001Hello, greetings, good evening everyone. I like to call the regular meeting of Los Altos School District Board of Trustees to order. A recording and our broadcast of this meeting is being made at the direction of the board, which may capture images and sounds of those attending the meeting. If technical difficulties occur or persist, the meeting will continue without broadcasting. I'll now call the roll. Brian? Present. Stella? Here. Jim? Here. Brandon? Here. And I, Shelly Surkin, here as well. Um I am in attendance. Our students will lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Would any board members like to make a comment on
002tonight's agenda? Uh seeing none, do you have a motion to approve the agenda as presented? So moved. Thank you, Stella. Do we have a second? I'll second. Thank you, Jim. Motion to approve tonight's agenda as presented was made by Stella, seconded by Jim. All in favor, please say I. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Thank you. Motion passes unanimously. Closed session report, no action was taken in closed session tonight. Superintendent's actions. Yes, a few things tonight. Uh we are celebrating teacher and staff appreciation right now, so we've made our way around a few schools, more to go, um with a little ice cream fun. It's been really great to connect with people and just let them to how much we appreciate their hardwork. Um, as we close out this particular school year and um, I did include
003in your last weekly update. I hope you will be able to join us on the 13th in the afternoon at 3:45 at Egan where we will be celebrating our teacher and employee of the year. It's a great time where we recognize the folks selected by their peers across all nine schools and our district office team as well. So, that's a really fun event. If you can make it, we love to see you there. Uh, I did want to share that um, I had a meeting with Maureen Israel last week and then uh, who's the executive director of Herbalist Charter School then Shelly Sella and I met with their team to discuss future facility needs and we appreciate that collaboration that is ongoing with them. Um, Concerts begin this week. I believe Thursday we night we
004have Block and Friday at 1:00 we have Santa Rita. So, any concerts you're able to attend over the next 3 weeks, they happen it feels like almost every day. That is much appreciated and I know our kids have been our fifth and sixth graders and fourth graders have been working hard um, to prepare for their spring concert and it's an amazing time. If you don't if you haven't um, had the opportunity to attend a junior high concert, um, it's amazing. The just the difference in the growth that you see in students. Really fun. Um, it is hiring season right now. Want to thank Dr. Rogers back there and her team. We've had principals, um, but we are deep into hiring. We've hired lots of folks for next year and have just a couple of um,
005targeted openings happening right now. So, that's a fun time. We love welcoming new staff members and getting them acclimated to LESD. Um, and then lastly just wanted to share that we just completed our very first ever trial enrollment exchange for um seventh graders for next year. So, we sent out a notice to all current sixth graders and pre-registered seventh graders for next year who are out of the district to let them know of an opportunity where we're matching one for one if you were assigned to go to Block and you'd like to go to Egan, we'll find someone who's assigned to Egan who wants to go to Block. We'll match and go. Um, we had just about I can't remember 15 or 16 folks who want to swap. So, they will find out tomorrow. Spoiler
006alert. They're all going to be granted their exchange. So, that's exciting. Um, yeah. So, it's great. So, that's it for me tonight. Thank you. Alrighty. On to literally the best part of this meeting, our school presentations. And tonight we have Oak. Yeah. Thank you so much for inviting Oak. And as usual, we have students who are going to be presenting. Uh, today we have Miss Julia Pressman's sixth grade class. And I'm going to turn you over to them. Um I'm really going to let them do most of the talking. This is an idea and a project that came from them from an issue that they were experiencing in our class. And so, they're going to tell you about the process, how we kind of worked through it. Um, but this is I just want to
007let you know this is driven by them, something that they were experiencing that they wanted to change in the room. So, I'm going to let them take it away. Uh, before I do I was thinking maybe we could sit in the front just for easier transition between slides. That way you'll be right there. And introduce themselves when they begin. Yeah. They got that friend in there. They're this is all that. They've already scheduled that into their notes, so Um yeah, I think who's going up first? >> [clears throat] >> Hi, my Hi, my name is Elodie and I go to sixth grade at Oak. We use privacy boards when we have tests, which are quite often. These are tri- tri-fold like items that prevent each other us from copying off of our peers. These privacies
