Board of Education October 13, 2021

001we are now live good evening everyone thank you for joining us tonight at the santa rosa city schools board of education uh meeting for october 13 2021 and we are going to begin this night um with raina cruz who is our student who will be giving our land acknowledgement tonight i just want to give a little introduction for rayna is rainy here is she in the panel yet uh attendees are still populating so she should show up shortly all right while she's showing up i'm going to speak about her she was born in santa rosa she is a lakota pomo chicano aztec member of round valley indian reservation a youth leader and an activist at age 10 she was awarded a certificate of congressional recognition for community service she's also attending the jc a competitive

002soccer player um a daughter and a sister she grew up being the only child in board meetings and protests with her mother standing for her people and being of service oh she's a she's a graduate of santa rosa high school got that she facilitated her native club and she's a youth board member to the california rural indian health board in sacramento um [Music] and she works it in wally's garden if you want to go take a look and see her um so raina are you are you here and ready to go she is just oh there she is hi everyone i'm in the car today because my house is having some construction right now but okay so reyna i just introduced you so you now have the flora to go ahead and do that land

003acknowledgement for us and thank you so much for being with us tonight of course um hello my name is reina de cruz i want to acknowledge that we are located on the ancestral home of the southern pomo people past present and future we recognize them as the first people and the first stewards of this land we are on occupied territory and acknowledge the ongoing definition of colonization oh thank you so much we appreciate it and good luck at your college career and all that you're doing and i'm going to come see you in wall-e's all right thank you arena let's please stand together and say the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty

004and justice for all thank you i'm going to take a moment to ground us tonight as i usually like to do together here as a community we believe this is very very important and i want to talk to you tonight a little bit about how i'm so proud to be part of santa rosa city schools and that santa rosa city schools is a very robust entity in public education and that we all all of us stand for public education and that it is the bedrock of our democracy we have our doors open to every single student um and that's just the beginning because after they get to us with their focus on diversity equity and inclusion we make sure that we are teaching even though we teach in systems that we are teaching each kid

005one at a time that we find their unique needs their capabilities to uplift each of them um and i see that when we uh are talking to staff and when we see staff that they all recognize uh each child and that those relationships are key so i really want to make sure that we uplift public education we uphold public education we value public education and that without it we don't have that kind of equity that we really need as a community as a state as a nation so thank you for all everybody who has a stake in public education and that is everybody no matter where you send your child whether you have children or not whether you had children or not everybody has a stake in public education so thank you to everybody who's

006participating tonight we appreciate it so we're moving on to reported actions taken in closed session uh that we are upholding this assistance superintendent shepard's recommendation for anticipated litigation this was item before in our closed session and that also we have upheld the existing litigation the recommendation of the uh assistant superintendent shepard case o a h 2021-080463 those were by unanimous by the board of education we're moving on to c5 are there any statements of abstention board members seeing none board members do we have any adjustments to the agenda for this evening seeing none would you please i'm sorry for president i do have an adjustment to the agenda on f5 the contract for shad code design and construction was not included in the uh attachments that we provided so we'd like to pull that item

007for discussion so that you can vote on the ones that we did provide and exclude the shad co at this time and discuss that one later or another date yes we'll bring it back just the clarification did we report out you broke what did you say director medina i said did we report out b5 [Applause] thank you no we didn't rewind back to b5 um [Music] the board considered in closed session student expulsion cases and this um i will read them separately so 2021-2202 um the recommendation by a district was approved 2021-2204 was approved as well and 2021-2206 was approved during closed session thank you armor beth burke would you please pull the public to see if they have anything to ask about the consent items to say sure so if there are members of

008the public who would like to comment on any of the items in the f section of the agenda these are toward the end of the meeting the consent items those items need to be pulled for discussion but we will not have discussion until we get to the f items so if there's anyone who would like to comment on an item in the f section please raise your hand at this time and you can tell us which item that is and i see sheila walker's hand is raised sheila would you please tell us which item f9 and f10 thank you jonathan kuminga f10 thank you and deanna oliveira's i am guessing it just says deanna f9 and f10 and are you diana alabaris yes i am thank you and zoom user could you please state your

009name for the record and tell us which item hi i'm jennifer galluccia and i would like f9 and f10 thank you josh yarnall yes i would like to comment on f9 and 10 as well thank you all right it looks like those are all of our hands raised president paul thank you people thank you for being here early to do that and then hanging on to the end to talk about it um we are now on uh c7 it's time to take public comment on non-agenda items and beth thank you again all right so this is the time in the meeting where we ask our students to comment first so i'm going to lower all hands and this is public comment on non-agenda items if there are any students who would like to comment on

010an item that is not on the agenda please raise your hands at this time so for example if you wanted to comment on covid19 you would not do it at this time because we do have that on the agenda this is things that are not on the agenda students first okay now we will open it to anyone if there's anyone who would like to comment on a non-agenda item please raise your hand at this time our first comment is dr janine wilson [Music] dr wilson are you there all right we're going to move on please raise your hand again dr wilson if you did want to comment so our first comment is sherry cabral okay can you guys hear me yes we can okay good good evening president fong board members and staff i'm sheree

011cabral the secretary treasurer of the north bay building and construction trades council on september 23rd the engineering news record published a study conducted by the illinois economic policy institute based on federally available data showing that the rate of pay and healthcare benefits realized by joint apprenticeship graduates is commensurate with and even exceeds that of individuals with bachelor's degrees there is however one significant differences apprentices of joint labor management apprenticeship programs in the construction trades have zero educational debt in california joint labor management apprenticeship programs train 92 percent of the apprentices statewide over two-thirds of our apprentices are people of color and we train 97 percent of all women who enter into the trades due to our structure there's no gender gap in pay benefits or opportunity we are gender blind ethnicity blind and all welcoming

012these are not jobs their careers but their careers with a wage to sustain a family that offer health care to the member and their dependents in a retirement package from apprenticeship through their retirement add to this the benefit that in sonoma county our apprenticeship programs are partnered with srjc which means that many apprentices are earning calls sheree i'm going to stop you for a second yep this is public comment on non-agenda this has nothing to do with anything later i promise okay thank you um while attending the apprenticeship program so they're duel enrolled and many leave the apprenticeship program only a few courses shy of an aaa with all of these benefits one might ask why these programs are not well known quite simply we don't showcase them enough so what i wanted to speak

013to tonight is to invite the board the staff and in interested parents and students to attend a job fair that's being held on october 23rd from 10 a.m to 2 p.m at the teamsters hall at 1371 neotomis avenue in santa rosa to explore the opportunities for apprenticeship in the construction trades it's an outdoor event all coveted protocols will be followed and we hope to see you all there thank you and president funk just to confirm are we having two minutes for public comment yes thank you okay thank you so everyone we will have a clock that you can watch um to keep track of your time next is carmen molina and this is non-agenda items good evening everyone i'm speaking tonight to address the snacks that are being provided for our children each day the

014kids are being offered a snack that has at least 23 grams of sugar children are not supposed to consume more than 25 grams of sugar per day and we are feeding them this amount in one sitting this is not okay we have a menu that is published and yet many of these foods are not being provided due to supply supply and demand issues my issue is that we need to do better and accept better for our children i'm so happy that we are back in person and hunger is being addressed however i do not accept that feeding our kids empty calories and filling them with sugar is solving anything the idea that at least we have food for them is unacceptable that our kids that are hungry will go hungry if we don't feed them

015this is baloney i am one of those kids that depends or depended on the meals that school provided i ate the healthy food due to hunger not preference we need to look closer at this issue and i demand better for our children please help guide us parents and let us know who is providing this food and who we can contact to have our voices heard thank you for your time thank you next public comment on an item that is not on the agenda is jana oliveiras hello my comment is i'm curious if i know you can't answer me but if the board the school board has any policy on social media and teachers encouraging students to follow them on social media and as well as communicate privately through the messaging systems on social media which

016i'm assuming the school doesn't have access to it's upsetting to me many many junior high and high school teachers are doing this they're grown adults having private conversations with children minors is a huge liability i've talked to my school principal vice principal um i've talked to hr stan was a school district hr um i've sent messages to anna and i'm not going to stop until this is figured out the they're using it as a communication method for homework that is encouraging children to be on apps like tick tock but then be reprimanded for these tick tock challenges that are going around teachers have very disgusting followers and if students comment on these one teacher in particular then she says oh we're out santa rosa's we're at rincon valley school district where are my santa rosa

017school district lincoln valley middle school on october 12th say i'm in front of the campus so if my child's following her or any child my child isn't but i'm sticking out for other children they know where our children go to school she posts a bell schedule somebody knows where my children go to school and their bell schedule and for an adult and a school district and a principal vice principal ryan thompson to be okay with that encouraging students to use their pronouns encouraging weird behavior that i'm not okay with political is not okay parents need to check their children's teachers social media thank you next is karen wagner good evening everyone so i'm karen wagner and i'm a special ed assistant for the san jose city schools and i just want to put out a

018plug for the need for special ed assistants out there it's been a huge rewarding career for me gives me meaning purpose it's become part of my mission um initially when i first started doing it you know what 24 years ago um that really wasn't the case but it's definitely been a rewarding career and and if there's any parents out there that you know you want to have the same schedule as your students if you want to get off the crazy mom train and you still want to be able to be home with your kids in the afternoon you know and get dinner going sports going with all that i mean that's what this position lends to you know you don't have to be on the crazy train and it's a nice calming position but that's

019rewarding thank you [Music] thank you next is kirsten mcconaughey kirsten are you there yes thank you very much i think it was a mishap i'm sorry about that kirsten we can hear you now [Music] i just would like to speak about the santa rosa school district's project labor agreement thank you very much that will be coming up later in the meeting kirsten thank you that's why i said it wasn't mishaps pardon me you got it thank you next is shelby pryor hello can you hear me yes we can good evening um as i was combing through some of your guys's uh archives for things i come across um something that happened on june 10th of but it's just a letter that addresses our community and it talks about uh your stance with black lives matter

020and basically how uh you are in symbolic understanding of the black community and and the things and the atrocities that are going on currently to address some of the things with current uh policies and things that you guys will be voting on here in the near future um i suggest you go back and look at what you guys uh signed your names to uh ed sheffield laura fong um omar uh dr diane jill mccormick jim klaus uh ms de la cruz um and many others who signed that they believe that imposing equity and the ability to give access to everyone under um the conditions that you guys are public servants and standing to engage and report and reform and review all these different matters that go along with people and their individuality i would hope

021that you guys would take the time to go back and read that that piece of information you signed because there's a lot of things that are going on that are excluding people of my nationality and i'm i'm very concerned at the fact that our voices aren't being heard and being put in the hands of individuals who do not look like me and do not hold the same value that i have that's all thank you next a public comment on a non-agenda item is sheila walker hi president bong members of the board and superintendent tranel i would just like to encourage the district to be really creative on how to fill the various staff vacancies that we have in our schools i know that we have vacancies that are being felt across all job sectors but

022i just want to offer as a parent who comes on here with um with often with um other information or a different idea of uh how this board might vote or view an issue i just want to offer my help and ask how we parents can help with this possibly even with the staff that's there we need to get these vacancies feel filled our schools aren't safe with a short staff [Music] we're seeing a lot more bullying we have a lot more behavior issues and um i would really like to see the district come up with an anti-bullying uh social emotional behavior program that could be brought in for all the schools because it's really important this is happening to my son who's a student in middle school he's an 8th grader and i really

023would hope that we could work together to find a way to let people know about the opportunities and fill these positions thank you thank you and president fong there are no more hands raised we appreciate every single person who took the time to um weigh in and and give us your thoughts and of course you can also email us we read all your emails so if you can't speak or you don't want to speak or you can't you know the time just we read emails um we are moving now to reports uh the d section of our agenda and it is time for a csea santa rosa chapter 75 report if there is a representative president or csea could you please raise your hand president fong it looks like there will be no report for

024uh csea this evening thank you so much and do we have a santa rosa teachers association report tonight yes i will be moving over mrs howell so i'm going to say welcome to president catherine howell hi good evening thank you um uh president fong and superintendent chanel and members of the board just a couple of comments about some of the discussions that you're going to be having this evening um first sorry about the glare so e4 thank you for the covet updates um we're happy to see the numbers as high as they are for vaccinated staff um just wanted to let you know that srta would be happy to help to contact those last few members that haven't responded to the district about their vaccination status um so but that's good news so we're all

025moving in the right direction with that um e5 the esther three plan uh srta is a little concerned that uh the spending of 22 million dollars uh and the only input that seems to be organized for people is a google form um which is uh not an inclusive decision-making uh practice and if we are actually fighting for equity and inclusion for all of our families we need to come up with better ways to involve them in these processes that aren't just simply an electronic google form to fill out and call it good so we're looking for more inclusion and more creative ways to invite our stakeholders to comment on that 22 million dollar expenditure that's coming up um in terms of e6 uh srta fully supports the project stabilization agreement just as we are supporting

026our students we need to support their families and we need to ensure that the bond monies that we're spending are going to be spent on jobs that contribute to a living wage that give workers benefits that guarantee skilled workers safe working conditions and also can increase opportunities in the long run for our graduated students who are looking to enter into the construction and building trades so that we're building sustainable job markets through supporting the unions and the trades uh in our building processes so srta very much supports the project stabilization agreement and hopes that you have a very lively discussion on that item um and finally um as we look at some of the contracts that are being brought forward this evening um knowing that we have such an extreme lack of substitutes in our

027district an extreme lack of just staff in general um overextended teachers and we're wondering who who and how do we attend these pull-out days of of release time to meet with trainers um dr acosta is an example of an amazing presentation that everyone should get to see that people can't go to can't attend because there's no substitute for them in their classroom and also combining that with um you know let's have some consistency we're trying to connect with the kids who are trying to put their social emotional needs first and pulling teachers out of their classes to go to trainings um could we just postpone these things put a little bit of some cancel some of the ones that are not absolutely necessary at this point in time take a little stress off the teachers

028give them the opportunity to stay in their classrooms and not be worried about having to figure out how to find a substitute how to organize for a training especially coming off the year we came off of with hours and hours and hours of professional development for every single one of our educators in the district it seems like this is the time to just take a step back and say you know what maybe we don't need that contract right now maybe we don't need that training for our teachers let's leave them in place let's let them stay with the kids and let's let them uh just you know learn in the classroom so thank you for listening thank you for considering these things throughout your discussion this evening and have a great meeting thank you president

029howell superintendent chanelle your report good evening everyone so happy um to be with everyone tonight and um thank you for everyone who's commented this evening today is day 44 of school we are on our way and i have a few things to share today first i want to share lessons from fourth grade so i had an opportunity this week to be in a fourth grade class where the class was very excited to highlight what they're learning in fourth grade history and if you don't know in history social science framework in fourth grade the focus is on california and a changing state so the principal and i were quizzed by these fourth graders and um i am sad to report that we would have not passed the test so two things that i want everyone to

030know and learn tonight is that our state fish is the golden trout and that our state fabric is jeans so two things we've all now learned tonight um which brought such excitement to the students to know that their principal and superintendent um didn't know as much as they did but certainly we were very appreciative to learn from our young scholars that said there are certainly a lot that we have been lifting since the start of the school year and definitely more than we have dealt with in previous years and the fact that we're continuing to deal with kovid is certainly something that we all realize and hope that will eventually dissipate along with that it's very easy to get caught up in the things that aren't going well and what i would like to do

031and what i've been sharing with various groups is that we have a lot of good happening in our schools in our departments amongst our teams and uh so uh for short of you know having something that's too gimmicky um we are going to be pushing forward on a gratitude attitude srcs gratitude attitude campaign we're going to be sharing some of the details very soon with our sites i've received some ideas that i love including how our schools might be in competition with each other around how we do this work uh because there is so much good going on um just a few things that i want to mention i had the pleasure of attending while briefly the art quest showcase recently and to see our families and community supporting our students and all of their

032talent was amazing being at the montgomery piner football game a few fridays ago or a couple fridays ago great energy it was great to see families and students engaging and of course our athletes doing what they do and and just this week we got to witness myself and the principal a young lady who lost her tooth in class right there in the middle of class and the excitement amongst the young students about what that means right and and so there's so much great going on even if it's the little things that we want to capture so we'll be rolling out some additional details and our families and community please be on the lookout for some of this campaign as well and lastly i'll i will end with um how we too are very concerned with

033the amount of vacancies that we have certainly we don't have enough substitutes in our system and this isn't just a santa rosa city schools issue this is a county a state and a nationwide issue so we want to provide some incentives for and to to attract more substitutes more guest teachers as we like to call uh the folks who join our team so we're going to be we're going to be offering a job fair specifically for substitute or guest teacher hiring on october 28th it's going to be in person at the district office we will have a flyer with all of the details and time right now we believe that it'll be about one to five in the afternoon in person um and some of the incentives that we will be looking to outline in

034our communication is increasing the sub pay rates uh which we have various levels and so we're wanting to be certainly competitive but also show that that our guest teachers are valued members of our team and we would love to encourage more people to consider to join our team in addition to that we're looking at a a a bonus that we would provide to our guest teachers after committing to so many days of working with us exclusively so we look forward to rolling that information out and sharing more with you in the coming days and with that i will hand it back to you president gratitude attitude was attitude gratitude attitude i like that we live in gratefulness every day i'm going to ask my fellow board members for their reports first could you just raise

