001all right good good evening everybody I'd like to call tonight's uh board meeting of the Sala schol Board of would any to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance please stand your and the black please place your hand your right hand over your heart begin OB to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation God indivisible with liy and justice for all right recording and our broadcast of this meeting is being made of the direction of the board which may capture images and sounds of those attending the meeting I will now call the RO Ryan pres VL pres Jim Stella here and I too am here I should have called the RO and then done the um send CLE would any board members like to
002provide comment on I have a question um I've got a question about something on the content calendar um there about the sign the school sign at Egan and what funds are being used to pay that that'll be a PTA funding project so the P will be funding the Marquee for the for so did you want to pull it off of consent no that's it okay right any other comments he then may I have a motion to approve the agenda as presented so move thank you Vladimir may have a second I'll second thank you Stella motion to approve tonight's agenda as presented was made by Vladimir seconded by Stella all in favor I any oppose any extensions great motion passes unanimously close session report no action was taken in close session tonight superintendent update this magal
003all right uh a few updates for you I'm going to start with what I know you're aware of as our incredibly sad news that we lost one of our teachers last week Jason Brawn one of our really fantastic Elementary music teachers it has been a difficult week for our staff for our students um and really just wanted to acknowledge I think of uh back in January Jason and Joe Chan came to the LEF board meeting to do their Vision moment to talk about how much they love teaching our students and how proud they are to work in our district and you could just hear Jan talking about the love for his work kids so I want to thank I know Aon is here um been working really closely with his family to make sure they
004have what they need um and we continue to make sure our kids and our staff are cared for during this time but it's really horrible news it really hurts when it's a number of I know you want to take a brief moment of silence can we take a brief moment of silence um I think on that uh a great second item is thank you all who were able to attend our Junior High um Wellness Center openings it was great to see the groups gathered both at Egan and at BL last week to to officially open our Wellness Center so students at wanan have time and a space um to really go and learn some strategies for their own mental health and um overall wellness and then be able to connect with another targeted support so
005it's really great we're so thrilled that those um centers are both open thank you to our multiple grants that are helping to fund those pieces um I wanted to give you an update uh I think Kay and I'm not sure if Kay is here last board meeting mentioned that Garder had hosted the spelling be the districtwide first ever spelling be and our Loyola sixth grade student student Nina Nama won the County Spelling be and is going to the state which will be held in Mantia um but really exciting so we wish her well and hope that she kills it at the at the state level spelling be but that's really exciting um also wanted to let you know that our AI event that's happening on March 28th after school 3:30 over at block we closed
006it we are at capacity we've had 125 people register which is fantastic so we had to close it just to be able to logistically um work through it so we'll see how this one goes and potentially have a second one in the fall sometime but really excited of working closely with Mountain View High School and Grace Choy with us is kind of leading the charge which is terrific um and then lastly I think for my updates today I am thrilled to announce um our new Egan principal Lisa taramina is here if she wants to wave in the crowd sorry Lisa Lisa comes to us with huge experience extensive experience in both Elementary and at middle schools lots of our time spent at kutino Union School District as well as Union School District um we had
007a thorough process um for the first time ever we had students on our panel which is great so we had two Egan students participate on the panel uh through our several panels so a really thorough process uh lots of discussions with Lisa from all different facets great reference checks so we're so thrilled and have no doubt that she's going to make a terrific leader for Egan junior high school um tomorrow in the afternoon officially the communications will go out to staff to families as we're working through always the delicate time frame so um we want to make sure to honor Lisa's communication with her community as well so that will be going out later today but we're super thrilled we have a little tiny something for you Lisa to welcome you to the LD Community
008we're super excited welcome welcome principal excited to have you all right now on to literally the best part of this meeting it's our school presentation and who do we have tonight it's partner B so in a moment I will be um calling up my poor crew that's sitting up here in the very front row very excited to be here tonight um and backed by their fabulous familys I'm sitting right behind them um we're really excited to be here tonight to give a little overview of some work that our third graders have been doing um with deeper learning specifically in their in their writing process so the lens that we're going to be taking tonight is a glimpse into how sharing their writing has helped them develop into stronger authors um and just continue to dive
009into that W work so I'm just a very very high level um our staff and our teachers have been doing some professional development this year around what are some different moves that the teachers can put into place for deeper learning um including different questioning strategies Hot Talk protocols um authentic tasks I think you're going to see some elements of authentic tasks all the students are talking tonight um also opportunities to provide choice in terms of how and um what students are learning about um and then tonight we're also touching on critique and revision and then this is also an example of them coming up to share their learning so they are going to talk about some avenues that they've already taken to share their learning but then they are going to be presenting their learning
010to you tonight as well um and so as they're talking these are some things that um I just want you to keep an ear open for in terms of as the kids are speaking with you do we hear a sense of the purpose behind their work um do we hear that they were Ed with something that was meaningful to them how were they engaging in their Community both community of Learners and then broader groups of community around the district you're going to hear some interesting things of how they've been collaborating with um Santa R and I'm not going to give it away they'll tell you all about that um and then also just learning by actually doing the writing work and diving in so I am going to introduce I have Natalie Canon laan as
011the two third grade teachers and then they are going to be introducing their fantastic students we have Bella Lena Ethan and James so teachers do you want to say a few words and we'll get the kids up and going um good evening thank you so much for having us we're really excited to be here and be able to share some of our learning experiences with uh our student representatives from our classes and uh we hope that you can enjoy some of the things that they've been doing in the classroom so then students this is your time I'm going to bring up all four of you and WR up here right perfect so right on up front and center so Bella we're gonna plck you right here we go yep do you all have your pieces
012perfect okay and then I will be your clicker operator and you're going to face our fantastic you're going to face the board okay right so Bella is at first good good evening my name is Bella and I am in mr's third grade class our first unit of the year was personal narratives we drafted many stories from our own lives then chose one narrative to take to the publishing stage this meant drafting revising getting your feedback revising again using a checklist and making sure we had all the parts editing and finally publishing our final draft I wrote about Kayaking in Foothills Park the funny part is that we actually did a field Tri there in third grade to celebrate we got to read our final draft to the other third graders from both Miss Canon and
013Mr Ran's classes after finishing my narrative felt exciting to read my story to peers I enjoyed it and felt proud I enjoyed listening to other third graders share their personal story because it could help me with my writing and itting sharing my writing with others can help me as author because sometimes people feel scared or shy when sharing their work so it makes you feel proud after when I share my work it kind of feels like I'm am a real author and before Ela starts there some pictures up here at the two3 grade classes meeting so they were giving feedback um to their peers along the way and then a celebration at the end um and so this was a collaboration between two classrooms and then I believe Lena is going to tell us about
014a collaboration Elena you are up good evening my name is Elena and I'm a C's third grade class our next writing unit was all about mysteries in reading workshop we read lots of mystery books to get ideas on how Mysteries go then we got to map out our own Mystery chapter book I wrote mystery about a three-headed dog after we published our mystery book we sent our stories over to the third grade classes at Santa Rita they sent over their mystery books and we got to read their Creations we also gave feedbacks using a comic card finally they sent our stories back to us with their own comedies when I was reading a mystery story from a Sita student I felt happy and thought it would be cool to see other kids writing techniques I
