. So to put this into perspective,

198last year our graduating class oops our graduating class had 1,870 students. All right? So 1,800 students graduated from one of our high schools. This year we only have about uh 1,650 nth graders, right? And so we are missing about 150 students between what left and what we enrolled this year in nth grade. And so and if you multiply that you know for each grade level and you know you do a little bit sliding scale we get to about you know the 150 fewer students that we are observing here. Um related to this and I know that last year when we were planning for our school reconfiguration there were a lot of questions about facility use and capacity. So here uh what I did for elementary school sites I actually called every principal asked them about

199how they are using their facility kind of like took a little census of how we are doing and it's a mixed bag. So we have sites where we have space for all the students and we have some sites where space is tight and we are using space creatively to fit all these students that they are enrolled and want to attend there. So here you can see that the schools that are right the capacity are Luther Burbank and Proctor Terrace where pretty much all classrooms are in use and we I mean this the school team really is finding other spaces to host what I call instructional support activities. So think about your music class, PE class where at other school sites can be offered or hosted in a real classroom. At these two sites, we are

200using other spaces that are not, you know, classroom, you know, on the on the facility, you know, facility master plan. So think about the multi-purpose room. So you know, like the music teacher is using the music the, you know, the stage in the MPR to teach a class. That's not necessarily a classroom space, but we got to use it as a classroom. Other sites are okay. This is important as we start planning for next school year and the planned reconfiguration of the steel lane attendance boundary. In the back of my mind is do we have enough space at the three sites that we discussed previously um to absorb those you know those students. It appears that we do and then we can discuss more like to go into the details. Similarly uh for our secondary

201um capacity use these classroom use numbers come from a survey that our custodial team has done to uh look at workload. So here you can see that we have space at most sites and as we discussed last time um we still have space concerns at two sites Maria Caro and Santa Rosa High. If you remember um Stacy and I have identified those two sites have been impacted and we close or limited transfers, right? And so here you can see that our projections that those two sites will be close to capacity have been realized this school year. I really don't know what's going on with Bridgeway because I don't think they are are sure those many classes. I believe what's happening there is that the facilities master plan did not count every single portable that is

202used by the transition uh to adulthood program. So those five portables that is short here I believe are the ones that are you in use by the transition program somehow they weren't included in you know that count in the FPM for Ridgeway FMP FMP um but u they are still cleaned right and you know taken care of by our facilities team so that's why those are there it's not that we are short but we are just it's a counting issue there I think >> before we continue to the Next section, let's take questions on this this first data section. >> Um, trustees uh, Olivea and Creo, any questions? >> Other trustees? >> Trusty P. >> Um, I don't know if I'm going to word this correctly. Uh, so try to understand what I'm saying. So

203with with the universal TK classes uh that have are on every elementary school campus this year, are you counting those TK kids into one kindergarten class? So then does that limit or do you have to open up another kindergarten class for anticipated um new registration kids? >> Okay, if I'm following the question and let me know if I'm off base, right? Um, under the law, we have certain requirements that we need to meet in order to have a kindergarten class. And you know, the echo talks about a kindergarten complex. And it's mostly related to access to restroom facilities that are sized appropriately for small humans, right? And so usually we have interpreted that to be a kindergarten class needs to have a a a restroom in the class or access to a restroom within the

204kindergarten complex. So a restroom could be shared among one or two classrooms. So TK's follow the same requirements. So for us, opening a TK class is the same as opening a kindergarten class, but they are different grade levels. >> Oh. >> Uh staffing is also different. Kindergarten is staffed uh one to one teacher for 24 students. I believe kinder TK follows different staffing requirements. Again, that's in the echode. Um where we need to have an multiple adults the more students we have in a classroom. No, I didn't ask my question, right? >> So, I I think what you're asking is that TK is the first year of a two-year kindergarten program. >> Yeah, that that is part of how the curriculum like how standards are taught. But yes, so basically TK follows the same standards

205as K and student do the same. >> Spacewise for planning for classrooms. All of our TKs are going to need to roll into be assumed in a kindergarten class for next year plus >> more incoming TKs. Yes. like how for space-wise for classroom space do you have to create I mean projecting the additional kindergarteners that wouldn't go into that one class because the tekkers went into the kid it's I'm I know I'm making this a more complicated word problem >> I understand where I understand where it's coming from it's slightly different than what you're you're contemplating because that's the the bubble concern within dual immersion where we have to have them all start in the TK kinder and then the growth bubbles up versus in non-dual immersion where we can have multiple entry points. So

206TK and kinder are actually not mandatory grade levels we move into that at first but we will have students come in and out at all the grade levels above it. We don't have the same bubble um concern that we have in the dual immersion >> but if there is an influx of in kindergarters and the TKs that move up into the kindergarten class like is there capacity to add another kindergarten class if needed? The the difference is that these TK classrooms are being added because we're now bringing students that we were already anticipating to have in kinder and first grade in earlier. We're not necessarily bringing in new students by having the TK classes. >> And >> that's all I need. >> And I believe that that question can also be resolved as the new

207charters. I I think we are all discussing them coming up because probably the lottery might be need to be readjusted for a TK enrollment window rather than a K. Right. So that's something to keep in mind as you discuss that. >> Trusty Deator and then Trusty Medina. >> So thank you very much for the report and information. Um, per your statement, we will have room for our still population if that campus closes as designed for next year. >> Um, I don't know if it we should. So, this is my napkin math math here. So, we have 19 classrooms that are currently in use at Steel Lane. So, Steel Lane currently has 19 teachers. Um if those 19 classrooms go somewhere else, right, because the students are still with us, you could expect uh probably to

208find space. In my mind, it's about 16 new classrooms at the other sites. And I say 16 because um you could imagine 20% of the student population could be absorbed by existing classrooms on those campuses, right? And so every time that we do school reconfiguration, it's not a one-to-one transfer, but usually, you know, like as we discussed last time, it's about an 80% additional capacity at the receiving sites because we have a little bit of room for absorbing these classes. So you could expect about 16 new rooms needed across the three campuses that most likely will, you know, welcome students from Stain. So if you can see here as you know we are building eight new classrooms net between James Moro and um Helen Layman right so out of those 16 half of those should

