001good evening folks we're going to go ahead and reconvene into our regular session at 1810 the report that we have out of closed session includes the board appointed William Gray executive director of Educational Services effective July 31st 2023 the motion was brought forward by Miss Leander Blades seconded by Marilyn Anderson and carried 5-0 we also took a a vote on Miss Kylie then I must I'm butcher this again Cinema thank you Elementary School principal effective August 9th 2023 uh the motion was brought forward by Todd Frazier seconded by Leanne Leander blades motion carried 5-0 next the board took action to appoint Maria berga Varga Elementary School principal effective August 9th 2023 it was brought forward by Miss Kerry Buck seconded by Leander blades and the motion carried 5-0 uh the board also appointed Miss Tricia
002Gray Elementary School principal effective August 9th 2023 brought forward by Miss Carrie Buck seconded by Todd Frazier the motion carried 5-0 the board also appointed Miss Pola suchlin High School Prince assistant principal effective August 7th motion was brought forward by Miss Leander Blades seconded by Miss Kerry buck and it carried 5-0 next the board took action to appoint Christy coonan Elementary School assistant principal effective August 9 2023 motion was brought forward by Todd Frazier seconded by Leandra blades and the motion carried 5-0 uh next the board took action to a point Nancy blade Executive Director of Human Resources effective August 9 2023 this was brought forward by trustee Blades seconded by trustee Anderson the motion carried 5-0 oh okay um also the board took uh took action to appoint Brad Runge executive director of Maintenance
003and Facilities effective August 9th 2023 motion was brought forward by trustee Frazier seconded by trustee Anderson and carried 5-0 and last but not least the board took action to appoint Ali Lloyd assistant principal at El Dorado High School this motion was brought forward by trustee Anderson seconded by trustee blades and it carried 5-0 awesome thank you okay so at this point let's go ahead and have Mr Frazier do our Pledge of Allegiance please stand ready begin foreign okay all right so let's uh let's go ahead and document that all of our board members are present with the exclusion of our student board member um okay so I need a emotion to approve I'll make a motion to approve the August 8th 2023 Board of Education uh I do um president Youngblood I I asked the
004consent calendar item 21.51 which includes an agreement of the ocde and the district for professional development be pulled in the agenda amended staff found an amended contract covering the funding for this item had been board approved at the November 15 2022 meeting given that the amended contract was previously approved there's no need for this item on tonight's agenda and that's 21.51 on consent excellent thank you Dr chernus okay so I need a motion for the amended agenda please I'll make a motion to approve the August 8th 2023 Board of Education agenda as amended as recommended by the superintendent a second sure motion carry okay any comments okay all those in favor aye motion carries five oh thank you okay folks this is uh the public comment announcement public comment cards are available in the foyer
005cards must be completed and turned in prior to the designated time for public comment there is provided a maximum time of three minutes per person if translation is needed an additional three minutes will be given please let us know uh ahead of time so we can ensure that we are prepared we do have a civility policy Education Code 20 or 220 prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability gender gender identity gender expression nationality race or ethnicity religion sexual orientation or any other characteristics that are contained in the definition of hate crime set forth by section 422.55 of the penal code including immigration status okay I will need a motion I'll make a motion to approve the minutes of the regular board meeting all second June 20th 2023. excellent motion by Todd Frazier Marilyn Anderson seconded
006any comments comments regarding no no okay all right all those in favor aye motion carries five zero at this time I'd like to uh have the superintendent's report I'm going to turn it over to Dr chernus all right good evening again president Youngblood trustees executive cabinet members and members of the public this was an exciting uh um first week and so yesterday we welcomed back to all of our principals our assistant principals and our our new District Administrative team um we had a great professional development training yesterday as we're beginning to plan for the new year which starts Tuesday August 29th so for all the students out there you still have a lot more time than most schools as my children start on Monday and they're not too happy about that um as we do
007look ahead the theme of 2324 school year is together towards tomorrow which serves to remind us of the many possibilities next year will hold it and we're we're starting some really amazing programs we're very excited about um in particular we're really excited about the state of the district event and this will come up at our annual leadership Symposium for all of our district managers trustees and local officials this Thursday at the PAC at El Dorado High School really looking forward to talking to our leadership team and and Community leaders about what we're going to be doing this year and and Beyond and so uh that that'll be a great event we haven't had a state of the district event as I understand in a long time so this will be something that will be the
008whole Community can get behind at this time I'd like to to introduce some of our new District leaders some of which have been announced and approved and some are going to be approved in the very near future of this meeting one of those being our new assistant superintendent of administrative Services Mr Gary Stein um and uh before I I asked Mr Stein to come up and we're really excited to have you here I want to thank David Giordano for um for his service to the district this is your last board meeting I know you really really going to miss us here and Miss Covenant board meetings uh but you know in my short time I've really enjoyed working with you and um on behalf of all the students in this district and all the people
009that have been you know working with you we thank you for your service um and we know you're not going too far away so uh we will definitely stay in touch um so at this time Gary Stein is joining us he's uh he was serving as the executive director of support services for the Orange County Department of Education for the last 18 years and uh we were lucky enough to to pull him out of there uh before that he was the director of I.T um he worked three years in a local school district um and he served some time in the Private Industry um also in uh software development and um nit uh he received his Master's in public administration from University of Illinois his bachelor's in computer information systems from Devry University Pomona he
010interviewed with members of executive cabinet several times he's he's uh met with me and he's been really highly recommended by by a lot of people that I respect and Trust so he's going to start with us the end of August um we'll have about a week overlap with Mr Giordano which were um we're thankful for and we can't wait to have you on our team and um well your contract is still uh you know down the line on the agenda I'd love for you to come up and uh and say a few words and I understand your wife's here as well well so um thank you also welcome to pyl and Gary come on up thank you very much and with the overlap I think we're gonna have to arm wrestle to figure out who
011gets the desk in the office but it should be fun so good evening president Youngblood Board of Trustees members of executive cabinet it's an honor for me to be here um especially I have my wife here this is her first board meeting she's ever attended so hopefully it'll it'll go smoothly um that's a nervous laugh it's really an honor to be here and I want to thank you for this opportunity to work with this great District it's and for this great Community it's evident how involved the community is and ever since I've started uh I've been working at the county for a long time as Dr chern has pointed out um and so uh I'm well aware of how involved the community is and how much support this community has or gives to the school
012district and it means a lot and I look forward to being a part of that and and to work together to help continue that tradition of Excellence that that is here at pyl and so um I just want to say thank you to um after the announcement came out Thursday there was an overwhelming response of encouragement and and congratulations I wanted to say thank you for that and I look forward to being part of this team so thank you very much thank you and next our new executive director of secondary education Dr William Gray Dr Gray came to us from Magnolia Public Schools where he was serving as director of ed services throughout his career in public education he's held several other positions including coordinator of college career Readiness High School principal assistant principal at
013the middle school and high school levels academic Dean department chair history teacher in Los Angeles in Orange counties his most recent role allowed him to increase teacher collaboration and data use to improve instruction across schools provide leadership for Effective College and Career Readiness and create new alumni success positions to increase College persistence for at promised graduates Dr Gray earned his Doctorate from Azusa Pacific University his master is in teaching and his Bachelors from the University of California Irvine he has hit the ground running he's done already a tremendous amount of work he has a great skill set around teaching and learning and assessment and accountability and so our goal this year and I'll continue to speak to this is getting getting more and more kids to grade level and Beyond and he's the right person
014to help us get there so um uh Dr Gray welcome and come on up and say a few words [Applause] um I asked Mr Stein not to set the bar too high but uh that didn't really work so good evening president Youngblood trustees Dr Curtis and executive cabinet members as you know I was able to join the ed services team last week to prepare for and co-facilitate our principal Retreat that we had In This Very Room on Monday and it was a wonderful day for me to get to meet our School site leaders and spend time setting the tone for where we want to go as a district I'm happy to share that in the short time I've been here I've already been welcomed into the pyl family and I'm humbled and honored and tremendously
015excited to be a part of the pyl family I do want to thank my family my wife for being here this is her first and and last board meeting so just very excited to accomplish great things together so thank you thank you okay next we have our new principal for Wagner Elementary School kyleen fenema and uh we're really excited to have Colleen join us um uh with uh six years of experience as an assistant principal most recently in Albert prior to her time as an administrator she worked closely with Educators and is as an instructional coach she was a classroom teacher in Kinder first fourth and fourth grade for many years and her experience has allowed her opportunity to work with many different communities she earned her Masters in Ed leadership with a focus on