008were fine and in perfect condition before with no writing or holes. This was great because we could focus on our tests without any distractions. Hi, my name is Trinity and also a sixth grader. But after a while, the privacy boards were getting destructed. It was easier to notice because some students poked holes on the boards. It was distracting because we couldn't focus on a vandalized privacy boards while while working hard during a test. It first started with holes and then other things. Hi, Dad. My name is Ryan. Students initially used privacy boards in a supportive and appropriate way, giving brief encouraging messages such as "You got this" to motivate peers who would later use the boards during testing periods. Over time, some students um shifted away from the intended use by adding unrelated markings such
009as random numbers or doodles, while others caused minor damage by poking holes or altering the surface of the boards. These changes led to an increase in distractions during testing. Messages unrelated to the task, such as "I was here" and visible board damage drew attention away from assessments and reduced the effectiveness of the boards as a focus tool. Hello, my name is Arabella and I'm a sixth grader. We started off by using the design thinking protocol. We came up with many great ideas. For example, painting all the privacy boards one solid color, getting a whole new set, or just erasing the pencil marks and patching up the privacy boards. We eventually came to a consensus on one idea. That idea was to intentionally beautify the privacy boards and add inspirational and motivational sayings to them. This
010strategy will be used to deter away any vandalism. In Arizona, they had a similar idea. When I went on a trip to Scottsdale, Arizona, I learned that the bridges and underpasses had artwork on them designed by Native Americans. Because they were designed to be intentionally beautiful, um this deterred away any vandalism from the bridges and underpasses. Also, by using this strategy, we will be able to give a second life to our classroom materials. Thank you. Hello, my name is Audrey and I'm a sixth grade student at Oak. We began to brainstorm designs and ideas on what we could write or draw on the privacy boards, and we came up with encouraging phrases, designs, and the best ways to paint and create our designs so they would turn out well. Then we tested different materials to
011see which ones worked best for the privacy boards. In these pictures, we're testing paint and different designs on pieces of cardboard with like flowers and solid colors. Hello, my name is Thorn and I'm a sixth grader at Oak. My name is Zach and I'm also sixth grader at Oak. We collaborated with our second grade buddies to think of some encouraging messages and designs to put on the privacy boards. Each one of us partnered with one of the second graders and drew and wrote some encouraging messages on pieces of paper, as you can see on there. Um some of us wrote encouraging words and messages like you got this, I believe in you, or trust your gut. And then some other people drew some drawings like rainbows, characters, and different foods. And after our meeting with
012our buddies, we are completely full of new ideas that we could share and draw on our um privacy boards. Hi, I'm Angeli, a sixth-grader at Oak. After collaborating with our second-grade buddies, we came together and realized the pros and cons about the pictures we drew for the privacy boards. The first pro is that the drawings were cute and adorable because they were colorful and had many many characters. Another pro is that there was more creativity. The pictures varied because our buddies helped us to generate ideas. Next, the cons. The first one is that the drawings might not age well. This means that in the future, the cute and adorable pictures will look out date. The second one is that the drawings would turn out to be distracting. When we imagine taking tests with the drawings,
013students would probably look at the pictures instead of doing the test. The third one is that there would be less focus on this. If we ended up putting these cute pictures on the privacy boards, it would look too busy and detailed. The cons outweigh the pros. So as a group, we decided to change direction. Hi, my name is Dia, and I'm a sixth-grader at Oak. After realizing the disadvantages of our first design, we returned to the drawing board. We put our heads together, and after another brainstorming session, we pivoted to a beautiful but simple design. We switched to a simple gradient in the background of two to three colors. On top of that, there would be a motivational phrase such as trust your gut or you've got this. We then coated the board in Mod
014Podge to prevent peeling and aging, which also made vandalism more Throughout this project, there was much planning, pivoting, and learning. We learned how to identify a problem in our community and how to solve it in a way that would work for our class. We learned that solutions don't need to be fancy and flashy to meet our needs. And we learned how to pivot and how to rethink our solutions when roadblocks came up. Thank you. Wait, I was just supposed to be judging my work. Not exactly. I know. That was wonderful. Um Subordinate any comments, any questions? I have I have thoughts. This turned out really nice. I I like that you worked with your second grade buddies on it and like made it a bigger project than just yourselves. Thoughts? Yeah. I would share where