209be housed with increased capacity that's already planned approved by the board and you know being developed right now. So that leaves uh eight classrooms that we still need to find space for. Correct. Um we know that we have seven classrooms currently used for other use at Hidden Valley. So out of those seven uh we could uh easily use five or classrooms, right? So now we were at 16, eight with new constructions, five we might be short three classrooms, right? And this is where as we have seen at the other two sites, Proctor, Tyrus and Burbank, we might need to start then thinking about um use of space. And if you look at, you know, the table here, Helen Layman has three classrooms that I use for other use. James Mororrow has six. Altogether, they have

210an additional nine classrooms. We really need to just house three. So that is my math basically saying we have n 16 classrooms that we need to find space for. We should have space for about 2021 classrooms. At least on paper it appears that we have enough space. Now as we plan and this is part of the planning and the boundaries. We need to make sure that as we develop those boundaries students are assigned to class to the schools where we actually have the space. And so that's kind of like the work that we have in front of us, but we should have enough space. >> So on paper, I hear you and your math is better than mine. I trust it and I appreciate it, >> but I went to 10 elementary sites last week

211>> and they are completely impacted. >> Mhm. >> So we have we don't have enough space at the 10 schools we have right now. We're having some issues with our restrooms and other facility needs on those campuses. The practitioners are saying loud and clear, we're really scared of where we're going to put these 400 other students next year. >> It's got to be more than on paper it might work. So, we've got to really be thinking right now on how it's going to actually work. And I need more than it should work. Mhm. >> We need to have a plan that it's going to work because the the growing pains we're going through right now, I really don't want to go through that and compound it next year by um closing the campus. We said

212we're going to close. >> Mhm. >> And Trusty Datory, I think that's exactly why staff wanted to come forward tonight with this information is to make sure we have that conversation. So, I'm going to go to Trusty Medina and then I'll come back over here. >> Um few questions. Um, first in terms of classrooms and use, I think you alluded to custodians or maintenance, I'm I'm curious when did they determine this number and what defines a classroom in this context? Is it something being used by a teacher to teach? because I'm I'm I'm concerned about some of these numbers that I I think some of these rooms might be used for other services that we provide students that might not be counted as a classroom in use. And so I'm trying to clarify that. >>

213Yeah, that's that's a good point. And um I can speak a little bit about that. So for the elementary because he had the same concern I made sure to call every single principal and we discuss and say I have this document that shows that you have let's take Helen layman you know 22 rooms in use right >> 20 what >> uh 22 right in in the prior version as we were talking Helen Layman has 19 teachers with students every day and three classrooms that are still classroom that have been use but not every day in a regular classroom. So like if you think about one room is used by the PE teacher. The PE teacher does not have like a roster that you know they see 24 students all day, right? They see pretty much

214every single student. They rotate students in and out. The other classroom is used by their music teacher. Same thing, right? They are this, you know, teacher that sees every student in the school. They don't have necessarily a class. And the other room is used for uh community trainings right so it's a community room that parents can use in case there is a parent training or parent class right so um custodial needs is 22 rooms but actual classrooms is 19 right >> so you did that with the elementarymentaries but not with the high schools or >> exactly I've not done the same work for um the um secondary classrooms because this was focused on this delay conversation as we have not you know big changes planned uh for the secondary as you know a for reconfiguration

215>> and we're going to get into the reconfiguration part in the next section but more questions on the data trusty Kirby >> so regarding um capacity for next year I know that We one thing that wasn't didn't really come up yet was uh we had talked about repurposing some of our portables and moving them and I I know that director Odin just a couple weeks ago talk I know that we there are already plans in place particularly at Burbank to move some portables I think maybe you can clarify two or three I think over there and then Hidden Valley we're also looking at potentially that I think that's where the board needs to decide. We we're also waiting for the results of the trenching study and then deciding how many potential portables we can move

216there, but that also requires time DSA approval and everything which we need to do at this point basically. Is that correct? >> Yes, that's that's a really good point. So I also had this conversation with director Odin. Uh we are at a point where we really need to take a look at our lots right that we you know and say where do we have empty space that can be used for additional capacity. Some lots are fully built up. So pretty much you know the option to bring in a new portables is not possible. The only thing that's left for us is to build up. So adding floors on top of whatever it is is there. Okay. We have other um lots that instead still have empty space that can be developed with portables and the

217two sites that you uh mentioned u Burbank and Hidden Valley both have some empty space that could be developed. We know as you mentioned Hidden Valley we are still waiting for the report. uh Burbank uh we don't have the same concern but that's something that we definitely discussed especially given the impact at Burbank of um you know the enrollment impact on that site. Um yeah >> and and also just as we move forward since I know that we are trying to get through this call it a bubble but you know when we when we shrink and then we're at max capacity and then with the potential down the road we're looking at enrollment dropping off things will ease a bit but during this next two to three years on not only with these portables that

218we bring in but you know we've been hearing that um the schools are impacted for space for IEPs as well for people to have space to uh to you know have a safe space to get away from from all the you know a potential without having to share classrooms I guess what I'm saying so we need to increase as much capacity as we can in a small time frame and portals may be >> you know the way to do that to get us through the short term. >> And it's not lost to me, you know, like the toll that this takes, especially on our teachers and families when you go to a space, you know, to a school and you don't have a space to meet for your IEP, right? Or you need to wait

219in line for the other IP to finish because, right, and it's, you know, sometimes, you know, sound like, you know, the numbers guy. It's not lost to me. at the same time right we need to take a look at this kind of like clinically and say can we make this work right and you know it it's choices and sometimes we need to make tough choices um given you know the hand we have >> well and and as um Dr. Bardelli is sharing when we consider capacity of a school, we can't only consider the instructional spaces. It's the space for the services that have to be provided in order to really help students achieve their full potential. And we have to look through both lenses. the the space for our meetings to be held, our counselors

220and our school-based therapists. That has to be a part of this consideration um with an equal focus, but that right now this is looking at the instructional space. It's not it's not an ignored part of the process. That's just a secondary piece, not less important. So I have um a question on the data because we've been talking about this demographic or the inverse of a bubble is you know the having fewer students but I'm this looks to me like we're starting to see an hourglass with our TK3 enrollment now starting to have a noticeable expansion. So, we also need to be anticipating that if that is a trend, um, we're then going to have that that bubble coming up. >> Is that I mean, is that consistent with what you're seeing in this data? >>

