Board of Education Meeting | March 26, 2025

001e good evening everyone welcome to the March 26 2025 we're going to hold just a second to get translation straightened out we're good okay good evening everyone welcome to the March 26 2025 regularly scheduled meeting of the West contracosta Unified School District School Board the meeting is called to order at 5:00 p.m. to access translation in Zoom please click on the globe icon at the bottom of the screen if you are here in Deon you can pick up a headset for translation in the back corner of the the auditorium the board is about to go into Clos session but before we do we're here to listen to public comment on Clos session items individuals wishing to speak on the closed session items listed if you're here in the auditorium and you haven't done so already

002please submit a wccusd public Comet card which you can find on the entryway table or if you are participating via Zoom individuals will need to raise their hand in the Zoom app if you are accessing the meeting by phone press star9 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 is also no substitution of speakers we alternate between a zoom comment and an in-person comment the public comment period is a safe space where diverse viewpoints may be expressed cly 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 a different point of view if one of if one is offered due to

003the brown act board members cannot discuss items that are not on the agenda and do not usually respond to items presented in public comment the items listed on the Clos session agenda tonight [Music] are conference with labor negotiators public employee performance evaluation Public Employee appointment and that is all is there any public comment on these items we have no public comment thank you we are now adjourning to close session and we'll be back at 6:30 p.m. thank you everyone and thank you for your patience welcome to open session of the regularly scheduled March 26 2025 meeting of the West contracosta Unified School District dist School Board the board is returning from closed session and I am calling Open Session to order at 7:04 p.m. to access translation in Zoom please click on the globe icon

004at the bottom of the screen if you are 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 will begin the 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 with within the subject matter jurisdiction of the West contracosta Unified School District please prepare now for public comment if you are 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 if you are participating via Zoom please raise your hand in the Zoom app prior to the beginning of the item on the

005agenda if participating by phone press star n after your carment card has 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 Deon and one in Zoom public comment generally lasts for 1 hour the time allotted to each speaker is 2 minutes in the meantime we are moving on to the rest of our opening procedures we are moving now to B2 Pledge of Allegiance if you are 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 president ly on the lands

006of the Cheno mkma kin 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 I remember that black and brown people were born and died working this land stand 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 Rogers Ard B4 West contracosta School District anti-racism statement the West contracosta District Board of Ed is committed to the work of anti-racism

007the 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 to the fundamental principles of wccusd education to carry WCC education into the future we recognize that we must continually renew and reflect on the roots of racism and develop new ideas to meet the times unjust ideas and policies and the racial inequity they produced 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 partice through this discomfort necessary for growing 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

008picture of continual oppression each m 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 a respected and valued member of the wccusd community we are uniquely positioned and it is our responsibility to identify and dismantle racist 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 inclusive 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 contracosta Unified School District staff students and Community to living these standards of anti-racism in our schools board approved March 20th 20124 B5 roll call Dr Moses

009will you please take rooll thank you clerk andana good afternoon everyone pres trusty Gonzalez boy good afternoon present trusty Hernandez good evening present president rler good evening I am present trusty Smith FS good evening everyone present student trustee B good evening present and student trustee Espinosa Jr good evening president that concludes the road call thank you very much moving on to B6 report ratification of Clos session Dr Moses is there anything to report out of Clos session there is no report from Clos session tonight thank you B7 student performance Richmond High School celebration tonight um would you would you like to introduce yes thank you good evening president reckler clerk andana trustees and community members we're excited to have the Richmond High School choir students here to perform for us tonight so please help me

010welcome principal Reyes to the podium to introduce her students you have to push the little button there's a little face push the little button [Music] okay all right good evening superintendent and school board members uh my name is Ros Rees I am the principal proud principal AR richond high school and it is my pleasure to be here tonight to introduce our CT teacher Miss Arisha green and students from her choir class um I just want to share a little bit about Miss green and her class before she got her CT credential she was a volunteer at our school and L our school choir club after school um which really was a safe place for many students at in high school um she is a well-known business woman in our community but fell in love with

011working with students and so she pursued with a lot of encouragement from admin her CT credential um and now teaches fashion design and higher average in high school um she got it for a passion supporting the students in her community and we are very lucky to have her averman high school and I also wanted to share a little bit about our students that are here tonight um one of the advantages of a seven period day is our English language Learners in particular our newcomer students have a chance to take electives such as choir um many students here tonight are newcomer students um who are very much enjoying their opportunity to both learn English and refine their musical skills alongside their english- speaking peers our choir class performs at many events throughout the year and each

012time in my personal opinion they sound better and better so I'm really excited to introduce them I'm going have Miss screen come up and introduce the performance tonight thank [Applause] you board members are invited down to the floor thank you all for the opportunity to perform before you this evening tonight we will be singing two songs um on a clear day which many of you know May know from Barbara Strand and Sunday Morning by Maroon 5 we will feature two soloists Beth cida and Hannah so here we go thank you [Applause] [Music] sorry I on a clear day on a clear day you can see Forever on a really clear day on a clear day you can really see forever on a really clear day look all around you it will Astound you you can

013really see Forever on a really clear day you feel every M you can see from far and near I War you never here before on a clear you can see forever and ever on a clear day on a clear day you can really see forever on a really clear day look all around you it will Astound you you can really see Forever on a really CLE you feel part of every M sea andore you can hear from far and near a world you've never heard before on a clear day on a CLE day you can see forever and ever [Music] [Applause] [Music] Sunday morning rain is [Music] falling still some cover sh some skin clouds are shrouding us and moments Unforgettable you twist to fit the M that I made but things just get so

014crazy and life gets hard to do and I would gladly hit the road get up and go if I knew that somay it would lead me back to you that something would lead me back to you that may me all and darkness she is all come and rest your BS with me driving slow on Sunday morning and I never want to leave fingers trace your every outline oh yeah yeah paint a picture with my hands back and forth we swe like branches in a storm change your WEA still together when it ends that may be all all I see in darkness she all I see so come and rest your B with me I never want to leave [Music] [Applause] [Music] but things just get so crazy living life gets hard to do Sunday morning

015rain is falling and I'm calling out to you singing someday it'll bring me back to you find a way to bring myself back home to you you may not know that mayy oh all I in darkness she is all I see so come and rest your B [Applause] [Music] with I never want that mayy [Applause] [Music] [Applause] oh all so come and rest your is morning I never want to is and I never want [Music] to and I never want to on and I never want to on something and I never [Music] [Applause] want e e e um anybody watch okay thank you all very much we are now going to moving to B8 public comment so members of the public are invited to speak to the board on any matter that is not otherwise

016on the agenda but as the subject matter jurisdiction of the West contracosta Unified School District public will last approximately 1 hour the time allotted to each speaker is 2 minutes should additional speakers remain at the conclusion of 1 hour public comment may be extended the time allotted per speaker beyond the first hour is generally one minute individuals wishing to speak please submit a wccusd public comment card or if participating via Zoom I'm sorry I'm having a little asthma attack individuals will need to raise their hand in the Zoom app prior to the beginning of this item on the agenda so we've been a little LAX in this if you're on Zoom when I announce the item and I'll give you a reminder please raise your hand right before the item is called so that we

017have you in the queue that's part the beginning of this item on the agenda if you're calling in by phone press star nine speaking time shall not be transferred from one person to another 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 view points may be expressed Civ without interruption or intimidation please listen attend ly to each speaker's comment and respect their time at the podium as if it were your own be open to a different point of view if one is offered due to the brown act board members cannot

018discuss 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 gy good evening on March 4th the Richmond city council invited their friends from United teachers of Richmond and I'll speak about how the board ofes was feing the public erroneous information about the health of the district's finances I'm not suggesting that the information in their presentation was incorrect but since the council never gave serious consideration to inviting anyone from the district to present alternative facts it was pretty much a one insided conversation last week we had one council member who tried to bully a trustee into doing their bidding we had another council member rise to speak in violation of the established rules and protocols

019by swapping speeches and a third council member called in to advocate for her friends it took a lot of outside pressure but Dr Moses was finally invited to speak last night even though I attend almost every board meeting and have for many decades I'm not going to suggest that I'm an expert but I have to say that I learned a great deal from Dr Moses's presentation last night it was outstanding I've spoken with quite a few people and we were all very impressed with what we heard and saw from her it's a shame that several of the council members did not share our thoughts we heard from several employees speakers who did not seem in the least to appreciate this information and try to point out how much of it was erroneous when we had

020members of the council who showed us their expertise in wccusd Affairs we especially liked how a couple of them kept referring to the district as Richmond unified even though it changed or n what 34 years ago as is that and and uh they they thought that Adams Middle School was in Richmond and several were confident that the district assigned schools based on what city is student lives in as if there were Richmond only schools and you had to scratch your head when they showed their ignorance about the impact of 12 charter schools in Richmond and how what they have on the district wouldn't it be great if the district and the employee Advocates laid down their battle axes work collectively to find their problems no matter what they might say to the contrary it just

021sure doesn't seem to be the case thank you our next public comment is Mr jebson please unmute yourself thank you hello I've been a parent of at least one Elso high school student for seven years now I'm also a full-time teacher at elero and have been since 2007 a couple days ago Dr Moses sent an email to an elero parent explaining that our 4x4 schedule is not possible without anou this is correct then today Dr Moses sent an email to all elero parents saying that anou is not necessary for the 4x4 to exist which is not true but how can parents be expected to know this they assume that Dr Moses is a person of Integrity but her Communications to parents are riddled with inconsistencies and contradictions making it difficult for anyone to believe anything

022she says among the complaints the district has made about elser's mou is that they now have to pay teachers too much for filling in for teachers they've not hired the change in overtime pay calculation in this year's mou is demanded by the district last year before they would sign it and now this is the reason to get rid of it another complaint Dr Moses has made about our mou is that teachers quote teach fewer minutes at DC unquote this is some magical math but let's pretend it's factual for a moment the reduction in minutes per day in our mou happened eight years ago as requested by Administration teachers just went along with it today's Dr Moses email insist that the 4x4 is safe or if it's not it'll be either the teachers or the County's

023fault and yet at the same time she has instructed elero to start planning for a seven period schedule which would also require anou at this point it's impossible to know which words Dr Moses puts into the community if any or what she actually means Elso teachers submitted their mou weeks ago if the district had any intention of signing it as today's email said they do they could have done the math and signed it already I would much rather blame incompetence than malice for this delay but it's difficult to blame incompetence for the non-stop contradictions pouring forth from the superintendent's office the Board needs to insist on truth and integrity now then hire someone for whom Integrity comes naturally as the permanent superintendent thank you our next public communist Sky Nelson thank you board we couldn't

024make of the last speaker's comments on the board was detracted for the record hello my name is scy Nelson I'm a teacher and parent in wcusd I'm encouraged supportive tone around the Elso High schedule what matters in one schedule it's about fairness and accountability in the district that means more transparency more responsiveness and systems that work for all schools not just one in just a year and a half in the district I've seen how often we're reacted instead of visionary as a teacher as an example we sometimes step in to cover classes for other teachers well that's necessary and we do it with love and respect I've noticed there's no district-wide system to track who's covering which students we rely self reporting excuse me sir can you just hold on for a minute presid I

025can't hear anything he's saying thank you got to it just before I did can we do a couple of sound checks can we can we stop the clock for him we'll put put a minute back at when we're ready to go h sound check one two sound check one two one two sound check one two sound check one two my name is Sky Nelson teacher and parent is that coming [Music] through yes good okay shall I start what really matters isn't one schedule it's about fairness and accountability across the district I'm sorry Mr Nelson will you just stop for a second we're not able to hear up here yeah no problem Mr Nelson will you just give us a check check check so I'm teach from Elso High School it sounds pretty good to me

026here I can hear myself can you hear me are we ready to go let me know when we're ready to go thank you very much yes we're good to go you may begin thank you so much no problem what really matters isn't one's schedule it's about fairness and accountability across the district that means we need more transparency more responsiveness and systems that work across all schools not just one in just a year and a half in the district I've seen how often we're reactive instead of visionary we can be Visionary as a teacher we sometimes have to step in to cover other classes for teachers and that has to happen and we love the students so we we do it wholeheartedly but there's no district-wide system to track who's covering which students we rely on