015enjoyed that we were both doing the same writing but our stories were completely different when I was writing my mystery story and though not other students were going to read it made me feel very excited because I could do lots of New Visions incorporate two new ideas in the mystery when I saw Sant the Sita students comments on my story I felt proud that they enjoy my story and noticed all the work I put into it sharing my writing with others helps him as an author because I can read it aloud and catch the mistakes I want to fix sharing it with a new audience motivates me to continue Rising my way there is an excerpt in my mystery Story the next day they turned in their homework and got 100% they walked out in
016the classroom and heard a girl run chapter two ah they shouted they ran all the way across the school finally they were out of danger what was that it was like some kind of they have a dog but why would they like let something like that into the school I don't know maybe someone accidentally let it out we should discuss it and do some research at my place Ethan start his case I believe is the next a picture of the Comet card and so they had a collaboration between school sites where they were giving feedback and then thinking about how could they incorporate that into either future revisions or future writing pieces and um this partnership was so solid that I believe it continued for the next unit as well and so Ethan is going
017to share um Lena shared about mystery writing and fiction and I believe Ethan is going to be sharing about non-fiction good even good evening my name is Ethan and I'm in's class third writing unit was information writing where we wrote multiple books about topics we each felt experts on some kids wrote about sports plants and animals and cols I chose to wrot about Transformers in reading workshop we wrote we read lots of non-fiction books to get ideas on how they structure when we finished planning out our chapters of our own book we got to create a digital Book for a final verion and digital library books and shared it with classmates from school others in Los we got to check out our classmates books it's felt really fun to me time was an exper I
018really enjoyed making digital book because I got to share but what I know about sh I got to put in and gift it was also really cool to share my book with others and to be able to read other things especially like reading my dogs sharing my w with others folks knows an author because it tells me what what people like and dislike about Transformers here's my book on Transformers so I'm just GNA point to it so this is their digital bookshelf um and I know Marcy has a copy of the slides and I know you probably don't have this in front of you but if you want to get it from Marcy um she can give you access to all of the kids digital books and so they've been checking them out um between
019classes and across School site so this one is E on Transformers um and then following that um we have yeah big round of appla for so they follow that idea of information writing into um argument and opinion writing um about something that they are passionate about something that feels authentic and real to them and so James is going to be sharing with us um about the argument persuasive pieces that they've been working on good evening I'm I in Miss Canon's class our most recent writing unit was all about persuasive writing before we started writing we analyzed a mentor essay to identify the pieces of a convincing argument speech and set our writings next we identified problems that affected it the gner B's Community including students staff and fames then had to solution as a claim
020we then worked in teams to bring storm supporting regions evidence and counter you can see my work work in the photo all of these ideas help this elaborate and strengthen our graphs finally presented our F graphs to our class test patients I felt that it felt I could really make a big change and identifi a way to make better for myself and other students I decided that we need lockers for students writing about my own Community helped me because I knew what was happening that time and thought of ways I could make it better and fix problems here is little my argument for another reason that another reason is that lockers can help people be organized some of the lry cies are fling wrecks lockers will have hooks and shs this will keep our books
021backpacks and coats and supplies organized you might be thinking that students just be careful in the future let me explain that c do not have any shelves in them you still might be thinking we could install shelves and fooks let me say Let Me Explain the constru offt the class time also four people four people say that people said that people stole their stuff another student said that lockers are more space 20 out of 24 students say that we should have walks if we were organized we will find all our supplies much easier finding your supplies quickly will decrease our week time which will mean there will be less class time wasted writing so adults like my teachers Mrs K and other little out of school district members when feel nervous but also excited because
022I haven't shared with such a big audience that often then sharing my weding with others helps me as an author because helps me think new ideas and makes my writing stronger when I was working on my lock argument he mentioned that our clubbies or honey Cubs will walk top shows and hooks and this game know to write about like to present you with some of our persuasive writing PES we hope you consider our recommendations and they did some PRS their persuasive writing it is being delivered to me at the same time it is being delivered to all of you so I hopefully um enjoy the the feedback and ideas that our youngers have drummed up about gardener so thank you all four of you for coming out tonight and for sharing with us about your
023writing process um and how sharing makes you grow stronger as authors are there any questions from the board um what is your favorite style of writing because you guys learn about all these different one you like the best each of I likeed the uh persuasive in the information I like persuasive in the mystery writing um I like the informational writing andour W I like the information no writing and the persuasive writing we could well well I think all your parents are in trouble wonderful did you do most of your writing in the classroom or at home in the class classroom I did some at home I have a comment and a question um I really like the collaboration between school sites I think this is awesome I know it took a lot of coordination probably
024on the teachers part so that's great what did you think about it was it um useful to you to collaborate with people that you don't really know or see um it was interesting it was scary but also sounds it just fun I was nervous because you never met that person before but you I was also excited to meet new people great just a comment uh since all you like argument and persuasive writing I that if you're forced to write something then your arges become stronger and you where your leak spots are what you need boost and stuff so it makes you more I a lot thank you all U employee requests to address the board uh Alex okay I was likeed for agenda I'm so sorry sorry uh would any board members like to write
025comment on the consent agenda um then may have a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented so move thank you vladim have a second I'll second thank you Stella motion to approve the consent agenda as presented was made by Vladimir seconded by Stella all in favor I any oppos any exensions motion passes thank you sorry Alex now we're ready um wow it's so intimidating coming up and talking on the board 22 ters no problem board members it's a lot um anyways but thank you so much for having me always appreciate you giving us some time um I really just like to come up here and talk about what the association is doing you guys get these incredible presentations from our students to know what they're doing um but I think it's also really important
026to know what our Educators Association is up to um as the leader of our teacher Association it's really important for me to constantly re revisit our mission um we sent that to you earlier this year but again it's Los alos Teachers Association is dedicated to advancing the quality of Education supporting professional growth of our Educators we advocate for the needs and interests of teachers fostering a collaborative and inclusive environment by championing Fair practices promoting ongoing professional development working closely with the community we strive to enhance student achievement and ensure that every classroom is a place where learning thrives and the rights of teachers students are upheld so clearly our mission is very much about our Educators and most importantly our students they are our children when we step into those doors with our kids they
027are our kids and that is really important to us then that we are fostering teachers who continue their growth which is a big part of our mission um so it's really exciting to say that we've had quite a few teachers go to some CTA sponsored conferences we have the good teaching conference we pay for that from our association dues um which is just an amazing conference full of Educators across the state actually that get pulled in um different types of of learning experiences from AI in the classroom and teaching kids about AI to teacher wellness and mental health which we know is really important to supporting students with their mental health and all sorts of instructional practices in between so it's been incredible to send teachers there we just had the um Equity conference that