035your hand virtually so i can see your hand um let's start with our vice president joe mccormick thank you president fong um i just have two really quick updates um last week i attended uh one of the three annual um north coast section board of managers meeting um and the minutes haven't been officially published yet and but they will be so if anyone wants you know in-depth details on what was covered in that meeting um just reach out to me and i will get that to you as soon as we have the minutes published um but basically it was a lot of dealing with stepping out of last year and into this year um involving student athletics um and making decisions around the changing changing mandates um regarding athletics and participation in athletics and rules

036that we need to be following district to district lead to league um regarding covet 19 protocols and keeping our student athletes and our fans and supporters safe and our coaches safe so we talked a lot about that and some updates and decisions were made on that and i'm sure all of our athletic directors and our district administrators are aware of all those changes and are communicating those um they also talked about the budget which was hard hit um because there weren't um so many playoffs and seasons were canceled last year but um uh they definitely have a viable budget and made some um adjustments to the budget so they're in pretty good setup going into this year this year things are going really well so far um there have been a few hiccups along the

037way um just like everybody else there's not a manual on how to do this and rules keep changing so um but things are improving and more um sports are being offered and fall is pretty much full go at this point so we're looking forward to that and they were um also finalizing um some decisions as far as ncs goes as far as canceling or rescheduling things um based on fire or smoke days um so that everybody's on the same page with that so if you want the details of all of that um just reach out to me and i'll let you know and then my other quick update is that we um our foundation board for the made in santa rosa foundation which i represent the district on and i'm currently the president of the

038foundation board we're having our meeting next tuesday and at our next board meeting i'll give you an update on what we discussed but we are moving forward we're finalizing our website and um we are about to um file officially for our 401 3c so that we can start actually moving forward especially as uh kobit 19 is um improving and protocols are improving and then we can actually get moving um on some donors and fundraisers and things like that so more to come on that but we're really excited about that and uh former superintendent dr kitamura is now our new secretary on the foundation board so we're really fun to be working with her again too so that's my update thank you very much and that is a foundation to benefit all the santa rosa city

039schools actually it's a foundation to benefit um our middle schools and our elementary schools as the primary focus okay thank you for that correction yes um i see trustee medina's hand up did we lose trustee medina yeah it looks like we lost him i think we did are you here okay somebody tell me if he gets back on and i'm going to go ahead and give a report is there any other board member i don't see anybody else's hand up i think we lost omar uh his computer crashed okay um so i'm i'm going to give a report and actually this is report is really to our staff and it's to my colleagues on the board and the public you get to listen in and it's because it is really hard going to school right

040now we are still in a crisis another phase of the crisis we've been in crisis and people very early on it's only in the first quarter first trimester that people are feeling very tired very burned out and just just rough so this is really to our staffs because i'm retired it's given me the privilege to get to visit schools so i've been visiting schools many of them and i plan to visit all the schools um and i thank the principals for being generous with their time and for teachers for being generous to allow me into the classrooms and once in a while i'll get to speak to the kids um so we're talking about a year and a half a year and a quarter of uh covet and another court of hybrid has left its

041mark indelible mark on our students and while we despair of what was lost to all of us um however we call it we are equally grateful and we note that there's that gratitude attitude and we know that the teachers the staff and the students are really back together and there is joy in those classrooms it looks kind of normal except they have masks on there's a lot of joy about learning and kindergarten academy to 12th grade that we're back together and everybody is doing very heartful work no matter where that child is in her development his development it is full of heart the challenge is abound but the strength and the commitment of our staff to to dive in and to be with each child for what that child needs is just harmful makes me

042emotional thank you to all the staff at every single level where you reach kids whether you're handing out those friendships at school at lunch lines or you're helping someone learn how to make their letters or their sounds or analyze the jungle or or whatever it is the book the knuckle um thank you because you are putting heart and soul and it is really and this is for everybody our stakeholders is incumbent upon each of us each of you to keep weighing in to keep telling us how things are going for you the board makes this decision on our best information we listen we watch we investigate we engage in dialogue we have to make our best decisions given all the information that you can possibly get to us but there's also cost to each decision

043and not everybody agrees with the decision but believe me we agonize over our decisions i am so energized for this work and going to see those kids and this in the staff staff is energized and when things become overwhelming for folks other people pick up the slack and pick up the pace and then people just take turns because we do get overwhelmed people do go into despair um and that's human nature but that's the thing about being together um so i want to call it a few people child nutrition somebody said something about child nutrition today i got to see piners speed lines they got everybody is getting free lunch because this is an amazing thing way more people going through the speed lines right 900 kids going through four speed lines 12 minutes everyone

044got fed they had hamburgers and purposes that day raisins bananas apples sun chips juice and milk is what i saw i know that we have had supply line issues i've seen like sugar cereal and some of the elementary school campuses but the supply lines are bad in the country so we learned about that our nurses amazing jobs our school psychs our attendance people who are front line checking on absences and making sure who's sick who's not sick and who needs a little cove excuse me who needs some testing um are custodians who are ever vigilant cleaning cleaning cleaning even stricter cleaning schedules people who manned the isolation tents the yard duty the campus supervisors when we're not enough and we have absences and physicians aren't filled counselors who are carefully monitoring our students who gave

045up during distance learning and now just trying to catch up like crazy a whole year of catching up tough it is tough um our administrators who are subbing we see you you know that are teachers who are subbing during their prep period that's a tough thing teaching all day and then subbing during your prep when you don't get a break very tough um it takes a lot of vitality to do that to the teachers who do not see a viable way through the challenges of a to g when there's so many challenges and you're doing it anyway you're continuing anyway we see the board sees you i want you to know the board sees you we understand we support you we are continuing to try to do policy i know her superintendent is working very

046hard on it and her cabinet and her directors um the bedrock is really the people in our system giving that commitment giving their all so where we need to where we need to look folks our systems what systems need to change what archaic systems are keeping us in the lanes that no longer serve the very needs that we have and you've heard me talk about this so many times before and i urge you i beg you i give you permission whatever to um keep talking about all those different ways we can do things that are systems because we are we are structured with our systems so what are the changeable parts um for example the junior english teachers santa rosa high school pioneer high school and i'm there might be more sorry who are saying

047that junior english is going to be junior english ethnic studies now and next year and forever they're incorporating all that it's amazing the use of new software that we have that people are piloting for assessment and math help that they're doing that they're trying to find they're trying to diversify ways to get more practice time uh to kids um someone mentioned i excel not sure the program there's so much genius in our in our in our system with all the human beings that we have in our system there's so much genius so let's let's keep working about what are the structures that are keeping us in straight jackets and let's keep thinking about that and to my fellow board members that's what we have to keep thinking about to innovate and create and that's our

048job in terms of policy and anna that i know that you know that it's your job and i know that you're tackling it head-on continuing to drink that fire hose and we thank you and i thank my fellow board members and i thank all our staffs so that is the gratitude attitude thing tonight from me report do we have omar back yes we do yeah i'm here to have my family thank you um well first off i'm wondering if i'll smart a little fourth grader i have to follow up on that but um i i really wanted to just talk about how serving on this board and the work that we do is really hard and difficult at times and we have difficult decisions to make and that impact a lot of people's lives but

049to me i'm very grateful to be a part of such a diverse board and to have an amazing group of you be a part of this and i'm very grateful for that that's part of my gratitude in addition to everyone you thank uh president fong um but i'm also thankful for all the students for all the time and effort that they put in um especially in the situation that we've been in these past couple years for buyers to cobed and parents for being supportive and for getting involved and for always being a part of engaging with us and sharing their opinion uh speaker earlier reminded me of some of the great work we've done our statement of black life matters um you brought up ethnic studies i i think we've done some incredible work i

050was glad to hear that the governor um decided ab101 last friday that's going to make epic studies requirement for all students in california so i'm very grateful that i'm a part of such an amazing board and such a difficult time doing such uh difficult work but with all of you all and all of our staff it it allows me to feel good so i'm grateful to all of you thank you trustee medina okay no other board members got their hands up i think speak up if i'm missing you i'm not seeing your hands i'm going to move on to the csba report i'm just going to say this about csba for your edification california school board association what is it that is the association that helps school board members do their jobs they train us

051they have workshops they're they lobby for full and fair funding for schools they're they're big lobbyists for schools they do good work in terms of what is good for kids and um staff schools everything so we thank them um [Music] period end of story okay we're moving on the items one action public board meeting via teleconferencing per ab 363. am i reading that right can see 361. 361. superintendent chanel thank you board president fong members of the board um staff in our community tonight we bring to you information and potential action on the board's part to consider the continuance of our public meetings in a virtual platform on thursday september 16 2021 our governor gavin newsom signed assembly bill 361 into law which gives local agencies including leas or local educational agencies governing boards the

052flexibility to continue to conduct public meetings virtually some things to consider is that ab361 authorizes until january 1st 2024 and lea to use teleconferencing or a virtual platform for public meetings without complying with certain brown act requirements in any of the following circumstances the legislative body holds a meeting during a proclaimed state of emergency and state or local officials have imposed or recommended measures to promote social distancing the sonoma county uh health department has declared this and therefore um notwithstanding ab361 also specifies that if a local agency determines uh that it would like to continue in a virtual platform that we would continue doing the notices that we've actually been doing already and allowing for public comment to be accessed and not putting a hold on those comments once a board meeting begins and ultimately

053that this would have to be something that happens every 30 days by the board in order to continue virtual meetings board president fong tonight the board is asked to discuss and consider whether the board meetings the public board meetings would continue virtually and with that i hand it back to you for president fong what questions do we have board members um director jenna cruz thank you um i i think the question that i have is really around whether or how we've been tracking participation virtually versus participation in person um i'd be i'd be really curious to know i feel like most school districts across the country have actually experienced increased participation in a virtual platform as well as um you know i know it can be very difficult to listen to an entire conversation that's

054being translated but it also that that consistency in translation um that happens during zoom um i'm also curious about the impact there so i wonder if we'd have we have any data um and if we're tracking demographics of the people who are attending attending our virtual meetings versus in-person meetings and then my my last question is whether or not we have surveyed our community and ask them this question do we want to answer that superintendent thank you director de la cruz we certainly have data that we can pull together on past meetings even pre-covered understanding and understandable that it i believe based on my experience in the district and observing our meetings virtually we have had the fortune of having more participants virtually than we would in person um one previously there would have been

055a threshold of the number of seats that were in the space where we met and currently um if we were to return to that space right now and that would be city hall for those who are not aware there are social distancing stipul stipulations that we would have to follow if we were to go back to that venue uh with only the allowance of 17 attendees to be in person in the space um so if people were to want to come and there were more than that who were wanting to make public comment people would wait outside and get in line to do that we certainly could look at other spaces that are in our schools um however there is encouragement that if we do that we would still offer a virtual option so a

056hybrid um and in that there are it's not impossible but certainly there are technicalities that could hinder some of the access based on that so we can certainly look into the data collection piece certainly and i've forgotten your second question oh did we uh pull the community we have not done an official poll this item tonight is the first time that we are able to bring this forward publicly as a discussion and so we will be entertaining public comment on this item i'm going to call on uh clerk every florist um i think you answered my questions i mean uh my question was what would it look like i mean if we if we were to go back to um to in-person meetings and have you looked at other spaces so i i think you

057just answered that um thank you president flores i mean president um [Music] back at you and uh trustee sheffield i am just wondering if there's any way that we can quickly survey the school community and try to get a sense of what their preference might be it's true we've seen a lot more participation yeah it makes our jobs harder but you know people are in the community are given a voice they're able to speak up and participate in a way that they maybe couldn't before people that are home with families home with kids um so you know it might be um i guess what i'm proposing is that maybe we try to do a little bit of outreach and get a sense of um of those people those 107 people who are participating right now

058um and um and you know more that we've seen um in previous meetings to sort of get a sense of um of you know get their take on this just a thought okay i see no other comment questions so right now i'm going to open this up to public comment so if you're members of the public who are students um please raise your hands at this time if you'd like to comment on item e1 any students would like to comment on e1 and now we'll open it to any member of the public who would like to comment on item e1 please raise your hand and it looks like liz burch would like to comment hi uh thank you um yes i had a question um so what parts of the brown act requirements are the

059board currently not complying with in other words they don't need to comply with these things during these sorts of emergency meetings so what does that mean i'd like to have an answer to that question somehow and along those lines looking at the closed part of the meetings i'm curious how the public can find out at least what lawsuits are or what litigation is before the board if one is interested and so those are questions i don't know how to get those answers but i would uh be most interested in that and i would just say that i do really think that there's been incredible participation with these meetings and i hope they continue forever because as a parent uh i have to be home right now um so i could actually participate and i i

060would love to see it continue but of course i would definitely want um the brown act to be followed and open meetings when we can go back in person too thank you next is deanna oliveiras hi i think that it should definitely be a hybrid option um because some people can't make it in person and this is their preferred method i think that scientifically speaking it's really hard to say zoom is the reason why so many parents are showing up um you know the reason why so many parents are showing up to meetings now is because oh it's you know through zoom um that's all we've had since covet and i think it's more of a matter of parents being fed up not a matter of parents being convenienced by zoom i would like to

061be in person and if there's only 17 people that could fit in that room i think all of us passionate parents would wait outside until midnight and i think that's the best thing to do parents so that we can network and exchange email and phone number and create our own homeschool pods for when we're so fed up we pull our children so everyone needs to advocate to have both because counties all over california with worse numbers than ours look them up are in person school board meetings so i feel like it's very weird that we don't have that option and i feel it's weird that it's brought as an action item without community consent and i think anything that's brought as an action or consent item without knowledge without stakeholders input is tyranny pretty much

062because we get to wait for four to six hours on this call and prepare and dinner and help our kids and bathe our kids and we get to talk for two minutes if we're lucky and if we don't forget to raise our hand in the proper time and if we forget to remember you know remember that we actually had a question so what we're doing to be able to speak a few minutes i think you you guys need to realize how long we listen to you talk thank you next is zoom user could you please state your name for the record hello it's jennifer galucia again and i absolutely adore the idea of having either or in this day and age i feel like the safety not only with corona but with everybody being so

063passionate having the ability to to be heard and there's no actual physical incident unfortunately that's where we are so i can agree we need to continue having as many parents participate because it's our kids and if it's not our kids who's it going to be it's our future so we have to get involved i appreciate all you guys doing i know you guys are just there and most the time you're just the messenger and we appreciate you so thank you thank you next is motorola one could you please state your name for the record person with the name motorola one could you please state your name for the record do you still want to comment can you hear me now we can hear you would you please state your name sir gerald stahl you guys

064know who i am but i disagree with the zoom to be honest with all you guys i don't think there's any connect through this zoom you guys can't see the the the anger or the feelings that parents have towards you guys or the situations or you guys policies that you vote for or approve so i think it is highly recommended that you guys need to see parents in person that way you guys can see how this is affecting parents and your guys decisions and not just hide behind a screen because i don't think you guys really understand that you guys your decisions are affecting parents and kids in a negative way so i i would i would go for in person that's it thank you and president fong there are no other hands raised thank

065you to everybody who weighed in to give your opinion um board members what other comments do you have on this and i see a hand up trustee mccormick's hand up right now go ahead and then trustee medina's hand up i just want to ask a clarifying question that this action item that we're voting on is basically we're saying that we are going to be in compliance with the mandate set by ab361 and we are not making a hard decision tonight on whether we are continuing virtually or in person or a hybrid this is just an acknowledgement of what the rules are regarding um the situation that we're in and meeting virtually and how we maintain um in compliance with the brown act and such am i correct on that um or president fong would you

066like me to take that yes okay it is my understanding that in order for us to even though the county has recommended that leas or local agencies per emergency order that we are allowed to continue to meet virtually the per ab361 the board does need to take action every 30 days in order to maintain a virtual platform if you do not take that action tonight then we will be meeting in person at our next meeting okay thank you that's very helpful um and so i think that we still need this as a viable option for now so with that i'm going to make a motion to approve uh item e1 public board meetings via teleconference per ab 361 so that we have options moving forward and that we are in compliance and following the law

067a second all right and also um director mcdaniel you have a comment yeah so um just uh some questions if we could add just to support the um in relation to the space that we use um superintendent do you know the the cost the normal cost that we pay for that that's a great question i'd like to lean on deputy superintendent edson uh director medina could you repeat the question please i missed the last part of it oh the the costs that we paid for using that space of the city council space uh it's uh if memory serves it's been a while uh it's an hourly rate based on six hours uh i wanna say it's about 125 dollars an hour for the uh city employee costs included as well the other question was given

068the existing restrictions um we we wouldn't be able to use a traditional closed session space [Music] i'm also wondering if a hybrid is a viable option meaning we are still on zoom we are together in person the board and people can weigh in distance and also they can weigh in in person is that a hybrid option such a thing that is correct that would be the hybrid option so wherever the board is meeting physically in person we would have to provide space for the public to be with you in the same space and therefore looking at you know what spaces are available to us whether that's going back to city hall or using a space here in the district we would have to provide space in the same room where the board is residing for

