Board of Education Meeting — March 11, 2025

001good afternoon I believe still I'm calling the March 11th 2025 meeting of the Board of Education per government code section 54950 exe and Education Code section 35140 exe at 4:31 [Music] p.m. we will be adjourning to close session for the purpose of discussing the following matters 3.1 Public Employee discipline dismissal suspension release leave assignment and non- reelection non- reappointment reassignment reinstatement pursuant to government code 54957 resolution number 24.15 and resolution number 24-16 um 3.2 personal matters Public Employee appointments employment pursuant to government code 54957 Acting Superintendent contract 3.3 conference with labor negotiations Dr Alan Murino Acting Superintendent Joan Velasco interim assistant superintendent administrative services oh my gosh I that's a lot a lot you guys have a lot of titles Yolanda Mendoza acting assistant superintendent Human Resources um with CSEA APLE and Plum 3.4 conference

002with legal council anticipated litigation Terry TOA from T rosini APC conference with legal council existing litigation pursuant to government code section 54956.9 d one magn Olia Science Academy Orange County versus placent y Belinda Unified School District 3.6 conference with legal council anticipated litigation significant exposure to litigation pursuant to paragraph D2 of government code section 54956.9 prop 39 requests for district facilities from the California republic Leadership Academy 3.7 conference with legal counsel existing litigation Rau versus Board of Trustees for the placenta yinda Unified School District it's and we have two people W wishing to speak we do Madam president would you like me to invite them up or okay our first speaker will be Dave he's going by Dave tonight Dave welcome please approach the podium okay tonight's closed session agenda includes a discussion about my

003lawsuit instead of first participating in that discussion Miss blades chose to take to social media in a lame attempt to discredit me make wild allegations of collusion do you really want to make this personally Leandra sorry I just don't roll that way but if you want to continue to play keyboard Cowboy you go right ahead and if it amuses you what I want to do is present the entire picture unlike your performative rant when we were in court back in November the judge did deny my ex party request to keep the board from voting on what I still believe are a series of unlawful contract amendments what you failed to mention to your friends on social media is that the judge made no ruling and offered no opinion about the lawfulness of the contract amendments

004instead he concluded that he would allow the vote to go forward but the if but if the amendments were passed the board may have to face the consequences of their actions the next phase of that same case is what is on the agenda tonight I had no intention of speaking on this even though I although I unlike you am not prohibited from discussing items on the closed session agenda but in light of your your most recent actions I feel compelled to set the record straight before the board's operation what comes before the board tonight is an opportunity to return this District to normal operating order the Amendments passed by the former majority were a naked attempt to grab power from the incoming and duly elected board the attempt was so Brazen that the amendments were

005explicitly written to expire at the end of the current board term in other words they were specifically designed to Target incoming and duly Ed trustee Trisha Quintero your repeated attempts to divide this community violate the sanctity of the closed session rant on social media ignore the mandates of the brown Act and the Education Code are disgraceful with regard to my lawsuit why raise to social media prior to the closed session why not do a little more listening before attempting to stoke division in closing I ask that you imagine how you would feel if an future outgoing board tempted to do the same thing to you I for one would join in what I'm guessing would be your apoplectic outrage it's not about loyalty it's about following the rules whoever wields the gavel the rules exist

006to allow the will of the people to decide the direction an elected body will take within the bounds of the law all sides must be heard with an open mind but minority control stands in stark contrast to the principles of our representative School District District routine employment decisions are simply not the sort of decisions the legislature intended to be made by anything other than a simple majority have some courage do the right thing and return order to the operation of this board thank you for your [Applause] attention our next speaker is Linda con please approach the podium thank you for the opportunity to speak um I'm an interesting position tonight I know a little bit more than I knew when I wrote this speech uh began by saying Mr radlauer I believe I'm saying that

007correctly in a public comment uh February the 11th really got my attention when he made the following statement Marilyn Marilyn Marilyn thank you for what you do we'll get through this together and my question is who exactly is this Mr radlauer and exactly what does he mean Marilyn we'll get through this together is this the same Mr radlauer who went to court I guess it is to prevent the former board from giving super majority protection to Dr chernes and Gates former superintendents alassar and Matthews had that same super majority protection but not chernis and Gates same Mr radlauer who played a major role in the union campaign to to elect Mrs Anderson again and Miss cantero to join trusty Buck who does this new majority represent do they represent the parents the children and the

008community which we normally expect a board to do or the union that paid for their campaign is this the same Mr radlauer ever present with Union campaigners who claimed that $1.9 million was somehow pirated cafeteria fund it wasn't true back in June and it's not true now is this the same Mr radlauer who joined you Mrs Anderson to claim that developer funds simply could have been used to repair the cafeteria again they could not and your claim is not true say Mr radlauer who joined the crowd to claim that USI was just a f fancy $3 million gym for rich kids let me point out something Mrs Anderson listen carefully please an elite athlete is not necessarily a rich kid in fact why do you want to deny the disadvantaged kids in your area who

009may be highly skilled athletes but don't have the money to attend other institutes that cost money our Institute is free and yet on February the 11th you yourself said inexplicably USI is very unequal Valencia doesn't participate and the reason they don't is because you told them not to you told them this was an elitist rich kid institution not true finally is this a same Mr radlauer who joined the union in claiming that cherniss and gates are corrupt and incompetent and your investigation will prove it thank you and now he's suing you how will you get through this for together thank you for your time thank you Mrs Anderson and that concludes our comments okay we will now adjourn to close session at 4:4 good evening we'll go ahead and reconvene at 6:34 thank you so

010much for your patience we really appreciate it and we have nothing to report out of Clos session and I'm going to ask U Mrs Buck if she'll lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance sure everybody please stand join me in the Pledge of Allegiance ready begin I pledge aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all okay we will um all board members are present including our student board member Lea glad that you're back after your big exciting award night at the last meeting I'm sure we'll hear more about that okay I need a motion to approve the agenda as amended I'll make a motion that we approve the March 11th 2025 Board of Education

011agenda as amended second second okay we have a motion by Mrs Buck a second by Mr Fraser sure any comments all in favor I I okay motion carried 5 public comment cards are available in the foyer cards must be completed and turned in prior to the designated time for public comment provided a maximum of 3 minutes per person if translation is needed an additional 3 minutes will be given please let us know if we know ahead of time we can ensure we areep prepared and um reminding everybody of our civility policy Education Code 220 prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability gender gender identity gender expression nationality race or ethnicity religion sexual orientation or any other characteristic that is contained in the definition of hate crime set forth in section 42255 of the penal code

012including immigration status so I need a motion for the minutes for the February 19th meeting I'll make a motion to approve the minutes of the special meeting of February 19th 2025 second I have a motion by Mr Frasier a second by Mrs blades any questions or Corrections okay all in favor I I I okay and then um 10.2 can I get a motion I'll make a motion we approve the minutes of the regular meeting of February 11th 2025 second I have a motion um by Mrs Buck uh second by Mr Frasier any comments okay all in favor I I 5 okay now we are ready for our recognitions so we're going to turn the time over to um Dr Young thank you than you thank you good evening president Anderson members of the board executive

013cabinet and Acting Superintendent Dr Alan musino tonight we have the privilege of celebrating the incredible artistic talent of our students as we recognize the top five winners of this year's artworks poster contest at this time I would like to invite our outstanding student artists Olivia southwell Isabelle Parker Vincent Brown and sua Cha and Annie Lou to please join me at the lectur [Applause] each year artwork showcases the creativity and talent of students across our district as part of this year's exhibition all P USD students were invited to participate in the artworks poster contest centered around the inspiring theme endangered species nature conservation winners received a $50 Blick Art Materials gift card and their artwork will be prominently displayed throughout the district raising awareness about our annual District art show first we recognize oliv a talented

014third grade student from Bryant Ranch School Olivia if you could raise your hand and wave a look at her design is on the screen before you her piece titled animals deserve protection to beautifully captures the heart of this year's theme when asked about the inspiration behind her work Olivia shared the heart-shaped Earth in my art represents how much I care about endangered habitats I sculpted a tiger a monarch butterfly and a panda all of which are at risk of Extinction if we don't take action to protect them I love these animals and that's why I chose them for this conservation art piece Olivia we are in awe of your creativity and your passion for conservation here is your certificate a recognition of your incredible work and a special thank you as well to her teacher

015Mrs Lindsay Clark for encouraging and guiding Olivia throughout this artistic Journey let's give Olivia one more round of [Applause] applause next we recognize Vincent Brown a seventh grade student at Parkview School Vincent if you could thank you raise your hand Vincent's piece is titled the protector and it is powerful depiction of the responsibility we all share in safeguarding nature when asked about his inspiration Vincent shared just like a mother protects her young we should protect the most vulnerable in nature like the giant panda I created this painting because I love pandas and I don't want them to become extinct Vincent thank you for using your artistic talents to remind us of our role in protecting Wildlife I have a certificate a recognition of your outstanding work congratulations [Applause] now we honor Annie Leu an eighth

016grade student from y binda Middle School Annie if you can wave Annie's piece is titled bird bro and and it's a detailed I knew I was going to get some laughs from that one it is a detailed and playful take on nature conservation when asked about her inspiration Annie shared bird bro is a nature conservation themed artwork featuring a cute bird in the Wild perched on a piece of wood like all Wildlife this bird is not just a part of nature it's also our bro a companion in the world we share Annie your unique perspective and artist artistic style have brought this theme to life in such a meaningful way we're honored to present you with this certificate of recognition we would also like to extend our appreciation to miss Leanne Tangy whose guidance helped

017nurture your artistic vision [Applause] next we recognize Isabelle Parker an 11th grade student from esparanza high school if you could please wave thank you you her artwork is titled beneath the stripes which showcases her incredible skill and deep understanding of this year's theme Isabelle shared the inspiration behind my artwork had mostly to do with addressing the alarming rate of habitat Destruction for many land animals especially the tiger the bones and reconstruction of the tiger is is supposed to symbolize the strength and vulnerability of the animal my artwork is meant to be an homage to the apex predator that is known for its beauty and strength while it is simultaneously one of the most vulnerable animals of our time Isabelle your peace is beautiful we are thrilled to recognize you with this certificate for your lovely

018contribution and a heartfelt thank you as well to your art teacher Miss Lynn magnan for providing support along the way all right last but certainly not least we celebrate Su cha an 11th grade student from El Dorado High School I know by process of elimination we figured it out her piece is titled the shared breath and it is a profound and thought-provoking reflection on the connection between humans and nature when asked about her artwork suah shared my peace explores a vital connection between humans and nature symbolizing the interweaving of life and death it highlights how humans are part of the natural world even though our actions May sometimes harm it the artwork conveys the theme of interconnectedness and suggests that in the end humans Return To Nature continuing the cycle of Life Su your work

019is both moving and Visually stunning and we're honored to recognize you with the certificate and a heartfelt thank you to your art teacher Mr Kyle Thomas for providing guidance and inspiration to you along the way the opening night of our artworks will be Monday March 31st and it will be held this year at the Nixon library and Museum the exhibition will run through the entire month of April and we invite all community members to visit to conclude we would like to invite our amazing poster winners to shake hands with our board members and join us for a group photo at this time great job great job C no great job thank you okay tonight we are also proud to recognize three exceptional middle schools the Orange County School of computer science tuffrey middle school and

020Y binda middle school for earning the distinguished honor of being named 2024 California schools to watch by the California League of middle schools this prestigious recognition is awarded to high performing model middle schools that demonstrate outstanding teamwork Innovation and a steadfast commitment to student achievement additionally we would like to honor El Camino Real High School for being redesignated by the California Department of Education as a 2025 model continuation High School recognizing its unwavering commitment to Student Success at this time I'd like to invite the incredible principles leading these schools Dr William Gray Miss Sarah Barton Miss Paige Stills and Miss Gina agular to please join me at the lecturn should have worn my [Laughter] heels all right this year marks the first redesignation for both ocss and turey middle school and the third redesignation for

021your Belinda Middle School a testament to their unwavering pursuit of excellence and continuous Improvement at their schools at the Orange County School of Computer Sciences interim principal Dr William Gray expressed immense pride in this achievement attributing this honor to their Mastery based learning model where students gain the skills to excel as creators collaborators and innovators additionally our Cutting Edge Innovation lab offers Hands-On experiences in animatronics computer science entrepreneurship engineering art video production Esports and gaming with dedicated teachers and a focus on highquality learning we integrate C stem through UC Davis into science math and electives blending Robotics and computer science into these key areas most recently our teachers have been featured on Corwin's Fisher and fr Series in their latest book entitled rigor unveiled impressively 47% of our staff hold specialized credentials and and seven

022of the staff members are distinguished Award winners there's so much to be proud of at ocss great job Matador [Applause] staff at tuffrey Middle School principal Sarah Barton attributed this honor to her school's culture and a sincere commitment among staff to stay ahead of the curve when it comes to responding to the changing needs of tuffrey student population she shares somebody's face timing in this is important tuffrey middle school has made recently made significant academic gains notably increasing their math proficiency by 99.1% and English language arts proficiency by 7.7% in 2024 the mission statement of tuffrey is to empower all students to be compassionate well-rounded individuals who are prepared for College and Career Pursuits this sentiment is exemplified in 82% of students taking part in school-based extracurricular activities and 54% of the student population taking

023part in School athletics and 41% of all students being a part of the music program keep up the great work meeting your students where they are falcon staff congratulations principal [Applause] Barton at your Belinda Middle School principal paig Stills reflected on the foundation of her school Success emphasizing its strong commitment to Student Success Through a multi-tiered system of support she shared examples including our PBIS framework Fosters a positive School culture while our weekly B3 Intervention Program provides targeted academic support and our schoolwide instructional Focus ensures high quality learning for all students additionally our PLC professional Learning Community for those of you who don't do edu speak process promotes collaboration amongst Educators to continually enhan student achievement we're honored you for your continued strive for excellence congratulations to the Bobcat staff and principal [Applause] Stills this

024past weekend these three outstanding schools were honored at the California schools to watch conference and celebration where they were celebrated for their dedication to Excellence finally tonight we have the distinct honor of celebrating an incredible achievement by El Camino Real High School for being redesignated as a model continuation High School this prestigious recognition is no small feat El Camino roale High School is one of only six continuation schools in Orange County and among just 74 Statewide to receive this honor what makes El Camino truly Stand Out is its holistic student- centered approach to education through Innovative programs like the edge intervention period academic support services and social emotional learning via School connect students receive the tools that they need to thrive the schools focus on College and Career Readiness through find your grind the integration

025of avid strategies and the personalized intake meetings with students and families ensure that every learner is set up for Success Beyond academics El Camino Fosters a strong sense of community and belonging with initiatives like flexible scheduling personalized support and engaging campus events such as welcome week principal agular shared her pride in this achievement stating I'm thrilled to see the exceptional efforts of our staff being recognized by the California Department of Education as our mission emphasizes we are committed to Preparing students for future success by maintaining High expect ations in a supportive environment where each student's unique strengths goals and needs are valued the model continuation high school program is centered around addressing the whole child and this recognition affirms our staff's dedication to fostering a culture focused on academic achievement college and Care Readiness and

026student wellness congratulations to elino ra High School on this standing outstanding accomplishment and to the staff who are here tonight as well thank you for all that you do for our Raptors I would now like to invite our four principes to shake hands with our board members and join us for a group photo to commemorate this achievement and and for those of you who might not be familiar with these programs both the model continuation school and the Schools to Watch program it is a rigorous and competitive process so this is a very very proud moment for these leaders uh and their schools uh n p l so uh again thank you for uh celebrating with us [Applause] [Laughter] did you did your [Applause] clearly am shopping tomorrow to go get oh you left your water

027bottle too or some if our guests want to leave you're welcome to why would you want to leave if you want to stay for the excitement you're welcome to we've got school okay fine School tomor thank you to the parents thank you to the parents who came tonight and support of their kids and getting them here and to the teachers that um taught these ful students than you yeah andc I'm just see how far you let me go that was it okay we're going to move on to our presentations and um I turn the time over to miss felasco to introduce our next presentation well good evening I'd like to ask Terry to to come to the podium uh Terry to is a senior partner and shareholder of tal rosini APC a professional Corporation he

028practices primarily in the area of school and public works construction law architectural malpractice Construction contract Administration Ada physical barrier claims land use environmental law and related matters so I'll turn it over to Mr TAA well thank thank you very much um just a a little bit of quick background I also happen to be a licensed architect have been for the past 30 or so years uh and Facilities law for schools is pretty much all my entire practice so what we're going to talk about today is um field act so in 1934 there was a major earthquake in the state of California and uh that resulted in the passage of a number of laws the main one being called uh the field act what the field act did was it made all schools in the state

029of California subject to a much higher standard of safety a much higher structural standard these are some pictures that um I picked out that I think are helpful to illustrate how devastating an earthquake can be and why it was that the state decided that they needed higher safety standards this is uh a middle school over Compton Unified uh that was destroyed by the earthquake in 1934 this is a uh Poly High which still stands if you drive past polyhigh today you'll notice it doesn't have that nice Dome that fell down in 1934 um because that Dome did not survive the earthquake um there was one death in 1934 uh because of the earthquake uh and that was at Poly High because it happened early in the morning the legislature wanted to make sure that this

030did not ever happen again in the state of California and pass the field act then and the state has been creating safer buildings buildings that are safer pursuant to building code and they regularly police the area which is part of the reason why I'm here today so DSA provided the uh District a notice that two of their buildings over at Valencia High School specifically the boy locker room and the library um needed additional investigation um they're called lift slab buildings uh and those buildings are buildings that uh the state over time has identified as needing a little bit more investigation it doesn't mean the buildings are unsafe it just means that uh the state has identified these buildings and wants the district to look at them and try to identify if there are any vulnerabilities

031any upgrades that are necessary uh with regard to the buildings there is actually a state program that was set up to specifically address any buildings that are subject to any seismic vulnerabilities called the state seismic mitigation program which if there is a determination that these buildings are potentially uh subject to uh or more vulnerable to earthquake forces than they would be eligible under the state Siz mitigation program so these are just identification from the documents of the particular buildings um lift slab is a a form of construction that is a little different uh so I'll just briefly describe what the form of construction is if you've ever seen a tilt up building what they do with the Tilt up building is they basically build the walls of the building on the ground they pour it