028we sent one of our members to our Equity chair she's bringing back all sorts of great stuff about um not only policy equity in school and District policies but also in Statewide as well um but also how we practice empathy and we work with our students and we use equity within our classrooms all the time um and then we are going to a big um actually not so big you have to get accepted into a political conference so that we can continue to strengthen that political action that we have which is a big part of our Union but again I just want to stress that everything we do as a teacher Association it is with children in mind um and that's why we really are proud of the strong union that we have here in
029Los altas we're proud to advocate for teachers and students alike so thank you guys so much for your time I appreciate it thank you I forgot to email you I okay if I just wanted to out thank you for cabinet for continuing to reach out to csca to have the meetings and even though it is a small attendance it takes time after time to get people involved and you never know that one person that needed to be heard that day and so it's been really nice seeing the real effort put into finding different times because it's also so hard because I am not available at lunch but actually we have one or two staff that lunch is better they would rather go at lunchtime than they would go after school um and so having multiple
030opportunities has been wonderful it's also nice honestly that when people come to us to also be able to say there were opportunities and we'll still hear you but it's helpful when people say they don't feel heard to remind them that options were available um and when they hear that sometimes it makes them more likely to come the next time uh and so it's really helpful and I hope that you're I know it's hard to find the time I hope that we can make some more 30 minute ones continuing going forward trying a few different times I don't think it need to be super often but a couple times a year I think is really meaningful and it is just nice to be seen and appreciated and especially seeing that our schedules are so wonky and
031one day I think I can make it at 3:30 and that comes and goes so thank you so much for that I think it's just really nice to continue that collaborative relationship thank you 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 is 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 on 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
032agenda the board may make a brief comment or ask clarifying questions do we have any public comments okay public comment is closed on to action and discussion items our teacher Residency program update yes we're so happy Aon green and The Residency team is here um and so I'm Aaron green that's green enough the director of student and staff services and I'm super proud to be here I'm not proud to present after the kids because that's what always happens to me but I'm super proud to be here tonight um and then before we get started I want to point out that we have five of our residents so I'm talking about our teacher Residency program tonight which is a partnership with the Santa CL County Office of Education and the teachers College of San waen we
033have five residents who are participating and five Mentor teachers and tonight we have a few friends who are going to present but before we get started I just want to point out a few people all of our residents are in the back we over here we have amarani you can just wave we have Jamie um Renee is here and then we have some fans who are um we have Vicky Burke who's serving as a mentor and then am I forgetting anyone in the audience did I get everyone and then Ricardo and Joanna who are residents and Amanda who is our Mentor teacher and then Kelly lran who is been our amazing partner at the county so just briefly um they're going to be sharing with you their experience this year and this was our first
034year of The Residency program so it was super exciting we had 15 people appli these five um excellent employees were selected and all of them are working in their classified positions in some capacity as well as working in their classrooms every week and going to school at night and doing their homework they're here tonight so I just want to give them a round of applause before I turn them loose can we just um go quickly and I'll talk briefly about just this structure oh do I have it okay so here's just a few little pictures of our friends um I just wanted to give you a brief overview about the program structure so it's super intensive um door to-door program where the residents start in the classrooms from day one and they're there till the
035end of the year the very last day of school they are um doing everything with the teachers they're more like co-teachers so whatever the teachers doing they are seeing the full lasas day experience from the beginning to the end um like I mentioned their coursework during the week it's really hard to get a hold of these guys Kelly I think you can ad that but not only are the mentors and residents working together all day they're they're required to meet after school they do their homework they're going to school at night they're lesson planning and they care so deeply about this in just one year they earn their teaching credential so that's super exciting and then finally again it's a year-long placement um when they graduate their dreams and our dreams are that they're ready
036to teach our students in our community um last but not least the benefits so so many um we're growing our own right here from our our staff um we're able to motivate our own staff and provide PD for our own staff by letting them or having them pursue their credential and them being willing to take the risk um mutual benefits for the district in the classroom the teachers are co- teing it's such a great model of collaboration for the kids to see the two teachers discussing planning assessing um talking to their families together super collaborative there is a stip in so all the mentors are given a small stip in the residents are really given a really nice stip in to help them to be able to afford the program and then also to work
037a little bit less than they normally do um and then finally because it's a year-long program the residents are so deeply invested in our community that it's a mutual benefit that if they are hired at the end of their time here they are ready to jump off and they know so much already about LD so I talked enough and I'm I turning it over to you I guess okay take it away so hi everyone my name is Danna G boros I come to the residen the program through computer science which is very natural of course um I have my bachelor and Masters degree in computer science I took some time off to raise my kids as many of us do and I was volunteering in the classroom and it just brought me so much joy
038so when this opportunity arose last year it just seemed like a really natural fit for me I'm a parent as well with three kids who have either passed through LD or who are still attending schools in LD my little one El right back there is with Oak I have my middle schooler is attending Egan and my high schooler was at Covington he was at block and now he's in high school so I'm also a part of the community so it's just really special for me to be here in front of you presenting this and just this opportunity has been amazing so I'll talk to you a little bit about what we do in the program I think the main benefits to us as residents is that we are there not only from day one but
039also before so I'm seeing the entire cycle of what a teacher goes through I'm setting up the classroom before our students come in I was there at the lemonade social to welcome kindergarteners into our classroom who are really hesitant right about coming to school for the first time I met their parents I met their siblings I know all this background information about our students so I'm able to better serve them inside the classroom I'm there setting up classroom expectations in the beginning of the school year which is really important going moving forward to have good classroom management I do assessments with my mentor we just finished report cards last night and so I'm really basically experiencing everything you experience as a teacher which will make me prepared next year when I am having when I
040do have my own classroom and beyond that um I really deeply believe in the vision and goals of LD as I've come to experience them inside the classroom and through our staff meetings the GD that we do you know I really believe in deeper learning protocols I use them I try to naturally incorporate them on a daily basis in my teaching through public speaking like we saw here today it was so amazing right like just these things that LD believes in and really supports teachers on I love being part of that too so finally um you know because we are there from day one we really do create a sense of community not only with the families that right there but also I think um with the staff and other teachers so I know you
041know as a new teacher if I'm struggling let's say with a literacy lesson I have Allison white who was here last week you saw her with the Eagles right last week wasn't an adorable the um I have the literacy expert right next door who believes in me who knows me because we've work together in staff meetings and I also have the support of my amazing principal too who has just guided me and Beyond My Mentor in the classroom I have that Mentor as well my principal I have all the other teachers at the Oak campus so that's kind of my experience um I'll turn it over to Ricardo so thank you so much for this opportunity really I really have enjoyed my year so hello everyone my name is mar um I uh graduated from
042s State University with a bachelor's in English concentration in single subject teaching um and I've been in education uh for about 10 years I've had a variety of different roles um I started at a charter school where I was a dual immersion teacher I taught Spanish and English um I taught second grade at the charter school I tgh that was a read intervention teacher at one point before leaving the charter school I was a Dina culture um because a variety of reasons mainly the little one on that picture who's also my um I quit my job as a Dina culture uh because because I wanted to have a a good work life balance and the dino culture position wouldn't allow me to do that and so um I landed at almond at L as a
