001[Music] okay hold on thank you for being here we're going to start the meeting right now we're going to start at [Music] here here maen here Dr Pres jennif H here blanos here yes we have a quorum we'll go to Item B resolutions resolution 2803 women's history month for March presenting will be Dr Mary Stevens for Miss Lori tumian [Music] okay uh good afternoon board president Hall uh esteemed members of the board superintendent Dr Blanco members of SLT and PD Community I'm Dr Mary Stevens the instructional coach at Marshall and is my honor and privilege to reintroduce board resolution 2803 honoring March as women's History Month in the pasid Unified School District on behalf of the women's history collaborative committee I'm joined by our assistant principal of curriculum instruction and signature programs Miss Katrina narv
002and art teacher Miss lean shei who also designs our gorgeous posters every year I would like to take this opportunity to highlight the recent revisions made by principal tumian and board president Harley within the sixth whereas the verbiage of the movement for LGBT qia plus me too and times up were added Additionally the next two were as statements include the context for the eat and fires and the disproportionate impacts of climate change on women and children the women's history collaborative has had the same goal for eight years for women's history and the women's Liberation movement to be included in our curriculum at a much broader scale our assembly has flourished over the years to include all secondary schools and with Keynotes such as former Secretary of State Hillary rodm Clinton labor leader and civil rights
003activist Dolores wera and US representatives Judy Chu and Maxine Waters board president Holly is thrilled to announce our keynote speaker this year our new state senator Sasha Renee Perez yes we have provided each of you with print materials for this year's event including a poster designed by mhi depicting a young girl looking up with hope below her a rose and the San Gabriel Mountain symbolizing Altadena and Pasadena the butterflies pay tribute to Elliot arts's metamorphosis event and reinforc this year's theme Together We rise it is also a nod to the Tonga belief that if you whisper your wish to a butterfly it will carry your wish to the Heavens to be granted students in sixth through 12th grades will write essays and or create art with a theme and prompts in mind selected students from
004every Secondary School will present their work on March 26 at Marshall originally this year's prompts asked students to address the preservation of equal rights earned through the women's Liberation movement in light of our school Community circumstances stemming from the eaten fire an alternative prompt was added to honor the strength and resilience of our communities and their leaders the new prompt reads and I'll paraphrase the eaten fire decimated the community of Al Ina as well as parts of Pasadena and sier madre in the midst of this tragedy countless leaders worked to ensure all affected individuals had immediate access to all Necessities identify a PML leader who supported the communities of Altadena Pasadena and sier Madre following the eaten fire provide examples of their leadership particularly the significance of their actions to the families affected by the
005fires students are encouraged to arrive at their own definitions of leadership from high-profile leaders such as former vice president Harris to the Abita who is currently housing this place family members our assembly is on March our assembly sorry on March 26 is live and will also be live streamed by our amazing Karns team we hope you will join us on Wednesday March 26th at 6 p.m. at Marshall thank you for your time consideration and support I think we can just move ahead with this does anybody have anything to say oh all in favor no no motion motion motion motion to approve resolution for women's History Month I'm Mo approval second is there any discussion we going have to do roll call roll call hard [Music] yes yes Mar McKenzie yes yes Dr [Music] yes Jennifer
006yes we have eight public comments we have eight public comments in item C yes are they abstentions or are they just absent okay AB they're absent so you can go back and okay okay so let's move on to item C we have eight public comments we can do three minutes each for eight so we're going to start with Ryan um dalstrom followed by Leah Romero followed by Han Lee all right good evening board president Hall board members superintendent Blanco SLT colleagues and Community my name is Ryan dalstrom and I'm atosa to supporting The CARE program this group of people standing before you this evening represent of TOA in special education human resources College and Career early childhood education and curriculum instructional professional development departments and student wellness and support services we are uniquely qualified to
007do what we do each of us holds deep Wells of PD institutional knowledge as well as community and staff credibility which we have been carefully earning over years through intentional commitment and passion we we are very much part of the connective tissue here in the district providing space for collaboration leadership and serving our students and teams behind the scenes our work is not always seen but we know it is very much felt by students classroom teachers principles and the different departments at central office which is why we are here today any disruption with our work will directly impact school sites and staff and ultimately our students good evening my name is Hannah Lee and I speak on behalf of myself and my colleague Lilia Romero we are teachers on special assignment in Human Resources I
008oversee the teacher induction program for approximately 95 new teachers in Pasadena unified while miss Romero supports over 25 pre-service teachers through our District's partnership with the Alder teacher Residency program we value the Union's role in advocating for educators but recent counterproposals to PD include changes that would significantly impact the induction and teacher residency programs potentially harming both new teachers and their students one proposed change is to compensate tosas at the pum hourly rate for work beyond the contractual day while this may seem beneficial it raises several concerns first the structure would create inconsistencies within the tosa role as years of service would impact compensation even if responsibilities remain the same additionally because per DM pay depends on school or Department budgets some tosas could receive compensation While others would not another important consideration is that
009supplemental pay does not contribute to retirement under the State teachers retirement system which could make it harder to retain experienced toas in these critical support roles if fewer toas remain due to inconsist consistent compensation and lack of retirement benefits from supplemental pay then new teachers may experience delays in mentorship feedback and classroom support all of which directly affect student learning another proposed change is reducing the TOA 2 position from 11 months to 10 months this would limit our ability to provide yearr round program development Mentor training and ongoing support for new teachers a shorter work year means less time for guide which could lead to delays in teacher support instructional inconsistencies and weakened classroom management the full accreditation of the induction program which was only recently reacquired could be also be at risk destabilizing the
010program and impacting teacher retention and Student Success teachers would miss out on critical strategies for supporting diverse Learners and mentors might not have the training to offer effective feedback we appreciate the Union's commitment to improving working conditions for educators and remain hopeful for improved communication and representation moving forward we urge consideration of the broader impact these changes would have on tosas new teachers and the students we serve thank you thank you Sophia Val jul okay good evening everyone my name is Sophia valades and I am a TOA 2 in the office of College and Career I am here today to bring to your attention a serious concern the current UTP leadership is failing to represent all of its members particularly toat by proposing language that actively harms our positions our responsibilities extend beyond the school
011year and we serve as a crucial bridge between teachers and the district yet UTP has ignored our feedback and continues to push changes that would negatively impact our roles despite paying union dues we are treated as if we are not members with some toses even being told looks like your time is almost up we appreciate the PD bargaining team for eliminating the harmful 12-year language something UTP refused to advocate for despite our requests we urge PUSD to reject UT's proposal as it undermines the very positions that support classrooms teachers and students across the district thank you good evening my name is Julie Cole and I'm here tonight speaking on behalf of myself and my colleague Katherine agular we are the two early childhood education toat providing instructional coaching professional development and just in time support
012to PD's 22 preschool classrooms 20 TK classrooms and the 10 prek TK and kindergarten embedded instruction classrooms across the district I am here to Echo my fellow toa's concerns about the lack of Equitable representation by this current UTP leadership we are members of UTP we pay monthly dues with the expectation that our interests will be equally protected by our Union leadership unfortunately this is not proving to be the case in March of 2024 a group of tosas met with the UTP leadership at the request of the tosas to ask questions regarding how UTP planed to negotiate the tosa article before you today and to request that the 12year limit for a teacher on special assignment be eliminated we are argue that the institutional knowledge extensive training and unique skills that tosas bring to our work
013should not be replaced due to a time limit at that meeting we were repeatedly told by UTP leadership that they believed in upholding the 12year limit for toses because the UTP leadership in that meeting said it was the tosa responsibility to give other people a chance to do that work classroom teachers are not asked to give up their current classroom position to give another teacher a chance to teach that class however that is what was communicated to and expected of tosas this is a perfect example of how the current UTP leadership is not fairly and equitably representing toses we are grateful to the PD leadership for recognizing the value in the training they have provided for us and appreciating the unique skills tosa twos bring to the work we do this is evident by PD's
014proposal to strike the tosa 12year limit from the contract language as TOA we are called upon to plan and Lead professional development prior to teachers return to school throughout the school year as well as during the summer we research and support the ordering distribution and teacher training of curriculum resources used by all teachers in the district we work with tosa ones to provide PLC content applicable to our TK classrooms and collaborate to provide resources to support embedded instruction classrooms at individual School sites we do all of these things while providing just in time supports for all classrooms across the district the UTP leadership without any input from toa's doing this work has chosen to make drastic changes to the tosa role with their proposed work hour and work year changes to the contract language these
015changes proposed by the current UTB leader ERS ship would negatively impact our ability to support the classroom teachers of PD and further proves their inability to negotiate fairly and equitably upon our behalf on behalf of my fellow tosa 2 colleagues I urge you to reject UT's counter proposal on the tosa article thank you Ashley Butler Rebecca Black Cara Shan good evening my name is Ashley Butler and I'm here to represent the three tosa in cipd edtech as my colleagues have stated we too are concerned with UT's leadership uh continued disregard for our positions our voice and our feedback in December we met with UTP leadership to discuss some of our concerns and recommend language on upcoming articles for negotiation we ask for the following removal of the 12-year language which limited tosas to only be
016in their position for 12 years and for the possibility of tosa ones to be added as 10 and a half month employees the 12-year language was not beneficial to anyone in the district because it removed highly qualified professionals from their position based on time rather than qualifications we asked for TOA ones to have 10 and a half month calendar years to allow them time at the beginning and the end of the year to provide supports to students and teachers as well as offset the cost of supplemental pay neither of these requests were acted upon by UTP we Echo the points that other tosas have made as a requ and request that UT's counterproposal on the tosa article not be accepted as it does not consider all of the distinct roles and responsibilities of the different
017TOS of positions moreover it will lead to a greater fiscal instability for the district due to the per DM supplemental pay structure UTP has proposed it does not contribute to our retirement it's contingent Upon Our Department's s or sites approving our supplemental pay and it um leads to a greater inequity between the current tosas UTP leadership told us in December that they would not not do anything to negatively impact tosa or its membership these proposed changes do not benefit any tosas and they do not work to unite any UTP membership tosa 2os work in strong partnership and collaboration with site-based tosas to ensure that students and teachers are supported the changes proposed by UTP in this tosa article would lead to significant changes districtwide including but not limited to a reduction in support for implem
018mentation of instructional materials a reduction in support for implementation of Technology compromis District driven professional development days and summer professional institutes compromise adoption processes a loss of alignment between instructional supports at the school site which then impacts our student outcomes and a collaboration will be compromise between tosa and central office causing a lack of a lack in cons consistent support of all teachers districtwide which would then negatively impact our student outcomes thank you hello I'm Rebecca Black I am the edtech tosa in the cipd department and as Mr Doom stated each toasted two represents a unique expertise in a particular field Ryan and Jamie have expertise in special ed Hannah and Lilia in supporting new and incoming teachers Sophia in College and Career Readiness pal Michael in restorative practices student safety and attendance Ashley and
019secondary education Carmela and Elementary education me in educational technology Julia and Catherine in early childhood education and embedded instruction while we are few our reaches far we impact all parts of the PD community over the years there has been a narrative that because our work location is at central office we have no impact on students teachers and schools this needs to stop we work in Partnership ship with all schools the bottom line is this we do not want to stand up here and make these comments we are teachers first and we are all union members we believe in unions and everything they represent but when intent doesn't match impact something must be said UTP is making critical decisions about TOA positions without consulting us these decisions fail to support or represent the needs of all
020of its members particularly those of us who work in TOA roles we deserve to have our voices heard in decisions that have such a significant impact on our work our teachers and ultimately our students thank you okay thank you very much and we will recess to close recess to close session thank you you [Music] good evening thank you for being here um this is the readout language for Clos session concerning item D1 case number 00700 by a vote of 7 to Zer the board took action to approve of the settlement of special education litigation in accordance with the terms of a written agreement concerning item D2 case number 20241 008 70 by a vote of 7 to0 the board took action to approve of the settlement of special education litigation in accordance with the terms
021of a written agreement concerning item D3 case number 202 4120 487 by a vote of 7 to0 the board took action to approve of the settlement of special education litigation in accordance with the terms of a written agreement concerning item D4 case number 202 411005 by a vote of 7 to0 the board took action to approve of the settlement of special education litigation in accordance with the terms of a written agreement Public Employee release government code 54957 in a closed session by a vote of 7 to Zer the board took action to issue notice to release and reassign the following employee from their employees from their administrative positions pursuant to Education Code section 4495 effective at the end of the 20 24 2025 school year and directed the superintendent or designate to send out appropriate
022legal notices thank you very much closed session is [Music] adjourned call to order please Scott Harden hereen here here [Music] here here here Dr elizab Blanco here B here trusty Bailey will you please do the pledge i al to the flag of the United States of America and to the repu for it stands one nation God indivisible withy andice for all and this is the time for public comment how many um speakers do we have clerk 17 okay so I'm going to ask that everybody has two minutes and that we're going to call your names and she's going to call them in groups and if you could all just line up so we could just move through as efficiently as we can you may begin the Board of Education acknowledges receive of public comments via
023email it will be made part of our permanent record of this meeting um Coler is Sony abicial of the US Army Corps okay good evening everyone uh I will be quick uh pacifi pasaden Unified School District thank you for inviting me to speak today my name is Colonel Sunny avichal I'm the commander of the eaten fire emergency field office US Army Corp of Engineers tonight I want to update you on the progress with phase two debr cleanup and address any concerns about our operations that may be affecting your students first first and foremost safety Regulatory Compliance and Community engagement are our top priorities my colleague Colonel swensson often says we can only move at the speed of trust and that's why I'm here tonight to set clear expectations address concerns and continue to earn that
024trust with you all so just to give some scope of the mission that we are embarking on this is the largest Wildfire Phase 2 debris cleanup in the 250e history of the core Engineers the Eaton and Palisades fire combined make this operation many times larger than anything that we encountered in Mali and we have mobilized months faster than previous disaster responses thanks to the rapid work of our partners in the Environmental Protection Agency we understand that increased truck traffic is a concern especially around schools however recent reports suggesting 1500 trucks per day those are inaccurate at full capacity we will not approach that number our goal is to complete this Mission efficiently and safely with with a completion Target of January 2026 we recognize the commun community's concern about fire as debris I too am
025a parent of a fifth grader and seventh grader and their safety like yours is my top priority that's why we have strict handling and trans transport procedures in place on-site measures fire debris is continuously wetted down to prevent Airborne dust workers were okay that's your twom minute Mark okay well yes you may continue Go sir go ahead and finish your comments sorry thank you okay um on-site measures fire debris is continuously wetted down to prevent Airborne dust workers wear air monitors on their person and in work areas if levels exceed any sort of safety threshold operations immediately stop until conditions are safe and we have perimeter air monitors on that track exposure levels to ensure safety beyond the work is always on the work site as well as in and around the work site in
026terms of trans transporting trucks do never do not enter the the home Ash footprint material is transferred safely to and from the truck but that truck never actually enters the area where the ash debris sits debris that is fire Ash debris is wrapped in a thick plastic lining two times and then a third tarp is placed over that fire Ash debris to ensure no material escapes during transport we understand there are concerns about air quality however it's important to clarify the biggest long-term risk to this community will be leaving the Ash and debris where it is right now if it is where it is right now it could potentially leech into groundwater be carried by wind into homes and schools and businesses so by removing the material quickly and safely we reduce that public health
027hazard air monitoring data consistently shows that exposure levels remain low for now and they are low at all of our work sites we re we are still working our processes we recognize concerns about debris trucks near schools we're a we are actively exploring alternative schedules for our trucks to be on these roads uh that will minimize their their activity during Peak school hours we're implementing uh mitigation measures such as increase Road cleaning and dust control on these routes and overall we are committed to continually being engaged with uh Pasadena Unified School District parents and local officials those conclude my remarks I will be in the hallway if anyone wants to have a conversation afterwards thank you I will be calling three people at a time when you hear your name stand for line um Stan
028said staning cruy or Cruz Cruz Barbara isida Robin [Music] Worley I'm starting cre is a dedicated teacher of 250 for two previous years and this year 100 teachers or students te K Kinder and first grade at Field Elementary today I ask you to look me in the eyes and tell me that these cuts are really for the benefit of our students tell me it's for the kids some of these students have already experienced the trauma of losing their homes their schools and their friends and it is traumatizing the whole Community now we're cutting the teachers moving them all around not by seniority but by skipping schools and teachers for reason that make no sense these children's deserve stability at field D dual immersion we have helped build the program from the ground up we brought
029it to the top PD schools ranking at 310 out of 8,000 and now we're cutting all the El teachers out which is crazy to me the relationship and community that we have created training teachers like pawns on a chess board to be moved without consideration for the lasting impact I want to remind you something that we uh something very important the district fined last year $90,000 for being out of compliance of eight administrators to 100 teachers and now you go ahead and cut more teachers I'm not just a piece on a chessboard that my my children came to me this week and they were uh they mom told them I'm not going to be here next year and they the the go no this can't be true this can't be true and then they all
030started crying and they all came around me and then I bued down and cried I'm not just a piece on a chessboard it's degrading it's abusive every year when you guys cut and it's a lack of respect uh article 7 of a UTP 7- 524 uh doesn't take any consideration of our seniority I have been cut and cut and cut at this at this district and and now you're going to put a person with less senority that hasn't been in a school for three years can take my position where I've been a teacher longer than them on the S seniority list oh yeah remember you guys skip a million people do it for the we are doing it for the kids the teachers are doing it for the kids and we're not little ponds that
031you can just move around it really does count and and you're pulling like a family apart that really is skilled in what we do so think about it please Barbara Anda good evening um my name is Barbara sheeta and I was born in Pasadena part of an integration in PD when I was in second grade and I'm now teaching at normac kums the school where I attended K 1 4 and five I started my career in PD in the 80s and left for a while but came back to PD about six years ago more committed than ever to public education and the ideals that PD embodies I am a proud teacher of PD and knocked on doors this past fall to pass measure e the bonds and parcel tax I remember for saying to people
032that good schools make stronger [Music] communities one of the values I have been able to maintain throughout my career is to live work and worship locally so I also voted for the parcel tax but because I live locally I also um lost my home in the recent eat and fire I have been so supported by our nce community this whole time and I am so grateful for all the hard work that you put in to bring our schools back to code and get students back in the classroom teaching has been a stable part in all the moving pieces right now for me but when I heard that you are planning to lay off 120 teachers my heart sank I am probably within that group and I know that group contains many people besides me who
033have been impacted by the fires in addition to teachers like stene who have given so much to PD I heard that CTA wrote a letter to Governor Nome asking for a moratorium on layoffs right now please join them in that I think that we as a district can trust the love and support this community has recently experienced and not give in to the financial fears about what might happen the community is behind you there was overwhelming support for the measure bonds and Parcels we had to keep our schools um we have to keep our schools stable when we have school tours parents see what they like and want to attend but through a layoff decision the board destroys the community culture and cohesiveness that attracts parents to a school we need to think out of
034the box and hold to the values of people community and education not the bottom line that is driven by fear not by possibility Robin gley and then Michael tur hi um I'm Robin Morley I'm the PSD teacher of the year and I'm a teacher at Octavia E Butler magnet and I'm Francis milus and I was the teacher of the year in 2006 I'm also at Octavia Butler this year is supposed to be all about the power of us for the staff and students of Octavia Butler middle school we have seen this in action every day for years we are powerful connectors connecting with our colleagues and staff and with our students because we know this is the way to help them step into a successful future many of our students don't have a firm belief
035in themselves they're tween and teens so we stand next to them shoulder-to-shoulder believing in them until they believe in themselves the actions of the district in this board however reveal that the power of us is merely a catchphrase there is no power of us when our our students are not getting the best of us as teachers a best that is impossible to achieve without Necessities like adequate planning time with our colleagues modest class sizes and manageable case loads for special Educators last year my 7th grade colleagues and I had 40 students in most of our classes impacting the way a general education teacher provides support to his or her special education students having unreasonable case loads impacts the quality complexity and differentiation of this the lessons received by special education students in their classes on
036top of that under the guise of budget restraints dedicated new teachers who have put in the work to establish relationships with our students and who are committed to our community are being pulled from us a superintendent school with the trauma of the eaten fire still heavy on our students Hearts we have all this positive force this power to change lives gone with a stroke of a p and a vote The Changing of the Guard is coming soon you're giving away our future teaching Force our most valuable resource to other districts when these teachers want to be here with our students is this District really recognizing the power of us or are you wielding the power of you moving the pieces haphazardly to fit some formula we implore you to recognize the power of us by
037seeing teachers and students as more than dollars and cents we are trans a transforming Force to lead us into the future thank you Michael to followed by Joy M Michael Michael to followed by Joy M career all right [Music] right good evening board members my name is Michael toe I'm a special ed teacher at Blair high school and member of the UTP bargaining team after 10 years of UTP proposing a special ed article the district finally responded with anou calling it an attempt at collaboration with UTP let's put that claim to the test okay UTP asked for guaranteed classroom AIDS which are currently provided and budgeted for PD's allows one to one AIDS assigned to individual students to count as classroom support in place of a classroom Aid does that sound conducive to compliance does
038that sound like collaboration to you UTP proposed the guarantee of an i AP compliance period for secondary special ed teachers which already exists at most sites but is is constantly threatened the district refused it does that sound like collaboration to you no okay PC's mou set special ed class size maximum maximums excessively beyond what is functional and Status Quo typical class sizes does that sound like collaboration no no 75% of UT's proposed special ed article ures no additional costs including proposals based on Ed code all was rejected does that sound like collaboration to you okay board members did you sign off on this mou did you provide input on what was proposed if not shouldn't you have did collaboration happen instead of falling behind PD should be Leading The Way with other districts like LAUSD
039that already have a special ed article or strong specialed language Insurance supports instead of moving us backward the district has an opportunity to do better to commit to and prioritize special education for our students the choice is yours what will you do thank you Joy Mike prairy Julissa Gomez Analise Liberto my name is joy mccre and I'm a teacher in pastina unified PSD runs in my veins my great grandma was a lunch lady at Wilson my grandma Grand uncles mother uncle and Aunt are all products of PD schools my parents met and fell in love teaching in PD I'm 28 years old I triple majored I have two master's degrees and I'm officially a PhD candidate in education I have six years of teaching experience but only two of them are here in PD I've
040attended every possible training I can to improve my craft I'm also almost 7 months pregnant with a baby whose due date is uh May 30th which I don't think you'll find surprising given that that's about the end of the school year um it does not require a triple Major two master's degrees and almost a PhD to know that I am likely going to be laid off um with a baby on the way this reality is even more terrifying with this realization also comes a very deep humbling because this is something that I should have seen coming my parents didn't stay in PD and when I told them I wanted to work in PD they cautioned me against it they warned me that PD was a dangerous place to start working because I would not enjoy
041the job security I so desired particularly when I wanted to start a family 30 years ago they left PUSD for the same reason I didn't believe them I believed that in 30 years uh since they had worked in PD that the funding management would be better that student facing positions would have become the obvious priority particularly given the knowledge that making TS to the classroom only causes more hemorrhaging of students which then exacerbates said funding issues that the retention of talented young Educators such as myself would also be a clear priority that it would be obvious the last place to make Cuts is to teachers the real people who serve on the front lines and do the work of actually educating students I'm here today to ask you to prove me right to show that
