001I'd like to call this meeting to order at 5:01 and announce the board will meet in closed session to address items 1 through 3. Are there any public comments on items in the closed session? Madam President, there are no blue cards on the closed session items. Thank you. Everyone. I'm going to close public comment and recess into closed session. >> Mhm. >> And Puebla fue >> Mhm. >> You installed this? Even had a few screws left over. If it's important, it's not worth compromising. That's why with Farmers, you can get quality and savings. We are Farmers. Did he say ranch? >> Introduce >> Booking.com has all kinds of stays because some want a house in the desert. >> Mhm. >> All right. Good evening, everyone. Now, I can really see. Um I'd like to call
002this meeting back to order and announce at 6:01. The board met in closed session and no action was taken. Good evening and welcome to the Elk Grove Unified School District board meeting. Live streaming of full in-person board meetings is available to the public by using the link located on the district website. Today's meeting is being video recorded and will be available on the district's YouTube channel. We encourage you to attend the meetings and share your feedback with the board. Your active participation is valued and contributes to the decision-making process. During regular board meetings, the public may make public comments for items on the agenda or items not on the agenda. Requests to make public comment will be accepted for an item up until the board president introduces the item. Generally, members of the public will
003be given 3 minutes to address the board. If there are 15 or more comments on a specific item, the board will reduce individual comment time to 2 minutes each. If there are 30 more comments on a specific item, the board will reduce individual comments to 1 minute each. Individuals may not defer their time to another individual speaker to increase their total speaking time. Please be mindful that the district students are watching. You are encouraged to address the board and the public in a respectful manner such that all those observing from children to adults are made to feel welcome, safe, and valued. The board shall not permit any disturbance or willful interruption of board meetings. Persistent disruption by an individual or group shall be grounds for the board president to provide a warning and then to
004terminate the individual or group's privilege of addressing the board. We start our all our meetings with our land acknowledgement. Ms. Ballerini, could you lead us? Testing. There we go. We acknowledge that the Elk Grove Unified School District administrative facilities and schools occupy the unceded territory of the Miwok, the original people of the skies, land, and waters where we work and learn. The Miwok have cared for these lands since time immemorial. They continue to teach their traditional knowledge that comes from and responds to the needs of the land and people who share it. May our daily lives and work, teaching, learning, leadership, and community engagement support the evolving vision of the Miwok for their community and these lands. May we strive to acknowledge the past for the betterment of our future generations. May we look to
005our tribal partners, the Wilton Rancheria, the descendants of the original people of this land, to assist with the successful education of our community. Thank you. Our next item is the pledge of allegiance. It's my school this week. This Yes. So, I'd like to call on um Mr. Ed and Mrs. Jennifer Claros to come to the podium to lead us in the pledge. With your family, yes. Just have a few words and then we'll do the pledge. Um Elk Grove Elementary School is honored to recognize Mr. and Mrs. Claros as our education partners. Ed and Jennifer Claros are valued members of the Elk Grove Elementary community. They are the proud parents of two daughters, Emma, a fifth grade student, and Giselle, a third grade student. Through the involvement of the children and their own commitment to
006the school, the family has become an integral part of campus life. During their time at Elk Grove Elementary, Ed and Jennifer have consistently gone above and beyond in support of students, staff, and families. Ed currently serves as the PTA president, where his leadership has helped strengthen school programs and foster a strong sense of community. Together, Ed and Jennifer are actively involved in a wide range of PTA-sponsored events, including the Harvest Festival, Family Dance, Jog-a-thon, Lunch with a Loved One, and numerous fundraising and family engagement activities. Their dedication is so strong that it often feels as though they are part of the school staff. Importantly, their work is always centered on creating positive experiences and opportunities for all students. On behalf of the entire community, thank you to the Claros family for your commitment to our
007students, staff, and school. Your efforts have made a lasting impression on the Elk Grove Elementary. If you would lead us in the the flag salute, and then um I have come down with a small gift for you, so don't leave. Everybody please stand. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. We get one more round of applause for them. Thank you very much. Our next item are presentations and recognitions, and we'll start with the student regional report, Florin region, which includes William Daylor, Las Flores, Florin High School, James Rutter, Florin Elementary, Isabel Jackson Elementary, Samuel Samuel Kennedy Elementary, Anna Kurtz Gator Elementary, and David Reese Elementary. First up, I would like to
008bring up the group of folkloric Samuel Kennedy directed by Sophie Pacheco from Inba Folklorico. And Puebla >> Up next, Florin Elementary School. >> Get 50% off hand-crafted beverages at the Capital One Cafe with your Capital >> Up next, Florin Elementary School. >> Good evening, everybody. And hello, distinguished board members. My name is Ashi Gupta and I'm a member of the student leadership team at Florin Elementary. Our school has a rich history in this region and I am honored to share some of the amazing things happening on our campus this year. At Florin, we stay busy. If you love being active, we have coed volleyball, soccer, and flag football where we compete with other schools. For those of us who love the arts, our drama club and art club are places where we can be creative
009and find our unique voices. You might hear our ukulele assembly practicing new chords or hear our or see our folk folklorico dance club performing traditional dances. We even have a photo club that acts as our school historians, capturing every memory for the yearbook. Speaking of memories, if you are looking for our sixth graders this week, you won't find them on campus. They are currently away on their science camping trip in Portola, California. While we have so much fun in our clubs and leadership projects, our teachers also keep us focused on high academic standards in reading, writing, and math. Thank you for supporting everything we do at Florin Elementary and thank you for having me here. Good evening, school board and Superintendent Riley. My name is Roman Smith and I am a sixth grader at Isabel
010Jackson Elementary. I have been attending Jackson for 7 years and I am still enjoying my time there. One of my favorite things about our school is our leadership club or as we call it, JAGS. In JAGS, we help take the recycling bins out of the classrooms. We take them to the big cans, so the teachers don't have to. Jags also allows the students to decide on spirit days we have. It teaches us to show initiative and to be a leader. We also make posters to inform people about events like Ruby Bridges Walk to School Day and Read Across America. In fall, we celebrate Read Across America to or Ruby Bridges Walk to School Day to remember the day when she when she was integrated into an all-white school. On that day, we walk from a
011local park to Jackson, where we are greeted by the Florin High School band. Their band plays tubas, trumpets, and more in celebration of Ruby Bridges' bravery. In spring, we celebrate Read Across America by having spirit days all week long. This past Read Across America, we did Dr. Seuss-themed spirit days, like where we wore green for Green Eggs and Ham and when we wore crazy socks for the Fox in Socks Day. These are just some of the reasons why Jackson is still continuing to connect with our students and teach us valuable life lessons. Thank you. Hello, my name is Andrew Zong. I am in sixth grade, and I have been at Isabel Jackson for 2 years now. And this school is very open and is willing to help with anything I struggle with. What I like
012about this school is that they offer a lot of opportunities like the running club who support running for Rett and sports like volleyball and basketball. I participated in both sports that the school provides. Volleyball is a sport I really enjoy because it is very fun to go after schools to practice and travel to other schools to to play games with my friends. And I have loved the sport since I was really young. Volleyball played a big role in my family. Some events or activities at Jackson people at Jackson people should know about. We students get a say in what we need and how to make things better. Another thing I think you should know about is about Jackson is that they offer a music, dance, or theater class for every TK through sixth class from
013Clara Performing uh Performing Arts. We've been practicing with Clara every week and we've been learning the ukulele and it's very very very It's It's been great. Thank you. I would I would now like to welcome speakers from Samuel Kennedy Elementary School. Good evening President Au Yeung Ni, members of the board, Superintendent Riley, and Ms. Avalos. My name is Jason Martinez and this is Sedra Ayubi. We are honored to represent the student leadership team at Samuel Kennedy Elementary School. We hope you enjoyed the wonderful performance from our Kennedy Vocal Recorders group this evening. They have been practicing diligently for the past few months and their hard work certainly paid off. At Kennedy, our strength comes from our diversity and we want to to share some of our positive energy with you this evening. Spring has been
014an incredibly busy and productive time for us at Kennedy and we are excited to share some of our highlights with you. Sojourner and I recently had the great privilege of taking Superintendent Riley on a tour of our school. We enjoyed showing him around our campus. He visited our reading room, our beautiful garden, our newly renovated classrooms, and the playground. We even presented him with a new Kennedy Leadership T-shirt. Superintendent Riley brought camera crew along. If you would like to watch a video of our school tour, be sure to check out the highlights on KCRA. Another event was our very first Eid celebration. The district's faith department collaborated with with our parents events committee to celebrate the end of Ramadan with many of our Muslim families. We were thrilled to have 350 students and their families
015join us for the joyous occasion. Eid was a very special day at Kennedy. In March, we received a tremendous show of support when the Sacramento Literacy Foundation and the Elk Grove Rotary Club donated $25,000 worth of books. This generous donation meant that 400 of our TK through second graders students were able to take home five picture books each. An impact that will benefit our families for years to come. Last week, we held our annual multicultural talent show celebration. It's my favorite day of the year. This is the day when students get to share their talents and culture in front of the entire school. This year, we had the Chinese lion dancers and Vietnamese club come and perform for us. It really was the best day ever. At Kennedy, our teachers are always encouraging us to
016achieve at high levels. They want us to do our best and be our best. As we prepare for testing and wrap up the end of the school year, we are excited to focus on success both in the classroom and in our community. We look forward to continuing to build on our achievements and making next year even better. Thank you for your time and for supporting Samuel Kennedy Elementary. And don't forget, it's always a great day to be a cougar. HURRAH! WE WOULD NOW LIKE TO INTRODUCE THE students from Anna Kurgator Elementary. Good evening, members of the school board. My name is Khaliq Cannon. Hello, my name is Ashlyn Padeia and tonight we will be telling you why Anna Kurgator is an amazing place to learn and grow. I am a fifth grader at Anna Kurgator
017Elementary where I have attended school since kindergarten. The teachers and staff at AK are amazing at teaching all the subjects and they dedicate time to lots of extra fun things for us. I have been a part of many of these activities. First, Anna Kurgator offers amazing extracurricular activities. I participate in flag football, basketball, and crafts. In crafts, we get to be creative and build 3D models like earrings and baskets. It's a fun way to learn new skills and use our imagination. In AK's BSU, Miss Amber and Coach Reed took us on an amazing field trip. We got to listen to and play music as well as write a song. We also went to an awesome music studio to listen to musicians play. Basket In flag football, we compete head to head with other schools which
018teaches teamwork and sportsmanship. At the end of the season we celebrate our hard work with a pizza party which brings everyone together. In AK's cheer squad Miss Tish, Miss Mariah, Miss Cuomo, and Miss Cervantes teach us cool cheers and halftime dances. We have to try out and if we get on the team we get to cheer for basketball and or flag football. Basketball is also a big part of our school. We practice many drills to improve our skills and compete against other schools. We also have the AK cheer squad that supports us and helps create school spirit at games. Just like football we celebrate the season with the pizza party. Other great events include our annual AK talent show that Miss Springer plans and our Harvest Festival that Miss Youngston organizes. Another great part of
019Anna K. Gator is the learning experience we get outside the classroom. I've been on several field trips that helped me learn in exciting ways. For example, we visited the we visited the American River where we where we explored rocks and looked for small fish. We also went on a Harriet Tubman field trip where we experienced how she helped so many African people. This helped us better understand history and appreciate the society we live in today. Our principal Miss Shane and vice principals Miss Cragar and Mr. Leyva help keep our school in order and step in to help whenever needed. Anna Gator is a wonderful that keeps us all on track for middle school and high school. Now we would like to present from David Reese Elementary. Go Gators! Good evening, Superintendent Riley and the members
020of the school board. My name is Chandler Veang. >> And I am Madeline Gomez. >> And we are students at David Reese Elementary School. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to speak today. We would like to share some of the reasons why our school is such a special place. First, I really appreciate how kind and caring our school staff is. Our teachers and staff truly care about us and help us guide toward our future. They support us every day and it makes a big difference in how we learn and grow. I also admire how hard the students at my school work. We are determined and we support each other when we face challenges. I love how peaceful and welcoming our school feels and how students work together as a team. David Reese Elementary has
021many wonderful events and programs that will help us learn in fun and meaningful ways. For example, our farmers market teaches us how plants grow and what vitamins they provide for our bodies. Our book fair gives students and staff the chance to explore and buy books, posters, and other fun items that encourage reading and creativity. We also have college and career day, which helps us learn about different jobs and think about our futures. Cultural experiences like watching the lion dance or participating in the multicultural fair helps us learn about traditions from around the world. Our school is a also a great place to stay active and healthy. We have a clean campus, large play structures, and an amazing playground where we can take brain breaks. We also have great PE equipment and programs like royal dance,
022NorCal theater, volleyball, track and field, basketball, elite soccer, and the marathon run. These activities help us stay active, challenge our minds, and have fun. Another important part of our school is the support we receive. Our yard supervisors are kind and helpful, making sure everyone feels safe during recess. Our counselors help us We help students with mental health, and our student ambassadors help others in need. They show us how to be Eagles who are safe, kind, and productive. All of these things make David Reese Elementary an amazing place to learn and grow. Because of our supportive community, we believe in ourselves and know that we will be successful. Thank you again for your time for and thank you Thank you again for your time and for supporting our schools. We are Reese. Up next Up next,
023the rockstars from Jack and Reese Elementary. Good evening, members of the board, Superintendent Riley, and the Florence Unified School District community. My name is Jocelyn. And I'm Zoe, and we are representing James Monroe Middle School, where staff and students strive to be respectful, responsible, safe, and kind. Students at James Monroe actively engage in numerous clubs and activities on campus, which include We Act Your Mind Club, Hispanic Club, Club Live, Blooms Dance Club, Chess Club, Asian Club, Student Equity, and BSU. Our student athletes have worked hard and improved their game while representing James Monroe in girls volleyball, cross country, wrestling, seventh and eighth grade basketball. Currently, our boys volleyball teams are serving it up, and our track and field team is training hard while also fighting the cold wind and rain of the spring season. Our
024amazing concert band just placed second in the annual Music in the Park competition at Six Flags over this past weekend. One member of our band was selected to represent the Roadrunners on the CMEA Capital Section Honor Band and our fantastic band director, Ms. Mejia, was selected as the outstanding Title 1 Educator of the Year, also representing the CMEA Capital Music Section. At Jane Rutter, we celebrate diversity like no other. In February, we hosted our 34th annual multicultural show where our diversity was on full display. Our performance included 18 different acts. Our student performers worked tirelessly to showcase their culture for our community and bring the house down at our student assemblies. At Jane Rutter Middle School, our community is embraced and welcomed. Monthly, parents pour onto campus during our Bring Your Parent to Lunch Day.
