001good evening everyone we're going to call this meeting to order it is 6:05 on February 19th it's a regular scheduled board meeting and this is I am John Fox at this time can we please have roll call trustee Morales presid trusty Hodes present trustee Flores present vice president Amboy presid truste Simmons I don't know how to turn my on the switch the switch present trusty young present president Fox present we have a quum we have a quick announcement from superintendent aelio all right with that quick please have roll call and we just have roll call now we're going to do our um excuse me let me scroll down here our Pledge of Allegiance please stand I pleased to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one
002nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all during our close session we listened to information provided by superintendent reio and we gave Direction with that we are now on to agenda item D do I hear or see a motion for adoption of the board agenda vice president Amboy make a motion to approve the board agenda trusty hajes second roll call please trusty Morales I trusty hajes I trusty Flores I vice president Amboy I trusty Simmons I trusty young I President Fox I the motion passes action we're now on agenda item 6A action request for allowance of attendance for emergency conditions Salo Weedman Leadership Academy I'll I'll be introducing this item thank you President Fox uh good evening President Fox vice president Amboy trustees Flores young hajes Morales and Simmons in our community presented
003for your approval is a request for the allowance of attendance due to the emergency situation that occurred at salano wedaman Leadership Academy on January 25th 2025 as a reminder the campus fell victim to significant copper wiring theft that rendered the school without power for more than a week we were fortunate to get our campus up and running after 6 days of lost instructional time in front of you is a copy of the independent study plan certifications and board policy as well as the form J1 13A to recoup the Lost average daily attendance funding we ask for your approval I'd like to make a motion to approve do we hear a second trusty Flores second roll call please trusty Morales trusty Hodes I trusty Flores I vice president Amboy I trusty Simmons I trustee young I
004President Fox I and the motion passes unanimously thank you now we're on agenda Item B resolution 5036 nonre assistant superintendent Dr Patrick will present resolution number 5033 regarding non reelection of non-credentialed certificated employees Dr Patrick please thank you superintendent ailo President Fox vice president president Amboy trustees Flores hajes Morales Dr Young and trusty Simmons what you have before you this evening is resolution 5033 regarding non- reelection of non-credentialed certificated employees for the 25th 26th school year connecting to the pillar three of vibrant culture of teach teaching and learning it is for your approval do we hear a motion trusty Flores make a motion to adopt resolution second second trusty young can we have a roll call please can't hear you microphone trusty trusty Morales hi trusty Hodes hi trusty Flores hi vice president Amboy I
005trusty Simmons hi trusty young I President Fox I and the motion passes unanimously action item C resolution 55028 regarding non- reelect Dr Patrick yes and now I'm asking for approval for resolution 5028 regarding the non- reelection of first and second year probationary certificated employees for the 2526 school year again connecting to the pillar of a vibrant culture of teaching and learning do we have a motion trusty Flores make a motion to pass resolution uh 5028 vice president embo I second roll call please trusty Morales hi truste Hodes hi trusty Flores hi vice president Amboy hi truste Simmons hi truste young hi President Fox hi the motion passes unanimously thank you we agenda item D resolution 5034 authorization of budget reductions superintendent Aurelio great and so uh trustees you should have a tab open on your
006screen that has the presentation I believe the audience can see the presentation on the screens so you have the one of the tabs on your monitors is the budget presentation okay if you can give me a thumbs up when you're there I know that way I know everyone's with me yes and uh Mr Crump are we good on the monitors perfect okay so good evening everyone uh tonight me go back excuse me tonight I present the proposed budget reductions for the 2025 2026 school year our goal is to maintain Financial solvency minimize classroom impact and ensure we position vcusd for long-term sustainability this is an action item so we ask that the board approve resolution 5034 which reflects months of collaboration input and difficult decisions I'm on to slide two in case you're following along
007we'll review our current financial status the multi-year projections I'll explain how we reached this point including declining enrollment and the end of onetime funding we'll then discuss proposed budget reductions which include Staffing Cuts non-staff savings and school closures lastly I'll outline next steps and the implementation timeline should be on slide three this chart presented first to you all during the first interim presentation back in December of 2024 so the district has a projected deficit thank you thank you is that better all right the district has a projected deficit of 20.3 million for the current year with 13.1 million and 6.1 million deficits projected for the 2025 26 and the 2026 27 school year while we meet the minimum reserve of 32% continued deficit spending is unsustainable without action we risk deeper Cuts in the future
008years or state intervention moving on to slide four this slide is specifically information around the first interim the first interim report called The District's Financial condition as qualified meaning that without corrective action vcusd may not meet its Financial Obligations for the current or subsequent two fiscal years as a reminder School budgeting is always done in a cycle of three years current year and the two out years because of our status as a district in receivership we've always made it a best practice to forecast 5 years not three years for the 2024 2025 school year we as I mentioned we Face a current deficit spending of 20.3 million and we have the deficits in the out years of 13.1 and 6.1 F if this is left un addressed we do risk some actions we could risk
009a state takeover of our district finances we can re look at further reductions in Staffing and programs and a significant loss of local control so that's why we're asking you all to approve the resolution later in this presentation moving on to the next slide slide five the second interim budget will be coming to you all at the next board meeting Mar March 5th the second interim will include any reductions approved this evening key adjustments include a $1.4 million reduction from the audit adjustments and the removal of it of the $6 million property sale previously anticipated for the 2025 26 school year for the board that's the KB Homes property at Rollingwood so we can't we can't count those dollars yet until we receive those dollars we revised Pro projected Transportation Revenue upwards by $900,000 over
0103 years and additionally we've accounted for Cola changes and one-time vacancy savings these changes necessitate the proposed reductions to stabilize the Budget moving on to the next few slides slides six through roughly 12 these are the governor's proposed budget or proposed budget and what impact we can expect now it's it's important to note that in January when the governor does the proposed budget we do know there are a lot of factors that change as we get closer and closer to budget adoption there will be a May revise you might have heard that term thrown out there before where the the governor will come back with a different set of numbers and then an adopted budget in June which triggers our own budget adoption process so the governor's budget mostly increases the prop 98 guarantee but
011funding levels remain lower than last year we project a 2.43% cola for the 2025 26 school year down from the earlier estimates which reduces expected Revenue by about $643,000 our plan assumes no major new funding sources beyond the governor's proposal aside from changes in Cola from the first interim the net impact of these rates to vcs's budget is minimal so I have lost where I'm at on those screens can someone help me out for a quick second thank you Douglas because I can't see them Douglas is your microphone on and and and for the board just you know Douglas Craner here yeah Douglas Craner is our Financial Consultant who's been supporting the district in the transition with our CBO having left the district thank you Douglas and he is not me even though we support
012the same hairstyle exactly so um yes Douglas grer from Ryland um SBC and just helping out until you know for the second interim so um 2425 um Cola remains unchanged because that was established in May so in for 2526 at first interm the projected Cola was 2.93% um but based on New Economic indicators um the projected Cola is 2.43 which results in a in a reduction of um about $643,000 but um but fortunately the colas the projected Cola is now again we're going to get new numbers in May but right now um the colas for the 2627 and 2728 are expected to be a little bit um higher so really the net effect over those course of those years is about $223,000 so you may hear about there were change in colas but it's really
013right now the the change in in the um the colas based on the latest economic indicators really doesn't have a material impact over the um you know from 2526 through 28 29 so stand right there move yet don't move yet not going anywhere can you tell me if the slide you see on the screen it says alloc ated Co funding yes okay thank you Douglas so this starting on slide 11 the next couple slides really speak to factors that got us to this situation there are three primary factors we had an end of covid era funding so our district received $82 million million in one-time covid funds which are is essentially now exhausted onetime funds were necessary during covid because there was a lot of changes at that time we've all lived through that experience
014but those funds had an expiration date and now we are adjusting now that those funds are gone yeah the only one that's we're still spending on but it's pretty much been all committed is the learning recovery block grant we have a little bit more time but for the most part that's been all committed thank you the other factors that have played into this scenario thank you as I move through you can see the expenditures of covid related expenditures on slide 13 is the declining enrollment we've keep talking about what's happened to our enrollment over the years in this slide specifically which goes back 10 years and forecasts forward five years we've lost back in 20145 our district was nearly 14,000 students the yellow bar shows where we're at currently which is below 9,000 students about
0158,800 students that declining enrollment is continuing out or is going to continue over the next span of five years so that's where we're adjusting as well slide 14 which is the next slide shows the Charter School enrollment over that same span so going back to 2014 15 Charter School enrollment made up about 1300 students in our district and that has increased and plateaued at around students lastly slide 15 just gives a full picture of the projections and overlay and you can see the trends the charter enrollment has increased and started to flatten out our enrollment has continued to decrease the hope is it flattens out and will start to grow I'm going to move us on to the next slide which shows enrollment in capacity at our vcsd schools now that is another strategy many
016of you all are here in the audience because of this we are considering school closures as another factor in in right sizing our district and right sizing our budget this screen this chart shows the four potentially impacted schools that were considered in this process this evening and the far right column specifically names the available capacity think of it as seats that are available in a school if we were to maximize that that campus slide 17 really speaks to our goals so as a district we want to right siize the district we want to ensure the responsible stewardship of public property and resources we want to capitalize to make sure we have substantial programmatic benefits we also want to realize the financial benefit and avoid unnecessary intervention by fiscal oversight entities we have had fiscal oversight
017for 20 years so we are at a on on a sort of the breaking point or on the verge of exiting State receivership financially we've paid off our loans now we're just demonstrating to the county office and the state that we can stand alone I'm going to move us to slide 18 this is now the proposed budget reductions the first slide you're going to see here is Staffing reductions so we propose eliminating 74.9 full-time equivalent FTE positions that will save the district approximately $7.47 million that would begin next school year one thing to remember as we do that and build in the budget it compounds in the out years so it's 7.47 one year another 7.4 in the following years the makeup of these Cuts CSEA makes up 47.4 full-time equivalents which saves $3.8 million
018vaa or the Education Association makes up 22.5 FTE saving 2.7 million and management VSA VMA makes up 5.0 full-time equivalent saving $939,000 these reductions stem from enrollment driven adjustments and school consolidations as well I want to note in the column that's labeled lcap for vaa I want to explain why you see a negative number there the numbers are here presented as a positive obviously you kind of have to reverse your brain those are would be reductions so to show that we are shifting 10 full-time equivalent positions from the general fund so 10 teaching positions are moving from general fund to lcap driven funding that's why you see a negative number there it's actually going to be an addition in the lcap we're adding $98,000 to the lcap that will fund 10 FTE of teachers so
019I know it kind of messes with your brain because it's opposite of what you're thinking but that's why the negative number is there I also want to note that on this slide where it says total this is representing the two complete closures of schools so we when I asked for this resolution to be adopted there is a caveat it's dependent or contingent on the actions taken later in the meeting if we only close one school or we close zero schools these numbers would be adjusted accordingly the next slide you should be on slide 19 that is the proposed non-staff reduction so in addition to Staffing we will be making for $5.4 million in reductions outside of Staffing those are contracted Services those are a variety of other savings that we're looking at to reduce out
020of our budget slide 20 is just the combination of those cuts that give you a grand total of 12.8 8 million in reductions for 25 26 school year with that same caveat contingent on what we do with school closures if we move to slide 21 this is just an explanation of that I I listed there for you Mar Island Health and Fitness and LMA Vista education roughly what the savings would equate to in a closure so they're about1 to $1.1 million so you have to kind of rever verse your math let's say Mar Island does not close that 12.8 now would become 11.8 million and so on and so forth Revenue enhancements so we can't just talk about cutting cutting cutting we also need to address how do we generate additional revenue for our school
021district one thing and it's great to have a a an audience in the room the impact that student attendance makes on our budget we currently and this was taken as of February 11th overall we had a 9.43% attendance rate for our school district highly functioning school districts who are generating their funding average around 95% that's a a great Target to have when we increase by 1% that generates an additional 400,000 all the way up to possibly a million dollars depending on how those numbers break that's the difference 1% of attendance matters for us in this District so we encourage our families to obviously send their children to school bring their kids to school um the other area of Revenue we talked about the 6 million connected to the KB Homes project at Rollingwood depending on
022what happens with school closures we are looking at the current site where valo Charter School resides as a potential property for sale that could generate Revenue and lastly we are doing some shifting around home to school transportation that would also generate some additional funding of 900,000 you are on slide 23 which should say next steps for Budget reductions just to provide a timeline to the board and the community after tonight's meeting you're going to receive on March 5th the second interim report that will be reflecting any adjustments we've made this evening we also need to get act if the board does adopt this resolution to make budget reductions it will trigger the human resource department to notify staff and we have work to do to do that as well if there's impacted positions or employees
023and in April of 2025 we will begin what we're calling the phase two pro process of both budget reductions school closures and consolidations so tonight is really just step one in a phased multi-year approach so come April we will start to ident identify potentially impacted schools for 2627 school year in the fall that'll lead to a closure and consolidation committee and by winter of 2025 the board would have similar to tonight a presentation all the data specifically around a phase two closure consolidation and budget reductions that is the presentation we've got two questions thank you trusty Morales thank you for the president superintendent Rio um I had a question about slide 16 okay I can do that on my screen I don't I'm not going to have much luck doing it out there 16 is
024the enrollment capacity at vcsd schools Douglas you tell me when I get there enrollment capacity at vcsd schools okay go ahead ask your question okay thank you um so I just wanted to ask a question theoretically about Mar Island and a b Charter so here in Mar Island en ROM is 425 and the available capacity for Mary island is 325 and for Val charer the enrollment is so let's theoretically if valo Charter students were to move to Mar Island where would the 43 other students go if there AR isn't enough room that's an excellent question thank you trusty Morales we have to remember that both schools have eighth grade classes that are exiting so you're losing the eighth graders one we will have to look at specifically as far as capacity at this school is
025whether we have a transitional Kinder at this campus or not it might just be K8 so that saves us so we have incoming students at the kinder levels and we have exiting students at the eighth grade levels trusty Flores thank you just kind of following up on the on that same slide I think it's um and important to to let the community know that there are rules and governance that dictate how many kids are allowed in in a classroom and just for for just to ensure our communities to to know we're not going to overflow or pack them but just kind of if you can give a brief explanation on that and then the other and and I know this is might be a hard ask so far as a brief explanation on how the