069the meeting i know that city council has uh space restrictions very pretty strict space restrictions would we have those same space restrictions at our boardroom our district so if we were to host if the board were to meet in the board room here at 211 ridgeway then we would have to provide seats in the room for the public even if it was minimal and then we would provide a spillover space that people would then be able to interact virtually in that space we would then offer the opportunity for people to come over to do public comment in person uh with the board with the expectation to go back to the spillover room because of the limited space in that boardroom we need to renew this every 30 days is that right superintendent that is correct

070yes okay so um that gives us some time to um get some public input besides just tonight also feedback from more parents who are not watching tonight correct i like i think that's an important thing to hear from our stakeholders um director daley cruz yeah i i would love also if we could survey uh other other bodies within the jurisdiction of the county to understand what um they've done and how it's gone um whether it's hybrid or continued virtual or um you know in person with strict limitations so if we could also survey other bodies within the jurisdiction that would be great all right folks there's emotion on the table's been seconded moved and seconded um deanna may we have that vote please director mccormick aye director medina aye director de la cruz hi director

071sheffield hi director flores hi president vong hi thank you we are going to take a minute for an interpreter switch thank you we're all set thank you all right thank you uh we're moving on to e2 this is action approval of resolution recognizing october 2021 as filipino american history month and superintendent anna trunell will be presenting that to us tonight yes thank you again for president fong members of the board our staff and community i'm actually very honored tonight to bring forward this resolution it has a personal connection for me as one of my grandmothers was half filipino and i posthumously would like to honor her and everyone that is a part of this community tonight and bring forward to the board resolution 2021 22-15 recognizing october 2021 as filipino american history month the filipino

072american history month began in 1992 done in recognition of the contribution culture and heritage that filipino americans brought to the united states from the philippines when they arrived in october of 1587. california is home to over half of the filipino population in the united states and the location of historic filipino communities such as los angeles san francisco stockton vallejo delano san diego and salinas among others there are many many notable uh individuals in society who are a filipino descent who are contributors in our communities as well as the many community members right here in santa rosa and amongst our own staff who are also contributors um and should be celebrated and so with that i hand it back to you board president vaughn thank you there are a lot of names here on this agenda

073that in many many areas of people of distinction um questions from the board and we have uh no hands up so i'm going to open this to public comment right now if there are any students who'd like to comment on item e2 please raise your hands and now if there are any members of the public who would like to comment on item e2 please raise your hand at this time and deanna oliveiras would like to comment hi i figure it's me again i figured i'd rather figure like comment since i'm going to be here until probably midnight um so what am i commenting on the um filipino heritage month day i'm wondering because we're trying to be so inclusive if we're going to include every culture nationality for a day um because i think we

074should i don't think we should limit it because we're really trying to be inclusive so i think you know we should set a goal it should be an agenda item it should be a consent item next time and we should make a list of all the days and just pass them in one big swoop because i think we all deserve recognition no matter what nationality you are no matter where your ancestors are from if you work hard you deserve recognition and i think it's important for us to tell our children that and tell our children all stories because you know we're sitting in front of a zoom screen you don't know what nationality i am i'm multiple nationalities and like shelby pryor said earlier i don't feel like i'm represented and i quite honestly feel

075discriminated against by this board so thank you and next is motorola one which i am guessing is mr gerald stahl yes it is i agree with deanna to be honest with you guys you know what's going on lately and i'm sure you guys are all aware of it you got the the whole anti-white american thing going on and you know being a white male myself how do you how do you guys think that affects me or my kids you know we feel we feel disconnected from you all races are uh recognized appreciated celebrated but when it comes to the white american male you know to be honest with you guys we're kind of on and we're looked at like we're low people so you know you guys got to take that into account because there's

076a lot of white people here that feel that way so that's what my input is thank you next is sherry marini hi i'm actually hi can you hear me we can hear you oh perfect i actually am here tonight representing um abc norcal which um is not speaking in regards to um the indig we're on the indigenous people section is that correct we're actually talking about filipino heritage month sherry is that what you'd like to comment on um i'm actually with the other section a little bit farther down okay i'm attending with nicole gary we will call on you later when we get to that item thank you six and next for a comment on item e2 the resolution recognizing filipino american history month is john mack and taggart john are you there we cannot

077hear you unfortunately mr mac and taggart we cannot hear you president fong it looks like there are no other there are no other hands raised are there any other uh okay so we i see a comment from vice president mccormick i was just going to make the motion that we approve the resolution recognizing october 2021 as filipino american history month all right so that was moved by jill mccormick and i think there was a tie so i'm going to go with uh director sheffield and we can vote on that i just want to add a comment director medina has his hand up oh yes you do thank you yeah just on the issue i just wanted to acknowledge that yesterday mary a young was invested into the california hall of fame it was a filipino

078american so i just wanted to add that because it seemed relevant thank you we can have that vote now director mccormick aye director sheffield aye director de la cruz aye dr flores aye director medina aye president phong aye thank you thank you superintendent we are moving on to e3 and action item this is a resolution proclaiming october 11 2021 as digital indigenous people's day and we are going to have that presented to us by uh clerk trustee ever flores tonight why thank you president fung and thank you to the center city school board for bringing this particular resolution it is my honor to present this resolution proclaiming october 11 2021 as indigenous peoples day it is estimated that there are more than million indigenous people spread across 70 countries worldwide practicing unique traditions they retain

079social cultural economic and political characteristics that are distinct from those of the dominant societies in which they live spread across the world from the arctic to the south pacific they are the descendants according to a common definition of those who inhabited a country or geographical region at the time when people of different cultures or or ethnic origins arrived the new arrivals later became dominant through conquest occupation settlement or other means indigenous people's day recognizes that native people are the first inhabitants of the americas including the lands that later became the united states of america this resolution is an honor and supports all indigenous people and with that the uh president fong i hand it back to you thank you thank you for that questions board director medina yeah um i just wanted to um ask

080and clarify um i think i know why it was changed to october 11th versus october 12th which was the date that it originally started in the presidency when i wrote 2019. um i know the october 11th is how the federal government recognizes it but it's based on the october 12th date um so later i plan on proposing that we change it to october 12th as that's based on the landing of columbus and the americas which is traditionally what that date indigenous people day is recognizing click flores uh yes a suggestion to our superintendent if we can bring this item on in september for next year instead of october so um we're ahead of the curve thank you i'm going to open this to public comment at this point are any students who would like to

081comment on item e3 the resolution proclaiming um moderator can we can open this item to public comment can you hear me now yes great thank you if there are any students who would like to comment on item e3 please raise your hands at this time and now opening it up to any members of the public any members of the public would like to comment on item e3 please raise your hands at this time and deanna oliveira's has her hand up again just as i said for the filipino heritage month um and i don't have to say this but i guess because everybody looks at race i have to say this just as anna did my children are native american they're enrolled tribal members they have bia numbers but i shouldn't have to say that because

082it shouldn't matter because we should be inclusive enough to include everybody but we are not and especially when the last comment i made it's very condescending the way everyone smirks and the way omar says oh just to let you know filipino whoever whoever is hall of fame and everyone smirks and we can't we can't see the chat and we can't see what's behind your videos it's very condescending and you are all condescending to the public a lot and i video record this and as leaders laurie fong and anna terrell you if you're leaders it's up to you to stop it because i think it's very disrespectful and again here you are the six or seven of you voting on something that have have we weighed in i have three kids in the school district have

083i weighed in have you asked everybody but because people ignorantly voted for some of you you're able to make these rules there should be a precedent you should ask for stakeholders feedback before it even makes it to this part i'm done next comment is shelby pryor hello can you guys hear me yes we can as a biracial american in america watching how individuals want to claim inclusion we've been spending a lot of our time trying to figure out how to segregate ourselves malcolm x says something that made a lot of sense we should be chasing what the lord has to say versus what men have to say no one's sitting on this board currently has the jurisdiction to tell me where i'm from i'm half black and half white i grew up in vallejo california

084so technically i'm a vallejo californian and that's where my my my understanding of life comes from the diversity in my community is much greater than the diversity in your community that i'm currently living in i find it very shameful that we spent a majority of our time trying to argue over what part of the dirt we've claimed and and what type of people we're going to become based off of you know our heritage and and these things that we're pride felt about but they say one great thing pride comes before a fall i'm watching the american society get torn apart based on something that i've been dealing with my whole entire life you're setting our children up and every future person up for failure by doing so you can be proud of where you're from

085but it doesn't change the content of your character if your character is minimal it doesn't even matter where you're from so while you guys are you know creating these these obstacles and these hurdles for these young people to deal with i'm i'm a result of someone who's had to deal with these things that have been going on freedom is for everyone not just because of where you're from or what you your ancestors have accomplished mayan thank you mr prior but time is up our next comment on item e3 which is the resolution about indigenous people's day is gerald stahl yeah i i disagree with you guys on it i mean you know i i can see respecting everybody and having a day for everybody but in the reality you guys are trying to stomp out

086columbus day for this day i mean pick a different day and just roll with it you guys you all were taught about columbus this you know what are you guys really trying to do here i mean what what is it it's pointless to do all it does is cause issues with other races and different people i grew up you know columbus was taught to me columbus was taught to every single one of you people sitting on the board every single one of you and you guys still can sit here and even entertain the thought of trying to stomp out that day just to give somebody else what what are you giving somebody else more recognition then why can't you give a different race more recognition it doesn't make any sense and as far as flora

087is his comments let's face it history is being it evolves every day there's new stuff that comes out there's new discoveries that come out so who's to say that anybody was here first was flores alive back then no one would hear on planet earth was alive back then to tell me that they've seen this with their own two eyes that this is true so to stomp out a columbus day for indigenous people it makes no sense it's offensive to me in in a negative way because i am white and columbus is to me something that i celebrate and i'm sure it has in your past been something to you that you've celebrated too so you guys probably should think of a little bit more before we go and pass a resolution that's it next comment

088is gerardo magana lopez yeah hi can you guys hear me yes we can all right on yeah well christopher columbus actually found the uh united states by accident when he showed up he called the native americans indios because he thought he was in india so he was actually a poor navigator he also raped and pillaged and murdered so i don't think we should celebrate him anymore so i am in agreement with you guys and i think the native american people should have their day or month or whatever you guys prepare to give them and these are facts these are not opinions this happened it is known and it might not have been taught around when the guy before me speaking was in school but we know this now so uh i mean this country has

089a history of celebrating people who were slave owners and rapists and you know they're on they're on bills they're on currency and they have their own mountains with their faces on it to say that you're a caucasian male and you don't feel represented in the united states it's just it's ignorant so i am agree with you guys and i think the indigenous people should have their day or month whatever you prepare to give them that's all i got to say thank you and president fong there are no other hands raised i'd like to pardon i'd like to move to approve the resolution proclaiming october are we going with the 12th 2021 as indigenous people's day all right the motion is uh resolution proclaiming october 12th 2021 is indigenous people's day and seconded by that was

090motioned by director de la cruz and seconded by director flores so let's have that vote please director de la cruz hi director flores aye director sheffield aye director mccormick aye director medina very resound and very proud i president excuse me i all right that passes thank you so much we are moving on to e4 it's discussion on the covet 19 updates and this goes to superintendent truenel thank you and thank you for bringing over mr mizera board members of the board president fong staff and community we bring forward to you tonight some updates that have occurred in recent days and weeks that gives additional insight to direction and guidance that we as a district need to pay attention to and so i'm going to hand it over to mr mazara to give some of those

091highlights now thank you very much superintendent uh trunnell uh president fong and board members i think uh you know we've had discussion on this a couple of weeks ago obviously and so at this point i'm just going to highlight some of the changes and things that have happened over the last couple weeks and i'll end with a little bit on the governor's uh uh announcement that happened um first of all i just want to the local county guidance uh there's been uh contact tracing that has been around exposures what would have been called brief exposures for students that would be masculine let's say in passing in the hallways or passing each other just outside in brief moments and so there was clarity around this week that that is not considered cumulative in the amount of

092the 15 minutes that counts for close contacts that's just been kind of a clarity that we've got provided this week another clarity that came through is now public health is suggesting that vaccinated students don't need to be a part of our regular regular surveillance testing to be clear the board has not taken action on surveillance testing and we provided some information about that last time but just the guidance if if that becomes a topic for consideration in the future they're suggesting that vaccinated students do not need to be part of regular surveillance testing and then i wanted to let the board members know that we are currently under the the current order under the county we are testing uh unvaccinated staff people um we have a total about of about 88 i think that went

093down to 87 yesterday because someone was able to turn in their vaccination card and so that's the county program where they have to provide weekly testing and so we're doing that testing we're accommodating employees by those that want to do it at their school site we're doing we're bringing our testing vials and staff members are self-testing once a week that way we also have testing at our louis facility and then their staff members also have an opportunity to have it done privately and just let us know or inform us uh weekly so we're kind of tested we're kind of going through those um i want to announce that we'll be sending this out officially also here is that we've we've increased the number of days that we're available for at lewis so we are doing

094at this point four days from 2 30 to 5 every day for students and families that are non-symptomatic and we're opening that same time up for staff so basically we're open four days a week now at lewis from 2 30 to 5. again we're not ready to do symptomatic but i've had a very optimistic phone call today with the county and we may be looking at that very soon so hopefully by our next board meeting we may be able to announce a partnership but we can do that as well and then the last thing i just want to draw attention to you know we we published uh weekly our covet dashboard and the number of cases we have you know and generally since about the beginning of september we've been about 10 to 12 cases

095we had a very low case rate last exposed cases last week but i expect it will bounce back up to the 10 to 12 rate and that overall gives us uh numbers that put us in kind of a low transmission rate uh at our schools and what we're doing so i just kind of want to make sure boards you were aware of that and then the last thing um that we can talk about um although i i'm going to bring the caveat that we don't necessarily know a lot right now the governor's announcement that he will be requiring mandating for vaccines for both students and staff at some point i think at this point the question is the date to be determined there's some language around beginning in january and some in july and we

096don't have anything firmer on it on our end and we ask at our weekly covid meetings but there has been nothing firmer on that um and then and then under the governor's orders there is something of course around uh religious exemptions and medical exemptions that is still to be determined um so there's nothing i can really bring any any more solid information on that at this point we are expecting further information uh we're expecting our legal firms to kind of help us with some guidance through that and so uh more on that as it becomes available and with that i turn it back to the superintendent or the board thank you mr mizera the last piece that um that i'll add on to what mr mazara just shared with everyone is that with the changes

097and shifts that occurred in recent in the recent weeks we are looking at multiple policies that we currently hold and waiting for some direction from csva on what those policy updates are going to be especially since this is coming as an order there will be following legislate legislative language and policy instead of us creating that on our own we should be following suit as it pertains to what legal is uh providing to us so we will bring that policy information to you as soon as we are able to get language and advisement on language and with that i'll hand it back over to you president fong i'm going to call on our clerk uh every flores has this hand up thank you president fong um dr tranel could you explain a little bit about why

098our numbers for our guests teachers or our subs it's pretty high in terms of well there the vaccination rate is pretty low and in terms of no response i mean we have about 34 of them can you explain um what happened why we have those numbers and what's our policy regarding you know hiring teachers or subs or teachers or guest teachers that um do not respond or decline to state i will add i will start and then if mr mizera has any additional information please jump in the first thing that i'll share is that the guest teachers that we have the numbers that are represented here are those who have selected to work at some point with us and or or are um choosing to take on assignments um with us there are far more

099substitutes in the county as many of our guest teachers or substitutes also serve other districts in the county so with that we do ask uh to collect that information from them if they would like to continue working with us and i believe in new processes going forward when substitutes begin the road to becoming a guest teacher in the county the county office the sonoma county office of education is requesting that vaccination information going forward so we're trying to collect from those who are in our system to serve as guest teachers for us and depending on the information that they've provided to us their contact information they are choosing whether they want to respond to that or not and some of our guest teachers are actually who were previously guest teachers for us are choosing not

100to be guest teachers right now which might attribute to some of that lack of response um as well uh mr mizera anything else no nothing let's go ahead so so if the follow-ups i'm sorry um so what happens if if if a guest teacher or sub declines to state or you know it is it isn't vaccinated what's needed what's our policy in terms of hiring uh that guest teacher or substitute mr missouri do you want to speak to um those that we might be testing right so i i am aware that we are testing some that they're like any employee if they chose not to they're supposed to be doing our weekly testing and we're tracking those like any employee so i can't speak to maybe perhaps assistant superintendent shepard can speak to the numbers

101of those i'm aware of they're they're put on my radar as the coordinator of that and then i put them through the weekly testing process and make sure they are being tested so that that's what i can speak to i don't know assistant superintendent shepard that's helpful thank you yeah that's correct so with that um the law currently states that anyone who would be considered a worker within our system would follow the same guidance that we would have for any employee and so they're either declaring their vaccination status with us if they decline to state or are simply not sharing that information with us then they will be subject to testing in the case of a guest teacher if they refuse to do that we are not accepting them into our system thank you would