027teachers self-reporting with their time cards which I've never submitted myself I'm less worried about pay and more worried about making sure our systems are strong and students are supported that will build attendance that will build attendance these may seem like sight level Logistics when it comes to money safety and morale we need proactive leadership at the district level bad systems are stressful on teachers stressful on admin stressful on our friend staff and please tell us how you calculate the cost of our schedule given the lack of systems in accounting that I've spoken about how am I supposed to trust that the numbers are correct on your end let's make sure every school in our district has the systems schedules funding and staff it needs to thrive thank you very much our next public comment is

028Jean kinster please unmute yourself good evening I work at verie Elementary in the year 1415 to the year 2223 Eric aosta pascus worked his tail feathers off to stabilize our school our community our staff and our curriculum now fast forward to 2425 we have 15 teachers in classrooms six without credentials they're not in compliance with the teacher um they're for the Williams are in teacher Miss assignment yes they have emergency permits and and they're working on credentials and we've gotten a few good teachers that way lately we have one that does not have a clad again an emergency credential again out of um Miss Miss assignment with Williams half half of our classified or I mean I'm sorry our credential teachers are not um properly assigned also we went to a K8 program sometime in

029that time so that we could build our student base I even stepped forward and said yes I can teach TK and I will do it because we were losing students going off to TK somewhere else and never coming back to our school it was agreed that we would have 1 16 17 and 18 and we would build up our lower grades this year we misused our FTE again there were two seventh grade classes with 15 kids in them for 30 kids the priority is given to seventh graders who will be on our campus for for one year traditionally we only have one of those the priority is not given to TKS who will be here for 10 years K's nine years first graders eight years second graders seven years this it's not okay we need

030to build our enrollment we need efficient and effective use of our FTE the staff has spoken out about this to the principle but we are unheard our voice doesn't matter we have no decision-making power it's like we don't exist please help stabilize our school it's very important to us we love our school we love our students and we want to carry on our next public comment is Marina malara getting new members of the school board my name is Marina malara and I'm a parent of a six and seven-year-old I Michelle Obama I'm here today to express my concern the concern of the middle oh the Michelle Obama PTA and other Michelle Obama parents there's currently a lack of shade in both playards and as we know heat waves are happening more often for example we

031just had some really hot days parents have asked the school to put temporary shade structures but the request has been denied due to the safety concern that West kraasa School District cast while I understand that it's a safety issue to have temporary Shades I would like to point out that heat is also a significant safety concern today I found out that there's a document from April 2022 thanks to RVP Miss IES it's called protecting California from extreme heat a state action plan to build community resilience and basically Governor New Cal Fire provided 47 million in Grants to help protect kids from the heat um to quote news California is heading into a hotter drier future and extreme heat will only become more dangerous we're taking action to protect our kids especially in underserved communities I

032want to say that it's not the case for the school that my kids attend when the school was being rebuilt they had good intentions and trees were planted outside the school that however never came foration trees have not grown um and there's no solution right now that won't I mean that won't happen for like 10 years for those trees to actually become useful I'm asking for help to find a temporary solution and support for a permanent solution the PTA has raised money and will continue to do so so we're not asking for funds we also have non-invasive shade structures in mind and simply need help from the school district to make it happen it's very frustrating being told that it can be done because it is practically impossible and not having a clean clear path

033I hope after today I can connect to the right person thank you for your time and consideration Dr Moses would a member of uh your cabinet be able to get her number so that you can connect thank you our next public comment is Gabby Dr please unmute yourself hello can you hear me yes weekend thank you um sorry my phone is being very difficult um my name is Gabby J uh and I've been a teacher at elero high school for about 10 years uh I've been spending about I spent about half that time uh directly uh involved in theou creation um I was six years old when theou was first instituted at El Street ohigh um the email that went out earlier today would have been very reassuring about our schedule had it not been

034exactly the same thing we've been hearing this entire time um but this time with more factual inaccuracies and misinformation uh so much in fact that I feel like uh I don't know what is understood if anything uh or what could be trusted um I can't get into all of it I don't have enough time but what I can do is talk about the thing that's confusing me most now which is the insistence that um our schedule cost a lot of money and that but only one year only one year and that will be accepted if it's cost neutral as other pointed out any changes that were already made uh were made by the request of admin and what hasn't changed is that every year admin tells us that this cannot be afforded uh in one

035way or another that it's it doesn't work or something doesn't make sense um and we have been begging for these receipts we really want to understand how these numbers were arrived at there is a reason that we ask our students to show their work and when they refuse to do so that is almost always very telling if you won't value the benefits of a schedule you at least need to be transparent about the costs and please do a factor in the cost of repeated mismanagement and failing to adequately staff sites if you support if you say you support something but only if it costs you nothing you do not support that thing anti-racist promises be damned if you say you're support our schedule but then also ask admin to make a backup seven period schedule

036just in case I think that speaks for itself please our next public comment is Sam clear Sam clear good evening today utr filed an unfair Labor practice against the district I know the siege Community has been advocating for Humane learning conditions for students for years and years since being their Community activists staff parents and students have communicated the dire need to evaluate sieges facil ities students sent pictures and letters to the district leadership about their hope for a safe school and called out the broken windows mold Holes in the Floor and broken tiles no student ever should walk into an unsafe School generations of Siege students did that students and families throughout the generations deserve to know the findings of the Cal oan investigation hiding these findings is illegal and puts the safety of our

037students at risk president reckler order your staff to produce the C oia report and complaints immediately students family staff and Educators deserve to know the truth thank you our next public comment is Mark Mitchell good evening board and uh interim superintendent Moses and cabinet um as uh Miss clear indicated today utr filed an unfair Labor practice and it's regarding the district's refusal and failure to provide a copy of the kosha complaint with charges that was issued many weeks ago now um we requested this in an email to the interim superintendent in writing on March 6 uh we received a response I'll see about that on March 9th I asked president reckler in the board meeting to direct her staff to produce the report on March 12th on March 13th and March 20th we asked in

038meetings with HR uh officials to produce the report on March 18th I sent another email to to the interim superintendent and asked that the report be produced on March 21st I reiterated this request uh personally to associate superintendent uh aosta and we have received nothing um it's regrettable that uh Educators have to resort uh to litigation to receive just such basic information about exposures to dangerous conditions chemicals and substances um that have been investigated and reported on by a governmental agency this wccusd is not a secret society you're a governmental entity you report to the the citizens which you serve including those that work here and the students and families that access our facilities what in the world is going on what kind of responsibility do you you uh feel to steeg students and families

039these students and families need to know what happened so they can take steps to provide services and support to students who perhaps for many years were exposed to lead which leads to cognitive decline and other issues those students probably needs special support we don't know because you won't produce the report um to tell us what actually happened so there's three our next public communist Angela Chase um West County Mandarin is the first public Mandarin immersion international borate school at the elementary level in California there are a lot of misconceptions about us students do not need to know Mandarin to enroll many students enter speaking Spanish Russian Tibetan and many other languages then learn Mandarin and English as their second and third languages we are a diversified designed School meaning 50% of our spaces are reserved

040for students who qualify for free reduced lunch and or our English Learners also our student demographics closely reflect the demographics of the county and although we have a slightly higher population of Asian students we are not a school for Rich Chinese students which is a comment I've heard from District Personnel apparently the anti-racist statement read at the beginning of each meeting doesn't actually mean anything we found out that we received a 2025 California distinguished School award the only School in our district we previously won an honor Ro award and a pivotal practice award we got a congratulations from Kim Moses which I found as interesting as she is currently in the process of destroying and dismantling our school we are going to arbitration over the district's refusal to pay teachers the stifen for combo classes

041a total of $112,000 per year we have four combo classes each year occasionally and an additional one they have also told us that we should ask our PTA to pay us the cend as we again we are a school for Rich Chinese students which is completely untrue they also blame our principal they have flat out said that he lies he does whatever he wants and is uncontrollable they say this about our school leader who follows the contract better than I do and I'm an active School rep um they told our grievance team that we are no longer allowed to have combo classes which would change the entire structure of our school possibly kicking students out at the same time they've told us we're approved to have combos next year we would love to continue as

042is with stiens as laid out in our contract no teacher is excited to teach a combo class our next public comment is Raquel anolin hello uh first I'd like to begin by thanking you all for your time and dedication welcome new board members and returning board members my name is Raquel Anin and I am the program coordinator for disc in the realities of our community a youth group focused on alcohol and drug prevention from Bay Area Community Resources and today I stand here before you not only as the coordinator but of this program but as a Richmond resident a community organizer and a Lifeline advocate for social rights growing up in Richmond California was not easy coming from a workingclass family of immigrant parents I faced numerous challenges experiencing drugs violence gangs was was a

043harsh reality and a normality for me it shaped my childhood however I was fortunate to have a strong support system that helped me reach for help and be open to receiving help with this support system helped me and which included making wav education program my family and other caring adults I would have not received the help that I needed to overcome an addiction and become a productive member of of my community and not all of our young people have this strong support system many of them face the same struggles I did but without the resources and guidance to navigate those challenges if we can Implement a drug and alcohol education for our youth we can help them and think twice before returning to substances this practi of Education could be lifechanging so today I stand

044before you on behalf of the youth in our district as well as the mothers who have lost children to alcohol and drugs we have had enough it's time to dismantle our current education system and introduce classes that will not only benefit our children but shape and and potentially save their lives we have an event coming up youth Against Addiction that our youth are hosting on April 5th at Richmond High School so I invite all the parents board members um everyone to come out and support our youth thank you our next public comment is El Martin hello my name is Martin Bautista this is my first year in the de dck youth community and I'm currently a senior at dianza high school underage drinking and substance abuse is common among students I go to school with

045whether I see it at school or social media they always show it off regardless of the risk negative impacts can cause and causing negative impacts in their communities some students believe that drugs are less harmful but in reality all drugs have negative side effects whether they present themselves immediately or later down the line such as addiction it is important for students to get educated on these risks but also spread awareness in our community especially since we're still develop developing physically and mentally my dear Rock peers have created a curriculum draft rock where it consists of six 30 minute sessions where it can be spread out over 6 weeks not only is does this curriculum provide information on the risk stigma and prevention or treatments it allows students to discuss with each other and share their

046own experiences I urge the school board Council to consider implementing this curriculum into schools we go to to help students who struggle with drugs but also prevent future Generations from underage drinking and substance abuse thank you for your time and our last public communist Cynthia kamacho my name is cindia kamacho and I am a junior attending Deana High School School in dck we as a community come together and voice our concern with substance abuse among youth en richond in this group we have students from schools throughout the city who help promote and spread awareness of the issues our peers are facing throughout my high school years in experience I have watched people I grew up with given to the temptation of substance usage this is why we come together as one and use our voice

047to speak out and express our widespread concern as a part of the Richmond Community we aim to drive our fellow students and peers in the right direction while prioritizing prevention towards substances of any kind by adding up curriculum focusing on the prevention of drugs and alcohol into our school system our goal of achieving a healthier environment for our community will be more achievable we strive to make a change for our future by inspiring and motivating one another my group and I will persist even in the face of any challenge by using our voice and standing our ground as a unified team thank you as a point of order can we know what time the event is Dr Moses yes we have director Forest asking uh checking in with the um commentary to get the information

048thank you thank you so much we're on the same page on that is that the end of public comment great okay thank you to everybody who gave public comment tonight we're now moving to B9 agenda review and adoption does any have anything on the agenda for review or adoption if I may ask I would like to move E3 which is uh the action item recommend approved superintendent position description leadership Associates has asked if that may be prioritized so if it's possible when we get to the end of B opening procedures would we be able to jump to that if anybody has any objections to that would you please speak now yes go ahead thank you president I was wondering if we could just approve consent um we have a long agenda ahead of us and

