Board of Education Meeting | May 15, 2024

001good afternoon everyone I would like to welcome you to our board meeting tonight to access translation please click on the glob icon on the screen below or at thean you can go to the back of the room to get the materials we are heading into our close session for tonight before we do we're here to listen to any public comment there may be about our close session items the public gets two minutes for public comment per speaker the close session items that we will be discussing are Public Employee appointment conference with legal council anticipated litigation conference with legal council existing litigation liability claims public employee performance evaluation conference with Li negotiators and that's it Miss cordinate H do we have any public comment there is no public comment thank you so much we will be

002back for our Open session meeting at 6:30 p.m. can you hear me someone raise their hand if they can hear me nope no okay okay can you hear me now Mr Grant can you hear me in the public nope louder okay how about now how about now a little better a little louder please okay how about now louder okay how about now louder let's just go up a few more okay how about now okay can you hear me now is that better okay thank you so much good evening everyone my name is Demetrio Gonzalez Hoy I'm the clerk of the Board of Education president Smith fol asked me to chair tonight's meeting so I thank you in advance for your patience as I have not run a meeting in a while I would like to

003welcome all of you to our board meeting to access translation please click on the global icon on the screen below or at the you can go to the back of the room to get the materials we are now returning from our close session after our opening procedures the public will have an opportunity to make public comment we have opportunities on non-agenda items in person through the Zoom app and by telephone at the beginning of the meeting public comment will last one 1 hour the time allotted for each speaker is 2 minutes if you are attending the meeting in person you will need to submit a request to address the board form to indicate your desire to speak on an agenda item after it's been turned into staff they are placed in order of when they

004are turned in we also call on speakers one at a time and Alternate between public comment at dejon and on Zoom if participants via Zoom if participating via Zoom you will need to raise Your Hand by clicking on the appropriate icon on the Zoom app or by pressing star9 if accessing the meeting by phone no yielding of time or substitution of speakers is permitted the public will also have an opportunity to make public comment on agenda items after staff presentations for each discussion and action item the public will have 10 minutes per item and one minute per speaker due to the brown act board members cannot discuss items that are not on the agenda and do not usually respond to items presented in public comments now we're going to move to our opening procedures first

005we have a pledge of allegiance everybody who's willing and able please rise ready begin 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 thank you Dr HSE now we're going to move to our land acknowledgement we recognize that we are presently on the lands of the chuchen muar and alonei peoples and acknowledge them as the first inhabitants of the land we currently occupy for our liver and body acknowledgement we're going to uh ask president Smith F if she could read that thank you thank you good evening everyone I knowled that the burden of environmental exploitation and systemic Injustice falls upon the labor of black and brown bodies and the building of the of

006this country and its institutions I remember that black and brown people were born and died working this land against their will for Generations also acknowledge the continued contribution of Labor of survivors over the centuries to today of all immigrant labor including voluntary involuntary traffic force and undocumented peoples in the building of what we refer to as United States thank you president Smith fs and now we're gonna move to our uh West Contra Costa UniFi School District board anti-racism statement president smithf would you mind me reading it as well thank you so very much the West contracosta School District Board of Education is committed to the work of anti-racism the conscious and active effort to identify Challenge and correct racial inequities in the systems and institutions within our schools and communities racism implicit or explicit or

007implicit stands in the direct conflict to the fundamental principles of wccusd education to carry wccusd education into the future we recognize that we must continually renew and reflect upon the roots of racism and develop new ideas to meet the times unjust ideas and policies and the racial inequity they produce have shaped us our schools and our society we strive to uncover unconscious biases and practice anti-racism as individuals and as board members we challenge ourselves to persist through the discomfort necessary for growth and learning to deepen our listening and our examination of racism and oppression and to develop a strong understanding of how our personal experiences and feelings fit into the larger picture of continual oppression each member of our school board individually and collectively is responsible for creating and nurturing an anti-racist learning environment where

008each student staff member and community partner is respected and valued member of wccusd community we are uniquely positioned and it is our responsibility to identify and dismantle racist ideas and inequity 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 by 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 the westc cost Unified School District staff students and Community to living the standards of anti-racism in our schools thank you president Smith folds Dr Hurst can you please do a raw call absolutely president Smith folds good evening everyone present CL Gonzalez Hoy good evening present trusty reckler good evening I'm present trusty

009Phillips is not here at this time trusty Christian good evening pres trusty Abdu gapar off good evening president trusty palar good evening president thank you very much sir thank you superintendent Dr HSE um okay now we're gonna move to one of the reasons why most of you are here which is our wonderful recognitions of our students uh we have uh four different recognitions uh so I'm going to pass it to Dr H who's going to introduce uh who we're recognizing today thank you thank you so much sir we have a number of people that's being recognized today we first have our Steelers program and I'm going to ask uh trusty Christian to introduce the person that's going to be recognizing our Steelers they can come up to the podium and for the board we're going

010to ask if we can go down we want to shake their hands as they're receiving their certificates is that okay so we're going to move down as the Steelers come up there'll also be a photo opportunity for the board and the Steelers and each group good evening everyone just want to say uh first off we are the 9 Richmond Steelers um yes League champions Regional Champions national champions and we did that all for rich man also I wanted to say thank you for inviting us honoring us today um we know we was honored by the city of Richmond um about six weeks ago so to be here is another um honor to be here we appreciate that thank you again um throughout the season we did go through some um triumphs we had situations and

011we still prevailed all right um we got student athletes over there we had about 15 students who were football players that had um Scholastic honors throughout the season we did honor them within our um organization just want to say thank you and get them a hand first for all what they did we get yourself a hand over there back here don't be shy get yourself a hand Richmond um still has been around 50 plus years um we've had cheerleaders some that's over there with the ELO Goos right now can I have a hand on how many ELO Goos was Richmond Steelers that's that's it raise your hand don't be shy all right with that being said we just thank you again and we just want to honor our kids as y honoring us and we

012can start off I'm gonna start off with Patrick Burton this kid right here I'm G say about this kid right here Patrick Burton he had our winning touchdown International Championship it wasn't for him we wouldn't be here right now probably all right next we got Dyson Davis that's our qb1 Dyson Davis come on up kid this right here he was the 10U best quarterback in our league he was number one quarterback at the 10 you level Dyson Davis Damon Dixon come on up F we calling fat dad but he enjoyed to be around made a lot of good plays this season appreciate you fat dad right amazzi Parnell we call him Mazy this little kid right here he played a big part in our defense but the little he was the littlest on the line

013thank you Mazy Alonzo poy come on up zo this is our starting running back p on the ground hard outside linebacker go get him kid Reno I don't think Reno's here Reno got Jaylen Thompson come on up receive it all right next we got Damen West all right all right um we got a lot more players but they did not show up probably still at practice or I chose to go somewhere else um but we definitely appreciate this it is an honor to be here and we appreciate Rich we appreciate the school board um but I do want to say one thing we are having a fundraiser this Sunday right here down the street um from one to five if everybody come out and support the Richmond football Youth and cheer we appreciate that come

014get a plate $25 for a combo plate we got ribs links chicken come on support if you don't can't come on support just donate help us with the fundraiser thank you e e and next we're going to have Mr John Uki come up and we're going to recognize those that participated in the science fair good evening board staff Community um students everybody uh it's really exciting to be here for this event um if you um recall our district science fair happened in February and we get students from all over the district from many many schools and then at that fair some students win first and second and third place and those students move on to the regional Bay Area Fair the Golden Gate stem fair and then even at that fair some of the students

015even go on to the state level so we have some of those students here tonight as well tonight we want to recognize um students who placed in first second and third place at the regional the Bay Area Golden Gate stem fair so we have certificates for them and uh and we'd love a photo um these students like didn't do this for a grade didn't do it for extra credit did it because they love science they love the competition they love what they're doing and and that's that's an exciting thing you know when we're doing things not because we have to but because it's a passion and and that's what we want to instill in our students is to follow their passions so really fun that they're they're doing that today so about half of these

016folks I have 12 students um so I'll call your name and when you uh hear your name would you come up and um and we'll take a photo right up there um Charles Frey from marra Vista shria seia from karatu uh Genevie sui from pin middle Edith Roso par from penol middle let's PR like I have it and I'll you um Siri Zara parvar from dianza Samuel schmidtz from deanza Jude galian from Hercules high William Hobbs from Hercules high n ya Fletcher from Hercules high Christopher Chang from Hercules high Samuel Kim from Hercules high Matthew Sante from Hercules high okay so these folks finished either uh first or second or third place in the Bay Area Golden Gate stem fair um shria received the thermofisher nomination which means she has the chance to go on

017to compete at the national level actually and then Christopher and Samuel and Matthew um all answered in the State Fair as well the California State Fair so really exceptional um I want to say congratulations to each one of you thank you for your persistence thank you for representing our district so well um with like passion and creativity and and um Innovation and and in all of those ways we just want to uh appreciate you and congratulate you tonight and I think if there are any teachers um can you come on up as well um for the photo Mr a come on up from Peno middle speeech my there can we give them another round of applause please thank you we also want to take the opportunity to recognize administrator from ELO High School Jacob Gran

018thank you for being here Mr Gran and thank you sir and also we have two groups from El Sero that we want to recognize we're going to bring up Goldie Williams head coach to recognize the team for outstanding contributions for cheer first of all we just want to say thank you so much for this honor and this opportunity to come here so first of all we want to say thank you to all of our school board members for inviting us we appreciate it we also want to say thank you to Dr Hurst who has been our champion and also invited us so thank you all very much for what you're doing um just so that we can get things addressed I used to be a coach for the Richmond Steelers so just so that you

019know just like the Richmond Steelers EC we put on for our city so let's start with that and as people may or may not know but I just want to make it clear that they not like us so that being said um our motto at elero high school is that we are student athletes and that's what we teach our athletes our athletes not only continue on to universities all over over the country we have over a 90% percent an over 90% of our cheerleaders go to for universities some go to twoyear universities one has injured the military but every single one in our program has gone on to do something phenomenal not only do they go to these schools throughout the United States well actually one is also in another country but they graduate and

020that's what we push we tell them that we don't care about them going to college what we care about is that they graduate from college all of them go on and they do great things in their communities so why are we here tonight we're here because we took our girls we took 10 of our cheerleaders to a regional cheer competition and they actually won first place in Hip Hop so then we had the audacity to decide that we were G to take these same young ladies and take them to Las Vegas to a national stage national competition and mind you it's never been done before at Elso High School I don't know if it's it's been done in the district it was the first time we went to a national stage and we got there

021and they won third place these 10 Young these 10 young ladies that we took worked very hard they worked throughout the process and we want to celebrate them as well as we want to celebrate our coaches and yeah so I'm gonna read their names off as they come up two of the young ladies are not able to be here but I'm still going to say their names as I read your name please come and get your certificate place it on your chair and then stand up and get prepared to perform Mariana berens Bailey Marshall Ariana trer Dallas Turner siai Van Hook chassis Walker Erica Walker Jakari Warden and zaniah Warfield as well as Ashlin Hollands I also want to take the time out to recognize our coaches if you're here come up and get your

022certificate Aiza Thomas Brandy Marshall Courtney Garner Nikia Moore Tanya Warden and tiara West and to all the coaches in the building I just want to say thank you for doing what you do when you're a coach there's not a lot of thanks sometimes and there's no money that comes with it because if they do give you some you put it right back into your program so to all the coaches in the building everybody please give them a shout out and give it up to all the coaches in the building and while the ladies get set up I just want to take a moment while they're preparing to just to give a shout out to ECS football team our football team has been the division 2 NCS champ and won second place in the 2-a region

023they have gone to the playoffs in the last nine years and eight years they are the league Champs they've had a minimum of 15 kids go to college and three kids go to the NFL and they did a phenomenal job this year so give it up for our boys Richard oh e e e thank you very much and now we would like to introduce Mr Keith Johnson our band director and he's going to be coming up and recognizing the students and then also we're going to have a performance from from the band as well Jazz Ensemble thank you so much Mr Kei Johnson me good evening everyone uh my name is Keith Johnson I'm the band director at elrio high school and just want to say thanks for uh to the school board for the

024opportunity to recognize are Jazz Ensemble from elrio high school they've had quite a year uh this year they've attended Four competitions and they placed first in all the competitions they attended um and most recently they won the California state Jazz Championship so we got state champions over here in the in the band however uh tonight they're being recognized for uh their acceptance to perform at the Midwest clinic in Chicago this December um the Midwest Clinic is a uh conference that brings together music educators musicians um and uh in a weekend of of of performances and also for some professional development there's about 18,000 attendees that attend this and just uh it's sort of hard to describe because it's not a competition but we did have to audition for it we were one of only three

025High School bands selected from across the country and so uh they'll be performing there and uh sharing their talents with uh the audiences in Chicago this December so thank you to the board for the opportunity here and uh for the recognition to perform so I'm going to call up the students alphabetically here so if you guys want to come up you can leave your instruments on your seats we'll come up and then you guys can shake the school board members hands and we go from there all right so first uh guitarist Willow Bal bound sorry uh trumpet player Matteo Dio from Bonus Benji daa Al saxophone is Sean fivian just so we keep the line moving here then our basist guy Gibson tener saxophonist Javier Gutierrez tronis Amilia Harrington also on trombone Lucy Lebec on