042in 30 years progress has been made and the same concerns are not a reality that teachers and student facing staff will be the first to be protected not the first to be cut thank you J [Applause] gz good afternoon um superintendent and board members my name is Julissa Gomez and I'm a parent of Katarina sanana first grader at aladina Arts Magnet I recently found out along with other parents on Friday that the district intends to move Altadena back to its campus from Allandale over the weekend I also KN learned about the numerous job cuts that would be made um to my daughter's um School in particularly the dedicated art teacher which is important for an Arts Magnet to say I'm disappointed in these decisions is putting it lightly um I moved to Altadena chasing the
043Latino immigrant dream to for better access of education and health um Health Access and education 45% of Latino 45% of the population is Latino Altadena Arts Magnet with many living below or at the poverty line moving back to Altadena would only further impact health and financial implications for these families as 37% of Latino families have no access to health insurance we chose Altadena Arts Magnet for its arts program but losing any part of this would greatly impact my child's educ ation we have already lost days in the classroom school supplies and not the thought of losing teachers is too much to bear in California the average people spend is $1,548 per student in Pasadena that District spends about $1,443 these budget cuts will only further put us behind not to mention that Latino students in
044California face larger inequities compared to their peers in elementary the elementary school is an opportunity to make these advances especially programs like the Arts my daughter will not be statistic I am prepared to make the necessary steps to ensure that she propels and succeeds this district has an opportunity to meet the moment and keep Altadena at Allendale and preserve these positions such as the art teacher and the intervention specialist Analise Li followed by Elizabeth Nicole agil [Music] good evening my name is Analise Liberto that's what I commonly go by here in this District I've been here for 24 years as an educator and came prior to then since I uh was born and raised in this town and went to um multiple schools here um I come here tonight to ask you to reimagine where
045Cuts can be made that have the least possible impact on students Dr Blanco with utmost respect I'm going to use some of your very words to frame my request tonight in the recent PD communication sent out on February 24th you said that there was strength in our resilience collaboration and a shared commitment to do our very best for the children in our schools but with a planned critical Cuts impacting campuses I wonder what you and the board are really communicating are you communicating to the students that we intend to force them to prove their resiliency by stripping away the very staff that they have forged relationships with for some these individuals may be the most constant and positive adult in their lives particularly in light of our recent disaster they might be the most stabilizing
046Force are we actually proving collaboration at the bargaining table or simply and deplorably turning a blind eye to the multi UD of ways PD's coffers continue to be drained if we want this District to truly th Thrive we cannot continue to disregard relationships that cannot be replicated please communicate to our students to our families and to our teachers that you will opt to lessen the burden by keeping our invaluable and irreplaceable staff thank you Elizabeth agil Patricia almaras good evening board my name is Elizabeth Nicole agular I am a product of solely pdk through 12 schools I have worked for the PD for8 years the last one and a half as a special education teacher for seventh and eth grade ELA students in my time working for the PD I witnessed many layoffs the same
047is now happening this year it is not fair to the children who crave stability After experiencing devastating loss to do away with the adults who have grown so invested in their future Prosperity it is not fair to those teachers like me and many others who have to work through our lunch breaks and can't take our conference periods to say don't expect to have a job next year the PD gives too little with one hand and demands too much with the other you the board members were elected to lead I urge you all now to lead to the best of your morality I urge you all those listening and I will urge as many PD parents as I can to oppose the staff cuts and to support the UT's negotiation proposals thank you good evening members
048of the board my name is Patricia Al maras I'm an extensive support needs special ed teacher at Webster I urge you to cap class sizes for special education and not just for students success but for safety overcrowded classrooms put both students and teachers at risk special education requires individualized support and when classes exceed a safe limit learning suffers behavioral incidents rise and legal liabilities grow districts have faced loss suits for failing to provide safe and supportive environments by capping clap capping class sizes we protect students reduce seizure burnout and prevent costly legal battles safety must come first I urge you to act now before it preventable crisis occurs thank you Juliet Garvey followed by talker Davis and Nat igga I have my notes on my phone um I'm Juliet Garvey a freshman at Pasa high
049school I'm heavily interested in math and I hope someday major in mathematics at a school such as MIT and go on to become an economist um I believe that the com my um speech today is about uh the is about my high school I believe that the combination of both math academy and App Academy is going to make me a competitive applicant to these college is because I'll have both the theoretical knowledge of the mathematics necessary and the skills to code programs that can apply that mathematics economists make models that involve code and since it's a central part of the job I believe having those skills would be advantageous for me in contrast the lack of those skills would leave me falling short from the other applicants and would decrease my chances of getting into
050a competitive college now since these skills are so important one would think that these skills are tough to learn and I would have agreed if you'd asked the Juliet of a year ago she would have told you there's no way she'd ever been she'd ever be able to learn how to code she would just have to use the internet but uh I stand here before you today knowing JavaScript uh some and basic HTML and CSS part of the reason this learning came so easily is Mr maris's teaching style he made the learning seem approachable and the concepts came easily because I was enjoying the class he both has the knowledge to earn my respect and the respect to my classmates many of whom are in math academy as well as well as having the pedagogical
051skills that enabled him to teach even the unruly students in the room a common issue with Advanced kids is that they often outpace the material offered in classes and then feel bored missing out on other kinds of learning that they might need but in Mr mering's class the learning is so interactive that it's impossible to get bored um his excellent behavioral management skills uh ensure that even the disrupted kids that are playing video games in class if not on task or quiet um and they don't disrupt the learning of the other students in the class the as well um if they if Mr marang is let go and teaching resumes by the other app Academy teacher Miss batch um the lack of continuity of learning will hurt uh will hurt the kids in App Academy
052because especially children especially like the Juniors and the sophomores have spent years forming a a connection to Mr marang so if he leaves they'll become less interested in the class and they might miss out on learning uh as a student in math Acy who's also in extracurricular activities like the musical and math club I'm under a lot of pressure both at school and at home with the high amounts of homework Mr Mar's class provides a welcome break from that pressure by giving lessons that seem both challenging and entertaining at the same time I would like Mr merang to stay on because I would like him to continue to be my educator so that I can do well on the AP Computer Science exam and have a better chance of getting into the high standard colleges
053I want study math mathematics at and I don't believe I'm the only student that feels this way I'm sure there are other students from other high schools other middle schools and other elementary schools who have the same story about teachers that they that they love and that they want to have in the next year thank you very much thank you Tucker Davis next why by aen Johnson does this work yes all right uh good evening board members um UTP uh seeing people um on the on my left excuse me very Hasty uh my name is Tucker and I am a member of the Los Angeles Fire survivors committee uh we are community that is still recovering from one of the most devastating fires in modern times the teachers and the faculty of our schools have
054shown nothing less than to their profession by coming to work regardless of losing homes and now asking them to willingly be ready to leave their livelihood behind in education and as a fellow educator I simply must stand by them and say do don't ask this of them there's so there's so much at risk in terms of their livelihood where they're going after this um and these budget cuts that have been proposed only serves to undercut our education and the collaboration that so many um prior to my to my voice tonight have identified uh this simply put is an attack on working-class families in Pasadena and aladen my question for the board is why further punish them by asking them to go to other districts when so many of them have identified tonight that they have
055been happy with being here H so again I want to make sure that my my time is not taking up so many who are ready to to tell youall their stories and all I can simply say is please do not let these budget cuts go thank good evening members of the board my name is Nat y I am also with the Los Angeles Fire survivors committee we are a broad Coalition of workingclass groups in the city trying to build a movement to get survivors of the fire everything that they deserve full compensation from the city the state and the federal government the fires have devastated workingclass communities and families teachers and students have been displaced many with no idea when life will get back to normal schools are a Bastion of support and stability for
056our students and disrupting the livelihoods of teachers is nothing less than punishment for our students workers in pasaden have endured enough reward them don't burden them further thank you aen Johnson maren Noble Elizabeth Gardner PSD board members and superintendent Blanco my name is Eileen Johnson and I have a third grader and kindergartener that goes to Mary Jackson or used to go to Mary Jackson Elementary School with great sadness we have left the district and we have not returned these are due to several reasons including the the concerns for safety um shared with the suggestion to return Al TOA Arts Magnet to the calers campus um this should not even be a consideration um thankfully with emerging evidence and data from several university studies in including USC one of the things that is certain is that
057distance from the burn Zone matters I live less than half a mile from Jackson and although still displaced we have are learning from our neighbors that their homes are testing positive for lead inside and outside my kindergartner who like many of her friends is creative energetic and messy she enjoys playing her favorite game of restaurant with her friends and the entire menu is made of wood chips soil and grass the idea of her playing that at her school yard is frightening without the proper testing and knowing what is remaining as was highlighted really nicely by our army Corp of Engineers representative sorry we want to return back to Jackson our Beloved School my my kids love their teachers myestro Suarez and my sna they're lovely they're wonderful but we need a centralized source of information
058that provides the dist from the district that provides us with how our schools are being made safe plans to ensure how they remain safe throughout the next few few years of debris removal and recovery of our community we need an evidence-based approach and expert guidance to be laid out right now it's not transparent how the district knows what guidance they are acting on how the guidance is where it's coming from and how we are pertaining how we are going to learn that alth all of hearsay is happening and we need clear guidance and transparency please and for goodness sakes don't send Al Arts Magnet back to their campus thank you [Applause] good evening my name is Moren Noble I teach fifth grade at Jackson Elementary and yesterday I was remembering the districtwide PD we were
059summoned to on January 22nd at PCC it was the first time we came together after the fire and I was remembering how Dr Blanco and her welcome uh had said they hadn't been sure we would show up and it it being so soon after the fires and on the one hand this was fair we had just been through a literal Inferno our community was reeling on the other hand no one should have been surprised since showing up is what teachers do we show up at our work sites before the office is open so that we can make copies we show up when we have migraines because we know we miss a day and somehow the kids are a week behind during the pandemic we showed up for virtual learning after the fires we showed up
060at our students new temporary homes bringing them basic items like food clothing diapers cash the day of that PD the gymnasium couldn't hold us all because even though many of us had been through a major hardship we showed up and every day since we have continued to show up at our schools learning new skills taking on new responsibilities we have done right by our students we always answer the call we always show up now it is time for you to show up for us because cutting teachers is a completely counterproductive move because it's the right thing to do and because when word gets out that PD does not show up for its teachers families will stop showing up at our schools and then we are really going to be in trouble thank you Elizabeth Gartner
061and Rene Gonzalez [Music] yeah let's Swit the order all right I only have two minutes I'm going to be very uh direct you spent $2 million putting Portables on aladen wasted money that's irresponsible spending right now you're putting Portables in Allandale when you have roosevel Elementary with a modernized wing plus the other specialized education um you're still denying that Roosevelt is open we got Cleveland Children's Center Long Fellow children center Jeff children center but and we already corrected this once but here we go special education infant and toddlers program not Rosel Children's Center so basically wasting money in Portables when you have empty seats it's bad governance you know yet you're spending uh you're continuing to cater to a ridiculous idea of stop housing this is we don't need staff housing to attract and retain
062teachers we need to pay them well so they can live whatever they want they don't want they don't want you as the landlord it's ridiculous so please stop catering to special interest circles realize that you have roosevel and it's highly needed because the the Madison Community voted to use that as a modernization site so stop pretending that that site doesn't exist the the facilities master plan was wrong from the beginning it omitted the historical value of many sites it didn't include roosevel so you know if if DLR and safe work there vendors that were brought in by the previous administration that has a long history all the way back to Jung gundry let's not take steps back we just did a good step moving forward to attract teachers a a very minimum last year and
063now it seems like you're completely going changing course do not do that you're going to lose highly qualified teachers and families thank you Elizabeth Gardner that is all for public comment thank you so now we will take Elizabeth Garner hi everyone um good evening Dr Blanco and PAs unified board staff um thank you for the opportunity to say a few words my name is Elizabeth Gardner and I have two children at Altadena Arts Magnet I usually don't take the time to come and be vocal but I heard about the budget cuts and I thought what else could they be cutting this year they've been cutting every year so um when I found out that the budget cuts included the RTI professionals at my children's school I thought I needed to voice my opinion or at
064least say something I'm concerned um the one the RTI professional at my children's school is named Miss roer and she's been instrumental in helping alleviate um a lot of challenges and behavior She's Been instrumental with both my children um I really appreciate the communication that she gives to me after um resolving problems with friends and basically what I see her do and I imagine all the other RTI Specialists is they allow children to figure out how to be friends and learn to continue to develop socially so then they can focus on what they need to focus on in the classroom I think of the RTI Specialists as at least from the parent perspective a key key oil to keeping all those gears going at school otherwise the children will be there and frustrated during class
065and won't even be able to focus on what they need to focus on I'm concerned about that that she might not be there next year and there's no no guarantee that there will be somebody hired that would be her substitute and even then they wouldn't have the relationships they wouldn't she wouldn't the person that would be hired in response probably for lower pay would still not know the history of the children they still wouldn't have the confidence of the children they still wouldn't have they wouldn't have their trust yet and that would in during this time when when so my kids so many of the people at Altadena Arts have been uprooted literally all of my my older son's friends all of his close friends in his classroom have been displaced we're the only ones
066that are still in our home and to take away an RTI teacher when there's so much uprooting just doesn't make sense it it feels like you're kicking a dog when they're already down so I just wanted to put that out there um thank you for your time and consideration hi my card was marked wrong apparently so I want to just tell you really quickly good evening thank you for excuse me H we need to identify you oh I'm going to tell you yep my name is Mary shimazaki I'm from Long Fellow there are no more cards for speaking at the beginning of the agenda all of the remaining cards are at the item okay [Music] what is your item where is my item oh yeah the budget CES full disclosure I did ask for clarification
067for everybody to check at the beginning of the meeting that you to avoid this what's your name marish shimazaki thank you Mar sh okay thank you so good evening thank you for your time I just want to tell you I feel like I need to tell you a little bit about myself so my little resume I also have a Doctorate in Education from USC FL on um where I was also nominated for dissertation of the year for doing a mixed method study that also focused on social emotional intelligence and um I'm been on an advisory board for studies out of USC as well and I was lucky enough to have the job at Longfellow as the RTI specialist and I do understand that there's a need for budget cuts and that they were planned before
068the the fire but the eaten fire has undoubtedly traumatized our community and now we have to Pivot our response to this crisis will shape the recovery and resilience of our students by maintaining and enhancing our wellness support in the schools we will send a clear message that we prioritize the mental and social and emotional well-being of our children so now more than ever our schools need the support of Wellness teachers and the safe spaces that we create as of today I understand that 57 tosas will be cut additionally there will be drastic cuts across the entire district and many of these positions will directly support the welfare of our students as a wellness Stu teacher I not only support the students but also the teachers and the staff now there's an increased demand for support
069but the budget plan is to eliminate my support research shows that teachers social emotional well-being directly affects the classroom climate and can mitigate trauma's impact on academic performance schools can be a Cornerstone for the healing process but they need to be adequately staffed these Cuts in reorganization will weaken an already compromised teacher morale I have served for almost 27 years at PD I have been informed that my position will be eliminated and I will have to reapply for a currently undefined position and then if I'm not chosen I get to pick from whatever is made vacant throughout the district as a someone with my experience and someone with my expertise it makes me feel undervalue so at our Wellness meetings I'm going to skip part of it because it's beeping at me at our Wellness
070meetings we stress Community we are trained on community circles and encouraged to Foster community circles in the classrooms you have always asked us to be leaders for building community at our schools today I ask you to think about our community think about all the communities that you have asked us to create and we did think about the unintended consequences that these Cuts will have on the community of PD's teachers staff and the families that are speaking tonight Community is power you hold the power you have the capacity to make the decisions that will affect the lives of so many people you can change our lives make that change I made the same mistake so David Nar I apologize I I'm new here all of this teachers modeling following instructions I wasn't here for the instructions
071[Music] I didn't fit in the room name David nvar thank [Music] you hi my name is David Nar I'm the president of the monal Teachers Association I'm here in solidarity with the United teachers of Pasadena um UTP is not alone in their fight against riffs I was outside uh speaking to one of your Elementary School teachers and she shared how destructive the fires were what you know what else is destructive Rifts what else is destructive is the whole process of laying off um Educators even if they're not laid off this community you know more than I needs healing needs stability there is a way find a way to make sure that all our educators are here next year um everyone in this room everyone in the second room and every R in the third room
072can't wait for you to say there will be no Rifts thank you and have a great evening now we're going to item I labor unions all right so good good evening Dr Blanco members of the board um I want to give you your the uh ETP labor partner comments um I wanted to also honor the African-American history month um I'm glad I'd able to find that because of African-American history is of course uh American history so um so I wanted to start with the research corner so the lcff uh surveys have gone around and since the California Adoption of the lcap a few consistent Trends have popped out as the most beneficial to student outcomes these six things were in that you can follow the link you all have a copy of this in your
073email um at learning policy institute.org with class size reduction teacher pay other counties actually allow the district to use part of lcff for teacher pay in order to produce teacher retention guidance counselors health services and quality professional development all of these things are the things that help help if we are spending on other things I would urge you to reconsider because these are the things that have been shown across the state of California to help with student uh outcomes students deserve stability UTP has recommended at the table and other settings a myriad of ways that we could minimize these layoffs there was an early notification bonus that we' done for two years but that was not approved by the district bargaining team retraining credentialing opportunities for special education bclad maybe science any additional credentials that
074we do need this is one of the ways that other districts have managed to keep all of their teachers the you know proved and and track record folks that they've trained in all the the systems of our district let's find a way to keep our teachers we've done it with administrators when we close the school we always found a place for those administrators we can do the same thing with our teachers Contract Services has grown from 40 million to 70 million in 5 years you can check my math I have the data I can show you in particular the uh unrestricted part of that has grown from 10 to 30 during this time so I just want to be clear that there is definitely the ability to make these Cuts away from the classroom PSD
075spending priorities don't defund our classrooms PSD has $69 million left over in the most recent un audited actuals report that we just got in September PD provided last year the administrators an 11% raise Which is higher than UTP and many classified staff PD paid a fine for admin to teacher ratio 90,000 last year which is the cost of one of these new teachers PD had to get a waiver of $1.3 million for neglecting the classroom in spending priorities going under the 55% last year PD needs to prioritize the teachers UTP was the most cut bargaining unit last year just as it is this year UTP salaries are barely 30% of psd's budget that is the lowest among our comparable districts UTP teachers have the lowest guaranteed prep time amongst comparable districts as well stability is
076what our students and our schools deserve the better way is utps class siiz proposal using attrition and strategies in allocating our trained proven teachers we consider targeted thoughtful class size reduction we reduce class size further where there is room we enact real class size caps instead of average ratio across the entire School many people do not understand that when we say the class size average is 35 that does not mean that all the classes are at 35 it often means it's 45 as uh uh several people have shared 53 um others are perhaps at 18 okay so class siiz average ratio is not effective for students class siiz caps is solid retirement incentives retraining options to I like I said fill critical vacancies like special ed DP and science on the special education field we
077need to have a fair and predictable support we need to have appropriate case loads as was shared already we need structured compliance time so that our teachers and our special ed teachers and others can make sure that they maintain main compliance structured planning time for all of our elementary teachers so that they can engage in meaningful uh back and forth with the RSP teachers and others who ensure the special education program is is happening more dedicated planning time means higher quality instruction 75% of the UTP special education proposal that was shared by Michael toe had zero cost implications we are asking about May doing things more efficiently and effectively we are not ask asking for an increase in cost PSD rejected the entire special ed article and that hurts students on our hours article teacher
078autonomy is what we're seeking allow our quality instruction to flourish please support teacher autonomy by providing for free sufficient collaboration time sufficient planning time an appropriate balance of instruction and student needs Focus teacher time on teacher activities approv substantial increase in planning time that is free it allows for better collaboration with our families as well as our teachers being able to get the many things they're asked to do done why would we you say no to higher quality lessons family and teacher satisfaction there was something shared um in some of the communications about us being uh that we fixed the problem of our teacher salaries and I just wanted to point out that our midcareer teachers that's the line right there it's hard to read the numbers but you can zoom in um on the
079version that I sent you midcareer teachers are still $6,000 a year below the average now that is up 13,000 from two years ago so progress has been made I do not want to Discount that and I appreciate the collaboration that led to that progress but please in our in our ask in our salary proposal we ask you to commit to fully pay full pay fairness especially for that mid career teacher um once Financial conditions improve that's all we're asking with that request we did we put a 0% for this year we totally understand where we're at as far as as the these numbers but it is critical that when the district can afford it which they have been able to in the past and they will in the future that they commit to that full
080pay fairness thank you for your time [Applause] [Music] good evening president Lee school board members superintendent Dr Blanco SLT members and members of the audience so I have my plan speech this evening however I have to make some comments uh or address some comments that I've heard um this evening that sort of gives uh some bothersome speakers come up here to accuse the superintendent and the board to be Bing to special interest however they come up and continue to speak about one school I worked daily with Dr Blanco and her leadership team on addressing issues within the district the superintendent the board does not have the luxury of focusing on one or two schools they have to address every work site all employees and every student I've seen how hard this has been for Dr
081Blanco and her team to take this the action that has been necessary to keep the district um afloat and still financially sound so with that as we try to get back to some normality uh we are still plagued with the devastation that P employees students in the community have suffered as I reported earlier the teamsters Disaster Relief Fund has provided Financial assist to our members today I've distributed $110,000 worth of money to 40 of our members I know this is very helpful to many of them but I wanted to be able to do more and provide some additional help I believe I have found that organization that can do that I am currently working with Al fire Justice I was introduced to this organization by Brother Teamster Mike Gates president of the team local 665
082in San Francisco he worked with them um to help his members that were impacted by the Santa Rosa fire I attended one of their town halls and was very impressed with the team they had put together and the experts they have hired I've been referring my members uh so they can do their own due diligence and decide if they can help them I would like to quote one of my members from what he said after he signed up with them we have someone that really cares about us now I would like to welcome everyone that has been impacted or is helping somebody that's been impacted uh by the fires to attend one of our T Town Hall meetings uh that will be presented tomorrow that will be at 3:30 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. at the
083Teamsters Local 896 located here at uh 2050 Lincoln Avenue in Pasadena all are welcome thank you um good evening to the board and to the community I'm Dr Bernardo I teach CTE sports medicine at Pasadena High School and have done so for the past seven years I'm also the president of the CTE teachers union here at Pasadena Unified School District I stand standing here because like over 110 other teachers and counselors in the school district my position is on the Riff or reduction and force list to be cut for this year I was very lucky during the recent fires and though we were close to the evacuation zones we did not have to evacuate but so many of our community have either lost everything homes family members pets places of worship or have been severely
084displaced quite recently and then on top of that that they're also facing cuts to their positions and to the positions of our friends and colleagues um why must we do this every year we understand the need every now and then to make cuts to a few positions here or there as necessary but 117 teacher and counselor positions is fully 10% of our entire number didn't the taxpayers of Pasadena just pass to measures on the ballot last year that would help pay for among other things teacher salaries do you remember that when we first form the CTE Union that CTE teachers got pink slips every single year a lot of you should remember because a lot of you were here then also but one of the first things we fought for was stability and security as