049I'm just worried we might not get to consent items since there at the end would it be possible unless there's items that people will pull if we can approve them after yeah we can go to that right now I was just passed a note though to table C15 all right so um that I have I have no with that does anybody else have a problem with dealing with consent right now okay so on consent I was just passed a note to table C uh oh I'm sorry tonight consent is f F15 table District district budget engagement committee would that be to the next regularly scheduled meeting okay to table to the next reg regularly scheduled meeting does anybody else have anything on consent that they want to pull okay seeing none we'll adopt consent with

050C15 pulled and we will move up action item approve superintendent position description to write after opening procedures thank you all very much okay thank you everybody very much we are now moving to B10 approval of the minutes for feary 26 2025 does anybody have any corrections to those minutes seeing none the the minutes will be approved as presented B1 superintendent search update I just have a brief update and my update is as follows due to adjustments in the community engagement schedule the deadline for accepting oh I forgot a word okay the deadline for accepting applications is extended to April 4th 2025 at 5:00 p.m. an updated search timeline is attached for informational purposes okay moving on to B12 resolution number 2425 d66 women's History Month Dr Fest do you want to read the resolution CA

051clauses director Force this is your item please forgive me testing D I apologize uh good evening uh board uh interance superintendent Moses uh cabinet and community now therefore be it resolved that March is designated as women's History Month to honor their contributions contributions and that the West Contra Costa Unified School District honors the contributions that women have made throughout history and commit to thank you and commit to support efforts to improve education and opportunities for girls and women thank you does have any anybody have any questions or comments seeing none well I think we rock more women in leadership please um and with that we will go to vote um did anybody make a motion oh we should do that yes thank you I feel like we're above motion um would anybody happy to make

052a motion and acknowledge my fellow trustees from trusty Baron to tr Hernandez and Yana president and um Smith BS I thank you for your service um as the only man up here I'm just so thankful for your leadership um I I oh and sorry trusty Espinosa Jr as well of course the the two uh but I'm just thankful for your leaderships and your perspectives and who you represent um and as I have two daughters I hope that they both grow up to be like one of you in the future well I'm not goingon to say who specifically but one of you so thank you for your service and I'll move resolution number 2425 d66 women hisory m is there a second on the item I second Hernandez is the second any any further comments seeing

053none we'll go to the boote student trusty Espinosa Jr yes Baron yes Hernandez yes CL Gana yes Gonzalez Hoy yes Smith folds Smith FS yes and I'm a yes motion passes unanimously okay we're up to B13 resolution number 2 42567 in support of SB 502 Building Homes and jobs trust fund allocation approve the and the recommendation is to approve the resolution so to the board just so that you know this was a little bit of a surprise we were contacted by the California Department of Education in late February and asked to hold a press conference where everybody would have been invited that event Was Then cancelled we were asked to hold March 11th nothing came forward very late in the day Dr Moses contacted me and said I I contact California Department of Education I

054don't know if we're doing anything tomorrow and then very late in the evening we got the advance so we ran up there which is why nobody knew about it that was not my intent at all but sometimes you know that's the way we roll so we went up there and that's why you didn't know about it um so what s502 is is a um it would give school districts a uh Inn into a pot of money which is a revolving no cost revolving Loan Fund which would support pre-development costs for educative Workforce housing it would allow 125 school districts and local educational agencies per year access to the pool of funds it would probably be $100 $200,000 in predevelopment costs that school districts have to spend years before they actually you know put a shovel

055in the ground or anything and so um superintendent Thurman and The Honorable Jesse aren really asked for our support on this and I went up there personally and said yes I support it and now I would like the board to support it so that is the story behind it and so I'll read the resolve Clauses the West contracosta Unified School District Board of Education further supports s SP 502 introduced on February 19th 2025 which would establish a revolving Loan Fund to support the pre-development costs of educated Workforce housing being further resolved that the creation of the zero interest revolving Loan Fund would be accessible to 125 school districts and local education agencies per year and will provide access to funds to be used for pre-development costs a common barrier for districts and leas seeking to

056establish Workforce housing being further involved that upon passage the superintendent of schools or appropriate designate shall transmit a signed copy of this resolution and a signed copy of resolution number 2425 d22 resolution and support of educator Workforce housing to The Honorable Jesse Eric green so that is the resolution uh we also have public comment on this item which is unusual but I'll allow it so if Mr gney would like to come up and make public comment let me make this clear I support Workforce housing what I worry about though is that our trustees this board will go down this rabbit hole without really thinking about anything greater than the general idea I've been a part of your 7-Eleven committee to evaluate the four possible Surplus sites and report back to the board and the public

057about options for the future of these sites the issue here is this board sending yet another crystal clear message that no matter what your 7-Eleven committee recommends you're going to go with Workforce housing as already we've had three board members who have announced in semi-public meetings that they don't care they don't even have to listen to the recommendations of the 7-Eleven committee and they can do whatever they want I advise you to speak to people who might ask those questions that Workforce Advocates don't want asked the csba has some great information about the five districts that have implemented Workforce housing but they are 100% silent about those districts that have tried and failed are you even going to ask about the negatives associated with the four Surplus sites about the toxins the flooding the seismic

058activity the Shifting hillsides the EMF emissions and most importantly Richmond's written Control Ordinance which can cost the District boatloads of money all I'm suggesting is that you not surround yourself with people that think like you talk to some people that will ask those tough questions thank you and now are there any questions or comments from the board go right ahead thank you president uh first thank you for bringing this forward I think this is a really important bill um that hopefully will come forward with a little bit of funding and support for school districts um I did want to just clarify I think that with all respect for our chair of the cblc uh we have a new board um and I have not heard a single board member up here say what we want

059to do with our Surplus proper Surplus property so I just want to make that clear because um we haven't had that conversation right I don't even know what I want to do with that property yeah because I haven't heard from 7-Eleven committee so I just don't want that information to get out there because um I I really haven't heard anyone up here say that um I have heard previous trustees but they're not here so I just want to make sure that that's just clear information now with that said I do support this bill because I do think that we need Workforce housing as we have a huge shortage of work of of you know labor in California and especially in this District so um if that can help us great but we also can build

060housing without support from the state right so we also need things like this in order to even consider building uh Workforce housing right so uh I am in support and thank you all for bringing this thank you so much for your comment and your clarification okay any other comments okay I'll entertain the motion or I'll make the motion I'll move resolution 2425 d67 in support of s502 building homes and jobs trust fund allocation I'll second it thank you reckler is moved and Gonzalez is the second and seeing no other comments we go the vote student Tristy espanosa Jr yes Tristy Baron yes Hernandez yes clana yes trusty Gonzalez yes trusty Smiths Smith FS yes and I'm a yes thank you motion masses unanimously okay moving now to our first action item we'll jump ahead we're

061moving to E3 approve superintendent position description and I believe we have leadership and Associates here and have they been promoted I think so yes they have okay okay go ahead I think I hear Jim Brown I I'm here yes thank you I uh trusty reckler if you could raise your hand so I know you hear me yes we hear you we got you okay all right I'll I'll begin then thank you very much for uh changing the order of the item we appreciate it and okay uh let's see there we go all right video activated there we go audio video boy what a great country all right here we go uh it's been a real pleasure uh uh and I say that uh enthusiastically to meet with so many people from your community over the

062past few weeks and learn about uh what they see as the strengths and of the school district the challenges that the new superintendent will face and the qualities and characteristics that they would like to see in a new superintendent um we had uh 56 meetings with u with your different education Partners we had 10 Town Hall meetings opportunity for people to participate and we had an online survey that elicited 862 uh uh respondents so we were uh pleased that there was a good participation uh in the meetings of course you'd always like to see more but um the combination of zoom and inperson I think helped uh more people to participate particularly in the town hall meetings and the turnout on the online survey from different parts of the district why this is all important

063well because it helps us in the re and the board uh in the process as we go forward to select a new superintendent uh we take the results of these meetings and they are cess into a position description and the board members have a copy of the position description and in that is Con that contains a summary of the major themes that we heard from the different meetings we organized it and uh tried to capture the main ideas that's a document that we share with prospective candidates we ask them to uh when they consider applying for the position to see how close they come to the position description nobody's quite hits all the marks but some people are going to come closer than others this document can also be used to help frame questions for

064the interview help us to do what we need to ask on reference checks so it's it's really an important document in the process and it couldn't have been developed without the good participation of students staff and uh Ed your other education Partners in the community and we're grateful for that and we are thankful to Rosa Canelo and Michelle Forester for their hard work that they put in to help us uh get the groups together and and get it organized they uh they really did a super job and thanks to both of them so the position to description is before you tonight uh along with the full report that we issued it's in your board agenda packet so it's available to the public and I would point out that the report includes the uh a cover

065a cover document a cover letter a ex a appendix one the position description appendix two the notes the comments and summary of the education partner meetings and number three a summary of what we learned from the online survey and again all that comes together in the position description and we hope we have captured well what what your community thinks what your students and parents think and what the board thinks because you were the first ones to weigh in on this when you talk to us about your desired qualities and characteristics so we're uh we're recommending that the board approved the document and uh that we will continue to use it in the process going forward thank you so much for presentation does anybody on the board have any questions on the document seeing none we'll

066go to public comment is there any public comment on this item we have no public comment okay I'll accept a motion to approve this President I make a motion that we approve the job description thank you I'll second it we have a u motion from from Gonzalez Hoy and a second from inyana is there any discussion on the item cor ahead thank you I just wanted to very quickly thank leadership Associates um I did see the uh very large amount of community meetings they held and uh individual meetings um and I really appreciated uh that they spent time with every single group that we sent them um and I thought the summary was really well done so thank you thank you great thank you also we I found a few people that had been missed

067or wanted more and they were very responsive to uh uh addressing those needs so again thank you to leadership Associates okay seeing no other comment we'll go ahead and move to the vote student trustee espanosa Jr yes student trustee Baron yes Tristy Hernandez yes cler Gana yes trusty Gonzalez Hoy yes trusty Smiths Smiths yes and I'm a yes the motion passes unanimously thank you very much to leadership thank you very much we'll be talking we'll be talking soon okay good night thank you for that we are now moving to item C superintendent communication Dr Moses this is your item president reckler I ol may I may I ask for a change yeah sure would it be possible for us to do D1 now since there's so many people waiting for that item and then after

068that we can do the superintendent communication does anybody have any objections to that okay seeing none we can move E1 approve the second inter interim for 2425 up so Mr Hart I believe this is your item pres reckler the one sorry D1 the a the oh I'm sorry Mr har I didn't hear that I'm sorry it's me D1 can we move up uh D1 that would be the public hearing for a method Public Schools Richmond Charter academ renewal okay so does anybody have a I apologize for that does anybody have a I have a comment what is your comment truste Hernandez so I will be recusing myself from this item I previously have H been involving litigation with amps and I will not participate or vote on this item thank you very much Tristy Hernandez

069you um need to leave the dis and there is an open room for you in the back and we will call you when this item is complete thank you okay so what we're going to do tonight is I am going to open the public hearing there is going to be a presentation from the school district there will be a presentation from a method we will take public comment and then we will close the public hearing so that will be the the process for this this evening so at this time good evening everyone I am opening the public hearing regarding the charter renewal petition submitted by ath at Public Schools proposing the renewal of Richmond Charter Academy which is currently authorized by the district the time is 88:18 p.m. petitioners are as are asking the district's

070board to approve the charter renewal petition for Richmond Charter Academy for a 5-year term which will end on June 30th 2030 the Ed code requires the board hold a public hearing within 60 days of receiving a charter petition the purpose of the hearing is to determine the level of public support for the renewal of the charter from district teachers employees and parents the format if the public hearing is as follows first representatives of a method Public Schools will have 10 minutes to present information to the board and the public regarding the request to the board to approve their Charter renewal following their presentation board members may wish to ask petitioners questions after a method Public Schools presentation we will take comments from the public in order to gauge the public support for the Charter Public