221I'm I'm I'm not a demographer, so I'm going to put it up there. >> We have a de demographic study coming in in a few months, but >> yes. So my only thing you know as a lay member of the public and so you know take my opinion as you wish is that 2020 was 5 years ago and uh five years old go to TK and K and so I think I don't know if we are going to see a COVID bump in uh you know children or if this is you know turning off the tail tide of our community and we actually we are going to see an increase in fertility rate going forward. Um, I think it's probably a temporary blip. That's that's my opinion as you know, some do. So, don't don't

222don't take it. >> Well, I'm just I'm just looking at the numbers on here and the spreadsheet says that um and I want to move us a little bit here. So, I just for context on this conversation, I think sometimes because we agendaize individual items on our agenda, it feels like we're this is our opportunity to talk about this topic. um and then it goes by. But the the intent of this item is that this is the beginning of a multitude of processes because we're getting ahead of these things because we don't want to be here in February making decisions. So, we're receiving this data without solutions because we're doing it earlier and we're having the conversation earlier. >> That's that's correct. My hope tonight is to get direction for you know bring more items

223in the future for the board probably for action or more discussion um so that you know we can get to a point where we can make a decision probably um you know mid November probably as you know interd district transfer closed so that Stacy and I can have >> so further questions um on the data before we move to the boundaries >> medina >> um I think just as as you look further into the other uses. Um I think if maybe it could be broken down to like um like services or um I'm thinking of something like maybe restricted use like what comes up to mind like some CT classroom like a culinary room that could only be used for something specific. Um and and and I don't know how this is captured, but there's

224all the work tied to um community schools and that grant and what spaces will be required for that that maybe is not being included in this and and that we maybe should capture. >> Yeah, that's that's a that's a good point. Currently, it's capturing a comment, but you can see >> my comments on my Google spreadsheet. Excellent. All right, let's move the presentation to boundaries. >> All right, can I piggy back on that before we move on? Sorry, I'm not there in person. >> Um, >> Mr. Oden, >> to piggy back >> very briefly, Eric, >> to piggyback on director Desidere's uh comment too that a lot of going back to elementary um a lot of those rooms are needed for those extra ancillary spaces. So when we look at this sheet and we're talking

225about classroom use, all those other ancillary uses then go away. So that's something that we really have to look at and that's why we wanted to kind of talk about this because we are running out of room to house non-classroom uses. >> Hey, I think you are echoing the concerns I'm hearing from the from everyone in the room. So thank you. >> All right. So uh elementary schools I this is really an open discussion. I don't have really uh um anything prepared beside props. So this is our current attendance boundary approved for the 2025 2026 school year. Uh and this is what we have used to assign or to assign students currently to their uh elementary school of residents. If you see the blue area here in the middle of town, this is the attendance

226boundary for Steel Lane Elementary School. Our current plan, operating plan is that for 2026, 2027, Steel Lane will be reconfigured um between Hidden Valley, James Mororrow and Ellen Layman and they are respectively in green, gold and yellow. Um the question that we really want to talk about today is as we focus on this attendance boundary um how do we want to assign this and is there any scenarios that you would like to see run um if you know if you don't know like the area of town is right by you know coding town it's cut enough by um there is you know westy lane gr and steel lane to the west Right. So, um there could be some geographic markers that we can use, you know, mostly 101, GR, Westy Lane to kind of assign

227these neighborhoods to, you know, Eden Valley, James Moro, and LA LMA respectively. Uh that would, you know, in my mind is what would make sense, but I'm open to more discussion. Trusty Deator. >> Um, is it worth discussing the potential of breaking the current Still Lane boundary up between more campuses opposed to just the three and including a diversion for some of those students to go to Proctor Terrace? Like even if it was up through Still Lane, just can we run that scenario and see what that would look like? Um, because it is a lot of students. We're all talking about space. We're all talking about need for space. Um if we can take those students and disperse them on more campuses maybe that makes it easier maybe it doesn't. I know there might be

228some room to build at Proctor Terrace. Um the only my only concern about Proctor Terrace is that we are already at capacity as is right now but there might be some other dominoes right where we say we are going to move Proctor Terrace attendance boundary and let me go back I don't want to jump too much but to the north a little bit right and then we could shift some of the southern part of Proctor Terrace um to Luther Burbank and uh Lincoln right so there could be kind of like a rearrangement of boundaries um because we do have space at Lincoln and so that's that's another thing to keep in mind is that Lincoln we we would have more space there if if we want to move attendants there so I I my initial

229instinct and we had we had when we originally approved these the intent was that Proctor Terrace Luther Burbank and Lincoln's boundaries would be quote unquote stable and then the other ones would be the ones fluctuating in year two >> my concern about changing Proctor Dr. Terrison and Lincoln where we clearly hit the right number for for their capacity is that then we're we're potentially having neighborhoods flip-flopping and going through multiple changes over a three-year period. But be be because of what we see on this table with Lincoln. I think having Lincoln get included into the potential year 2 boundary changes would be something that would be good to see. And then also recognizing that our anticipated direction for Cook for Commtock is no longer something that we need to do. So that's now a facility

230in our elementary district that could be a part of this conversation as well. >> Yeah. The only caveat about the conversation as you keep in mind is that as we were talking about the kindergarten complex um if we offer TK or K we also need to have restroom facilities that can serve those students. So we currently don't have those facilities available just because it was a middle school. So just keep in mind that in order to turn um comtock into a full elementary um we'll need to build restrooms and restrooms need piping and piping needs time. So it it's not going to happen overnight. Now there might be um you know we could you know play around with some plans that maybe don't require a TKK um complex right and so that's I I don't

231know if you want to go there but you know kind of like as we start thinking about is there a way to use the facilities as an elementary campus without that >> and that you know could be something else we could explore if if it's if there's an interest >> well this the south side of the commtock campus where CCLA was does have kindergarten bathrooms because that's where the campus first start or CCLA first started. >> So there's bathrooms there >> unless somebody took them out. >> I thought they were portables. >> No, they were converted and now there are special ed bathrooms cuz that's who's there now. Uh but they're not part of a kindergarten complex. And that's really the key CDE portion. it doesn't count for charter schools the same way it does