025They enjoy lunch with the students, possibly participate in lunchtime activities, or even take a group photo with Santa Claus. Our community is welcome to monthly Coffee with Your Counselors where breakfast is served along with monthly themes such as Cash for College, High School A-G, and supporting your student with positive social media usage. Jane Rutter partnered this year with PIQUE, the Parent Institute for for Quality Education, graduating over 50 families through their programs in the fall and spring. For the second year, we partnered with the United Way, Senator Ashby's office, and VIDA to host free tax prep events on our Jane Rutter campus. We are pleased to say that through these partnerships, over 120 community families were able to have their taxes prepared free of cost. We would love to have you join the Roadrunner family
026on May 29th as we celebrate our hardworking eighth grade students during our promotion ceremony. We cannot wait to welcome you. Every day is a great day to be a Roadrunner. Now welcoming representatives from Del Oro High School. My name is Lamont James and I wanted to share some things about my school, William Dailor High School. Our school is an alternative high school located in the Florin region. As Dailor students, we learn to be owls. We own it, work hard, listen, and strive for excellence every day. To me, that means that we stay on top of our business. We get what we need to get done done and we try our best to succeed every day. Students come to Dailor for a variety of different reasons. To recover credits in order to graduate, some want to
027have smaller classes and a smaller campus, or for individual attention and the resources that we have to offer for pregnant and parenting teens. At Dailor, the focus is on giving students what they need to succeed in inside and out of the classroom. We learn the academic skills and the character traits required to be active members of our community. We also have two CTE programs, building trades and careers with children, and on-site child development center open to any teen parent attending our growth schools. Our leadership class created a school yearbook to capture our memories this year and participates in student oriented in student orientations this week. We offer strong family engagement opportunities like monthly family luncheon days and quarterly family nights celebrating our cultural heritage, art, guitar, and lunchtime photography, gardening, and woodshop creating planter beds
028and benches for the campus baseball. This year, we did win the Sacramento Champions League. English English learner support in several small group mentoring sessions through IYT and merge in Mindset Academy. We hope to see you on our campus. Good evening. Buenas noches. My name is Jelissa Gonzalez. I'm a junior in high school. If you didn't know, Las Flores is a K-12 virtual school. As you can see on the screen, kids are able to come on campus if they'd like to. Originally, I came from a comp school, but it was hard for me to It was hard for me because I had eight classes at the same time. I had trouble learning and focusing in most of my classes. But, when I came to Las Flores, it was much easier because it was I was able
029to work on my own pace, be my own teacher, and even have free time. Now, I would like to share something my mom wrote to my principal. Good afternoon. I don't even I don't even know where to start, Dr. Yee. My daughter, Jelissa, is blessed to have you as her mentor. Ever since she met you, she wouldn't stop talking about how nice and comfortable she felt around you. When I spoke to you on the phone, I could see why she felt the way. Something about your voice is very comforting, and your words of reassurance will go a long way. You've made a huge impact on my daughter. The The once in her once in her life I'm so sorry. The once in her life she said she felt heard and understood after she had that
030talk with you. Today, she texted me a picture of a gift you gave her. She started crying, tears of joys, of course. I just want to thank you for from the bottom of my heart for going up above and beyond. This world needs more people like you. Las Flores is lucky to have a wonderful, cheerful, caring principal. Thank you again. I'm so thankful for the experience at Las Flores. Thank you for your time. Now, I would like to invite Florin High School. Good evening, President Abbyani, board members, Superintendent Riley, and Ms. Avalos. My name is Elijah Kale, and I am one of the ASB presidents at Florin High School. And my name is America Murillo, and I am also an ASB president. We're so proud to represent the students at Florin High School. At Florin
031High, we talk a lot about our core values, being respectful, responsible, and fearless in our pursuit. This year, those values showed up everywhere on our campus, from athletics and arts to academics and community. One One example is our girls varsity flag football team. Supported every step of the way by our incredible cheerleaders, their teamwork and school spirit helped energize our campus. This year also marked the first season of eight-man football at Florin. Our Panthers showed incredible determination and made the playoffs in their very first season. Our award-winning marching band continues to represent Florin with excellence. Their performances reflect the discipline, collaboration, and pride our students bring to everything they do. Florin is also a place where creativity thrives. At our pumpkin derby, students and staff work together, like the teacher and student duo shown, bringing
032fun, innovation, and community spirit to campus. The arts are thriving as well. Our Masterpiece Dance Company captivated audiences during their main stage concert, showcasing the incredible dedication and talent our dancers have. Our boys volleyball team has also been representing Florin proudly this season, demonstrating teamwork, perseverance, and panther pride. We're bound to make the playoffs. Stay tuned. Academically, our ninth graders read Patron Saints of Nothing by Randy Ribay. And then And then And And many of our students had the opportunity to meet the author himself. It was an inspiring experience that brought literature to life for our students. Some of the most meaningful moments at Florin happen when we come together as a community. Students packed the stands to cheer on our unified athletes at a home basketball game, showing what inclusion and panther pride truly
033looks like. Our students also had memorable cultural experiences, including many students enrolled in VAPA classes attending the Broadway touring production of MJ the Musical, which inspired many of our performing arts students. And one of the highlights this year was our Celestial Soiree junior senior gala at the Library Galleria, a beautiful evening celebrating our students and our community. All of these moments reflect what it means to be a panther. At Florin High School, we are proud to be respectful, responsible, and fearless in our pursuit. Thank you for your continued support of our students and our school. And now, the James Rutter Middle School ribbon dancers. >> And finally, I would like to welcome the members of the Florin High School Choir as we all join together to sing the alma mater. Florin and gold always our
034pride. Florin and the >> Just amazing. I'd like to thank our students and their families who got them here today and also to introduce our principals. Justine Fuller from William Daylor High School. SERENE YEE FROM LAS FLORES HIGH SCHOOL. Free Bahar from Florin High School. Andrew Johnson from James Rutter Middle School. Wilbert Valetta from Florin Elementary School. Scott Hadley from Isabelle Jackson Elementary School. Sandra Brown from Samuel Kennedy Elementary School. Kara Shane from Anna Kirchgater Elementary School. And Petrina Baggett from David Reese Elementary School. THANK YOU VERY MUCH TO EVERYONE WHO CAME TONIGHT. YOU'RE all excused. Do homework. I was listening to Thanks. Dude. She's good. Not bad inside. Thank you. We'd like to move to our next item. If any more visiting, you can take to the lobby. We'd appreciate it. Um we're moving
035on to the Elk Grove High School facility naming. Mr. Schweizer. Good evening, Board President Albiani, members of the board, Superintendent Riley, and Ms. Avalos. It is with great pride that students, staff, and members of the Elk Grove High School community request to name the agriculture M building the Weaver-Albiani Agriculture Building. We're joined tonight with staff, a lot of ag from Elk Grove High School, and we're also honored to have uh Mike Albiani and Trevor T.J. Weaver. Mike and Trevor, if you'd come on up and join us during the presentation. Uh the school undergoes a facility naming process consistent with board policy and administrative regulation 7511. They gather feedback and approval from all of the educational partners. With us tonight, we have current Elk Grove High School ag students Kimmy Musling and Chloe Hawker, who would
036like to say a few words about Mr. Weaver and Mr. Albiani. Thank you, board and Superintendent Riley. If you attended Elk Grove High School in the last 50-plus years, you know the names Mr. Warren Weaver and Mr. Mike Albiani. Mr. Weaver and Mr. Albiani have been and continue to be staples for the Elk Grove Agriculture Department, the Elk Grove High School Future Farmers of America, and the community of Elk Grove. The Elk Grove Agriculture Department is recognized for excellence at the district, state, and national levels. That level of respect and recognition is driven by outstanding leadership. Mr. Weaver and Mr. Albiani have served consecutively as department chairs for the past 30-plus years. The Elk Grove Agriculture Department would not be what it is today without these two individuals. Mr. Warren Weaver started at Elk Grove
037High School as an agricultural teacher in 1970. Mr. Weaver devoted his entire professional life to Elk Grove High School, building one of California's most respected agricultural education programs. Under his leadership, student achievement reached extraordinary levels. 764 students earned the state FFA degree, 93 earned the American FFA degree, and the career development event teams he coached captured 34 state championships. Under his tutelage, his students also achieved statewide and national distinction, including state and national proficiency awards, state and national agriscience two of his students became California state FFA officers. Mr. Weaver's impact extended beyond competitive success. He pioneered an integrated curriculum aligned with graduation and college entrance requirements well before such models became common practice. He also realized his vision for a comprehensive instructional facility that would feature aquaculture, hydroponics, horticulture, livestock facilities, and expanded shop and
038a computer lab. Today, more than 175 students raise animals on campus each year, and the program he built is widely regarded as one of the finest in the state. He has been recognized by CATA as an outstanding secondary program and honored with the California School Boards Association's Golden Bell Award as California's outstanding career education program. Mr. Weaver's leadership and service were recognized at the highest levels. He was named Sacramento County Teacher of the Year, CATA Teacher of Excellence, and California FFA Star State Advisor. And in 2012, he was inducted into the California Agricultural Teachers Association Hall of Fame. His His commitment to the community service earned him the Larry Taborski Award for outstanding community service. And in 2015, he and his wife, Mrs. Weaver, were named Elk Grove Citizens of the Year. In total, Mr.
039Weaver taught and inspired over 63,000 Elk Grove High School students. One of those students was Mr. Mike Albiani. Inspired to become a teacher by Mr. Weaver, Mr. Albiani joined the Elk Grove High School Agriculture Department in 1998 and spent the next 36 years upholding and building on the excellent status Elk Grove FFA. Just like his mentor, Mr. Weaver, Mr. Albiani coached over 20 California state-winning career development event teams, numerous state-winning public speaking championships, two California FFA state officers, and most recently a national FFA officer. He has helped hundreds of FFA seniors earn state degrees and American FFA degrees, and has received numerous scholarships to further their education. Imitation is the highest form of flattery. Mr. Albiani has inspired 22 of his former students to become agricultural teachers, just as Mr. Weaver inspired him to become
040one. In the classroom, Mr. Albiani has taught a gamut of agriculture classes. His resume includes agriscience, welding and fabrication, agricultural economics, outdoor recreation, physical science, and design and implementation. As a teacher of seniors for a large portion of his career, many students owe their diplomas to Mr. Albiani's patented, not-so-subtle counseling about their cures for senioritis. Mr. Albiani is responsible for over $500,000 in grants awarded to Elk Grove High School for the Agriculture Department. Over his tenure, grants were awarded to design new curricula, build new facilities, hire staff, and fund student activities. Elk Grove High School's footprint has improved because of his work and talents. The legacy of Weave, Mr. Warren Weaver, and Albs, Mr. Mike Albiani, can be felt in the culture of achievement, seen in the facilities and programs, and heard throughout the Elk
041Grove High School campus. Honoring that legacy by dedicating the EGHS M building to the Weaver-Albiani Agricultural Building would honor these men and ensure their dedication to the students of Elk Grove High School over the last 70 plus years would be remembered. Thank you, Kimmy and Chloe. It's clear Mr. Weaver and Mr. Albiani truly have made a difference for the families uh students and families in the Elk Grove High School Ag community. With that, tonight the board is requested to review and approve staff recommendations to rename the Elk Grove High School M building to the Weaver-Albiani Agriculture Building. Thank you. Are there any blue cards related to this item? Madam President, there are no blue cards on this item. Seeing no blue cards, I'd like to make a motion myself to approve the recommendation to rename
042the Elk Grove High School M building to the Weaver-Albiani Agriculture Building. May I have a second? Second. Seconded by Mrs. Ballerini. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Passes unanimously. Congratulations and thank you. Can we make a comment? Well, like if everybody here and um we'll take a a picture and then the board would like to make a comment. I see some other Albianis in the audience. We'd love to have you in the picture. Shantel. K. >> Mr. Yang, you wanted to speak? Yeah, I just my kids uh my daughter graduated from El Grove High School last year and my son is graduating from El Grove High School. Um you know, though they live in uh the Valley High School uh area, but because sports, they transferred out to El Grove and they had a great experience
043there. So, you know, tonight uh we have two great gentlemen I have a long history of, you know, great work that they done and I just want to say congratulation for all the work that you had done for El Grove uh High School. Thank you. El Grove School District. Thank you. Anybody else? Ms. Valerie? I want to also thank the other Albianis that came up for the picture. We know you've got a great history here. I think your name's on the front of the building as a matter of fact. We appreciate you coming here tonight. Thank you. Anyone else? Well, I'll say something fast cuz I'll cry, but um very excited. I I'm Yeah, I'll just cry. Good night. We're moving on to resolutions. We're going to start recognition of Day of the Teacher. Mr.
044Singh. Thank you. I'm going to ask all my teacher colleagues if they can stand up and join me, please. If you're a teacher in our district, we'd love for you to come and join me. Thank you. Yeah, right up here. In front of me, right here. There we go. That's awesome. All right. Moving up front. Awesome. Um Madam President, uh members of the board, Superintendent Riley, uh colleagues, and community, it's it's an honor tonight for me to ask the board to to adopt resolution number 84 that will recognize May 13th, 2026 as the Day of the Teacher in Elk Grove Unified School District. Every uh thousands of communities take take out time, and this year they will do the same on Wednesday, May 13th, 2026 to honor their local educators and to acknowledge the contributions
045they make to our lives. While it certainly takes many people to make a school succeed, the Day of the Teacher focuses on the teacher who work on the teachers who work to make public schools great places for students to succeed in life. With that, it's my honor to request the Elk Grove Unified School District Board of Education to approve resolution number 84 for 2025-2026 recognizing May 13th, 2026 as Day of the Teacher in the Elk Grove Unified School District. Thank you. Are there any blue cards related to this item? Madam President, there are no blue cards related to this item. Okay, I'd like to call for a motion to adopt resolution number 84 recognizing May 13th, 2026 as Day of the Teacher in the Elk Grove Unified School District. >> So moved. Second. Second. Moved
046by Ms. Ballerini, seconded by Mr. Yang. All in favor? Aye. >> Aye. Opposed? It's unanimous. Thank you very much. >> Thank you. Yeah. We have a new trick. Come on, David. Hurry up, David. Hold on, we got David coming. You got to stand in the middle. I'll stand in the middle. Okay. We'll figure this out after a while. Our next um resolution is National Mental Health Awareness Month. Ms. Buckmaster. Great. The Board of Education is requested to approve resolution number 72 recognizing May 2026 as National Mental Health Awareness Month. In EGUSD, key staff that we'd like to recognize that do this important work with our students are mental health therapists, school psychologists, social workers, and counselors. National Mental Health Awareness Month was established in 1949 to increase awareness of the importance of mental health and
047wellness and to celebrate recovery from mental illness. This resolution raises awareness of trauma and the impact it can have on the physical, emotional, and mental well-being of children, families, and communities. Mental health is essential for a person's overall health and well-being. This year's Mental Health America's theme is more good days together. The goal is to learn how modern life affects mental health with new resources to navigate our challenging world. Act by building your coping toolbox to manage stress, difficult emotions, and challenging situations. And advocate to improve mental health for yourself, your friends and family, and your community. MHA is inviting health organizations and school districts to join in spreading the word that mental health is something everyone should care about. To support the effort to increase awareness of mental health excuse me, of mental illness
048and emphasize the importance of mental health, we will be sharing the MHA toolkit along with information resources from the National Alliance on Mental Illness with our sites and community. In addition, we will continue to inform our students, families, and staff of the available resources within our district and our local communities. Thank you. Are there any blue cards on this item? Madam President, I do have one blue card on this item for Heather Weikart and I want to thank her for phonetically telling me how to say her last name. Awesome. Right up here and I'll you have 3 minutes. Good evening members of the board. My name is Heather Weikart. I'm a parent of four students who attend three schools across elementary, middle, and high school. I've had children enrolled in the district for 10 years
049now and my youngest is going to graduate in 2035. Next month is May, recognized as Mental Health Awareness Month. The district, as we just heard, offers many programs that support students social emotional learning and mental health. And I sincerely thank you for continuing to invest in those efforts. However, programs alone are not enough unless administrators are willing to truly listen, to seek to understand, and to take meaningful action. As we approach May, I challenge everyone to be present with students, to listen to them, believe them, support them, and consider their individual circumstances with care and empathy. To administrators, especially those at Pleasant Grove High School, your actions or your inaction directly impact student mental health. Your students will remember you for what you do, but some will carry with them what you chose not to
