001Good afternoon everyone. Uh it is August 27th, 501. We're waiting for quorum before we start the meeting. So we'll check back in uh 5 minutes at 5:05. Thank you. Okay, good evening and welcome to the August 27th regularly scheduled meeting of the West Contraosta Unified School District School Board. Uh the meeting is called to order at 503. To access translation and Zoom, please click on the globe icon at the bottom of the screen. And if you're here in Dejon, you can pick up a headset for translation in the back of the auditorium. The board is about to go into close session, but before we do, we're here to listen to any public comment on close session items. Individuals wishing to speak on close session items. If you're here in the auditorium and you haven't already
002done so, please submit a WCCUSD public comment card, which you can find on the entryway table. And if you're participating via Zoom, individuals will need to raise their hand in the Zoom app. If you're accessing the meeting by phone, press star 9. The time allotted to each speaker is 2 minutes. The total time allotted is 1 hour. Speaking time shall not be transferred from one person to another. There's also no substitution of speakers. We alternate between the Zoom comment and an inerson comment. The public comment period is a safe space where diverse viewpoints may be expressed civily without interruption or intimidation. Please listen attentively to each speaker's comment and respect their time as if it were your own. Be open to different point of view if one is offered. And due to the Brown Act,
003board members cannot discuss items that are not in the agenda and do not usually respond to items presented in public comment. The items listed on the closed session agenda tonight are Liability claims. Claimment name withheld. Government code 54961B. Claim number 658796. Two, public employee appointment. Three, conference with labor negotiators. Is there any public comment on these items? >> No public comment. Thank you. The board journeys close session at 5:05 and we'll be back at 6:30 for open session. Thank you very much. Okay, good evening everyone. We're going to get started. Welcome to the open session of the regularly scheduled August 27th, 2025 meeting of the West Contraosta Unified School District School Board. The board is returning from close session. I'm calling open session to order at 6:35 p.m. To access translation and Zoom, please click
004on the Globe icon at the bottom of the screen. And if you're here in the auditorium and need translation, you may pick up a headset in the back corner of the auditorium. In a few minutes, we'll begin public comment agenda item. Members of the public are invited to speak to the board on any matter that is not otherwise on the agenda, but is within the subject matter jurisdiction of the West Contracasta Unified School District. Please prepare now for public comment. And if you're here in the auditorium. Okay. Can you work on the sound back there? >> Is this better? Okay, good. Okay. Um Okay. In I'll just start again. In a few minutes, we'll begin the public comment agenda item. Is that better? Can you hear? Okay. Members of the public are invited to speak
005to the board on any matter that is not otherwise on the agenda but is within the subject matter jurisdiction of the West Contraosta Unified School District. Please prepare now for public comment. If you're here in the auditorium and you'd like to make public comment, please fill out and submit a WCCUSD public comment card. You can find them on the table in the entryway. And if you're participating via Zoom, please raise your hand in the Zoom app prior to the beginning of this item on the agenda. If you're participating by phone, please press star 9 after your comment card has been turned in. The cards are placed in the order received and we call on speakers one at a time alternating between a public comment here in Don and one on Zoom. Public comment generally lasts
006for one hour. The time allotted to each speaker is two minutes. In the meantime, we will move on to the rest of our opening procedures. Moving on to B2, Pledge of Allegiance. If you're willing or able, please rise. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. B3 land, labor, and body acknowledgement. We recognize that we are presently on the lands of the Chicheno, Moikma, Kirkin, Aloney peoples and acknowledge them as the first inhabitants of the land we currently occupy. Labor and body recognition acknowledgement. I acknowledge that the burden of environmental exploitation and systemic injustice falls upon the labor of black and brown bodies in the building of this country and its institutions.
007I remember that black and brown people were born and died working on this land against their will for generations. I also acknowledge the continued contribution of the labor of survivors over the centuries to today of all immigrant labor including voluntary, involuntary, traffic, forced and undocumented peoples in the building of what we refer to as the United States. Author Dr. Michelle Rogersard. B4 West Contraosta School District Board anti-racism statement. The West Contraosta School District Board of Education is committed to the work of anti-racism. The conscious and active effort to identify, challenge, and correct racial inequities in the systems and institutions within our schools and community. Racism, explicit or implicit, stands in direct conflict of the fundamental principles of WCCUSD education. To carry WCC education into the future, we recognize that we must continually renew and reflect
008on the roots of racism and develop new ideas to meet the times. Unjust ideas and policies and the racial inequity they produce have shaped us, our schools, and our society. We strive to uncover unconscious biases and practice anti-racism as individuals and as board members. We challenge ourselves to persist through the discomfort necessary for growth and learning, to deepen our listening and our examination of racism and oppression, and to develop a strong understanding of how our personal experiences and feelings fit into a larger picture of continual oppression. Each member of our school board individually and collectively is responsible for creating and nurturing an anti-racist learning environment where each student, staff member, and community partner is respected and valued member of the WCCUSD community. We are uniquely positioned and it is our responsibility to identify and dismantle
009racist ideas and inequitable policies in ourselves and across the district. Therefore, we commit to supporting anti-racist policies, programs, and practices for our children's education and well-being while building strong and exclusive school communities. We commit to holding each board member accountable towards these goals and moving the work of anti-racism forward. We also commit to holding West Contraosta Unified School District staff, student, and community to living these standards of anti-racism in our schools. Board approved March 20th, 2025. B5 roll call. Superintendent Cotton, would you please take role? >> Trustee Gonzalez Hoy, >> good evening. Present. >> Trustee Smith Folds. >> Good evening everyone. Present. >> Trustee Hernandez. >> Good evening. Present. >> Clerk Inala. Good evening everyone present. >> Board President Reckler. >> Good evening everyone on present this evening. Moving now to B6 report ratification of
010close session. Superintendent Cotton. Is there anything to report out of close session? Yes, there was. Regarding agenda item A21, the board voted unanimously to reject claim number five, sorry, claim number 658796 related to an alleged personal injury. Also, the board voted unanimously to approve the appointment of Jimmy Lopez as principal of Steuart K8 School. That concludes this report. Thank you very much. Moving now to B7. WCCUSD public comment. Members of the public are invited to speak to the board on any matter that is not otherwise on the agenda but is within the subject matter jurisdiction of the West Contraosta Unified School District. Public comment will last approximately 1 hour. The time allotted to each speaker is 2 minutes and should additional speakers remain at the conclusion of one hour, public comment may be extended. The
011time allotted per speaker beyond the first hour is generally 1 minute. Individuals wishing to speak, please submit a WCCUSD public comment card or if you're participating via Zoom. Individuals will need to raise their hand in the Zoom app prior to the beginning of this item on the agenda. If you're calling in by phone, press star 9. Speaking time shall not be transferred from one person to another, and there is no substitution of speakers. Speakers can also make public comment again for each discussion and action item on the agenda after staff presentations. The public will have 10 minutes per item and one minute per speaker. The same protocols recited above apply. The public comment period is a safe space where diverse viewpoints may be expressed civily without interruption or intimidation. Please listen attentively to each speaker's
012comment and respect the time at the podium as if it were your own. Be open to different points of view if one is offered. Due to the Brown Act, board members cannot discuss items that are not on the agenda and do not usually respond to items presented in public comment. Is there any public comment? >> Yes. Our first public comment is Don Gosny. Good evening. You know, this is awkward because I'm going to compare my comments to a broken record when most young people have no idea what that phrase refers to. This is not the first time what I'm going to say tonight has been said. How many times have we tried to engage the board, staff, and district employees, and our efforts to open up lines of communication have failed. You have your demographic
013surveyors presenting tonight, but you need to ask them to survey West County and ask just one simple question. If you try to reach out to your elected representatives on the board of education, senior staff members, the communications department, school principles, all the way down to the custodians, would you say that you've been successful? I doubt that you would like seeing the survey results to that question. Why should the public, the very people you swore to represent, the very people you theoretically work for, why should they have to beg you to listen to what they have to say? Even the volunteers that serve on on so many district committees feel disrespected. Even if if they even hear from any of you, they feel ignored, unlisted to, they feel invisible. How can you expect any of us
014down here to trust you when we can't r we can rarely reach out to you and you you admit that we exist? I'm not a parent, but I've been heavily involved in one way or the other with this dis this district for 57 years. I've served on numerous committees and have worked tirelessly to make our district a better one because I, like so many others, believe that our young people deserve at least as good a school, at least as good of an education as I got so many decades ago. But how many emails, texts, phone messages, letters, and even public record requests have fallen into the big black hole that this district has where we don't even get a courtesy response admitting you received what we sent. Speaking of public requests, should we really have
015to go to that much trouble and expense for basic information that should be readily available? How much better would our district be if you would listen to us and then speak with us? If you've ever read up on any of the Alcoholics Anonymous types of groups, one of the first things they preach is that until you admit that a problem exists, you'll never be able to fix that problem. Our next public comment is Maisha Harris Gash. Please unmute yourself. Good evening and welcome back to school. So, first I want to give love to our custodial staff at Kennedy High School who are led by our head custodian, Lance. They had a very short time window to get our classrooms cleaned and prepared for school. It would have been nice for them to receive the support
016or the sweat equity that they gave to other campuses this summer, but I want to just give a shout out and love to our custodial staff for doing what they could with the time that they were given. Next, there is a pile of dirt behind my portable and it's on a blue tarp. It is my understanding that some business installed a large pole and some type of supports having to do with the power poles on campus. I'm guessing they were supposed to take that pile of dirt with them. I'm guessing that some kind of animal, rodent, bugs, or something could possibly burrow themselves behind my classroom and maybe even make their way into my portable. Now, that would not be good for anyone and especially for my students and their learning environment. And in closing,
017um, and I don't really have enough time to really go deep into this, but these microaggressions amongst adults in this district, um, it gets to be a little bit too much. And we're only in week two of the school year. You know me, I don't name names. I don't point fingers, but and this is probably the first time I've really talked about the microaggressions. I am more than my employee number. my colleagues, we are more than our employee numbers. We are not pawns to be tossed around, dangled. We are real people. We we we breathe, we we laugh, we cry, we hurt, we get angry, and we get frustrated. And one of the most important things is that we are the ones who are in the trenches with our kids, with the kids in this
018district day in and day out. Have a conversation, have a discussion, let it be professional. So, I really hope the district is going to uh continue some of the anti-racism uh training because these microaggressions are getting to be too much and it's only week two. >> Our next public comment is Patricia Blanco. >> Good evening everyone. My name is Patricia Blanco, a Spanish teacher in Kennedy High School. I'm here to ask for your support to offer and keep AP Spanish literature and culture class as a core subject in Kennedy. This program was built from a scratch to give a students both use and newcomers a course that they can connect to linguistically as well as culturally. Our ABS course help showcase the success of this program. My students have earned a passing score of three
019or higher in the following years. 21 70% 22 85% 23 75% 24 94% 2 25%. I was told to attend an AP summer institute to better prepare for this class and the district fight for the institute and for my time. And now I cannot use my knowledge since the class is closed. Kennedy high school population will benefit with this program to get college credit and preserve their cultural and linguistic heritage. I need your support to make this class part of the Kennedy master schedule. We don't want AP Spanish literal culture to disappear when it has been so successful. It's imperative that this course and all the opportunities is carried within not be taken away from our students. Help us please. Our next public comment is Kumi Yanagihara. Please unmute yourself. >> Good evening. >> Um
020my name is Kumanihara. I'm a fifth year teacher at Kennedy High School and I'm here tonight in support of our Spanish program. A week ago, we were told that due to FTE concerns, Kennedy won't be able to offer a class if there are less than 15 students enrolled and that of the 16 students who signed up for the AP Spanish literature class last spring, that some had become inactive and therefore we could no longer justify offering it. We're not sure where these claims came from because our Spanish teacher team was able to track down all 16 students who are still at Kennedy. So, what gives? As an AP teacher myself, I know that each and every day with our students is of the utmost importance as we race to cover our courses material before our
021AP exam dates in May. Our students have already lost over a week of instruction and that is just unacceptable. I sincerely hope that the board is able to help us bring AP Spanish literature back to Kennedy. And that brings me to another point. While I understand that we can't justify offering all courses that students express interest in given our limited FTE and funding, I think this also speaks to a larger issue that West Contra Costa faces. Our contract expired in June, and the district's bargaining team is unwilling to actually bargain, backing us into a corner called impass. The district's usage of funds does not reflect a prioritization of ensuring students have a quality education provided by fully credentialed, qualified educators. You, trustees, have the power to keep the amazing educators we have now and to
022attract new ones to teach with us so that we can stop making our kids start the school year without a permanent educator. You trustees have the power to ensure that amazing programs at Kennedy like our AP Spanish courses continue to thrive as our students read and analyze texts in their mother tongue and bring back test scores that prove their profound understanding of the subject. You trustees have the power to do this. Wield it. Thank you. Our next public comment is Slali Oera. Hola is class. Prof. guitar. Our next public comment is Christian Behil. Please unmute yourself. Hi, my name is Christen Behil and I am a sixth chair at Kennedy High. Uh, I'm calling in support of the AP Spanish literatur literature class. I was disappointed in hearing that the course was no longer being