016technology from San Diego State University her Bachelor's in elementary education from the University of Oklahoma and we look forward to seeing great things as she leads the Wagner Wildcats she also lives in the community and has kids that you know go to our school so this is really exciting to have virtual and they're here all right uh so uh Kylene come on up and and say a few words congratulations well first I have to say thank you so much to Executive cabinet to superintendent charnis to president Youngblood to the board um I just cannot explain to the level that my heart is just full of gratitude and joy right now I know that this district is so steeped in a tradition of excellence and support for everybody and this is actually the schools are the
017reason why my family moved here a year ago and I've gotten to see the schools from the parent side of things and now that I'm in the employee side of things I can tell that that this is an accidental there's so much going on behind the scenes everyone is so supportive so welcoming and I am excited to join the Wagner family so I just say thank you so much I'm excited to join this community and go Wildcats we have a few more new folks I'd like to introduce our new Glenview Elementary principal Viti Fraga vidi's no stranger to pyl she served as the assistant principal at Valadez Middle School in Placentia for the past two years and she's done a fabulous job there uh and prior to that she was a middle school assistant principal
018in Menifee Union School District and an elementary educational specialist for the San Jacinto Unified School District she Prides herself on being the first in her family to attend and graduate from University having earned her Masters in Education in vouchers with a minor in special ed and Spanish from Chico State University she's fluent in Spanish which will definitely help at Glenview and she has three children some of which happen to be attending a dual immersion program in their home District similar to that of Glenview so hey we need the students so start working on your kids we're confident in her ability to lead Glenview including the school's robust dual Language Academy there so um love to have you come up if you can roll on up here and say a few words thank you I'd like
019to take this opportunity just to say thank you I am just so thrilled to have this opportunity and I'm just excited to start I'm leading and supporting the Glenview community and I gotta say go Bulldog thank you all right and finally our new principal at Rose Drive um is Trisha gray and uh Trish is also a long time educator and administrator here in pyl having served as uh most recently as the assistant principal at times elementary school for the last four years her career in education began 25 years ago in East Whittier City School District as a first second and fifth grade teacher and before she became an administrator in pyl Trisha served as a school interventionist specialist where she ran an intervention program for struggling students supported the school and parent workshops offered teacher
020training and support and served as an administrative designee she's heard she's earned her Masters in Education with a reading specialist credential from Cal State Fullerton and her Bachelor's in sociology from UCSB go gauchos and it's safe to say she'll bring a wealth of knowledge and experience to lead the Rose Drive campus I'd love to invite you up Trisha to say a few words [Applause] and the executive cabinet I am so excited to be joining uh Rose Drive as the principal I know that that Community is tight-knit community just really comes together for the benefit of the students and I can't wait to be a part of it I look forward to continuing that mission that is established at Rose Drive in preparing all students to successfully meet the challenges of the future and become true
02121st century learners thank you for investing me with this responsibility I look forward to it it's going to be a great year and I have to say go road runners [Laughter] moving right along we have been busy this summer and so I just want to take an opportunity to let the board know um and and the folks here um what we've been doing it's it's typically for school districts one of the busiest times of the year um and so I want to thank our executive director Brad Runge for um uh for completing all these projects some of the projects that that we've done this summer preparation for our dual immersion program at Bernardo um roofing project the seven of our sites exterior painting at Valencia field Renovations at nine of our sites new playground installations
022classroom wall installations a front lobby restroom remodel at Travis uh preparation of the new preschool programs that Brian and Wagner restroom remodels at Fairmont El Dorado High School Esperanza high school and tuffery kitchen and Food Service improvements at Esperanza High School in Tuffy Middle School tennis court resurfacing and repairs asphalt projects at seven sites new flooring and fire alarm system upgrades at various sites installation of new scoreboards at El Dorado and Valencia High Schools classroom ceiling tile Replacements district-wide a deep cleaning at all schools and we are just really grateful for our team for working so hard while the students are away so when they come back they come back to to Great facilities so thank you to our facilities Department uh next uh as many of you've seen we've been sending out I've been
023sending out a Monday message every two weeks um so we started this back in mid-may I launched a new bi-weekly newsletter called the Monday message and we share it with families and staff we'll continue to do that it's to personalize a message for me from often from our school board president and talk about things going on in our district and so the feedback's been overwhelmingly positive the last Edition we got over 30 000 views so we're really getting the word out and communicating with with our folks and we'll continue that this year and with that in the next Monday message that it will come out um in a few weeks we'll be starting the superintendent committees and so uh I'll be hosting four Community advisory committees to discuss uh districts plans to allow parents and
024Guardians to opportunity for feedback to connect with me um they'll be via zoom in the evening so parents that are working can still come and attend um and uh they'll be four there'll be an elementary school parent committee a Middle School Parent committee a High School parent committee and a special education parent committee I'd love to have up to two board members on each of these and so uh we'll be getting the board information on that and we'll be sending out applications in this money message for community members to apply and and join the committee and that concludes my report awesome thank you Dr chernus well what an addition holy cow I look uh look forward to seeing all that progress so welcome okay this brings us to our public comment public comment is an
025opportunity for the public to provide an input to the Board of Education during the public comment period board members do not dialogue with the speakers or make comments regarding information shared each speaker will have three minutes we have 10 speakers wishing to speak tonight so that's three minutes I will ask that speakers repeat their name when they come up to the podium please and that kind of gives us a little heads up and I will call the first four speakers please sit in the front row and be ready to go okay all right our first one uh Jenny burmer Paula powers Andy Falco and Brittany Raynor Jenny you'll be first or I think we're using the center one yes ma'am but it's Jenny brebber with thank you I first want to personally thank the board
026for your unanimous decision to make naloxone available at all of our campuses this action demonstrates commitment to the health and well-being of our students and for that I sincerely thank you however I like to address a concern that's been on the minds of many Educators and staff including myself while having naloxone accessible is a crucial step forward we find ourselves in a situation where teachers and staff are unaware of its precise location on campus and uncertain who is trained to administer this effectively this knowledge Gap is something we must address urgently to ensure that this life-saving intervention can be utilized swiftly and efficiently when the need arises in light of this I urge a school board to provide voluntary training for teachers and staff in administering naloxone just as we ensure that all staff members
027are well versed in using fire extinguishers and defibrillators we should strive to make naloxone equally accessible and understood there should be naloxone included in the emergency backpacks in every classroom it's little this is what it looks like I have it in my purse at all times I have a friend just last week in our community that saves Somebody by having us in her purse allow me to draw your attention to a successful president for this Approach at Esperanza High School the learn from Oregon program this initiative born out of a tragedy after loss of a student has equipped our students and staff with the vital skills of CPR let us not wait for another heartbreaking incident to Spur us into action I implore the school board to seize this opportunity to ensure that naloxone is
028as readily available as any other life-saving tools within our schools together we can make a difference protect our students and truly embody the values of care and compassion that our educational institutions should stand for thank you for your time and your consideration Paula powers oh that's loud good evening as we begin a new year I'd like to share some concerns that I have as a mom of a pyl student first it concerns me that many hard-working professionals are leaving our district not so long ago we were considered a destination District that attracted talented leaders and kept good people for years because they loved and were invested in our community parents sought out this District not only for its high achievement record but because of its family feel I am broken-hearted to hear that talented people
029are looking to leave because the tone here has drastically changed I hope that those of you that are new to pylusd see the value in our community and take time to nurture this family another concern of mine is the board's consideration of leaving the California School Board Association no board member has explained specifically the reason for this and what plans are in place to fill the Gap in guidance or what liabilities will be incurred once we no longer have access to membership services according to the csba website the goal of its membership is to inspire our members to be knowledgeable leaders extraordinary governance practitioners and Ardent advocates for all students I cannot see any justification or benefit for not being a knowledgeable leader or an Ardent advocate for our students our educators are expected to