085a union we asked CTA legal to challenge this District's previous Antiquated and unnecessary practice of sarily dismissing every CTE teacher in the district every year nobody can live like that instability means insecurity we couldn't apply for a mortgage for a house because we didn't know if we'd have a job at the end of the year but having to face these reduction and force Cuts these riffs year after year is exhausting we have a brand new Chief business officer who I am guessing was brought into to fix the mess left by previous departing Administration and to bring stability to the district's finances and budget we understand that it may take a little while to fix but we absolutely do not agree that this District's budget should be fixed by cutting teachers and counselors teacher salaries are
086barely 30% of the district's entire budget so cutting 10% of us means you're only saving 3% overall on the entire budget you have a whole other whopping 70% of the budget to look at and to make cuts to I'm not a math teacher but what are you doing these are people's lives and people's hearts because teachers as a whole love what they do so I have my Game of Thrones t-shirt on today to remind you that making these cuts are like waking a sleeping dragon in High Valyrian I will remind you z a dragon is not a slave although you say these cuts are necessary and it's just business aiming to try to save money they feel like they are personal there is increasing anger Rising within our teachers which feels like internal fire rising
087and building until it might explode like a spark in a long neglected and disconnected power line Torn Free by the wind and sparking a light the entire Mountain range and the City of Altadena nestling at its feet all that's left is for someone to say drais and the whole district will be on fire and everyone knows that Dragon Fire Burns hotter than all other kinds of fire for many of us this is a career and a calling and these riffs make us feel like we are expendable you know that Infamous piece of political advice which says watch what they do not what they say board members people are watching what you are doing voters and taxpayers are watching what you are doing especially now that they have trusted you again by agreeing to extra taxes
088on their property this year maybe you may get away with some Cuts Like what happened last year but this upcoming year and the year after and the year after we are looking to you board and looking to you Dr Blanco and we are looking to you Mr Bravo Karimi to put teachers first and to figure out how not to go through this headache and this heartbreak past this very moment the time is now the moment has arrived the choice is yours if you say you have no choice that is incorrect it means you have chosen otherwise it means you have not chosen us which means that anything else you claim you're doing for our students is incomplete at best and at worst devastating and traumatic because you're giving up on the people who take care
089of them every day if all of the administrators in this room woke up on Monday to find themselves having to go back into the classroom as teachers and even more find themselves back on our teacher salary schedule all of you would quit on M but we're all here we are dedicated and we're going to be here all you have have to do is not cut our positions reject the riffs list and cut money elsewhere don't cut our teachers and don't cut our CTE programs thank you good evening um I have Stella here who's going to read my comment kind of lost my voice for a minute so she's going to read that for me thank you we're just going to introduce our for just a moment I'm Rebecca Pena Children's Service assistant Willer children center
090I'm Lucy W Secretary of CSA and I work at UH Webster Elementary I'm par professional and I'm Stella Franco Allen and I'm at Octavia E Butler magnet and I'm speaking um on behalf of Julio Venegas uh president for CCA and reading his comments good evening president Hall esteemed board members and superintendent Dr Blanco my name is Julio Venegas and I have the honor of serving as the CCA president representing over 400 classified employees within our district we all know that classified employees are valuable and instrumental to our schools when parents walk into our campuses we are the first faces they see the face of the district we are the ones who ensure that schools run smoothly that students are safe and that learning environments are clean organized and welcoming classified employees wear many hats we
091are the office staff instructional AIDS Food Service workers bus drivers student Advocates at times custodians the people that step in when needed and so much more classified employees are a valuable component to the daily operations of our schools without classified employees our schools would come to a halt don't discount us cutting classified employees is not just a budget decision it's a decision that directly impacts our students our staff and the quality of Education in this District every position eliminated puts more strain on the employees who remain making it harder to provide the level of support and service that our schools and students deserve we urge you to reconsider any reductions to classified staff and to recognize the valuable role we play in keeping this District running investing in classified employees is investing in the success
092of our students and the future of our schools thank you very [Applause] much good evening uh board president Holly board members Dr Blanco cabinet my name is Brian Stanley president of the association of pastent school administrators and we'll keep this short um you know we do want to extend our sincere gratitude to all the certificated and classified Partners within PSD and the broader Community for working together as we have navigated the many challenges over the past few months from the devastation of the eaten fire adjusting to new federal guidelines and navigating important decisions and Financial Health of the district we do not want the heroic efforts of our maintenance and operations Department to go unnoticed they have played a heroic role in the reopening of schools and since maintain the high level high level of
093responsible and quality of service across the district their ongoing efforts include facility repairs installations electrical upgrades maintenance as well as supporting the technical needs to ensure All-Star musicle could go on after being rescheduled we invite you to join us this weekend for the All-Star musical present at P pastina high school and association with the pastina Playhouse you can visit pd. us Allstar musical for more information had to put that plug in we also understand that the difficult times are not yet passed us the financial health of the district is necessary for us to recover and rebuild it is extremely painful to see the reductions being proposed though we understand the necessity to establish fiscal stability this pain is Amplified by the timing of our local crisis but we do appreciate the board and Leadership for
094navigating considering very difficult decisions to ensure [Music] solvency in light of these difficult times we are proud that our own Dr Blanco has been recognized across region 15 which includes 23 school districts in LA county for her steady leadership and for such reasons she has been awarded the superintendent of the year for regen 15 it is said that a good leader has Integrity is accountable listens and is resilient Dr Blanco exhibits and models all these behaviors Dr Blanco be continue to advocate for what is best interest of students and never remain true to that conviction as Absa we stand behind you throughout this crisis and the difficult decisions that must be made as we Face significant budget deficit thank you for your steadfast commitment to PD okay staff presentation update on facilities and bond work
095Mr Bravo Karimi good evening from onra KY CBO of Passad Unified School District this is an update on facilities um as well as on the bond program in particular of particular interest because of the impact of the eaten fires so I'm going to talk about about relocation updates for the different School communities that relocated since the fire as well as provide an update on our bond program and any updates to our timeline so first uh an update on relocated PD and Charter Schools you'll see uh information that we've provided previously at previous board meetings but you'll see that Elliot's art magnet was uh collocated now at McKinley um and that was as of January 30th Alina Arts Magnet moved to the island campus also as of January 30th uh Early Childhood offices and prek classes
096were moved from Cleveland uh to the Webster and Jefferson children center campuses also as of January 30th and this was in order to free up space for ason school of leaders Eon School of leaders uh from the noise campus which tragically uh sustained very substantial damage in the fire um they have already opened at Cleveland as of uh February 18th and they are also soon to move move to the additional classrooms that were offered at the Washington campus Odyssey Charter Schools uh have opened at private locations and then Rose but Academy collocated at Don Bonito uh and they started school uh with students on February 11th so obviously there was a lot of work needed to be done to move the existing uses of those spaces um a lot of uh impact on existing staff
097and and uses of those SPAC es um but we were able to get it done as quickly as possible and as safely as possible so that all students whether PD or Charter were able to get back in front of their teachers and staff and colleagues as quickly as possible update our Alan Arts Magnet so as I said uh they were relocated to the Allendale campus so cleaning and Remediation at the home campus at alter Arch magnet is currently in process it's expected to be completed by the 28th Environmental Testing just like at all of the other campuses uh we expect to be finished by early March the goal is for Alina Arts Magnet to move back to its home campus by the beginning of next school year uh Portables at the Allandale site are on
098track to arrive in the coming weeks we hope uh very very soon creating more space to accommodate Altadena Arts magnets needs so because of limited space limited availability obviously the schools that are Rel located are currently um have access to less space than they had before the fire and so we are working to to install Portables uh at many of those locations to provide additional learning spaces for our students Eliot Arts uh which is across the street now collocated with McKinley um that collocation will continue through next school year uh 10 Portables are arriving also in the coming weeks to create additional classroom space at McKinley for Elliott students with respect to the bond program the projects that are on schedule are listed here so we have several restroom renovation utility upgrades projects that were
099previously scheduled to start this summer and are starting this summer uh as previously scheduled Marshall uh restroom Athletic Field water sewer storm drainage electrical service upgrades also starting on schedule this summer uh Longfellow Elementary School campus modernization also starting this summer um and John mure high school modernization project to its gym complex Aquatics Athletic Field parking and restrooms also on schedule to start this summer there is however a delay in some other of the previously planned Bond projects so one of the campuses that had substantial damage due to the fire is the Franklin campus uh destroy the cafetorium as well as the administration building and so there was a very significant impact on the utilities at the Franklin campus after assessing the site it's been determined that Franklin will not be ready to be used
100as a swing space for next school year as previously planned so if you remember U Madison was going to move to Franklin at as a swing space during next school year while Madison was modernized but because of the damage to the Franklin campus principally because of the damage to the utilities um that campus will not be able to host any schools uh as a swing space next school year so the Madison modernization project is delayed by one year while we can address the issues at Franklin um and there's a domino effect so uh Franklin is also was also planned to be used as the swing space for Webster after Madison and so Webster's modernization project which was slated to start a year after Madison's is now also delayed by one year so Madison and San
101Rafael will be the two projects where their modernization will start in June of 2026 so San rafhael based on the previous schedule but Madison again uh one year delayed because of the impact of the fires at Franklin any questions public comment let's do that first we have Michael R rild followed by Laura Sahan and Carrie [Music] Bradley good evening and thank you my name is Mike Rothchild we have a fifth and third grader who have both been at Altadena Arts Magnet since kindergarten as we Face the choice of whether to potentially send our third grader Henry back to the aam campus while Phase 2 debris removal is ongoing we realize that the district is in an impossible situation but so are the children who have no agency over where they will go to school while
102it's our choice they're children and they have opinions when we explained to Henry two nights ago that we were submitting for open enrollment because the district is planning to send aam back to Altadena in August he immediately shook his head with panic and his eyes and told us quote I do not want to be somewhere where burned stuff is all around us he knows that as much as he loves aam it's not safe until debris removal is done and despite the heroic efforts of the Army Corps of Engineers nobody knows when that will be so the safest Choice both physically and mentally for our children is for aam to stay at Allendale for the entire 2025 2026 school year we we would rather stay in our temporary new home for a whole school year than
103either ask our students and teachers to take an unacceptable health risk or uproot the school halfway through a second year when there are still so many unknowns and possible traumas related to going back to school in a burn Zone thank you yeah I have some handouts [Music] hello my name is Laura Sahan and I'm the parent of a third grader and a kindergartener at Altadena Arts Magnet School I'm also a data scientist at JP and I've been collecting some data that I would like to share today we are fortunate that Altadena Arts was not destroyed by the fire yet we are in the unique position that it is surrounded on all four sides with burned properties and at least 75 burn structures are within a 250 yard distance of the school and all of them
104are still awaiting Phase 2 debris removal I created an intent to return survey and we have 121 Altadena Arts families who responded to my survey representing 160 children at key takeaway is that 92% of families would not send their children back to the original Altadena arts school site on Cala site in August of 2025 if Phase 2 debris removal is not complete with 82% of families making that decision dependent on the phase 2 debris removal status so specifically 45% of families would only send their children back if phase two to removal is complete within that 250 yards of the school and another 37% would only send their children back if Phase 2 debris removal is complete in all of Altadena this is in contrast to 7% of families that would not send their children back
105if Altadena Arts remains at Allandale for the next school year we also asked where they would people would send their children in 55% of families would plan to enroll their children outside of PD most of us are displaced or have lost their homes so we live in other school districts now we are choosing to send our kids to PD because we love aladen Arts Magnet but we won't make that choice if it means the safety of our kids is at risk so our family's house Altadena house did burn down in the eaten fire and we now live in Arcadia we would very much like our two children to remain at aladina Arts but their safety is more important specifically if aladina Arts returns to the original Calis site before all of the surrounding properties complete
106Phase 2 including along a reasonable path to drive to the school so we're not traumatizing our children every day we don't take our kids to see the burned areas my 5-year-old cried at the thought of seeing our burndown house she we can't take her past a burn down property any burn down properties to go to school that's just not not Humane thank you we will make our decision to move to the Arcadia Unified School District if we do not keep the kids safely at Allandale for another year Carrie Bradley Jesse D Molly [Music] Dodge hello PD board members and superintendent my name is Carrie Brady and I'm a parent of a kindergartener at the French uh in the French DLP at altina Arts Magnet I'm here to speak about my disappoint that a is even
107being considered to return to Campus before Phase 2 debris removal is complete just because our building was not touched by direct Flames does not mean that the school was quote unquote not touched by the fire as communicated in superintendent's email that came on Friday as you've heard other people mentioned tonight there are almost 100 homes burned within 250 yards on all four side of the campus not to mention that the drive to get to the campus would require students and families to go through the entire burn Zone essentially and I'd like for you to close your eyes and imagine four to 11year olds looking out their car window on a commute to school and not seeing a regular commute through green neighborhoods but a landscape of burnt down homes and burnt down buildings loss Devastation
108right these are people um there are people here tonight that will cover the environmental safety part but I want to urge you to consider their mental health how do you think they're going to feel about going to school every day if that's what they have to endure right um how do you think that will affect attendance also if these kids don't want to go to school do you think parents are going to want to send them to school if they're feeling like this way mentally um are you going to be able to actually teach children who are in this mental state at school um we're currently displaced as a massive uh percentage of families are at am um you know one of our surveys reporting 90% displacement and 30% with Total Home loss we now
109live in Highland Park in LA Unified School District I like many others want you to understand that we have options and are prepared to enroll in a different School District should the PUSD board um commit to keeping Allen or aladina Arts Magnet at Allandale through August 2026 that must be a commitment for us to reenroll and to stay in PD um to give the eat and fire Phase 2 clean up adequate time to complete I also feel like it's important to note that according to the Hawaii Department of Education after the fire that ravaged through Lena in 2023 only 72% of students returned to that school district um we love our school we really love our school we were willing to communic uh to commute to the Allandale location because it's safe and our kids
110need their Community um but we will not trade the right to a safe and stable education you know in order to do that so we will not make the commute to the caleris campus should that be the place that we return to in August of 2025 thank you Jesse D [Music] dalstrom hello board I'm Jesse doom and I'm the PTA president at longf elementary it's nice to see you all again I first want to extend my gratitude for your work so far coming alongside families after our community suffered so much loss I know that many of you and many schoolside employees have been working around the clock to get our students back to school with that being said I wanted to come share that while I will not officially speak on behalf of the Longfellow
111PTA many parents in the Longfellow community that are my friends and family have expressed the sentiment that we would like Alena Arts to be the priority when it comes to using the Allandale campus through the next school year I would also urge the board to go back to the drawing board and try to think again about how you can complete measure o projects and house school communities that have been impacted by the eaten fire in all of the upset last year about temporarily relocating to Allandale a decision I still do not understand seeing how difficult it is for a school of our size to in inhabit such an inadequate campus I would hope that we as a district could humble ourselves enough to step back and say hm maybe we need to readjust to meet
112the needs of our students and teachers one thing I hope that you learned through the process of Lanka last year was how much worse things are with a lack of transparency we are not unaware parents we know that there are a lot of options around Pasadena we desperately want to be brought into the process of decision making because after all we are the ones impacted by these decisions in the dayto day thank [Music] you good evening uh president Holly uh superintendent Dr bco my name is Molly Dodge I am a parent of a fourth grader and a first grader at aladina Arts Magnet my daughter's fourth grade class um we experienced our teacher losing her home as well as 21 out of 27 students please consider this uh comment I'm making now and my written
113request that I've just passed out to agendize a resolution that I've just shared with you the safe returned to Altadena Altadena Arts Magnet School after the completion of phase 2 cleanup as an action item for the March 27th board meeting or as soon as possible according to board bylaw 9322 any board member or member of the public May request that a matter within the jurisdiction of the board be placed on the agenda of a regular meeting Altadena Arts Magnet School is the only PD school not just destroyed by the Eden fire yet surrounded on Burn by burned structures and properties on all four sides the grave and numerous health hazards of living within or attending within School attending school within such an environment is known and acknowledged by Pasadena Public Health Department Los Angeles County
114Health Department and the Centers for Disease Control the details of this resolution include that in C cation with LA County Health officials and the US Army Corps of Engineers PD will provide an implementation plan and timeline to be posted on the district website for ensuring completion of phase 2 cleanup within 250 yards of Altadena Arts Magnet before the reopening of the school it also details testing data be transparently available and the Altadena continue occupancy at Allandale campus until until such time thank you for championing the health well-being and education of our children I appreciate the challenges that you have faced during this crisis and your leadership throughout thank you Alice cens Baker Deli Rees and Rene [Music] Gonzalez hi board members Dr Blanco um my name is Alice cust I have two children at Art
115aladina Arts Magnet um I know that ultimately we're all working toward the same goal of having our children in safe and stable learning environment uh we need a guarantee from the school board that the aladen campus will not reopen to students until the completion of the phase 2 cleanup and only when testing for heavy metals asbestos soot and Ash have been completed as we heard from the Army Corps of Engineers at the start of the meeting cleanup is not expected to be completed until January 2020 6 and we have no uh known order of when the cleanup is going to happen we want to remain at the alendale campus for the 2025 26 school year to guarantee that these conditions can be met and to create the least possible additional disruption for our students the
116Ali County Public Health Department has put out a clear statement that individuals residing within 250 yards of a single burnt structure or parcel May face an increased risk of exposure to hazardous substances from Ash and fire debris before the completion of the full Phase 2 cleanup exposure to these materials may lead to physical health symptoms and may pose long-term Health impacts now there are at least 75 burnt structures within 250 yards of the Altadena campus on all sides I will remove my children from Altadena Arts Magnet if the school is moved back to Altadena before the completion of the phase two clean up and I also wanted to add that we desperately need miss rer our RTI teacher and Miss gold our full-time arts teacher to remain with our school they are vital in the
117emotional recovery of our students who have experienced a trauma we could never have imagined 100% of our children lost their school stability this year 90% of our families have been displaced by the fire and 30% of our families have lost their homes based on respondents to a schoolwide survey we don't know if those numbers um possibly would go I imagine the number of families who've lost their home is more than 30% based on everything I've been hearing we need these teachers for the emotional stability and support of our kids now more than ever before thank you okay uh good evening my name is Deli Reyes I'm a Mexican a Latino family in aladina arts and I have a child in fourth grade and another in second grade also in the French program so practically my
118children are trailing well by now the E on fire deeply impacted my family we had weo in the middle of the night I'm waking up my children to get out of the house and now we have to choose also to change them from their school I don't think this is going to be helpful for them and you're taking away their teachers their RTI teacher their art teachers that are significantly helpful for them to express their feeling to have someone to to listen to them because as you know even for as an adult it's hard for us to express our feelings children are having more difficult to spread our feelings with people that they don't even know so we're asking to please don't take us back to alad until phase two is clean and it's finished
119and until the testing is done we had to go back to our home because we don't have the money to go and look for another house far away from here because we want to stay without a Dina Arts so we had to make a difficult decision for my family to stay here because as other family are saying we don't have the budget to go and paper private or for something else I really feel so disappointed of you and as Dr Blanco said in the other meeting that she likes to talk with honesty I'm also like that I prefer to say things in front of you than talking in your back and I feel that you guys are talking in our backs like saying that you are really working to help us but I don't see
120that that you're taking away teachers you're not helping our our students so do you really care for them because if you don't help us and decide to let us be in Allendale for another school years I will also have to change my children from PD Board District sorry thank you okay so do we want oh okay thank you so as you can see the culture and climate is not getting any better with your leadership and so to say that that some uh prioritized uh modernizations need to be delayed to me that's there a very poor judgments and very lack of leadership you have a many sites where you can place the medison student body especially Roosevelt which is within the walking distance of this community and so to give priority to other things other than
121the students and the modernization of Madison and just delay it you know without even you know what a lack of talent I'm sorry but you know you can do better than that I don't know how much you get paid but I think I could come up with 10 ideas but the thing is that your actions demonstrate that you are just a puppet that you're here receiving orders from special service CES so please don't say that it needs to be delayed give the reasons show the community open up the the forums listen to the community do not just say it's going to be delayed you know it doesn't have to be like that the people trusted you know thinking that uh voting yes it was going to make a lot of things done and your actions
122right now are demonstrating that you're not putting the the students especially this the special need students first so you have a campus empty sitting in roosevel and I don't hear anybody talking about it it's like it's a forbidden word so the the public is looking at this and the facilities master plan that we have right now it's obsolete given the situation the current situation a brand new emergency facility master plan should be contemplated bringing every single facility to the conversation in contrast to what was done by DLR stop catering to the special interest groups put the children and teachers first thank [Applause] you okay so that's it for comments on here do we want to have a discussion questions for Mr Bravo Kimi Miss Fredericks I have five questions so please be patient um so
123the there are a couple comments about the revisiting the 5year bond plan and what I uh received via email is people think that the board made these decisions ISS like postfire decisions of this is how we're changing uh our 5year plan you know delaying the school and delaying that school so I just want to make clear that the board never made that decision this is just the staff's presentation since the fire of what you know what they think should be done so I just want to make that clear yes we never made that comment from the superintendent the staff is showing you what can still be carried out in the 5-year Bond plan so based on the fire this is a plan that you already approved and I'm not saying that you can't change your
124plan but we're showing you what's still possible like the status possible so I just want to be clear that I never made a decision on the exact timeline of the changes but what is possible that's fine thank you Dr Blanco for clarity um so I guess there's a question of like I think yeah we should meet again as a the board to revisit the the bond fiveyear Bond plan so is there a plan to have that meeting as a board because I feel like this is a major fiveyear plan that we want to make sure everyone uh chance to weigh in request from the full board to revisit the five-year Bond plan so we're giving you a status update on the plan you've already approved this is where we're at this is what will be
125delayed there's many summer projects and safety projects that um we're planning on doing this summer so I guess if it's the consensus of the board to revisit the plan you have to understand those will also be halted okay um and then for PD schools that reside in Altadena which local and State Health agencies govern the health and safety standards for air quality of those schools in the surrounding community so depends on the jurisdiction uh for schools in Altadena because they are unincorporated in part of LA County it's LA County public Public Health okay so LA County all right what is the estimation of the completion of phase 2 cleanup I think we already heard from public comment the uh Army Corp of Engineers January 2026 can you confirm or have any other information or no
126no but uh we have requested formally as well as informally since we began uh the debris removal work at our own campuses that um the areas surrounding our schools prioritized for debris removal we've also requested Advanced notification of any debris removal that's happening uh near our schools and so the Army Corps has been extremely um helpful of course as you know we our own burn sites were prioritized they're among the first if not the first uh burned by the eaten fire to have the debris removed um and we've been working with them and coordinating with them from the beginning and so we as I mentioned we have requested prioritization for all the the burned structures surrounding our schools or near our schools um so the request was made but do we get a response to
127the request anything nothing formal but I think there's a commitment to to prioritize the the needs of because my understanding is there's like a formal application that individual homes have to apply for that's exactly right so so it it part of it is exactly part of it is outside of our control um the Army Corps cannot remove debris from a property where they have not received permission or a right of entry from the property owner and So within those constraints you know to the extent they received right of Entry permission from a property owner then we have requested that those be prioritized be to be done first or fastest okay that makes sense and then if for some reason we did not reopen Altadena Arts Magnet at the start of or in the middle of