071comment will be limited to one minute per person for a total of 10 minutes and can be extended by uh a vote of the board after public comment I will close the public hearing I also didn't add in there that the district also has 10 minutes for their presentation again I want to remind everyone that the board will not take any action tonight there is no action tonight staff are currently reviewing the submitted petition following the review of the petition and this public hearing the governing board of the school district shall either Grant or deny renewal of the charter within 90 days of receipt of the petition the board will make its decision on the charter petition at a special meeting scheduled for April 30th 2025 the representatives for a method Public Schools will present

072to the board with public comment to follow a method who is presenting for you would you please come to the podium I'm sorry thank you so much so will you please introduce yourself and then proceed with your presentation yes good evening president reckler Board of Trustees and interim superintendent Moses my name is Jasmine ERS I am the current site director at Richmond Charter Academy um I just want to First say thank you guys for your time I started out my career off in Baltimore City Public Schools um over a decade ago and most of my experience has been around turnaround efforts and improving student outcomes um recently I relocated to California to join wichman Charter Academy initially as the dean of instruction and now I'm currently serving as the site director next slide please next

073slide I'm thrilled to discuss the incredible work that's happening at RCA um as we approach our Charter renewal in my time here I've witnessed countless examples of what makes RCA unique but one of my favorite aspects is the remarkable growth of our students have shown across all indicators of a successful school I have one um story in particular a student named Dean um I remember last year when he ran into our office excited to share how he had met his end of the year reading goal um this particularly stood out to me because around midy year um he was a little off track and pretty devastated by it through perseverance he turned the situation around embodying a Relentless spirit that we encourage in our students Declan is just one success story that we have at

074RCA about the great work that we're doing good evening I'm Adrienne Barnes the CEO of a method public schools and I'm proud to be here supporting our Richmond Charter Academy family I want to take a moment to thank you for your service I know your jobs are hard and that you choose to do this work because you care deeply about the education of all students I've been charged with leading amps forward to continue to build and work with our team to ensure complete compliance not just in finance but in reporting and our overall operations I started with a method in June 2024 and immediately hit the ground running with assessing our operations ensuring we have the experience and the capacity to run a strong network of charter schools I'm drawing on my experience in underwriting

075Charter Schools managing back office services as an outsourced CFO for 13 schools and leading on the ground in charter schools as a chief business officer we've built bu a robust home office team to support our schools in strengthening operations compliance academics and school culture we've grown our home office team from six employees to now over 20 next slide please you can see the support we have here today from our home office and our School site leaders to our parents and students wearing their RCA gear in support of our school today we are here to ask you to renew our school as it is in the best interest of our students immediately upon joining amps I saw the need for expertise in our accounting records and contracted with Joyce Montgomery a 30-year veteran Charter School CFO

076and CBO Finance trainer additionally we increased capacity in our finance department by adding Kimberly Palmore our senior director of Finance both Kimberly and I are both trained and certified by the California Association of school business officials and missa joins us all being csdc trained cbos which ensures a deep bench when it comes to finance and compliance at amps we are in receipt of the district's letter of concern and as CEO I understand that a method has a lot to build on but also a lot to address the challenges named in the letter are unacceptable and our board our leadership team and I take full responsibility for addressing those challenges amps increased its in-house expertise and finance while also bringing in a back office partner to ensure continuity in accounting and Reporting beginning with the 2425

077fiscal year that said our team has also dealt into updating accounting entries such as depreciation going back to 2021 we agree with the district that our reporting has been late and incomplete as our team has grappled with accessing data from prior systems with our streamlined audit which is being finalized by this Friday we will have a strong start to our 2425 financials which will further help to complete our reporting to the district our second interim reports were submitted on time and our team is aware that there is zero Le eway for late or incomplete reporting additionally we are creating a written corrective action plan to supply a narrative in addition to our updated Financial projections based on the audited numbers which nearly eliminates our negative fund balance so that the District staff and board can

078see our path forward to restore our CA is positive fund balance and reserves which we're currently projecting to be restored by June 30th 2026 we look forward to sharing this plan with you and your team by April 12th thank you good evening board members my name is Sarah Carone and I am proud to be the dean of instruction at Richmond Charter Academy RCA currently serves 296 student students in grades 6 through 8 and ranks in the top 15% in the 2024 US News and World Reports best California middle school rankings we serve over 97% students of color composed of 91% Hispanic students 4% African-American students and the remaining 5% split between white asian and other students next slide please our school is classified as a middle track school Under AB 1505 meaning we meet performance

079standards while we also continue to identify areas for growth our 2024 California dashboard data as shown here demonstrates the significant progress we have made in working towards our goals this includes moving indicators such as suspensions from Orange to Blue we remain committed to continuous Improvement and are determined to exceed State expectations in the following slides we will take a closer look at our performance data where we currently stand and our strategic steps we are taking to advance even further next slide please throughout this presentation you will see many graphs like this that show Richmond Charter Academy's data comparison to District state and local schools RCA will always be shown first with the comparisons being shown to the right for the duration of the charter term RCA has consistently outperformed neighborhood schools and esac Ela proficiency

080in the 2023 2024 school year as shown here at 15 or 53.6% we achieved a significant increase in ela proficiency surpassing not only neighborhood schools at 10.9 and 10% but also State and District averages at 32.5 and 47% this data drawn from State sources wccusd and local Hood local neighborhood schools provides a comprehensive context for evaluating our impact by neighborhood schools we refer to those schools our students would have attended based on their residential addresses comparing RCA's performance at the local and state levels ensures alignment within the broader accountability framework and highlights our commitment to academic Excellence within the Richmond Community next slide please similarly RCA consistently outperform neighborhood schools in esac math proficiency throughout our Charter term in 2324 we saw a significant increase in math proficiency a testament to the effectiveness of our

081instructional strategies and Leadership these gains reflect our commitment to datadriven decision-making and targeted support systems that drive Student Success next slide please while we are proud of our dashboard results we always remain dedicated to continuous Improvement adapting our approach to meet the evolving needs of our students key strategies we have implemented include offering personalized learning supports and targeted instruction through an intervention block informed by assessment data sources implementing lesson exemplars and weekly coaching Cycles with staff focused on data analysis classroom observations and instructional feedback engaging in data cycles and data conferences with both students and staff and conducting professional development sessions four days a week tailored by teacher obs obervations and student performance data through these strategic initiatives RCA remains steadfast in our mission to provide an exceptional education ensuring that all students Thrive academically

082and reach their full potential thank you Miss Landers will now discuss supports and growth for our student subgroups so far we've highlighted the successes within our general student population I'll take a moment to focus on our subgroups and celebrate their achievements as well our English language Learners consistently outperformed the district State and all neighborhood schools on the elpac assessment over the past three years most notably we saw a significant increase in proficiency during the 23 24 school year RCA uses I ready as an assessment tool next slide please RCA uses I ready as an assessment tool and a way to progress monitor student outcomes our English language Learners consistent consistently achieve at least one year growth in both reading and math according to I ready the dark line on a graph shown is the oneyear

083mark next slide please similarly our I data for our students with disabilities also shows at least one year of growth in both reading and math next slide we've been intentional about strengthening our inclusion practices for our students with disabilities and English language Learners additionally we built robust systems for intervention block into our daily schedule ensuring that our subgroups receive targeted support four days a week for 50 minutes in reading and math this data track weekly allows our team to make real-time adjustments based on student needs to foster a culture of achievement we've established schoolwide weekly goals making progress visible across all classrooms and celebrating growth at each week Beyond these supports we also have PA professionals translated assignments and a tablet system for immediate translation to ensure our high priority EOS have access to Equitable

084learning student next slide please sorry student attendance is the foundation of academic success if students aren't at school they can't learn every year within the charter term RCA has maintained low chronic absenteeism rates compared to the district State and all neighboring schools in addition our RCA saw a significant decrease in chronic absenteeism during the 2324 school year demonstrating our commitment to keeping students engaged in classrooms next slide please RCA is committed to creating safe and supportive School environments through restorative practices and strong family engagement throughout the charter term RCA has also consistently mained lower suspension rates than the neighboring schools averaging at just 4.4% in the 2324 school year we saw a significant decrease in suspensions outperforming District State and neighboring schools this reflects our focus on proactive interventions relationship building and restorative approaches to

085discipline next slide please this year RCA was honored to receive a grant from the Ruby Bridges foundation in partner with triaa Mountain West group to host a special walk to school event this walk to school event was held in honor of Ruby Bridges a courageous civil rights leader who integrated all white schools in New Orleans symbolizing our commitment to community unity and student advocacy following the event our students reflected on their experience by writing letters to Ruby Bridges herself sharing how her Legacy has inspired them to leave from their seats and become Advocates of change programs like this are ongoing effort to create meaningful engaging opportunities for all our students including our African-American students population an area where we continue to be intentional about deepening our impact and our reach next slide please as you

086are considering your decision we urge you to recognize the dedication the progress and the resilience of our students our staff and our families RCA is not just meets the renewal requirements we exceed expectations making a lasting impact on our community we are asking the Board of Trustees to stand with us in supporting the future where RCA students continue to thrive your approval of this renewal is a vote for Equity opportunity and excellence in education thank you for taking the time your commitment to for our students and your belief in a transformative and Powerful education thank you thank you thank you very much I would let now like to I would like now like to invite uh is there representative from West contra cost fight School District that had once they probably should have introduced the

087the item but this is what the lawyer sent me so does the does the school district have anything a presentation yes thank you president reckler um apologies for the reverse order but we would like for Douglas Pelton to be promoted uh so that he can present the process for Renewal and I believe comments will follow great good evening trustees Dr Moses cabinet Community my name is Douglas Pelton and I'm a consultant with the West Contra for Costa Unified School District with a focus on the charter oversight processes and systems at the at the district um I'm here to illustrate tonight the the process and where we are at with the a method Public Schools Richmond Charter Academy charter renewal petition and I'd like to spend a few minutes uh with some slides that help build

088context for everybody on what we're doing is everybody able to see the uh presentation yes we can okay so we should be on on page two of the presentation um so rich rich Charter Academy opened uh in August of 2012 after having their petition approved by the West Contra board the Richmond Charter Academy first renewal was approved in 2017 by the wccusd board for a five-year period however assembly Bill 130 extended all Charter petitions in the State uh post pandemic by two years and then in 2023 three Senate Bill 114 extended those expiration uh dates by another year so that really led to a a a four-year Hiatus in any kind of renewals and this is the first year that all the authorizers in the state are reviewing and processing renewal requests by those Charters

089that landed on uh 2025 expiration dates the next slide three um just a couple of points that trustee reckler largely uh discussed earlier that we are holding this public hearing as required by AB f505 uh within that 60-day period uh from the amps RCA submission of their renewal petition and as trustee reckler stated there is no board action on this Charter petition in this meeting uh within 90 days of the receipt of the petition and as truste reckler represented uh on our about April 30th uh that would be within the 90day period uh the board will make have the resolution to approve or deny the the petition um wanted to point out that renewals are considered under this three tier system and you heard uh Richmond Charter Academy refer uh to the fact that they

090are categorized by the state at this point in time as a middle performing uh school and the last Point here is that any kind of a denial of a middle performing charter school has to meet specific criteria and those are key criteria are the uh A demonstrably unlikely to successfully implement the program set forth due to substantial fiscal or governance factors or the charter school is not serving all pupils who wish to attend and the final slide four uh just just to show where the district is in their process uh we have of course received and initially reviewed the petition and accepted that and that was in January the last day of January um the site visit Associated uh to kind of review that uh the school and petition uh actually took place on January

09127 by a site visit team uh from the district Charter oversight office the um the presentation of the the uh the petition is being held tonight that is March 26th within that 60 day requirement window and then the finalization of the staff's finding we will be completing and Publishing by April the 10th uh to to meet the requirement for at least 15-day uh uh posting public posting before the decision hearing and with that um I'll turn it over to the next section of this public hearing thank you so much okay now we'll go to board questions does anybody have any questions on this item go ahead trusty Gonzales thank you president reckler um thank you so much for the presentations my questions are for uh RCA good evening um my first question this going to

