001Welcome to the special board meeting. Can we have roll call please? >> Esparza >> here. >> Wiker >> here. >> Lopez Aino >> here. >> Medina >> here. >> Kenones >> here. >> Thank you. >> Do we have any public comments? We do not. >> Let's proceed with the school service of California will present summaries of their competitive staffing and comprehensive budget review reports. There we go. Okay, we're on. We're live. Good evening, board president Esparza, members of the board, Superintendent Espinosa, and fellow audience members. Uh my name is Matt Phillips. I'm joined by my colleague Sarah Neman. Uh we are here to uh present on the results of two studies that the district asked us to engage in. See on Okay. All right. Next. Next, it is uh we're here to present on the
002results of two studies um that the district asked us to embark on. Uh the first study was a budget review. We call it a comprehensive budget review because we're looking at not only uh the district's budget, but also at some statewide certified data um on spending patterns. Um I took the lead on that study and then Sarah performed a comparative staffing review looking at some of the departments um and as well as some of the non-instructional site level staff to compare uh what the staffing looks like between the district here and with some other comparably sized districts. Do you want to say anything else on that before? Okay. Um again, the budget review uh was really focused on the assumptions that the district was using at the time that the budget was put together. And
003so um the district engaged with school services in the late summer, early fall of 2025, so let's call it September of of 2025. Um at that time, the adopted budget was the most recent information that the board had seen at the time. And so we collected data related to both the adopted budget as well as staffing data that Sarah's used to go through her analysis uh to complete the comparative staffing. We're going to kick off today talking about the budget review component of it and then we'll transition into the the staffing side. Um I do want to acknowledge congratulations on your tenative agreement. By the way, um the at the time that we embarked upon this there were still a lot of unknowns relative to that, but I know we've we've crossed that finish line.
004So congratulations to Congratulations to the teams that were involved in that process as well. Right. Next. So, I think this is a really nice um slide to kick off the presentation because this really encapsulates why the district was embarking on both a budget review as well as a comparative staffing analysis. Enrollment in the state of California is so so important for school districts because it drives the funding. Uh the enrollment and then what we call the average daily attendance, the rate at which students come to school is the primary driver for funding in the state of California. Conversely, school districts generally staff their schools based on enrollment. Um so with declining enrollment, um generally speaking, you're going to see declining revenues, which we'll speak to in just a moment. Um but when we look at
005that time period where the declining enrollment occurred, there was a lot of other outside factors happening at that time. The main one being the pandemic. If we went back to prior to 1920, there was still some declining enrollment. But even just within that six-year period, inclusive of the pandemic, the district uh has decreased by about a quarter of its students from what it had in the 1920 year, which is quite significant. If you were to look at the statewide enrollment over that same period, the state had been declining about 1 to 2% every year. Um, but over that same range, it's about an 8% decline. So, just to put it uh in relative terms, the state overall from about six million students down to about 5.6 million students over that period. About 8% district has
006experienced a 26% decline in the number of students over that period. And you know, the the loss here experienced the South Bay definitely on the higher end of what we see statewide, but as we get into some of the the coastal communities, uh, where it's just tough for newer families to to buy homes, that's where we see the greatest declining enrollment where other parts in the states, it's far and few between, but there are pockets in the state where there is some increasing enrollment. I think the goal of most districts at this point is just to be flat, uh, which does not happen very often. All right. So, this is really the genesis of um the reason why the district wanted to take a look at both the budget, right? Making sure that the budget
007was a an accurate projection based off the most current information, but then also to spend some time looking at the staffing because with enrollment decline that's that significant, it's really tough to maintain staffing to rightsize staffing at that same rate. >> Sir, >> thank you. And I just I want to just remind the public um for those of you that have at a board study session that it can be conversational. So we don't have to follow the we finish the the presentation and then all of the questions are asked by the board. If there's a question along the way, you can engage with us. Um so I just want to remind everybody that that's that is allowed in a board study session. So if you see the board acting a little bit differently, that's that's
008why. Um and I invite you to ask questions as we go. Okay. So, as Matt said, I was really focused on the staffing and so, uh, Matt's, uh, slides will talk a lot about the budget and then I'll talk about our preliminary findings. I will say that I have been meeting with the team for the year pretty much. We started in the in the fall and we've been meeting to take a look at staffing um, to evaluate um, and look at what staffing alignment could look like. And they um, they really deserve a lot of kudos. Uh, Superintendent Espinosa and his team have been working really hard to do that. Um, what we do know and what you'll see later is that there is some right sizing needed. We don't say overstaffed, right? Because overstaffed,
009look, we all work really, really hard when we're in the school district giving it our all. And when we say overstaffed, it's like no, I feel like we need more people, right? But what we do know is that the staffing alignment is off for the number of students that you have, for the number of students you're projected to have, and then in in terms of your crumbles. So, we do need to talk about some right sizing, uh some streamlining within some departments, um some kind of norms for what those departments might look like, and then some balancing in some of our operational departments. And that's what I'll dig deeper into when we get to uh that section. >> Right. Thanks, sir. >> Okay. So, we're going to start by talking about the budget review. Um
010I believe the board has a copy of the report that we finalized. Okay. So there's a lot more detail in the report. Um what we're doing in the slides here is really summarizing the areas where um some changes were being proposed and I'll summarize those changes at the end of the series of slides. But as we go to the first slide, um I want to spend a little bit of time talking about the district's revenues, right? the revenues through the local control funding formula. So this makes up about a little little more than 90% of what we call the unrestricted revenue. So those are dollars that the board has full discretion on utilizing those dollars. Those are dollars that would be used uh for compensation increases as an example. Uh if the board wanted to
011embark on a new program, maybe a dual immersion, an international balorette program at a school site, this is where we would look to say can we do that, right? are there dollars available there for us to do stuff like that? And I want to contrast that um against what we hear from the state, right? So the state again provides the majority of dollars for school districts uh in a couple different buckets. One, the local control funding formula and then we see a kind of a litany and a mishmash of what we call categorical programs that are provided by the state of California. The dollars through the local control funding formula again are the majority of those dollars that come from the state of California. And so what we'll hear at the state level is the
012state will say the cola is right if I look at 2526 the cola this year is 2.3% and we are fully funding the cola as the state of California right and so at the local level we would be led to believe well great we're going to get 2.3% in new revenues if you're providing cola as the state of California right we know cola to be the cost of living adjustment we should be getting some more money then right and unfortunately that's not what the state needs when they say they provide COLA, in the eyes of the state and in the um education code, COLA is an increase in the funding per student provided to school districts. Right? So, when the state says they provided a cost of living adjustment, what they've done is they've increased
013the funding per student that they will provide. That's great. If we have the same number of students or more students year-over-year, we're going to see the full benefit of a cola, right? And even maybe more than that if we're growing. But in the case of the the demographic change that we're seeing down here and the decline in student population in South Bay, which we highlighted just a couple slides ago, you can see for last year, so 2425, when we say unodudited actuals, that's the financial information that's presented to the board in September, that represents actual revenues and expenses. There's no budgetary projections in there. In the 2425 year, if you look at the state messaging, the state says, "Well, we provided a cola at 1.07% that year." Say, "Thank you. We appreciate that." What does
014that mean for us locally when we overlay a COLA with our declining enrollment and declining ADA, our LCFF revenues actually declined almost $5 million last year, right? From about 59 million down to 54.8 million. So, oh, it's working. I'll just I'll leave that one. Okay. Thank you. >> All right. So, it's important that we understand that concept of cola. Um, while the state does provide money for cola in its state budget, the uh what that means for districts locally varies quite greatly. All right. And so when we look at this trend of declining enrollment with the impact of cola year-over-year, the district is actually projecting a decline in their LCFF revenues each year all the way through the 2728 year because of that declining enrollment declining ADA even in those years where we have CO.