050do. Thank you. I'd like to call for a motion to approve resolution number 72 recognizing May 20 2026 as national mental health national mental health awareness month. So moved. Second. Moved by Ms. Baldwin, seconded by Ms. Moore. All in favor? I. Opposed? Passes unanimously. Thank you. Can I say something? Yes, Sean. Yeah, Mr. Yang. That's fine. Sean's fine. Yeah, I uh just wanted to say that, you know, uh not too long ago we uh was face faced with the pandemic, you know, COVID-19. And that seems like it's history, but it wasn't too long ago uh since we got the uh some funds and, you know, some other grants um from uh state and federal still help us out. And uh you know, there's a lot of students including uh teachers and uh parents, you know,
051dealt with mental health challenge and that that was a real thing and I think that still has a domino effect today. And we as a school district try to do what we can do to provide assistance and I know it's it's never enough and we got, you know, room to improve on that, but I'm just proud that we stepped up, you know, when it's really needed and did what we could. And we will continue to work together as a district and and be better. So, thank you for all the work that's already done to help out the ones that are really needed in the past and currently. Thank you. Thank you. Our next resolution is National School Nurse Day. The Board of Education is requested to approve resolution number 73 recognizing May 6th, 2026 as
052National School Nurses Day. And I'd also like to recognize Tommy Almatari, our Health Services Coordinator, who supports the work with our nurses every day. We'd like to recognize her today as well. Since 1972, National School Nurses Day has set been set aside to recognize school nurses. This year School Nurse Day is May 6th, 2026. National School Nurse Day was established to foster a better understanding of the role of school nurses in the educational setting and to recognize the role they play in a student's education. A student's health is linked to their ability to learn and school nurses stand at the intersection of health and education, weaving the support needed to reduce barriers to learning and promote healthy children, families, and communities. School nurses support students with a wide range of medical needs from minor health
053issues to providing daily care for students who are medically fragile or who have chronic conditions. During any given school day, our nurses are providing first aid care and health assessments, writing care plans and coordinating the care of students with chronic or acute health conditions, communicating with teachers and staff to ensure the safety and well-being of students, administering medications and monitoring delegated medication administration, assisting in the evaluation of students for special education, coordinating and providing vision and hearing screenings, and educating and training staff on asthma, life-threatening allergies, diabetes, and blood-borne pathogens. School nurses are the leaders of health care, providing care coordination, advocating for quality student-centered care, and collaborating to design systems that allow students to develop their full potential. Thank you. Are there any public comments on this item? Madam President, there are no blue
054cards on this item. I'd like to call for a motion to approve resolution number 73 recognizing May 6th, 2026 as National School Nurse Day. So moved. Second. Moved by Ms. Baldwin, seconded by Ms. Moore. All in favor? Aye. >> Aye. Opposed? Passes unanimously. Thank you. >> Our next item is Bike, Walk, and Roll to School Day. To call on Dr. Coats. All right. Good evening. This one is always a joy to present. Um tonight we're asking the Board of Education to approve resolution 81 um for 2025-2026 school year designating May 6th, 2026 as Bike, Walk, and Roll to School Day. Bike and Roll to School Day is celebrated across the nation as part of May is Bike Month. This year's event will take place on Wednesday, May 6th, 2026 at Elk Grove elementary schools as
055Bike, Walk, and Roll to School Day. Elk Grove Unified School District encourages the school community to take part by traveling to school or work on foot, by bike, or other active means in recognition of this nationwide event. In preparation for bike, walk, and roll to school day, school sites plan activities that promote active travel with guidance from Elk Grove Unified Safe Routes to School coordinator. Outreach efforts in each school invites students and families to consider alternative ways of getting to campus. These efforts may include sharing information about the benefits of active transportation, offering participation incentives, and organizing group options such as walking school buses and bike trains. The event promotes physical activity, safety awareness, environmental stewardship, and stronger connections between school and their surrounding communities. It also serves as a catalyst for ongoing transportation programs
056that may continue at school sites throughout the year. Uh board members are encouraged to participate by joining students in biking, walking, and rolling to school, and visiting sites to celebrate the event on May 6th. Thank you. Are there any blue cards related to this item? Madam President, there are no blue cards related to this item. Then I'd like to call for a motion to approve resolution number 81 designating May 6th, 2026 as bike, walk, and roll to school day. So moved. Second. Moved by Ms. Ballerini, second by Ms. Baldwin. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Passes unanimously. Thank you. Our next item is National Foster Care Month. Our next resolution, Ms. Webb. Good evening, President Albiani, members of the board, Superintendent Riley, and Ms. Albano. Um as the district foster youth liaison and program specialist, I'm
057happy to present the recommendation for the Board of Education to adopt resolution number 80 recognizing May 2026 as National Foster Care Month. The Elk Grove Unified School District recognizes May as National Foster Care Month to highlight the unique experiences of youth in foster care while honoring the individuals and organizations that support them. This recognition acknowledges the vital role that resource and kinship families, educators, and community partners play in promoting the stability and well-being of students in foster care. Their dedication helps create meaningful and lasting change in their lives. The district also recognizes the challenges many foster youth face, including the effects of trauma and frequent school transitions, while celebrating their personal achievements and educational success. EGUSD remains committed to supporting foster youth in foster youth in foster care through trauma-informed practices, targeted academic support, and
058comprehensive services provided by its foster youth services program, and integrated practices throughout the district. National Foster Care Month serves as a reminder that supporting foster youth is a shared community responsibility and connects EGUSD to a broader national effort to improve outcomes and expand opportunities for children and youth in foster care. Thank you. Thank you. Are there any blue cards related to this item? There are no blue cards related to this item. Thank you. I'd like to call for a motion to approve resolution number 80 recognizing May 2026 as National Foster Care Month. So moved. Moved by Ms. Baldwin, seconded by Ms. Moore. Yes. >> All those in favor? I. I. Opposed? Passes unanimously. Thank you, Ms. Webkey. Our next resolution is Asian Asian Pacific American Heritage Month. Dr. Collier. Good evening, President Albiani, board members,
059Superintendent Riley, Ms. Avalos, colleagues, and community members. I am bringing forth resolution number 82 for 2025-2026 designating May 2026 as Asian Pacific American Heritage Month. As part of the Board of Education's legacy of advocacy for equity and the value of diversity within the Elk Grove Unified School District, members of the Board of Education have an opportunity to recognize May as Asian Pacific American Heritage Month. Asian Pacific American Heritage Week began in 1978 when President Jimmy Carter signed a joint resolution designating this as an annual celebration. In May of 1990, the recognition was expanded further when George H. W. Bush designated May as Asian Pacific American Heritage Month. May was chosen to commemorate the immigration of the first Japanese to the United States on May 7th, 1843 and to mark the anniversary of the completion of
060the transcontinental railroad on May 10th, 1869. The majority of workers who laid the tracks were Chinese immigrants. Throughout the year, the contributions of Asian Pacific Americans are presented in the regular curriculum. However, this special focus for 1 month serves as a reminder of the combined contributions of this group. In support of this resolution, this year the Curriculum and Professional Learning Department will provide resources to teachers to recognize and celebrate Asian Pacific American Heritage Month. Month, sorry. Furthermore, the Education Equity Department has posted resources on their department website for district personnel. The Board of Education is requested to adopt resolution number 82 for the 2025-2026 designating May 26th as Asian Pacific American Heritage Month. Thank you. Are there any blue cards on this item? There are no blue cards on this item. Thank you. Is there
061a motion? Yes, I move the motion. Thank you. Motion by Mr. Yang, second by Ms. Baldwin. All those in favor? I. Opposed? Okay. I'd like to make a comment. That's what I was thinking before. Okay. Mr. Yang? Yeah, good evening again. Thank you. I'd like to read something um to to honor um May as Asian American um month. Asian American Native Hawaii and Pacific Islander AANHPI Heritage Month is celebrated every May in the United States. It is dedicated to It is a dedicated time to recognize their historic contribution, culture, and achievements of individuals with ancestry from across the Asian continent and the Pacific Islands. Why May? The month was chosen to commemorate two key milestones in Asian American history. May 7th, 1843, the arrival of the first known Japanese immigrant to the United States. May
06210th, 1869, the completion of the transcontinental railroad, which was built with the labor of approximately 15,000 to 20,000 Chinese immigrants. And I know this is not on the resolution, but I would like to add this because um it also uh falls in May as well. And that is the um Hmong American Day, which uh has a significant um history tie with the United States. So, I'd like to read this. Hmong Special Guerrilla Units veterans in Laos were recruited by CIA, specifically by James William Lair, a CIA agent. And they were CIA-trained, fought from 1961 to 1975, tasked with fighting a secret war against communism communism. Primary tasks include re- rescuing downed American pilots, gathering intelligence on enemy movement, sabotaging the Ho Chi Minh Trail, and defending strategy sites like Lima Site 85 to protect US
063bombing radar. And today, um the SCU units, uh which were led by General Vang Pao, uh a lot of them still reside in the United States. And till today, they have never got any veterans or um benefits. And they're still fighting for it. And um today, I just read a a news um in Minnesota um news that they are in the process of approving benefits for those uh veterans. So, I am very happy to hear that there's progress. So, anyway, so, happy Asian months to everybody. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Yang. Um numbers our seventh and last resolution is Physical Fitness and Sports Month Resolution. Dr. Collier. Yes, I'm bringing forth resolution number 83, 2025-26, designating May 2026 as physical fitness and sports month. This resolution recognizes the central role of physical education and sports
064in creating a healthy lifestyle for all children in the Elk Grove Unified School District. The President's Council on Sports, Fitness, and Nutrition recognizes May as Physical Fitness and Sports Month, and its mission is to invoke a call to action to recognize the value and importance of having physical activity and physical education in the lives of kids and adults. Fitness and sports are not only good for our physical health, but they also improve the quality of our lives overall. Physical activity has many immediate and long-term benefits. Benefits include better mental health, reduction of the risk of chronic diseases, high blood pressure, and anxiety while improving sleep. Additionally, research has shown participation in sports teams and physical activity clubs can improve grade point average, school attachment, educational aspirations, and the likelihood of graduation. Parents and guardians can
065help by modeling the very behaviors we want to see in young children. If parents and guardians exercise and set an example, their kids will likely embrace similar habits. If families emphasize physical playtime on the weekends, kids will more likely to get involved in physical activities, including sports. In support of this resolution, the Curriculum and Professional Learning Department will collaborate with physical education teachers to develop a list of recommendations for how families can be physically active on weekends and during school breaks. Um I This resolution is brought to the Board of Education designating May 2026 as physical fitness and sports month. Thank you. Are there any blue cards on this item? There are no blue cards on this item. Thank you. I'd like to call for a motion to adopt resolution number 83 designating May 2026
066as physical fitness and sports month. So moved. >> Second. Moved by Ms. Baldwin, seconded by Mr. Yang. All in Is there any discussion? Yes, I have >> something. Um since you're recognizing this, we have one of our amazing PE teachers in the audience that I'd like to um recognize, Mr. Shawn Smith. You probably don't know it, but you you took my grandson who couldn't make a mile if you tried to where he looks forward to beating it every year now. So, yeah, you do great things with our kids and we really appreciate it. Thank you, Ms. Davis. Then I'd like to call for a motion. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Passes unanimously. Thank you. Thank you. Moving on to student expulsion and voluntary transfer recommendations. Um request for student expulsion. Is there anyone who wishes
067to address the board in closed session regarding a student expulsion? I have a blue card for this item. Oh. Okay. We don't normally get, so that I'm not sure how to handle that except I'm then I'm not sure if it's re- request for student expulsion or request for student return from expulsion. Uh Tanner Joseph? Mr. Joseph, did you want to board uh address the board in public or in private? Uh in public. Okay, great. Please take the podium. You have 3 minutes, sir. Thank you. Good evening, first of all, both to the uh principals and to the board. My question is simple, and that is what is being done, hopefully, to add or subtract from this uh expulsion. Is the same tools being used consistently or is there a new way of being able to
068talk to a child or deal with a child who has some problems? Uh the group of men that were here with the board last month or last week couple of weeks ago. Uh we do have an idea. But again, we'd like to know just exactly what do you mean by when you say request for expulsion? What are the tools? So that the public does know. So that families know. So that the father knows just exactly when you call, what is that child done? What can be done to help that child? What does expulsion mean? Does expulsion mean as you state later on, a return from expulsion? What does that mean? I do know what the word of return, but many of the general public do not. Is there an explanation that can be had by
069the public of what you are actually doing when you claim that you're expelling a kid? What is the criteria? These are some of the things that we'd like to know. And so Mr. Bang uh and the Ho Chi Minh Trail, I've had my feet on it. Yes, sir. Same to you, sir. Same to you. So in closing, I'd like to know and my organization would like to know just exactly what do you mean by expulsion? And who's being expelled? Who? What child is being expelled? What child? How does that criteria how does it work? This one day that the kid has a problem, is that when the teacher says that child needs to go to a certain area or certain room to be to calm down? Is there anybody there? You state that there are
070quite a few programs, CBOs, that you deal with that deal with, quote, helping children in crisis. We just heard from a few women who were talking about mental health. Not once did I hear uh about uh being able to talk to the child who's being expelled or being able to be returned. So again, I the question is to this entire body of administrators, what else is being done? If it's not the same old thing, then what's new? Is there anything new? Or are we rehashing the same language that's been hashed over for the last 10 years? And let's be realistic about that. Extremely realistic about that. It's time for it to it it A change has got to happen. A change has got to happen. And that with that, thank you so very much. Thank
071you. Can I ask staff to make contacts so we can follow up, please? Thank you. Um I'd like to call for a motion to approve the recommendations for student expulsion. So moved. Second. Moved by Ms. Baldwin, seconded by Mr. Yang. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Passes unanimously. Uh request for student return from expulsion. I'd like to call for a motion to approve the recommendations for students seeking readmission from expulsion to the Elk Grove Unified School District. So moved. Second. Moved by Ms. Ballerini, seconded by Ms. Moore. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Thank you. We're on to public comment. Are there any blue cards for items not on the agenda? Madam President, there are are quite a few blue cards, but not enough that we will adjust the time. So everybody um on that I
072call their name it has 3 minutes. So we're going to start with Jerome Jones. And after Jerome, I have Eduardo Claros. So if Eduardo wants to go ahead and like stand in the on bat area or whatever you want to call it, and we'll go from there. Yes, and you're you're up, Mr. Jones. Ready to press the button? Good evening. Okay. Good evening everybody. Uh my name is Jerome. I am technically not a parent of a student in Elk Grove Unified. Uh that's because he is not old enough to attend public school yet. Um however, the reason I am here is because in the last two weeks, there's been an announcement of a new elementary school that is opening up in my community, well, near my community, I would say. I live about roughly a
073mile and a half south of David Gordon Elementary School inside Arbor Ranch community, um in the Mendez Meadows community. That's just south of Bilby uh Road. The reason I am here is because within my community, there is a plot of land that is also, from what we understand in the community, is zoned for a school, elementary school. The reason I am here is I would like to know have conversations began on that school, uh and two, if they have began, uh where can I locate some information? And another question I have, where more so of a recommendation, hopefully, is as my child does hope to go to school in Elk Grove, I do not wish my child to go to a year-round school. As a person who went to year-round school, I personally did not
074like it. Um Elk Grove has a lot of opportunities in the summer that I wish that my child will be able to take a liberty in in being in. And I think that if he just has an opportunity to go to a more traditional school with schedule, uh that will allow him summers off and and so forth. So, I was hoping also I can make a comment that hopefully that the new school in Arbor Ranch isn't a year-round school. And if there are conversations regarding the school that's supposed to be in Mendez Meadows community, that that school also will not be a year-round school as well. Thank you. You all asked staff to follow up with your you on your concerns. Yes, ma'am. Okay, we have Eduardo Claros and after that Emma Losh. All right.