015you were going with this and it like not not you, but like the kid it it it turned out really beautiful. >> Yeah, they turned out great. And love like you said how they integrated their second grade buddies. Did you guys like what what would you say you learned through this process? Including like working with your buddies, the whole process. Little bit of like what did you learn about the design thinking process? Like how to work together as a whole community and solve problems. Nice. I learned how to pivot and improvise. Good advice. I learned how to like when you see a problem and you notice that it's happening a lot, you should try to fix it before it gets worse. Good. I learned I learned that like even though you might have a good
016idea, there's always trial and error, so you're probably not going to get it right the first time. You got the last word. Learning how to pivot and re-evaluate our decisions to make good decisions. I love it. I love how like your thinking has gotten so flexible. You know, talk about 21st, 22nd century learning. >> [laughter] >> Well into the 21st >> 21st, 21st. Well into it, but we're there. Well, AI's got nothing on you, Justin. Uh no, wonderful. Really, this was such a treat. Thank you so much for sharing your project with us and your process and lessons you learned. Um it's really really wonderful. Thank you. Thank you so much. This is why I'm so proud of you kids. All righty, on to consent calendar. Uh board members, do any of you have questions
017on tonight's consent calendar? Okay. Were there any requests for public comment? I see none. Okay. Public comment is now closed. May I have a motion to Oh, any further comments, questions, board members? May I have a motion to approve tonight's consent calendar as presented? So moved. Thank you, Stella. And may I have a second? I'll second. Thank you, Brian. All right, motion to approve approve tonight's consent calendar as presented was made by Stella and seconded by Brian. All in favor, please say I. I. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Thank you, everyone. Miss Motion passes unanimous. Can't get the words out to you. Uh employee request to address the board from Los Altos Teachers Association, Allison White. Good evening. Um Allison White for LATA. Um two different kinds of comments tonight. Wanted to give just some really
018positive feedback. I have a lot of teacher roles. Feels like I'm on lots of committees. Um and I appreciate the opportunity to not only be with my peers from all over because I'm only just in TK at Oak, but also to be able to kind of see the interactions that are happening now and especially with our math adoption process having been involved in that now over kind of a long time. Um I really want to express appreciation for the fact that as teachers have as it's become real, right? We've gone through the process and and the things that they're expressing cuz it's it's a big deal, right? For for us for teachers to adopt and then use get to be good at a new curriculum because they really like being good at what they do.
019And I heard conversations in different meetings where the concerns that they have that are just operational concerns. They're implementation concerns are really being heard and I appreciate that because I think feeling at ease knowing these are problems that we will all tackle together and talking about even unboxing five or six boxes worth of materials or different ways of organizing materials. Those are the things that keep teachers up at night and I think starting to feel like we've put those things on the table and that there's a place for that. There's a place to talk through how that how we support teachers in acclimating to be able to deliver this all good curriculum to to students. So I think that process has been very um mindful of that in the conversations that have been happening. There's
020been space for that which is really teachers appreciate that very much. It's very reassuring. Um and the other thing I wanted to let you know is kind of on a similar note in the way that we approached the the math adoption with a deep look at the the math framework and really looking at what those guiding documents are from the state to start to say how does this look? How do we do this? To start you know analyzing materials. And I wanted to let you know that I have been appointed by the State Board of Education to be an instructional materials reviewer for the new ELA. Um it's a ELA ELD follow-up adoption because of the legislation I think Alex spoke last uh the last session um uh all the legislation that's happened recently, the