015So um you know in looking at the budget assumptions that were used there was no budget assumptions that I saw that were out of the norm or what um different than what any other business office in the state of California would be using. Um the assumption here being the cola the 1.07% for 2425 is a known number. The 2.3% for 2526 is a known number. The number that has currently changed are the cola projections for the outy years. We didn't have this information when we adopted the budget back in June. Um but now that the governor has released his budget proposal, he just released that at the beginning of January, January 10th. Um the 2627 cola has actually gone down from 3.02 to 2.41. So that has dropped and it's still going to move before
016the dust settles. Um but I do want to highlight for the board that these numbers are subject to change. And the 2728 cola, I think it's down around 3% now. So both of them have come down about a half a percent. Just again if there's any takeaway from the budget side of things um in this presentation is what does cola actually mean increase of funding per student? Those cola percentages are not established by the state of California. It is uh information that is fed federally aggregated and it measures the spending of state and local governments nationwide. Right? So the spending changes year-over-year. That's how the That's the factor that the state uses to provide increases in funding for student here in the California. That's been a long-standing practice that is in the education code. Um
017that was put in u many years ago. I can't remember how many years ago, but it's been quite a while. It predates me um in my business experience, which is about 20 years. And the reason the state did that is they said, you know, we don't want the legislature to have to worry about how much of a cost increase each year. We're going to use the cola the measurement of state and local government spending. And that will be kind of the target that the legislature shoots for each and every year. Right. But again, the impact for us locally, significant decline in revenues, right? All right. So, um just a few slides here. I just wanted to highlight some areas where I did see some changes. And again, kudos to the team. Um especially, uh Mr.
018Morz, you know, he and I went back and forth quite a bit um with questions, right? Poking and proddding in the assumptions trying to understand um why the assumptions were used. So, um thank you for for hanging in there with me on this one. One of the areas where we did see a change and again I'll summarize each of the areas of change um that I had identified based off of the adopted budget information, right? And these changes have all been incorporated in the first interim that was presented to the board in December. So, um I don't want you thinking that uh this information has not already been presented to the board or the results of this. uh it was a component of the first interim presentation. One of the uh other areas of income
019and you can see this is very small compared to our revenues through the local control funding formula interest income. Uh districts maintain the majority of their money in the county treasury. The county then takes that money and invests it in very low um lowrisk investments, right? CDs, uh T bills, things of that nature, right? There's no mutual funds in there. there's no individual stocks and when that money is invested they're able to uh achieve a higher rate of return than just leaving it in the savings account. So over the last couple of years 23 24 and 2425 the district has received about $2 million in interest income. And so in looking at the adopted budget number for 2526 only 1.1 million was projected for interest income for the year. And so uh again we had
020what we call courageous conversations. Why would why are we doing 1.1 million? What's the assumption behind that? And so, uh, we came to the agreement that that number needs to be increased in budgetary projections certainly based off of what had already been received. And then when you look at the two previous shares, right? So, you'll see an increase or you saw an increase in that at first inter right. Uh, this is an area. So when we talk about contributions, um a contribution is the amount of money that a district spends to support programs that don't receive sufficient funding from the state and federal government. And so that's really two components. One of them, I'll start with the second bullet, is the district is required to set aside every year at least 3% to support ongoing
021maintenance or routine restrictive maintenance. That's a requirement by the state of California. Um, any district that receives bond money from the state of California, in the year that they receive bond money and for 20 consecutive years thereafter, the state requires districts to set aside at least 3%. To support the maintenance of their facilities. State does not want to be in the business of just giving money, letting you build or modernize the facilities, and then not having districts have some skin in the game. So, we call that 3% set aside, the routine restrictive maintenance. because that number is 3% of expenses, it's generally pretty consistent, right? You're not going to see big es and flows in that um number. The other significant program where there's support provided via a contribution is special education. Special education um
022school districts receive money from the federal government specific for special ed. They receive money from the state government specific for special ed. And then whatever additional costs are not covered by the federal and state dollars, districts have to contribute really their their LCFF dollars to support the special education program. Um, here in South Bay, and I've got this top of mind because we were just looking at the information as part of the presentation for negotiations. Um, the federal and state government cover about 35% of costs for most districts and then districts are supporting the program for the other 65%. Here in South Bay, because of the level of the that we have the federal and state government are only covering about 25% of our costs and we're supporting 75% of the program. Okay. So, we're
023we're definitely an outlier um in that area on what we're spending to support our special education program. But even with that um and again the focus of the um budget review was on the assumptions used for adopted budget. we generally don't see or when I say we I say I I generally don't see the support for maintenance or special ed decrease year-over-year right and so in looking at the adopted budget number um you know the question um of the fiscal team is well you know why would we project a decrease in that number when over the past two years we spent 15.5 and 15.8 so we had a good conversation um around this and we agreed that that number needs to increase to reflect more reasonable estimate of what the cost uh both the 3%
024and the support for special education. Yeah. Yeah. Both of those are included in the $15 million figures there. Okay. Yes. No. So, >> yes, I I think I understand the question. And so, this is a a statewide I don't want to even say phenomenon. It was I'd say a little predictable. When we shut down schools for an entire year and kids are learning remotely, inevitably they're going to fall further behind, right? And so, um, what is going to happen when the kids are reaclimating back into school? I remember I was in a a district, we were doing a facilitation where we had members of the community and certificated staff, classified staff. We're having some budget discussions and I overheard this is in uh beginning of the 22 23 school year and I overheard a conversation
025with some teachers and they said um you know learning isn't even really a priority at this point because students just want to they want to like feel each other right because they've been on Zoom they've been remote and so um that social emotional component took kind of a front seat as students were reaclimating after being home with that as we look at the requirements for student students students who would then enter into special education. A component of that is are they at their their grade level? And so we saw, I'd say statewide, a pretty precipitous decline in students that were at grade level. And so we saw a higher identification rate of students going into special education, all things being equal. But I will say um again anecdotally, the decline in enrollment statewide um students
026who are identified for special ed services have gone the other direction. Right? There's not been a commensurate decline. >> Can I I I think I know your your question, right? It's about closing this specific school in South Bay or No, no, >> use your mic. >> I apologize. Um, no, no, no. It's not about um ch uh closing a school or anything, but just um when we're looking at at budget and we're saying this much money is put towards our students um with special needs, then if that is lowering, then shouldn't that be lowering that cost be lowering? And I can see how it would not. And I and also taking into consideration, we have our um our reading difficulty screener coming up and the cost um that that is also going to create so
027that we can support those students that are identified, >> right? Yes. No. Um in a in a perfect world, the enrollment decline and the student identification rate would decline at the same level, but that's just not the case, right? All right. And I frontloaded with the the pandemic and the reasons why that number is going up. Um but you know the statewide when you look at the identification rate it was about 11%. Um of students would be identified for special education and now I think it's up 14 15%. Statewide uh which I think a lot of that has to do with the pandemic and that lost learning that occurred. >> And Matt I I can add that in our district we're at about 19%. >> And I I just app I appreciate that people are