030be trained on a variety of topics each year why wouldn't we expect the same for our board members our kids deserve trained trustees that understand the expectations of the job and seek support offered on a range of topics provided by csba as John F Kennedy wrote leadership and learning are indispensable to each other in conclusion I'd like to wish each teacher a relaxing final few weeks of Summer please ignore the negative noise you hear and know the overwhelming majority of families in our communities support and appreciate you we are excited to see you soon and are thankful for your knowledge dedication and inspiration thank you [Applause] there's why is everybody leaving they must have heard hello um about three or four years ago or so I attended my first school board meeting with my wife
031and it was her and I and maybe two or three other people and we began to hear some things that were going on in the school district and we're a little surprised and a little bit shocked and uh in some ways we were some of our thoughts about what was going on here were confirmed so then I began to televise and live stream uh the board meetings before they had cameras inside here and more people became a little bit concerned as they heard what was going on at the school board meetings and so over the last several years and in between I've been threatened to be arrested for trespassing once when I was here and a number of other things and so to say it's been a little bit of a rough road as we've
032gone through the last few years here at pylusd is um probably not telling the whole story but uh the parents behind me that that's that continue to come that continue to contact me and other people in the community we began to rally and uh and I think what we're seeing today is the results of parents being involved and um people really looking at what we could do in this school district that maybe some people have just become stale in their jobs here I'm not sure exactly how to explain some of the things were going on but I can tell you today is one of the proudest days that I've had and I wasn't going to come today because I have my I have five kids that are in the school district we had quite a
033a lot still to do this summer but I'm glad I came because I I see that every parent that was involved in helping with the elections for the school board members that are currently on to the superintendents and the changes are being made I am so pleased and so happy and so excited to see what's going to be happening in the school district going forward it's not to say that at times we did not have a great history here and probably some amazing teachers and we still do but I always knew we could do better and I always knew that some of the things that were going on just shouldn't be happening and I've been excited to hear about the things that have been happening throughout the summer and some of the changes and the
034new faces that we're seeing very excited Olivia to see you there I've been meaning to email you and say congratulations but I'm glad to see that you are up there and not sitting over here any longer um one other thing I want to talk about that's unrelated that but but thank you so much for all your hard work it's uh I drive around now because again I have so many kids that are in the school district I can see the the schools look brighter uh some of them are getting paint uh and things that look fantastic the only thing I want to say before I leave is that there's uh we have to do something about the cost of sports it's incredible I have two uh two girls in cheerleading at El Dorado and I
035have one son at lacrosse School hasn't started yet and and my wife and I have spent thousands of dollars already and the school season or the the sports season hasn't even started I don't know for uh we're blessed that we can afford to to do what we can do now but I don't know how many families out there there's no way that they can be in sports there's so many children being left out of sports but they simply can't afford it so we just really got to look at the cost behind all the sports thank you I appreciate it [Applause] good evening um so after um reading over some of the disputed items I'm Brittany Rainier with NCR La sorry after reading over some of the disputed items I really wanted to focus on teacher
036evaluations um in a charter school many aspects of the school or teacher parent and student-led teachers will have a large voice in how their classrooms will run with that being said we will use the California standards of teaching profession also known as the cstps in order to formally evaluate our teachers each year teachers will be given formal evaluations um where they will choose one to three cstps that they feel they need or would like to grow in they will also complete a form in which details standards being taught practice is used and before the observation the teacher will meet with the admin for a pre-observation meeting where the teacher in the admin will discuss the reason for the goals narrow down to one goal together and then discuss how the teacher will accomplish the goal
037set yeah I'm in and the teacher will review the lessons being submitted and will give any pre-feedback on the goal chosen they will add goals as necessary Administration will then observe the lesson and add any comments based on the goal chosen after the pre-observation meeting admin will formally sit down and observe the lessons submitted basing comments and strategies on the goal chosen after the observation there will be a reflection meeting where admin and the teacher will discuss from both sides how they feel the lesson was taught and review student work and see where they are working on growing their goals along with formal evaluations there will be many informal evaluations where admin will be involved in walking through and participating in classrooms and Student Activities there will be school-wide goals Based on data collection that
038will be worked on throughout professional development and these observations as well I truly believe in this model I've been actively teaching it for the past 10 years and I have seen countless students come in who are behind over two grade levels and rise and Excel because they just needed something different I have seen students come in who were behind not just academically but socially and they thrive in this built-in Leadership Model we are all here to do what's best for the students and by saying yes today you are providing an opportunity for Student Success in the community that most otherwise they would not be able to afford or find elsewhere thank you okay next four up uh Gary Davis Christy Feldman Shanny Murray and Megan Moscow if I said that right good evening um sorry
039for the confusion I thought I thought we might speak on our end of 16.1 so sorry about that uh but good evening board president members of the board it's uh nice to see you all tonight I have uh well three minutes to respond to a 21-page legal document that has just under 90 findings of fact so I'm going to do my best to speak quickly as you all know we submitted a line by line response on Friday I hope you all had a chance to review it um so given the tight timeline I have I really just want to focus on two things first of all what is classical education if you read the staff report it seems like there's some some confusion about what classical education is and isn't in that it asserts that
040your District currently offers classical education what I want to say is that classical education is the is the education our founding fathers and mothers received although not as like basic and old as that sounds classical education is really about helping young people to achieve their full potential and to learn to love that which is good true and beautiful classical education utilizes the trivia model of learning the three phases of the Trivium are grammar logic and rhetoric classical education uses the Socratic method of teaching and of learning classical education relies heavily on the use of primary source text primary source documents and classical texts using textbooks as a supplement to those documents as opposed to vice versa which happens in traditional public education classical education is heavy on reading and writing for sure especially in the
041beginning but classical education also is all about math science and the Arts our school will use the Franklin Covey Leader in Me program which is how we're going to teach leadership by and large including servant leadership our unique educational model of classical Education and Leadership taken together is unlike anything that pyl has currently within the district however we do think it will complement you well and we hope you are as excited about this offering your community as we are my second point is around facilities we've identified six potential private facilities that we think could work for our school the challenge is that until we are approved as a school we can't enter into a lease we can't submit a conditional use permit application to the city which is what will be required for zoning and
042use and so um so we're here tonight really sort of at a Crossroads and what I'll say is that if you approve us tonight that process of getting a facility in under contract and through the conditional use process and then building it out will probably take about a year and we would open school in about a year if we're denied tonight and we lose three months because we have to go to the County Board of Education for approval I can guarantee you will be standing here talking to you about a prop 39 School District facility just because we'll run out of time so closing I would encourage you to review our line by line just response to The District staff report I think you'll see that staff is not correctly interpreting the law they're asking
043for things that aren't required by law in some cases they missed what's in our petition so anyway our track records strong and we hope that you'll approve us that I think thank you sir foreign good evening I'm Christy Feldman I'm happy to be here representing California Republic Leadership Academy I am an attorney from Young menian Corps our office represents more than half the charter schools in the state and we are happy to be here with crla tonight um we have reviewed the petition and the staff's statutory findings um as Mr Davis said Sierra submitted a detailed response to each staff finding so I'll kind of be summarizing the uh the legal issues here I'm sure you've read and considered that response so ultimately the law is clear it is the intent of the California state
044legislature that Charter Schools become an integral part of the California Edge education system and they there is a presumption in favor of approval of charter schools and they can only be denied if you make one of eight statutory findings and each of those statutory findings must be supported by factual findings uh the staff has chosen four of these legal findings uh to try to pursue unfortunately their suggested findings are based largely on speculation on misinterpretation of the law erroneous readings of the charter petition as Mr Davis suggested sometimes they just missed things that were in fact included um in our petition uh the but the vast majorities of those findings simply ask the charter school to have submitted information that is not required under the law the law is clear that we have to provide