102anything preclude us from being more strict with guest teachers that if they declined a state we will not hire them or if they're not vaccinated we would not hire them i think we would have to look at the language of the law board president fong as they are categorized as a worker and so there are outlines specific for workers this goes to any construction workers or anyone else that's also doing work on our campuses not just guest teachers so it's a broader category also because sonoma county um office of education is sort of the first leg in the guest teacher or substitute teacher process they also have some jurisdiction and how those individuals start so we certainly do have an ability to take a look at that language and see what we would like to

103do differently but i just want to highlight that if we specify it for this group we may need to look at all of the other groups who also work on our campuses you know that's interesting because certainly construction workers are roof the hvac employees are not in front of kids all day long and our guest teachers are i'm very interested in finding that out i am not in favor of having them in front of our kids unvaccinated frankly um okay this is discussion item and i s i'm gonna open it up to public comment at this point so i'm gonna lower all hands as is our practice and ask that any students who would like to comment on item e4 please raise their hands at this time and now we'll open it to anyone in

104the public who would like to comment on item e4 please raise your hand this is the coven 19 updates and our first comment is mozain blake zane are you there hello hello we can hear you is this mozain yes it is thank you good evening if the state of california continues forward with vaccine mandates i will be homeschooling my two children if there is a statewide school walkout on monday october 18th in protest of vaccine mandate if you oppose vaccine mandates keep your child home on monday october 18th let your school know that you are keeping your child home in protest of that vaccine mandate thank you thank you next is jamie stagle hello can you hear me yes we can my name is jamie stagle and i have a high school student i want

105to tell the board that i do not envy any of your spots right now so thank you for being here i'm asking the board to stop the covet vaccine mandate for all students to receive in-person instruction for all of the naysayers they'll say that we've always had to have vaccines to be able to go to school and those vaccines used enabled viruses the covenant vaccine uses mrna technology that has never been used in humans until now therefore they are not comparable you uh board are here to ensure that our students receive quality education and the vaccine requirement will medically discriminate our children and ultimately deprive them of that quality of education the narrative being pushed is that vaccinating all students will be a safer environment and we all know that a person that is vaccinated

106can still contract the virus and spread the virus the same for an unvaccinated person if it's really about health and safety why aren't we considering a person's antibodies antibodies for the virus isn't that the whole point of getting a vaccination and then why aren't we considering testing options you as the board may think that you're maybe not qualified or you're ill-informed on making public health decisions and you're probably right so we'll and so you'll just follow whatever the health department says and i want to inform you that orange county school board has already announced that they are going to be filing a lawsuit against newsome for the vaccine mandates the entire norwalk la miranda school voted against the mandates they are standing up and protecting the parents rights over their own children's medical decisions please

107stand up please protect our medical freedoms thank you and thank you for being mindful of the two-minute time limit our next comment on item e4 is shelby pryor hello can you hear me yes we can i want to circle back around to my earlier comment on the black lives matter issue you guys are quoted saying whether you are a parent student staff member or member of the community participate in our meetings of reserve us agitate us challenge us and hold us accountable join us to contribute to a greater community of compassion equity and justice for all after witnessing your actions as a board over the past year i can say that you have completely contradicted your statement for supporting blm shelby is this about uh the issue at hand right here we're talking about copenhagen

108yes ma'am it is and you're interrupting my time um this is the issue here is that you guys are creating an issue for people and segregating them based on medical information that you have no clue whatsoever about towards anyone's individual health constraints how can you sit there and tell me to be vaccinated knowing that there can be side effects which one of you are going to choose your children that are going to that could possibly die from being vaccinated which one of you going to choose your grandma or your brother or your sister or anyone else who are you going to choose to say well you know if we save a thousand people and one person dies from the vaccine oh well well let it be my child and see how that turns out for

109you let that be someone else's child and see how that turns out for you you guys are making decisions that are not only disrespectful but wrong 100 all i can say to you is as a black person as a mixed person the tuskegee experiments is enough for me to tell you that you will not mandate a single thing for any minority you want to give us indigenous people day and filipino day give us choice of our own body day how about for the rest of our life because you do not mr steve or mr sheffield or mike mr pryor your time limit has been reached thank you for your comment next is deanna olaveras um shelby give me a call we'll organize 703-9742 i highly am offended that you interrupted a parent speaking when the

110last time there was a hispanic person talking about raping and murdering people and nobody interrupted them especially with children listening i i find that but then somebody brings up a opposing an opposition to blm obviously a parent that's here every month a biracial parent and you you try to cut them off it's because color only matters if you we agree with you and the fact of the matter is when covet first happened how many surveys did you guys put out to parents i know everyone's checking their tinder right now you guys are just looking at your phone that's all you do on these calls it seems like how many how many things have you sent out to parents to ask us if we're gonna do hybrid if we're gonna have our kids in school or

111if we're going to homeschool our kids or pool our kids we had we had surveys all week long every week every month because you were worried about money because if we pulled our kids you don't get money but now all this coveted funding grant is here and whether we homeschool our kids you still get the same amount of money whether our kids are in your seat if we're still in your school district you still get the same amount of money and it's sad that it boils down to money because you are asking us what we want and obviously if everybody disagrees with a few people that are talking tonight you would think they would raise their hand but are they raising their hand to speak no they're not if they totally disagreed and we were

112talking like craziness off the walls they would probably raise their hand to disagree but are they they're not because what we're saying the few of us that are bold enough to speak are resonating with people thank you miss laveras and thank you for being mindful of that two-minute time limit next is liz burch hi uh yes i do totally disagree with the parents that are speaking uh in terms of the vaccine um i do support getting vaccines for the kids uh i certainly wished that we hadn't got to a point where we are going to have to mandate vaccines upon people's children who don't want them i think that's a terrible state of affairs what i would have liked was for us to follow the science and understand that i would like my child to

113be protected and i would like my family to be protected and i would like everyone's family to be protected here and what we're dealing with is the opposite of that but it's being twisted and that's the sad part about this as far as attacking people goes this is going on and on and on so what's happening here is now certain people are not following rules to care about other people's children and now they're hearing that they're going to be forced to do something they didn't want to do which was to take care of everyone's children not just their own i'm very angry about this i think it's uh completely misdirected to attack the board about this i i'm sitting here listening to this what i call bs uh and i am upset about it i

114would appreciate people caring about each other's children and not just their own and that's all i have to say and i've saved some seconds there for us to actually do some business that have to do with education thank you thank you miss burch and next is jay willis could you please state your full name for the record mr or miss willis are you there yes uh yes can you hear me we can could you state your full name please yeah it's uh john willis sorry i was cooking my microphone there thank you appreciate the time to talk um i've i'm against the uh the vaccine mandates i don't think there's any there's zero science behind the vaccine for children you talk about the masks um anything that comes up with the use it's always comes

115up at their low risk there's absolutely no reason to force it on children considering they are low risk and they have a 99.99 survival rate there is zero science behind mandating this vaccine it's not like all the others as previous people have spoken on like do a little research and i always would encourage like to circle back on questions that people have previously because they're not being answered like you guys would never bring up natural immunity you know how many kids thousands of kids millions of people that have already had it we never talk about the side effects there are side effects that are happening when you talk about zero side effects that's the problem you don't acknowledge it once that's the problem what is the incentivization on your side those are question marks for

116people that are paying attention okay so what is going on like why would you want to mandate a vaccine for children it literally makes zero sense it can hurt them but they have a 99 almost a hundred percent survival rate there's a lot going on with myocarditis there's a lot going on with heart inflammation a lot going on with the the county spokesperson speaking up like their doctors sandari mace oh when something's undetermined how are you so certain it's not correlated what's really going on why do you want to shoot up the kids there's zero science and you don't have an answer it's crickets i guarantee it you mr willis next is gerald stall yeah you guys hear me yes we can you know i mean it's great that people are for and against it

117you know in my opinion if you want the jab go ahead and get it but you know everybody on the board i can tell agrees with getting that clot shot but here let me give you a little little example of the side effects my mother got that clot shot recently and you know what happened to her she ended up in the hospital with congestive heart failure so when you guys are saying get the shot and they're all for it i don't think you guys actually are looking across the board going what about the people that are affected by this what about their family because i'm sure if omar or de la cruz or flores or any of you people in here had a relative that got that shot and was in the hospital dying you

118might have a little different thought on the shot but i don't think you do i don't think you guys care and as far as the last lady that spoke saying that she's against it to protect the kids listen to what i'm saying i had a relative get it and end up in the hospital so she wants to possibly get my kid to be hurt from this shot for her kid to possibly be safe i mean this makes no sense you guys know me you guys know i'm against the shot it's never gonna happen my kid will be removed from the school if it comes down to it you guys all know this so that's what i have to say about it thanks mr stahl next is william luvano hi good evening yes my name is

119william lovano um i have some you know thoughts on it too i think it's good i think it's bad i think there's a lot of points made that you know yeah there's a lot more research to it not everyone's a doctor and when you do do your research it's different vaccine for most i'm not saying i'm not a you know not forward i'm not against it i have got the shots myself and i'm fine and same thing i've actually know people who got the vaccine and you know they were older and they died so i mean i'm a little on both sides but as far as for the kids um i think it's just an opinion for the parents you know and as far as going back to a few of the other parents that

120you know keep commenting on every uh on every post that's great but let's just kind of stick to the time and get to the point and stop attacking everybody and just make the points made please thank you thank you mr lovano and president fong there are no other hands raised all right thank you um board members do you have any other comments superintendent tranel do you want to close out with a comment on this uh thank you for president fong um we are certainly trying to keep every student and every family in mind as we move forward um with the action steps that we take and we appreciate everyone's feedback okay thank you we're moving on to e five this is a discussion item on s or three expenditure plan introduction also the draft superintendent

121you know thank you board president fong members of the board staff and community we bring forward to you tonight information around our sr3 expenditure plan tonight it is a discussion we will not be asking the board to take any action we will be following this up with some feedback options uh from our community and our staff in order to assist us in finalizing the plan which we will be preparing to bring back to you at the october 27th board meeting and with that i hand it over to deputy superintendent edson uh with more information thank you uh superintendent janelle if we could bring joel dantos over please i'll wait for him to join before i start uh deputy edson it's not letting me move him over could one of our moderators try i'm not sure

122uh zuma's being a little bit glitchy for me i tried and it apparently oh looks like he's moving he comes you thanks thank you everyone uh good evening president fong uh superintendent and members of the board uh as superintendent cornell alluded to the purpose tonight is to bring forward the elements of the sr-3 expenditure plan uh that will be brought back to the board uh at our next board meeting in october in a few moments executive director of fiscal services joel dontos will give detailed information about these funds that are in an approximate amount of about 22 million dollars it's important to note that these funds can be used on expenditures starting back in march of 2020 through september 2024 uh and as mr dantos will uh also note uh even after approval of our

123expenditure plan uh we can reallocate funds based on new need or demonstrated need or a higher need than we originally anticipated through this process beyond looking at singular one-time expenditures we're also looking at the needs on a multi-year basis for programs and services that may need to continue uh past this year uh in light of what's happened with covid and doing that on the multi-year basis understanding that there is a need now as well as a continued need in the future uh this work of identifying the needs is continuing uh with discussion tonight through the plans over the course of the next couple of weeks ultimately bringing it back to the board as i mentioned uh and then bringing back to the board any adjustments that we need to make uh with these funds uh

124until they are fully expended i'd also like to note that the presentation that mr dontos is going to share tonight has two new slides just for clarification uh that we've added and we will discuss those slides as they come up they are marked as new on the top left hand corner so they are visible and with that i will turn it over to mr dantos to begin the presentation thanks rick good evening president fong superintendent tranel members of the board thank you so i'm going to share my screen with the uh host disabled participate share screen can you enable that for me you should be able to know yes thank you okay cause everybody see the presentation okay so i'm gonna this is the sr3 expenditure plan this is a introduction and a draft of

125a plan we have that we'll introduce kind of the background and then we have a draft of the plan included so tonight like i said we're gonna go over the background of the plan elements of it um go over the overview and then a draft plan and the draft is just again for people to get familiar with it stakeholders to understand the the planned template and the instructions so this is the american rescue plan act if so if uh people recall that was part of biden's administration passed this plan this is another corona virus relief fund we get we've had a number of different criminal relief funds we've gotten from both state and federal sources this is the third federal source um all of our federal acts in criminal virus relief have come the funding

126behind them have has been the uh elementary and secondary school emergency relief fund so this is esser three as part of the american rescue plan act the first esser plan the first uh federal coroner's virus relief fund was sr1 and then sr2 neither of those required an adopted plan now this is a an adopted plan a requirement and i'll go into the other requirements um we got our funding based on the number of low-income students we have and then they multiplied that by the per student the rate that they came up with the total funding so as you can see santa rosa city school district we have a combined elementary and high school district of about 22 million a little north of 22 million like uh rick mentioned and like he also mentioned they can

127be used for uh cost dating back to the in you know the first date of the pandemic back in march 13 13 2012 all the way through september 30 uh there are three steps that need to happen in order to receive these s3 funds we need to submit our assurances to the federal to the cde that we will spend these in uh the restrictions along with the restrictions that come along with them we had to um let them know that we had our safe return to in-person instruction uh plan and we and both those two actions were completed and the third action that we need to do is we need to approve a plan uh expenditure three plan by october 29th 2021. so again here's another overview of the plan we have to approve our

128plan by the 29th we also have to send it to the county office of education who will be review it and then they will send it on to the um cde just for um reporting period you know to make sure we're in compliance this this can be a living document meaning we have we we've adopted a report now with the information we have now uh everything is high in sight and like we mentioned this has through 2024 to spend so things can change we can live this document update it as we move on uh updates do not need to be approved by the county office they don't there's not required to be approved by the board but of course we would keep that uh involvement in our practice i i assume then um but and

129the commencement of the or at the end of this reporting at the end of this so3 cycle there will be a report which is an annual update uh i think that's every year after the annual update saying okay here's how we plan here's our actual expenditures and here's how we'll go moving forward um so there's a lot of information on this funding and how this plan uh needs to be managed along with you can find this a lot of resources on the cde website here and one of the components of this plan is the cde has issued an expenditure plan template that we followed and that that's kind of our basis of of how we're gonna um submit this plan and and is what we have in the draft here so uh you know there

130are restrictions it is probably the least restrictive of all the coronavirus funding we've gotten but 80 of this is required to be spent on a broad range of services 20 of it is required to be uh to address the academic impact of loss instructional time um the so3 funds do not have a uh supplement not supplant requirement like some other federal funds come with so the plan template and the expenditure plan it is broken down into eight sections uh you know the first section is the title page just put content information not much not anything more to go into that uh then there's section two is other lea plans references in this plan so you know we'll go over the overview but taking a look at our draft uh plan that we put together just

131to give stakeholders and and everybody a look at this to get comfortable with it we included the lcap which is another uh related plan because it gives students added instructional services we also included our uh the other covid funding which is state funding from covid our um expanded learning opportunities grant plan and we we kind of try to relate that in these actions as well and then um also that same covenant safety plan um the covet handbook is our latest one um then there's a summary of all the planned expenditures so we have that 22 million dollars and we'll show actions and kind of relate that back and show the total amount of expenses included in the plan then the section four is community engagement so and we'll have to engage with our stakeholders uh

132we'll be going over more of that in the plan and rick will touch on that as well then we go into section five which is where we start to show what our actions are and what our budgets are and how we how we can uh plan this 22 million dollars section six is okay so but let me section five the act these are actions related to address continuous and safe in personal learning so this section five has categories of addressing continuous and safe and learning construction and then we create actions in in regards to those um services we're priority then section six actions and expenditure address the impact of lost instructional time so we'll under that category we'll list all the actions and budgets we have to address those section seven is is is another

133section where now we're able to put actions for any other use that we decide to use that are not specifically for address continuous and safe in person learning or to address the impact of loss and instructional time then section eight is we go back and we look at all those actions and we show how we're ensuring interventions are addressing student needs so that is the overview of the planned history and and the plan and we're about to jump into the kind of the draft plan that we've included but before i go in there i want to just offer any questions about the overview this funding the history anything if anybody has anything they want to clarify okay thank you so did i see a hand no i don't see any answer okay so now rick

134do you want to touch on this yeah i'll touch on this so so we added this slide is just a reference point um i talked about at the beginning of the presentation uh joel has uh also uh in other ways mention the intent of this um really this is an overview with large buckets of money allocated to certain areas based on need that we are identifying internally it's also important to note uh one of the plans that joel mentioned uh the safe return to in-person instruction uh that was approved on september 23rd also uh was something that we were monitoring for impact of use of these potential funds depending on the direction that the uh district went at that point in time uh so with that uh the following slides uh specifically the sections referring

135to the sr3 funding uh five six and seven i believe um are showing where there has been need identified uh and then through continued work with uh our internal groups and some external groups uh to refine those into what would be the final um plan that was presented to the board on the 27th uh i will also note again uh as i mentioned earlier and as mr dontos mentioned this is a living document that we intend to use as needs change uh or new needs arise where this money can fulfill those gaps so it may not seem as lined out um as it could be uh but it will certainly look different as we get the nuance of the details into some of those bigger buckets that we've identified uh and with that i will