028here to listen to this and so for clarification purposes I want it to be understood that there is a rising cost. >> Yes. >> Yeah. And we'll highlight what the impact of that is on the final slide. >> Just a quick question. The routine restricted manage is that what is referred to the reserve funds? Is that what it is? >> No. It's different. >> Yeah. This is this is different. So there's the um uh I just blanked on the term reserve for economic uncertainty. The reu is the amount of money that we have which is also 3% of expenses that we're required to set aside uh for the state of California. That's in our savings account, right? That's what's left over in our fund balance. This is money that's set aside each year to out
029of our unrestricted dollars to be spent specifically for the maintenance of Yes. Good question. Thank you. Thanks. Okay. Um so then we're shifting now and we're looking at the expenditure side of the budget. So these are um things where cash we're spending cash. Uh the previous two we were receiving dollars. And so the way that we look at this is is in a a much broader category. Um breaking it up between personnel costs and non-personnel costs. So starting first on the personnel costs, we're um based off the account code structure in the state of California, we're able to identify, you know, how much is spent for certificated salaries, which is all of our um professional teaching staff as well as like principles, vice principles, and so forth. Anyone who's in a position that requires a
030credential. Classified salaries would be everyone else not in a position requiring a credential. And then employee benefits would be the benefits for all of those positions. Right? So when we total that up and do a a trend analysis on this 23 24 and 2425 the district well specific to 2425 the district spent about 93 cents of every unrestricted dollar on people costs right on salaries and benefits. And I would say that is on the high end of the range. Generally what you see on that number is anywhere from 85 to 87%. Right? So the district again you invest in your people and that's not a bad thing. That's not what I'm trying to say right now. Um what I am trying to say is twofold is that when that amount of of commitment that percentage
031of commitment is for people it doesn't leave a lot to do other things right textbooks adoptions uh we've got to pay the utilities and so forth but also you know as the district uh is embarking on reductions it's going to be hard to not look at the people side and so Sarah's going to talk a little bit later about that she talks about the comparative staffing um because what we're spending on people is a combination of the number of people we have as well as how much we're paying those folks. So just because we're spending this amount on people doesn't mean that our employees are the highest paid, but when you combine the number of people we're paying and salary and benefit packages that are provided, you're right up there at the top of the
032list. Okay. Yes. >> Thank you. I like this slide. Um in regards to the California Public Employees Retirement System, they do a really poor um they have a really poor portfolio in their investments. >> I've noticed that's the last 15 20 years. And so um who pays for that? It's districts. And so I say that for everybody that's listening. Okay. Um in our policies, we do have a provision in 3100 that allows for a district to create a trust. And you're familiar? Okay. And uh secure that for future benefits. >> Okay. We've done that for our retiring uh group for their medical 65. We've done that and it's uh it's a great portfolio. So as we move through this, that's what I would like to do. >> Create a trust for Kalpers. >> Yes. >>
033For Calpers payments. >> Yes. >> Okay. Okay. >> Thank you. >> Sure. Thank you for the call. Um I think one thing to highlight on this is when we look at the percent especially for the 2425 year um recognizing that we hadn't settled negotiations this percent is before any negotiated settlements there. So we probably would have been pretty close to the 95% had negotiations settled in that same year. So then again looking the focus of this was looking at budget assumptions for just right off the bat if the district has spent about 95 cents of every dollar 23 24 and 242 25 looking at the budget projections for 2526 something to me seemed a little bit off because how does that go all the way down to 90%. Right? So that was the the genesis
034of some questions I had and we'll identify where those changes came in just a moment here. All right. So, um, in looking at the salaries and benefits, uh, I noted that between 2425 and 2526, there was a projected decline in certificated salaries. Um, and so after, um, inquiring with the team, um, we identified that there was some stipens for special education that had been paid in the previous couple years. It's a few hundred,000 um, that were not included in the budget. And so that change was recommended to be made. Um there was also not to pick on Kalpers um but the amount that was budgeted for Kalpers was a little bit on the high side. Um so that the net impact of those two is actually pretty close to zero. Um but as we talk
035about the non-personnel side this is more of the reason why the percentages were. So when we look at the non-personnel side, books, services, capital outlay, we can see the percentage going up quite a bit and again there was no salary settlements for 2425. So that caused the slight uptick um in in the percentage for the 2425 year, but we see that big increase in 2526 up to almost 10%. And this is getting um really far in the weeds, but the way that the district is structured, we have our spending in fund 01, our general fund, which is for all of our district schools, and then in fund 09, we have two charter schools, right, Nester and Imperial Beach. And the way that the district shares some of the costs between um expenses uh specifically around
036special education and the two charter schools is they're actually able to recoup some of those expenses through the second line on there, the services and other operating expenses. So, um, as I was looking at the budget assumptions for 2526, it looked like the assumptions relative to that cost recapture were understated, which made the expenses a little more overstated. So, that's that was really the driver um of the big increase in in percent there. It's not that the district is spending more in those other categories. It was just that budgetary change that needed to happen. Okay. So, I know that's really far in the weeds, but I did want to acknowledge what the the change was there. All right. So, what does that mean? So, we've gone through each of those slides and again the LCFF
037slide was really just to provide some foundation to highlight the impact of significant declining enrollment for the district. Um but when we think about the budget assumptions and the changes that go along with that, I think it's worth noting that at the time um that we were taking a look at the adopted budget. We have to remember the adopted budget was prepared in April and May of 2025. Right? At that time um lot of unknowns. There was nothing known about the enacted state budget that hadn't been passed yet. The district also had not finished its 2425 fiscal year. Right? So the unodudited actual numbers that have been included on the slides. The team did not know those. So I had the benefit of that. I had a head start if you will. Um I know
038if the team had that information they would have seen some of the same things that that were identified here. But in looking then at really the the focus of this is okay what changes should be made when the team presented the first inter right what's the summary of that? So, um, what we've done here, and I I did change the the years on the header for this one. I apologize that the wrong years were printed in the board's packet, but this reflects the current years, the correct years. So, the sum of those changes, unfortunately, the um overall impact was negative to the district's ending financial position. And again, this was all reflected in the first interim packet that was presented. So if we look at just the 2526 year, I'll walk through those changes and
039then it'll be a similar explanation for the two out years. Uh so the interest income um again in speaking with the fiscal team, we agreed that for the current year we should increase the budget assumption for that by an additional 900,000. Uh the contribution to special education, uh we agreed that that was understated. We needed to increase the contribution to special education. Um and so we're projecting an increase of additional 700,000 in support relative to what was in the adopted budget. Support for routine restricted maintenance. Um the district had received some funds are called redevelopment funds in years past that it was using to satisfy the 3% set aside and there's been a recommendation from the county office since that those funds are not eligible to do that. So the district now is bearing the
040full cost of the 3% with its unrestricted dollars. So that's a pretty significant pull on the unrestricted general fund. So those three changes uh result in a decrease of unrestricted available funds of 2.6 million. On the expenditure side um again an increase in special ed stipens um that were not included in the adopted budget. We had some savings from the Kalpers. The budget was overstated a little bit. Um and then again that interaction between the the general fund and the fund 09 where the charter schools u financial information is maintained some additional charges for special education to the charter schools to the tune of 800,000. So that's actually a benefit to the general fund. Right? So a reduction of expenses of 825,000. So a net change a net decline in the district's financial position of