032and then they tilt it up a lift slab building is much the same concept cept they pour uh the second floor of the building and then they lift that floor up and then they tie it together um the state has uh suddenly decided that this is not such a good methodology and they want us to do an investigation which we have commissioned Structural Engineers to start doing that investigation they're working as quickly as they can to do what's called an asce 31 and an asce 41 analysis of the buildings to determine General vulner vulnerabilities so um these are uh some of the original applications I just figured you would want to know uh the Valencia High School Dates all the way back to 1935 uh these buildings were built in 1962 uh so uh lift

033slab buildings were generally built in the late 50s all the way up until the late' 60s there are quite a few of them actually scattered throughout the state they all got the same letters from DSA so we weren't special there are a number of buildings that were also identified and um let's just say I've been making this presentation up and down the state identifying that a school district has a lift slab building that they need to do an investigation doesn't automatically mean unsafe it just means we have to do the investigation so there is something called design immunity it's government code section 83.6 there is a lawyer talk I'm just going to tell you what it means it just means that the state of California once they approve a building it's deemed safe it's deemed

034to have met all building department and building code criteria uh so that's the standpoint that we generally come from um our goal is to keep design Immunity on buildings and the place where you start to lose design immunity is if somebody identifies that there's a problem like for example if you're driving on a freeway and you notice that there's dip that is particularly hard to negotiate you notice you notice the public entity the city um calr that they have a problem they're supposed to investigate they have a reasonable time to investigate and then they're supposed to fix the problem if indeed it's causing accidents same concept with regard to school buildings we've now been identified we have a reasonable time to investigate that's what we're doing uh and that is uh prescribed by government codes

035section 83.6 here's just an example of a letter so you could see that um generally the state of California uh certifies that the buildings meet building code and they also meet these higher standards um this is PR 803 it's to address the state funding that's available uh generally speaking the school district if it's found that the building is vulnerable will be eligible for what's called State Siz mitigation funding it's could be potentially up to 50% of the repair costs associated with the buildings so we'll determine that as we're doing the investigation on the agenda um you have a resolution and the reason you have the resolution is to document we've already started the study but I did want to make sure that we documented for everyone's awareness that we've got this notice um the building

036are uh generally safer than all other buildings in the state of California they're built that same vintage and that um we are going to do this investigation if we find that there are any vulnerabilities we will immediately seek State funding and since it's only 50% State funding then there are other options that we'll need to discuss if it turns out that you need to pursue this option so um that is what the resolution is for it's to make sure that the buildings are up to current science so I'll give you an example so for some of you you're probably too young uh but I'm going to just mention this there was a there was a car called The Corvair and let's just say that you were a young family back in the 60s and you

037bought a Corvair and you decided that this was the car for you and you're driving it around and then this guy named Ralph nater comes along and he goes hey this car is unsafe at any speed you should not drive it it's going to kill you it's going to be really bad are you then going to take that car and junk it or are you going to drive it for a little while while you're very careful with it in order to make sure that the car is not going to get you into an accident so I compare it to the science has changed it's just like the difference between a car that has an airbag versus a car that doesn't have an airbag of course a car that has an airbag is safer so what

038the state of California did was they identif identified for us something that they want us to study it would be nice if the state did it for us but they don't so the district is going to spend the money that they did not plan on spending but they are going to have to and they're going to do this investigation they're going to pursue this until the building is either fixed or they determine that the building is not um a building that needs to go through an upgrade so this is uh so that everyone is aware of what the what the problems and the issues are um with that there's a resolution on the agenda any questions um does this necessarily mean that the building has to be not used anymore it's not usable I I

039would highly not recommend closing a building down just based on a notice that you reive from DSA in fact I brought a little quote and I I'll read the quote for you um so the state seismic commission actually issued a report on November 15th 2002 and I figured that this would be helpful for you to identify what a school building really is in the state of California it says public school buildings in California are the safest in the nation they exceed the seismic standards required for most other buildings and have proven to provide a level of protection that assures the safety of California public school children since the passage of the field act in 1934 no school has collapsed due to a seismic event and there's been no loss of life nonetheless the need to

040constantly examine conditions and light of a better understanding of building performance is necessary to maintain the high standards that is that is historic in California so what's happening is the division of State architect has identified something they want you to study and um your study is going to tell you if the building is something that needs to go through an upgrade um I don't believe that you're going to get a result that says that you have to abandon the building but if you do I will let you know that once the study is back um but uh as of right now you can rest assured the building is safer than all other schools and buildings all other buildings of that vintage um but there's a science issue that has identified that this building needs to

041be studied and the uh great presentation by the way I think you covered lots of great points and educated all of us um on how this works just to be clear this is a notification that we need to investigate not a notification that we have a problem the investigation will tell us if we have a problem and then what uh resolutions we need to come to correct you are correct okay it's just a notice it's just a notice it's nothing to wor worry about at the moment correct but we need to go through the steps that is correct I just wanted to ask about the resolution I appreciate that we're putting that out so that we're identifying and and sharing with the community all the steps that we're going to be taking is that a

042requirement that um we do as a result of this or do other districts do this as well some other districts Do It um we recommend it and the reason we recommend it is um there's a lot of things that happen in closed session generally if you're discussing something thing where you're talking about potential vulnerabilities that typically happens in close session um but for this board of education it's extremely important for this to be transparent so that you know what it is that the board of education is doing you know what the board of education is thinking about so the board felt that it was important for the public to know that these two buildings within the Valencia campus were identified what it is that the board is doing about it and how we're going about

043to um both seek funding and to fix the problem as quickly as we possibly can um that's not to say that there won't be an earthquake tomorrow we just don't know but uh we wanted to identify it just in case make sure that everyone was aware and to have some transparency to be clear you said an earthquake tomorrow doesn't necessarily mean that it would be a problem but I'm just say cu you made that comment like well that doesn't mean that if there's an earthquake we have a problem that just means that would be the incident that would cause us to see a problem correct potentially that is correct are you sure Leila that is your school and she spends an hour in the library every day she told me so my my son went

044to that school so I have no concerns about the school whatsoever that's good and I am an architect so I I can tell you that I the school is generally going to be safer uh don't be scared of it it's um but the district is going to uh do a full investigation and is in the middle of it sounds good okay I have one question in your presentation you said that if we have to fix or tear it down or whatever comes that the state could provide up to 50% does the state normally hit that 50% range or is it somewhere a lot lower that is a really good question having done a bunch of these um just generally figure the state figur some way to not give you the true 50% they calculate 50%

045based on this formula that is actually out somewhere as far as I can tell it looks like the formula is coming somewhere out of Fresno um so um it really works out to be about 50% of about 70% of the cost so it will for sure come up short um just as a quick aside I don't usually make the board run out and find as much funding as possible in order to replace or repair buildings um but we try to do it in a very organized fashion it takes a little while for DSA to do these evaluations generally uh so there will be plenty of time to figure out where you're going to find the funding if you're going to seek a bond for example in order to try try to make up the shortfall

046you're right the state pretends like they spun 50% it's going to be like 20% or 25% okay thank you that's what I was afraid of so there's no need to do a district car wash this weekend to start fundraising we're okay the car wash will come stops I'll be there okay is there any other questions so how many I mean this is all an estimation how many of these situations are going on right now at school districts in the state of California and how many typically happen in a year like is this an annual thing or is this every once in a while the lift slabs are actually relatively new um they're I looked at the list it looks like it's probably about 25 schools I didn't count but it looks like there are about

04725 schools both in Southern and Northern California seems like a couple more in Southern California than in Northern California they're they're all wellknown District so you've probably heard some of these presentations elsewhere um there's also another program that's going on interestingly you've already done a lot of this program um in the early 2000s there was a program called ab300 which was uh buildings that um uh the building code changed in 1978 um so there are a bunch of code changes in 1978 there was all the code changes from the somar earthquake which was side to side motions then 2000 there were all the changes from the 1994 Northridge Earthquake which was an up and down motion um and those those changes resulted in ab300 and uh there are a number of districts that have done

048the ab300 I think you've done a bunch of them Fullerton high for example did all of theirs in the early 2000s so um a lot of districts did um have been doing these upgrades over the years okay one question about timeline um when should we hear something back and when should the public expect to hear something back about these buildings about the investigation I was going to check with the structural engineer after we were done today um I wanted them to get a um their application in as soon as possible uh so I would say um you Pro we'll probably give an update within the next 6 months or so and then give you an idea as to um eligibility for State funding um you're what you've authorized right now is what's called phase one

049under under that PR that I put up um there's also a phase two which is a the you'll love this state makes you do a theoretical set of plans even for buildings that you're going to tear down so we're going to have to do that theoretical set of plans um and then after we do the theoretical set of plans and DSA approves those then they will um approve you for funding so it's a little bit of a process I don't know why the state makes it so difficult but it will take it'll take a little bit of time not a lot but it'll take a little time any chance we can do theoretical theoretical plans that's exactly what they make you do so um any other questions thank you very much thank you thank you

050Terry thank you very much [Applause] okay I'm going to turn the time over now to Mrs Renee gray for the California youth Behavior Health Initiative okay thank you very much good evening president Anderson trustees and superintendent musino as we continue to prioritize the well-being of our students I'm pleased to introduce an opportunity that aligns directly with our mission to support their mental and Behavioral Health the California youth behavioral act capacity Grant provides critical resources to strengthen the systems that serve our students ensuring that they have access to the care and support that they need to thrive both academically and personally our district has already made significant strides in expanding Wellness initiatives and this grant presents an opportunity to build upon that Foundation tonight our director of student services will share how we plan to leverage

051this funding to enhance Services improve access to behavioral health support and ultimately create a more resilient and Wells supported student community so with that I'll turn it over to our director of student services Dr Baldwin P Pedraza who will walk us through the plan right thank you very much Miss gray all right well good evening board president Anderson uh Dr musino Board of Trustees today I wanted to take an opportunity to provide you an overview of uh the C the children youth and Behavioral Health Initiative which I'm going to refer to as cbhi and the school-based behavioral health incentive program which we all call SB hip uh two initiatives that are designed to expand the mental health services for students I'll focus on how these programs impact PUSD particularly in terms of funding opportunities sustainability

052students support and alignment with our existing efforts so student mental health challenges have been rising for over a decade with the pandemic further intensifying the crisis schools have become critical access points uh for support as research shows that addressing students mental health needs help Thrive help students Thrive academically socially and emotionally we see the impact firsthand mental health struggles can lead to Chronic absenteeism lower academic achievement and overall well-being concerns however with access to school-based Mental Health Services they are more likely to stay engaged attend regularly and succeed despite this growing need schools often lack Su sustainable funding to provide these services at scale that that's where cbhi and SB hiip come in these initiatives create a funding pathway for schools to expand Behavioral Health Services by allowing districts to build insurance providers including medical

053and private insurers for school-based care this ensures more students receive the support they need when and where they need it California is taken a bold action to address our nation's growing Mental Health crisis among Children and Youth so at the heart of this effort is the Children and Youth Behavioral Health Initiative a historic $4.7 billion investment that is part of the state's master plan for kids mental health this initiative takes a whole child approach recognizing that mental health is shaped by a variety of factors Education Health Care access social social supports and Community Resources cbhi is built around four key strategic areas Workforce training and capacity expanding the strengthening the behavioral health Workforce to ensure that children and youth have access to the supports that they need public awareness reducing stigma and increasing understanding of

054mental health by providing resources and information to families Educators and communities coverage Pathways improving access to Care by simplifying and expanding behavioral health coverage for Children and Youth behav a behavioral health ecosystem infrastructure transforming the way Mental Health Services are delivered by integrating care across schools Community agencies and health care providers by investing in these areas California is working to build a comprehensive youth centered system of care one that ensures all children and young people from birth through age 25 receive the mental health supports that they need to thrive The Children and Youth Behavioral Health Initiative is a transformative cross agency effort in California aimed at enhancing those services for children and the youth led by the California Health and Human Services Agency cbhi brings together multiple State departments and local Partners to create a

055more coordinated and effective system of care these entities collaborate to implement a range of programs and services ensuring that young people across the state have access to the behavioral health support they need some of the state departments include the California Department of Social Services State of California office of the surgeon of surgeon Surgeon General and some of our local Partners include the Orange County healthc Care Agency as well as the Orange County Department of Education this initiative is focused on building sustainable funding for school linked student Behavioral Services and ensuring that students under the age of 26 at all public schools colleges and universities can access these Services the goal is to improve the availability of school-based Behavioral Health Services one of the exciting aspects of this program is that it allows local education agencies

056along with their contracted or Affiliated providers to obtain reimbursement from a variety of funding sources including medical Managed Care plans medical fee for service commercial health health care plans and disability insurers these entities are obligated by the state law to reimburse eligible providers such as those with pupil Personnel Services credentials for their services ultimately this program will increase access to Mental Health Services ensuring that students Statewide can receive the care and support they need no matter where they are as part of the ongoing commitment to student student wellness PUSD is leveraging the cbhi capacity Grant to expand and enhance Behavioral Health Services across our schools this funding will allow us to strengthen mental health support increase accessibility for students and improve our ability to track and coordinate the care through integrated electronic health care health

057records system as you can see here P usd's allocation for the capacity Grant is a little over $1.1 million we know that mental health plays a critical role in Student Success when students receive the support that they need they are more engaged perform better academically and develop essential coping skills for their future by utilizing this grant we are taking a proactive approach to ensuring every student PUSD has the resources they need to succeed the cbhi capacity Grant provides funding to strengthen Behavioral Health Services for students and families and how these funds can be used 70% of these Grant funds must be used to build operational Readiness so First Medical enrollment this includes Outreach efforts uh to help eligible students and families enroll in medical ensuring they have access to covered Behavioral Health Services next Service

058delivery infrastructure and capacity building this means expanding provider networks hiring staff and investing in technology to increase the availability of Mental Health Services then data collection and documentation funding can support systems that track services measure outcomes and improve improve coordination between providers finally billing infrastructure this helps streamline billing processes ensuring accurate documentation and timely reimbursement for those services that are provided by investing in these key areas the grant supports a more sustainable efficient and accessible Behavioral Health Care system for our students and families the cbhi fee schedule program is designed to standardize those reimbursement rates for mental health and Behavioral Health Services Under the cbhi initiative this program ensures that providers receive consistent and transparent compensation for services delivered to CH children youth families making Behavioral Health Care More accessible and sustainable the fee schedule

059outlines specific rates for different types of services including individual therapy group therapy Crisis Intervention and case management so here's some key steps involved in the cbhi service provision process from delivering care to reimbursement first step in the process is the service is provisioned by py USD service or contracted providers once a service is provided documentation is crucial service providers log in Services into our EHR or electronic health record system this ensures accurate recording continuity of care and proper claims processing Next caralon behav Behavioral Health Services serves as a thirdparty administrator for cbhi and oversees claims processing and ensuring that all submitted claims meet program requirements before moving in forward into the billing cycle after documentation we must submit claims through our EHR integrated Billing System and this allows for a streamlined process reducing manual errors

060and ensuring timely submissions of our service claims once a claim is submitted carolon reviews it for accuracy and compliance with cbhi guidelines if the the claim meets all requirements carolon facilitates reimbursement based on the cbhi fee schedule rates this ensures that providers receive appropriate payment for those Services delivered this essentially this process has been known to take about four to six weeks as we're seeing right now so let's talk a little bit about who can provide those Services through the cybh schedule in our district mental health specialist those includes both Li both licensed and associate clinicians who are either employed or contracted by P PUSD these Specialists will play a vital role in delivering Mental Health Services for our students next we have PPS credential practitioners which includes School psychologists social workers counselors and registered

061School nurses these professionals are also employed by pylusd are trained and credential to provide the crucial behavioral health support within the school setting additionally community-based organizations that are designated by pus can also deliver Behavioral Healthcare Services these organizations are critical Partners in expanding the network of support available to our students together these groups of professionals will help ensure that our students have access to the mental health and Behavioral Services they need both in school and through our Community Partnerships as part of that fee schedule so pylusd actually currently already participates in a reimbursement program for special education services so our district already uh utilizes the laa medical building option program other known as Bop uh which allows us to receive reimbursement for special education services provided to eligible students this program has been instrumental in

062supporting the health related Services we deliver through individualized education programs and individualized uh family service plans this program helps fund health related services that are delivered to students as part of their IEPs and ifsps as we move forward with exploring the cyb hi fee schedule program our goal is to expand access to school-based Mental Health Services not just for students in special education but for all students across the district by building on the foundation of programs like the Bop we aim to enhance our ability to meet the diverse needs of all of our students making mental health and Behavioral Services more widely accessible there are many significant benefits for p p usd's participation in the cbhi fee schedule uh which further supports and aligns and enhances our existing initiatives one of the key benefits is

063the increased funding for Behavioral Health Services through participation in the fee schedule with this additional funding through reimbursement it will help us enhance our current efforts and ensure more students have access to the support that they need with cbhi we will see expanded school-based mental health support which is crucial in providing timely on-site care for students this helps reduce barriers to care and ensure students are supported with within the school environment this program will also improve student access to care this broadens the reach of our Mental Health Services ensuring more students and families can take advantage of the support that is available there will be no cost to families no co-pays and those receiving these services will not affect the students or fam's coverage under their health plan or Ure cbhi also supports the long-term

064sustainability of our district employed service providers this ensures that we can continue to retain and invest in high qual quality professionals securing uh consistent and reliable support for our students and most importantly this is this program is aligned with our existing initiatives such as multi-tiered systems of support and our Family Resource Centers by expanding access to Mental Health Services cbhi enhances our ability to implement mtss effectively ensuring that students at every tier whether in need of universal targeted or intensive support receive right level of care in additionally this program will complement work with our Family Resource Centers allowing us to provide more holistic support to families and ensure that our students regardless of their background have access to the services that they need so let's dive into the student behavioral health incentive program orb hiip

065as I had mentioned earlier which is an important component of cbhi this is a 389 million program uh million dollar program has spread over a three-year period and is designed to incentivize and support school districts in expanding and enhan enhancing their behavioral health services for students with cbhi expanding Mental Health Services districtwide SB hiip specifically focuses on addressing access barriers for medical students and improving school-based interventions by working together CB us sbhp and cbhi help build a more integrated accessible and sustainable mental health system for students sbit provides funding to schools and districts to improve access to Mental Health Resources implementing new programs and then strengthening their existing support systems for students Behavioral Health needs this funding can be used to support a variety of initiatives such as increasing the number of mental health professionals