026budgeting process works where it it's almost like my experience and my understanding since coming on the board is that it's almost I don't want to say it's guessing but it's it's it's this kind of looking at a crystal ball because you have to wait on the state to finalize things and then we can move forward so there's a possibility that we can have things in place but if the state doesn't fund accordingly and if we can just provide a little bit of explanation of of how that hinders us at times sure so let me address the first one which is class sizes so our class sizes throughout the district are dictated by contract language so we have very specific contract language that's an agreed upon number um with our teachers union so regardless of how
027many kids are sent to a school we have to honor those class sizes so you're not going to go over those class sizes when that happens we work and we negotiate or we we have to move students around but class sizes as whole would stay constant ultimately the goal is to get to a smaller class size I mean I think that's something everyone would like to see but that would be driven by our budget and driven by our negotiations with our unions to get to that point um as we add students to a school we're also adding teachers to that school so we're not trying to it's not the you know square peg in a round hole we're going to bring teachers over with students to make sure that every class is filled going back
028to the assumptions that's the word we use in budgeting um and we have a slide I'm not going to try to find it there if you recall there was one called a dartboard there's a slide specifically um that speaks to slide nine so let see if I'm on I'm going to go back the SSC Financial projection dartboard am I there um yes hold on go y there we go I that was good I guess that was good getting better at this um so that is so School Services of California takes all the assumptions you know they check the wind they're working with the leg legislative analyst office who are all you know interacting with the governor and they're always trying to make educated guesses on what's going to happen with these indicators these numbers the
029the second row there the California CPI that's the Consumer Price Index right so we know 2425 what we don't know is 25 26 onward but those are educated guesses but there are assumptions so there's only really one time in the budget cycle that the board sees the actual numbers of dollars in and dollars out and that's the UN audited actuals at that's the time where the board and the community gets an actual snapshot of what real dollars in and reel dollars out mean for the budget all the other times you're working off of a budget that's built on assumptions so it is the crystal ball isn't it true also superintendent Rio with what's going on in the federal government right now with the Department of Education and other things being said that may be closing
030there's other variables that can also affect other than just the state budget that is very true we are living dayto day monitoring what is coming down to us um if people were following social media or the news the this Federal Department of Education did send a letter to all public agencies education agencies with a 14-day timeline to look at all our policies and procedures specifically around diversity equity and inclusion with a threat of of keeping federal dollars now we we're not going to react super you know react quickly to that because there's a lot that has to play out but we are working with our state agencies we're working with our legal team we're monitor monitoring that very closely any other questions regarding the budget thank you superintendent aelio we are now on to agenda
031item we need a motion oh I'm sorry we need a motion to approve the the budget uh uh trustee Flores make a motion to adopt resolution uh 5034 vice president ambo I second roll call please trusty Morales hi trusty Hodes hi trusty Flores I vice president Amboy hi trusty Simmons hi trusty young I President Fox I and the motion passes unanimously thank you Rhonda all right for our next um if members of the public wish to speak on agenda item number 6E or 6f you must submit submit a comment card by no later than the completion of the presentation during item 6E public comments for both 6E and 6f will be allowed immediately following the presentation in item 6E anyone who submits a new common card after the presentation ends will not be called to
032speak thank you all right now we're going to move on to agenda item 6E consideration of resolution number 5035 resolution to the Board of Trustees of Leo City Unified School District the present of the final Equity impact analysis and conclude the community engagement process Sarah PLO is here our attorney will lead us in this presentation of the major revisions made in the final Equity impact analysis or eiia including review of how specific Community comments and concerns were integrated into these changes the final Equity impact analysis was a attached to the meeting agenda and has been made available to the public for review Miss PLO thank you very much and good evening to the board cabinet superintendent and the public um so my uh my role tonight here is to explain how the content of the
033eia which uh was originally presented to the board and the community at our prior meeting um how that's been changed right so um as a part of the process that is established Within the Education Code before the district can make decisions about potential school closures we have to um prepare a full Equity impact analysis that is brought before the board as a draft we receive comments um and we did receive comments both in person at our prior meeting and then there was also like a Google sheet where we were uh open to receiving comments and writing as well all of those comments were reviewed and uh and further analyzed and then changes were made to the equity impact analysis based on that commentary and so I would just like to review uh very briefly this
034evening um some of those major changes that were made um you'll note that there was a there was a new section added to the eia uh that really reviews the community engagement process um the three comments that came out most from both U you know those that were heard at the meeting and those that were received in writing um are as follows the the first was um concern about the future of the LMA Vista Farm if the board decides to close the entirety of uh of the LMA Vista School site and we just wanted to confirm that uh while the farm is on land that is adjacent to the school site and it is land that is owned by the school district it doesn't uh necessarily mean because the school is closed that the farm
035uh has to be closed um it may change the operation of the farm um but staff is uh making efforts to ensure that there is um additional efforts made as far as Outreach to see if there are other schools that can be further integrated into the operation of the farm um and while it is very close to LMA Vista it it is also uh relatively close to salono wedaman and so the farm would not uh like necessarily need to to close just because of the closing of the of the school site the second issue that was brought up or the question was about the Imp of consolidation on on classroom sizes and I'll be very brief here because this already came up this evening uh but essentially because of the contractual language that the district
036currently has in place uh just because we close one or more schools it's not going to change the size of classrooms or the number of kids that are in a single classroom and then the third issue that was brought up is are there uh you know final plans for potential use of these sites if if the uh both schools that are on the agenda this year are fully closed um we've we've made some additional changes to the content of the eia to confirm um that if uh if the Vallejo charter school facility is closed and the consolidation happens here to Mar Island um that the the plan for short-term use of the Vallejo Charter site would be housing of a student support center um including the relocation of uh uh student support services and District
037Health Clinic to that location as well as a primary dedicated uh professional development site um and an enrollment site right so there have been specific short-term uses identified for that site uh as far as closure of LMA Vista if only uh the middle school facility is is closed then that would be um housing for the growing and well-funded elop program uh we heard at the last meeting from those folks that that run the um Extended Learning opport unities program and they are looking for a physical site and they have funding to further develop and so that would be the plan for the middle school facility if the entirety of the of the K through 5 facility is closed um the the plan from staff for use would be to house and Early Learning Center as
038well as a professional development center and that concludes uh the update about the content of the equity impact analysis any questions board we're good thank you Miss PLO do I hear a motion to approve the final EAA trusty hajes I'll make a motion to adopt resolution number 5035 thank you uh trusty Young I second roll call please trusty Morales I trusty Hodes I trusty Flores I vice president ambo hi trusty Simmons I trusty young I President Fox hi the motion passes unanimously all right the board will now move to agenda item six F consideration of resolution to close schools resolution 5030 number 5031 and number 5032 District Council Sarah PLO will provide a brief explanation of these three resolutions that will be brought before the board this evening yes we will follow that by public
039comment correct Sarah PLO do you want to explain explain the process on each of the resolutions and how they will be taken yes um so there there are three separate resolutions that are brought before the board this evening um the first resolution will be about the consolidation of the Vallejo Charter and the mar Island programs the second resolution will be for the full closure of LMA and the third will be for the partial closure of LMA so uh resolutions two and three on the list um are uh you know both won't won't be approved the board's either going to approve one or the other and there's a procedure in place for how we'll um deal with that depending on how the board acts thank you so at this time we're going to do public comment
040for this item and I do have six cards for this item yes three minutes we'll be at our standard 3 minutes um to hear for public comment for the six cards um also for these please note that the board cannot respond or comment to anyone that speaks at the podium so we are listening to what you are saying our District staff does take notes to what you say but the board is not allowed to respond to what you say thank you our first speaker is so our first I'm going to name a couple speakers so you're you know the order zra or Zyra Herrera is going to be first followed by Sharon Johnson and Elizabeth Thompson so Zyra if you can come up to the podium and you will have three minutes good evening I'm
041Zyra um I'm the mother of two we just want to make sure is there a timer it is perfect start Z thank you thank you now yes go ahead uh good evening I'm Zyra era I'm the mother of too I have a second grader here and a kindergartener um who both attend here but aside from both my children going to school here I'm also the bilingual tutor I have come to the conclusion and realized that no matter how many people come up here and speak it will not change anything as of today any longer I have questions and with all due respect I need them answered as soon as possible I would like to know what happens to the students who already attend here what happens to our jobs are we just left to figure
042it out by ourselves while other people get to come to our school and take over our positions that we were interviewed and chosen for if that is the case it is truly unfair and unfortunate that there's no compassion for the employees who show up here every day for these students and give it their all what about people like me who have children here and work here many of us don't have a support system to rely on I am the backbone and the bread winner for my children you can tell when someone shows up every day to their job just to make their money and go home you can also tell who's here for the children and their Futures I'm one of them you could ask any child who has interacted with me at Mar Island
043which is 90% 95% of them to describe how they are treated by me they are our future and how they are treated and spoken to truly matters I'm not here just to help English learning students I'm here every day every single day to make a difference show compassion and help our students realize how important they are and how capable they are of succeeding in life no matter what the background is especially living here I say this as humble as it could be I am an asset to this district and so many others are as well classified staff are the ones who keep the wheels turning and we need answers and clarification no I don't want a letter I don't want to come home to a letter in the mail or receive an email we need
044answers upfront and straightforward if we're losing our jobs we need months to plan ahead and figure out what our next step is in reality we should have given been given answers a whole year ahead but clarification is the least that we deserve you all get to go home today and sleep very comfortably as this might not affect you but for me I'm worried sick every single moment that I wake up my stomach is turning thinking about what the future holds for my family thank you thank you Sharon Johnson is next I think this too much good good afternoon we've met a couple times before I am Sharon Johnson parent of a third grader who is here listening to if her school will be closed um I'm glad I just followed that parent so on the
045February 5th meeting that was the parent I was referring to before my time was cut off at the first meeting she was here fighting because her child just got a a a handicap accessible um playground nobody cleared it up at that time what closure meant it didn't mean that we were getting getting kicked out for Leo Charter again something that was never cleared up at the beginning because there are still people thinking that this campus is going to be closed they don't realize the title of mar Island will be closed um there were people from Mar island with no children saying we pay a lot of taxes we want a open campus here on MAR Island that was never cleared up at that time at the last meeting on February 5th I also asked a
046question I know you can't answer it you just cleared that up but I asked and I pulled up the slide that Miss I'm sorry if I'll pronounce your name incorrectly Miss Pudo and the and the committee had said once before and this is off of the ballots of student demographics in the case of mar Island Health and Fitness Academy travel time would be reduced for most students we know there's four families that live on MAR Island that go to Mar Island we seen that on all these beautiful slides and we've heard it all the time I want to know how many kids go to Val charter school that live on MAR Island we all got here today so our 14 kids are already here on the island but everybody else had to come over one
047of these Bridges to get here we're fine doing that leave us alone Mr superintendent when you say transparency play on words is not transparency we if you're going to tell us you're going to do it if we're going to stay here and be enrolled under these schools you have to be just that tell us what it is and not play on words on what you want us to hear like I said some of those things could have been cleared up from the Beginning valo Charter coming to this campus is not a closure it's just moving us around and that's what we want transparency over even LMA Vista leave them alone you got that linoln over there let's talk about transparency when everybody when you we were at the Town Hall and it said it was
04870 kids there clear transparency we can't close that campus CU nobody understands why there's 70 kids there and now you want to move our kids there what happened last week did the guy jump the fence with the with jump the fence it's dangerous don't move any more kids there move whatever you want at LMA vissa put it there at Lincoln put some security out there don't put no more kids out there until you can figure out the security there thank you thank you Elizabeth Thompson you're next after Elizabeth Eva Pon good evening board and um guests at M Island I'm a teacher here I'm also a parent here I'm a parent who's chosen to bring my three children here to drive across that blue Bridge every day for the last 16 years um and I
049have a question when I look at your packet you talk about offering space within the valo Charter Community for Mar Island students nowhere in that packet does it say every sing single student all 425 of us are welcome to stay you keep talking about the difference between the 150 or so that are in the neighborhood and the rest of us well I'm one of the US many of the parents here tonight speaking for our school are one of the US most of us want to stay most of us are looking to integrate ourselves with valo Charter and that comes to my second question what are you going to do as the board to help Mar Island Health and Fitness and valo Charter become one school a stronger School a better school for this District a
050name is just a name we are a community and I hope I speak for most of our community that we will welcome valo Charter to our school and even if I'm not allowed to stay as a teacher I have to follow that contract my daughter will be here her father will be here because my daughter wants to go to e8th grade at the same school that her brother and sister who are now in the Navy a valo graduate and UC Santa Cruz also a valo graduate so please be transparent tell us what we can do so that we can welcome valo Charter as a mar Island valo Charter Community thank you thank you is it Eva or Eva yeah thank you and then jice Janice Sullivan after her thank you good evening board and everyone
051else my name is Eva I am not only the PTSA board president here at Mar Island I am also a mother my daughter attends school here since kindergarten um I think it's pretty evident that whatever is going to happen is going to happen tonight valo Charter is going to be here the topic for this evening is transparency I sat here and read through that new and uh updated eia there is still not wording there's no words on the paper saying that any of us enrolled is automatically here next year there's still not a clear clear understanding for us what is Staff retainment looking like I'm not here only to speak for my child or the parents I'm here to advocate for the staff that's here the adult that handles my kids are are kids they
052are my Village they're here every day to make me feel comfortable to go out there and provide and work for the family I understand that this is going to happen but we need answers like our first teacher that said it's easy for us to go home it's easy for me to say hey I'm going to transfer my daughter and go to the work District I don't want to do that I want her to come here grow up with her friends and the adult that's taking care of her nobody is giving those answers to us and I think our staff deserve that and for you to tell me this is going to be an integre in you know like a merge valo Charter to Mar Island we need to see what are those specifics your only
