Board Meeting 11-20-25

001I need to approve of the board agenda for today. Any changes on this evening's regular board meeting agenda? I'd like to pull item D2. Item D2, public employee discipline dismissal release. Any objections to that request? Okay, any others? Were we able to move 01 to consent agenda? This is related to the 2026 board meeting schedule. It's calendar, um, I don't know if we can move it. No, I did not move it but we can Same from it's an action item No, no problem. Let's go ahead and leave it there in case any of you have any questions or comments or want to make any edits I was only asking because I think we were trying to see if we can put it on consent agenda No problem. It's called in leave it there. You could

002Move to approve that one right after consent to move it out of the way You can move you can still move item. Oh After consent. Any objections with moving item O1 to immediately after the consent agenda? All right. So we'll do O1 before H. All right. Can I get a motion to approve the regular board meeting agenda without D2 and moving O1 to after G? I make the motion. It's been motioned by Trustee Rodriguez, seconded by Trustee Rodriguez-Molica. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any objections or abstentions? Seeing none, motion passes by all board members present with one absence. We're going to go ahead and proceed to public comment for items on closed agenda. Seeing none, we're going to go ahead and go into closed session and we'll return here at 6 p.m.

003Thank you very much. Thank you, colleagues. It's now 6 p.m. We are reconvening an open session on time this evening. Thank you very much for everyone being here, to our community, teachers and staff and students. Thank you, board colleagues, for your time and commitment to the board. Superintendent and Monica, thank you very much. We're going to go ahead and get started. Pledge of Allegiance. Thank you very much. This evening, the land acknowledgement statement will be led by Trustee Rodriguez. We should take a moment to acknowledge the land on which we are gathered. For thousands of years, this land has been the home of Patwin people. Today there are three federally recognized Patwin tribes. Ketcheldehe Band of Winton Indians of the Colusa Indian Community, Kletzeldehe Winton Nation, and Yoshidehe Winton Nation. The Patwin people have remained

004committed to the stewardship of this land over many centuries. It has been cherished and protected as elders have instructed the young through generations. We are honored and grateful to be here today on their traditional lands. Thank you very much. And our equity statement this evening will be read by Trustee Rodriguez-Molcica. All students deserve excellent schools, which are culturally responsive and set high expectations, a high quality learning environment, and equitable resources to ensure that they are reaching their full potential. WJUSD will be purposeful about providing equitable access to all essential educational opportunities for all WJUSD students, especially diverse and disadvantaged students who have historically been underserved by educational institutions. Thank you very much, Trustee. Our Board of Trustee agreements will be led by Trustee Brubaker. Our agreements are check in, remember our larger purpose boundaries, remember

005that individual decisions are not personal, open, aspire to finding common ground, having empathy, being respectful, and assume best intentions. Thank you very much, Trustee. There's no announcement to be made of any action taken in closed session. So moving on to public comment for sections G. We do have one public comment. Monica, please. Marlene Molina. I'm blind, okay. All right, good evening everyone. I am here, many of you know me. I'm Marlene Molina, I teach at Lee Middle School. I've been there for 30 years. In my time there, as I've shared many times before, I've chosen to stay in this community, in this district, because of my love for the community. It resembles one that I grew up in, and you know, I'm... kind of attached to the families and the kids that we work with

006and many of you and it means a lot to me and um in looking over the agenda and the proposed budget adjustments it's very disheartening to see that we continue to cut away at that which directly impacts kids I'm a NEAL specialist and I didn't even know what I was doing in the very beginning and Elodia was very instrumental in training me and teaching me about how important it was to always provide for our students that Cadillac model and it always resonated with me because that's what I believe in and I believe in giving our students the best and when we start to chip away, we've chipped away at Our attendance liaisons, our health clerks, now we're looking at NREL specialists last year. Now we're looking at more EL specialists and CAFE specialists. And, you

007know, that's direct work with our students, the ones that directly impact them. In listening to your equity statement, you know, you say that you want... to make sure that our students have access to the best that we're making sure that it's an equitable experience part of the foundation of our el specialists and the team that elodia was fundamental in creating and our cafe specialist which i know maria roscoe was fundamental in creating was to get us to that point of equity and so in looking at that i really want you all to question why we're not cutting from other areas such as HR, business, other areas that directly do not impact our students. And if we're really about equity, we need to act on it as well. That's it. Thank you very much. All right,