232for gened. >> The the challenge is that charter schools uh don't follow the same rules as a traditional school site does. And so CCLA, for example, can be in a space that does not meet the requirements that our traditional elementary schools need to follow. And so we are in this weird spot where CC, you know, the old Comtock, you know, location for CCLA met the requirements for them to offer kindergarten, but if we turn that same campus into a traditional elementary school, we won't be able to offer the same programs. I don't know if it makes sense. >> And that includes facilities. >> I don't think we're looking to discern the final solution tonight. No, >> we're looking to say what's on the table. >> Yeah. So I I I just want to make sure

233we do that. >> So I think we need to have the common stock facility on the table. Yeah. >> It doesn't mean it's the final solution. Same with Lincoln, same with the proctor conversation. I think go to director dator as we're putting things on the table for discussion. Then we need to discuss charter opportunities at the comps compass if it's different than traditional opportunities. if that's going to make something work better. We need to discuss everything that may or may not be available to see what could work. What if we created a TK through K charter community and now had a different discussion? We just need to know what all the different options are and what's feasible and we know it's limited space and it's limited time, but let's start looking at this across the

234board and just see what the difference is and if anything's possible. And yes, we might need to move some boundaries and we but I just to remind everybody on the CS and in the room as we have the discussions of comtock the community was very against sending their students to a super elementary. >> So we want to stay away from that as well because we already heard from our families that they're not going to send their students there. >> Trusty Medina. Thank you. I'm keeping this on the boundaries discussion. I think based on the data that was presented on room availability, it seems like the the only logical thing is to you got to change a lot of the boundaries and shift everything down like you know uh Steel Lane going towards maybe Monroe and

235Hela Leman and what's a lot of Hela Leman going into um Lincoln and and maybe even Yeah, maybe even some of that do their Burbank part even going a little more of that going to uh Lincoln since Lincoln seems to have like the most space. But I think somebody mentioned earlier that's about 400 students at Steel Lane and like yeah, you're going to need to do some drastic shifts and it'll probably involve changing this map a lot. And and I know that I think it was mentioned something about having schools change maps, you know, more than a couple times over this 2 three year period. But but it's I don't know to me it's what seems logical to do. >> Sounds like we have scenarios that we need to have come back um within the

236scope of these options that were discussed. Um I would just add in that if we have also an understanding of transfers um between any of these schools that that should be a part of that analysis. I am going to go ahead and move the discussion to the next part of the boundaries discussion. >> Yeah. Um the next map that I have for you tonight is our secondary preliminary boundaries that were approved for the 2026 2027 school year. Um if you remember the conversation we had on February when was it 24th um we uh discuss of um pretty much Santa Rosa High School taking over the southwest attendance boundary from LC Allen and offer these four high school setup um for next school year. So, I want to remind the board that we had discussed and

237acknowledged that we were going to revisit the secondary boundaries for alignment to the feeder districts, which had not been something there was time to do during the creation of these maps. And then since then, there's been discussion around specific areas including Mark West, Coffee Park, and some other elements of this to come back. I don't think we need to repeat those because we've expressed them before as a board. So, if there's anything involving these four districts um that we want to discuss, now is the opportunity. >> Yeah. So, especially since you uh brought up the Marquest Ring Valley unified boundary. Um I don't know specifically where it is, but it's somewhere up here in the mountains. There is a mountain ridge that comes down this way and the boundary comes from here which is the

238city limit at Fountain Grove and it goes straight up north somewhere up here. So currently the boundary for Maria Cararo includes some of the eastern part of Marquest that is um to the east of this is um Marquest Creek Road um pretty much is all mountain area a very sparsely populated so we don't have many students living up here um then Marquest you know takes over from this mountain ridge down all the way to you know pretty much the railroad which is this uh line that cuts the town like this. So that is kind of like if you want to think about the Marquest area goes from somewhere up here in the mountains all the way down you know through Marquest proper >> um through the uh to the um railroad and then Pineer Olivet

239takes over somewhere in >> those are scenarios that we had already said we wanted to look at. So I think so is there additional things that we want to be looking at >> um that that exceeds what we had already discussed that we'd be doing >> well because I'm new so one why is Coreo the state of Alaska and then all of us other three schools are smaller and then where is LC Allen is is that >> very very um the eastern part of our district is all mountains. So it's basically Kalistoga, you know, like the Kalistoga road that goes over the mountain range towards Napa County. So um pretty much most of our students actually live right here, which is in Ringon Valley proper and along Highway 12, um you know, in Kenwood. So

240yes, it's a very big attendance boundary. It's mostly trees and rocks, right? So they don't go to school. So it's it's big, right? But it's not students, right? >> Yes. Um >> population houses over there. >> There are houses but very few students in there. And so the for us to get enough population to fill a school, it has to be that large essentially. >> Yeah. >> Why Santa Rosa and Piner are smaller? Because there's more buildings. That's that's that's correct. Most of our students come, you know, unsurprisingly from downtown and it's right this little area here. It's where, you know, we produce pretty much 50% of our students. So that's why we can have a very small attendance boundary for Santa Rosa High School and, you know, to an extent uh uh Montgomery and

241still have, you know, 1,200,300 students being generated because it's, you know, dense. uh anything on the outskirt right it's the mountains up here it's the marsh here between Sebastapo and uh you know San Rosa is down here is the undeveloped land um it's a park Taylor mountain park thank you and then the undeveloped area up here where the airport is right so it's pretty much open fields um so you know even Pioneer if you think about it most of their students come from the development right around it Um LC Allen um is becoming a school of choice uh potentially next school year. So they will operate without an attendance boundary and families from everywhere in the district can um attend it, right? And so they won't have a traditional attendance area, but they will become

242a school of choice that parents can enroll in and choose to attend. >> Uh what do you mean by a school of choice? because I see that there's no boundary for them, but that's my area. >> So, uh, >> and I know that might be another discussion. >> Yeah. So, there's a broader discussion, but the reason it's not on the map is that as as it's transitioning to a school of choice, a student that is in need of that program style, the project based learning program style they're developing may be referred in or apply to go there from anywhere within our district. Um, and then there is a neighborhood preference similar to the CCLA neighborhood preference that's been built in. So, if you are a student that lives in that neighborhood, you'll actually end up