021screening legislation, um the AB 1454 which is about evidence-based literacy instruction and materials. Um there's more uh legislation that had to do with being able to provide funds for um structured literacy training um and there's a process going on right now at the state to kind of vet which programs would be ones that the state would reimburse districts for. Um and I think there's so much good work going on up there but I just wanted you to know so um I was in Sacramento last week um for 3 days and there were about 250 or so reviewers from all over the state um and we are be it's it's like being on jury duty almost. It's very what you can use as you're evaluating and what you must adhere to. Um so it's it's the
022framework, it's the ELA ELD framework from 2014 but they have updated guidance in 2025 that then creates a second system for looking and making sure these materials are there um along with common core state standards. So I just wanted you to know that's down the road a bit but I'm excited to be part of that um group and it's you never force yourself to get that in the weeds until you're doing something like that and it's interesting to see what um what's happening there. And last update is on the eagles. Yeah, thank you and that's for you. Just going to take a little 2 seconds here. Um we had eggs get get taken away by ravens the first clutch. She laid Jackie and Shadow Jackie laid a second clutch of eggs which hatched on April
0235th and so there are two lovely uh chicks. We also have peregrine falcons in San Jose that we are following as well for observation of raptors and um it's been really fun to watch the kids. Like they change so much, they change so fast. And and I we could say the same of all of them, too. So, anyway, thank you. Thank you. Congratulations, Allison. That's wonderful. >> Thank you. From CSEA, give me a Okay. All right. To provide public comment on an agenda item, speaker cards are to be submitted to the superintendent. Speaker cards will not be accepted once public comment begins. Your name will be announced when it's your turn to speak. Community comments. This time is reserved for members of the public and employees to address the board on items that are not
024on the agenda. The board is not permitted to discuss or take action on non-agenda items, except to instruct the superintendent to review the matter further, report back to the board at a subsequent meeting, or place the matter on a future agenda. The board may make a brief comment or ask clarifying questions. Do we have any comments on non-agenda items? You skipped that one? Okay. Would you? Okay. Parent. Um Eric, let's give parent 3 minutes and just for members at home who are watching or listening, you are not required by law to provide your name. So, we'll just address you as parent. Uh just wait for Eric to let you know when 3 minutes starts. Go ahead. Yeah, we recently come across that um the 10 site construction is lagging behind by $21 million, so they're
025raising additional funds for that. I just wanted to um uh express that we should really evaluate whether we need the 10 site or not, given that there are so many, you know, additional funds that are being needed each time we try to you know, make progress on that side. The enrollment has fallen across the LASD. And the BCS could be accommodated within existing campuses. That is what I wanted to say. Thank you. Thank you. I recommend you reach out to any of the board members. We would be happy to meet with you and and chat further. Okay. Moving on. Budget Review Committee Report. Okay. So, we have two guests to come for that tonight. I want to thank uh Kate Skurdenhorn and Kimberly Fletcher. We're going to do a joint communique regarding budget committee uh
026report out. Thank you. Thank you, Eric. Uh so, hi. I'm Kate Skurdenhorn and I'm here with Kimberly Fletcher on behalf of the Budget Review Committee to present the 2026 recommendations. The Budget Review Committee includes teachers, classified staff, parents, administrators, and school board members so that all district stakeholders are represented in this process. We met several times this year to review and discuss the interim and preliminary budget presentations that Eric has also given at school board meetings. At the end of the process, we agree on an annual document that represents our recommendations. That full document is included in the board meeting attachments. And as uh represented in previous presentations, the district faces some budgetary challenges uh including from our in-lieu to Bliss Charter, state unfunded and underfunded programs such as TK, ELOP, and our universal meals
027in addition to ongoing economic situations. And so, we recommend the district continue with their process of thoughtful staffing reductions through their right-size staffing uh to and to look for additional places to reduce the budget deficit. And then also, our 10 to 20% reserve policy is All right, 15 to 20% uh that is also essential to continue as a long-term strategy in future years. We're happy to answer any questions about our recommendations. Thank you. Um, if anyone Are there any Is there any public comment on the second item? Okay, very good. Are there any uh qualifying um clarifying questions from the board? No? Okay, none of that. No public comment. Any further comments uh board members? Any questions for I just wanted to say thank you for serving on the committee and Allison as well. Thank