075Okay. Everything's left me. Oh, that's good. All right. I Good Good evening board and Mr. Superintendent. Thank you for this. A lot of you heard from me the past 2 weeks. I've written some emails directly to all of you to let you know about the Alliance Science Camp field trip for Elk Grove Elementary. This past Thursday, we received the unfortunate news by our principal that it was canceled. Something that the students have been working towards and fundraising for for the past 2 years. It was canceled and as I understand that it was a site decision by the grade level that decides whether or not the field trip merits the actual actual effort to take the students to that field trip. Elk Grove Elementary has participated in in either sending it to Sly Park, sending students
076to Sly Park, or to Alliance Redwoods for the past 20 years. All through those 20 years, we have met different ways to make these types of events happen and to make this enriching experience happen for the students. I A couple There was a litany of reasons of why this was not considered and why it was not approved that was presented to us by Ms. Jones. Roughly about 120 parents were in attendance for this meeting and it was met with a lot of anguish and a lot of disappointment. Some of them were behavioral concerns for the students and we understand that this past this past session at science camp was probably not the best session or the one to to hold the bar to for for the example of what science camp is actually for. I
077some things that I want to make sure that are brought up for this part of the meeting. One is the PTA as long with the other teachers we had a plan. In no way do we ever expect every sixth grade teacher to sacrifice their time to be able to do this and while it's admirable if they do, we did find solutions for other teachers to be able to go in their stead. So that way they are not inconvenienced in their personal lives to be able to do it. This was one of our solutions that we brought in to help make this happen for the students. We had over 80% of the students actually RSVP for this actual event. So the majority of the students that are going to go are ones that probably would never
078be able to go on a trip like this. Lastly, we even had fifth grade teachers. When we heard the news that the sixth grade student the sixth grade teachers were going to not endorse this trip, our fifth grade staff volunteered to take them in May on a very abridged session to help deliver on the promise to be able to do this for the students. Lastly, we actually learned that the $9,000 nine non-refundable deposit that was given to Alliance will now be coming out of the general fund for the school itself. That's where those refunds are coming from. So not only are we now taking away the experience from the incoming sixth grade classes, we are now affecting all grade levels at the school based off of these decisions. As many things that can go wrong
079definitely did. However, there were things chaperone meetings that could have happened prior, behavioral conversations that could have happened prior with chaperones that were going there that would have allowed for this to be successful. I know that's my time, so I'll stop there. Thank you. Um I have Emma Losch. And then after Emma, I have Kelvin Truitt. Hello. My name's Emma. I'm a fifth grade student at Oak Grove Elementary. On behalf of the other fifth grade students who cannot be here, I would like to discuss the recent cancellation of Web of Life. Parents have devoted countless hours over the past two years to raising money and use those funds to make a nonrefundable deposit for our beloved sixth grade field trip to Web of Life. Parents eagerly offered to take days off from work to chaperone,
080take part in this memorable experience. Teachers from other grade levels offered to write sub plans to step in for sixth grade teachers to help alleviate the burden some may experience on their personal lives. And still, they were told that this would not work. Even though we are being refunded our deposit and the PTA will be refunded their $9,000 deposit, which by the way is now coming out of the school's general fund, this does not make it right. This is the graduating class of kindergarteners who came to Oak Grove Elementary and were sent home mid-year due to COVID. Missed Missed out on kinder circus among other fun activities that we could not do because the restrictions were slowly being lifted. It seems we'll be leaving the school the same way that we same way that we
081entered, being stripped of opportunities. Thank you for your time. I hope you all can help right this wrong and allow for future sixth graders to continue this wonderful tradition. We are counting on you. Thank you, Emma. That took a lot of guts. Okay, I have Kelvin Truitt and after that, Phil Sheridan. Is Kelvin Truitt here? He had to leave. Okay. Um then, Mr. Sheridan, you are up. And after Mr. Sheridan, I've got Mary Beth Hollingsworth. Well, I'm Colin Sheridan's dad, fifth fifth grader. I think it's a shame that they can't go to science camp because this is the COVID kindergarten class that missed out on a lot of critical time in in class at school with everybody and they've been hearing about science camp, looking forward to it for years. His brother went 2 and
0821/2 years ago and he learned all about it. He was excited about it. They didn't know about it being canceled until officially Thursday. So, um all this time they've learned and they built up excitement for it and now it's suddenly canceled. I think if they wanted to cancel it, it's which can happen, do it at the beginning of the year. Let it don't don't build up expectation and then cancel it last minute. I I think it's just it's a shame. I think this is unfair because we were the classes that could not participate in the kindergarten circus and have fun things to do. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Okay, I have Mary Beth Hollingsworth and after that Marvelle Wilson. Hi. Thank you. Um especially thank you to the board members who have taken
083the time to read and respond to my email last week regarding the same thing a handful of us are here to talk about right now. Oak Grove Elementary's cancellation of the annual sixth grade science field trip. Since learning that our school's trip has been canceled, I've become aware that another elementary school within the Pleasant Grove region has been able to identify alternative solutions that still allow their students to attend even in cases where their sixth grade teachers chose not to go. When a similar solution was proposed for our site with non-sixth grade teachers volunteering to attend, we were told this would not be permitted due to union constraints despite having more than enough staff willing to make the trip possible. It's also important to note that the sixth grade team had previously agreed to this
084field trip at that time when a very large deposit had been made and that contract was signed with Redwood Alliance. Since then, their position has changed, not ours. Additionally, our school now will be required to use $9,000 from the general fund to reimburse the PTA for these non-refundable deposits that have been paid. This has a direct negative impact on the entire school community TK through sixth grade, potentially reducing funds available for future field trips, classroom supplies, and other essential resources used throughout the campus. If sixth grade teachers no longer wish to attend and this results in denying students the opportunity altogether, then it seems reasonable that decisions like this should not be finalized while other schools with existing deposits and similar staffing concerns are still being allowed to proceed. Thanks for your time and consideration.
085Thank you. All right, I have Marvell Wilson and after that um not on today's Okay, Ebony Bowler. Good evening. Um my name is Marvell Wilson. I am um one of the representatives of the um one of the several organizations that showed the last time uh your last meeting and we we uh proposed that we would return and we have. We have our administrators of uh the uh PCC, which stands for Progressive Community Coalition. We have um our administrator from um the men's healing circle. We have our administrator from a couple of other major organizations that are put together to bring attention to the disparity we've noticed with literacy with American-born Africans in the system. Good news though. We brought we said we would bring a proposal. Something to be considered and I have copies. I
086don't know how you want to receive them. I have a copy for everyone here. Hand it to Miss Avalos right there. She'll get make sure we get them. Enough for you here and I think I make available to Can we make available Would you like some as well? Right. Okay, so that's the good news. We have done Our research team has come up with some very strategic approaches to the concerns that we have observed that exist and I hope you agree that they do exist. We do have still have This hasn't changed since we were here before. There's still only 24% of the 10% of your school system of this school system that reading at at level and then we we Out of that I I'm thinking that out of that 24% 34% of the
08724% are reading beyond if that's if I'm not mistaken in the math. Nonetheless, we we are still concerned and we're still moving toward working in tandem with whatever we could do with your your body to strengthen that arm and and bring about some some clarity and some solution to the concern. I must say that every time I come in here I'm very pleased with the atmosphere. I'm very pleased with I mean, this is a beautiful facility and I see everybody is is well presented. It's It's just It's a wonderful place to be, and I noticed how well the the youth They have youth speaking at college level. I mean, they were standing there reading, and I'm saying, "Ooh, them kids reading." Them kids reading. But my kids are not. And uh the disparity kind of
088kind of kind of reels me. I I get a little you know, like disoriented when I see the efficiency. Um but then I know about the deficiency. So, we're here to present that information, and we want to make them sure we have opportunity to to get together and talk about the proposal and see if we could work together to address these issues. Thank you. All right. And we have Ebony Bowler. Go ahead and take the microphone. Hello, and good evening to the board that I finally came to see after 17 years. I've been having all my children that's been attending the Elk Grove School District um since just forever. And so, I have three kids right now that's left over. And um we have uh three different schools we have to make it to every
089morning by 8:20. And so, I'm having an issue because what I really came to talk about was the expulsion and kind of what's on this agenda. For um basically the transfer recommendations of what's going on of how you guys are working that. But I was told that we can't speak on it unless it is with either your child or something with something else. So, when I seen that other person speak before that kind of That's kind of what I want to touch on, but I'm not going to, because I guess you're not allowed to, right? And so, um, what I came to speak on, even though I really wanted to speak on that, because I'm I feel like I'm being railroaded after 17 years in the district, um, along Vintage Park, which the areas of
090the school that we go to, Sheldon, Smedberg, Mary Tsukamoto, we've had about eight or nine dead teenagers, including a lot of drugs and vapes and a lot of problems. Um, when the school district started this year, we had a huge CBS report from all the beatdowns and the and the and the stolen cars, and it's been just really out of control along this Vintage Park area. And so, I'm here after 17 years, which, um, this is a a breather. We can all take a breath. Ooh, okay. Um, the main thing that I want to say is along that whole Vintage Park, all those principals from Mayola Bitzel, all the way down, they're all working together in a way where we need to bring uniforms to these schools. And I'm talking about only the schools that
091are along the entire Vintage Park, which is Smedberg, Mayola Bitzel, Mary Tsukamoto, Sheldon. There is a competition battle that is going on up and down this, um, area that we live in. And right now, um, if you kind of look at the reports and see everything, that is kind of what I want to bring, um, to the district is trying to see how we can get uniforms to stop the violence. But the main thing that I also wanted to say was, um, for the co-workers that are up and down this this Vintage Park, mainly at Mary Tsukamoto, when a principal or a vice principal or anybody of a teacher that comes to these schools, if they have a cold sore or any type of herpe breakout on their mouth, I believe they should have a
092rule mandatory to wear a mask. And that is the main thing that is starting the problems is by us being an example. So, if you know you have a cold sore, I think it's best you cover it up and stop the spread. Thank you. Thank you for your time. All right. And I have one more. I have Michael Michael There you go. I didn't want to mess it up. Well, thank you for that. Uh good evening to to the board. Um I'm here along with a couple of my colleagues. We're here We were here uh 2 weeks ago and we'll be here even more because I'm concerned about the disparity in with the education of our black children. I have been in Sacramento for 31 years. I've had uh I've had two two two of
093two of my two of my sons graduate from from the from Elk Grove School District. I've had three granddaughters graduate from Elk Grove School District. They all are all intelligent young young people, but they do have disparities. They even though they graduated, they don't write well. They speak quite well, but they don't write they don't read very well. And math is sometimes uh a trial for them. It's and I wish I had been more involved with trying to help them out during during this time. I you uh but I have I I have since done everything that I can to try to help them out. Now, what I'm what I'm understanding is you got a 91% graduation rate all overall, but for the for for the for the for the black children this is is
094is is quite less. This is is it says that they're performing at a a yellow level. Um we have we know we talk about disparities, we talk about disparity in in reading in English. We talk about disparity in math. We talk about the fact that they are also three three and a half times more likely to be suspended. I came up myself. I didn't do that well in school. I did graduate barely, but I I I I I I took it upon myself to educate myself later. I went to the military. I I went I took college courses in the military. I took college courses after the military. I learned I taught myself to read well. I taught myself to write well. I I write I write very well, I I must say, but not
095everybody's going to do that when as they come up. Not everybody's going to have the dexterity to to decide that this is what this what I need to do. I need to take the responsibility for myself. So what what I'm asking you is that we need to do something about this. We need to instill all that we can to ensure that these black children are performing at the highest level possible. I only have a few more few a few more seconds and I just want to ask something about mental health month. I I applaud you for uh for that resolution. I just want to say that there there there could be more that can be done in the schools when it comes to the mental wellness of the children by increasing the number of of
096NAMI, National Alliance on Mental Illness. They have what they call NAMI on Campus. You have two schools that have NAMI on Campus and I think that you should try your best to put some money into what it takes to get more of these schools because these are these are student led programs. No one can do it better than the than the students themselves. Thank you. Thank you and that does conclude our public comment for items not on the agenda. Thank you. Our next item is the consent agenda. Um All right, I'd like to ask for a motion to pass items 1 through 22 on the consent agenda. So moved. Oh. Thank you. Are there any blue cards on the consent agenda? There are no Madam President, there are no blue cards on the consent agenda.
097You're right. Thank you, Ms. Marr. Can I get a second to Mr. Yang's motion to pass 1 through 22 on the consent agenda? Second. Seconded by Ms. Ballerini. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Opposed, same sign. Motion passes. Bargaining units, are there any bargaining units who wish to address the board? Seeing none. All right. Um Board, would you like a break before we start on our expanded learning presentation? Okay. All right, we'll start with expanded learning. We'll take a break afterwards. Between the two. Well, actually after number three. Um thank you, Ms. Evie. I think we're here. Good evening, Madam President, members of the board, Superintendent Riley, and Ms. Avalos. Tonight, we have prepared an update on expanded learning in Elk Grove Unified School District for you. But, before we begin, I just want to share
098some of the ways that this is really a celebratory presentation. Um we really lead in California with the work that we've done in Elk Grove, and I just want to share a couple things with you. Uh the way that we are recognized in Elk Grove is through the representation of Ms. Erin Sipes. And she's played two key roles in representing Elk Grove. One, she was the co-chair of the statewide leadership team for the California After School Network. So, it gave her an opportunity to really um represent what we're doing in Elk Grove across the nation. Uh she also had the opportunity prior to that to serve for the California Department of Education on the policy committee that contributed to the foundational work that we're experiencing here. So, as Erin goes through the presentation tonight, it's
099just a recognition of not only are we doing great work, but Elk Grove is also leading across California. So, with that, I welcome you to sit back and enjoy what Ms. Sipes has to share with you. Good evening, Board President Al Milan, members of the board, Superintendent Riley, Ms. Avalos. I am happy to be here tonight to talk about my favorite subject, expanded learning. Um as you know, everything that we do is rooted in Elk Grove's learning vision and core values. If you've ever heard me speak before, you've probably heard me say I have the best job in the district, and I still believe that, and I would say that the work that we get to do with expanded learning touches every single one of these core values. Um and has quite an impact on
100students. So, the presentation format tonight will be um looking at expanded learning Excel. I hear EXL all the time. That does not roll off the tongue. I like to say students excel in our programs. So, we are branding it as Excel. Uh so, we'll talk about Excel in Elk Grove. We'll talk about who we serve in our expanded learning opportunities outside of school time, beyond the bell. We'll talk a little bit about attendance and learning recovery. Um learning in summer and intersession. We have some experiential learning activities that we'd like to share a couple that are coming up that we'd like to highlight. Uh we'll talk about the Excel workforce development and sustainability and evaluation of our Excel programs. So when we're talking about expanded learning and outgrow, we're talking about before school programs, after
101school programs, intersession programs, fall and spring camps depending on when the modified traditional break is. Sometimes that includes winter camps. Credit recovery, summer learning programs, and attendance recovery. So who are we serving? So in our different programs, this is a compilation of recent data. So you see averages up there. Our elementary before and after school programs serve approximately 11,000 students daily. Our TK K programs during the day uh before and after school after the half-day programs serve roughly 2,000 students daily. Secondary before and after school programs serve approximately 1,500 students daily. Credit recovery programs serve 6,000 students annually. Intersession programs at our year-round schools serve 6,000 students annually. Summer learning programs serve approximately 12,500 students annually. That fluctuates a little bit. And our winter, fall, spring, and uh camps serve approximately 3,200 students students a
102year. So multiple students participate in more than one program, but overall more than 30% of Elk Grove Unified School District participate in some form of expanded learning. For attendance and learning recovery, attendance recovery was a new program this year that was piloted. Um it has been offered through Elk Grove teachers through partnership with existing Excel programs at all of our comprehensive school sites. And as of April 15th, we have provided more than 200,000 hours of standards aligned instruction to students in TK through 12. Um connecting teachers with students outside of the school day. There's additional information about attendance recovery that's going to be shared at a future meeting in collaboration with the attendance improvement office. So, I don't want to go too deep into that, but just giving a nod towards it. Uh learning in
103summer and intersession. Students in grades TK through 6 are offered 30 days outside of the school year. Those 30 days, this is a requirement of the expanded learning opportunities program. Um those 30 days have to offer a minimum of 9 hours per day. And so, to get to 30 days on our multiple calendars, our year-round school sites offer summer camp and fall camp for all students while the campuses are closed and then intersession every month. So, we offer approximately 75 days per year at our elementary schools to reach all the students across all the tracks. Um our summer programs for secondary students will be operating this year July 6th through 31st. We will also have um extended opportunities for our elementary before that, but then teachers will also join us July 6th through 31st for
104elementary's uh as well. Collaborative partnerships with extended school year programs, our special education programs are going to increase access and offerings this year. So, we are working hard to make sure that our um students who qualify for extended school year are going to be in an existing program with an existing administrator so that they can be with their typically developing peers. And as much as possible, we are working to keep them at their regular school of attendance. So, it's it's going to increase the the program offerings this year as well. I had mentioned that I wanted to highlight some of our experiential learning, some of the photos that you see on there um are from the robotics competition that we have hosted the last several years at Florin High School. It's a statewide competition. We've
105also hosted um one of the national competitions in the last couple years. Um but our two upcoming to highlight are the Capital Region Engineering Science and Technology, the CREST uh Summit, which will be happening at Valley High School on May 9th. Uh CREST is our elementary hands-on science project that um students across all all of our elementary schools have access to it, but also in the region, we have other partners that uh join us for this competition as well. When we first started it, it was a grassroots effort started by some teachers in the district, and we held our first competition at Prairie Elementary about 10 years ago, and it's grown so much that it'll be at Valley High School now because we have probably 700 students who come out and um are excited to
106do science on the weekends. Um and the other one is the Day of Play. I heard Dr. Collier say that May is going to be um physical activity awareness month. We are doing a Day of Play that is sponsored by California After School Network, and it will be hosted at Elk Grove High School, so it's for students and families who participate in the EXCEL programs, inviting them out to play with their students. So, uh uh we will have different vendors. ZTAG is going to be there, the Sac Republic's going to be there, the Junior Kings are going to be there. There's going to be stations where families can come out and actually participate in games and activities with their students and be physically active to promote wellness and healthy physical activity. And of course, we
107would love to see you there. Uh our EXCEL Workforce Development and Sustainability, this is another point of pride for us. As you know, most after school programs happen in the middle of the day. That means part-time work for most people. And so, there has been high turnover rates in after school traditionally. So, we've been working on different sustainability efforts. One of the things that we have started to offer is a professional development conference and high-quality professional learning. We Research suggests that if you invest in workers and you give them a professional-style conference, they also get to see that they're part of something larger. So, our most recent PD day was in February and we had 760 of our frontline staff who joined us for the conference. And so, you know, in education, it's easy to
108just see the people on your school site. It's lovely to bring people together where they get to see that they're part of a larger group and make connections. And we've had some really high-quality professional learning that then translates into what they're doing with students the very next day. We also have a student internship program that we have developed in partnership with College and Career Connections. And so, we've had it in the summer for the past four years, but this year we extended it into after school. So, we currently have 108 11th and 12th grade students who are being paid as interns to come deliver high-quality science instruction to our Excel programs and Excel participants. And then, they will have the opportunity to extend into the summer. And then, we also offer additional internships for the
109summer for some of the schools that don't have an early out. Right now, the 11th and 12th graders who are participating attend a high school that has an early out day because our elementary schools get out earlier. So, that gives them the ability on that day to be there for the full length of program. We also have collaborative partnerships with community-based organizations to engage and recruit staff from our school communities. And so a lot of those that workforce that we are working on are people who live in the communities, people who have family who attend the school, and sometimes our own Elk Grove staff extends their day and works with us in after school as well. And then the most important piece when you're developing quality programs is to have an intentional evaluation of those