053thing you're saying is March 3rd staff is going to get a notification whether they get to stay or not can we get more details parents and staff deserve to know more transparency is what we're asking for our kiddos needs to know if they get to see their fourth grade teacher that she's looking forward to next year I want to know do I get to still see the familiar teachers in the morning I want to know if afternoon if after school program is still going to be run by the same people that my my child trust and adore I believe all of us as parents deserve to know all of the staff deserve to know they need to know do they need to look for a new job do they want to enroll do they have
054to enroll their child somewhere else I don't think that you giving them three months ahead of time to find a new place or or decide for their family it's fair I think I I understand that you guys cannot respond to anything there's not even a point I went to the town hall wrote essays I've spoke with news I've I've reached out to you guys I know that this is inevitable I want to see that you guys take the time to explain and have transparency there is a lot of answers obviously we we have a lot of concerns and I really just want to urge you guys to to take one second put yourself in the staff's shoes in our kids shoes they really really need to hear it thank you so next we have Janice
055Sullivan and then the last speaker on this item is Rosa Velasquez thanks um good evening um superintendent and uh board I'm here again um and uh I had this all this stuff written out to say one of the things that's really struck me listening tonight is that there's no plan to get students back into the school district it seems like all we're talking about is cutting cutting cutting and believe you me I understand about Cuts I was president of the teachers union here when we had to do go into receivership I understand Cuts but it doesn't seem to me that there is much of a plan to try and induce people to come back students to come back to our schools you've talked about how many students you've lost you've lost a tremendous number of
056students and you're there's no plan to bring kids back well guess what list environmental Sciences Academy is a way to bring students back to this school district it is a gem it is unique it is one of only a handful of schools like it in the entire United States people are interested in how um uh food is raised they're interested in the environment and so on and so forth and being able to promote a school like lomov Vista environmental Sciences Academy would I believe help I spend a lot of time at the farm I see kids I see what goes on not only um you know when kids just come to visit but when kids come with their classroom I understand how the farm makes their learning more um engaging and I don't understand why
057you're not promoting not only that the Health and Fitness Academy I see no promotion of these schools and if you're truly interested in getting students back into these schools into our schools then maybe you should think about getting a plan for not just cutting but how do we get people back into the schools um we've already been contacted by um schools about trying to do Partnerships with us and that that's fine the farm is not going anywhere we've been in existence for 50 years it was started by teachers um it is definitely ly the program at LMA Vista environmental Sciences Academy is totally aligned with the state standards um and my question is have any of you ever even been out to see what kids do at the farm and then go back to the
058classrooms and see how do they utilize the skills and the and the um things that they learn at the farm back in their learning I would hope that you would someone has also suggested that you know um if Lov Vista is closed in wedaman salano um or Solano wean whatever you're calling it um the students can utilize that seriously it's a 15minute walk each way from salano to the lovista farm periods are usually about 50 minutes so that means 20 minutes at the farm for the learning that can take place I don't think that's going to work um I absolutely know that funding is dependent on enrollment and I really think that what you should be looking at is trying to figure out how to get students back into the school district when I was
059a teacher here there were 18,000 students here now they're 8,000 thank Youk you the last speaker on this item is Rosa Velasquez sorry when I submitted my card I thought I could ask you questions so I'm going to just use my time my question was I came to every 71 committee that they had I listened to everything that they talked about valo Charter were in the merger of M Island was taken off and we were excited and then all of a sudden in February it was put back on so I just wanted to know why set the 7-Eleven committee have everybody talk go to all these meetings if it feels like at that point you guys already had made your decision I see all these Mar Island parents they're fighting to stay here and I
060believe it's a beautiful spot but me as a parent from valo Charter I'm fighting to stay there too like I said at the last meeting I have three kids to drop off one kid at one school one to another and one to another that gives me anxiety every day since this has started I've had anxiety I was like now what do I do I can't get my kids to m Island they make that decision to come over the bridge they can do it they're closer I live all the way by Georgia Street you're telling me now I have to drop off one kid to high school cuz he's 8ighth grade and now I have to drop off my TK that I'll be kinder over here and a fifth grader over here I'm fighting to stay
061over there I feel like when you guys when this decision was made you guys didn't think about the parents that were over there the ones that chose that school because it was closer to them chose it because it was easier for them I have to literally I fight to drop them off already and then go to work and now I'm like I have to go and do this on a bridge this I just I just feel like you guys didn't see the parents at valo chter as since this has been the talk when it what is added back on the agenda all her classmates I'm like what are you going to do are you guys going to move to Mary Island no a mom's like no we're looking at St Catherine another one's like no
062bonisha is closer to me and exactly my point bonisha is closer to me you guys aren't doing nothing to keep us in these schools you're pushing us away cuz to me bonisha is closer so I would take my kids to bonisha I'm just asking to think about the parents that are from valo Charter we're on that side we're not over here close to m Island why is Lincoln not being considered to be closed or those kids moved over here or what about Federal Terrace I heard it's bad over there why are we not closing that school and bringing those kids over here they're closer than the parents that are on Georgia Street thank you thank you with the board and then if if there's a motion all right we're moving on the agenda to um
063our next set of resolutions before we do that speaking for the board we would like to thank you so much for being here tonight taking your time and caring and what you're saying be it good confused upset or bad we value what you're saying and I have to let you know this board has worked so hard and this board is going through a lot personally I've been having trouble sleeping I've been stressed this board knows we're all going through a lot we don't want to close schools it's the last thing we want to do but because of this way in the United States especially California all districts because of declining enrollment are forced with this and to stay solvent which we're coming out of state receivership unfortunately it's a sad reality also with you saw
064with the budget which was presented before this point the county and state are watching us and if we don't rightsize the district which means not have just schools that are 40% capacity or less the state will tell us what to do again right now we're trying to do that with our voices as a board being valo citizens so this is not an easy process it's not something we want to do it's something we have to do to be able to maintain the district our staff and our superintendent has worked tirelessly to come up with many different plans and IDE ideas none of them have been easy none of them we want to even look at but again with reality we have to look at them there was also suggestions I wanted to clarify something before
065we go to the resolution when you take a big group of students from one site to another site and you're increasing the amount of capacity at a site you need more staff at that site so far as if a site has students and teachers now and you add a lot more students you need to bring the teachers to be able to take care of those students and the staff so I heard concerns but that's something unfortunately with seniority Dr Patrick will take care at some point um so it's not like teachers don't follow students we'll see how that works with that now we are going to look at our first resolution and our first resolution our first will be resolution 50 35 correct 5035 Mar Island to CH to valo Charter yes 53 530 oh
066530 53 okay sorry first motion is 530 board is there any discussion questions or comments before we look at the for a vote trusty Flores I know one of my concerns has been transportation for the kids that are currently busted to Mar Island and just ensure that those that are being busted in will continue to be if if it passes and Leo Charter comes here that that's my biggest concern correct and we heard from the board as far as the direction I received from the board is couple different items first and foremost the current active students in in Mar Island Health and Fitness if the school is closed essentially and merged with valo Charter that those students be given the opportunity to stay here that was heard loud and clear yep the second one was
067for students who are currently receiving transportation to the island that that continue and we made we we we agreed to that that that would continue okay the essential change and I I heard a parent mention this and it and I'll explain a little bit about the transparency and it has to do with some of the semantics of closure versus merger and that gets complicated theoretically what we're looking at is a merger of schools or a consolidation of two schools the challenge is one school is a dependent Charter One is not so there it's a little more complicated in language we have to use so I just want to clarify that the ultimate goal is to merge them into one school meaning those students get to remain here who are here and are joined by valo
068Charter students it would be essentially a name change of the program as well I'd like to clarify what you just said superintend relo because we talked about it at a town hall um I think two months ago or a month ago that if we do decide to go forward with bringing valo Charter School to this site Maryland fit Mar Island Fitness Academy that there is enough room for both schools for all the students to be together on top of giving priority also to Mar Island residents that ongoing so those three things that the board May sure would happen would be that the existing students that are here at Mar Island Fitness would be allowed to stay if they want to and thato Charter if it happens would be able to have enough room to join
069them and that maryan residents would always have first priority so that is something we clarified and made sure and I'm glad trusty Flores brought that up that that is something that will happen correct thank you oh uh hold on I have one more thought on that before um anyways Dr Young my question is um the merging of curriculum will that will in in the moving of the two schools for uh reu restructuring I'm sorry it's okay will there be a consideration of merging the two all curriculums together to restructure I don't know whose question that is is that I'm actually G to turn well yes Heather's right behind us Heather topasio maybe she can speak to that yes I can um so valo charter school is in the process of writing their new their renewal
070petition and U because it is a dependent Charter they outline in it how they specialize their instruction for the school so if valo Charter is located here on MAR Island it would bring its specialized program here however there is a significant overlap in adopted curriculum between valo Charter and the rest of the valo campuses so there's there's not a lot of daylight between the two what I think the mayor Island families might find though is that there's further opportunity for the Arts and further opportunity for Project based learning um in the valo charter curriculum does that any other questions or um comments before we move to the resolution no okay so we have a resolution before us the resolution 5030 trusty Flores Mo make a motion to adopt resolution 530 trustee hudes second roll call
071please truste and again this is let me read the full thing just so it's clear 5030 resolution to the Board of Trustees to authorize this is moving valo Charter School to Mar to this facility here Maryland combining the programs correct correct roll call please trusty Morales I trusty hajes I trusty Flores I vice president Amboy I trusty Simmons I trusty Young I President Fox I and the motion passes unanimously which one now so now now the board is going to take up for consideration resolution number 531 which is of the Board of Trustees of the valo City Unified School District to close a school L Vista environmental health and science environmental Academy fil filing a notice of exemption exemption under squ that's just the technical term but 5031 essentially is would would be the full
072closure of LMA Vista so that is the resolution in front of you now I have comments and um questions on that okay um for this resolution I um personally love the idea of having um Elementary School connected to a farm where you just walk a few minutes transition and you have programs that are connected to agriculture gardening livestock which are Health Nutrition standards connected to the state standards of Health Nutrition standards and as we were told previously there's only a few of these programs in the United States let alone there's nothing like that in salano County um this has been a valo gem the farm for years here in valo and having it on the same Campus of an education elementary site I think is just has so much potential unfortunately the program has not
073met or exceeded not even exceeded let alone met its potential for where it could be and the enrollment there is low at that site but I see it as such an asset to the school district in that it can foster future enrollment as a parent choice school um especially for the reasons that I said that's connected with it being an educator of 27 years and knowing what's thrown on us every day I don't see transition times of walking students from another site that would take 30 to 40 minutes of walking time a few times a week or even once a month I can barely get through the curriculum that I I have to do each day so I don't see that as something far as to say oh we'll just let the school other schools
074in our district use that site but we'll close the school there and make the other schools do that the only thing we legally allowed to mandate is PE and ELD those are mandated by the state even if our district asks for initiatives to in like teachers and principles to use the farm when schools are struggling to get through the curriculum they currently have or trying to get our test scores even hopefully raised it just raises more spreading thin what I don't feel would happen personally as a teacher I think we have enough on our plates and it's hard to juggle just to get through what we need to get through every day so for me personally I'm very against extremely against this CU I think you would promote further damage to the district the city
075schools of not offering something so unique that no one else offers around here and especially showcasing when we have obesity and diabetes rampid in this country if we had students working on nutrition or showcasing that throughout the Bay Area that' be a positive to look what valo is doing for their students we don't see that and I want positive for this District I want avenues for enrollment in this District I think if we close it it will not be able to be reopened and I personally don't think the farm will be utilized much not just by this District let alone I'm not sure personally as a resident if it will even survive so those are mine I've made these points very clear the last few months that I want something that's a magnet not working
076the way it needs to but it's a magnet school I would love to see it since we have a 3 to foure budget I would love it to see put it on a 2-year plan and on that 2-year plan look at data is the data working that they are enforcing the curriculum connected to the state standards with the curriculum of having agriculture nutrition Health livestock so forth and then in those two years if there's data that shows it is not being utilized properly or we're not making progress or parents do not want that is a School of Choice then I feel then you have enough information not just for you but as a elected trustee being an elected trustee you are responsible to all the citizens so I need to have data to make decisions
077I do not have any data on this this shows me anything's been utilized but I do see things can be utilized to make it something a School of Choice thank you for listening to me and I want you to know just because a student board member has a different perspective about which schools should do what or be closed or not be closed it doesn't mean that we're not working together we are working together we're working very hard together to promote our schools our district and the future of valo but I need to make it very clear for the six years I've been here we had 12,000 students when I came we're down to 8,000 students 4,000 less unfortunately test scores we trying so hard I love our new superintendent that's trying so hard I love
078our district cabinet that's trying so hard we as board members are trying so hard but we have to utilize what we have and try to use that to compete and to stay solvent so that is my plea to this board to please give it time and collect data and then make that decision and bring other schools forward in April which we're going to be doing anyways we are told we are okay if we do not close the elementary school our budget will be okay because our budget is forecasted 3 to four years out so we don't have to make that decision we could just close the middle part of that also Christy Gardner who was a trustee sent us all along email opposing closing the elementary site at LMA she wants FFA Future Farmers of
079America to hopefully be partnered with so that not only we can expand but we can grow programs and Empower children to know the importance of not just Agriculture and livestock but where does nutrition come from and how do you utilize it so I thank trusty Gardner for her comments and I agree with her we should be partnering more with a gem and utilizing what we already have and make it better so those are my comments thank you for listening with that now are there any other comments from the board or questions yes trusty cementon um sorry I forgot I had to do oh um well with us like talking about like if LMA Vista gets closed having other schools use the farm would um we be able to get like District vehicles to bring them