092be a tough question two of the charters within the a method family have been denied but one by Oakland one by Oakland one by us we denied John Henry High School Oakland denied Oakland Charter High School both for various reasons so some for conflict of interests governance problems Financial concerns and diversity concerns my question for maybe the new CEO would be how can you assure us that RCA is different than other schools within the network that have been denied and what have you done as a network to change what has been brought up as deficiencies in other renewals thank you for your question it is a new day at a method public schools and we have a strong leadership team in place we have a strong leadership team in place at RCA specifically some of

093the issues that were raised for the Oakland Charter High School denial were around governance and fiscal concerns the fiscal concerns were frankly similar to those that West Contra Casta has we increased our finance staff internally we contracted with a back office and we are committed to ensuring that our reports including our audits are on time moving forward we are also doing extensive work in reviewing all of our contracts all of our processes and we have made several revisions to our fiscal policies in order to ensure that we are encompassing all of the requirements and making sure that we are committing to a St a sound program both academically and operationally regarding governance we've expanded our board we moved from five seats to seven seats and we are working to ensure that we have a strong

094um group of leaders on our governing board that have varing degrees of expertise so making sure that we have board members who have expertise in governance in finance in academics and they are holding us accountable they are diving in and ensuring that we as a leadership team and we as RCA are holding to our commitments to our students does that satisfy your question thank you that's I appreciate that answer thank you um my next question um it can be for any of you um five years ago there were concerns about diversity at the school I still see that there are issues with diversity on average our schools in West Contra Casta have a larger percentage of African-American students and students with with special needs what are you doing actively to recruit students in uh that

095might have special needs or who uh fit you know different criteria than what majority of your school looks like I would like to just start by noting that we are a school of choice we are open to every student and family that wishes to join us and then I will hand it over to principal Anders thank you so um in terms of the question around thinking about um how we're increasing diversity and particularly with our African-American students I know that's been one of the things that's concern um I first think that representation matters and so as we look at our staff and our leaders do those me like do those members show up um and are we reflective in that I will say I do believe that we are I think the second thing is

096around um engaging our families that we do have and making sure that one the families um that are here are do they know about our FST are they a part of those structures do they know about you know other things um that we have our school to keep them involved um but also making sure that the quality of the experience that the ones we do have are top tier because we know that if those families feel connected and feel included then it's about the word of mouth and it continues and so I will say like it's not fully solved yet it's not fully resolved but it is something that's on our radar and we're actively working towards that thank you thank you I appreciate that answer uh my last question is around um what um

097I'm sorry I keep referring you to CEO would you please remind me of your name Adrien Barnes Miss Barnes thank you uh Miss Barnes you talked about the concerns that we brought up in our letter um could you talk a little bit more about what other correct actions are you taking not just to correct what we mentioned in the letter but also to partner with us because out of all of our Charters RC is the only one that we've had to do this to in the last four years so could you talk a little bit and elaborate a little bit more about our partnership and especially our role to hold the charter accountable absolutely we believe in accountability and we believe in collaboration we have had a couple of meetings with your charter school over

098oversight staff and we welcome those meetings we welcome the feedback and we're more than happy to have you know even monthly meetings if your team would would prefer we want to be transparent in all of our Communications with your team and with the board we are here to ensure that you have all of the information or you and your staff have all of the information that you need in order to effectively uh authorize us and to continue to hold us accountable for all of our work I believe that we can work together and we can effectively ass assist each other in terms of building a stronger community in Richmond and make making sure that we truly are and we as collectively are truly serving all of our students and serving them well I've seen Partnerships

099in the past with Charter Schools and districts where they are working hand inand and they're doing that for their students and their Scholars and I would love to have the opportunity to do that with you and I don't think that that has happened yet and I hope that we can do that moving forward thank you you're welcome pres reckler this this question thank you does anybody else have questions go Ahad so good evening thank you for your presentation um quick I have a couple questions so what is your teacher turnover or let me refr to your teacher retention for the last year can we check in with our uh HR and credentialing team and get back to you on that okay well that kind of leads on to my second question because I do see

100that your Ela percentage um actually grew a significant amount um would you be able to tell me like how many students were tested do um I believe it was around like a 98% completion rate from last year um I know that we test a majority of like the students that were there so yes we can actually get back to you to confirm the exact specific number okay my last question so what is the number of sped students that you're serving um currently around 10 oh special education I'm sorry um 22 okay that's my last question okay thank you anybody else okay I have a couple of questions thank you thank you for being here what's your stability rate your turn over your retention rate of students oh of students good evening so we in the

101I can send exact numbers but for 23 24 we had six students who joined after the beginning of the school year and 14 who left during the school year for 22 23 it was 27 and 15 and then for the rest of the years I can send uh numbers for that okay thank you I'd like to come back to my colleague uh touched on diversity of your uh student body I'd like to come back to sped for a minute so in our district for the wccusd not including Charter School charter schools um 59% of our students spend 80 or more percent of their day in a regular class do you know what your percentage is for your sped students and how much time they spend in a regular class yes so good evening my name

102is Mary Busby and I'm the current chief academic officer currently our students spend 855 to 94% in the special in the general education we have a fully included Pro program in which students are included throughout the day they receive a small pushin or P pull out support services with a trained dead specialist okay thank you um I'd like to jump to finances now and I'd like to go over your audit who performed your audit did the audit comply with statute for schools that need to be audited are they licensed CPAs by the California Board of accountancy and do they have a clear license what was that last question do they have a clear license our auditor for 2223 was Baker till our auditor for 2324 is Christy white and yes they meet all requirements thank

103you you're welcome uh in the audit you did have some findings um how do you plan to address [Music] them I I assume you were referring to the 2223 audit uh the audit that you just completed and was on your your the draft AIT that was just the 2324 draft yes we had one finding related to our internal controls and uh we do again we brought in stronger staff to our finance department and we are now using a back office provider to handle all of our accounting and our reporting okay so those are in progress are they in progress or are you just commencing them no they've started it started so yes so the back office team started effectively what I did in June 20124 and officially they started as of July 1st 2024 I

104started in June 2024 and Kimberly Palmore our senior director of Finance started in September 2024 okay so it's it's in progress is it fully implemented or just in progress It's fully implemented we're or on the ground and running okay thank you and finally on March 13th Dr Moses sent to Adrien Barnes which was acknowledged a letter notice of concern fiscal letter of fiscal concern uh there are a number of deliverables that are to be delivered on or before April 12th 20125 it's a corrective action plan it says at a minimum the district expects that camps take the following steps to address the identified RCA concerns one provide documentation clearly describing the conditions leading to the unrestricted fund balance of negative 88516 at the close of the 2324 school year two prepare an intervention plan that

105reduces expenditures and provides for adequate reserves with a detailed explanation of the structural changes to RCA operations as well as confirmation of the amp staff administrators and Leadership responsible for implementing The Plan Three provide timely and complete responses to District inquiries including the submission of complete and accurate Financial reports and supporting documentation and four comply with all statutory deadlines for the submission of RCA Financial reports are you able to meet these four bullet points at the end of the letter yes we will thank you you're welcome does anybody else have questions okay we'd like to move to public comment now thank you um we're going to try since there are a lot of people we're going to have Rosa call seven people at a time please line up at the podium as she calls your

106name uh so that we're going to save a little time so don't start until we get several people lined up if you are on zoom and you're making public comment raise your hand right now thank you I'm sorry it's so sorry about okay our first seven people are Jordan admen dadis Sylvia Calderon Donan madriz Raul Rosalez Guadalupe amigon Alexis Orga and Patty fiser please line up at the podium good evening board members my name is Jordan badis and I've had the privilege of being part of this incredible Community for over 10 consecutive years both as a student as and as a staff member I started here as a sixth grade student the second year RCA was open and up until last year as a former staff member this is my third time speaking in front

107of the board in favor of keeping the school open and each time I do I am reminded of the impact RCA and the amp system have had on our students and Community I've seen firsthand how this School Fosters growth discipline and success RCA has not only provided me with the solid education but has also shaped me into the educator I am today as I stand here with my former classmates work colleagues and students I reminded that we always found our way back to the same place that shaped us challenged us and inspired us I look forward to returning in two years after completing my bachelor's degree to continue contributing to the future of this community I firmly believe in the work we do here and I'm excited to continue advocating for this school in the

108years to come thank you for your time and for your continued support of our students good evening board members my name is tan madri and I'm a proud student at Richmond Charter Academy I wanted to share my experience at this school with you and why it's important to me this school has been another home to me for the last nine years I have built strong relationships with the teachers and my peers this school has helped me build confidence in myself and my thinking skills it challenged me with new materials and Tau me to never give up even when things get rough my math teacher this year Miss Evans has taught me math on a More onetoone Level she takes her time teaching and makes sure we comprehend what we're learning she offers so much support

109to our class you can truly see her passion in teaching and she really cares that we really understand everything she doesn't just move on and lets us fall behind I now feel more confident in my math class the community that we have built at this school has made us a big family everyone knows each other and we all feel safe with one another Charter Schools allow for these kinds of relationships to be built and by closing the school many of us will lose our families while there are public schools Charter School we are going to be taking a break thank you we're going to recess for 10 minutes thank you e e e improved and my relationships with students and their caregivers has flourished hold for hold for just one moment I see a note

110that oia can't hear oia can you signal to us if you can hear you're good now okay great okay thank you so much go ahead sorry about that good evening uh my name is Patty Fischer and I'm the proud grandmother of an afroamerican eighth grader at RCA I'm also a former high school public school teacher my grandson was attending a very good school which I thought in Richmond uh but he was falling through the cracks every day it was a struggle to get him to school he hated school I knew I had to do something before it was too late I enrolled him at RCA early into the sixth grade he was absent a lot because of his allergies he was also becoming belligerent and was starting to fail I recognized that he had add

111and that was confirmed by his doctor while he was uh getting better with medication in both of these situations the staff at RCA did not drop the ball they stayed with him and myself and all the time as he was improving since that time he has blossomed at RCA he's been student of the month for the first time in he's been attending school he missed no days of school this last semester and was on the honor rooll he has continued to develop into a fine young person that I know he is the dedicated staff at RCA okay my minut is up for hello everybody my name is Jayden Hernandez rias and I am proud to be a seventh grader and a member of Student Government at richm Char Academy our school is more than just

112a school it's a community where we feel safe supported and excited to learn it's a place our family trust to help us grow closing RCA would have a lasting negative impact on many students and families in my community I used to be very shy and in some ways I still am speaking in front of my class or a large group has always been difficult for me but at RCA I've been encouraged to find my voice and step outside my comfort zone this year I went for class Senator even though I wasn't sure I will win since then I've taken on new challenges like speaking in front of all of you today closing RCA would take away opportunities for my peers and me to continue growing into confident leaders thank you for your time hello board

113members my name is Alison anayia and I'm the vice president at RCA when I first attended RCA I was scared nervous and intimidated over time School became harder but RCA taught me how to get through it back when I was in sixth grade my old teacher Miss Lee was a huge help to my learning she always provided a positive educational environment every time I would go to her class she was always encouraging us to give it our best even when learning got hard our Administration also encourages a healthy environment to learn and grow yes school might be boring for some but it also helps with social ization RCA helps students get out of the comfort zone and inspires them to want to participate in school activities this is one of the reasons why I'm am

114proud to be a part of RCA and why should stay open thank you good evening board my name is Stephen Paris I'm the father of Dean Paris uh who is a current student at Richmond Charter Academy former student of B Bonito Warz Elementary School his mother's family have been uh in Richmond for over a 100 years making him a fifth generation Richmond citizen Dean is on the Autism Spectrum which has proven challenging for him academically and socially uh we became aware of this while he was at Bonito Warz Elementary uh routine and change is something that's Chang in routine is difficult for him so having continuous uh structure and philosophy across Elementary to middle school has been extremely beneficial to him and helped him suc suceed um we're extremely proud to be members of this