023offered. Um, we've uh taught at Kennedy with the idea promoting multilingualism, multiculturalism, but taking away this class, this course takes away from that mission and purpose. I hope that the board hears us today and that we can use the the the power that you have um in order to instill this class back. Uh given that we work with a lot of newcomer students whose um abilities that they that they can use linguistically can threaten succeed in an AP Spanish course. So I ask you to please um app use your power, use your influence to provide opportunities for our newcomers, our our native language, our native Spanish speakers and our our our English our English and Spanish learners to have an opportunity to thrive at Kennedy and throughout the district. Thank you. Our next public comment
024is Angel Gabriel Blanco. criminal. Kennedy Hunto.ch. Fore college. Our next public comment is Elias Aalos. >> Uh good evening. Uh my name is Elias Avalos and I'm here to share my voice on my education. So I'm going to tell you a little story. Last year, I picked all my classes assured that I'd got that I got what I was going to get, right? Um come to find out first week of school, none of the AP classes that I chose were given to me. Only AP government, right? But um what I really is that I was I come to find out that all the AP classes were just gone. Now Kennedy isn't known to have I guess the best and meet hardest classes. So I I want to my dream and hope is to just pursue
025my education to the fullest extent that I can't. But because of the loss of these classes, the loss of the AP calculus class, the loss of the AP English literature, and the loss of the AP Spanish literature, I can no longer do that. My education is being oppressed before my very eyes and it is my right and the right of others like me to pursue this education into other fields. And I'd like to say that if we compare there's a major difference between honors and AP classes within Kennedy High School and other schools like the ANZ and Elserto. And why is that? Why are we allowing these youth and these these children our future future founders to be oppressed like this? Why are we not allowing them to get the education that they deserve? It
026is unfair and it is unjust. Thank you. Our next public comment is Mity Perez Carl. My name is Mitsy Perez and I'm a ninth year CTE teacher at Kennedy High and a second generation WCC alum. Now I am also an adject professor at CCC. I'm going to remind you that I've been attending these board meetings regularly since before any of you considered being on this dasis 10 years ago. We at Kennedy continue to be on the back burner and it is unjust. Why are you allowing the these new admin at our site to remove key classes like AP Spanish literature, calculus, and silk screening. AP Spanish literature has the highest AP scores at our site under the direction of Miss Blanco. In addition, their average is higher than the state. Silk screening under the direction
027of Mr. Manini has done so many amazing jobs, including some for the district. That was printing over 3,000 shirts for staff at the start of school years. These programs have existed at Kennedy for decades. How can you allow them to strip our students of these opportunities? You have allowed my portable to have exposed server wiring for two weeks now. What happens when a student randomly decides to unplug the wiring? How are we supposed to function without internet on campus? You expect us to work through all of this and decide that we're not worth a living salary. Do your due diligence. Pay us what we deserve and provide these students adequate spaces for learning. >> Our next public comment is Kim Chamberlain. >> What was the name? Good evening. I'm Kimberly Chamberlain Local 21 SSA chapter
028president. We started off with a bang. We got kids in classes. Thank you office managers, secretaries, everybody in my team in the IT department. We also were able to support as much as we could the teachers. We were supporting all of the custodial staff and trying to get toilet paper in those bathrooms. We paper towels, soap dispensers up. We also wanted to make sure that those school campuses were as clean as we could possibly make them. That is because our classified staff worked very diligently to give that achievement. We wanted to give these staff members and students and community the sense that we had their best interest at heart. Please continue to support us throughout this year. give us the training that we need in October and make sure that we have your backing when
029we are supporting everybody, our community, our parents, and our students. Thank you. >> Our next public comment is Zachary Porter. >> Hello, my name is Zach Porter. I am an English teacher and theater teacher at Kennedy High School. Um, I'm here to speak in support of the AP Spanish literature and culture program at Kennedy High School. Um, I was an ELD teacher at Kennedy for several years. Um, and I have many great memories of students very proudly sharing their AP Spanish literature projects with me. Um these are projects that were rigorous and intellectually demanding and oftentimes were in the home language of the students um in my class and this is a unique opportunity for them to shine. Um, and I'll always remember that. Um, Miss Blanco and Miss Werta, um, the Spanish teachers at
030our school have spent years building this incredible program, um, that caters to the unique needs of our students while also, um, just creating this unique, intellectually rigorous environment. Um, uh, you'll hear tonight several times that we have, um, our AP Spanish program tests well above state averages. Um, and we've had over 150 students also petition uh talking about how much they love this program. So, um, personally for me, this feels like an an attack on our Spanish program. I don't understand it. Um, this is a beloved program. Everyone at Kennedy knows how hard these Spanish teachers work, and it doesn't make any sense to remove these from the master schedule. Um, so I please, I beg of you to reconsider um, what you're doing. Um, we need AP Spanish classes at Kennedy. It's non-negotiable. Um,
031thanks so much. >> Our next public comment is Christina Werta. [Music] >> Good evening. My name is Christina Werta and I'm a Spanish teacher at Kennedy High School. I'm addressing the board tonight to show my support for AP Spanish literature and culture. The course has been offered at Kennedy for seven consecutive years and has been very successful. You already heard tonight that the students score higher than the California state average. This has allowed students not only to be proud of themselves, but to earn college credit and most importantly to remain connected to their native language. Unfortunately, the decision was made at our site that the course would not be offered this year. Interestingly enough, the decision was made without talking to either of the Spanish teachers. There's only two of us. You can find us
032very easily. We really need Spanish AP Spanish literature and culture to be added to Kennedy's master schedule. Once again, the Spanish department recruited students for the course, and those students deserve to take the class. Given our student population at Kennedy, it is a disservice to take a class where students connect with their culture through literature. We should focus on empowering our students and encourage them to retain their native language so they can be proud of being multilingual. It makes no sense to close a class that has made our Kennedy community proud. Before my time runs out, I'd like to read part of a statement prepared by Yoleta Lamanka, who passed the AP Spanish literature exam in May and graduated from Kennedy in June. Kennedy High School. Listen to Kennedy teachers. Listen to our students. Listen
033to our alumni. AP Spanish Literature and Culture deserves to be a part of Kennedy. It has been successful and we need your support so that it can continue being successful. Thank you. Our next public comment is Anoir Sarate. Anoir Anoir Sarate. Uh Ashabat. [Applause] It is not a part of my culture to speak Spanish. I had the chance to learn it in high school. And every year I have about 200 magical teachers that share their cultures with me, their language with me, and the the cuss words that I should look out for and ask the students to discontinue because every year it's different. I want you guys to understand how colonization works. First, you take things away by defunding and then you go, "Oh, I'm sorry. Is it not working?" Then you say, "There's a
034reason to cut it entirely." Then it starts to disappear. If you do not believe me, you don't know what history is. I want you to think about when you were looking in your own heart thinking, I want to serve this community. I really like people. I want you to look at that spark inside of you and say, "Those kiddos are the reason you are up here." I want you to understand that you saw something bright and brilliant and worth fighting for. And it is disgusting that we have ICE out on our streets kidnapping our neighbors, our kids questioning if they have tattoos about a grandma or about some mysterious terrorist gangster gang. We need to look at the context in which you are cutting these beautiful programs set up and fought for by these two
035teachers. You look at the international program, you cut out the two people that grew up learning to speak English and you expect the program to work well with three whiteies going, "Let's learn." Like, "What are you thinking? You have to fight for the people. You have to stand up for the kiddos. Why do we have children asking you to see them as the future?" And Our next public comment is Marie Anum. I come here with grave concerns. My beloved Malik and Lydia are a autistic, speech delayed and receive OT services. Lydia is in TK and STE and the campus is dangerous. I tell you, dangerous. They do not have access to appropriate play structures. There's no shade, no water fountain. The district lacks giving them bottled water to drink. Can't believe this. This is essential
036that the kids can drink fresh water. >> These defenseless children could have heat strokes and or pass out from dehydration. There are numerous egg cove violations. And again, the district is neglecting the students at STEG. Yes, I'm glad to hear that the Cypress campus is being rebuilt, but don't forget about DeJon Middle School campus needs upgrades, too. And now on to my hot topic. I'm super hot about this. The lack of safety for students at the first alt car transportation system. Lydia has been using the car system since she was three. Three years old. I'm talking about poor communication to parents. Drivers that show up to my house or to the school without picture ID cards. Where is the safety? Oh, the driver even dropped Lydia off at the wrong location. get a call from
037first I'll say was the driver supposed to bring Lydia to thus and so couldn't believe it all the while I'm trying to do my job at work and serve WCCUSD students the last three days drivers have showed up to my house with broken car seats broken car seats I'm not lying to you one lady even was sent there to convince me to put Lydia in a booster seat no that's child endagement and child neglect. I've taught on this topic. I have embelled many people in. >> Thank you, Superintendent Cotton. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Superintendent Cotton, will you have a staff member follow up with her? >> Yes, I will. Thank you. >> Our next public comment is Sky Nelson. >> I'm sorry, President. Before we move on to the next speaker, could
038it be possible for a staff member to follow up with the last speaker right now? Okay. Thank you so much. All set. >> Dear school board and superintendent Cotton, my name is Sky Nelson, teacher at Elsto High School, um, and parent. I'm pleased that you're scheduling listening sessions for the community. That's great. I want people to walk out of the town hall meetings having the experience of a completed thought. What I mean by this is people hear each other. They respond fully and completely to all the questions that are asked and the audience comes away feeling clearer, wiser, and more knowledgeable. And to this extent, I'd like to make one request. I hope you'll take note of this specific request. Rather than passing the mic around as you call on people, can you please set
039up a podium with a microphone in the audience that people can line up behind? This way they can be sure that once they're in line, their voices will be heard. I think that would help the uh energy in the room. Uh for the purpose of setting some context, I feel some remorse and embarrassment over the last town hall where I spoke out of turn to try to get clarity for myself. I don't believe that was the helpful approach for myself and I learned from that experience. I do think it's important to respect people's needs for things to make sense to them. The audience can't understand every decision that the district officials will make, but we do need to know that you've heard us, that you understand our concerns, and responded to them at face value
040directly, assuring us through action and repeating back what we said so that we know we're on the same page as you. I believe that is how trust can strengthen in our community. We need leaders who understand the needs of the moment in the room and respond to address those needs. And I've seen you all address the needs of the moment in the room. I think we need that every time. When something comes up in the moment, we understand that there's a need. We address it. We wait. We pause and we hear each other. If there's a side that hasn't been heard yet, we don't want to walk away angry. We want to at least voice what's what's in the room. So, we can't solve everything, but we can complete the interaction. Thank you. Our next
041public comment is Diego Garcia. Good evening board. My name is Dio Garcia, long-term resident, 47 years here. I'm a product of the uh former Richmond Unified School District. been uh attending the school since 1982. And to my right, you guys will see actually to my left in the back down here are part of my board who are part of Richmond Soul uh soccer club. And to my right, you won't see them, but there are 23 of my friends who would have loved to uh help out and assist with the Richmond Soul soccer program, but they're no longer with us. They either dead, incarcerated, or deported to Mexico. And the only reason why is because when the Richmond School District was bankrupt, took a lot of our services, took a lot of our programs away, and
042most of us did not have a place to go. When I founded Richmond Soul 22 years ago, every year we served over 300 kids. In 22 years, it's been over 6,000 kids that we serve. These young men were part of this program since they were five years old. And now they have been graduates from different universities. And now they are back to be able to be part of the board and continue the cycle of service in this community. So, I formally wanted to come in and introduce Richmond Soul because now we opened a new chapter of the volleyball program, which we thought in our registration we were going to have about 15 to 20 kids registered and we had over 250 kids register. That just tells you the service and the need that is in
043our community. So with that, I will leave you guys and let you guys know that this is our first formal introduction and you guys will see a lot more of Richmond saw here in this community and we're asking for the board support for fields and gym space. Thank you so much. >> Our next public comment is Fermine Salas. Good evening board. I'm sure you recognize the logo. You can see I'm with Richmond Soul. I'm also a former student of this district. I graduated in 2005 from Richmond High. So, I can tell you firsthand of how the availability of sports impacts you and how it can teach you leadership positions and you something you carry that with you in life. Uh Diego Garcia, our president, mentioned the lack of availability, the lack of facilities uh and
044the challenges in able to get that and that's something we're currently with. I I don't want to put any teams on blast or anything like that, but at Kennedy there is currently teams using that that have nothing to do with our area. Uh we have teams from outside the area using that and it is currently displacing not only teams that have been here for a long time, but it's also displacing other sports. I'll give you a good example. the Richmond Steelers who have been part of this community for a very very long time are out there forced to practice on a baseball field, a subpar baseball field because they've been moved out of Kennedy because they don't have access to it anymore. So, I urge the board to look at the processes. Uh, and if