008moving on to consent agenda. Would anyone like to pull an item or ask any questions this evening? All right, can I get a motion to approve the consent agenda? I make the motion. It's been motioned by Trustee Rodriguez, seconded. Can I get a second? Second. Second by Trustee Garcia. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposition? Any abstentions? Seeing none, the consent agenda is approved unanimously by all board members present. All right, we're going to go to 01. Jumping ahead to 01, this is an information action. This is the 2026 board meeting scheduled draft. We can continue to review it ask questions or take action this evening to approve it as is attached any questions or comments trustee be a gonna just one comment because in the Backup it said to say

009if I'm gonna be available now that I'm asking to change it But I'm not gonna be available for the July date, but I'm not requesting every change. Can we get the calendar on this on the projector, please? Thank you very much Thank you very much. Miss Brookhart Thank you trust you be a good enough for stating that July 23rd. Thank you. So that's July 23rd Any interest in changing the date? I won't be available for that date either. Okay, so that's two board members not available Anybody else any motion to change the date suggestions? All right. I will make the question Do anybody want to make a motion to change the date for July? Is there a date that would work otherwise? July 16th, I'm hearing normally we have the date on July at that

010time of the month because a lot of staff are on vacation the first couple weeks of July and So staff is coming back back to work. We are able to get POS and any hires That we need to approve so they can start and be ready for the new teacher orientation orientation and such So that's the ideal time towards the end of July. Is there another week later? What's wrong with July 16th? I mean, I have staff here early enough to get the agenda. Oh, because they're taking time off around the 4th of July. It could be the 30th of July. That's another option. So we can have the oh then they'll be back to back with August 6th. And if we don't have a significant number that we can hold back it's possible that

011we can even cancel that meeting. We just kind of have it as a placeholder. I know we have been hesitant to do Tuesday meetings but might this be a better an opportunity where a Tuesday meeting following the 23rd might be better than potentially risking not having quorum for people being sick or something. What Tuesday would you suggest? uh the 28th i think so that would still put us back to back weeks on the ideal would be probably the 20th uh tuesday the 21st can i interject yes sir for me it doesn't like i'm gone those two weeks so it doesn't it doesn't affect my availability i just say keep it because it that's what's most beneficial for the district trustee is part of it because it's not following the first and third thursdays i'm going

012to be out Okay, okay, okay. Yeah, and for me I'm not available after the first week of July Just keep it and with just the two of us out if there's no other problems. There's no need to change it Yeah, we still have a quorum All right I mean and if needed I could always call in if there was a need for quorum I could I can make a phone call and make the meeting through a phone call I won't given that I moved to approve the calendar as is Second. All right, we have a motion by Trustee Brubaker and a second by Trustee Fowler to approve the 2026 board meeting schedule as is. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposition? Any abstentions? The 2026 board meeting schedule has been approved as

013presented. All right, we're going back in the schedule to item H, community engagement. and we are recognizing gifts to the district this evening. Pioneer High School received a $100 donation from the McNaira Family Foundation, and this was a monetary donation towards ASB FFA Club. Pioneer High School received a donation from the Woodland Lodge, number 1299, for $4,000, and this was a monetary donation towards the ASB Breaking Barriers Group. And again, Pioneer High School received a donation from the Yolo Land Trust for $250 towards the ASB FFA Club. So lots of ASB donations at Pioneer, totaling $4,350. So thank you very much to our generous community for making these donations. And now we're going to move on to our student reports. And this evening, our three high school student representatives are here. Thank you very much

014for being here. Very, very nice of you to be here. And thank you, my gratitude to all three of you. This evening, we're going to start with Ramiro Negrete from Cache Creek High School. OK. Good evening, board president. Board presidents Bautista, Salvella, Trustee Superintendent Ortega-Lapkin, Executive Cabinet and Committee. My name is Ramiro Negrete. I am a senior representative at Cache Creek High School. My report tonight is the following. We recently celebrated our fourth graduate and looking forward to celebrating more as we close out. We're As we close out the semester in a few weeks earlier this month we had nine students complete the ALMS work readiness program Students participate in series of workshop focus on the soft skills needed for employment and celebrated the completion of the program at the LA LM a LMS clubhouse

015Our Youth Advisory Council met yesterday and decided to focus on safety and making sure that all students know what to do in an emergency. We drafted a survey that all students will take tomorrow. We will use those survey responses to create informational posters for all teachers to put up in every classroom as a reminder for students and staff. On other notes, our annual Thanksgiving feast is tomorrow starting at 10.35. Mr. Braley's culinary class has... Has been hard at work preparing a wide variety of desserts for everyone to enjoy. Christina Martin, our counselor's, Mr. Martin's wife, came to school and taught the culinary students how to decorate cookies and cakes with colored icing for the second year in a row. Thank you, Mrs. Martin. We're blessed to have you. Tomorrow, the students will display skills they've