045a uh that the school has to provide a description of of 15 items and uh certain things like an address for a facility for obvious reasons are not included in those so there are some specifics that just go beyond the legal requirements that were requested in those findings as Mr Davis indicated uh there was a lot uh there were several findings based upon attempting to establish duplication uh of District programs but ultimately there's not a single School in pil USD that can offer this special type of programming um that crla is offering to your students and students in the neighborhood so uh we I just want to stress and request your careful consideration we believe it would be an abusive discretion for the board to base denial upon the flawed findings submitted by the staff
046the presumption is for approval and CRA would be an asset to this community and its children thank you ma'am yes Marie hi my name is Shanny Murray two quick comments one please vote to accept the staff report on the charter petition which concludes that the charter presents an unsound educational program it says the superintendent recommends that the board deny the petition and I hope you do so and even if they appeal uh I hope I think that more people will pay attention to the Orange County Board of Education if it tries to approve a charter that the staff superintendent and all five board members don't support and that's in addition to the almost 800 community members who signed my petition to deny the crla charter let's send a strong message that we hear in pyl
047want to prioritize local students and protect our district resources and number two I just want to say that I support csba membership the csba is such a strong advocate for public education I think it provides important leadership and training gives guidance on legal compliance to avoid costly lawsuits and helps amplify pyl's voice at the state level I hope you maintain this valuable resource thank you [Applause] thank you hello Megan law school I just wanted to say really quickly that I also um requested the board vote to accept the staff recommendation to deny the charter petition from crla for all of the reasons that have been mentioned in the staff reports um this also is not the first staff report to review a position from crla but actually the third and the third to suggest denial
048San Juan Capistrano denied and actually overall denied which is what resulted in the OC board petition the petition at the board the staff also recommended that it be denied and the board overturned it I hope that you will read and take seriously the staff report and the comments within what I found in my readings of all of the petitions and all of the staff reports is that there have been inconsistencies between the applications and responses to applications that have been made in response to staff reports that in the later staff reports have been admitted by the petitioners to not be things that they intend to follow through on specifically with stirs and the pension programs that was a specific response to a staff report and recommendation that in order to approve they consider the pensioning
049or retirement programs for the teachers their response was that they would and they included in the application and then in rsf report it was revealed in the interview that they did not plan to follow through with sirs in the San Juan Capistrano report they also admitted to plagiarizing parts of the application from ivy league websites um they're unfamiliar with the existing District offerings this has been consistent throughout the staff recommendations for instance my daughter has taken Latin at Golden Elementary in our district in the fifth grade like Latin is offered here you can you can get exposure to Latin as well as several other foreign languages not just Latin the representation on Sierra lease word is homogeneous at best although I do appreciate them removing the references to the alcoholic preferences of one of their
050board members from the original application their proposed administrative staff and at least two out of the three applications have not even met the their own stated Staffing requirements respective to their principals who were required to have certain certificates and a quick search of publicly accessible State bases databases indicated that they did not and there have not been significant improvements from the first application to the Third I also agree with everything Paula mentioned and her public comment regarding csba I'm concerned about what alternatives to the supporting programs provided by csba are proposed as alternatives thank you all for your time [Applause] okay our last two speakers are Denise with no last name and Anton d my name is Anton d the absolute conservative chicanery being presented by Leandra blades Todd Frazier and Sean Youngblood today is
051shocking it took days of digging sitting through podcasts and reading transcripts for me to factually State too that the transferring of your school district to the CPC is a financial and societal danger that only they benefit from starters the CPC has openly stated their anti-union stance through their outspoken opinion against bills that would support teachers and members of the board here and their ability to defend themselves from truly forced political curriculum like these so sweetly named traditional curriculum now while some of you were attending csba meetings Leandra blades and Sean Youngblood have been attending the CPC training instead this training is brought to them by the membership organization Clio an offshoot of CPC I cannot stress to you enough the backwards logic of this Association they advocate for the freedom to harass teachers to the
052point of threats they wish to weaken the power of the teachers union in the school boards and they seek the control of the information given to schools under the guise of hypersexualization see their statements on bills 1078 1352 and 596 which I have thoroughly read during my investigation not only does the CPC make radical and baseless claims like how critical race theory is really Marxist propaganda see the critical race Theory segment of the home website but nowhere do they provide resources information of curriculums or faculty information of future bills like the csba does your school district would be hemorrhaging staff as your as your leaders then learned that they have not only been stripped of their Union support as they are cast into the dark while other districts wonder what happened to pylusd but now
053must abide by an organization that doesn't even inform its members of basic skills unless they enroll in a subscription-based course of 15 classes hid behind a nine dollar paywall that I paid for and listened to the CPC is a political sham group that is being placed in front of you as a worthy alternative to the union that spans the entire state by Leandra blades Sean Youngblood and Todd Frazier and quite frankly it is an insult to the intelligence of the board and those beneath them the cpc's presentation of fear-mongering without basis or statistics is a red flag that even if they support both political sides their unprofessional behavior is inexcusable [Applause] okay I'm Denise may not just Denise like Cher I have a last name I guess I didn't write it um I just want
054to speak about csba um following that but csva all the districts in the state are members of csba or a good majority of them because it offers training it offers training for board members most of you have not been in a classroom you're not teachers you haven't been staff in schools so you don't understand what's happening in the classroom and how csva helps support that and that's why csba is important for you to attend those trainings it lets you know about curriculum about the laws and it advocates for all students and as people who have not been teachers principals admin even you know support staff you guys don't quite understand the importance of that training and having a program that advocates for all staff and students and so I hope that you guys will think
055about csva and not remove us from csba it is an important tool that every school district uses to keep everybody current and safe and keep our students safe and that's all I wanted to speak to thank you okay thank you everyone for sharing uh this brings us to our Communications and board report and we'll go ahead and start down at the end I can trustee buck when you're ready sure thank you well there's not a lot I have to report um really the only thing that has been going on lately is North Count North Orange County ROP had their annual in-service this last week and their keynote speaker was Carlos Whitaker who was wonderful he's the author of moment maker and he came and talked a lot about the different moments that you can capture
056that you can that you can save and that you can have a difference with with everybody it's really based on a relationship so moments with students moments with colleagues moments with family so the North Orange County ROP theme this year is raving moments and to create raving moments for students and for staff so the chaff staff was charged at the end service with creating and claiming those com those moments and celebrating and elevating all of the students um in addition I had a wonderful trip this summer I got to travel around the Midwest and traveled from Detroit all the way down to New Orleans and I just wanted to highlight I stopped at the Civil Rights Museum in Memphis Tennessee and they had a wonderful exhibit on the brown act and even Mendez and a
057lot about education so if you're ever in Memphis I encourage you to go to the Civil Rights Museum it's right there at the site where Martin Luther King was assassinated there's so much information it was incredibly impressive but I would encourage you all to go to that and as was mentioned the schools are looking beautiful and I just want to point that out as well and and thank all of the staff that are out there doing all of that hard work over the summer as some of us are are taking those trips and and are on vacation and our students are re regrouping from for the year and teachers are getting ready they're going to come into amazing amazing classrooms and to their sites you'll see as I don't know if we'll actually bring mention
058it or pull it but we've had a lot of projectors and screens that have been replaced this last year and so it really will be a a new place for some of those students that haven't had those screens yet we had a few last year but this year from what I'm understanding they're all done congratulations to all the staff doing that that's an immense amount of work but thank you for getting the school ready and I'm looking forward to September for me [Applause] good evening everybody my report is also short first I'd like to welcome all of our new administrators that were highlighted today many of them left so hopefully they'll rewind and watch it online and and no we're I'm very excited to get to know them and and build relationships with them as