026baritone Sachs Kenji Malala on trumpet Brena Moore on trumbone Arvid Pell on tener sacks Julian Rosenthal our drummer Isaac satzman on trumpet Sam Schweitzer followed also on trumpet Lyndon Stacy on piano Evan Steiner on alto Sachs Nigel Weiss and while they come up here I just I told them this morning and yesterday also how proud I am of of them it's been a banner year for the program and for them in particular you'll get to hear them here in a little bit but uh man really it's been an awesome year guys so thank you so much for everything so let's get uh I guess our photo in and then we'll play for you guys a little bit e e e yeah I'll pull it back a little bit is it on already [Music] yeah one

027one be let me ask everyone this piece of is don't overplay the room you guys ready oh yeah [Music] C now [Music] spe [Music] I [Music] me for [Music] you [Music] for e [Music] spe right thank you we do we Evan Seiner on the piano I just been informed he got a scholarship for piano for Northwestern University let's give it up for this thank you so much students thank you so much Mr Johnson we appreciate you thank you thank you Goldie take care e thank you so much everybody who joined us and congratulations to all of our students and staff uh for uh everything they're doing we're now going to move to public comment we have a lot of public comment tonight so we're gonna go oh I'm sorry see I already messed up we're

028now going to report out from close session Dr H do we have anything to report out from our close session absolutely the board voted to approve the appointment of Todd Irving as principal of Peno Valley High School the roll call vote was as follows trusty christien yes clerk Gonzalez Hoy yes trusty reckler abstain president Smith FS yes trusty Phillips absent the board voted to approve the appointment of Laura Webb as principal of montalvin Elementary School the roll call vote was as follows trusty Christian yes Gonzalez fory yes trusty reckler yes president Smith FS yes trusty Phillips absent item a 2.4 the board voted to reject claim number 637 825 the roll call vote was as follows trusty Christian yes clerk Gonzalez Hoy yes trusty reckler yes president Smith FS yes and trusty Phillips absent that

029concludes my report thank you so much Dr Hurst now we're going to move to public comment thank you everybody for your patience um do we have any public comment tonight please get a started thank you yes we do our first public comment is Andrea salala okay the red button yeah okay um hi good good evening um District staff my name is Andrea sa um and good evening staff my name is Tri and um uh today we came here representing our respective clubs the LSU and the BSU to discuss a matter of importance in regards to the current state of the high school clubs in the district as you know the ability to host any future fundraisers was cut for as far as we know four weeks ago causing uh many problems unanimously for all the

030clubs across the district because of this change clubs had to figure out and cut drastic coiners to fund our last events as well as even cut them out all together as a response to your decisions made in regards of The Cutting of any future fundraisers requested by any clubs by the rest of the school year we'd like to ask for you would give us new opportunities to raise money through fundraisers before the school year ends to help our graduations as well as our next upcoming board another issue we have is the time it takes to to have a fundraiser Andor field trip request to be approved the system currently being used is blatantly inefficient before a field trip or fundraiser can be approved it must go through the hands of several people while only one

031person is required from the district to approve the fundraiser please keep in mind that said person is a second is a secondary executive director in the district we do not understand what a secondary director or secondary executive director with the workload they already um they were already given has to do with the approval of fundraisers this point does not even spread light to the fact that these request forms have to go through um a largely unnecessary amount of hands my proposition is to create a system where clubs can request directly to another employee working in the district or even a volunteer working in the district to have these field trips and fundraisers approved having to rely on other people outside of your understanding um your cause to host field trips and fundraisers drastically lowers the

032chance of fundraisers making it Su its correct destination just thank you so much our next public comment is Kenya cantes please unmute yourself hi can you hear me yes my name is Kenya Cervantes I'm here to once again Ask the board to reconsider the three Vista Virtual Academy teacher cuts that they are attempting or going to make for next school year um at the last meeting you heard my child speak as they just found out that two of their teachers were being cut and I think that if you're not going to listen to anybody else you should listen to the children the kids are speaking and their voices matter and every child deserves qualified certified gr expert teachers teaching them uh the Vista Virtual Academy has been a lifesaver is a lifesaver to a lot

033of families and students who cannot for whatever reason make it in your brick and mortar schools um you have to think about our neurod Divergent kiddos bullied kids and everyone else who Thrive at the Academy thank you our next public communist Erica crus Savala la for [Music] I'm going to translate the message that she just gave to you I'm going to translate it in English if it's okay with you she congratulated all the members and all the students that did a great job performing today in our daily lives we make decisions however when those decisions are not good and they involve the community and families and above all young students this can affect their education then we have a big problem unfortunately the most affected are the most vulnerable African-American Hispanics English Learners the international

034academy the scouts teachers we will be the ones asking for what others have we ask you to look at the data before take taking any decisions look at ucational plans and the guidelines that are required by law we should be increasing and improving the DLI programs and not decreasing them but reinforcing them I understand that you may not have a lot to right now but I believe that we should think and balance the where how and when we should act according L My People needs you my children need you remember that you are public servants and this community is full of people that love their Community all I want is a quality education for the wellness of my children and the well-being of Education thank you our next public comment is Nissa grer please unmute

035yourself please unmute yourself okay thank you your hand is rced on theum so oh I I'm sorry yeah sorry that's probably an accident sorry should I wait until I get called here no it's okay come forward but if there's anyone in the audience that um would like to speak that has their hands raised on Zoom please go and fill up a form uh the entrance of the building to make sure that we have that on record but please go ahead thank you great um hi board um nice to see you all again I'm here once again to talk about Fairmont Elementary um as you all know by now we have been notified that we are losing our Title One status for this year or for the next year sorry for 2024 2025 um and uh

036our school is the second largest school in the district we have over 530 kids um being that we have such a large enrollment there are over 225 recorded students who are free and reduced lunch that number is definitely higher um which means that uh we also have 106 students that are in the special education program we have 159 students who are English learners um and our site budget for 2324 was 129,000 which includes our lcff funds and our uh Title One funds our site budget for 2425 school year will be $46,000 that is a difference of $83,000 in our site budget uh with the reduction of our lcf funds which is a 25% reduction and a 66% reduction altogether with loss of our Title One funds I realize that the Title One funds being removed

037from our school is not a budget cut I realize that I realize there are a lot of other schools who need Title One funds um but it is a budget cut because those dollars directly impact our kids every day like I said we have a very large percentage of students that are free and reduced lunch at our school um we have a large percent percentage of English Learners our numbers have not changed from last year when this money when this this status applied to us our percentage Changed by 0.1 point which is one H like half of a child so that means that our status as a school our children have the same needs please reinstate our funds our our children need this money it goes to the kids every day it's St thank you

038our next public speaker is Casey Benson please unmute yourself can you hear me yes we can good afternoon board members Chief Financial Officer Kim Mo my name is Casey Benson I am ass ass student study studor at Richmond High Schools Internationals Academy last week we found out district one increas the class size for our our newcomer students and they want to take away the collaboration period that is protected for their teachers increasing the class sizes for newcomer students and cutting this protected collaboration period for teachers will have significant negative impacts on both students and Educators The increased class sizes will decrease individualized attention for our newcomer students decreasing the amount of support that could be in place for a smaller group of students it will provide less opportunities for teachers for one-on-one interventions it limits

039the language practice in the rooms The Cutting of the collaboration period will also increase the teachers workload it will lead to teacher burnout and it will decrease students active engagement class for all of these reasons please be consider the expected changes to theou for the international academy at Richmond High School please remember to keep the teachers and the students best in your mind thank you our next public comment is Jeremiah Rome hello board my name is Jeremiah Ramen I work at the Internationals Academy at Helms Middle School known as haa I wanted to share a recent experience from my weekly seminar discussion with my newcomer students we were discussing the Trail of Tears when the conversation suddenly took off middle school students began began discussing issues of land repatriation reparations cultural Annihilation language death powerlessness

040and power they spoke in Spanish K mom and English I was incredibly proud of their conversation and told them this is what we've been working towards for the past two years now they look forward to these discussions every week these same students could be silent disruptive or absent in another class their Rich ideas and connections unheard and unexplored this result is Possible only because of years of hard work and daily collaboration with my higher colleagues and the attention small class sizes allow last Thursday we were informed of planned cuts to newcomer education these Cuts would directly and dramatically curtail our ability to provide effective instruction for our newcomers I wish you could have visited my class to see what is happen and understand why we need to keep our small class sizes and collaborative time

041intact I have brought testimonies from students who couldn't come tonight if I may leave them with you thank you thank you you can give him to yes thank you our next public comment is Amanda Foster please unmute yourself good evening on behalf of Faith mic Vista virtual teacher to whom it may concern Vista is a wonderful program where students and families of all walks of life can come and receive specialized help and attention from qualified teachers as supervising teachers our role is to partner with the families to ensure the best education for our Learners it takes committed families students and parents and qualified teachers for the success of our program if you take away our teachers you only have one half of that equation you need both parts of the equation to be successful even

042further taking away our teachers and placing them with Educators who are less qualified for their positions is not only a waste of resources but a waste of talent these three teachers have talent not everyone has the beautiful gifts of expertise experience and passion that they each bring to their jobs on a daily basis to cut them and fill their positions with other teachers would still allow things to keep running but it would not be able to replace the talent and passions that are necessary to do the jobs they've been appointed to do as a district why are you trying so hard to tear down something that is blessing our students and families money is money aren't our students worth having the absolute best possible teachers respectfully please consider how taking away qualified and skilled teachers

043in their subject areas and replacing them with other teachers without the necessary experience credentialing qualifications would be damaging to the beautiful program that we have built where your students are thriving and now on behalf of Josette fiser parent as a mother of two students currently attending Vista Virtual Academy I would like to ask you to please consider any further cuts at our school my youngest has been a student at Vista since Miss McCormack launched the new school two and a half years ago prior to Vista I have looked for an independent study program for years but unfortunately none of them were a good match for my family Vista has not only met but continues to exceed all of our expectations for an educational program Miss McCormack along with our supervising teachers are and have always

044been attentive and available my children are excelling in this program where learning is tailored especially for them removing qualified teachers will have a huge impact our students educations needs and disabilities all schools Thrive when we have caring qualified teachers thank you our next public speaker is Paul scalin good evening everyone my name is Paul scalin I teach science for richmon high Internationals Academy I am one of the founding teachers and once again I stand here and I have the necessity to advocate for our eeld student population because you continue to disregard the value of the Internationals program before Internationals your e students sat and notice in classroom wasting precious learning time I was an ELD student and I spent four years of high school like a phantom trapped within the walls of your useless classrooms

045which were incapable of serving the needs of eeld students then I graduated with minimum English language acquisition you finally have an effective program for El students with well- trained teachers and you want to dispose of the program like trash regardless of reclassification numbers elpac data shows tremendous language growth in most students more importantly no data shows the amazing student interactions and engagement that takes place in our classrooms you have to see it in person Kim Moses the international teaching model is not capable capable to function without teacher collaboration time and if you increase class size 35 students it will not work where is the equity for eeld students shame on you for putting us in this situation once again thank you our next public comment is Jan kinster please unmute yourself can you hear me

046yes we can good morning or good afternoon or evening board ah I again wanted to advocate for our students and students across the district please do eyesight checks at the beginning of the year in my class of 23 kids I had seven that need glasses and the first um first grade second grade combo there are 11 second graders and four of them need glasses unfortunately a lot of our families are on the state provided um insurance and they're telling us now it takes upwards of four or more months for them to get their appointments and get these glasses and unfortunately with Summer here it's almost impossible for me because I drive 100 miles round trip to Advocate and help them find uh liance club or some organization that might help them pay for um ey

047appointments and to help them get glasses we really really really need our students to have the ey check at the beginning of the year so there's more time if my kids my seven don't get glasses they won't be tested again until at this rate the end of second grade that's a number of years where they can't see properly and all of them have distance at seeing the board I did get that fancy prometheum board and it's amazing but it's not as big as the screen that I got through donor choose from the projector so my kids are still struggling to see it please have our vision tested first for the benefit of the children their education and the teachers thank you our next public speaker is Daniel cantes hello U good afternoon District staff my

048name is Danielle cantes I am a teacher at richond high school I teach world history in the Internationals academy uh this is my third year teaching in the district and teaching in the international academy U I've been able to work with some of the most resilient students in the country coming from different parts of Central America South America um Asia U and some of the things that I've learned working in the international academy is that students need a lot of support language support socio emotional support u in order to thrive in this country and succeed um working in the international academy I've been able to learn from my colleagues during our collaboration period um I've even been able to fly to New York and observe the international model across the country U and see how

049a collaborative method and a small class size can support our students um I'm here to talk to you all about uh the mou that was that was released last week um that is threatening to cancel the teacher collaboration period and also increase our class size to 35 students if if we analyze if we analyze classrooms and and you all that I'm sure are educated in in education understand and should know that increasing class sizes uh would be ineffective for our newcomer students and need language support okay so I I appreciate the the land acknowledgement and the anti-racist comments that were stated in the beginning of the meeting but all of that is just for show if we continue to put our students um and give them the low end of the stick we need to

050show up for our International students show up for our newcomers our indigenous students who come to this country um as English as their third language so those comments that that L acknowledgement anti comments at the beginning of the meeting you need to you need to demonstrate that you need to show that not just come up here and and speak but represent our students represent Rich mahigh um and support the international academy thank you our next public speaker is Maisha Harris gash please unmute yourself good evening everyone I want to say thank you Dr Hurst and uh trustee student trustee and Dr Hurst your staff who has supported our campus this week um as you know we lost uh one of our students life was taken and it has been a very very challenging week um