066on campuses providing training for staff and creating systems of better coordination of care for our students in relation to cbhi sbip serves as one of the financial mechanisms that help schools implement the broader goals of cbhi which include improving young Mental Health Services reducing barriers to to care and increasing the availability of Behavioral Health Resources so next steps for PUSD following the identification of targeted initiatives in collaboration with districts Representatives the next step in the process involves implementing strategies that align with these priorities these initiatives are designed to improve access to the quality of Behavioral Health Services for our students behavioral health risk factors or indicators in referrals our Focus will be on creating standardized processes for measuring behavioral health risk factors and indicators ensuring timely referral for those Services building stronger Partnerships to increase

067access to Medical Services we aim to strengthen those Partnerships with medical providers to help our families access the mental health services they need it enhancements for Behavioral Health Services as part of the program will invest in technology upgrades to enhance the delivery and tracking of those Services ensuring more efficient and data driven intervention and then technical assistance support for contracts so we'll provide ongoing technical assistance to help district teams to help with navigating the complexities of Behavioral Health contracts ensuring compliance and maximizing the use of our available resources all right thank you so much appreciate it any questions I know that was a lot I have some questions um what is the age that a um the children are seen and are the parents notified when their child is seen at school uh yes the

068age of students so we have services that are available to all of our students and of course any student that's going to be seen on a consistent basis would we need to get consent by the parents in order to be SE no matter what age so no matter what age yeah so if a 17-year-old has to be seen you tell parents we work to to to work with our parents to get consent for those Services yes okay um and so can the fames opt out if they choose to do so yes the families can opt out if they choose to do so um and then what who determines if the child needs services and is there any medication that is given no there there's no we don't do um Medic or Med medicine management or

069anything in that regards that would be something they would get from a doctor so okay so I I know the answers to these questions but these are questions that have been asked to me so I'm kind of asking for the community um and so when the counselor if if a child is goes to like the normal counselor is that an automatic billing because I've been hearing that like through this other um program that we've been using for special education that sometimes even our sped testing is build so like if something's wrong with the kid and they go see the counselor the first time would we build that like you know for the counselors that automatically build or is this for over like kids are going to go see a certain counselor it's going to be

070like more of a you know more than a onetime thing and that's when it starts billing or is it just every initial visit it could be an initial visit but there's the fee schedule gives a different U types of services that are available and then time limits on those so it just would depend on the level of what that service looks like whether or not it would be billable or not okay yeah um and then um I think that was it I had another question about it how is it going in um how is it going in our special ed education how is that program going how are we seeing any enhancements any you know are we losing funding you know how like it seems like funding gets lost or not going you know where

071it's supposed to be actually we're doing very very well so we have quite a few special Educators like our our nurses are part of the billing our school psychologists our speech and language Pathologists we only have one audiologist but that person could build too so all of these different providers are able to Bill and we meet with um Paradigm is our EHR you would call them and they just met with us this week and they give us data on how well we're doing and we're up to almost a million dollars this year we'll probably hit a million and so that goes back to I mean it it funds a lot of stuff actually and so um to me this program really is the answer because we know budget constraints the way they are this is

072one answer for getting the Behavioral Health Services that we need so we weren't we obviously it's been working well for us with special education so it would just be this would be on our mental health side so there's nothing like waste fraud abuse any of that that we need to worry about or anything that like going to be you know culpable for because obviously this is billing now out of a school district you know School sites do the School site bill or do they send it over to the district office and then the district office bills it goes all through the district office and a lot of district offices are even building you know a a infrastructure for billing we kind of have a few people in special ed that are already doing it because

073they're familiar and they'll talk to the person at Paradigm and work with them so the way we envision this is something of that nature would happen in general Ed mhm so just so everyone understands what has been going on with special education can you just explain like what the process would be like so if you test a child or whatever happens and then how the process goes through and then how we get paid so we do assessments which is the testing we'll do what we call treatments which is the if a speech and language pathologist works with a student let's say on their our problem and all of those things are buil and so they go into Paradigm and it's actually an online system and they used to do this I mean way back in

074the day I'm aging myself but on you know pen and paper now and then they started to do it online now they just go straight to the Paradigm system and it's their way of documenting and it's much easier so what we would do is build the capacity for the other what we call pupil Personnel Service credential folks to be able to Bill that same way once they bill It Go I mean once they put their particular um treatment or assessment it goes into the system and they do nothing else except we just keep track and then we meet quarterly with these people and they tell us how much money we're generating and then it's kind of back buil and they'll tell us we have this what's called a crcs audit and we're always waiting to

075see how much money we're going to get from that we meet again and then they tell us oh now you're going to get 500 and something thousand for that and then they tell us the money we're bringing in and we know that special ed always has a large local contribution so we're we're really trying to get extra funding for special ed because we're an underfunded mandate right right so so if I'm a parent at home and I hear about this program I'm not going to be concerned that for the district to be making money they're just GNA be pulling our kids into the counselor's office willy-nilly and and billing No in fact this is really a way to bill for and I think this is critically important for existing Services these services our counselors are

076working like crazy and we need to fund them we need to fund more of them yes we need them at the elementary level and we don't have an answer to this and I think this could be I don't want to make all these empty promises but this could be potentially one of the ways to do that and so this is a way to get our staff back up M because we're getting the money and then now we can fund the positions yes so you saw it was 1.1 million and then the SB hip is 220,000 so do the math so we get all that and then we start now because we already have it we receive the money then we start building and we say okay who's going to help with this what office or

077you know what is this going to look like and we bring a team together and we ensure that special education is there with us and then we we build the system and then we start billing I'm just we're crossing our fingers in um 25 26 and then we start generating and the more you know all the services we're already doing we turn it then we get and we'll report out what we're getting and then we can look at adding more staff and so another question would be is why did the state start giving us the money back when we've been doing this for years with no compensation what what was the change yeah it's really interesting it's a $4.7 billion investment from the state and I think it has to do with with mental health

078of our youth I mean I'm just I'm looking right here at all this data it's kind of alarming I don't want to talk about it but the suicide rates and we have a lot of data in our office and at the end of the year we'll be presenting this to you but it's pretty much transforming the way that California supports children youth and families within the school system but not only that remember the cross agency description he gave also with schools and colleges and also with homes and communities so this investment is to kind of making a Triad out of all those things and saying we all have to invest in our students mental health right okay I think that's all the questions thank you is this going to work similarly to um the current

079way we do IEPs now how the parent has to check the box during when they write their when they sign their paperwork there's that little box that says we can bill if they don't then we don't Bill yes correct is it going to work the same way where the parent has to agree to um one of things I know we've talked about before that the efficiencies of billing is a bit of a problem right I and I noticed that we can do billing infrastructure with this is there any way that this dovetails with all of our uh billing infrastructure for these special and for the mental health can we yeah we could and so we that was a discussion yesterday but I was trying to wheel and deal yesterday and I asked them how much

080you going to charge us and we heard somebody I don't even want to know if I should say this publicly but but okay but anyway I said how what percent and they're they're like they they told me the percent I won't say it I'm like hm a little too high so we'll see we're trying to get the percent that they will take to help build this to be lower but that's what we do we wheel and deal so we'll eventually get something that we think is reasonable bring it to you and say okay this is what we think we can we can get and these funds are able to be used for that to build the foundation so that that efficiency is built in and then that increases all of these Bild these uh absolutely

081reimbursements correct absolutely all of them it's already stuff we're doing we just need to build Sy we need the system M good um one question not to jump ahead Joan but is projections for the benefit of the efficiencies in Billing is it built into the budget or not yet it is not so we are not being uh optimistic and saying we're going to include that in our budget this is not included that will be an additional the efficiencies we get here will be additional in the future yes I like that we're being conservative and by the way we also do that with special ed it's always a surprise we don't count on getting any money but our people are so great and everybody bills but we're like we don't think we're going to get anything

082next year we're just trying and we're always reinforcing but we always do because we don't want to you know we want to under promise and overd over Del that's right perfect good great next um weird noise sorry um a lot of my questions were already answered I love it um I am familiar with Cal aim and what it's done for the families experiencing homelessness in the county through Cal Optima and the um the ECM which is the community supports and housing navigation the the infrastructure Grant is so key and it takes a good 9 to 12 months really to to rev up and get to that point but it is amazing it's done um a lot for all of the shelters um that the family shelters out there and the support that they can provide

083because now it's helping pay for their staff so that they can um not worry about trying to fund raise for that but pay for their staff and then fundraise for the actual services that and and money that they need so it sounds very similar I think it'll even layer on because we have at P the third highest number of mckenny vento students in all of Orange County compared to any other District um the third highest so um Santa Anna and Anaheim are us and then us wow so it's it's shocking actually um and cppo is right around where we are too um um so this will be super beneficial because all of those students will qualify for medical um I'm curious as to you answered a little bit about the School site level I was

084curious as to what time it was going to take but if it's going to if it's you know maybe I don't know you could answer that if you know yet and then the other question is related to data sharing requirements so do um I know we're putting it all in there and we're we're looking at a little data that you mentioned um I'm curious as to what kind of data we can utilize to best improve Services um to be able to look at that will we get information related to how to improve services not only um not only just the funds that potentially we could make for a so you know I don't know if you want to answer but so the the data sharing I think we we're careful with that right so we

085have fura we have Hippa we have all of these regulations and we want to make sure parents are are aware of what happening that they consent to it but in terms of the data that we gather as a team we we do a lot of um at least this past year we've done a lot of um data Gathering data analysis um disaggregating different um different mental health areas that we're seeing more let's say at one level than another and truly one of the things in fact I was talking to Dr musino about it today is coming back and sharing with you all some of that data since we've been collecting it all year because it kind of informs you about okay what do we need to do next year as a result of of what

086we're finding because again I don't think we're out of the ordinary but you can look at the data like I was just looking at this it's you know we all know we watch the news we know what's going on in society it's it's somewhat shocking with our youth what you know what we're seeing mental healthwise so we we can take the data and we can look at it but there's also protected data um as well great thank you okay my question was um which Mrs Buck kind of asked as well but I don't think we got an answer what is the timeline for the buildout is it oh I was think I didn't timeline for buildout I was thinking staff time yeah timeout timeline for the buildout before we start yeah so the timeline that

087we're looking at being optimistic but we can if everything goes well and and according to planned we could be up and billing by the next school year 25 26 probably late fall early yeah late fall early early winter and like Miss gray had shared we actually have a lot of our staff members that are uh that can participate that already have familiarity with Billing System and that's going to be an asset for us people in the office yeah and then there was one other question you said you're going to contract with a third-party billing company yeah so that's EHR is U electronic health records that's uh who we use with Paradigm but there's a third party that's called carolon they're actually we don't have to we're they're already going to be embedded within and with

088Paradigm to help make sure that everything goes smoothly in terms of claim processing but and that's a contract with the state so the state has a contract that they just told us about and it's throughout the state of California and it's through Caroline so they'll work with if it's Paradigm if it's Healthy Campus if it's Li Liberty was one leader Services leader Services yeah there's just different ones different vendors yeah okay perfect thank you anyone else have any questions OHA sorry I have a question really quick I'm not 100% sure if you can answer this but um I heard you mention that there will be transparency with the parents and while I think that's great um when you're having these sessions with students are the students aware of what will be shared and what won't

089be shared like is there a level of privacy that the students will be having with the people that they're speaking to yeah there's a that's a great questiona U there is a level of you know uh privileged information between of course you know the counselor and students but it'll be you bring up an important Point it'll be good to to make sure that transparency and communication with with the students and families is it's going to be important moving forward for sure yeah yeah so is it when when you're in these meetings do there talk about finding like are we looking for why all of a sudden there's this been this explosion over the last you know however many years 5 six seven years like if it feels like we're treating like we just like keep

090treating this but like are we looking for any root causes is there like the research like are we trying to find out what is actually going wrong so like we can kind of fix the problem as well I guess the kids are younger or stuff because it kind of seems like if if you keep having mental illness if you keep having you know sick people if you keep you know you're you're just kind of just keep treating and treating and treating like but are we actually trying to find like the root cause and like trying to weed that out or is this just kind of like we're just fixing the problems as it comes do you want to and and nobody may have the answer to that but I'm just saying that is that's like

091the million million million dollar question for sure I'll join you with this um that's a great question um when we think of safe schools we think of fences and and surveillance cameras and so on but this is how you build a safe school by identifying uh where the troubles and potential behaviors are manifesting before it's too late um you know the first that comes to mind when you talk about how we could root out that well these cell phones right here have really impacted schools in a big way and many many districts have already uh moved in that successfully have moved that way so that's one uh way to address it but uh you know this District as I've been meeting children and teachers and schools um you know PBIS is a program uh positive

092behavior intervention and supports program that's rooted in relationships and and it's restorative in in a way that once those relationships are established then it's a safe space for for children to talk uh and they're more likely to share and more likely then for our team to be um able to support that that child there certainly isn't a simple solution and uh I'm I'm happy to bring back to the Board of Education the community some of the Innovative strategies that are being used uh around the country and internationally really because this isn't just a problem here in America but it certainly has prolifer proliferated since it's co pretty much right we could pretty much uh count that atast saw yeah yeah well a good point that that's when it became right it it became evident so

093um anything you'd like to add I would say too so we because of funding we the over the past year we're funding and everybody knows this Elementary counselors at the title one schools but what we're finding with our data is we think that that's where the mental health problems are they're not it it goes across any socioeconomic standing period and we when we're looking at the suicide um ideation rates they're actually higher in our higher income areas and so what this tells us is there's a lot of pressure on kids and so I I wholeheartedly agree with you about this I also think that we really put a lot of pressure and I'm going to I'm going to maybe take a risk in saying this but on the academics we push so much now it's

094really important but we've got to balance that out and when we do that we when a lot of the students we see when I was a counselor it was the same thing it there's a lot of pressure so I think the more we can educate our families on this the more parenting the more community building the more relationships and the more um bringing our parents into the fold we're involved with ed services and Community engagement initiative which doesn't need to just be with certain families it needs to be with all families and so the more that we um work together with families and bring them in so that their opinions matter and they help us build what we want to build I think we'll see a difference too yeah and and the the evidence is

095pretty clear when students are connected to their school so your children are in sports they're in ban they're in a variety of different programs they have another adult uh that they could connect with and get to know so having more and more programs that serve more and more children uh so even if they're clubs um but I know for my years uh as a teacher uh keeping your room open you know during lunch before and after school all the time so that children have that that safe space but it certainly uh is a wonderful thing to continue to build a variety of opportunities but that takes adults to run these programs right and support these programs so another great program from the state is the Extended Learning opportunity program that funds after school program so

096another way to help additional time in the 9-hour day uh to to support children because I believe they need our support more than ever and I'm hoping too that this opens the conversation for early intervention like in elementary school and middle schools with coping programs such as calm classroom and things like that that we can Implement like teachers can Implement during the day of different strategies to cope with Stress and Anxiety and things like that that helps like you said helps mitigate the problem before it gets out of hand and hopefully helps snip it in the bud when they're younger you're talking about building those skills right building the skills but building it into our like into a classroom day as part of part of the lessons yeah all right thank you all I appreciate

097your time thank you thank [Applause] you okay now we're going to turn over um to Dr Young sure that was a perfect segue Dr muser talking about the expanded learning opportunity program so good evening yes he did he set it up perfectly hit it out of the park he's ready on the on the consent calendar this evening you're going to find a proposal to purchase nine electric passenger vans of which eight will be utilized by the expanded learning program and purchase through the use of the expanded learning Pro opportunities program or elob which is a state State Leed initiative providing funding for after school summer and intercession enrichment programs for students in transitional kindergarten through sixth grade focusing on developing their academic social emotional and physical needs and so at this time I'm pleased to

098turn it over to Dr George Lopez to share about our future plans of our growing expanded learning program and how the approval of these fans will assist us in meeting students needs Dr Lopez thank you Dr Young uh good evening board president and marily Anderson board members Acting Superintendent Dr musino executive cabinet uh tonight's presentation what will provide a brief timeline of our after school programs the positive impacts of e elop funding the future plans of our expanded learning program and the electric vans we seek permission to invest in to begin it is important to visualize the historical a timeline of our programs then and now uh the expanded learning program began in 1985 and through 1997 we operated 16 uh parent paid after school programs serving roughly 300 students average of 18 students per

099site with zero programs at our Title One schools during this time our programs were more of an Afterschool child care to me meet the needs of working families and keeping children safe on campus in 2000 the federal 21st century fund helped open our to one after school programs however these fundings expired after two years 2002 proposition 49 was approved by the voters to continue to work on the previous funding for after school programs today ases is a vital help support our families who need after school program at no cost by 2004 all 21 elementary schools offered an after school program between child care and ases today we service over 2600 students across 21 elementary schools and three middle schools we are proud of our committed and hardworking classified staff and we continue to seek solutions

100to F vac acies including creating student supervision assistant positions Contracting with outside vendors and we are currently undergoing csca reclassification discussions for the child care series we are also working closely with our site principles and Maintenance and Facilities to open classrooms to grow our program our enrollment has grown because of elop uh elop provides for all students regardless of their zip codes elop has changed the landscape for after school of after school programs in many ways for example our parent parent paid program is designed to be affordable for our families 100% of our parent paid income pays for the salaries supplies and snacks this meant offering enrichment within our financial means to keep the program physically sound our dream of offering more enrichment Sports academics and transportation for our students always fell short to funding

101but dreams do come true in 2022 assembly Bill 130 expanded learning program offered all California leas funding for school programs coined elop the funding is spec specifically for our unduplicated pupils the funding has helped change every aspect of our after school program for all 21 elementary schools and middle schools so in 2023 we got to work with elot funding we partnered with outside vendors offering our school our students soccer basketball pickle ball Dance Theater coding and Robotics elop funded any certificated teacher willing to teach after school intervention in reading and math math we purchased portables for the ases program at topaz and Ruby last we have upgraded classrooms and furniture and by June we anticipate to uh purchase or anticipate two large shade structures over the Real Vista Rio Vista playground a need the community