016learned from her by sharing a variety of hand-decorated cupcakes, cookies, and spike cakes, and various fallen ships like turkeys, leaves, and acorns. The culinary students will also have 15 kinds of pie, five kinds of cake, dozens of different cookies for everybody to enjoy. The Thanksgiving meal itself will be provided by our amazing nutrition service staff. We love you, Ms. Rose. and served by our Cache Creek staff. Thank you, everybody, for their presence and support all year long. We hope you'll be there, and if you're able to come, come hungry. Thank you, and this concludes my report. Thank you very much, Ramiro. Great job. And next we have Woodland High School student representative Daniela Tamayo. Are you Daniela Tamayo? Yeah. Yeah, okay. Good evening, Board President Bautista Zavala, Trustees, Superintendent Ortega Lampkin, Executive Cabinet, and our

017community. My name is Daniela Tamayo, and I'm here to represent Woodland High School. My report tonight is the following. When we return from Thanksgiving break, the Play Productions program will be hosting Clue. Come watch the Murder Mysteries starring Friday, December 5th. Other shows are December 6th, 7th, 11th, and 12th. Tickets are $7 for students with a... Special student discount on the 11th and adult tickets are $12. Tickets are available at GoFan and in the student store. Fall sports banquet was this week and winter sports are starting to pick up. We had our first home basketball game yesterday for the guys and girls. We will be supporting Lee Middle School with their end of the semester grades and grub event and help tutor the middle school students. WHS has one more Saturday on December 13th before

018finals week to help students prepare for the test and work on missing assignments. Thank you. Great job, Daniela. Thank you so much next from Pioneer High School. I have tour neat strong Good evening, Board President Batista Zavala, Trustees, Superintendent Ortega Lampkin, Executive Cabinet, and our community. I'm Tarnit Saran, and I'm a junior representative of Pioneer High School. This week has been quite an empty week as Thanksgiving break is approaching. Today, my report is as the following. HOSA officers had an awesome opportunity to attend the Fall Leadership Conference last Saturday. They even hosted a workshop which educated HOSA members from other schools all over the region of the importance of hands-only CPR. Pioneer's talent show took place this Saturday from 6.30 to 8.30 p.m. The event was a success. Our amazing students demonstrated a variety of

019talents like singing, cultural dances, playing instruments, and many more. There was a good turnout. Pioneer has had many college workshops for our seniors. Tomorrow is the very last workshop before UC and CSU applications close. Our counselors and UC staff have worked hard helping the seniors with their applications. We thank them immensely for their support. Today, Pioneer's ASB class started a gratitude turkey where students wrote something they were grateful for and eat for an exchange for a cookie. It was a great way for students to share their appreciation while getting a snack. And Community Health Club is hosting a blood drive for students and staff to donate their blood for this holiday season. The registrations to donate have been all of this week and the blood drive will take place after Thanksgiving break on December 4th.

020Thank you that concludes my report. Thank you very much Quick question. What do you know the hours of the blood drive? During school hours probably yeah, I can get back to you through email. That would be awesome. Thank you Thank you tour neat Thank you to our student board board representatives. Thank you so much for being here I wanted to apologize, Daniela. I wasn't sure if we had your name listed correctly. So thank you. I apologize for asking if that was you, but I wanted to make, I didn't know if I did have your name correct. So thank you so much. Thank you. You guys are welcome to stay for as long as you'd need, as long as you'd like, but don't feel that you have to stay. Okay. So thank you. We're going to

021go ahead and move forward to public comment for items on the agenda this evening. Monica. Our first is Joanne. Sorry I said your last name wrong. Good evening and thank you for the opportunity to speak on agenda item N number 2 regarding the 26-27 proposed budget. My name is Joanne Herity and I am the mother of a seven-year-old who attends Plainfield Elementary School. My first comment relates to the funding move associated with the ELOP program. Several working families were put on and are still on a waiting list for the ELOP program this year to do program budget cuts. That program funding is already stressed, and it is an absolutely critical need for working families in this district. That funding should be restricted to paying ELOP site coordinators, educators, and program costs. It should not be

022used to pay over a half a million dollars of gate program operating costs, custodians, and office coordinators. My second comment is that literacy rates in California are embarrassingly low. We need those paraprofessionals more than ever. They are an important resource for our students and staff. Board priority number three is special education, yet you are proposing to reduce those services. Coming from a family who relies on these services to support dyslexic learning, I urge you to reconsider that cut. Thank you for your time and for the important work you do to serve our district and our students. Our next public comment is Holly Carr. Good evening. I stand here today not as a former employee fighting for my job, but as a parent and a community member fighting for a district that should be serving us,