1282025 26 where would the students of Altadena Arts be housed [Music] I'm sorry if we didn't put them back into aladina they will remain at um Alan they would remain at Allandale so I want to clarify that we um are not suggesting to put any students in areas that are not safe for the students and we are collaborating with the um LA County Public Health the Army Corps um we did invite them to come and make a public comment this evening because we wanted the community to be up updated on their um collaboration so this is the context As We Know It And um maybe I made a mistake in sending the Letters Out to the communities about what we were going to present this evening because I didn't want them to see it posted
129on the board agenda and not know that that was going to be the discussion but safety Remains the priority for the district this is the context as we know it today with the expectation that it would be cleaned up but you know we're not sure exactly what's going to um happen and context can change so this was a bond status update we wanted to be sure the community knew that this was going to be on the agenda this evening so thank you for that clarification just the final uh question for Dr Blanco so do you are you saying that phase two cleanup is a requirement for reopening can you speak to that I can't um speak to that because I think I have to be able to know from the health department what they're recommending
130we are um also having our Pasadena health department check with um LA County Public Health they made that statement on 211 and were aware of what it said and we want more clarification from them on exactly what that means um you know obviously it didn't specify anything to schools but we definitely you know I want to reiterate we would never put children in a situation that wasn't safe um for them to be there thank you anything else I actually have a quick question um I was wondering how it would be considered safe for kids to return to the campus in 2025 if the expected date of phase 2 completion was January of [Music] 2026 so the expected completion was the expected completion of all debris removal removal across um the burn areas and so as
131I mentioned we've requested prioritization for the burn structures that are nearest to all of our canvases not just Aluna Elementary but that was the one that we highlighted in our in our formal request um and as Dr Blanco mentioned we're in regular contact with LA County Public Health and I even brought up you know I I read that same Health advisory and I I found it confusing as well about prox you know being within 250 yards and so I I mentioned that I said you know this is confusing to our community is confusing to me what does this mean um is it unsafe to have any schools open within 250 yards of of burned debris and public health said no that that that's not the case we have to put out these advisories there is
132always an inherent risk and and that's something that we always we mindful of um but we continue to coordinate and consult with public health to ensure that if there is any immin in danger to any of our students that we act immediately okay and then one other thing that I was wondering is like you were talking about like specific houses like if Property Owners didn't want debris taken away from their houses um yet what if there were Property Owners within 250 yards that didn't want um de breeze taken away does that stop students from returning since they're there would be debris within 250 yards no so that that Health advisory was not to require any school or any residence from not opening within 250 yards it was about the inherent risks of proximity to to
133certain contaminants and so that we clarified because I we had the same questions we clarified that that was not an order to keep schools closed that are within 250 yards but there are going to be some property owners for whatever reason that are not going to opt for the Army Corps to remove the debris maybe they're going to hire their own contractors we don't we don't ultimately won't know why why they may decide not to have Army Corps do it but um but you know we are we are asking for those that have submitted the permission to to be prioritized okay thank you Dr Velasquez I would like to first talk about um where when I first joined the board I I came increasingly frustrated with the level of communication that bu is De had
134with families um and I have been very critical about that consistently however um when it comes to the safety um after the great crisis that we've experienced um I have to give credit to the team and the leadership of Dr Blanco um there is a website um if you haven't been I encourage you to go to um in our website there is an entire section that speaks about safety all of the tests that have been done to each one of our campuses and the information is there as well as all of the information that we have about the air quality soil everything every every piece of information that this district has about safety and everything related to the eent fire has been available to everyone consistently while I understand that that information may not be
135sufficient or appropriate for each individual a clear and consistent effort of for transparency has been made and that is a very important distinction because we're working here in a relationship of trust and I'm not saying that you're going to agree with the information that is provided I'm saying that the district has consistently made available all the information that we have with everybody and I think that that is a very important place of departure to have this conversation because I recognize that there are different Comfort levels and concerns and I am also sensitive to the great difficulties that this community has experienced but at this time from my personal evaluation I am very grateful to the district to the facilities team and to every single person that has been working in this particular area from gardeners
136to painters to lxmi to everybody for their continuous work and transparency again during the process I also want to recognize the effort of being transparent in the way that we communicate information because this conversation we're not having it in May we're not having it in in June we're not having it in August we're having it in February right and so again my point here has to do about process because this is a different [Music] PD when I campaign I'm not even sure that I'm supposed to say this but um when I campaign in support of of the parcel and the bond I was very specific about how those two were going to be impacted within the context of our existing and current environment that we're not going to change our environment they were going to
137contribute to our existing environment and again I just want to say that I understand the need and the urgency and the anxiety about making decisions that are good and healthy for your family and I respect that and I think that the best way to do that is by having all of the information that you need to make the best decisions for your [Music] family Mr Harden um I do want to Second talk Dr vas's sentiments about the the quality of of all all of the well and the Fidelity of all of the Care that has gone into getting kids back and and getting uh kids as safely as possible back to school um I think it seems to me that there are some you know there's some blockers that you know are the the timeliness
138of our 5year plan depends on two having two swings space uh sites right now we're trying to do the best we can with the Allandale site and managing that um we mentioned Franklin uh as a potential location um to restore um and this may be again too early to answer this question but are we do we feel fairly confident that Franklin Within by the start of what would that be 26 27 would be an except cable safe site to receive a second SW swinging school yes okay and you know we're going to have to deal with similar concerns I think at that time because again Franklin is in an area that's got significant destruction around it so these types of concerns of safety and and um and and giving families the level of comfort that
139their children will be in a you know in a reasonable stable environment we're going to have to be dealing with with that at that location as well so it you know it seems like whatever additional benchmarks or tests or you know uh evaluations that can be done over time to say you know this site is continually measuring within an acceptable limit whatever that whatever those tests may be you know might be helpful to um those communities to make their those personal [Music] choices so one of the things that I'm very hopeful for is that um things will be CLE cleared up much quicker than we were originally told and the reason I feel that way is they were able to clean up all of our sites completely clean within two weeks two and a half
140weeks and take all of the debris away I know the area is dependent upon um right of ownership being signed and we are encouraging and putting that information out there to um our families so that they can do that as quickly as possible so our intent is not you know as I said earlier to put anyone in an unsafe place but they did a phenomenal job of um cleaning up our schools that have been destroyed the only one that um is still not cleaned as Elliot because it's a little bit more complicated of a property so um we're basing this status report on the fact that we really believe things will be cleaned very quickly anybody else have a comment Miss Kenny I want to Echo as well that I'm I'm glad we're having this
141conversation now I I know people were wondering what was going to be happening and and everyone needs to be able to plan um if so I I think we don't want to drag our decisions out because again people need to be able to react and so unfortunately I think that puts us in the position of maybe making decisions without complete information because we while we have requested that phase two get done as as someone mentioned uh people can opt out of having the Army Corps of Engineers do the um cleanup and they can hire their own contractor and I think at least from what I've seen in different places on social media some people are very doubtful that they'll be able to get that done quickly that they'll be able to find someone who's qualified
142and passes whatever test the state makes them do to to be able to do that so I guess I well I I want to confirm first that Altadena is not moving back to the Cala site until the new school year they're not moving back in April or May or June okay so that's right this would be for the next school year um I I do think we're going to have to pick one of those as a district and if we I don't know that we can say we won't move back until phase two is done without phase two knowing when it's going to be done or having to move in the middle of the school year so I think we have to either say yes they will definitely go back and know that parents will
143have to make decisions based on that uncertainty which might lead them to leave our district or we'll have to say no they can say at Allendale for another year [Music] um so I encourage us to be very distinct about which of those we're going to choose knowing that there's that much uncertainty um I I do want to Echo what I think I heard Miss Frederick say is we put together a five-year master plan at a certain point in time when we didn't even have measure R and now we have measure R so at the time that we agreed to our five-year Bond plan we said these are the schools who will be able to get full modernization and these these are the schools who will just have to get smaller amounts of of um work
144done restrooms utilities now we're in a position to not have to do those schools twice potentially but we haven't had any of those kinds of conversations so even just the addition of measure [Music] R would make it seem that it would be wise of us to take a pause a short pause and at least say wait a minute does this change our plans is there a way to spend this money in the most efficient way for the taxpayers by taking like I said a minute and and maybe thinking about things now now we have the fire so first measure R now we have the fire which does change things considerably in our district um and the one other piece of information we won't have until fall is how many students will be with us and
145at what grade levels and you know at what schools will they choose I mean we just we don't have enough information to really make some longer term uh decisions and and I do feel and I said this all to you before that when we spend this taxpayer money that they will be paying back for 30 years it should be based on some kind of long-term vision for for our district and not something in the moment so I mean we know that we're getting closer to the end of the Jefferson lease which as we talked about last year it's physically closer to other sites that need to be upgraded it's larger than Allandale and so I I feel that there is enough change in our situation to make revisiting master plan I mean we need to
146master plan for measure r regardless that's not I I hope I hope we want to make a plan for how much was it again 900 million we should have a plan for that um but but to incorporate it into the changing change circumstances um I know we're moving ahead with the staff housing I believe that Roosevelt will be sitting empty for one more year before we can break ground there I just I don't know how we you know we have a portfolio of what we have what we don't have anymore what we can expect um um you know when things can come back online and things so I hope we can spend a little more time on that Master planning um the superintendent Miss Fredericks Miss Bon Smith and then I have something to say
147thank you I just want to be very clear for the public um the Roosevelt site is partially an entitlement and should the board say to stop that for any reason or use it for something else it would take a year to prepare it for students to be able to inhabit it so that's why that's really not a viable option and we would be we're approximating a million dollars to fix up the swing space wherever it is it wouldn't make sense to put to me to put money into um a swing space that we were going to tear down you know the next year so um that's why that's not really a viable option unless the board decides to do that the Jefferson site if we told the city they had to move out tomorrow which
148is not possible because we have to give them a notice and they have a library there would also take a year to fix up to be able to be inhabited so we have investigated some of these ideas that you're bringing up this evening but I just want to be very clear that each of those would delay projects for a year or longer which is a possibility if you decide to do a reset um but that's information I think is important for the public to understand so I don't know when this this is appropriate for board president H but uh calling for consensus on just a follow up on truste Kenny's uh revisiting idea to have a special meeting maybe a study session so i' like to offer that idea we can have call a consensus
149now or at the end of meeting no this is a presentation we're going to move forward with the questions and move on with our agenda we're already an hour later so end of the meeting would be great thank you not a question really but I just wanted to Echo what uh Dr Blanco is saying about how amazing um it is how clean our school sites are getting ones that were affected by the fire um while there is still a lot of work to be done in terms of uh debris removal and stuff I don't know if how many people have gotten the chance to go up to Altadena but um I have seen the noise campus which is ASL right now um and it's truly amazing how much work they have done already yeah I
150I have a question but Al there's a issue about process did we close open comment because U after we close public comment another card came in but I I don't know [Music] it's one person it the card came after we ended it so well think about it while I ask my question my question is um I'm sorry and I put you in this position can you walk me through uh through all the different stages um between ordering uh portable in habitating a portable so you we express order them but you know they take some time in arriving what other steps happen after so as you mentioned the facilities team immediately after the fire reserved as many Portables as we could knowing that there would likely be a need um and so generally speaking the there
151was a lot of site work necessary um for path of travel we s to comply with the rules of um you know Americans with Disabilities Act um electrical connections Plumbing connections to the extent those are necessary and so that's kind of the first step um so the site work um after that the actual placement and the connecting of the Portables is actually relatively quick um there are a lot of uh expedited processes made available to us uh in part because of the fire um and so we're able to get this done more quickly than than is typical thank you I know that there's a lot of people in over credit situations waiting so I wanted to be sympathetic to that situation but it it is useful to walk us to the process and what are
152the steps once they arrive thank you so decision hang on are we're going to do Patrice Michelle me and then the public comment we'll move on you Mr I'm willing to yield to the public comment that's okay with our colleagues and know you can come back to me point we're going to hear Michelle well Patrice if you have a comment go ahead and make your comment because the board is still making comments right now we're not done okay um first I also want to um underscore Dr vasquez's comments about the culture shift that we have experienced with um the practice of proac communication consistent communication and um very thoughtful um efforts to share information I think that the district kudos to Dr Blanco and the leadership team for making tremendous strides in that area I
153think that the the transparency that's been demonstrated is really to be commended I think that all of us are in a situation where we are trying to navigate a very difficult situation that is not ideal and with what we know and the decisions that we are being asked to make none of this is easy and none of this is going to be perfect um I will share that I have taken every effort that I have had at Community meetings to talk with Colonel Swinson of the Army Corps of Engineers and his team and they have been absolutely amazing in terms of exhibiting a tremendous amount of compassion a tremendous amount of care and a tremendous um commitment to completing debris removal in the most expeditious way but also in the sest way possible they have
154also expressed that they have received a significant number of write of entry forms from residents given how short the application window has been open so they're optimistic that while they have a proposed timeline available for the completion of debris removal they expect to have that removal completed ahead of that schedule and they are very careful to manage expectations to under promise and hope with all of their mind they can overd deliver on being able to meet expectations so that said I do believe that the superintendent and her leadership team are doing the very same thing in terms of how we are trying to manage what our plans are in terms of remediating campuses providing a path forward to returning um families to Altadena at the point when the debris removal is at a acceptable level
155where we based on what we know it being a safe path to do so Is it feasible for sa two to be fully completed before we reopen Alena possible but we don't know that um I have I also want to sort of level some expectations about having there not be a scenario where students are are not going to return to Alena before you don't see any um remnants of fire damage I don't know of a scenario where that's going to be realistic quite frankly I just don't because the rebuilding process is going to be several years from now and I don't know that we have the ability to not have um the campus utilized for several years so it is our hope that we as a district are going to exercise the greatest amount of
156um thoughtfulness Compassion Care and safety safy being a priority that we would not return students before it is they to do so but we also have to be realistic about the fact that it may not be in a perfect scenario so hopefully um as information continues to come in and information does come in at this point we all experience very much in sort of a daily hourly almost minute by- minute scenario um conditions are going to change and we will have to be flexible we will have to continue to be um open-minded and I think that we have to continue to operate and continue to sort of practice a spirit of operational dexterity as we navigate um our reality right now in terms of being able to rebuild our Community thank you so much thank
157you Miss [Music] Bailey yeah um you know D what Dr Vasquez said and D what um board member Marshall McKenzie just said but one of the things that I think we're going to have to keep in mind is that everything right now uh the decisions that we have to make around this it's very fluid it's fluid it's it's changing there's no stability right now which is one of the reasons why I appreciate the leadership of this District thus far [Music] um you know it it feels as if we're standing on a a raft trying to balance while we're going through Rapids you know and we have got to exercise some patience we have got to stop and listen we have got to really try to understand how this this issue impacts all of us because
158I was affected by the fires you may have been affected or you may know somebody who was affected we've got to be patient all of us are hurting right now and the reality is it may be a long time before any road leading to any of our schools in Altadena is going to be void of any structure that has been burned or any property that has been burned I've gone up there once and I cannot go up there [Music] again so I know what you are talking about I know what you are feeling I have a seven-year-old grandson who lost everything he lost everything and we have to take the time to explain to him exactly what occurred and it's a lot and you know it it it it it's it's it's hard to sit
159here in this position and be told over and over that you don't care that and I get that you feel that way but it couldn't be further from the truth I'm in this position because I care because I believe in putting children first I believe in the power of knowledge of Education that's why I'm here I worked in this District 14 years before being in the [Music] seat so that's why I'm here I care these people around this Das they care we're all hurting we are all hurting with you so don't think that we have not tried to think of other ways other avenues to to get everybody to where they're comfortable to get our classrooms our families our teachers to a position a space where they can be comfortable but does that mean that
160we stop Pro progress no it just means that now we have to make things work where we have to fit so our little world just got a little smaller it's only temporary and again it's fluid and you you just have to be ready to rock and roll with it and I get it but each one of you each one of us can help bring our children along it's not going to be easy for some but we can do it we can get them there we can get there it's going to take our entire ire School Community our community stakeholders it's going to take everyone to Rally around this District education our children are the most important Commodities in this community and we have got to stay positive for them we have got to stay optimistic
161for them we have got to show them that you know what we can get through this together so I just I I needed to say that because it's just painful to sit here and hear it's almost like someone telling you your entire life that you can't do something and to sit here and hear over and over and over that you know we're just bad or we just don't care or we're just doing anything any way no no I've watched this team I've watched them I've been around them up until the we our of the morning working through every time we have a situation with the rains the floods the the earthquake whatever it is the fire they are up they are here they are in this room they are in a hotel but they are
162up working for our children for our employees to make sure that when they show up at those School sites the next morning they have a place place a safe clean place to go to it may not be of our standards of our liking I know cuz I worked at a school site and I tell you now these School sites are probably cleaner than they've ever been with all the sanitizing that's been going on but you know what it's a place for those students and those teachers to go and learn and so I just ask you each one of you out there all of us up here let's just listen let's let's just take the time to to see each other's perspectives to hear them and to consider them and to show consideration to each other
163thank you thank you so I just wanted to say something really um brief because you know I've been listening all all night also and um I don't want anybody to leave our district until they graduate I I really don't I want you all here and I'm an [Music] elaan I have 67 friends and acquaintances who've lost their homes I've driven around aladen Arts I've driven around Elliot and it wasn't just once I go up there a lot but I also know that this team has done an incredible job and that this is an unprecedented natural disaster not many people have a map to teach a school district how to get through this but they've created a map and as Dr Vasquez says this is early communication we're talking and I read this um lovely resolution
164on the safe return to aladina Arts written by one of you and at the end it talks about a you know a main drivable route toward an away from the school I have tried to find a route in my time there but what I'm saying is we do care we're not like stone-faced ice Queens up here we are not we've lived there we have family who've lost homes and we are all going through this and I'm just going to end with saying I don't want to lose anybody out of PD but I don't think anyone can snap their fingers and make all the trees come back we simply cannot do that I'm I'm Excuse me there is no talk back here there isn't any talk back this is our meeting for the district it's not
165a conversation but it is really hard to hear that we don't care and I'm going to leave that at that thank you um I think it's Anna and last name yeah thank you I specialize in Spanish serms hi guys how are you um something Happ with my card this is sort of off topic but it relates to Ala Arts so here I am thank you for your patience my name is Anna joerger I have a first grader at Altin Arts Magnet and a son to be assumed to be TK student my son Oliver potentially headed to am next year we live in Altadena and like many of us suffered a total home loss in the eaten fire we are currently renting in Pasadena I'm here this evening in regards to the looming layoffs and reductions
166and Staffing at our school it has been brought to our attention that the RTI position may be eliminated next year I don't need to remind anyone in this room about the importance of that role I we've talked about it a lot and in the wake of the catastrophic events that have taken place in our community this role is more important than ever I'd like to share with you a picture from our RTI teachers office this is the Rebuilders a club she helped form with all of the students currently visiting her to cope with the loss of their home or their current displaced status with over 30% of our students with a total home loss and 90% currently displaced these students need this teacher support and guidance if we lose her who will manage this I
167urge you to reconsider the reduction of this massively important role my daughter visits her on a daily basis let alone countless other children at our school in addition to helping students cope with the trauma of the eaten fire there is still the number of other significant duties this role performs each day please don't do this to our students who need this support now more than ever as youve so poignantly put caring is the most important thing we can do right now and I hope you'll care about our kids and rethink that thank you oh it said we are in J1 and that was K1 but thank you so much we're about to talk about that thank okay we're going to move on to item two fiscal crisis and management assistance team with Michael [Music] fine
168good evening president Hall members of the board superintendent Blanco um thank you for inviting me here tonight um appreciate your comments um that were just made I get the uh most of the time it's a privilege sometimes it's a chore to attend a lot of Schoolboard meetings around the state I've spent 30 some years setting somewhere um in a configuration like this in in one seat or another um so I I appreciate um kind of where uh you are all at um at this point um my name is Michael fine I'm the chief executive officer of the state's fiscal crisis and management assistance team we have to have an acronym for everything in our business right so we're best known by as fmat which is our uh acronym we are a state agency uh focused
169on assisting local educational agencies with challenges mainly the area of fiscal operational special ed um we have a sister agency that that works with districts on Direct instruction we also advise uh the state Administration and legislature on those same topics in fact 12 hours ago I was sitting in the state senate as we were discussing state budget including uh two uh discussions about the fire and the fire impacts um uh on Pasadena unified on Los Angeles Unified on on some neighboring school districts I think it's also important to note why I'm going to talk about some things tonight that I'm really going to address this from the 30,000 foot view uh we have not been engaged with your District on details I'm not here to say that a particular item on your budget mitigation measures
170the right item or the wrong item we're happy to do that and support you um in doing that detail work but we've not done that that's uh you you have very capable staff to help guide you and work through that um so I'm I'm going to be a little short on specifics um with regard to your budget and your operations I'm also certainly not [Music] um I'm not insensitive to what's going on I'm not just just a numbers person um I I made a change almost uh 35 years ago from Private Industry to public schools because my wife was an elementary school teacher and she'd come home complaining about things every day and I thought well I could put my talents to use and worked my way up through the school system uh to the
171seat of superintendent and for the last 10 years been a fic man um I my wife just retired after 4 years as an elementary school teacher our son is a high school English teacher a young high school English teacher um and if this was if he was in this District he would be I'm sure uh faced with some of the consequences of decisions you have to make I want to start with a couple slides that you have to give you some perspective of what's going on around the state the trends and this is important because I'll bring it home here to Pasadena uh as you walk as I walk through this you're going to think I'm talking about you and I am but I'm talking about hundreds of other school districts talking about frankly the
172majority of the Thousand school districts and and roughly the Thousand Charter Schools a little over thousand charter schools in the state and so um I'll try to um walk through these very quickly because I think you're you're aware of it you're sensitive to them the first and foremost and I know this strikes here at home um is declining enrollment States lost about 8% about 500,000 students um started declining uh about 14 years ago we as using demographers at the state we forecast that this decline will continue to impact schools into 2040s the early 204s because in part it's got to work through the system right so our high school grades will still be experiencing um it's not a bubble it's it's the opposite of a bubble right as it moves through the trend the number
173one reason for declining enrollment are historically low birth rates and as I tell everybody I speak to about declining enrollment not our job to influence birth rates so we just have to deal with the consequences of of declining birth rates but we are below where we were following the great uh depression in the 30s uh we are half a where we were during the growth periods of the ' 50s and 60s and there's a couple of us that remember those it's been partially offset by the introduction of universal preschool or Universal transitional kindergarten uh but that's a short term and then we had the pandemic in the midst of this which accelerated declining enrollment for those years but more importantly from the funding perspective it ex it dropped our average daily attendance from Statewide averages