080to and from the farm or would that put us in a greater deficit or situation that we are already in D Simmons that's a great question I'm actually going to turn back and look at my look at my team who can probably give us a better answer on possible transportation to and from the farm the intent of the farm was to always service the students of Vallejo unified not just a single school it is important to note that that the farm does is accessible to every student in Vallejo so um it would be considered a field trip and field trips are funded um through um supplemental sources of of funding that we have in our elcap um and every School site has access to those funds um to plan supportive field trips this would actually
081be a great one because we could utilize our District transportation services versus chartering out transportation services because it's in town and so close so it actually um promoting the field trip option would would be um really advantageous because kids get to do things more often since it's right here in our community thank you Miss tasio Miss Simmons are you good I do have to say though as an educator it's oh okay yes just a second um as an educator field trips are a lot of work work on a teacher it's a lot of paperwork a lot of work and there's always bus transportation fees so it's not something so easy is just planning when you're busy and you have to get all through all your curriculum it's something on top of what you must do
082that's a made do what you must do you're mandated you have to get done so that's just for fun if you have time um I see that trusty um Morales you had a question or a comment I just wanted to follow up on um trusty Simmons question um so miss tapasio answered about salano weed and would this be a choice for other schools as well in the school district go ahead yes any school um certainly salono weeding being the most proximate could utilize it more often and we would encourage them to do so but all schools in valo should be utilizing this resource um and um I know that we can encourage them to do so more often because it is it it is a gem thank you trusty Flores thank you um I just
083kind of want to you know during this process I've always had my intention of trying to ensure that we we separate what the two things are because one is LMA Vista environmental Academy and one is the farm the farm is an independent entity they have a board of directors we heard the president just come up and say that they'll be fine that nothing's going to happen so I look at this as an opportunity that maybe the district can now utilize it more and I think maybe in part because the school was right there maybe we did take it for granted and and didn't utilize it as much and in regards to field trips being just fun I mean visi the farm is supposed to be fun so so yeah the the field trip would be
084fun you know and uh and like you said if it's part of this agricultural curriculum that that's being put in and and and uh nutrition and whatnot then there are certain things that we can or not we but the the superintendent and his cabinet can can mandate the school to to address to focus on to include in their in their curriculum so all these things that that can be done at the one site we can also do districtwide you know because again at the end of the day I want a magnet District I I don't want just magnet schools I don't want only a couple of families a handful of am in our district feeling like they are fortunate to attend school a but talk down about school B that's working just as hard so
085so so sometimes to get to that bigger picture we have to do these hard decisions and and closing a school um consolidating a school you know like I said before it's a huge sacrifice it's one of the biggest sacrifices we can ask our community our parents our kids so I think all of this isn't taken lightly and for myself I I'm trying to just maintain the the the overall big picture of of the district because the last thing I want to do like you said is have the state come in and give the community zero voice and and all we become up here are just uh uh uh what's the word um decoration you know ceremonial and and actually not a functioning board because of because the state now is in control so it was
086reminded to me earlier and and and sometimes I get a little bit of tunnel vision but regardless at the end of the day I think regardless of how we all vote and how we all feel on on on these all of us board members staff Superintendent at the end of the day have the best interest of of our kids at heart you know and and and maybe the way we approach it is is a little bit different but you know I thank you for all the hard work and and your comments and and and your dialogue that we've had in closed session and Open Session you know but but for me again the only comment I I say to the community is that my goal is to have a magnet District not just magnet schools
087so thank you vice president ambo thank you everyone for your comments it's it has been very difficult for all of us um to come to a decision um but we always keep the the kids in heart um I as a parent you know we do we're not just parents um we also live here in valo we also have kids who attend vcusd um so we try to look at the big picture what's best for us and the LMA Vista Farm is it is a gem and for me I feel that it would be best utilized by by having different programs readily available so every kid in at vcusd can take advantage of of the farm table experience how to how to grow your own vegetables how to raise your own um raise your own chickens
088just just a little things like that and I think uh we do have a very big opportunity to really step back and gain ground and have the right leadership to move us forward to taking advantage of the gem of LMA Vista farms uh trusty young oh Simmons sorry I have another question um we spoke on the last resolution about how like if VCS gets merg to Mary Island how their curriculums will be um if LMA goes to salano Wiman um Leadership Academy will their curriculums blend well like is there a plan on how resources will be merged correctly without it feeling like um you're getting rid of the key things that both schools have to offer um so it's a little different with salano and LMA Vista both salano Weedman and LMA Vista utilize the
089um standard adopted curriculum of valo City Unified so they have all the same curriculum um certainly um salano wedaman has some assets that um students can take advantage of at the middle school level that um LMA Vista doesn't given its smaller size um for instance some electives at the middle school level that students at LMA um haven't had the opport to take advantage of um I know that um principal Mitchell Lewis um is ready and and eager to invite and um celebrate the the students at LMA Vista and and welcome them into the salano wedaman community um as you may have remembered from previous presentations by school teams um salano Weedman is a leader in me school and has made significant strides and efforts um in the implementation of that program um and I think
090that that will merge well with some of the tenants that Lov Vista um supports um in in their principles and and Leadership strategies that they're using so I think there's a the great opportunity um and I know that the staff of salano Weedman um and the community of salano Weedman will welcome the Lov Vista students as well vice president um Amboy truste Flores my apologies I I just wanted to ask um and you know because part of this we we've talked about uh superintendent earlier is that it's not just about money it's about programmatic improvements um I was reading some stuff about scaffolding and the the term you know for me as a construction worker scaffolding is very different than than uh in an educational level but it brought up a point about how when
091you have multiple teachers of the same grade level and how they can work together and collaborate and cooperate I think that if I'm not mistaken that's one of the benefits that that will occur because Salo weerman or excuse me uh LMA V right now only has one teacher per grade or or is or no I believe L is a little bit bigger than that um no no l l a little bit Yeah L it's not one per I believe L is a little larger I think you're you're you're confusing Lincoln and federal Terrace they're currently sitting at one teacher per grade level got it yeah yeah but but at the end of the day more more more teachers collaborating correct benefits programmatically it's is that correct it gives the program more options um a lot
092of the work we're doing and and Heather tapasio can speak to this because of our professional learning teachers are we're constantly working with our our teams to build collaboration time to sure that our teachers are looking at Best Practices are using each other as resources but also providing the students resources so when you have multiple teachers in a grade level you have more options in how you group your students how you rearrange your students targeting those students for specific reasons and that's sort of the scaffolding that you would talk about part of the interventions we do the more teachers you have in that M mix in a school you have more options and I think for me that's kind of as a parent because right I'm not just on the board here I'm a parent
093with a child in the district and and for me at the end of the day as a parent programs are sure okay but at the end of the day what are the test scores that at site so I think when we're talking about attracting enrollment here it's those test scores that we have to improve we got to get out of the red and and these these choices and and these outcomes that come from these choices we're making the goal is to improve those numbers which at the end of the day as a parent that's my focus thank you any other comments my um comment on that is when you have children students that are excited because you have something special at a site when kids get excited about not just livestock or they get excited
094about grow growing vegetables or they get excited about where does food come from or they get excited because they're tackling issues like obes obesity or diabetes or they get excited about that they know there's only a few in the nation let alone no one in the county that's empowering a student and the excitement when you talk about test scores when a student is engaged and they have the why to be at a school they will not only thrive it's their Community it's who they are those test scores will go hand inand because they love what they do and they want to go to school every day because of those features and that would promote enrollment in our city which that's everything we should be looking at for our future um also again just to bring
095back having just field trips within our valo schools if there's no school at LMA Vista that's open and just have it for Field Trips Again teachers do not have the time or energy they must get through we've heard comments that oh well our district test scores need to go up well then they need to be working on what they have to do each day a field trip is a fun may do not a must do and I I just want to make sure that we have that talking to the board of LMA Vista they said the excitement of the children is phenomenal and they try to sell our district when they do other things at the farm to say this is why it's special they also said the face of the kids when they look
096at the animals or they see that their plant grew again it makes it why they want to go to school that makes it different than any school in valo so again I'm afraid if we close that we're hurting oursel in the future for enrollment and for something special why the why to go there anyways with that it's time for us to look at this uh Dean hajes trusty Dean hajes just just a short comment um granted we are um here to make some difficult decisions tonight granted we're here to to make some difficult decisions tonight um regardless of how the outcome is um superintendent ailio um I have very much confidence in you helping us write the school district that's that's it so the next two resolutions ahead of us the first one is the
097full closure of LMA Vista the whole site middle and elementary the second resolution if we do not close the elementary part the whole site the second resolution would be just to close the Middle School aspect which is about 70 or 80 students that would go to Salo weerman um if we close the whole site we will not need the next resolution so with that the first resolution to close all of LMA Vista environmental science academy by that's mouthful LMA Vista Elementary science academy Environmental Science Academy excuse me um this motion is what 5031 correct all right so is there a motion uh trusty hajes oh is there a motion I make a motion to adopt resolution 5031 trusty Flores second it roll call trusty Morales I trusty Hodes I trusty Flores I vice president ambo
098I trusty Simmons I trusty Young all President Fox no the motion passes for yes and one no the next resolution we will table because it's not needed since the whole site was closed suggestion no we're now on to the next item where are weum we're on item seven The Forum item 7 Forum inter agencies is there anyone from inter agencies yes or no I don't see anyone here um Thea would you like to speak Kevin is here thank you good evening board um trustees superintendent uh this is indeed had really been a heavy night um so I try to bring positive reports however this time is much more difficult with school campuses closing and staff reductions both have have prod produced fear and uncertainty among many of our staff members while these difficult decisions have
099to be made each school is its own Community where people know each other and work together for the benefit of their children the school staff have worked alongside each other for many years and the community and the community's children being their their common Focus thank thank you thank you Kevin steel we are now on to just CA have a representative CSEA we [Applause] do thank you my name is Colette I'm a library mediate Tech and tonight I'm here on behalf of the C CA valo 199 as a member at large by March 15th you are legally required to provide us with a def definitive yes or no on the positions being eliminated and reduced tonight you have allly find all finally made a decision on what positions will be reduced and are eliminated by knowing
100what schools you'll close however if you had an ounce of human decency you would understand the importance of providing us with with these answers sooner rather than later the amount of lives your decisions are affecting the lives of our students parents and staff your affecting is much bigger than those of you up there tonight and that should be reason enough for you all to have worked harder for these answers 147 days ago was the first meeting of 7-Eleven committee they had met six times yet this not the noticeable drop in public school enrollment had been noted by VC PD since the 2018 2019 school year being unable to provide us with any definitive future P path for so long shows a level of extreme unprofessionalism imagine being in a position of uncertainty for the future
101of you and your family through no fault of your own the estimate of positions that were provided last Friday evening on Valentine's Day was not enough with the real answers waiting for tonight's meeting VC usd's mission statement states that it is their mission to meet our students and their families where they are and provide them with high quality enriching educational experience this is not how you do that in CSEA our mission statement is as follows to improve the lives of our members students and Community when we are CA members it is impossible for us to do our best when those above us put us in positions where we are in fear of losing the jobs that we put our hearts and souls into you need to do better for the people that you represent thank
102you thank you do we have vsma vsma no vsma okay now we're going to go to student reports I I think let me see no oh Committee Member excuse me we do have community members all right our first commune member so there were cards submitted earlier we have four cards uh this is the community Forum component the public comment period Doris Anderson if you can come up to the microphone then we'll have Colette Louie Mona Lei and Marissa caranel [Music] hi my name is Doris Anderson and I am in the noon duty at Federal terce Elementary School at our site we communicate clearly with each other to ensure safety and of our students we are a well-rounded school who ensures success for our students in ways Beyond academically we provide them with the resources to
103succeed emotionally physically and mentally we work together to give our students the environment they deserve in fact I live in the Community Federal terrorist is in I can guarantee you all that my neighborhood is safe not only do we have a homeowners association but as an individual we work to make sure that everything is up to order I can truly say to you all the community around and within Federal Terrace is a safe space for the children I been there for 10 years I've been at Federal Terrace for S years I have a senior granddaughter that's graduating this year and is started at Federal terrorist she has an academic scholarship full ride to benett college North Carolina it started at Federal terit thank you thank you Colette okay once again my name is col La
104I'm at the library mediate Tech at vedal Terrace I know a lot of parents are concerned with the SCH school closures but I have been there now as the librarian since 2018 before that I worked three years as n Duty before that I was a volunteer for my daughters all three of my daughters attended Federal Terrace it's a safe safe school I want the parents that are dealing with the closures we all know it's going to happen but Federal terrorist is a safe School we're a community Alia here went to Federal terrorist I'm happy to see her up here my daughter I have an 18-year-old she'll be graduating from Sonoma State I have a senior this year and I have a 10th grader they all attended feder terce as long as your parents are there
105you know your community your new your students I just want the parents to know that their students will be fine at our school thank you thank you Moana Le thank you hi everyone my name is Moana I am her oldest daughter um I'm a fedal chist Alum as she mentioned and while fedal chist isn't closing I feel like it's important for everyone here to know the role that FAL terce has played in my life and so many others lives um I promoted from fedal terce in and all the lessons I've learned from fedal terce have stuck with me since my time as a dragon I've graduated from Griffin Academy High School I was their first student board remember after they bought back the position after I begged the superintendent I was one of two of
106their first graduates and I was the first student to graduate with an associates degree I did all of this at 16 years old I'm now 18 and I am preparing to graduate from Sonoma State in May with a bachelor's in political science this would not have been possible without the groundwork that Federal ter laid out for me when I was a child I have always been a very social student but there was never a time at Federal terrorist when I felt that my need for social interaction was a burden to anyone many students sometimes get shut down by someone who should care for them and lose their spark forever I can proudly say Federal Terrace made me comfortable to be me Sonoma state is in a position just like the vcsd they are closing many