059we work to improve the education for our Scholars I would like to in conjunction to that thank our human resource department for all their hard work and getting our schools up and running um for our Scholars on August 29th reading my reports you guys have not had a break and I just thank you guys so much for making sure everything is in place make sure you guys make a big difference um I also want to thank our facility and maintenance team for all their hard work getting our schools ready um I have had a personal Evolution or time thing of watching Valencia High School get painted and updated almost on a daily basis and I'm like I really like the black I don't I never thought I would I thought it was you know a
060blue school but I'm kind of like in the black and the blue and I know that that is a tremendous amount of work to organize and to get through and it's just everything from you know black tops to roofs you know Landscaping cleaning everything it's just amazing and all the hard work that goes into the schools during the summer so thank you Maintenance and Facilities and I'm looking forward to the Symposium on Thursday and before um the end I'd like to publicly thank Mr Giordano for his tenure here at pyl he has served us very well and kept us financially stable um and helped guide us through a lot of difficult um negotiations and different things that we've had to to do and especially for the refinancing of our bonds thank you for that with
061that big savings um and on a personal level he's been really gracious to open up his office to me every time I have a weird question and we sit with the books and he explains it to me at my level so good luck um and I'm just I wish you the well on your next adventures and um you will be missed thank you [Applause] all right I'll see if I can be shorter than both of you um the The Summer's been busy for my family we've got three kids that are all in sports at Esperanza so it has been from one basketball tournament at Valencia where we see all the painting and stuff going on to football practice and girls flag football which if you did not know we have girls flag football at all
062four high schools which is pretty exciting first year CIF Sports so go support your girls flag football teams uh especially Esperanza can I say that up here um it's just been good to see the the way that adding Athletics really integrates multiple students that wouldn't have otherwise engaged we've got a lot of softball players we've got a lot of non-athletes and we've got football players well now they're football players basketball players and things it's just it's neat to see that I love Athletics as as being able to promote student connection and uh just everything that comes along with that so that's really great um uh then I just attended a meeting with Carrie and Leandra at El Dorado about the light project and it was the questions that were asked and answered I think are
063is the information that we were looking for the thing that I sensed and I've said it several times up here that I think is a theme a negative theme here in the district is accountability there's a lot of times that we say that we'll do a thing whether it's locking a gate or keeping people off a field at a certain time or turning lights off when they're supposed to be off we don't do it or at least we don't follow up well enough where the community Unity feels like we're actually paying attention so that's one of the things as we go through many different items that we I want to make sure that we are held we hold ourselves accountable that we do the things for the community that we say we're going to do
064and that we first and foremost uh support the students because that's what this is all about and making sure that everything that we do causes our students to leave here better than they came in so that's all I got was it shorter [Applause] mine will be short as well I was able to go to a conference in Napa for the California Association of black school Educators I was joined by Dr Gates we sat in a lot of meetings a lot of breakout rooms and we got a lot of great information there are some fun activities that we had after and I don't know if we want to compare bowling scores tonight but we can we had a great time we met a lot of great people um and I think too even like you know
065when you're in the when you're in the room and you're you know have those presentations you really gain a lot but I think what you really gain more is when you're able to go out and talk and be in the breakout rooms and the stuff that you do after and that's where the real conversations happen and so I think we have found some lifelong friends and um uh people who want to partner alongside of us and so that was a really exciting thing for us to uh to experience and we're looking forward to the future um conferences for the California Association of black school educators um I'm looking forward to the state of the school district on Thursday um very excited I know there's a lot of community members that are coming there's a lot
066of I believe the police Chiefs are coming we have some council members coming and so it will be a big deal and I'm really glad that we're showcasing what our district has to offer and where we want to take our district into the future I also attended the town hall at El Dorado about the lights and listened to presentation I agree with Todd about the accountability aspect we need to in order to go forward in a lot of these projects we need to make sure that we are accountable to the community and to the uh you know the surrounding Community to as we continue to do these things and I think up until now we have not been great about the schedule and you know things have maybe gone past or after hours and so
067I really feel in the future we really need to to do what's right and make sure that we are accountable not only to our staff but also to the community and I think too that that could also bring up the Civic Center Act and the Civics interact is about our outside users and so we have some fields that are not supposed to be used and we have uh some of our Fields aren't supposed to be used at all and then some of our fields are rented out to outside users so if your child is part of you know say that one of the high school sports then that feel is obviously with them and the coach that's accessible to you but our outside users such as travel ball teams Club teams um Friday Night Lights
068thefl those things those have to be rented out through our district facility and so if we see people that are using the fields we need to report that because that is disrupting the community around there people aren't supposed to be on the field not only does that hold the district accountable for any type of injuries because we don't know these people are on their fields and so but it also too that is about accountability and it's about accountability to the neighbors that live in the areas we if somebody's not supposed to be accessing a field at all and they're out there on a Sunday that's not right for the community it's not right for the district because it opens up to so much liability so I think in the future we really are looking for
069a lot more accountability and I think to also gaining the trust of the community by doing so and so that is all I have I'm really looking forward to this upcoming school year I'm super super excited about everybody up here everybody out there I know that yesterday we had a lot of great feedback from the principals leadership meeting that was in here they said a lot of them came away and said that they are so excited then this is like one of the best meetings that they'd ever attended in the district and they have a clear plan going forward so I'd really like to thank our entire team and everyone that's been working so hard to push this Mission forward and I really appreciate it and I know the teachers that are excited everyone's really
070looking forward to this next school year and to where our district is going and I'm really looking forward to Thursday to hearing more about it and the excitement that that's going to cost so thank you so much and let's look forward to a great school year okay that was a kind of a lot for some people that didn't do anything this summer right um okay so uh I just want to reiterate what my colleagues are also saying it it feels like our um our district is like a coiled Spring right now we're ready for these student Scholars to come in we've got teachers and administrators that are just busting their tails trying to get themselves ready for this upcoming year and I just want to wish him the best this year I am I am
071so looking forward to uh just the outstanding things that are going to happen so I am very positive um with just the new um staff that we have the new faces uh that's going to be amazing next year we're going to be coming back around this time and going wow you know that was an incredible year so um I also want to thank Mr Giordano I will be missing him he's uh he's got his guided us through several situations with uh with a good clear understanding for for us he's he's so well spoken and makes it easily understandable for me especially that don't like numbers so good luck to you sir and um uh other than that I too am looking forward to the Symposium on Thursday this should be pretty incredible I I love
072the fact that we are having like a state of the district address uh I think Communication in in part um is going to just make everything work and flow better so um so good job staff and let's uh let's keep it going okay with that said let's go ahead and move on into our action items action items so I will need a motion does anyone need a break restroom break or anything you guys okay okay all right let's continue I'll make a motion that we where are we on our 15 15.1 I don't have my regular language so it's hard to so I make a motion that we approve the district membership in the California school boards Association and the California school boards Association legal education legal Alliance for 23 24 school year I'll suck
073it motion made by Miss Kerry Burke looking there by Miss Anderson let's get some comments comments on this so the question that I asked uh at the end of our last meeting about this was is there any rules about re-entering if we decide that we don't do this um and the findings was that there is we can re-enter at any time if we realize that there is actually something that we're missing from that based on the evaluation that we heard from staff and executive committee that there is most of the things that are provided by csba we can handle ourselves as far as updates and all those things also there's a lot of different places that you can get information these days and it probably used to be more csba was the only place to
