001Good evening. I'd like to call this meeting to order at five. Yep. Five o'clock and announce the board will meet in close session to address items 1 through 4. Are there any public comment on the close session items? There are no public comments on close session items. Thank you. I'm going to close the public comment and recess into close session. Did you? I don't know. He doesn't want In our work and in our play all over the school Hello. I don't have any yet. Yeah, I will. I'll let you know. I Yeah, I haven't. I'm looking around just in case I missed it, but Yeah. Okay. Hello. Yeah. Got it. Let's say Thank you. Did I get them all? You did. Now I just need David. So, thank you. Yeah. Pretty quiet, huh? As of
002right now. Yeah. I don't want to jinx it, but Yeah. So far Are you okay? agenda, right? Yeah. It's just depending No, these are different. Thank you for your patience. Um I'm going to call the meeting back to order at 6:11 and met um the board met in close session and the following action was taken. During close session by a vote of seven to zero, the board adopted a resolution pursuant to education code 44951 and authorized the district superintendent or his designate to notify five vice principles, an AVID coordinator, and a program specialist in educational equity that they will be released and reassigned from their positions for the upcoming school year. Good evening and welcome to the Elkro. It's going to work out much better. Good evening and welcome to the Elkrove Unified School District's
003board meeting. Live streaming of full in-person board meetings are available to the public by using the link located on the district's 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 be given three minutes to address the board. If there are 15 or more comments on a specific item, the board will reduce individual comment time to two minutes each. If
004there are 30 or more comments on a specific item, the board will reduce individual comment to one minute each. Individuals may not defer their time to another individual speaker to increase their total speaking time. Please be mindful that 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 terminate the individual's privilege of addressing the board. Before we do our um pledge of allegiance, we'd like to start with our land acknowledgement. We acknowledge that the Elgroveve Unified School
005District administrative facilities and schools occupy the unseated 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 better betterment of our future generations. May we look to our 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 pledge of allegiance today we have um Miss Shelby Finch
006with John Satine the principal and Mr. Vargas our board member will lead it. Great. Thank you. All right before you get started we have a couple uh just a couple words uh to say. Um so Raymond Case Elementary School is proud to recognize Miss Shelby Finch as our education partner. Uh Shelby Finch and her family have been dedicated members of the Raymond Case community since the two 2017 2018 school year when her oldest daughter Sophia began kindergarten. Sophia is now a seventh grade student at Edward Harris Middle School and her younger sibling Holland currently attends Rayman Casease Elementary. Following the return to in-person learning after co after the co 19 pandemic, Shelby helped revitalize the Raymond Case PTO with a focus on rebuilding community. Through her leadership and collaboration, the school has successfully hosted a
007variety of school- centered events, excuse me, family- centered events, including the fall carnival, breakfast baskets and bingo, holiday shop, family movie nights, and multiple staff appreciation activities. The Finch family demonstrates a true partnership as evidenced by Mr. Dustin Finch, who also volunteers time to support school events. Shelby has also been instrumental in major fundraising efforts such as reintroducing the schoolwide jogathon after a seven-year absence. Working alongside the PTO, the school exceeded the $15,000 goal by raising over $20,000 to support student programs and enrichment opportunities. Together, the French fam the Finch family exemplifies service, leadership, and dedication, making a lasting impact on the Raymond Case Elementary School community. Thank you. And go ahead and take it away. Start the pledge. Salute. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the
008republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. You're good. I think Give him another round of applause, please. To start our meeting with the student regional report. We have the Franklin region and Elkrove Charter Academy. Today, Franklin High School, Toby Johnson Middle School, Carol Elementary, Helen Carello Elementary, Franklin Elementary, Arlene Hine Elementary, Stone Lake Elementary, and Elgroveve Charter Academy. Good evening, President Beth Albiani, members of the board, Superintendent Riley, and members of the community. My name is Anoska Vios, and I am Alice Hu, and we are honored to represent Franklin High School as their superintendent and student board representatives. This year at Franklin has been defined by growth in student engagement, academic opportunity, and school spirit. We're excited to share some of the new policies and programs
009that have helped shape a lively, successful year for our students. To begin, we'd like to highlight developments in student life and school culture. One of the most impactful changes this year has been the introduction of the ECP and NAL point systems, which have transformed how students engage with their campus responsibly. ECP points are awarded by teachers for positive participation through attending clubs, showing up to rallies, or being actively involved in school activities. At the end of each term, ASB rewards students who meet different benchmarks such as candy for 10 points or a cookie for 20. This system has encouraged involvement and made school spirit inclusive. On the other hand, NAL points are given for tardies or behavioral issues. But importantly, students have clear opportunities to take accountability. These points can be cleared by attending weekly
010detentions or Saturday schools. One of the main advantages we have tracked following the implementation of the system is a noticeable decrease in student tardies as over five NAO points put students on a no activities list that prevents them from joining school events until cleared. We've also seen progress in updated club policies which has fostered diverse organizations. New club policies include those that discuss consequences for club inactivity. Three months of inactivity results in an email sent to the adviser and club leader. Four months prohibits the club from participating in school events and five or more months of inactivity results in the club no longer being able to return the following year under the leadership of the current officers. Moving into academics, Franklin has taken major steps forward expanding pathways and opportunities. This year we launched a
011brand new steam business pathway focused on entrepreneurship. Students begin with entrepreneurship one as sophomores, continue with a concentrated course as juniors, and complete a capstone course as seniors. Our computer science pathway has also continued to grow with student involvement in programs such as Cyber Patriots and Skills USA, giving students hands-on experience and exposure to competitive and career oriented opportunities. This year, we've already had two teams from Franklin qualify for Cyber Patriot Nationals. They will head to Maryland next month for the national competition. Good luck, Wildcats. Additionally, Franklin is proud to offer AP Seminar and AP Research next year, a new two-year pathway available to the class of 2028. This program, students engage in intensive research, discussion, and academic writing, culminating in a major research paper. Completion of this pathway makes students eligible for the prestigious
012AP Capstone diploma, further strengthening Franklin's academic profile. Franklin also holds a very diverse club environment, hosting over 80 clubs on campus. Some notable clubs this year have been speech and debate, cyber patriots, destined doctors, key club, NHS, mathletes, poly, and model UN. In athletics, we've stu celebrated student athletes who have been recruited to compete at the collegiate level, such as Dylan Mini headed to LSU to play baseball, Alexis Petrilla to Stanlo State for soccer, and Jason Harris going to UC Berkeley to play baseball. Furthermore, many teams have also advanced the playoffs this year, including our women's varsity tennis team, boys and women's varsity water polo teams, boys basketball, and boys and girls soccer, and more. Our boys soccer team, who finished the season undefeated, won the Delta League championship for the second consecutive season. In
013the arts, Franklin's fusion class was approved as a UC approved honors dance class. To continue, our theater company recent productions have included the Adams family, Wizard of Oz, and Treasure Island. Their latest productions have been cast on local news outlets like Good Day Sacramento. Our award-winning vocal ensemble has been busy this year performing in a number of shows and concerts. Their next concert is two weeks from tonight at the Cassumnus Oaks Performing Arts Center. Overall, this year at Franklin has been very successful and innovative. We look forward to the next three months of school and all the fun and excitement the end of the school year brings. Thank you for your time and for your continued support of Franklin High School and its students. Good evening. My name is Ivy Dong, current president of the
014National Elementary Honor Society at Arlene High Elementary School. Please allow me to begin tonight by presenting the three of our four pillars. Now, scholarship can go many ways, and in NHS, scholarship means that we as leaders must set the example and be able to uphold at least a 3.5 GPA to maintain position here. But scholarship isn't just about having good grades, is it? No. Scholarship means having the good grades you've earned. Tell me, what's the point in having good grades, but you cheated off another? To be a leader, you have to work your way to the top, not slacking off and having others do the work for you. And this scholarship is so important. So is community service. May we have Benazia to go over community service. I am Benazir Sultani. Community service in the
015National Elementary Honors Society is labeled as taking action and doing service work and helping our community as well as promoting our school. We must complete 20 hours of service of community service. We mainly solve problems and organize events to improve our school and our community. For example, we help raise fundraisers and hold events such as the harvest festival held on October 29th, 2025th, 2025. Also, we volunteer to help and support our teachers here in Arleene Hine. NHS also focuses on the development of leadership skills. Our vice president Aria Singh will speak about our pillar of leadership. So today I will be talking about leadership in NHS and so far we have learned about five habits. We have learned about being proactive, thinking with the end in mind, putting first things first, thinking when and to
016seek first to understand then to be understood. And to be proactive is to make things happen and not just wait for them to occur in your life. To think with the end in mind is to start something with a clear purpose and end it knowing you achieve that goal. To put first things first is to put the most important thing you have to do on your calendar first and things that aren't as important later. To think win-win is to realize you can make sure you, yours, and someone else's needs can be met in a way that does not confusion or behavioral issues. Seeking to understand, then to be understood means to listen to other people's opinions than for others to hear yours. Stephven Kofi's timeless wisdom has led us to the conclusion that these habits
017are one of the best ways to be successful. Thank you for hearing our presentation about Arlene Hine Elementary School and I hope you continue to support our school and program. Good evening members of the board. I am Dalia Salman. Oh, sorry. Am I a proud sixth grader at Carol Elementary School where I truly believe there is something for everyone. If you enjoy riding, you can join the Carol Chronicle and help create our school's newspaper. If you love sports, we have basketball and track. We also participate in the Running Fet 5K. You can unleash your creativity in an after school drawing. Dazzle the stage with our dance program or be on stage in sorry in band like a true musician. This year, every classroom gets theater, giving us a chance to act, imagine, and collaborate like
018real performers. Our kindness club spreads positivity all around our campus. One of our favorite events is the character strong rally on track change days where we celebrate respect, kindness, perseverance, and more. We also have attendance spirit days with my mom, Miss Stacy, where we make attending school fun for all the students. We have students represent school spirit by dressing up and showing up. We even just began our Carol NBA league, that's NBA for never been absent, where classes are drafted to the NBA and compete weekly in our attendance rates. I can't wait to be named an attendance all-star. Now, I'd like to introduce Nit Dylan to share even more amazing opportunities at our school. Good evening. Good evening. My name is Nvid Dylan and I'm a proud sixth grader at Carol Elementary School. At Carol,
019learning learning comes alive. Our third through sixth grade gate students tackle exciting STEM challenges and showcase their innovation at the Capitol region engineering science and technology competition designing, building, and problem solving like real engineers and scientists. Our student equity council made up of fourth, fifth, and sixth grade students work together to make sure every student feels seen, heard, and valued. We celebrate cultures, honor heritage months, and lead with kindness. so that everyone knows they belong here. This year we celebrated our third Ruby Bridges Walk to School Day, honoring courage and unity. We're also excited for our second multicultural day celebrating the diversity that makes Carol shine. Thank you for your time. Good evening. If somebody hasn't told you today, uh, happy Lunar New Year and also happy first day of Ramadan. All right, here are
020the Helen Carr Castello cheerleaders for your entertainment. I was It's okay. All over the room today. In our work and in our play. all over the school today. Kindness is the way. We need a reminder to be kinder. To pause before we speak. Will my words build up? Show love. Cuz that is what we need. Kindness every day. You can take the clouds away. You can bring the sun to play. If I make the choice to say kindness is the way. We need a reminder to be kinder. To pause before we speak. Feel my words. Build up. Show love. Cuz that is what we need. It can take the clouds away. Can bring the sun to play. If I make the choice to say is the way every day. Sorry, I just want to switch.
021Good evening, Madame President, members of the board, Superintendent Riley, and Miss Avalos. My name is Emma Cohen, and I'm Elise Meets Bramer. We are proud National Elementary Honor Society students from Stone Lake Elementary. We believe our school is a special place to be. Every student on campus can tell you what it means to be Hawks. Hardworking, accountable, wise, kind, and safe. Students can receive Hawk tickets for showing these traits. These tickets enter students into a schoolwide raffle. Weekly winners from every class pick a reward from our prize trolley, and monthly winners attend a party. We also have monthly PBIS assemblies to teach about specific character traits. Sports. Sports are a big part of what makes our school a special place. We have a co-ed volleyball team, boys and girls basketball teams, and a track and
022field team coached by parent volunteers and teachers. Our school continues to succeed in our academic scores. Our CAT scores are among the highest in the district for math and ELA. The hard work and dedication from teachers, students, and parents make this possible. Stone Lake has so many amazing clubs like Black Student Union, National Elementary Honor Society, News Club, Gifted and Talented, and Band. We are so lucky to have staff to lead these clubs free of charge to be accessible for all students. We have a wonderful PTO who makes the school even more special with annual events like fall festival, ice cream social, and Apex, a huge fundraiser with prizes including getting to slime Mr. Beard, our school principal. Students can explore their inner artists with visual and performing arts opportunities. Cipher Arts and inschool hiphop
023and break dancing class, Village Stage Productions, an inschool acting class, and musical mayhem, an afterchool theater program that performed Finding Nemo. All in all, Stone Lake is a rare gym that turns school into a community. Our school achieves high quality education while creating a space for students to grow and be celebrated. Thank you. Good evening members of the board. I'm Claudia Cacerero. And I'm Nicholas Penny. And today we will be sharing what fun things we do at Toby and how we strive to make Toby a better place. At all of our events from rallies to our TJMS diversity day. Our main goal is for everyone to feel included and to have fun. Our goal is to make Toby a better place. We have lots of fun activities at Toby. Every week we have something called
024scan and win where if you dress up in spiritware on Wednesdays, you can scan your student ID to get a prize and spirit points. We also have a system called Jagwag. Jagwag is awarded by staff to students for following the four core values at our school. Be safe, respectful, responsible, and kind. Every Friday, we do a schoolwide Jag Swag poll giving fun prizes. We also have student of the month where teachers award one student from each period to get an award. Every term, we have a rally which is planned, scripted, and hosted by students. Our last rally theme was Toby's Got Talent and the next rally theme will be Toy Story. Our goal in rallies is to get everyone hyped and to have fun. We also have assemblies which are informational rather than fun. Our
025last one was one pill can kill Kill. Something else we like to do is have spirit weeks for things like seasonal events or awareness for something important. Some of the sports we have are basketball, volleyball, wrestling, and cross country. We are proud of all athletes for representing Toby. One highlight is the eighth grade boys basketball cross country who won district championships. Some of the programs we have at Toby it include TJTV, our award-winning band and cyber patriots. TJTV is our school news crew which is entirely studentrun. Every day students in TJTV come to school early and to prepare and stream live broadcast to the whole school. Our school is the only middle school in the district which has three different B j bands, jazz, concert, and marching. They're also award-winning. Our SA pitches team was
026also eighth in the nation. We also have events for in incoming middle schoolers. One of these events is our ice cream social where incoming middle school students come to Toby and tour the school meeting new people and then enjoy ice cream. We are both happy that we were able to come and speak with you today. Thank you so much and go Jags. Good evening. My name is Ruben Piva and I'm Ben Palai. This year, Elkrove Charter Academy has made some notable changes and experienced hefty growth in the many aspects that comprise our school. For starters, our name, what was once Elkro Charter School is now Elkro Charter Academy to emphasize the personalized learning and reach what we prioritize here as a school site. Furthermore, we have an upcoming WASK visit at our school for our
027midyear progress check-in, which we are very confident about. We've also had a great influx of students coming from our school partners including R8 Soccer Academy, Sacramento Republic, and surrounding schools here in Sacramento, as well as highly as well as a highly anticipated trip to the Bay Area organized for middle school and 9th grade students. Otherwise, we've had huge growth in our school's clubs, especially the gaming club, which has grown significantly in members as well as esports endeavors with the Elcro Charter Academy teams competing in a countrywide league against thousands of other schools. The Elgrove Charter Dance Club also had an exceptional performance held during the Falcon Family Dinner, which alongside the award ceremony reached record attendance. We filled the seats at District 56, and we may need to start looking for a bigger venue to
028host school events. To wrap up, this year we also improved the branding of our school's campus with banners and other decorations that helped our building become more recognizable to passerby and new students. Thank you for listening as we hope for another fantastic year here at Elco Charter Academy. Thank you to all the schools and the parents that brought their children for us. That was wonderful. Um, we always like to introduce our principles. Adam Wood from Franklin High School. Jennifer Keeport from Toby Johnson Middle School. I think we have Vice Principal April Bean here today from Carol Elementary. Megan Drown Jones from Helen Carr. Diane Davis Quigden from Franklin, Jennifer Urickland from Arlene Hine, Mark Beard from Stone Lake, and Mark Lavine from Elkrove Charter. Thank you very much for sharing your students with us tonight.