136uh ask joel to continue yes so again these are this is section two this is in our draft like i stated we have i did we have um reference these plans in in the in the draft and and the draft is connected to the uh board item as another attachment but these are the sections and what these are the components in the plan that i've pulled out and put in here so summary of plan yes or three expenditures like we've had the 22 million 22 273 750 total funds allocated and planned for the first section of actions which is safe in person learning is about a little over 11 11 million 250 000 total funds allocated in the plan for addressing loss and struggling times about a little over 11 total funds for any other

137remaining right now identified is zero and we've will have the entire so3 fund allocation budgeted in this plan um community engagement uh engage with students families uh administrators teachers principals school leaders and tribes civil rights groups um we we do have a google form network compiling that'll go out tomorrow night or tomorrow morning rick also has other uh things he'll identify in a in a forthcoming slide that we'll get into more on community engagement but uh this section will be filled out with the final plan in the draft plan right now it hasn't got information in there but it will be part of the draft plan this was just the draft is just to give introduction look through the sections get familiar with the plan um again we went over these section five safe in

138person learning so we need to have staff on hand to be able to provide instruction in person uh that'll include you know we we knew that we were looking at um increasing salaries for all of our staff and we we did that we also have um some future potential uh bargaining agreements that'll happen as a result of as we move through um the covet 19 safety updates um as maybe something will come up with vaccinations or you know so we just we have a budget there for for that um we have a budget for just maintaining the safety plan and because this money dates back to the beginning of the pandemic i think it's a good practice to try to use some of these funds to recap the costs that we've occurred incurred in creating

139this plan um we have to use some money for ppe supplies for students uh and staff and visitors have some budget to replenish those if we need to um anything necessary to meet regulatory new regulatory items um we have a a lot of technology needs still you know some technology is coming back damaged we still need to reach to some students and teachers to enable teacher student technology connections so we were budgeting in that something for that as well uh school facilities repairs um maybe some new filtration some new um outdoor learning spaces there you know so as we um work through the engagement process we'll expand that but right now we've got about 1.5 million for that uh action yeah you had a specific one and i forgot i couldn't remember it's okay uh

140i i'd like to point out that you know with these funds uh on this slide uh including the first one of recruit attract higher and retain certificated and classified personnel uh as superintendent trinell uh talked about earlier tonight um and as it's been mentioned several times we do have a shortage we have a shortage of teachers we have a shortage of subs we're looking at increasing sub rates this money would go towards that in this bucket as well as additional classified staff that we may need on school sites or in classrooms to assist with learning on a daily basis uh there there's several uh areas in here that that joel spoke to uh where we're allocating funds to ensure uh operational sustainability of our organization including providing ppe and other necessary resources as they become

141needed along with as joel mentioned technology equipment uh that is continuing to be used and in high demand in our district uh that does require uh either repair replacement uh at times depending on age of devices uh and or uh how they are uh how they come back unusable uh ensuring that students have access to this um as technology has taken a greater role in our district since the beginning of covid uh with distance learning to the increased use of technology uh in day-to-day lessons as well uh throughout our campuses so that is what this uh slide is talking about uh in terms of uh operational sustainability uh and tackling items as they come up um and i'll just go back to the demonstrated need of employees still needed both in the classroom and at

142our school sites thank you joel yeah thank you so then moving on to the actions of impact loss instructional time so we've so a broad category here develop implement programs that meet the social emotional mental health and academic needs of students so we've identified a little over 10 million dollars for programs that will be developed and those specifics will be included in the final plan and then we thought well we have to have some money for professional development to um help our teachers and staff and administrators absorb the plan and execute it and again a living document the plan will include best information but we can we can update it as we move along so at this point there are no budget or ideas for remaining funds but that's only in the draft again ensuring

143interventions are addressing students when we break down the specifics we'll have that included in the plan um but for now if you can get familiar with with the instructions requirements it'll just show what ensuring interventions are addressing student needs oh how that how that is uh included in the plan so then we have some next steps rick do you want to touch on these we got this um so yeah uh on the previous slide as joel mentioned and we're working with uh some of our internal groups right now to define uh the items that will be added to that that that uses those dollars uh this slide exer sr3 expenditure plan next step or steps uh is once again uh talking about the survey that will be sent out tomorrow uh with uh people uh

144giving people the ability to comment on specific areas that are addressed with sr3 funds um we'll ask for responses to come back by october 20th we are also announcing and giving information tomorrow morning about a community forum on october 19th 5 30 to 6 30. will be presented in english in 6 35 to 7 35 will be presented in spanish as another opportunity for our parents and community uh to get more information as the plan continues to build out between now and then as well as we move down this path uh taking feedback from both meetings uh comparing it with other feedback we will have received at that point uh and putting into the plan uh notable items and providing uh information about where people were at in terms of what they thought were as

145important for inclusion uh and bring that back for the board uh with the final plan on the 27th um with that uh i will turn it back over to president fong and superintendent thank you mr anson and i hand it back over to president fong thank you to joel and to rick us deputy superintendent and our executive director um alegria has random you did um thank you so much um [Music] uh directors edson and dantos for this great presentation i have a couple of questions um arpa is a super cool piece of legislation because it's very clearly um an equity piece of legislation has great language in it that you know these funds are to um go to address the disproportionate impacts um that that people um suffered during colbit and one of the things

146that we're doing at the county of sonoma with regards to our arpa plan is to really look at you know data around disproportionality so that we can understand how to make some targeted investments to address that disproportionality and experience and so i would just love to know you know how we're also um doing that at a district level um and and how we're you know as a result of showing like here's where the disproportionality was experienced and that's why we are going to make the following investments that really address that disproportionality um so i'd love to know a little bit about what data sources we are relying on as we as we focus our our interventions and our investments um i would also say that i'm really grateful for you know the the community town

147halls and specifically grateful for you having a conversation all in spanish um it is such a different experience to actually have a conversation in the language that you speak rather than listening to a translated conversation and trying to catch up and and the reason why i think that is so important is because you know so much of equity design recognizes the people who are closest to the challenge are also the people who are closest to the solutions and so i'd love to just hear a little bit more as to how we are weighting certain voices um how we are recognizing that there is a need for us to really seek out and to elevate the voices of people who did experience that disproportionality during colbid we've got some excellent data from our epidemiologists in the

148health department to really highlight that communities of color in sonoma county um really shouldered a much heavier burden um from every single impact that was experienced during covet including educational impacts and impacts to families with kids in school so um yeah i have those are those are a few questions and i think that the last question is every jurisdiction um throughout the country got got arpa funding in some way and so i would really love for us to think about how we're strategizing with other jurisdictions so if the city of santa rosa for example is deciding to invest in an increased broadband coverage um to address learn you know those access questions or those access issues that we all saw then maybe we don't have to do that in quite the same way or you

149know if they're not doing that um then maybe that's where we step into that into that area that that kind of hole or that gap that exists and so i just really love to know kind of like how we are strategizing across jurisdictions around what actions other people are taking with our arpa funding so that we can be very strategic about not duplicating or not not recognizing additional holes that might be created by other jurisdictions actions thank you director de la cruz what i'd like to propose is that the staff prepare some information that we can bring back to you we could share that information as early some of that information as early as next week as a part of our forum and then also on the 27th excellent and i'm happy to offer any

150of the information that the fees have in the department of health services because the data is is powerful and it's um it's heavy and it really does does show the ways in which um specifically latinx and indigenous language speaking members of our community um really shouldered a a very a much much heavier burden than other folks in our community and it also is really interesting looking at you know even now um actually some of those areas of disproportionality have shifted into our pacific islander and african-american native american populations and so it really kind of tells us how critical it is for us to look at disaggregated data um around race and ethnicity um in order for us to really be able to drive you know specific targeted investments that will ultimately benefit our system as

151a whole um but if we don't focus in that way we actually are going to contribute to increased marginalization and time when we really cannot afford to do that thank you i don't see any other trustees hands up at this point then we're going to open this to public discussion public comment so if they're members of the public who are students who would like to comment on item e5 please raise your hands at this time students first has been our practice joshua lewis would like to comment good evening uh thanks for the time i want to say i appreciate the work you guys are doing i don't know any of you personally but uh everything i've seen seems like you guys work out of a place of compassion and the best interests of our students

152i'm a teacher at lcon high school and i wanted to speak to the uh the mention earlier of technology with [Music] mr edson's points were on point about about technology and coming and going and being returned and damaged i represent a student who needs another uh hot spot to access homework from home i know a lot of students who could use better chromebooks or a chromebook in general it's a really good equity issue i think it's been brought up before and i just wanted to put that point out there as we think about money and needs that are out there i appreciate the time to to get to tell you this so you can know something that's happening on the ground level again thank you guys have a good night thank you and that wasn't

153quite a student comment um gina melville i'm sorry melvin is the next student who raised their hand sorry i'm not a student so if there's any students go ahead and put my hand back down or you can put my hand down and i'll put it back up actually let's just open it for anyone who would like to comment on item e5 anyone in the public would like to comment can raise their hands at this time and then gina um go ahead so gina it's okay go please um can you hear me yes okay so i am a teacher at montgomery high school and um i really appreciated the director of the cruise comments of the people who are closest to the challenge or closer to the solutions um so i just really want to encourage

154the board and the district to look and ask for teachers we we are in a crisis i know everyone knows that um but you really need to listen to these sight voices um we've had a lot of conversation among teachers around how we don't feel safe and that they did the there's just uh um we're in in desperate times um we need and and the bottom line is that we need staff we need support staff um we're in the trenches i feel like the admin are their hands are tied where they're in the classrooms so that the kids who are in need and the teachers who are in need don't have the support staff we don't have the administrative staff so the the secretaries who are out because they're sick are not replaced so there's

155no one to replace them um and we don't see the district support i know it's there but we don't see the district coming in to like support us in this like there's no ptosis subbing they're they're in the district doing great things but in the trenches here we can't meet the needs of the students we can't make them feel safe we can't i see the students who who have really fallen behind but i can't do so much because there's not the support that we need so i love the data i think it's really important but i really see that we are seeing at the sites the challenges that covet has placed and we're trying to solve those but our hands are tied because we just don't have the staff and the support um and i'm

156so thrilled that this the esslers is focused the number one thing was about staff problems but we need to see those problems like we need to have faith that the district is supporting us tomorrow by being there by by making sure that you're visible because we're dying like this the teachers are burning out the secretaries are quitting um and miss melvin i'm sorry but you have reached your two-minute time limit next comment is sheila walker hi thank you everyone um i just wanted to uh go over a few points of this draft uh first uh i think i i'm so glad that there will be a conversation and not just a google form because we really need to have meaningful discussions um as parents and uh stakeholders in the district also just a few other

157um things that uh while looking at the plan um the vogue should be you know addressing instructional time and also the social emotional um well-being of the students um and i have a few questions um the eight million dollars for uh recruiting and attracting um i'm just curious i would really like to see how that is going to be broken out because um as the as you were presenting uh mr dantos that um you mentioned that you know that things are being negotiated or um i'm hoping that the district gonna be relying on these funds who are what you approved was a three-year deal for just the the teachers alone uh which came out to be about 15 percent if i by my memory so um i agree we need to use some money to

158get additional staff but it seems to me that we have staffing issues and those those positions are currently not filled so um we shouldn't have a hole there for money let's see the clock is ticking i don't know why we would be spending a quarter of a million dollars on creating the covet handbook um i could do that as a contractor or do it voluntarily for you for nothing um and i just think that's a lot of money for a very simple thing needs to be updated um the first thing that should have been in is number eight ensuring interventions are addressed for students um so i would put that up first thank you thank you and thank you for being mindful of that two minute limit next is gerald stahl this is more directed

159towards de la cruz you know i i get on here and i speak and i tell you you know i'm part of the white population but yet you must you find it a must to constantly drill it in about how kids of color and this and that are affected more than other kids or as if the other kids aren't affected de la cruz you don't know what my daughter has gone through through this time so when you speak about only the kids of color you actually come across as just being a racist toward your own people and maybe a different group of people so i'm letting you know as a parent that's how you're coming across to me so if you could check yourself a little bit with that it'd be great because there's a

160lot of people out there that feel that way my daughter has a lot of issues she went through hell going through this and she's white so it didn't just affect certain groups and kids i'm embarrassed to even tell you guys what happened to my kid a lot of cultures keep it a secret and a lot of cultures don't but as far as the white culture they seem to just deal with it themselves they hide it because it's almost embarrassing and they don't want to deal with it but a lot of kids have done stuff that isn't out there that you guys don't know about so you know it'd be respectful if you can keep that in mind when you're speaking about kids of color and different races that we're all the same here we're not

161we're no different we're all we all have kids that partake in this school system and it's just offensive to me if you could you know tone it down a little bit with that thank you and president fong there are no other hands raised any other comments board members okay so you know hands okay thank you again uh philadelphia you know i wanted i want to say that you know since last spring and the return to school we've heard from um staff and teachers and families um at our meetings and they've been speaking out about the the needs um for more attention to increasing staffing for um and support for special education and so i just want to point draw attention to section six um seeing that 10 million dollars an additional million dollars for professional

162development um i think this is great i love to see that number because we're really focusing on those students that have been identified that have been you know impacted you know probably emotionally um um the hardest in the pandemic um and i know that this is a draft so i just want to encourage us not to take any dollars out of this section um that's that's it all right um superintendent tridel do you have any other last comments i don't at this time all right so once again thank you to executive director joel dantos and um deputy superintendent rick edson and we will be looking forward to seeing this again and i know we're going to forum we're going to have more input and we're interested in that so we'll see that later in october

163thank you we're moving on to e6 this is a discussion uh our first discussion regarding the proposed project stabilization agreement or project labor agreement with the north bay building and construction trades council and local unions and superintendent trinell thank you good evening again for president members of the board staff and community agenda item e6 is to give the board the opportunity to discuss a proposed project stabilization agreement also known as a project labor agreement for santa rosa city schools joining us tonight are jim treber district legal counsel sheree cabral north bay building and construction trades council jolene kramer legal counsel for north bay building and construction trades and of course deputy superintendent rick edson if we could please make sure that our guests are brought over into the space as i continue a project stabilization

164stabilization agreement is a pre-higher collective bargaining agreement that establishes terms and conditions of employment for construction projects a psa is designed to govern employer employee relations between prime contractors subcontractors and their workers in connection with construction projects a psa is a contractual agreement between the local education agency a consortium of labor unions and a contractor as outlined in the psa included in the born board packet the psa would require the unions to use their utmost efforts to use labor from the local area surrounding the district outlined in section 13.7 the psa would contain a no strike and no lockout clause and requires the parties to utilize an ex an expedited arbitration process to resolve related disputes which is article 5. the psa would require contractors to pay employees in accordance with local collective bargaining rates

165and in compliance with prevailing wage rates this would include payment into employee fringe benefit funds article 16. the psa would expire after a period of five years that is section 27.1 under the psa the unions would agree to use their utmost efforts to include and generate interest from the district's students relating to obtaining future employment in the trades that is section 13.9.1 the psa would require contractors to utilize referral facilities maintained by the unions if the unions are unable to fill a request for labor within two days two business days excuse me the contractors are free to obtain work from any source that is article 13. with that i will now hand it back over to board president fong and members of the board for discussion all right so this is a discussion and we're

166going to take questions right now so raise your hand virtually and i'm looking at that list i don't see any hands up thank you director for us go ahead clark flores uh hi so could you um let's see he explained when i was reading this uh what is it a dual payment of benefits or payment of dual benefits and what what does that entail and how does that work um i'm going to hand it over to mr edson but i don't know if we should then hand it over to um our guests that are here tonight uh yeah do um everyone uh director flores can you reference where you're reading that in the pla oh my gosh hold on a second thank hmm or if uh miss cabral or miss kramer or mr traber cannot

167speak to it okay i think that started in article 16 but um sorry i read this over the weekend so if i may unless jim unless you'd like to do it mr trevor i'll go ahead shari i i think what um trustee flores is referring to is the assertion on some by some individuals that based on the language that's contained in section 16 that that could potentially create a situation in which dual payment of benefits would be paid and we've discussed this at length this is something that while in theory it could happen based on um the payment for health benefits and retirement benefits into trust fund it's not something that we have seen in the past with other project labor agreements and so it is something that as of yet there's been no evidence

168been brought forward on other project labor agreements throughout the state or in other another states that has had this actually happen so um it's a non-starter i would say that if in the instance that anybody does pay dual benefits on an equivalency base please let us know and and we'll work through finding a resolution to that thank you no other questions at this point we can take public comment oh wait no okay let's open it to public on it so as is our practice i'm going to lower hands and ask that only students who'd like to comment on this item e6 raise their hands at this time so students only and it looks like william luvano will speak first once the students have spoken then we'll ask for the public to raise hands everyone else

169in the public william lovano hi and thank you um again i'm for the psa the pla agreements uh i myself came i'm born ray santa rosa actually president bong you helped give me my diploma when i graduated um and uh yeah okay go vikings um this is a great agreement you know it's local you're trained i've worked at some of the best facilities in the bay area i've gone to school out here uh jc and i want to stay local i want to work local and this agreement brings good opportunity for a lot of people um and good training it works best for workers and for for companies because you have trained workers with good set of skills and you know not all of us were cut out for you know higher education but this