074get that training and education and so um that's I was glad to find that that was the information answer the question well I'll start I am doing a little more research I 100 agree with the training I think that the training is incredibly valuable I've mentioned that before I went through all the training gives you a good foundation of of what school districts really do um so I'm not going to go into all of that I you've also heard about why it's important that that we participate and that we are members of the delegate assembly and try to impact what's happening in Sacramento by using our Collective voices of 5 000 board members across the state but it really comes down to some money and when you look at the benefits that we get for
075twenty five thousand dollars to um to address the needs of our to look at our bylaws our policies our um anyway um all of the different resolution was the one I was looking for so as a member of csba and gamut we have access to more than 650 sample policies and regulations policy manual is updated four times a year typically 20 to 25 individual policy updates yielding approximately 100 individual policy updates annually policy updates are made in direct response to changes in the law and many of the policies include sample language options for adoption giving districts flexibility to meet their own needs csba is strictly limited to trustees and staff of the describe subscribing local Education Agency so use of any csba produced sample policy documents by non-sponsoring leas would be subject to copyright and
076Licensing infringement just as as mentioned at our last board meeting that we could just pull up from Orange County Board of Ed or get it online or on Twitter so it doesn't work that way that's intellectual property another Point we've talked about is the cost so for 26 000 dollars we currently now have let's say the 650 that's part of the 650 policies that are part of that so just our policies alone in the last year 's my number we've had 31 policies that we've reviewed so if you take the 26 25 000 and you divide it by the cost that an average for our attorneys so if they were to look at it our partners um which is Mr Huff that always reviews all of our things his cost is 345 dollars an hour
077Associates are 305 dollars an hour so if you divide all of that out 31 policies um and the dollar amount you're looking at 83 hours a year for an associate or 72 hours a year for Mr Huff which is 2.8 2.4 hours per policy or 2.7 if you go with the lower rate which is typically not what we do we have David Huff look at it um so we would have to limit all of our policies to 2.4 hours once we go over that we're already spending more than we would for csba which is the csba membership as well as gamut and then when we talk about conferences and that was a point that was brought up the conferences are comparable 750 for the csba conference 775 dollars for the California Association of black school
078Educators each of those nights that are about three days and it's approximately same amount so for two thousand dollars for each member you can attend whatever conference you want if I have any more notes I think um oh in addition so all of our cities except for um Laguna Woods our members of League of California cities which is very similar to California school boards Association it's a group that is run and organized by and for all of the elected City Council Members csba is the same it is elected school board members around the state the delegate assembly is elected from those board members from those particular regions Marilyn Leander and I all put in our names to be a csba delegate and only I was elected so we just have to spend more time getting
079involved and for people in Orange County to vote for people to be on csba you have to be involved for them to know who you are I think it's a a shame that it appears like we're already pulling out of this but at least for the money purposes we're already going to be spending over just in this last year from January to June 2023 we've spent not to exceed 450 on our attorneys we came back and for this next July 23 to July 20 or June 24 we've already approved another five hundred thousand dollars I think that we will be overspending I if we approve this I want all of the board policy work that is done by any of our attorneys to be documented and shared with the board I'll be voting no I
080mean I'll be voting yes on this point can you speak to the the comment about the attorneys reviewing the attorneys have reviewed the policies even the ones we get from csba so I don't know that that actually is that much different are you suggesting that every policy is going to be created by they would have to be created by an attorney or we're taking intellectual property intellectual property from who if it's from csba and copywriting if it comes from us if it comes from us then we have to pay for it to have it built out we can't just use theirs and copy it we wouldn't be using theirs though that's not right but my point is it would take more than two hours for them to create something that that um but SBA in
081general but in general those don't have to be created by an attorney they need to be reviewed by an attorney and all of our policies are reviewed by the attorneys so that's not different I'm not sure that they all were reviewed before okay maybe not everything and the csba just so you know I mean it these are people that are hired by all of the members of csba which are elected board members they have 2.6 FTE solely doing policy research and writing and 1.6 FTE solely doing legal review so there's no way unless we hire a full-time attorney that could do the work we do to make sure that we're we're staying in line is are any of those policies uh brought through the state or is that all created by independent attorneys that are
082connected to csb that seems to be strange to me I don't have the answer to that um I do know that um most districts are members um and I I think it's a good for the board to consider the value and versus the cost um if we if we uh don't join csba um then our staff will put a plan together to be able to have our policies updated and how we get that I'm still not I I I do have an issue with the fact that um you know you have to join an organization if you're a school district to get policies updated um it's it doesn't jive with me this is a organization they shouldn't be The Gatekeepers of all education policy so um we're welcome to create our own this is well
083because we're a member of this or I understand that so I'd like to I'd like to do more research on that because what happens is the the education code is is is changed or created right and so then districts need to adjust their current policies oftentimes when we get csba policies we're spending a lot of money with attorneys to make it ours anyway so to say that you know now it's all on us um you know to some degree we're still spending legal fees on policies and also you know there's there's a county office that is funded to support us every county office gets a certain amount of money per student in the county to support school districts so um I think there's a structural issue with this and county offices are funded to support
084School districts and it shouldn't be predicated on whether we are part of an association if we can get updated policies for our kids so you know I see value on both sides but I do not think that districts that aren't part of this organization should all of a sudden be out of luck on updating their policies so I think we need to have further conversations with the county and look at what districts are not part of csba and how do they access policies because there there has to be a solution here um because it just it to me it wouldn't be it wouldn't be Equitable for kids to be in a school district that just because their school board doesn't join this you know non-profit organization that the the school board wouldn't be able to
085get updated policies and so isn't it isn't quarterly doesn't the state Department of Education don't they come down and tell you what the new laws are and what the new policies are and then you can establish the policies or you can write the policies for your own District because I know you know I don't know I my experience is we get a stack of updated policies from csba and and we go through them and some of them we update and some of them we don't and like I said you know most school districts are members um and so that's that's how what they rely on and um you know frankly that's the service csba from administrative standpoint depends who you get and who you call some are real responsive some aren't um but uh this
086is really a board discussion it impacts us on the policy side it doesn't impact us on the online side because now we are online for our board meetings thanks to Annette which I forgot to mention in my board updates but I will mention here she's did a great job all of our board meetings are now online there's so much more information for the community that was a csba kind of added cost that we don't need so it's really about so you're you're paying for a voice in public education so you got to figure what you know do you want that and does that benefit us and you're paying for this policy piece that um I believe deserves further inquiry on how districts can be supported on these policies my my concern is that the csba
087is a lobbyist organization and they have lobbied against what parents want and um they have some of their updates that I have read it will actually go against a certain political party and disparage a political party and so I think we should be keeping everything for the kids and about the kids and keeping politics out of it um and so my my thing is I don't see how you could pull I don't see how you could deny a school district any type of policy changes because it is true when some of these things have come down there's like an example resolution or there's an example thing and then you still have to go through it and you still have to make it fit your whole thing and I mean and I know our staff here
088are very intelligent people and I don't think it's hard to write policy because I I've actually for for actually for the police department and Sheriff's Department we used to write policy and we would shoot it up the ranks and get it approved depending on what fit our needs and so um I I think we should definitely be looking at other options because having a lot like it's just exactly what Dr Turner says and what Todd said to have a lobbyist firm to have to pay an exorbitant amount of money to them just to gain policies and have them be a gatekeeper just doesn't seem it doesn't seem like it's right and how is that working actually for school board members and for the students and as far as the training goes too I don't believe
089that we've asked if I'm correct to substitute this with any other type of training or any type of other organization we've just simply said let's pull out I'm from what we were also told was we're free to attend any type of conference so if a board member would like to attend the csba conference they are free to do so just as if you want to go attend another conference everyone is free to do so and I think that that will make us a way more well-rounded board than for all of us to be hearing the same message because there's so many different groups and there's so many different messages out there and so I think it would be better collaboration [Applause] I've spoken to this issue many many times and I am for a csba