174in the 94 95% range down into the 80s Ada is starting the yield if you will of average daily attendance is starting to improve and we're getting closer to the prepandemic levels that's good news because it from a funding standpoint with even despite declining enrollment there are for some districts some increases um in 88 the ongoing expenditures previously supported by one-time funds is obviously an issue that all districts are facing the time in which they faced it or made decisions about it may vary some when they first received those billions of dollars of federal pandemic relief funds what we called Esser um as I've laid out here Elementary and secondary school emergency relief we knew exactly the date they would expire the feds have been clear with us and they haven't moved the date right
175it was September 30th of 24 this past September so some districts put in place exit plans to know we're going to we're going to spend the money this way but then we will have to curtail that as we get closer and closer to that date other districts many of which I'm uh dealing with right now uh either didn't put an exit plan in place or they didn't choose to implement the exit plan at the right moments and so they have a lot of sta that were funded with one-time funds um historically we've often guided uh school districts not to use one-time funds to buy staff right we say don't don't use onetime funds for things that eat um because people like to continue to eat even though the funds go away right during the pandemic
176we really changed our message because the purpose of those funds were to support kids learning and their social emotional well-being and the way we do that is through staff it's through the teachers and the other staff that have been here today um and are in your schools every day that's how we support them so we bought if you will people with those funds but we have consequences of doing that when the funds ultimately end and that's one of the things uh that I know you're dealing with one of the things your neighbors are dealing with um so on and by the way made this almost identical presentation a week ago at La UNIF ified I made this presentation in San Jose uh night before last I've actually been in multiple districts in the last um
177the last few days low to more normal colas cost of living adjustments and I think this is important to raise here the cost of living adjustment is a national St that that's used in California school finding is a National Standard it's a component of the gross domestic product um it's not unique to California it's not unique to Southern California it's not unique to LA County where costs look very different than costs in other places it's also not unique to education where the bulk of our expense usually in a typical District 85% of every dollar we spend is on people it's not heavily uh weighted by um labor if you will in fact it's unusually weighted by energy and school districts buy very little energy uh from from a fuel standpoint obviously from utilities is different
178subject when you go to bed on June 30th and you wake up on July 1st a new fiscal year and you do nothing different your fixed costs go up by four and a half to 5% on average so when we have a cost of living adjustment that is below 4 and a half or 5% while the state can absolutely with a straight face and and no criticism of them say we're fully funding education at the local level it doesn't f feel that way it creates a a pinch it creates a deficit you have to make an adjustment for that right we've had some very good colus during the pandemic 8 133% this year we're at 1.07 next year the governor's forecast is 2.43 we already know that we're not going to make that number it's
179lower than that we can see that in the economic data that's been reported since uh the end of December when the governor made his forecast so I point this out to you because it causes confusion in our local communities the state messages we're fully funding education but at the local level you're all dealing with the consequences of fixed costs going up at a more rapid speed than what your revenue is going up when you layer declining enrollment with that it is a significant difference in fact despite a cost of living adjustment you may very well in many districts have lower Revenue next year than you do this year because you lose the full amount of the revenue Associated to the student that leaves or is not enrolling in TK or k because of birth rates
180right um inflationary pressures that was Revenue inflationary pressures remain um on the cost side why inflation's been tapped down by National Economic um policies over the last couple years uh the cost of a box of pencils is still higher than it was a couple years ago that's not been rolled back we all know that when we visit the grocery store um or any store for that matter right we all feel that every day we've had significant increases in areas that you don't have a lot of control over and that's your utilities almost 200% in the last decade increase in utility rates Pasadena part of your community is very fortunate has a municipal utility I happen to live in a Community not far from here that has a municipal utility and and we're grateful for that
181as a community um but nonetheless the rates are going up liability insurance specifically driven by childhood sexual assault claims is up almost 700% in the last decade and as you all fully appreciate the cost of fire insurance is going to look very different from today forward for us as homeowners for us as renters for you as School District we also by the hour have changes in federal policy on funding changes and what that all means for us right now is uncertainty and this is a if I can call it an industry that doesn't deal well with uncertainty and you just discussed it tonight the uncertainty of when a neighborhood's going to be cleaned up or not cleaned up we don't deal well with uncertainty we like to know right when we make a decision and
182so on but the reality is the change in in the federal Administration is creating a lot of uncertainty for us I've been in districts in the last couple weeks where they are doing reduction and force for all of their staff that are tied to federal dollars because if that rug is pulled out from under us after March 15th they get no opportunity to do that you're not doing that and I think that's frankly a bit of an overstep at this point right but it brings home the need for you to maintain your stability it brings home the need for you to have adequate reserves because what if that rug is pulled out from under you on Title One or nutrition on community eligibility on nutrition or on special education Federal special education funding you've got
183to get through the year and you need your reserves to do that speaking of reserves comparison to the great uh recession um we're in better position as a state Great Recession we averaged about 8% reserves in the most recent data school districts are averaging just in that 23 to 25% that is an average so there are lots of districts below that lots of districts above that cash reserves are different than fund balance um those fund balance reserves don't do any good if they're not backed by cash because when you have an emergency like you've had and you have extraordinary expenditures having reserves on paper doesn't do you any good you have to be able to write the check right to buy the extra textbooks to furnish a classroom uh that you've just put online for
184relocation so I talk about these with you tonight really to put pasaden in context with everybody else uh everybody's experiencing um these same Trends you've been experiencing them they're not new to you they're not new to others uh you've actually been experiencing most of these for a significant period of time um and so um I think it's important that you keep that um in context there's an accumulation of the impacts of these because you've not dealt with all of these impacts each year that we've gone along right and so the the impact accumulates and you're now faced with um you're now faced with uh with dealing with that and as you've said earlier you have to move forward you have to make some decisions and again I don't envy you on the details of those
185decisions and the lives that are impacted and the programs that are impacted for kids over those decisions but you do have to make um some reasonable decisions you all understand this you've articulated it actually very well tonight um and that is that you have a fiduciary duty you all know that that you understand it you ran for office or were appointed um and as part of that you take on that fiduciary duty and one of those is the fiduciary duty to ensure that your district is fiscally stable when you are not stable everything else is a problem when I'm in districts that are in absolute dysfunction on their financial side I can assure you they're also in dysfunction on the instructional side on the human resource side on the facility side on the student services
186side so you have to avoid that I I would love to stand here and say that budgets don't matter and your Revenue doesn't matter we just need to go do everything we can for kids that's absolutely where my heart's at um and always has been that's why I I moved into this business so long ago um but uh the reality is we have a box that we have to work within you have a box you have to work within after the pandemic uh we began to describe time as pre-pandemic and post-pandemic right what happened before the pandemic was a whole different time period what happened after the pandemic we like to forget the pandemic itself and we kind of just draw this line you're going to do the same thing with respect to the fire
187we're going to have pre-fire and we're going to have postfire I want to remind you I I know you all understand understand this but want to remind you and your community that some the issues that you're dealing with in your current budget are pre-fire issues they're accumulated prefire issues with respect to postfire and I want to Pivot to that I didn't prepare any slides um for that but I want to speak to that um we Dr Blanco your your other staff I I see him on zoom on a regular basis we've been in all kinds of meetings with State officials with my counterparts and variety of agencies around the state um both state and local for weeks now uh just last Friday we were with the Senate protm and two local Senator Senator perz and
188Senator Allen who um within their districts have the bulk of of the impact from the fires um I I know your staff heard this I want to share with all of you that there is a absolute commitment from the governor there's an absolute commitment from the Senate I'll be in the assembly next week I expect I will hear the same commitment from them um to do everything we can for the district and for the districts and for your um operations there are some things though to keep in mind um unfortunately we're getting a lot of experience at disasters and so we've got Lessons Learned one of the lessons that that were learned and I was in Paradise after the fire when that entire community and basically all of their schools were destroyed um is the
189cleanup process and you've got a great partner in the Army Corp here but that was one of our lessons we can't do anything until the cleanup happens right I was there even a year almost to the day after the fire and we're still looking at lots and properties that hadn't been cleaned and how they were impeding progress in the rest of the community so that's one of the lessons learned and one of the reasons that the Army Corps has been here one of the reasons the office of emergency services has brought them in as a partner and so on one of the things that's different and I know you appreciate this about this disaster than other disasters is the mix of charter school kids you know this in in the schools that have been destroyed
190in this District most of them are actually occupied by independent Charter Schools that's a complete different mix than what we've seen in other disaster areas and the laws are not the same for charter schools and students as they are for um traditional public schools there aren't the same facility Provisions there aren't the same hold harmless when it comes to average daily attendance which is the basis of your funding so we have those those things to work out in the current year we have an automatic process for emergencies where you will be held harmless from the time your schools were closed or decrease in attendance uh normally it's a material decrease in attendance but because there's a state of an emergency here in Los Angeles County as a result of fires the materiality standard is lower
191to zero and so any decrease in attendance you may apply for on a school by school during your your closures we um those same applications will wave um the time as you all know there's a minimum number of days and a minimum minimum number of minutes that kids that we need to offer instruction to kids each year that time is waved for your closures during an emergency um by your application on the J1 13A which your staff is very familiar with with respect to next year there's a normal protection for school districts but not for Charters and that is you are funded on the greater of the current year or the prior year or the average of the prior three years however the intent the practice in the past here in California with previous disasters
192of this nature um and the expressed intent of the administration and we've seen this in intent language in the governor's budget just days after the fire broke out before it was even extinguished um is to extend a more robust hold harmless going forward at least an additional year um it'll be re-evaluated whether that's a third year out as well based on what your needs are based on where your community is at based on your attendance patterns your enrollment patterns and so on and we'll do that with you and advise the governor and the legislature with respect to how far do they need to go out um are there other ways that we need to assist you and while I don't stand here and make any promises on those other ways I will give you examples
193of what we did in Paradise fmt went in worked with the district identified some very unique extraordinary cost things that nobody would have ever thought about or and worked through that right um and the state then participated in helping to cover those extraordinary costs they didn't cover them 100% but they did participate in covering those costs we're prepared to do that with you um and the other districts that are impacted so that we can make a report bless you make a report to the legislature with regard to those types of things um I I give you one example you probably haven't thought about in Paradise um the whole Community was basically destroyed and so reloc relocation of almost everybody right some staff chose not they chose to retire I think you have an appreciation for
194this health insurance premiums for an active employee versus a retired employer are very different much higher for retired employees they go to the doctor more often right they're not as active all kinds of things and so health insurance premiums reflect that that was an extraordinary cost that we were able to identify and the state helped for several years until they could get that modeling back to normal extraordinary Transportation costs now back at Paradise we didn't State didn't pay for transportation today they cover Transportation up to 60% of your costs right um so there are a number of examples like that um that we'll work with you on and um and then make some recommendations that are appropriate to to the state so Madame President uh that's my presentation tonight I'm happy to answer any questions
195you may have about process um or anything else that I can be of assistance with you thank you very much for that do we have any questions I'm sure we do why do I ask so who wants to go first here Mr Harden can you uh talk a little bit about the prop 98 guarantee and kind of what that Horizon looks like for us I know there's been over the past few years there's been some um creative arithmetic in as much as that goes so there has um in the past couple years been some proposals what we call the manipulation of prop 98 however that is not where we ended in each case right the legislature and the governor ultimately came to agreements that didn't do that for last year we did suspend prop 98
196um uh to work our way out of that but there's a direct relation and the governor I think what you're speaking to the governor in his January budget proposes a um a maneuver we haven't seen exactly in this form before but we've seen it in other forms and and I think that's maybe what you're alluding to where they're holding some of the prop 98 um money back this current year uh $1.6 billion from uh an allocation what what I would say is why I have to be careful here since I work for um the legislative analy office has suggested an alternative way to look at that and to do that and I think that is worthy of some consideration the legislature will weigh in on that in the final budget negotiations we had a long
197conversation about this morning actually in the Senate um what I want to say is it is a temporary timing issue of when the 1.6 is paid out not whether it's in the prop 98 base there's no there was no proposal in the governor's January budget to remove it from the base it's in the base it's in the base on a go forward basis as well it's simply when do they recognize it and pay it out their proposal is to do that in May of 26 as opposed to May of 25 um but it does not artificially lower the base in any way um I think the bigger issue that we want to be sensitive to in prop 98 and just you know for make sure everybody's on on the same page proposition 98 from 1988
198is what tells the state how much of State revenues tax revenues go to k14 so K12 plus our partners down the street at Community College UC and CSU are separate they're not in prop 98 they don't enjoy those same Protections in fact while prop 98 this year is growing the UC and CSU budgets are being cut by significant amounts in the governor's proposal we'll see where it ends it's right now and I don't want to get too technical here but right now it is in a what we call a test one which means it's a straight percentage of the state's revenues tax revenues we get roughly 40 cents of every dollar that comes into the state so the real question here that we need to Be watchful for is what's the impact on revenues from
199the economy from changes in federal policy tariffs uh proposed tariffs um and really important um Los Angeles County contributes 22% of the state's personal income tax and your area and the Pacific Palisades are a significant portion of that and so what are the income tax receipts to the state impact from the fires right um there may be uninsured properties and people will be entitled to write those losses off on their personal income tax we also have the property tax issues right with the properties that have been destroyed the resident or the dwelling units or the the dwellings that have been destroyed business or residential that's a little lower impact but what what we lose estimated right now about $35 billion um I'm sorry $5 million what what that estimate that loss will cause the state
200on a school funding standpoint to backfill that so there's a expense burden at the state to backfill that to schools so schools as I think you all know if this was a glass are first funded with local property taxes and whatever they fall short of your entitlement the state backfills so if property tax on the average district is about 30% of their revenue if that drops drops then the state's share of the backfill increases to bring you up to 100% basically so right now proposition 98 is super sensitive to the income taxes next year it'll be a little less sensitive but next year's one we'll see the impact of property tax from the fires there may be some immediate impact on sales tax which is one of the other taxes that helps fund schools right
201um and that may continue as you rebuild sales tax revenues actually will go up because people have to buy new things that they've lost sales tax revenue I should say not the tax itself T know thank you for your presentation um since you're talking about Statewide uh level finances I'm wondering if you know anything about upcoming uh legislation such as bringing back the Community School's First uh Prop 13 reform of 2020 that could potentially bring in millions of dollars to our public schools and community colleges uh as well as a Ultra Rich billion dollar million doll tax on the on the billionaires that has always been entertained but we never see it and it's a potential for Revenue that is not volatile so I'm certainly familiar with some of those proposals I I don't know
202that I can add any value to them what I would highlight though that I'm um probably more familiar with is the prop 50 the expiration of prop 55 um just to take you back in history coming out of the Great Recession in 2012 um Jerry Brown um proposed and the legislature passed and then it went before the voters in November of of 12 um proposition uh oh 35 30 30 30 um that added a temporary sales tax higher sales tax rate and added a new bracket at the top of of the the income uh tax brackets the sales tax then expired they were both temporary the sales tax expired um I should know the year and then I'm lost it um I think it was five years later or six years later and it was
203scheduled for the high income tax bracket to also expire that time but then there was Proposition 55 which put just an extension of the tax bracket on the back ballot that expires in 2030 it's worth to schools about each Year's a little different but somewhere between 10 and4 billion of prop 98 comes from prop 55 so it is one of the California Teachers Association and others highest priority to have that extended and they will begin that campaign actually I think you you've already heard some of that uh in there um in some of their news recent news releases and other things but they'll begin to work on a campaign I would expect for 2026 with a second bite at the Apple should it fail in 2028 ahead of a 2030 expiration it's a signif if
204it were to be expire it would be a significant drop in in school funding anybody else okay so in summary uh the trend of financial distress at PSD proceed proceeds it comes before the Ean fires the Ean fires will continue our Trend by in introducing unanticipated challenges the state funding [Music] from the state funding does not completely meet the cost of educations but in the context of the overall system of Education K12 has been doing better however because of all of the situations in the city including ining the possibility of lower taxation it is yet to be seen how funding structures will continue to be impacted negatively for schools so let me let me see if I can repeat at least pieces of that your challenges pre-fire have to be met they will [Music] continue
205out in the coming years fire or not the state will hold your Revenue your your local control funding formula Revenue um harmless for the near term and and more likely a a more reasonable you know term not just one year year or two years but if you don't address the pre-fire issues of declining enrollment of Staff of of staff that were supported with one-time funds that are no longer here um those will continue obviously to burden the district's fiscal stability um school funding in California with the exception of the property tax component is based on a very volatile system that um is heavily influenced by high earners in fact our what we call 1centers the 1% earners highest contribute just under 50% of the total income tax they are very dependent upon things like the
206equity Market as opposed to most of us that are uh dependent upon a paycheck each each month um as the equity Market fluctuates in response to International economies and political um uncertainties not just in the US but in around the world then that causes fluctuations we are um we've done fairly well the last several years because the equity markets have been relatively High certainly in the last couple years right um but we've had recent periods of time where the E Market dropped significantly um and and we felt that schools felt that to the tune of about $9 billion right in in potential reduced funding ultimately we didn't experience that because of the deal between the governor and the legislature struck last year I think in in what was maybe alluded to earlier in the maneuvering
207um I think I got I think I got most of your points I may have left something out um but yeah I I may choose use some different terms but I think you I think you you've got it thank you you're welcome Kenny can you help us understand will the Ada hold harmless extend to the special education uh calculation so special education what we know of as AB 602 funding master plan funding is based on your total Ada at P2 at second period of portion which is basically mid April um it the the J1 13A process in the current year because of closures or decreases in attendance will alter the P2 number the the in it it will be favorable to the P2 number it will adjust the P2 number basically for 2425 for um
208Can can harmless though 256 we'll need to make sure that it's not limited to just the local funding formula but that will be a policy decision that's made in Sacramento that would have to be in the Budget Trailer bill or somewhere okay exactly and and we see that intent in the governor's proposal the reason it's only intent language right now is we have a lot of complications with this number one is the mix of Charter students the second is um La UniFi is a very big District not the whole District was necessarily impact Ed right we need to work through that hold harmless in the past has always been on a district level not a school level except when we're dealing with closures then those are done school by school but the state doesn't collect
209Ada by school it collects it except for Charters it collects it by District so we have to put if if we're going to change that we have to put in place uh data collection process or analysis process to to understand that um um different probably than you um you have a lot of districts around you um we've heard some tonight say I've moved here right and so on La UniFi is so large that many of its displaced families may have stay actually stayed in the district now we're well aware of several hundred that have gone to Santa Monica Malibu Beverly Hills Manhattan Beach we we've heard from all of those and some of those and you'll appreciate this some of those are Community funded districts they don't get state aid they're funded by property taxes
210but they have followed the executive order of the governor and taken some students in despite that we that's a topic we're going to have to work through as well which is and that's got a constitutional issue assciated to it that we have to be careful about so that's in part why there's only intent language and not well-developed language yet we we've got a lot of details to work through that we haven't experienced in previous disasters and this may not be something you can address so obviously our county is expecting us to file a second interim and adopted and and it feels like there's a significant amount of uncertainty about what our potential future Revenue will be until these details are worked out so you know and maybe this is M more for Mr bra I'm
211assuming that Leo is going to work with us in other words I mean uh anyway we we don't know all the answers and so I don't know how they can hold us responsible for not knowing them so yeah we've already been in contact with Leo but Mr fine has been very helpful also providing some helpful guidance for how to deal with the uncertainty that you're referring to um and so we we think you know obviously things will change as hold harmless potentially gets a extended for longer but based on the intention language that we have already uh we know how to incorporate that in our Revenue projections yeah I I think there has to be some flexibility and how we look at some of the Criterion standards when we have a lack of clarity around
212um that's why in part you would do um maybe multiple scenarios multiple mult so you have your in YP uh multi-year Financial projections maybe it's appropriate to do two or three of those a baseline where you think things are going to land maybe a best case a worst case um that your staff can compare and at least identify for you what that range is you'll need to pick one and I would recommend it be your Baseline whatever you've kind of settled on with Leo um as a reasonable Baseline but I think it's important that your staff identify for you what that range could look like under different scenarios the same um would be true um extending that out to your cash forecast um when when you do a multi-year budget forecast you really need to
213do a multi-year cash forecast cash we say is uh King cash shows no mercy have to ensure you have enough cash to pay your to to pay your employees is what we really care about um the county has some flexibility um in uh their final determination um it's not it's not as rigid as we all like to describe it as sometimes right um I think more important than your second interim though is where you're at with your adopted budget and we'll know a lot more information by the time you get to that point what we won't know though uh because I do not expect the legislature to take early action they may but you'll adopt your budget for next year before the legislature adopts the state budget with that added trailer Bill and so on
214we may hear very clear what the intent is um well we'll hear very clear what the governor's intent is in May the legislature through the hearing process such as this morning and and so on will also provide some some information you know so we can get we can kind of gauge what their thinking is um that will make your 45-day revision um in August uh super important for you so not something to skip there are a lot I don't know what your history is here a lot of districts don't do the 45-day revision the code says it's a shall not a May um but for you that it will be essential because that will update you and your community post state budget adoption and that will be very important okay do we all want to
215take a five minute break yes superintendent is going to talk thank you thank you so much for coming here and explaining all that and I think you just became Mrs Kenny's best friend um because she really wants us to always do that 45 day update but um um we really appreciate your advice and you know just um before we go into our next presentation it's it's been very challenging for us to have to reduce our budget and you know propose reducing staff because it's just a terrible time and you know you've been in the meetings when I've I'd say begged asked and I describe the situation everybody gasps right all the legislators because they don't have an answer right and they're telling us we have to go forward with this um in order to become
216a healthier District but I hope that you know you can you can help us through through some of this and even with the pain that everybody's feeling we're going relatively conservative based on our problem because we're hoping that some of the things can change for us in the future and I remind you all that this is preliminary um final decisions can be made things can be reversed later I say that with absolute sensitivity to the fact that when the staff that receives that notice everything drops for them right um and that spreads the moral throughout your schools and that impacts instruction for kids right um I I know that very very well I again I've spent a lot of many years in this environment um I have been I've been in this seat where we've
217proposed reductions and then seen actual well I didn't deal with the names right I dealt with the the bigger picture than to see the people that come to the podium they're the teachers that when they were in college taught our little kids how to swim right they were teachers our kids had as elementary kids um they were teachers that work next to my wife and we go to dinner on the weekends right so um I I I understand that um it's just diff it's never it it's always difficult this particular environment makes it even more so but you have the over all responsibility for the whole district and all the kids and I know you all understand that very clearly thank you very much thank you yes Michelle I I just wanted us to take