051so thank you for the additional support for staff as well as students um as I've been sharing with my students this week to look out for each other to be my sister or My Brother's Keeper sometimes um your friend or somebody that you know may not be able to speak up but also just be there for them I want to say thank you to our staff who have some of our staff have been feeling safe and vulnerable enough to share their emotions um with their students sometimes students think that we don't have feelings um but students have been able to see this week that we adults we do have feelings we do care um and we do shed tears I want to thank one of my colleagues allowed me to come into his face and

052close the door and be able to just kind of vent and um Let It Go so to speak um also um I told her I was going to say this when um I came to the next board meeting so to my classmate from 1989 class at Kennedy High School Dr Moses um I just want to say congratulations classmate she and I happen to be on the same flight she's going to get hooded for her PhD and I'm going to celebrate my mom earning a master's degree and it happened to be the number of the flight was 1989 I said if that was not Divine and so I just want to congratulate her uh Dr Moses and continued success to you and great things I as I continue to tell my student great people great achievements

053Great accomplishments do come out of your school John F Kennedy High School thank you and everybody have a blessed night our next public speaker is Carol auna hello okay uh hello my name is Carol auna I am the 910 Ela teacher at Richmond High Internationals Academy this is my first year working in wccusd I moved from Monteray specific Ally to get to work in this international program I have taught ELD for four years now at my old school we did not have a beneficial program like this in place instead I had 37 newcomers in one class it was impossible to support the learning needs of that many students with such a wide range of educational capabilities including learning gaps as well as socio emotional needs that result from the experience of migration since working at

054ra HS I feel more capable because I know each of my students I'm able to interact with all of them during class and I have the time to follow up about their needs through dialogue with other Educators since working at rhs I feel like a more effective educator the collaboration with my colleagues has been essential to my development as a newcomer teacher I have worked with my colleagues to align on classroom policies and procedures learning objectives language targets and socio emotional supports I've gone from a model that does not work to working in a model here in our district that does work the decision to increase class size and eliminate District support for collaboration will basically return us to a model that doesn't work I don't understand how this can be seen as supporting students

055on the contrary it's the kind of decision-making that drives teachers out of the profession please Advocate to maintain the structure of our current Internationals Academy system the students and I desperately need your support thank you our next public speaker is Aaron centine please unmute yourself oh never mind um Sarah McIntyre please unmute yourself hello can you hear me yes we can good evening school board and superintendent my name is Sarah McIntyre and I'm a parent of a child at Fairmont Elementary School I'm here tonight to request that Fairmont not be stripped of its title one status for the 2024 2025 school year we are already losing $14,000 of site funds due to a 25% cut to our lcff the additional loss of Title One funds would mean a total budget reduction of over $83,000 that

056is a 66% cut on top of additional layoffs and reduction in services in District in addition to District funds Title One status qualifies Fairmont to receive a range of other resources such as free or discounted field trips programs and grants that means that losing Title One status could have an even bigger impact on Fairmont funding and services Fairmont is poised uh to lose its title and Status despite a recorded percentage of students receiving free reduced lent dropping by only 0.1% which amounts to half a child as the second largest Elementary School in the district Vermont has even more students with low incomes than 14 other schools in the district that will retain their their Title One status while 45.2% of students qualify for free and reduced price meals 30% are English English language Learners and

05720% are in special education programs an unduplicated count of students who qualify for free reduced meals are English learners or are in foster care remains at approximately 60% flip-flopping our Title One status from year to year despite the continuing demonstrated need of our students will have drastic negative impacts on our student achievement and safety we greatly appreciate your consideration of this important request and hope that you will restore the critical tile one funding that our Fairmont children need to throw to grive to grow and Thrive thank you so much our next public speaker is Angel Castillo [Music] Osos for our next public comment is Jen jojon please unmute yourself hello uh thank you board for listening I'm here to advocate for the students and teachers at Fairmont Elementary where my daughter is a kindergartener um

058and it looks like you've heard quite a bit about the fact that we're we are losing 66% of our funding through the title one Cuts as well as our site funding cut I'm requesting that the board restore Title One funding or at the very least create a step down budget over several years so that this abrupt cut does not cruy harm our most vulnerable students and teachers at this very critical point in their lives especially around English language learning um literacy and special ed learning what concerns me most is the fact that teachers will be losing direct resources that help our kids learn to read and sorry my daughter's looking at me right now and learn English for the first time um subscriptions for ED education materials critical for childhood literacy and English language learning

059will be lost um one aspect that's particularly hard on our teachers is this unpredictability of Title One funds being cut there is sort of this frantic um move where people are trying to now fund raise to get access to the resources that they have had for the past couple of years um but now don't and so the our teachers are sort of stuck with their backs against the wall unable to utilize their you know tried andrue really exceptional learning materials that have been helping our children succeed um given the only 0.1% difference in child children qualifying for free and reduced lunch this cut was not anticipated um and so our students and teachers are essentially going to be left with Whiplash um trying to make up for these funding cuts that were unexpected and now

060we have you know three weeks left of school uh our school at the other thing that I'm very concerned about um especially as a therapist is one in five in our kids in our school have special needs and these cuts are going to affect uh intervention counseling and teacher time for those kids thank you so much our next public comment is Stephanie Deo good evening my name is Stephanie Delo I have two years in international academy the academy has helped me learning English and I have better pronunciation in English the academy has helped me to adapt en Richmond High and their rules preparing me to speak English with the other persons to practice reading books we prti Ing and writing and speaking well with my class saying we are helping each other and listening talk

061to listen every careful to people we talk and I will have shocking reaction because there are quite a few students in the same classroom we have chairs and some students that are different levels on English and there was not be able to Lear in the same level thank you so much our next public speaker is Shelly Wharton please unmute yourself good evening superintendent Hurst and board members um I'm here along with many others to express my frustration and sadness at the pending program changes for the Internationals Academy um I'm in my second year of full-time teaching at Richmond High and I student taught in the program program um during grad school and the reason I came to teach in this District was for this program um my voice is breaking because the people who have

062spoken already um have said very true things and I'm just very proud to work alongside them um so we are the pending cuts are um about the raising the class size and taking away our collaboration period both are very essential to the way we run um both in giving students the attention and support that they need um and also giving us the time and space that is paid as it should be to prepare um the lessons that we need to prepare um yeah and I would just like to finish um with the well two things the fact that we heard about this Thursday um we've gten a lot of support in that short amount of time and we're really hoping that you'll hear us out um I want to end with a quick Journal Reflection

063from a student in my second period um she's from Guatemala and she's amazing here we go I think the Internationals Academy is Meaningful to me because it helped me when I came and didn't know English one reason that I think this is because I improve in my English successfully for example in this work as a beginner I improve a lot in my vocabulary words another reason that I knew another reason is that I knew beautiful persons in my life as teachers and as classmates that became friends and people people that are there to support me I'm so grateful for all the support and help the academy gave me since the beginning until now um please let this support remain and support our program thank you our next public speaker is Ugo Enrique HRI and the

064international academic help me in my language practice and my goal world gole thank you for your attention our next public comment is Anna cha Chavez please unmute yourself hi I'm a kindergarten teacher at Highland Elementary School and I'm calling in because I'm quite concerned about the condition of the building I believe that we are dealing with a situation of sick building syndrome there are numerous things going on and students are continuously getting sick um my students were moved from one classroom to another one way down the hall and they are still experiencing breathing problems rashes and bloody noses and um terrible uh respiratory issues so I'm very concerned and I would like to know what the board could do to help us to come investigate this and see exactly what is going on I appreciate

065that they came and did a walk through however students are still getting sick I'm getting sick I'm having chest pains that I did not have when I was out for three weeks at home and so I'm highly concerned um we have multiple staff members now who have uh developed high blood pressure issues and we really really need help with this building so if you guys could please take the time to truly investigate this uh situation and um keep us in contact with what is going you know keep keep us updated as to what you are finding and not finding my parents the parents of my students are worried and this is um something has to be done we really need a rebuild and I just pray that you guys will um take it upon yourselves

066to do the right thing please we need it the community deserves it and we we have faith in you that you will do the right thing by us we appreciate everything you're doing thank you our next public comment is Sarah menix hi um I am a parent of two kids at Fairmont Elementary and a volunteer math club teacher at on Elementary um with the current proposed budget our School site budget will decrease by $83,000 from $125,000 to just $42,000 next year this is partially due to lower lcff funds but primarily due to a loss of Title One status and funds despite having no significant decrease in our student population need of our 531 students 255 are eligible for free and reduced price meals this is more student students than 14 schools in the district who

067will receive tital one funds our students contribute significantly to the funds the federal government distributes to the district but will benefit 0% as proposed with this budget our school cannot even afford our site supervisors next year and the SSC has asked the PTA to try to make up the difference with this loss our teachers cannot afford most of the resources they need to differentiate their curriculum and provide pivotal interventions for our students I'm here to ask that you please reconsider reinstating our Title One status for next year thank you comment is edigar sine please unmute yourself hello can you hear me yes we can thank you uh good evening members of the school board my name's Edgar sarapin and I'm the English teacher for the Internationals program at Helms Middle School our program has been

068effective because of our current pillars including a common collaboration period and small class sizes I strongly believe that the Internationals programs at Helms and Richmond High represent a real commitment to our community which is that we see and support our newcomer population but with the proposed cuts and increased class sizes we are going to lose something special in my class we just finished a podcast project where students research a historical outbreak event and recorded a script that they researched and wrote If you don't know G middle school kids to record and have their voices heard is extremely difficult but they did it and they did in English you could see the pride in their eyes when they heard each other's projects bright spots like these don't come easily so having a common collaboration period in

069small classroom sizes are crucial to our programs I fear projects like these will become too ult to support if we have larger class sizes because of the complex content and linguistic demands our newcomers have to navigate worse I fear that our students will lose a sense of community and belonging if these proposed changes occur please save our Internationals programs thank you our next public comment is Lucas menix good evening board trustees um and District staff thank you for being here tonight my name is Lucas MX I am the chair of the the Fairmont SSC I am also the chair of our DLC caps committee as you've heard multiple times tonight already uh Fairmont is is is facing a massive budget cut from our side budget uh for next year um instead of focusing on the

070title one I would like to focus on the other part which is this the funds that we get from our lcap um if you Dr Moses last night at our DLC caps meeting shared with us that only $3.8 million are allocated for all of our 52 sites for next year this represents about six Dr Moses correct me about 6% of our lcap funds for next year as we know as we've seen through evidence those site dollars are some of the most effective site dollars uh in the cap right now I know at our at our school those go directly to teacher interventions to counseling to site supervisors all which have have a day-to-day effect on our student achievement so my ask tonight is for us to rethink how we're allocating those dollars especially at schools

071like ours which have a large population of of our unduplicated count at 60% to think about how we reallocate those dollars so that we are trying to achieve our goals as a district right our goals are around student achievement so let's make sure that we are really focusing those precious dollars I know it's a lean it's a every year we get leaner and leaner so my my request is to relook at how we're allocating those lcap dollars so that they are continue to be the most effective and have direct uh impact on our student achievement thank you our next public comment is s that please unmute yourself please unmute yourself our next public speaker is rich cver good evening and thank you for this space my name is Rich seber and I was a founding

072member of the Internationals program at Richmond High School six years ago Richmond High School faced an equity issue newcomer students were not meeting graduation requirements nor were they graduating a to G eligible the problem was addressed by adopting the inter International's model which relies on manageable class sizes and teacher collaboration to integrate language development into core classes the model also supports teachers in supporting the socioemotional needs of refugee and immigrant students as well as supporting students with limited or interrupted formal education as the board learned from the Elmo presentation two months ago the data demonstrates this program's success the impact of the program on the culture of the school was so profound that it was expanded to Helms middle school and last year this board directed that it' be expanded to Kennedy High School now

073we learn that in the name of balancing the budget the two key elements of this program are being eliminated as the district is no longer willing to support class-size Caps or the essential collaboration period this decision does not account for data that demonstrates the program's success it does not include the voice of site leaders whose schools have been transformed nor does it include the voice of teachers students or their families our goal yours and mine should be to eliminate the inequalities in education and not to tear down the programs that do just that we ask that you demonstrate your commitment to supporting secondary newcomers by maintaining the Internationals program in full thank you our next public communist cida please unmute yourself hi can you hear me yes we can oh great I'm sorry about that

074uh good evening honorable trustees and Dr HSE my name is s s and I'm I'm a teacher at font school um I would like to urge you to reinstate our school stle one funding for next year you've heard from some of our community members um and they have given you important reasons why our funds should be reinstate reinstated um I would like today actually to take uh um this opportunity to to correct some of the any distorted Optics around our school feon is in Alero and it shares the same zip code AS Harding and Madera but feon is unique in that it borders the cities of Richmond and Alero it is a school that serves both Richmond students as well as elero students the city of elero is relatively wealthy but Fon is far from

075wealthy the neighborhood is located is consist of mostly old the post-war 1940s bangalow homes and multiple units as you have heard we have the largest number of low-income and English Lear students um and it is the only School in Alo that has not been rebuilt right now it houses at least 13 Portables our PTA budget is Tiny compared to the neighboring schools so getting 66% of our budget slashed would devastate our ability to meet even the most basic needs of our school of our students U so recently our PTA um has to spend $118,000 of its already small budget to fund y supervisors the very people who keep our students safe on the yard this is unprecedented and it takes away uh resources that teachers like me need to meet um to help our most