045we need to change things, we should, you know, we talk, ever since I was a student here, we talk about equity and making sure that we're able to provide and do the best what we can. How can we do that when we're pushing teams off? It it it has a correlation. It has, you know, they get pushed off, they get forced onto other fields, and it makes it that much challenging. As Diego Garcia stated earlier, we help over 300 kids just with the soccer program alone. These kids need uh an affordable way to stay busy after school, and that's what we provide. Richmond Soul has the lowest fees, not only in our soccer program, but also in our volleyball club that we just started. I urge you to look at the cost of those and
046then compare them to what we do and the services we provide and help us make sure we can continue to provide to the students in this area in the community. And not only that, but expand it. We we owe it to these kids to give them an opportunity to learn these positions, to learn leadership. It's not just about sports. It's about those leadership qualities. Thank you, board. >> And our last public comment is Larry Nelson. Good evening. Um, I'm a parent of two children who have been in the UN Unified School District for since 20 months old. They participate in the Cameron program and I have been a volunteer ever since. Um, they're now going to school at ECS and I was looking for volunteer opportunities there and found out the radio station was looking
047for people. So, I volunteered. I found out also that the radio station was off the air. Um, according to the engineer responsible, they needed some power filters. I bought the power filters and donated them. We installed them. The UPS's weren't working properly. I upgraded the batteries and those on my own time. And we're still told the radio station can't go on the air. It's the only piece of electronic equipment in the whole school that's not on that's not running even though the generators are fine. Um, we've lost a valuable teacher because of this. And I don't I don't know if the district's not looking for teachers at this point. Um, the engineer who is in charge of the place says there's no reason it can't be running, although he is hard to get a hold
048of. Um, when I asked the principal about it, principal Norington, he said he didn't know anything and blew me off, scured away. The new principal has no knowledge really at this point. She's brand new. I that's that's pretty much good because the radio station wasn't turned on. There were seniors that weren't allowed to finish their projects. There are students now a number of students who knew me from the program and have known I've known them since kindergarten are asking me why can't we have a radio program here and I'm just wondering if we can get some transparency on what's going on. There are no power issues there. The filtering that was recommended by the engineer was put in place there. there is a brand new board that could be installed. And a matter of fact,
049I've heard that the check was cut to the engineer to install it. The um wide orbit service that they used to run the station um has been discontinued. It was not paid for this year. Thank you to everyone who gave public comment. Superintendent Cotton, in the Friday memo, can the board get an update on course selection or call whatever happened at Kennedy? And can the board get an update on the radio station at Elsto High School? Thank you. >> Yes, we will provide that. >> Okay, we're moving now to B8 agenda review and adoption. Does the board have anything on the agenda that you'd like to do something with? Seeing none, we'll adopt the agenda as presented. Moving now to consent C. Uh, does the board have anything on the consent it agenda that they'd
050like to pull? Seeing none, we'll ex we'll accept consent as presented. And now moving to D, superintendent communication. Superintendent Cotton, all you good evening everyone. I am fantastic. Um, let's go ahead and get started. And are we there? Yes, I can see it. Perfect. Thank you. I was I couldn't see it. All right. I'll be honest. Let's go ahead and get started. Um, we have started school. very excited that we have um I wanted just to bring up the board up to speed that our first week of school has been amazing. We are now into week two. Uh the first week of school we saw I saw almost 15 uh elementary schools that week nine on the first day of school. Uh I did ask all of our cabinet members to be in classes and
051wave your hands, show fingers. How many classes did you see on the first day of school? Excellent. Amazing. Amazing. By the end of the week, we've gotten through all 54 of our schools, which has been really exciting as well. So, thank you to cabinet for your support in that. But we I just want to share that classes, campuses were beautiful. So, shout out to um our custodial staff, our maintenance and operations. Campuses were beautiful. Classrooms were so welcoming. Um and there was really good learning happening even on the first week, first day of school. It was exciting times. Uh one of the places that brought me the most joy was walking into our teacher pathway. So our future teachers were at right there at Richmond High School learning to become our educators um that will
052be coming to West Contraosta. Next slide, please. Uh, did I do that? I will stop. Go ahead. Next slide. We are making progress. I am making progress on my 100 day plan. I do want to let the board know that I'm looking forward to presenting some information on September 10th and probably most of our report will be on September 24th. Uh we have kicked off our listening tour. Very excited about that work. Um also moving having talked to um our board members, talked to our cabinet members, talked to our union leadership, um working on talking with and we'll talk about that in a minute. Um with our community members as well as our educators, our site principles. Uh, I've been getting around and so it's been really interesting and exciting to learn more about where
053West Contra Costa is right now. What are some of our assets? What are the things that we can celebrate and what are the things that we need to work on? And so even in meetings like this, this is giving great information about things that we need to address as a a community. Um and so thank you to those folks who have raised issues at not just this board meeting but our future our past board meetings where we've been able to learn more about what the needs are. We also have um really pushed our attendance piece. Uh we're able to start the school year with a message um to families around attendance, making sure that students were in school on time, but also um building an awareness around immigration enforcement activities in the community as well.
054So, wanting to be mindful of that and encouraging our uh families to bring students to school on time every day. Uh we're also working on and you'll hear more about our um our fa uh fiscal stabilization roadmap that will be coming your way um in September as well as our continued work with our unions. Next slide, please. Part of that um 100 day plan is really getting out and talking to our communities. We are scheduled for five listening sessions. Um we want to make sure that um folks are coming out to support those listening sessions. We have if I do this what will happen our listening sessions are titled can we talk and it's really about hearing from our parents our community members our students and our staff. We're beginning with area 2 on August
05528th at 5:30 at Dejon. We're also meeting with area 3 on the same evening at Richmond High at 7. We will be heading over to Elserto High School on September 3rd at 700 p.m. And also on September 3rd, we'll be meeting at Deansza High School at 5:30 that evening. Uh we'll be meeting with our area 1 families at Penol Valley High School on September 9th at 5:30 as well. We are hosting on September 4th a virtual listening session at 8:30 in the morning as well for parents who are not able to attend any of those. All of our sessions will be hybrid. So folks will be able to access either on Zoom or um in person. We encourage folks to come out in person. And again, it's about listening to the community. I want to
056hear what the concerns are. Again, what are our celebrations and what do our community members see as our um priorities for the year? Next slide, please. Also had an opportunity to get out into the community in lots of ways and I'm listening in all of those places and spaces as well. We've had our um community roundt so met with members from oh goodness uh public advocates latina center go public schools um eastbay center for the performing arts a number of our community partners have had a chance to sit down and really listen to what are the concerns what are the celebrations and what are our priorities for the year. Um I was able to make it to our new teacher orientation which was really exciting. That was a partnership program that was uh developed by
057both our district staff as well as our union, our uh United Teachers of Richmond to make sure that we were onboarding our new teachers in ways that were respectful and supportive and set them up for success this year. uh also had a chance to visit our site safety supervisor training and just warmed my heart as we talked about and I was listening to them about how they are important adults in our students lives. And so making sure that we all understand how important having a caring adult in in the lives of our students is really important. And it's not just the classroom teacher, it's the pair professional, it's the custodian, it's the campus security officer, it's all of those folks. Every one of us has an impact on our students. I just want to say
058thank you to our security folks, um to Mr. Booker for leading that work, as well as Mr. Franco, um and our executive directors for leading really important work with our staff. I also had a chance to visit our West County forum. So getting out into the community, hearing from uh West Contraosta leaders, what's going on? What do you see as a need? I am looking forward to introducing myself and really talking directly to the West County forum on September 11th. I invite the board and members of the public to attend those meetings. Those are held at Lstrada um at lunchtime. In addition to that, had some some really good back- to-school coverage and I think really positive coverage for our district. It was I love to see West Contraosta introduced and talked about in a
059really positive light and I believe that that's what happened within some of those back to school um uh publications and interviews that were held. I'm just again I was able to share my excitement about being the new superintendent here in this district but also about some of the wonderful things that we're doing here in this district. Um had a chance to uh talk with Richmond Promise another one of our community leaders as well as uh our women civic leaders lunchon. Uh again, hearing from the community, hearing from folks who have been working within West Contraosta for many, many, many years um and really hearing what they're looking for for our future. Finally, I had a chance to uh visit and sit with uh Trustee Hernandez at the San Pablo scholarship program and reception celebrating um
060students who are collegebound. That's our goal. Our goal is to make sure that our students are set up for college, career, and life. And that is one example of of those connecting activities. And finally, I think what was most fun on Sunday morning had a chance to throw out the first pitch at Soulful Softball Sunday. That was quite a joyful event and a wonderful community opportunity as well for them to see West Contraosta involved. And uh kudos and shout out to uh trustee Inana for her award received as well. So hand clap to you. Yes. Give it up. Give it up. Give it up. Give it up. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Excellent. Next slide, please. Next slide. Oh, it was me, not you. Sorry. I want to encourage folks
061to get involved um and encourage our families. Parents are often at the start of the year wondering how can I get involved? How can I be a part of what's happening both at my school, my kids school site, but also within the district? And there are many ways to get involved where your voices can be heard. Uh one is starting with your school site council. uh looking into information and getting involved with with the your AP pack or any of our parent advisory councils, the African-American parent advisory council or the African-American site advisory council. Also, your district local account local control accountability plan group um advisory group, our multilingual district advisory committee, our community advisory committee for special education, our dual language immersion parent advisory committee, our citizens bond oversight committee, uh bringing back our
062parcel tax committee, um our yes, our siege community meeting as well as our budget engagement committee. There are lots of ways for us to be involved for for families, our community members to be involved across our district. Next slide. An immediate way to be involved is to make sure that you are at back to school night. So parents out there, please make sure that you are there. Thursday, September 11th are back to school nights for elementary schools. Thursday, September 25th, back to school night for middle schools. And we currently have on the calendar October 2nd. That may be changing. We are working with our um internally to make sure that our back to school nights are aligned with um our our cultural holidays that are celebrated throughout the district as well. Next slide, please. And
063for your awareness, I do want to lift up some items to make sure that families are aware, that community is aware of things that are are a little bit different um in the district this year. One, emergency cards aren't new, but please make sure that you're completing your emergency cards. Complete as many as you choose. So, if you need additional cards for additional folks who you want the school to be able to contact in the event of an emergency or something is happening, please make sure that you're doing that. Also, sign up for parent square to provide immediate information that of things that are going on at your school site or in the neighborhood. So, please make sure you signed up for parent square. Update your power school information. I also want to lift up
064and make sure that folks are aware of our anti-slur and anti-racism policy. Those are things that are going into place this year. We want to make sure that students are able to move through our schools with dignity and that they are not dealing with um one of the callers called in about microaggressions. They're not dealing with things that make learning a challenge that make learning in school an unsafe environment. So, please make sure that we are adhering to our anti-slur as well as our anti-racism policies. We also have our cell phone policy that has gone into effect this year. The cell phone policy was approved by the board at our last meeting and we are now moving forward with our cell phone policy. That is a call for no cell phones in school from bell
065to bell, not class to class, start of the bell to the end of the end of the day, no cell phones in schools. And so we're working with all of our school communities on that new policy as well. We also want to lift up our immigration policy and there should be signage at all of our schools to let folks know about um how schools will handle um any service of um uh warrants to schools. Um also I want to lift up our visitor signin policy. Guys, my list is long. I'm sorry, but there's lots of information, lots that's happened since we met last two weeks ago. um our visitor signin policy which is our new verata system for our visitors. Please make sure that you are using the verata system. Uh it is common it's
066commonly used across the state. Um but it is a secure way to make sure that the folks who are coming into our schools should be there and are not um on any any lists or any um have not committed any infractions that would not allow them to be on campus around our students. And then finally, please remember to take care of your Chromebooks. Yeah, we've we've I've heard I've had uh accounts of Chromebooks being misused in the in our our our system and making sure that our students are taking care of their belongings. Next slide, please. I am almost to a close. I want to lift up Middle College High School for being recognized by US News as one of the best high schools in the United States. So, this is a great award for
067them and I just want to acknowledge that. Thank you. Next slide, please. Also wanting to lift up Oh my goodness, we've got uh some quite a few smart people here in West Contraosta, myself included. Um we threw in a picture of um UC Berkeley has both the uh leaders for education for equity and democracy doctorate program as well as of which I am a part of as well as uh soon to be Dr. Guthrie Flechman. Can you give him a hand clap? He is almost finished. Um but we also have a host of folks who are in our our principal leadership institute program as well. Um, so just exciting to we have alum many alumni. Uh, let me see from the from our cabinet. Raise your hand if you're an alumni of PLI. Wow. Excellent.