218note of the time and uh make a I guess I'll make a motion to extend it I was going to say 12 I don't think we need to go till 12 I was going to say 11:30 I just want to be safe I do not want to go to the next day I want to be safe but that's why I was going to say 12 what do you think I don't want to do 12 but I was going to propose 11:30 but okay 11:45 second all right and we're all we're we're all in agreement on that everybody okay oh oh Patrice I keep forgetting patri so we have to roll roll yeah roll call ter bunman here no yes I was like roll call okay um yes y yes [Music] yes yes but please don't
219keep tear here that long yes yes yes okay 11:45 like a short five minute break right now yes let's do a f minute break okay oh my God [Music] n [Music] he [Music] a [Music] n [Music] e [Music] m [Music] he [Music] are we all ready to be back now is everybody ready to move ahead here we're going to move ahead and so we will have item number three budget recommendations by the superintendent's leadership team go ahead all right so we're going to talk about funding contest context and fiscal Outlook which obviously Mr fine covered a lot of the state wide and National Trends uh we'll talk a little bit more about how that impacts paity and unified uh we'll talk about the Strategic plan and our guiding principles the superintendent budget advisory committee the
220comprehensive planning process specifically related to Staffing teachers ratio impact on personnel and then the overall reductions so as you know we've made several presentations over the last several months related to our fiscal Outlook um back in June of course when we adopted our budget we adopted a fiscal stabilization plan in August an update on the superintendent budget advisory committee September our United actuals and then back in December our first Anem report and another update on the superintendent's budget advisory committee each of those presentations had information that's kind of uh I think laid the groundwork for the recommendations tonight so first PD's fiscal Outlook um as mentioned that this is impacting the majority of districts in our state PD's enrollment continues to decline each year on the next slide I'll I'll show some data on on
221that again as as Mr fine mentioned or onetime Co relief funds have been fully expended they were fully expended as of the end of last school year and then State funding this year was lower than previously anticipated Mr fine also mentioned that after pandemic years where we had relatively High colas um that is no longer the case this year and in the future after years of surpluses PU D had a general fund unrestricted operating deficit last school year um after again years of surpluses because of high levels of funding from the state and federal government we did spend more than we brought in last year for the first time in years and that trend is projected to continue in the future so while this La this next point is was not reflected at first interim
222our District's unduplicated people percentage or up is almost 4 percentage points low lower this year which has a significant negative impact on lcff Revenue so a main a big component of lcff Revenue are supplemental concentration Grant funds and those both of those sources of funding are based on the number and percentage of unduplicated students again that's students that are eligible for fre to dis launch or in other words low-income students as well as English Learners or students with limited English proficiency and Foster Youth and so when districts serve uh lower percentage of those students because sometimes demographics just change um we receive less funding uh due to our fiscal Outlook Leo has required us to submit fiscal stabilization plans as part of our recent budget adoption and and interm reports so as I mentioned declining
223enrollment it's a longterm Trend you'll see here this is just 10e snapshot and it's been an average decline of about 2.2% each year again we're not the only District facing this declining enrollment but because virtually all of our funding is based on enrollment and attendance kind of a function of enrollment and attendance this trend has a very substantial impact on our funding levels so the budget Outlook uh Statewide uh so the governor's proposed budget that was mentioned a few times tonight already included some positives things that will have a positive impact on on Revenue all things being equal uh there's a student support discretionary block grant uh additional funding for learning recovery emergency block R an increase in the TK add-on and uh the Ada hold harmless that you heard a lot about already tonight
224I should note that of these four only the last one the PD Ada hold harmless will be reflected at second interim so we're going to be back together in a couple weeks for second interim um the recommendation from Leo as well as other sources is that we cannot yet include the potential revenue of those first three items at this time um they're proposals they're new uh sources of funding some some negatives or things that are going to have a negative impact on uh finances are what uh Mr fine also mentioned is the cola for next year is 2.43% and as he also mentioned ultimately it'll likely be even lower in the state's final budget and that's down from 2.93% so this is not yet reflected in our finances the negative impact on the of that
225lower Cola is not yet reflected uh in our multi-year projection so this is uh the multi-year projection this is something that we shared at first interim and um what you'll see in the light blue versus the dark blue is where we were in September as of un audited actuals and then where we were at first interim so this is a slide that we shared at first interim and um the Improvement here that you see is principally due to the partial tax and so the partial tax has come up a lot we're very grateful to our voters for approving the partial tax it's very important it's a very important source of funding but as you'll see while it has a positive impact it does not change the fact that if no action is taken by the
226district that we will ultimately have all things being equal not only a substantial negative ending balance in our general fund unrestricted by 26 27 of $37 million but already a $2 million ending balance by the end of next school year so this is what we mean when we talk about the challenging fiscal Outlook that we face now again we're not the only District facing this trend and as we've talked about a lot before what drives this trend is that when we spend more than we bring in and that difference the overspending beyond what we're bringing in has to come from somewhere and where that comes from is is our reserves and while it's true has been pointed out by some public speakers and others tonight that we currently have substantial ending balances reserves savings they're
227projected to be fully depleted and in fact go negative over the next few years and so um I I obviously this fiscal Outlook while while we're not alone in facing it is is very difficult because it it means that we have to we're confronted with very difficult decisions and I think it's it's understandable to want to wait right to to want to to defer some of these decisions um and I think it's it's of course it's human nature it's we are all in education because we care about students the ones that we're serving today um to want to want to wait on those difficult decisions but I think it's important to note that um those future students that I think sometimes it's it's they're they they seem somewhat abstract um that we need to think
228about the impact of our decisions on those students of the future but I think it's important to note that those students of the future are already in our schools a student that's in transitional kindergarten is with us for over a decade more and so those students and the resources that we have available for them in the future those students students are already with us we're already serving them and so that's why it's so important to make the important decisions that we need to now because we're already are serving those students um I did mention this at first interim it's it's important to mention that things that are not reflected in the multi-year projection I mentioned a few already any future changes in compensation or anything in our negotiated agreements that have any cost associated with
229them are not reflected and so to the extent those agreements include things that cost money uh they will make that Outlook uh worse um any unknown liabilities that that we may not be aware of but that also have a cost associated with them are also of course not reflected and then the potential impact of any economic downturn beyond what we've experienced is not reflected uh any potential reductions other than what's been reflected in for example Federal funding is not reflected and any new major programmatic or operational Investments that that might be made are not reflected so anything thing that might cost money or anything that might reduce our revenues is not reflected in the numbers that you saw so the Strategic plan is obviously a document an important document that guides and informs a lot
230of decisions that we make not all of them are Financial a lot of the decisions that we make day-to-day that don't necessarily have a cost associated with them are also informed by the priorities set by the board and by the district um and effective and responsive and accountable district is the the the the goal the priority that you see there in yellow um that is obviously a really important um strategic priority and when we think about responsible budgeting fiscal sustainability I think it fits best in in that uh strategy so addressing the budget shortfall there were two process IES that identified the budget reductions we're presenting tonight the first is one that I think has been well discussed publicly over the last several months which is the superintendent budget advisor committee and the other is
231the comprehensive planning process that we do every year um after the fire uh staff had discussions with fmat you saw Mr fine here as well as with Leo and the State Board of Education about how to approach budget reductions and potential layouts due to what happened with the fires um all three advise PD to move forward with the reductions that were planned before the fire and I think you heard Mr fine talk a little bit about that about the pre-fire challenges we were facing the need to address them um we do expect support from the state uh commitments that we've gotten verbally as well as the intent language you saw in the trailer language for the ada8 hold harmless the the hold harm lless that we would have received in uni case this year as
232well as for next year um but that's really meant to address and mitigate the impact of the fire itself and unfortunately is not sufficient to address the challenges that we were facing before the fire the proposed reductions also should be noted that we're going to present tonight are not sufficient to close the shortfall based again on those first interim projections but are what we believe the school system can prudently Implement at this time okay so um based on those projections the reductions that were recommended tonight alone are not going to be sufficient to close that entire shortfall okay but again we think it's what we can responsibly and prudently Implement at this time also important to note that we are not proposing any reductions based on any potential loss of enrollment due to the fire
233okay that's another thing that that we got guidance on from guidance from also fmat and the State Board of Education was definitely address the challenges that you are facing pre-fire but don't make any perspective reductions on top of that because of the impact that we may ultimately experience due to the fire and one of the biggest impacts that we do expect to have is uh less enrollment even than we were projecting before the fire all right so as Mr Bravo karey um mentioned we engaged in two different processes to uh really come to this General overall reduction recommendation for you tonight and I will be talking about the first one the superintendent's budget advisory committee process and Dr Canal will be addressing um the comprehensive planning process that we utilized um it is a refresher
234because while it was just a few months ago um it's you know been a year so we did conduct this process actually uh throughout the fall semester um and it we utilized a training model we ensured that there were staff presentations that were comprehensive and detailed and then we allowed for deliberations between individual committee members and then debriefed in a whole group discussion to ensure that what we had landed at was uh what was comprehensible to the group that process was based on um it a text by William poson School budgeting for hard times so that the uh you can be reminded that we uh followed a a known um process that that can be applied in these kind of situations we did so because we wanted to ensure transparency and organization for how the
235process was conducted it was at the time a very laborious effort because not only were we um unpacking uh all of the different services that are provided centrally uh but we were also needing to describe the impact and the consequences of of certain positions the way that it was done was we had a diverse committee that was made up of Representative groups groups of Staff as well as students and families Community Partners um and staff uh was as diverse as teachers administrators classified staff Etc so in this process we looked at Central funds first this process was intended to review things that were not classroom um based in particular that these were uh these were Services contracts uh Material supplies Etc all of the things that that we could eek out of the central uh
236uh uh general fund packages repr presented with percentages fromo 70% 80% 90% or 100% funding and what the committee did was uh listen to all of this deliberate and rank essentially what uh particular package based on the area did they prioritize and so the final ranking is going to be shared with you here and I want to make two notes one is that again this process of ranking did not necessarily mean that they were ranking categories by Department it wasn't that we prefer Wellness Services over Human Resources it was a rank of the budget package within each of those categories because we acknowledge that all of these departments provide essential Services the second thing that I want to is that within the these priorities we actually took the recommendations of the superintendent's budget advisory committee
237in whole meaning that the prioritization that they um provided for each of these departments is the recommendation that we went with with the exception if you'll notice of facilities and maintenance and wellness Services you'll notice that they still have some slight reductions uh facilities of Maintenance actually still says 100% but it's actually I think about 98% um and that's my mistake for not correcting that and then Wellness service Services uh they had actually prioritized at 100% but we did do some reductions which I'll talk about momentarily so their uh package ended up being approximately 95% funded so the the statement around it being a central fund is also a misnomer because Central funds still support School sites this was not simply there is no way that we could say that these reductions do not impact
238operations at school sites or services at school sites in fact most of these services are to school sites and for school sites so in uh describing why Wellness Services is uh funded at 95% what you'll notice is that later on when Dr Canal um discusses actually no I'm sorry later on when we talk about the certificated layoff resolutions you'll notice that there is um an item for teachers and special assignment that are reduced these are instruction coaches El coaches and RTI Wellness coaches um and teachers those are Central funded um positions they do they were um considered Within These um Within These buckets about a year ago on March 14th of 2024 we actually came to you on the first round of fiscal stabilization and in that time period we had uh recommended the closure
239of approximately 100 Central positions again trying to stay away from from the classroom impact as much as we could in that time we shared with you that in this school year we would be redesigning the instructional and wellness coaching model to reimagine what it would be like if we had fewer uh Personnel to be able to carry that out so that is what is coming to fruition in the sense that while these uh packages are funded at 80 9 95% each of those packages contains one of these categories of these coaches or these teachers in special assignment so you'll see that there's a reduction that's listed on that certificated layoff list of about 57.5 I believe however we actually still have categorical funded uh funds and um restricted budget that pays for a portion of
240these individual salaries so what's accounted for in the reduction is the parts of their salary that come from the general fund the our intent and hope is to utilize these additional categorical um and restricted budgets to still bring back coaching positions so that schools are not divested of all of the support that they have in those areas so there will still be support in those areas at the schools but obviously with less Personnel the reason why they will appear on the layoff is because those positions cannot continue to exist in their uh current job description because conditions will have changed and so a new a redesign of this model is what we are uh working on now and for the comprehensive planning process I that to Dr canel thank you Dr Chan Hill so it's
241been mentioned a couple of times that the superintendent budget advisory committee and the other bucket as I keep referring to it was U looked at um primarily by meeting with principles and get collecting their input and providing them with an analysis of their sites and enrollment throughout the years um part of the planning process um when we Implement um ratios uh which is already part of the collective bargaining agreement um is looking at uh the Education Code looking at the collective bargaining agreement um and looking at the different looking at the different Avenues in terms of how we Implement these items uh PSD was in a position to staff and excess of those ratios as has been discussed several times because of the covid relief funds so that have expired but since those have been
242fully expended then we have to now look to see how is it that our new reality without those funds and part of that process is why we're here today the teaching staff the teacher Staffing ratios uh which is not new to most of you um provides you some lens into to uh the classroom sites so for example you have the grade spans the ratio and the source of the ratio the ratio is not a hard cap and you heard earlier presentations of that um but if you look at enrollment throughout our district um so if it says for example 32.7 32.75 that is not the actual it's not a hard cap so the enrollment could be lower or could be higher than that specific number number but overall as a ratio it cannot be above
243that um one of the things to consider is in looking at our ratios and what they currently are they have been traditionally quite low um below that even ratio number of the classroom so there's several classrooms that you would see that do not even um reach to that um to that number the impact the elimination recommendations has been mentioned has been part of the sback but I'm going to go into a little bit more in terms of the actual staff ratios and how that came to be so I began to mention typically Staffing is done in uh districts depending on the year uh when in the year we're going to be ending it begins in the spring the later you wait in the school year the more information you have the better your uh predictions
244are going to be so they are in fact predictions based on enrollment Trends because you don't know who's going to show up however as the years have uh has begun earlier most districts have begun to plan for that right around February so right before uh the spring in terms of formulating what the classrooms are going to be looking like we the earliest uh uh implementation of this is something that we did this year we began talking and having discussions and making plans in November to meet with all of our sites um in December so this process began in November with the planning and in December with meeting to give you an idea in the room um the three divisions were implement were there so um Dr Chan Hill um B Karimi uh we had additional
245staff such as Dr aazar Dr Malone who supervises principles and we have made individual appointments with each principal to talk about the enrollment trends for the last 7 to 10 years we also talked about the trend in terms of Staffing the example that I can give you is if we had a th000 students and we had 100 teachers but now we have 750 students but yet we still have the same number of teachers talking about that the attrition of students did not match the staff that we currently have today so we discussed those and we asked them to look at their um Master schedules to see where we had those low enrollments for example so if we had low enrollments in certain sections of how they would um do their master schedule without those FTE
246uh for for various different reasons again we had ex extra staff to support the needs that we had at the time because we have that addition of funding but that additional funding has gone so we had those discussions with them there were several principles uh with more than half of the school sites we actually had several meetings with them because we wanted to to have a thought process and to think about what the campus would look like given that the attrition of students in that match the current Staffing model that they currently had so we had several discussions with them we wanted them to be invested in part of that process process um and that those discussions did revolve around what Dr Chan Hill just talked about because there are at their SES the toas
247were part of that discussion and collecting their input of how that would look like moving forward so it was a collaborative process within the three divisions uh with the sites um discussing the attrition data discussing the expiration of the funds discussing how each of their staff members were being funded as you know sometimes uh folks are funded through uh several different funding sources uh and something unique to our campuses as well is that we also do Staffing with uh funds that that are donated to sites which is unique um you heard um uh Mike fine talk about that typically they strongly recommend not hiring folks with onetime funding um I would be interested to see what he says about donations and hiring staff with that um but maybe I'll ask them um separately on the
248side um but that is something that is very unique to Pasadena because the Staffing directly um is dependent upon those donation of those funds so something to think about as well when we talk about whether or not staff is going to be returning this image is um uh part of the presentation these numbers come from the resolutions that um that are before you uh coming up shortly what I attended to do here was break down uh some of the numbers so I wanted to give you a little bit of of a context so the certificate FTE um I mentioned how many of the FTE were worken up either through the Staffing to ratio or through the sback recommendations the next column talks about vacancies but I broke up the vacancies for example on they certificated
249um by two different so 10 contracts um and vacancies true vacancies meaning there's no one sitting in those positions the Tim contracts there is someone sitting in that position when we hired staff on a temp contract they are informed that it is for that one school year so there's a begin date and there's an end date to their contract but nonetheless there is somebody sitting in that position but by implementing the 10 contracts that means that by closing that position for example that means that we're not laying off a permanent staff member as well although it is still painful but it does provide that Avenue for the district so if you look on the third column certificated 27 of the 50 n uh positions um are being held by 10 contract which means if we
250don't those positions are still with us but it will be a reassignment from a permanent staff member into that temp contract position so the total of those will be 44 at 10 contracts of folks that would not be returning um because they're sing in those positions the classified I provided um I think the columns are uh uh I try to follow the same uh pattern between them however obviously the third column for classified staff is a provided a little bit more detail for you of those 20 FTE it includes reassignments um without an FTE reduction so I get to go into a former position and if my currently is 6 hours that position may still be six hours uh number two reassignments with FTE reductions it may mean that I'm in a six-h hour position
251and the position that I'm going back to where I have seniority might be a 4-Hour position or a 5H hour position and the reassignment to a lower class could mean that um I was I'm an office manager and perhaps and although that's not on the I'm using that as an example only um if I held a previous lower class then I'm being moved to another previous class that is lower than the currently one that I'm sitting but I'm still have a position in the district so those are just three examples of uh that column of reassignments for classified employees which is unique to the uh reassignments for the certificated so that's the difference between that third column between the two certificated in the classified staff sometimes I'm asked what governs the process how do you
252choose the individuals so we don't choose the individuals when we go through this process there's a very scripted process for this um and I put the per information there to you for you it's obviously the education code is very scripted and tells us how the process that's going to be followed the collective bargaining agreements provide a a direction in terms of how that process should take uh needs to take place um so it is and it is very much dependent on senority uh as part of that process so we don't choose the individual it really is based on seniority it's based on the collective bargaining agreement and it's B based on the Education Code uh when it comes to that and obviously there's a significant impact if uh the resolutions um are not approved and
253moving forward uh and obviously um meeting the statutary deadlines becomes an issue the grant total um for all of that is $7 million for the central reductions uh from the ESC process 5 million of classroom reductions from Staffing uh to teachers to ratio uh 12 million of the total ongoing uh reductions uh that you see before you and we'll open it up all for questions thank you thank you very much that was very interesting I'm sure there's going to be a lot of discussion here does anybody have anything to start off with Miss Kenny could we go back to the slide with the uh classroom Staffing ratios so just just wanted to remind us and and people who might be watching that while in elementary so the first three lines because students are in the
254same classroom all day with their teachers when we have a staffing ratio that is typically then the size of a classroom yes yes there are averages Etc when we staff for middle school and high school the teachers have a prep period so they're only teaching five out of six periods when they're in that sixth period the kids have to go somewhere else who would normally be with that teacher so those Staffing ratios or how we assign the teachers to the classes sorry to the sites will not reflect what the average class size again I'm saying average which is 35 students so I just I don't want anyone to walk away thinking oh if my student has 32 kids in their class obviously the class is overcrowded correct I have a quick question about that slide
255um so I don't know why I think TK is 20 and not 24 this this year is 24 to1 next year it changes okay okay okay um I just wanted to say that we're in a pivot all time in for in the field of Education in the last month and a half five five small liberal colleges have closed in the last weeks right in 2025 Across the Nation so um for many of you you know that my day job is also in education and I spend three four five hours per week in meetings talking about budgets and education and I just don't want to anybody to think that Pasadena is [Music] exceptional there is a lot of pressure all across the state all across different levels of the education system um to deal with the
256decline in enrollment across the country of uh and and all of the other implications that that has on education in addition we have a trend in our federal policy that looks quite discouraging as we start looking at some of the proposed legislation that will have a direct impact in the work that we do and then we have the third layer that's very specific to our community which is the Environmental crisis that we're going through so I think that we have three very particular situations that are complicating what will be an ongoing Trend and I feel like I have to say that because um we said that last year in March in April in May in June we then created a task force to address it um we left here in December knowing that this is
257where we were going to be this year only delayed by extenuating circumstances that have only made our situation even more precarious right so this is a very difficult situation but it is not a surprise um as we move forward because I understand very well that we are going to have a persistent we're going to have to be here again here I really feel strongly that we really need to look at some of the contracts and some of the contracts that we have in this district and really make strides towards eliminating some and and evaluating and really assessing the effectiveness of some of the contracts that we have if do we have measures to to really understand whether or not the outcomes of that investment are yielding any results and even if they are they have
258to be really significant because we're not in a position to continue to support all of the contracts so I need everybody in this community that whose work is supported by contracts to know that their situation in the very near future will change very [Music] drastically um [Music] I come from an environment where it's it's just so funny because on Fridays I am arguing with my proost how can you run a university without professors and then on Thursday I'm arguing here um well we do need the comprehensive student right so there is some cognitive dissonance in my own discourse and I'm very much in conflict because of that um but ultimately here's my rationale and that is when you trim the fat it's not enough which is something that I've been trying to tell my colleagues
259at my workplace too if we eliminate all of the lead pece it's not enough and and that is a very difficult thing to accept and understand and and embrace because the need far exceeds the resources and we value all of the services that we give and provide here in PSD otherwise we wouldn't give them [Music] um but we do not have the resources to meet all of the program and position demands that we have currently and we knew it in March we knew it in April we knew it in May we've known it in December and we've been agonizing since January 88th because we knew we were going to have to be here the last thing I want to say is [Music] I value teachers and I appreciate families and I value and I love
260this city I've personally gave up a lot to love this city a whole ocean and we're going to have to have conversations that start from a point of the presumption of Good Intentions I'm going to say something that I've never said here but as we move forward we're going to have to consider the consolidation of programs if we continue to face significant cuts and [Music] enrollment Mr Harden so um I appreciate all of the Preamble because it it helps sets the stage for the fact that as we indicated that colleagues are indicating this has been a and it um a challenge for us uh not just since the fires but well before uh so I appreciate that that detail um you know it's it's tempting to get into what if ISM um so I want