076struggling students so I would like to urge you to please reinstate our funding thank you our next public comment is cesia M Mahia hi my name is s Mia and I have spended my freshman year in the Internationals Academy I came to Richmond three years ago from El Salvador and my knowledge about the language was basic I wasn't able to understand or speak even in a conversational level I only spent one year in the international academy but I was able to acquire all the knowledge that I needed to continue my journey in another Academy and take it to the next level right now I'm taking AP classes owner classes college classes and I starting to prepare to apply to colleges and I reclassify this here this couldn't have been possible without the teachers of the

077Internationals Academy they have been a crucial part in my life they have made me grow as a person and help me to adop to the country uh I can say that they were one of the only adults that generally care and worry about for me and without them the idea of going going to college was nothing more than a dream Just a Dream waiting a whole life to be a shi the emotional support that I receive and I'm still receiving has made my high school years an amazing experience that I wouldn't change for anything and now I can myself in a future where I'm successful and I put into practice the skills that I have learned like empathy and responsibility that are values of the International Academy this was all possible thanks to the support

078that they have gi me the international academy and provided the first year of me being in this country thank you our next public common is Carmen tasas hi my name is car tasas I have been in the Internationals Academy for approximately three years the the academy had helped me with and the academy had helped me by supporting me with my mental diseases I suffered depression and anxiety and without the help of the teachers of the Academy I would not be here today speaking in front of all of you the academy also helped me to improve my English skills when I arrived to Richmond High School I didn't speak English much less WR read but after being three years at the Academy I can say that it was what helped me the most to improve my

079English skills a clear evidence of my Improvement time my OPAC results the first I the first time I did the OPAC I was in nine grade and my result was 14774 which is the first level the second time I took the OPAC exam I was in 10 grade and I got 1510 which is in second level and the last time I took the El it was in 11th grade and I was only 30 points away from Rec classifying so think about whether it's a good idea to eliminate the academy and which and we did eliminate the results the resources and opportunities for those for students who are recently arrived to the country thank you our next public comment is moner Gonzalez before we move to the next public comment um I did want to point

080out we have uh only a couple minutes before the hour of public comment ends so we have two more speakers at two minutes we are going to extend public comment unless uh someone on the board um has an objection but we're going to extend at one minute per speaker so I want to give you all heads up there speaking after the next two speakers you're going to get one minute um because they're still after the next two speakers uh 14 more people so I want to make sure that you get that time so just keep that in mind for your speeches thank you so much you may you may start thank you so much thank you good evening my name is Monera Gonzalez I'm a junior of Richmond High although I'm not part of the

081international zy I have seen the Imp the positive impact that has had on my peers in terms of their education and confidence coming into a new country without School support is incredibly difficult the Internationals Academy has helped out those individuals who have felt out of place find their place in our school and receive assistance throughout and even after high school as a Richmond High student I have seen the impact the international academy has had on students and because of that I ask you guys to all reconsider um to sorry to all reconsider your decision your decision to remove the Internationals Academy thank you our next public comment our next public comment is Matia Cru no okay gracias our next public speaker is hero Nat well hello I'm herard Sanchez and I'm a student in international

082academy at r High School I was arate to this country uh less of two years ago and I study at hel Middle School International Academy in H middle school was really helpfully because now as you can see I can speak like um I know intermediate level of English and then I'm a ninth grader in International Academy at richmo High School and I'm proud to say the next year when I was I don't know when I was um beginner at International Academy in r school was really hard because I don't speak a lot of English now I don't speak really good English but I'm proud to say next year I don't will be more in international academy but at the same time I'm proud to say I was part of international academy thank you our next

083public comment is Derek JY Reyes Derek Reyes good night everybody um my name is Derek re I am from Honduras and I have been in the international academy for 10 months this Academy helping me a lot because thanks to this I learned more English and learn how to write in English which was the most difficult thing for me to do my skill of listening and understanding people's increasing thanks to the teacher who are very attentive to to us they are very good peoples and this Academy has also helped me to ADOT to adapt to American culture science I didn't get us it to this I also meet uh very good people at this Academy who I consider to be other family for me sence I arrived at this Academy I have been much happier because

084of the incredible peoples and teachers that I have meet to this day thank thank you thanks for your attention our next public communist Francisco garet inter moment our next public speaker is Manuel De Jesus Ramirez School inter my next public comment is Melanie Fontes good evening my name is Melanie FES and I want to start off by saying that the only reason I am standing here today is because of the international academy in Richmond High School high school as well as the international academy in in H middle school I have the I even have the nerve to say that the only reason why I'm alive to this day is because of the emotional support I have received I have no idea what this has even open a debate why do we want to take the

085opportunity for from these students why are they being Deni the opportunity to an equal education that other students are receiving they do these teachers in the international academy do not only teach science math history the basic subjects they also help with help people with traumas trust me as an immigrant student it is not easy to go through every obstacle on the way to this country imagine risking your own life to come to this country for opportunity these and I know they're going to cut my audio but I don't care e e our next public speaker is Diego Diego h for our next public comment is Genesis AB real Rodriguez Genesis abil Rodriguez for next public comment is Johanna Isabel Salado for [Music] gracias our next public comment is Eric Banas hi everyone my name is

086is edic and and I have been one year in this Academy and the academy helped me because I learn I'm learning more English and I do very well because of the values that they have in the international Academy for example super community and I think that if you if you put more students it will affect our learning our Lear methods because there will be too many people in a in a single classroom and that will make things more complicated thank you our next public comment is E's Banas okay here we go hi good evening my name is CIS I have been in the Internationals Academy for two years what I have to say is that it's an excellent Academy for New Commerce to this country and even more so when you don't know English personally

087it was help me a lot since it since when I came from my country to to the United States and I didn't know anything about English and I know and now I know a little and I feel ready to be able to sh to change Academy but it's all Ts to the international academy and so I will ask that you please think very carefully if you want to remove it since it is a very good Academy to to be able to learn English and feel more in Comm in community and safe at a school and more with the language so please think about it thank you our next public comment is Destiny Ceno good evening my name is Desy senteno I have been at Internationals Academy for two years like every teenagers who come from

088a far away country I was afraid of of not fitting in with anyone however these teachers at this Academy showed me from the beginning that I could that that I could look to them for help also they always let me know that I could trust who I am and what I could be so thanks thanks to them I have been able to achieve a certain part of who of who I am now on the other hand before I did not have much knowledge of the English language but thanks to this Academy I can now understand it and and start a conversation with any person finally I personally consider myself as a leader thanks to the skills that have helped me develop this Academy in regarding the decision that is being considered if in that case

089the classroom of 35 students were given I will feel overwhelmed because I know I couldn't offer my help to all thank you our next public comment is M Vasquez am our next public comment is Neil catco hello superintendent board and staff my daughter is currently attending second grade at Fairmont Elementary my son will be entering TK there in the fall I'm commenting tonight on Fairmont element's loss of Title One status I urge the superintendent and board to reinstate this status I'd like to make a few points about why there are many that could be said the exception to keep Title One funding last year was the right move to ending to deciding to end the exception after years of Title One funding has helped uh it ends the years of Title One funding that this

090help Fairmont students achieve as a member of fairmont's SSC since 2022 I have witnessed the growth in performance achieved by Fairmont students which is among the highest in The District student performance growth is the most important measure of a school Success and the dedication of fairmont's teachers and effective use of scarce funding has been fundamental to font's achievement loss of Title One funding puts this achievement at risk I again urge the superintendent and the board to reinstate that status thank you our next public comment is aneli Ooa [Music] midle School and our last public comment is Fernando banagas Fernando Vanegas and that concludes public comment thank you so much for everyone who made public comment uh we are now going to move to our agenda review and adoption uh if there are no objections we

091will adopt the agenda say okay so adopted thank you we're now going to move to consent items or are there any consent items people would like to pull trusty reer yes from contracts just a handful Christy white school Services spring board Collective I'm sorry trusty reckler can you hold on one second okay thank you sorry I couldn't hear you go ahead no problem uh from eight contracts just a handful for brief discussion Christy white school Services springboard board Collective tutor works and calculus Round Table sorry trusty Rec is Christy white springboard tutor works and what was the last one uh School Services calculus round table thank you any other items forward okay uh without objection we will will adopt the rest of the consent calendar with the four contracts that truste record so adopted thank

092you everyone um point of order it's five point of order it's five oh thank you sorry about that let's redo that without objection we will approve the rest of the consent calendar with the five items in contracts that trusty reer pull so adopted thank you trusty reer um okay now we're going to move to our superintendent communication uh Dr HSE thank you can we pull up the report please and next slide we wanted to take this opportunity uh Dr Moses you see your picture up there this is uh for you we wanted to just take the opportunity just just to acknowledge um Dr Moses now um she just recently uh graduated I think from North Carolina correct East Carolina University with her doctor degree so we wanted to acknowledge her for earning her doctor degree

093and um welld deserved and we also want to just acknowledge that uh Dr Moses recently and forgive me if I don't get this auth way right Miss Ney Johnson the AXA region 6 CBO administrator of the year so we wanted to give her a round of applause for that as well uh I think the other piece um that I want to share about Dr Moses um she's been in this job for under a year uh she came to me and actually she was recommended by um a good source as well well to me and I sat down with her and she um had a desire to be a CBO in this district and she's committed and I already knew that she was very attention to detail uh but one of the things I will share

094with you is that she understands her responsibilities and she ensures that she's holding everyone in her Department to their responsibilities and holding them accountable for achieving results um she is certainly well on our way to making sure that we are physically solvent and one of the other things I'll share with you is recently we got a a fitmat um analysis back and I was um sharing with Dr Moses that really we should be celebrating because when we look at the the score the health score for this fitmat uh report it was 27% and if you really look at the the indicators from low risk moderate risk and high risk we're moving closer and closer to the low risk category and um I was talking to Dr Moses that we are also on a path for

095a positive certification as well and this is under her leadership and just to remind everyone the last analysis Health analysis report that we um received in 2021 when I first got here it was 37.4 uh perc um so more in the moderate category so we want to just um commend her for her leadership and really I was just uh communicating with our board is just sharing that um you have a very tough job I was listening to to everyone all the public comment and you handle it very well and you're looking out for the benefit of our kids and our district and we just want to share with you we appreciate you and your leadership and we're going to give you some flowers and take a picture thank you for all you do Dr Moses

096next slide next slide I'm sorry um we also want to just acknowledge even though the um ESN spring formal dance has passed we wanted to just share that uh the students had an amazing time and um Mr Guthrie director Flashman is not here but we wanted to just commend him for his leadership putting everything together and those who are uh present um I did get word and I did think I saw a picture of um Miss neie Johnson's son doing a dance as well so we just wanted to just bring that to everyone's attention I heard it was a a great dance so thank you so much director Flashman for all you did you're listening in next slide and then plan plant to Plate student in internship graduation um this is from our High School

097CTE students they celebrated the completion of their seven-month paid internship with plant to plate and also the students got hands-on experience growing organic food in the garden and professional food preparation and catering and through this program students learned a wide range of transferable skills and career support such as money management teamwork public speaking interviewing performance evaluations and more so congratulations to them next slide and I won't read out um all the graduations uh but just letting you know we have our graduation schedule out and uh one of the things we'll share is the upcoming ones one we have May 17th our oasa black graduation 6: pm at dejon and then we'll say also on May the 18th we have the middle college graduation in Pano Valley theater at 10:00 a.m. and we'll leave that and

098we'll continue to have this on future meetings as well next slide we also wanted to continue to just share we have our African-American students of Honor ceremony May the 16th here at dejon also that's from 6:00 pm to 7:30 p.m. next slide and then Thursday May 16th is turn it up after school programs dance showcase and again that's going to be here at thejan 5:00 pm 7 PM for the show correction go ahead Miss Neely Johnson um it will be held at Helms oh at Helms yes thank you so much for the correction everyone is going to be held at Helms not at dijon and then we have reclassification ceremony May the 20th no Valley High School in their quad 5:30 p.m. 7:30 p.m. next slide and of course we want to um just acknowledge

099um all of our veterans our fallen veterans or living soldiers non-combat military personnel and their families who sacrificed for us all to live in our community and in this country who we want to honor them esteem them and thank them as well next [Music] slide and then also we wanted to just share with the community and the board we have our Community Job Fair May 28th from 4: to 6: p.m. we invite all of you to join our community job fair Peno middle school on May 28th next slide and then just wanted to highlight uh what's been happening in the governance committee I won't read off all of the policies um but we have a number of policies that we're looking at we've looked at thus far the governance handbook we have some feedback uh

100from on that as well we've looked at the anti-racism statement the board has approved that we've looked at the anti-racism policy have some feedback on that as well and then we've looked at the policy with uh student trustees pay and high school credits and we still have some work to do on that we just wanted to let you know what we've been doing in the governance committee and our next meeting is June the 3 from 1 to 3M next slide and that concludes the superintendent report thank you thank you so much Dr Hurst uh Bor now we're going to move to questions if there are any for the superintendent report do anybody have any questions uh president s go ahead Dr HSE do you agree that Dr Moses is the best CBO that we've had

101so far absolutely yes I'm complete thank you president Smith since I don't see any more questions we're gonna now move on to our next item and congratulations Dr Moses um we don't have any action items tonight but we do have uh four big discussion items so so first we're going to start with the Strategic plan presentation uh for the Strategic plan uh Dr H and staff are going to present um and then we're going to open it up for public comment thank you so much so I'll beic plan uh we do have staff available um there are a number of action items when you look at the goals and the strategies there's action items all of those action items fall under an area so we do have staff available but I'll be talking about the