068Hands down. Thank you very much. But we've got surrounded by smart people. So just very proud of that and wanted to lift up a moment where we were all uh engaging in our own professional development uh on the Cal campus. Next slide, please. Go Bears. Thank you. Oh, okay. So, now I have to call it out. So, who are my Where are my bears? Where are my cow bears in the house? Cal. Okay. Okay. Go Bears. Go Bears. Go Bears. Me, too. Okay. Moving on. Sorry. Teachers of the year. We have on September 4th, the Contraosta County Office of Education will celebrate its teacher of the year nominees. We have two nominees for our district this year, Zarlene Padas and Caitlyn Marchi. Caitlyn is a finalist for the countywide uh Contracasta County Teacher of the
069Year Award program. So, hand clapped for them and we will continue to lift them up throughout the year. Next slide, please. Finally, I want to lift up and make sure that we are all aware of Richmond High School. They will be hosting a farewell party um with food vendors, photos, and more on this Friday from 4:00 to 7:00. So, Richmond High is moving into their uh final moments of looking the way they do. We will be um having a groundbreaking ceremony coming up soon. That'll be in the next slide. but letting you know and inviting the community out to celebrate with Richmond High for their farewell party on Friday from 4:00 to 7:00. Also on September 15th, we will begin um the fencing construction process to make sure that the area that we will begin
070working on for the rebuild at Richmond High School um that area is safe. And we are moving the entrance of the campus from where it currently sits to I guess the northern end of the campus I think. So moving forward. Next slide. We are also planning a community meeting on September 16th at 6:30 with Siege Elementary School to talk about the campus rebuild update. And please save the date. There will be a groundbreaking event for Richmond High School. Can you see how beautiful these campuses are going to be? I cannot wait. Um, se Saturday, September 20th from 11 to 12 will be our groundbreaking event at Richmond High School. That concludes my report. Are there any questions? I submit my report. Thank you, board president. Does anybody have any questions for the superintendent? Okay, that
071was great. So much going on. It's just first week. >> Great. Okay, we're moving now to e our action items for the evening. Uh the first action item for this me for this evening is E1 board policy 6173 education for homeless children. This is the second reading and an approval. Is there a presentation? Yes, thank you. We're bringing forward board policy 6173, education for homeless children, for a second reading this evening. Uh, this update addresses recent federal program monitoring finding and ensures that we're fully in compliance. The review strengthened the following areas: required use of the state's housing questionnaire at registration. Annual staff training and data reporting, proactive removal of barriers related to enrollment, attendance, and access, and designation of a trained district liaison to support students and coordinate services. The policy also reinforces privacy
072protections and affirms that students experience homelessness must be provided equal access to the full range of education support programs. The revisions have been reviewed by the governance committee and support us in our compliance and obligations to building systems that ensure that our students can succeed regardless of housing status. Once this policy is approved, we will review the next recommended CSVA administrative regulation and work with staff to update. >> Great. Thank you. Do any board members have any questions on the policy? No questions, but I have a comment. >> Okay. Is there public I'll get I'll get to that when we um Is there public comment on the on the policy? >> We have no public comment. >> Okay. Uh comments. Go right ahead. Um, we talked about this uh several times, but looking through the
073eyes of a um a student and a parent and really making sure that we are removing all barriers that require an address. Right? So, we talked about making sure that if we're doing nighttime activities that we're being sensitive to the fact that going somewhere and coming back is an issue. still having some activities that are close to the time that school is out or in. The other thing that um we recently talked about was making sure our counselors um help navigate our students if they're filling out scholarships and an address is required. Like what do we do in that case? If we are having our counselors help our students with a career for filling out job applications, if there's a requirement for address, what do we do? Right? So these ideas of making sure that
074belonging is not dependent on an address. Belonging to the school, to the school community, to the school environment is not dependent on if you have an address. So I just want to make sure that when we go back and we're doing our ARs, we're thinking about this. We're asking those critical questions and we're trying our best to step into the shoes of a student and a parent and a community that has homelessness in it. Um, the final thing is I would love for us as a district when we when those families are uh brought to our attention that we try to do the best that we can in every last one of our um functions to see how we can help job opportunities, internship opportunities, being intentional about helping the families that we have in
075our district because we could always use good people working in our district. So looking and seeing how we can take those um our families that are in that situation and saying, "Hey, if you need a job, let's see if we can find a place for you in the district." I'm complete. Thank you so much. Are there any more comments on the item? I also want to mention that CSBA, California School Boards Association has an exhibit as well of a letter like identifying your contact, your district contact, and as well as the AR. I think you should look at the exhibit. It's a pretty good might give you some good ideas. Um, and lessen the workload if they've done it for you. Um, so that's my my only comment on that. And um, anybody else? No,
076no other comments. Okay. So, I'll accept a motion on uh this board policy. >> I second. >> Are you going to Do you want to move it? Do you want to move the adoption of update 6173? >> Oh yes, sorry. >> Okay, so moved by Hernandez. Is anybody have a second? >> Smith F seconds. >> Okay, so Hernandez and Smith Folds and um Okay, we'll go to the vote. Uh Trusty Gonzalez Hoy absent at this moment. Trusty Smith Folds. >> Smith Folds. Yes. >> Trusty Hernandez. >> Yes. >> Clerky, >> yes. >> And I'm a yes. So we have four yes and one absence on absent on the policy. Great. Moving on now to E2 2025 2026 45day budget revision. Dr. Moses I think this is you. >> Yes. Thank you board president. Good evening
077president and trustee superintendent Cotton. This evening, I would like to in invite up Jeff Carter, our executive director of business services. Um, Jeff will support in presenting the 45day budget revision to the board and the public this evening. Education Code 42127H specifies that no later than 45 days after the governor signs the annual budget act, the district shall make available for public view any revisions and revenue and expenditures related to the enacted budget. WCCUSD board of trustees approved our budget on June 25th and on June 27th the governor enacted his budget which resulted in additional revenue for the district. this evening. I invite Jeff to share with us those changes. Could we bring up the presentation? Great. Next slide. >> All right. Good evening board. Uh thank you for your time tonight. Uh as Dr.
078Mos just explained, uh we took our budget to your to the board for approval on June 25th. Two days later, this California state enacted their and adopted their budget on June 27th. Uh we make our budget based on the May revision uh that the governor releases in May. And included in there were additional dollars and grants that were going to change our revenues materially, but we didn't know what grants or how much those were going to be. So, we could not include it in our 2526 adopted budget. uh in the weeks following the state's enacted budget uh they released what those grants were and what those amounts would be. So tonight I'd like to explain uh those additional revenues. Next slide. Uh so tonight uh the four increases in revenue. One of them is the
079universal transition kindergarten ADA add-on. Uh as of June July 1st 2025 the ratio for staffing of TK was changed from 12:1 to 10:1 ratio. And in order to support that uh ratio of class sizes, uh they've increased our U our UTK or TK uh ADA add-on. So uh we'll be seeing about $2.3 million more in revenue to support the 10 to1 class size ratio in 20 526. And this is ongoing revenue uh for years to come as long as they don't change it in the future. Uh the next one, learning recovery emergency block grant. Uh we received this grant a few years ago. Um, and the state actually took back some of that revenue. They clawed back some of the revenue from learning recovery. Uh, this is them re-implementing some of those funds based on
080the uh better revenues that the state had. They determined that they could uh give the districts back some of their learning recovery. So, we'll see an additional 1.8 million revenue uh as one-time dollars for learning learning recovery in 2526. Uh, and that those funds expire at the end of the year as well. Uh this will learn recovery is also built into our new LCAP plan as well. Uh student support and professional development discretionary block grant is a one-time funding. Uh this is to support rising costs for school districts and support PD uh at our school district. So we'll be seeing about $7.2 million in additional one-time revenue. Uh it is restricted dollars that can be used for a multitude of purposes. Uh we'll get into how we're budgeting for these uh on the next slide.