102had been asking for many years in 2024 we needed to increase Staffing to meet our growing student enrollment we offered dual positions this offered any classified part-time employee to come work with the expanded learning team making them full-time with health benefits we created a job opportunity named student supervision assistant for any 11th or 12th grade student to join the expanded learning team great way to earn money while gaining a quality experience in 2025 the need to do more we will expand to all six middle schools turey Kramer and your Belinda Middle School set to open this fall additionally we have a wait list of interested families to our existing programs today we are seeking the board's permission to invest in electric passenger vans to address the weight list and expand our programs in ways that

103offer students access to experiences that many would otherwise never see we are at the Tipping Point to offer more to do more for for our families elop has provided access for thousands of our students to enrichment academic intervention Sports the Arts and much more however there is still one barrier our weit list which is due to Staffing and available facilities in addition elop requirements for student to teacher ratio is 10:1 for TK and K and is 20 to1 for grades 1 through six to address this we are seeking the board's permission to consider to use elot fun funding to purchase electric vans to transport students from a high enrollment program to a program that has space as mentioned earlier funding elot funding stipulates uh leas must offer transportation for any student attending a school without

104an elop program to a location that has a program the Vans will help transport students from one location to another to meet the ratio if needed Additionally the electric vans will help create an opportunity to offer experiences for students to engage in elementary intermal Sports uh through elop so imagine bring in bring in school spirit Gathering of families also an opportunity for our schools to Showcase to our community why p is a district destination a district of destination the electric fans will transport groups of students from one school to another to compete for fun with all elementary middle schools offering expanded learning programs next year the Vans will be used also our focus is to provide our titone students to take yoga classes financial literacy classes and culinary classes at a centralized location for example

105our Asus program has partnered with Y Belinda High School culinary pathway have offered to to teach classes our expanded learning Vans would be used to transport students to and from this location this is important to our team because of the research and young students being exposed to these opportunities we know food choices calming techniques such as yoga and financial literacy are needed to help to change the trajectory of any student last future use we know not all family choose our program s we see vans in our parking lot after school from outside vendors such as Karate Dojo the after school tutoring Depot and the boys and girl boys and girls club coming to pick up and transport our student to their location our future goal is to one day find a location and open a

106onstop after school Community a community center where we offer all enrichments to family who are seeking outside what we offer at the school sites our electric vans will be used to transport students the expand expanded learning Vans we are proposing to purchase carry nine passengers and the driver and are equipped with GPS and interior camera and we will have a custom P branded expanded learning wrap we will work with transportation to seek qualified drivers the electric fans will be in operation Monday through Friday uh with other District depart other District departments using them uh through a bill back when our department is not using them uh outside of the 2: to 6: p.m. in closing in 25 months we created an expanded learning program that is no longer just a child care but instead provides

107quality enrichment academic intervention opportunities for students our staff also receives ongoing training and we collaborate with the California after school network to stay current with research State funding and policies we serve over we serve over 2ou 2600 students after school from TK to 8th and if we had more classrooms and Staffing available we can accept more students we offer a no CA summer enrichment we we offer a no cost Academy support program for our English Learners we offer summer winter fall and spring camps for a family who need a safe place for their children to spend from 6:30 a.m. to six to five to 6 p.m. so given the permission we can expand and offer more to our families the growth of our after school program will no longer be a dream but a reality

108the electric passenger van will be used to change the trajectory of hundreds of students this concludes the presentation and I invite any questions thank you I'll go first I guess um first question why electric not guas question I would like to invite Richard from Transportation you you knew we were going to ask this question yes good evening the state of California is really pushing us to go to EV and in 2 by 2035 we do have to go completely uh EV and so we got a really good deal with this EV and it's going to give an opportunity for our staff to really dive deeper than our nine bres that we currently have um but it's just the way that California is pushing us um uh indust uh the ice engine they call it internal

109combustion engine is getting harder and harder to find we can find them with Vans right now it's harder to find them with school buses but it's just the way California is really pushing us um they're really pushing us to EV so for instance even on a on a maintenance truck for every one ice engine that we have to buy we have to in California we have to show that we've bought another matched it with another EV so it's something that the California air resources board is really pushing uh uh Transportation or even the school districts alas even private uh companies really go to the EV it's a requirement or they're recommending it's a require it's a requirement for every gas or ice engine we get so one to one one to one correct one to

110one okay so cuz the the biggest question I had was capacity nine that's not a huge van um and you're talking about sports teams in the future that's not a whole sports team of any sport so I'm a little bit curious as to why we wouldn't do maybe like 15 passenger if we've got to go one for one if that's the requirement I'm assuming that's the requirement based on what you're saying then why wouldn't we go 15 passenger G 15 passenger gas nine passenger electric unless there is more capacity in electric so it's a good question so when it comes to 15 passenger van the National High uh National Transportation safety board does not recommend the utilization of 15 passenger vans um because of the once you get with that type of vehicle with that

111many passengers you have a high center of gravity and the rollover uh potential is is higher also that requires a commercial license so with these Vans we're going to be able to get um uh drivers that they still have to meet the new uh Senate Bill 88 that came out in October but it doesn't require commercial license um and so that's why we would would stay with a nine passenger if the in the cases where there's sports teams that need a higher capacity we can utilize the school buses in those cases well I don't know a sports team that has nine player less than nine players plus a coach yeah I don't know how that would look for well there there's multiple we had I I thought too I thought that it was overturned about

112the EVS um in 2035 I heard that that was overturned that they can't was like unlawful or unconstitutional or something in California I have not heard that that I did hear that it was overturned so we don't have to go electric let's look into that let's look that's something definitely CU that is a real thing and and not that I'm saying down with electric I mean I've had a Tesla before I don't anymore Elric a good car um uh but my point is until you don't have electricity that's right till you're buty there's several things between the cost of it upfront and then just the capacity now what is the maximum that you can get sizewise passengers before you have to get that it's the nine so anything the driver um anything above 10 passengers

113or more requires a commercial license with a passenger endorsement okay I I think it's great for uh after school stuff and for elementary I don't see many more uses because Nine's not that many people that's my only that's my biggest concern is I love the idea I think it's great I think we need transportation to get more kids involved absolutely 100% um how do we do it so that it's also more beneficial in other places so let's look into that so actually to piggyback on you Todd so Carlos Rodriguez who they qmd when we did the electric buses I guess they have more to give to us so maybe that's something he's looking for somebody to email I guess they want to offer us more electric school buses so I guess I can I know

114who to have them email now to talk about that because if you're worried about the the capacity if they're willing to just give us more buses then that driver issues but but but yeah I mean more buses would be great yeah that South Coast Grant um the South Coast a grant is out the deadline to um to apply is uh I believe April 18th we are going to apply um we're going to use we're looking to stack that with the zby grant which we already currently have a resolution with and just to limit the cost because with the grant it's still about $100,000 out of pocket and with the South Coast AQMD Grant the infrastructure funding isn't quite there like the ZB I think they're only offering 20,000 per uh per charger when it comes

115to the buses but it's something that we are versus the zes which is offering 75,000 per charger but it's still something that we're going to be looking into well I'll let Carlos know this yes AB he needs to have a better deal for us absolutely okay in addition to that Grant too um we do have to crush a bus we have to trade a bus um and it has to be matching so a gas for electric yeah a I'm never czy is crazy that's gapo stuff man come on I love the idea I think it's fantastic what do we have a cost each van is approximately $90,000 it's just that's 88,000 in change okay and we and we can afford this because I know a lot of these extra things you know people are talking

116about so we having so that's almost a million dollars in Vans through the elop funding yes that's how we would be purchasing the van okay is that included in the budget that in our elot budget it is yes no I D Joe yes it is so this this is included here when we get to um my presentation here it's a restricted program and so right now it's being funded very well by the state and so we you know they're looking to continue with the different opportunities for the students and so this is one way that we can provide more services to more students and it isn't already in the budgets good okay and you have to spend that money oh yeah no totally it's like developer feed you got to spend or you lose it

117elop funds the same way and how how long do we have to spend elop funds is it the same way is it like two or three years or is it every year we have to spend it by June 30th oh so it's each year you have so they give it to you and you have a year to spend it or you lose it correct got it if we if we approve it when would this like would this go into effect before June 30 would we buy the Vans this year yes we can purchase the Vans this year and we can get get delivery before June 30th and if we wait until next meeting I'm just I'd like to see if we can do one for one if we can do if we can multiply how

118many kids we can transport so we have extra money right now in elop that we have to spend or we will lose it so we don't want to push this off we want to get the purchases in because we don't want to send any money back oh yeah no I don't want to send anybody back I want to send any money back to the state how quickly can we know if we can do more the the one for I'm just saying combustion versus electric I'd like to see if we can yeah yeah can we do can we buy with elot money could we buy like gas gas vehicles it's something we can look at I do know the the manufacturers or the vendors they do have the EV in stock gasoline they might not but

119it's something that we can definitely we can get 50% more Vans that's 50% more kids I mean if we're potentially cost I don't know what the cost is but that would be interesting I'd like to know that sorry oh no I was just I was thinking you were asking for bigger Vans because I was going to ask if we're short any bus drivers at the moment you're going to drive it and no no no no because that's why we're going van wise rather than bus-- wise because we're probably already short bus drivers for regular buses and so to add more buses it's really not going to help because we have nobody to drive them correct fortunately we now have uh uh six subs two of them will be filling the full-time position so uh our

120trainers have been working very hard to make sure that they've done the training and given original classes so that we can get um drivers in and also we've been um promoting ourselves so we've been uh also uh taking drivers from other districts so that's what I like to hear I love stealing people it's great I just we're able to so we're able to have drivers for the buses we have if we need to make possibly use them all between elementary middle school and then High School sports yes absolutely I just I guess my point is I'd like to maximize this as much as possible if we go larger Vans great if we can go more Vans great what whatever we can do to maximize this and not go out of the budget um I think

121that would be important because the more kids we can get involved the better and how are you guys advertising for the other districts are you like you know how how is that happening because you're obviously successful it's really word to mouth we have a great culture within our transportation department and so drivers there's no secrets with drivers every it's a really small community especially in Orange County and so as the word gets out um and they you know want to come work for us very good you should be telling that on like that's true we are we are recording let's keep our secrets to ourselves I have a question um what do the parents do if we're transporting their child to another location are we automatically bringing them back to that school site at the

122end of the day or are those parents picking them up at that particular School site we bring them back to the school site second question it's sort of related but not related to Vans um families that sign up for summer the summer program I have heard that um it goes by very fast so that the the spaces fill up like crazy and by the time they fill out the application and submit it for one kid and pivot over to their other sibling that space is gone and so they there's been some glitch in the sign up for summer school so that the siblings aren't they aren't able to do that simultaneously so when the parents do call in and they say they're unable to get the other sibling in we manually put them together okay

123so they La some someone had that issue and so they ended up not participating altogether so it would be really important if we could let them know that if they have siblings to follow up with that um as part of that um application process thank you you're welcome and I'm for e and that was going to be my question comination right because I also heard from um a parent that they were able to enroll their kids but they were at two different sites in this and you know in elementary so parent would have to drop off one and then go drop off the other at the other site so if we could help do something to make it more convenient for our families to mitigate any you know this kind of frustration for our programs

124summer fall and winter those seems to be the main issues as they're very popular programs no for the summer break and fall break yeah wi like all all year I'm just I'm just realizing we're not voting on this are we this is not a vote it's in consent okay it's in consent um I'm gonna pull it and talk about it again do we both drink coffee tonight are you guys good thank you okay perfect thank you so much Dr [Applause] Lopez okay we finished our presentations Mrs is Arman Miss Arman canar me okay there we go um good evening president Anderson trustees Acting Superintendent Dr um mus musino and executive cabinet members I'm excited to be here tonight to share my recent updates from our comprehensive high schools in alternative campuses um so buav Vista

125Virtual Academy student Samuel NN an 11th grade early graduate participated in the 26th Holocaust art and writing contest in the Poetry category he was selected as a finalist in the high school poetry division at Parkview School Elise Proctor has been recognized as a National Honor Honor Society scholarship National semi-finalist she has earned a $32,000 scholarship in recognition of her exemplary dedication to the NHS pillars of scholarship service leadership and character um at El kamino R High School um in alignment with his College and Career Readiness initiatives El Camino students have engaged in a multiple College field trips these visit these include visits to Fullerton College for the male males achieving success conference and the extended opportunity program additional upcoming events include the females achieving suc success conference and an orientation session for students planning to

126enroll at feron College in the fall last week students had the opportunity to tour tour Chapman University where they explored the dormatory dormatory facilities and interacted with current college students the school is also preparing for upcoming events including a red CL Cross blood drive on March 27th and prom on April 4th at the Fullerton Elks Lodge this year's prom theme is Moonlight on the river at Eldorado High School their girls water polo team won the division 5 CIF Championship on February 22nd in dominant fashion defeating Santa Santa Paula 16 to4 this Victory marks the first CIF championship in the program's history on March 7th El Dorado hosted the 8th Annual nonsense in the nest class competition an event that showcases the school's strong sense of spirit during the event the class of 2025 narrowly secured

127the championship trophy outperforming the Juniors students from each grade level competed in various activities including dancing hula hooping three-point shooting and Mattress surfing while accumulating Spirit points throughout the night a faculty member who attended the event for the first time remarked that it was so enjoyable that they would never miss it again at esparanza high school they celebrated two wrestling state champions at the recent tournament in Bakersfield Olivia Davis and Sammy Sanchez each secured first place in their respective weight classes marking the first time in school history that two wrestlers have won state titles in the same year the ESP bronza dance team achieved remarkable success at a national competition in Orlando Orlando Florida bringing home three national championship trophies for their performances in pal pom pom hip hop and Jazz this is the first

128time in 20 years that the team team has won three titles in a single competition Additionally the es bronza baseball team recently received a new scoreboard enhancing the game day experience for players and Spectators upcoming events at Esperanza include the Aztec experience and eighth grade parent night scheduled for Wednesday March 26th providing prospective students and their families an opportunity to become acquainted with the school Community the Winter Guard team recently placed first in a competition at Colony High School further showcasing the school's talent and performance Performing Arts Additionally the theater department is actively rehearsing for its upcoming production of Mean Girls which will Premiere in May Venture Academy was recently rewarded a $11,000 Grant from the placenta Community Foundation the funds will be used to establish a permanent coffee cart and acquire a highquality espresso

129machine for the coffee cats program the academic the academy extends its gratitude to the members of the placa Community Foundation for their generous support additionally the venture choir successfully presented its concert of Love performance at the Performing Arts Center on February 20th George Key School will celebrate St Patrick's Day with engaging activities designed for both parents and students looking ahead the school is preparing for its annual wathon walk and rathon which will place at the end of April followed by the highly anticipated raffle and family Barbecue in May Valencia High School has received over 300 applications from incoming freshmen for its esteemed academic programs including the came brid International Balor and Val techies Academy orientation night will take place on Wednesday March 12th followed by a new tiger orientation night on March 19th where students

130will receive guidance on academic athletic academic athletic and extracurricular opportunities the Valencia Valencia Academic Decathlon team excelled in recent competitions placing first in division one super quiz and securing second place overall in division one the team has once again qualified for this state competition in the field of cyber cyber security sorry Valencia's team participated in the lctf competition at UCLA competing against over 700 teams Nationwide the students demonstrated expertise in cypography and reverse engineering with the top two teens tying for first place and urging earning cash prizes yinda high school has an amazing spring season at um with various athletic teams achieving promising starts the school's particularly excited about the launch of its inaugural beach volleyball program the performing arts program are in full swing with col Color Guard band choir and Orchestra preparing for

131upcoming festivals and competitions meanwhile the theater department is rehearsing for spring musical production Bright Star yinda High School recently commenced Olympics week featuring a variety of competitions including a cornhall tournament for participation from both students and staff the weeklong festivities will accumulate in the Olympics R which will include student performances a staff performance interactive games and spirit building activities that is all thank you very much um I just wanted to ask you if you wanted to share about your experience last month during our board meeting um it was really amazing so I don't know if you guys know where I was but I was getting awarded for my scholarship to nor Northwestern University thank you thank you um it was really cool I mean it was really see really cool to see all the other

132people who are going to be attending the university with me um you know I'm really excited to get to know them but I also thought it was so cool they like rented out a movie theater so I never like I don't know I've never like I never got to walk on the stage like it was a really cool experience they had it like all set up and then I got like free popcorn and it was like I was awesome I felt very special I had like a seat with my name on it exactly I was like I feel like I'm at a movie prer so it was really exciting thank you for sharing okay now I'll ask the tough question okay how has fena high school and fena yinda UniFi school just prepared you for

133your life beyond high school and to get that award that is a very good question so I would say that Valena and P overall has definitely prepared me with um rigorous academic courses as you guys know and IB um but they've also given me a set of critical thinking skills that I think I'll take with me everywhere um something that I really love about this district is that you know they're definitely very tough on you but I think that it also comes with a lot of support which I don't think can be met anywhere else um and I think it's really helped me shape into the qualities that I will carry with me for the rest of my life thank you thank you I like that toughest support okay okay we're gonna turn our time

134now over to um Dr musina thank you madam president members of the Board of Education lay the congratulations no one gets into Northwestern so that is just amazing uh executive cabinet yes uh members of the P family present and those who are watching uh from the luxury of their couch uh the lcap community Forum uh please join us on Tuesday March 18th so that would be next Tuesday for the elcap community Forum this public meeting will provide an opportunity for input on the local control accountability plan um and you know again local control accountability plan now it's it's it's in its 10th year and it's starting to finally attract more and more families and more and more members of the community who are engaging so I really encourage uh everyone to come to that event

135if you can uh P ylusd staff will present State dashboard outcomes and action plans for the upcoming school year Community insights and ideas regarding continuous Improvement efforts are highly valued and we welcome your participation so we hope to see you there from from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. the Shamrock in run um so I I will be there I will run uh I am a runner and I expect to be there does anyone any my fellow governance team members expect to be there yes that yeah okay we're not running wait okay as a final reminder our valued Partners at the reach Foundation are preparing to host their annual Shamrock and run 5K and 2K events uh Saturday March 16th is it Saturday Sunday it's Sunday right right okay let me just make that Sunday I have

136change yeah no I yeah no I knew it was Sunday I just me I just messed up there Sunday uh at Yorba Regional Park in Anaheim proceeds from this event directly support our annual Middle School track meet and other enrichmond programs facilitated by the reach foundation and and I did get a chance to meet with officials uh Gizelle and Jennifer from the reach foundation and uh how wonderful that uh they are gifting our children with so many wonderful programs proceeds from this event directly support our annual Middle School track meet and other enrichment programs oh I just okay repeated myself uh and all volunteer education Focus 501c3 nonprofit organization benefiting all students across our district for more details and a link to register please visit the district website the principal for a day we look