102Strategic plan uh process myself I wanted to take the opportunity before I started discussing this uh this has been a journey it's been over three years there's been a lot of people who've participated in this process so I wanted to start off by thanking the executive team sitting here they've been instrumental in every piece of the strategic planning process so thank you so much and then there's been stages uh those who participated in the guiding Coalition the logistics team the planning team as well the strategic planning team specifically want to call out um president Smith fold She's Been instrumental um set in on a lot of those planning sessions Miss neilly Johnson especially this phase two um her and her department has been instrumental and putting together a lot of this as well her and

103her directors and then Tracy Logan especially in phase one when I first got here just leading Rosa Coro and Genesis Munos thanking them from behind the scenes community staff students parents University the officials so many people has participated in this process so I needed to start off by thanking all of them Brave Minds bold leaders Big Dreams that's what we're trying to do for our students uh board we have a a lofty task ahead of us but we are trying to create Brave Minds within our students we are trying to create bold leaders and also encouraging all of our students to have Big Dreams next slide we wanted to just start off with u strategic planning and what is strategic planning as we know there's several definitions out there but a definition that we've landed

104on a strategic plan is a term organizations use to describe a highlevel plan for achieving long long-term goals I just want to pause for a second just to highlight and I'm going to share some examples with to you that what you see that's loaded uploaded to the agenda is a highlevel plan there's a lot of work that still needs to be done and I'm going to explain that throughout um there's a lot of conversations that need to happen with the organization with teachers and with educational Partners but I'm sharing with the board that this is our first step in bringing a high level plan to our board uh next slide and I wanted to just share with you and just spend a moment and just share with you some other examples of strategic plans that

105are out there um and of course we know there's more than a thousand districts in the state of California and I wanted to just select some that's in this area but also in Southern Cal and if we could just open up um maybe San Ramone and if we can just scroll through that what I want you to do is just get a sense of what's common in some strategic plans so here you can see um something in common is the goals and the strategies that they have and just keep strolling through so again they have several goals but then they've taken those goals and they've broken them down into strategies and then let's close that with now let's go to blo City and let's go through that one and just keep rolling through it please

106so here you see they have a vision keep going Mission core values beliefs and then they have pillars versus goals and then close that one out and then let's look at uh maybe Long Beach and let's scroll through that one stop at the first page can go back up a little bit so here you can see they have The Graduate profile adult profile which is different from some of the other ones a Systems profile core values and keep going down they have a theory of action as well and then they go through their objectives so they're calling them objectives and they have several objectives okay let's close that out and for the Publican board those are just for you to look at um I wanted to share with you our strategic plan has those elements

107we don't have pillars but they go into this format so this is what you're going to hear you can hear us talking about the mission the vision core values graduate profile skills profile of a caring adult goals strategies and action one of the things that's a little unique also from feedback that we've received is we've also Incorporated an executive summary we've also included a SWAT analysis which are the strengths our weaknesses our opportunities and threats and then one of the things that's you unique about our plan is we've also uh started incorporating other plans um in our strategic plan and I'll talk about that more in depth next slide so we wanted to share some key terms with you how they're used in our strategic plan a vision of course throughout we've been talking about

108the vision is the what it provides a picture of what we want for our students in the future the mission statement is our why and it really answers the question why we exist our fundamental fundamental reasons for existing our graduate profile you he as well these are the knowledge or what the students need to know the skills what they need to be able to do the dispositions which are the attitudes beliefs and characteristics that we want our students to have that students should have upon graduating from our schools and then we have adult profile which are the skills and dispositions that adults working in West Contra Casta should have in order to facilitate all student growth and success and then our core values is here as well there are beliefs about what is important and

109also our values is belief about how something should be and then let's I said we don't have pillars but we have our goals that defines our priorities and then we have our strategies which are a few so when you look at our strategies you'll see a few of them in each of our goals these are non-negotiables that are getting implemented and it's an approach that we're taking to achieve our goals and then we have our action steps these steps are to operationalize our priority goals and then we have metrics for Success next slide so here um what's different from our process in most strategic plans that I've either been part of in the past or have seen and viewed is that we started off with an equity audit and we have Equity findings as well

110and you can see that we've had Equity audit findings and curriculum instruction in our schools and schedules how we're scheduling our students um lack of professional learning so there was findings there in business and finance around fiscal solcy and position control human resources and ensure that we have structures and systems in place and looking at our highing processes and then authentic communication to all of our educational Partners those are our findings next slide and then this slide is is really important um this slide was done in a course over three years the mission and vision statement was done over the first year and a half the equity statement already existed the core values was over the last portion of this year and we can see our mission statement our revised vision statement our Equity statement

111that was already in place and the core values what I will share and you'll see also in the plan is that all of this was derived not by a small group of people not just by the executive team or administrators it was derived by our community our students our staff our educational partners and you can see our core values here as well that are outlined next slide also um in our statement what we um have as our anti-racist racism statement but what we are proposing is that we take our board statement and use that statement um we had a different statement in there but we want to be consistent with what the board is doing and what the board has approved as well so you'll see us utilizing the board anti-racism statement next slide and

112as I shared The Graduate profile skills are derived from the community students parents and other educational partners and you can see what they share was important uh for our students literate effective communicators self-reliant data driven decision makers effective empathetic Civic leaders next slide and this is not in a lot of the presentations I'm sorry not in a lot of strategic plan um I've not seen the caring adult profile in a lot of strategic plans but we have this in our plans we plan on incorporating this in every fiber of our hiring process as well next slide in the next few slides we'll talk about U just the process um which was unique we had the guiding Coalition we transfer from The Guiding coalition to a strategic planning committee but in both processes you'll see um

113as many people that wanted to be involved were involved we started with students in both uh categories and really use technology um especially in phase two to really address a number of students next slide and this here just gives you a little bit of feedback on the number of people who have been involved in the process um as we all know this is broken up by families of schools the first phase we had more than 1600 responses the second phase was a little more than 1,400 responses but what was really important about the second phase is the number of students that we were able to get feedback from using technology next slide and here's some of the comments that we've heard from stage one uh what students were saying about wanting anti-racist Educators but also

114looking at the system of support um that we're providing for our students and also a portion of where students were saying that they want to own their own unique initiatives and own their own Destinies and their own endg games and careers and passions next slide and then also stage two you could hear what students shared in the student Summit um and what the community shared in the town hall meetings and everything that we have here again this is just to share with you that um a number of educational Partners participated and everything that you see from the Mission Vision core values every statement is from our community and not just a small group Next slide and then we have a theory of action and one of the things I'll share with you is looking at

115the equity audit which is unique from many strategic plans that I've seen we've taken an equity audit and we've made that into our theory of action so it looks familiar when we engage authentically by having honest and necessary conversations and we apply the lessons of those conversations by creating Universal systems and structures which is another one of our Equity audit findings then we'll pay Relentless attention to equity agency achievement and delivering on the promise of public education the next slide and again this was a conversation uh amongst the team once we got all the feedback that led to all of those statements because we had an equity audit that was very specific we used the framework that shared here's our current real reality which was the equity audit findings and how do we get to

116our ideal State and we decided that the goals um should align with the equity audit findings so our first goal is around authentic engagement our second goal since that was a funding as well is around Universal systems and structures our third goal aligned to equity order finding is around Relentless attention to achievement agency and access next slide so what I'll share with you is just how the goals are laid out each goal aligns to what I just shared Al lines to an equity audit finding and from the goal we have a strategy which I shared are um a few non-negotiables that's going to lead us to getting to the goal and then what's not here but what's in the Strategic plan are actions and metrics for success as well and again the actions allows us

117to operationalize uh the strategies that's going to get us to the goals so again the first goal is around authentic engagement and then strategies that will get us there next slide the next number two is around Universal systems and structures in the same process we have a few non-negotiables that are our strategies that allow us to get to the goal and then what's not here are the action steps that allows us to operationalize to get us moving so that we get closer to our goal and then the next slide is goal number three which is Relentless attention to achievement agency and access which again um you have your non-negotiable strategies and then you have your actions and your metrics of success and next slide so I want to talk about this uh this is really

118important uh for the board and for everyone to understand I wanted to start off by sharing uh strategic plans or really high level plans this is the first level of work um the next level of work is really about unpacking so what I mean by that I Shar with you a process that was collaborative had the community involved and we created a mission statement a vision statement graduate profile profile of a caring adult as well and the next level of work is once that's approved is we have to bring all of this back to staff all employees teachers classified educational Partners external partners then we have to unpack all of this so I want to share an example of the next level of work can you open up um that right right there so this

119is an example of the work um that I did in another District once you have the highle plan you have to go back because the conversations need to go deep around the vision that was just created so we just have a vision uh statement we have a mission statement and we have core values graduate profile skills profile of a caring adult we have to break apart so that everybody understands every word of that vision statement so there's this process that we'll use as a learning community where we build consensus on each one of these items for instance in a previous district there was a instructional vision statement we create and cultivate a safe environment of respect and Rapport where instruction is intend intentional engaging challenging and accessible for all students so that was in the

120highle plan the next level of work was okay well let's now sit down with everyone in organization and let's talk about what does it mean when we say safe what does it mean when we say create or cultivate and you build consensus by going through this process of asking these questions to everyone everyone gets to participate in the process so imagine doing that with not just the vision statement but you do it with the mission the core values and you make statements out of that and you build consensus and then also you look at The Graduate profile skills and you really break those apart you look at the core values because one important piece that I keep sharing is these are not core values that I thought of these are core values or vision statement

121that we thought of so we are going to have to break this apart together there are core values um in other statements that we've shared and we have to build a common understanding of those core values and um making sure that there's agreement and consensus so can we go out of that document and go back so this is a big part of the next level work again why I want to reiterate that we are just at the beginning stages uh of presenting a highle plan to the board I know the board may have a number of questions but again this is a high level plan the second step for us is to sit down as a staff and determine the how so again when we're going through the strategic planning process you build consensus around

122here's the mission statement and vision statement core values graduate profile skills profile uh caring adult but the real question is how do we get to that Vision how do we make sure that we're implementing the mission so these are conversations that really belong with staff or we sit down with all of our organization we have these conversations and we develop these plans so one of the things I've shared with you that's unique about our strategic plan is that you'll see that throughout we have embedded other PL plans like our communication plan like our technology plan like our literacy plan as well and our academic plan also all of these are plans that we have to sit down together and make sure that we are that we have elements in there that we're going to get

123to our vision statement and implementing our mission statement as well so I want to just share with you that there's a lot of work to do around the how and then the next step that I see is once we do this work around unpacking once we do the work around the how we get there then we bring these plans back to the Board of Trustees for feedback so that's what I wanted to share with you that you'll see in our strategic plan I'm sure there's a lot of questions and we're here to entertain your questions thank you thank you Dr Hurst Miss Mun do we have any public comment we have no public comment thank you okay board format we're going to ask uh three questions um about the Strategic plan uh then then we're

124going to move into comments we're going to do too many comments then Dr H's actually going to get a chance uh just for this item to uh make comments according to what he hears and then I'm gonna allow the board to do a one minute rebuttle if they want to share something else after hearing each other and or hearing Dr HST response to maybe your own comments since is an important item um who would like to get us started with the three their three questions if there are any okay trusty reckler go ahead thank you thank everybody for your work and uh I have a completely different vision of what a strategic plan should look like so I just want to preface that and say that uh you know I I have something completely different

125or in mind um in terms of the way it's set up but to start with the plan doesn't seem to adequately Express the dire state of education both nationally and in our districts a lot of these things are not things that were caused by the wccusd but education finds itself in a precarious State and it's not clear to me what is being done or what will be written in to address dire threats of declining enrollment attendance rate reported at 88% chronic absentee trusty rler sorry do you have a question we are in question right okay um stagnant literacy math improvements alarming subgroup graduation rates below State average College and Career attainment persistent teacher vacancies declining enrollment and attendance rate resulting in very very serious fiscal challenges what are the strategies that are going to be

126baked in to address these very dire threats thank you for your question truste reckler um we did receive that question as well and we see that all of those falling in the area um of Relentless attention to achievement agency and access in that section or within one of those plans especially um the academic plan um that we have or the instructional Focus plan that we have as well um that will be embedded within the Strategic plan so as you look at goal number three there is uh room for actions where those issues around especially academic performance can fall into that um and then also as you look at the instructional Focus plan which will be um an extensive document that's attached to the Strategic plan plan will answer those questions as well but I think

127as I shared that's still a part of the work for staff to do and that's to how do we get there one of the things I didn't uh highlight is under the uh squat analysis the squad analysis covers everything that you just said uh trusty reckler around all of our our weaknesses and our threats to our system um you mentioned chronic absente them um you mentioned academic achievement as well those will find itself in either goal number three or one of the plans that I shared thank you um students have voiced dissatisfaction with the current academic system particularly a lack of consistent engagement and learning without it seeming meaningful why do I need to know this you know when will when will I ever use this how do you and I had the same questions

128when I was in high school how do you specifically intend to change the educational program teaching and learning so that students are more connected to their outcomes and being involved in their education thank you for that question and I saw you sent that to us as well I think um I've been really clear since I've been here around uh just priorities and those priorities will need to be baked into um I would say the instructional Focus plan so I've been very clear around what happens inside the classroom and we can't can't keep doing the same thing that we have been doing um and get different results I know we've been stagnant for more than a decade so you've heard me talk about um inquiry based learning prek through 12 um on what those opportunities look

129like not just in high school and middle school but in elementary school those conversations have been had with um our CTE director um then Dr huy and also summer Sigler um we're trying to change the way we engage with our students the whole system we're trying to transform the way way that we teach and how our students are learning so one of the pieces that I've been very clear on is around Pathways aligned to Industry sectors and then the other piece is around early literacy as well and those conversations have been had and then there's other pieces that I've been sharing with staff that all of this when we sit down and we look at the instructional F Focus plan those those items will need to be baked inside the instructional Focus plan and then