029They're wonderful. Our next item will be our annual auditor's report. Dr. Coats. All right. Good evening, Madame President, members of the board, Superintendent Riley, Miss Avalo, staff, and um the community. Think I'm going to remind me later for that. Um tonight we're here um with our president Jason Hammond of the Citizens Bond Oversight Committee. And so what I I want to share before I bring Mr. Hammond up um a little bit about the CBOC. It plays a vital role in safeguarding public trust. Uh when our community approves a bond, they're placing confidence in us to manage those funds responsibly and transparently. And we do have a group of committed community members that um meet quarterly to review making sure that we are putting money towards projects that we said and promised the voters that we
030were going to do. Uh during the 2425 fiscal year, approximately 101 million um dollars in Measure M bond funds were expended on critical improvements to existing school facilities and grounds throughout the district. Um I want to share that this is only for measure M. Um we haven't quite consolidated with measure N yet to be clear and these are just expenditures only. Um President Jason Hammond is a community member, a dad in the district and his leadership on the CBOC has really been imperative and I am gonna pass it over to him. Grateful that you're here tonight. Thank you Dr. Coats. Good evening, President Albini, members of the board, Superintendent Riley, and Miss Alvios. My name is Jason Hammond and I serve as the president of the Citizens Bond Oversight Committee. On behi behalf of the
031committee, thank you for the opportunity to address this evening. The committee was established back in 2017 following voter approval of Major M. Our role is to serve the community by ensuring accountability, transparency, and strict adherence to the purpose provers by the voters. I'm here to present the independent auditor's financial and performance reports for the 202425 fiscal year. During fiscal year 24 and 25, approximately 101 million dollars in major M funds were expanded. The year in restructured fund balance stands at $14 million reserved exclusively for authorized bond purposes. Independent financial and performance audits were conducted by Crow LLP. The district received a clean financial opinion and no material weakness and no compliance findings. Performance audit confirmed that all expenditures were fully aligned with voters authorization. Major M authorized $476 million to modernize aging schools and enhance
032safety inst projects funded under major M are now nearing completion. Looking ahead, voters approved measure N in November 2024, authorizing up to $542 million to continue modernization efforts and support new school construction. The first bond issuance is anticipated in spring of 2026 and the committee will continue its oversight responsibilities. In summary, this year's audits reflect strong financial stewardship and full compliance. The committee remains committed to maintaining voter trust through continued transparency and accountability. Thank you. Thank you very much. That is great news. so much Jason and and that concludes this is just to inform of the annual report. Thank you and thank you to the committee the work you do and for serving on our committee. We appreciate it. Thank you. Oh, are there any blue cards on this item? Madame President, there are no
033blue cards on this item. U board, do you have any comments or questions? Okay, I'm going to take care of saying thank you from all of us. We'll move on to our resolutions. National School Social Work Week. Mr. Singh. Good evening, uh, Madame President, members of the board, Superintendent Riley, colleagues, and community. Uh, it's my honor to present three resolutions in a row. And I'll start with the very first one. Um, I want to make sure if there's a school social worker with us. Uh, I think they're all home taking care of their own needs and self-care is is a thing. So, I know but they are here in spirit. So, um, National School Social Worker Week is March 1st through the 7th of 2026. The theme for National School Social Worker Week 2026 is
034Unite to ignite, celebrating our impact. School social workers are trained mental health professionals and are especially skilled in identifying and providing services to students who face serious challenges to school success including poverty, disability, discrimination, abuse and indiction, bullying, loss of a loved one and other barriers to learning. This recognition highlight highlights their role in helping students overcome academic, social and emotional challenges through the provision of services related to a students social, emotional and life adjustments to school and society. School social workers are the link between the home, school, and community providing direct and indirect services to students, families, and school personnel. This recognition highlights the board's and the district's support for our valid school social workers. And with that, it is my honor to request the board to approve and adopt resolution number 51 for
0352526 recognizing March 1st through the 7th of 2026 as National School Social Work Week. Thank you. Are there any blue cards? Madame President, there are no blue cards on this item. Thank you. I'd like to call for a motion to adopt resolution number 51 recognizing March 1st through 7th, 2026 as National School Social Work Week. So moved. Second. Moved by Miss Bowwin, seconded by Mr. Vargas. All in favor? I opposed. Thank you. Thank you. And thank you to our school social workers watching. Our next item is social emotional learning day for Mr. sing as well. The first Monday in March has been recognized as international social emotional learning day. This day provides an excellent opportunity for Elgrove Unified School District to demonstrate its support for integrating evidence-based into schools, organizations, and community. While EGSD prioritized
036daily SEAL integration, the recognition of International SEAL day is a wonderful opportunity to educate the public about SEAL and its impact on student well-being. SEAL is the process through which children and adults acquire and effectively apply the knowledge, attitudes, and skills necessary to understand and manage emotions, set and achieve positive goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain positive relationships, and make responsible decisions. SEAL improves academic outcomes, builds a strong and positive school climate, promotes positive mental health, and provides children with the necessary skills to excel in today's workforce. Additionally, can help address various forms of inequity and empower young people and adults to co-create thriving schools and contribute to safe, healthy, and just communities. EGUSD schools continue to develop their plan for implementing explicit instruction in the five core competencies of self-awareness,
037self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision making and to integrate practice opportunities for these skills into content area instruction. This year, SEAL day is March 2nd and the theme is skills for community, skills for career. And with that, it is my honor to request the board to approve and adopt resolution number 50 for 2526 school year recognizing the first Monday in March as social emotional seal day. Thank you. Are there any blue cards on this item? President, there are no blue cards on this item. Thank you. I'd like to um ask for a motion to adopt resolution 50 recognizing the first Monday in March as social emotional learning day. So moved. Second. Moved by Miss Baldwin, seconded by Mr. Vargas. Sorry. Um all in favor? I I opposed passes unanimously. Thank you. And you
038are moving on to disability awareness month. That is the month of March has been designated as disability awareness month. The Americans with Disabilities Act, ADA, prohibits discrimination against individuals with disabilities in all areas of public life, including jobs, schools, transportation, and all public and private places that are open to the general public and assures that people with disabilities have the same civil rights protections and opportunities as everyone else, similar to those provided to individuals on the basis of race, color, sex, national origin, age and religion. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, IDA, requires all public schools to address the needs of peoples with disabilities and develop individualized education plans, IPS, and 504s, which provide a free and appropriate public education fate reflecting the spec the specific needs of each people. Despite the affirmative rights and
039recognitions of students with disabilities within federal and state law, students with disabilities face academic and social emotional challenges. The district continues to strive to increase awareness of the needs of students with disabilities and to partner with families and communities as a whole to ensure that students with disabilities have access to an equitable and appropriate education. With that, it is my honor to request the board to to adopt resolution number 49 for the 2526 school year designating the month of March as disabilities awareness month. Thank you. Are there any blue cards on this item? I do have one blue card on this item. Um, I'd like to ask Courtney Arena to come to the podium, please. Good evening, Superintendent Riley, Board President Albiani, and other board members. Um, and Miss Avalos. I'm Courtney. Tonight, I'm here
040as the EG Speaks community accessibility resource um coordinator. Um, I'd like to read an official statement from EG Speaks about this resolution. We acknowledge the Elgroveve Unified School District's recent resolution recognizing disability awareness month. However, recognition without action is not progress. It is performative. The resolution cites, excuse me, federal and state disability rights laws, acknowledges that students with disabilities experience the worst academic and social emotional outcomes in the district, and names proven strategies like inclusive practices, bullying prevention, mental health supports, and authentic family engagement. Yet, families and advocates have been asking for these very actions for years. without meaningful imple implementation. Declaring March as disability awareness month where sites can explore opportunities is not a plan. Distributing a resolution to schools is not accountability. Students with disabilities do not need symbolic gestures. They need concrete,
041funded, and measurable commitments that change daily experiences in classrooms and on campuses. We continue to see a lack of disability education for students and staff, ongoing bullying and exclusion with inadequate prevention and intervention, inconsistent, inconclusive practices, and limited access to general education settings, families struggling to be heard in IEP processes and district decision-making, little transparency about how MTSS restorative practices of mental health sports are actually imple implemented for disabled students. If the district is serious about the commitments listed in the resolution, the district must publicly share how it will operate operationalize them. What training will staff receive? What curriculum will teach disability history and inclusion? How will bullying prevention be strengthened and tracked? What metrics will be used to measure equitable outcomes? And when the community when will the community see progress reports? Students with
042disabilities are not an afterthought or a footnote or a month-long acknowledgement. They are students first and they deserve general education leadership resources and accountability that reflect that truth. We call on EGSD to move beyond symbolic gestures and towards a measurable action. Disability awareness without systemic change is empty. Our students deserve more than words. They deserve justice, inclusion, and real investment. Thank you. Are there any other blue cards? There are not. Thank you. I'd like to call for a motion to adopt resolution 49 designating the month of March as disability awareness month. Motion. Second. Did you want to speak? Is it possible that we could make a change a I think it's a slight change just in the title of this resolution before voting on it. Um do you have a suggestion you'd like to make
043a motion? So instead of disability awareness month, could we change awareness to acceptance? Yeah. Can you make that in the form of a motion, please? Sure. I move to revise the resolution to disability acceptance month. May I have a sec? Second. Okay. Seconded by Miss Ballerini. Thank you. Is there any discussion on that topic? Sure. You'd like to say some? Yeah. Just Okay. Um I uh I'm really happy that we're doing this. I think that even though it's a small gesture, it's still a very important gesture. um but that we really be committed to full acceptance because we're beyond awareness. I think we're all fully aware that um everybody is different and has um their abilities vary and some of us are born that way. And I think it's really important that um that in
044these small gestures when we make the commitment to be accepting we we reach that full goal of inclusion and I think it's meaningful start and we could work towards the areas that we know we have improvement to make. Okay. So I need to have a vote to accept the change to the title disability acceptance month which is Miss Bowwin's motion. All in favor? I I. Any opposed? So that passes. So now we will go on and vote for to adopt resolution number 49 designating the mar month of March as disability acceptance month. So move moved by Mr. Yang. Second. Seconded by Miss Bowwin. All in favor? I I opposed. Passes unanimously. Thank you. Our next resolution will be Arts Education Month by Miss Willbanks. My glasses are opposite than yours. I have to take them
045off to see closeup. Good evening, um, Madame President, members of the board, Superintendent Riley, and Miss Avalos. The month of March has been designated arts education month by the state of California. The role of arts education, which includes dance, media arts, music, theater, and visual arts, is a vital part of basic education, providing a balanced education for all students. For the first time in our district's history, 11 dedicated elementary arts education teachers were hired using funding from Prop 28. These new specialists in dance, music, and visual arts serve students across 19 different sites. In addition to staffing, the district continues to provide professional development and arts education and arts integration and have allocated arts and music instructional materials block grant money to meet the needs of both elementary and secondary levels. EGUSD uses its art
046education roadmap as the guidepost to advance the important work around arts for every child. The district remains committed in expanding elementary arts access while sustaining vibrant secondary festivals in theater, dance, and music. This resolution reflects the district's belief that arts education is not merely an extracurricular pursuit, but an integral component of comprehensive education. enhancing the intellectual, emotional, and social development of individuals through EGUSD's collective endorsement of Arts Education Month. It confirms the commitment to fostering a culture that values the champions the arts as a fundamental element of a well-rounded education. Therefore, the board of education is requested to approve and adopt resolution 54 designated March 2026 as arts education month. Thank you. Thank you. Are there any um blue cards on this item? Madame President, there are no blue cards on this item. All right.