243with having the choice to go to um to either in this case with this current scenario, Santa Rosa High, or go to LC Allen, LC Allen's program. So, that was a part of the actions that we took and we should get you a larger briefing on those actions with it. um and what all of it was, but that's the that's how that's set up. So, they have a right to go to LC. They have a right to go to Santa Rosa. Um and then students from throughout the district would have a right to apply to go to LC. >> Okay. I have a ton more questions, but we're not going to talk about it here. >> Okay. Uh Trusty Medina, thank you. Um I think one of the things that I wanted to see as

244it related to this is these map areas kind of like you had shown in the past the the number of students that live within it tied to the capacity of each of the campuses. I think for example this center of the high school area a lot of the middle schoolers that are kind of in there now I think are going to per right or I mean comtock. So looking at where Santa Rosa High School is now, what this map means and capacity, I think it's really important as part of that discussion. >> Yes. And that's a very good point. And I haven't I didn't bring the middle school map. And where it's a little bit awkward this school year specifically is that the middle school map for Santa Rosa Junior High School specifically is different

245from the attendance map of Santa Rosa High School. So, the seventh and eighth grade assignment is different from the uh 912 assignment specifically for the Rosland uh school district because when we were developing these maps, we didn't want students to move twice if um Comtock well when Comtock moves to um Piner and we know that that attendance area would have gone to Santa Rosa high. Anyways, we allowed uh middle schoolers to move ahead of time and so we had a kind of like a different speed map just for the Santa Rosa Junior High uh specifically as as it relates to the um Rosland neighborhood just because that is where most of the students are. So um that is the only thing as it relates specifically to middle school assignments here and I know there were

246some you know like planning ahead of this move. So just to be clear, you're saying that 26 27 has an additional set of maps for middle school that's different than >> no for this school year. 2526 we let the middle schoolers move ahead into Santa Rosa Junior >> even if they were historically attending Comtock. So there was this move ahead time in preparation of the move of the com comtock program as a pioneer junior high school. >> It was one of the transfer priorities. >> Right. And we did a similar model with the families that are attending Steel Lane because there were some families who knowing that they had one year left at Steel Lane opted to go to the school that will become theirs rather than staying at Steel Lane for one more year.

247So we used that same approach at a variety of age bands. And my next question is ti to so right now when someone goes to our district website >> they go to the school locator for 2627 um they look at let's say they live in this center high school area and they put in their school >> um obviously it's going to say Santa Rosa High School >> um with the school of choice how do people know that >> and and does that is that going to pop up for every school, no matter where you put your address. Is it going to show you LC Allen High School as an option? >> That's that's that's a good point. So I Yeah, >> I think we need that to come back as a separate item and actually

248dig into how that's going to work because that's a very big question that goes into the whole model, which is not we have here. I want to get I'm going to open public comment and bring it back to the board. Um >> can I can I just ask a question? Um this is part of my struggle with developing exactly this southwest uh boundary. Um as you can see and I don't this probably is way in the in the weeds but there is this boundary here. Um see uh right now goes all the way to Santa Rosa A and this is planned to flip and I don't know if that's a good decision you know like and I don't know enough about this area to really make a decision and I don't know if you want

249to see you know the boundary to go straight down 101 if you know the railroad is okay if we want to take you know Santa Rosa A is way out there in the Wiz for 10 p.m. But I also don't know what would be. >> Do I have a motion to extend the meeting by 15 minutes? >> Move to extend till 10:30. >> Second. Moved and seconded. Anyone opposed? All right, we'll extend to 10:30. Um I'm going to open up for public comment and then bring bring your question back. I want to get the public's comments in before we start giving you all the >> Yeah. >> questions. Uh we're going to start with uh Angel Ortega. Uh we'll then go to Aaron Matthews, followed by Emma Thompson, and we'll do three minutes. >> All

250right. Hello, boarding cabinet. My name is Angel Ortega and I'm a proud office staffer, softball, girls soccer, and cheer coach at LC Allen. First, thanks for the new paint job. The change is felt as compliments have been said from students, current and alum alike, parents and staff. That said, with the prospect of LC Allen being converted from a comprehensive high school to a magnet charter school, I wanted to address my concerns to you board and cabinet. Open enrollment is right around the corner, and our transition will take place in literally less than a year. And yet, it has been crickets from our leadership in terms of support that will be provided for LC Allen for the following school year. Your absence and silence gives the impression that you want nothing to do with LC Allen,

251our students, our families, and our community. So, I implore you all to serve as educational leaders, and step up. Don't leave Southwest Santa Rosa stranded and show up for LCA Allen. And Donna, I do genuinely look forward to your visit next week. I'll see you soon enough board. Thank you. >> Aaron Matthews, followed by Emma Thompson, followed by Kathy Hayes. Hello, my name is Aaron Matthews. I'm a substitute teacher as well as a parent at Proctor Terrace Elementary. This year, as we hoped, Proctor has grown. We have grown to include around 100 new and beautiful faces. We are thrilled that so many families want to come to Proctor. Our community is better because of it. But with this also comes growing pains. Currently, every inch of our school is occupied. The classrooms are overflowing. the

252addition of the rise classes. Um, with the addition of the rise classes, the average classroom size is skewed. Those programs use two classrooms. However, the numbers of students in each class is between five and 10. So, on paper, it may appear that 440 students fit into our classrooms. However, in reality, it um in the reality is is that we can't accommodate the 439 that we have. Our speech teacher is working in a closet. One of our RSP classes is having to make do in a room that is maybe a third of the size of a regular classroom. There are 11 other professionals sharing three teenytiny offices. There is not a single space for teachers to use for student assessments. Our PE teacher no longer has access to a classroom. Therefore, on rainy days, the balance

253of indoor PE and indoor meal times is not feasible as the MPR cannot accommodate both. We got just a taste of what rainy days will be will look like yesterday and let me tell you, it was not a pretty site. We don't have a covered eating area, so the NPR is the only option for meal times and there is no other place for PE to happen. How is that going to work? Despite having staggered meal times, we don't have enough seating for the students in the eating areas, especially when it comes to the upper grades. The overcrowding experienced at meal time is not safe. The supervision at these times is also an issue. We don't have enough supervision. In fact, due to staffing cuts, we have less supervision this year than we had last despite