041about $1.8 million in the first year after looking at the budget assumptions. So, I'm going to pause there. That was a lot of info. Um, I'm going to pause there and see if there's any additional questions or clarifications I can provide before handing it over to Sarah to walk through staffing. And again, these are all included in the first interim. I I reinforce that because I don't uh want any of the trustees to think that first interim we now need to add this. It was already included in the first interim projections that were provided to the board. It's just a a timing um you know the the study and then the results of the study we weren't able to squeeze in for that first interation but I did take a look at that in these
042work. So are we looking at the salaries and benefits and um I'm looking at the numbers um there's no number of employees for 23 24 25 but the amounts is almost the the same you don't have the data it's just something that is >> when you say number of employees >> yes what do you mean >> so we have the the actual amount right >> uh for uh certificated salaries, classified salaries, but there's no number of employees, how many employees are for that particular year and in the next year. >> Correct. I I didn't analyze the number of of employees that the district had between the two years to see uh if it should have gone down because those are actual spending. There's no assumptions in that. I wasn't doing an analysis to see, oh,
043are we still are we just paying people more and that's why there's no change there. Um I really use those two years as an anchor to then support well what should we be projecting for 2526. >> Okay. Thank you. >> What about workman's comp? >> So workers comp is a line item. If we were to get the detail of the employee benefits workers comp would be one of the line items. Um also down in that are payments for calers. So the retirement for certificated KPERS uh the district's contribution for health and welfare benefits right how much they're paying for employees all that is collapsed into the employee benefits line item right okay I'm going to hand it over to my colleague Sarah who's going to walk through the staffing Thank you. [clears throat] So when
044we take a look at the uh staffing, we analyze uh districts that are like uh like South Bay. So we took similar enrollment, similar UP um and we use that as our guiding uh factor. Uh all of these districts also have some sort of charter uh charter schools, independent dependent charter. Um so we wanted to have as as similar school districts as we could find. You're going to see several charts throughout this presentation that are laid out in a similar way. And the numbers that I really want you to focus on would be the enrollment to FTE second from bottom that shows you how many FTE you have per student. Okay, per student. Okay, per enrolled student. That's the number we take a look at to see because you know you might have 10, they
045might have 15, but if you have a different number of students and it's really apples to oranges, but if we take it by enrollment to FTE, then there's there's that similar comparison. So that's the how we establish the ranking. So we took a look at all of the different areas in the district office and there were some specific site positions that we were asked to take a look at. Combining all of those together, you can see there's 234.66 FTEES. If you take a look across that blue line on the page, you can see it's significantly higher than your comp districts. But if you take a look at that enrollment to FTE, you're at 15.54. And the next, I would say lowest, right? The second ranked district is Bua Park at 25.9. There's a significant delta
046there in terms of the staffing. Um, overall for this district in comparison, the only department that was not ranked number one was child nutrition services. Okay. Any questions on how to read this because we're going to see charts like this throughout. >> So, one meeting that we're read we're leading the pack here. >> You are leading the pack. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Yeah. you have the highest number of staff per number of students involved. Okay, we're going to break it up into departments to take a look. Um, and I just want to uh stress the fact that not every district assigns departments in the same exact way. So, for instance, your student services department is assigned under ED services. For the purpose of this report, it's kind of broken out because I wanted to
047compare student services to other student services departments. So sometimes special ed is included in student services, sometimes it's not, right? And so you can't it's not always super clear. [clears throat] And in cases where job descriptions maybe they didn't have the same job title, excuse me, we evaluated the job description to find the most like position, right? To see where would this position fall. Does it does it fall under management classification certificated classification? Thank you very much. Uh so it's as close as a comparison as we can come up with. Right. So in ed services you can see a breakdown of management department and admin uh staffing. You can see here again in ed services um the rank is is number one and pretty noticeably right 102.82. 82 with the next highest being the next
048next closest district being 169 uh.43. When you get the finalized report, you know, the district uh and school services are still going back and forth with the draft. You'll see all of the positions listed under each of these departments in an appendix. Um but so you can see the breakdown of what belongs in this column um for ED services in each of the school districts. um that will help you get an idea of what that looks like. Department staff, we know that um we have some dedicated individuals who are paid for out of LCAP. It's been an intentional decision and as we're looking at I think a LCAP cycle that's expiring at the end of next year, um that might be an opportunity to to re-evaluate um with with that staff if that's what the
049the district chooses to do. Um but again, this is really just meant to compare and give you an idea of where you sit. with the mid tier um uh the leadership um you fall kind of in that mid tier. So if you look at the management staffing um you are ranked three. I hear a lot of time we hear all the time there's too many managers at the district office right there's too many managers when in reality you're right in the middle of where management um falls in ed services. Um so having those directors and coordinators um it's not abnormal, it's not heavily weighted. Um and so uh we take a look again at each level of staffing the management the the support uh department staff and then the admin assistant or clerical staff uh
050to see where the outliers are in in management is not an outlier. It is it is right in the middle of where it needs to be. Yeah. Um this is very interesting. Um but I'm concerned that we're providing services to our dependent charters and it's not reflected here. So we took out the enrollment for all of the chart all of the districts that have to do with charters. But it is very very normal for a district that has charters to be serving charters and district kits. you really can't um you really don't disassociate and say those are charter kits because so much of that work is crossover, right? And so you I was doing another one up up north where they're saying it's 5050 their budget 5050, but in reality if you were to ask
051a person how much time do you spend doing charter work and how much time do you spend doing district work? You can't really break it up because it depends on the day, depends on the services. Um, and so when we looking at the FTE, we took out the enrollment, right, for the charters, but that work still has to be done whether it's for district kids or charter kids. It's it's being done. Um, so it it it's not a a perfect world because you don't have just uh district enrollment, but all the districts have the same uh setup. >> Okay. So the observations with ed services are um really that the the the district and this is kind of the way it's set up in many of the departments. It's set up to grow, right? It's
052set up to have like growth uh in enrollment when in reality we have as Matt mentioned I think a 26% decline in enrollment over the last several years. And so that staffing needs to be evaluated to to align with that. um looking at uh what what are the core functions we need to serve, what are the um priorities of the board and the community that we need to serve and then staffing based on on that. You have some redundancy in some of the roles with uh with some of the the lower level management positions that we feel could eventually um be realigned um and and possibly phased phased out as as LCAP expires and as people uh move on to other roles or if the district chooses to um make the decision to to make
053some cuts, nothing is so drastic that it feels like you need to make that cut right away. There's some time um with that LCAP cycle. Um but there is some overlap there. You have dependence on some limited time funding that we would encourage you to to take a look at. And I just want to reiterate, the team has been really, really good about doing this. Um, they really know their people. They know their programs. They know what can work and and when it might be a great time to phase things out. So, um, big kudos to them. And then using attrition to rightsize. Um, you know, I I'm not here to say you need to lay off a bunch of people. I'm here to say as people are leaving, you want to evaluate uh whether
054or not you need to fill that position or whether or not you want to rework that position or whether you should realign some of the ways that you um have a reporting structure. Um and so when you when you really focus on that attrition, um you you have some opportunity there for fiscal savings. And as a district, as districts, we're often in the habit of just like filling the vacancy, right? right? We just filled the vacancy. The person left us filled the vacancy. But in reality, we should be pausing and saying, "Do we really need this? Does it need to look this way? Does it need to be brought back in a different way?" Right? So, using that um to really kind of guide the conversations. I mentioned earlier student services falls under ed services.