023not failing us. I will begin with a definition. Decorum, as defined by Webster's Dictionary, is behavior in keeping with good taste and propriety, the conventions of being polite behavior. It is unacceptable for board members or administrators to interrupt, talk, or attempt to correct members of the public. during their allotted speaking time. When leadership violates decorum, it exposes insecurity and creates the perception of guilt rather than professionalism. A school board member is responsible for governance, policy direction, fiscal oversight, maintaining public trust, and ensuring student success. A superintendent is responsible for operational leadership, student achievement, employee retention, implementing board policy, fiscal responsibility, and transparent communication with the community. These are not optional goals. These are your job descriptions. And yet, this district is bleeding teachers and support staff at an alarming rate. Trust has eroded, morale is

024collapsing. We see leadership show up only when cameras are present, and when there is credit to be taken for work they did not do. We see pink slips handed out while raises are openly justified. We see employee positions cut, then photo opportunities used as a substitute for accountability. That is not governance. That is brand management at the expense of children, staff, and community trust. A healthy district does not lose educators faster than it can hire them. A responsible leader does not cut jobs while rewarding themselves. A transparent board does not silence, redirect, or retaliate when the public speaks. There are now more former employees outside of this district than current ones who still believe in it. not because they failed the district, but because the district failed them. When truth tellers are ignored, silenced, or

025pushed out, that is not leadership. It is a warning of corruption, fear, or incompetence has taken control. We can only hope. that everyone follows the lead of one board member who stands up for our community and shows up, goes to site levels, speaks with staff, students, our community. This proves that leadership with integrity is possible. The standard does exist. It is simply being ignored by those too comfortable in their seats to meet it. So to those of you now demanding apologies from the community for speaking publicly about your failures, if you don't like what's being said about you, the issue is not the voices speaking, it is reflection staring back at you. Thank you. All right, that concludes the public comment this evening. For items on the agenda, we're moving on to the report. Superintendent.

026Okay, good evening. I'm going to start the report tonight just by giving you a state and federal update just lots going on on the news and it is very just very very brief on some of the things that are happening. So there's threats to specific formats as you may have heard on the news. The United States Department of Education is being dismantled and programs are moved under other federal agencies creating uncertainty. So there's a lot of movement going on and A lot of discussion about what that's going to mean and how those other new agencies are going to implement these programs and what kind of funding will go with that or not. So this is an update on what's happening there regarding the United States Department of Education. I'll keep you appraised when we start

027hearing more concrete information, but right now there's still a lot of uncertainty. Also federal funding uncertainty as unclear of federal funding status to states. school districts as you know the the government opened up and they're still having discussions and we'll hopefully get more clarity in January so there's still a lot of uncertainties regarding where our title funds are at and what that means for states and then what states how states are going to handle distributing to districts Regarding state funding, just yesterday, there was lots on the news regarding current projections from Legislative Office of, Analyst's Office, which is a, not a decision maker, but they do assess and monitor and give professional advice on where the state is going in regarding what's happening with the economy. And they're pretty close, usually. But they are projecting

028that California is indicating an $18 billion shortfall. So though we are guaranteed of some proposition. Can't think of the number right now funding There are some other areas that may impact us our ability the state ability ability to assist us in case there's a shortfalls coming from the federal government So districts will need to continue to carefully monitor multi-budget years Making sure that we're keeping that not just of what the needs are right now or the wants are right now but planning for the future and making sure that we are able to be in good position to address some of the Things that may be coming and facing us as a district And yes again tonight because of all these things are happening we're going to begin the first board meeting to talk about budget

029adjustments and some recommendations today is No, no action item. It's just information for us to begin discussing to understand where we're at to consider some of the recommendations, ask questions, and we'll come back again to continue the conversation on December the 11th. By January 15th, we need to start working together on making some decisions. And then on January 22nd will be the, hopefully we're just down to the last final decisions have needs to be made. We absolutely have to make decisions by the, hopefully the majority by January 15th and finalize anything pending to discuss on January 22nd. While all this is going on, we still continue to be focused on our board priorities. Here's an example. Our fall training for Expanding Minds students was held this week. All of our Expanding Minds tutors came to