081But uh and the fourth one, the expanded learning opportunities program brings uh West Contraosta from rate two to rate one. Uh our unduplicated percentage right now is around 71%. The requirement for tier 1 for the last couple years has been 75%. So we've not qualified for tier 1 the last few years. As of the enacted budget in 2526, they've changed the requirement down to 55%. So we're now uh included in the tier one rate which allows uh ELOP to uh provide services to all sites and all students. Uh and that is ongoing revenue on the restricted side uh of 11.5 million more per year. Uh so those are the additional revenues that we'll see due to the enacted budget in California. Next slide. Uh so these are the expenditure changes. Uh since we're only 45
082days in uh to the new year or now a couple weeks past that um we're not increasing our revenue our expenditures at this point. We are using these onetime dollars to offset our structural deficit uh in order to preserve the fund 17 a little bit longer, use that into the following year and uh hopefully improve our structural deficit in the outy years. Uh these one-time dollars should not or shouldn't be used for ongoing expenses. uh we are trying to offset our structural deficit and uh have a a balanced budget for the future years. Uh the the increased revenue for onetime dollars is allowing us in year 2, so 2627 to reduce our fund 17 contribution from 23.6 million a year down to 13.1 million this year. uh the 3% required reserve for routine restricted maintenance
083is also uh seeing a slight increase to make a correction to the adopted budget that went in July or in June sorry. Next slide. Uh so here you'll see the amended multi-year projection for the unrestricted side. Uh you'll see that the revenues have increased for the unrestricted side. That's due to the two the TK dollars. Uh and you'll see our expenditures have decreased on the unrestricted side due to shifting some funds from unrestricted over to restricted for the one-time dollars that you'll see from uh SSPD and learning recovery. You'll see in the the highlighted yellow bar uh that row is showing a decrease in the fund 17 contribution which allows us to extend our fund 17 contribution in year 2627. Uh but you'll notice at the bottom that it is still not enough to be
084a positive in year two or year three. So even though we are getting onetime dollars and we are extending out the use of fund 17, it is uh still keeping us as a negative budget in year two and three. Next slide. Uh this is the uh combined amended multi-year projection. So this is the restricted and the unrestricted revenues and expenditures combined. Uh the notable difference here is the restricted revenue row. Uh that you'll see that increasing. That's due to the uh expanded learning and opportunities program dollars that are increasing year-over-year. Uh once those budgets and plans are in place um you you'll see those expenditures increase on the on the restricted side by by probably for first interim and a decrease in that restricted fund balance. Um but combined we are still negative in year
085two and three. Next slide. Uh and as a as a one district one budget uh mantra we have a commitment to the structural deficit to maintaining essential programs and services. A commitment to maintain local control of our district decisions and uh our our budget not having county oversight by trying to remain positive in a structural deficit. and a commitment to budget uh transparency and effective communication within uh our community. And with that next slide and thank you, Dr. Mos, if you have anything to add or any questions. >> I think we're ready for questions. >> Great. Thank you very much for the presentation. Okay, moving to questions. Does anybody on the board have questions? Okay, I have a I have a couple if nobody else has one has any. So, first is I thought I
086read somewhere that Kalpers had issued a high singledigit blended increase, but I don't seem to see that reflected. Did I? Is that not that's just not happening? That'd be good. >> A high singledigit >> increase to Kalpers. No. >> Uh that'll be reflected in first interim. uh once we have those rates included in the budget and uh a more settled FTE count of who's in CalPERS uh we'll have a better projections for that at first interim this is mostly just through the revenues that were included in the California state enacted budget not the outside Kalpers's increased expenditures >> okay great thank you for clarifying that next is on your D5 other sources contribution restricted programs. So that increase, you know, it's about a a million per year. That's all RRM, routine restricted maintenance. There isn't
087anything else in there sped or any >> uh correct that is the routine restricted maintenance increase. Um they uh there the routine restricted maintenance in the adopted budget was understated due to some expenditures that got added last second. Um so this is the correction to the RRM. It's it was noted in the criterion standards of the adopted budget that we would fix it by the 45day revision or first interim uh at the county's request. >> Okay. And then did I hear you correctly to say that there is now enough funding for every site to have a afterchool program? >> Uh it depends on how we spend those dollars. The allowability now allows us to reach all students in our district. Before it was just unduplicated students. >> So we can service all students depending on
088how far those dollars will stretch us. We just have the option now. >> Okay. Um Okay, that's all I had. Does anybody else have any questions on what was presented? >> I don't have a question, but I think we were supposed to call for public comment before, but we didn't have any public comment. >> Yeah. No, I'll do it now. Actually, it's supposed to be board questions and then public comment, believe it or not. >> So, I thought it was presentation, comments, and then questions, but I'm not sure. >> Yeah, I'll bring I'll show you the Rosenberger. The Rosenbergs. Not sure we were ever doing it correctly. >> Thank you for that. >> Is there any public comment on the item? >> We have no public comment. >> Okay. Okay then. Um so now uh
089we we are just accepting this. We're not approving it. So we're just accepting a buzzard. Hold for just a minute. Okay, so we have someone who wants to submit a public comment. Come on up. There's one minute. We appreciate you handing in a card in the future. >> Yes. Yes. I didn't know that I would have a public comment, but I'm going to respond to what was presented. So, thank you. I want to point that this is a moment. >> Sorry. Can I ask you to wait until we get the clock up for one minute? >> Yeah. >> Thank you. Okay, thank you so much. I want to just name in my comment earlier, I talked about in the moment when things come up in addressing them in the moment and healing in the moment
090and in the comments before when we hear that there's money that's come in through grant money uh and that it's not going to be spent on it's the unrestricted funds are not going to be spent on classrooms directly. Uh I understand there's a bookkeeping reason for that to to prop up measure 17 fund 17 for the future. But the feeling and the impact on on me from what I've heard from other teachers in the community is like why why is that? Why we need to have the money? We need to have some good news, but when there's good news, it doesn't come to us. When there's bad news, we get cuts. So, I don't have a strong opinion myself, but I'm speaking for what I think is is the response that I'm imagining from many
091people. Uh just addressing that in the moment that that is the concern. if you can speak to that uh in the email or later or I think that'd be useful. Thank you. >> Okay. >> Thank you. And now we'll uh I'll accept a motion to accept the 45day budget revision. If anybody I'll move it. So I'll move the that the board accepts the 2526 45day budget revision. Is there a second on the item? No one wants a second vote. Second. >> Okay. Second for Smith FZ. And any final comments. Okay. We'll go to the vote. Uh Trusty Hernandez. Sorry. Hold on just for just a moment. Oh, I'm sorry. It was me. I'm sorry. I moved it and Trusty Smith vault seconded. Sorry. Sorry. I have like no brain power to remember things for two
092seconds. Okay, we'll go to the vote. Trusty Hernandez. Trusty Hernandez vote. Do you want me to come back to you? >> Okay. >> If you can come back to me. >> Okay. Clerk. >> Yes. >> Trusty Smith votes. >> Smiths. Yes. >> Uh, Trusty Gonzalez is not on the floor at this moment. And coming back to Trusty Hernandez. >> Yes. Okay. And I'm a yes. So motion is four yes and one absent. Motion carries. Moving on to item E3, contract approval for 2022 contract for former superintendent Kenneth Hurst. Dr. Moses, is that your item? >> Yes. Thank you, President Reckler. Um board trustees, Superintendent Cotton. Uh this evening I bring this item forward in order to um satisfy a requirement. >> Sorry, can I have you stop for just a moment? Can't hear. >> Okay,
093so my voice is muffled. Okay, if you can if you can adjust me a little bit and I'll try and speak up. Okay, just let me know if you can. Okay, sorry about that. Go ahead. >> No worries. Thank you. Um, tonight we bring forward item E3 in order to rectify um a requirement of the Brown Act for Calers's recognition of an action taken on August 24th, 2022. Uh, this item does not have a fiscal impact. It is just a requirement to ensure that the um requirement to have this brought forth publicly is satisfied. and it relates to the 2% increase um in the first amendment to Dr. Hurst's contract. >> Thank you. Does anybody on the board have any questions on the item? >> Okay, seeing none, is there a public comment? >> Yes,
094we have one public comment. Jean Kster, please unmute yourself. >> Good evening, board. I heard all of that as a layman out here, but that made absolutely no sense. Maybe you guys can explain that to we the little people better now or in the future. Dr. Hurst isn't even here, so it just doesn't make sense to me. Thank you. >> Is there any other public comment? That's all for public comment. Is anybody All right. So, no questions or comments. Okay. Seeing none, we'll go to the vote. Uh well, we'll make a motion. Can is is there a motion to I guess approve the contract for the 2022 contract for former superintendent Kenneth Seurst. >> President, I'll move that we approve the contract for the for 2022 for Smith vote seconds. >> Okay, so it was
095moved by Gonzalez Hoy and seconded by Smith FS and we'll go the vote. Trustee Hernandez, >> yes. >> Clerkana, >> yes. >> Trusty Gonzalezy, >> yes. >> Trusty Smith folds. >> Smith votes. Yes. >> And Amy, yes. Motion passes unanimously. Okay. Okay, moving now to E4, approval of Godby research to conduct a partial tax feasibility survey of the district registered voters. >> Thank you, President Reckler. Tonight we have Brian Godby with us from Godby Research in order to provide a presentation to outline uh our partnership or our proposed partnership to begin the feasibility survey of district registered voters for the potential renewal of our parcel tax campaign. Uh Mr. Godby, we may proceed. >> Great. Uh thank you very much uh Dr. Moses. Uh madame president, members of the board, let me share my screen
096here. Uh and uh we can get started. Okay, you should all be able to see that. Um and I will dive into the presentation. Uh Godby research uh as many of you may know uh has been around the district for a very long time. uh and even before that we uh began in 1990 doing uh revenue measures for school districts uh and have specialized in that over the course of our career. Uh we've really built our practice on um experience and innovation. We were the first to do email surveys in the state of California. We were the first to do text invitations to online surveys. Uh and um beyond that uh I am the person who was involved in the 2004 project for uh the West Contraosta Unified School District and I will be the
097person involved and responsible for this project and you will see me. Uh we've done more than 300 revenue measures uh since 2010 and more than 500 since the firm was founded. Uh in 2024, our clients, 42 of them were successful uh and it totaled um over $5 billion in local revenue. Uh we have specific experience with general obligation bonds and parcel taxes, including for your district. Uh the clientele ranges from the statewide measures that we've been involved with to regional measures to uh countywide measures and to of course uh local in the West Contraosta Unified School District uh in Elsarto, Hayward, Fremont Unified uh and throughout the uh the East Bay and throughout California. Uh in terms of our specific experience uh with the district, as I mentioned, uh we started in 2004. Uh and
098uh that was a parcel tax measure uh that's been renewed several times since then. We're looking forward to working on this project to renew measure T. Uh there have also been several general obligation bonds over the years uh as well that we've worked on. Uh in total, we've worked on 15 different surveys for the district uh since 2004. Uh the research process in brief uh starts with a kickoff meeting. Uh it then goes to reviewing existing data. Obviously that existing data is information that we have in our possession for all of those 15 surveys. So a wealth of information. Uh it's an iterative process drafting the survey. Uh sample design is particularly important. Uh and we'll look at whatever likely universe we discussed during the kickoff meeting. uh we'll segment that uh by a variety
099of different demographics u including uh trustee district to make sure that it is representative of the uh the district and the election that we're interested in. Uh then we're into the translation pre-esting and programming of the surveys. uh interviewing after that uh then reporting presentation of the findings and being involved with what we call post project support uh all the way up until um the measure is on and and election day. Uh in terms of the structure of the survey briefly uh it starts with some district climate questions. Those include quality of education uh management of taxpayer dollars uh those sorts of things. uh initial ballot test uh that which is designed to be as close to what we might actually put on the ballot uh as we can um estimate today. Uh then we
100test a variety of different things we might spend the money on. Uh we look at positives. Uh we come back to the ballot test a second time to see what happens after people hear the positive side of the story. We then test negatives as well. Uh and then we have a final ballot test that we look at after the negatives. So we see how high we go and we see how low we go uh after positives and negatives. Uh and then we look at alternate rates uh parcel tax amounts. Um and from there we're into demographics and voting behavior. None of which we actually ask anymore. Uh we have as I mentioned 12 various demographics and voting behavior uh segments that we look at um as part of our sampling strategy. Uh but we have
101all that data on the voter file now or associated with the voter file. Uh just a little bit about how the sampling works. Uh this example shows you the total registered voters, not the likely voters. Uh but that's about 144,000. Uh, of those we have 47,000 in round number landlines. Uh, not many people are answering landline calls, but we still do uh have those email those numbers available to us and we still do try uh because some people still do. Uh, we have about 79,000 in round numbers cell phone uh and that works for both cell phone calls but first we actually text those people. So, we stratify the sample uh based on geography and the other variables that we look at uh send out our text invitations uh let those work a little bit
102and then we start making cell phone calls. Obviously, the people that don't have cell phones but only have landlines um depending on where they are in the strata start getting called uh right away. Uh in terms of the overall project feasibility, I think everybody knows about this. The goal is to uh look at the feasibility of renewing uh measure T. Uh and that would be either in a June or November 26 election next year. Uh we'll look at both universes. Uh the methodology, as I alluded to earlier, is an online and phone survey methodology. The vast majority of our responses nowadays come from the online portion then from the cell phones uh and lastly from the landlines. Um the data comes from the register our voters essentially uh it's augmented by third party um matches
103to get more cell phone calls or more cell phone numbers. Um and uh then we'll also do a parent match to make sure that parents who are less likely to be uh registered or maybe less likely to have provided uh a cell phone when they registered to vote uh to make sure that they're included in the sample as well. Uh and then finally uh we will as I alluded to earlier make sure that the sample is representative of the five trustee areas. That means breaking it down into five parts. It's a little bit disproportionate because the uh district um voter populations are not identical, but then we wait it back to the uh the correct appropriate uh um port proportions of each district. Uh in terms of uh just our wrap-up, our education and experience
104is unmatched in West Contraosta. Nobody's done more surveys for uh your district. Um obviously this is what we do. uh our clients are cities and school districts and some special districts, but we don't do other polling. We focus on revenue measures. Uh and we talked about our experience and the fact that I'll be the project manager uh and responsible on a day-to-day basis and our goal is to to meet the challenges. So, that's our presentation for today. Certainly happy to answer any questions you might have. Um at your pleasure. Okay, thank you for the presentation. Okay, going to board questions. Does anybody on the board have any questions on the item? Go right ahead. >> Thank you so much for your presentation. Uh can you talk a little bit about the timeline again? >> Uh
105timeline is um an interesting question which changed um late last week. uh uh in many districts, not all districts. Uh obviously, Prop 50 is now on the statewide ballot. Uh and that's for November of this year. It is not a tax measure as you all know. Uh so it doesn't impact our um our results from a substantive point of view. However, depending on the campaign uh uh and the intensity on both sides, it may impact our response rate. Uh in smaller districts, that's problem. In a district of your size, that's less of a problem. Uh but it's something that that we need to think about as we move forward. Uh in general, uh it takes about two to three weeks to do a kickoff meeting and to go back and forth on a draft questionnaire.