055Um but for the sake of this, we pulled it out to take a look. Um you have special ed that reports also to student services. um which which inflates your numbers a little bit because a lot of times special ed is a standalone department not under student services. Okay. Um but because you do you have a higher FTE you rank number one again um with essentially um the the next uh district being Bu park again at double your FTE right uh double FTE to enrollment. So you have a significantly higher staffing, but again, special ed falls into student services, which is not uh the norm, right? It's usually kind of a standalone department. That's why this number is is uh skewed in that way. In terms of your leadership, um you have five um staff
056in your management. And uh you can see here number of those are tied into special ed. There's some recommendations that that that we looked at in terms of right sizing or realigning this leadership leadership position in the district um because of the scope of um oversight and liability that this person has. Um and so uh because the director of student services is also responsible for special ed, it would make sense that this this position is elevated in or at least considered to be elevated um to an executive director. Uh there's a lot of liability, a lot of compliance, lot of responsibility put on both special ed and student services. And so this is uh something that we see as a common practice for districts that have student services and special ed under one person. So
057that recommendation is made. And I want to say this when when we talk about recommendations, that's just what it is, right? These are recommendations. They're not directives. They're just uh guidance for you, conversation starters for you uh to take a look at based on um what we know to be some strong practices in in in districts. Um >> I have a quick question. Can I go back to the last slide? I just want to make sure I'm understanding this correctly. >> I'm going backwards. I'm going forward. >> Okay. So for example um when we look across and I know our department is it encompasses two departments really special ed student services. So when I look at the supervisory management positions so I would look at director of student services parent engagement support coordinator those are
058student services positions and the coordinator multi-tiered systems support that's probably student services as well. So the coordinator of special education then if we're comparing just in terms of comparing does Atwater, Buen Park, Lawndale, National is that just student services personnel up there? >> Yeah, there's a combination. Some include special ed and some don't. And that that's will be in the appendix of the report. It shows you every position that's broken down um in in each chart. >> Got it. Thank you. >> But they're not all tied into uh student services. >> Okay, perfect. Thank you. >> Good question. and it shows four there, but you you have two coordinators of special education. So that's why there's four positions listed there. Okay. Um so uh the the the alignment in special ed and just the staffing
059overall needs some alignment review. U we talked about this when we worked together as a cabinet. um because we were asked to look at some specific positions, right? What what makes uh what makes it so abnormal that your your staff is so so high or the numbers are so high? As Matt said before, if your budget is 95% people and the state average is about 85 to 87%. It's probably it's not all salaries, right? It's in the number of people. So you have 16 FTE in speech and language pathologists, which is noticeably high, right? The threshold in California 55 to1. You don't have a ratio that's anything other than that in your collective bargaining agreement. So that's an area where there there should be some alignment uh discussed. Um and we talked about that with
060the team. And then um elevating that current director to an executive director of student services and special education is is a structural uh change. Um, and it would help, I think, strengthen um just the the autonomy and initiative and the oversight like liability that this person has um for some very expensive and important programs in your district. In HR, the district is also number one. You can see the total FTE enrollment, right? 455.88. 8 um two management, some department staff and some admin support staff. Um the report details those positions specifically and there is some room there with an individual who reports to HR but it's not really an HR person to maybe do some realignment there but but you there are eight FTE assigned to HR. In terms of management, again, you're in the
061middle, three at five. So, it's not that you have so many managers that are taking over the district office. Uh, as a matter of fact, you are right on par with everyone else with about two. It's just that your enrollment is lower. And so, that's why your ranking is higher. That makes sense. Uh so you have the assistant superintendent, HR and the personnel supervisor for HR. Um because the enrollment is not growing because you are shrinking in size probably also in FTE and the scope of oversight is a little bit more limited. There is a recommendation there to reduce that position from an assistant superintendent back down to an executive director. It aligns with the other non-instructional functions, preserves the oversight, reduces your costs, and is in more alignment with a district of your size.
062Um, you don't need everyone to be an assistant superintendent in a district your size. So, the recommendation is is made there. Um, and in an executive level direct uh position, that person can still be your chief negotiator, can still do all of the things that you need to have done um by by somebody leading an HR department. Um there is some complexity that is uh anticipated to kind of stabilize as as you're reducing and then it's reduced, right? And then you continue maybe you're closing a school and then it happens and then it kind of calms down. All of that can be done with a department the size that you have. I don't think you need to add or cut or do anything with the department that you have in HR other than possibly reducing
063that position to an executive director. Business services has five departments. So there's a lot in here. You can see again number one except for child nutrition and significantly so right FTE enrollment is 50 to five uh 50 to one uh with one apart being about 65 to one and you can see kind of where the FTE falls in each of those departments. And again, I want to commend the team because we have been looking at the staff and the vacancies in each of these departments, looking at ways to maybe realign work, looking at any sort of, uh, ways to maybe appropriately staff these departments looking forward. Um, and so, uh, they have some ideas around that. Um, and this number just I think validates the fact that the team already had an idea that there
064was a lot of staff um supporting the district. >> Can we back up really quick? >> Yeah. >> And I just want to clarify under Lawndale and transportation where it says zero looks like zero transportation staff. >> Yeah, they contract out. >> Okay. Thank you. >> It's noted in the report just probably not on here. Yeah. But good catch. So each department within business services within with the exception of the warehouse department has a director overseeing operations within that department which is similar to most of the other uh departments or comparative districts. Uh there's nothing here that's so um so abnormal that we go hey why do you even have this position? Right. It makes sense and it definitely makes sense for the size of the district that you used to be. Um I think
065the the real issue is that there hasn't been thoughtful adjustment made as those enrollment uh changes have happened South Bay. So as I mentioned the business services reflects a larger district structure um with those multiple directors in each area. There's opportunity to consolidate uh the leadership in the business services department. There are some operational areas that could be reviewed. Um transportation, facilities, maintenance, all of them are are listed here. Um a perfect example could be transportation. There's a lot of bus drivers. Um you could be evaluating bus routes or things like that. That's a that's an example of an operational uh change, right? evaluating um the number of people that you have based on the specific need that you're serving. Um so that's something that the district is looking to do and then uh being
066strategic in the right sizing to improve efficiency. Right? You don't want to just cut a position to cut a position or not fill a position to not fill a position. It should be intentional and thoughtful because some positions are really crucial to the compliance and the safety of our students. Um but u being really thoughtful as you're looking at the right sizing is important technology similar story except that it's not Bu park who's next who's next in line it's national but even still you can see a significant rank difference here in the FTE uh in enrollment enrollment to FTE ratio. >> [snorts] >> So with your targeted uh with your declining enrollment, there are some targeted staffing reductions that are feasible uh within technology. Um there's some positions that are listed here outlined in the
067report for your recommendation. That's again for your consideration, right? This is not a directive. These are just areas that we feel um have some room to be um utilized uh for efficiency purposes. And then there were some positions that we were asked to evaluate that are sitebased. And so you can see here we evaluated four certificated positions, four classified positions, and the total um of all of those employees um put you also at rank one uh with 49.61 and the next highest district being Atwater um 77.6. So it's it's significant. Not all the districts offer positions. Uh so educational social worker um not a position that's offered in every district. So that affects your ranking. Um and uh school counselors are kind of all over the place. Psychologists are kind of all over the place.