047A um I would like to call for a motion to adopt resolution number 53 designating March 2026 as arts education month. So moved. Second. Moved by Miss Bowwin Ballerini. Sorry. Seconded by Mr. Yang. I want to call everyone by their first names. There you go. You All in favor? I opposed. It's unanimous. Thank you. Our next item is brought up by Dr. Collier. Women's History Month. Good evening, President Albiani, members of the board, Superintendent Riley, Mr. Avalos, colleagues, and community members. The board of education is requested to adopt resolution number 55 designating March 2026 as Women's History Month. As part of the board of education's legacy of advocacy for equity and the value of diversity within our school district, members of the board of education have an opportunity to recognize the month of March as
048women's history month. With presidential proclamation 5619, Ronald Reagan first established March as Women's History Month in 1987. He called upon all Americans to march this month with appropriate observances to honor the achievements of American women. In response, throughout the year, elementary and secondary teachers use pieces of literature where women assume traditional and non-traditional professional roles. In their classroom instruction, teachers also use novels written by female authors and teach about women's contributions to history. In the area of mathematics and science, information is shared throughout the year about famous female mathematicians and scientists. Staff members provide information about women in all roles in our society, drawing students attention to the to the noted as well as the underrepresented contributions that women have provided historically and in modern times. By designating one month with a focus on women's
049history, the board of education has the opportunity to communicate the value of such instruction. In support of women's history month, the curriculum and professional learning department will provide resources to teachers to recognize and celebrate women's history month. Furthermore, the education equity department has posted additional resources on their department website for district personnel. The board of education is requested to adopt resolution number 55, 202526 designating March 2026 as Women History Month. Thank you. Are there any blue cards on this item? There are no blue cards on this item. Thank you. I No, Miss Moore wanted to speak to this item. Yes. Thank you. I um fully plan to support this resolution and I'm glad that we have a resol resolution to acknowledge the many contributions of women throughout history. Um, our resolution states, quote, "Whereas women
050served as early leaders in the forefront of every major progressive social change movement, not only to secure their own right of suffrage and equal opportunity, but also in the abolitionist movement, the emancipation movement, the industrial labor union movement, and the modern civil rights movement." End quote. I would like to take a moment to emphasize the words equal opportunity and highlight a woman who fought for equal opportunities and title N. Dr. Bernice Sandler is known as the godmother of Title 9. Dr. Sandler's experiences as a woman in education sparked her early campaign efforts to ensure gender equity and education. These efforts eventually led to the passage of Title 9 in 1972. Even after Title 9 was was enacted, Dr. Sandler continued her activism for decades as a speaker, author, and educator. In addition to starting a
051social revolution for women's rights, she became the first ever woman appointed to a congressional committee to work specifically on women's issues. Dr. Sandler stated, quote, Title 9 is probably the most important law passed for women and girls in Congress since women obtained the right to vote in 1920. End quote. She also stated, quote, "Sex prejudice is so ingrained in our society that many who practice it are simply unaware they are hurting. It is the last it is the last socially acceptable prejudiced prejudice." End quote. Of course, there were many women activists and groups that fought for equality and the passage and implementation of Title 9, but I wanted to highlight Dr. Sandler today. Sim similar to activists like Dr. Dr. Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, or Susan B. Anthony, Dr. Bernice Sandler, and other women's
052rights activists had an important role in history to create equality and fairness in our society. They all fought for important civil rights that have created transformational change in our country and in our communities. As some try to normalize allowing boys and girls sports, I would ask, would it be okay to regress in other important civil rights issues such as those fought for by Martin Luther King or Susan Banthony? Uh the answer is of course not. We all know the answer um is no. So how is this any different? Let us not forget history and those who sacrificed so much for equality and fairness. Let us not regress under the guise of being progressive. Thank you. Okay, other comments. We'll go on to move. Um I'd like to call for a motion to adopt resolution number
05354 designating March 2026 as Women's History Month. So moved. Second. Moved by Miss Moore, seconded by Mr. Yang. All in favor? I opposed. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Dr. Collier. Next item is public comment for items not on the agenda. Are there any blue comments for items not on the agenda? I have one card that said, um, Jennifer Hart, are you here? There you are. Did we actually do have the item you're you're wanting to speak about on the agenda later? Did you want to speak now or when we bring that item up? It's it's totally up to you whichever whichever way you choose. It's further a little further down the agenda. I didn't know if timing, you know, your time here tonight. That's perfectly fine. And we need you at this podium
054over here. Thank you. It's okay. Okay. Hello. Good evening. Thank you so much for taking me and taking me early. Uh my name is Jennifer Hart and I want to um first of all thank uh members uh Vargas, Davis, and Moore for responding to my email that I sent last week regarding the quadrupling of your monthly stipend per 1390. And additional thank you to member Bowwin for offering to have a conversation with me about that. In his email response, Mr. Vargas expressed confusion over the salary data that I shared, questioning where my salary numbers came from. He suggested that I possibly was accounting for inflation. I was not. I used the board approved certificated salary schedules for 1995, which was as far back as I could find, and our current salary schedule. But per your
055amenion of inflation, um, it did prompt me to take a look at that data. And it turns out that certificated salaries have almost exactly matched the inflation rate, meaning that certificated staff have the same buying power now as they did 30 years ago if you just look at salaries. However, I had full healthcare coverage in 1998 when I started teaching. Now I do not. My healthc care contributions have gone up much faster than my income, so I get a little poor every year in service to the district, confirming what my tax guy tells me annually. Nonetheless, it was clear from the responses I received that you will approve the $3,000 a month stipend. Per Mr. Vargas' numbers, the current stipend amount adjusted for inflation would be $2,200, but the law now permits you to increase
056to a maximum of 3,000. and you have expressed commitment to take that maximum. So, let's address the new income. I read a lot of justifications in your responses like child care costs and gas, but the argument that seemed quite reasonable to me is that public service should not require personal wealth. Several of you explained to me that you believe the monthly stipen for board members should be significant enough to make participation financially possible for most people. That's actually a great argument and one I fully believe in. I wonder then if this board is aware that your $3,000 a month exceeds what a full-time PAR educator with 11 years of experience working in EGOD takes home by roughly $1,000 a month. Our paras are in classrooms and student facing all day every day taking home less
057than your new stipen will be. The same is true for our campus supervisors who are integral to campus safety. It is no wonder that we cannot keep these jobs filled when district wages for these positions are so far below what you have deemed is appropriate for public service. Your responses to my email were also in agreement that the board taking future increases that exceed what the bargaining units receive is inappropriate. Miss Moore said she believes the board should only consider a pay increase every other year. Thank you for that. So when the state law AB1390 adjusts to allow a maximum stipen to 4500, it is good to know that you are committed to not using that as an opportunity for another large income increase for yourselves without also increasing income comparably for EGUSD's other public
058servants. Lastly, now that you will be compensated in a way that you have lobbied as fair, I do hope that you will be able to attend more of our school events. Thank you. Thank you. Are there any other blue cards? There are no more blue cards. Moving on to the consent agenda. I understand, Miss Moore, you wanted to pull an item. Yes. I would like to pull item number one, please. Item number one. Yes. Okay. I'd like to call for a motion to approve items number two through 22 on the consent agenda. Moved by Mr. Yang. Seconded by Mr. Vargas. All in favor? I opposed. Thank you, Miss Moore. Um, please go ahead. Yes. Thank you. Um, first of all, I would like uh a warning to anyone who has um small children listening that
059my comments will include terms that may not be suitable for young children. Um, in in this proposed policy item number one, it states, quote, "The district's athletic program shall be free from discrimination and discriminatory practices prohibited by state and federal law. Yet, we ignore federal federal anti-discrimination laws by allowing biological boys into girls sports and private spaces. Um, according to the US Department of Education's website, state laws do not override federal anti-discrimination laws. This proposed policy also states, quote, "The superintendent or designate shall ensure that equivalent athletic opportunities are provided for males and females and that students are permitted to participate in athletic activities consistent with their gender identity." End quote. This statement acknowledges that there are two biological sexes and two different categories for sports based on biological sex. Yet um but we state
060that individuals can participate in sports based on their gender identity, creating a clear contradiction. Biological boys have an undeniable and inherent biological advantage over girls. We are seeing this advantage play out all over the state and all over the country where boys boys are stealing titles, medals, podium spots, spots on the team roster, playing time, scholarships, and more from girls. Beyond this, when we ignore Title 9 protections, we are putting our girls in danger in locker rooms and private spaces. Girls should never be forced to undress in front of males in their private spaces. This should be common sense. These violations are moving beyond private spaces onto courts and competition mats. Three girls have recently filed a civil rights lawsuit against the CIF, CDE, and Harupa Valley Unified School District after they lost not only
061opportunities to a boy, but they were forced to share a locker room with him. And additionally, they on um on the volleyball court, they endured unwanted butt tapping from the male athlete. Their concerns were ignored by the adults that were supposed to protect them. In Washington State, there is an alarming story of a female wrestling athlete who was unknowingly matched with a boy. Immediately, he dominated the competition, and while he was on top of her, he pressed his fingers into her vagina for 7 seconds. The girl cried out for help, but no one heard. So, she let the boy win to end the assault. From that match, the boy qualified for the upcoming Washington State Championship. Under Penal Code 289, forcible sexual penetration, however slight, with a foreign object when the act is accomplished against
062the victim's will, is a felony in our state. Under this penal code, this includes any body part except a sexual organ. The girl reported the sexual assault to her coach who ignored her. She also she was also ignored by the district for months. A news release also said the alleged violations are going ongoing and well known to school leaders with at least a dozen female athletes complaining to administrators about the two male athletes or two male athletes being in the girls locker room. I am sharing this because it's an example of what can go wrong when we allow boys to compete against girls. This girl lost an opportunity to move on to state and she was sexually assaulted on the wrestling mat. She was placed in that position by adults who should have ensured a
063safe competition with other females. Then she was ignored by the adults who should have helped her and protected her. Tonight, we are the adults in the room. We are the adults who have can ensure that girls in our district will never be placed in a situation where they lose opportunities to a male, are forced to undress in front of males, or subjected to sexual assault in their competitions. We have the power to ensure that thousands of girls in our district have equal opportunities in sports and protection from the types of situations I have shared. This proposed policy states, quote, "The board desires to give student health and safety the highest consideration in planning and conducting athletic activities." End quote. If we adopt a policy that continues to allow biological boys in girls sports and private
064spaces, this statement is a lie. It is not safe or healthy to allow boys in girls sports and private spaces or in their locker rooms. One mom already shared right here at one of our board meetings that her daughter has been forced to address with three boys at Franklin High School. This isn't a rare incident, as some might like to suggest. Furthermore, several districts in California and other states are already being investigated by the US Department of Education and the US Department of Justice regarding their non-compliance with Title 9. As the fourth largest district in the state, adopting such a policy will make us a target for investigation of non-compliance with Title 9. I refuse to put my name on this policy that threatens girls equal opportunity, privacy, and safety. And uh furthermore, at this
065time, I would like to make a motion that we do not pass this policy as written today and that instead we modify this policy to acknowledge federal anti-discrimination laws and bring this policy back for a vote at a later date. Thank you. All right. Do we have a second? Your motion fails due to lack of a second. So, we'll go ahead with the original motion to approve item one on the board policy update. So, moved. I have a second. Second. Moved by Mr. Vargas, seconded by Mrs. Bowwin. All in favor? I I opposed. No. Show Miss Moore is a no. The rest are an I. Thank you. Next, we have bargaining units. Do we have any bargaining units wishing to speak? Good evening, President Albiani, members of the board, and Superintendent Riley. I stand here
066tonight as the chapter president of CSEA, representing over 800 classified staff members. These are the staff who support most vulnerable student learners every single day. I'm here to talk about value, specifically the value of the work we do and the value of the seats you hold. Right now, the reality in our district is heavy. We're facing a deficit of $37 million. That's not just a number on a spreadsheet. It is a weight that every single employee feels. Morale among classified staff is low. We're struggling to recruit good people. We're struggling to retain the people we have. Our teams are underst staffed and overworked. Asked to do more with less because the budget demands it. We do it because we care about the students. But we are tired. During this financial crisis, the board is considering
067a proposal under AB 1390 to increase your compensation by as much as 400%. I know the law allows this. I know the argument is that the stipen hasn't been raised in years, but just because you can do something does not mean you should. And this brings me to the core message I need you to hear tonight. The respect this community has for you is rooted in the fact that you do this for less, not more. Historically, the role of schoolboard members is revered. Why? Because it is viewed as a civic duty. It is viewed as a sacrifice. When a parent or staff member looks at you sitting on the dis, they think they are taking time away from their families late into the night essentially as volunteers because they care about my child. That volunteer
068spirit is the source of your moral authority. That is what gives your leadership value. If you approve a 400% raise, you fundamentally alter that contract between you and the public. You shift this role from civic stewardship to paid politician. And here's the danger in that. When you increase the pay, you drastically increase expectations. If you if you accept a professional level stipen, the community will begin to demand professional level execution. They will expect 24-hour availability. They will expect immediate solutions to complex problems. They will expect perfection. But the truth is you are already giving all you have to give. You are already making the sacrifices. Take this money. Taking this money won't create more hours in the day for you. It would only set an impossible standard that you cannot meet while stripping away the
069grace and appreciation the community currently gives you for your volunteer service. My work as chapter president is a volunteer role as are others on our leadership team. We don't do it for a stipen. We do it because 800 members rely on us to advocate for them. Our value to them comes from the willingness to fight for them, not for compensation. We're asking our classified staff to tighten their belts. We're asking them to stay loyal to a district with a $37 million deficit. How can you, the leaders of this district, justify raising your own compensation while asking us to sacrifice? Leadership is not about what you take, it is about what you give up. We need you to be the leaders who say because times are hard, we will stand with our staff. We need you
070to be the leaders who say our value doesn't come from a stipen. It comes from our service. On behalf of the 800 plus classified employees who give this district who keep this district running, I ask you to re-evaluate this proposed increase. Keep the honor of your service intact and show us that you are in this deficit with us, not above us. Thank you. Thank you. Are there any other blue um groups wishing to speak? No. Okay. Um then we will move on to reports and discussion items. We'll start with the Elkrove Unified School District local control accountability plan midyear update from Mr. Serudi. Thank you and good evening, Madame President, members of the board, Superintendent Riley, and Miss Avalos. Uh, before I jump in, um, I want to thank a few folks who have helped
071out with the LCAP a great deal. Um, I've been doing this since its inception in 2014, and we continue to get better at it as a district. my colleagues, my cabinet level colleagues, and certainly under the direction of Superintendent uh Riley, but also my administrative assistant who is my second boss after Mr. Riley. Um Chanel Urbisando, um Jeremy Henshaw, our director of research and evaluation. Um Audrey, and Jeremy's a bit under the weather today. Audrey Renone, who is sitting right here, the budget director. she's our our budget um partner in all of this along of course under the supervision of Amari and Kristen um and also Dr. Lindseay Lily um in the back who is supporting this. So it is a team effort. So a bit of background as to why we're here. Uh there
072was a Senate bill that was added and in all the years of doing the LCAP um the state continues to tweak um it's how it functions and how it operates as well as the the uh the template itself and uh part of this is we used to bring a midyear report uh to the board and it didn't necessarily have to be presented and they changed that so that there's a requirement that it is a midyear report is presented to the board and it's has to be during a regularly scheduled meeting and the report includes those four items noted um those bullet points that are noted and so one of the things about this that I'm going to share is that this presentation is extremely data and information dense and so it'll include every single action
073every single metric and every single dollar that's attached to this and uh at the risk of us um still sitting here until Friday at noon I won't necessarily be going over every single element in it. Um, but rather going over and then certainly we'll respond to questions uh afterwards and uh for the public and perhaps a bit of information for some of our board members, some of our newer board members. But here's the LCAP in brief. And again, I won't be going over all of this. There's the purpose, uh, the duration. It's important to note that the LCAP is a three-year plan. And I'll reference this a bit later in terms of how we've laid out data because some of the metrics can get a bit confusing in terms of when a goal is set
074and then the preceding years following. There's eight state priorities that are noted. And so in our full district LCAP, there's a link at the end of this presentation to that. Um, one of the things that you have to identify for each action is its alignment to one or more of those eight state priorities. of course stakeholder engagement um and those are now referred to as educational partners but um that's a key priority in terms of how we do it. The LCAP template this is the first year in a long time that it's gone two years in a row without changing um and that may seem insignificant but trust me it's not. It's actually a pretty big deal. Um and then the transparency of it that it's always posted um the impact budget overview for parents.