110programs so that you can use data to inform your practices. We have developed program implementation continuation pick where we have a 50 plus item rubric that is used to develop areas like program design, quality staff, family engagement, program practices. We work with that document all year long with our program managers having conversations about how they're doing on that continuum. And then in the spring we go out and do a formal observation and a evaluation. And then every year every Excel site engages in a continuing continuous quality improvement process as outlined by the state of California. We follow the quality standards for expanding learning. Each site looks at their own individual data and sets action goals for ongoing improvement. And our partnership with the research and evaluation department has ongoing data collection that they support. We
111have surveys from staff, we have surveys from families, we have surveys from students. We gather attendance and participation data, course completion data, and um we have held some interest holder focus groups as well. So all of that data together is informing the practices that we do in our programs. Thank you. Um are there any blue cards related to this item? Madam President, there are no blue cards related to this item. Thank you. Um these are reports and discussions, so there's no voting, but Ms. Baldwin, I I'll go down. Does anybody have any comments or questions? Uh yeah, I'll start with this is great, wonderful things you're doing. Um my boys go to Excel. Um and uh it's been great uh for them to uh particularly my son that has um um you know, he he
112came from a level class and and this is a great like extension and opportunity for him to really like practice the skills that he's learned and picked up over the years um in a more generalized setting. And so, um he's built some really great friendships. Um he they come home and they tell me about all their friends and and in the program and all the fun things that they do and and um that's where we really uh recognize that our son has um a love for art and his creativity um has just grown and progressed and he's he's very a big fan of Lightning McQueen and now he comes home and he draws Lightning McQueen in his own little artistic way. It's really it's just been really phenomenal to see that and I think it's
113because he's had that very general setting to have kind of a lot of freedom to express himself and engage with his peers. So, it I see it day-to-day um the you know, the the efforts that EXL has or Excel has done for our kiddos and and it's a huge help for me um being um you know, a parent and having kids and you know, multiple schools and um being able to you know, know that they're in a safe a place um after they get out of school. I do have a question. Um we have a lot of vendors that we work with and and I I loved your presentation to talk about the evaluation process. Um is there ever maybe a point where we would maybe look to see where our vendors that are doing
114really well can maybe expand to more locations and then if there is if there is concerns with the vendor that, um, you know, maybe is not making the kind of progress, we can, um, look at either pushing more support to them to do, you know, be able to meet pri- make progress with, um, with the um, the the standards there that you use. Um, but it's that's, you know, curious to know like where can we really like flourish with vendors that we know are having really great progress and doing great things with our students, um, and then maybe not having as many, um, of vendors. So, not not that I have a a certain position on it, but just kind of curious like what what could that look like for us? Yeah. Um, we go
115through a formal public purchase procurement process through the request for proposals. So, that's how we identify who our vendors are. Um, currently we are working with five community-based organizations that do our comprehensive programs. Uh, the reason that it is more than one is because of capacity. Uh, we employ roughly 1,000 uh, staff daily to service our programs. And so, um, as you probably know, it's hard for us to find enough paraeducators. It's hard to find after-school workers. Um, and so, uh, we haven't had any community partners raise their hand and say, "Yes, give us every school." Um, they are, you know, they're always willing to jump in and and work with us, but uh, that hasn't been the case to have every school. So, that's why we have multiple. Um, in answer to your question,
116it's a it's a renewable contract, but we have definitely, um, changed providers if we need to. If things going on at a site. Of course, our first line of defense is support. So, there are four program specialists in my office. Each of them is responsible for about 12 sites. Um so, they are often on those campuses involved with the program and um supporting anything that that comes up. But, if there's anything in particular we need to be aware of, I think you know where to find us. Mhm. Thank you. Thank you. Ms. Mark. I do not have any questions, but I I do appreciate the presentation and learning about all the opportunities that you provide for our kids. So, thank you. Ms. Ballerini. Um I have a question about slide eight. You mentioned there's specific
117programs going on. What Just for people listening out there, do we have hours for those programs on those days? Uh yes. The Capital Region Engineering Science Technology, the Crest, uh begins between 8:00 and 9:00 uh and it goes until about 12:30 at Valley High School on May 9th. For the Day of Play, it will be an afternoon. It'll be 12:00 to 3:30 that the families are invited out to um get involved with those activities with their students. In the morning, our staff is going to be there and they're going to actually have some professional learning with the vendors that are coming in. So, like Sac Republic is going to teach us how to run soccer drills and then our staff's going to go out with Sac Republic as an example and and uh play soccer
118uh and run the drills as the families and students come in. So, it's a full day for us, but the the visitors are welcome 12:00 to 3:30. And they don't need to register or anything for it. >> Correct. Okay. Just show up. Awesome. Um uh maybe also a question, how are all of these programs funded? If you could expand on that share, I'd appreciate it. >> Um well, all of these programs are offered free of charge for our families because they are funded through a combination of state and federal grants and a state allocation. So, we currently have a a state allocation through ELOP for our TK through 6 and then we have ASES grants. Uh we just we have 32 schools that are funded with ASES grants, which is after school education and safety.
119It's a renewable state funding source. Uh this year we added or are in the process of adding three new middle schools that were funded for the 25-26 school year, one of which we just found out about a week ago. Um and then we also have federal funding for the 21st Century Community Service Community Learning Centers and ASSETS program, which is after school safety and enrichment for teens. Um and that is funding uh one of our middle schools and 11 of our elementary schools and it also provides transportation for 10 of our schools home from the after school program. Wow, okay. See, a a lot of people don't know all these things are going on out there. And is there income verification or anything or is it open to anyone? Um all of our programs are
120open to anyone and we do uh we pri- we do have a priority registration, so we take foster and homeless youth first >> Okay. and then we take other students who qualify as unduplicated, so that would be students who qualify for free or reduced price meals, uh English learners or students who qualify as migrants. Um and then we uh do all remaining spaces to uh we use a lottery system the same as they do with like kindergarten registration. Um we just recently moved in January of 2026. We moved from a rate two to a rate one district, which increased our funding level per student at the elementary level for the ELOP funding, and it actually we will be moving to taking every student who is interested in being in the program. The one caveat to
121that is we don't have enough physical space for the TK-K during the day. After school we could take almost up to the whole school cuz we have the whole school available, but during the day we are limited on most campuses to one classroom. We have purchased 19 portable buildings that are helping to relieve some of the pressure at some of our overcrowded schools. Um but in most cases it's one classroom, so we take 20 students in the morning and 20 students in the afternoon, and then we do that priority registration to identify who those students will be. And how do they Do they go to the school or contact your Uh right now all of the 2026-2027 applications are live on our website, and families should have received notification. Um we we blasted out through
122Parent View, through Synergy. We also send it out through Talking Points or put it in the newsletter or post it with a QR code, but if you didn't receive that for some reason, um or if you're new coming to the district, it is available on the website and it's kept live and uh all year long. Perfect. See, I knew you had all that information right there in your head. Um and how do parents know exactly what's available at their the school site that their student goes to? Is that on the website? >> you go to the district website and you type in expanded learning in the search bar, um you will see after before and after school programs, and there is a link in a drop-down for every single school. And each school has the
123hours of the program and the link to their application right there. So, you can look up your individual school and see what's available. See, guys, it's easy and free. Do it. Okay, that's all I have. Thank you so much. Thank you, Ms. Ballerini. Mr. Yang? Yeah, thank you for the presentation. Um you know, uh watching this presentation, it uh it it it make me think of the walk the talk, you know? And uh I'm very proud to to say that because uh my son um it's also um one of the uh students that uh is attending and uh benefit from it. And um I think this serve not just for the students, but uh also for the parents uh who um you know, maybe working long hours and uh just that last couple hours of
124the day, um their kids could benefit from uh participating in a program such as this and then also, you know, um don't have to pay for babysitter. Um especially in the disadvantage community, um you know, babysitter is very expensive. So, I think all in all, it's really great um for the students and the parents. Uh with that said, uh I think this type of um program, you know, it's a it it really develop more than just um education itself, but it really develop as far as um you know, young um young young person as far as, you know, uh learning about uh cultural differences awareness, um and and learn how to live, you know, with it and accept it and celebrating it, right? At an early age, um as we we have here, um the
125very young uh well, early grades. Um and I think that is excellent, right? And that is um what we want our student to uh gain from as far as, you know, don't just accept uh diversity, but celebrate diversity. And uh you know, the days that I went and picked up my son, like he's he was very excited, right? And that's part of celebration, you know? Um so for me, I think this program uh is is a program that is really helping um our students and and beyond that. So, I really hope that um we will continue have funding uh fund to fund this type of programs moving forward. Um with that said, um I I want to touch on um um Ms. Bowen's point there, just to elaborate that a little bit deeper. So, um
126as far as vendors go, are we are we having vendors to be a part of this? I just I just want to understand this a little bit better. So, we have community-based organizations that uh run the day-to-day. So, they hire a program manager, and they provide the frontline staff in partnership with the district. So, we subcontract for that. We also have Elk Grove staff who push into the program, like teachers who go in and provide tutoring, or provide enrichment services. And we also, through the same public procurement process, have identified supplemental and enrichment providers. So, uh like we have one school right now that is doing video game design because that was something that their leadership team came up with that they wanted to have on their campus and so we have we have contracted
127with provider who comes in and helps with video game design in that case. Yeah, so I just want to add on this um I think that's great. Just just want to mention these uh life skill sets topics to see if there's any room that we could wiggle into the program itself, you know, as we move forward because I think that these life skill set areas are very important for kids and for you know, everybody and that those are leadership public speaking, financial literacy, civic engagement, public affair, and cross-cultural awareness. So whatever that fits in there, I I think that that would do a great deal of developing our students, you know, as they are growing up and being aware of those very important life skill set area. So thank you very much. I look forward
128to hearing more and hopefully we'll get some even um interview as far as feedback from our students, you know, in different grade levels in the future. Thank you. I appreciate it. Ms. Davis. Um to having worked at a school site, they were a great addition to our schools. There were some rough things we had to work around, but they were really a great addition and I appreciated what your department did to help solve all the problems. I do have a question and I might have missed this cuz I had to leave for a minute. Are we allowing students that are attending a school on an intra other than their home school to attend the Excel program? We don't allow them to do like a child care intra for an Excel program because it's offered at
129every school. Right. Uh but if they're on an intra for a different reason or if they're off-loaded or for any other reason not attending their home school, we do allow them to participate. Um for students who are off-loaded specifically, we give them the option. Okay. >> You can stay at this school that you attend during the day if your parents want to pick you up from here or you can take the bus back to your home school and you can join the program there. Okay. Thank you. And um how do students access information regarding the internships? Uh that goes out to them directly through their student emails. So, it goes out to all eligible students. So, in this case, uh this year we did 11th and 12th graders. So, all of the 11th and 12th
130graders were sent an email with the about the opportunity. And then they had the opportunity to write a resume and apply and interview and go through that process and then if they were selected, we College and Career Connections mostly takes the lead on this and they support them with going through the human resources process to get on-boarded as an employee and get an employee identification number. And then we provided training for them on what they uh would be teaching to the young people and they go in teams and they go to the sites and they have coaches from College Career Connection who who job coaches who check in with them weekly and we have on-site staff who've been identified to supervise and support them while they're there. And they have a 10-week internship. Do we
131know about how many participants we've had? Total? Uh-huh. Right now we have 108. Um Our first year we had 224 in the summer. I know those two numbers off the top of my head. I'd have to look at uh the in-between years. Good. But we're we're seeing a good turnout. Yeah. Yes. Okay. Thank you. I just um this was something I I didn't think we would ever be able to offer people. So, it's just amazing that we can do this. Um speaking to the internship programs, um two of my children did internships one summer and then were asked back the next summer and got to be like leads. So, they had some management. And um there were some very funny conversations. They think showing up at 8:00 means coming to work at 8:00. I'm trying
132to tell them they need to be there at 5 minutes to 8:00. And just the process of learning and the education they get from CCE on professionalism and and the resume building and the interviewing. Um and I think we would love to grow more of our own teachers. I think we we love I mean, I love teaching. I'm so excited I'm going to have one in the schools. But but this opportunity that you're allowing them, I I really appreciate that to to make it be a whole program for our whole district. And I think it is a service to parents that's just unmatched. And we're glad our state and federal are com- are supporting it at this point. So, um I don't think we have any more questions. Thank you very much for all you
133do. Thank you. Our next item is the adjustment to school facilities fees or developer fees, um Dr. Coates. All right. Madam President, members of the board, Superintendent Riley, Ms. Avalos, staff and public, um not as exciting as the EXL program, but impactful nonetheless. Um this is the first of two agenda items. Um the first being today and the second being at the May 5th meeting. Um today we're just asking if the board to receive information regarding the March 2026 development fee justification school facility needs analysis and then on May 5th we'll bring it back for a public hearing and action. So just some background and context. Education code section 17620 allows school district to assess fees on new residential and commercial construction within their respective boundaries. As new development generates students, additional school facilities or
134the modernization of existing facilities will be needed to house the new students and because of the high cost associated with constructing school facilities and the district's limited budget, outside funding sources are required for future school construction. State and local funding sources for the construction and or reconstruction of school facilities are limited. So government code section 65995 provides for an inflationary increase in the fees every 2 years based on the class fee construction index and as a result of these adjustments, the fees authorized by education code 17620 are currently $5.38 per square foot of residential construction and $0.87 per square foot of commercial or industrial construction. As a bit of context, level one developer fee study relies on broader historical enrollment and residential development trends and structured primarily to demonstrate that new development are going to
135bring new students to the district. And then the level two and three analysis requires a more conservative and defensible nexus to because the fees are higher intended to um uh attribute a greater proportion of the actual facility costs that are subject to higher scrutiny. So just some context cuz there are two different reports, the level one and the level two. So, in addition to that, um the March 2026 developer fee justification and SFNA prepared by SchoolWorks Incorporated demonstrate that the district is justified in imposing the following: for level one commercial fee, 87 cents per square foot, a level one rental self-storage facilities at 18 cents per square foot, level two fees at $7.23 per square foot of new new residential construction, and level three fees $14.46 cents per square foot of new residential construction. The
136proposed level two fee of $7.23 cents per square foot represents a decrease of 9 cents from the current fee of $7.32 cents per square foot, and the new rate would be effective July 1st, 2026. And the level three fees may only be levied if the State Allocation Board determines that state funding for new school construction is no longer available and formally notifies the Secretary of the Senate and Chief of Clerk of the Assembly of that determination. Uh the district's March 2026 developer fee justification study SFNA was distributed to all four local planning departments in the North State Building Industry Association on March 20th, 2026 and was made available for public review beginning April 3rd, 2026 in compliance with statutory requirements prior to adopting the development fee justification study and SFNA. Um I will ask the
137board on May 5th to conduct a public hearing and respond to any comments received. And so, with that, I leave you with both reports. Thank you. Are there any blue cards related to this item? Madam President, there are no blue cards related to this item. Does anybody have any questions or comments? Thank you very much. >> Thank you. >> I'd like to call for a 5-minute break and then we'll move on to special education services update. >> Mhm. >> Thank you everyone. If we can get the board members back up to their seats, please. That's what that's about. Great. I'm going to start with our um our next item is our special education services update. Ms. Buckmaster. All right. Good evening again, President Albiani, board members, Superintendent Riley, and Ms. Avalos. As you'll recall, in
138alignment with our continuous improvement process, the district has partnered with WestEd, a nonprofit research, development, and service agency, to examine the full scope of programs and services in our schools that serve students with disabilities, and to identify strengths and areas for growth and improvement. Aligned with that work, at the last board meeting, we presented part one of a series of planned presentations that covered reminders regarding recent education codes pertaining to students with disabilities, trends in state and EGUSD special education data, and an overview of the method for the WestEd study, as well as some of WestEd's preliminary discoveries and recommendations. WestEd continues to work to finalize their report, and we will bring that report forward to the board in the weeks ahead to inform our work and future presentations. Tonight's presentation is part two of
139the series, and focuses on highlighting our current special education programs with a particular focus on the education supports process, program updates, professional learning and development for staff, inclusive practices, facilities updates, and work that we're doing to recruit and retain staff. To present tonight, I'd like to welcome Anna Ragali, Director of Special Education, to the podium to walk us through the presentation that includes time at the end for question and discussion. And Thank you, Corey. Good evening, Chairperson Albiani, members of the board, Superintendent David Riley, and Ms. Ludi Avalos. Uh as uh Ms. Buckmaster um said, I'm pleased to present part two of our series focused on special education services in Elk Grove Unified. See here. I was going to go over the agenda, but I think we got it covered. So, we'll just cut to
140it. Um Elk Grove Learning Vision, and I like to read this because it's new and I think it's really important guiding um our guiding uh light or vision for our work. Every student will learn in every classroom, in every subject, every day, preparing college, career, and life-ready graduates with an innovative and fiscally stable system that ensures safe environments, high-quality curriculum and instruction, and a strong workforce. Grounded in equity, we commit to delivering targeted, culturally responsive programs and services that affirm student identities, engage families and communities, and close achievement, opportunity, and relationship gaps so all students thrive. Our mission, very simple, to provide appropriate high-level high-quality services in the least restrictive environment. In 2022, uh the Senate bill was passed declaring all students are general education students first and as such will be educated alongside their
141non-disabled peers. Starting off here with a new initiative aligning with the work that we have been doing and starting next year we're adding a formal IEP based process to determine when students need additional environmental supports. The focus is on building independence, using data from assessors to guide IEP team decisions across settings. Teams will identify individualized supports and create an independence plan when needed. We are piloting now with a small group of IEP teams and will streamline our educational benefit analysis also known as EBA and our ESP, the educational support process, into one unified process moving forward. We have a wide variety of services, not places, services for our students who have disabilities. We have preschool through adult transition programs. When students turn out at 22, we have the resource and learning center, that's our level
142one. We have our level programs two, three, and four. We have therapeutic program, academic behavior social supports, ABS. Non-public school placement, transitional academic class, TAC. Pathways and you have a link there if you'd like to look at the descriptions of the programs and then of course we provide related services in all of the areas listed above. Something else we wanted to highlight was alternate augmentative communication. We have low-tech from communication boards and I'm I'm sure you've seen those in observing our self-contained classes or gen ed classes. PECS up to high-tech eye gaze devices. Last week I had the privilege of observing a student rehearse the morning message at Edna Batey Elementary through the use of eye gaze. It's pretty fascinating. I'm sure many of you have seen how it works, but if you have not,
143I invite you to come and observe. Eye gaze technology allows students with extensive physical disabilities to operate computers, tablets, communication devices using only eye movements. Assistive technology Our assistive AT experts evaluate and train students with disabilities to use specialized equipment and software to enhance independence. AAC and AT tools bridge communication gaps, increase academic independence, and promote inclusion. These tools reduce frustration, they foster social interaction, and prepare students for a digitally reliant future. We are fortunate in Elk Grove to have six AAC and three AT experts. Our AAC and AT experts recently provided an amazing training to our community advisory committee parent group. Again, the work is remarkable and game-changing for many students. Here's a look at our preschool assessment data, three-year data comparison. And I think you you can read it from 2023 to 2026.