043e specialist and longterm um and then last year I did long longterm something I'll get into that in a little bit um so yeah uh my daughter Marvel who's in the back uh she will be assumed to be LD student um hopefully next year she'll start TK um and yeah so uh sorry you might ask yourself uh why all this teaching experience without the credentials um well that's partly why I'm here to talk to you today uh I've been through this is my third cring program uh the first credentialing program I went through um I did a whole year of the credentialing program and it wasn't accredited and it didn't tell me it wasn't accredited until halfway through the program um so then I you know decided that a masters wasn't enough and it wasn't
044going to allow me to continue teaching and so that's when I ended up being a Dina culture at the school um eventually um I went through a second program um went to uh an online program for um El students um and that got too expensive uh I couldn't do that anymore and again um with my daughter on the way it just wasn't possible so what does this program provide for me I mean it provided me an opportunity to actually get this done third time to try right uh yeah I think that this program is amazing uh I think it's given me the opportunity to to finish what I've been trying to finish for years um there is a lot of collaboration that happens and uh you want to talk a little bit about like collaboration
045that happens within the um within like the classrooms I want to talk to you a little bit more a little more about the collaboration that happens outside of that so like the people who support us uh we go through uh Teachers College of s and the teachers at the program are amazing um they bring a lot of like Hands-On experiences and even though it's like an online learning experience it's not necessarily in person we definitely learn a lot about like classroom management and what it is to be like a classroom teacher um we also get a lot of uh good uh help and insight uh from uh skoy um they've been very very helpful with providing us materials for the things that we need uh for example any kind of test prep that we need
046for tpas Des sets they they've been very willing to help us out with that and they have made this experience just way better um and yeah um collaboration with our mentors uh Nicki Burke who's here to also support me she's my mentor in fifth grade um we are kind of like a well oiled machine at this point uh we plan lessons together um we plan assessments we grade together uh we pretty much do everything together and it's really nice to see the impact that that's had on students our class currently has a lot of emerging bilingual students and to see that these students because they see that there are two people in the classroom and mainly one person that actually speaks some of the languages that are in the classroom um they've been able to
047thrive we have a lot of student participation in that class from emerging bilingual students there's not a lot of students that are emerging bilingual that kind of sit back they're often participating I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that we're co- teing um and yeah I I appreciate your time thank you for letting me to uh letting me speak here and I just wanted to say how amazing this was and and and I'm ready to get this over with and then start again so thank you all very much hi I'm Amanda um I am a special education teacher here at cumington uh and have been for the last eight years um before that I was in Michigan and North Carolina um and then I have my mom of two I
048have Nolan who's five and Mara who's two um noan went through the preschool here and Mara hopefully will be doing that in the fall so I will talk to you about being a mentor in this program and kind of the commitment and what it has um done for me and working with my resident as well so personally um as a mentor this program has helped increase my confidence as an educator um I had to be intentional about what I was teaching and why I was teaching it I was asked questions about my teaching which made me think about what I was doing and why I was doing it we kind of went through the whole step and the process together it came at a time in my career 13 years in where I was looking
049for something else um and to change up the day-to-day and mentoring was the perfect thing um I was able to build relationships with other mentors my resident um the county uh and really to start to explore the world of educator prep which is really exciting to me um professionally my communication skills have increased uh I had to explain everything that I was doing um and then provide reasons and you know support for that uh so I worked with my resident on clear concise communication how to deliver information um I think one way and she may not always think that way so uh I had to explain it and it um I got I got to grow in how I was a coach and my supportive coaching format I really had the opportunity to focus on
050my leadership skills um and grow in that area my resident and I would sit down and have our day-to-day debriefs um and problem solve uh so I learned from her and I saw situations from a different perspective so how I would tackle a problem she didn't always see it that way and it helped me grow um professionally and personally um because my resident was with me from the start of the Year till the end of the year that's what's really unique about this program um having student taught you know 13 years ago and you go in partway through the school year you don't get to see the beginning and that's a huge part to miss or you don't get to see the end um so I got to explain why I do back to school
051night this way and parent teacher conferences that way and when we get to the end of the year why we do the end of the year this way um so I think that's a huge benefit for her um when she goes out into the uh as a teacher next year she got to see how we set up our schedule um in the special education World our schedule is very complex and so she got to see me build it and then change it and change it again and so and she also questioned me and asked why we Chang these things and I think our SDC program is more welcoming rigorous and a robust place where the students get to work on their social skills their independence their academics um we're doing some really cool things things
052that I didn't think of um so I really enjoyed this program the staff I work with um has also been excited about this program I think we have a lot more interest for next year um you know if this program continues so I I is really excited to be a part of this program and anything else anyone would like to add any question is there questions or you want to ask my name is Kelly Lan I'm the coordinator for the teacher Residency program at fcco OE you just heard a ton about the model itself like teacher residency it got started in California in 2018 so it's newer um tons of data nationally on why it's an effective model but I specifically wanted to highlight um not residency but residency at LASD um I use this
053is absolutely true I use los alos as my Exemplar partner with districts joining our grant right so SEC we we are the grant kind of funnel to our district Partners um for this program and that's all due you know to Aaron and the high touch High touch support she gives the mentors the residents the site administrators right the special education director all those moving Parts she manages them so much mindfully and intentionally right and you can see it the mentors are incredible the candidates are so strong and so equipped to be just amazing teachers in their own classroom um and Aaron and I are already kind of ideating and planning for next year right to refine and and improve and make it an even stronger program and that's like truly because of what a great
054partner you all are and Aon in particular great District support yeah you guys are it's a fantastic I love residency already my kind of like soft spot in my heart but working with Los Altos this year like like Erin said right was a new partner here um for for our grant program and I'm just so grateful we're going to keep it going next year that's all I wanted to add how many other districts in the county are participating yeah we have eight nine districts total on our grant um it's a CTC Grant program um so I'm happy to share I don't want to take all your time but I can give a little bit more granular so teacher residents receive a $25,000 stipend in exchange for a four-year teaching commitment to public schools in the
055state of California the dream is they're hired in thee District right where we train them but we embed that flexibility and then mentors for their service get a $5,000 stien broken into two chunks so so we're working with eight districts um a variety of credential areas yeah thank you so much for coming out tonight all right our next agenda item oh sorry were there any requests for public comments District Communications up yes well we're thrilled you've heard her name before but you haven't had the chance to meet her yet but we're so happy to welcome F white our uh new Communications gal to our team and she's gonna talk a little bit about what she's been up to and uh what we have planned for the future yeah um following the students and then now
056the room I'm like it's all good so good evening to the board members superintendent mcgonagal um staff everyone who's still here thank you for still being here um so this is the slide that I hate the most but Sandra really wanted me to introduce myself so I'm Lynette white I've been in education for 16 years I actually started as a classified employee um and then eventually was Mercy for a school district my superintendent saw something in me that I didn't see in myself which made me go back to school to get my degree um so I have a bachelor's in Communications as well as a MERS in Communications with an emphasis on education um I'm a national speaker at this point I have gotten the wonderful opportunity to speak across the country about leveraging social