068Um you have attendance secretaries everywhere. You have behavior intervention specialists everywhere. um Buena Park um I would say and and National maybe don't have BAS they have some sort of other outsourced person um but they don't have the BAS and then the healthcare and instructional media resource technician. So if you break them down by individual positions, educational so social worker, your 205, your rank 205, nurse, you're one of five. School counselor, three of five. School psychologist, one of five. Leave that off for just a second so you can see it. Attendance secretary, you're ranked number one. Behavior intervention assistant, you're ranked number one. Health clerk number one. Instructional media resource technician number one. So just some key observations for your site level staff. Um, you know, I would say both on the certificated and the
069classified side, this just requires some targeted conversation around the services that the district is offering and the staff needed to do that with the current enrollment and the projected enrollment, right? What's really needed, how many staff um are needed to accomplish that work? Because what we don't want to do is cut services so much that then our students are getting served, right? I would never come up here, but teacher high school English teacher. We don't want to cut services so that our our students aren't getting met students needs aren't getting met. But we do need to evaluate whether or not we're staffing for our current needs or we staffed, you know, for our needs uh back in the day and some of those one-time monies that we had or co monies that we had that
070we used to bring on extra people. Is that still needed? Right. It appears just by looking at comp data that you're overstaffed in some areas. Um, now districts can do that and that's an intentional decision, right? We want to have BAS, we want to have educational social workers, we want to have better counselor ratio or better psychologist ratio and that's fine as long as you know that you're doing that. You're doing that intentionally, right? You're making that decision to do it and it's not just kind of, well, we've always had 14, let's just keep having 14, right? So that's where that's where I would charge the team to spend some time saying okay what do we really need for the students so that our services their services are being met and if we're if we're
071saying okay we need to have five of these positions to run it okay to run it so that every student has this much access but we want to invest more money in that program we want to invest in additional to FTE great but you know that that's what you're doing right that's that intentional staffing decision Um, you're, like I said, you're classified and your certificated exceed the peer districts. So, it does warrant some review. Again, we only looked at those eight positions. I would imagine there are other positions in the district that are similar um that warrant um some review, and that's uh a task that would be up to that team, to your team. And then figure out that that balance between maintaining services, providing the that your kids need and then what what
072that appropriate staffing model is. And that's what we call like that staffing alignment, right? Um and then as much as you can prioritize vacancies and attrition and reassignments um versus like just flat out um you know laying off people. If you have to do it, you have to do it, but that would never be a first option, right? It's really looking at our other our other options first. Vacies, attrition, and reassignment. But I think I said this already, but you have to really right size for the declining moment, those rising costs. Um, and um, look for anything that you can do that's that's easy, that's structural, that provides any sort of well clarity. Um, those are their easy wins. And then start with some sort of accountability plan. So if the goal is to take
073a look at the staffing levels for a certain area, who's in charge of doing that? and what is the expected date that that research is done? What is the expected outcome? What what questions are you trying to have answered? Accountability plan is um important. We I think I use the term um assign a belly button to it and they kind of looked at me like what? I've never heard that term before. You assign a person to the work that needs to be done so that you know who's responsible for it. Um that's what the team has been doing the whole year that they've been working with me. They've been um working really hard to figure this stuff out. Any questions? >> First of all, it's very detailed presentation. Thank you so much. And I [snorts]
074like the way that comparing other school districts, it kind of helps to understand better when it comes to staff, right? Um, so we have to take a look at every position, not as a board, but of course the staff, but you know, every position is important. You know, we as a board and as we all uh we're want the best for our kids and that's our main goal. So when you bring out the numbers and it kind of tells us exactly where we at. So thank you so much for your presentation from both of you guys. >> Changed my mind. Yeah. Um, so when we're looking when we're comparing schools, which I very much appreciate, um, but I'm I'm familiar with national, but I'm not familiar with the other, um, areas like I just think
075about the needs of our like we have 19% of our students needing special education services. We have like there's certain is that we have higher levels of need. Like are are these districts also have higher levels of need comparatively to um California? >> Yeah. So it's based on enrollment in upp. So it's not it's not based on special ed enrollment. >> What is that? >> UP. >> Yes, please. >> Uh unduplicated pupil percentage. >> Oh, thank you. >> Right. So free and reduced English language learners and foster enrollment. Um, so that's that up percentage that uh is how we kind of find like districts and demographics. Um, and and you're you think I think you're reiterating my point that there's a baseline staffing, right? you can you can say okay this is what we need
076to survive right and function but we are being intentional about adding more support here because we know we have 19% of our our population in special ed and we want to invest more money in this area and so then we have some additional FTE right we have additional staffing there and that's that is very normal for a district to do to say this is what we want to staff at we have the resources we're going to staff a little bit higher. We're being intentional and I think the idea is that you're just aware of the staffing decisions that you're making as a district, right? Um that you're not just inheriting the staff that's always been there, that you're really looking at the needs of the district uh on a regular basis, right? What where are
077we with enrollment, where are we with programs, where are we with student needs? Um and those might change every few years, right? You might have a cycle of different needs that you have to adjust to. And so if if for a few years you needed to have extra mental health because that was the need after COVID, that's great. Is that still a need? It might be, right? But at least then you know that and you're making that intentional decision to invest. >> And I can give a specific example in our district. Um, a couple of years ago, um, our special education department went through a study because there were a lot of challenges in our special education department. And as a result of that study, we made the the decision to go with two coordinators
078in special education because we were looking at how do we reduce some of the issues that are happening in special education, right? It wasn't going with two coordinators of special education forever. it was going with two coordinators of special education for a couple of years until we can get our hands around some of the issues that are happening. Um, and you know, be able to serve our special education students in a better way. Um, and so that's a specific example to the point of every district has certain challenges, certain needs. Um, and I'm 100% positive that if you talk to Gwyn Park or if you talk to Atwater, they would say, "Does South Bay have the same needs we do?" Because we have a really high needs, right? They would say the same. So, we're
079not going to be able to match need per need, >> but everybody has specific needs in their district. >> Thank you so much. Um, and I just want to kind of clarify before our presenters get away from us here. Um, today's today's meeting is a board study session. So this is the opportunity for the board to ask any questions around the staffing comparative analysis, the budget analysis, um to really fully understand those two topics as the board goes forward. So just think about any questions you may have before our our um two presenters get away from us. >> I had a question about attrition. How do we figure that out? Um do we have an idea of like how many teachers or how many staff members um move out through attrition every year? >> Yeah,