028you. Yeah. Thank you so much. Um, as this is an action item we will I'd like to ask for a motion This is a blind business special item instead of a discussion item. Oh, shoot. I'm looking. Shoot. I am looking at number two. Sorry. Block construction's an action item. Never mind. All right, thank you very much. Moving on to our next agenda item, amendment to the block construction contract for the San Antonio campus project. Again, this is an amendment to the construction contract for Block Construction for increment one. Uh, they bid out all the subcontractor work for increment one, which is going to be demolition, site utilities. Uh, they'll be mobilizing next week at the San Antonio campus. We've been coordinating with the city of Mountain View um and PG&E doing all the shutoffs and
029things. Uh, we also want to acknowledge that what a great use of the site. We're very happy to offer it to the robotics program for Mountain View High. There's [clears throat] a nice article in the um uh in Town Crier about it and then they also came to Rotary and presented to the Rotarians and looking to kind of uh advocate for Mountain View High. So, it's a great use of the site. Um, this contract also uh is the all-in cost. There are some actual extra allowances for unforeseen conditions, early procurement. Uh, we've been the site's been working very hard to work with Federal realities and amendments that we did at previous meeting of the to unwind the reciprocal parking agreement has been taken care of. So today is it is it an amendment to the
030contract? It's an action item and then also we attached this project schedule so you can see increment one is starting and then increment one two is in DSA. We'll be bringing back more consultant contract things like that in the next couple weeks. So it's an action item today. Any clarifying questions? Any request for public comment? Public comment is now closed. Any further board discussion of the agenda? Yes. Yes, please. Um So obviously this is all work that was always uh planned to Is Is it Do you have any sense of how this compares to sort of the preliminary estimates of uh which we're planning versus about Yeah, we're still We We have not gone over the not to exceed amount. This is just allowing them to notice to proceed with the increment one. It's still
031within the budgeted amounts. Right, but so this chunk is costing us what we thought it was going to cost us in the preliminary budget. That's what I was getting Yes, no no no increase change orders or extra cost at this time. Okay, great. Thank you. Any other questions, comments? Okay, seeing none. Uh may have a motion to approve the amendment to the block construction contract for the San Antonio campus project. So moved. Thank you, Stella. We have a second? I'll second. Thank you, Jim. Any further comment? Discussion? Okay. Uh motion to approve the the amendment to the block construction contract for the San Antonio campus project was made by Stella, seconded by Jim. All in favor, please say I. I. I. Any opposed? Any abstention? Thank you, everyone. Motion passes unanimously. Board policy updates. Yes,
032so a few new um board policies coming to you. This is um gives you two weeks to review. I've already gotten some feedback on one of the concepts and roles. Just some clarification that we want to look at. So as you read them over the next two weeks, please let me know if you have any other questions or concerns and then we'll come back at the next meeting for approval. Thank you. Is there any public comment on this no public comment for you? Any clarifying questions any discussion? For the When I was reading for policy 7131 relations with local agencies it just reminded me that we had previously discussed the possibility of setting up a committee with Mountain View City Council and so I'm just wondering if you know there's been if we've heard back
033if we've reached out you know sort of what the status is and like you know if we I'd still be interested in at least reaching out to them to ask if there's any interest on there and and there is sort of like it seems like for the CSBA you know every reason to think that it'd be beneficial to both parties especially regarding the parks and the shared fields and the San Antonio trail. Then I'll reach out to their current mayor Emily Ramos and see if she's interested and then we'll Do you think is that the proper way to do it that I reach out to the mayor and Sure. I don't know if you're looking for a what was the city schools that what it was called sub committee sub committee city schools if you're
034looking for a sub committee because Eric is meeting regularly with city staff but this would be more of a board to board. Just to Yeah for relationship. >> Yeah cuz I think when they had one of their meetings um approving changes to the joint use agreement that they had expressed an interest in having more conversations with us. Yeah just want to reciprocate that. Yeah it's a good idea to know about that. Thank you. Any other on this agenda item? Okay. Moving on to board and administration comments. Carol, you want to kick it off? Sure, thank you. We are in LCAP season, so we're working on collecting input for our local control accountability plan. We have administered our family survey in English. This week we'll be administering our multilingual survey to all of our families of