115community and we're extremely proud to be from Richmond thank you for your time um for good evening my name is shant Tims Russell I'm a proud parent of a student at Richmond Charter Academy I want to take a moment to speak about my son and my experience at RCA my son has grown exponentially since he has been attending RCA he comes home excited telling me about the amazing things he have learned for example he has taught me the new math way to doing math and he has also taught me microorganisms and how they affect us and how they spread there are a there is real teaching going on at RCA as a parent I believe that having strong dedicated teachers is one of the most important things for a Student Success RCA teachers and staff

116are passionate about helping students grow and learn they are committed to creating a supportive and encouraging learning environment which is something I truly appreciate I also like guidance good evening my name is aelia Ramirez and I am a physical education teacher at Richmond Charter Academy I'm here in support of the charter renewal for RCA in addition to teaching at RCA I had the honor to work with playworks a nonprofit in various wccusd schools like steeg Lincoln aloney Stewart lupang Hills Parish Elementary among others why work for with enrichment Charter Academy I've been a Richmond resident for 17 years it is important to me to work close to home richment Charter Academy serves many of my neighbors children I believe it is important to have schools within neighborhoods so that it strengthens the sense of community

117for students parents and staff in and out of school grounds students at RCA feel safe and I know my neighbors and I are grateful that RCA offers a safe learning environment so close to home thank you so much for your time hi my name is Stephanie De La Cruz I used to go to RCA like around 2017 2018 somewhere in between however I do have a little sister that goes here but overall I want to talk about my experience throughout there I believe that within my years it helped me develop more as a person in a way that uh teachers help students in pushing themselves becoming more uh I used to struggle a lot throughout uh school and which teachers helped me push me to becoming more and it gave me the opportunity of becoming

118a successful college student at UC Berkeley and so I hope that with this opportunity it could help other students as well to learn and grow and be able to help uh the their communities as well thank you um well hello guys when has notes U my name is L lrus and I am currently a first year at the University of California Davis studying Science and Technology studies and I can say for sure that during my time at RCA which was around like 2019 2020 um it was a difficult time especially since it was during covid but like before the years after that I can say for sure that I definitely found my community there um I think RCA definitely helps support helps to build relationships within even um teachers or like staff or even among

119students themselves but just having that Community behind you to support you and whether whether you want to go to college or whether you want to find jobs just having that um build up that support is really good to have so I hope you guys can come to support good evening board members my name is Aubrey Magno and I'm a proud student at Richmond Charter Academy I feel that I'm improving faster than ever and I want to share why RCA should continue to teach and support students like me before coming to RC I wasn't very confident in my work and I knew I needed a lot of improvement but everything changed when I got here my confidence in math has grown because I receive one-on-one support after school in the areas I need help with we

120also use I ready which gives us personalized lessons based on what we need to improve I have been meeting my weekly goals in both math and reading and I'm really proud of my progress if I hadn't come to RCA I don't think I would be as far as along far along as I am now and I know many other students feel the same way and that's why I'm asking you to renew our Charter so more students can grow and feel confident in their learning thank you for your time and consideration our next public commment is Sylvia Calderon Sylvia Calderon Alexis Ortega Sophia sa sedra Alan bise good evening board board of directors my name is Alan valiz I'm the administrative assistant for the RCA school year for the 2525 24 25 school year despite being

121an employee at RCA for one year I'm quite familiar with their motto and the amps Vision as I am an RCA alumni who attended RCA from the 20 from 2016 to 2019 school year RCA challenged me academically that help me prepare for high school and college um that help me prepare for high school and college they offered classroom support and classroom support wasn't the only support I received I also receiv outside classroom support that helped me grow not just academically but mentally as a person so I ask you today to take in consideration a please vote to renew our Charter so the kids in our local community can receive the same support I did a few years back thank you next public communist Edgar kidos good evening board uh my name is Edgar Kos and

122I come to you tonight as the board chair of a method public schools and a steadfast advocate for Richmond Charter Academy I appreciate the opportunity to address past financial management concerns headon and to share the concrete steps that we are taking to ensure these issues are resolved not just for compliance but for the foundation of RCA's next chapter of Excellence I want to acknowledge the past challenges we recognize that amps face serious and valid criticism regarding Financial bookkeeping audit responsiveness and personal transitions Personnel transitions these were not intended intentional failures but they were unacceptable and as a board we have taken immediate action to First restructure our financial leadership by hiring a COO with extensive Charter experience and implemented staggering approvals for all expenditures next public comment is Mark Mitchell uh I want to remind

123the the board um and encourage you all to take your responsibilities under ab55 seriously in perhaps um especially give U notice to reviewing issues of Finance governance student performance under enrollment of black students and under enrollment of disabled students and I think these are serious considerations for the benefit of of our community and our district thank you our next public comment is Sam clear Sam clear that concludes public comment great thank you very much to everyone who gave public comment as a reminder this is only a hearing there is no decision tonight and at this time I would like to close the public hearing at 9:34 thank you everybody for your patience okay now we are back to C superintendent communication Dr Moses this is your item thank you president reckler I'll wait as we

124get the presentation pulled up and as we get the room cleared and maybe we just want to wait a minute for them to clear iord here yes L please thank you okay thank you for your patience good evening everyone and we'll start the superintendence report next slide I'd like to start off this week's superintendent report by recognizing a staff member who has passed away Miss artha Mitchell was a special education par professional at aloney Elementary School Miss ARA passed away on March 3rd 2025 I had the pleasure of serving at alone Elementary School for four years with Miss ARA and this is a very difficult um time for not only the alone Community but especially for her family our thoughts and prayers go to her husband Marcus Mitchell her daughter maresa her sons mavon and

125Nicholas her granddaughter Antonia and her friends and families during this time we just want to recognize that she began her career with the district 14 years ago starting at Lupine and later joined aloney where she was a phenomenal educator respected by all serving in our um ESN class for autism she was dedicated to her team her community and most importantly to her students for almost 11 years at alone can you please join me in a moment of silence thank you next slide congratulations are in order for a Richmond High School marching band they were awarded first place uh at the San Francisco Chinese New Year parade congratulations to our band teacher Mr wilky and the Richmond High band for this achievement go Oilers you can check out their photos at rhs Oilers uh if you'd

126like to see more pictures great job I'd also like to highlight this special event uh we had a Special Olympics event at ELO High School it was March hoops at the Special Olympics uh we want to appreciate our special education department and also the elero high school staff and all of the many volunteers that showed up and uh participated in this event I had the pleasure of uh enjoying the activities along with Clerk andana and president reckler and we uh had a wonderful time uh so we want to shout out everyone who supported to make this event truly special for our students in particular our sped Department Els Sero High School School leadership group elero High School black student union the deanza high school Roc and the elero police department next slide our students uh

127participated in the county science and engineering Fair uh we are proud to announce that 40 of our wccusd students placed first second and third in our district science fair and were able to present their projects before the county judges at the Contra Casta County science engineering Fair I'd like to give a special congratulations to ches shria an eighth grader at Coram Matsu school middle school she won first place on her project at the county science fair the title of her project yes let's give her a round of applause her project was titled elasticity in hyperbolic crochet structures uh she will compete at the California Science and Engineering fair this April we wish her the best of luck next slide we wanted to provide an update and show some appreciations for um the elero high school

128incident re regarding repairing their electricity last week elero high school experienced a multi-day power outage and we want to thank our maintenance team for fixing the issue with efficiency to get the elero high school students back into class A special thanks to principal Norrington and the elero staff for supporting our School site needs as we reopen the school and a huge shout out to Melissa Payne and Ellen Mahia for their expertise and oversight in addressing this situation congratulations thank you all right next slide uh we just wanted to announce our city our Richmond city council presentation last night uh there was a presentation where we shared information with the city council regarding our budget our enrollment attendance and some staffing updates we appreciate the opportunity to present for the Richmond city council and we look

129forward to Future collaboration projects with the Council next slide we uh have uh celebrated the what I'd like to call The Rebirth of Kennedy on March 15th believe that's the date I don't see it here uh we were able to um celebrate the memories and history of the iconic 100 and2 200 Wing at Kennedy High School this Wing will be demolished later this summer alumni showed up speeches were made and there was a reconnection with old classmates as they bid farewell to the memories of these buildings um we were honored to have several dignitaries County Supervisor John Joya to support this event along with our school board members uh president reckler clerk andana trusty Smith Folds former trustee o Christian and the former elero mayor and council member and Kennedy Alum Paul fideli um thank

130you to everyone who joined us for this event and that's a wonderful picture of Kennedy Alum on the stairs of the 100 Wing next slide uh we also would like to uh take time to appreciate all of the community members who participated in our doap town hall meetings there was a meeting hosted on March 15th in person and a virtual meeting held last night to gather input from students parents and the community on the best strategies to support our students and remove barriers uh so your feedback is important and we want to just recognize and appreciate uh your support with this gathering this input next slide a few upcoming dates uh today marks the end of the uh third quarter for our secondary schools so we want to wish our students an a successful fourth

131quarter as they enter into uh the last quarter of the year tomorrow also reminder to the community that Friday March 28th is a reserve day and there is no school for students uh also would like to remind our elementary school families that open house is going to be held on Thursday April 17th at the majority of our elementary school sites uh we hope you can join us for that event next slide shout out to dejon middle school our administrative staff at dejan middle school is uh has implemented an attendance Challenge and students have stepped up for March Madness uh the students at dejon Middle School are having a contest on whether the seventh graders or eighth graders will have better best the best attendance this month so we wish them good luck and we appreciate

132their efforts to uh celebrate attendance at school next slide I just wanted to share some photos from our site visits we were able to visit dejon Middle School Helms Middle School Lake Elementary and Ford Elementary uh just a couple weeks ago and uh just appreciate being in those spaces to uh share in the learning of our students and to our buildings and have conversations with our staff and our students so wanted to share that with you next slide Hercules high school dancing honors we want to shout out the Titans congratulations to the high school dance team for winning first place at Starbound National comp Talent competition uh they also won senior large group entertainment award uh audience Choice Award and impro improvisation hipop award uh special shout out to Sophia Williams 10th grader for receiving

133a prestigious Elite Gold Award and I also want to shout out because my I'm the guardian of a a young lady on This Dance Team holding the poster here and they also won the gravitate uh Dance Competition just a couple of weeks ago so shout out to Hercules High dance team and shout out to my niece Janai next slide elero high school dancing honors so El Cero's High School dance team is busy in winning Awards as well they attended the standup For Arts day in Sacramento and they performed alongside other students on the west steps and in the Reagan Library of the capital shout out to elero and congratulations to the newest members of the elero chapter of the National Honors Society for Dance Arts uh these students dance these dedicated dance students demonstrate excellence

134and commitment to their craft and will graduate with dance honors in June great job next Slide the applications for the 20242 I'm sorry the applications for the 2526 school year will be released in the Power School Parent Portal uh next during the week of April 14th these enrollments are first priority and they will go to the first priority enrollments will go to students in these categories um me can families and transition Foster youth students who qualify for free and reduced lunch and English Learners we encourage everyone to apply and apply early next slide we need your input for the new cell phone policies parents and community members uh please share in the survey that um is advertised on this Slide by the QR code so that we can um include your input on what should

135be included in the new wccus cell phone policy we encourage you to fill out the survey next Slide the Ed fund scholarship is still open the deadline is March 30th we encourage all of our seniors to apply for this offer to support with your continued education the QR code is listed on the slide next slide we want to share the graduation dates that are coming up uh it's almost graduation season as we start the fourth quarter we want to share with the community the dates that are scheduled for the commencement exercises and activities next slide we also want to shout out uh our committees and encourage and invite all community and family members to come out and share your um voice and participate in our committees uh so the committees are listed there as is

136their next meeting dates and uh we encourage you to select a committee or two or three and uh participate and share your input next slide that concludes the superintendent's report for tonight thank you for your attention any thank you so much are there any questions for the superintendent okay seeing none oh go go right ahead it's not a question but I would be remiss not to speak on Miss artha I absolutely loved and adored her at Lupine Hills and she was just a really really special person and she loved on everyone that she came in contact with especially the students and she was just a real light and she will be missed I'm complete thank you for that remembrance before we go any further can we just look at the agenda and figure out what