106uh and get to the final stage uh of that. And then from there, it takes about three days to do the programming. We actually have to program an online version, uh cell phone version, and a landline version based on F uh FCC regulations. Uh so about a week later, we're in the field. We like to start our interviewings um on a Monday uh because it maximizes the use of our uh of our texting ability given the carriers restrictions. Uh for your district because of the size, it'll probably take just a week uh to do the interviewing. Uh from there uh it's another half week for data processing and uh creation of a our first topline report. Uh and then from there it's another week uh week and a half for the final report. Um and
107we can begin briefing board members and etc. >> Thank you. And then once we receive the data um are we a since you've done work with us before, you know us fairly well. Um will we be able to also see data around responses per city and um uninccorporated area? Um >> we certainly can uh and um you know the data will be weighted and well stratified and weighted stratified on the front end weighted on the back end by trustee area. So that's easy to do. Uh some of the cities are smaller. Obviously Richmond is larger. Uh so the margin of errors just vary um based on whether it's a larger or smaller city, but it is certainly available for sure. >> Thank you. I I would love to see that. Um, >> okay, that's it.
108Thank you so much. >> Thank you. Anybody else? >> So, when would we expect to see you again with results? >> Uh, well, that could be 6 weeks, uh, 6 to 8 weeks depending on when we decide to field. Uh, and it I'm pretty sure we'll be able to field within and get it done within a week. Um, but again, you know, the Prop 50 could could get dicey and that could extend the interviewing as much as three or four days. I would I would guess we just uh pro I'm being cautious around Prop 50 because we've never had anything like that on the ballot in California uh or uh and with all the national implications, you know, it could get dicey. >> Yeah. And I'm I'm curious um about two things about that. The
109first is will a voters's outlook hold for 6 months or longer June or November? So, you know, if you're interviewing now, you know, that's quite a length of time. And then, you know, I I don't know what to say about I want to ask something about Prop 50, but I don't really know what exactly to ask. My feeling is that it's going to bring people out. Um I I don't know. Do you do you have any potential? I think yeah I think that uh in terms of how what percentage of people that it might bring out I think that we've had uh you know a recall election uh for governor which was an unusual situation in an off year that might be a guidepost for how many people that would turn out uh in this
110particular election. Um, again, you know, it's not a tax measure. It's controversial. Um, and, uh, people have asked me, could that impact the results for a local measure? I tend to think not. Um, but if it does, uh, I think that it will be the same world that we live in come next June or next November. Uh, this is just the um, how how to best put this? This is just the best controversial item facing California voters today. There'll be another one in in December. There'll be another one, I believe, in March. There'll be another one in June of next year. And one of those is obviously the guminatorial election, which Governor Nuome can't run for reelection. Uh, and you can bet that the president's supporters will be out in force uh doing the same
111thing that they may be doing against Prop 50 uh in the governor's election in June. Uh so I I think the world that Prop 50 exists in is just the world we live in for the foreseeable future. So, I don't think it's um I I think this it's not going to negatively impact the survey in terms of its predictability. It may negatively impact our chances because that's just the world we live in, unfortunately. >> Okay, thank you for that. Does anybody else have any questions? Go right ahead. >> How many different languages are you offering the survey in? >> Um we are uh doing Spanish uh I think for sure. Sure. Hang on one second. Let me just look at the proposal. Um, uh, yeah, we have Spanish, uh, as our alternative. Uh, we don't
112have, uh, very often we do, uh, Chinese. Um, and we're about to start a project for Fremont Unified, which has a larger Asian population. Of course, Asian is not a language. Uh, so it usually winds up being Chinese if we want to do a second uh a second language. And I'm looking to see what the population breakdown is here for the district. Give me one second. >> Staff, do we know the second highest language spoke in our district? Because we have what? Over 45. >> Yeah. So it's important >> first and then >> yeah it's important to to to look at the difference between voters and likely voters and the district. Okay. So uh the population and the um uh the voting population are two different beasts. One is a subset of the other obviously.
113So that impacts the languages that are necessary. Um and I'm looking up my individual demographics right now. uh ethnicity for the the entire voter universe uh on based on our broad ethnic groupings uh East and South Asian so that's Asian right that's not Chinese uh that's not Filipino uh are 13% of the voter population uh European obviously is 32% Hispanic is 27 uh and um other is four and unknown is 11. So generally speaking from a survey perspective that that's not a large enough uh Chinese population to make that uh something that's necessary. However, there may be other languages that while from a statistical perspective are not uh it's not required to do uh language interview, you may want to do it just because it's your policy. Uh so that's a different issue. uh and
114the Chinese breakdown, it's only 5% of the population. So, in all likelihood there, you know, while there are some monilingual people in there, uh the vast majority of those are probably bilingual voters and that's the largest Asian group. >> I think I have comments after. >> Does anybody else have questions? >> Is there public comment on the item? Yes. Our first public comment is Don Gosley. You know, this is kind of like speed dating. We have an hour's worth of comments and we're permitted less than a minute to say our piece. Many of us in West County are angry and disappointed that the board and staff have ignored our admonitions to begin the measure T renewal process a year and a half ago. Some of us have half a century of local election experience right
115here in West County, but absolutely no one in positions of authority want to talk to me, for instance, or anyone else with experience about this. And you are now at a point where it may be too late. The district needed to win over the hearts and minds of the public so when the survey is made, the responses would be favorable. Right now, you all come across like used car salesman, asking us to trust you when you've done so very much to convince us that you cannot be trusted. This is one of those issues where timing is critical, but because you ignored the warnings, you may be out of time. And since staff and the board have convinced themselves that they're experts on these kinds of things, even if the extension passes, the funding may not
116arrive in time. On behalf of the people of West County, please pull your collective heads out of the sand and start talking to some of us that may know something that you don't. Thank you. >> Our next public comment is Sky Nelson. Hi, thank you. I've talked about creativity before in this space and um with all respect to the process that is familiar like to imagine something a little different. When I think about a survey that reaches I think less than a thousand people. It's treating our people as a a statistic and obviously we have to do that in some ways but it just think about what that what that really says. Um surveys are extracting information without giving anything back in the short term. What I imagine is what if we spend $50,000 on
117voter registration, hiring students to get out there and and poll and and knock on doors and and get people to register. S Pablo uh S Pablo has a 28% or 20 28% voter registration rate, which is really low. Richmond has 40%. we can get those people out to vote, treat them as voters, not as unimportant, unlikely voters, and uh walk away actually building community that people then want to support. I love that idea. Thank you. >> That completes public comment. >> Thank you. Are there comments? >> Would you like us to do a motion first or comments first? >> Yes, please go ahead. I'm sorry. >> I'm sorry for for a motion. >> Yeah, I'm sorry about that. >> No, it's okay. Thank you. Um I move that we approve the contract with Godby research
118to conduct the parcel tax visibility survey. >> Is there a second? I'll second it. So Gonzalez Reckler has a second comments. >> Thank you. Uh thank you um Mr. Godby for your presentation. uh couple things feedback and then I'll move to additional comments. One, I would love to see the information by trusty areas just so that and really by cities so that uh in case we do move forward uh the campaign can concentrate on maybe where we have certain areas favor favorability or not. Anyways, I would love to see it by by cities uh by areas. So, thank you for that. Um I do have a sense of urgency. Um, I do think that, you know, we should have done it before, but I think we're we're here. Uh, and I'm glad we're here. Um,
119I do think that we only have a few chances of this passing. Um, and we can't wait for it to um pass or not pass at the end of the of when we need the funding to be back. So, um, I think in my opinion, we got to try every chance we can for this to move forward. Um because I do think there are a couple factors that are going to affect voters which is one we've we're really going through a very difficult economic time. Um two our community has been very generous and has supported various measures um for you know many decades. Um so you know a lot of people potentially could vote no. Um so we got to try as many times we can so hopefully people will. I think that we have
120to do a some work as district to educate our community on what measure t pays for. Uh which we can do with our dollars. We can't obviously campaign for a measure, but we can educate people. So I think doing some work with our community and our com folks to either send flyers or information to homes for the next few months uh about the impact of what they have been so generous of giving us. I think would help uh because they need to understand before they go and vote. Um I also am worried a little bit about the November election even though I think that there's going to be a lot of people that are going to go out and vote in November. Uh we're also going to be uh voting on the uh renewal of
121Proposition 55 which is essential for us as well. Uh but they some people tend to vote for one and not others, right? So I am worried about competing measures. um even though they're all renewals, right? Um and Prop 55 obviously doesn't affect most people. Um so anyways, I just want to put it all out there because I do think that we need to move forward. We need to put this measure on hopefully the June ballot and then again in November if that doesn't go well. Um and then again in the following spring if that fails. Uh because we have $10 million in um that we could lose. overnight in 2017 2020 2728 and as we just heard from our budget we can't not lo we can't lose that that funding and what that pays for
122um so we have quite a bit of work to do to educate and also build trust with our community and I'm thankful our new superintendent is doing that um and maybe we can utilize some of the listening sessions that you're doing to also mention potentially the importance of this measure um and thanking our community for supporting her in the past. That's it. Thank you. >> Thank you. Anyone else? >> I just want to bring to the forefront that it says an 18 to 25 minute length survey. That's a long time to try to get somebody to stay on the phone and talk or what have you or take a survey. The second thing is I think that no matter what our uh voting demographic looks like, we need to have the survey in multiple languages
123to show that there is a uh level of hospitality that we are reaching out to our communities um and and having a survey in their primary language. I'm complete. >> Thank you. Anyone else? >> Okay. So, I'm completely in support of this. I I don't have anything else to say except that it might go in our favor just with the federal government and this is local dollars that no one can take away. It's from it's our people. It's our schools. It's our the feds can't touch it. So that might be um very um that might be very poignant especially in this community which is very pro- education. So perhaps that's not only a marketing line, but also it might really be fact. And I don't have anything else to say. Let's get the results back
124cuz we got a we got we got a ballot measure we got to we got to sell. So thank you. That's all. And with that, we can go go to the vote. So Trustee Hernandez, >> yes. >> Clerkyana, >> yes. Yes. Trusty Gonzalez. >> Yes. >> Trusty Smith vults. >> Smith votes. Yes. >> And I'm a yes. Motion passes unanimously. Thank you very much, Mr. Godby. >> Thank you. >> Next item under action E5 exemption exemption to the separation services employment of retired teachers. Dr. Greenwood, this is your item. Oh. Leah, I see her on the end. Yeah. >> Thank you, board president and trustees. Uh we are requesting um an exemption for a retired teacher to come back and provide us substitute services to the district. Are there any questions? Yes, that was very
125quick. Are there any questions? Okay, seeing no questions, public comment. No public comment. Okay. Um, I'll accept a motion on this item. >> Just to clarify, the motion would be to accept the exemption to the separation. Is that correct? >> Yes. For the 180day waiting period. >> Got it. Okay. Uh, so I move that we approve the exemption to the separation for the waving period. >> Smithville seconds. >> Okay. Gonzalezy and Smith Falls. the motion and a second and then uh comments. I'd just like to say welcome back. Glad you're with us and we can go to the vote. Uh Trusty Hernandez, >> yes. >> Clerkana, >> yes. >> Trusty Gonzalez. >> Yes. >> Trusty Smith Folds. >> Smith Folds. Yes. >> And I'm a yes. So motion passes unanimously. Great. We're up to number
126F. Discussion items and reports. F1 charter annual update. Miss Romo, I believe that's you. >> We're going to hear it. We're going to hear that item tonight after pushing you like 10 times. >> Good evening again, President Reckler and trustees and Superintendent Cotton. I'd like to introduce Margarita Roto Romo from the business services department. She is our coordinator in charge of charter oversight. As a charter authorizer of eight schools, the district is required to provide annual oversight. Margarita will present a presentation that outlines our responsibilities, the process, and the annual report. Please go ahead, Margarita. >> Thank you, Dr. Moses. Good evening, President Reckler, Superintendent Cotton, board members, and members of the WCCUSD community. My name is Margarita Romo, and I serve as a business services coordinator here in the district. Tonight, it's my pleasure
127to present the annual charter school oversight report for the 2425 school year. This report reflects our team's observations and findings from oversight activities conducted throughout the year, including school visits and compliance reviews. I'd like to acknowledge and appreciate Dr. Sorry, uh, Mr. Douglas Pelton from Edmetrics who provided critical support with this work. He visited each school with me, helped with our charter renewals, and wrote the annual report, among other things. Let's begin with an overview of our team's role and the key responsibilities involved in charter oversight. Next slide, please. Our role as a charter authorizer is to ensure schools comply with their charter terms and applicable laws and to verify that they remain fiscally sound. This annual report summarizes our oversight activities. It's important to note that tonight's presentation is justformational. There's no board action
128required. Last year's work took place within the context of shifting enrollment trends. Over the past 11 years, overall enrollment in WCCUSD has declined, but the proportion of charter school enrollment to total enrollment has grown from 4.7% to 13.8% in the same period. That growth underscores why strong, transparent oversight continues to grow in importance. Now that we've shared the purpose of of this presentation, let's take a closer look at the charter schools authorized directly by WCCUSD. Next slide, please. This slide lists the eight charter schools authorized by our district last school year. Together, they served just over 4,000 students across a variety of grade levels. The charter terms, expiration dates, and current enrollments are shown. These schools operated under the district's direct oversight. Richmond Charter Academy transitioned to county oversight this fiscal year starting July 1st.