075So that's a portion of the LCAP. the LCAP itself, the full LCAP has a number of different sections. Um, but the budget overview, this is a very very high level overview. So, what that shows is the total amount of dollars that we receive our LCFF funds. And then it does note that when you adopted this our our LCAP last year and adopted our budget, and if I get any of this wrong, I'm looking at my my fiscal friends. They're they're listening intently. Um the state actually when they went and adopted the budget there was a bit of a lag time between that and so when we brought this to you we had that $85 million and then a bit later um that number increased to $814 million. How did I do? All right. Thank you.
076Um and so then you see supplemental concentration amounts. So that's the minimum amount that is required. And there's something called a minimum proportionality percentage. That's really what that's getting at. And so there's a minimum amount and that's calculated minimum amount based on a district's unduplicated pupil percentage. And so those unduplicated pupil um student subgroups are foster youth, lowincome, and our English learners that all that include our long-term or that include our els or long-term English learners. And so we've we're always above. You may recall that when we brought this last year and we we talked about this during the um uh public hearing and we were about 10 percentage points lower than where we needed to be. And it's because one of the things we do when we're developing the LCAP is we're able to
077get programmatic information and data in and our fiscal folks wait till the very last minute to pull the trigger on the dollar amounts to make it as accurate as it possibly could be. And so our minimum amount for example last year for this year was about 15.5%. And we came in at just over 18%. So we've always been higher than the minimum percentage and that's very very important. So just a little bit about um this presentation in general at the midpoint of the school year as it indicates some metric outcomes are known some are in progress and some are unknown and that's just in terms of when we receive the data and at this midpoint in the in the year all actions are in progress. None of our actions have been finalized or completed. So
078now what you're going to see for the remainder of this is it'll go by goal metrics and actions and that's how this will go and we have our number of strategic goals and this is how the remainder of this will go through and I just want to note that our metrics we have about 40 actually we may have exactly 40 um but 38 39 40 41 and I should know but um those are the LCAP metrics and that's a combination of state identified. Many of the metrics are state identified and if you also recall in the spring we bring what are called local indicators. So it's the combination of those things that make up our LCAP metrics. Now attached to strategical goal one here are the metrics and again lots of information. I'm not going
079to go through it column by column but I am going to reference a couple of things that can help folks understand what's in those numbers and how they're how they're situated. First of all, it does note some information about what broad course of study means. There can be some questions about what that is, but also if you recall in just a couple minutes ago, I shared that the LCAP is a three-year plan. So, what we do on 23 22 23 that's a benchmark number in a benchmark year. We then set a metric that goes out. That's where you can see we're in the third year. So that's what we're looking at. So when we set our a goal, so for example, if I look at and these aren't good examples only because well, let's use
080content standards implementation. The only reason they're not good is many of them are 100% across the board. But if we look at content standards and it says 72%. So we set the goal then to be 80% that's where we should be. Now, if we saw progress and say in 2425 we were at 85%. You can see and there are some goals that look that way. You could see where that goal it would be. Why did you set the goal at 80%. And you're already at 85. It's because we don't change it from the first year. That's set. Otherwise, if you continue to change it, you're simply moving the goalpost down. It doesn't mean we aren't going to improve and continue to increase, but that's some of the challenges of how you present some of this
081data. So, I hope that made sense. It's a three-year plan. We bench it on the year prior to year one and then those benchmarks are set. Some more of the metrics that we have. Some are available, some won't be available. Distance from standard. So it's standard met or exceeded distance from standard. That's an aggregate measure the state determines and then it's how are our students doing based upon that. If you're positive numbers it's mean you're it means you're above. If it was zero it means you're right on and if it's below it means our scores are below state aggregate measures. you more of the metrics under goal one and strategic goal one which is focuses on curriculum instruction and assessment has the vast majority of our metrics. Couple of things to note. The asterisk down
082there, the calculation for reclassified students, there was a change in that. And so there's some time after that where we did see some adjustment in our numbers. And I'm looking back at Dr. Lily and this is a more this is a truer way of of getting these numbers. Um, and so actually the change is good because it's a more accurate reflection of uh reclassification. There's also a couple you'll see up there where it talks about um progress toward English proficiency and that assessment that's given these are contradictory. What I mean by that is if one goes up the other may go down. So if we're doing well with our kids and they're reclassifying, we're pulling those kids out of that LP test and so those numbers may decrease and it could be gee what's happening
083and it's because we're reclassifying kids and the our level one kids and our kids who are more who are newer to our programs who eventually will will move forward. So there sometimes can folks who are unfamiliar with this can look at those numbers and think both of them should be in increasing and improving at the same level and inevitably that won't happen. And now we're going to shift to the actions. And so um couple of things that you'll note. So literally this is every action in our LCAP. What isn't here is the description. So it could be why didn't we add the descriptions in here? because we added the descriptions in here. That's why we put a notation to the actual LCAP. If we did that, this PowerPoint would have been about 80 slides long
084because the descriptions in many cases are are lengthy descriptions in terms of what they are. We welcome feedback in terms of of uh your feedback in terms of any adjustments you you think would be helpful in this mid-year presentation. the N and the Y. If it's an N, it means it is not contributing to that MPPP that I referenced earlier. Means it's not being we don't consider it supplemental concentration because it's not principally um directed toward those subgroups or it's an alternative funding source. Title, for example, we don't consider supplemental concentration. The other thing that you're going to start seeing is the learning recovery recovery emergency block grant funds. That should seem from that should be familiar to the board. Um and these were the funds that were made available and they expire in 27
08528. Yeah. Um in 2728 and that those positions were then became um key components of our uh budget priority process. more actions in strategic goal one and now we'll move to strategic goal two and it'll be referenced um a bit later but every time there's a change made to the LCAP any sort of change if you remove a goal you add a goal you add an action anything you do you have to explain why And so some of the board members may recall that strategic goal two used to be it was a focus it was our only strategic goal that did not have student metrics associated with it. It was it focused on programmatic and student assessment. And so we've evolved it to a point where our student assessment system is in place. We continue
086to work closely with our teacher leadership in the effectiveness that those are having with teachers and with our kids and our programmatic evaluation. We're not saying that work is done and it's perfect, but the systems are in place. This is the goal that used to be strategic goal five. It now replaced um it replaced what used to be strategic goal two. The assessment for students is now factored into strategic goal one and program evaluation. We consider it part of our ongoing continuous improvement processes. Now shifting over to the metrics. So an aggregate risk ratio technical term but really what it does is it gives you an indication of the percentage of students that are less likely to get a favorable the similar favorable outcome as the aggregate total student population. So that's what this is
087doing. And so ultimately what we want to do is begin to close that gap. And that's really what this is. This is a gap measuring closing a gap. And just to back up just really quickly, you'll notice that while this um these are student subgroups that aren't necessarily identified as the subgroups that bring in supplemental concentration funding. These were additional student subgroups that we identified that were high need. And here are the actions associated with strategic goal two. Strategic goal three is our wellness goal. Our metrics, dropout rates, grad rate, suspensions, expulsion, school climate that we give from our surveys, social emotional learning also through our survey and facilities. Here are some of our actions. Actually, not some of them, all of our actions. Strategic goal four, family and community engagement under the leadership of
088Miss Levasser. See, attendance, absenteeism, Parent feedback. That's from our parent surveys. The actions associated with strategic goal 4. This is where it indicates strategic goal five. This is what I was referencing before. This is where those strategic goals morphed. All still part of our our programming. Nothing went away. So just a second on equity multiplier. So this is information about what equity multip how you become or how a actually how a school is identified as an equity multiplier school. student transient rate and then socioeconomically disadvantaged students. Those are the two metrics. Very very frequently the schools that are that are going to be um identified based upon those metrics are alternative schools. Not exclusively, but it's not infrequent. And we have Now we'll go through our four schools and Mr. Schwitzer has done a really
089good really an excellent job. He directly oversees well he's overseeing all of secondary education but he specifically is directly responsible for our alt schools and he's worked very carefully with them. A unique feature of this is some of those schools the staff is very small. So what they've started to do is actually coordinate and work together because it just creates more of a a learning community. And what they did is they identified um if they can get kids to school more frequently, many of the other elements um some of the concerns and challenges will be uh would be diminished. That's the overall goal. You'll see that across the board. And then here are some of the metrics. And this is also where I wanted to I do want to point out that these metrics the
090midyear report it's kind of like a construction site under construction still. So as you look at this there are some numbers here that I was I was literally working with folks um today we got some good feedback um some from some folks who are asking some questions about this but there are some examples where you will see in here. So if you look for example if you look at CASP and ELA and math. So if you look at math in particular and you'd look at it and say well you were at 163 below in 2425. Why did you set the goal at 200 minus 200? We didn't. We set it back in 2223. That's when it was set. And so this is an example of what I was was referring to before. Here are some
091of the actions. And one of the things I'll say is that um there's flexibility in terms of how you can use these monies, but a lot of it is training. and the schools receive money and actually at it at times can be a challenge for us to continue to provide training after training after training with with the money that we have. So we are looking at potentially and you don't oftenimes want to do this um but looking at and knowing until this money goes away and these the uh the standards for how you're designated as long as it doesn't change these schools will probably be in this um in this category. And so we are contemplating using some some funds for staff. Um, and we typically don't do that because you can consider this one-time
092money, but it's something that we're exploring in terms of how we can continue to support these kids in these schools. Haven't decided yet, but something that we're looking at. Here is Rio. You can see another absenteeism, chronic absenteeism. And then similar here's their numbers, the metrics, and I apologize if I'm going too fast. Um, like I said, your feedback is certainly welcome. Hear their actions. Sounded good on the microphone. Here's Calpine. Let's see a similar format. Some numbers are in for this year, others are not. Here's their actions. See oftentimes similar actions across the schools. And Las Flores is different because Las Flores is elementary, middle, and high. they serve all three levels. So that's why you see a bit of a different approach. That's also when you see chronic absenteeism and you see it
093at the elementary, middle, and high school. And there are the metrics and actions. Well, that wasn't supposed to happen. We're close to being done, but not quite done. My apologies. Close your eyes for a second. I do apologize. and just wanted to conclude with uh some couple of slides with important next steps. So what reef that that acronym for many of us we refer to that as a SIPA. So those are plans that are required by by the state and if you're a title school you have to have one of those. If you're a non-title school, school districts can still have you put a plan together. All of our schools put a plan together. We refer to these as our site LCAP. This is what's and this is just showing it's a requirement. And the
094reason this is an important next step is our sites right now are developing their LCAPS. They're doing that and their LCAPS inform our LCAP. The other is the perspective survey administration. This is the single largest source of data that we use to drive um decision- making. Not the sole source by any means, but when you have between 45 and 50,000 of our educational partners giving you feedback, it's fairly significant. And this is showing when that survey administration is. And just a little bit about that. Of course, we have the student, the parent, and the sta and the staff. Our goal is 100% of five through 12th graders, 100% of our staff and our parent um numbers. We always ask our goal for each of our schools is to get more than you had the year
095before. That's our approach to that. And important piece is it is a very very complex survey um to develop and if you look at that very last bullet point it's 10 to 20 minutes and to get the level of feedback that's meaningful feedback and to make a determination of what prompts you put in there's a lot of partnership that has gone into this but we do not want to make something that takes a half an hour 45 minutes or that 40 to 45 to 50,000 will turn into four to five period. People who are going to fill that out and there is our uh where our full district cell cap can be found. And with that, I welcome any feed any questions or feedback in terms of the presentation itself. If there's something more or
096less you would want to see during this, um more than happy to take your feedback. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Sherty. Are there any blue cards related to this item, Miss Valerini? Madame President, there are no blue cards on this item. Thank you. Um, I wanted to know if any board members had any questions or comments. We could start with our student board member, Mr. Zong. I would like to say thank you to everyone who put this presentation for us tonight, but I currently have no comments. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Miss Ballerini. Um, I have a couple of quick questions. Um, if we go back up to slide 10. There we go. Don't look at it. It'll make you dizzy. All right. basically when I'm looking at and then this was throughout
097when I'm when I'm looking at um the planned total funds and the mid-year total funds. You would think that currently for mid-year total funds would be about half right of what the total funds is to spend on each item. Um what typically happens like in the case of uh let's say I'll just go with the gate the 1.12 the gifted and talented talented education. So plan total funds was 250,000 currently we're at 16,351. What happens? Is there any like re-evaluating what we could what we haven't spent the money on any of that at this point in time? Greatly appreciate the question. So that one in particular. So the vast majority of So first of all, the vast majority of any dollar that we have is going to go to people, right? Where 85 80 84
09885 86% of every dollar is going to go to a person. That's the way this is. And these are these are gate stipens and they're paid at the end of the year. And so, okay, so there's stipens that way. And so, and oftentimes what you will find in here is that um if it it could be staffing and there could be situations where we weren't able to hire or whatever it may be or somebody left and then there's these gaps where there's we're we're filling positions. And so that's where a variety of these things come up because it there's logic we're halfway through the year you should have spent half your money. That's often not the case at all. oftentimes that that isn't the way. Sometimes it's it's actually expended much earlier on. In most
099cases, it's not. In most cases, it's second semester is when all the expenditures will really pick up and our fiscal people can tell you that because they're scurrying going a thousand miles an hour to close things out, do all the things they do. But I really appreciate the question. In fact, I should probably have said that right at the beginning that if you see the discrepancies, here's some reasons why. No problem. that that's just I was trying to figure it out. We do one thing we do though in addition because you were saying should we re-evaluate how much money that we're putting toward these if it appears we're not going to spend the money. We do that every single year. every department every year we look at you were given a $100 and if this
100is the fifth year in a row that you're only spending 20 then we probably should only allocate 20 or certainly understand why that that's the way it should work and I'm glad glad to hear it is and yes I used to do those stipens at the end of the year for things so I do know that it's just I wanted to make sure that we all understood where all well where all of this is going um other than that no there's a lot of information here. I'm I'm sure I need to go over it a couple times in my head, so I'll probably have more questions for you on another date. And I I welcome there's been a number of times when um board members have asked to sit down and just look over it,