030get received training. They were receiving training on English learner strategies. and how to recognize English learners and their needs and they had an opportunity to discuss on how they can support them during the after school programs or expanding my program. So I want to thank Maria Medina, she's not here, but Maria Medina and the English Learner Department for putting on that training and for Expanding Minds to be collaborating together to support our tutors so that they can support our students. We also have special education. We had a whole room full here of special education staff and it was an opportunity to come by and say hello and remind them about why their positions really matter and the impact that they're making on our schools. It's an opportunity to thank them for all the work that

031they do. And they were being trained on the role of the IEP and their role of supporting IEPs and how they support their teachers and students in the classroom. We also had glasses to classes events. We had one last Saturday and one on Monday where our student services department was able to secure a grant and their students were referred, getting eye exams, and then we were received, many of our students received free glasses, I believe, about 500. 235 so far and more students will be able to benefit from this partnership that we have and I want to thank our nursing staff for being a strong lead on this and supporting this event and making sure that the students who needed to have this this access were able to do so. We also had the Wolf

032Pack, I was at Woodland High School this Tuesday, I believe, held a student leadership conference, and we have people from the community come to speak to students, and they had a little mini conference, and it was just nice to have an opportunity to stop by and interact with these students that were being handpicked for this opportunity to recognize the leadership in them, and it was an opportunity for just to start to kind of spark interest in students and I want to thank Brandon Killiam for his work on that and Woodland High School staff. We also had a site visit. Trustee Rodriguez, Trustee Mojica, and Trustee Brubaker visited a couple of schools. We visited Submarine Elementary School and Plainfield Elementary School this week. I hope that you enjoyed your visit. Maybe you'll talk about it during

033your board reports. It also included some meet and greet time with staff, and I've been hearing lots of positive comments about that visit. And because it's Native American Month I just want to share a few examples of what our district is doing some of the activities are going on many of our teachers do activities in the classroom During this month and throughout the year, but especially during this month. We had an American and every parent committee last night. They held of some workshops on jewelry making where students got an opportunity to understand the importance of beading, the significance regarding the culture, and interact with their elders on making some beading activities. It was a big, huge hit. So thank you, Christina Lambie and everybody that was involved in putting this together for our community. And

034then here's another example. Native's Dad Network visited Gibson Elementary. They had some guest speakers to understand the significant contributions of our Native American, local Native American groups in California history. And I heard that students had a lot of questions and were very curious. So this is a few examples of some of the things that happened across the district during this time of the year. And last but not least, I want to take the opportunity to recognize someone who's very special to our district and to thank her for all her years of service. This is Tina Burkhardt's last board meeting. She is going to retire, and as you can see, she's already... packed and ready to go and spend time with her family and friends. And I cannot imagine you not being around. We've been together

035for a long, long time. Tina, a few things that I wanted to highlight. Tina came to the district right before we started with the one-on-one devices. Back then, I remember we did not have, teachers did not have laptops, individual laptops. THINGS THAT WE WENT THROUGH DOWN TO HOW TO USE THE TV, THE SCREENS. THAT WAS SOMETHING NEW AS WELL. THEN DURING COVID, OH, MY GOODNESS, DURING COVID, HER ROLE WAS SO IMPORTANT. THERE'S JUST BEEN SO MANY THINGS THAT, TINA, THAT YOU HAVE BEEN THROUGH THROUGH OUR JOURNEY AS A DISTRICT. And now I go into classrooms and I see students using Chromebooks for learning purposes. I see teachers using TECHNOLOGY AS A TEACHING TOOL WITH CONFIDENCE. YOU HAVE DONE SO MUCH TO PROTECT OUR STUDENT INFORMATION WITH CYBERSECURITY AND ALL THESE THINGS AND MAKING SURE THAT

036YOU ARE REALLY LEAVING US IN A GOOD PLACE AND WE'VE GOTTEN BETTER AND STRONGER BECAUSE OF YOU. AND I WISH YOU NOTHING BUT THE BEST AND THANK YOU FOR YOUR TIME. SHE'S BEEN HERE 13 YEARS? 13 YEARS. AND I KIND OF WONDER, ARE YOU GOING TO BE WATCHING THE BOARD MEETINGS? NO? Anyway, we have some flowers we want to present to you and a card on behalf of the Board of Trustees and the district. I just want to thank you for everything that you've done. Would you like to say a few words? No. Okay. Can we have the trustees really quick take a picture with her retirement memorial? Yes. Thank you very much, Superintendent. All right. Would any of our board members like to say some kind words to... Just thank you for All the