261to restrain myself on that um but I will say given what we've heard tonight and the state of uh of uh where we are today uh having just come through this this uh disaster uh wellness and mental health are important for our kids more than ever um I worry about um any impacts that we're going to make to Wellness Services it concerns me I know uh I believe we need those now more than ever um I think we're looking at at cutting a significant number of of Wellness Resources um in our tosa pool um can you talk a little bit about you know what the future looks like now that will have you know gone gone through that you're talking about I think Dr Hill said you know there's going to be a restructuring to
262you know to that program a little bit to kind of fill the Gap can you can you maybe talk about that a little bit in terms of implementation moving forward and I'll include Dr Roso also because you know the wellness I I just really have to give a lot of um kudos to her and her team for for getting us to where we are now which in light of This Disaster doesn't even feel like it's enough right um I I will be very honest that you know I think all of us in this room and outside of this room uh really we hoping that somehow $37 million would be gifted to us you know um be because certainly um you know as Mr fine was saying pre-fire we we were already grappling with how hard
263it would be to let go of some of these services and so now postfire um we really see that the long-term effects require some steady um you know support uh however we have been talking prior to that about the position of the coaches right is only one factor in providing Wellness servic it's a very important factor I don't want to Discount that we are certainly folks who um you know I think have advocated for for teachers and special assignment and having coaches um and in fact over time having coaches who specialize not just in one area but in another and another it that was a a luxury that we were given and that we thank the public and the board for because um what we really know a as teachers in our core is that
264when you step into a classroom and you serve students you serve the whole child anyway I'm not there just as a math teacher I am not there just as uh someone who's dispensing information on the academic end I have to ensure that I have relationships with my students I have to ensure that they are doing okay so that we can be ready to learn and sometimes we might not be ready to learn and we we handle that too and so um educators are equipped on many levels to to take care of the whole child we've had the luxury in these coach positions to specialize but I would never say that a wellness coach couldn't also help you with your academic instruction I would never say that an instructional coach couldn't also help you with wellness
265and so um I think we do have to come back to a time where we remember who we are foundationally in Our Roots what we were trained to do um as Educators and so that's really kind of the core of what this redesign might look like um you know that for several years we've been uh working to Implement a framework around multi-tiered systems of support mtss and that really is what mtss is asking us to do is to take care of the component parts of academics alongside social emotional behavioral attendance engagement all of those good things because they recognize how importantly and in intricately Connected they all are so our coaching model is going to look at at returning to that kind of foundation we do not have um mean we have draft proposals that
266have been written we have uh you know we've redrafted job descriptions in no way do we expect people who used to specialize in three things that are now going to be um intersected to do all of the exact same tasks of three individual people however nuances and priorities in each of those areas can still be addressed with a support person at a school site so I don't know if dros also wants to speak about other areas of Wellness yeah well I think it's a great question and I think um in my many many years of being an educator um it is always a promise to evaluate and to reflect on what you've built and what you've seen and the goodness and the facts and the challenges and um and I think that's where we're at
267right now um as Dr Hill mentioned we did launch our multi-tiered systems of support and that's a place where we need to give um complete support to our classroom teachers they are the ones who are with our kids all day long not a coach not a wellness teacher not an e coach although absolutely instrumental and have the expertise that I am so proud to be a part of but I do believe that our teachers are capable and they are wonderful and they can do this I think they've also had incredible support if we're speaking about the RTI Wellness specifically um they have had great support and I think they have come alongside our teachers and I was just speaking with one of our RTI Wellness teachers today and she says they're ready they can do
268this you know and and and because of their investment in the Educators and the classroom they are the ones who we have to count on the most and I will stand by each and every one of our teachers to provide that support whatever that is we're working with Western justice but this new approach to what we're looking at and in the new design design goes along with our strategic plan it honors every single one of those areas and that is where we're at and we are a district that has always been on the front lines being Innovative and looking at what is best for our students and how do we make sure that our teachers are prepared and the best Educators that we can possibly have and I don't think this is going to be
269any different it's it's a time of evaluation and this is what we need to do but as Dr Hill has said earlier we're not going to go without um we've seen many different forms of this but social emotional learning equips our students to be academically ready and so we know that that's going to be a compilation and we're going to do an even better job I know with this but I have to say first and foremost I've loved being a part of what we've done over the last couple years it has changed the way we look at things in this District um and I know it will continue to strengthen the work we do anybody else Miss Fredick Dr I'm going to keep following up with the same line of questioning I guess I'm just
270not getting like the um I'm trying to imagine what you're talking about with the restructuring uh so I'm just going to say is this does this mean the these new um job descriptions will be one person handling three roles or is this like um you know one person wearing Three Hats or is it like we just laid off these three people that have these Specialties and now we're going to make this existing staff member do that three those three things I'm I'm just not picturing what you're sure and I think what you described is actually all things that are not how we want them so yes so so thank you for for the opportunity to clarify no we I actually was able to attend the coach's weekly meeting this Monday that's where uh the tosas
271have their their Network and um and I reminded them of the time I mean I've been here for 25 years so we've gone through a lot of ups and downs and changes when I first came into um the school district I was teaching at Washington Middle now Octavia Butler and at the time that school had something called a CRT a curriculum resource teacher and some an ldrt a language development resource teacher I found out later when I went to other schools that other schools only had maybe acrt or something like that um however this was sort of the the mentor person the person who would you know help you you know organize your materials as a new teacher I thought that they were very supportive you know coming to my classroom and kind of guiding
272me observing me giving me feedback um and then we shifted to a model where okay we did not have that anymore we now have this sort of total package of an instructional coach because technically as a teacher you not only take care of instruction you take care of language development for your English Learners who are in your classroom you take care of um any accommodations and ratifications that your students with IPS have you you have a mixed bag and you you have a mixed skill set and so when we transitioned to the time of the instructional coach that was really sort of the intent is that we coach teachers into sort of that multi skill set um application and so over time and with emergency funds we were able to say you know what we
273can give more people to help with these same things and so over time we sort of specialized and said you can take care of the instru piece and you can take care of the wellness piece but truly at the core we've always kind of taken care of both and so schools that and at the onset of each of these positions including the Yale coach there were schools who didn't necessarily have three individuals either some had two some had one some had three and so um there's always been um sort of a fluidity in terms of what that coach coaches into um and I would say that in any time when you can have more of something you would typically say good then you can help more people so maybe it helped you sort of um
274scale out more but all of these individuals really at the core were coaching into sort of improved practices maybe in their area of specialty um or supporting and modeling with students and things like that in their area of specialty without the luxury of having this job sort of be parceled out across more people people the schools will have to make sort of some prioritization decisions around maybe I don't not every single teacher engages in a coaching cycle maybe I prioritize teachers who are newer maybe I prioritize teachers who have um you know said that they need help in in a certain area and so what the job is really going to and that's why the job description is still really in development is it's taking the priority components that we say are really important to
275understand for instruction that are really important to understand for social emotional wellness and are really important to understand for multilingual Learners and saying these are the kind of things that we would want this individual to come equipped with or be ready to do but it is not taking three separate job descriptions and saying all of those tasks are going to go to this one person an example that we gave with the principles is that at some schools the the sheared number of students or multilingual Learners will necessitate that if they had a coach that that person would focus on strategies that were around English language development because that's really the primary need at the school and so that particular coach may spend more time working on those types of instructional strategies at other schools where
276we are seeing a significant amount of suspension or behavioral um concerns or lack of Engagement some chronic absenteeism perhaps it's really more goals around wellness and well-being and if they have the the benefit of a coach that person ends up focusing on strategies that are more around that so it is true that we are asking for a multi-skilled individual to be carrying on these duties but we do not anticipate that they would meet all of the different tasks that three different individuals used to meet does that I asked uh a teacher at a school I said I was just like give me the two top positions in this school that affects all students and they said RTI coach and El coach what's going to happen to the RTI coach and El coach at this school
277the RTI coach is gone right so is the El coach right I don't know which school okay well no okay oh well I thought all RTI we're all going so all those positions are closing yeah yes so okay okay so this school then would have a different position opened up they would have a coach they would have a coach that would again and now I'm just thinking so the superintendent would like to say something so um I want to bring up something sry I didn't mean to okay about mental health you know um in all the people we have are valuable every single person right they help teachers they help principls they help children and we were a district without these positions the first time I worked here in 2010 we had more children I'm
278not saying it was ideal situations right we had um some ldts and some instructional coaches um and children's needs have definitely changed but we still will have social workers we're still going to have counselors we're still going to have psychologists we're still going to have nurses we're still going to have school-based mental health we're still going to have the thrive program so I don't want anyone to think that all of a sudden we're not going to meet the mental health needs so we launched um behavioral rti in 2010 we launched it with training the teachers and the principles how to do rti in some schools out of their own categorical money were able to create these other positions that you're you're talking about right and there was a lot of um inequity in the system
279and so we took Central funds because we saw these best practices when we had them and we created these positions to address the needs and it's you know it's a really difficult time and our district is shrinking uh but we still are required to give these services to students and I don't want to promise that we can hire these other positions that we've been reimagining because we were having the same conversations as Mr fine talked about do we ping slip everybody that's paid out of federal funds because we don't know what's going to happen and we made the decision not to do that because we felt like well the state's going to have to step in and help us somehow because everybody's going to be in the same boat if all of a sudden our
280federal funding is gone um we also created a RTI I mean English learner instructional Aid positions in one round of the alcap where the instructional AIDS could give services and also help with the assessments of English Learners so many of our schools still have um that kind of personnel and then there is a thing in our contract that's called edent Duty right and all teachers are really required to do that and when you look at other districts our size and you say how do they address all of these things that are required that these people that we love and don't want to lose but you know don't have a choice right at the moment um how do they get it done and some of it is through adjunct Duty paying additional you you know um
281hourly money to teachers that they people have passions right and they'll help in those areas so U it's not going to be the same I don't want to say that it would be you know the same as having a wellness teacher all day long that any child's upset they can go to the wellness teacher but there still is going to be a lot of um additional Wellness services for the students that attend PD I know teachers appreciate someone that could just you know pull out a student if they just need some time and I maybe that's just a luxury now I don't I don't disagree with them but no I agree like there was a there was a time when my kids were in elementary school and I'm like I don't remember that position you
282know we had the curriculum resource teacher and we didn't have RTI and so well and if I may so we have a former colleague he was the principal in this District who's now the superintendent at Moreno Valley which is a large school district um and he text me the other day when they're making similar decisions and he said how many toses do you all have there again and I gave him the number and he said okay and I said is that shocking to you is that good is that and he said we have 28 for the entire School District I don't and so again I mean different positions different priorities different things so I do think that that um I have valued these positions very I mean I've been before I can't deny that I'm
283the one who who's asked you for these positions in the past I you know have feel a lot of guilt in maybe not having the foresight to think about the long-term you know impact of of having this many positions but but we we do consider their work valuable and I I'm very happy to hear that a teacher said that the two most impactful positions were those two but adjustments will have to be made so like I said there's nothing here that wouldn't impact a school at this point but we are going to mitigate it to the best of our ability and you know really ensure that that we focus on the other Personnel who we do still have the ability to employ who can can support in these areas so and strengthen what we you
284know the what we can do with our teachers uh Dr Canal um you were talking about having earlier estimates for Staffing like you started that like in November then December you met with the principles so are you hoping that that will become earlier and earlier so that estimations wait no not earli and earlier yeah it would be earlier right is that what you're or do you think that is the the best timing yes this is definitely the earliest I've ever uh done the projections uh I mentioned uh most folks uh do it around spring uh and that is the time that um budget begins to ask for information as well so that's the time that typically we would um look at the data and it the more data that you have obviously obtained the better
285your projections um have begun last year we started I want to say it was February um perhaps the latest March but I know that we began right around February and um I'll do a little shout out to uh Dr reny wherever he's at he worked really hard where um um although I heard that he watches every now and then so so maybe he's out there watching so Dr reny and Dr alkazar as you know my director in HR um went in a room and for a couple of days and um really looked at a model for trying to to help with our attrition raid and really pred by grade level by cohorts cohort is a survival cohort of all my first graders who are now become second my second greaters to become third uh we
286call that a survival cohort rate um and really looking at that data and and if I'm not mistaken um the work that Dr reny and this uh model that he helped build with working with Dr alkazar really give us um a really good um predictor in terms of our enrollment for the following year I think we we were the closest um that Pasa has ever been in terms of projecting enrollment that's always super helpful to determining our staff staffing needs um bless you um but so the earliest that I would um have done is December I I'm still comfortable um definitely with the numbers that we're using for predicting for Staffing I would not recommend doing it any earlier than the December um uh so that is the earliest I don't know any other folks
287in the sanber valley that started doing their Staffing um I think part of the reason for us was knowing that we were going to have these difficult decisions because when we when we ended last year as has been mentioned by some of the members of the board last year there was already conversation about some of these tough decisions that were going to have to be done this this year um and there was already a decision about forming the sback so with that in mind that is what caused us to start looking at Staffing earlier hence the beginning the the conversations in November and the reason we started November is because you need a fixed point in time to look at enrollment trance and we typically use uh Census Data uh so the October data was
288captured uh by the states and we use that um as a point of reference throughout the last seven or 10 years so we have to wait till that day occurs once that date is reported then we start Gathering the data in November to meet in December I wouldn't suggest doing it in earlier than December but it's proven to be we were being Mindful and planning ahead to doing our staffy models for this year so that kind of gives you a little bit about the timeline would I recommend doing it any earlier than that no and we definitely couldn't do it before October because we wouldn't have the Census Data to begin with and that's what begins the process so what I'm getting at is I think you're trying to get the right timing such that
289it's as accurate of numbers as we can get so we're not over Staffing then we got to lay off a bunch of people and then it's so just traumatic so is that what you're sort of getting absolutely um to be yet yes okay and then um I don't know if anybody explained yet the um sback the superintendent budget advisory committee had recommended facilities and wellness at 100% funded but then we the staff recommended 98 and 95 did anybody explain the Gap there and why yeah certainly I think they did they did prioritize them uh maintaining their total packages we still found in uh the wellness Services I think has been explained with the inclusion of the RTI Wellness coaches in in the coach redesign um and the facilities and maintenance I think you would have
290more detail but we did find some reductions that they were able to make given that prior that now that we had the referendum on the bond and all of that that um that we were able to say that maybe these are cuts that we could make reasonably right now are these like vacant positions or what is the cut so I I should clarify that the the espat committee priority ranked the packages they didn't say cut this and don't cut that okay so they were priority ranking um we used that to inform the packages that would get reduced and so um but there were still some efficiencies that we could find even in the Departments that were prioritized the highest facilities was one of those so um they weren't vases there were some positions in facilities
291that were eligible to be funded with bond funds but were not previously funded with bond funds and it was sufficient to to produce about $300,000 in savings okay thank you Miss Kenny um I know we've had a bunch of context tonight both um from fmat and then from you guys and I just wanted to add a little bit more um I think we have to recognize that PD had budget surpluses for quite a few years but we didn't um really kind of share that with our employees but that really has changed over the last three years with significant increases to salaries so that we you know so we made a lot of progress in getting our salaries comparable to other districts or I should say our total compensation um and those actions really did have
292an effect on our expenditures they really increased what we spend but I mean it was the right thing to do so I'm not saying we shouldn't have done it I'm saying we should have done it we did it but it hadn't effect it's one of the factors that has helped us be in the position we're in and there's a couple things that I want to remind us um that we're we're factors we talked a lot about maybe five seven years ago but they haven't gone away and those two are employee benefit costs such as pensions and health benefits and the cost of special education so we don't talk about them as much but they they are still there and so before the meeting I was comparing 23 24 actuals with 13 14 actual so kind
293of like Mr Heine did about um looking at a 10-year interval lcff Revenue increased almost 70% during that time even as we've had declining enrollment because it was not fully funded at the beginning um but employeed benefit costs have grown by 130% and that was everything all together but we know that pension costs went up a lot we know we've had a little reprieve on Healthcare but it is starting to go up again as well special ed education expenditures have increased by approximately 125% so more than doubled and within that expenditures on special ed services have increased by over 360% so these are just kind of these ongoing factors so even as we get past kind of the the crunchin right now where the hold harmless from CO's going away and the kind of Cliff
294of the onetime funding these things are still with us and will continue to be with us [Music] um and I don't want to say too much about this tonight because I think we'll there'll be more conversations the future but I kind of want to reflect on the process of budget and Personnel decisions from this year and last year and and express a hope for the future I I don't think that the board has had a very significant role in the process of coming up with the budget decisions and then it comes us to us here in the February time frame when we're dealing with Personnel R reductions and we are struggling a little bit to to figure out what they mean in terms of the impact to our students and so I know if we
295can't figure it out probably it's not as easy to understand for our families and our other staff and so for instance the esack and and I know that we saw all the material that come the committee saw and I still am trying to figure out from this package to this package what went away what was kept um I'm hoping that we can figure out a way where there that we can improve this and and I think there are benefits to doing that um as the elected representatives of the community we really hear from people about what they value and need to be able to reflect that back I don't think that we need to be saved from having to make these decisions this is this is this is what this job is and and really
296helping translate the values and the wants and the desires of the Strategic plan into the district and the vision of the district we want to build that's this is what the budget is I mean it feels like oh cuts are all we're doing is cutting but we're really saying the one thing we still really value is this and that's that's why I might have to let go of this this and this because I remember what we really really value and we're all together on that so I think also we need to come up with a comprehensive vision for the future of the district that is what we really need to do here so we have two more people we have M McKenzie and then public comments so oh yes and then Miss Bailey McKenzie Bailey
297can you hear us yes okay so I'm just going to say briefly that nobody runs for office to eliminate jobs and to make these kinds of difficult decisions if there were other avenues available to us other options available to us we would be doing anything but looking at having to accept the recommendation that have come forward to us tonight um all of us have a vested interest in our community in the district and our students and our families and our employees as well this is not easy it is not ideal and it is not where any of us want to be yet we accepted a responsibility to carry out our fiduciary responsive our fiduciary um role as members of this governance team and it is going to require us to do things that exhibit leadership
298but may be unpopular and I think that this um decision before is one of those times when you have to do the thing that is unpopular yet it it is the right thing and I think that there is courage in acknowledging that doing what's necessary is not necessarily what's popular so um I am certainly not um excited about having to move forward making this kind of a decision because one of the reasons that I even ran for the school board is because I advocated for the creation of our RTI Wellness coaches to support our students and so now to be in to having to make cuts to those roles that I know are vital to supporting our students academic needs does not feel good so that said um I think that all of us are
299struggling with um the decision before us and we are doing so under the most difficult set of circumstances yes we knew that a fiscal stabilization plan was going to be in our future but we had no idea that it was going to be exacerbated by a natural disaster of this magnitude so it feels like we [Music] are inflicting additional pain on people who have already suffer the unimaginable and if again if there were a way for us to not have to make this decision we would have done that we have made appeals and there has been advocacy around all kinds of other options Avenues um ways to delay this decision um efforts to seek additional Revenue Etc and we have not had any of those efforts um yield us another paths except for what we
300are here to do tonight so with a very heavy heart I think that we're going to be faced to have to make very difficult decisions this evening and it does not feel good but it is what we have been called to do as Leaders thank you Miss McKenzie Miss Billy uh wild board member McKenzie that's um yeah yeah you you hit the nail on the head with that um thank you for your comments um I just have um I need a point of clarity um it's it seems like the fact that the district was fined for um underfunding the classroom is something that's being said over and over in a way that it's implying that somehow we're we are exhibiting bad management um as far as funds to the classroom so I would like to
301know if if we were overstaffed with teachers what area of the classroom was underfunded that negated that caused us to have to get a fine or to be fined I I I don't understand so I think you're referring to the the direct classroom expense percentage the 55% I have no idea what it is I just know that's what I'm hearing I I don't believe we were fine for it because we did apply for a waiver uh last year um and our requesting the board to approve the uh submission of a waiver also for so for last school year would be what year would be approving tonight and then I a year ago a waiver was approved for the year before that and because of the substantial amount of erer funds that District received um over
302the last two fiscal years because so much of the eser funds were not spent on what's considered direct classroom expenditures which are really only teacher salary costs uh Personnel cost for teachers and and AIDS in the classroom because Esser was so disproportionately spent on other types of supports um it had a huge impact on that percentage and so Statewide I think it's something like a third of districts were seeking a waiver because they were below the 55% um and the biggest Factor again was the the existence of those covid relief funds um I believe in the 23 24 year last school year but for those Co relief funds we would have been above the required 55% so we received a fine right what were we fined [Music] for the admin teacher ratio and I don't
303know if you want to talk about that a little bit but there were several factors for that yeah because it really sounds like it's a a really bad thing here so there's another state law which is the administrator to teacher ratio and it's a requirement for districts to have I oversimplify a little bit but it's basically eight administrators for every 100 teachers um it excludes uh the administrators that are federally funded um and so there's a requirement to maintain this ratio and I believe it sounds like there was a I think was it one administrator above the ratio which resulted in that fine of I think it was about $990,000 but so but for some additional context it's called admin teacher ratio but the laws really looking for cl in the classroom versus certificated out
304of the classroom and so because we've had a lot of tosa ones and tosa 2os they're certificated staff they're not administrators with an administrator credential but in that ratio they count in the administrator bucket not the teacher bucket depending on their duties because they're not doing instruction for kids and the admin teacher ratio is really saying do you have a lot of instruction going on and it might be the same thing on that other form because I don't know that all of the out of the te out of the classro teachers are in the right object code for their salaries they're in a different salary code than the classroom teachers so again we wouldn't be counting them in the instruction total and so it might be not contributing to the 55% because they're more supporting
305the teachers than doing direct instr so what did we just do to mitigate that they the toes so so [Music] so that the calculation is dependent also upon how they're funded so federally funded I get what you're saying I was just trying to understand when you think ad minist I didn't think of the toas as administrators and I wasn't clear that the toas were the factor in this whole equation I'm thinking administrators like principls or District level um administrators so thank you for helping to clear that up because it wasn't clear to me still when it's conveyed the way it was conveyed in the room tonight and the way it's conveyed in the media it sounds as if we've done something really wrong that we're doing something irresponsible and you know I just want to