101whether it's the midyear report or the full LCAP. always welcome it because inevitably we hopefully board members leave more informed and inevitably they you all ask good questions and oftentimes our processes more often than not our processes get better as a result. So it's welcome. Thank you. Thank you Mr. Yang. Yep. Good evening. Thank you to uh Mark. Appreciate the presentation. Um, you know, I would like to say that, you know, when we think about Elgrove, uh, and Outgrow School District, we think of, um, a city that is clean, low crime, a school district that is, uh, progressive, and is very helpful for the majority. Um and that I find it true uh being here for um you know 10 years um my third time living here uh but been around for uh 15 years
102and I've been a student here as well right graduating from Valhind uh however um there there is there aren't much uh improvement that needs to be done um because you know we never going to be perfect. Uh but we are um doing pretty good. With that said, you know, um on uh slide 13, right? Um, it talked about student uh uh who identify as black um African-American students with disabilities, students in foster care or experiencing homelessness, and students who identify as Native American will benefit from targeted programs and services that leverage their assets, affirm their identities, and address their needs to close achievement opportunity and relationship gaps. And I think that's dead on. as as far as closing the achievement gap for our uh student who are marginalized and I think that we definitely need
103to um do more of the great thing that we are doing and and whatever that we need to do um more I think that that's what we need to do more and I think there's a lot of things that we already doing that are great that we just need to do um in a bigger scale do more of it and and so with that said, "I uh would like to um recommend and challenge, you know, and the new superintendent, David, and our our team to to, you know, maybe go outside of our school district, outside of California to seek for uh school district that are really great at closing the achievement gap in so that we will have um real data of what they do that really bring this um achievement gap close and closer,
104right? So, being intentional, uh, do more of the great thing that we're already doing. I think that's how we're going to, um, close the achievement gap in a little bit more rapid rate and and, you know, our students, especially the high school students are just, you know, they have four years, right? So, four year go by really fast. And if we are not um if we not efficient enough then they're the one that's going to um be left with uh um you know being disadvantaged going to the real world you know after being 18 and older. So with that said, um I think that again, you know, we're doing a lot of great thing, but I just want us to be very very um intentional and work on the things that we could close the
105achievement gaps, especially for our disability marginalized students. Thank you. And look forward to working with uh you guys. You have our commitment. You have our commitment on that, sir. And just a quick comment if I could regarding um our homeless students. This is something I should have referenced earlier. Homeless students on which that population is increasing. Our foster population is decreasing. Um they on the natural are um fold into that unduplicated student subgroup of lowinccome. They're automatically factored into that. And I'm glad you brought that up. Um you know I want to share this you know uh story. I was sitting in the living room with my wife and four kids and I said, "Hey, look, you know, this looks very normal. You know, we got four student in El Grove Infight School District that
106are not homelessness and you guys don't know much about that. Maybe not at all, but we have, you know, over a thousand students who are homelessness, right? And that's just unbelievable, you know. So, so to my kids I say be grateful of what you have. And the flip side of that is, you know, we we just got to do a little bit better as well of doing what we can with all the resource that we have to provide, you know, shelter for these kids because it's 2026, right? And and we still have homelessness and um the world's not perfect, but you know, let's work together and provide shelter and more love and more support for these students. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you, sir. Thank you, Miss Davis. Thank you for the presentation. It's always
107interesting. Um, the only question I have at this time though is surveys are done between March 30th and May 8th. By this point in the year, parents have reached survey fatigue. They shutting down for the year. Have we thought of moving that forward to get more participation from our parents because I know it's relatively low. It's a another good question and thank you for that. Um, two things. One, we used to do it um in uh in the fall in the late fall and our determination in moving it later in the year is it gives every student, every parent and every staff member a full year of perspective on how things are going. So in terms of your thinking about okay I understand that but what about survey fatigue? When we put this survey together
108we reduced many surveys. So we actually track the number of surveys that are given. Now does do schools or does a teacher on their own um send a survey out to their to their families? They may. And is there anything wrong with that? No. I'm never going to tell a teacher looking over at my good friend James if he's fabulous teacher and if he wanted to send something out but we monitor it very carefully. We have a master schedule of of surveys and we've dramatically reduced the total number of of surveys that we provide. So we're very very sensitive to that. So we avoid um survey fatigue. Thank you. Thank you. Great question. Appreciate it. We used to track I we've we've tracked that number and it's also continuing to go up. We've been really
109happy about that in the past. Miss Bowwin, thank you for the presentation. It's always helpful to see where we're at and in um you know hopes to see that we reach those outcomes that we desire at the end of the year. I just have a um brief comment on slide 13 and then I do believe it has a strong connection to slide 19. Um just similar to my colleague here's comments um the the supports that are going to be necessary I think is going to be really important that we're leveraging our community resources particularly around our black African-American students students with disabilities um our students um who are Native American we have um a really rich community of resources and support that care deeply about our students particular particularly um in these subgroups. And so
110um I really feel that it's uh very important that we we leverage those supports because you know we are a vast school district and we have wonderful resources and expertise but um it it doesn't um compare to the lived experience of community members that fall into these subgroups. So, I just want to make sure that um that's something that's on the forefront because I think it directly correlates with how successful we can be, not just um as educators, but also as just supporting the whole child, particularly these subgroups that we um tend to struggle with. Um, so I'm I'm really excited that we are going to be starting the 2 by two with Wilton Rancheria. Um, and that we have really great um, kind of thinking around how we can be strategically um, I'm really
111excited for that and how it I see it clearly fits in here. So that's it. Thank you, ma'am. Thank you, Miss Moore. Um, I the only thing that I was going to ask is um about some of the desired outcome metrics, but you answered my questions, so I appreciate that. And I do not have any other questions, so thank you. Thank you, Miss Moore. Thank you, Mr. Vargas. Thank you for the great presentation. I have no questions. Thank you, sir. Thank you. I I got my questions answered. Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. Our next item is the Elkrove Charter Academy local controllabil local control accountability plan midyear update. Mr. Schwitzer, we're gonna jump to Mr. Mark. I got a name change. Sorry, I blanked on your last name, sir. That's all right. All right. Good
112evening, madam president, members of the board, Superintendent Riley. That's exciting for me to say. Miss Avalos, I'm here tonight to present Elkrove Charter Academyy's same midyear report. Uh so much of it will be somewhat redundant as far as the explanations of the purpose behind why we are presenting this report tonight. So it's the same as the districts. Um many of you probably already know but maybe not Elkrove Charter even though we are authorized by the Elkrove Unified School District. Uh fiscally speaking, we are considered our own LEA. Therefore, we have to develop our own LCAP every year, which then has a trickle effect with all the same requirements, reporting and as we develop it. So, I'm here for the same exact purpose as Mr. Serudi. Um, when we look at um these are our numbers
113uh clearly much smaller than the district's numbers. This is a single school uh budget number, but it's the exact same components so to speak that when the uh budget was adopted by the district, you know, those numbers then came in later at a higher amount. And so we do try to account for that as we continue on uh through the school year. Um our plan is primarily conc, you know, our actions and services are primarily addressing the supplemental funds that we receive as a district. uh other LCFF funds are um are addressed in a in a single action item within our our plan, but the all the other plans are primarily that 326,000 that you're seeing that we're trying to address. Um so we will have same thing. We'll have metrics and outcomes that are
114unknown that are in progress and then some are known and same as our actions and services as far as how well they are implemented. Some are in progress, some have not quite yet been implemented yet or are already completed. Um, we have somewhat similar the same strategic goals as the district. Uh, clearly as a small school site and as a single school site, we don't have the same amount of students to deal with. So, some of the goal strategic goals are a little bit different. Uh, so strategic goal one for us is uh primarily focused on uh curriculum and instruction. Um, within our metrics, uh, you I went in when I presented this or when I developed this with the staff and the help of the district, I highlighted the so the the rows that
115are in blue. Those are ones that are actually called out in our LCAP specifically. The ones that are not called out are metrics that we receive from the district that still have value and we still look at and we address, but they're not specifically called out within our LCAP, so to speak. However, like the top three and these ones, these are called out in our local um indicators that we do in the springtime as well. So, I won't go through each one of these and go through um even though there's many less um metrics than in the district's plan. However, um I will call out some of the things that we do know at this point. Um most of the me metrics we don't have numbers yet at this mid-year point in the school year.
116Uh but some of the ones that we do have is as an example number of students that have enrolled in AP and dual enrollment courses. Um small I mean we're looking for 50 students in AP. That's new. We didn't we just implemented an AP program a few years ago. So we're trying to increase that. We're kind of sitting in that 24 25. We're 21 this year. And then students in dual enrollment courses. That kind of can be a yo-yo from from year to year. However, um we will have new enrollments kicking in here in the spring and in the fall. So, by the end, sorry, and the summer. And so, by the end of this school year, that number of 21 will more than likely increase as well. This is just a midyear kind of
117capture of how many have enrolled so far. Uh, one of the benefits of Elgrove Charter Academy is the flexibility they have. So, students can take um part in classes at the community colleges that might not work with a traditional schedule. um looking at this metrics. So it's our our CASP. So we don't have any any data on this as of yet. However, I did want to highlight our standards met and exceeded for English, math, and science. Um definitely working really hard to try and increase those numbers. the percentage of students that have met or exceeded um last two years seem to be fairly similar but math as an example in 2022 23 all the way down in 14% that's really low and an area for us to work on we moved up to 20% from
118there so that's a a movement in the right direction uh for sure more of our goal one metrics um one I wanted to call out in this um slide side is the percentage of 10th and 10th through 12th graders that are on track. This is a goal that's specific to our school site uh based with our variable credit and the purpose for why students choose to enroll at Elkrove Charter Academy is oftentimes to accelerate credit acral. And so this is important one for us to look at as we see where are our students at when they enroll versus at the end of each school year. Uh, and you can see right now at this midyear point, well, which was at the beginning of the school year, um, our p our ontrack percentage has gone from
11980% to 85% with the greatest growth in our 12th graders. Uh, 83.8% last year to 92.5% or on track at the beginning of the school year. Uh, we equate this um um this improvement primarily to summer school. We offer summer school as part of our program. Our students can credit recover. they can grade recover if they need to. Uh we don't allow students to necessarily earn additional credits during our summer program, but yet we're able to capture those 11th graders that may have come to us a little behind and they're able to get back on track. So when they start their 12th grade year, they're not they're not in a big hole to where they can graduate. So this is our action table. Looks a little different than the districts because there are fewer actions
120and services. As I said, these are primarily capturing the supplemental dollars that we receive. Uh to the same point that was made by Mr. Sherudi, as you can see, the English learner, we have zero dollars expended. That's going to go out primarily in stipens and material purchases at the end of the school year. So that's why that looks kind of bad right now, but it will definitely it'll be spent. So we want to make sure we're supporting our students. Um English learner program is a little bit of a challenge for us at Elgrove Charter. um we have low numbers of English learners typically within the 15 student range um and all of those have been identified identified for six or more years. So it's oftentimes hard to develop programs to address their needs um when
121they've been identified for so long and it's usually state testing that is keeping them from being reclassified. So we're working to address that. That bottom one, maintaining staffing levels. That's kind that's the action services that captures the majority of our budget of our LCFF dollars. See here, as I said, summer school, math and ELA related professional development, and our tutoring program. All right, looking at goal two. This is for us it's assessment. Um, and our program evaluation. Um, the metric I wanted to call out here was our PSAT participation. Uh so we do provide that at on site for at Elgrove Charter and there's a a massive increase in that 10th and 11th graders that are participating in PSAT and MSQT assessment that's going to relate to our A throughG numbers that will come up
122uh later on. these uh this data here oftentimes is the the number of students we have in these area are not uh statistically significant uh for us to even call out at times there's not enough students there's less than 10 so for for purposes for privacy purposes it's really hard for us to get a a handle on all of those as for example I don't think we have any as of today foster students enrolled at Elgrove charter um also with the transiency of the school with ongoing enrollment some of these numbers will move fairly drastically throughout the school year. Um, and much of the data gets captured at that CalPAD's time in the beginning of October. So, but what happens is October is different than February. So, and very different than May. Going on to
123those actions and services, uh, for us, we're trying to get a a better handle on the assessment component at our school site. uh that really falls in lines with our variety and our brand of education especially with through the independent study model which is heavily rellyant on assessment data. Uh we're not with the students every day within a classroom to see how they're progressing. So an independent study you have to rely on assessment data to know what they know. uh and sometimes that can be a challenge especially in today's age of smartphones and multiple tabs open and testing security and so that's for us as a school site we've identified assessment as a as a as an area that we uh absolutely value uh but trying to make sure that we're assessing student knowledge in
124a way that makes sense we we want to know what they know not necessarily what a test says so um some of that does come down to professional development that we've learned we needed there's a capacity gap with some of our teachers and then trying to balance that with district-wide professional development initiatives, school site professional development initiatives. At times the amount of professional development can uh kind of get in the way of our teachers day jobs we send we we say sometimes at the school. So um it's hard it's definitely hard to address but something we're working towards. Go three is wellness on site. How students feel at the school site and with the school programs. Um, one of the things I want to call the the bottom data point in this one is we
125track our persistence rate. And so as a school that doesn't have an attendance area, so to speak, um, other than we can enroll students that live within Sacramento County or any county that touches Sacramento County, um, that's a pretty big net. That's a massive footprint. So, we want to see how many students stay enrolled at the charter school each and every year. Um, we're trying to figure out why we have such a drop from last year from 78.6% to our persistence rate at the beginning of this school at 66.2%. Um, that's that's concerning to us, but there seems to be a little bit of a disconnect because our enrollment is higher. So, I'm not quite sure if it's just a a function of percentages not accounting for the increased total enrollment of the school. Therefore,
126the number of students that were with us last year is going to represent a smaller percentage of the student population. Um, there are some very clear and common times where students may come to us and then leave us in between 8th and 9th grade. That's oftentimes it's a time where families or students will say, "I want to want to try the comprehensive school. I want to go to Toby Johnson. I want to have all the dances and all the things. I want to try that. Uh and then may make their their way back to us. So therefore, that's not captured within a percent persistence rate. And then oftentimes between 10th and 11th grade, we lose students as well. Um high school sports is a big reason. Students at our school cannot play high school sports.