035English learners. We've had it translated into all top seven of our languages, so we have it in English, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Hebrew, Korean, and Russian. And that will be going out to families this week. And then for the first time, we're going to be holding a student ambassador event on Thursday, May 14th, here at the district office. And so two reps from the sixth grade of the elementary and a four from both of our junior highs will come together and talk about student experience. Get their input on course offerings, get their input on student support services. You know, what's working, what can be improved. So I'm excited about that. Any needs from all of our different schools for for those kids trying to get a mix of different students to participate in that event. So
036I'll I'll I'll be excited to bring you a update for you later about all that. And I want to thank Kelly Rafferty who's helping me co-facilitate student ambassador event. I attended the uh uh Joint Powers Authority NCR, which is our insurance, property and liability insurance, and talking with all of our members and colleagues up and down the northern California and hearing all the things that are going on in other districts for property liability insurance issues. Uh we do know the property insurance rates are holding or looking pretty good, but the liability rates that that we're seeing a spike. So we'll be budgeting about a 10% increase in property liability insurance for next uh next year. Um want to thank Elizabeth who's been working really hard. We came in and worked a little bit on the
037weekend uh for budget prep. May is like our busiest I think every time is busy, but I think May is really busy. As we're getting ready to go that got great news. We applied for a kitchen infrastructure grant with CDE and we received $75,000. So I would love sharing good news with that. So that's great. And that actually will help when we talk about the underfunded mandated universal milk program that will help offset some operational costs. So that's a great thing. We're not sure when we're getting the money but we were awarded that. I want to thank Allison, Kim and Kate being a BRC. We also have Stella and Brian on BRC as well. So thank you for being on that. And then last Friday was a lunch heroes day and we acknowledged I love
038seeing all those things on the social medias, but it's really nice to honor our food service workers. All wearing the shirts. They're honored and took a lot of nice photos. We really acknowledge all their hard work and it's really great dedicated CSD members. So thank you. Just a reminder and a announcement to the public that on the 12th next week we'll be having a study session around facilities master planning at 9:00 a.m. So if people want to come or tune in in here. Yes. So 9:00 a.m. 9:00 a.m. Brian? Nothing to report. Stella? Well, yesterday I had the pleasure of attending an event at our board president's house. She's also board president for the Santa Clara County School Board Association and was a reception for trustees in the area. Thank you and I'm so glad
039that you came. So sorry I was not able to attend. Yeah, I feel like I missed the first one. >> He did. He did. Uh Uh no, I don't have anything. I have Alice team luncheon coming up this uh, board awards. What you going to ask him now? What time will be presenting our award and and yeah. Mhm. Um, I visited Oak uh, last week. It's the the first of a nine campus And then I head to Covington this Friday. So, not only see what what things are doing in in the classroom, but also checking out the facilities and Yeah. getting a sense of what what's working, what's not as we look towards upgrades. Yeah. Thank you. Um, I just wanted to say that uh, April 29th and May 2nd, I had my Equity and
040Education Certification class, which is uh, continues to be really enlightening. We're working through the book Caste by Isabel Wilkerson and just really peeling back like how the the themes in those in that book apply to inequity. education. So, that was really good. Um, April 23rd, the California School Board Association president came and visited our county and we took her to four different um, districts. I would love to see LASD as a stop, you know. I'm sure you noticed that we weren't a stop. I will I will work on Um, yes. Um, I think what else? Yes, I'm really looking forward to uh, the Challenge Team lunch and the State of the Cities lunch with this group. I just wanted to say um, our next board meeting May 18th, I have decided that I am not
041going to try to attend. I will I will be in New York for my daughter's graduation and you will be in the very capable hands of our first vice president. Our vice president? Jim Malone. Um, and with that, thank you everybody and we will call it a night.