137forward to hosting our annual principal for a day on Wednesday March 19th in collaboration with our steam Partners at the pen and your Belinda Chambers of Commerce guest principles will have a unique opportunity to experience a day in the life of a school principal as they Shadow site leaders on our campuses that morning the event will culminate here in the boardroom with a luncheon and discussion reflecting on their experiences we are deeply grateful for the ongoing support of our Chamber of Commerce and Community Partners and we look forward to showcasing the incredible work of our students sta programs facilities and site leaders uh and in uh conclusion the Chapman University Holocaust art and writing contest finally our middle and high school students recently participated in the 26 annual Chapman University Holocaust remembrance art and writing

138contest this year's theme was what do you bring when you don't know where you are going each year students from around the world take part in this powerful contest engaging in meaningful research about the Holocaust and World War II as part of the experience they listen to firsthand testimonies from Holocaust Survivors and Rescuers reflecting on their motivations for sharing their stories students then create original works of art film or writing that honor and retell these experiences in profound and creative ways PUSD has long been a proud supporter of this competition encouraging participation across all of our middle and high school campuses this year was no exception with 400 of our students Taken part that's outstanding notably three middle school students and one high school student from Travis Ranch tough free and your Belinda middle schools

139as well as your Belinda High School have been named finalists so that's wonderful yes definitely congratulations to those students district and school leaders trustees and students will attend the contest ceremony at Chapman University this coming Friday to view submissions and celebrate the achievements of all participants uh Madam president this this concludes my report my first report thank you and I don't have a tough question for you so you you can relax thank you for that what's your fast M time I think I think he's very fast what is your fastest mile time I would think it's very quick well you mean currently or when I was how about about both how about both yeah I probably around 630 right now yeah okay he may be a winner a shamrock winner there might be a medal

140around your neck yeah at the end of the day but that's not at 7 a.m. that's a different story okay um that's another reason now for everyone to come to the Shamrock and run new yeah we're all gonna have our stopwatches yep okay so now it's time for our public comment public comment is an opportunity for the public to provide input to the Board of Education during the public comment period board members do not dialogue with speakers or make comments regarding the information shared each speaker um we'll have three minutes tonight because we have um 10 speakers um we ask our speakers to repeat their names when they come up to speak and we will call the first four speakers to sit in the first row um so they'll be ready for their comment so

141you did so well early why don't you keep going okay and these are in order that we receive them um the first four speakers Judy Yehuda Stephanie avatal Don Kaye and Elaine OK Conor yes please be seated and good evening I'm Judy Yehuda as a Northwestern alumni I have to congratulate you on your acceptance at Northwestern and my advice to you is to invest in a very good coat speaking of mental speaking of mental health our Jewish students are feeling threatened and unsafe in our classrooms and our schools and they're afraid to speak up since October 7th anti semitism has increased by over 400% some of the things our students are experiencing at the schools in Orange County include bullying on campus from other students anti-semitic and Israeli misinformation in the classroom which includes misinformation

142about Israel in class assignments and in textbooks anti-semetic and threatening messaging and information is being allowed in student newspapers and yearbooks and sometimes in the classrooms on uh student or teacher bulletin boards these are just some of the issues that that we have seen in the past year in Orange County schools my colleagues are going to be talking about some um resources that we feel might help address these issues and I realize I will say I don't have a clock here um oh thank you um that there is an element of social media it's not totally a school problem but I can't control social media um so we will be presenting some ideas and resources that we think can help and I'm asking I will be um reaching out to you by email and asking

143that you respond to me and be willing to set up a meeting to further the conversation and see what Solutions we can achieve to help not just our Jewish students but all students it's not just bullying of Jewish students but it's hate across the board thank [Applause] you whoa sorry okay okay hopefully you can hear me um my name is Stephanie Avital I'm an Orange County resident and I'm here to talk to you about resources in Orange County um that can Foster and enhance community and school learning in regard to combating hate in general um I bet you didn't know there's an Orange County Holocaust Museum here that you don't have to go all the way to the Tolerance Museum in LA with your students that cost you a lot of money and time um

144the orange call Orange the Holocaust Museum also provides funding if needed all of these resources I'm mentioning are free to the schools and have funding provided um I am a dosen at that museum we encourage you as a board to go to the museum and see it as well as your staff and teachers um it's usually geared from seventh grade on up through 12th grade and um it's quite a unique experience it's not a typical Holocaust Museum it's based upon the life of one Holocaust Survivor who was a local residents in Huntington Beach um another source is the student to student program where students come and speak to your classmates their classmates and different schools um about what it means to be Jewish and what Judaism is so that's a fostering understanding and empathy and

145education of knowled we know that knowledge reduces hate so that's an opportunity there that's also provided by the Jewish Federation survivors play is a play based upon us real survivors and that's acted out and your students have a Q&A after uh so there's an engaging conversation on that that's also funded uh hope in the Holy Land is a docu series a film based upon a local gentleman here who makes films and travels to Israel he is also a pastor he's willing to do a Q&A after reviewing the docu film's Hope in the holy land and the last one is an escape room that is offered to your students they'll come to the school and set up an escape room with various themes depending on what the teachers you know choose uh regarding the subject of

146hate and um discrimination against anyone um and and the last thing is Friendship Circle it has to do with our special needs program and our special needs people uh you have students uh that volunteer and they get their high school credit hours and they can volunteer at Friendship Circle and work with people in our special needs Community fostering friendships activities soccer uh they do tennis they do cooking for young adults and these programs are offered again free to the community and it's based out of Newport Beach thank you [Applause] hello good evening um my name is Don Kai and um I just wanted to talk to you tonight about the potential for abuse with the new ethnic studies curriculum that's coming next fall to all our schools um in general ethnic studies can take one

147of two forms it can be Multicultural ethnic studies which focuses on the history and positive historical contributions of minority groups or it could be liberated ethnic studies which leverages race to push partisan political arguments about Identity or power and social justice um that is rooted in critical race Theory and unfortunately anti-israel activists have been working hard to put the in the ethnic studies and movements um this is just the latest example of how embedded anti-semitic anti-Semitism is an education if it goes unchecked it will lead to to division and hate in our high schools and you don't have to look any further than your local college campuses um to see it in full view since October 7th the country has seen how embedded and under the radar this has been going on for decades in

148Academia um my daughter is actually a student at UCLA and the students for justice and Palestine group started marching through the UCLA campus um spewing their hate and support for the atrocities of 107 um on October 11th 2023 just four days later nothing had you know started with any retaliation but they started marching through the school and how does that happen if it's not organized and ready years in advance and by the way they did this because the Israelis were gaining the world sympathy as the victims of Terror and the H Hamas sympathizers couldn't have that they needed to change the narrative um we don't want to see the same kind of miseducation and gaslighting of any minority to happen in our high schools we don't want this hatred and division being taught we need

149to make sure the high school ethnic studies curriculum is positive and accurate and making students feel proud of their Heritage and not feeling attacked or un welcome thank you hi my name is eleno Connor and I come with the resource from the Israeli American Council and you may Wonder why would I sit for two and a half hours to bring this resource to you it's because I I think it's very very helpful I feel it just deep in my heart so as I'm know you all are aware there's many challenges in the the rise of semitism and just even recognizing what it is but not everyone knows what behaviors in the classroom and on the school grounds make Jewish students feel threatened and marginalized so here are some JW Jewish students experiences um said I've

150been bullied through Jewish and Holocaust jokes simply from my being Jewish or when I tell people I'm Jewish they occasionally respond with well you don't look Jewish I've been a target of anti-Semitism but most of the students didn't necessarily know they were being anti-semitic or at my old school a a bunch at my old school a bunch of swastikas were carved into the chairs in my religious studies class so the question at hand is what makes Jewish students more confident in confronting anti-Semitism in school and here's some of the answers these students came up with if I had a teacher I could talk to or report an incident to or an easy place to report anti-Semitism anonymously like online or to know that your school administrators and teachers understand anti-Semitism or having non-jewish students learn

151about anti-Semitism and just themselves learning about forms of anti-Semitism and how to respond so the America Israeli American Council has a lot of great resources but the one I'm here to tell you about is the educational program that includes a speaker for staff development presentations and addresses those specific issues I've spoken about as well as related topics so an IA specialist has given this development presentation in both Los Angeles and Orange County including the Fullerton school district and this same educational program can be presented to the Pena Yorbalinda Unified School District at no cost I encourage you to contact the Israeli American Council to discuss this program or learn about programs like this one and thank you for your [Applause] time our next set of speakers please uh approach the front Steve Shao close Sam

152Movic Sher Murray I think it's Sher Shamy oh it's sh it's an M I'm sorry Shamy Murray Shanny Shanny Murray I can't blame my New York accent I was going to try but I'm not going to get away with it name shanie thank you and lesie Alexander Steve I Rec time already when I think of mental health Todd you're better than a a caffeine break you're always good great personalities um I had this presentation about ready to tear it up because a lot of things mental health the batteries that sort of thing there's 1.1 million vehicles on recall now that are batteries most people don't know there was equivalent of 38,000 Teslas that burned up up the coast and contaminated that entire area so it's a very political thing uh but for three years myself

153and a few other retired people from FAA military have been doing uh lithium battery safety and teaching lawmakers usually oneon-one about what's going on and what we're concerned about because my background was 13 years in Hazmat and worker protection and I had a fire at my house uh bike batteries just laying out in the heat causing and I had 10 people from the local fire department sheriff and everything there and they're kind of hands were tied plus they didn't know a lot that hydrogen fluoride is like bleach times 10 and if I do a post with that word or the words China it's blocked out out you can't get it so all I was coming up here to do is maybe an ebike safety program because I see these guys running down the street like

154crazy all you have to do is put helmets on them the other one was um the other one was uh if you know anybody I was thinking about a business model with uh after school shop classes because those were the mentors that really took me there I raise an ADHD child and he's a productive member of society his strong points were detail but he certainly didn't know how to spell and he certainly didn't know how to do English but you know as they get 26 years old they start coming down and driving company car so I targeted on what he was good at what he wasn't and the biggest thing I had overcome and nothing on you is well-meaning Teachers great teachers uh said you're not going to be any good unless you go to

155college and he wasn't going to be able to make it at all so having purpose and worth uh and hope is the best thing for mental health and we don't have that and I think we can do that with taking apart a toaster to start with making a birdhouse working on a car so I think we can start that business model up um anybody wants to do it we can have um I don't know we can take care of the kids that don't have the money to go but bike safety one I can teach you guys about battery safety because there's a lot of fires that you don't know about city of New York lost 22 people last year 400 fires okay and we have problems with uh the supply chain so Amazon's starting to

156get on board because a lot of those batteries that are made in China and Vietnam when they're bad they don't get scrapped they go down the street and they make them into pro thank you so if you need anything my name's Zar I'd love to help you thank you my name is Sam Mich uh a little bit of what I say was going to repeat something that you just talked about the Valencia academic de cathlon um congratulations to them uh they uh Place second overall in the Orange County competition and placed first in super quiz uh in addition to the team Awards individuals receive $9,500 in scholarships um Valena score qualifies it to represent the district once again at the California state competition next weekend in Santa Clara a special shout out to the coaches

157kayln Ral Nathan Vega and Caitlyn reuter uh this success is not just a measure of the team and its dedicated coaches it's also expresses the great educational opportunities offered at Valencia and the district more broadly the competition measures student achievement in 10 subject areas speech interview art economic social science science math literature and music great academic decathletes are not made in the few months leading to the competition their success reflects the investment of the district over many years in our schools the specific academic Legacy of Valencia developed over decades and can be attributed to several Visionary administrators including Rick Lopez Joey Davis Nancy Watkins and Jamie j who coached academic de cathon with me for a few years over the last four years three School Board extremists drove these proven Educators out of the district

158their loss to us is tragic last year the Tigers jelled at the right time Valencia brought glory to our district being the first P school to finish in the top 10 at the state competition placing seventh overall even though they were not ranked in the top 20 going into the competition the best schools in the nation are represented at the California state competition the winner of the California competition has won the National Championship in all but two years this Century our hearts are with you you beautiful Valencia Geeks you represent a great School in a great District the cathlon coaches provide another example of the dedication of our teachers coaches divide their stip in three ways measured in relationship to the amount of time they dedicate to the team team it works out to less

159than $5 an hour it must be rather insulting to them to hear that USI coaches are compensated as independent contractors at $50 an hour it's not about the money it's about respect and fairness now I got 21 seconds that nine passenger bus would be perfect to get them to Santa [Applause] Clara Hello I'm Danny Murray um I am seeing and hearing a lot of misinformation in the community so I just once again I want to thank the board for its unanimous vote to in investigate District administrators to ensure we have accountability in pil thank you for making sure our administrators are treating employees fairly acting in fiscally responsible ways and most importantly prioritizing the education and safety of our P students the fact that five of the seven were quickly cleared just boosts my confidence

160and their abilities while the fact that two are still out does give me cause for concern however the investigation concludes I support this push for greater accountability and I want to thank you Renee gray for your strong leadership as Acting Superintendent and uh Dr musino welcome to the P family I've been part of this district for 18 years and it truly is an amazing place thank you I'm lesie Alexander a retired teacher a parent of two pyl grads and a member of the community welcome Dr mus mus Dr musino I practiced it I'm pleased that P has the opportunity to benefit from your experience and proven leadership and thank you Mrs Gray for stepping in when we needed you uh thank you also to Mrs Anderson for your leadership on this board is greatly appreciated

161Mr Frasier at the last board meeting you indignantly characterized the expected return of Mrs Gray to her actual position as ridiculous where was that outrage over the past two years when 25 valued administrators were forced to resign or forced out of their positions one of those administrators was from y Belinda Middle School where I was teaching prior to retirement that loss was a soul crushing loss not just for the teachers and staff but for the students and their parents as well that loss was repeated 25 times across this District yet you showed no outrage no indignation instead you chose to support and enable the malfeasance and incompetence of chernis and Gates now that Mr Frasier is ridiculous Mrs blades I understand you have recently post statements that are both misleading and false in one recent

162post you made it sound as though a majority of the board voted to put chernis and Gates on leave in fact it was a unanimous board vote that put them on leave you also voted for that leave I am not sure whose interests you are promoting when you share board business on social media in posts that are both false and misleading but I'm absolutely certain those posts do not serve the best interest of our students thank [Applause] you our will last two speakers this evening Julie suchard I know I got the Julie part right did you get the last part all right you could have M it worse and um and Karen no last name Karen s okay um good evening my name is Julie suard on March 4th trusty blades posted the following on

163her Facebook account quote the new board majority Anderson buck and Quintero are overseeing Orange County School of computer science budget being cut in half this is not what was promised to our community and students end quote I reviewed the June 2024 ocscs budget the original budget listed 10,11,12 in Revenue 7,664 400 in expenses and 2,478 500 $80 in fees and transfers for an ending loss of 32494 the first and term December 2024 budget listed 9,428 656 in Revenue 8,542 79 in expenses and 2, 26,6 N4 in fees and transfers for an ending loss of 1, 372,117 the second term ocscs budget was posted in this month's agenda and it is exactly the same as December's budget which means that the budget was not cut in half it was not cut at all I do not

164know why truste blades would post such misinformation but she owes the parents of ocscs the community and her fellow trustees an apology for lying she should also examine whether or not her conduct adheres to the guidelines for PUSD trustees and consider resigning thank you have a great day [Applause] so Sam a $90,000 van for a handful of students I thought you didn't like spending money on a select few and for the other lady the best way to clear someone's reputation is with an investigation anyways glad to see ocscs being recognized as it should be tonight but it should be noted that Beth fiser was the person who fought to bring it to life despite the ongoing opposition from Maryland and the teachers union I hope that opposition doesn't continue parents and students love the school

165as well as USI the staff there has worked so hard to create an amazing learning environment they deserve a chance to continue on their trajectory of success and since nothing's being said about this it's been three months and we've heard nothing on this endless investigation against chernis and Gates and two times now you've had nothing to report out of close session Marilyn is this how it's going to be now that you're in charge didn't you campaign on transparency so when are we going to hear the results or are you just planning to keep them out until they give up and go away because that's what this looks like this is costing hundreds of thousands of dollars and the community deserves to know what's going on what happens when you find nothing how much money are

166you willing to spend to get rid of them for your personal Vendetta I'd love to see that transparency you campaign on Maryland but it seems your entire focus is on dismantling Innovative programs and destroying the reputation of two incredibly competent administrators with three superintendents in three months no offense you seem delightful certain employees being targeted and harassed at their schools for supporting Dr chernes and what appears to be a coordinated slander campaign against Dr chernes and the programs he helped to create it seems you've created the very chaos in this District that you claimed was happening before the election how many Vans could we have bought for the amount of money you spending on this Witch Hunt what upgrades could have been done at the Valena kitchen that you were so concerned about before what

167are your priorities the kids or political agendas bring back Dr chernis and Dr Gates enough already thank you thank you to all of our uh public comment today and that concludes our comments okay be um let's go ahead and take um a 10-minute break so we'll we'll come back at let's say 9:10 okay we'll call us back into session at 96 all the shuffling okay so we're going to um action items 16.1 can I get a motion I'll make a motion we approve revisions to the public common announcement second okay we have a motion um by Mrs Buck a second by U Mrs quento and um Mrs Gray can help me on this but this came up um because we were having some safety issues here while we were in close session there was you

168know some fights that almost broke out and some things happened in uh today since I've been president yes and yeah and people have been followed to their cars and so I just wanted to reinstate what our civility policy was and to spell it out clearly um Mrs Gray and I met with the Pena Police Department because there was also some concerns from the our police offices that were here and um so we just wanted to address all those and one of the main concerns was um removing people without being warned and they and they brought language to us and they said you you need to make this very clear and so um we took their advice we gave it to our attorneys and um that's what prompted all of this do you want to add

169anything else Mrs Gray yes all that occurred and so um as uh president Anderson said she requested that we have this meeting and we did and um just to kind of reinforce I think a sense of decorum is is what your desire was so um I was invited to a meeting after the meeting with PD I was invited to a meeting with our board's attorney Todd Robbins and there was a discussion about the public comment um opening about whether um it should be a little bit stronger maybe and have some language in there just about respect and decorum and behavior that was a little bit more explicit and so as a result of that he um Todd Robbins gave us some advice he made some proposed revisions um to that and then um in that