127And so oftentimes students say they want to leave charter so they can go play sports at their school of residence. As we look at goal three metrics, uh, attendance rate, this captures our school's ADA, so our average daily attendance. So 90% where we're sitting so far this mid year. Um, would like to see that a little higher. Still 96, that middle school rate is really where we want to sit. 95% makes sense. I get a little worried sometimes when I see 100% across the board in the independent study world, right? But I get really worried if it's below 90%. So, uh, actions within this goal. So, attendance improvement programs, um, defining our college and career readiness, and then implementing our social emotional learning program that's within our advocacy, uh, classes. Goal four, our engagement. So,
128that's student, family, and community engagement. Um, this looks a little bit different than the districts for sure. We're trying to track the me number of our parents that are take part in our advisory council. Uh also looking at our chronically absent data which seems to be a little off when we're looking at I just presented we have a 90% average daily attendance rate but yet our chronic absenteeism rate is at 25%. Trying to figure out exactly why that seems to be so off. Chronic absenteeism accounts for all any kind of absence excused or unexcused whereas average daily attendance can be captured in other ways. So trying to figure out even though we have we're dropping in the direction that we want from last year from 32% to the midyear at 25. Uh we definitely want
129to get that chronic absenteeism lower. This also may be a little bit of an uphill battle just with the nature of our program and why students choose to enroll at Elro Charter Academy is for that flexibility and oftentimes training travel schedules if they're our performers or our athletes uh make it difficult for them to come to school each day. Um so that balance between being at school and work product is important and the average daily attendance does a better job of capturing that our actions for goal four. So, uh, continue to defi to to refine and develop any kind of parent and student involvement program. We know that we are a small school site and that students want activities. Our two students that came up tonight presented about the increase in our clubs. Um, but
130also understanding that not every student wants that at our school. Uh, so trying to find that balance within our students on what clubs do they want, what other extra extracurricular activities do they want. Uh it's a little bit of a of a of a struggle at times. Um but it's just I think it's a struggle for all schools, but especially for small schools, it can become difficult because some kids are like, "Yes, we really want this." And there's lit literally five of them that want it. And so trying to figure out how to have uh have that like we have an amazing dance club that has started this year uh with three students that are working like crazy every week within the dance club. Uh and then increasing our partnerships. This has been um so
131these are all partially implemented. They'll they'll be fully implemented by the end of the school year. Uh this is a lot of the work on this revolves around us defining both internally and externally our our brand of education. So our our our um the Elkrove Charter Academy brand like why do students and families choose to enroll at Elro Charter? uh understanding that as a school site is important within within the school walls, but also being able to get that out to the pockets of families and individuals within within our community that we may be the place for them. And so that's a lot of effort and energy and dollars go to that. So just in closing, uh the things that we're really proud of uh this year is our A throughG um rate. we've increased
132to 45% of our students last year were A throughG uh which was I think four years ago when I was up here we were in the single digits for H A throughg completion rates so we're really excited about the increase in that um areas that we are still continuing to work on attendance understanding attendance understanding activities and how to engage students uh in a non-traditional way any comments or questions I am Thank you very much, Miss Ballerini. Did you have any comments or questions? Oh, I'm sorry. Do we have any blue cards on this? I'm like, wait a minute. Were we supposed to do the other thing first? I was making sure. Um, there are no blue cards on this item. All right. How about you? Would you like me? Um, I just I just
133want to say it's so interesting to see like the whole district LCAP and then Little Elkrove Chartermy's LCAP. It's it's it's just you're you're a bit of a unicorn. I'm going to use my my daughter used that term about something. I thought that's what it is. It's they're just different and there's a place for you and I appreciate you explaining the differences and why why your issues are this and comparing it to what Mark had said about the district itself. It's it's very interesting. I I appreciate the um the report. Thank you so much. You're very welcome. And I will definitely be showing my children the clip of this meeting because I said I'm a unicorn once to somebody and I get teased non-stop by my children for it. So, thank you, Mr. Yay. Well,
134I must say you're a unicorn, too, then. So, that uh I'll be shown to your kid as well. Well, thank you for the presentation, Mark. Uh really well done. Uh congratulation on an improvement. Appreciate the hard work. um to you and the team. U the only thing that I will touch on is um slide number 19 on uh develop and refine college and career program. Um that is uh great. I would love to see um a to that then that would be uh life readiness and that will be uh in the category of of financial literacy uh leadership uh public speaking those will be additional categories that I would highly recommend it because you know too often our kids go out and they're um adult adult world and we it we call it the real
135world, right? and they don't have the financial um the lead leadership uh skills and public speaking and those are um the core um life skill sets and I think that we set them for failure or set them for trial and error and uh you know um some make out of the hole some don't you know and uh I I just um very happy that you have that in there and especially the refine and so you know refine in in in addition as well right and I think that that will help the kids so much and I'll give this example you know for folks that learn in well folks that uh took the typing class right and I was one of them you know you use 10 of your fingers to type right and once you
136learn that I don't ever remember using a single finger from you know my left hand or right hand or either hand just typing uh and I've seen folks who didn't learn how to type you know I've done that and still doing that and so my point is once you have the education once you have the skill set you would do it a lot more efficient and that's including financial uh literacy uh skill set or finance uh area uh leadership area and public speaking area as well. Nobody's perfect, but once you have the basic skill set, you will do better. So, thank you. All right. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Davis. Thank you for the presentation. Um, I had just a couple uh questions and statements. on page 12, uh, the eighth grade's participate, 8th to
1379th grade participation on the PSAT, you had a really drastic hike one year to 86 and then it drop back down to 69. Have you looked into what caused that or Yeah, for the for the middle school especially, um, I think some of that was marketing. I think one of those that year that was really high it was PSAT for all and and it was one of those things where it was just during the school day and then I think some of the marketing got out that we can opt out. So we're seeing more and more opt outs from it where families are opting out from participating even though we are paying for it as a school site. So trying to get to the heart of it as to why they're opting out is is
138the work we need to do. Okay. There's just a significant Yeah, absolutely. We saw that too drop. Um on page 17, just wanted to say you did a great job return reducing the middle school dropout rate from 6.52% to 0% over a three-year period. I imagine that took a lot of work there. Um and on page 21, um the percent of students attending schoolwide activities went down from 81% to 51%. And you addressed that you're looking into clubs and things like that. Um it's just I'm happy you're looking into that because students need to feel they're part of the community, but those are steadily dropping numbers and I think those are important to look at. Yeah, thank you very much. Uh one of those I will say from 21 to 22 I think some of
139that is a change in accounting for the students that are participating. Uh last year we've implemented the we used the fivestar system to to log students in when they come to activities. So, I think our numbers are much more accurate now than they may have been in the past where it was going through lists of students and counting students that have attended something on campus. Thank you. Yeah, thank you, Miss Baldwin. I uh just had a quick um clarification and I don't actually know that it was pertaining to slide 19, but I think I um recalled that you had me No, not slide 19. I'm sorry I didn't write down the slide, but um you had mentioned that Elkrove Charter it provides for credit recovery but not accelerated opportunities to graduate early. Is that correct?
140That's correct. Okay. So students typically could for a variety of reasons may choose to come to Elkrove Charter, but one of them could be that they need to that recovery, but they're not necessarily coming there to graduate early. Well, so just to back up, that was specific that comment was specific to our summer school program. Okay. That we're not allowing students to accelerate during the summertime. Yes, students do come to Elro Charter to accelerate. All right. Thank you, Miss Moore. Uh thank you for explaining uh some of the metrics. It it seems that your student population is um unique, which you know accounts for some of the numbers. Um so I that that would be my only concern but um your explanation makes sense that that some of those will be changing as students come
141and go. So that was my only question. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Vargas. Uh I appreciate the presentation. I as a as a small school it is it is a struggle especially with the data because it's you know even small fluctuations turn into big fluctuations in the data. Um but I I appreciate that your efforts are really showing in a lot of different places and that you have clearly put in a lot of time and effort into thinking about you know why certain changes happen and how you can uh how you can mitigate or ameliate them. So uh really appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Z, I want to say that I want to say thank you for putting together the presentation. And it was definitely very interesting to see how a how our
142charter academy compares to the on the ALCAP A L A L A L A L A L A L A L A L A L A LCAP report compares to the district as a whole because in the in the um report the the numbers are very very small compared to the um districtwide LCAP report. And I also just had a question regarding the dropout rate for um high school and middle school for when students drop out. You mentioned in earlier in your presentation, it could be due to other reasons such as wanting to go to a program in for example at Toby Johnson or at another high school. Does that affect the dropout rate as well? Yeah. No. Good. Good question. The dropped out rate is actually a fairly complicated uh calculation of students that
143enroll and then don't ever enroll in another school within California that reports to the state system. And there's more nuances to that. So, if a student leaves us to enroll in another school in our district or in our county or even in the state, they shouldn't show up as a dropout. It's those students that don't ever enroll anywhere else or again that then they're going to be considered the dropout. Hard thing with that though is we often have students that leave us to go out of state or to a private school or even out of the country and they may still be enrolled in a program. But the time and energy we the office staff puts into trying to track them down and they often will tell us, "Oh no, we moved to Colorado and
144I now go to a school in Colorado." We need to receive actual verification from that school in Colorado in the forms of a record request or something of that nature for us to upload it to the state system for them to be cleared from the dropout list. Thank you. Thank you very much. I think you answered all my questions throughout that. All right. Thank you for being here tonight. Um I think we're going to take a quick comfort break. We can be back within 10 minutes. Board. Thank you. Absolutely. Especially I don't have David. his hand. All we're waiting for is that I don't know. Yeah, go to Absolutely. Not that I can find himself at me. Have we anything after Dave Gordon in our district? Named anything on the list. I don't know what
145the process. Yeah. Yeah, we're not. Yeah. And before it is an opt. I was just going to go, you know, they have a naming committee. Oh, yeah. But but they they didn't come up with anything really that they liked. So again, maybe she did research ahead of time. He gave it to him. I mean, he he was our superintendent for 11 years. what he's been at prayer about to retire grandkids into Stone Lake and Franklin. So, we'll see. Isn't it pretty? It's crazy. Thank you for getting back. Going to start our public hearing slaction items. Number one, energy service contract solar for Aubber Ranch Elementary School. Dr. coats just one night. Oh, there we are. All right. Well, thank you so much. Um, we are here. It's exciting. Um, we're making progress on Arbor Ranch
146Elementary School. Um, tonight we are proposing to implement a solar energy generation project at Arbor Ranch Elementary School through the procurement and installation of photovalttaic or PV systems. Government Code section 4217.10 authorizes the district to enter into energy savings contracts and related agreements to further the state's energy efficiency goals. In compliance with recent building code requirements for new construction, the district must provide the required PV equipment and infrastructure for the new Arbor Ranch Elementary School. We recommend entering into a energy services agreement with site logic uh incorporated under which site logic IQ will provide and install the PV equipment and deliver associated solar energy generation services. After analysis, staff is projecting the project cost will be approximately 2.2 million and the cost of the project will be offset by anticipated savings over the period of
14722 years. Pursuant to government code section 4217.12, the board is required to conduct a public hearing and make specific findings prior to the approval of the contract. Notice of the public hearing was provided at least two weeks in advance of this meeting. And resolution 55 includes the required findings and determinations. So, at this time, I'd ask that you open the public hearing. Thank you. I'd like to open the public hearing and ask if there are any blue cards related to this item. Madame President, there are no blue cards related to this item. Seeing that, I will close the public comment and call for a motion to adopt resolution number 55 approving an agreement with Site Logic IQ, Inc. for the purpose of construction and installation. Oh, a photo voluatic solar generation systems for the Arbor
148Ranch Elementary School. So moved. Second. Moved by Miss Baldwin, seconded by Mr. Yang. All in favor? I. Any opposed? Thank you. Thank you. Our next item is a consideration and public notice of Elkrove Unified School District's initial proposal to Elkrove Education Association regarding collective bargaining for the 2026 2027 school year. Miss Buckmaster. Good evening, President Alani, Superintendent Riley, board members, Miss Avalos, staff and community. Pursuant to government code section 3547, the following are stipulated for negotiations between a bargaining unit and the district. The district's initial proposal is officially presented at a public meeting of the governing board for public notice and a public hearing is conducted to receive public input regarding the district's initial proposal. The board of education therefore is asked to open a public hearing and receive comments on EGUSD's initial proposal to
149EGA for the 20 2026 20227 collective bargaining. Then to close the public hearing after listening to comments and after closing the public hearing take action to accept EGUSD's initial proposal. Thank you. Are there I would like to open the public hearing and ask if there are any blue cards related to this item. Madame President, there are no blue cards related to this item. I will close the public comment now, close the public hearing and call for a motion to accept Elkrove Unified School District's initial proposal to Elkrove Education Association regarding collective bargaining for the 2026 2027 school year. So move second. Moved by Mr. Yang, seconded by Mr. Vargas. All in favor? I I opposed. Motion passes unanimously. Our next item is consideration and public notice of Elkrove Education Associations initial proposal to the Elkrove
150Unified School District regarding collective bargaining for the 2026 2027 school year. Miss Buckmaster. Okay. Similarly, pursuant to government code section 3547, the following are stipulated for negotiations between EGA and the district. EGA's initial proposal is officially presented at a public meeting of the governing board for public notice and a public hearing is conducted to receive public input regarding EGA's initial proposal. Therefore, the board of education is asked to open a public hearing and receive comments on EGA's initial proposal to EGUSD for the 2026 2027 collective bargaining. Close the public hearing after listening to comments and after closing the public hearing, take action to accept EGA's initial proposal. Thank you. I'd like to open the public hearing and ask if there are any blue cards related to this item. Madame President, there are no blue cards
151related to this item. I'll close the public hearing and call for a motion to accept Elkrove Education Association's initial proposal to Elkrove Unified School District regarding collective bargaining for the 2026 2027 school year. So moved. Second. Moved by Mr. Vargas, seconded by Mr. Yang. All in favor? I I any opposed? Seeing none. Passes unanimously. Thank you. Our next item is an action item. Consider approval of revisions to board bylaw 9250 titled RE rem I should have checked these earlier. Mooneration, reimbursement and other benefits consistent with AB1390 and law. Mr. Riley. Thank you, President Albiani. I was going to ask Mr. Seridi for technical assistance, but uh Mr. Singh beat him to it. So, thank you. So, the presentation will be brief and I do have Karen. Oh, it's um there's another one. Thank you. And
152we do have Karen Rzendes on hand from Lozano Smith if there are any questions. Um so I'll I'll skip the title since President Albiani so aptly read the title. Um so there's just two slides here in the presentation. One is um the first slide here is uh capturing based on our conversation from February 3rd uh where we feel we have agreement related to the implementation of AB1390. Uh one would raise the monthly stipen from $750 to $3,000 per month. And you can ste see the um the fiscal impact there reproduced from our our presentation from last meeting. Um in addition um and this is a slight adjustment based on the conversation. It was a deviation from the original recommendation from the subcommittee, but um throughout the course of discussion last meeting felt like there was
153consensus there that um there would be language added to the board bylaw 9250 that would consider up to a 5% increase uh beginning in July 2028. And then that that consideration would cycle through every two years moving forward. And then the last piece that we felt we had consensus was the um implement or introduction of a stipen for our student board member of $400 per month based on attendance at the regular board meetings only with resolution authority for up to three excused absences for the student. So that's where we felt we had agreement. Um the second slide and last slide are um remaining considerations where there there wasn't consensus and likely going to precipitate conversation this evening. Um the first was increasing the maximum compensated mis meetings from 2 to three with board resolution required.