170education we have with the trades trade school ends up becoming just as equivalent to college level and if i was to take a few more courses i could actually get more degrees so doing this pla this psa um i highly recommend it it's worked really good for me for my family and it helps me stay local helps me keep uh close to home and just being a local here i'd really appreciate if you guys really consider doing this not only for me but for everyone else that that looks forward to working to you know in the community so uh again thank you guys for everything thank you and once again this is a reminder this is item e6 and if there are any students um we're thinking about santa rosa city school students who want

171to comment on this item please raise your hands at this time our next comment is chris cinder nice hello how's it going my name is christopher sindelar i live in santa rosa i am a state and federally approved apprentice and i am enrolled in the abc norcal carpentry apprenticeship program i've been in the apprenticeship now for about two years and i really enjoy what i do if santa rosa city schools approves a project stabilization agreement i will not have the opportunity to work on projects in my community because of some of the language on article 1.6 that specifically excludes me and other local apprentices i'm hoping to remove the language and allow all apprentices to have the opportunity to build their community i want to work in my community so thank thank you for your

172time that was my that was my comment thank you very much and this is the public comment for students first next is gina vong kayo hello can you guys hear me gina are you there yes i'm here hello good afternoon um hi my name is gina bonkel um i'm a member with local 83 with the painters and um the drywall finishers um i've been with this local for five years now i went through the four-year apprenticeship program um um i'm gonna be graduating in a few weeks actually from my apprenticeship program as a journeyman um i think it's um will be like beneficial and stuff for us to work locally because you know family is everything to me and then like um you know throughout my career and everything i've been traveling out of town

173and stuff and um i would like to spend more time with my family and i would like to save more gas as well you know like money and everything um you know i grew up in poverty and everything and the apprenticeship program has saved my life um from all of that um now i'm able to provide for my family making good wages good benefits my health and welfare my retirement plan that um you know i'm looking forward to and everything and also and the great thing about the apprenticeship program is that i'm able i'm able to go to school for four years and be debt-free comparing comparing to going to college and stuff where you're able to go to college but once you graduate from college you know you're in in-depth with um with student

174loans and everything and that's the benefits of you know being in the apprenticeship program so thank you thank you and thank you everyone for being mindful of that two-minute time limit the next student with the hand raised is joe lubas and then we have another student kevin and i'm going to open it to everyone who'd like to comment on this item now but we'll take joe and kevin first so joe louis you're next hello um yeah i'm just uh calling uh today uh just to speak in opposition to the uh project stabilization agreement uh one way in which you know it can it's been proven to be you know costly to taxpayers and the public at the santa santa rosa city college they had their burbank auditorium project um you know which is which had

175a project labor agreement uh you know the project ended up being 157 days behind schedule and while it was originally contracted for 28 million dollars uh cost you know or change orders accumulated to a cos ultimate cost of 31.8 million so it was originally contracted for 28 million it had a it ended up costing 31.8 million in short you know this district needs to be project labor agreement free so that taxpayers aren't given a raw deal thank you thank you and next is kevin kevin could you please state your full name for the record yes hello my name is kevin maximum thank you i just like to say i was born and raised in sonoma county went to mcdowell elementary school kenworth high school or kentwood junior high school casa grande high school joined the

176world's finest navy after my honorable discharge from the u.s navy i found out about helmets to hardhat program in the joint apprenticeship program signed up for the joint apprenticeship program through helmets the hard hatch program and i was able to acquire many skills in the trade skills that will be with me for the rest of my life skills that i do pass down to the next generation of apprentices i am truly thankful for my for the program's existence the joint apprenticeship has turned my life around has allowed me to move back to my hometown where i grew up and be with my family and have my own family grow in my hometown working locally and less time in traffic and more time at home with my family in re um i really hope the board

177ultimately adopts the pla once they have discussed it and give someone else the same opportunity thank you next is walker rotherham [Music] hi can you guys hear me yes we can okay my name is walker rotherham and i'm an ibw local 551 apprentice thank you for letting me speak tonight i'm here because i was born and raised in santa rosa i enjoy living here and have a great upbringing in this community i grew up growing through the santa rosa city school system feel that i'm very well educated because of it after i graduated high school i i had the opportunity to join local 551 become an electrician's apprentice because of this career path i chose i can live and build a future for myself in sonoma county and hopefully one day send my kids to

178the santa rosa city system i am in favor of the school board signing the project labor agreement with local building trades you signing that agreement will give local guys and girls like me opportunities to build our community and the schools we take pride in while also giving us the needs to live and stay in sonoma county thank you for your time thank you and thanks to everyone who's being mindful of that two-minute limit next is john medina all right am i on we can hear you right on thank you uh thanks for everyone for having me tonight um i want to say thank you and i want to salute everybody on their patience on this board i think it's a very thankless job i wish i had the time to do this myself with my

179school district i used to be from the north bay i had to relocate uh years ago i lost my house but uh i grew up in the petaluma area familiar with santa rosa went to santa rosa junior college and i commuted for years coming down here um to the bay area to san francisco to hayward where my training center where my apprenticeship was and this was back in 1999 i did it for 10 20 years wondering why i was driving by job sites that i wasn't on and had to go all the way down to san mateo where i i now live and met my wife luckily and you know um been living a good life and was able to do more uh got involved with my local and i was one of those guys

180like kevin who went to casa grande gocasa gauchos sorry insane rules of people but my military friend there kevin from casa i was you i was the guy driving by those jobs for 10 years wondering why i you know why i couldn't work at him and now i have a difference i'm a business agent with sprinkler fitters local 483 um this is my opportunity to tell this board and everybody listening that there are opportunities that are being created by these psas pla any kind of community workforce agreement it's for the community it's for the people that live there it's an opportunity for this board to engage people that have not had an opportunity to get into the trades to find a pathway to the middle class to find a pathway to you know a career

181after these these after high school you know you guys take them to high school we take them on to beyond retirement uh i just wanted to say uh thank you for everybody i see i got seven seconds i'm sorry for all the negative comments tonight i wish i had 20 more minutes to go off on that but i don't thank you thank you and next is ruffin could you please state your first name for the record uh yes my name is ruff and rome uh and good evening members of the santa rosa board of education and uh everyone else in attendance again my name is ruff rums and i'm a flooring installer by trade a father of two school-aged children and one up-and-comer and a lifetime resident in sonoma county i'm also a commander in

182the california army national guard assigned to the battalion located in santa rosa on armory drive during my service in the military i have been on multiple deployments as a construction engineer this led me to transition into the civilian construction industry and in 2014 i was introduced to jason and zach ellis the owners of ellis flooring a local shop in santa rosa they are also both sonoma county residents that have lived here for over 50 years jason served in the navy as the commander of a submarine and was injured during his service entitling him to the dbv status that ells flooring now holds ellis flooring is also comprised of all local workers most of whom live right here in santa rosa while working for ellis flooring i was put through the joint apprenticeship program which helped

183me get certifications and training that i needed to be an asset to the local flooring companies transitioning from the military to civilian life is never easy but thanks to the joint apprenticeship training ellis flooring and the local flooring community in the north bay i've been able to succeed and stay close to home i am strongly advocating to adopt the psa for this district because i like many other local workers in the area will experience a greater quality of life knowing that we are working close to home and contributing to the greater good in our home sonoma county thank you thank you next is stephanie hall stephanie are you there yeah can you hear me we love you we can hear you perfect my name is stephanie hall i'm a journeyman electrician out of local 551

184in san rosa i attended school in sonoma county and currently live here i went through the electrical apprenticeship and even worked on construction sites while being eight months pregnant all while making the same wage as the men next to me upon taking time off to bond with my newborn i didn't have to worry about losing my job or health care i'm able to stay here because of the wages i make as a union electrician and think everyone should have the same opportunity as i have and with plas this is possible i have two small children of my own they too will be going to the same school as i did being able to allow more locals to work in their own backyards closer to families is very important to me so i'm in favor of

185this pla thank you thank you next is leah edwards it looks like leah has to be promoted into the panel to speak hello can you hear me yes we can hear you good evening uh my name is leah edwards i'm a fourth year apprentice with ibw local 551 i've lived in sonoma county for over 30 years i'm a single mother i have two teenage daughters with whom i'm their sole financial support before joining the electricians union i worked three jobs often working nights and weekends in order to provide for my children now as a union member i'm able to work just one job in order to provide a good life for my family next year my oldest will be going off to college and i'm happy to say i'm able to give her that opportunity

186being a union member has changed my life in many ways i'm now able to purchase a home in this beautiful community that we live in and um as of course you've noticed over the last 20 years our community has grown considerably and with that growth comes many new construction projects renovations remodels and other projects to help support that new growth our local building trades provide quality skilled work to get the job done right the local labor union members are not only members of the construction trades but they're also members of your community who better to provide the labor for your projects than those who live here as you consider your decision please remember that the union members in support of this pla are your neighbors we're your friends and we're your community we want what

187all people want fair wages for quality work this pla supports that right here where it matters in our hometown thank you next is miguel garabay um hello can you hear me yes okay yeah my name is miguel garybay i'm i'm from napa i've lived here my whole life my kids are going to the same school as i have and i'm with the abc norcal as a second year uh electrical apprentice and the if the santa rosa city school approves a stimulation agreement i will not have the same opportunity to work on projects and community because of the joint language on article 1.6 that specifically excuse me and other local apprentices and i would just like the same opportunity to be able to work close by too instead of having to drive across the bay or

188wherever else and drive past sites as um the rest of the people that grew up around here thank you that is all thank you next is rocky sparks rocky are you there hello can you hear me we can hi yeah my name is robin sparks i actually moved here about into santa rosa about five years ago i worked various jobs uh and in around santa rosa and then i joined the joint apprenticeship at local 483 sprinkler fitters um it has dramatically changed my life for the better um i have steady work um and a lot of it is out of town i wish i could spend more time my son goes to mark west and i spend about three hours a day in the car commuting to work um i would love to spend more

189time in my community with my son uh he's in sports so i would love to have the opportunity to help coach and do other things like that um and i would have that opportunity if this pla is approved to be able to live and work closer to home it'll just open up a huge opportunity for us thank you and thank you everyone for keeping your comments under two minutes uh next is plumbers and pipefitters apprentice if you could please state your name for the record can you hear me i can hear you could you state your name for the record please yeah my name is joshua bettencourt and i'm an apprentice at the local 38 plumbers and pipefitters jatc in santa rosa i am a santa rosa resident and graduated from montgomery high school i

190have been an apprentice now for two years i was a camp counselor at camp kanaka in lake county it would really mean a lot to me and to other apprentices like me to have a project labor agreement in place that uses taxpayer dollars to create more benefit than just the buildings themselves by giving priority to local workers who happen to be the taxpayers that fund the district bond program and to make it so that we can work close to where we live good evening my name is curtis colabus and i'm a center roosevelt resident and a graduate of el salvador high school and i'm a parent of two students who are currently in the center as a school system and two more who eventually will be a few years from now i'm a third period

191apprentice at local 38 plumbers and pipefitters i sincerely hope you will end up with the project labor agreement at the center of the city schools i love to be able to work here locally and come home and spend time with my family instead of commuting and be an active part of their lives so i appreciate your time thank you thank you both uh next is max bell alpert hi good evening school board um really appreciate you all taking the time my name is max bell alper i'm the executive director of north bay jobs with justice we're a coalition of 32 different community and labor organizations um based in santa rosa and you know we we're we're here to strongly support a project labor agreement um this is something that we believe is is really critical

192um for for our community here in particular we we focus on uh the the workers who who've been excluded who've been left out from receiving good living wage jobs with benefits so they can support their families and so we we really see that the project labor agreement is an opportunity for the for the school board here to do to do the right thing that's going to help our community and and to ensure that there's more good jobs created right here in our community this is even more urgent um as as as we face you know the the effects of climate change and wildfires and covid which have all disproportionately impacted low-wage workers immigrant and indigenous workers and and the pla is something that we can all be proud of to use public dollars for for

193public good um and so appreciate you taking the the time to to discuss this and and hope that you'll also uh support the the pla as we are and and all members of our community are thank you very much thank you next is gerardo magana lopez hi can you guys hear me yes we can awesome great my name is uh gerardo magana lopez my friends call me lalo i'm a first generation first generation immigrant i was lucky enough to have the resources and guidance to gain my u.s citizenship uh less than a half decade ago um i've worked non-union as an electrician in union as an electrician so i've been on both sides of the fences and i can tell you right now joining the union was the best decision i've ever made in my

194life and this pla agreement would really benefit workers um such as myself and like myself and uh help us stay one local and to support us in the uh benefits that we have that we as um union workers and just workers with representation have um all our benefits such as a a pension i didn't have non-union or health insurance i didn't have non-union you know i'm a part of the small small percent of the country that is not scared to go to the hospital that is not scared to take a sick day and you know pla agreements like this support that you know pre pre-union and pre-representation um as a worker you know if i if i hurt myself i was in trouble the bill was on me and there was no support um now

195that i'm union i can one afford to buy a home in the area that i was raised in two i you know i have great benefits that i think every american should have and i think every um all of us should agree on that i think everyone here should agree that we all should have all the benefits that i mean i have as health insurance and all that and and if you support this you know you'd be backing your word on on that and uh so i am in i'm pro pla that's that thank you for your time and patience with uh all of us tonight thank you and next is scott littlehale uh good evening folks uh my name is scott littlehale i'm really pleased to be with you i'm a researcher with carpenters

196local 751 which is based in santa rosa i want to highlight tonight research published recently in a report by smart cities prevail that's titled training the golden sites state the research and the reports really clear apprenticeship is an escalator out of the working poor and into the middle class two california joint apprenticeships which are the product of joint commitments by contractors and unions invest hundreds of millions of dollars more in their joint programs than employer-only unilateral apprenticeship programs three wage outcomes for joint apprenticeship graduates are better compared to unilateral apprenticeships across california nine out of every 10 active construction trades apprentices are trained by a joint apprenticeship program and in some crafts and in some regions like in sonoma county that percentage is even higher of 253 resident sonoma county residents active in a carpentry

197apprenticeship program as of january 2021 252 were enrolled in the joint labor management program that carpenter's local 751 proudly partners with only one resident of sonoma county was as of january 2021 enrolled in the employer-only associated builders and contractors carpentry training program according to the state of california the construction industry has a racialized income inequality problem i'm proud to say that our apprenticeship program has 50 participation by people of color so if you want to achieve the goals of equity and workforce and development i urge you to support psa when it comes back to later this year thank you and once again this is item e6 public comment two minute time limit next is abraham castaneda hi can you hear me yes perfect hi good evening i would like to thank you for the opportunity

198to address the board my name is abraham castaneda i'm currently a third year apprentice in the ibew local 551. santa rosa has been my home since 1993 when my parents and family moved here from a short stay in merced after immigrating from mexico i have had i have attended steeling elementary scenarios of middle school and santa rosa high school along with santa rosa junior college after growing up working in the family restaurant business i applied and worked as a correctional deputy at the sheriff's department for 15 years after 15 years of service i decided i decided to start a new career i was a laborer for a few months while i got my class a license and drove tractor trailer before applying and being accepted into the apprenticeship program i could say i am greatly

199appreciative of the opportunities to maintain and continue working here in my community the apprenticeship program has allowed me to raise my two teenage kids maintain a reasonable financial income and maintain my health and medical benefits i am excited to continue to grow and thrive in this new career brotherhood and community are deep rooted in the ibew with your help approving the pla will continue to maintain work and reasonable living wages for my brothers and sisters current and future we take pride in our work and our craftsmanship what better way to continue to support our members and our in our community supporting their families than to approve the pla thank you very much thank you next is cameron cameron could you please state your full name for the record cameron webb thank you uh yama opposed

200to this um because of the fact of some of the wording in it where it states that um only uh union workers local union workers are to be chosen in this um and i'm a non-union and by choice i'd rather be non-union i don't think it's fair that uh it's biased one way um i was born and raised here been here for 43 years and yeah i would like um to have opportunities to work here and by this not allowing non-union workers it's going to push me out away from this area i don't think that's really fair and i think if we change some of the wording to where it allows non-union workers to be in this and uh you know both union non and non-union can work on it that would be fine but

201as far as the wording goes currently it would be excluding me and a lot of my friends that are also local in this area and companies that have been here for decades they wouldn't be able to use local workers and you know they wouldn't be able to bid on their jobs just because they're non-union so that's where i stand with that thank you a next comment is kevin dayton yes kevin dayton uh labor issues solutions uh calling actually feeling a little foolish calling in here because uh i'm looking here you have a union lobbyist and a union lawyer here on this panel discussion and answering your board questions i mean can you at least pretend to be a little bit uh impartial here as you go about this process uh yeah you probably don't want

202to deal with that uh double payments issue because it could be a little uncomfortable uh those uh non-union workers uh pig into their 401ks uh you know if they went and worked under a pla their money would be going to the union trust fund instead so uh that would be an issue and a problem so when the union officials sitting here at this panel say don't worry about it you don't want to get into that if you like the project labor agreement one thing that might be of concern to you as you think about families i heard a bunch of union people say that they're going down to san mateo or san francisco going by local job sites uh it sounds to me like you've got a lot of uh non-union contractors and workers probably