037dedication that you've given to our young people and all the work that you've done and led, you know, has provided the support they needed. You know, as simple as, well, not simple, but the devices are simple, right? The hotspots, but making sure every family that needed it had them, especially when they were highly needed. And then, again, the fact that we had what our families needed when other districts were struggling to even get access to those devices. We had them ready to go, and a system was developed to distribute. And maintain as well And again just always being there to answering questions supporting the needs of the board and the staff So again, thank you for dedication and enjoy retirement Anyone else go ahead Trustee Rodriguez-Moljica. Thank you. I am extremely grateful to have overlapped

038with you at least for one year before your retirement and I just want to thank you for everything that you have done. You have truly made an impact in these 13 years that you have been with the district and I am really excited that you are going to enjoy your retirement. So thank you for everything and enjoy every minute of it. We're just going down. Since we're going down the line, I can't wait to hear what joy you are finding in retirement. You are living the dream heading to retirement. So I would love to live vicariously through whatever is bringing you joy in your retirement. Thank you. Tina, thank you. You always have a smile. You always have a good position for us. You are available, and I'm going to say enjoy the most you

039can your retirement. You deserve it. Thank you so much. I just want to say there were a lot of years of me walking into this room sometimes feeling kind of scared and you were always a kind and welcoming face and I have always appreciated that and now I'm getting to sit here and have your face right in front of me when I've sometimes been a little scared and nervous being a board member up here in front of everybody has been a calming force for me and I am grateful for that. Hi, Tina. I think just kind of piggybacking on Trustee Brubaker's comments. You're generally the first one here, and your presence is very calming. You have a very calming demeanor about you, and I think that we're very grateful to have that, you know, to

040have received that from you. I think that, you know, you'll be tremendously missed. you came through when we needed you most, especially during COVID and in breaching the technology gap and figuring all those things out. And I think never doubt that that work, all your work, but that work in particular was especially meaningful to families and to students and especially those families and students that had a very difficult time bridging that technology gap. And so we owe a debt of gratitude. to you for that tremendous work. And thank you so much. Please enjoy your retirement. Tina, I echo the sentiment and emotions from my colleagues, but I want to share, I'll never forget when I went to pick up my devices when I first got elected and I brought my daughter with me. And I

041think my daughter was three or four years old at the time. And you have a love for Legos. And my daughter was touching your Legos, and I got really nervous because I thought maybe it was going to bother you, but it didn't. And you were very welcoming and supportive of her, and that's who you are. You have a very, very kind heart, and you go above and beyond. I hope that you have a lot more time for Legos and the things that you love. And I want to say, please come back and visit us. And I'm sure Lodia and I would love to share some coffee and talk about other things that you are doing. So thank you. Thank you. All right. Superintendent, is that the end of your report? All right. That's the end

042of my report. All right. So we're going to go ahead and move on to the next item. And it's report from our California School Employees Association. Thank you very much. Becca. Good evening, Superintendent Ortega-Lambkin, Board of Trustees, Cabinet, and Community. My name is Rebecca Rossiter, and I am the library tech at Douglas Middle School. I proudly serve as the president of Chapter 118 of the Classified School Employees Association. And I'm going to first go a little off script and also congratulate Tina and her retirement. As a library tech, we work... directly with the technology department and she runs our trainings and she has just been a pleasure to work with and I hope that the shoes that step into her place are just as wonderful as she is. Tonight is a unique evening for CSCA.

043On your agenda are two items that directly affect classified staff. The tentative agreement for the 25 through 28 successor agreement and the proposed budget adjustments and reductions. CSCA is pleased to see our tentative agreement up for approval. We look forward to the board support. It has been made very clear that the board is directly involved in negotiations, both in selecting representatives and in shaping the language and financial proposals. We thank you for your leadership in guiding your team and for recognizing the contributions of classified staff through this agreement. The pay raise is an important acknowledgement that everyone in the district works hard and deserves fair compensation. At the same time, we must address the proposed budget adjustments. CSEA was asked to provide ideas for reductions, and we are bringing them directly to you tonight. We

044are asking that there is an audit of contracted positions Identifying recurring contracts if the work can be done Be performed by bargaining unit positions conducting in a cost analysis to determine savings by bringing the work in-house with an adjusted salary To attract applicants while also not exceeding the cost of the contract We proposed this approach for the systems engineer position during negotiations and the district, I guess meaning the board, declined. We remain disappointed that this was not considered first given the volume of contract employees. Portables reviewing whether the district is still paying leases on portable classrooms with declining enrollment canceling unused leases could reduce costs in both rent and maintenance Additionally the stadiums that were just approved for rental a twenty two thousand dollar purchase order in July How many years have we been doing