057media to really tell a district story branding for educators and branding for school districts I also have a podcast a social chats podcast it's um actually internationally known at this point so I'm super excited about that I am an author um so my dream came true last year in April the Ed branding book which I did leave a copy for each of you um came out last year it was number one on Amazon for you know a hot second and then but I'm gonna ride that until the end um and you know so my dream came true with my co-author Dr Renee Bryant who's also amazing it's just our passion project of all of our conference presentations I think um telling Educators how to really tell their story stop being so humble share the amazing
058things that are going on in public education and we kept getting asked when are you going to write a book so we wrote a book um and then I'm also founder and CEO of Lynette white social LLC and so that's how I'm here today and this is our team uh Brianna Benavides she is my chief Communications officer um her background is in graphic design branding strategic Communications she is a rock star um and a little bit of nepotism that's my daughter Ka white um she is a college student at this point but she is an incredible graphic designer and best of all she's getting to Mentor under her mom and Brianna and so together we've worked with a bunch of organizations you can see at this point um and we're really proud of the Partnerships
059that we've gotten to form with these organizations as well as the partnership with LD and so there's my book again yay um and so my very first meeting with the leadership team at Los Salos um I was asked to maybe give them a few questions a little bit of a survey to see what's the temperature what's going well like I really want to know what's going really great here because then I don't want to change that right so my very first question was what is going well and you can see there was so much on what's going well uh the partnership with the district obviously communication is very strong between the district and the staff at the sites um principal's Rock I thought that was really cute um five bullets and um you know a
060little bit of everything right you see media you see some social media you see U messages and things like that and then I asked in terms of communications what could use some improvement because this is where we really want to dial in and do what the community needs where do they want to get their information and how and so the first thing that pops out you can see there's a lot less of what's not going well right which is always problem POS but website website is a major concern across the district today I met with um Oak I met with lyola and I met with a couple departments and same thing very first thing that they asked me about was when can we revamp our website newsletters are also a major concern um amongst the
061leadership leadership team as well and you can see that repeated a few times and so next step so now that I've asked the leadership team like going well what what could use some improvement next steps is I'm going to continue my site visit so I'm meeting with each principal any departments that would like to meet with me really any staff members that want to meet with me and just talk about how can we streamline Communications how can we make it the best that it can be and then Community input we definitely want a community input survey and we're going to be doing that in April so we'll be getting um some questions from the site level some questions from the foundation as well as questions from the district office to make sure that our community
062gets to have a say so on how they're getting Communications a lot of times districts think more is more but less is more I'm the parent of three kids and I remember getting three different versions of newsletters that were like three miles long and I know I didn't read them all so how can we make that better so people actually want to read the information so streamlining newsletters is like number one on my list um Community Communications I want to make it so that the community is well informed Med but also not overwhelmed I don't want them to feel like they're getting too much from us at any given time and then focus on on Innovative marketing strategies um I'm hearing some things about some charters in the neighborhood um and how we can mark
063it a little bit better against you know the charters that are going to be in the neighborhood that is a problem across the entire country what I hear from any District that I work with um and so there's some great strategies that we're going to do behind that I really want to work on aligning our messaging with the um LASD strategic plan I want to make sure that everything that we're sending out to the community has some alignment behind it there's got to be a reason why and a rationale why we're communicating the things that we're communicating to our community so that it makes sense for us as a district and then I have this really cool thing called the brand ambassador program so through my publisher I developed an online course that really shows
064um um people in districts how to leverage um social media to tell their story but also some strategic communication strategies and that's all fre to your staff members so any staff member or yourselves that want to join the course just let me know we'll sign you up it's asynchronous they're all recorded and then uh we can have some conversation afterwards and then another thing that I have is tell me something good so these cards will be handed out at school sites handed out at events um my my email is on there as well as a QR code that goes directly to a Google Drive where you can drop in content of anything good that's going on so like the cute presentation today you took a picture of that send it on there give me a
065quick blur of what it is and then it'll be on your social media it might be in a superintendent newsletter we'll definitely use that stuff but I think the best way to tell the story is to tell the story as a community I can tell a great story on my own but those who are living in breathing it every day can tell the story way better than me teachers in the classroom will experience their students in a way different manner than I will any day of the week so I really encourage people to to share some things and tell me something good and that's it that's me on a really good day but um thank you and that's where you can find me um do you have any questions for me wonderful welcome thank you
066yes so I I read some of your well first of all I Googled you okay 1988 Ren again so um oh yes that's the lady who comes up all the time a British lady yeah um I I looked at some of your testimonials congratulations thank you um what are some instances where things didn't go as well as you had a hold it in terms of communications yes so the testimonials are the positive side so presumably you approach things U from a certain point of view the same way right so that worked really well for those when did it not work as well as you would have liked oh definitely I think early on in my career like I definitely thought copy paste you know like this situation is the same it's the same situation that
067you're describing to me so let's just treat it exactly the same now I know each district has nuances um there's so much more to a story that you need to dig in a little bit deeper before you think one size fits all on a communication and so now Sandra and her team I know some of the principles in the audience I've worked with very closely with different situations that have come up and while I may have a template for something that will guide us every situation is different so everything that you'll receive is customized uh based on the situation based on uh any of the factors that factor into that situation so that was definitely a learning experience for me of it's not one siiz fits-all like your textbook says like just use this letter
068and it'll work perfectly no that doesn't work in real life yeah are there any other [Music] questions any public comment I do just want to say you know in visiting your school sites I was mentioning to superintendent today your staff is so happy your students are so happy it's so great to walk into the classrooms and everybody's like Hi how are you like they have no idea who I am they're just really gracious and kind and welcoming and that's from staff to students it's been great we a very special Community I would say it feels like a family here it does yeah we're happy to welcome you to our family thank you so much thank you thank you very much thank you L that can fin all the kids left I know kidding I will
069that's okay so good evening board tonight we're here to present the second interim uh which is the financials from July 1 and any changes in revenue of expenditures and adjusting adjusting our budget from July 1st through January 31st um and we're going to go try to go as quickly as we can on this uh since the budget was adopted in July um uh July 1st are secured property tax growth since first inter a slight decrease of only $1,000 that's in homeowner exemptions our in transfer to Bullet charter school is a decrease by 361,000 and that's because Cola only went up 1.07% but their Ada which is how we're funded their for the transfer at their Ada went down by almost 30 students so it's significant drop in Revenue so that's a decrease in our transfer
070out which is actually an increase in revenue for us and that's reflected in your sax forms under the lcff categories and then the local revenue is an increase of $352 there some usth fees rentals and some pte donations expenditures uh you can see a large increase in expenditures of $4.7 million and that's that's the increase for all the salaries for L CA and also for management books and supplies is a slight decrease of 460,000 where we reallocated some of those funds into some different budgets and then also putting that some of that into um special education you can see a large increase and also the cafeteria fund these are mostly from salary increases for both the staff that are allocated to that as you know we transfer uh it's going to be over a million