137we want to do the meeting is supposed to end at 10: and we still have two discussion items and two action items what would people like to do no ideas do we want to extend to 10:30 and take off student data and I ready and we would hear the districts attendance presentation go to the first interim and then do the fund 17 transfer I think that's a good plan I'll make a motion that we extend uh the meeting until 10:30 okay so it would be to extend to 10:30 removing student data and I ready but keeping support attendance uh I'm sorry attendance and enrollment first interum in the resolution is there a second on that I'll second that okay any comments okay would you like to go ahead start us off yes yes trusty Hernandez

138yes clana yes trusty Gonzalez way yes trusty Smith BS Smith BS yes and I'm a yes as well okay president reckler I was wondering if we could maybe just sorry a recommendation could we just start with the second interum just in case um because I think that's the most important is everybody okay with that okay great idea let's go for a second inter room thank you thank you Mr Hart this is your item all right good evening president reckler members of the board and interim superintendent Dr Moses uh about a year ago I was standing on this Podium with Dr Moses presenting second interim tonight I am joined by David Hart our interim CVO uh we'll be presenting the 2425 second interim financial report tonight uh and so I want to start off by giving

139a a huge appreciation to the business services team to put these financials together for this report next slide uh so here you'll see the annual budget cycle timeline uh so far this year we've done the September un audited actuals the December first interim report and tonight in March we're here for the second interim report upcoming you'll see our budget development lcap and adopted budget and estimated actual coming up in April and June uh so the second interim report is data as of January 31st 2025 uh we are required to report this data to the county which then reports it to the state uh as of January 31st uh submitted by March 15th every year uh this is an update on the district financials uh a review of the projected revenue and expenditures throughout the year

140uh each interim we we update the budget as of known information and upcoming information that we know to be coming these are also will go over adjustments to our multi-year projection informed by the expenditure budget assumptions and information uh from the CDE next slide and with that I'll let uh Mr Hart speak good evening and uh following just lead allow me to thank him for the work that he has done both in bringing me up to feed with the uh nuances of the district as well as just being somebody who on a daily basis I can rely on for his professionalism what you have before you as Jeff alluded to is uh a summation of changes that have occurred in the district as it relates to the budget uh if we go back we can

141uh migrate from when the budget was originally adopted to First interim to where we are now in second interim we're reviewing all uh line items if you will and further categories then by revenues and expenditures and as you are familiar within that we will at times speak to different funds and whether the dollars within those particular budgets are restricted or unrestricted operating or Capital uh that would be beyond our planned presentation tonight but it is the nature of the scope of the work um we will examine the adjustments and uh speak to that uh this evening next slide please with with regards to the changes um that you that you have before you and this will be covered uh in detail here in a moment you will note that there are changes in our revenues

142the interest Revenue expense the uh changes that are occur uh as the state Works through its budget process obviously there are ramifications for us so we call to your attention that third bullet which is to note that the legislative analyst office has announced an expected decrease in the cola that is to say the uh percent applied to our lcf revenues and special education revenues has dropped by half a percent and then uh accordingly other changes we have made uh with uh regards to the um restricted maintenance account next slide please in particular to the lcff revenue changes you can see here on the table uh while the change is um a lot of lines here but there are two particular lines I draw your attention to one is that our unduplicated pupil count has risen

143ever so slightly as the Ada count has uh which is the average daily attendance has diminished a tad uh the net effect of those in addition to also seeing a lower Ada in our transitional kindergarten is a decline in our lcf revenue of approximately $75,000 next slide in terms of the unrestricted uh revenue and combined revenue changes uh what you uh first off just to sort of Orient you on this the first half of this is the unrestricted the second half is the combined the difference between those are the restricted general fund revenues it's worth noting that the uh change first interim to Second interim with regards to the uh unrestricted is a what I'll call a relatively modest change in other local revenues of that amount the single largest portion uh I would say

144is the interest income counts for about 500,000 has to do with uh three factors one we have more money on deposit than we initially anticipated that money is sitting on deposit longer than we anticipated and the rates uh have not declined in a way that we might have thought at one point in time the other one point2 is miscellaneous revenues and these are truly miscellaneous we uh consolidate numerous activities into this particular line item ra uh ranging from checks that we have uh written to individuals to vendors who then get returned to us for one reason or another and we avoid the check so we anticipated that we would have made payment uh and then for whatever reason uh we are able to re um essentially rebook that Revenue when the checks do not clear

145um we also have a thing called the on behalf of uh revenues these are dollars that we would have uh paid out to calers but in the course of the state's budgeting activities uh they make contributions to that pension in lie of a district having to do so that results in uh essentially a refund of of payments that we have made uh and that money comes back to us it truly is a hodgepodge of miscellaneous activities accounting for about 1.2 million of that 1.7 uh total when we look at the combined general fund revenues you see that there is also a variety of accounts for which we are uh showing a difference the federal revenue uh that title two and the um special education is uh largely a function of changes in pupil counts uh

146and the resulting revenue streams that come from that the other state revenue the correction to elop um it is just a true up that's occurring as we get more exact in the midye as Jeff noted what we are moving from is a midf uh forecast of those numbers now at January 31st we're able to have half a Year's data in hand it allows us to tighten up on that uh ever so slightly the other local Revenue components there uh much of this is a pass through that uh 6.3 million uh there's a um trying to remember the name of the vendor but we had received a grant uh that originally we had anticipated we had gone to a vendor that provides uh Health Care Services mental Healthcare Serv Services the grant got named to the

147district so we had to show the revenue in order then to pass it through to that particular um party uh that accounted for uh if memory serves that was about uh let's see $999,000 uh the single largest item there is a a correction with regards to Medical they're in the process of doing a multi-year accounting a a sort of true up and we have received a year to date about $3.1 million for Corrections that are going back uh to uh early in the pandemic uh we have an initial notice from them that there may be additional dollars forthcoming uh if that impact occurs uh you will see this number change again one of the comments I would make to the uh to the board and for uh consideration by our audience is the numbers that

148we provide are the best available uh data that we have at this point in time it is also the case that the further out we go the more confident I am that whatever our forecast those numbers will prove to be inaccurate um if one wants to take that perspective the point is that the numbers will change and this is in part why the state asks for what's your original budget a first interim report a second interim report and then when we come back with the proposed budget for 2526 we will refresh again the estimates that we have now in hand will become that much firmer as we are getting closer to the end of the school year and our estimates will look much uh much more like an actual as opposed to an estimate in

149regards to the next slide uh I'm going to turn that off uh turn that over to Jeff and he'll cover the expenditure differences all right so here I want to talk about some of the changes from first interim to Second interim uh in our major audre codes uh so you'll see here in certificated salaries an increase of $952,000 uh that's due to a few factors uh aligning with current Staffing increasing substitutes uh additional students being taken additional prep periods being covered uh all these time cards that get submitted uh increase our expenditures in certificated salaries as well as in January this year uh we had taken some uh instructional coaches and program assistants and placed them back in the class room to fill some of our vacancies a lot of those instructional coaches and PAs

150were on restricted funding or grants uh when we move them back into the classroom that moves them over to the unrestricted side where we're budgeting for certificated teacher salaries uh so you're seeing an increase here for multiple factors but those are the the main factors uh highlighted there uh classified salaries similar uh increase 224,000 aligning with current Staffing increasing Subs additional hours stiens overtime things like that uh benefits though you see that there's a decrease here in benefits um this is mostly due to adjustments for vacancies up until this point uh if a position has been vacant we uh take those funds back and move them to other expenditures to cover where needed for example substitutes that are replacing and filling for those vacancies uh so that so some of that uh benefits line you're

151seeing there as a decrease has been moved up to the one and twos are the certificate and classified salaries to cover those additional increases for substitutes uh moving down to books and supplies you're seeing a a large increase there $879,000 uh this is some budget alignments with site and Department budgets uh as well as uh building in a device refresh plan uh moving forward for technology uh number five services and operating expenditures uh you're seeing a $ 1.4 million increase here uh this is building in some things to the budget which uh Mr Hart will talk about in the myp in a future slide um but we're building in some expenditures that were not in the original budget uh some of those include Board elections instructional minutes penalty that was uh from our audit and

152a special ed Transportation contract that is projected to uh go over budget at the moment so we're covering for some of these additional expenditures in Services uh going down a site purchased uh some Capital outlay um a decrease in injur direct cost due to changes on the restricted program so the next slide we're going to go into restricted um you're seeing a a decrease in indirect cost due to some of those changes and then right below that the increase to the RMA contribution uh this is the restricted routine restricted maintenance account we are required to fund a 3% contribution from unrestricted dollars to the restricted maintenance account similar to how we have to make a contribution from unrestricted to special ed for what they go over uh we have to provide 3% to routine maintenance

153with our increased expenditures which you're seeing here in unrestricted and on the next slide of increased expenditures in restricted uh we have to increase that RMA contribution due to an increase in total expenditures overall next slide uh so this is uh there we go this slide is the restricted expenditure changes uh so similar to the last slide but this is on our restricted side you're seeing that decreas certificated salaries this is in line with the instructional coaches and Pa moving over to the unrestricted so there's kind of a seesaw here uh classified salaries going up a little bit from Subs extra time and overtime stiens benefits going up uh due to vacancies but also when you time card there are it's not health benefits but there's there's thick statutory benefits that also increase at the

154same time um so you're not seeing as big of an offset that happened on the unrestricted side books and supplies are down 2.6 million this is mostly due to carryover in uh Community Schools RMA restricted routine maintenance uh sip hiip Title One sped and elop those carryover funds from the prior year get budgeted into the fours or the the books and supplies materials and supplies which is then given to the sites to decide how they want to spend it sometimes they make a plan that chooses to spend it in contracts or services or in positions or salary and that money will get budgeted out of the books and supplies and moved to another one of these major objects which you're seeing a decrease in fours or books and supplies and then an increase in the

155nextline services and other operating expenditures by 5.7 million uh this is due to adjustments to contracts to the same programs elop sped RMA uh sites restricted Lottery sip hiip Community Schools so a lot of that is Shifting between books and supplies and over Services if their site plans uh have chosen to go that route uh going down we've got a science table that was purchased M and site purchases have increased our Capital outlay these are purchases that are over $55,000 for a single item uh decrease to indirect cost due to the above changes uh this was also noted on the unrestricted side and then the increase to RMA contribution is seen as a negative on here as additional Revenue so coming from unrestricted and moving to restricted you're seeing an increase on the unrestricted and

156and the exact same decrease mirrored on the restricted side so those are the major changes uh from first interim to Second interim for our expenditures I'll pass it back to David thank you sir so uh next slide please so in terms of the consideration for multi-year projections uh headlining perhaps any Urban School District at this point in time is a decline in enrollment and the variability of ADA uh just as a sidebar while we have as a district uh seen our enrollment drop by over 10% in the last I'd say five years uh it is also the case that it remains a focus of Paramount concern if you will uh one it's just trying to understand what's happened the last number of years and what steps the district might take to mitigate for the loss

157of uh enrollment and uh and whether or not we're able to of those students who are enrolled boost their attendance it's also the case that uh there's a little bit of Wonder uh as it pertains to the current climate in which we are operating uh what I'm speaking of in particular is what implications will the uh Trump Administration have upon immigration and will there be a resulting drop uh temporary or permanent uh in our attendance and what effect if any there is on Ada it's not to say that we have made a determination and this is an item that we are flagging for you uh in part because it is such a significant driver for us in terms of our uh Revenue it is also the case that we have as a district made a

158conscious choice to use one-time revenues for ongoing expenses that was a prudent course of action that most every school district in the nation uh did particularly when the onetime source of Revenue was covid relief funds it allowed school districts to shift some expenses those that were eligible uh from a um general fund most typically unrestricted general fund dollars uh to a one the one-time source that was Co relief that allowed districts to buoy or Forstall a draw down on their general fund fund balance and that certainly has occurred here however it is now the case that as those one-time funds which are not limited just to co relief funds but we have a handful of funds notably the learning recovery block grant uh that will be soon expiring the covid relief funds you may recall