129You'll also note that Boyce's petition expires at the end of this fiscal year. I received their charter renewal petition last Wednesday and we'll will begin the charter review process with the oversight team. Next slide, please. In addition to district authorized charters, six charter schools operated within the b with within our boundaries, but were authorized by the county or state. Together, these schools served an additional 3,300 370 students. With the full landscape of schools in mind, I'd like to walk you through the core responsibilities we have as authorizers and what that looks like in practice. Next slide, please. Per California Education Code, charter authorizers must perform regular oversight duties. These include annual site visits, monitoring fiscal practices, and ensuring compliance with state mandated rep mandated reporting. Timely communication about charter status or concerns is also a
130key part of our responsibilities. Our oversight framework is grounded in California charter schools act of n 1992 and shaped by assembly bill505 which emphasizes performance-based charter renewal. We use a range of tools including site visits, fiscal reviews, California school dashboard data, and local performance indicators to evaluate legal, academic, and financial compliance. One of the most critical components in our oversight process is the annual site visit. I'll share how we approach those visits next. Next slide, please. All charter schools are visi visited at least once annually as part of a required performance-based oversight process. Our team included staff from business services, ed services, special education, and edmetrics. During these visits, we evaluated academic quality to ensure the schools met their educational goals and that operations aligned with legal and fiscal expectations. Each visit contributes to a
131broader performance profile for each school. Last year, all eight WCCUSD authorized charter schools were classified as middle performing based on the 2324 California school dashboard data. That means they did not meet the thresholds for either high or low performance under the state's evaluation framework. Next slide, please. Our oversight visits include three key components, classroom observations to assess teaching and learning conditions, interviews with key interested parties like staff, students, and parents, and a debrief session where we share findings with school leadership. This helps foster accountability and continuous improvement. Next, I'll review what we saw at each school. Next slide, please. At Aspire Richmond College Prep, we saw strong teacher support and network resources that help leadership focused on student learning. A key wonder is whether their directive approach to instruction provides enough opportunities for students to
132build deeper ski deeper skills. Staffing stability and special education services remain areas to strengthen. Next slide, please. Aspire Richmond Tech emphasizes academic excellence and a positive structured environment. Families and staff describe it as safe and inclusive. Areas for growth include ensuring consistent instruction across classrooms and amplifying student and family voices and decision-m particularly as they rebuild communities after the pandemic. Next slide, please. Bonito Huarez shows strong overall performance and a clear vision with families highly engaged. Wonders focus on the professionalization of fiscal and governance practices at the CMO level along with challenges in retaining experienced teachers. Next slide, please. Richmond Charter Academy provides a safe environment and strong instructional resources. At the time we prepared this presentation last school year, there were concerns around systems planning and timely reporting which have historically strained relationships. As
133mentioned in an earlier slide, this school is now under the county's oversight. Next slide, please. Leadership sets ambitious learning goals and demonstrated strong uh safety practices during our visit. Families reported good communication, though there's room to deepen shared decision-making with parents and students. Some students expressed interest in broader extracurricular and elective opportunities. Next slide, please. Richmond College Prep showed improved academic outcomes with ambitious goals and strong alignment to its mission. Next steps include strengthening culturally responsive teaching and ensuring inclusion for students with disabilities. Consistent use of the graduate profile across all grade levels was also an area for growth. Next slide, please. Summit Tomopias stands out for its mentorship program and experienced staff. The school's challenge is boasting student engagement through culturally responsive practices and addressing enrollment equity, particularly for African-American students. English learner progress
134also remains a priority area. Next slide, please. Voices is making proactive adjustments in curriculum and professional development to address state test performance. Local assessment results are improving and the school culture is positive. Growth areas include increasing teacher credentiing, strengthening fiscal and governance practices, and diversifying student enrollment beyond primarily Latino families. Next slide, please. As we close, a few systemwide themes emerged. First, schools continue to work through the lingering effects of chronic absenteeism. Second, the schools continue to focus on restorative practices to support positive school climates. Lastly, equity remains a priority, especially given the under reppresentation of certain subgroups across many charter schools. For example, English learners and students with disabilities showed low or very low performance in several schools. And while Latino students are over represented across many charters, African-American and Asian students are under
135reppresented compared to district-wide demographics. a pattern we'll continue to monitor and address. On a positive note, family engagement continues to be a strong point across all eight schools. Students and families report meaningful relationships with school staff which mean which seems to play an important role in fostering a strong academic culture. Before we close, I want to take a moment to thank the many people who supported this work. Oversight is a collaborative effort and I'm grateful for the contributions of the school site staff, the business services team, educational services, human resources, special education, all of our departments across the district, um, and our district colleagues who attended the site visits, reviewed documents, and supported communication throughout the year. Next slide, please. With that, I'll conclude with our final slide. Thank you so much for listening. I
136welcome any questions or comments from the board. >> Thank you so much for your presentation. Does anybody on the board have questions? >> Go ahead. >> What can we learn, copy, pull from the growth points, which is their family engagement? That's what I heard you just say. like they they are all they all have an upswing when it comes to family engagement responses. The families feel as if they are being served at at these charter schools. What can we pull and pull from that and learn from that? Have we dug deep into that? >> Before um answering that, I think I'd want to take a closer look at our report. Um the the visits happened earlier this year and they're not super fresh in my mind. Um but we did collect a lot of information
137after each of the visits. Everyone that attended the visit completed uh a rubric like it was like a grading rubric rubric we used to evaluate the schools and we took notes on what each one is doing. So, if you'd like, I can review those and review our report and get back to you. >> That would be great. >> Thank you. Um, when we have a renewal coming, uh, what is the practice for the review of the renewal and the creation of the report that goes to the board? So I guess what I'm trying to ask is c can you walk us through once you get notified for example voices just notified you of the renewal right can you walk us through the process what happens from there until it comes to the board in the
138spring >> so um I'll be working with edmetrics on um reviewing the charter petition I'll also be connecting with um our leaders in ed services to get their input on the petition. Um, business services will be reviewing the financials. So, we'll be reviewing all of the material submitted. Uh, to start, I'm going to create a timeline for the work. Um, we have, um, ED code states that we have 60 days, if I'm remembering correctly, to have an initial public hearing and 90 days to have a decision hearing um, to decide on the charter renewal petition. A staff report also must be published. I believe it's 15 days. Um, I'll confirm all of this. Um and I can provide um a write up that can be shared upward to the board but um or I can
139get back to you on this question but um there are timelines set in ED code that we must follow for the initial public hearing staff report and um the decision hearing. Um and between all of that we have staff reviewing all of the material. >> Thank you. Um, for the site visits, who accompanies you from our district to the site visits? >> So, um, I go on all of them, uh, as well as EDMmetrics and we've had, um, directors and coordinators from med services attend. Their expertise is incredibly valuable because they have the experience of running a school. um they have the educational and academic background to provide input. Um so we've had um a lot of people attend formed services. We um are trying to we've also had someone from um from sped come
140out and review the sped files to do a sped file review to make sure uh the charter is following all laws regarding those files. um that is typically who comes on the visits. We have had with the charter renewals, we've had board members attend. Um but it's always good to have more people um come out to the visit to provide their expertise. >> Thank you. Um, and you mentioned that as part of the interviews, excuse me, as part of the visits, you interview different stakeholders, who picks the stakeholders who you interview? >> The it's usually the school principal or the site admin that um will collaborate with their students, parents um and teachers to decide who from each group will be part of the interview. Got it. Thank you so much. Um, President, the rest
141of are my comments. Thank you. >> Anybody else have questions? >> Okay, I've got I've got some. So, thank you for the presentation. I'd like to talk about sped students for a moment. And since you worked at the California Department of Education, I have a question for you about the IDA. um classifications and at one time you could go to the website and you could see in a school their spread of students like in what classes that seems to have disappeared. So at some point if that still exists I'd love for you to send me a link so that I can >> I can help you with that. >> Great. Thank you. Um but if you look at the top level um they now are dividing it or what I can find is you know
142the percentage of students that spend their entire day in a classroom in a regular classroom. WCCUSD is 59% spend 80% or more time in a regular classroom. When you look at these charter schools, they are 89% 80% 93% 96% and that percentage just keeps going up, which tells me one of two things. They are either serving um uh children very well in a classroom, all children very well in a classroom or they are not serving the same sped population. So do you know are they doing the most awesome job on earth or are they serving a different population? I think I'd need to go back and look at the the data on that. I don't remember it off the top of my head. Um, can I get back to you? >> Sure. Next is um
143where I also hear I I agree with the family engagement that I hear they've got this locked and loaded. The next I also hear that they really work on Oh, I'm sorry. Hold on just a second. Okay. Does the self director want to answer my question? Great. >> I can speak to it um in more general terms. I don't have specific data about individual schools in front of me, but often times um extensive support needs programs um don't uh exist um in many charter schools. um which is those are the programs where by and large students spend the majority of their time um in a special education self-contained classroom. Um we also uh do a very good job in our district. We have some excellent teachers and and many people stay in the district for
144those services. Um so that could be the reason why you're seeing those numbers that you're seeing. Again, I don't have specific data about each individual charter in front of me, but oftentimes, uh, more often than not, actually, they don't have those classes in those schools. >> So, they're not serving all students possibly. >> I'm going to say possibly because like I said, I don't have specific data about specific schools. So, I don't want to make an allegation that I cannot defend this moment. Um, but I know that is the general trend. >> Okay. Thank you. Um, so, uh, thank you for that. So once again, I hear too family engagement, they've got it dialed, they've got it, you know, they they've got this thing locked. The other thing I hear though is that they also
145are doing the same with chronic absenteeism. Is there anything you saw that um was different from maybe what the district could do or could adopt or >> to address the the issue of chronic absenteeism? >> Yeah. like any of their strategies or anything? Um, >> nothing is standing out right now, but I can review our report and our notes and get back to you if you'd like. >> Okay. Thank you. Um and then the other thing that I note is they're English learners and the number of students who decreased one level in certain schools certainly seems to be a lot more than what I would expect. Voices ELS who decreased at least one ELPI levels 39.6%. Aspire or the college prep one 38% uh many other schools were in the high teens or in the
146low 20s. Um when you see something like that what you know like what what's the process that the district has to you know that's kind of like not great if you ask me. >> We we take um the site visit as an opportunity to ask those types of questions. um we review their data before uh before going on the visit and we have a tailored list of questions for each charter based off of the data we review. So the site visit is an opportunity for the school to provide um just more information as to what the data means um what they're doing to fix the issue. um for voices in particular, I could get back to you on uh what they're doing um if that would be helpful. I can review um our notes. >>
147Okay. >> And check to see if we have something in our notes about that. >> Great. I'd appreciate that. Thank you. That's all the questions I have. Does anybody else have questions? Is there public comment on the item? >> We have no public comment. Are there are there word comments? >> Thank you. Thank you so much for your presentation. Um I do have uh two requests I would like to make of the superintendent. Um the first one is that moving forward if majority of the board agrees and you agree I would like for renewal presentations for each department cabinet member to make at least one slide presentation that pertains to their focus. What I mean by that is that I would love to see sorry I'm putting you on the spot Dr. Greenwood but Dr.