170there were clear expectations for respectful behavior um and to minimize disruptions so I know that um what's before you is a um a look at those and I think you know it's up for discussion um about how everybody feels about it what what direction they want to go if I can add too um I I like the adding in the language to make it very clear and what the steps are our police officers that are here are here to protect the room but they don't just automatically intervene um that becomes the responsibility of the board president to give that direction because this is our meeting um and and it's it's that role um so the even unless it breaks out in something dangerous um the police officers are going to wait and because First Amendment

171right first amendment free speech is really important and so we want to make sure everybody gets heard so I appreciate the extra language putting in the warning um actually spelling it out like what we need to say so that it's official so that we're following the law but also protecting everybody here so thank you yeah I was pleasantly um happy to read the when I read the revision I was excited about it and I think like you said it really covers all bases and makes everybody not just us but our public as well feel a little bit hopefully safer and more comfortable is there any concern the F the the the bottom section is makes sense the warning and everything is there any concern about being too specific like because we're calling out certain areas

172and it's like well okay this isn't one of those areas so therefore it wouldn't apply I I would actually ask Todd Robbins if he kind what I was asking yeah I think he should give feedback on that got it this time figured it out it's been years yes Mr Fraser um you're pointing to which paragraph uh in the the first change the individuals are reminded when it calls out locations oh is there any concern about being too specific there and not inclusive of everything um just saying all district property well all district property but I think some of the concerns that I heard about that arose at prior meetings occurred in these locations and so we wanted to spell it out to be clear that while you're in this room civilities expected when you're in

173the lobby civilities expected in the parking lot um just to put everybody on notice because all district property you're right um and I think there's a provision in there the next sentence any individual who during Schoolboard meeting just oh wait um it's at the beginning it it is at the beginning yeah it says on District properties we could including not limited to is what I think we could do that too that's that was the point that I was like I don't know if we're limiting ourselves I know it says that but yeah I mean and the understand too there's other if you're concerned about day-to-day operations like at a at a high school or at a middle school there are other Penal Code Provisions that are separate and apart from the board's civility policy that

174would apply that would give the district the ability to keep somebody off of the property for a period of time yeah this is not for school sites this is specifically for board meetings correct I just was curious because I mean you're a lawyer people are litigious and if they find some loophole that they can get around if something happens sure sure sure yeah so if if if we don't have we can add the but not limited to that's certainly that would be helpful yeah yeah I'm just wondering if in Clos session we can talk about what has been occurring that because I mean there's been a lot of meetings and I don't think I mean I know i't didn't know about this and so you know it would be nice to have some context and

175to know that we've been meeting with attorneys and that there's things that happening in the boardroom or whatever is going on not tonight right at a lat no no no no I don't want Clos session later there there is a closed session agenda item that allows for threats to Public Safety um we can look at that closed session item to see if it would be appropriate uh for that type of discussion or even too even if it doesn't have to be in close session even if we can just get an email that just outlines you know the things that were happening because like we're kind of in the dark I mean I I don't dispute that's probably happening or or something happened but it' just be one of those things where it would be nice

176for everybody to know what's going on and we don't need to call a special meeting about it no that's my only addition okay thank you any any other comments Okay so um do we need to amend the um is this not the motion to add the additional language we could bring it back as a second reading which would be consistent with your board by okay let's do that which means we don't need to vote you actually we have to close the item though we have to we have to vote the first read sorry what was the motion to approve revisions approve revisions approve revisions I would even say that with this being so I mean unless you guys can think of something else I would even say we just wave the second read because this

177would get this kind of in like technically the next board meeting it would be in I know that's why I'm thinking if we just amend it to add to say incl I like the idea of doing the second read we kind of got away from that but bringing it back is always good just to clarify that it's been put in there it doesn't change anything yeah if we were going to do the second reading though we would need somebody to propose an amended motion to does it have to be who made the motion initially doesn't necessarily have to be so here's how it works if anybody wants a quick Robert's Rules of Order um so we have a motion on the table that's been seconded somebody can propose an amended motion there has to be

178first a vote on whether to accept the amended motion you're not approving that amended motion you're just accepting it as the thing that's going to be on the table once if that gets approved then the next vote would be to approve and adopt the amended motion so for example in this case somebody could make a motion an amended motion propose an amended motion to uh accept the public common announcement revisions as a first reading for example and bring it back as a second reading at a subsequent meeting uh another option would be to accept the proposed revisions with the change proposed by Mr Mr Frasier and if that amended motion got accepted and the board voted on that tonight we'd be done with this so it's completely up to the board how they want to

179proceed so so I've made the motion so why don't I try to amend that good luck okay so I make a motion that we're going to amend the revision to include but not limited but limited including but not limited to and and for the public comment announcement and and for clarity to approve it tonight to um yes with the change yes second approval tonight we don't need a second reading okay so second does somebody second that okay yeah somebody should second that real fast all so the first vote is to approve the amended motion made by trusty buck and seconded by Miss quo yeah yes the amended motion but we're not adopting that motion yet we're just we're just approving it to become the new motion that we vote on isn't this crazy don't we

180love Robert's Rules of Order i' they great I know all right so so this vote doesn't approve this yet it just approves the amended motion approves the amended motion would be crazy if we all just voted no well then then we'd vote on the original motion original yeah yeah kidding I'm kidding don't do that okay all in favor I okay so now now you vote now I can make a motion that we approve the amended motion that we just submitted great okay second okay so we have Mrs Buck making a motion to approve the amended motion we just voted on and Mrs Quintero seconded any discussion are we confused I'm holding my discussion for consent okay all in favor I I I am also on I so motion um passes 5 okay all right moving

181on uh 16.2 approve I'll make a motion we approve revisions to board policy 1315 as they relate to the distribution of materials in School's First reading second okay we have a motion by Mrs Buck a second by Mrs blades and we'll turn it over to Dr Young thank you this evening we are proposing a revision to board policy 1315 distribution of material in schools you'll see that one word has been struck through and that word is nonprofit in order to bring it in alignment with board policy 1325 advertising and promotion which allows for distribution of promotional materials of a commercial nature to students or parents and Guardians this will be a first reading of the revision and we welcome your consideration and feedback at this time so it was to match the wording in 1325

182which is why we had the typo in the initial that makes sense okay and the purpose is just simply because that is not AED it's a different yeah it's used to be limited okay but now we allow commercial advertisements okay does it sound like there's any other questions it doesn't mean that nonprofits can't correct means it's not only correct not limited to who wants to advertise okay all in favor I I I okay motion passes 5 Z okay um 17.1 I need a motion pursuant to government code 54953 to approve the employment contract for Alan muser o as Acting Superintendent of Schools providing one a term beginning February 24th 2025 an employes appointment as Acting Superintendent may be terminated by either the board or employee at any time for any reason and two the Acting

183Superintendent shall be required to render up to 49 days of work three the Acting Superintendent salary should be paid a daily rate of $1,518 122 the Acting Superintendent is not entitled to any additional compensation or fringe benefits and four the employes appointment as Acting Superintendent shall be terminated upon the effective date of the board taking action to either reinstate the current superintendent or upon another individual appointed being appointed as superintendent so moved second okay we have a motion by Mrs Buck a second um by Mrs quino any questions okay all in favor I I any oppose okay motion passes 5 Z okay this will be just keep moving on yep 17 172 I make a motion we adopt resolution 24 point or 24-15 authorizing elimination of classified management positions I'll second okay we have a

184motion by Mrs Buck a second by myself and I'm going to turn it over to um Mrs Mendoza um we we're adopting resolution 2415 authorizing the elimination of classified sorry authorizing the elimination of classified management positions in accordance with Ed 45114 EC 45117 ec45 298 and EC 45308 classified employees shall be subject to layoff for lack of work when there has been a reduction or elimination of services affected employees shall be given notice of layoff no less than 45 days prior to the effective date of layoff laid off employees must also be informed of their displacement and Reemployment rights the assistant superintendent of human resource recommends approval of resolution 24:15 after such approval the assistant superintendent of Human Resources will notify the affected employees listed on the attachment a that will be released from their

185administrative positions effective at the end of 2425 school year any questions I just don't feel comfortable with the uh lack of um institutional knowledge of the unique location um and the new model that's there so I I'm not going to approve this personally I just think there's more information that needs to be found I'm on the same boat I'm really uncomfortable with um not making phone calls or gathering information from um the people who may have the knowledge on this um you know to do some fact finding and um I just don't I just don't think that hack jobs or what appear to be hack jobs saying this respectfully um just don't think it should be occurring um this is Mendoza you did the research on this and you feel comfortable with this is this

186correct yes I do okay any other comments okay all in favor I I I any oppose no no okay motion carries 32 with blades and Frasier objection okay I'll make a motion for 17.3 that we adopt resolution 24-16 release reassignment of certificated administrative employees second is that you Mrs blades okay so motion by Mrs Buck a second by Mrs blades turn it back over to Mrs Mendoza Education Code 4495 1 authorizes the the district to provide notice on or before March 15th of any certificated employee holding a position requiring an administrative or supervisory credential that may be released from their position for the following school year if the superintendent or designate recommends that the release and reassignment go forward the board is required to take action and the employee must receive final notification honor before

187June 30th 2025 honored before March 15 2025 the superintendent design notified the employees listed on the attachment a that they may be released from their administrative positions effective at the end of the 2425 school year and reassign for the 2526 school year the superintendent or design me May recommend that the board approved the resolution to finalize the release and the reassignment of these employees after such approval the superintendent or designate will notify the affected employees of their reassignment for the ensuing school year any questions or comments okay we'll vote all in favor I I any oppose okay motion carries 5 Z 181 181 uh I make a motion to adopt resolution number 24-14 to hire a structural engineered for preparation of a seismic evaluation at Valencia High School project number number 15578 I'll second okay

188we have a motion by Mrs blades a second by Mr Frasier um are there any questions or comments no I think Terry made did a really good job of making it very clear yeah yeah I I think we're good on that one okay so we'll move for the vote all in favor I I any oppose motion carries 5 Z I'll make a motion to uh approve the 2425 second interim Report with a positive certification a positive certification indicates that based upon current projections the district will meet its Financial Obligations for the current fiscal year and subsequent two fiscal years so we're good for three years second okay we second we have a motion by Mr Frasier a second by Mrs blades and I will turn the time over to Mrs basa thank you um we'll

189go ahead and get started on this is the present ation for our second interim report and to go over this just a little bit um this is required the governor requires us to do a budget um update a couple times a year this includes assumptions and changes since the first interim and this is our second interim financial report we're going to talk a little bit about some budget challenges that we're facing and what our next steps in the budgeting process will be so this is basically an update and this is as of January 31st of 2025 so even though we're in March we're going back to January it does include projections for the two out years for 2526 and 2627 and it's a mid-year check of where the district's fiscal health is so what is

190the second inm report what is it that the board is um looking to approve so there are three assignments that every report is given if it's a positive assignment it means that the district can meet its Financial Obligations for the current year and two if it's a qualified assignment that means it may not meet those um financial obligations and if it's a negative assignment it means the district will not meet so we're going to get into that in a few minutes when we start going through all of the numbers so here is um we went to the governor's January um report and it was interesting because he talked a lot they talked a lot about California economy currently is projected to grow and is seems to be doing well but there are some mixed signals

191that we need to kind of keep our eyes on so what are the risks moving forward that could affect our budget so we have the states being very vulnerable to the impacts of the uncertainty of receiving Federal funding what the tariffs are going to do to the state of um California C's economy and that how the district is so tied into how well California does um and changes in the immigration policy so the those are things that we just have to keep monitoring as we move forward assumptions so we take a look and how do we build our budgets and monitor our budgets so salaries are always depending on our negotiation process our statutory Cola for this year is only 1.07 which is low uh for next year it's 2.43 and for the year following

1923.52 so it's headed in the right direction but we'll see how it goes our enrollment um for 2425 is at 22,700 uh we're projecting a drop in the out years of 70 which is a 0.3 percentage so it's very small um but based on those things that we were just talking about and looking at some of the data we might be declining in those out years again we'll monitor this change it as we move forward the attendance rate uh we have a very high attendance rate here which is wonderful it's um being budgeted 95% our Health and Welfare increase this year was 5.3% and for out years we're projecting it at 6% and the K3 class- size reduction is again negotiated language so I wanted to talk a little bit here about what else do

193we need to take our you know keep our eyes on here we had a lot of one-time grant money and you can see overall we went ahead and listed what these are and we had $57 million of one-time grants and as we move into the following years all that's left is 20 million so that's definitely going to be affecting our budgets some of those items will be going away others might need to be absorbed back into the unrestricted general fund luckily we still have some ongoing grants we talked tonight about the expanded learning opportunities program which is roughly $9 million a year which is wonderful we have pop 28 Arts and Music in our schools three 3 million so I'm glad that at least we're keeping those what are the changes since first interim so

194the cola didn't change it's 1.07 but what did change was a 2526 projection for next year because it dropped by 05% what that really means is that the district lost 1.3 million in the lcff base funding year after year and then in our supplemental funding we're losing 120,000 so even though it seems like a really small percentage decrease it it is a lot of money and then for 2627 um was projected at 3.08 at first interim and that looks like it's going up to 3.52 so I'm I'm hopeful that'll stay that way our calper employer rates in first interim it didn't change a whole lot so we just monitor those as we move forward and the calers um isn't changing at all so our enrollment uh we go through and we certify our cow pads

195numbers so the differences between first interim and second interim is a drop of 26 and then with the projection for going down 70 next year that's why you're seeing a negative 96 and then the following year um the negative 166 because it's cumul cumulative on the funded Ada that's basically taking the enrollment numbers at the 95% and adjust um for those figures and that is what we actually get our um money on so let's take a look I wanted to talk a little bit about what is the unrestricted fund because we have the general fund but it's really broken up into two different sections so for the unrestricted Revenue that is in our general fund and it's used for all General educational purposes it includes our local control funding formula our state lottery money our

196local revenues like interest income donations unrestricted revenue is spent on items that keep the district running such as our salaries and benefits um it indirectly supports the general education classrooms through the books supplies Transportation costs and so on the goal with the unrestricted revenue is to have a balanced budget so you want the expenditures to be out or below the revenue and what's interesting is when you go ahead and you look at restricted Reven Revenue that's different so we find that in our general fund and in all the other funds that the district has so you can see here uh we listed the earmarked for specific programs so we just talked a little bit about the general fund and what we receive have to be spent on those programs are uh specific other funds like

197child care and nutrition and deferred maintenance and so on that we've listed here uh very specifically States what it is that we can spend this money on so these funds it's okay if we go negative in the out years because we might receive the revenue this year and they'll give us the opportunity to spend over the next few years so when we get to the actual data um you'll see the differences here so on the unrestricted general fund overall could I ask a question before we please sorry um on going back just the one slide the restricted Revenue the Special Reserve fund for capital outlay projects our 4040 fund um thank you for all of the backup information I completely appreciate that what you mentioned in there I just want to clarify you said that

198we have the the balloon payment that's outstanding as we pay off our debt that is coming up in 203 and that is fully covered covered that's money is sitting there in the bank waiting for that so that's not going to hit any of our taxpayers no thank you very much not at all wait hold on a second so we're paying that off right now is it already coming out of our property taxes and it's sitting over at the Orange County because I know that there's been a big dispute there's big dispute I guess today with the Orange County Board of Supervisors about the person who's handling it and all the stuff so when they say that we start paying it off in 2032 have we been collecting property taxes and it's sitting in the thing

199and it starts getting paid off in 2032 is that what happens or do our property taxes raise in 32 because that's where the bonds come from is our property taxes correct so we're talking two different things so we've got our bonds which is in fund 51 and we only show that at the end of the year MH so for bonds we collect the property taxes is held um at the county assessor's office and they actually make the payments on the bonds okay so it's not even under our control what this is is our cop payments and so um that is something that the district it's like personal debt for the district right and so every year um we have to pay on that debt right and so right now on that fund 40 because we

200received some money from um this the settlement from the city of yor Belinda that money is being kept in there so that we can pay the annual debt on the cop not the bonds okay so the cab bonds that we start paying that back in 2032 no 2032 is only our cops okay so when does the cab Bond start because there's all this dispute that we're supposed to pay the cab back when do we start paying that back and are we already like as our property taxes have increased or are they already taking it from our property taxes they're already taking it from our property taxes okay and all of our bond debt is paid over multiple years as we move forward and then I know that we have um I think tonight it's on

201the consent calendar where we bring in our financial expert that will come in and take a look at the bonds and find out are the interest rates uh good for the district where we maybe can refund it we try to refund bonds when um when it's good for the district and that's what drops the property taxes for our community but the cab bonds you're not allowed to you can't change the can't change that no that one we we have to hold on to so so it's already collecting all the property taxes we're paying they're already collecting a bunch of money so we could pay off the cop and then also to the cab and so the cab we start paying that in 2032 no so the cabs I they're already well they're already paying for

202all of the cabs in fund 51 that's all being held on the outside so we we the county assessor collects the property tax okay then they turn around and they pay all of the bond debt which is including the Caps so that's already all being done okay then in fund 40 That's the cops certificate of participation that's another loan that's like a like a private loan for the district and we have the money in there to pay that debt off and that debt will be paid off the last payment is in 2032 okay so two separate things so it's two separate yes things so you have cop and then you have cab yes and it all comes from our property taxes no only the bonds payments come from property taxes okay the cop payment is

203coming from the settlement for the um city of Y Belinda that's the money that we're using to pay off the cop debt we used to have Redevelopment fees and there something happened with the state and that was taken away and then we ended up having to sue the city of your blenda to get some of that back so that was put away in the bank to pay for the last payment okay okay and so I think a presentation on the cab bonds would be helpful the community has a lot of questions about it so I think that would be really good for us to do sure but also too so this other thing when we take out like if if it hit like with the building for Valencia so for some reason if we had