090membership our legal fees have basically doubled this year last school year alone and then to add this on top of it I think it's a bargain to spend the twenty five thousand we don't need to do the extra 5000 for the educational legal allowance Alliance if we don't want to but I think the basic membership is a really good value for our district and we talk about how our staff is talented and they can write policy which I agree they can but I personally rather have them spending their time energy and resources on our students they are our first priority and that's where they should be spending their time and energy and you know for them to spend a couple of hours trying to redo legal language and make sure it applies and and talking
091to our attorneys I think is a waste of their talents and their energy and so I would prefer to stay with csba and utilize them I value their training you talk about how they're a lobbying firm yes they Lobby for laws but I have never read and I read everyone can attest to this I pretty much read everything cover to cover and I've never seen them disparage a political group I've never seen anything like that and every time I've gone to a training I have seen them give examples you know like a liberal example and a conservative example and then when I've gone and talked to the trainers and the trainees you know they're like we're here to give you tools so that you can go forward and do what you want to do this
092is not we're not indoctrinating you we're not telling you what to do but you you this is how to get something done this is how to write a resolution or this is how to um make a difference in your school and impact I think the conferences are really well done you talked about how much you valued your time at your conference Mrs blades and and about how not only did you learn in but maybe more so out and that's how I feel every time I've gone to csba I have met friends I have met people that are like-minded that we communicate to this day on issues and how to strengthen and that's what it is it's about bringing a community together to better each one of us and that is why I will be voting
093for this I'm happy to take off the extra 5000 for the the legal Alliance fund but I would be agreeable to that as well um and that then it would be just 25 000. going back to hearing the same message um I don't hear the same message when I'm there I get a variety of insights and perspective and voices even going to delegate assembly we're we're given questions where I'll even bring it back to the staff and say here's the question they have here's the information that I'd like you to to pull so that I can represent our district specifically when we're going to talk about these things they are not a lobbyist firm they have a lobbyist that they use for and on behalf of school board members and they get insight and information
094from school board members to make those to make those to have those discussions and the trainers for csba are current and former board members as well as some superintendents but primarily former and current board members I just like to reiterate that if we find that there is a big gap that we're missing we can always come back in I don't think that any of the things that I've heard are confirmed I think it's a lot of maybe it's going to cost us more money and it might if it cost us a lot more money then I think the value makes sense but I'm I based on what Dr chernus and others have said I don't feel like there's any Gap that we can't cover and be within what's best for the students so Just One
095Last point we have um legislators in the state that the the lump the biggest chunk of the budget goes to schools legislators are constantly making laws related to education we need somebody to be on it to make sure that we're complying that we can push back that we can have a voice to change things when needs to be changed and that will all be gone if we take this out but we can still do it as school board members not as not through the csba we do that all of the time we can do that but a lot bigger voice when you have 30 or 500 or 5000. okay at this point we're going to take a roll boat so I'm going to start with you miss Buck yes Miss Anderson yes Mr Frazier nope
096Miss blades no and I will also be a no the food does not carry okay moving on to a motion for 15.2 please that's irrelevant because we can't it doesn't matter right right all right next portion going to Business Services I'll need a motion for 16.1 please I will make a motion to adopt the recommendation and staff report on Charter petition submitted by California Republic Leadership Academy to deny petition to establish a new charter school for a five-year term beginning July 1st 2024 and adopt recommended factual findings in staff report as basis for denial second all right Mr Giordano if you would all right well thank you and good evening on April 19th of 2023 the California republic Leadership Academy also known as crla submitted a petition to the district to establish a new Charter
097School within the district's boundaries for a five-year term beginning July 1st of 2024. CLA is proposing to serve 340 students in transitional kindergarten through the fifth grade during the 24-25 school year which would be the school's first year of operation Sierra is also proposing to expand its operations to serve a maximum of 508 students in transitional kindergarten through the eighth grade by the 27-28 school year I Charter petition is required to include information about a Charter School's proposed educational program finances governance structure and operations and about how the proposed school will meet all the requirements that are set forth in the Education Code a petition to establish a new Charter School may be denied if a potential Charter authorizer makes written factual findings to establish any one of the eight specific criteria criteria for denial
098identified in Education Code section 47605 subdivision C our District staff carefully reviewed crla's entire Charter petition the district also met with representatives from crla to better understand and clarify information in the charter petition based on staff's review and meeting with crla staff recommends the Nile of cla's petition and include a written factual findings to establish four of the eight criteria for denial presented in a code section 47605 subdivision C specifically staff determined that the petition presents an unsound educational program for the pupils to be enrolled in the charter school the petitioners are demonstrably unlikely to successfully implement the program set forth in a petition a petition does not contain reasonably comprehensive description of the 15 required Charter elements set forth in Education Code section 47605 subdivision C5 a through zero excuse me a through o
099and the proposed Charter Schools demonstrately unlikely to serve the interests of the entire community in which the school is proposing to locate a staff made multiple findings associated with each of these criteria which are detailed in the staff's report accordingly staff recommends the board adopt the staff report denying crlas Charter petition and adopt factual findings in the staff's report as the basis for the denial and that concludes staff's comments thank you sir comments a lot of work done thank you um a lot of work done also in your response appreciate that uh there are several things that I read in the staff report that I felt were um maybe reaching but several things that I agree with that that are a problem um I think some of the responses that we got back to them
100were that well it's it's conjecture and it's it's uh speculation the entire concept of this is speculation because we don't have true data of an existing Charter to actually go off of so I I feel like the responses in some of those areas where it's this is all speculation this is all how we analyze the data that we have not that we're guessing but because we have data that we're going off of um I I don't know that I have any other questions regarding this I mean I think the Ada was one of the ones that um kind of as we're looking forward financially that was one of the ones that I really kind of hung on to to say that's that's a problem if it becomes a financial burden and then again the staff
101resources that I know we're going to have to dedicate to it that's there were there were several things in the staff findings that I feel like were reasoned enough to not to deny this so so when I I read everything and I had you know the same concerns as well but I also feel like we need a better process um than to have them petition districts like the Orange County Board of Education who they say if it's denied they're going to appeal to the Orange County Board of Education they have a whole slew of people Who oversee charter schools and so my question would be is do we need to like re-look at this process because I support school choice I support charter schools however is it good for them to be coming to a
102district and then we have all of these variables and all these things that we can't foresee and it's a huge risk for a district to accept a petition or as if you went straight to the Orange County Board of Education and you applied there and they could help you know I was told too that they might even have access to funding to help you find a site and to maybe get you off the ground and so I kind of feel like the whole system dealing with Charter Schools is flawed and that there could be a better way and while I this whole process has been a very eye-opening thing with the OC Classical Academy and then also this but I'm just wondering is if are we actually doing right by charter schools by having them
103petition the districts or should it be done at a county level and have the county help them find you know the feasible locations and um help them out that way and skip the school district all together and let the Orange County Board of Education who have a huge staff that deals with Charter Schools to oversee them and so that's kind of out of this whole um this whole uh petition this is kind of one of the things I've come up with is why are they giving it to the district is there a better way and is there a better way for charter schools to get themselves established and so that that's just one of my comments I too looked at the um the information which the staff gave I thought they were very thorough they
104did bring up a lot of points in which I thought would leave the district open for some liability I'm not saying that in the future that those things could not change to where we might be a better District having a charter in but I personally don't think at this time it is the time to do that so with that said I'm going to do another roll vote Miss Buck I vote Yes to approve the did you want to say something oh I'm sorry go ahead yeah I just um wanted to say um my I was worried about the financial cost to us even with you know costing our district uh potentially 54 million is just an it's it would uh really break our backs and I also feel like they have a really unique concept