130finally can you give the board a timeline on just can you give us a timeline yes when I look at unpacking um everything so you see that um we have several elements and sitting down with the entire organiz ation and having these conversations it's going to be um extensive um I will say um I can't give you a timeline without um sitting down and talking with the the team I think I could better uh share with the board maybe after talking with the team and kind of thinking through everything because we would need to really look at every level of the organization and it's not just the vision statement and Mission statement is all those other pieces as well so if you give me the opportunity to meet with the team we can construct a

131timeline a realistic timeline and bring that back to the board and we could have that at the next board meeting okay thank you and then I have some comments when the time is uh for comments thank you thank you um okay uh we're going to go to trusty Christian and then president Smith FS excuse me uh yes thank you um for the Dr HST for the presentation this uh evening and and thank you for the staff who helped and everybody played a part um I just want to uh ask uh you know based on Innovation um uh based on how student entrance when they come to school they not decided so how are we going to spar that excitement um to get them moving from from K to high school so as I was just

132sharing um I believe student engagement is a big piece of that um and I'll just share with you an experience uh that I've had where I've seen students disengage but then transitioning to inquiry based learning where they become fully engaged and um this there's this experience that's called a think a bit lab experience and it's put on by Qualcomm which is similar to like either Apple or Google and what happens is you take students from a regular classroom setting and you teach them how to be in a very short amount of time how to be scientists engineers math mathematicians and you put them in groups of four and you give them breadboards um arduinos um LEDs wiring and you teach them basic coating and you give them this opportunity to have components like a maker

133space where they have different objects and you share with them in your team we want you to collaborate and communicate with one another and you're creating um this electronic device that either blinks or walks or or something just on basic skills that you learn within an hour hour and a half two hours and I have seen students work together and come alive and they are collaborating they're creative um they're communicative with one another that's what I'm talking about transforming our system in the students become naturally engaged in that type of inquiry based process so we're trying to create a system where it's not just middle school and high school that's doing that type of learning it's the entire system you walk into a k a kindergarten classroom and they're coding they're doing basic coding they're

134doing STEM related uh projects as well so it's really about student engagement and how we're engaging with the student which is really why I've been pushing inquiry based learning yeah all right thank you on that one uh appreciate that um the next one will be um let me ask you this would you consider like having like um a mission statement you know for students to kind of recite you know positive reinforcement you know every day you know getting pumped up have you considered that in uh your St well I would say that the students were a big part of the mission statement that was created already but if you're talking about um affirmation statements uh when you start a school day then there's something positive that you're saying that's something that could be done but

135that's really left up to our our site principles that's something that I could do at the district level but really the School site leaders are responsible for aligning themselves with the Strategic plan and coming up with those affirmation statements for our students but it certainly can be done okay and then um as we go into the next school year as we look down the road um how do we seeing ourselves implementing some of this in the fall so that's a big part of the work when we talk about unpacking um and I should should say um a big part of the work going into next year is what elements of the Strategic plan can we um invest in during the summer so we come back ready for the opening of school and we're implementing or

136we're operationalizing or socializing certain components we won't be able to socialize everything but there's certain things that we will be able to implement going into next year so that is our work during the summer and we already have lined up um doing that work and how we're going to implement going into the new school year right I appreciate that thank you yes sir thank you president Smith fots Dr Hurst um the Strategic plan is a living document correct yes it is do you foresee that it comes back to the board in several increments to tell us what you're keeping editing what you are adding to the document um do you foresee that happening several times it actually uh will happen and really it's a collaboration it's by board Direction um we certainly will need to

137come back and share say for instance the work that we're doing with unpacking the vision coming back and share with you what the consensus is so every level we have to come back and share with you just to get feedback they're moving in a direction according to the board so absolutely that's going to happen and my final question is Dr HSE how is this strategic strategic plan being used in every other um department or every other project every other thing that we're doing with the district I know that you're aligning it with the board's anti-racist statement are you also aligning it with our lcap are you also aligning it with can you speak to a couple of those things please yeah absolutely so this is certainly a a big deal for the district it is

138a guiding document um all of our conversations are going to be based around you know once the board gives feedback and approval it's guided around this document so everything is around the Strategic plan every conversation alignment of resources uh when we have our executive cabinet meetings it has to be based around the concepts and ideas in a strategic plan are we moving toward our vision and how do we know and we're measuring that uh one of the things I will say about the lcap process I was excited to see um Miss Neely Johnson lead and others as well leading that process and the alignment between um the strategic plan um and the lcap goals as well so there there's consistency and there's alignment in that so everything is about what's in our strategic plan and

139our lcap this point Thank You president FS um okay we are now going to move to comments um so could please put up a the two- minute clock who would like to get us started with comments is any anyone have comments how about on this side uh trusty reckler why don't we start with you thank you and thank you everybody for your work so far in my opinion looking at the plan right now to me it seems to confuse goals with strategies the goals for any K12 system in California are given to you by the state and it's all in the dashboard it's increasing your student achievement through literacy numeracy English language learning proficiency graduation rate college career Readiness and most districts add you know a graduate profile which is social emotional skills or interpersonal

140schools you know the other skills that you need to function in life everything else is a strategy to achieving those student centered goals why do you have teachers to increase student achievement and why do you have an anti-racist statement that's to you know Advanced student achievement everything is about student achievement so my recommendation is that those goals get moved to the top of the document I mean right now I find them on in in P in the 50s and that should be the top and then everything else under it should support those goals I think that you do need some pillars and I gave you a document that like kind of pulled out some big p pillars of what supports this work Dr Hurst I'm I'm happy to share it with the board um because

141I think it's really important and I think that Los Angeles UniFi school district has a really great plan about the way that they set out their work and they actually have student goals very aggressive but they've actually got stuff there um so those are things that I recommend I also think that the board should have a study session on this and not just be limited to three questions I mean I think we should actually have time to talk about this um um and um I think that's all I have for this round thank you thank you does anyone else have comments president F thank you so much thank you Dr H and thank you to your team for working on the Strategic plan I think because this is a living document I think that we

142have to keep saying that because you are never going to stop getting opinions about this document which is not a bad thing long as you are very clear in your intent which I think you are is to continue to go to the community and say look at where we are look at what we're doing here's our road map and our navigational tool to get us to where we want to be I think that's the point of a strategic plan is to be something of a road map like this is what if we do this then this will occur so I think that your staff did a very good job with that I do want to um suggest that everyone continue to take a deep dive into the Strategic plan and you are always open to

143having questions and your staff is always open to answering questions about the Strategic plan and many other um things that come up so for the community and for the board ask those questions and they will come back to us because you're committed to doing that so I appreciate that from you and your staff when you do not only answering these questions but the other thousands of things that you guys do in the district so we appreciate you taking time to keep the board AB breast about what's happening and what the Strategic plan will look like thank you for your work again I am complete oh no I'm not I want to make sure that when we are talking about the Strategic plan that we are staying grounded and who we want to be so I

144think that that's very important and when we're um looking at it we're looking at who we want to be if we do X Y and Z this will get us to where we want to be I'm complete thank you you pres with fols um so for my comments first of all thank you for bringing this forward thank you to your staff and thank you everybody in the community who's been involved um I actually really like how you guys created the goals and the strategies it actually mirrors the way common core standards are uh which I think will be a good thing because we want to reflect what is being done in the classroom so your strategic plan actually does that which is good I really look forward to the next stage which kind of will

145set the parameters for how we'll achieve those strategies um which is really what I what I you know really look forward to the next piece but this was I think essential for us to kind of frame the route right or or where our heart is or you know specifically what president Smith will share too so um I definitely you know want to see or would love to see in the next stage or in the third stage whatever this Falls like how does this translate to the classroom right when we walk into the classroom how am I going how am I going to look for our goals um just the way that I walk into a classroom and look for common course standards right um so I would love to see just like a a page

146just around this is how this all this translates into our schools right um just so that you know we get that deeper dive and as we visit schools as we you know principles walk into classrooms right they have that in mind uh because otherwise you know we're just putting money and time into a document that ultimately won't get used for the purpose that it should right so I really look forward to those next stages and I understand um this is just the first of many right so and I agree I do I do think it needs the involvement of all of our stakeholders right because it's not just us who should say what a classroom should look like right so thank you so much um okay so now uh Dr H you get a a

147a few minutes to respond uh if you like or share anything that you know was said and then the board will get one minute after that as well to uh to share more thoughts if they hear something different thank you absolutely thank you so much um all of you for your feedback and your comments um I I will just share um the uniqueness about our strategic plan which is why I opened up and I shared examples I've seen many examples of strategic plans I've seen La unified strategic plan as well in their pillars um and when you look at those strategic plans they're different some of them have five pages 11 pages some of them have 60 Pages what's really unique about our plan is we approach this from um our current reality to our

148ideal State point of view so we we're looking at our Equity audit findings what did the findings say that our gaps are in the district so what we felt like as a staff is we could not ignore that and we had to address those findings which why it made sense for us for that to be our goal and we went round and round about this but landed on if these are our gaps then we have to address these gaps now I will say we still have to pay attention to everything else that was said trusty reckler laid out some really good points is contained within our SWAT analysis declining enrollment um lack of real world world preparation facilities there's a number of different things that are in our Squad analysis that have to be addressed

149what I've shared as well is that there's something else unique about our plan that we're sharing with the board is that we have several other plans that's going to be attached to it that provides that detail so when I think about our instructional Focus plan that is a plan that's going to deal with um our literacy and Mathematics and our lack of achievement in those areas and then when I think of um Relentless attention to achievement agency and access I think of some of those other issues as well and systems and structures where those facilities fit in so maybe we have to look at the action steps there so what I'm saying is we believe that we have the right goals because it was co-created with staff it's not just the superintendent goals and it

150made sense for us to start with um the equity audit and make those are goals but we're very clear that what's in the swatter analysis what's been shared it will be captured and we'll be sharing this back with the poor but we believe that this is an excellent plan thank you Dr HSE um okay Bard uh we're gonna get one minute if there's anything else that you would like to add especially after hearing Dr Hurst so if we could put up the clock I'd appreciate it and then uh trusty reckler you can be the first one to start us thank you I just have one other brief thing which is that I absolutely believe that strategies need to have goals if that makes sense strategies absolutely need to have goals but to me all of

151the equity audit work were strategies to improve student achievement which is the goal so I think that I think there just needs to be some reorganization maybe in what's already down on paper but I just want to be clear on that point okay thank you is there anyone else that like to add anything okay thank you so much Dr HSE uh we're going to move to our next item um which is uh project update for Kennedy High School modernization project uh the next two items are what I would consider lengthy so it is 9:41 so I'm going to ask for a motion in order to extend our meeting so that we can listen to the last three items because we do have to uh accept the annual or we have to listen to the annual

152Financial audit uh right Miss Dr Moses is that right which is the item F4 yes okay yes don't worry I got a confirmation from Dr HSE um so I'm gonna motion to extend the meeting until 11:30 which I really hope we don't have to stay till 11:30 but um that should hopefully give us enough time to go through uh let me amend my my my my emotion I move that we still to 1130 um or until we finish discussion items and the consent items pulled by truste Rec Smith V okay let's move actually without objection we'll adopt the change so adopted thank you so much everyone okay uh Mr free I believe that this is your item pass to you thank you yes good evening tonight we're very excited to bring forward the uh updates

153on Richmond High and Kennedy projects uh we have Mrs Mia Hooper with us this evening to help facilitate that and we are have our Architects from H kid Jeff Evans and Jesse Miller from DLR so I'll turn it over to Ellen good evening board superintendent staff and Community uh we are very pleased tonight to be able to come forward with the uh design approach for Kennedy High School uh we have been working uh since last November when you last saw us uh to be able to come forward tonight with these uh different options that we've presented to community and staff and have now moving forward um with a preferred option uh to be able to uh set the standard for where we're going with these designs uh and so tonight uh as Mr Freeze referred

154to we have Jeff Evans with us from a hkit Architects to uh present the progress to date uh and I'd also like to reach out and give a special thanks to the Kennedy families and uh staff who participated in the process thus far thank you LS and thank you Ellen um on behalf of the whole hkat team I'm really happy to be here to share with you what we've been collaborating on with the Kennedy High School Community uh next slide as Ellen mentioned we wanted to check back in on the vision that this Kennedy Community put forth to you in November thank you um and we are one the big message is that we are still in alignment with the vision that the canity community as well as the board uh selected the major parts

155of this Vision included removing the 10000 building along cutting and replacing that with a new building that also included the administration and the health uh as well we we have the new students Center which includes the Performing Arts component as well as the eating component that's located right there on the K and then Renovations of other buildings on the campus as well as a new Fieldhouse component and new fields on the back of the campus so this was the vision from November 2023 fast forward to the slide you see here and you still see that Vision uh we'll just note that the building on cutting is two story and so You' seen your plan there the second story pulled down to the bottom and then those are the general education classrooms that our new admin

156and health there um one comment on the um Student Center as we're calling it you may have previously heard it term the cafetorium uh we feel the term Student Center is more reflective of the nature of the building but also that it also includes a classroom that can be used for the leadership class and so it becomes a real Hub uh for the students during the school day but also for the community in the evenings next slide um so we wanted to spend a little time talking to you about this building uh and sharing what it looks like both for performance as you see on the screen um to orient you on the plan there on the left the yellow box is the kitchen and then we see in the middle um the multifunctional space