159needed to be fully expended by September of 24 the district did meet that Mark and the uh there are a variety of other one-time uh source of revenues that will either no longer be available or we will have drawn them down to zero that then leads uh to how how do we Bridge uh how do we create a smoother Glide path than we otherwise might have the district does operate with a structural deficit that means that in any given year we are expending a larger amount of funds than we are taking in that doesn't mean the budget isn't balanced what we are saying is that we have to utilize our fund balance to create a balanced budget we have to draw on our savings in order to uh submit to you a budget that is

160thought to be where available revenues which is our savings plus current year revenues taken together exceeds the planned current year expenditures but in that nature the revenues that are are reserves take on the same shape if you will of the revenues that are of a one-time nature and that is once they're expended they are no longer available managing through that process will be a challenge it is uh for every uh entity it is for us in our home life if we're using our savings to cover our our daily spending habits something has to give uh that also speaks to um what are some of the items that are in our multi-year plan uh we have been going through the multi-year plan and making sure that what is uh reflected in that plan is is reasonable

161uh we are finding some things that uh perhaps were understated so two of those are called out here and that is the necessary dollars for uh it in particular what is here is for the refresh of devices for both staff and students doesn't necessarily have to happen tomorrow but in a forecast that will extend for three years it is difficult to imagine how that occurs if there are no dollars allocated it is also the case that uh the same is true for our curricular materials updates to mathematics to literacy uh it is my strong recommendation that we need to have a set aside a a plan for how we meet those and the reason for doing so is that these are not small ticket items these are not of the you know 100,000 here 100,000

162there variety they are typically in the millions of dollars and they require a concerted plan uh a concerted effort and a thoughtful plan on how it is it's going to be solved it is also the case that in looking at The District's budget um is my sense that we have under budgeted for the exposure resulting from Ab 218 that is the settlement of cases uh related to sexual abuse and molestation uh we are learning uh daily of additional costs and at this moment in time uh what I would tell you is what is in the document ments in front of you is actually will be revised tomorrow morning we we've had conversation uh with the provider for uh insurance for the district that covered the period of 1986 through 2007 and have learned that the

163likelihood of um settlements of judgments um the amounts needed for the um incurred but not reported claims uh that that is going to require an increase it also will be in a couple of million having said all that what's not on this slide is what's not included and so some of that is the dollars that would be necessary for the sexual abuse and molestation it's also to say that what's in the forecast does not include any amounts um for compensation so as the district is entered into a cycle of negotiation uh the budget has some dollars set aside uh for non what what has uh historically been non-negotiated items so steps and columns are budgeted for the health benefits uh have a set aside of an increase of 5% per year and said in a

164different way if the cost of our health care increases by more than 5% uh that is not reflected in our current budget it's difficult at this point in time to get an accurate much less anyone to offer a guess as to what the cost of benefits will be come calendar year 26 and that is a way to remind people that our benefit year is a January one through June excuse me through Jan January 1 through December 31st cost but what I would offer is at 5% it's aggressive uh and aggressive means it isn't conservative uh if we came into this year 5% would probably be uh Low by about 2% relative to what was um seen as a rate increase in the Bay Area so just flagging that that as you look through that on

165a multi-year basis that's the kind of activities that are not presently reflected in our forecast and um I would suggest that Prudence dictates that as we come forward for the 2526 budget and with that budget when we have to then forecast for a three-year period which will add one additional year 2728 you will see some of these costs reflected if you're looking on a you know last year's budget to this year's budget first interm second interm you're going to see an evolution of numbers my my commitment is that we want to be very transparent about the source of those our underlying uh assumptions um not not uh going to submit to you that they're accurate um irrefutably what we will try to do is ensure that the uh information we convey to you is both

166concurrent and comprehensive right now what you're hearing from me is that I think it is very coherent but I'm not certain it is as comprehensive as uh it might otherwise be next slide please uh so in terms of our planning factors what uh you have undoubtedly picked up is that the state's issues um excuse me I misspoke that the uh when the state renders uh its cost of living adjustment what we refer to as a cola it is a significant driver for our revenues uh a side note Cola is not the same as CPI the Consumer Price Index is a is a number that serves as the anchor or the the the denominator in a sense that's I don't mean it in that pure mathematical sense it is it is the basis for how the

167cola is determined but the state has an obligation to fund the cola at a level that it can afford that may not be equal to the CPI it is rare that it isn't the case but as we look at the state and start to see uh mixed signals um I want to advise you that it is possible that the amount of Revenue we re received that in theory is supposed to keep Pace with uh the loss of personing power to inflation may not be the case uh next slide please the unrestricted um general fund myp uh also here for your consideration uh it is important to note that that Top Line shows you what the revenues are and as you can see uh for yourself those revenues uh are relatively steady and that what's happening

168in those particular lines is that the increase in the cola is offsetting the loss of enrollment and a reduction in the Ada what you'll also note is that in the third line you see the operating deficit this is what I was speaking to earlier a structural deficit in the first year uh shown here 2425 you see that it is at 18.5 next year it is at 17.8 and the year after that 26 20 26 27 is at 7.9 million you'll also note then that there is a beginning fund balance and what that is speaking to is the amount of monies that are available at the start of each of these fiscal years within fund 17 some number of years ago the district sought to set aside a reserve in a uh discret fund and and

169that is fund 17 and you'll see that it it if we stay at the first line there the projected uh beginning balance drops um from from 24 to 19 but what you'll see then is that as those transfers are occurring between the general fund and fund 17 that the transfers result in a uh reduction in the fund 17 Reserve from 11 excuse me a transfer in from fund 17 11.5 20.1 and 6.7 which provides for the general fund a balance sorry this gets complicated of 17.1 19.6 and 18.5 the first implication would be is hey we're doing pretty good the challenge is that the preponderance of those dollars have to be set aside to have to meet a state requirement for a 3% reserve for um uh emergency and so when you take that into

170account what you'll see is in the second line from the bottom when we reduce the projected ending balance and right now I'm in column 2425 the 17.2 um taking out 300 million for excuse me 300,000 for nonspendable we are barely able to meet the requirements imposed by the state on school districts to maintain an emergency reserve of 3% that pattern plays itself out in each of the subsequent years so from the top when we look at 25 526 we have revenues forecast at 356 uh Round Up 9 million against expenditures of 3749 excuse me 7 which creates a deficit of $17.8 million the result is that we are anticipating a transfer in from fund 17 of 20.2 which gives us an ending balance then of 19.56% which is the necessary amount to meet the 3%

171would not be surprised if you have questions and we will come back to this on multiple occasions as we present to you over the months ahead but the point is we're having to draw on our on are set aside Reserve fund 17 in order to meet the minimum requirements imposed by the state on a school district to have a 3% reserve for economic uncertainty next slide in the same context what we wanted to do is just call out how these totals change on the prior slide it was just the UN um what I want to call the unrestricted general fund on this particular slide it is the combined general fund which includ includes the restricted the numbers are essentially not essentially they are the same with the exception of the addition of the restricted uh

172fund balances so you'll see in the bottom half of our um graph here or table uh that their restricted balances a 60.1 million 28.6 and 11.1 those dollars are going down in that amount because these are uh as I alluded to earlier these are both restricted and one-time funding sources so as they are utilized they are not replenished and that uh will be uh also a challenge for us to address but you'll see then that the reserve for economic uncertainty remains unchanged and that the uh total dollar amount available at the end of the year is um zero uh for all intents and purposes next slide please fund 17 is the fund that I was referring to and just to walk you through how these balances work coming into this school year the 2425 school

173year the balance was 37.6 there was a uh contribution uh made from fund 17 to the general fund of 11.5 that left a balance of 27.1 the math doesn't work perfectly because during uh the course of the Year there is interest earnings that we are adding back on the balance that remains uh within the account that is then repeated in the two subsequent fiscal years there's a projected balance a contribution from fund 17 into the general fund and the resulting ending balance can I have you go back one slide please I'm sorry Mr Hart we are at eight minutes can I before the meeting ends may I just check in with the board briefly what would you like to do we have do we have to approve this second arum tonight do you want to

174approve it and the resolution and visit it on Saturday for questions um sure I mean I emailed all my questions uh haven't gotten response but maybe we can all email our questions and and and address it on Saturday okay so do you want to finish up in the second and we'll we'll accept it are there go ahead just clarification so we are moving to approve and then ask questions after if you want to do that it's an exception I'm sorry it's an accept AC PT we accept it we don't approve it okay that that's why I want to claric you I'm sorry I yes so would people like to do that then we can visit it Saturday yes okay so I'll so Saturday morning we're gonna have questions um does anybody want to move it

175or personel move that we accept the second interum is there a second well is there a second on the item I'll go ahead and second it okay we'll go we'll go to the we'll go to the vote stent Tristy esposo yes yes there's confusion in the audience do you want to repeat what's going on I'm sorry what's the what's the question I can't hear on Saturday we have a board retreat yes it's open to the public through zoom and in person thank you thank you thank you for that Smith follows yes and I'm a yes second inter room is accepted okay let's quickly go to the resolution number 2425 d63 transfer funds from fund 17 to pay current year liabilities do you have a brief update on that President reckler I'll just move that we

176accept resolution solution number 2425 d63 okay is there a second on that I'll second it is there any comment public comment no okay we'll start down there with student trust esposa yes yes yes yes yes Smith FS yes and on yes motion passes thank you okay we're up to 1026 does anybody want to end with something to say I just have one thing to say to Mr Mitchell I am not able to recall ever Hearing in public comment about KY OSHA I'll go back and listen but I'm just not able to recall I've ever heard anything about stge Cal oh but I but I will check and with that President reckler we did have some public comment for the budget item did you just want to take the public comment now we have a couple

177minutes um Mark Mitchell and Gabriel Micheletti there are a few things that are not seen in the report that I just want to mention because right now you're only seeing comparisons between the first and second earn room which makes some of these numbers far less shocking at the same time as Educators and students facing staff are facing cuts to save $7 million the professional and Consulting Services budget has increased by nearly 29 million since the initial budget and the budget for sub agreements for service increased 10 million from the initial budget the budget for certificated staff salaries increased by 8 million similar to inflation we have seen in past years which did not bear out in the UN audited actuals this number seems insincere as there's been no concomitant increase to the stirs budget another

178number to note that is is that spending for conferences in travel has doubled an increase of 655,000 while this number is not huge in the context of the entire budget it is troubling when the district is cutting a counselor to save 145,000 and that overspending could fund four and a half Educators for an entire year according to Ed data wccusd spends only 94% of the average amount that unified school districts in California spend on certificated salaries this may not sound significant but add up this is a difference of approximately $10 million on the other hand wcra is there any more public comment no none okay yes so with that there is I'd like to make one one minute on what we just talked about can you start the clock at one minute please thank you

179president reckler so I spoke previously I'm sorry hold hold for just one second the clock isn't started because they're busy let me start my clock please sorry president rler just to clarify they didn't start the clock because he did not submit it yeah I know that's fine but we have we we should if we can so we can okay go ahead thank you I made the comment earlier that there's a messed messy system at my school and probably many schools for accounting for time cards and overages in sub subbing for teachers I'm also owed overtime for having 37 students in one one of my classes that nobody told me about so if the district is not tracking this carefully it's not surprising that there's overages and unexpected expenses on the chart in the one case

180of specific example of changing the schedule at ELO high school that's to change there's so many expenses you're not accounting for you're just reacting to everything Portables that might need to be installed because the class sizes there's so many changes that building was was built with the box to in mind so I just don't trust that you're really accounting for the stuff if you don't track what's going on at the school sites I'm really concerned about that thank you very much thank you for your comment next regularly scheduled meeting of the board is April 16th 2025 here at Leana dejan Middle School we do intend to have a board retreat this Saturday March 29th and the agenda uh it's a special meeting so the agenda will post within the next couple of days thank you

181I'm adjourning at 10:30