080typically your HR department tracks your attrition annually. Um and I would imagine that the HR department this year is also tracking holding on to those retirements or people that are moving. Um I know uh you have an interim right now but you have a personnel uh [clears throat] supervisor I think it's a position that has been there and and knows what to do. So um uh probably has some sort of record of that. It's also in record on your board reports every year for personal action. >> Yeah. And I can share that um for the last four years at least um that's a strategy that we have been implementing uh in order to address some of some staffing issues. Um we also implemented a SER which was an early retirement incentive which really helped us
081address some of our staffing issues right um and so when a lot of you know when whatever that number was I can't remember what it was right now when that amount of people took the SER the early retirement we looked at each position and that's exactly what the presenter is saying we looked at it and said do we need to bring this position back right So attrition is that that's an example of attrition and that's what the strategy we've been using up to this point. I just have a real quick question about the classified um based on enrollment and I don't know if you said this but ADA do you calculate like the office hours that include the administrative secretary um the attendance the health cler all the labor hours in one day in that
082one office per enrollment. No, we were asked to look at specific a specific classification that would be a project that the district could easily do internally where they're looking at the number of individuals assigned to the school site and the number of hours and the number of students assigned at that school site to determine what that looks like. Okay. And that's in your in your grid here. No, we were not asked to evaluate the hours for all office staff, just the individual. My my my encouragement would be to have it's a pretty easy task to do internally, right? To say this is the clerical staff assigned to a school site. This is the number of hours that they each work and um this is the enrollment per school site and then break it up like
083that. That's how I would start. Thank you. >> Thank you so much. So, superintendent. So this is our study session and then and we have I I love how the notes are broken down here with recommendations and then will it be at um like a working together or something that when at what point do we come together and have the opportunity to say like I understand this is the typical but this is we would like to put more staff towards this or that like at what point does the have those conversations. >> Yeah. So, we will bring this back again. This is um you know this is for the board to learn about these two particular areas. When we start looking at uh you know whatever plan the board wants to move forward with um
084then we start to look at that right if if and I'll give you an example. Uh we know student mental health is still a very important important issue um that we need to try to to address. Um and so at a certain point either another study session or during a regular board meeting um we might look at okay so in our district what is the structure that we have set up to address student mental health. We know we have social workers, we know we have counselors, we know we have psychologists, um you know we have behavior uh assistants. Um so then we need to look what do we think right are our needs and that's when we have those conversations >> and then also we'll make data driven decisions based on like when we're using
085surveys to say like how how are students feeling now compared to at other times or um so we'll be able to look at the data comparison of when we had less versus having more and all that presented to us. >> Yes, we will present some data and of course this is data here that you're receiving now. >> Um but we could also present additional data around how students are feeling. Uh we have the uh healthy kids data um that we do every year uh that we can look at. We have it over several years so we can compare that data. Um but again um if the board wants to look at different data, we can do our best to produce whatever that looks like. Can I ask one more question? uh when we're talking about
086cost analysis transportation and I know um one of the schools they contract out versus having your own uh transportation department. Do you have any sort of data analysis or anything like that? >> Not not really. and you you guys are unique in that you have fully staffed bus drivers and a fleet. So, you're in a really good place. What what I would evaluate is the roots for efficiency, right? It's so the the places that have contracted out typically have a hard time finding bus drivers and haven't invested already in their fleet. I think you're already ahead there. So, uh that's a real blessing for you guys. Um, if you were to go the way of contracting out with transportation, that's a negotiated item through classified bargaining unit and that's a whole other issue, right? Um,
087so I know up and down the state people are begging to find bus drivers and you're sitting on several of them. So that's when I talk about the operational impact, it's really how can this department operate more efficiently, right, with what they have? >> Thank you. >> Any other more questions? >> Okay, if there are no more questions, we do have some public comments. Now we have passed that uh section in the agenda but it is up to the board if they would like to call the public comments now or not. >> I don't have any problems having to public comments. Any objections? >> Okay, good. Let's go. Leslie Tostado, followed by Zulma Chavez, followed by Fernanda Caro, followed by Maya Leisure. >> Do we have an interpreter in the room? >> Do you require
088translation, Pamela? is I'm just introducing myself. My name is Lito and I'm a I'm a and part of this community. Um, she first wants you to know that she decided to do her comment in Spanish. It would be used only to ensure that the board um could understand better the comments >> because we should also have the translation or interpretation for the parents and the audience to understand. Today I am speaking to you about designated >> designated education. >> You said that today we spoke about the budget. >> Yes. Um Can somebody please help me to understand the logic between protecting money that was directed for the education of schools that are closing? The priority of these funds should be moved to the construction of more schools. So that the community could have better access
089to their rights of an education, a formal education, academic education. or at the very least to save our schools that we currently have. We should be thinking in the students that are going to be displaced from their school and those that we'll have to look for another school which is not their fault. We should be looking for solutions outside of the box. No, not only solutions that sound good on paper, but are going to bring more problems in the future. If you are going to be reducing personnel or if that is the solution, please give special attention to the administrators, the assistance to the assistants, the coordinators, assistant, um the coordinators, not to the workers that are working directly or employees that are working directly with students in classrooms. Gracias, Leslie. That's why I'm talking
090about the language barrier because sometimes what we see we don't necessarily understand. So that's why I'm talking about needing someone to translate for the parents that we struggle with that >> and and we totally agree. Um generally at every board meeting we have translation. Um it looks like we don't have it today but generally at every board meeting we have translation and we're always available to meet with parent groups. I have met with several parent groups in Spanish and in English to clarify any information. So I'd want to invite you to to meet with us. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Thank you. Thank you, >> Zma Chavez. I'm gonna take off my mask so I can so you can hear me clearly. Um, first I want to thank everybody for allowing us to speak because
091I know we came late. So, hi everybody. I'm a parent here in South Bay. First, I would like to thank you, thank the board for being reasonable, negotiating uh with the teacher union, a contract that took 20 months, almost two years to get finalized. That indeed benefited teachers and students, especially special ed, for which I'm a parent. Next point, I wanted to touch on um the closure of schools. Let me be clear. I will fight to stop the closures. Doesn't benefit South Bay. I don't want to steer clear from what I wrote, but even seeing this presentation has me flabbergasted. I can't believe what they're recommending. Let me go back to what I wrote. Uh it doesn't benefit South Bay the South Bay community to have parents and students migrate from their home school and