204to take out a loan mhm we would this is how we would pay that loan back if for some reason like we had hundreds of millions of dollars in like Valencia property stuff allegedly that's how we would start we could take a loan out in that same manner we could take out another cop MH but we currently right now have no revenues to pay that got it got it so we would have to go out for a bond we have to do a bond okay yeah I'm not saying that there's $100 million either I'm just worri was saying what if so we understand playing the what if game right yes sorry to derail your oh I'm good whatever you guys want to about no you're doing great thank you but Ser the cab presentation I

205think would be helpful sure no problem um okay so moving forward here is our unrestricted general fund and I like to put pictures in just because I'm a visual person and so you can see the green part of this is the majority of the district's money is coming from lcff which is money we receive from the state um then we get a little bit of special fun from the state of $10 million we have some local Revenue coming in of $1 million we transfer in$ 500,000 from the child um Development Fund to support the expenses that we're paying out of the unrestricted for that program and then we contribute to um restricted maintenance around $1 million to support all of our facility upkeep and then we contribute to support our students with special needs of

20634 million so overall for an unrestricted general fund Revenue we have $24.9 million and here's where we spend it so overall you can see and I'll give you the numbers on this one in a second but um the majority of our money is going for salaries and benefits and then you'll see a smaller amount 2% goes for books and supplies our services are around 6% and so on so overall we're spending $266.25 so here's what this looks like um putting the numbers in here for the current year for second interim and then for the projections for the two out years you can see our revenues uh for this year's 24.9 next year's going to 21.9 following year 29.2 the expenditures because of those assumptions that we talked about with step and column and so forth

207266 million this year pretty similar for the following year going up just a little bit and then the year after that 268 so when you take your revenues minus your expenditures you're either going to have a surplus so we have we come out ahead or we have a deficit so for this current year we have a deficit of 11.4 million so I always kind of think of that top part as like the checkbook so the money's going in the money's going out um and then we have our savings account so our savings account we started with the beginning balance of 72.9 million and after we absorb that loss of 11.4 we're anticipating the ending balance of being about $61 million so when you look at that and you take our ending balance and divide it

208by our total expenditures it's 23% and that basically covers almost three months of expenditures for the district and then as we go out um for our out years you can see the ending F ending balance is going down 46.9 and then going down to 37.9 and you can see those percentages dropping as we move forward and again this is all the information we have as of Janu January 31st so one question back to that and sure I'm assuming you're going to get to it but the um the first interim we showed a deficit of 12.4 now we're showing 11.4 so we're better by a million guess we're better buy a little bit yes that's good yeah I like heading in that direction even got positive um yeah just because especially in the first SL when

209we're talking about based on the changes in Cola we're talking about a 1 point three million do difference for next year for next year6 right which is part of the when 12 million for next year went to 14 million yeah okay okay and so so this is off of January correct January that really loud for you Todd um so yeah you kind of jump back um so I guess my question is is so this was in January have you seen any like projection coming from the state like that anything would be different like we're finding more money because I mean I remember one time we were in a def you know first we were in we had a ton of money and then all of a sudden we were in a deficit so I mean

210so these numbers potentially in three or four months we could change and we could be at a $1 million surplus no no I wish darn it if we find that kind of money we got yeah there that's so another question I was I was I was kidding on the last one but I know know I know the so I have a question when we have our savings account is it are we able to put like money in like you know how there's some savings accounts where you can gather like four or 5% interest do they do any type I mean huge accounts like this do are we in that um or is there like you know any ways that they so Orange County I mean they went through a bankruptcy many years ago and they're

211very tight on how we invest our money and so we have to stay in their investment pools um just we're required to do that and so they're like a safe investment and I could find out what the interest rate is that we're well I wasn't really talking about like the investment I just know that there's like some savings accounts that like you know you put your money in there you put x amount of dollars in there and they'll give you just the four four or five% in some of them you know versus like sometimes you're at Chase yes and you know you're only getting like 5% on your I was just curious if that was applicable to school districts no we can't we can't we can't invest money on our own districts are not really

212allowed to invest money to make money we actually get in trouble if we do something like that so that's why our our bank account is with the county assessor's office and they monitor all of that which is I mean because the point of the district is not to be some Global billion dollar company it's to spend money for the benefit of the students right absolutely so yeah okay so because of the um deficit spending this statement is being put in here in preparing the 2425 second interim budget the board acknowledges its fiduciary responsibility to maintain fiscal solvency for the current year and the two subsequent fiscal years District staff will be preparing a budget stabilization plan for Board review prior to the adoption of the 2526 school year budget this plan will include established timelines

213for ongoing budget planning and actions reductions presented may include tighter Staffing at School sites position reductions and non-personnel cost reductions under these assumptions the board projects the need for an 11.4 million in budget reductions in 2526 in order to maintain fiscal solvency so this statement is um required Orange County Department of Ed actually looks at this and uh you'll see in a minute we're going to go with a positive certification but even if we present a positive certification and we don't do this and we don't start working on our budget reductions the county could come in and make us qualified and we don't want that so the statement is in here and they actually get this presentation and they look for this statement yeah this is the C cya statement yes sir yeah um so

214sorry back to that back well no we're we're continue I'll talk later okay so now let's talk about our restricted money and again this is okay we're going to receive this money and we're going to spend it on what it is that it's telling us to spend it on so overall um you can see Federal money is 13.7 million state is 57.2 our locals 2.6 and then that contribution um that I just talked about on unrestricted is in here so our restricted revenue is $119 million and here's our expenditures again 70% of it's going for salaries and benefits 10% books and supplies uh 12% is services and other op operating and so on so the restricted expenditures are $43.32 2425 there's 119 million in Revenue we're spending 143 so it is a deficit of 23

215million but it's okay because we want to spend this money in these out years we started with 71 million and we're ending up with 47 and then as you move over to these outy years you can see these are the anticipated revenues and expenditures that are coming in continuing with the deficit spending but that's okay because we want to spend all this money we want to get it down to zero so um at the end of 2627 the ending balance is $19 million okay so then we have to take a look at um what is the components of ending fund balance what are we what are we doing with our our savings account so we have our unrestricted and our restricted and I'll just talk for a second the restricted you can see the $47

216million it's kind of the orange column um we're just going to put it all into a restricted carryover because we have no choice on what to do with this money if you go back to the green uh the ending fund balance is 61 million we have uh revolving cash in our stores and our prepaid expenditures 275,000 not not a large dollar amount we are committing a $5 million for textbook adoptions we're putting in $10 million for declining enrollment we'll keep an eye on that one and then because we are in deficit it's a deficit mitigation for 5.2 million we have a contingency reserve of 20 million and a reserve for economic uncertainties for five um of 5% for another 20 million so that's how we're assigning the unrestricted money and then you just total them

217up and that's the blue column and again I put on here we are filing because of the ending fund balances we are um filing a positive certification question about the reserves M there is a maximum that we're allowed to hold correct so okay so there's a couple of things sorry to open that camera no no no it's okay so they they go about 10% there was there was a law that came out that said a school district should have you know a 10% Reserve level well our 10% are those those two bottom numbers right there because the contingency reserve is 5% and our reserve for economic uncertainties is 5% but with that there was um a lot of flexibility for school districts that said if you're going to have higher than 2% you need to

218tell us what you're going to spend it on but that law did not go fully into effect because they could have come and said that's it start sending in your plan on what you're going to spend your other money on and work that percentage down to 10% but the they held off on that um they like the fact that the districts are having enough money in here to get through a couple of bad years because the state also knows that their funding levels go up and down depending on lots of things too so they didn't actually incorporate that law but that's I think what you're talking about with the 10% yeah the maximum 10% the minimum of 2% that's for us because of our um our enrollment numbers were 3% okay so our minimum is

2193% our minimum is three the maximum is 10 with the plan so my point is from a reserve standpoint we're extremely healthy we are healthy right now except for the fact that we're deficit spending so if I go back here but I'm saying we can't yes right we go back to the yeah let me just show you real quick because I what I'm worried about is this one so when we come back again with the um estimated actuals and the adopted budget for next year then I have to push this out to 2728 so if we hit another $10 million but if we don't do anything we're basically eating up our reserves our our savings account and so that 26 27 when we're at a 14% here we're getting really close to that 10% and

220you and then we go out one more year now we're in trouble so if we do nothing we can last here until 2728 you're going to go qualified and if you ever let this go negative um they come in and they remove the board and the state comes in and takes over so we don't want that at all we're very far from that happening but but I agree with you I mean four years four years well four years before it gets to the threshold M right and then there's lots of things that happen in four years absolutely right so many different things for Better or For Worse absolutely um I guess my my point is looking at those numbers and seeing the deficit spending and knowing what we're investing in our district because of the

221things that we've done by building preschools the money we've spent on new programs the money we spent on air conditionings in gyms the like we have done a lot of Capital Improvements over the last really the last 18 months very heavily that I think are going to in my opinion and based on the decisions that we've made the past year and a half are going to affect that in a positive not I know we have to be conservative and I appreciate this I think this is good um but I'm thinking that some of these investments will come back to us in student well intentionally or potentially in enrollment growth um but I I like that we're being conservative that's a good thing qualified still aways away we want to stay away from qualified um okay

222so then um because of the charter school that we have even though it's a dependent Charter it also has a requirement to show what their numbers look like and so these num this budget is actually the same as uh first interim it hasn't really changed at all and so 9.4 million in Revenue our expenditures are totaling 10.8 so they have an ending fund balance of 1.3 a negative they're just starting off it's a brand new school year and so um this will change as we move forward I'm sure so okay um then we also need to look uh quickly over all of our other funds and so you can see all of this money will be spent um for their specific purpose and they're all ending with uh certain fund balances here with the child

223development at 4.4 million our cafeteria is healthy at 15.8 cafeteria actually has a a plan of what they're spending their money on because the state doesn't like it when that ending balance is too high but because of the free meals um you know we've been able to have a higher uh ending fund balance and I know she has a lot of plans for that money too uh deferred maintenance we're ending with 2.3 our Capital facilities is 7 7.9 uh our fund 35 is actually closed up that was money from a long time ago that was just a little bit left in there and it's all spent now uh again C uh fund 40 the capital outlay that's the cop payments we just talked about and that's where you can see that ending fund balance of

22416 million it's going to keep carrying overs and that's going to pay every year a cop payments until it's paid off uh the bond interest is fund 51 and that's left empty because we only report out at the end of the year and uh we actually get those that information from the county assessor's office and then we'll put it in here and then our self insurance is what pays for all of the medical workers comp property and liability for the district and that has an ending balance of $17 million so our challenges and our next steps so the challenges ahead is projected low Cola for the next three years that's going to go up and down depending on what happens in the state with the state's economy uh we are losing a lot of one-time

225revenue and so we have to be careful with that we have Rising Health and Welfare benefit premiums annual step and col adjustments have to be made and the last Point here is the state's vulnerability again to the impacts of Uncertain receipt of federal funding the tariffs and the changes in the immigration policy so you can see we've completed the first three reports here by by the conclusion of tonight and then upcoming we'll come back again in um June and we'll talk about a public hearing for the lcap in the budget and adopt the lcap in the budget for next year so any questions questions I just wanted to say it again the money that we talked about coming in from the additional Billings from Special Ed and the uh the mental health that is not

226included in this so that's our surprise bonus at the end of the year Well it's not included in here but keep it keep in mind that's restricted so totally get it yeah yeah yeah but it's not in here because this was January 31st y okay good no it's great okay I don't have any questions specific to this but I asked for a lot of backup information and I so appreciate that I've gotten part of the way through it not all the way through it yet but it's very informative and I really appreciate it thank you no no problem again I got some of the stuff too my printer didn't print all of it but the fund 2545 M what is what does that consist of because I was going through it today and I was

227um obviously looking there's a lot of things so we have so in fund 25 there's two subf funds okay 2525 is our developer fees so when people are you know building something new or whatever we get that money in and then 2545 is some um Redevelopment monies that we are still receiving it's not a lot anymore but it's something okay so the Redevelopment fees do we lose them or or what does that come out of does that come out of our general fund or what fund does that come out of so that's fund 25 which is totally separate from the general fund which is fund one okay um that Revenue will continue uh we'll have to see I I'll have to pull some reports to see for this District I don't know off the top

228of my head I'd have to give back to you okay um it's not a large amount of money Redevelopment money used to be really high if you're in an area where they were redeveloping you know projects or you know whatever that they wanted to work on there would always be some money that would come back to the school district but then they stopped this Redevelopment and so this is kind of paying off the last of those final projects so it's going to be dwindling down over time but I I'd have to look it up and find out when it fin when it's all gone okay because I was just when I was looking through it it said like our revenues total was like four 4,656 for 23 24 but then went down 2425 to 2,631

229but I thought was interesting said I was just you know cuzz if you start looking through this with all this backup material we're getting um you know we're paying for playgrounds at Glen View for like $119,000 um tines 50,000 Morse 50,000 for playgrounds we had some Hydration Stations which weren't super expensive but um you know we had to pay DSA for the classrooms 19,000 each for Glen V morison tines um esparanza you know they had a lighting in their theater 387,000 um El Dorado material labor for the men and women's staff restrooms 43,000 uh Valencia High School material for improvements and remodeling the wood shop at Valencia 51,000 um shade structures at esparanza 71,000 Valencia High School had two Marquees for $100,000 so I was just you know going through here CU you always you

230know kind of seems like certain things are singled out but then I was wondering well where is this fund like where does it go to because I mean we're paying for a lot of St you know the intercom systems Travis wrench and Kramer it's 176,000 replace our intercom so I mean it is like if you look through this stuff and if people yeah I mean this is it's it's expensive to run a school district and like replacing an intercom system is shocking that's 176,000 so I was wondering I was I was grateful for this because it does show how much we spend at all the school sites yep so yeah so I was I you know when my printer will print again I'll be looking you know more at the other things but that's where

231I was wondering you know like where this comes you know where this comes from and like how are we paying for you know we're using all these different ways to pay for these things like the developer fees we use certain things and then this and for this fund 25 it can only be spent on Capital Improvements for the for the district that's why you're seeing all the different purchases right yeah but I thought that was you know I think people don't realize how much stuff is being spent behind the scenes to make everything new and keep it going going so I was appreciative of that yeah the the invest seeing the actual things that we're investing in is pretty great we talked a little bit earlier before about doing a facilities study we've we've kind

232of looked at that before as we plan where we're going to spend our money over the five-year facilities plan we haven't not that I recall haven't seen it in a little while but maybe that's something that we look at again and start to project where we're going to put that actually we've been working on that cuz I was curious too I wanted to see what it looked like um and for the money reasons we can we have always have so many different projects there's a lot of needs in a school district and when you have Bond money that's great we don't have Bond money anymore you can see what our our fiscal situation is so that's definitely something we are pulling together and can bring back to the board thank you because we have to

233do all these improvements but we need plan how at when at what point do we do that so thank you lots of car washes you need to organize parking lot of every scho I'm going to breed the Labradors and do the chicken the eggs sales okay per okay I have um a couple questions I have one for about Orange County School of computer science it's been posted all over social media that that school's budget's been cut by 50% can you so no so I think we just had it in the presentation I think what um yeah was it was in here just one slide so I think that comment was geared more towards Staffing um and so we have temporary teachers and so every year a school district with temporary teachers um they're basically notified

234you know your contract's going to end June 30th and that school actually had predominantly temporary teachers and so I would say probably half of their staff received that notice but that doesn't mean that we've cut their budget because we have to make sure that that school is staffed and they have everything that they need so so I will say this I was the person who brought this up and so what was said was um the leadership at ocscs they met with District leadership and they were told that you know they needed to cut their budget and they said you know ocss said hey we were assured by chernis and Gates and everyone and St that we would have a $10 million working budget to get our school off the ground for 3 years and so

235the response that they got was well that's a wag and they said what does that mean and they said that's a wild ass guess he says sometimes people choose to carry up startup funds in multiple years um and at this point they knew they said they wanted to make the ocscs budget right side up so they said they were looking at projected decline in enrollment of up to 150 kids and they had a number of the 600s and so they told them to prepare a budget for 5.2 $2 million and then they told the principal at the time that she needed to give them what her budget cuts would be to cut the budget in half and so when people say oh no these were her budgets she didn't want to cut anything this was

236what she was told by the district she had to cut so as you see there was the 22 temps and they don't know if they're coming back there was an orchestra teacher they have 41 teachers at this site they've cut a Dean they've cut a college in career technician a apparently I mean I I don't know if I could say whatever there's a few more positions that were going to be cut and so what her recommendation to the district was to cut the D program um she said to cut the PE teachers because they have 36 kids in PE and they have two teachers um she says the kids that are taking um PE as a mini elective there there's 80 kids that are electing to go into USI to do their mini electives and

237so she was talking about PE um she said that she was forced to fill Library position by the CCA um and so there's a lot of things that she recommended to cut so I think when people are sitting here saying well no nobody was told to cut we have 22 temps that are worried you know at ocscs there's 22 of the 41 teachers and then you're you go over there and you say give us the budget cuts because now your budget's only going to be $5.2 million so I have never said that well I'm not saying you did I'm not saying you did I know who said it but I'm not saying that you did and I think um where this is going and we'll be bringing probably back in April if not before that

238the budget stabilization plan we are looking districtwide not at one specific school at our staffing ratios are we overstaffed because people are the most you saw people are the most expensive thing yes they are so we are looking districtwide at what can we do to try to get this deficit spending down um so they have to have teachers to run that school if they have that enrollment they're going to have their teachers it probably won't be those specific teachers um I can't tell you right now until we finish doing the work that we're working on and we can bring it back to the board at that time but we are not cut cutting that budget in half okay so whoever gave that message that freaked everybody there out and said that they need to go

239to $5.2 million was incorrect I can't speak to that cuz I I don't know I don't know what was said before I got here okay cuz they were told all of these cuts that had to be made so these were the cuts that they said that they told the district because you know I you know you make you get told by the parent advisory committee you get told by the leadership over there you get told by all these people that this is what the district is telling them and that they're saying either you tell us what cuts to make or we're going to do it for you so they have to start making the hard decisions about what to cut at the school and what type of budget to have and the only thing that

240I could possibly think of is that and I don't know I can't speak for anybody else but and it wasn't you they didn't name you at all well it's fine MH um I would know what I said to somebody so of course but um we're trying to bring everything into alignment districtwide so if we're looking at you know that school we're going to be looking at okay what are this how many students are you going to have what are our staffing ratios are you overstaffed definitely and we're also having that conversation with every other school in the district right so maybe that make yeah well I mean it's it's fine but I mean when when they get told that they have to do this and to cut the programs and when you're looking at when