144We've increased the number of students who are assessing. That number 25 26520 was that was pulled in March, but we do pro- project 831 assessments by the end of this academic year. And the referral breakdown comes a lot come from 0 to 3-year-olds, so we take them after their um infant um when they're on or before their third birthday. And that's a a high percentage of 54% and then 18% parent referrals. And um speech only, so students have speech to full assessments when we um suspect that additional need. You can see the breakdown with the regions. As you are well aware, pre-K and early intervention build the foundation for lifelong learning and health by boosting school readiness, strengthening social emotional skills, as well as decreasing the need for special education services later on. We have
14522 classes in level four, 15 level three integrated, 15 level two inclusion, and then level one we have 14 classes. Um again, we project 831 assessments by the end of June, which is an increase from last year. And then of note, 38% of our special education preschool students move into a gen ed class um the following year in TK and K. Our level one, we continue to provide trainings in response to the teacher need. Um continue legal training uh for our learning center resource specialists. We did um show a a marked increase in our timeline compliance um last this last year, collaboration between behavior specialists and learning center education specialists to support level one. Um and then of course, we have the lower caseload average. Moving forward to next year, uh we hope to continue
146to strengthen implementation of MTSS and continue our ongoing monitoring of caseloads to ensure that teachers are um um not overloaded. Um Where special education services support students with disabilities, MTSS, and you've heard a lot about MTSS, applies to all students, including high achievers, struggling learners, and students with disabilities. And our education specialists are uniquely qualified to support general education teachers on the multi-tiered systems of supports because they are trained in tailoring instruction for students who who do not respond to the core instruction and providing differentiated instruction, both of which are foundational components of MTSS. Levels programs so our self-contained classes. Successes from this year, paraeducator structure that resulted in longer hours. That was a big win. Um we have we would have paraeducators who had their their ship, you know, their hours were before students
147arrived or they would leave before the bus picked up students. So now we have the increased hours which has really helped serve our students. Um we continue the development of our regional programming model to support serving students in their home region. It's a very important concept um to keep kids at least in their home region so they can meet up in middle school and and sec- in high school. Um course codes with the prescri- prescribed course of study for levels are these are our plans for uh moving forward for next year, adding three behaviorists to support our level programs, and then we're adding two program specialists to support um services at the school sites. Alternate pathway um the alternate pathway diploma is a specialized graduation route. I think I mentioned it last year um for
148students with the most significant cognitive disabilities. They're typically taking the alternate assessment, the CAA, um to earn a high school diploma, it allows students to meet state minimum course work require- requirements while still, um, receiving a recognized diploma. Our deaf and hard of hearing program, um, successes this year in our uh curriculum training by the publisher. We're going to continue that through the summer, um, and then, um, community, uh, continuing our deaf coach, uh, for families, um, collaboration with FACE. And then, um, the SELPA collaboration, we're actually serving 10 DHH students from three districts. And they do pay. But it does allow students who are in the deaf and hard of hearing community to stay to be together and to learn alongside other students because their needs are so unique. Um, plans for next year,
149promoting interdepartmental relationships to promote family cultural language connections, and then refining our our program model design. Um, I'd like to just thank our fiscal partners here who work tirelessly to support, often, and this applies to a number of our programs, very unique requests to ensure that our students can participate in activities alongside their typical peers. And for those of you who are working more most recently, you probably are nodding because sometimes it really takes a lot of creative thinking to work to get, um, the supports that we need. And and I'm very grateful for that partnership. Transition services, um, I do I would be remiss if I didn't give a shout out to Linda Vargas. She has led this work for a long time and she's retiring this year. Um, we will miss her. Um,
150but, uh, in a diff- in addition, you know, in terms of our transition services, in addition to developing mandated individualized transition plans to help bridge the gap between school and adult life, our transition specialists support student-run enterprises, which are critical for students with cognitive disabilities because they provide structured hands-on training that bridges the gap between school and independent life. These services foster self-determination, they build functional vocational skills, and improve long-term employment rates. You can see um some of our progress that we've made this year. Again, thank you to our fiscal partners who've made that happen um because sometimes it's a small amount of money that is really um the the guidelines are very strict and I'm grateful for the partnership so that we can provide these services for for students. Coordinated early intervention services, CEIS,
151um we were identified uh in as had being significantly disproportionate a few years ago and we continued that work. Um again, partnering with um uh coordinators from curriculum and professional learning um to implement these action items so that we can address the challenges before our earliest learners are identified as having um needing um special education services. And um you can see the action items. Um one of the um I think significant um areas that we've improved on is developing co-teaching and then of course our partnership with MTSS and teacher training. Co-teaching models, um currently we have eight schools participating and the subject areas are you can see listed there, math and science and government. And we also have uh co-teaching efforts in two middle schools. And the foundational planning that we've um this year we
152had um training sessions and we've had release days so that uh our co-teachers, the gen ed and the special ed teachers can observe successful models. And then just co-teaching I don't I'm sure you're all very familiar with it but it where special education and gen ed teachers share instruction improves outcomes for all students because it provides increased individual attention, diverse teaching styles, and improved behavioral support. The model also fosters inclusivity. It reduces the stigma for students with IEPs and provides tailored and immediate academic support resulting in higher participation and academic growth. So again moving forward we'll we'll continue to have release days so teachers can receive training and then observe successful co-teaching models. Non-public schools. So a number of our students, 181 to be exact on the day we pulled this number, receive their services
153in our non-public schools. I'm very grateful for our non-public school partners because sometimes students need that the smaller setting. And it's students primarily with autism and then we do intellectual disability and emotional disabilities. And those are the the names of our schools. Alternative ed alt ed schools are not necessarily as you're aware for students with disabilities but often times we do have students who have IEPs and need services. So this year we increased the staffing to ensure that each of these sites have a dedicated resource specialist. Jesse Baker. Jesse Baker is one of the most remarkable schools in Elk Grove Unified School District with 12 classes specially designed to meet the unique needs of each age group. Curriculum is aligned to the common core state standards and staffing includes adapted PE, special speech and language,
154occupational therapy, physical therapy, a school nurse, and a school psychologist. A lot of fun. And they have great proximity to Project Ride, which allows for a lot of um opportunity for the kids learn how to muck rock and and support horses, so. We also have an uh adult transition program at Jessie Baker. Here's some pictures from um student run enterprises, and then of course our community transition program, and we have an apartment-based classroom. And if you haven't seen it yet, I welcome um you know, you to come out and observe. I wish we could model that and have a bunch of those, because I think it's been very valuable for those um our adult students transitioning. Okay. Um empowering our students, the most important takeaway here is the dedicated onboarding and training for early career
155special education teachers. Um induction support, and then um just the different trainings that we've provided. And then again, um continue to build capacity of our paraeducators and teaching teams through targeted trainings. Paraeducator hiring overview, so you can look at 2023, the number of vacancies, and then just go to the far right, number 2026, went down. So, that means we've we've hired a number of our own, which is great news, and I love to hear that when I'm out at school sites, and um teachers or program specialists are very proud to share the number of um district paras who were agency Paris and now they've um come on board. So, that's great news. We still have vacancies though. A little bit of a plug for for hiring. Uh special education health services 25-26 school year. The
156um we approved and are we implemented the health assistant two position. And uh health assistant for special education. And we're hiring more more district employees um for continuity of care to students. And then we held nine online training courses. And an all-day um training on health procedures. Um including and we included substitutes. And our goal this year is to um provide this training annually with quarterly refreshers. Um inclusive sports for students with disabilities. I'd like to see a show hands. Who has been able to see our unified basketball league? Unified soccer. It's fun. Um it's it's very exciting and um We also have uh unified soccer. Unified sports leagues, they bring together students with and without intellectual disabilities on the same team to promote inclusion, friendship, and understanding. Watching a unified sports basketball or soccer
157game is genuinely inspiring. Seeing students with and without disabilities share the court and field, passing, encouraging, and celebrating one another creates a powerful sense of connection and belonging. The focus shifts from differences to teamwork, effort, and joy. Every basket, every goal, every assist, every high five reflects not just the game, but the relationships being built in real time. It's a reminder of what inclusive communities can look like at their best, supportive, spirited, and full of pride. And many thanks to all of our unified coaches. Collaboration with facilities department, it takes a village. It's just like our collaboration with fiscal, with facilities. This year we completed the modernization of the playground at Jessie Baker and um updated the kitchen. And this summer we're going to start the modernization of um the other items, the realigning of
158classroom accessibility, construction of the pool and the changing rooms, and then improve the parking lot. Um and we added soft surfaces for at these sites. Wait. This summer. And um examples of school and community events. This is kind of the fun part of my work. And these events highlight a strong coordinated effort to engage and support families for meaningful accessible opportunities for connection and learning. A key focus is on parent education and partnership, including our community advisory committee sponsored trainings, caregiver cafes in collaboration with our families and community engagement partners. These spaces help families build knowledge, share experiences, and strengthen their role as partners in education. Another major theme is community connection and celebration. Seeing through events like the CAC Resource Fair at Cosumnes Oaks High School and the Elk Grove Region Silent Disco, which
159brings families, students, and staff together in inclusive and welcoming environments. And my apologies, I think I left off a number of other sites that had inclusive um at silent the silent disco. So, thank you to them as well. And finally, there's a clear a clear emphasis on elevating family voice and advocacy with such events as the Family Deaf and Hard of Hearing Night and the SELPA ledge legislative sharing day with CAC ensuring families are informed, empowered, and actively involved in shaping systems that impact their children. The REACH special education grant, I think I shared about this last year and we have over the last few years. It was a 13-month job job embedded residency program in partnership with UOP designed to prepare and support candidates in earning a dual special education credential mild mod and
160extensive support needs along with a master's degree. The program includes structured professional development, weekly learning sessions, and 2 years of mentorship. A key benefit is the strong pathway into the profession including a guaranteed job in the district upon successful completion making it both a training program and a recruitment pipeline for high-quality special education teachers. We are wrapping up our sixth cohort um with 19 teachers and thank you to our program specialist Natalie Orsaknef for leading this work. Done an amazing job. We also have a partnership we're entering our second year with uh the Sacramento County Office of Education focused on strengthening the pre-service phase of teacher preparation. This collaboration enhances intern readiness through structured weekly professional development and meaningful on-the-job experiences paraeducators. For the 2026-2027 school year, we are pleased to have three participating in
161this strengthened pathway. And contingent on the number of applicants, we also have this new teacher pathway and this offers two flexible entry options into the special education profession serving as either an intern teacher in a high needs classroom or as a paraeducator learning alongside an experienced special education teacher. The program supports candidates in earning three credentials multiple subject extensive need and mild mod. The pathway runs from June 2026 to May 2027. Next step as Ms. Buckmaster mentioned WestEd is finally finalizing the report and will inform future presentations. And that's it. Thank you. Sure. Are there any blue cards related to this item? Madam President yes, we have one blue card related to this item. Ebony Bowler if you'd like to come to the podium. And again you'll have 3 minutes. Yes, hi. My name is
162Ebony Bowler and I have my six children three of my children that are older the 28 and the 25s they are graduated from Santa Barbara University. I'm such a proud parent as hard as I work for my three older kids to graduate and do all that I've done all these years in this district. Now I do have this young um special education kid a special ed kid and this MTSS is kind of looking like a bad idea in the program because my son who attends Mary Sukamoto and has been there most of his life. It's not really no type of dedicated resource workers that's anywhere in the properties of these schools. I know they're saying they're probably going to be bringing some out but there's no behavioral specialist or anyone that's dealing with these um
163this new code that just got approved of this uh 506. I don't know the actual penal code, but it's been approved for most of the special ed kids to just sit next to the regular kids. And so, while they're sitting there, um that's where a lot of bullying and a lot of stuff is taking place. And I mean, it's nice that they have these inclusive sports where they get to mix all the kids up, but we got to still think about the kids. And we got to think about how some of them are still kind of cruel and, you know, as a special ed parent, um I do want to look further more into this um MTSS, but I'm having a a hard situation where they're not really looking into the special ed kids to
164even get into the after school program. I listened to all that of who's in line first, the homeless, the foster. It's never special ed. And with my son being special ed, I can never get him into these programs because that is holding over his head. And so, now that they have these new inclusive sports, he's now the star of the team and stuff like that. And so, they're not having these resource workers that need to come out immediately because now that the sports are there, some of them that's real special ed, they don't really know, you know, their adrenaline is up and they're special ed. So, things can go wrong. So, I don't know how to really break that down in 3 minutes, but you kind of get what I'm saying. Especially when they're on
165football teams and basketball teams in special ed. And so, I do want to look deeper into this MTSS MTSS program and how they have started putting all these kids together because that's why they're now having a lot of more victim kids making fun of them and having issues. And this is only a long vintage park that I'm talking about from Mary Tsukamoto up into Smedberg. Only along this section of Elk Grove district is having the issue with the special ed and the the IEP kids and if you could do a ratio and see all the special ed kids that have been kicked out of these schools and been suspended. Yeah, thank you very much. Ebony Bowler in the district of 17 years working very hard in three unions. Thank you, Ebony. Thank you. Um Do
166we have any board members who have any questions or comments? Start with Ms. Ballerini. Um yeah, the Unified Games, are they doing the track meet this year as well? I know Ms. Ballwin and I were at the track meet, the Unified track meet last year at Laguna. Do we know if they're doing that again? Okay. We are, Ms. Ballerini. What? That's happening again this year. Do you know the dates? I can send it out to everybody. That'd be awesome cuz that was it was we really enjoyed we really enjoyed that day. It was it was so I don't know, it just was a good feel good day. Let me just put it that way. Um and the silent disco, um I just want to say um I've gone to a couple of the CAC events