306make sure that the messaging when it doesn't sound right out there that we're clear in here you know we need to make sure that the message is clear so thank you Tina do you have a question yes and then we have to go to public comments we got to wrap this up okay two questions did the superintendent budget advisory committee review the 70 million in Contract Services for cost cutting how much was cut due to these this in this budget why why not and were central office positions considered for layoffs by central office positions I'm referring to positions where employees work at the central office on a daily basis without interacting with students at the school sites so yes to your first question yes to your last question the middle question I can't quantify right
307now the amount of reductions um but I can provide some clarification about this $70 million um so what it's in reference to is last year 23 24 there were in the general fund which includes all general fund unrestricted and restricted there were $74 million of expenditures in what we call contracted services but it's basically everything that's not a payroll Personnel expense and it's not uh supplies and it's not equipment so it's kind of a very large category of spending and it was $74 million total last school year of that $74 million 52 million of it is in general fund restricted which means they are restricted grants like the funds we get for special education from the state and federal government and in fact the largest component of that 52 million on the restricted side is
308for special education um but it also includes other restricted grants so to the extent we were to reduce the spending on some of those restricted grants that would be replaced by other spending in the restricted general fund and would not NE would not result in fewer Cuts in the general fund unrestricted okay so I think while it's true that there was 70ish Million doll spent on contracts I think mentioning that while also saying that if we were only to reduce that we wouldn't be confronted with these difficult decisions I think is is unhealthful to the Public's understanding of what we're facing and I think the idea that there are a lot of loow hanging fruit and painless reductions that we could have made to avoid this is not true so I do want to clarify
309that so of the $74 million about $22 million is unrestricted general fund the largest components of that are about $9 million for utilities electricity water gas about $5 million is for the liability insurance that we're now making use of after the fire to compensate for the loss of our properties about $3.5 million is for transportation it's primarily also for special education students and so there isn't a lot of fat so to speak and so I just really want to clarify that for the public because I think we do the the public a disservice when we make it seem that there are easier decisions that we're not making and so this isn't in response to you uh board member fredex I just I just think that I think when in the public discourse the the source
310of this information I think it's important not to mislead people and it's important not to give people false hope um and because that just makes things more painful and more difficult I'm going to push back a little if you heard that then if it were in the presentation then it would be immediately just dispelled as a you know yeah no and I'm I'm I'm I'm not responding to you as much as the responsibility I think a lot of us have in the public discourse to not um give people false hope that we could have avoided this by some easy choices U because I think that's just a lot more upsetting uh for the public Miss Bailey did you who else oh it's no okay oh it's the superintendent sorry so U Mr Bravo crey did
311Cover for a lot of what I was going to say about contracts I do want to say one more thing about them I think we should take the Deep dive and look at them but a lot of the contracts are paid out of categorical funds and I just want to give a couple examples of like some of the services so what we pay for maybe I'll say a contract with college access plan might be the cost of one teacher but and that's a categorical fund it's not out of a general fund teacher but we're going to going to get like a whole team of people because they go out and get a bunch of Grants besides the little money that we give them so they're servicing all of the students in the high schools right
312so it's the return on investment is expanded the same with like our reading Partners they get all these grants and then they come to us and say okay we're going to bring you a whole team of volunteers to help lots of children for like seven schools for 10,000 each or 5,000 each right so when we do this deep dive on contracts we need to look at each one individually and the funding source because we can't just transfer the Community Schools money into a general fund teacher salary or you know the the title one money or the elop money and what Mr Bravo Kimi was describing in these contracts that are restricted are these restricted funds and many times we use these resources because they can bring more people than we would be able to hire
313with just one person so but it definitely deserves a look at you know because we are going to be coming back here again like in the future having to make difficult decisions and those are the kind of things I think that Mrs Kenny was saying she like to have more choices and understanding of as well thank you very much we will now go to public comment Francis miles Ricardo [Music] pado hello my name is Dr Ricardo pel I've been in PD for about 25 years now already as a school psychologist and I'd like to point out a a couple things as the cuts are being considered and so and so on and so forth so on the first uh slide that you see there I kept hearing comments about lower reduction or or um disenrollment
314going smaller and smaller but when you look at the special education population as I presented last year it's not decreasing it is increasing so we need to take a closer look as to what's going on is and I was glad to hear a little bit about m mtss RTI but what I didn't hear was any specific data as to where where are they improving or or what not because as you look at the other slides that I have for you is how many FS our high school students are earning so this past semester throughout PD high school students uh on on average uh 1,500 FS last school year during the spring semester over 1,500 FS last year in the fall semester over 1,500 fs and so on and so forth so there's a lot of
315stuff going on that we're not uh looking more deep into well why is that why are our students not uh passing what they need to pass and so on and so forth where where does it start where where are resources actually being allocated and I think as a couple of people have already mentioned as to are we getting our our bank for our bucks and and and so and so on and so forth so that's what I want to you you guys to have have in mind as the topic of what what cuts are going to be made because if we're going to do more Cuts I don't know if we're going to see an increase in number of fs and the number of increase in the number of specialed students uh qualifying for for
316for those Services because RTI and mtss uh is not quite working as as we would like thank you thank you all right thank you because at this time we're all this Dr Bernardo and Adeline Wick okay so we are finished with the public comment for that item and we are going to move on here action item K Dr Sergio Canal approval of resolution 2804 certificated layoffs I would offer a sweep for K1 and two motion is there a second second I would like to make a comment you may make a comment all right um I want to make an amendment but I don't know what order I do that in all right can I make my comment yes make your comment um so I think we all would agree that it's unfortunate always to have
317to to anytime have to do Personnel reductions but but we know that our budget situation calls for reducing spending and because 80 to 90% of our education expenditures are for personnel that when we have big budget cuts it will affect people um I our fiscal stability plan the last few meetings that we've had those presentations was about 25 million in budget reductions and we saw in the previous presentation that it looks like this year we're aiming to cut about 12 um so I think we all have to recognize that we will see a similar size of cuts next year um what I'll say about these certificated reductions is that they are mainly at the school site so I know that parents and and staff at the school sites feel very affected by it we did
318do a significant number of central office reductions last year um and actually a lot of the the classified reductions are for our central office um Personnel whether it's facilities or business um and and I want to recognize because sometimes I think we hope that even if we have fewer people we can do the same amount of work and at some point we have to recognize that people are not superum beings and so there will be a reduction in services and I think we just we have to recognize that but remember which are the services that we're prioritizing keeping Miss Fredericks I'd like to make an amendment to K1 resolution to for the layoffs of certificated um I understand there's 22 RTI Wellness positions that are we that we're eliminating am I correct that's the number
319I got the questions is it 22 or 23 I think it's 22 okay so my amendment is to keep 22 RTI that means each site would keep their RTI and so that would bring the 57 down to um 35.5 and I understand that that position is 120,000 so do you have a recommended in that position to fill so if you bring them back that's going to be added costs so what are you going to substitute it for in which case staff would need to find other areas to cut and there are areas that were not fully investigated so amend this you know and then you find other positions or other costs okay so hold on yes there is a second there's a motion in a second no she's making an amendment yes I know but
320there's a motion in a second I'm saying her Amendment okay thank you for that clarification trusty Bailey is asking one question did you no I'm good okay you need to for a second for this second your second this amendment you s okay you suggesting the money comes [Music] from you want to remove 22 people from reduction yes right that will change the RTI code the target 2.6 million well I think it's closer to three okay we say it's 15,000 roughly per okay then I'd like to make an amendment for classified employees then I mean if we're going to do this if we're going to go back to the drawing board let's go back to the drawing board we're going to have to extend this meeting but the superintendent do we already exended here we can't
321do it again we've had a process and we explained the process to you so anybody who's making a suggestion don't tell the staff to go back and find more money tell me where you would like me to get the money exactly exactly so we have is there a second for the amendment Mr Harden so um have friendly Amendment no we're going to vote for the amendment to V okay so let's we're going to call for the vote for the amendment roll call okay um Sarah bunman an amendment okay uh yes but I'd like to make a comment later on about this item okay well no we're moving ahead with this vote right now we don't have that no it's about okay excuse me I am running this meeting we're moving ahead did she know she
322was Voting about yes [Music] yes [Music] no no Marsh McKenzie no no yes Jennifer h no the motion fa so let's have a vote on the mo the I would like to make a comment first quickly all right yes so actions items action items K and one and two were heavily discussed amongst the student assembly uh the board should note that as students ourselves the assembly represents the student body who will be severely directly affected by these layoffs our class sizes will increase affecting our ability to receive a valuable and detailed education one of the things PSD has are teachers who are student oriented and take the time to make sure their students are doing okay mentally and academically with larger class sizes students will be under a lot of more pressure and we will
323have a lot less time to reach out to students also our city just went through a horrible situation with the eaten fire some of these teachers have lost their houses and being laid off will seriously affect their situations we feel that the timing to choose to lay off 115 positions is horrible though we have though we're not saying that it would have been better to postpone the date to give teachers notice that would have made a major effect on their ability to find another job considering they need to find a new position before the next school year from a students's perspective it's it's not worth laying off 115 positions just to stay in the black for 3 years Miss Kenny you talked about the importance of focusing on what's really important to us from a
324students perspective teachers are our role models and our support and they are what is really important to us so on behalf of the student assembly our vote is no okay thank you um let's have a vote for okay well I'm going to listen to Fatima yes okay so this is I have a motion and a second for us for K1 and K2 yes that's what we're voting that's discussion wa okay so hold on yes we have we can do a discussion but who's first okay Bailey so so I hear what you're saying and I'm right there with you but I really would like for staff to explain what happens if we don't don't take these actions this evening as hard as it is and talk about what you've done to try to help mitigate this
325briefly yes briefly Mr saan sure so if if reductions aren't made now it will necessitate substantially larger reductions the following year um so being in the black um balancing our Outlook is not an end in inov itself it's a means to an end the means to in the end is providing for stable resources in the future for all students including those that are going to be with us for a long time so it's not our objective to balance the budget that's not what what we're here for that's not what we care about we care about education even Mr mik mik fine who's been a finance professional in education for his entire career almost um explained it better than I can about um with deteriorating finances um if we don't address them um it's going to
326affect all of the services that we provide um all aspects of the district to more specifically answer your question ultimately if we don't act um and our financial our level of financial distress reaches a certain level then the state would take action on our behalf the reason why that's so rare that these districts ultimately get taken over in the receivership the reason why it's so rare is because ultimately most districts do take the necessary action any more discussion here oh no I think you wanted something about mitigated actions there wasn't a second I just want to make sure that that we understand the seriousness of this going I would like to call for the vote we're going to thank you very much roll call please no she calls for the vote we're playing by a
327call for the vote requires a a vote call for the vote let's vote to call for the vote can we just let her speak really quickly it's wrong I the thing is when you have the discussion everyone needs to have an opportunity to speak you call for the vote go ahead so I want to Echo trusty bons Smith's comment about timing you know we we yes we have compliance we have to do the threeyear multi-year projections and W won't take us over and but we just experienced the second most destructive fire in the history of California and I'm just going to restate that a lot of our staff and students and families their entire home has been destroyed so I will say that which uh you think this County would take us over the the
328district that just experiened the most devastating fire really that is [Music] cruel so we we have to understand the context the historical context yes every year we have to hit the number but we don't think this is a very exceptional year that we can just give stability to our students our teachers I mean you couldn't even vote on like $3 million just so there's like a wellness that's what person in every school so we're going to continue to ask for I'm not done talking I'm sorry Mrs fedick this is like um this decision affects so many livelihood hoods in our community I know you understand that but this is why I would really appreciate the time to say what I have to say cuz this is a very impactful decision don't appreciate people cutting me
329off so anyway I think I said what I said um I'm basic my decision on this moment in time and we don't need this right now we don't need this severe cut right now and I'm a numbers person so I was going to say we're going to continue to look for mental health money and we you know have a goal of if we can at all restore people's positions like we did last year that's what we want to do we have asked the um uh first partner the governor's wife you know mental health is one of her passions um she came to visit and we've talked to her about this and um Dr Roso will continue to seek out you know um federal grants so I don't want you to think we're completely giving up
330but right now we have to take the necessary steps to have the district's fiscal Health um for the future as Mr Bravo Karimi said be stabilized and we did ask the county we did ask the governor we did ask the state superintendent and I think it's important for everybody to remember that these deadlines statutory deadlines were driven by the CTA and the csca these are their rules that we have to play by and I'm not blaming them because I've said many times my father was a labor leader this is to protects senior employees so you know nobody is willing to take that on or change it any of the people that we asked so we're we we were stuck in this situation because of statutory deadlines it doesn't mean that we're not going to do
331everything we can to mitigate it or turn it around by May 15th yes Dr Vasquez I I feel like we're presenting this at a justifica just deposition between ER caring and not caring between understanding and not understanding between empathy and I have I have a responsibility to uh but basic services and instruction in core subjects regardless of the future of the city and I am voting based on the seriousness of that decision thank you and we also did go to the governor's office and the state superintendent's office a a really hard hard pitch was done by our superintendent it's very I need to be really clear that this was done so let's move ahead with the vote now actually can I make one more comment I'm sorry we are at 10 minutes we have got
332like another 13 minutes here I have I have one more thing have questions I have one more thing no we're going to move on we've had the discussion I just want to acknowledge we've had the discussion we've had the discussion I really would like to acknowledge the trauma that has been caused by this constant cycle of laying off a bunch of people every year I have a point of order here so I want to point of order please the chair is trying to move the meeting forward so can we please honor the chair's request thank you very much we're calling for the vote on the main motion so this is k1 and K2 for the um Terra no Scott Harden yesim yes yes Mar menen yes Dr J Velasquez yes Tina FR no Jennifer H
333[Music] yes1 yes please we're going to ter C Scott Harden C kimen C Michelle Ron ba c h Patrice Marshall McKenzie C Dr yma Velasquez C jennif CR Scot okay Gary Scott E cat Scott see Sarah B Smith hard Kimber see H Mich no Patrice mush Mackenzie no drma Velasquez Dina Frederick see Jennifer Holly no for [Music] for for for no you ask record or should I stop isan is what we use to record and to make the board meeting valid and okay estamos for e for e e oh my God are we ratifying 189 8758 are we ratifying 30 some of which hasn't been spent yet you're ratifying what we've already spent we're ratifying we're ratifying the 30,000 we've already spent and again if we're not in agreement I would like to table this
334so that we could have an itemized list when we have more time and we're not tired the itemized list is is not um because we've already spent the itemized list is not that we change this to 189 8758 if we change that and it's not the 30,000 then I would agree with you yes oops didn't work just speak loud okay so we I understand you guys are trying to ratify the approval but i' like to let you know that the only pending conference that I have in my books right now is coast to Cod so K4 is kind of tied to K5 because if I don't get approval for the 30k I will not be a to register for coast to coast paperwork ready for the people who would like to go to Coast Co
335to Coast exactly so that's all I need to say that very good so so how many what is the budget for coast to coast that we're approving then because again our policy says in advance approve the expenditure so we're saying we want to approve Coast to Coast expenditure yes and it's approximately 3,000 per person I know you had in range yes are two people going or three so far only two people have told me that they would like to go so what we're ratifying is not only this $ 18987 but another 6,000 for coast to coast the 30 can we just do the 30,000 why are we picking this AP because because it's not an expenditure that's a budget but okay so that's the total you have available to spend but it's not an expenditure
336but let's say okay the thing is we still have more money for one more person and if we only approve two people and then this other third person comes in and say I want to go then I'm going to have to tell them sorry yeah why can we we vote on no can it's it's it's past 11:45 I know that's why I tried to table this cuz there's not enough time to have well no but you're trying to table it because you need to be satisfied with something no I'm trying I'm fine with the 30,000 I mean we're ratifying it so obviously it's needed it's necessary if we don't spend it all it goes back into the wherever I again I I want to inter intervene because I just want everybody to understand that I
337am also going to vote no or I don't know how you're going to vote but I'm going to vote no to a rectification because as I explained multiple times I'm opposed yeah the problem that weens I I mean it's okay I just wanted to say why I'm voting no okay the problem we have right now is we have at least two people who need to be registered right away so Dr FAS has you already went to csba we spent that money we all spent the money can no no no let's talk about where what we need to do right now so that folks can get registered for coast to coast and the longer that we wait the more costly it gets you risk that chance of them not being to get in a good hotel
338space all of those things so can we approve this tonight if there is a problem we can always come back and undo or redo okay I would like to approve the cost to cost then I would like to make a motion that we approve this and we add on to this board report csba 7 board members 12655 Mig two modules so we are I don't know if you've already paid for the two modules this is for Mr Harden to do Mig we're only I guess only ratifying the two that he's already I don't know if he wanted to do more by course sequence so there's that but yeah so I don't there may be money left to do more and so we don't have to do them all tonight but that's for next year this
339is for this year right well he could probably fit in more but 1578 it's every month once a month so C it's way too much money way too much for last summer was 35 and then what do we want to approve for coast to coast two people or three people three people okay so that's $99,000 and then I'm not clear if the caby for next year also has to come out of this year's budget no our work with business services to have it apply to 25 26 so that is approximately 28500 yeah so those are the expenditures we're approving because again we approve expenditures not the budget the budget's already until people come back with their reimbursements so 25500 still the budget that's she just that's why I said approximately 8 500 so we're going
340to so we need to just do the 30,000 can we do the 30,000 please so if we can amend it to do the 285 because we've I we're approving restri that's too restrictive that means if someone comes back and they want to be reimbursed for something oh my God then you may not have that wiggle room you just never know what can happen well right now we approve 9,000 and cam what is wrong with approving 30,000 we can always in the context of all the people that we decided to lay off 0,000 that's a whole different part so that's my that's my motion I'd like to make I'd like to make an amendment to the motion we do we have a second on her second and now what's the amendment okay my Amendment would be
341to add what she wants to add into the board report that's fine but to also keep the 30 ,000 there for tentative measures because it's not good to lock yourself in like that when things happen things happen when you travel okay so that's your Amendment but but we're budgeting so my amendment is that we vote for we add what you're saying but we keep the 30,000 as the amount just in case a room goes up or you're laate on a registration so we budgeted 9,000 for coast to coast so you're saying you'd like to budget 10,500 I'm saying that it doesn't have to be the exact amount so we'll budget 10,500 if two people are going it's not even going to cost that so but coast to coast might not even require what if the
342two people who are going to csy needs it what if someone who's going somewhere I mean you just don't know because our board policy says we have to approve each one of the expenditures no it does not the board policy says the board shall approve board training expenditures paid by the district funds in advance yes that's it the expended this is retro this is already retro right we missed it okay so let's just go with it let's let's it's already retro we're voting on this R we're ratifying this the Retro and we're we're voting on the amendment we're ratifying the past and approving the coast to coast in the future and I'm going to we hav SP 10,500 well if the coast to coast is in the future why is it even included in this
343because we need to register people like tomorrow or yesterday today today was the deadline it's it's tonight but we we have a little wiggle room there we've got a little wiggle room there okay they're not going to kick us out so honestly the district should not be paying for this people should keep paying out of themselves we can always reimburse the district right now for every that's like telling people who want to go to college who can't afford it that you shouldn't be getting so we're voting I seconded your Amendment so we're going to vote on the amendment to the original motion and how does the amendment change it though because I said let's just change the amount for please repeat the amendment for coast to coast to be all the way up to 30
344so I've already I've already said let's just do that but you didn't include that in your amendment I mean in your motion I said change whatever as long as it's 30 let's go okay you clear on that feta yes so none of us are but okay someone's got to keep track of it let's clarify for that's what I don't understand why Coast to Coast has to be in here we're doing before I'm going to amend the board report to add all the expenditures to date which was the file that I sent to all of you earlier yes and then I'm going to add a line stating and a projected $10,500 for coast to coast everybody agree thank you very much let's do okay all right so let's go um Terra bonsi yes Scott Harden yes
345Kimberly Kenny yes M Richardson Bailey yes Patrice Marshall McKenzie yes Dr JMA Velasquez [Music] ah okay ca fre yes Jennifer Holly yes okay pass 61 what I'll is you check okay yeah that we can always issue a check all right so um it's way with past our time post to post make your statement make your statement we the coast to coast okay we're moving to K5 K5 okay so far I only have Miss Frederick and Miss Marshall McKenzie interested in going to Coast to Coast do I have anybody else because then we can pay for three people I would be interested in going okay so Mr Harden so but that's it because that's all the money we have for coast to coast okay none of you should go none of you should go so let's
346let's because we just had to lay off so many people it looks bad that we're spending money like this it does we do not get a salary we do not all get benefits we don't get anything else okay I I understand we have Bo policy that dictates that we should get professional development paid for by Retreat on this item okay but right now we're going to move on Fatima we're moving on we're going to K5 K5 no not yet not yet I need a motion in a second to we need a motion in a second for coast to coast I move approval okay second second second so I'm going to take M Fredick a second fine all right um M BMI this seems like a very hot topic um and I'm not very much part
347of it so I'm going to abstain okay Scott Harden uh yes Kimberly kenning yes Melle Richardson Bailey yes Patrice Marshall McKenzie yes Dr JMA Velasquez no Dina FR yes Jennifer Hy yes okay F 61 and so Miss Frederick and Marshall McKenzie and Mr Harden are going to Coast to Coast okay thank you very much we're going to do the student board report right now we everybody we're doing student board report she's speaking I'm going to cut it down a little bit that's a good idea no like just say whatever you want to say well all right no let's let him talk but like listen like part of it like some of the paragraphs were having to do with like speaking to B Smith start talking yeah okay um so the first thing I'd like to
348talk about is a tough topic that eaten fire uh many students and their families uh are still deeply affected by the fire and are looking for places to stay for the next few months or years I'm in the same situation um many teachers are aware of this that was my brother I'm sorry um many teachers are aware of this some being in the same situation and they are very mindful of how much of a workload um students can deal with at this time others might not be as observant and we would like to mention how much this fire is still affecting people just because the fire itself is out doesn't mean that all of the problems it caused are solved we ask teachers to continue to be mindful of students mental health and to make
349sure that they can handle the workload that is given to them additionally the student assembly would like like to commend the um over 1,000 students who participated in the walk out in support of immigrants on February 7th uh students from most PD high schools marched to City Hall to chant cheer and hold up signs this is incredibly empowering especially considering that many of these students had just had to evacuate their houses some of their houses being lost in the eaten fire this shows the solid uh this show of solidarity proves just how strong we can be even when faced with a devastating situation speaking of protests we would like to remind the Pasadena Community now it's just you guys you guys um about the economic blackout tomorrow uh starting at 12:00 a.m. starting in 1
350minute um there is a planned 24-hour boycott on purchasing non-essential items to protest the inflation of goods and services uh be sure to avoid purchasing from large corporations whether it's gas food clothes or anything else uh if you need to purchase something buy from a small business and pay in cash uh we need to show corporations and politicians that we are not okay with the economy being as expensive as it is right now lastly I would like to talk about the board's closed meeting sessions the assembly would like to suggest that the PD Board of Education move the closed meetings to after the meeting or on another day this would be much more beneficial for the student council and other members of the community who are watching online the in between time places a hole
351in all of our schedules and extends the night speaking on behalf of students who engage with PD Board of Education it would be beneficial for us in terms of getting more sleep for the full day of school that we had the next day I'm well I did say that it was a possibility for a closed session to be after this meeting it's also possible for it to be on a different day why not it's true speaking to what you just said my auntie she just went to like a water and power meeting for LA centa and they do their close session afterwards hold on I I have something for the comments at the end right okay well I'm going to distribute this uh written request for agenda so okay there go meeting ismed