107of our programs to the families affected I truly send my heart out to you having to uproot your future through no fault of your own is an absolutely horrible position to be put in I full-heartedly stand here before you today to say the future of the students who are being affected are Futures who hold the same potential as me after I promoted from federal terorist my mom became the librarian the federal terrorist family have truly supported me and watched me as I have grown up and I couldn't be more proud to call myself a dragon for life thank you the last public commenter in this item is Marissa carbonel good evening uh board uh superintendent aelio it's unfortunate that the families that spoke earlier are gone and I'm sorry I wasn't here before I was
108going to be here last week but I was sick I'm the principal at Federal Terrace and I've been there this is my 18th Year is as principal at that school this is my 20th year in this District and I'm going to tell you something when I first got the principal ship I told myself I am not going to retire until I have a blue ribbon nationally recognized school and we're getting there slowly but surely I know my school's going to get there but in the last couple of years I like trusty Flores I don't want to work at a blue rib nationally recognized school I want to work at a magnet District okay I want to work at a district where we do not disparage each other to lift ourselves up every single school at
109F in Vallejo sorry we are all working together come to one of our principal meetings come to our principal meetings we are collaborating as Leaders like we never have in my 20 years in this District we are collaborating like never principles are on the phone with each other how did you get that score what did you do I have an email to Evana the principal over at Dan mini hey how did your kindergarten do so well you know I'll call her tomorrow and say how how did your fifth graders get get those scores I want my fifth graders at Federal Terrace to do what you did at Dan mini the collaboration to lift each other up is there but when I hear a person a Community member of aoan say I heard it tonight and
110it hurts me to my core to it's it I felt like my heart was being pierced to hear somebody say oh I heard over at Federal terrrace it's not good I'm sorry it's beautiful in the community at Federal Terrace I remember the first day I drove I feel the same way the first day when I got the job and I drove through the community I was like oh my God it's so beautiful here and I still have that moment almost every day when I drive to work so I am not I want to change the narrative in this District our community members community members you've got to change a narrative how do we attract people back to our district we lift each other up right it is fabulous a w law it's even better at
111Glen Cove oh my God you should go over to Lincoln that principal is trying she's doing everything she can some things now neighborhoods are not perfect in Vallejo they are not perfect but they're not going to get any better if we continue to disparage each other so I think as a city as members of this city together how do we bring kids back stop disparaging each other lift each other up thank you all right thank you now we are on student reports which one would like to go first Mr Morales thank you everyone uh good evening everyone my name is Ricardo and um for my student report I would like to start with our valo high school rally we had two weeks ago um two weeks ago we had our school rally in the btari
112gym during third and fourth period we started the rally with the high school band we Rec this year we just started our valo high school band again which um did did perform a a few times during the rally we also did a few games we did the tower game we a towel game where we um had someone lay a student lay on the towel and then another student pushing them through through the gym and then going back that was one of one of the games that was just an example and so when it came to the time with the rally that's something I had a big concern with so our rallies i c lat the time it was like about 47 minutes for the rallies and I just want to know if we're allowed to
113have more time or if there's a way we can change the schedule for that day for rallies because the um when we were doing our cheers our school cheers to be there was no um there was no participation there was no school spirit and I believe that if we had more time with the students nth graders 10th graders all of them I believe that that we can show them why valo high is a great school to go to and why it has a lot of school spirit um so yeah I just I feel like in the future for both rallies the one in um the first semester and the one in the second semester we can have more time for the next thing I want to report is last week I had me and tresy
114Alia and I went to the NLC meeting with u Miss Grace barkell and Miss um Dilly Miss sha Dilly we we met the new students who are going to who are going to go with us to Washington they're they're very nice and fun we also spoke again in the council chamber and I believe I've when I spoke I felt more confident in everything I said I felt like I am I can speak freely I don't have yeah and today I went on a field trip with my medical career class which is the top class for the medical field in our school um we went to the CER Health here in valo we toured around a few departments there in the center Health such as FP such as um the labs that they do for photomy
115so blood um x-rays Radiology stuff like that next this week we have a meeting with the principal as be and presidents of each grade so um I will be attending that it's going to it's going to be at 8 to 8:30 around that time so it's similar to the superintendent student advisory council meeting but it's a lot shorter um as you guys may know there's a policy that we have where students have students or clubs in the schools are allowed to fund raise so when they fund when they fund raise they have to send a form um superintendent notified schools that we had a policy but we haven't followed it and we should start following where students or um clubs that want to fund raise it have to send it to the board and it
116has to be 2 months or 60 days before the fundraising happens and um I I didn't specifically tell them the teacher SL advisor for the leadership class did tell them and a lot of the students were a little upset about it they seem sad but I did get a few students who gave me feedback that I we believe that maybe a month is can work I don't I don't know how it would but yeah I would like to give us an update on IDs at Val High School um students are supposed to wear so nowadays I never see anyone wear them students don't wear their IDs but um I would say like a month ago I did speak to the vice principal and two weeks ago I spoke to the principal about um I proposed
117an idea where students have to wear their IDs in order to use the restrooms in the valo high school and they both like the idea but um I'm hoping to hear back from them or seeing um the action take place with that I also recommended that we open the seab building restroom because in valo high School recently we have two restrooms open one in the auditorium and one in the quad but back then the the only restroom that was open was the quad and there's only two restrooms or there's two um rest toilets you can say yeah stalls that were open for the ladies and just one for the men and um a few a lot of students were complaining about how there's not enough room in those bathrooms but in the sea building bathroom
118that we have there's many more stalls in both bathrooms and um again I'm just hoping to see an outcome on that um so we had an issue with fundraising recently in Bel High School I I recommended to the principle that clubs Club presidents should have documentation about when they have so so when when fundraising happens you have to send in a form and then that form talks about what you're going to sell and when you want to sell it and where you want to sell it in the school but I believe that when they do that they should have documents that say when they talked about it when did this meeting happen with times and just I would want this because I feel like with that people don't get mistaken for maybe someone stealing other
119ideas um another update I would like to give about the school is an update on the Marquee I I believe that's the name of it the screen in the front so I did talk to um the the um office manager Miss toen I I was just curious I wanted to see what's what's going on she did talk to me about how there is they're working on it they've been working on it for a few months or maybe a year now but the people who are supposed to go out there there they this is too Advance like the problem is too much so they did contact of more technicians and more advanced technicians but from what from what Miss Townson did tell me is that they are waiting for a part a certain part for the
120Marquee and she said that she doesn't know when they're going to come back but they she has contact but I I'm not sure I I don't remember if she told me when um okay um last thing so last week on Wednesday we had an honorable um celebration for the students 9th graders 10th graders 11th graders and 12th graders so for nth graders they received their rewards during second period and then 10th graders 3rd 11th fourth and 12th graders um Fifth and um I I was in all of them since I'm a senior so um when I went to mine there was I I believe they said that there's more than half of seniors who are getting honor roll so that that's great to hear and many of those students who received Don got a Forint
121honor higher and that that's my report thank you trusty Morales truste Simmons and and trustees after uh trusty Simmons report I believe she has to leave so we want to make sure we give her an opportunity to excuse herself yeah oh sorry I didn't expect it to be that loud um good evening I hope you all enjoyed your 4-day weekend or 3 days we had a 4-day weekend because I did um last week was very interesting for Jesse Bethal High School um I can't speak for valo high but um students at Jessie Bethal High School participated in a walk out supporting immigrants rights and against ice lots of student particip sorry I'm sick lots of students participated in this walk out some making posters and signs as they did for the protest we had two
122weeks ago and um which was also in support of immigrants and rights staff was very helpful in keeping the students safe during the walk out and I really appreciate that at Jessie BTO High School I noticed that with the things that have been going on some students amongst all grade levels are struggling to focus on their schoolwork there is a lot of worry and stress amongst students probably not just at Jesse Bel the high school amongst all the students in the district about their safety or safety of their family members um at Jesse betho our teachers and Leadership have been trying to work hard to make events to distract and lessen the stress for our students saying that we have a Marty gr parade happening next Friday I believe hosted by our French Department which
123I'm excited for because I'm in French Club and I take French class um last week I also went with um as trusty Morales said said I went to the youth delegation we presented to the city about our Washington DC trip that's coming up early next month we met with the new youth delegates and we were able to talk about our itinerary and our plans for when we go to Washington some including youth leadership workout workshops and mingling opportunities I'm very I'm very excited as I love meeting Leaders with um the same goals and initiatives that I may have we will be in Washington for about 5 days I believe and um I'm lowkey oh can I say that that's not professional oh I'm I'm lowkey hoping for snow oh this Saturday sorry um this Saturday
124there is a cyber bullying awareness luncheon for um student leaders I was going to attend but since I have track I have a track meet this Saturday I won't be able to attend but I made sure a week ago when I got the information to let my school's student council and Leadership know of the opportunity and I'm glad to hear that some if not most of them will be attending the luncheon Sports season is kicking off um especially track as I said I have a um meet this Saturday at San Lorenzo High School so you know please come support me um and come support our talent show um Jesse belto is hosting a talent show on the 28th of February at 5:00 p.m. it's $5 to go that's my report thank you guys thank you
125trusty Simmons and good night to you with that we are on our consent items do I hear a motion oh go ahead um we are on eight agenda 8 consent a through K A through K do we have a motion vice president Amboy I'd like to make a motion to approved consent item 8 a through K do we hear a second trusty Flores second that roll call trusty Morales is absent trusty Hodes hi trusty Flores hi vice president Amboy hi trusty Simmons is absent trustee young I President Fox I the motion passes unanimously so we are on to item 9A which is information so for informational item 9A the 2023 2024 audited financial statements and accompanying corrective action plan our Financial Consultant good sport he's been here all night Douglas Craner is here to introduce
126and speak to this item Mr Craner please come forward there he is great yes thank you um every year the um the district has to have a an audit of of their financial statements and that audit has to be be presented to the board for um for the review um and if there's any um um questions so I'll just go quickly go over the highlights I mean the board and the corrective action was it was included in your in your packet um please note that the financial statements were um are presented according to generally accepted accounting principles there were some audit adjustments that had to get that in line um But after those um recommended audit adjustments were made in the um the financial statement EV um there was an un unmodified opinion meaning it
127was a clean clean opinion regarding the presentation of those financial statements um there were like I said there were audit adjustments from what was presented in September to um to what was in the financial statements and those those restatements will be presented at at second interim um in addition there were three findings one with internal controls that I'm working with um the superintendent and and business and business staff as well as um other um centralized staff in order to address those concerns and tighten up the internal controls I know that's been a repeat finding the other finding was related to um doing the net Charter shift for the charter charter school so um that was actually um completed and we sent it off it was actually completed by the prior CBO Miss Loa and that
128was sent off to the um auditor for review and then we'll amend the um that that PT report based on my analysis it doesn't look like there's going to be a big impact from what was presented um initially to what was what what what will be revised um and then the last one was Transportation expenditures um because during 20 2223 school districts are now reimbursed for up to um or actually reers 60% of eligible Transportation expenditures but now since that is used as a fun a funding mechanism they are now um that's part of the aut guide to make sure that what's booked just to home to school transportation it has to exclude field trips and other Transportation but can only be um home to school special ed and general education um that's getting um
129you know within the audit guide and there was a finding where there were a couple field trips that were included in that special code so then there was that um an adjustment to that so um I don't know if there's any other questions but that was pretty much the the main thing where um the financial statements were presented in accordance with gap um three audit findings that are being addressed um there was no federal audit findings which was good news because there were the big the big programs that were tested were um were title one and I believe um um education stabilization fund so um any questions on that no okay thank you and it's just information no action thank you thank you thank you thank you Douglas we're on agenda Item B now Heather
130depos thank you all right good evening uh trustees uh President Fox Dr Young uh superintendent lelio trusty Amboy trusty Flores trusty hajes trusty Morales and staff um I have the opportunity to come to you tonight um to present to you some midyear updates it's kind of there there are three items that I'll be kind of sharing with you tonight um one the the dashboard the California dashboard um our midyear um map assessments that you've seen before and some formative assessment data just a general academic overview of where we are to date um I'll start with our vcusd portrait of a graduate vcusd is committed to the work of ensuring that each student leaves our system with the skills and knowledge required to succeed in this complex world the work implemented the work of implementing the
131vcusd portrait of a graduate and the Strategic pillars is uh Central to this commitment now that the elements of the portrait of a graduate profile have been finalized teachers will be working to ensure that their instruction is aligned to these out comes purposeful effort has been made to ensure that our instructional priorities and professional learning are aligned to the portrait of a graduate and the Strategic plan I look forward to sharing more on this topic in future presentations so as I noted tonight we will review the outcomes based on the 2024 California dashboard uh we will have a review of the midyear progress as measured by the NWA map assessment review our midterm midyear um early literacy outcomes from our core reading inventory and review the progress on current initiatives um to support improved outcomes
132in 2025 so starting with the California dashboard remember this is related to um the academic data that I shared with you earlier this year as a result of the spring uh Casp assessments and I at that time I noted that when the dashboard was released I'd come back to you to share a fuller picture um based on those dashboard outcomes um so this is that opportunity the dashboard measures performance um and and growth um in our system on academic measures on both state indicators and local indicators we'll focus mostly on the state indicators tonight the academic indicators include um academic progress in ela math progress for our English Learners or our multilingual Learners our College and Career preparedness it also um measures and shows growth in uh student engagement related to Chronic absenteeism indicators our
133graduation rate indicator and it also um provides growth data on our conditions in climate related to and that would be um our suspension data indicator the dashboard displays performance in all these pretty colors uh we call it the 5x5 and it um the dashboard is a matric that assigns a color depending on the performance level the far left column and the growth or Improvement level going from uh left to right colors are assigned where the growth measures and the performance measures coincide so as you can see you have to be as on the left side High performing and significantly increasing if you if you if those two things are true then your color is blue um if you are low performing and not growing then you will remain in red if you're low performing but