154The second piece was defining hardship uh making an amendment to board bylaw 9250 to add unavoidable work conflict to the definition of hardship. And then lastly was um with the anticipated increase of our ADA to exceed 60,000 um the implementation of the maximum monthly amount per AB1390 which would be an increase to 4500 in July 2026 for the 2627 school year provided that threshold is exceeded. And there you have the approximate cost there for the increase to that stipen. So, at this juncture, I'll turn it over to President Albiani for further deliberation. Thank you. I thought breaking it out this way allowed us to um Does anyone have uh further comments or things they would like to do for recommendations in agreement? Or could we have a motion to approve recommendations in agreement? Oh, I'm
155sorry. Are there any blue cards to be read? Madame President, there are no blue cards on this item. Thank you. Um, okay. Anyone about recommendations and agreement? Did it Did we understand correctly we have agreement there? Agreement to Can you clarify what you're discussing or um slide two upon review, we felt we all felt we came to agreement on those three bullet points. Would anyone like to have further discussion on those three bullet points? I I have something to add. Um, and I discussed it with Mr. Riley in in our one-on-one, but I I forgot to make sure that it was on here, and I should have done that. Um, for the student board members, $400 per month based on attendance at regular board meetings, etc., their term is technically in in all the paperwork
156applying for student board member it says it their term is July 1 to June 30th. So um I know that 9 months was mentioned at the last meeting for them being paid 9 months but if their term is actually July 1 to June 30th I'm seeing 12 months there and I just wanted to clarify that before we went further. Okay. My understanding is based on attendance at regular board meetings. So, we have two board meetings a month, which would be $200 per month for per meeting. And if there was a month when we did not have a board meeting and they did not attend, they would not be paid. So, are we saying we never have board meetings in July or I'm trying to figure out what months we don't have board meetings? They don't
157attend board meetings once they graduate often. No, because but like Z will will will be done June 30th. So they they don't come to board meetings in June. No. Okay. Because I'm just saying that's what the term says. So I I want to know if if we need to clarify that with them that they know that they don't have to attend those board meetings. Madame President, that might I think in practical terms it's going to be nine months for the reasons that you said, right? Because they don't generally show up to our July or um May June meetings. Um this might be a separate conversation around setting expectations for our our student board members. Um, so the next time we're thinking about um the expectations, we can tell them. Um, you're not you're just as
158a reminder, you're not expected to show up to June or July meetings. Um, and we can decide at that time if we want to offer it. Um, and they would know that they'd be paid for it. Okay. I think that sticks with the $400 per month, $200 per meeting if they are here that we would be showing their time and if they want to do it. Okay. So, that's further for for for further down the road as far as putting it down on paper. Okay. Well, and if it's only June and July, there's 12 months minus two is 10. So, it' be 10 months. So, there's that big big numbers. No, it's good to be clear, but I think this language is saying for every meeting they come to, it's $200. Agreed. Yes. That make
159sense? Does that make sense? For a board member. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Then I'd like to go ahead and call for a motion to approve the recommendations on page number two. So moved. Second. Moved by Mr. Vargas, seconded by Mr. Yang. We'll go ahead and do a um have a motion. Was there any other discussion anyone wanted to have? Okay. So, um we'll do a roll call vote. Um I think I'm skipping myself in discussion. I have I think I've accepted the will of the board to go to $3,000, but I cannot um I think Miss Galvan made excellent points and I think they're something we should consider and I think we should even consider them larger more largely or more heavily when we move to the next page. I think um I felt like
160there were some very good um points made, but I I do think it changes the view of the board. And so um I I I just think and then um yeah, that's where I land. So um a roll call vote. Mr. Yang, I. Miss Davis. Miss Baldwin, I. Miss Moore. Hi, Mr. Vargas. Hi, Mr. Zong. Hi, Miss Ballerini. Hi. And I'll go down as a no. 161. Thank you. We're going to move on to rain considerations. We're going to take these bullets one by one. Um, increase maximum compensated missed meetings from two. So when you take a note, are you going to accept the payment? Um, at the current moment I owe the school district for my healthcare. So yeah, I probably will accept. Okay. Part of payment. Just wanted to clarify. I also give
161away about 350 books a week to kids in the district. And so I plan to support a charity that supports our students with it. No, I get it. I mean, we all No, you're going to ask personally, you know, give out. I'm just I'm just want to clarify it, you know, that's all. Yeah. And I clear to give I plan to give it out to the students in our district. Appreciate it. After I pay off my bills. Um item number one on page three, increase maximum compensated missed meetings from 2 to three with board resolution required. May I have a motion? May I say something? You know what we're going to do? We're just going to take them one by one with a motion and a second, then a discussion, and then a vote. Okay.
162I will motion to approve. Okay. I will second a motion by Mr. Vargas, a second by Valerine. Okay. Um, hey, I'm sorry. I There was just a couple things there. I I miss what you were what we pushing the motion for, but we're going to take these bullets one by one. And I said we'll take a motion to do them and then we'll take a second and then we'll have a discussion. Okay. Got it. And then we'll vote on them. We'll do a roll call vote. So we'll get them in line. So miss did anybody want to speak to the motion? I would. Oh yes, Miss Moore. Uh I I don't think it's appropriate that we're changing uh the comp the maximum compensated miss meetings from two to three especially in the context of considering
163uh giving ourselves a raise. Okay. Anybody else? I would like to ask a question and maybe Mr. Rosendez could answer this. Would um emergency Zoom meetings be considered meetings that we would be compensated for if we or non-compensated for if we missed them because of work? So, you're asking if an emergency Brown Act exemption meeting would be Yes, it would be one of the meetings that the board would to consider if they took action to approve this particular bullet. Okay. Thank you. So, for example, make your question clearly, if we were paid $3,000 a month and we have to have an emergency meeting, then our Miss Rosendez, then it would turn into $1,000 per meeting. Correct. It depends on the quantity of meetings you hold in that month. So, if you have emergency meetings, special
164meetings, regular meetings, all those meetings would be factored in, which is different. for the regular board from the student board member action that the board just took. Okay. I think you missed the beginning of mine though. But if we have two regular meetings and we had one emergency meeting, then we would we would assume that is three meetings for the month and it would be divided by three. Yes. If you have no other meetings. Yes. There you go. Thank you. I just wanted No, I just want to make sure we're all good. Official meetings. Yes. Thank you. All right. Um any other comments? Well, I'd like to um touch on that just for clarification purposes because in the past our um emergency meeting sometimes through Zoom too, right? Right Karen? Um we did during COVID
165in certain specific times. So, um with that said, we not going to have any Zoom meeting going forward, right? It it's going to depend on the circumstances at that time. So if there was a pandemic or if there's another situation, fire, flood, other serious natural disaster, there could be meetings that happen in that manner. Again, um but again, we're speaking hypothetically, but is it possible? Okay. But okay, gotcha. Just just want to clarify that. Thank you. Sure. Anybody else? All right, we'll vote on um we had a motion, a second, and discussion. So um we're voting on a motion to increase maximum compensated miss meetings from 2 to three with board resolution required and we're starting with Miss Davis. I miss Baldwin. No. No. Yes, Z. Yes. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm a no. Miss Ballerini.
166Yes. Mr. Yang. Hi. Okay, that passes 53. Our next item, um, call for a motion to define hardship to include an unavoidable unavoidable work conflict. May I have a motion? Move to approve. Moved by Mr. Vargas. Seconded by Mr. Yang. Is there any discussion on defining hardship to include an unavoidable work conflict? Miss Moore? Yes. Uh, since our last meeting, I I clarified with Mr. Riley. Mr. Riley, in the the original policy regarding this, we did not have that verbiage. Correct. That um that unavoidable work conflict was allowed as a as a reason to miss a meeting. Is that correct? Correct. The in reviewing the current bylaw, uh, illness is is the only um reason currently. Okay. I just wanted to make that clear because um we are increasing our the maximum compensated miss meetings
167allowed from 2 to three and then also adding in unavoidable work conflicts again in the context of giving ourselves a raise and I don't think that's appropriate. So I just wanted to clarify that since um that that the correct information wasn't given at the last meeting. Thank you for that clarification. Is there anyone else like to speak to this? I was just curious um if the if there's like a cap on unavoidable work conflicts that could be used as a hardship for missing a meeting. I'm sorry. I I don't um understand. Did you understand her question, Mr. Vargas? I think you're asking whether we could cap the use of unavoidable work conflicts. I mean, there there is one. It's three. the wood. We just voted on it. So, yeah. So, you can So, this is
168what we did is in No, no, we we're not adding, right? There's it's capped at three, right? Um the the two or the now the three meetings that you missed. You still have to have an excuse in order to get paid for it, right? And that's that used to be just illness. That was the only acceptable excuse. And Karen can correct me. I see her nodding. So, I'm I'm in the right still so far. Um, so it used to be that sickness was the only excuse you could use to take advantage of these three acceptable misses. Um, now what we're saying is that you can also use an unavoidable work conflict as a way to get paid for the for missing three meetings. Um, and the only point I will add to that is um,
169I think that it's important for everybody to remember that just because a board member misses a meeting doesn't mean they're not doing the work. all of us. I and I I won't speak for everybody, but I'm assuming and in I'm assuming that everybody when we have a meeting that we miss, we all go back and watch it. Um I go back and watch it and I'm still doing all of the work outside the meeting that we would normally do, right? I'm still reading all of the packets. I'm still read going out and visiting schools. Um you know, the all of all that this does is that we essentially get credit for having shown up to a meeting. We still do all of the background work um that is required of a board member or at
170least I do. All right. Anybody else? Miss Moore. One other question I had for Mr. Riley was that um this if we if we move forward with this including an unavoidable work conflict that would just be an honor system situation, correct? Where someone could just say I have an unavoidable work conflict. Yeah, I'll look to Karen to confirm, but I I don't know that we require a doctor's note if someone's ill currently. We don't um in the new language of the law, it defines hardship as whatever the Karen, can you get closer to the mic, please? Maybe just sit down and maybe just sit down. Sorry, no offense, but we can't hear you. I have I've heard that before. It's not how I meant it. Thank you. So in the statute um hardship is defined
171as whatever the board defines it to be and each time a hardship is used the board must actually act upon a resolution approving it. So even though you just approved the three days for each of those hardship requests the board will have to adopt a resolution at a board meeting in open session to approve that hardship. So, while there is no medical note requirement now, um that is something that the board could consider or some other evidence of a work hardship. That's kind of the check and balance. It it it's usually on a consent agenda, but it is on there and it's it's list the person's reasons. That's how it's been done in the past. Okay. Anybody else? All right. Then we will call um we've had a first and a second for a motion
172to define hardship to include unavoidable work conflict. We'll start um with Miss Bowwin. Yes. No. Miss Moore. Mr. Vargas. Yes. Mr. Zong. Yes. Uh I am a yes. Miss Ballerini. Yes. Mr. Yang. Hi. and Miss Davis. Yes. Thank you. Our last item is to call for a motion to accept the proposed edits to board to BB bylaws 9250. If EGUSD's ADA is over 60,000 in the 2025 2026 school year, the maximum monthly amount will increase to $4,500 in July 2026 for the 2026 2027 school year. I want to propose to amend the motion. Uh if we go to 60,1 we increase to $500. If we go to $65,000 and one, we increase another $500 to $4,000. and if it reaches over 70,000 to add another $500 to be $4,500. And I have a second. Could
173you repeat those numbers, please? 60,01 would be an increase of $500. 65,01 would be an increase of $500. And 70,1 would be an increase of $500. May I have a second? I'll second that. Thank you. So, we'll open that for discussion. Madame President, can I just confirm Karen? Can we do that? Yes, the board can do that. I have a question. Th this whole proposal, the way AB 1390 was written was that when you hit certain checkpoints, you move forward, but also when you decrease, you move backwards. Are you proposing that if we have did this that we would move backwards if our numbers dropped also because that's a safety net that the S the government put in here that we stayed within certain numbers moving back and forth that it was all dependent on
174ADA. Yeah, I I think um when I read the the law, it says um well, I think $36,000 for a part-time job is barrier removing, which was my goal, which which I was a goal I agreed with. Um I think it's a stip I'm just going to kind of make a statement and it'll be in there. Okay. It's a stipend. Um, it's not a salary. No one in education gets paid enough for the job you do. And I will say that to you right now. Um, when I reflected on the idea of jumping $1,500 a month, which was $18,000 a year because the state said we could, I just it couldn't sit with me. Um, I think it's obvious how I feel about this, but I believe in our it was very obvious how the
175board felt after I was here. And so finding a compromise was the right way to go. Um, and the law reads a sum not to exceed $4,500 in any month. When I look up the law, it's very short. And those are the exact words used in it. So I um at the same point I made last time I think when we go to you definitely are at the top and when we reach over that to jump to the top of the next level does not make sense to me. And so to break that into pieces where we jump makes sense. And then if we would go down we would come down with it just as as it says. And so it would be a I think there's interest in having it be done automatically and
176having the discussion finished tonight. And I and I think that provides a framework to do that. So that's that's how why I made that substitute motion. Well, I believe if you go through the law clearly, it took out the reference of it being a stipen and it being a and calls it a salary now. And I think that brings into that it is a full-time job. There's not hardly a day that I'm not going somewhere or doing something. And we have others on this. And in fact, this isn't going to help me financially. This hurts me financially. But as I mentioned in the previous board meeting to bring people into this position that want to run for this position in my area financially they would not do it less. They they can't work full-time and
177do this also. It's almost impossible. We've had board members on this deis that have had to to quit their job because of the responsibilities of what we do up here. I will be losing my entire social security income if this is approved. So that's why I'm saying I'm not doing this for my finances. I'm doing this for the future of our board. that all we're going to have on this board is people who are either financially privileged or have the ability, the freedom to do this without pay. We're cutting out entire swast of our district. They can't afford to do this if we don't raise this pay up. That's why I'm willing to lose money on my side to put this into effect for the people who live in my area. And I think it
178needs to be done how they wrote it because then this gives us the ability to back it all up too to move forward. We just happen to be at a point where we're at the top of one and moving into another. That that that was unfortunate timing, but it clearly calls for that. And to like I said, to have people in my area do this, they can't afford to. And it if you'll look back at our previous boards year after year after year have been people who have either been retired and are comfortable or are financially privileged and comfortable and it takes out all of the people that are not to serve on this board and I don't think that's fair. Mr. Y. Yeah. Um, I think Susan make a great point and I was
179in that thought, you know, all alone and I support that because that's the reality of, you know, um, a a typical working person, right? I mean there there is necessity in life and that's food, housing, uh healthcare, transportation and uh you could be so passionate to do something but if you cannot um meet those demands in life, you you cannot uh do what you love. And to her point, I agree, you know, um I think that this is in in the scope of, you know, looking at individual board members across the state. Um you could say it could be selfishness, you know, for folks who vote yes, but as far as, you know, opening, you know, the pool of candidates going forward beyond you and I and we, right, that will open it up for
180sure, 100%. right? We will have, you know, younger candidates running for, you know, school board going forward, right? Uh we see it for um council members even in Congress, you know, because yeah, it is a um public servant role. We get it, right? I mean, I ran for this not because for the money, for sure. Uh I I ran it because I serve I want to serve uh where I graduate, you know, and uh to serve um the community that and the student that needed, you know, um a a school board like myself who understand their struggles, their needs, right? So it's not the money, but I think we are doing something uh according to the law that is promoting, you know, opportunity for other folks. So, so you could look at both way if
181we take the money we are selfish but if we don't take the money we also being selfish as well right so it depends how you look at it right but the reality is we are in a uh board that buying the law you know that's the reality of truth right that's why we here so uh with that said you know it a change um that deal with money in a situation that we are losing um some uh staff um based on you know the eser fund and and so forth. uh it's hard to to deal with that reality you know but um I think we are making this decision not just for ourself but for future um candidates like again going to open the pool for um whole bunch of other candidates to to run