241you're looking at telling the district okay we'll cut our D program because something's going to open up at turey we'll cut PE we'll cut this we'll cut that you know even talking about um you know did they have there was even discussion like do they have to cut their music program and just start going because you know obviously they're a district Charter so they can have the opportunity to do before school and after school things with like prop 28 things like that and so you know when they're to do these cuts and then the parents start freaking out like are we going to have da next year here because this is a pro Pros cut are we going to have you know music are we going to have these things and then you you have

242this going on and so and this is what the message that ocss is getting from our district then so we'll be bringing back the budget stabiliz stabilization act in April and I think we'll have quite a few details that are in there that will be more specific to the items that you're talking about okay and we'll talk about it then is there any additional like we're talking about cutting costs what about increased Revenue like we looking at options there it's tough to increase Revenue in a school district I mean we really are new available grants and I mean that kind of stuff grant writers and really um I'm looking to like ed services and so on so they go out for all the grants that they possibly can get but grants are restricted so what

243we need is unrestricted money and that comes from the state if we could get the cola up if you know the state does extremely well and next year they give us more Cola than what they told us that's awesome um enrollment can go up um but that trend has not been oh and attendance that's right yeah 1% is 2.5 million that's right because we're at 95 right now we've held at 95 for a long time I'm beginning to lose hope no we're up from last year what it was 92 last year right but we've been St we've been stable at 95 for a while now we're up Year we're up we're up we need to get next year 96 we're at 94.8 is that correct 94.8 and our goal which we started a little late

244this year is to go up to 95.8 by the end of this year and we are doing major stuff throughout the district to reinforce and I mean I'm talking short of sending somebody on a trip on a yacht somewhere I mean that's a hey but I'll go to school hon there are a lot of reinforcers that were take the Vans instituting yeah the Vans here we go hey hey we pick get get him to school right and and if I if I may uh to your point uh trusty Fraser when it comes to the unique needs of each school so in some schools there's specific training that teachers have had like obviously if you have a DLI program or another type of program and it might be costly to move teachers out even though that

245might necessarily that might be based on vacancy and seniority and and and and and other factors something you have to really sit down with your Association and talk about how to ensure that you know we don't have to take someone who's trained already in a particular program and have them go somewhere else and then have someone else come in then they have to get retrained so but like as we discuss just the unique needs of the schools that's why it's important that all these meetings are held with the ed services and and business team so that we truly know exactly uh how to support those those schools that also are going to be cost effective but but the reality is Cuts yeah will will need to happen to some degree thank you Jo that's great

246okay thank you so [Music] [Applause] much get your exit now get your exit now that's a lot of work okay we still have to vote we still have to vote so all in favor I I I okay motion carries 5 Z moving on 18.3 I'll make a motion we approve the Orange County School of computer science Charter School 2425 second interim report second okay we have a motion by Mrs Buck uh second by Mr Frasier um so in that presentation there was a slide that discussed the the charter school so basically it is you've already seen the presentation it's the same it's the same thing okay any other further questions okay all in favor I I I okay any oppose I think we're good I'll make a motion for this one my daughter actually took

247this class so I saw the old book I'm glad we have a new book okay before we start do we want to do all these textbooks as a block yeah that would be totally fine if if you guys agree then make a motion that we move them all to the other yeah okay let's agenda we're getting we're getting close Okay so textbooks I'll make a motion that we approve AP Human Geography psychology Give me liberty in American history and uh sociology down to earth and higher level chemistry second okay we have a motion by Mrs Buck to approve all the textbooks from 9.2 down to 9.5 and a second by Mr Frasier is there any I'd like to invite Mr Young to the Lector to give a brief introduction of the process used do we

248need it all right thank you um as you uh well know um our curriculum Council uh meets four times a year uh to review textbooks it actually starts way be before that um when the teachers actually get together to review new materials that have uh come uh their Direction and uh a lot of the textbooks that were adopting in uh social science have uh have been long since overdue uh some of them 20 years as you saw in the report um so we wanted to make sure that our students had the access to the the most updated curriculum and materials uh as is laid out in our board policy and our resolutions um so a lot of teachers took a lot of time meeting with the Publishers reviewing many different versions of every textbook available

249um and then finalizing and coming to consensus on what would be the best textbook for our students and they did that for every subject area listed um and then they uh submitted that to curriculum Council for um re review and recommendation and then it went on a 30-day display uh for the public um in our lobby over here uh no comments were made by any of the public that reviewed any of the textbooks that were on display and so we humbly bring it before you guys for approval so that uh we can make the purchase and get these textbooks in our students hands uh next school year thank you um is there any questions or comments no I said I'm saving everything for consent okay this is the first time I've looked at a sociology

250book I've never taken it before really fascinating reading I learned a lot andology so I thank you guys for doing such a great job and uh I know these books will go in to good use okay ready to vote all in favor I I motion carries 5- Z here we go baby okay to the consent actions proposed in the consent calendar items are consistent with approved practices for the district and are deemed routine in nature the trustees receive board agenda backup information in advance of the scheduled meeting and are prepared to vote with knowledge of the block vote items is there any items to be pulled the only one I was going to pull I was going to pull something else the 21.6 the Linda Vista shade structures just to see what budget it was

251coming out of but I realize what budget is more than likely coming out of now um and so so 21.10 and that will be it for me and I will be fast anybody else nope okay can I have a motion then to approve I'll make a motion we move the block minus second okay we have a motion by Mrs Buck a second by Mr Frasier all in favor I hi hiim passes 5 Z okay 2110 okay I might have pulled the wrong one oh no I I know I'm stuck now I it's happened to me so I get it yeah I may have pulled the wrong one which one um I wanted the one where we had the licensing agreement for 437,000 which one was that was it maybe I maybe it was 22 licensing

252agreement for what yeah May yeah sorry okay okay so I um make a motion to approve 21.10 and I'm repoing 22.10 however we do this somebody just second we' already approved it okay can I second okay for 2110 perfect okay we have a motion by Mrs blades a second by Mrs Buck for 2110 there's no discussion no discussion let's vote oh okay because I wrongly pulled it yeah pull the wrong one okay all in favor I I and since we've already approved it I was not doing anything to approve it but I know that in the past we've had a lot of talk about licensing fees um and so I was just pointing out a lot of things we have licensing fees for a lot of different things but you know right here for our

253program we have a license with Edmonton for Apex and Corone learning licenses so we pay 47,2 just for licensing fees for three years for Buena Vista Parkview El Camino and our credit recovery school so I just wanted to point that out that you know when we're talking about licensing fees in pass we pay LIC licensing fees for a lot of different things and so just wanted to make people aware that this is kind of more of a standard thing and I didn't know that until the other license ing fees were brought up and so I'm just bringing it you know for everybody's knowledge and making it aware thank you Todd I'm rambling aren't I talk a little bit about that or is it kind of too late at this point just Apex is great say

254that yeah Apex is great discussion yeah we can discuss bring it up to give more detail we don't I don't I think it was just making a point it wasn't I think if we could get some clarification on those licensing fees because I thought they were for students so I don't we don't want to discuss it we're not going to discuss it but if we could get a clarification Dr Young I'll put in theate what a curriculum yeah I'll put in the upate okay perfect that would be perfect okay we have made it to Communications and board reports so we'll start with you short I'll try to be very short okay starting with me yep okay um I participated in the Linda Vista read Across America and read to the kindergarten and third grade classes

255um which was very fun I did that on Friday the I can't remember what day that was 7th um and so too I wanted to uh congratulate Sammy Sanchez and Olivia Davis there's the first there are esparanza CIF state champions in wrestling and this is the first time a boy and a girl from the same same school have claimed the same title and um Sammy Sanchez is also a world champion in wrestling and so I did not know that until I found that out at the CIF um deal um she also pointed out CIF champs for Eldorado girls water polo um and then also to this coming weekend El Dorado um they have their 2025 mock trial state finals after they won the OC championship and so they're going to be participating in that this

256weekend so good luck to Eldorado um and then so another thing too people continue to say and it was brought up tonight in public comment so I'm actually glad I printed the email um we keep getting told on social media and we keep being told about people being fired and so I was just going to read this email just to prove that we did not fire anybody um this is from April 21st 2023 7:09 a.m. says good morning this is from our M uh Michael Matthews our interim superintendent this morning Dr Rick Lopez provided me with a letter of res a effective June 30th 2023 he has accepted a position as the assistant superintendent of Human Resources in Claremont Unified School District beginning on July 1st 2023 I have informed Dr chernes and advised him

257that we will follow his lead on the Recruitment and hiring process and that we will keep you informed on the next steps so the thing that Dr chernis ran him out somehow board members ran him out or weired him or whatever I mean he took a job in Claremont and here's the proof of it he was not fired um from placen your Belinda and then another thing people have mentioned Jano and then it says same day except in the afternoon April 21st 2023 good afternoon board members this afternoon Dave jodano provided me with the letter of retirement effective September 30th 2023 I've informed Dr chernis advis will follow his lead on Recruitment and hiring process I will keep you informed on the next steps so as people continue to come up here and say people

258have been run out people have been fired this is one of the people who are claiming that we fired maybe one of a lot of people are claiming a lot of things and so I just figured I came across the email and I thought you know what I'll read this at the board meeting just to prove that you know what it was under Mike Matthews that he resigned and he went to Claremont you know to become the HR assistant superintendent over there and it was an opportunity for him um and so I just hope that we can um maybe just stop with this whole we fired Rick Lopez we ran him out I never had any issues with Rick Lopez in fact I don't even think I ever had a meeting individually with him and

259so as you know in board meetings in close session or even just dealing with this you know there there can be like you know very little interaction and so um just for the record I just wanted to you know for it to go on record so the the social media posts that we fired Rick or we fired all these people um hopefully can start to you know cease um I would also like to see if next month on our board um agenda if we can have a resolution to atch girls um Sports um because Gavin Newsome obviously just came out and said that this was an unfair practice I don't necessarily know why some of these PE things have been put into law but I think um on the agenda it would be nice um

260to support girl Sports and to for our board to um obviously I don't think we can pass anything but just have a resolution that we believe in protecting girl Sports and the safety of girl Sports um and I was also going to talk to um or you know Acting Superintendent about a couple other things that had come up um about some of the months that are people are celebrating I know some of the school sites not all the school sites um some of the principles are um are opting to have you know certain months um I guess uh certain certain months what would it be uh to just yeah like you know pride month whatever it is and so well I have no issue with that I have had a elementary school reach out to

261me and they were very concerned about a certain month that the principal is going to be promoting and so they did ask if they can opt out and so I did say I would ask to see if they can opt out of these lessons if they don't want their you know their kindergarten or their first or second grade um you know to be a part of the lessons and so I think that that's um something that we should address um you know if the parents like what is the option for the parents when something is kind of going out of the normal school activities and so that was it um and uh yeah and so uh yeah that's it I um I was gone I was gone on a a lovely um vacation to New

262Orleans from marra and I um really enjoyed the culture and um so I didn't get to you know do everything that I wanted to but I came back a little refreshed so got my energy back um and I wasn't eaten by a croc or an alligator in the swamp so they tried but uh yeah so I just um looking forward to um I'm not sure if I'll make Sunday's run but looking forward to the principal for day next week looking forward to all the activities that are coming up and then really just good luck to all of our um our students our students are absolutely killing it you know academically athletically I mean they're just doing a great job so it's an exciting time um you know to be a part of our school district

263and that is all all right um I'll make mine short but I also want to say congratulations to all the teams and the individuals who um had a great CIF season and for the academic de cathlon team and also mock trial so I'm just excited to see how all those results come out and I'm very um excited for them and wish them the best of luck as well uh this month I attended the Venture choir concert which you spoke about earlier I was there with with um Mrs Gray and we had a great time and we also there too as well and um I would like to see I would like to see more promotion on it next year and if we could sell out the pack that would be amazing it was a fundraiser

264and it was our first concert and I literally I don't think there was a dry eye in in the house it was just remarkable the job they did and um yeah I can't wait to see what else they come up with and how much bigger and better the show gets um but yes they did a wonderful job and like I said shout out to them and all the students who participated the par parents that were there it was just a wonderful environment um ESP bronza I attended the esparanza fundraiser that they hosted at the pack as well their show choir um um competition that was amazing um to see all the different schools there was even a school from Indiana that attended and to see how much um effort and detail they put into every

265school put into their props and their even their lighting scaffolds and you know the performances that they had i' never been to an event like that before but I am definitely going next year and I'm hearing a family member of mine might be there too as well so performing so I'm even more excited to see that and um hopefully like I said we can um r that they'll have it again next year um I did not get to see es bronza perform um since I was running a little behind but I can't wait to see them actually perform as well um I went to the Valencia cafeteria CA uh cafeteria tour for the new construction um and um I'm excited to see how that project turns out and how that gets going it's going to

266be amazing for the school and for all the students there um and especially their cafeteria um staff to have that new um construction and the new setup so that's going to be amazing as well and then I think that's about it I'll stop right there thank you all right well I've been chained to my desk figurativ not literally uh the last month so um I don't have a whole lot to report other than um the the new scoreboard that went at es bronza just seeing the things that we're doing around our campuses and the air conditioning we put in the gyms and the things that we're investing in our are School sites that are benefiting the students is so great um Mo dad brag my daughter got to sing the national anthem for that day

267so that was fantastic and phenomenal um and then uh I didn't get to go to the read Around America because we were traveling to uh cowp sandless abiso um touring the college with my son and I don't know if um like if you've had kids that you've gone through this College touring thing getting on campus with your kids and seeing the places that they can be and the opportunities that open up to them because of the things that they've done here and they've learned in the classrooms and in the whether it's in the auditori um choir or for on the on the field for sports or any other extracurricular things the the opportunities that are coming to these students if they are able to and I say this every time exercise their talents and really

268hone their skills at a place like this they are really going to succeed outside that and that's just really the the tip of the iceberg getting to see your kids uh in a new environment that's like wow this could be an amazing opportunity for him to be at specifically and um I just think that it's so cool to see the things that are happening in the district that are putting kids in positions where they can succeed outside after they leave here I just want to continue to make sure that we focus on that students first investing in our schools investing in our students and I'm just really happy to be a part of this and hopefully I have more um well I'm going to be back in my office tonight so I'll see you next

269month noisy um well I just have a few things that I don't have a whole lot to report out I um have been super busy with work so I haven't been able to get out to schools yes um but I've got a lot coming up on my list um many of which were mentioned tonight like artworks the opening night I'm so looking forward to seeing that over at the Nixon Library um on March 31st for those of you who didn't hear it earlier uh North Orange County Roop has a board meeting tomorrow night followed by ocba dinner meeting I'm going to try to hit both of those um the Holocaust art and writing contest looking forward to on Friday followed by the Shamrock and run and principal fruit of the day next week so we

270got a lot of all those fun spring activities and I mentioned before but just thank you so much to the staff for the list of questions that I had asked that all that backup information has been provided I am very thankful for that and that's all for me okay first I want to congratulate our Academic Decathlon our mock trial our wrestling state champions the El Dorado um water polo team for their first CIF um Champion for that school that's just amazing I'm a water polo Mom myself so I follow those Sports um so this month um I was able to attend um a CIF soccer game for Valencia for the girls team and watch them play their their hearts out Unfortunately they lost but they did such a great job and um I'm very proud

271of those girls also I attended the choir concert for Kramer and Valencia and it was such a fun night to see the impact of the extra money through prop 28 um through the arts program that's come through um they were able to hire a voice coach and many of these students were singing solos and Duets and my favorite um number of the night was um a middle school student from Kramer she sang a song that her mother wrote and her dad accompanied her on acoustic guitar and it was the song was called you and I and the mom wrote it when she was pregnant with her and it was it was a heart it was a tearjerker and and seeing some of these kids that have never sung solos or Duets get up and just

272to feel that family support and the the kids supporting them and encouraging them it was just a really a a great evening I also T um and got to see all the wonderful things that are going to happen at Valencia for the cafeteria and I also attended a free csba um Workshop given by braver angels and the title of the workshop was being effective School Board leader during paralyzing times so hopefully I can take some of those tools and use them um I was able to visit El Camino and I had a great um tour of the school and hearing more about all the wonderful things that they're doing at that school um when I walked into um a physics class and they were working on an experiment trying to make safer helmets for football

273players and so they were exploring um velocity and mass and using different products and and keeping track and so it was just really great to see that and I learned that they've added some extra electives this year they started a magazine and I was going to bring it to show you but I forgot it and um and they're also doing um weekly broadcasts and um they sent me a link and I got to watch the what the kids are doing and it's really fun and um it's it was it was really cute and um we we've talked a little bit tonight about their bridge pro their Edge program and some of the things they're doing so congratulations to them and all the hard work they're doing I also had the privilege of um reading at

274read Across America and I went to Morris and I got to read to a 4 five combo and a fifth grade class and I also went to Travis Ranch and I got to read to a TK class and just a side note I don't know what they're doing over there at Travis Ranch but that TK cap class was the the best behaved class I've ever been in those kids were I was just shocked I kept thinking what are the teachers over here doing but they're doing amazing work and and um yeah and I just wanted to thank the many parents and staff who make who make these celebrations for our students and make these fun events um it's a lot of hard work to pull these together and to organize the volunteers to come reading

275and I know a lot of work goes into it so my special thanks to all of you guys and um just some upcoming events don't forget to come out on Sunday to the Shamrock and run and um also um don't forget to put in your calendar um love placenta on May 3rd and and love your Belinda on April 26 great way to get community service get involved help support our local schools and that is the end of my report cour okay so tonight we're going to adjourn the evening in honor and remembrance of Cameron nun Nunes she passed away on January 31st and Cameron served as a dedicated Child Care teacher at Sierra Vista Elementary childcare and was a valued member of the placenti yinda Unified School District for six years she she was a

276lum of the school district and exemplified a deep commitment to the education and the wellbeing of our students she's the daughter of Cheryl Townsen a retired PUSD employee for 30 years who is part of our fiscal service department on behalf of the Board of Education and theti entire District Community we extend our heartfelt condolences to the family colleagues and all those whose lives she touched she will be greatly missed Aspire district and the community and I'll make that motion thank you so we have a motion by Mrs Anderson a second by Mrs blades all in favor I I I motion carried 0 and the meeting ends at 10:46