134making improvements then you'll see the color change to Orange so those are the different ways you can achieve those colors before we um Branch off into all the colorful data um I wanted to share a bit of a celebration we had schools that were in what we call atsi or CSI status and all of these schools listed are either exiting atsi or CSI status meaning we have no more schools in CSI status at all which is a major celebration um so while uh we have so much more work to do this would indicate that our schools are making some progress and are moving out of that differentiated assistance um that placed them in CSI status so schools are identified a CSI if they are in the bottom 5% of Title One schools which vcusd is
135primarily Title One schools um and have all red indicators on the dashboard or all red indicators except for one on the dashboard or all red and orange indicators and that is measured annually um atsi is the same criteria CSI but is based on an individual student group um as an equity indicator and um and is identified every 3 years so those two classifications it is a positive thing that we are exiting that status for all of these campuses I want to start with some indicators related to engagement in climate um you will um notice that I have provided data for 2023 the growth the positive or negative growth and then the 2024 data along with a comparison to the state of California this is that um idea of being you know proud of growth but
136fully transparent on how much further we have left to go so you will um uh probably re remembering at this time all of the attendance strategies outlined in Dr Kelly's presentation in October the community engagement the Outreach the access to programs the um the work we're doing to address students social emotional needs with our mental health support providers Wellness spaces counselors attendance Liaisons all of that um and again you people will hear me always say it's always yes and Improvement is never one thing um and so all of those efforts come together to Pro to support improvements um I am pleased that we have had a significant decline in chronic absenteeism but you will note that in comparison to the average across the state we still have a long ways to go I am a
137bit troubled by the drop in um the graduation rate over the last year and later on in the presentation I'll speak to some activities that are happening um in response to that data and what I also am very pleased with is that our con suspension rate continues to fall um bringing us a little more in line with the average in the state but not quite there so um that 1.9% drop um just shows a consistent um move toward the toward the average I also want to um I would be remiss if I didn't note the implementation of our positive behavior intervention and support response to behavior handbook that is now implemented across the district and the implementation of all those Key Programs that our schools share with you the leader and me p um PBIS
138kimis all of those things that come before you are factors in developing climates in in cultures where students remain fully engaged and there is less of a need for suspension and um assertive discipline I also want to um give you some the same information but again breaking it down by the student groups that are um most significantly represented in our district to show where we are continuing to make improvements and where we may have some additional work to do to unpack what's behind the data um so this is the same factors as the previous slide but related to our um highly represented student groups um and so you'll see that for the most part um chronic absenteeism continues to move in the right direction and for the most part suspension rates move in the right
139direction where we even see some students moving into the green but then we have to continue to identify that our students who um struggle in through um either homelessness or being or or participation in Foster youth programs um will continue to need ongoing support uh for their individualized needs and that is where additional supports and staff come in as well I am I was happy to put the together this slide for you just so that you would not think that it was all doom and gloom in our presentation tonight so many of our campuses are making really really significant progress so I listed all of them there for you schools that made um progress in chronic absenteeism and schools that made continued progress in suspension rates you will see that we have schools that are
140reaching the blue in those areas and if you recall back to that first slide the blue means they're performing well and they're continuing to improve so that is a celebration and I would be remiss if I did not bring that to you academic indicators are where we'll spend the next part of our time similarly the the slides will be formatted exactly the same as the engagement indicators but um we'll go into our key academic are areas so for English language arts we did lose ground um and I did share this with you earlier in the year and I'll show you a chart that you may recall in mathematics we did make progress but again in both of those areas we continue to um lag behind the state averages our English Learners did not make um
141as much progress as they had over the year over the previous year and when we say English learner progress that refers to students making annual progress um year over-year so if I'm a kindergartener starting at a level one in first grade I should be at a level two in second grade I should be a level three fourth grade a level four and exit and become a reclassified fluent English proficient student if I lag and stay a level two or three for multiple years I'm not making annual progress so it's just a matter of ID identifying which students are progressing along the scale in a way that would have them reclassify um if there if they started an elementary school reclassify before they exit Elementary School and never become excuse me and never become what we
142um identify as a long-term English learner or a student who's in middle and high school who's been in our system for more than six years and still not um able to reclassify our goal is that all students reclassify as English proficient um within 5 years you will remember this slide from the presentation in the fall this is just to better understand what we mean by distance from standard um the state uh threshold and and what is considered the standard continues to rise grade over grade um and you can see our line in the blue below the state line where um our students are on average falling grade over grade this this information is the same as what I brought to you earlier this year it's an important indicator of overall growth uh because it does
143allow us to identify growth within every achievement band you know because even students who are um scoring not proficient or not not met in the standards could still be growing right so we want to be able to use the distance from standard as a measure of um acknowledging growth and that's what the state uses it for right we had the presentation previously that showed how many students are met or exceeded the standard but this allows us to at least acknowledge growth and that's what the state dashboard allows us to do as well in math this is again that same slide um with just to remind us what distance from standard looks like in a scale we did have some growth in math of course I'll remind you um but again it wasn't it's nominal not
144as much as we would like to see just as we had the um significant student groups for um chronic absenteeism and uh suspension we also have that same data here for um our student groups related to English language arts and Mathematics you'll notice that we had Fairly good growth across most of our student groups in mathematics um and we have to we have to take a deeper look at why we had some slip in in reading so that is something for us to continue to think about um and and determine why we did have that dip uh we have also College and Career preparedness standards um and those um show where our students who are showing that they're ready for colleg and career the ccni standards um where they're falling and lastly our English learner
145progress you'll see there's a number for English Learners in general and then long-term English Learners and I that I referred to earlier and just as in the other indicators I would be remiss if I didn't celebrate the outcomes for some of our um school campuses that that have made um really good growth in on this on this new dashboard um and you'll notice uh the the numbers are all exceeding um at least three points and Three Points while it seems small is actually significant in that it it can move a school from one color band to the next it is not considered um nominal growth it is considered enough growth to move them from one um uh band to the next but what we know about in BCD is we don't just need small growth
146we need big growth we need ex extensive growth um I am very proud of the work at valo high school they um did make extensive growth but they do have a lot of catching up to do so it they cannot um rest on this success um as you'll notice um even that positive 41 points does still maintain them in the orange band um because they are a in a low performing range um so I want to just share that and then but just celebrate um that these schools have made really positive progress over this last year I wanted to also just give you context by providing a snapshot of um where VC is to compares to some of the charters it's not a not a um a a sidebyside compar it's a side-by-side comparison but
147it's not exactly apples and apples um because of the nature of the um of the schools and their size um the programs that they hold and things like that but I did want to also offer you just an understanding of where um our Citywide charter schools are in comparison to vcusd and we do a continue to have some work to do and lastly in comparison uh vcusd with districts of similar demographic um because it sometimes it's just difficult to know like what do these numbers mean where does that place Us in comparison to others we can compare ourselves to the state but we also um sometimes look at our neighboring districts or districts of similar size and and demographic to give us an idea of how we're doing in general now I want to transition
148so that's a that's a snapshot of of things that have happened right that's all based on last Springs Casp assessment or also called the smarter smarter balanced assessment um and so that is done that data you've seen before but this is in a in a new format because it was presented by the state in a new format for us recently um but I also want to provide you with an update based on where our district assessments are taking us now um you'll notice that this there's a there's several items on this slide one the student this is this is a projected proficiency from our NWA map assessment three times a year you'll recall students take the NWA map assessment and um and and we monitor the growth what we've also shared with what I've shared
149with you before is that this assessment is a quality predictor of how students may do on Casp it has pretty much every time been right since we started using map now um on the side you will see what the beginning of the year outcomes were I shared those with you before and then in the center you see what the current outcomes are from the middle of the year now 30.8 is not where we want to be but it's 5% more than we were last year so it is it is a growth number you will notice though that 69% of students are following in falling in band one and two so while this continues to mirror Casp we have one we we have several more months of instruction and we do um anticipate that teachers will
150continue to press forward on teaching the standards so that this number isn't the the the end of the line but just a midpoint check this number is about 6 an improvement from the beginning of the year and like I said five about Five Points improvement from where we were on Cass for 2024 in math um there is um greater growth than we saw in in reading this is about five points in Improvement um on students who projected to be at a met or exceeded and there were fewer students at level one or two or two than there were at the beginning of the year and this if these numbers hold it would be about a 5% increase on Casp this year while that may seem small given the growth we have yet to do it
151is a a statistically a large jump the last set of data I want to share with you is our core reading inventory outcomes um the percentages refer to students who in kindergarten know at least 80% of their letter names and sounds at this point in the school year so this is letting us know that 70% of kids in kindergarten know at least 80% of their letter names and sounds that's a big deal the end of the year goal is for all students to know all of their letter names and sounds but they've got a a few more months to continue to practice those sounds with their teachers um I do want to make just a side note that our students at Federal Terrace that number is 92% Glen Cove is at 90 W law at
15290 LMA Vista is at 86 valo Charter 84 and Dan Minnie at 80 so these this the number 70 is representative of all students all schools but there are some schools that are exceeding that and um we're really proud of that work they are implementing a program called youly that we're piloting there and you know if their outcomes are continuing to hold that we will spread to other campuses they've been piloting to make sure that it's the right program to implement and one other note uh 44% of our kindergarten students are blending CVC words so that's right and so that is that's an excellent that's an excellent progress given that this is the first time they've ever been tested on that skill so at the end of the year we will see if that 44%
153turns into 100% of students being able to blend because if students can leave kindergarten blending words they enter first graders ENT first grade ready to read first graders begin taking assessment in passage fluency meaning that they read a passage for for a minute and are timed and and docu and it's documented how many words correctly they read um they start that assessment at the beginning of the year excuse me at the middle of the year they don't take this test at the beginning of the year they are assessed on their incoming skills first so this assessment shows that how many how many words students are able to read correctly in a minute the chart on the slide um to the to the right shows what the Benchmark is how many words you have to read
154correctly in order to be proficient and this data reflects that currently 37.8% of students are able to read at least 29 correct words per minute about 15% are able to read between 16 and 28 words per minute and 47% of students are reading fewer than 15 words a minute we will continue to assess and in May uh we will have additional data to bring forward this slide shows progress for second graders and their fluency rates um you'll see that there's two sets of bands because second graders have taken this test twice so we can compare the beginning of the year with the middle of the year what I am pleased to see is that we've about almost doubled the uh number of students who are proficient and we have reduced um by a lot the
155number of students who are um uh in the intervention recommended range so so that indicates that students are making growth and that interventions are um having an impact um and we will continue to Monitor and again to the right you can see what is considered proficient at this time and you may notice that this that proficient is a moving Target right so right now you have to read 84 words a minute to be proficient but at the end of the year you have to read 100 words a minute to be proficient so it's always a moving Target with student reading skills so I've shared a mouthful but I want to Center us back to our uh vcsd instructional priorities I share this slide to make sure that the governing board and Community are aware of
156the focus of our professional learning and coaching work our most recently conducted learning walks on January 7th and January 9th found an increase implementation of these key tenants in this document including the effective use of structured student talk strategies and an emphasis on the use of the adopted curriculum and the implementation of strategies connected to the science of reading so these are this is our guiding document along with this document we um have tools that we use that we call the look and listen fors so if we are doing these things what shall we see in classrooms um so I'm I'm really proud of that work and those efforts I'm really proud to say that across the district um not just instructional staff are participating in those learning walks but staff from every division um
157to to make those connections of how their work impacts um student instruction so I want to come back to um our continuous Improvement Journey um I've shared with you some things to celebrate but also some sobering data as well um we don't take either of those items lightly we celebrate hard but we really continue to to zero in on what we need to do um you can only celebrate for a few minutes before you got to get back to work um so each of these items has very specific actions associate associated with them overall we're committed to be in service to schools so that schools can be in service to students and families service being defined as setting clear measurable goals and aligning our actions to the outcomes of those goals two-way communication to ensure
158that we are moving in one voice in service to our students and Community providing clear expectations around pedagogy and instructional implementation while supporting those efforts through professional learning and giving and receiving feedback that is supportive of growth of her individuals and our system so we are going to continue to be focused on our instructional priorities we will continue our focus on uh early literacy and that's why I shared that data with you so you could see that progress um and making sure our strategies are aligned to the science of reading um you received um a presentation by CCE in salano County Office of Ed we continue our work with them now pivoting from our early L literacy work that continues to um beginning a new initiative to improve secondary outcomes and graduation rates so we
159spent the um a bulk of our time in the last year or so really focusing in on our early Learners and now we're shifting to um make sure that we're enhancing programs and and data and thinking about the data in a more intentional way for our um high school students and our kids transition into high school um we are of course continuing our commitment to professional learning and coaching for all teachers to implement instructional priorities in reading and math to make sure that we are not just using intervention right intervention is important but intervention does not replace first good instruction nothing replaces first good instruction so we will emphasize that while we also um utilize our our framework for multi-tiered systems of support for all kids to make sure that where the needs exist we're