203working on projects that you're very school district and it seems like you like a massive transformational change on who's working on your projects have you looked at all into who's been working on your projects how these projects are going where the workers are coming from or are you just going to do this i know many of you filled out your candidate questionnaire and said you're going to support project labor agreements but you know what you might want to uh at least for the public interest look a little bit more into how this is going to change your contracting and bidding process before you proceed with this exciting uh new uh approach to your construction projects uh it's a shame you have these union people here on your panel you're totally biased thank you mr dayton

204next is nicole gearing good evening president fong and and members of the santa rosa school board uh nicole gearing with associated builders and contractors i've been advocating for workers a right to be able to work in their own communities for 15 years now and the project labor agreement that was presented to you does not allow equal opportunity for all people in the community to be able to build their community we operate apprenticeship programs in several trades you heard from a few of our apprentices this evening they just want a shot they just want to work in their community obviously they would like to their their kids sports has language and that would exclude these state objects in their community and it looks like in a section 1.12 that you want to cover all projects or

205virtually most projects under this project labor agreement section 13 um you're not even allowing for any of the core workers in your of the contractors i will clarify something that was said earlier that non-union contractors can't bid can bid under the provisions of this i would they bid if they tell them they have to sit in the dugout when they have to pull people from the hall and then if if somebody is not available from the hall then they can use their people and these contractors have the contractors plan that they pay their 401k for their workers into and they're not [Music] to receive those plans those paid into the union in article 16 that um all payments uh for fringe benefits need to go into the union trust funds and so that's why where

206this double payment issue comes in and under the 401k the contractor wants to take care of his workers and that's what he does so he would keep them whole and would continue to pay also pay their 401k so that they can have their their their retirement benefits you know this adds up to about 20 an hour and on a 500 job 500 hour job this can add up to a significant amount of money lost so please please reconsider this draft document and let's work on something let's get a community engagement process to give opportunities for all workers thank you thank you miss gearing and gave you a couple extra seconds there because there was some audio trouble next is josh yarnall hello board members my name is uh josh yarnell i attended hidden valley elementary

207santa rosa middle school and the class of 2006 san rosa high school go panthers i journeyed out of the joint apprenticeship to operate engineers local 3. with my knowledge base from the santa rosa school board school system and training through the apprenticeship it has allowed me to get married start a family and provide a living wage for us i've been blessed to work locally for a local contractor and i've worked on many school projects within sonoma county working on these projects has allowed me to spend more time with my family is even especially allowed me to take my infant daughter to the doctors and instead of sitting in traffic like some of my other brothers and sisters that talked i hope this board does adopt the pla because i've gained so much knowledge and experience

208on these school jobs on these school projects and adopting a pla will allow future apprentices the opportunity i've had to learn on these many aspects of our trade thank you for your time thank you next is kareem sanchez hello my name is kareem sanchez i'm the executive director of the north bay organizing project i'm also a parent of a student at santa rosa city schools north bay organizing project represents a coalition of over 20 faith-based communities environmentalists students and community organizations and i want to express my support for the pla agreement because it would mean the creation of more good jobs here locally union jobs and we're always in support of that thank you thank you next is eric kristen eric are you there can you hear me no we can't can you okay can

209you hear me now yes sorry this is this is eric christian with the coalition for fair employment and construction statewide organization that was formed 23 years ago by union and non-union construction firms solely to oppose discriminatory project labor agreements questions for you tonight why during the passage of your bond wasn't a project labor agreement ever discussed with the public before you asked them to take their tax money and use it to build projects answer because project labor agreements are so controversial and wasteful and discriminatory that it would have been problematic for you that would have been the time to discuss this not after the fact second question what problem is this solution seeking to correct what is the lo what is the problem specifically what are the metrics that you've laid out and defined as

210being problematic local workforce eighty-seven percent of the local construction workforce according to the bureau of labor statistics is non-union choose to wake up on a daily basis and work in a union free environment that's where the american construction workforce is today is that a problem you're going to have a local hire agreement that excludes most of the local hire highly problematic third question why would you ever consider something that forced a non-union construction worker to pay all of their monies benefit monies into a pension plan and health and welfare plan they'll never benefit from is wage tests that progress value suddenly is that something you've even researched why would you ever agree to something like that that's what you're being asked to sign on to fourth question why would you agree to something that explicitly

211excluded young men and women in non-union state approved apprenticeship programs is bigotry and exclusion suddenly progressive value have you looked at any of this have you researched it beyond being told this something that big labor special interests who told you to support this other than that have you looked into the efficacy of them these are problematic do your homework do the right thing and take your time on this issue thank you thank you and next is john mack and mac and taggart yes can you hear me yes good evening president fong and board members my name is john mcintyre and i'm lucky enough to represent the many men and women of ibew local 551 that would be the local electrical union here in santa rosa i'd like to talk about plas and specifically health care

212and pensions associated with some of the unions some of the arguments you hear are that the benefits that are paid to health care and pension trust funds will never be utilized by the non-uni workers because they're not part of the union that's just simply not true in ibw local 551 we've worked with several contractors who are not signatory to our collective bargaining agreement meaning they are non-union contractors but we're successful in being awarded electrical bids on pla projects now that means that they they have workers who qualified for and were able to enjoy our health care plan long after the pla project that they were on had ended they were allowed to bank any hours worked over the required hourly amount that you need to have health care and utilize those bank towers until our

213health care account depleted we have one such issue right now the project finished earlier this year but the worker is able to continue to enjoy full health care for himself and his whole family on our plan that will continue for him until his bank towers are all used up the only complaint we usually hear is that they wish they had the same health care everywhere they go because it is so superior to what they have become accustomed to pensions are another issue usually thrown out there in our pension funds we have a provision if you make under a certain amount you can request all of your pension to be paid back to you if you're a non-union on a pla project there is no vesting period when you work you earn a pension and that

214pension is yours from day one you're either going to get it after the project is complete or you're going to get it when you reach retirement age and for us that is 55. and if there are any non-union electrical apprentices out there who are in santa rosa driving by these projects saying i'd love to be on those projects i would like you to call me please directly ibew local 551 is in santa rosa we welcome you to come in and join our ranks thank you very much thank you next is steve steve could you please state your full name for the record uh yes my name is steve christani good evening president fong trustees and staff i'm the lead coordinator for the plumber's joint apprenticeship training program located here in santa rosa california we have

215a a little under 100 apprentices currently going through our program of which 25 percent are graduates of city santa rosa schools and 33 live in santa rosa 68 of our apprentices are persons of color we are the only state approved plumbers pipefitters and hvac apprenticeship program located in this local area i have been a lifelong resident of sonoma county with most of those years spent in santa rosa in fact i'm a graduate of piner high school class of 73. my father before me was a plumber and was a small business owner i have watched as the opportunities in the north bay have have shrank for the students like those i teach at the jtc and the increasing number of people who have to commute to other parts of the bay area for jobs the students

216i teach want to be able to remain in the north bay be active in their communities and be with their families i thank you for consideration of using a project labor agreement for the city of santa rosa school projects agreements like this will allow apprenticeship programs to expand in capacity and to create career opportunities for the young men and women that are the future of our community thank you so much thank you next is keith woods let me do a sound check can you hear me okay yes we can um to uh trustees and other school board members uh these words sound familiar to you santa rosa taxpayers should know and be disturbed that their school board is considering a policy that's likely to drive up costs for school improvement projects you recognize those words

217when i read the editorial that this came from yesterday morning i thought about all of you and i thought oh my god they must be tossing their breakfast at this point to see the real facts about a pla what you probably haven't heard from of the pla supporters uh hopefully you learned something out of the editorial if you didn't read it i'll bring you each of you a framed copy it so clearly points out what's so wrong with plas when they're applied to public works projects that there's almost nothing else to say i do want to bring up two quick points however this past year when your county board of supervisors were reviewing plans for a major construction project their own staff not us who were against plas their own staff in a report told

218the supervisors that placing the project under a pla would add somewhere around 3.5 million dollars in additional costs do you have that kind of money to waste away to support the unions is that really what your function is my second point is when the junior college was considering plas we showed him a survey we conducted of not only union but non-union firms and we asked them three questions um do plas lead to higher costs on a project 70 percent said yes are there fewer bidders on pla projects 75 or more said yes are you less likely to bid over two-thirds of people said yes bottom line do you represent taxpayers or maybe your special interest supporters i sure hope you know that everybody's going to be watching thank you mr woods and with that president

219fong there are no other hands raised all right i'm going to call on jill mccormick i would just like to make a motion to extend the meeting for until 11 o'clock i will second that okay so that's motion by jim mccormick seconded by ed sheffield um all those in favor aye all right hi opposed to lab okay so um an hour okay got it thank you uh clerk flores you have a comment well i mean i i just want to say thank you to uh everyone who showed up uh to let us know your your feedback uh we take your feedback you know uh to heart i just want to say that um there were a few comments i just want some uh clarification um you know we had a it sounds it sounds like

220our local community college had a pla agreement a while back now i'm wondering if anyone on the panel could talk a little bit more about that and um did it go over cost did it go over time um i'd like to know more i'd like to know more details about that is anyone here able to discuss that clerk flores um oh sorry for president fong may i please do can you help okay can you hear me um clerk flores i'm i just would like clarity on the relevancy um of that information on this topic um tonight in reference to santa rosa city schools well it's it's a pla agreement was see where you know i want to hear what i'm taking too hard to what what everyone said you know pro and cons right so

221and i i want to hear what happened with our local community college if anyone here knows about it right if not i'll do my own research um uh about it just because i'm curious because it's it's right down the street and uh yeah you know never i don't think anyone can speak with authority about that no one's prepared to do that so i don't want to have any conjecture so is there anyone is there anyone else that can talk about it no clerk florence i mean it looks like omar i will say that that is a north bay building trade building and construction trades council pla so we know exactly what took place and what was being referenced um that project had 70 local higher under on it underneath of a pla and there was

222a speaker who mentioned that it went severely over budget i think it should be fairly noted that the over budget and overtime frame wasn't related to the project labor agreement it was related to the fact that it was a 100 year old building and once they got inside of the building much like is typical with with older remodel construction in old buildings they found that what they thought they had wasn't what they had so they went through a serious process of having to rework the architectural and engineering drawings to make those accommodations which resulted in cost overages so the cost increase was not directly tied to the pla nor was the delay in the construction it was completely tied to design and that design was tied to the age of the building and the complexity

223surrounding the issues with the age of the building okay so sherry i'm going to stop you there thank you for that short answer i would prefer to hear from the jc themselves um director flores do you have another follow-up question no i do second question i do not at this point thank you i'm going to call on trustee medina i mean um you know it's kind of in part of responding to the issue i think mr christensen talked about us doing our homework and you know part of the homework was researching things like that so like we didn't know about the delays in the burbank auditorium due to the pipes and and the wires being five feet off from where the plants stated also delays later on due to supply issues the curtain rods and

224stuff that's fire measuring um and so far being able to provide those products right contracting them had to delay it stuff so those were delays that were not tied to the psa so i think done to say that um i i think i say that to demonstrate that we do our homework we research um and and it's important that we we make these decisions not you know lightheartedly but i think we do it um for the purpose and benefit of our community for the purpose we benefit our workers and and the betterment of everyone um i just basically want to say that i've looked at this issue in general for for many years many different minutes many different jurisdictions and and i am very supportive of it so i just want to make sure that

225the work that's been put into this agreement um i just want people to recognize that i support it and and emphasize the fact that um it's a five-year period and it'll allow us the opportunity um to evaluate after those five periods and decide whether it's something that we want to keep going based on the data that comes from any work that is done under this agreement trustee medina i'd like you to i'm curious why do you support it so strongly why do i support it i think it's good for workers it's good for our community it provides um the local hiring apprenticeship apprentice opportunities um i think are very important and and i think that ultimately it allows one of the things that's very important to me is that workers i feel that workers are

226in a in a situation where they're more likely to report a problem something that that might be going wrong um that might be an issue of safety or a concern i think they're more they're protected in these situations when i think they're more likely to report something like that in in a something that if they don't in the long run it may cost us more um but that aside from the many other benefits that i see um around worker wages and local hire and supporting good good jobs that offer great benefits i think those are some of the main reasons but i i think this is the first time that this district looked at something like this i think we'll have the opportunity to evaluate it and i think i i could only go based

227off what i think and i assume from from the data that i have in front of me and i think allowing us to try it and do it um what will give us that opportunity to to see okay is this factual that will be able to benefit will it do something positive for our community but without implementing it we can't we won't be able to have that data we won't be able to look at that and i think that it'll be positive um everything that i understand from it feels that it'll be positive and so i like this to try it out director sheffield yeah i'm going to speak a little bit in support of plas psas i call them plas i'm i'm old school um and i've done research on this since my time

228on the board so i've looked into it i've had many conversations i'll get into that in a minute um but president fong you know why why do i support it um i think in this agreement one thing that really stands out is that workers would be dispatched from local hiring halls um and this means that these are our people people who live in this community people who we heard from who have kids that go to our schools so i think that it could potentially improve the lives of the students and the health of our community that's one reason why i support psas in general um i think that most importantly to me that i think psa's established a really good work condition um and that the people um your neighbors your community folks they would

229choose to work under these conditions particularly the safety and um secure employment benefits um so you know how long have i been looking into psas how long has it's been um an issue that's important to me um in 2016 my first year on the board um with you lori we went to the california school boards association conference and at that conference there was a panel discussion on school districts that engage in psas and these were school board trustees and superintendents and they were weighing the pros and cons of adopting them and my take away from the discussion was that school districts that do enter into these types of contracts they often do see cost savings because they avoid the lengthy delays um and they eliminate uncertainty which you know that that uncertainty that holding pattern

230that not knowing that all amounts to dollars um i also learned at that conference um the you know that psas have uh you know it this has been going on for decades this isn't anything new and that they have steadily increased and so you know i i think since the district has started to engage in these discussions going back to last winter behind the scenes work that um that that rick and jim um have been working with with sheree and and um and the labor folks um that that you know that school districts um have they're they're increasing um in the number who are engaging in psas not decreasing and they don't seem to be moving away from them um la unified was the first k-12 to enter into a psa contract and this was

231over 20 years ago in west contra costa they adopted shortly after um and in addition to the the largest school districts la san diego long beach there are dozens of large and medium school district districts that um have adopted them too and so you know i went and looked at a list i i looked at all these different psas from around the bay area alone the greater bay area alameda unified they adopted theirs in 2016. antioch unified in 2013. berkeley uh unified in 2011 berryessa 2015 fairfield 2017 fremont unified fremont high school hayward unified martinez unified milpitas unified they just re-adopted theirs a year ago mountain view mount diablo oakland unified pittsburgh unified sacramento salinas san francisco unified san leandro san mateo uh south san francisco just goes on and on stockton vallejo um west

232contra costa and these are just the bay area districts i mean my list goes on for about 40 more that are around the state and my point is that if plas cost school districts and municipalities and taxpayers so much money as the opponents have said why do so many public entities continue to engage in them if these are such bad decisions then why doesn't there appear to be any regret or distress or fiscal fallout from these agreements and you know it's not just school districts going into these contracts it's the public sectors um they're being used all around the bay area water districts community colleges like the jc bart um san francisco and oakland airports bay area hospitals cities counties and on and on and and and these are large contracts for public projects that

233use um dollars overseen by entities like us with fiscal responsibilities and again they're not expressing regret they're not showing financial losses from these decisions um so i'm going to stop talking but i'm going to leave you with this the debate over psas in my opinion um whether to support or oppose is politically ideologically um that's the argument it's not about fiscal or budgetary um it's because um i think that if it was we would see that the cash-strapped public school systems in the state of california would not be able to engage um that's my opinion i'll leave it there thank you ed uh director de la cruz i wanna raise my voice to join my colleagues in support of this pla and pleas generally for a lot of the reasons that both director medina and

234dr sheffield mentioned but i do think that this question of our fiduciary duty over public funds goes exactly to the reason why plas are a good idea um union workplaces are safer you know workplaces provide benefits union workplaces make sure that workers um who get hurt on the job are able to to either heal and rest um or to move into a different job if that's what they need to do they they provide increased wages they allow for us to also help to meet our climate change goals by not making people drive all over um the bay area and and you know as my colleagues have mentioned they do result in benefits to the quality of life of kids in our district um to have their moms and dads home to have their moms and

235dads working locally and to have their families be connected in that way and connected to building within their own communities feels very meaningful to me um and so when i think about our our responsibility over public funds um i do feel like that we need to come from that very broad perspective of understanding what it means to be a fiduciary in our larger community i never want to be you know the walmart of school districts where we pay people such wages that they are they're required to go on to public benefit systems if anything what we are doing by entering into these kinds of agreements is increasing the quality of life for our entire community as a whole and so um you know i'm grateful that i get to speak after director sheffield um but

236my homework has resulted in many of the same conclusions that his did um we are not alone um we are not an outlier in considering a strong pla and we are joined by many other excellent thinkers across our state and country and even within our own jurisdiction um and so in fact we would be outliers in the opposite direction if we were to fall prey to a politicized understanding of the power of not only unionized workplaces and union workers um to again increase quality of life in our community but also to this politicized version of what plas actually do so um i i am also um i think in my own experiences as a kid um as a union kid and as a as a daughter of organizers and recognizing firsthand seeing what it means