254increasing enrollment by 100 students. Our school counselor and other staff are often pulled to provide supervision. That means students are not receiving the counseling and other support that they need. When one of the few adults supervising is absent, we're stuck as all hands are already on deck. Safety is a top priority for our school and and the district. However, we are not meeting that standard. With all of this said, I want to compliment the Proctor Terrace administration, staff, and teachers for doing their best to make Proctor an outstanding school despite the challenges at hand. It really is a special school that the community holds close to their hearts. We as a school would in like would like to invite you to come observe. I guarantee you'll see the need for greater support and space and

255this will become a priority for you as it is for me. This is a problem now. Thank you for your time. >> Thank you. Emma Thompson followed by Kathy Hayes. >> I'll wait until cell phones are put away, please. Thank you. I'd like to start off by first saying thank you for whoever was in charge of having Elsie Allen painted. It really does make a difference to our staff and our students. But what I'm really here to say is that I would like to talk about the lack of support that we are getting at LC Allen as a new magnet school. From the looks and the feel of things right now, it seems that you, the district, and the board, the cabinet have not made any active progress in supporting LC Allen in this new

256position that we hold. When other schools have been changed to charter and magnet schools in the district, they saw support and form of student enrollment and marketing. We are not seeing that at LC Allen. I would like to know what your actionable next steps are so that we can get support and enrollment as a new magnet school. I look forward to hearing from you and seeing these actions put in place. I'd be more than happy to have a conversation with anyone involved. Because of the looks it and the lack of action, it looks that you, the board, and the cabinet are okay with Elsie Allen fizzling out. You are okay with us closing. It looks like you are okay with Elsie Allen no longer being a school and part of the Santa Rosa City School

257District. I really hope that you will prove me wrong and I hope to see these actionable steps before open enrollment on October 1st. Thank you. >> Thank you for your comments, Kathy Hayes. >> Two things, just one real quick. Um the facility numbers I'm glad to hear that there wasn't a outreach to principles at the high school level because those numbers at least for LC Allen are not correct. Um based upon my counts we have about 58 classrooms in use for teaching not 48 about eight classrooms in use for supportive functions or part of rented space on the campus. So fleshing that out for high school would be super super important when you're looking at facility needs. Um secondly, I'm just here to ask you to support the decision you made regarding LC Allen. Um

258earlier this year, you directed that LCL become a school of choice. You directed that we become a 712 campus. We're 2 and 1/2 weeks from the start of open enrollment. And to my knowledge, except for some preliminary conversations with directors and cabinet and marketing plans that site is creating, we're not marketing professionals last time I looked. There's been little to no support from the district. We just want to be provided the same resources that were made available when other schools of choice came online in this district. Um, we just ask that you support the decision that you all made and support us in helping us make it happen. Thank you so much for your time. >> Thank you, Kathy. Uh, with that, I'm going to bring the conversation back to the presentation. Um, noting the

259comments, it seems very clear that we need to have a future item that's on specifically the transition at Elen's fully noticed. So, we will get that onto the agenda in a sooner fashion. Um, and I would also refer us back to the discussion on the 4x4 uh schedule and the success that's been going into that work at LC. So, thank you for showing up. We do see you. Um, we'll get that agenda so we can fully have the conversation uh up here. And with that though, I want to return Emanuel to your question about the um the boundaries and if and what you need from us. >> So if you could repeat it. >> Oh, it's my turn. Sure. Sorry. >> I I mean I have ideas, but I want repeat your question and get

260the feedback from us and then we'll go. >> Yeah, let me let me take a look because I think I also have some notes. So let's just check for understanding for a couple of minutes. So the Marquest area um and then we can work from north to south. Um you would like to see it follow the elementary feeder district or would you rather see the historical split of uh Marquest between an island that they used to go to San Rosa High and then uh the other area going to Maria Coreo. So, do we want to roll back the boundary or do we want to move the boundary up so that all of Mark West goes to Piner? >> Can you present all of these questions and then I'm going to go to all of us

261to give him full feedback >> and I and I can, you know, you know, present different kind of maps on, you know, what I'm talking about because there's >> right now can you highlight the areas that you're specifically thinking about? >> Yeah. So, this is the uh detail, right? As I was saying, Mark West goes all the way up the hill this way here. Wait, hold on. >> West. I, you know, I'm kind of think like a teacher. I think I need to point this way if So, um, right. And then Marquest currently is all assigned to Pioner High School. Historically, Marquest was split into two. There was the town going to San Rosa High and the hills to the east going to Mariao. So what this map did took the boundary of Piner and

262moved it to the east to subsume the area that you was assigned to Santa Rosa High and Caro and assign it to Piner. So what I can bring back is the historical Marquest assignment to Santa Rosa High and Maria Coreo and I can you know pretty much flip-flop this area and say okay all of Marquest goes to Pioner or all all of Marquest goes to Mariao and we can look at those four scenarios. Maybe >> we'll give you feedback if you want to go through the rest of the scenarios you want feedback on. Um the other change that was made and I know we didn't really have a time to talk about this was the Santa Rosa high school uh in town change. So historically Santa Rosa serve the full boundary of uh or the

263full city limits which includes pretty much the whole Fountain Grove neighborhood. Um, this map as it currently is assigns these neighborhoods to Mariao um up to Gville Road. I think here is Ste Lane and then coming down um uh there is the uh rural cemetery in um it's it's not Chennet there. It's uh I I want to say oh Franklin thank you. I I I I said west but sorry my brain um Franklin Avenue right and so that becomes um the separation between these two neighborhoods and this is a big change right because historically these neighborhoods were a core of Santa Rosa High because they were part of the city limits now there is this split and then on the south side as I was mentioning my struggle is really what to do with uh

264these neighborhoods that are between the railroad tracks and 101 and where how do we want to split this? If you think about where this population is distributed in this little, you know, slice of town, everybody lives pretty much along 101 either on Santa Rosa A on this side and I know Morland I I I think it's called on on on this other side, right? And so um you know that decision you know like it doesn't really matter you know down here because it's not much populated and it's mostly empty land. So the the decision down here is really what to do with these neighborhoods right and so historically all of this used to attend LC Allen and I think the boundary was right here at Ulupa. >> So I'm going to ask each trustee to