148Greenwood make a slide about the impact of their HR decisions, their hiring, whether the teachers have credentials, right? The specific specific focus about the renewal. Um, I know that happens behind the scenes, but I would like to see that when it comes to the board, uh, I would like to see, you know, for example, Miss Sigler talk about their attendance and their operations side, right? Or Dr. Moses talk about their business side. Um, I would just love to hear from the experts that we have that are looking at their petition. Um, since it's kind of happening behind the scenes, um, I would just like a robust presentation from our side, uh, when they come to us. Yes. >> Let me clarify. When we bring a charter for renewal, you want a presentation from cabinet about
149those specific areas or the department those areas that are reflected what they are seeing. They you want them to report out on those areas. >> Yes. To be part of Miss Romo's presentation and at metrics. But so far when we've had a presentation, we've only heard from Miss Romo and uh EDM metrics. Um and I would like to also hear just from the expertise of each cabinet member. So for example, Mr. Flashman talking about this school's, you know, uh uh special education students, right? And uh their practices, right? um and for them to be able to share with us from their expertise, yes, they meet the criteria for human resources, right? Or for business service. >> So, this would require a a staff member for each of these departments to go on a renewal visit
150with our charter division or >> No, not necessarily. I think that they just have to look at the data, review the petition, and then practice their >> present their findings to us uh from their perspective. >> Okay. And maybe if I could help a little bit. So, this long report that was included with the presentation has tons of information. There's actually really good data in this. And I think I don't want to speak for you, but I think what you're asking is this person teaching and learning gets up and talks about EL or the EL director gets up and talks about this is what we saw when we were out there. This is our concerns and or this is what we could take away from it. We think this is awesome. We should implement this
151or whatever. So I think he's asking for a little bit more of a deeper dive, a public deeper dive. >> I understand that. >> Did that make sense? >> Yep. So, >> did I do did I help? >> Is that what you're asking for? >> Uh, I mean, I think the president mentioned when it comes to the site visits, I mean, I think that'd be great, too. Uh, I was kind of just specifically asking for the renewals just because I feel like a lot of the time, um, like I'm not sure who reviewed what and whether or not like that has been looked at, right? And we've had conversations where like I've brought up something that hadn't been looked at, right? uh by maybe a person who would have known to look at that specific
152item, right? So, so that we don't miss that in the future. Um that's why I want experts from every field that can do at least a dive into their, you know, that charters data and whether or not they're recommending us to continue with that school, right? Um yes, I don't know if that helps. >> That's helpful. Um, yes. And as we move, I know that we do have one or two renewals this year coming up. I'd like to continue the conversation and continue to work with the board on exactly what this may look like as we as we move forward. But yes, we could start moving in that direction. >> Perfect. Thank you so much. >> Thank you. >> Um, and then the second one is uh I understand of course the charters are picking
153who we're interviewing, right? I mean like they know their school, but I would also like there to be a little bit of randomness to that and for you to make those choices. I think that as authorizes, we should be able to just say, "Hey, I would like to actually interview this class, right? I'll tell you just one example. We visited a school this week together or last week together. They took us to the classroom that I've visited 10 12 times. Of course, they're always going to take us to that classroom because it's incredible. And that teacher, I'm not going to say names or anything, but that teacher is always incredible. So I'm always amazed by, but the principal picked that person for us to look at as the superintendent and trustees. Right. Their charters are
154going to do the same thing when you are going to do a site visit. No, you don't think so. >> Sorry to interrupt. I just wanted to clarify a little bit about the site visits. Um I went on to LA last year or the prior year. Um they don't the ones I went on we went into every classroom. We went into every space. We had the freedom to talk to everyone. It was a very open process. While we did not get to pick the parent panel or the student panel, we did have access to all the staff. Um, also I want to lift up that an important part of the process is the questions that we create and ask when we're reviewing those panels. And uh, we look at the qualitative data, but we also
155use the quantitative data and we're really strategic in how we frame our questions so that regardless who's on the panel, um, we are getting the information that we need to ensure that we have a clear picture of of the oversight. um our oversight responsibilities and their response to it. So it it Margarita is our coordinator. She does a great job. Uh but a part of her team last year was uh from ED services, uh Gabe Chilcott, Allison Mala um from uh I can't call the other names, but she's not the educational expert. She's the oversight uh coordinator. So we do rely heavily on our educational experts and they I would consider them experts as well. So I just wanted to share that that we are aware that we um it is our responsibility to make
156sure that we are not just um seeing the creme de la creme that we are searching and asking the questions and having the spontaneous conversations that'll give us a clear picture of what's happening dayto-day. Um, so I just wanted to lift that up that that is happening, but I also accept and appreciate your comment that um, you may want us to dig a little deeper because it's possible as well. >> Yeah, thank you for clarifying that. I think that then if they are giving us a chance to do that as they should, um, we should take it, right? So I would encourage and maybe I should do a side visit since I'm telling you guys what to do to support uh, be happy to do at least one uh, but we should take that chance.
157we should choose who to interview, right? Um, and we should, you know, pull random students and parents who would like to participate and staff. Um, I'd appreciate that that moving forward. Thank you. >> Thank you for that. Um, and I believe that Ed services, the teams that have gone out do the work that you're asking. You're asking us to broaden that view. across cabin and across our department areas. Uh and got it. We can move forward with that. We'll continue conversation though as we move into the renewal process. >> Does anybody have anything else? I think piggybacking or kind of adding to I would love to take that deep dive with everyone into I would love to take that deep dive with everyone into um what our oversight does and how we um look at
158our charter schools like what what Miss Ramos is telling us like that we look at this this this and this and then the deep dive conversation that comes with it like if there surveys attached to it that we do or um to to get that information like that parent information do we do we have surveys that go out or do we just do those interviews? Do we do like the process behind it? I would love to know more about the process because that'll help me understand when a recommendation comes to the board how we got there. I'm complete. Thank you. Anyone on the side? So, what I'd love to see, and maybe you're doing it and we just don't know, if they do something really well and we think it's a good idea, I'd love
159to see us adopt it like family engagement, you know, like they I've heard this so many times. They've got this thing dialed. What What are we learning? Because that was the original intent of the charter schools was supposed to be places for experimentation and trying new things. Um, and so if they're working, you know, we're supposed to snatch those and bring them back and apply them. So I I hope that's happening. Um, I agree on the comments about the deep a little bit of a deeper dive on the renewals. Um, I kind of get I know this isn't happening, but I just kind of get this feeling, oh, they're a mid, we're done. you know, like they hit that middle line, we have to approve the charter, and it just I know that that's not
160what happens, but it'd be interesting to hear more of um uh you know, the back the background. I I definitely agree with that. And then the two areas that I think do need to get looked into are the sped because I'm not sure that they're serving the same population. And if you look at some of their dashboard 5x5s, those kids are not doing well. They're in the red. And the same thing with English language learners and their ability to um maintain language fluency and not lose our areas, especially for schools that are supposed to be um labs and doing things differently. That's not what I would expect to see. So that's it. Those are all those are all my comments on that. Thank you. Anybody else? Nope. Okay. I'm glad we waited. I'm sorry we
161had to defer you several times. That was good. Okay. We are up now to F2 board policy 620 LEA Parent and Family Engagement Review and Discussion. >> Good evening again board. The following board policy 6020, parent and family engagement, is being brought to the board for a first review. This policy was reviewed by the governance committee, superintendent, cabinet, and appropriate staff on August 22nd. The policy was updated to be in accordance with FPM findings. We believe that this policy strengthens our commitment to authentically engaging families, treating them as partners in decision-making, and ensuring that we work together for all of our students to thrive. >> Okay, that was that was brief. Do do any board member I thought maybe there might be more more why we did it this way. Does do any board members
162have questions? Okay. Is there any public comment on the item? Comments on the item? Okay. I guess we are. >> Go ahead. >> I think that this is very important. And I think that this is one of the areas that we can learn from when we're listening to our community. How do we do this better? I also think this is one of the areas that if we are overly transparent and overly communive with our our families about this is how you navigate this system because education is a system and we need to um be in the them always be in the center of service with that. Like this is from anything from making sure that in our school at our in our offices we have you know the hierarchy of first go to your teacher
163then go to your per and then go to that helps because it helps with the navigation. It helps with the the um customer service. It helps with the value. I think that if we um those of us who have been parents in the district or those of us who have children in other districts, what does it feel like? What does belonging feel like? what does engagement look like? All of those things will help us be the best version of ourselves. So for me, this is us um really concentrating on the unreasonable hospitality that comes in the service industry because we are we are a service industry. We are serving children for 13 to 14 years in this system. So I think that when we serve the children, we are by offshoot serving the parents and
164ensuring that they are trusting us with their most precious beings and how do we honor that and value that but also how are we clear about it's a system? How do you navigate it? Right? There are things that are inside the purview and things that are not. Right? There's things that you can influence and change as a parent and there's things that you can't. Right? So, how do we do that? And I think we do that through overcommunicating with our community and our parents. I'm complete. >> Thank you. Does anybody have anything else? Okay, closing out F2. Moving on to G. Comments from the board of education and future agenda items. Does anybody have anything? Okay, moving on to H. The next scheduled board of education meeting will be September 10th, 2025 here at Levana
165Dean Middle School. And there is a board retreat scheduled for September 9th at Mechanics Bank Hilltop Branch. Moving now to I adjournment. We are adjourning at 9:13 p.m. Everybody have a good evening. Thank you.