045that and what would be the cost savings in purchasing our own? stadiums Educational software, auditing all applications for usage and effectiveness, canceling subscriptions with low student engagement or limited impact. And then district level administration. The proposal to eliminate the director of college and career readiness is offset by the creation of the director of alternative education that was approved a few meetings ago. Meanwhile the district has previously been fined $200,000 for violating the admin teacher ratio Eliminating administrative positions would save salary costs and avoid future fines Additionally the superintendent superintendent's office currently has two secretaries and the PPO Staffing levels were not always that high The proposal presented tonight moves 39 FTE classified positions to one-time funds, including the custodians and elementary office coordinators. When those funds expire, what's the plan? ELOP funding is not guaranteed

046long-term, and 11 custodians and 12 office coordinators are being shifted to it. The superintendent just reported on the uncertainty of the state and federal funding. The proposal also eliminates 32.233 FTE classified positions, including the majority of paraprofessional ones working in literacy, the majority of the cafe specialists who just spent time helping the nursing staff contact the families for the glasses to classes event, a technology specialist, an admin sec four, a payroll tech, and several other open positions. It's important to note that FTE does not equal people the elimination of the 17.98 three pair professional one FTE equates to roughly 24 individuals These paras work six hours a day across multiple classrooms directly supporting literacy and student success Their loss will be felt in every corner of our schools Everyone in this district works hard Everyone

047deserves a pay raise yet the proposed eliminations fall disproportionately on classified staff The very people who build relationships with students provide daily support and connect them to resources We urge the board to reconsider the balance of these reductions so that classified staff are not carrying the heaviest burden Thank you, and this concludes my report clarification Superintendent it was stated that a two hundred thousand dollar Penalty was given to the district for the admin to teacher ratio It's my understanding that the board gave direction for us to petition to the State Board of Education to waive consider Reconsider that fee. So can you update us on that? We did turn in a waiver and I believe we got responded. They did not accept our The State Board of Ed rejected it. This is a State Board

048of Ed. That does it I just want to understand because we gave direction for us to petition to the state board of ed. Or to request the agency who we did look into it. I will have Louis come and speak to it quickly. Are you done with your presentation? So President Zavala, what happened and what Rebecca is referring to is we had an audit finding related to our ratio, and the board did give direction as to pursuing a waiver. However, the district was out of compliance, and so there was nothing to really... protest or pursue in terms of a waiver. There was nothing we could do. All we could do was correct it moving forward. And so I'm here to tell you that we are putting in place measures to ensure that that does not

049happen prospectively. Overall, we agreed with the finding. The only time you pursue with the education audit appeals panel is when you disagree with the finding, and that was not an option in this case. We agreed with the finding noted by our auditors. So we never pursued a petition? You can't pursue a waiver if you agree with the finding. But you could justify and say... We are requesting to waive. This is the plan to fix. Will you please not penalize us? I've done that work. I don't know if I quite agree with how you're stating it, but essentially we agreed with the audit finding. If we felt that the audit finding was inappropriate, then our recourse would be to pursue with the Education Audit Appeals Panel to protest and try to waive the finding. But that

050was not the case with the finding. The finding was correct, and we paid. Or we absorb the cost of the fee through our apportionment. And now moving forward, we're making sure that we do not have that problem. Okay. So we've essentially paid it. Of course. What they do is you don't necessarily write a check to the state of California. They take it out of your apportionment finding moving forward. Funding. Funding. Excuse me. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Lewis. All right. So I wanted to get that clarification because we did ask for us to seek the State Board of Ed. And now that my memory is back triggered, thank you. We did have a discussion whether we were even able to Request it but we had already acknowledged the before that and so after the discussion we

051Determined that that we were not able to qualify for a waiver based on the criteria for height of applying for a waiver All right, clarification. Go ahead. I just wanted to ask Ms. Rossiter if she could email. I was trying to make notes, but I'm not sure my hand kept up with your suggestions, but I think that they're worth considering. So thank you. All right, so we're done with the CSEA report. I just want to tell you guys that my question was because that point was brought up. I've done this work. And I do believe that we could have petitioned it, but that's my opinion. So that's why I asked the question, okay? And I'm reserving my right to disagree. $200,000 is a lot of money. So that's where I'm at. So moving on. The

052Woodland Education Association report. All right. Before I start, Dina, I hope you never have to deal with a district-wide Canvas shutdown or... Chromebooks from students who pick off the keys from certain letters so they can't type properly. I hope you really enjoy your retirement Thank you for all that you've done. Good evening superintendent, president, trustees, and members of our community. My name is Becca Bernard I have the honor to serve as the president of the Woodland Education Association and I've been teaching seventh grade science at Douglas for nearly a decade We are now officially at impasse and heading towards mediation. And I want to be very clear about why. This is a budget problem, not a priorities problem. Excuse me. Reverse that. This is not a budget problem. It's a priorities problem. Tonight, this district