157and it's flexible and that's really important uh concerning the resources that we put into spaces to have something that can be used not only for lunch but at other times during the school day and the evenings and weekends and so the picture is not our project but it shows the seats uh telescoping seating extended with nice chairs for you to sit in at the front of the room we have two fixed rows of seating that have an operable partition that can separate those two fix rows of seating from the stage and we have a proper full-size stage that can accommodate a performance instruments or uh drama and so we can also have two things going on in the room at one want we can have the big room or we can close the partitions and

158have a smaller more instument assembly so mentioned the red box is a classroom that can double as a uh backstage space during performance or serve the leadership uh student leadership class and then of course backstage next slide so then the room transforms when we push the bleachers in and we can bring out the tables uh we have space on the left side there uh for tables that open out onto the K and this was a really big part of why this was picked why this Vision was picked and we've been able to stay true to it was to have that connection to bring eating onto the K have the indoor outdoor connection there and then of course we have spaces for the tables to go when the bleaches are out um next slide um so

159we wanted to share as Ellen mentioned uh conceptual design approaches two options that we've been developing with the steering committee as well as the community it's important to that this is a starting point that we're in schematic design and so that we have the the general outline we know where the parts and pieces go we have a sense of how we want things to look but over the course of developing the design and putting together construction documents it's quite possible that certain elements and how they look might get refined a little bit we go forward next slide uh when we met with you in November there was four really important goals and those have continued to guide the project you know things like safe and secure campus are things that we've achieved through both options

160in terms of how we're locating the admin and having control on people that come and go from the campus but the other parts of this I wanted to highlight for you are promoting health and wellness supportive learning environments so what's really important is that we have classrooms and learning spaces that reflect the best current thinking that includes having windows and windows that open um but the other word I wanted to pick up on was inspirational and so not only does Kennedy want and deserve again the best current thinking educational environments but they want something that's aspirational and inspirational something that they can have pride in next slide so with those goals we continue to engage um with the Kennedy High School Community uh we've gone to also the Middle School the feder school uh we've

161done uh tabling during lunchtimes we've met with classes we've met with teachers uh and continue to work on the vision next slide um what you see here is one of the pieces of that engagement and we did what we call a visual preference survey and again knowing that they wanted something inspirational we put for some images and we drew out some important conclusions from again that we put these boards up at lunch for students to put dots on the vote um we had them at the community and steering committee meetings and what we found is that one there was a big entrance in a in a building that was contemporary that was looking forward as opposed to Looking Backward to that the entry and the main entry was the place where they wanted to see

162the identity of the Kennedy School expressed uh and also they wanted windows so if we go to the next slide we developed these two conceptual design approaches and the first one the next slide uh you can see the imagery there uh really develops a bold red caned that picks up on the Kennedy red and that element can be seen from uh both the East and the west and it marks the entry but also welcomes you to Kennedy there are some elements that are in common with this option one and option two and I'll just take a minute to highlight some of those um we know that the the wall of the 1002 200 bilding now it's this twostory blank mass and so it was really important in both of these options to have something that's

163some variety some interest uh some warmth and some welcoming this and we have one and two story components to it uh if we go to the next slide um this is the second option and this is really inspired by the Kennedy High Eagle mascot and if we go to the next slide we see a form that uh Shields and protects that entry and that's in the form of the eagle Wing but also is aspirational inspirational that it sort of Rises up as it meets that corner um we go to the next slide when we engage with the steering committee members as well as the community uh this second option emerged as the preferred option and we shared with you some of the reasons there and I think as we reflect on what we see it

164kind of boils down to that inspirational line that I mentioned from back in November that the keny high school Community really wanted something that was unique to their school a feature of the building that wasn't on a different building but was also really unique and celebrated that uniqueness of Kennedy and hence this option to becomes a preferred option with the Eagles wing and Soaring Eagles next slide okay that's it and that concludes our presentation we are here for any questions thank you Miss Mino do we have any public comment we have no public comment thank you Bor does anyone have questions trusty reckler we'll start with you thank you thank you so much for the presentation I do have a question on costing on these two options with the facade do either of these options

165allow or disallow an auxiliary gym like would you put it be putting money into a expensive facade at the expense of an auxiliary gym both these options are similar in cost okay thank you that's all I have thank you president Smith F when you talk about the um Student Center space that you said and then you said there's a back room to that that's going to be used for like back staging how much detail have you taken into account things like dressing rooms or things like if vaa is there using their instruments that what the instrument is going to the sound how the sound is going to um how the sound is going to be heard in that room like vapa has musicians have certain things that they have in a music room to make

166sure that the sound is the way it's supposed to be if you're doing a dance performance or a theater performance then you have changing rooms for the actors or the dancers how much of that has been taken into account when you're creating this back room that's going to be used for backstage great question thank you um to answer the backstage area is designed as you would a Performing Arts Center or theater uh in that we have a stage and that stage as well as the house are acoustically isolated from the rooms that surround it um but as per the district program we also include the theatrical comp component so if you look at some of those kind of dark blue rooms that are on the bottom right and as I look at it uh we

167have the prop storage and we have the costume storage we have piano storage we have a green room that has the two uh changing rooms we have restrooms um and then to augment or give more flexibility for even more performers we added a CL we move the classroom out of the 10000 and put it on this building uh again thinking student leaders could use it but also there was more space for performers backstage uh and so we do have excuse me we do have all the sort of components that the district would have on a regular uh theater if I can just go inside the house for a second we will also have acoustic treatments inside that um large room that doubles as a eating space as well as a performing art space that will

168give you a quality experience for someone in the audience as well my second question is to piggy back off what you just said that includes stage lights that includes um where they do the music or where they would have music done if they're doing a stage performance like the back part of it okay that's my second question so you said yes I saw your head go up and down yes okay and then um my last question on this um ticket booth you have a place for a ticket booth inside or outside to take tickets for performances stuff like that that's a really good question we are intending to Pivot to the digital future and not have a ticket booth uh we will of course have places in the lobby to display uh but we're not

169having at least not planning to have a ticket booth and instead use use the phones okay thank you for that I'm complete um cler Gale thank you uh thank you so much for your presentation and the Des signs my question is also on the Student Center um I like the flexibility of being able to have a stage and having a dying area uh but could you explain to me uh where are the tables stored and then how would they come in and out of that storage thank you really really good question if we go to that image which is the next slide um we can see this is set up this has tables for 200 and so we can see how many tables there are both in the left corner and in the main room

170uh and then we see a gray Mass that's kind of just up above where the tables are and one of the rooms inside that gray mass is Table stores and so we can fold up these tables and and pivot them into that room the other thing that we've done um again flexibility you know you a cafeteria wants lots of light and windows and so we have this left corner that has garage doors that open and roll up to the quad but on the flip side when you're doing doing performance you don't want lots of light so we're going to have another partition that can close off that space still allowing the exit door but just close off where those uh garage doors are so we have the ability to push some tables into that area

171as well thank you um okay that was my last question so we'll move to comments um if we could put up the two minute please and we'll start with uh trusty reckler see your hand go ahead thank you so both designs look gorgeous um I just want uh to be mindful with with students with everyone that you know they're is the hope that an auxiliary gym gets built and so if it ever comes up do you want this beautiful Eagle Wing or do you want an auxiliary gym that those options are you know put forward um this this the um and then my second is just a comment that um probably can't be answered now but when this presentation came in November there was a motion that we were going to get up um an

172update on stage and that was supposed to come in May and we don't have that tonight along with the other um presentation so I'm just hoping that could come forward quickly thank you thank you are there any other comments president miss post um thank you so much for the presentation I just want us to continue to be mindful about the community that we're serving and make sure that we're giving our 100% which I think that you're doing a good really good job of um friend I'm gonna have to squint to see an eagle Wing so like I didn't get it until you said it but I was like all right cool there's an eagle Wing um I would like a big old Eagle up there but that's just me I'm a very visual person um

173but once you said it I was like all right I got it um so that's just something to think about um also when we're doing the Student Center if we don't want it to be a cafimat orium then we're going to have to make sure that it's not right we're GNA have to make sure that we are clear about it's flexible for a reason and there's an intention behind that to give more with such a small space so that's why we're doing it um when it comes to the chairs and the tables I would just make sure that there like on risers or rolling because nobody's going to be pulling that stuff in and out that's a lot right so you want to make sure that it's done easily as possible and it's um anybody

174can do it I'm complete thank you um for my comments I mean I agree with my colleagues have said they look beautiful and I'm really excited for the future of the school and the students I love the windows I love the colors um and with that said you know I think that if we can squeeze every dollar as much as we can um I think that we need to learn from past experiences right and I think that um you know penol Valley High School it looks very nice but it has really like it really hurts me to think that this might become one of those because that's a money pit that we just have to have to put money and money and money in uh so I want us to hopefully squeeze those dollars as

175much as we can for everything and I think that was my first reaction when I saw the equal Wing it's like to trusty reckler how much is that gonna cost us right and could that actually pay for something else right um so so it looks beautiful right and I love the the vision behind it but could that pay for a you know an additional classroom or whatever right so I I think that those questions will be asked as they should be asked by community and uh I just want us to be really thoughtful about you know every dollar we spend here which I know that you know our staff is being but um and then I also so you know the reason why I asked about the tables and chairs because the same thing that

176pres Smith F talked about which is we're already under staff that's just the reality of our schools if we have to have custodians go in and out move tables and chairs right like it's going to become difficult very very quickly for that space to actually be used for where we're intending it to be used so um the easiest we can make it on staff for that space to be transformed the better for me because um otherwise um you know we're going to pay for it in the long run in staffing issues right so but otherwise apart from that I'm just really excited for the Des sign um thank you board okay now we're gonna move to the next item uh which is Richmond High School um so I'll pass to you Mr Freeze yes uh

177this m Hooper will introduce uh Jesse hello good evening again um we are also equally excited about the Richmond High project um there's a lot of fun features in this um design approach as well uh we had similar process that included staff and Community uh and teachers within the school and I again would like to send out a special thanks to the Richmond um families and community that participated in our process and hopefully continue to choose to show up and uh show out for our um our process because this is still early in the design stage um and so I'm pleased to bring forward Jesse Miller who is from DLR uh who will uh be presenting the design option tonight okay good evening thank you Bor and and trustees um so as as Miss Hooper

178said we're here to present Richmond the last time we were here on November 8th uh we presented two predesign options um one was called The Plaza scheme the other one the prominade scheme uh at that November 8th board meeting what what was decided by the board was to figure out how to combine the benefits of both of the options into one um so that's basically where we uh took the starting point from November 8th to now um if we go to the next slide what you see here is the current layout it takes the uh two um well it takes all of the benefits that we outlined in the previous presentation that we presented to you on nove November 8th and marries the two options together so what you'll notice is the mall space is

179removed with a giant outdoor Courtyard that was part of that Plaza scheme the the new addition is along 23rd Street which is really part of that prominade scheme it removes the necessity the way that we've done this for the interim housing which was a big component of of the board of saving that money um on interim housing cost and so we found a way to essentially marry the The Best of Both Worlds of the two options we presented on November 8th next slide so this is what the overall site plan looks like as again we we've got a combination of new construction and modernization the modernization of the existing buildings as highlighted in red the new construction portions is outlined in blue um what you'll see is we've got a new drop off visitor parking

180along 23rd Street we've got secondary entrances uh and primary entrance to the school site creating a safe and secure campus um we have a separate staff entrance all the way to the south of Campus for that staff parking lot um and then we start to create those Central Courtyards art and music plazas around between the new construction and the existing to really tie the two together next slide so when we started out um way back in May of last year and met with thousands of people throughout the Richmond Community we determined five design priorities through all those combinations uh conversations and workshops those five priorities are listed there they will remain they are the pillars of this design for Richmond because that was what was brought to us by the community since the November 8th

181board meeting um A lot's taken place at Richmond we've had two a two-day workshop on January 23rd 24th with the staff and students continuing to build activities and excitements for this project we went to an all staff meeting on Valentine's Day um we've had two steering Community committee meetings again another community meeting uh just a few weeks ago April 25th so lots of input um and continue to build this uh school for Richmond um and the community we also issued out a districtwide survey um that we had a about aund 138 at this time I think eventually about 160 people took the survey throughout the community and we asked them things about what they'd like to see what would they like the style of architecture to be for Richmond High School what types of materials

182they'd like to see what's the glazing and glass because we know glass is a big item and and how they wanted that to see and so we captured those results um and the results were very telling for us because it was uh pretty unanimous that they wanted a modern looking building um but they wanted varied options of glazing and varied options of material so that's what you'll see in the three options we produced so next so this was massian option one we call it massian option because we're nowhere near finished as Miss Hooper stated we're we're still in the schematic design process so we wanted to get a this is basically kind of a look and feel right um what could this look like what types of materials could be presented so this was massing

183option one it presented three different views we show here uh of what the new additions and what the new Campus of Richmond could look like next masing option two changed some of the materials changed some of the colors um that we presented uh it it um the architectural Styles changed just a little bit with the with the the the roofing outlines um but still reminiscent we wanted there's a few elements you'll see throughout the three options um because they're just very important to the community as we went through a lot of the uh surveys a lot of the meetings a lot of the one-on-one interviews and then mass in option three uh was the final option this one's a little bit more um traditional uh with a modern twist still um but very uh traditional