071dollars at at second interim into the cafeteria fund which is an underfunded mandate from the state of California and their contribution to special education is increase of $839,000 so our secured property tax growth is still holding at 5.62% we get our annual we get our monthly reports from the assessor's office there'll be one more meeting coming up in May our partiel taxes holding firm $10.2 million these are all in your for but a guaranteed St is constant every single year at 654 th000 mandated block grant is ongoing funding from the state and that will vary and change and also prop 30 uh Lottery these three numbers will change as our enrollment decreases these are funded on Ada so if our Ada drops those numbers will go down a little bit but then it also be
072offset by maybe a slight coal increase increas and then do the charter school going forward it will be an increase next year will go up a little bit uh but right now it's holding at 10.3 next year's to is predicted to be a little over 2.4% this is kind of a breakdown of how our and I this year I did double double decimals to make sure it all matched out because sometimes the numbers don't round perfectly but local revenue is really all that's really all property taxes and then the parcel tax if you look at all local Revenue property taxes plus the parcel tax almost 93% of our budget is local in nature very little money comes from the federal government uh and we're watching that closely as we know there's a lot of uphe
073in Washington we're not sure what's going on with funding for uh federal funds flowing to the schools and then the state funding obviously is about 6.6% a little over 6% secured property tax growth from first interm to second term not much changes uh we don't expect to see any changes unless there's a big housing turnover between now and uh end of June we won't see that won't seem likely because the rules are already been set for this year threeyear summer you can see property tax is growing but not at the same rate it was four years ago 8.4% it's still growing 5.9 but it's at now at 5.62 we need about 4% ongoing property tax just to pay for ongoing expenses increases in health care utilities and so on uh Cola cost of inflation for
074some books and supplies and contracted services so always be mindful of our long-term property tax growth because this is ongoing and a compound so with this is the number that we watch of all the things we look in our budget every number and every funding Revenue sour is important but our proper taxes is the most important including our second budget is uh an 8.5% increase for L and CA an 88.5% increase for the confidentials which will be approving tonight uh with ab200 disclosure and then a 7% increase for certificated management certificated management are principles uh directors and coordinators on the certificated side the confidentials are uh executive assistant uh supervisors most classified supervisors maintenance technology Stephen colum is about 1% for all three groups 1% is about $500,000 Health and Welfare benefits there's a very
075slight decrease of $4,000 and our statutory benefits so for every dollar payroll we pay a122 for certificated and for classified it's $136 for every dollar payroll state revenue this is the cafeteria fund which I mentioned earlier um I want to point out the only really local Revenue we get is some interest that's in the in the fund and all other is going to be food supplies and things uh slight no major changes but that transfer out is you can see the general fund contribution from unrestricted to the this fund 13 goes from 864 to 1.61 so it's a little bit of an increase mostly from the salary side so we'll be watching this and again um we won't know the true cost of the program until we close the books at the end of the
076year um and then the federal funds that we received from the federal government for the national school lunch program we're hoping to get $333,000 um we think this year those numbers are safe but in the out years we're not sure what's going to happen with any of the title funds and with uh Na school lunch program but for right now these numbers we're feeling very confident for these numbers as well and the revenue and the claims come in much later so sometimes we don't really get the reimbursements we have to have cash in this fund so that's why we need that transfer to make sure that fund 13 is solvent to pay our bill for the cafeteria fund special education contribution uh this is one that every school district is watching very closely uh and
077we're not like anyone else but I I want to point out the total expenses of special ed have gone up from 16 .4 17.4 it's over a million dollar increase um and so we're going to be mindful of that a lot of this is our salaries of our staff and so we're being very mindful that this all other is transportation it's also non-public school for example you could have one or two students that add to your case load and we had one student that came in that's a non-public school between now and the end of school year it's a $50,000 increase to the budget so just for one student for only a couple months so we want to be mindful of those things uh and we're being very mindful of special education staff and going
078forward now only we have to show for this current year we also have to look in the multi-year projections which we're required to do our secured property taxes right now is 5.62% the last number that we got from the county of assessor's office at the very first day of March was 3.95 so 4% tax growth we feel very a good number to use for now and every month as we get more information we'll adjust these numbers accordingly and we're hoping that this number by adopted budget will be up to five but we have two more months of numbers from the assessor's office and we will go whatever number we get from the assessor's office on May 1st that's the number we have to go with for adopted budget paral tax is 10.2 going forward and
079then this is the cola change and the cola adjustment of the cola goes up 4% per year and all these numbers are held constantly but I want to point out these numbers will fluctuate based on our Ada Stephen col is about 1% per year uh we've been working very hard at that continued effort of rightsizing Staffing uh this current year we reduced our staffing to 11 and we wrote to be determined for next year because we're still finalizing enrollment projections for next year we also know we will be adding at least one more TK possibly two more TK classes next year but there will also be some um some staffing retiring um moving on and going we heard people excited about all the changes going on in our district with all the communication but people
080um they love to retire right so so we're we're really happy for Lea to come up where we are getting this con um but this right siiz Staffing is something we're working on our cabinet team will be working on that we've been talking about it with our budget Review Committee and cacf so we're going to be putting our our cabinet team heads together we did 40 FTE in two years uh so we're going to try to see what Staffing levels will be next year but right now it's a little too early to tell but probably by adopted budget we'll have a pretty good number of what what we need to do for Staffing reductions for next year and then the thing that is one of our largest expenses is our Health and Welfare premiums for
081staff we have to budget about 10% increase last year is a 133% increase for Kaiser premiums so we're always being mindful of these costs they are going up as more people are leaving the state Kaiser is not only a healthare provider but they're also an insurance insurance company so if there's less people paying into the insurance company kais going to have to raise their rates because they have a lot of big facilities that they have to to to uh operate so we're going to be very mindful of these costs going forward multi-year Revenue the lcf revenue is mostly property taxes is the biggest driver of these and the federal revenue right now we're still going to hold it flat in the out years we do get a slight increase in colas but with the decline
082in ada8 we're going to co flat and these numbers a slight increase the partial tax is going to be a slight increase for the cola and the other local I want to point out the other local right now is at 6.4 and then in the out years we have some grants that we that we have that are in our budget that are going to be going away and we also don't budget in the out years for any other donation and things because they're not guaranteed but in this other local is also the 2.5 million L contribution I want to point that out um our general fund salaries you can see the large increase of salaries is going to be going up and then in the third year the only increase you'll see a step and
083column which is about half million doll a year supplies and other you see the drop off and that's from the restricted funds that we have in our budget I try to detail it in your new narrative and assumptions of all the different funding sources and all the different restri on there you know too um the other financing uses that's the trans rout to the cafer fund so right now we're predicting 1.0 this slight increasing out years fund balance beginning fund balance is as we close the books 21.6 million and you can see we're in a slight deficit this year but then in the two out years is where we're going to have to do the work we're hoping by the time we close the books that this number will get down much lower which we