160supporting we will continue to maximize the relationship we have with core and Unbound Ed because they've been helping with um targeted professional learning and um in reading and math instruction and providing on-site coaching for teachers teacher leaders and principles to make sure we're well grounded in the instructional work um we're continuing to invest in our teacher leaders to make sure that they can support instructional leadership on campus and um as you know the ed services department um has that reorganization has allowed us to be more Nimble in our implementation of priorities with greater collaboration I mentioned our learning walks protocol we continue to do that process to um keep a Keen Eye on instruction three times a year we go out in large groups and observe instruction at every campus and so we will continue
161that practice so that we can um speak clearly about what what the needs of our of our organization are lastly we are um making sure that our instructional leaders have regular opportunities to practice giving and receiving uh productive feedback to staff so that they can continue to improve in their efforts We are continuing our focus on data um we are using our n nwaa Benchmark informative literacy assessments to provide guidance on the needs of our students site leadership teams are learning to use this data more more effectively to make instructional decisions um we will continue to remain focused on improving attendance in school climate outcomes um with the implementation of our Behavior plan excuse me attendance plan and our positive behavior intervention and support handbook and of course um last meeting you had a presentation
162by um Cassie goset director goset director Miller and principal Luben um to share progress on the lcap those actions and activities are intertwined with the items that I'm speaking of tonight so that was a um kind of a a broad what is yes we are implementing here's what we've spent on these activities but this is what the activities are really about so to improve the outcomes for the student groups that we've identified here so by applying all of these elements together we will see improvements in our outcomes for students and we are committed to using District school and student level data to drive decision making and uncover the needs of our system lastly I'll just um share a quote um as a district leadership team we view our work through the lens of continuous Improvement
163we are dissatisfied with the current outcom so we are staying disciplined in our approach and singular in our message high quality first construction starting at the earliest grades and continuing through our high school programs must be Central to our Improvement plans at the same time we continue to provide targeted and intensive interventions where the students need that level of support so I I do remain profoundly optimistic as the quote says um because I know that we can make those shifts and we will continue thank you questions comments from the board vice president ambo Heather thank you again for your presentation um there's a lot to celebrate on this dashboard and and please extend our our our gratitude to all the sites U regarding that um but thank you thank you TR Flores thank you uh
164assist superio um I think I have a couple of questions and just a couple comments um you know first on a on a comment on slide seven which was uh just showing all the the sites that are exiting CSI a atsi status for me what what I see is the the the the beginning stages of a system changing so it's not just one one uh program one principle one one site it it it it's a system it's it's a the district is is is moving in the right direction and for me that that that's seeing that's a great thing um then on slide 12 I'm noticing which that we're kind of going in starting at third grade where where it's shown we're already so far below and and I remembering uh a presentation that I
165believe it was CCE put on a while back and and talked about when kids are behind at at one grade level or two grade was by the time they get to third grade and where M at the top performance 14% MH I I think you remember that that that that um presentation so I I I think my my question is um are are are we focusing on that I mean is is that like top priority that at third grade you know I mean I know that that we see the proficiencies and the tests and whatnot but it is part of our our process now that that that we're focusing on that early early in yes so for the last several years um we have had postco and and to now um we have spent a
166significant amount of our energy focused on early literacy that directly impacts that third grade number right um and so that's why I shared with you those kindergarten 1 and 2 grade fluency data sets because they will impact how outcomes appear for those kids going forward um that early literacy work continues Full Steam and um staff is is continuing to provide professional learning teachers are really engaged in the work um and understand the impact that being said that's that first good instruction part where teachers are doing highquality phonics instruction and phonemic awareness instruction daily in the classroom in a in a very targeted and intentional way in addition in our lcap you guys you the board has approved um work with he tutor for instance and other intervention staff where we're seeing that those students who
167got to find the right slide those students who still remain in that intervention recommended category are getting that intervention so um while we continue with that highquality phonics onemic awareness instruction we have targeted supports for those students specifically where they're getting additional doses um in an Intervention Program like sips is an as a name of one or or direct instruction with their classroom teacher so all of those um programs and progress will continue um with you know we we want to protect the instructional programs as much as possible in all of these um budget budgetary cuts that we're making we're working hard to protect those programs that could continue to move this data in the right direction um so but yes that has been that continues to be a significant area of focus and while
168that work is continuing it is a big part of our professional learning plan for instance while that work is continuing we also want to attack the the the head of the snake over here at our high school um and make sure those outcomes for our kids at the top are not um are not neglected right so we maintain we can do two things at one time right because we we've given our elementary teachers a running start because that data is so critical we can't they're not going to catch up if we don't catch them up before they they get the upper grades and just real quick following up kind of on that in regards to the high school um you know you said the portrait of a graduate the the profiles been finalized and you
169know these these are the things we want our graduates to have when they graduate [Music] are metric measurements have have you have have you developed how to how to track you know as the kids are going that okay they've met these you know the requirements that we have so our metrics you know are multifold right 's the academic metrics there's the engage all of the metrics that you see tonight are part of those metrics but in addition to that the next step now that these what what's on the what's on the screen has been finalized and we know what we're calling everything in collaboration with community members teachers um classified staff there was a big um uh collaborative effort to Define what are the things we want to see of all students as they exit
170our system um we are now in the process of identifying what are Exemplar lessons if a teacher is um teaching with portrait of a graduate in mind what are the exemplars that they're using what are the highquality lessons and activities they're doing in their room that allow students to think critically allow students to collaborate with their peers allow students to communicate so this is very tightly linked to our instructional priorities and what we call our look and listen fors we've um tied each of the elements of the portrait of a graduate to those plans to show if I see students in classrooms collaborating to solve a math problem a word problem not just an algorithm right I'm giving them opportunities to um communicate skillfully and collaborate with their peers and think critically all at the
171same time right so um the metrics will be partly observational partly through the academic outcomes when we see these things when when those things are happening the needle moves academically as well right we start to see progress on multiple indicators remember it's yes and it's everything never one thing is going to move the needle lastly we have some schools that um have some exemplify practices that we will start to um expand across the district so for instance valo Charter and salano weed and specifically do um uh student Le conferences where students present their data in their report card to their parents at conference time um we want to emulate that across the district as a u really high quality practice but we're not there yet that's a that's something we have to train people how
172to do but that is a practice we're considering um other things like students presenting portfolios at different markers so what does a kindergarten portfolio look like if I'm a kindergartener and I'm going to present my learning for the year what does that look like like if I'm a first grader or a third grader at those transitional years what does it look like to present my learning and to I have the confidence to stand up that metric um is is more subjective but extremely important right so we need the the data here in the dashboard to reflect the quality that we're we're um seeking to produce as well as those um more subjective metrics through observation data thank you trusty young um on slide number 10 I'm trying to see what the correlation I was looking
173at Lincoln Lincoln's absentee was 6.7% it it was it was improved by 6.7% huh it improved by 6.7% okay and then so what was it to start with I'd have to look it up for you and then the suspension rate improved yes by 6.6 yes ma'am so and recall this is all data from 2024 from Spring based on last school year this is not this school's Year's data so what I anticipate at at Lincoln is that this will continue to improve but this is last year's dat data when compared to 2022 23 so so so how many students did they have in 2022 right they had more students in 2022 they had fewer students in 2023 but remember this is a by a percentage of enrollment the so it's not simply number like how many
174fewer by the numbers but as a percentage of enrollment and so I'll be interested to compare 2024 with 2025 when that new dashboard comes out that this reflects what year this data remember the the California dashboard is based on the previous year so this is 2023 24 so comp a TK for TK it was TK it was TK to 2 in 2023 24 how many students 74 there were about a 100 students last year last year okay thank you thank you any other okay um Heather can we go to slide 15 tell me I don't have them numbered the same way so if you can tell me what piece of data you're interested School growth academic indicators okay can you go to the last portion you covered the first two boxes but you didn't cover
175the English language progress okay so English language progress as um uh it refers to students making progress on the elpac um uh as an as a Year's worth of improvement so it's that idea of a student who starts in our system as a kindergartener making progress one level every year right um so if I'm a kindergartener in first grade I'm a level one in second grade I'm a level two by fifth grade I should be um redesignated as English proficient so these numbers indicate that these School sites improved in comparison to 2022 23 by the percentage indicated so that brings Penny cook to the uh green status right because their Improvement was um that significant to that they are now um considered green on the dashboard um and the other school site continuing to make
176growth maybe didn't hit the green but making significant progress SOA Vista 17.9 more per students made progress than they had the previous year how did that outlier happen they were doing some good stuff so I only see Patterson with plus 21 but I see now the the L Vista is in 17.9 in the green green that's a huge these those are two different measures so I know they're different I'm just saying how did it get a 17.9 plus to get to the green what are they doing different than our other schools I can't speak specifically to what they are doing that is different it could be that they are implementing some of those practices for English Learners I can't specifically State What In This Moment what they're doing that is substantially different um but we
177are celebrating that they did make that growth huge growth yes sir um and with our e students a lot of them get stuck at like a level three and hard to it used to be called intermediate but it's hard to get them beyond that like you said we want by fifth grade to get them out of el designation to be arfee because otherwise in middle school and high school they have to take an elective they don't get an elective they have to stay in E classes kind of penalized because they are language speakers they will not get an elective like other other students correct that's correct it's very sad so hopefully by Elementary we do try to so whatever Lama Vista Elementary what the school was doing to get that huge jump we need to
178know and make sure that that's happening within all of our schools MH next I need clarification on some other items when we look at Ela can you tell me the present of English language arts with our 8,000 approximately students what what percent did we pass tell me I'm sorry tell me what that clarify your question so let's go to slide um let me go down so Ela standards English language arts Ela what slide I'm I going the wrong way 11 11 what is our percent for ELA for the district that we passed the whole District when you say passed are you re I want to know percent did we pass by 20% the all the standards are we proficient 30% or what are we deficit are you talking 100% are you talking about on the
179Casp yes okay so levels three and four on the Casp um we were about 25% on the 2024 Casp assessment um and 20 20 what is that number 25 25% proficient of the whole District level three and four yes so 25% 75% of the district was not proficient right so that equals 100% of the district so when we have 8,000 some students only 25% of the 8,000 we scoring in three or four that is correct past or are proficient right okay and 75% of our district is Notre that's for English language arts and we declined in English language arts correct we on some measures yes on the on the distance from standard we did lose a little bit of ground um but we did not lose ground as it relates to the proficiency that did
180um that that stayed similar about the same with a with a small amount of growth and and if you recall when I brought the um proficiency data to you earlier in the year before the dashboard was released um we it was about at 25% that is why I shared the projected proficiency data with you to show where we're on track to um perform this year um you know of course um it's still not sufficient but it is in the moving in the right direction okay now can we do the same amount for math we have related to math that do math first can I just quickly clarify I just want to when we're talking about the cast score the ELA and the math and I'm I just looked it up too it's not the whole
181District that tests right remember we have testing grades so third through 8th grade and 11th grade so just so so we have context cor last year at the end in 2024 we had 4,473 students take the ELA so that that percentage that 25 to 75% is based out of that 4 4,400 4,400 okay and with mathematics that number was 45007 just for context who's testing and when not every kid takes the cast test every year but it is a reflection of our district yes and that's what I want that's a reflection of our district absolutely when I hear numbers I like to make sure we specifically talking about the right numbers thank you what's our math 4,500 no the percentage that was about and I'm I'm working from memory cuz that was about 17% if
182I'm remembering 17% proficient three or four yes sir so that would be 83% of the district that is that was not proficient that's not but I did that good for mental math at this time of night so 177% of the grades you said are 1% of the whole where people look at our district and 83% of the whole are not pass correct correct but that we did not lose ground that we kind of stayed St um flat yes and so our data overall comparing uh 2022 2022 2023 with 23 24 was fairly flat um I'm sorry excuse me now my ear yes it was fairly flat and so when we get our 2025 results I'll be um looking for that growth that is projected okay MH and what are the with this data how are
183the principles talking with teachers or trying to figure that out of this moment you showed that kind of the last slide second to last slide have they've seen this data and are they analyzing and dissecting this data ABS absolutely thank you um the next question since our scores unfortunately for the six years I've been here they're not making much progress which is really sad but um are we still in Jeopardy of a state curriculum takeover because we're not making progress not at this time okay but we're not making much growth either we are not making the growth that I would like to see as quickly as I'd like to see it but I do feel we are making growth um and that's why I tried to show a mixed opportunity for you to see where
184we're making growth and where we're not while still being very transparent that I am not satisfied with where we are neither is any member of the team no principal is no teacher is no um director administrator support staff is is pacified by the small amounts of growth we see but we do want to acknowledge the growth and celebrate it yes it's great for the amounts of growth but it's just so frustrating when year after year after year this is is not like taking off to where we wanted to go I know things take time and we had comments tonight about making this District a magnet District MH I'm having trouble with that concept with not again with year after year after year I see the hard work you're doing and I hear the hard work
185and we're trying to do but there's something that keeps getting in the way and I think we need to figure those obstacles out quick what's getting in the way cuz otherwise again when people making decisions again if this was related we are a business but if you're relate this to a business we'd be out of business so anyways thank you Mr pasio any other comments or questions uh trusty young slide um what slide is this slide 15 16 16 is Charter School compar charter school comparison yeah the charter school comparison um can you explain to me this I'm not quite under because the way it's looking they're not doing too great compared to us well we have some areas that we have made you know it's it's really important to always look at the did