184style architecture and we wanted to provide three options that were completely kind of different from each other to get adequate Community feedback and so after the community meeting um steering committee meetings um meetings with the district um the preferred option to kind of move forward with from a massing and from a look and feel standpoint was option one um we had a quote on there from one of the community members about option one has the the um sharing uh of the culture representing the name of Richmond High School um so the look and feel the materiality um is really what we're going to explore and continue to explore throughout uh the schematic design phase but that was the preferred option by the community so thank you so much for for your time tonight thank you

185Miss Muno do we have any public comment on this item we have no public comment thank you Bor does anyone have any questions trusty reckler thank you thank you for the presentation are there any um material cost differences between all the options presented uh no it's just the different colors and how you present it the materials are very very similar in price um we haven't gotten into the exact details of everything yet but um when you when you talk about materiality on a wall surface right we have to build the wall regardless right so just we're going to choose cost effective the the goal is really to put as many dollars as we can into the classrooms into the spaces themselves right but still make a very attractive looking building okay thank you I don't

186have anything else pres FS um tell me about the color or lack thereof like it looks very gray and I see a little yellow but I'm looking for the Richmond High School colors which is a vibrant red and blue and white with the Oilers can you talk to me about the color that you chose absolutely uh we actually had different options during some of the community sessions where we did show the school colors of Richmond um to Ste the steering committee and there was mixed reviews on on on whether or not to put the school colors on there so for this option in particular particular we were showing uh a a more lighter um kind of steering away from the school red and blue school colors exactly the red and blue school colors would be

187prominent more on the interior of the building as opposed to the exterior of the building but again we haven't dived fully into colors that's why we presented the three options had so many different colors between them because we wanted to get the community feedback on what they were thinking from a color look and feel type of thank you very much um Clark gonzal will add just have comments I'm complete thank you um okay I don't have any questions so we'll move to comments um could you please put up the two-minute timer and trusty reckler you can get us started great so once again thank you very much for your work and uh option one I mean honestly it looks like a modern art new I mean it's really going to stand out on 23rd Street

188I mean it's going to you're going to be setting like a major standard there um but thank you for your work and if that's what they like I just have to remind you there's no more money that's it there's no more Bond money we can't get a bond we can't there that's it so you know you you got to work with what you got thank you CH Smith folds thank you so much for your hard work and thanks for the present I I'm not trying to get you to make it look like boa ratan or Miami but it does need a little color like we're going to have to like something it looks it looks a little dry FR so if we could add some color that would be lovely um I think it's a

189pretty building like I think the whole thing is pretty but color little little rasimas would be great I'm complete I don't think that's a word friend Ras I'm complete thank you uh so yeah thank you for all the time you spend with our community and the the signs I love the sign option one so I was glad to see that that was a preferred option um I so I really like the concrete look and I think that why I like it is because it reminds me of like a Hispanic architecture which I think is maybe why a lot of the students in this community like that high it's a school with a lot of Latino students right um so I think that's why it resonated with me because they remind me ironically to a university

190in Mexico City that has similar design um so I I love it uh if you don't get that if you don't hear that from my comments uh but I also agree and it goes back to the comment caned High School right I mean like whatever we can spread to make sure the classrooms are nice right can live without the concrete outside beautiful design right as long as you know kids have with everything they need inside um but if we can you know do it with the money we have then that be great thank you so much thank you okay Bard we're going to now move to uh our last item F4 and I believe Miss Moses this is your item yes thank you clerk Gonzalez Hoy good evening board um this evening we're coming before

191you to ask that you receive our annual Financial audit for the 2223 school year we have Michael asash um who's going to be promoted as a panelist uh representing chrisy White and Associates and he's going to present the independent audit report for our district um our District's financial position internal control and federal and state complete clients for the fiscal year ending June 30th 2023 staff is requesting that the audit report be approved and accepted into the record and I'll pass it on to Michael Ash if he's on the call and I I do apologize I called you a Miss mosis Dr mes um so I apologize for that thank you cler Gonzalez Hoy good evening can you hear me okay hi I'm a Michael Ash partner with Chrissy white and I'm here to present the

1922223 um annual audit report um I'm going to share I have a just a quick presentation um to go through see can everybody see that okay yes we can okay all right um so here to present the audit um typically this audit would be due to the state uh December 15th and then presented to the board uh January 31st the district did have to get um an audit extension to April 30th um and so that's why we're here in May instead of in January um and that was just due to some key uh people from the district um leaving uh some of the people that provided a lot of our audit documentation left so it just took a while to uh to get some of the information that we needed to finish the audit um

193but overall I think the audit uh results are very positive um definitely probably some of the best that um I've seen since I've been a partner um on this audit and I just have a few slides to share and then I'll answer any questions that you might have um so the first section this is a the financial audit so this is the audit on the financial statements themselves um it's an unmodified opinion uh that means that in our opinion these financial statements are fairly stated in all material respects so that's the best opinion that you can have um and that's that's exactly what you want um the next report that we have is internal control over financial reporting so this is um every school district audit has to be done under what's called government auditing

194standards and that means that if we come across anything that we deemed to be a material weakness or significant deficiency in internal controls over financial reporting it gets reported as an audit finding uh we did have one significant deficiency related to financial reporting and that was just because we had two audit adjustments um one was the um the L the the learning recovery emergency block grant uh this was a common uh adjustment that we had to make and it's because the CDE put out some guidance after a lot of districts had closed um changing the allocation amounts and so the uh uh there was an adjustment needed to to get the get the financial statements to for the learning the LR Grant to where they should be and then there was just one voided check

195um that wasn't one check that wasn't voided timely um in the uh building fund um it was voided after year end but um it caused expenditures and accounts payable to be too high so for 2023 so there was an audit adjustment there too um Federal compliance and and and I know this was uh the the past regime Dr Mcintyre was really focused on um getting this Federal compliance the time certifications that type of thing in order and we saw some definite improvements here so because the the district spends over $750,000 in a year uh Federal money we have to do what's called a single audit and there are certain programs that we have to test based on their size and certain compliance requirements that we look at so um happy to say unmodified opinion here

196no significant deficiencies and no material weaknesses and then finally uh State compliance so every year there's a state audit guide that comes out um procedures they ask us to look at um everything from attendance instructional time anytime anytime there's a new fund funding source they always want us to look at that too um so we did give an unmodified opinion we did have two findings U one on classroom teacher salaries and this finding has been really common there's a a percentage that districts have to meet um for classroom for teacher salaries and since Co with all the the onetime monies a lot of districts have had issues uh meeting that uh threshold so that finding is very common and then the other finding is just a very small minor um instructional materials public hearing has

197to be held before the eth week of school um in this case uh I think it was on a board agenda that would have been in compliance and it ended up not happening that night and so by the the time it got the public hearing was conducted it was past the8 weeks um so that's all that I have for my slideshow um I'm going to stop the share here and just a couple of General comments before I'll turn it over to you guys um I just want to thank everyone at the district um uh Kim Moses and her team uh you know Kim wasn't there for for a lot of the audit year but you know we did work with her in a limited capacity after and her team was fantastic uh Margarita Romo as

198our audit contact is always great um really the facilities team chipped in this year too I know there we were trying to get some information and I think one time I was on a call with like eight people um and everyone chipped in to try to get the audit item so uh I really appreciate that and um all in all a good audit results for 2023 again it's you're almost into 2425 so the results unfortunately aren't very timely but um just want to thank everyone and I'm happy to answer any question that you might have thank you Mr Ash um we're going to move to public comment first Miss MOS do we have any public comment on this item we have no public comment great thank you um now we're gonna move to questions from

199the board uh we'll start with you trusty reckler thank you thank you Mr Ash um I just have a couple of things the first one was was there any repeat findings for from June I'm losing my voice were there any repeat findings um from the year end 622 that that classroom teacher salary one was a repeat finding yes okay I'm I'm aware of that one the next one if I could jump to the significant deficiency do you think this is a oneoff or do you think that there needs to be a process Improvement or um anything along those lines I think it was the oneoff just because of the nature of what the adjustments were so the one like I said it was common amongst a lot of the school districts that we audited and

200then I think the voided check if some of the Personnel would have been in place at that time I think that that check would have been voided more timely okay yeah I'm not worried about avoided check it's the it's the uh the you know the block grant money um yeah that that was a very common and it's the guidance came out very late it was I think late August or September and they change the allocations so and then the CDE asked districts because they're going to have to pay it back in the next year to create an accounts payable for it and so a lot of districts had that finding it wasn't just west contracosta okay thank you and then finally this one might be a bit of a curveball but since I got the

201accountant here you might know something about it so last year I missed it but this year I caught it we're actually using some of our parcel taxes to pay for your audit but it's not in our ballot language is that a problem if it's not in the ballot language then yes it should not be um okay thank you but yeah we have not done the partial tax audit for um the last two years either we have not finished it we have started it but we have not finished it okay thank you thank you thank you Mr Ash um actually I do have one question for you um our labor Partners have brought up one of the findings that you brought up which was that we are not within the threshold of teacher pay um the

20255% or you know that percentage that you talked about um what is the I mean I know the negative effect for us locally but what is the negative effect of us not reaching that percentage with the state or federal government sure um nothing with the federal government it's only state so um and I recommended you can get a waiver from the County Office of Education um and if that waiver comes through and is approved then there's no Financial impact um to the district for that um there was a study that that came out and I've seen it through um the co years before covid this was a very rare finding we had a couple of really small districts that had a hard time meeting that ratio um with Co and all the one-time um Federal

203money for the Esser and all the that thing um that really changed it and I would say it's up to probably maybe a quarter of of districts are not meeting that threshold through these covid years thank you I appreciate that you're welcome okay bour now we're gonna move to comments does anyone have any comments on this item okay I don't either Mr Ash thank you so much um we appreciate thank you thank you okay thank you very much have a great evening you too and thank you Dr Moses um sorry just for my clarification Dr Moses uh you're requesting to be approved and accepted I'm assuming that because obviously this discussion is is it just accepted just because we listen to it is that just to clarify so I I can't remember from last year

204yes it has to be publicly pre presented and then the county has to be notified that it's been accepted got it okay thank you so if so if you will I'll go ahead and um move that the board received and accepted the annual Financial audit for 2223 thank you second if it needs a second perfect then let's move to a vote we'll start with you trusty reckler reckler yes president Smith FS snith FS yes and I'm a yes as well passes uh unanimously with those present thank you um okay so now we're gonna move to uh the consent items pulled uh it was the five contracts from C8 um trusty re would you like to just walk us one at a time sure thank you very much so the first one is the Christy white

205one and as I just asked the auditor um we have $5,600 coming out of General fundp parcel tax to pay for that it's a small amount but I hav I've never seen that before and I went back and I looked and it turns out that uh it was paid for as far as I could tell it was paid for last year I couldn't find it before last year and then this year it's being paid for a small amount with General uh you know with parcel tax funds it's not in our ballot language and so we just heard from the accountant that that's an issue so um I don't know what staff like to comment on that or um thank you for the question truste reckler um this is a new contract a new three-year contract

206to conduct audits as Michael Ash mentioned on the call previously Christy white did not do the the parcel tax audit we are now going to be it's we're paying for this audit with parcel pet tax funds so we're using general funds bond funds and we're using parcel tax funds so I I think can we get a clarification of whether we can use parcel tax funds to pay for the parcel tax audit if it's not in the ballot language so I've reached out to Melanie Lee who is our consultant with SE consultants and they manage both our parcel tax and our imrad and she is researching the matter she hasn't gotten back to me yet but we did receive your inquiry we are looking into it and of course if her answer is that we need

207to do something different we will do that we've not yet created a requisition for this as this is next year's audit and we do not intend to actually um create the purchase order until after July 1st so there is time to make adjustments and bring them back to you if we need to so should it not be voted on tonight well I think we're trying to just be efficient and ensure that we have a new contract in place um it's a small amount $5,000 I don't mind bringing it back if it needs to be amended but I think for the purpose of moving this along and ensuring that we're prepared for the next year's audit I would ask that we continue to move this one tonight and if it and if it turns out that

208it's not approved What will what will be the action if it isn't approved this evening we will bring it back at a later time um and I'm okay to pull it if the board um would like me to do so we're just trying to be efficient with the timeline uh no so my question is if we vote Yes and then somebody comes back and says no that's not unallowed expense at a parcel tax what happens how would it be corrected so as I just mentioned the purchase requisition won't be created until after the new fiscal year begins which is July 1st so there is still time to make adjustments with the funding source at that time I would notify the board that the funding sources have been changed okay thank you and then just on

209these other contracts which is school Services springboard Collective Tut work and calculus round table it's just all the dates um which don't align with tonight's meeting all School Services is tonight it would start date of service springboard Collective was 56 Tutor Works 56 calculus Round Table is from 11623 so once again I'm just pointing out that you have contracts that are not aligning with the board's um meeting for approval so no no comment is necessary okay thank you trusty reckler uh well I'll make a motion that we approve the five contracts uh pulled Smith F seconds okay uh do we have any comments okay let's move to a vote trusty com sorry go go ahead Dr Moses you and your team are doing an excellent job trying to write this ship and it takes um

210consistency over time equals change and what we're seeing is that you are consistently talking to the people in your um sphere of control to make sure that these things are coming in a timely manner so I want to thank you for that um I appreciate the work that you're doing and it is being noticed and seen so thank you for continuing to eat this elephant one bite at a time and we uh we appreciate you for that I'm complete thank you um okay we'll move to our vote trusty reckler re reckler yes okay president Smith FS Smith fos yes and I'm a Yesa okay everybody uh well that was our last item so our next Board of Education meeting is scheduled for May 29th here at Lavan dejon and I journ us at 10:32