265respond to that request. I'm going to start down here and move down. So trusty creo, do you have any? Nope. Trusty deatory. >> Thank you very much. So I would like to see the Mark West return to the historic boundary of the Mark West Larkfield going to Coreo. That is the number one concern I've received from all of my constituents in that area is that they've moved into that neighborhood. All of their siblings went to Creo. They want their family to continue to go to Creo. And going from Larkfield Wiki up to Coreo is a much shorter distance than to go from there to Piner. Um so historically you go up Mark Rest Road to Reley and you're at Korea um and Wallace Road or from Fountain Grove. I'd also like to see everything Highway

26612 north in the Santa Rosa boundary be shifted to Piner. Um, if that would work or not because right now it's showing all Santa Rosa. When I went to Piner, I lived on West 9th. All of my friends that I grew up with in elementary school that went to Cook historically, they lived in the Folton West 3R Copperfield neighborhoods and they all went to Piner. So that had shifted at some point. So there are shifts and I know there's reasons why. I'm just letting you know my thoughts on what these look like if we can look at it. Um and I'm not sure about the neighborhoods with the south of Santa Rosa. I'm just letting you know what I have relat constituents with or what they're asking me most for. Um and I think it

267would really be helpful to look at numbers of students in these areas so we really know what populations you're trying to work with. so we can make better informed decisions. >> Yeah, there are some very big developments along Iway 12 there, right? Um right around West College where there are like a thousand students. So, we really need to be careful because moving that may really lopside one side versus the other. So, that's this is is going to be a tight rope anyways, you know, like and so there might be some tweaking that we need to do here and there. >> Yeah. And those are just suggestions from things that I've seen work in the past and for what I'm hearing community ask about. Um, >> yep. Trusty Kirby, >> I would also like to see

268that Larfield area back in the Mar Core. I know Murray Creo was uh fairly impacted. So again with the numbers, just want to make sure that there is room to move them if that's what we're going to do. >> Um, that southern boundary of the Morland Again, I don't know how many families are impacted by that. It just it makes more sense to me to kind of have the 101. >> Yeah. >> Go to Santa Rosa. That um that just kind of makes more sense in my mind. Um >> and then also the Santa Rosa High central boundary up towards the >> So the Yeah, the Santa Rosa High. So I guess if you're trying to make room for the Larkfield people into the Maria Creo, then maybe it makes sense to, you know, increase

269that Santa Rosa boundary on the northern part of that, right? To to take some of those away from Korea to make room for the lark field. Is that is that kind of what your thinking is? >> And you know, like and we can bring different scenarios, you know, now attached with actually enrollment numbers, right? so that we can kind of start to get a sense of what we are looking at especially as we start you know in my mind my goal is to balance the attendance between our four schools right we don't want a school with 3,000 potential students and a school with 1100 right because that does not work well right >> if we have you know 10,000 students for high schools there should be you know 2500 at each high school >> we

270have five high schools four neighborhood high schools. We have six high schools actually. >> Yeah. So, uh Trusty P, >> I need I'm a visual learner, so I I can't do that with my imagination, but I just want to make sure that the student distribution is equitable. And then that we're also putting into consideration that by the time that this gets that this gets implemented, we're considering all the middle school students that will be on the high school campuses and you know the concern with impactment. >> Y >> Justine Medina, >> thank you. Um I think one of the important things that uh Miss Thompson highlighted is that open enrollment starts October 1st. Um and and in terms of I believe you're in charge of the school locator. Is that correct? >> That's correct. >>

271So in terms of what people see there um and around the boundaries are again going back to is the plan to show LC Allen for all of the addresses in the district boundaries. I think we need a board action on that or I can just do it. Doesn't really matter. >> Um, one of the things that we are currently working on is the messaging similar to how we messaged the adjustments that were decided last spring. We were when those adjustments have been finalized, we communicated directly to families if they were impacted by a direct boundary change. We um sent messages that because of where you live, you are you were formerly associated with this school, you are now at this school, and here are some of your options. Our goal is once we have the

272finalized decisions about how these boundaries are going to fall out, we would do that same level of messaging. And like we did last year, if there is a an impact to the open enrollment window that unfairly puts families at a disadvantage because there was a decision that didn't allow them the same capacity of time, we would adjust the open enrollment window to allow families the opportunity to thoughtfully consider how they're being impacted. >> What is currently the open enrollment window? October 15. currently October 1st through November 15th. That's our traditional window, providing families ample time to make that decision. And last year, we adjusted the charter window to match that, so you didn't have families applying in October and then other families applying in December and trying to balance that. Um but like we did

273last year, if the decisions made need to require a reopening of window or an adjustment to that window timeline because all of that is driven by our administrative regulations, we have the capacity to be able to do that to honor the needs of our families. >> The um so October 1st is 15 working days away. very short time. It seems like there's a lack of clarity. Um I don't hear clarity on the school locator. I hear you're working on messaging. I don't know how that messaging is working with the sites. Um, and um, I I I do worry again on this school of choice because it seems like as as was mentioned, the support isn't necessarily there. I wonder with seven and 8 becoming a part of that, what is the choice? I hear a

274lot of talk about PBL, but if if you don't even have seven and eighth, what are the PBL programs that are going to be the magnets for that choice? Like what causes you to choose that? And and I really would like to know like realistically, does the district staff feel that you're ready and have enough time to actually do this? um effectively and without disparaging a lot of people and families in our community. So, in the interest of staff being actually prepared to present that information and the board being able to talk about it because we need to agendaize it, I think we've heard and agreed that we're going to agendaize this conversation. Do you have any comments specifically on the four maps in front of you in the question at hand? Yeah. Like again,

275what 15 days from now, open enrollment, people should be able to see accurate information right now, if they're going to be making educated decisions, what's going on the school locator as it's tied to this decision that's tied to these boundaries and these maps and the decisions that these people need to make starting on October 1st and then there's a 45day period. I don't even know that all this information could be ready on our end within that period, much less effectively communicated to the >> uh community. Our next meeting is September 24th. >> I I imagine this should be a major focus of that meeting. I would hope so cuz if not, I think it's extremely irresponsible of this board in our district. So, we'll bring this item back and Draco Oconor and all the people