167with my grandkids and um they love the silent disco. I mean, it is can we do silent disco? Yeah, okay. Um but also I don't know if people know that you can borrow the silent disco, the headphones and everything um for your for a school event. Um I'm not sure who exactly you contact. Do you you? Okay. Cuz I know my my daughter did it for something at her at the school that she works at. So, um I just wanted to throw that out there. Thanks for reminding everyone. That's awesome. Yeah. Yeah. Although, I will tell you it her car I too small for it. It take There's a lot of stuff. So, if you bring an SUV. Yeah, there you go. There you go. She She just has not a not an SUV right
168now. So, there's that. All right. That's all I have. Thank you for all of all of that. I I appreciate your explaining it I cuz I went through it myself at home and it's so much better when you tell it to us rather than me just trying to read the bullet points and say, "What is she trying to say there?" So, I appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Yang. Thank you, Anne. Um you know, this is a um area where our most vulnerable students uh were in and uh I know we work really hard to uh to serve them and uh you know, sometimes we come short, but um I think uh so far we have um we have improved uh you know, over the years and um I I I could thank, you
169know, all the team enough, you know, um but uh with that said um there's a lot of information in here, for sure. And a lot of good information and uh you know, uh I I don't think I could give you enough credit to to the team. However, I I want to uh I I feel like I would be remiss if I don't get to some of the things that I feel like could improve, you know? And that's part of, you know, what we do as a board members try to try to kind of nitpicking uh whichever area that we feel is uh needs to be improved. So, you know, the the area that I see that I hear all the time is vacancy, you know? Vacancy that uh, we have high turnover and retention issue,
170right? And that's kind of like the common theme, you know, from, uh, the year that I've been here, 5 years. So, um, do you feel like we are improving that, um, department, you know, and, uh, if so, I kind of want to you to share with us. How do we, you know, what do we do differently to to show that improvement? Um, the one slide I shared, I think does show in terms of just the para vacancies that we have >> saw that. >> Yeah, um, sorry, I won't get everyone dizzy here, but I do think, um, that shows that we've, um, increased >> right? That, oh, good. Yeah, let's get a high-level view. Mhm. Decreased the number of agency paras that cost sometimes twice as much. Yeah. >> Um, and increased our number of
171of staff of of, uh, district paras. Say that again, I'm sorry. We've in We've that that chart on 27 shows that we have decreased the number our reliance on non-public agency paras. And those non-public agency paras, while they're valued partners, they cost more. Mhm. Um, and there's a benefit to having employees, um, you know, they they get all the benefits, they train, they have consistency for students, um, and we have increased our our district paras. Okay. And we continue efforts. Um, the other night we had a career fair at Calvin and 12 young, um, uh, seniors, I guess, came and asked to take the test, so when they graduate, they can be paras, and that is a great pipeline to grow our own. Yeah. So, you so you see that, um, our retentions has got
172betten, uh, better? Um, I want to say yes, um, but I I need to confirm that. So, I will do that. I'm confirmed but um I I my my gut is yes, but in terms of the data I will I will have to get back to you on that. >> Okay, yeah. So, that's something I really wanted to uh >> Sure. to to learn about, you know, um as far as if we are improving, then I want to know what are we doing right, you know? Mhm. And then if you're not improving, then also wanted to talk to you you and the team about so that we can improve in that area. Our human resources under Miss Buckmaster and Mr. Singh, we have really increased the number of um fairs Mhm. and uh the work
173the efforts there have really I think shown. So, um but data actually numbers I need to just confirm about retention. Okay, good deal. And you know, just just uh gathering information as far as, you know, talk to some parents um who's in the program because of their kids. And I I believe I have saying this before and I wanted to uh reiterate that, you know, in this meeting is that uh although, you know, we have um programs that train our paraeducators and uh um but some schools paraeducators are actually um getting better feedback than other schools. And my recommendation would be, you know, for the staff to uh maybe um you know, do some sort of uh I would you know, observation, survey, or communication to find out why certain schools are um their paraeducators
174are doing better than others. And kind of you know, um putting that formula together and and you know, make the tweak, you know, I whatever training that may need need to be done. You know, um look into that and see, you know, what we could do to better um those schools uh paraeducators um to be you know, better than what they are right now. And I know it's challenging to be paraeducator and I mean, you know, they they don't get the highest pay, too. I know that. So, it's just combination of things, but that doesn't you know, should not influence them for not doing their job. >> off as a para. I get that. >> Yeah, exactly. But I know that we do have different levels, you know, of pay and you know, I I
175myself I know I fight really hard to make sure that our paraeducators get paid as good as possible, you know. I I know I'm definitely one of those uh school board members and uh I feel like they could get paid more for sure. Uh with that said, um I uh like I said, I have a there's a lot information here and a lot of good information here. Um one of the thing that this slide here, let me see. Pacific of let me see What is that that? Right here. Yeah, the partnership with University of the Pacific. Uh can you elaborate that a little bit? Sure. Um we have a a partnership with University of Pacific for the um with the reach grant. >> Mhm. And um we have student we have teacher we have uh
176the service paras and they take classes here and in conjunction with uh professors from UOP. And then they have mentor teachers, then they spend half their year subbing in as as serving as the teacher. So, they get all the training and then when they're done, um they get a stipend, they get paid as a para. Then when they're when they complete the program, they're guaranteed a job. Um with the district. Of course, they have to stay. There's a contract, you know, it's give a little, get a little. They have to stay here for a number of years, but um you know, that's been a very successful partnership and again, pipeline for us to have special ed teachers. So, in this program, um do we giving them any tuition assistance? We do. Okay. And Corey's kind
177of coming up. She'll probably speak to the details from HR and work in And she's doing a great job. She's doing a great job. We just >> I really love the program. had the opportunity to partner >> this is important information to share with public, you know. Yeah. So, we um Elk Grove is a recipient of a grant from the state of California that allows us to have a residency program. We are very special in Elk Grove to have our own residency program. Other districts that participate in residencies often do through do it through a consortium. We're part of those consortiums as well, but we also have our own. Um the resident model is one of the best ways to prepare new teachers and to retain them. Um teacher interns can also be successful, but
178that's I was a teacher intern. You know, you you jump in the middle of the pool and you start swimming as a as an intern. Um residency is a uh more sub gentle, you know, way into the into the profession. Um so, we're very proud to have a resident model in Elk Grove that is unique to us. That also has a higher rate of teachers being retained. Um we've had very strong 2 years of um participation and retention with our group. There were some rough years coming out of COVID um that we needed to rebuild and and refocus our program and readjust our approach, but we've had some very recent very strong years of our cohorts graduating that 19 to 20 target of teachers. So, we just want to continue on that path because we're
179preparing them well, we're retaining them, and it's the right direction to go. And that in partnership with our work to hire our paraeducators, we've had tremendous amount of growth and progress. We've also launched a new hiring platform that has allowed us to speed up our hiring process for paras. We just recently hired some new folks, and our team told me that it was done in 19 days. So, that is a tremendous amount of progress from our previous system. So, we're continuing to monitor that. So, folks that are participating in in applying for paraeducator positions, you still go through EdJoin, but when you click to apply, it's going to take you to Team Taylor, and it's a much easier accessible site to to apply. So, lots of great work being done around hiring, recruitment, and retention.
180HR has built a talent acquisition team that's working across department with with staffs from many different departments to recruit and retain and get out there in the community and mention that we're out there more, and we're starting to to see the benefits in our hiring pools. What what is the contract in terms of, you know, year if they would you graduate in our program coming out of the school working for us? Is there a minimum that has to stay with El Dorado Unified School District, and what would that be? I would You're talking about the reach residents. Yes, so they they are required to teach in the state of California. There's been some Ed Code changes around that since the beginning of the grant. They do at originally when the grant came out, they had
181to stay with us for a number of years. Now, they need to stay in the state of California, but they've been staying with us, and they're hired as a teacher. So, they're put on the same salary schedule, they're put at the same rate as we do um hiring a teacher. And to your question earlier, they do receive uh stipend as part of the grant that helps them with tuition and costs in addition to getting their salary as a parent educator. Do you know what that number is? Say that again. >> Do you know what that number is? The stipend? >> Yeah, it's 20,000. Okay. Yeah, but and it's deducted from taxes, too. >> Okay. And then how many years they are obligated to stay with us? There's there's not an obligation to stay with us
182with the REACH program. They're required to teach within the state of California for 5 years. Originally, when the grant came out, it was required to stay in El Grove, but the Ed Code changed around that. So, they're required to stay to teach in the state of California. Many of them are staying with us. Right. Okay. Good deal. Um just last thing, I just want to uh go back to the you know, the slide 27, seeing you know, where we come from, you know, 2023, um that 300, you know, vacancy position to under 100 position. So, that is an improvement um as far as that goes, right? So, just want to say thanks for doing that um work. Uh you know, it it's always been, like I say, kind of like a theme now, you know,
183like vacancy, vacancy, you know, and the uh you know, so anyways, um thank you very much. I will follow with uh the team and talk to the team more offline. Appreciate it. Thank you, Ms. Davis. Well, thank you for the presentation. On page 10, do we know why there was such a huge jump in preschool suspensions in 2024-25? I I mentioned this a few weeks ago, and I I our speculation is we're getting better at assessing. And we have a popular program and um we're getting more referrals um post COVID I think. Um what were the other the rationale in terms I think that was about it. Yeah. And the the TK, right? Um some students are opting to stay in pre-K. Um but but I do think it's we're getting better at identifying. Okay.
184Um and it seemed like we had really high numbers at Florin, um Pleasant Grove, and Valley. Are we trying to look at why we're having pockets of those and not spread evenly through the schools? >> Right here? This the Florin, Pleasant Grove, and Valley? Um you know, I need to look into that a little more. Um I know our preschool team um have we have our one assessment center at Donner and we're looking at expanding that so that we can make it easier for our families. They don't have to go to Donner, they could be assessed in their home school, but um we you know, then we need to um develop assessment teams so they can go to these other sites. But as far as why the most in Pleasant Grove and less in Franklin,
185um I would need to look into it. I'm not sure. >> Thank you. Um on page 16 you just talked about the transition services. Um just want to share that um from personal experience those were so important. Our our son participated in them. He did the paid community job training. Um it helped him prepare for a real job as his dad used to call it and ended up working for the school district after that at Sheldon High School. So it it you really do a service for our young adults that are leaving. Um on page 18 I'm also wondering why our other high school our three other high schools are not part of the co-teaching model and only two of our middle schools. Is Is it a choice of these schools to participate? I think
186it's exposure. I think they're all getting on board. I I mean, I could defer to Chad, but I think we've talked a lot about this and I I think it um I think next time I report out, you'll see every single one on there. Okay. Thank you. And just one more um touching on what uh Mr. Young was talking about on our numbers and how we report them. I think it's a little disingenuous when we don't report the agency pairs as vacancies because those are technically vacancies that are being temporarily filled by someone else. Um and it really throws off when you're having discussions with people when one number saying, "Well, we only have 80 vacancies." And we're looking at "Well, no, we have like 600 if you add the temporarily filled ones." So, it
187just I I think myself, I'd prefer to see them listed as vacancies and Yeah. being filled temporary. Some work that we're doing, the educational support process that I mentioned in slide number six, is to fine-tune our ability to determine and um when students need additional adult support and how to fade it because right now sometimes a student may require additional adult support for a short period of time. Um and stu- and sometimes our pairs belong to a school or they belong to a program when in fact we might need them elsewhere. So, we're really working um to um develop a better system so that we don't need those agency pairs because some if it's temporary, but I I appreciate what you shared. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for all your hard work. Of course. Is
188that my one? I turn that mic on. Uh thank you for the presentation. I want to um go to slide six um and have some conversations here. So, if you could maybe talk a little bit more. It looks like we are currently piloting this right now and it says three to six IEP teams. Um does that mean that we're that cuz when I think of an IEP team, I think of like this one specific student and that's a whole team, right? So, are these are we looking is it so in this in this context, is it at a specific site and this grade level and then that's the team that works with the variety of students that would have an IEP during the pilot period? It it came up organically. We had three to six
189groups of um that were the student they were determining needs in the environment. >> Mhm. And those are the teams working with those students and So, this pilot is is roughly three to six students essentially that we're looking at incorporating um a plan to fade support, right? Or to add. Or add or add. Um okay. And then so, you said it came up organically. So, parents, did they have an option to opt out of it? Or it was just like oh, does it presented to them and said, "Oh, can we try this?" I'm just curious how this came out. >> No, they were on the IEP team and determining how we are going to do the assessment how we are going to determine if the child needed additional environment some sort of change which might
190include an additional para or might include fading, but these were all additional. Oh, I see. I see. Okay. And then um how is that going? Like, can you give us an idea of like how well this pilot >> back at Vanessa. >> And how much longer is it going? And how much longer is this pilot going to last? Um through the end of the school year. And we are working with um behaviorists, with our EGA partners, Ed specialists with mental with mental health psychologists, and administrators. Um because a lot of people have a lot of feelings about it. And as a parent, you understand and we want to be sure we're determining that and that we're we have an analysis we have a system or a process um that um everyone's in agreement with. Mhm.
191That's legally defensible. Um so, I think I'll be reporting out more on this and let you know how it's going. Okay. I if um the then the next time we present. Um because I we we do want to have some sort of conclusive and and our teachers want to know all of our providers, they want guidelines. Mhm. Um and on you know, best practice and how to um provide support. And and what are the expectations? What kind of what what kind of um uh observations are required? What kinds of um rating scales? What kind of data are we collecting? Um so. Yeah, and I think transparency would be really helpful. I think families are going to um you know, be in a variety of places on this. Um cuz I think um often times, you
192know, speaking just from a parent perspective like having an additional adult always seems like, "Oh, that's better." Right? But not always. And um and it has it has to be appropriate. It has to um meet the child's needs um to support their academics, um you know, accessing their education. And so, um I I I to make sure that this work that we're learning from the pilot that we'd be able to find a very transparent way to have conversations with families so that they understand that this is not you know a way to only determine if you need additional adult support or other than what we've traditionally done, right? So just making sure that families are on board mainly and that we're clear about what criteria we're going to come up with so that we know
193and we can we can lean back on this pilot to say these were the lessons learned and this is why we we feel confident that we can move forward with it so that families are clear about how we are going to identify that those levels of support. Um but thank you. And then for slide seven, can you maybe speak speak a little brief speak a little bit more about like how each of these programs are aligned with students accessing their education in a least restrictive environment because I think often times when we do our site visits, we might see a class that's like oh that's the tact class or that's the abs class and but not fully understanding what each of those classes entail. Yeah, sure. Um the word I'd like to use is continuum.