105and then when asking them about um you know details about it they don't really have any working plans so I hope that they get their new school off and figure out you know all these little details before trying to expand there's just a lot of uncertainty and there's not a lot of explanation about like what how they're going to implement server leadership and financial literacy they're like we're going to work on that down the road and I'm and we're just focusing on classical and I'm like I think we just need to take a pause and let them work out their their system before adopting them and then we're having to manage them when they're not solid-footed we're not set up for that would that your vote Miss Anderson um it's a no hold on so
106the petition is we adopt the recommendation that is okay so is that a yes okay Mr Frazier yes I adopt the staff recommendations staff recommendation this blades yes I adopt the staff recommendation and I too will adopt the staff recommendation okay motion carries Vivo [Applause] next portion is uh Human Resources I would like a motion please for 17.1 I'll make a motion for the employment contract of assistant superintendent of administrative services pursuant to government code 54953 approve the employment contract for Mr Gary Stein as assistant superintendent of administrative services with an annual salary of 218 340 he should also receive all incentives available to other members of the district certificate certificated management staff including longevity pay and mileage stipend the contract will remain in effect from August 22nd 2023 through June 30th 2025. I'll second
107comments welcome to the district we look forward to working with you I'm excited about your like your uh technology background that's going to be fun okay with that uh said all of those in favor aye aye aye motion carries five zero welcome on board [Applause] okay uh the next section is a consent calendar um I I hope I say this right on the consent uh I have two things I'm gonna pull it was uh 21.39 and then 23.3 21.39 and 23.3 no it's very hard I like to pull 21.28 hi foreign I want to pull 21.4 21.4 okay so we have uh 21.39 oh hold on let me back up I'll need a motion to approve the remainder of the so moved second okay let's play it this book all those in favor aye aye
108aye curious five oh okay that's looked at these pulled items looks like 21.39 will be our first one or actually I'm sorry 21.28 Arch I was trying to do by the lowest we are going with 21.39 there we go there it is okay thank you so I'll make a motion to approve the renewed supplemental instrument instructional materials for English language arts English language development and Mathematics with curriculum Associates LLC for iready for students in k-6 for the 23 24 Square all second okay and so um a lot of people had um i-Ready has been a hot topic for the last couple years and while I support um this new i-Ready in in this form and the forms that are moving forward I just wanted to be extremely transparent with the parents at home and the
109teachers and everyone who feels that they've been victimized by already or likes I ready and I think we should listen to Dr Young and have her explain what iready will look forward in the future and why I'm on board thank you Miss blades and so our staff did a wonderful job of really evaluating the usage of iready to see where we were having high usage at our schools and at which grade levels as well as we aligned our caste preliminary scores with the i-Ready predictive scores to see where we were also aligned and we were finding that there was a good predictive value to the i-Ready Diagnostics and in hearing what the community's feedback was particularly at the middle school level as well as our site Administration and teachers feedback at the middle school level
110coupled with our Focus to increase our Casp scores and pivoting to using interim assessment blocks we've made the decision to adjust our iready quote and contract to utilize it at the elementary schools only in the diagnostic and instructional tools that are available and at the middle schools as well as the sixth grades at the elementary we're looking at interim assessment blocks instead which will provide the diagnostic value of i-Ready but in a shorter assessment periods which will represent a gain of instructional time for our teachers and be able to give them really drill down claim data to help them prepare for the summative Casp test we also saw that our teachers were not utilizing the iready toolbox by and far I mean so the removal of that represented a cost Savings of about a hundred
111and fifty thousand dollars to the quote as well as removing Middle School from it and so in total there's a significant cost savings but we'll still be able to utilize i-Ready in elementary for Diagnostic assessments as well as the instructional tools so that teachers can continue to use it in small group instruction during rotations continue to use it effectively but we will not be reinforcing any type of District mandated required minutes for the instructional tools moving forward thank you so much yeah we've talked about it before you have to have some sort of tool to collect the data because we're moving in the right direction so I I think that the way that you've set this up is great okay uh any more comments on that particular one let's go ahead and take about all
112those in favor aye aye motion carries five oh let's look at the next one of 23.3 I'll make a motion to approve the kiss orders program agreement with Cal State Fullerton from August 8 2023 to August 9th 2026. is there a second oh second sorry sorry I gotta get to my other page so I can make notes so so again while I am going you know obviously I'm gonna vote vote Yes on this um I see that we have a ton of um Partnerships with Cal State Fullerton again and so I was also wondering where we are with the student teachers because we welcome the student teachers back it was unfortunate that Cal State Fullerton pulled their student teachers from the district but I know our board is uh you know very open and would
113love to see Cal State Fullerton student teachers and so are we somewhere near that because it seems like right now we are partnering with everybody but the student teachers at this time thank you for that question um we are an open discussion with Cal State Fullerton regarding our continued partnership I've I've met with Cal State via phone and in person um over the last few weeks and have a couple more scheduled conversations get um on the calendar with with the dean and so I'm hopeful because I know that um we're all invested in our in our students and we're putting kids first and so um I remain hopeful that we can we can have student teachers back on campus soon very good um and so are they saying a reason why everybody but the student
114teachers are coming back because it seems like we're taking a lot of their students into our programs already so I'm assuming that they know that we are very open to them and that we're very accepting and and happy to have them I am working to make that extremely clear thank you okay just to piggyback on that a little bit um I've asked for a list of all schools that we get student teachers from um this will be my third request outside of Cal State Fullerton could I get a comprehensive list of that please I believe um I asked before Dr Lopez I was 26 schools a list would be awesome thank you okay so let's uh there's some more comments on that let's go ahead and vote on that item 23.3 all those in favor
115aye all right motion carries five oh looks like uh 21.28 already on it Miss Anderson I'll make a motion to approve item number 21.28 meet the Masters second in this book okay okay my comment on this is um basically right now we're charging each School site and they're having to raise these funds through PTA or use their site stipends to pay for meet the Masters and we're getting quite a bit of money for arts and music through the block grant and through prop 28 and this is something this program is something that I think would be a great start and to make it equal through the district that all sites have the op all of our elementary sites have an opportunity to participate in Meet the Masters so I'm just putting my plugin that that's
116what I would like and I would second that make Masters is a great program and we I mean we're going to have a lot of Arts money that we're going to want to give back to the locate the students so yeah I would think that's a great idea fits right in and then it wouldn't be at a general fence exactly and that changes budget things Dave's happy you take notes over there Mr Stein excellent okay if there are no more comments let's go ahead and take a vote all those in favor all right motion carries all right Miss buck 21.4 I'll make a motion we approve independent contract agreement with Jenna Ross orange circle speech services provider speech intervention and pathology evaluations I'll second my comment is this initially had an error and I thought
117it was going to come back as a 20 000 error but it's a two hundred thousand dollar um not error but Aaron where the comma was and um we have a couple of other um we've had some speech and language issues so much so that we've pulled it in our negotiations and um in the past and pulled out the speech and language pathologist as a as a one-line item and when I looked at that it showed that I think the top Mark that we can pay somebody in that capacity is 125 000 and now we're doing an independent contract for somebody and I don't I want to I want to know for sure if this is one person for that two hundred thousand dollars let's have our executive director come up um Miss gray right
118here is fine so thank you for your question it's actually for um two and a half days for one contractor four days for another contractor and also a slipper and the supervision so what is that all FTE it's quite expensive it's about 1.25 FTE so what I typically do is I will Pat it because I know that we are down so many speech and language right now that if she has more the the owner of this agency then we would go back to her what's typically happened is I've come forward as you all know and I think oh we're going to get somebody from therapy and travelers who gives uh what do you call it temp services and then they say they'll have two people by the time we get it approved that the two
119people are gone so you've approved many I can give you the amounts that we've actually encumbered versus the amounts you've approved and it's typically maybe 10 percent of the approval amount so we are trying to open contracts with as many as we can in order to get Services we're down eight speech and language Pathologists currently we have four yeah wow okay well thank you for that four that are covered so that that helps a lot I was afraid that we were paying for one person for two hundred thousand dollars for a 10-month contract so um I appreciate that and I um thank you that's it okay so it looked like it was just a uh misplaced uh decimal yeah or comma Yeah well yeah we were missing the zero at the end I thought it
120was a really great deal 200 bucks okay um all right uh any more comments all right all those in favor aye aye motion carries five zero okay um that brings us to our final segment I go I will need a motion please I'll make a motion to adjourn all second all right all those in favor aye aye excellent we are adjourned at 7 59.