237to be represented and to have a workplace of a voice in your workplace and have a sense of a collective power in the in the face of something that can very typically be very kind of lopsided um i i really support you know unions and union density in our community and i feel like hearing the the voices of power and pride and workers who found themselves and found their power as members of their union feels so beautiful to me um and something that i really want to support and i want us to be able to kind of peel away some of the of the things that make these these decisions feel controversial but really when we when we bring it down to the barest bones of it we're talking about decisions that value people for

238their labor and allow them to work in workplaces that do the same so um i joined my colleagues in in offering and and very enthusiastic support for this agreement and i thank our partners because i also think that when you bring an agreement that has agreement right i mean this that also means something about the partnership that we have um been able to build with our labor partners and as we think about you know moving forward in this larger relationship and as in in these projects as we move forward together um this is a very good start uh we we don't have um a lot of space between our values as a district and and what it means to be working with our labor partners and so i i feel like that sets us up

239for success in lots of different ways um but especially in making sure that these projects get done that they got done on time that they get done with excellent work high quality work and well-paid workers who enjoy their workplace and feel like they have a voice on their job so avelante thank you and i have some questions because i have also studied this as it came up looming and when i was running for office back in 2016 and sheffield you and i you know i was asked what do you think about project labor agreements would you support them and at the point in time i knew nothing about them and i my answer was i'm gonna have to research that and uh i have been researching that and i have been reading quite a bit

240about it and talking to people thank you to everybody who's talking to me but some questions what i heard tonight is that it's kind of like binary either higher union good wages good work you know all that or if you don't hire a union you don't have the psa or pla you're not going to have that or they're not going to be local so i'd like to ask our deputy superintendent in our projects in our larger projects right now in our schools with bond money do we have any idea of the workforce is there are they local are they local companies who who are they i mean how's that go i i don't have stats prepared for tonight but there are projects that we've run with many local construction firms labor comes from santa rosa

241area it comes from outside santa rosa area depending on the project the company and the amount of work that each company has or the successful bidder has at that time where uh workforce comes in but i know that it's been spread uh spread out amongst many different firms in the area thank you rick and i also understand that in a pla we can specify and i know that i understand that even with the pla even if it's in the agreement there will be good faith effort to hire local depending on who's here um i understand that i had so many questions through some questions um they did a lot of reading about the cost overrun so that was one of the things about cost overruns and and it's it's gonna cost more i actually cannot

242pinpoint that that is absolutely true um you know some people claim it is some people claim it isn't in the research i'm doing also academic research i'm doing uh that hasn't been found to be true so i'm gonna kind of put that off my off my brain um i am concerned that we did run our bond and we did not mention plas and people entrusted us with these bond measures and yet we're going to possibly be spending the rest of the bond money with a pla i don't know um deputy superintendent rick edson or anna your thoughts on that thank you for the question um personally not having been here during those discussions uh what i can share with you you know as my in my thoughts as superintendent is that we need to really

243weigh what our overall expectations are and certainly we don't want to be misleading of our community perhaps that wasn't an integral part of the conversation at the time and based on the times it is now we may want to go back and review what our messaging was at that time so that we stay true to the messaging um at that time and perhaps think about what our messaging would look like going forward if we were to entertain a new bond for example would that set a different precedent so i i would just want to ensure that we are being consistent um and that we didn't make promises that we couldn't keep at that time and that we would maintain consistency and the last thing i'm going to comment on is that we have a few

244judiciary duty to our taxpayers but we also importantly have um to keep what is good for santa rosa city schools what benefits santa rosa city schools what benefits our students and our mission of public education and so i am going to um i'm looking at this agreement and i'm reading very closely i'm looking at um 13.7 local hire in the agreement it's in the interest of the parties to facilitate employment of local area residents in the construction of any project this would be not only sonoma but lake mendocino napa marine right around us and um is there a way for us to to to monitor that i'm asking uh superintendent or deputy superintendent i will defer to mr edson on this uh we could certainly uh monitor persons who worked on jobs by zip code

245and have that data to show where hires are coming from either in sonoma county or surrounding counties as noted in that section 13 or from other parts outside of the counties listed so that would be 13.8 reporting and data collection uh tied to on them okay then i also want to point out 13.9 student involvement that is a very big paragraph for me um the unions agree to use their utmost efforts to inform include and generate interest from the district students relating to obtaining employment in the trades and they there's a there's some examples of how to do that so i'd like to visit if we have this i'd like to make sure that we visit that regularly and that it's not something vague not just agreed to use uh most efforts but that we

246actually have reporting and we we analyze that um more than once a year can we add that a metric yes we can discuss that director medina well um two things i think in terms of that metric i don't think that would be anything that we need to include into the agreement that would be our own separate thing that we would maybe direct staff to do um outside of that um but i think you know following up um you know you asked me why i support i'm curious like if we had to vote today and here's the president fong you know like would you support or oppose so why or why not just to kind of get an understanding of where everyone's at to be truthful omar i've been thinking about this for about six months

247now and it's back and forth for me i see great benefit um i also a little worried about who are we excluding um i also understand that you don't have to be a union contractor to to bid but i do understand you need to have workers who then join the union and i know there are benefits to that so um [Music] i also need to continue to hear from our community it's very important that we hear from our community so we're taking input tonight and uh we will take input again next week or in two weeks before we vote and that's important for me to hear i see benefits but i also wonder about okay so what about the people who are going to be excluded from bidding they also live here they also are

248business owners and contractors here they hire people who work here as well that's a big question for me just to clarify we can't exclude anyone from bidding correct right okay any other comments uh superintendent trinell any last things or wbc pretend at netsun no thank you okay all right thank you we're looking forward to um bringing this back and um i think the date anna is october 27th no sorry yes that is correct okay all right our final item on e is seven and thank you um jim traber thank you sheree for being here appreciate it thank you for your consideration um e7 is a discussion we are going to be discussing the self-evaluation protocol um anime speak i can speak to this or you want to speak to this okay you're not president fong

249you are welcome um to go ahead and speak to it so poor per board by law well that's a tongue twister and i'm losing my voice we are to evaluate ourselves once a year and this is this instrument that we've used before i had a couple tweaks in it um and this is in preparation for our board session next week that we will be doing work as a governance team to how are we doing you know just kind of take a good self look at ourselves as a governance team because we know that good governance team does a better job for their school district so there's a pdf here for you to look at we will be issuing that to you later tonight or probably tomorrow it's going to be a google form survey i

250believe and i'm going to ask all of you board members to please complete that by i'm sorry superintendent trinell which date was that if they could please complete it by monday the 18th and then we will use it as data for our discussion on wednesday's board meeting special board session so questions on that can we just get um either uh superintendent trinel or president fong could you please just send us an email tomorrow or something with the document and a reminder of the due date just so it's there and we got it we got it done thank you yeah okay good we'll remind you and thank you um no questions call for public comment if there are any members of the public students or anyone else who'd like to comment on item e7 please raise

251your hands at this time and i see no hands all right so that is done we're moving to the consent items and let's just make sure which consent items we're looking at we're looking at consent items two three four six seven eight for consent two three four six seven eight second all right so moved by where medina is seconded by um every florist can we have that vote please director medina um dr mindy and i can't hear you oh i said all right thank you director flores hi director hi director sheffield aye director for me hi president fong um we also need to do f1 approval of apps and board members we have one uh tonight that is ill so can i somebody move that please move to approve absent board members second second and

252roll call please director de la cruz aye director mccormick hi director sheffield hi director flores thank you everybody um we are going to pool five um [Music] superintendent true now would you just speak to that for a second thank you yes we realized that with the posting of the agenda that the shadco design and construction contract was on the summary sheet but the contract itself was left off of the attachment and so we're asking to pull the shadco design and construction and ask the board to if it's at the pleasure of the board to consider the other contracts that are on the list for tonight all right can i have a motion for that please uh move to approve f5 with the pulling with the exception of the yes shad co contract yes okay thank

253you that was seconded by omar medina director mccormick aye director medina director de la cruz hi director sheffield hi director flores hi president all right let's hear um discussion uh a public comment on uh consent eight approved summer of 2022 roofing hvac projects no excuse me nine we pulled nine and ten approval of contract north bay organizing project so president fong um do you want to hear public comment on nine four nine and ten we'll take just nine first okay so this is item f9 we had a few members of the public who asked that item f9 be pulled if those members would still like to comment at this time the ones who asked that be pulled only please raise your hands so f9 those who asked that it be pulled only will speak on

254this and our first comment is deanna olaveras hi um i was kind of hoping i wasn't gonna talk first because after that last session i feel like i want to blow my brains out because that's just crazy that we all have to sit through all that legality stuff but um you probably have gotten a few emails today and there's quite a few of us that are upset about north bay organizing project being on a consent item because they are religious they are political and omar is on the board of both so i personally think that's a conflict of interest um i don't understand how it could be a consent item i think that they're they're under an umbrella of the unitarian church they meet on mendocino avenue they teach sexual education they want to do

255after school clubs on santa rosa city school campus and there has been no input from the stakeholders so no parents have gotten a say in this and i think it's very disrespectful and upsetting and i think that you should ask parents how they feel and what they want to have on campus as after school clubs if you go on north bay organizing projects website they're hiring youth participants to do political phone banks and that is a political thing so if you're gonna set this president then you also need to realize that when other religious and political organizations maybe like the catholic church want to do things on campus at santa rosa city schools that you might not agree with then i think you should be ready to allow this because it's social justice justice and

256it's political and it's religious hello we can hear you sheila sorry oh i'm sorry yeah i couldn't i couldn't uh here i apologize um yeah i didn't know a whole lot about um this particular organ organization the north bay um organizing project but i did um look around a bit today just to learn a bit more and it does appear to me to be a political organization i i see that there are some already connections and affiliations with some of our schools and i'm not quite sure why we need an mou for this if that's even necessary and i do believe that trustee medina has a conflict of interest and should have abstained earlier in the meeting from this topic his position is under the his his working position is under the umbrella of the

257north bay organizing project so um i would like to see him abstain uh from voting or commenting on this item and i do agree with the previous speaker that um the the board should be cautioned to um any any sort of political interest um religious affiliation because you could open the door for various groups expecting the same treatment thank you thank you next is manny morales yes um my name is manny morales i'm the youth organizer with north bay organizing project and i want to call in in support of having this mou in place to continue the support and advocacy of our young leaders the idea is to strengthen the latinx student congress network by way of strengthening the relationship with some of the student-led organizations on the campuses i think there is a misconception

258around what the north organizing project is um [Music] and [Music] i think that the two previous comments [Music] are detrimental and the efforts to support our youth in building and establishing safe spaces and establishing clubs that will work towards student advocacy so i would like to uh you know thank you for this opportunity and hope that uh this is approved thank you next is gerald stahl yeah i i disagree with it too omar you know better than what you're doing and you know to do this to not have parents aware of the soul situation it's kind of you know it's almost like you're trying to pull those sheets over somebody's head and not let them see what's going on here you know it's not right that you're affiliated with that group and then you sit

259on our board and have your opinion on it i think you shouldn't be able to vote on anything concerning it you know it's just not right and then anna i don't know i i tried to call you a few times you haven't gotten back to me and this was an issue that i was trying to call you today about and you haven't returned my phone calls so it's an issue with me i don't approve of it and i do expect you to drop me a call so we can talk about this because it's a conflict and i think all parents should know what's going on here that's it thank you next is karim sanchez hello kareem sanchez i'm the executive director of the north bay organizing project um i just want to uh say thank

260you for your consideration of this mou uh many of you are familiar with the north bay organizing project our core principles are around our leadership development we want we work with various community members in their development to be civic actors and it's exactly what we do in our youth organizing program that we're talking about here manny morales is an amazing mentor and advocate for youth and his work is essentially to work with clubs that are on campuses to provide training in our leadership development theory um and and to connect youth and in these clubs to community resources to help them achieve their goals um we uh yeah i just wanted to say that and again thank you for your support i also want to clarify that omar medina is not on our board um we

261are a 501c3 and he does not sit on the board i heard that as a comment um wanted to clarify that president fong there are no other hands raised for f9 man i said this whole thing it was brilliant uh this is consent item i see no other uh hands raised by the board members so uh i need a director medina's hands raised yes sir yeah i just also wanted to reiterate with uh what uh funny mentioned i am not a board member i used to be um i think that ended in 2017 while i worked with counties remember seiu and i was president of mbop for a couple years but i'm no longer on that board um but i did also want to clarify something else that i heard somebody mention um somebody mentioned

262that um nbops are under the unitarian universalist church which um is not true unitary universe so this is a member organization um just as many other religious organizations are a part of um which was one of my favorite things about mbop as a whole that it brought many people of all ages different perspectives different religions together and allowed us to be a part of forming community organizing around various issues for me it started with immigration and education which ultimately led me being a part of this i think it's a valuable organization and i love the work that they're doing with students getting specifically engaged and involved and i'm very supportive of this work and especially with uh many morales doing some of that work who used to work for centers city schools and students love

263and he does great work so i'm supportive of this promotion of this memo i will add that we don't allow anybody to come in and indoctrinate our students we don't let a teachers indoctrinate our students we provide opportunities for students to gather research talk to different people make critical decisions on their own with their own thinking so i support every organization that comes in to help us think about things um we certainly have had churches come in and help to meet with groups sponsor groups um you know faith-based that kids who want to no one has to so it's just part of being part of a community and again public education where we present kids with things where they get to make decisions and build their confidence and their efficacy all right so do we

264have a motion yet for this i'd like to move the approval of the contract with nvop second okay so moved by every florist and seconded by i think that was i'll agree okay great director flores aye director de la cruz hi did you hear me oh sorry i didn't hear you that's good director sheffield aye director mccormick aye director medina we think you said i i i i completely uh i'm very supportive of this contract but just uh to avoid any possible misrepresentation or appearances i will abstain positive phone i and i would just also add that board members do not need to abstain unless there's really a cost benefit to them or right so this is a free this is not this is not costing us anything but thank you director medina uh we're

265moving on to uh consent item 10 um proposal for um cal shape work superintendent co2 sensors for president fong this was an item that was pulled by the public for um discussion that's right that's right um let's open that discussion please public comment on consent item 10. so members of the public if there are any in the meeting right now who would like to comment on item f10 please raise your hands at this time and sheila walker has her hand raised thank you again for your time um i just wanted to raise a couple of um issues or concerns um why wasn't this this price or this monies why weren't they attached to the mou as stated here it says for the mou with the srta the school is required to provide the co2 sensors

266per classroom so this is going to be a cost of around 1.1 actually almost 1.3 million dollars for the net cost to the district um i think it's great if we can improve the error for everyone uh but you know this is a a quite a quite a number the range from 1.3 to 3 3.3 million dollars and it wasn't included in an mou that was probably on the consent agenda um [Music] so um that's my comment i i i think at this point i think most parents you know may just be giving up and pulling out of the school district because when we sit here for four and a half hours um you've talked about pretty much everything else except educating our kids it's very frustrating so yeah thank you and there are no

267other hands raised you know i'm going to comment to sheila thank you for hanging in there you absolutely did hang in there and it's important to you and i'm going to say thank you i sure wish we could talk about teaching and learning a lot more we would need like you know two meetings a week um okay so let's take a i'm going to take a motion on this one move to approve f10 approval a proposal for the ca ab a41 cow shape work including installation of the co2 sensors second okay so that was motioned by um joe mccormick and seconded by ever flores director flores or sorry director mccormick aye director flores aye director de la cruz aye director sheffield aye director medina aye president phong hi thank you everyone we're moving on to

268the approval of the minutes g1 of special board meeting september 15th 2021. move to approve g1 approval of minutes the special board meeting held on september 15th 2021 sorry second okay so move by jill mccormick and second by uh clerk ever flores i agree i did that okay i'm over three don't don't wreck my role right now ever sorry gotta speak up girl director mccormick hi director flores aye director de la cruz hi director sheffield hi director medina hi president hi uh g2 approval of the minutes of the regular board meeting held on september 22nd 2021 move to approve g2 approval of the minutes of the regular board meeting held on september 22nd 2022. yes motioned by jim mccormick seconded by alegria daily cruise director mccormick director de la cruz hi director sheffield hi director

269flores hi director medina because you muted yourself instead of saying aye i said all right sorry president phong hi thank you everybody uh board member request for information um superintendent trannell we are going to be hearing back from ccla ccla cook title name merger yes yes you will and i would like to make sure that our board members take a look at the information items particularly the independent study comparative data how we're doing on independent study right that's something that's very important to us i want to see how that's going so thank you for that data and superintendent any last words thank you to everyone who's still with us tonight and everyone who was on this evening we continue to keep students at the center of our work sometimes it doesn't feel like that through

270some of the conversations that we have to have but there are so many moving parts when it comes to the work that we do in order to have our system run and so yes we certainly look forward to bringing more discussions around the learning that's happening and the ways that we are working to serve all of our students it is 10 43 p.m and i declare our meeting adjourned thank you very much everyone thank you good night thanks everyone