194So we have the full continuum of supports and services and and I also like to use and I shared this with you before it's a service not a place. Mhm. Um but but as far as the continuum goes all the far right related services um speech and language would be for I think you understand when those are provided and offered and a student is assessed so that they show a need. Um resource and learning centers are level one and that's a student could be receiving that service in the gen ed setting with a push-in support or a consult support from the resource teacher um or they could be pushing out in in a small group. Um and then the levels programs are two, three, and four. Um and they have alternate curriculum, but they also
195have access to the gen ed depending on the need of each student. Um academic behavior social supports is a a therapeutic setting. So, they're often we have a mental health therapist and a psychologist in smaller class setting for students who um uh often have emotional disability. Um but they do um depending on the on um their ability and what the IEP team determines, they might have classes or time in their day where they're in a regular classroom. Um and it it can vary just depending on the student need. Um non-public school placement is when we um cannot service student because um for whatever reason, they're not responding to the therapeutic setting, they're not responding to a level two or three or four. So, um ideally and and our non-public school partners hear loud and clear
196from me, the goal is to transition them back um to our district, to one of our programs. Um but it it just depends um and I that's based on IEP team decision. Um and transitional academic class um is for students um often with uh specific learning disability. So, they have um some uh gen ed curriculum and then they have some alternate, but they learn in a smaller setting with a lot of supports. And again, sometimes they um push out into the the regular ed setting depending on their individual needs. Pathways is is the continuum of that for high school. Um it is a non uh diploma track program. Um and then um Jesse Baker is a level three um which is um a non-comprehensive campus, but it's a level three program. And that's based on
197IEP team, you know, determination and and uh parents are of course a big part of that. Perfect, thank you. And then so TAC and AAB, can they be at our elementary schools? Mhm. Yeah. And um the and then they would also be at the middle and the high schools. Um the TAC is the elm is elementary and middle school and then pathways is a continuum. For high school. >> Mhm. Okay. It's good to kind of see how those flow. >> I'm happy to take any of you to those programs to show you, introduce you to the staff and the teacher, you know. Um Great, thank you. And then um yes, so please do let us know any team member that happens to know when the unified games are going cuz I didn't know about soccer,
198but um yeah, they're great. I love um got a chance to go over to Laguna Creek um and see the game and and hear from our typical peers like they really love doing it and I think that's really awesome that, you know, that they're volunteering their time to get out there and do something that they love with, you know, peers that they may not have opportunities to engage with in their normal basketball or soccer or track, you know, um but because we create that space for the unified and adapted um sports, um it gives them that opportunity. So, uh just good kudos all around for that. Thank you so much for entertaining my questions and helping us all better understand our programs. Um that's all I have. Thank you, Ms. Vargas. Oh, I'm sorry. I
199I that's I just mixed two lines together. It's getting late. Um Ms. Moore. My apologies. Thank you. I appreciate the presentation and all that you do. Um it was a very informative. I do have a few questions. One thing that wasn't mentioned in the presentation, can you tell us about the district paraeducator substitute pool? We have a district paraeducator substitute pool and like in terms of the numbers, how many we have or how do you get into it or Well, is there is there a like a substitute pool for Is that where we get them? >> I'm looking because she has such a experience in HR, but yes, we do. Yeah. Okay, so about how many subs do we have available each day? Oh, I can pull I can check. Okay. Yeah. We have Vacancies
200or Uh, well, available substitutes. >> Sure, I can get some specific numbers for you, but we do fill roughly around, you know, over a hundred or so of our para substitute positions. You know, if somebody calls out because they're out sick or whatnot, we do fill them through a para subs. But then there are sometimes where we're not able to fill them all. And so to site teams will also work together to look to see how they can arrange staff that day for coverage as well. And we have been building capacity in that area working with our site at our site teams. Um, maybe another student who has someone supporting them is absent. And so we've we've worked with our site admin teams to to kind of troubleshoot when we can't backfill. So, what is
201the process for an admin when they come in to work and they have a need for additional paraeducators that day? Do they They contact is there contact for them at the district? Can you share a little bit about that? Yes, so substitute positions are put in through our sub-finder um uh system in HR and we have dedicated staff in human resources that works every morning with regards to working to fill the the positions just like we would with our teacher substitute system. The processes work very similarly. Okay, and did that that process change like in the last was it last few years? Is that correct where I I believe that administrators used to be able to contact the agencies directly, but now it goes through the district contract. >> Correct. Yeah. Um in years past
202we had more people who were able to contact non-public agencies for paraeducators directly. Um that model um posed significant issues for us with regards to monitoring how many people we had working on our contract our contracts. And so um we've um worked to put a process in place so that we can make sure that we're staying within our contracted services as well as getting the staff that we need for our school sites. Okay. And I understand uh well, I think you alluded to this, but a lot of that is because of uh financial it was quite expensive. Obviously, it's more expensive to use um agency paraeducators. So, is that is that part of the reason that >> That is part of the reason and also we needed to make sure we had a streamlined process
203for looking at at adding staff and um supports to a classroom. Okay. Uh So, I appreciate just I think that's just kind of important for everyone to understand. I know that's something I didn't know until recently. Um I know that some administrators have shared that that's challenging that change was challenging for them. Um particularly I just want to share that um kind of to um correlate with that. Um this both the Sunrise and McGarvey Elementary School administrators have shared with me that they believe that because of their geographical location that it makes it very difficult to for dis- or a lot of district subs, maybe they feel that aren't as willing to drive out to Rancho Cordova. And so they have felt that's a a challenge. And so I just want to make sure that
204we're supporting you know, those school sites and um and the Sierra Enterprise Elementary School administrator has shared the same the same um concern because she's kind of you know, she's that school is like kind of out in the middle of nowhere. And so they feel that a lot of the subs aren't as willing to drive out to their sites. And I'm I'm assuming that a lot of our subs are more in Elk Grove. And so maybe they're not as willing to drive out to those locations, but I just want to make sure that we're supporting those sites. They're maybe looking into having more regional I don't know if there's a way to make sure there's regional supports for them. Um and then also they have expressed that it's very difficult to hire. I mean, I
205know that I know all I recognize all sites are having challenges um clearly with you know, the data that you shared that that is a challenge for all sites to fill the paraeducator positions, but they specifically felt that with their location it was difficult because a lot of our recruiting efforts are in the city of Elk Grove and we're Elk Grove Unified, but you know, Elk Grove Unified it does include three cities and 320 square miles. And so I would just like to be mindful of that when we're thinking about recruiting for paraeducators um that um that you know, we do have those areas that are kind of the outlier areas as far as the geographical location that we need to make sure that we're supporting and so I just wanted to share those concerns
206um because you know, I really I just want to make sure that all of our sites are supported and again, I recognize that you know, there are challenges at every site. Uh See. On page 14, um we discussed we discussed um serving students in their home region and I think that's very important and I recognize that we're not always going to be able to serve students at their home school, but um I understand that your goal is for them to be able to move on to the um secondary sites that their that their peers um attend and I think that's important, but I do just want to mention that, you know, as we're building new schools, it's the perfect opportunity for us to plan for regional services um for our special education students. And again,
207just specific for my region, um even though some students are receiving um services within that region they're still taking an hour-long bus ride um to and from school each day because it some of those schools are so far removed from the district. So, um I just think that again, as we're building those schools, it's the perfect opportunity to be mindful of that and to increase um those opportunities for our students and families. And um I'm really excited to hear about uh the resident model and I'm excited to hear that we have the expedited um hiring process for paraeducators. I think those are very positive things. Uh And then on page 27, I agree with Susan that maybe you I think that we should list the agency paraeducators uh, positions as vacancies or at least make
208um, a a different column in some some way for that. Um, and I also think it would be helpful to include the total need for each year and the percentages just so it's a little bit easier to compare from year to year. Um, it was mentioned the you know, the value I mean district paraeducators versus agency paraeducators and obviously not only is it more cost-effective, but um, that is something I continually hear is that site administrators would you know, much prefer to have district district paraeducators because they do have the training um, and there's more consistency and so I'm glad that you know, we're trying to um, increase that and I and see that we're doing that. Increase those numbers. And you know, I think um, also consistency is really important for our special education
209students so that they can succeed. Um, just today I was at a school site and there was a child who had a new paraeducator and he was not responding well and so the administrator was able to help and he did a great job, but he did mention that that that's just really a challenge for those kids and so um, I think anything that we can do to um, continue with these efforts to um, recruit and retain and support our paraeducators is really important so they can support our students and that that are most vulnerable. Uh, I mean I'm excited to hear about I hear the next WestEd study report. I think it's very positive um, as I previously mentioned that we are having an outside party evaluate um our special education program and I think
210it gives us um an opportunity to move forward with a a plan for success. But I do want to thank you very much for all the great work you're doing and um I appreciate the wonderful presentation. So, thank you. Thank you. Um I appreciate this information. It's a great resource to better understand when we do get our results from the WestEd just as and I think um I think there's something to be said that we have opened ourselves up to this and and taken this on in such a positive light to get better and I hope um I I look forward to what they have. Thank you. Thanks. Our next item is um public hearing action items. We have the EGAT tentative agreement. Mr. Viera. Thank you. Pardon me, I got a frog in my
211throat. Uh good evening, Board President Albiani, members of the board, Superintendent Riley, and Ms. Avalos. Tonight, I'm here in my role as Chief Labor Relations Officer to present the proposed tentative agreement to adopt a collective bargaining agreement between the district and the Elk Grove Administrative Team. The proposed tentative agreement captures current practices in EGUSD for the Elk Grove Administrative Team's unit members. I would like to acknowledge the efforts of both negotiating teams. Their Their professionalism, persistence, and willingness to engage in constructive dialogue were essential in reaching this tentative agreement. The Elk Grove Administrative Team shared with the district that their unit members ratified the tentative agreement on April 8th, 2026. At this time, I respectfully request the board's consideration and and ratification of the proposed tentative agreement to adopt the collective bargaining agreement. Thank you.
212Do we have any public comment on this? Madam President, we do not have any public comment on this item. I'll close the public comment hearing and call for a motion to approve the EGAT tentative agreement. >> So moved. Second. Moved by Mr. Yang, seconded by Ms. Ballerini. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Thank you. On to action items. Action items. Final certificated layoff resolution, Mr. Singh. Thank you, Madam President, members of the board, Superintendent Riley. Uh the board is asked to adopt resolution number 85 uh authorizing the governing board to direct staff to issue final layoff notices to impacted certificated employees due to a reduction or discontinuance of a particular kinds of service at the end of the 25-26 school year. This action implements direction given by the board on February 17th, 2026 in board resolution
21358 and is required under education code section 44949 and 44955 to finalize the reduction in force. Adoption of this resolution directs staff to issue final layoff notices to impacted certificated employees notifying them that their employment will end at the conclusion of the 25-26 school year and following layoff certificated employees retain reemployment rights for up to 39 months as provided by law. With that, uh I would ask the board to consider adoption of resolution number 85. Thank you. Are there any blue cards related to this item? Madam President, there are no blue cards related to this item. Okay, I'd like to call for a motion to approve resolution number 85 authorizing the governing board to direct staff to issue final layoff notices to impacted certificated employees due to a reduction or discontinuance of particular kinds of
214services at the end of the 2025-2026 school year. So moved. Second. Moved by Ms. Ballerini, seconded by Ms. Baldwin. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion passes. Thank you. The 2026 California School Boards Association delegate assembly runoff election. A tie vote resulted in a runoff election in CSBA delegate assembly subregion 6B, and the board is asked to vote for one candidate for representative to the California School Boards Association delegate assembly from region 6, subregion 6B, if the board wishes to do so. If there are any blue cards related to this item. There are no blue cards related to this item. There are two people running off, Sasha Voit from Twin Rivers and Delia Baldwin from Elk Grove. So, um there's no public comment, so I would ask for your choice, and then I will do
215a tally, and we will cast our vote. Mr. Yang? So, you would go with Ms. Voit Voit, V O G T. Voit. Ms. Voit or Ms. Baldwin? I can't pronounce the other one's last name. Okay, did you not want to vote for Ms. Baldwin? I do. Okay, then let's just go with that. Thank you. Moving on, Ms. Davis? For Ms. Baldwin. Thank you. Ms. Baldwin? I'll vote for myself. Thank you. Ms. Moore? Ms. Baldwin. Thank you. And myself? Oh, no. Ms. Ballerini? I I will vote for Ms. Baldwin. Thank you. Almost. I know. I I would have caught it. Okay, and I am for Ms. Baldwin, so we have a six Um six of us are in agreement, so now I will call for a motion to vote for Delia Baldwin for representative to CSBA's
216delegate assembly. Of. Second. Moved by Mr. Yang, seconded by Ms. Ballerini. All in favor? Aye. >> Aye. Opposed? You have our vote. Thank you. Um I have a few people that have told me um Ms. Baldwin, we're on to board member and superintendent reports. I know Ms. Baldwin had a uh board member report and we'll move from there. Yeah, I can make it quick. We uh met the wellness collaborative. It was a very productive meeting. We um went over food and nutrition services annual report um and then also looked at some of the wellness policy suggested change. Um so uh looking at the team's doing a great work on that. Um we also discussed our um 2025-26 wellness action plan. So lots of great work moving forward on that end. Um and then we had
217um the arts roadmap team meeting as well. Uh was a really productive meeting. We got to really see the difference between uh process art and product art. And so one being more the journey of how you get to where you are with your art and the other being more the result. And so kind of seeing the evolution of how our um staff is really supporting the VAPA work around creativity. So it was a real That was fun. It was a lot of fun. Um we also talked about with Proposition 28 that there's quite a few barriers and that um perhaps there could be an effort from um our board to work in coordination maybe with CSBA um and the legislature to try and encourage um to get another um waiver so that we can be
218able to have a little bit more flexibility around how we spend those funds. Um so hoping to help those efforts. Um, have reached out to CSBA to see if there's an opportunity to leverage their support and um, maybe talk with their districts cuz they it's something that's going to affect everybody. So, a lot of districts. So, yeah, that's where we're at. Great work happening there. Um, this was my first arts road map meeting. So, I was very surprised by how long it went and how in-depth it was. It was a really great time though. So, and and got to go to another site. So, it was great time. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Moore. Any reports? None at this time. Thank you. >> Thank you. Ms. Valerdi? I'd like to add to Delia's that in
219case you guys have nothing to do on Friday or Saturday of this weekend, there's an arts uh, show basically at CRC on Friday and Saturday. And if you go on Friday, they're doing something different this year where you'll also be able as as a participant in the show, be able to vote on what you think is the the winner for whatever the different categories are. And I went last year and it was it was really it was really an interesting show. It was it was really cool to see all the different forms of art and and everything. It it was really neat and I'm going again on Saturday. So, there you go. I'll see you there. Ms. Valerdi, is that CS CRC students art? No, it's our students art at CRC. Okay, so I want
220to make that clear. Thank you. Confusing. Yes. Mr. Yang? That's going to be this uh, Friday from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. and then Saturday 11:00 to 1:00 p.m. Thank you, Mr. Yang. It's time. None at this time. Thank you. Ms. Davis, do you want to talk about what we were at? Yes, um, I was able to join Ms. Elbioni at RUSD spring CTE advisory meeting at District 56 in which we got to um see several students from different schools, their projects that they've been working on. Um really amazing work going on out there in our high schools. Uh I had to go home and tell my husband that boy they're they're doing a lot of different things than I did in high school. Um in fact, I I I have an appointment to go out
221and talk to the egg program about chickens. They they were teaching me something about chickens that I want to integrate into my own home uh coop. But uh there were local educators, trades, career fields, everybody came together uh after looking at the um projects. There were treats from the culinary arts departments uh that were amazing. And then we all got together to talk about what we could do, how we could expand, uh you know, and just be better. And it was really fun to be a part of that. Um so did you have anything else, Ms. Albiani, you wanted to add? Um just because in my small breakout group we weren't together for that part. Um they talked about how every pathway in CTE now they're um there's an expectation that they develop a resume
222for every student in the pathway in the CTE and they're doing job um job work in those groups and practicing job questions and and I I just it's such an excellent tie to our prepared for life, career, college, all those things. Because even if you are still going if you go to college, you're still interviewing for scholarships, interviewing for things. And and that experience and knowing that that is a designated goal in those um is something we've wanted before and I didn't know it'd happen. So that was really an exciting part to me. And the students um they just the the quality of students talking to you in the student showcase was really really impressive. So um I enjoyed that greatly. Thank you very much tonight for tonight, everyone. And I adjourn this Something quick.
223I I I f- spaced. I um Ms. Davis and I last week we were on the interview panel to interview for the next student board member and we they blow me out of the water every year. They are amazing. And I'm excited to say we do have one coming. I can't tell you who but it's it's going to be I'll I'll do this. She's going to be a good addition to our team. That's all I'm going to say. Thank you. >> on a break. I asked the board members to stay back to just to take a quick picture for the egg program. They wanted to see that you guys had received the plants. Oh, yes. No problem. Thank you very much. I could adjourn the meeting at 9:51 and if the board will meet in
224front to take a picture. With your plant.