092enter these huge classrooms moving to these other schools having to use uh transportation to get there either public um the school bus transportation that you provide or having the parents drive there. I rather that we have a school district where students are overly educated and prepared and by having smaller classes because I know they'll get more individual attention from the teachers. Um our schools are a public service to our community. It should never it should never be treated as a private business enterprise to save money. Why save money if it's the money is designated for students and the faculty who has direct contact with our students? We want a better schools, excuse me. We will organize and mobilize the South community to stop these closures and continue fighting for better schools. >> Thank you, >>
093Fernanda Caro. Good evening. My children attend Nicolof, but their school is actually Pence. For three years, I have driven to two schools in rain and heat. We are not in a rural area. It is a city. We would like to see you or stop the new project um at Central and closing Central and the new project. This is called destroying a school. Where are we? She has two questions. Where are we going to put these students? And are we going to put them in boxes with air conditioning? You are not being transparent. Board of trustees. You have lost our confidence or trust. You would like to create a generation of non-readers or illiterate people in order to manipulate us in 2026. You cannot do projects at the cost of our children and our children's children
094and other children. >> This is repugnant. This is stealing or robbing and this is without any empathy. for the children. No, >> thank you. >> My leisure. >> Hello. Uh, not here CCA tonight. I have questions as a driver. So, I'm looking at these numbers on business services comparative staffing summary. I think it was cell number 28. Go back to that. Is there any possibility? Can I just want you guys to see what I see on this tiny little paper here. One more. There we go. Okay. So, they did they did say that there were zero at What is that? Lawndale, zero drivers. And that they contracted out. Contracting out is a terrible idea. And and furthermore, we don't have any substitutes in South Bay. We're all driving. My director's driving, the mechanics are driving,
095everybody's driving. There was nobody in dispatch today. We all had to hit the road. It doesn't matter if we have 40 kids at a stop or one kid at a stop. And there's different kinds of stops. So, we have over 65% of our transportation is special needs. we are legally required to offer them services. So sometimes we have dedicated stops, which is at their own house or a public stop. We still have to stop at both, but when you got pickups at 7 a.m. and 8 a.m. in different areas of the city, you need all of these buses to go get them at the same time. You can't be in two places at once. It doesn't work. Um, I'm also noticing that these are not schools that we really compare to. We're like closer to
096National or Fbrook. I really don't know much about those. I've been to Buen Park, but we're different. So, I don't see if these schools have substitutes. We see a number. Shows us a 25. They're like 11, 10, 12. But again, like they even admitted, we're having trouble finding substitutes across the board. Like, you just can't find them. We did a program where we were offering an eight hour driver program to entice drivers. Hey, you want to work here? Come work here. Come work here. But we still get subs for whatever reason. I I'm looking at the list of drivers we got and everything we need to do. Like for instance, if you try to stuff all the kids on a large bus, it might not work because our transportation plan, we have to get the
097kids off within an hour and 15 minutes and an hour if they're kinder. And if they're on there for an hour and 20 minutes, uh oh, now we broke the rules. We can't do it. Think about all those kids in one bus. Some of them have to use the bathroom. we have to make other stops and like sorry can I call staff to come out and maybe sit with my kids while I take this kid to the bathroom. So there's just a lot it transportation is a hard thing to look at and decide what you can and cannot cut unless you work in that department. It's not like it's not a category that is set. It's flexible. There's differences and there's laws and it's really hard to find people to do this job that can
098qualify to do this job. >> Thank you. >> Nicole Gomez. >> Hey everybody. I just wanted to follow up um from the meeting that I was at and spoke at last week and thank the board and superintendent for coming to a tentative agreement with the teachers and I know that the teachers don't want to strike. We don't want to keep our kids home from school and I just hope that you guys can all keep following through with the agreement and make the teachers and the association happy. Thank you, >> Alison Hoover. >> Good evening, trustees. Um, I am here because I made a promise. I wanted to say thank you. Um, I said last week that if you guys tabled or voted no on 98 that I would come here and personally look you all
099in the eyes and say thank you because that's showing us as a community, us as parents, us the teachers, everybody that you are paying attention and that's really important because paying attention is what we want. It's not about being seen to be seen. It's not about being heard to be heard. It's about doing the right thing. And I'm very proud of you guys for doing the right thing. So very much thank you from the bottom of my heart. And as it is still January, I appreciate my trustees. And um as for this, I do have issues with the fact that they did not put our charter schools in there because um it seems that our charter schools are some of the more um highly enrolled and that's two really big schools. And I I just
100I don't know. I um I listened to the whole thing. I had to leave because my kid had basketball. But at the end of the day, it's very interesting that they chose a not to involve our charter schools. And I mean, there was a couple other things I had to rush over here from South Bay Correct. But thanks for listening. And I just want to make sure that it's really interesting that they didn't add our charter schools there. >> Thank you. Is that is that it? >> That was the last public comment. I just wanted to apologize for the lack of translation tonight. That's on me and I won't happen again. >> Mr. President, Mr. President, >> um I just, you know, I want to share in that comment about not putting our charter school
101information in there. Sometimes it was and sometimes it wasn't. So, it's just like really hard. What are we talking about here? So, um you know, we do we do uh provide um district services to our charters. Uh we do know that we get a charge back 3%. I didn't hear that from our our um presenters today uh that we are under under valuing that resources. So um I don't know why they didn't include charter because we're we per student count the district saves say $10 and the charter gets 20 off of the ADA. So, I don't know, Superintendent, maybe we need to comb through there. >> Yeah, >> because it does affect staff uh across the board. >> Yeah. And I'll just repeat what the presenter said. The presenter said that the reason that they
102didn't include charters was because the other districts had charters as well. And so, they took out all the charters from all the districts so that the comparison from their perspective would be more even, more equal. So, it wasn't just our charters that they took out. They took out the charters from all the districts they compared. But like she said, we're still working on some things together. That's actually one of the questions that we had for them as well because we want to make sure that we're using good comparisons as we move forward. Okay. But just to to repeat what the presenter said, they took the charters out from all the districts. That's why they took them out. >> Well, I appreciate that clarification, Superintendent. We have one charter that has a school boundary and one
103that doesn't. So, that it's kind of different in uh in student enrollment. If I live up the street, I have to go to the charter here. So, that's why I'm questioning that analysis that um maybe perhaps we can dive a little deeper. And I I'm not going to question the analysis because I think the analysis is valid and it's a good one. If you look at the state, the state takes out our charters as they are comparing us to other schools other school districts. Okay, that is a valid way of comparing school districts. So, I'm not going to question the analysis at all. I am going to make sure that I understand exactly what the comparison is as we move forward. Let me let me just clarify something. I'm not questioning the the analysis. I
104think it was good work. Thank you, superintendent, for um spending so much time on this and that was a a U directive that the board gave you to um look at our staffing ratios. I mean, since you've been here, compensation, retention, uh recruitment, now we have to do the fine combing of what we have done the last five years. And so, um, don't please don't get me wrong. I I appreciate the work. Um, I just question, um, and you know, maybe it's another day for the charters. So, thank you, superintendent. Thank you. >> Okay. So, is that it? So, uh, we're just going to adjourn at, uh, 5:37. >> Good night, everyone.