182for it. So um I understand where you're coming from and I support that. You want to speak? I kind of have a clarifying question. So if we go with your 60,0001, $500, 65,0001, another 500, 70,0001, another 500, are we throwing out the window um up to 5% every other year? No. Or is that also part of it? I I think we've already passed that into our board bylaw. We already voted on that, so no, it wouldn't be. Okay. All right. Yes, sir. One more thing. And honestly, like I don't know if this is uh um part of the law. If you vote no and if you don't want to take the money, you don't have to take the money to prove your point. I don't know if that's part of the law. Um we we
183don't have to take the money. That was in the original um that was in the presentation last week. I mean, right. So, that's within the discretion of the board member to that. So, so to that point, you know, if you truly believe that, hey, you know, you're not taking the money to make a point because you truly believe it, you know, you have every right to take that vote, right? And honor that vote, you know, Mr. Vargas, um, Mr. Riley, do we know how at our current growth, how fast would we hit 65? Do we think we'll hit 65 ADA? That's a difficult one to I my dropped my crystal ball yesterday and it's not working as well. Um yeah, it's very it's very difficult to to project. Um, the only reason I ask is
184because if we did if we had a situation where let's say we did the up to 5%. And let's say the budget turns around, everybody's happy. All of our labor partners are getting 5% or more. Um, our our labor partners get 10% over the next two years. We're only going to get 5%. So, you're gonna get double what we get. Um, yeah, I heard that. Uh but anyway, let's just you know so I you know I want to I want to be positive. Um, so we're going to be going we're going to be increasing every year. And so I feel like the complication then becomes so we're saying so we're going to go from let's assume that you know we hit 65,000 in 10 years. That's probably fast but let's assume 10 years. Um, if
185we've done our up to 5% 10 times, right, that's a certain amount of money. Are we saying that we then go add 500 to that or go up to basically true up to the the next one? So like four so at 65,000 let's say we've done the 5% um you know we're now at you know 3750. Do we true up to the 4,000 or do we add 500 to the 3750? I don't know the point. That's what I'm thinking. And I'm also thinking like because we're only allowed to do so much. We're gonna reach a point where we're only allowed to do so much adding because we're going to hit that 4500 mark and so we can we're eventually only going to be able to do 5% increases beyond that. So it can't be So
186would you prefer it to be phrased to add $500 at those amounts? If it was phrased as add $500, we're going to get there pretty fast. is just the point that I guess I'm making. If it was true up, it might be a little slower, but it was add 500 will get there. We'll get to the maximum. I guess it's not fast fast, but in the grand scheme of, you know, boards, the maximum range is 60,0001 to 125,000, 250. There's a lot of space in there. And I'm asking that we play in the space and not jump to the top. Yeah. And 70 and 70,000 is not a bad number. I'm just kind of thinking out loud because I hadn't thought about this before. Um, you know, it's not an unworkable number and we're going
187to get there. I think we all assume we're going to get there um eventually. And I think we're probably going to get there faster than we think. Um, I don't know if if I can try to help with your question and I'll look to Karen to confirm. My understanding of Miss Albiani's recommendation would be adding $500 to the base which would then be eligible for a 5% increase because this option would really fall under option two where the board sets a stipen amount that's not automatic as it is in option one where you cross that threshold and you go to the max 4500. um this would fall under option two and you would be setting a stipen amount that even with this proposal adding 500 to the base would still be eligible for a 5%
188increase every two years. Is that your understanding Karen? That's correct. So the 500 wouldn't play into the 5% annual limit because that would fall under option two. you'd be setting the base stipen that then would be eligible for an additional 5%. I still think it's more complicated than that, isn't it, though? Because once you hit once you hit 45,000, we can't do we can't just say we're going to add $500 because that would violate the 5% rule, right? You wouldn't add 500 to 4500. You you max out at 4500. Yeah. As a base. But the five 5%. So is that the rule? Is it I mean because right now you could go to let's say we were 62,000 ADA right now and you were proposing to go to 4,500. Now you're eligible every year to
189go up 5%. Up to 5%. So that amount just keeps growing. With this proposal, it just it slows that growth towards that max. So I think you'd still fall under acceptable parameters. So is what you're saying then that the base amount would go up by $500 and each 5% assuming it's 5% that was then on top of that is fair game. So my guess my question is okay Michael's question is can I can I try go for it. Okay. Um We agree. Um I I think it's very clear we're going to break 60,000 this year. This is this is like a no-brainer. So now that this this stipen that we're actually voting on is $3,500. So we give our in two years we give what we've been giving 2% a year. I think 5%'s almost
190an obscene number to throw up in front of people's faces constantly. Let's say um so that would have been a $700 raise. No, that's not right. $70 raise. What's 2% of 3500? $70. Yes, $70. So now you've risen to 3570. And when we hit 65,01, I am saying our salary goes to 4,000. I don't think there's a time when your 2%s are going to pass your number jump and then there's a chance to go down. Okay. And then so they're so they're posts. That answers my question. Does that because like what I'm what I think I'm getting at is that Yeah, you were being complicated with like this then do we save this and add it to that then we go to this? It's okay. lower brain. And essentially what you're saying is that um
191if we never hit, you know, 65,000, we're just going up and up and up our 5%. If when we hit 65,000, we're essentially erasing the 5% and just adding 500 and jumping to 4,000. All of the previous 5% increase, jumping to $48,000. Yeah. Jumping to four. Okay, that makes sense. That was my question. Okay, Miss Moore. Uh, I don't have any questions. I in support of your motion. I think it's a reasonable motion. That's it. Thank you, Miss Bowwin. Yes. I think that we're getting right back to what our um when we initially started conversations about this that it is just awkward um to have to have this conversation. But that's what we're charged with. And I do agree with Susan's um point that Miss Davis's point that this will allow uh for you know
192a different kind of leadership and that is unique. And a lot of work has been put into kind of coming up with these figures and taking into account large districts, small districts, and giving us the opportunity to decide how we move forward. But either way we look at it, we can kick the can. We can make it more complicated. But at the end of the day, if this is going to reduce a barrier for this process for a new kind of leadership, I am all for that. So, however we decide to do it, um that is what I think is the most important piece here. And I just don't know that um trying to come up with creative ways to appease to you know, a group that is very, you know, this is very hard
193for to hear us have this conversation. I just don't know that it's going to achieve a whole lot. And so, um, I really just feel like the conversation's good and I appreciate it, but it, you know, it really comes down to those very specific things that we value and what this could mean for the future of leadership that sits on this board and um, the people that I would hope to see, you know, serve in these leadership roles that we have not historically seen. So with that, those are my comments. Mr. Vargas, I just wanted to add one thing. Um, you know, I I appreciate this conversation. I appreciate the idea. Um, it's really interesting and I'm still not 100% sure where I want to go on that. Um, but I think one point I
194want to make because I think it gets overlooked a lot is um, that, you know, we are acknowledging that this is an increase. And one thing I want to acknowledge that we heard that this is a significant increase um and one thing I want to acknowledge that we heard from you know not just our labor partners um you know but other members of the community um is that this is is that we have a responsibility um now and I don't I don't think we ever didn't have this responsibility but we really have a responsibility after this increase um to show the value that that we bring to the community and the value that we bring to the district. Um, and I think it's easy for people sometimes to miss that because we are just seven
195of us and we can't be everywhere all the time. Um, but the we are most visible when we're on this deis. Um, to, you know, because we're in one space where people can see us and people have immediate access to us. Um, but I think it's important for us to now take really seriously our responsibility because our role in the district is to be a liazison with the community. Um, you know, we are that very special, you know, um, group of people within the district where we are accountable to someone else, right? Everyone else in the district is accountable to one person, the person that we hire to make everybody accountable to them. We are accountable to the entire community. Uh and because of that, we have a very special role in the district, which
196is to be out there doing things, out there at school districts, at community events, at places where we're going to be available to parents, for them to, you know, tell us what they need, to tell us what their student needs, to yell at us if necessary, right? To pro, we are that sounding board for them. We are that um we are that important piece for them. Um you know we are their entry point into the community or into the into the district sometimes um because they have run into a wall with a principal or a teacher or something is just not working right and we are that safety valve that allows them um you know to to be heard and we can sometimes we we can often fix a lot of problems um because of
197our position. And so I think that it is, you know, somebody said this the other night when I was when when they were talking to me about this issue is that we have a responsibility now uh you know to prove our value and you know to prove that we are worth this investment because it is an investment that is different right the value I mean you look at the um the approximate cost um you know that's a salary right that is a salary plus benefits and you know if you look at the 3500 that's a salary plus benefits that's not nothing um you know that is that one AVID coordinator that we were not able to keep right there there's a real cost here and I think that you know it is now our responsibility
198to say we are worth that cost we are worth we have that value we bring that value to the district and to show it every day because I think all of us do you know I I've seen of all of my colleagues some of whom I have you know very ideological differences with you know I have seen them show up to campuses show up for kids show up to talk to teachers and so the value is there it is now incumbent upon us to prove it and show it particularly now um you know as we move forward. So I just want to I want to acknowledge that in this conversation because I it has a I know it has a tendency to get lost as we have these conversations and all of us have been
199now been talking about this for two meetings um you know so we are exhausted and you know and rehashing um you know arguments that we made last time um and just doing all the things uh and I and I wanna I want to be clear that we hear that and you know we accept that that is our responsibility going forward. So anyway, Mr. Zong, did you have anything you want to add? Yes, Susan. Um, I just wanted to remind everybody that this has been worked over and worked over and worked over by the assembly and the senate downtown. This has been discussed for a couple years. um they worked in the number started at the 5% and I know I'm going over things I said last year meeting but they even tried it with just
200the cost of living and at the cost of living increased from 1984 to now the $3,000 would have been 6500 and the $4,500 amount would have been $12,000. This is not a raise that even accounts for the cost of living for that entire 42 years period. I think we're going off into the weeds because we're not it's not a comfortable decision or an easy decision to make. Some of the people on this day might need it more than others, but our community needs to have this out there for them. Someone had had sent me a statement um that I just want to read just one paragraph of it because it stood out to me. Said, "Let us build systems that welcome leadership from every corner of our community. Let us reduce financial barriers. Let us
201acknowledge the immense workload of serving a district the size of EGUSD and ensure that those are willing to take that those are willing to take on the responsibility are not filtered out before they even begin. Democracy works best when it works for everyone. And if we don't have things in place, we end up with board members that serve two and three and four terms without anybody running against them when it's not in the best interest of our district. We need to have reasons for people to step up and the ability to do the job. And especially from our areas of my area, Sean's area, even Michael's part of Michael's area, we have people a large amount of title one schools. That means our children live in poverty. Those parents can't afford to step up and
202do this job, but we cannot continue to be led by people of financial privilege or time privilege. We need to have all of our community represented. And that's my final say. So, thank you. Okay. I I think just as we came to last time, um we um I think I have a very different take on this. Um I think $36,000 for a part-time job with benefits is barrier removing. I don't I've known board members that don't go somewhere every day and do an excellent job on this board. And I've known board members that have the time and interest to go everywhere every day and have and and do an excellent job. And I think this vote will change the board and and I think that's what really concerns me. I think it was made, Miss
203Galvan said it very clearly and I think that as much as this will open up who wants to be on the board, um it will also I I think you we we will need to take there will need to be great care taken not to blur the lines between advisory and daily and daily functions as in our CSBA best practices. I think um I think the level of expectation put on this board will be different. I um I'm I'm baffled at the bargaining unit partners silence on this matter and I'm concerned how this will come back when we go to bargain. Um I have a lot of concerns. Um, and I know you can do this job well and have a job. I I think Mr. Yang does a good job at this job. I
204think Miss Cherris Espinosa was a single mom who did this job very well. I believe getting paid $36,000 a year would have helped her immensely. Um, I'm I'm not sure that jumping to the top um sends any messages of of um of seeing someone else's point, but it's obvious we have very different points. So, I think I've said all I need to. I offered an amended thing and I'd like to take a vote on it. I'll say one more thing. Mhm. I just want to add one more thing about um working as a school board every day. I know that whenever I step out of my house, I put on that hat. That's the responsibility of behave like a school board where is he it's respectable as a community uh servant uh as a leader
205um as a as a collaborator to help the community to be better. We have that responsibility rather we go to a school site um rather we meeting at the dice here or talking to people on the phone or not doing anything just walking to a supermarket. I think that for me personally I wear that hat every single time when I walk out of of my house. Not to pump on my chest, hey I'm a school board member. No, that's not it. is that I have a responsibility to represent the people that vote me in to serve in this seat. And that uh it's it's a lot of work. It's a lot of um dedication. And you know, to Susan's point, you know, I serve um Valley High and um yeah, we got title one school
206there. Uh we got folks that uh struggle, you know, to make ends meet. And yeah, I do too. Want to see uh mothers or fathers who wants to uh you know um run for my seats in the next uh you know 3 years when it comes up. Uh I don't know if I'm going to rerun or run again. I don't know yet. Right. But I do want to see, you know, more candidates to run for it because they want to be a part of um the table that make decision for a large school district that will have impact on their kids and other kids that they care dearly about. And I care dearly about that's why I ran um you know five years ago and I ran you know last um year. So yeah, I
207just wanted to say that hey we do work every day at least I do every time and you know the longer that you serve the more people know you the more you are hold accountable for it for sure. So just because you're on a you know pedestal doesn't mean like it's it's a you know automatic get the blessing. No, there's a lot of responsibility and if you screw up you know that blessing turn into a curse right? So we all know that and we try to do our best and that's why we watch what we say, we watch what we do and and and so forth because we are example um to a lot of people. So with that said, I just want to remind everybody that we do work every day. All right. So
208we I had an we have an amended motion on the floor. So that would be with the 60,0001 65,0001 and 70,0001 with pay scales of 3500 4,000 and 4,500. I think we all understand what that means now. We'll start with it is Miss Moore's turn. Um an I or no on that motion. I Mr. Vargas. Yes. Mr. Z on. Am I allowed to abstain or um Well, it's fine if you want to abstain. Yeah. Okay. I am an I. Miss Ballerini. It's a hard one. Um, I figured out I'm going to say no. Mr. Yang, no. Miss Davis, no. Miss Bowwin, no. Motion fails. Call for a motion to accept the proposed edits to board bylaw 9250 if EGUSD's ADA is over 60,000 in the 2025 2026 school year. The maximum monthly amount will increase
209to 4500 in July 2026 for the 2026 2027 school year. A second or I need a motion and a second motion. Motion by Miss Ballerini. Second. Second by Miss Davis. Is there any discussion? Madame President, just to clarify that this is the the language we discussed at the last meeting. Um so it would be that at any point that we go over 60,000 that we would go up to the maximum, right? So not just 25 26 but at any point that language correct. Oh yes but I I think we're we're should happen this year but in case I want us to be specific. Yes. So it would be in July 2026 to yes the same stuff. Any other comments? All right starting with Mr. Mr. Vargas. Yes. I'll skip you. Miss Ballerini. Yes. Mr. Yang.
210Yes. Miss Davis. Yes. Miss Bowwin. Yes. Miss Moore. No. And I am a no. So that is 52. Passes. We have no considerations of future agenda items and we will adjourn.