186we improve did we decline um that's the measure I look at um you know and we can see who improved or declined in different areas I only provide the SL as context for around our city the um the state of education in our city as a whole where people are having success um you know there there's there's there is success in our city it should be giving us hope that we can continue to progress um certainly keeping in mind that like I said this is not apples and apples comparison these are very different programs so it's hard to make a com direct comparison but as there are some struggles and I see some places where you know campuses are doing a better job in um meeting their goals and I want to be right up
187there with them is there a a section that you had a particular question on like did um I'm not I'm not understanding um 108.3 points below standard Improvement oh okay so that's what I'm not understanding so um so just as in vcusd no got to go back just if you go back to the slide that shows that red line and the blue line right distance from standard if the standard is the red line that's let's just call that zero as you drop below um the threshold as you drop below what's considered proficient you are away from the standard you're below the standard um and so almost all the schools are below the standard with the exception of Griffin High that has an average of 11.9 above the standard 11.9 points above the standard so and
188they have made improvements everyone is in Improvement or in in or have maintained um where vcusd had a small decline in that area it wasn't significant but it is acknowledged as a decline um whereas in mathematics we had an improvement as did most other distri other schools in our district with the exception of MIT high school and Elite that excuse me either declined or maintained where they were in the previous year okay thank you all right thank you moving on our um thank you Mr Pia for the presentation we're moving down to reports superintendent good evening everyone uh so tonight's meeting was a weighty one with significant decisions regarding budget reductions and school closures I do want to take this opportunity to sincerely appreciate everyone who has contributed to determining our District's needs around budgets
189programs and the future of vcusd these conversations and decisions are never easy and I'm grateful for the thoughtful deliberation and collaboration from staff community members and our leadership ship team I also want to thank the board for standing strong amid these challenging decisions while tonight marks a step forward we recognize that there's still much work to be done to ensure that we continue to optimize our district for long-term sustainability and Student Success uh so let's shift a little to more light-hearted updates so our schools engaged in professional learning activities yesterday while students and families enjoyed an extended 4-day weekend we remain committed to working with our our partners to strengthen our service to schools model ensuring that our schools and students receive the support they needed earlier today uh valo High School had the privilege
190of welcoming solidad O'Brien uh reporter formerly MSNBC I forget which agency she works with now but still very much well known in the reporting Community she joined several classes virtually uh this incredible opportunity was made possible through the initiative of one of our very own high students Jazz who went on that trip with you Ricardo remember and we were proud to see our students making meaningful connections that enriched The Learning Experience I was able to join that Zoom call actually was chat chatting with solidad O'Brien a little bit I didn't realize that she started really started her career in the Bay Area with KRON 4 so it was really nice to see that you know her Roots were here and she talked about her experiences back in the day with ph H hope um additionally
191I'm pleased to share that earlier today our team received a call regarding the successful sale of our fourth bond series um we're happy with the results of the sale and look forward to providing more details at the March 5th board meeting so bottom line good news for taxpayers and generating more funds for our school district um lastly I'm excited to announce that we have selected our next assistant superintendent of business and operations and our next executive director of special education both leaders are expected to join us with the next within the next month or two with the assistant superintendent beginning Target date of April 1st and the executive director joining us in March we are eager to welcome them to the team as we continue to move the district forward thank you all especially thank
192you to the community who came out tonight thank you um who' like to go for the board report I'll keep it short um attended my first um 2 by two meeting um earlier this week um was a really good experience look forward to many more meetings to come and that's my meeting U my report for today trusty Florence I won't make my report short but I won't make it long either anyhow um I attended uh this past Saturday I attended a community violence prevention Town Hall at Taylor Chapel CME Church um it was put on uh by the church uh with uh some fellow clergy members as well as supervisor uh County Supervisor district one uh Cassandra James uh mayor source and council member Leu were there uh the discussion was about you know the
193the issues in the city of Alo because and and how it it ties into this to our schools is because a lot of times we hear about how bad schools are but the justification of that comment is based on things that are happening off campus so w with that we're the the city the council is is really making an effort to work at at a from State Assembly uh member uh Wilson is is collaborating and and supporting uh supervisor James is supporting uh city council mayor they're all supporting and one of the things they talked about was in regards to Quality of Life crimes right and those are the things you know the Speeders the the the the prostitution the you know the the broken window stuff right and obviously some of this stuff is
194bigger than broke windows but all of that affects how a city gets looked at and all of that affects if a family wants to move their children into this city and to be a part of this District so it was really um I was really hopeful to hear the the changes and where they're going to be tackling things uh from from the city side of it and where we can as a district contribute as well the uh other thing kind of on that you know I wanted to take at this moment to commend the the Lincoln site safety staff and and all those that were there you know that issue was brought up about something that came off campus onto the campus and it was handled it was handled professionally it was handled immediately and
195it was handled in a way that kept all kids on site safe so to to staff at Lincoln thank you thank you very much um I also attend a know your rights webinar that was put on by the Latino parent Network and in conjunction with Catholic Charities they're going to be doing more uh I believe the mayor was on um the uh the chair of said Latino Jessica Gonzalez was there and so was former council member uh loera Diaz they were a part of it and the next one they're going to have they say is going to be in person so tying that in through through my uh work I've actually been able to communicate and get in contact with a gentleman by the name of uh Jose aruro iara he's a presenter and strategist
196for an organization called Kos know your rights and that organization is enthusiastically going out into the community and presenting know your rights uh seminars they actually have some links on a website for uh know your right wres uh informational uh uh I guess a YouTube presentation they have and if you want those links I I I'll forward them to to anyone and to those in the community C Flores bcc.org please reach out to me and I will connect you with that additionally um I see one of my favorite people in the uh in the district are uh principal of the Adult School Miss Dutch and see if we can collaborate maybe getting some of these uh in person because primarily they were he works out of somoma County but in in the in the email
197that I had with him he says that he is more than willing to come to Solano County to do the presentations to anyone and everyone tailor them to a specific group so if it's something for our school district for our parents they're they're more than willing he's also going to uh connect me with uh links to resources that are zip code space so that that way you know any resources that that are within salano County we can pass them on to to our community to our parents um and that's one of the things I had a conversation with during that uh violence prevention that we as a district need to be leaders in in and getting all this out because this is where the community is this is where there's more trust in the community
198at the school sites with their principles that that's where parents trust not so much school board members or or or council members so um I I think you know we need to be on on the Forefront of this and kind of just tying into that I'd like to know you know and and maybe I can work with you trusty Amboy in regards to the Filipino Community right because all all this stuff about immigrant policies and all it's been focus more so on the Latino Community but there's a lot of different communities that are affected by immigration policies you know we got folks that are coming from the Philippines from uh China just from all over the place you know uh Vietnam I know there's a there's big Mong communities in a lot of areas so
199I'd like to know if there's resources that that the Filipino Community needs um if we can tie tie the the these know your right campaign in with with with those resources in in in the Filipino community and also with the lgbtq plus Community because that's a that's a a population that's also being attacked right now you know so I know i' I've talked asked about uh the Gay Street Alliance here if if there had if we had something on or what um if we can get something started or or or what we can do to help support our our our students our parents that that are part of the community uh in the lgbtq plus so um the the last thing I just want to uh comment on is how inspirational the the words of
200the federal turist principal uh Marissa carbonal excuse me I'm sorry um that that's that's leadership you know that to me that that is that is my philosophy in in how I move in in in my action and and the things that I bring to the board you know I if I get passionate sometimes up here when I hear people or I interpret people disparaging the district or valo it's because I love this place and I want this place to be everything I know it can be and everything it should be and everything it's been to me because this community has given to me it's given me it's given me education for my children you know it sent my kids to college you know I I found I found my my my trade here you know
201at the at the local here in town so anyhow [Music] um I just want to work with with uh with any and all folks on on all these issues during these troubling times and again C Flores at VC us.org please don't hesitate to reach out good bad ugly indifferent I don't take it personally thank you our next um Mr Hodes I'm going to be very short um I've had an opportunity to um interact with uh parents in my area that have very very young children some are going to start um prek in the fall um so they've kind of reached out to me which had which is a good thing um it's it's given me an opportunity to give them a face um for the school board and then answer a few questions a lot
202of them are just completely unaware on how the system functions and they're very concerned um inquiring about other school districts and things like that so I've had an opportunity to to talk to a few parents in my area thank you um uh and on top of um trusty Flores the the comments from the principal from federal terrrace has motivated me to reach out to her I took a note I reach out to her to try to attend some of the principal meetings so I'm gonna try to do that that's it thank you trusty young first of all I want to thank my uh colleagues my trustees we work really hard we had agrees to disagree but yet in the in the same sense we kept our mind focused on of governance mindset decision and I'm
203really proud of what we did and how we did it we listened to each one of us we listened and we made our own de deep commitment to what we felt was right and I was just really proud of the whole process I thank superintendent for guiding us along the way because this is a hard journey that we're going to have to make this is just this is just the beginning this is just the beginning and we have to continue to keep our mind set and going the right way yes we're going to agree to disagree but the bottom line sovereignty is one thing student uh achievement is another it's the pillars that we Accord that we we owe allegiance to and the and the guidance of which direction we want sitting on this de
204sitting on this board we're elected officials we have to decide as a governing board and as I said we will agree to disagree but we have to also go back to that Governor's mindset what is good for those five pillars so thank you I'm honored to be part of this uh colleagues that I have and we will continue to do the right thing you know we have to go home and think about it I have to go home and think about it did I do the right thing in my heart in in my mind I did the right thing so that's all I need to know to keep on pushing we can't stop now thank you thank you all right for my report um first superintendent relio um is February 28th a day of protests
205where people aren't supposed to attend shop just shop it's not education I got mixed messages I just want to clarify is that I'll have to verify what I've heard is it's a day to not contribute to the economy just the economy okay I could be wrong just want to make sure because otherwise we need to be prepared for protest or such um for the 2x two committee um when we met last we talked more about Nebraska Street at valo high school and safety they're supposed to install the um speed humps hopefully during spring break in ail April um it's only we thought they were put in over the holidays but they were delayed so they're supposed to be coming very soon and then further talks about more safety at valo high the police made a
206report Chief T and um officer let me see if I can find his Hollis yes officer Hollis they did a report of all things around Lincoln Elementary School for the last I think they went back a year yeah they went back a full year and they talked about some new ordinances coming out against the um for the prostitution new laws about um they're trying to disrupt the behavior and the actions and by um taking pictures of being around the cars it's kind of stopping or disrupting the um activity and it they gave the ordinance um the new SB 357 s b357 is the new law and 70% of the cars for the people brought into valo for the prtu 70% are brought in they're not local these people are brought in to work on sowa
207Avenue um anyways so the stop gaps that are trying to be put in place to help with that and they talked about SE the sex trafficking and how they're trying to hopefully stop that as well so that was all information to try to protect or be safer around Lincoln Elementary School um then the national league of cities um the youth are going to be going soon Victoria Grace will be taking a break for a while but um we have eight students that will be going March 7th through March 11th and I think they're also going to be looking at Howard University while they're there um there'll be reporting back to city council and to us after their trip I'm excited to hear about all of the things they learn in networking um let's see what
208else oh we wanted to talk about for um there was an elac meeting the following night in the daac we want to talk about elac and deac and how getting messages out to them through each of our school sites is more effective because that's a culture at each school um to teach what their rights are and know where their rights are and get correct information so that's one um area we talked about for that and I think that was it for the 2 by two excuse me sorry about that um we all have to do our 700 report soon superintendent relio do we have to put the amounts for the meal that we all had with you recently do we need know the amount yeah uh Rhonda Thomas can help with that she has the
209amounts so she'll give the amount to each of us that we must report on our 700 report correct from the meal last week if we want to write a check to the district for our portion of the meal can we just write a check and then we don't have to put on a 700 report correct okay so I think I'm going to be writing a check for my amount all right how soon will we get those because they're due I think April 1st is that correct yes okay so there's a timeline to that again you must report that as a gift um let's see if there's other I think that's it for our next item Community Forum we do not have close session we do not have announcements of upcoming board meetings super attendent alio
210so our next regular board meeting is March 5th it will be back in our usual spot um I did appreciate being able to hold a meeting at a school site uh it's our first run doing that I do want to you know if we can just send our congratulations and thanks to the team that made this possible and all of them who are here this evening um it was a big undertaking to get this set up this way um I would say it was a success well done everyone who supported um but it does lend the opportunity for us to travel and to hold meetings at school so it's something as as a board we should discuss at some point how and when we want to do that because we do have that option now
211so our next regular March 5th followed by March 19th those are the two March meetings and just as a reminder March 5th is an important meeting we will have any staffing changes that need to come because of the March 15th letters that will be coming to the March 5th you also will be getting the second interim budget report as well future board agenda items I know I asked the last one for an Arts update for what Orlando is working on and if the sites are specifically getting if they have that person from prop 28 and how much money they have used from prop 28 for materials so hopefully the report will re um include is there a position at the sites doing or or also trading between the sites and how is the money being
212used from prop 28 and what is the progress with Orlando for an arts program for the district so those are spefic specifically the things I'm looking for for that presentation are there any other items um vice president Amboy now that we voted um earlier this evening I was hoping that we can have some kind of trans um trans um transition for the for the community knowing so they know exactly what our plans are um whether that's on email parents square or or we do another presentation so they have a better understanding and so that we're 100% transparent basically um yeah thank you thank you trusty Flores I'd like to get some information where we're at with training for site safety uh secretary know first person's point of contact for uh immigration enforcement and not even
213on the know your right stuff but just on our board policy that we have in place you know how how many student excuse me um how how much staff has been uh trained or is aware of it has access to it can find it Etc thank you okay that's everything we are adjourned at 9:28 good night thank you