084think we can we know we have some budged people that are in our budget that are Staffing that we have not hired so we do have about 400,000 of vacancies that we have not filled and not that we're doing a hiring freeze but we're we're being very mindful of not hiring somebody when we're already in the middle of March we not might not need that person for the rest of the year so there is some money that's that that is budgeted that has not been used um and fund 17 there are special reserves you can see our reserves are to be decreasing that's that projection right now at today SEC dinner we feel with some Bel tightening in the future and also before we close the books those numbers will look a little bit better
085and that's kind of where we're at so tonight this is a kind of a high highlight of our key budget deadlines we're at second interim tonight sites will be received allocations pretty soon and really it's hard to believe we're less than three months away before the end of the school year and we'll be doing a public Hearing in June and adopting your budget June 9th and tonight we're asking the board that we can meet our financial obligations for the current year and the two out years and have a positive certification at second that's the fastest I think I've ever done second all right thank you so much are there any clarifying questions take public comment is there any question public comment open up for board discussion I just want to say thank you not just
086for the presentation but also for the narrative that was attached to the agenda I thought that was really help um I have one question um that yeah um the reserves they go from 23% to 16% to 8% and then what do they do U well we're in a structural budget deficit at that point so there's going to have to be some bell tightening but again that's projection now by the time we adopt our budget we have to be above 3% so when we adopt our budget in June our Reserve will be above 3% and if we can show multi-year reductions then we can get it back into just be 8.08% is just barely in going aussy that's correct that's based on today's projections you think we need to revisit our Reserve policy you know um
087reserves are important there also cash um we need have adequate reserves to one if let's say for example the state took us over and um said you're going to be now become an LC F district and they're going to take our excess property taxes away we would need those reserves to make some programmatic changes and to have some time to make some structural changes to our how we fund our schools um I don't think when they say how much reserves you need that my answer is always there's never enough um but you know reserves are important to soften the ball to make program if there's a wildfire and it spreads throughout Los alos and we lose schools we need to have reserves um Reserves are how we pay our bills we have to have on
088hand our families in our community they expect to have their paycheck paid for so when you get low on reserves it's not good most basic Aid school districts to answer your very lovely question is um you want to have at least 15 to 20% reserves for basic a school districts okay that's best practice thank you I'm glad that we're not um very dependent on federal funding like coordinators any other okay so this is an action item s um may I have a motion to approve the 20242 second interm financial report remove thank you Vladimir I have a second second you start motion to approve the 20242 second interim financial report was made by Vladimir and seconded by Stella all in favor I any opposed any great motion passes thank you everyone and thank you especially
089Eric hey you're back up there again resolution number 24 25-13 yeah auth yeah yeah this is an action item uh this authorizes uh The District staff to make any income and expenditure movements from all any from the general fund and any the other funds normally what we do is we adopt a single resolution in May and then we ask the board um to adopt resolution every time we go to first and second interim and this is to do any budget transfers during the current fiscal year so tonight we're asking you to adopt resolution 2425 D13 to authorize an increase and decrease of income and expenditures the action item thank you are there any clarifying questions is there any public comment no any further board discussion okay in that case may I have a motion to
090approve resolution number -3 authorization to increase decrease income and expenditures so thank you Vladimir may have a second second thank you Stella motion to approve resolution number 24 25-13 was made by Vladimir and seconded by Stella this is a resolution will be a roll call Vote Yes Jim yes vadir yes ran yes I to vote Yes motion passes unanimously thank you everyone non-represented employee compensation yes so tonight attached to this item you have salary schedules and the um report from the county uh highlighting the compensation increase for our as Eric just said our um confidential group and our administrator groups um with confidentials getting an 8 and a half% phais our two years retroactive and our principals and administrator grp groups getting a 7% raise over for each of the two years retroactive hoping you
091will approve those tonight are clarifying questions for Sandra no is there any public comment no okay um is there any further board discussion okay in that case um may have a motion to approve the non-represented employee compensation thank you Vladimir may have a second I second thank you Stella motion to approve the non-represented employee compensation as presented by was made by Vladimir seconded by Stella all in favor I any oppose any exensions great motion passes thanks everybody all right thank you hey and our final item board buddy assignments yes so this came I think after an a conference perhaps or conversation and so wanted to give you all a time to maybe wants to kind of introduce the item a little bit um and then have a time to discuss whether it's something that you
092all want to move forward with uh this is an idea that I think we've got from Sylvia Leong with the cerino Union School District so maybe actually new principal knows something about it we can consult her um but they do board buddies where like each board member is assigned a couple of schools in the district where they get to know that school Community better and attend events at the school and is sort of a point of contact for you know staff and families at the school and I thought oh that's an idea we could explore here in our district thank you um well this is open for a discussion anybody want to comment can I add my two sents perhaps before the commenting begins I think if it's something you want to consider or we
093can explore more I would want clear definitions around like what is the Buddy Pro progr like what are the expectations of the board member attending different things all of that um I want to make sure that we still keep our traditional lines of communication like for a parent concern I would want parents to go to the teacher and then the principal you know we have like our typical chain of command so I want to make sure that it's just clear what the role is if we go forward with that um I would also like to add um that let's let's say one of you is assigned to what our school that the other board members would also be welcome to go have like concerts and things or is it just the board Buddy goes I
094mean I haven't think it could be anything we design it to be if there's but I don't think you should close a right that's what I want I I think we should also like going back to the proper chain of command and Communications but um we don't want anyone to think that they can circumvent that by going straight to the to the the board buddy that would be my concern but I think I mean not recalling it 100% but I think the idea behind it was just that board members were a little more visible to the community and not such a mysterious but um yeah so my presumption would be people would not necessarily I mean I can see how they would try to circumvent the process but I think our Bo would not allow
095that I I do agree I think our board is very well SED and good governance and they would know that yeah and and I was just going to say that the way I had imagined it was that you know like for Jim and I we have kids that are still at the ele schools so we are there pretty often just attending events for our own children but our presence there gives us an opportunity to connect with the families and not um in such a formal setting right and so I think I just had thought oh maybe that's sort of the benefit is that you build these relationships just for the sake of that relationship and not necessarily only when issues arise you know but that you have that um you know you have those shared
096experiences and that familiarity together so then if anything does come up then there's like a very strong foundation and for those of us who no longer have kids in the district we don't have that natural what's happening on have this kind of perspective right I'm not all to it concerns and um I can sort of see copertino as addition is sort of three times the size of our so I can see how that would be an issue where people just never see the board members around not sure we have the same problem but I would certainly be open to sort of a reset of of board expectations or you know plan for we just heard from our new Communications where actually we talked about branding and this seems like there's a potential to duvail quite
097well there of like setting up a structure for us as a board to be getting out into the community more and so I think that's fine as long as we Define it prop um I'm not against it I'm a little bit hesitant about the benefits or what I see um I know that we've all had implanted in us a little button which SRA pushes and then we go okay all right that was the one thing to say so I think we're all well trained on that part there I don't think there's potential for looping around there um I have been to some meetings at at um bull Guardian B and uh even though I might be identified oh there's a board M nothing so I'm not sure there's much benefit there that's the me uh