276we have working on this will be prepared to present. Um, right now, >> and it is important to recognize that the boundary choices that were approved last year are already currently in the school locator. So, it is currently prepared with the choices that were approved by the board last spring, >> but it's not including the choice for Elion to be a part of everybody. That's not included in the locator. Nowhere at any point does an address that you type in ring up Eliana as a choice. So I I agree that these four do but that choice does not pop up for any >> if we can include how choice schools all five of them >> are handle their enrollment as a part of that update um we should do that as well for right now

277I'm going to move this conversation to the topic at hand uh my feedback on these maps uh for the historic area up in the Mark West um I think historic options similar to trusty delatorries 's request is important. I'd also like to see a district boundary alignment option. I think that was one of the commitments we made during the original element of this is we would look at an option that kept feeder district boundaries consistent with the schools they were going to to keep friends together. So, I think we need to see both of those. Um, for the Santa Rosa core area discussion, walkability is a key element of that. We definitely need to expand back up to get the elements up by Proctor Terrace and those areas where students and families are accustomed to

278be able to walk to their school to not have to then drive a significant distance. So, you know, whether that's the historic boundary or there's another way to evaluate that. Um, we need a walkability option for the core area there. Um I I hear director Delator's uh request about a highway 12 north uh Piner. Um I I'd add in an option where we actually look at a hear to the current boundary San Rosa High um boundary with a Hearn South option. um that that could look at her basically feeding to the freeway to to Montgomery in order to accommodate those changes we just discussed at the northern and northeastern end. Um and I think those numbers were looking relatively good in the in in the allocations in there. Um I I think that captures everyone's

279feedback for you and the input on it. Uh, at this point we're at 10:15. Any final comments? >> I have a request. Um, as we prepare to bring it back, can we as board members maybe be given a link kind of like you had before where we could play with a map and see the boundaries or what exists so we could see that capacity information that was provided before based off a site. And I think if it's coming back also requesting that um assuming it's the 24th the the materials that are being communicated to families um what's the budget how is it going to be spread who's doing what all that information I think will be critical to know um whatever marketing materials are being used at that one week before open enrollment opens >>

280and with that and director do you have a last request So again, we cannot reiterate this enough. We're two weeks away from our next board meeting. We have not properly communicated. I think the what everybody's most worried about is the LC current LC Allen families don't feel like they can go somewhere and see that they're allowed to stay at LC Allen. And if we have families going to Santa Rosa because that's what the boundary pops up, then they're worried that we're going to lose too many students and they're not going to know that LCM is an option. So that's it. when we get the presentation, we're looking for ways to make sure that we are um effectively and efficiently letting families and communities know that LC Allen is most definitely an option and these are

281all the great things that are on that campus waiting for you. >> Yeah, we the action was already taken. We don't need to revisit it. That every one that was in the historic LC district has a priority to go to LC Allen next year. So that doesn't require us hearing that again. That that's that's the fact. So, let's make sure that's clearly communicated. Um, with that, I want to recognize that this process is not this is the intended and what we said we were going to do process of looking at adjusting these boundaries after we completed the consolidation and got to a place where we could do it. And it was intended to be based around these other minor, you know, alignments with feeder districts. So, I want to make sure we're staying within the

282scope of the intended work plan that we can do in the time that we've allocated for it. Uh, any final comments, Superintendent August? >> Um, I will just say that yes, we are actually working with our teams on how to what that marketing should look like. So, I don't want people to think that there's nothing been done, but yes, what in the scheme of everything else that that we've had, there has not been enough time to communicate everything that we would like, but agreed that Elsie is um what in our conversation about messaging for those is how do we say that here is your priority as Elsie and you have the other option. So being very conscious of how we word that >> and we look forward to hearing from Director Okconor on all of

283her great work on this. So um with that said, I'm going to go ahead and move the agenda. Uh >> I have a point of inquiry. >> Yeah. >> Um on the vote for the BP4119.24, what was that vote? >> 32. It's a majority. And so just going back to our board bylaws 9323 um that fails because it doesn't have four votes. It's for it has to be a majority of the members constituting the board not of the president. So I just wanted to clarify that >> I'm going to have to go and look at the board reference. Um it was already declared passed and we're past that item on the agenda. So go and look at it was done legally. You could look at it right now 93 to3.2. It's it needs a majority

284of the of the members of the board. So it has to be four members the students or advisory votes. It only got three votes. So it doesn't pass. >> What was the board policy number? >> 9323.2. Uh the board of education shall act by a majority vote of all of the membership constituting the board unless otherwise required by law. If it weren't specifically clarified that it's of all the vote membership, then we would go by Robert's rules, which would be of the members present. But because it's specifically specified that it's of all the membership, then it the four required to pass. And we had received different advice from legal counsel. So give me one second here. I'm sorry I didn't capture what you said. >> We had received different advice from legal counsel and this

285board has taken action on a simple majority in the past, including with votes from you, Trusty Medina. >> Did legal counsel refer to our bylaws? >> Well, that's what we're going to have to look into. Um I can't even where which section within this section of this board policy the very first sentence bylaw 9323.2 We've already addressed it. We've already had it pass. We need this to be reviewed by legal counsel. So, it'll come if it if it is, as you're saying, Director Medina, then it'll be a point well taken and it won't pass and we'll bring it back on the next agenda. Um but if if council advises that the practice that's been used by this board since before I have been on it um of a simple majority is uh supported by something

286in ED code because I don't have ED code 35164 memorized um then uh then we'll go with whatever they say on ED code. >> Well, I just want to make sure that it's clearly documented in the minutes what I'm stating. >> I I agree. We should document in the minutes. it'll and we'll have to bring the policy back if uh if their review is um is that and obviously the past practice will fall. So with that uh do I have a motion to approve the minutes? Motion to approve the minutes of August 27th, 2025. No, it was pulled. Yeah. So sec. Is there a second? >> I second. >> All right. It's been moved by Director Dan Tori, seconded by Director Pat. Uh motion uh roll calls >> director practice here >> she wasn't here.

287>> Oh yeah. >> Good point. >> All right. I got the >> seconded by director Kirby. >> Trustee da Tory. >> Hi. >> Trusty Kirby. >> I. >> Trusty Medina. >> Abstain. >> Trusty Pak. >> Vice President Casten. >> I vote I. And that motion may or may not pass depending on what we determine on simple majority votes of the board. So yeah, with that uh we will note the information items. Uh folks should take a look at them for uh upcoming committee dates. And we will be adjourning at 10:22