098if you guys think it's worthwhile we can certainly try it do it for a trial maybe we need to do a little more research Andino about how it's implemented and what they see as the benefits you and like maybe talk to some parents who have found it beneficial if they cany some no I was just going to say it Al that this came up also um along with the idea of bored having office settlers or I know at some point we used to have that um I know just in my short time on the board there's probably been three people who have come to me and said something and I've or asked something about the board and I haven't had the answer but I've said well you can reach out to char she's the president
099of the board or you can you know talk to Brian he knows like oh are you allowed to do that and I'm like of course you're all to do I mean like so um I agree we're small enough most people know but I think there still is a little bit of a disconnect um so this idea or office hours or something that makes us slightly more accessible yeah I don't know maybe to your point Vladimir maybe it you know because I've seen could be me well no but I mean I have seen you at Garder events and I know like's like okay great that's a trustee whatever you you know so it may not have I I don't know but we did just hire a new principal who probably has experience with this so it
100would be good to all right she's from Co ask her what her you know how she's seen at work um and maybe see from our principles like do they think there's like value in this so I think Jessica and I were two who did the most sort of attempted office hours but even then I think we all it was never at school sites it was always sort of out in the community because part of that effort was to get out in front of the non-parent community but might be depending on of what events the school has going on trying to do of offers hours in conjunction with the principal coffee I know different schools do different things in terms of giving parents a chance to show up and ask questions but yeah be good idea
101I think it's definitely a good idea to be more accessible to our parents be more visible have been introduced at like concerts and things I stand up and I wait nobody talks to me but again like you said good even um I will say I'll jump ahead but I attended the uh and um the table was the same table not talking about s that um and I mentioned that we were considering moving to Middle School model oh is that under consideration so there's definitely a need for um more more effective communication and I could see as PL Ro of that if for instance at uh principal's Cofe there was Vadim do you want to say anything about what the board has been doing no they've been all sleeping what um or what are the topics
102that are coming up over and over again if we have a little bit of a sort of set agenda if you want that would I think help a lot because then people would start to get used so I wanted also to share something about the ire which was a great event um and I just I happen to be in line for food behind a family who has attended Covington and almond and other schools in the district and um they didn't know that I was a trustee at first but it was just nice to be able to talk to them and I don't normally you know talk to other families from almond and so it was just really Pleasant and then I felt like once we had established that Rapport then if they did have questions
103about the district and board business then it would have been easier for them to talk to me about it but you know it was just a social setting and it wasn't so much office hours or like come tell me your concerns it's just like let's get to know each other so that nobody's intimidated by anybody else right yeah no for sure for sure I think it would definitely go a long way towards decreasing the mystery about the board you know this you can see so what would we so I was SC say I noticed a huge amount of public comment on the bo items that we have oh yes which actually is a concern I I think get concern I hope that with the new communications director maybe that'll slow to change but it sounds
104like we need do we need more information yeah maybe Stella and I can work together Le a little B yeah yeah flush it out a little more too consider more seriously to ask as well what she see work bases yeah right any other thoughts on this okay thank you thanks um let's move on to board and administration comments two two comments mention our classified and confidential employee input sessions we have another one tomorrow in person here at the district office it's our third opportunity so we're really looking forward to hopefully having some folks come and and give input that's been really helpful for us to think about uh training opportunities and ways that we can improve our employees experience and on that note we had our fifth teacher Advisory Group meeting today and it was
105um focus on educator well-being so we took some time and looked at what our current resources available in the district that support well-being whether it's our benefit package through our Health and Welfare um or our employee assistance program they just want to report to the board um our employee assistance program or EAP is accessible 24 hours a day seven days a week and we had four teachers in a group of 20 share testimonials that they've accessed it themselves or for family members and we're really pleased with the the services and leakages great that was so I so happy to hear that because we just get a metrics report we don't get those types of stories so I thought that was really positive um to share in the Thal and a safe enough space to share
106kind of that information with us so that was helpful and then in addition to talking about current resources we talk about their ideas for um improving educator wellness and it was really sweet many of the comments were around just continuing positive affirmations from the their administrators um they really like hearing and getting positive notes um their ideas for yoga groups um and then just ways we can streamline the work too and thinking about sub plans different different things like that thank you thank you Eric I want to thank the this the the public for being here I know they only came for that I think you've heard your presentation for time but I want to thank the business staff and elizabeta especially for all the hard work and support that they provide the district not
107just to me personally but also they they provide service Serv to the district and I can't tell you how um refreshing is to talk to secretaries and clerks and how helpful they they feel that the business staff and maintenance and operation staff um and then the big storms that we had we had a couple rofs which is pretty far for the course um we did have our Arbor out working on some trees over break and had come out do some emergency repairs on a couple trees over at Egan um but our schools held up pretty well a couple fences fell over but it was pretty storm uh but our schools faed pretty well in the storms and I just want to thank the maintenance and ground staff they really um they're out the schools uh
108breathing the wind and and the rain and they got the campuses cleaned up and safe for our kids so that's really good to them thank you so uh well as we mentioned a bunch of us attended the ifar it was a great event and I did win the raffle was very exciting for me um and I went on a site visit to Loyal Alexandra and attended uh the wellness center opening all of those things uh if our dinner which uh I I enjoyed the first one last year this one um I also enjoy but not as much as the first one and in principle principally because last year there was an e start and he was just awesome I just left him I went after him later on I told them there's not a religious
109B in my body but I really like your anyway um so I went to that that was great we had a conversation at our table with some parents and also with some uh um ad administrat support um and then I talked in uh the office there today uh with our new Ean principal whose name I've already forgotten um Lisa Terina Lisa I can't get the I have to see it written in a second but har you mentioned educator Wellness I one of the topics we talked about was how principles are are the meeting point for uh Administration parents students teachers and I think that's really important to make sure that they're looked after that's all I like right um in addition to the Wellness Center openings I also attended the legislative brunch um from the
110county County School Board Association which is interesting as always a little bit more chaos than usual um so that's about it chaos at the federal level not at the BR well the state I mean there's always a little bit of State like chaos at the a lot of unknowns out there and the you know in another year there'll be a new governor or a year and a half there'll be a new governor and that's always a change in education funding paradigms of L sure a lot of unknowns um I also atted the legislative Bunch with um Brian and uh it was great our newly elected congressional representative for this area representative Lardo he was there in person that was very impressed that was very good um ETA leadership meeting I'm so happy to see some
111of PTA folks here thank you um challenge team Ted lbert came and spoke about um oh God this are the report card for Santa Clara County yeah it's always yeah it's so great um I want to thank the Muslim Community for inviting us to the iar dinner that was a really lovely event I'm very grateful to be invited and I was telling to someone that last year there was a wonderful Imam who he really like made an emotional impact on me you know I was thinking about him I was hoping you would be there anyway anyway um and then also attended in person the state of the County uh um event I guess you could say the new super supervisor board president is Oto Lee from District 3 lovely lovely person very humble and um
112you know he's got a good outlook for the county despite all of the uh unknowns and stuff and you kind of laid out that like how the C county is going to stand strong all so I love that we live in Santa Clara County and with that with my love for Santa Clara County I will Jin tonight's meeting thank you thank you