053is proposing an $8.7 million in cuts to our schools while sitting on $58 million of unrestricted reserves and $78.5 million total in your ending fund balance. I know that because I read and have read over and over your 168-page unaudited actuals report from your September 25th board meeting. These are not union numbers. They are your numbers publicly reported to the state of California. By your own documents, our unrestricted reserves are nearly 37% of our percent of total outgo. In a state where the legal cap is supposed to be 10%. As I've shared many times, Woodland has by far the highest reserves in our region, while Woodland teachers are dead last in average pay among the largest Sacramento area districts. Yet, every time we bring up the issue of reserves, you deflect, argue semantics, question the

054data, or change the subject. To those of us paying close attention year after year, it starts to feel like you're pretending that that money isn't really there, as if it's locked away in some mysterious category that we're not allowed to talk about. It feels a bit like gaslighting when you keep redirecting the conversation back to, quote, we can't spend that on ongoing costs. You're not actually answering our questions. How can we responsibly use these reserves to support our classrooms now? Allow me to ask again what I asked last time. How can you continue to justify sitting on nearly 37% unrestricted reserves? Why are you hoarding those dollars instead of patching the holes in our ship before it sinks? We need a plan, not a vague statement about fiscal responsibility, not a talking point about one-time

055funds. What is your concrete, time-bound plan to use these reserves to support today's students and stabilize today's schools? Because while those reserves sit in a savings account, our investment in the people who actually run schools has been shrinking. According to your own unaudited actuals, this year you are spending about 9% less on certificated salaries and almost 12% less on classified staff. That's not a one-year anomaly. That continues a five-year pattern of Woodland spending less and less on certificated staff as a share of the budget. So where is that money going instead? We know from statewide data that dollars that used to go into classrooms and staff are increasingly being redirected to consultants and outside contracts. That should be the first place you look for cuts. Not our classrooms, not our students, and not the people

056who serve them every day. Your own LCFF data show attendance dropping from around 91% to about 86% in the last three school years. That is a massive ongoing loss of revenue. We know from research and from basic common sense that students attend more regularly when they have strong, lasting relationships with teachers and staff and when their classrooms aren't revolving doors of adults. If you want to fix revenue, fix attendance. If you want to fix attendance, stabilize staffing. And yet, it feels like this budget proposal is deja vu. Once again, we are back where we were last November. If last year's cuts were supposed to be about fiscal responsibility, how did we end up in the same position again? That is not just a spending problem, that is a budgeting and priorities problem. I genuinely appreciate

057that the Associate Superintendent of HR reached out to union leadership for ideas. That is her doing her job under the direction she's been given. But emailing two presidents, who each represent about 500 workers, is not the same as this board truly investing in the time and effort to engage with staff. Real collaboration would look like transparent, line-by-line budget workshops with educators, CSCA staff, and families at the table digging into where we overspent last year and identifying what we are and are not willing to cut away from the classroom. We also need to talk about the way raises and bonuses are being framed. Recently, you've sent out glossy communications touting percentage raises and warnings about CalSTRS and pension costs, as if we should be grateful and quiet down. Here's the problem. Percentages are relative. A five-year

05816% increase on the lowest base salary in the region at the same time other districts are also bargaining significant raises does not magically move us out of last place, especially not when COLA was over 18% during that same time period. You cannot call us well compensated while we remain the lowest paid in our area. And offering $10,000 new hire bonuses on top of that doesn't fix it either. That is a car salesman solution, a shiny incentive to get someone in the door who will then leave in a year or two when they realize their ongoing paycheck does not allow them to live here. They will take that $10,000 and their training and go to a district with stable, competitive wages. That is a Band-Aid solution for a structural wound. At the end of the day,

059despite all the tension of bargaining and impasse, we are on the same team. We all want safe, stable schools where students can thrive. We cannot get there if you keep stonewalling with the same recycled answers while our classrooms and staff bear the burden. WEA members are standing strong because we believe our students deserve better. We are ready to work with you to cut wasteful consulting, to rethink priorities, to build a sustainable student-centered budget. But that starts with honesty about your reserves and a real public plan to invest today's dollars in today's students. Thank you. Question. Are you able to provide three examples how we should spend? Reserves for us to consider. I'd love to sit down and have coffee with you. That's not what I asked I don't think that it's appropriate to ask that

060question when I'm standing up here, and I just told you understood If you could send the authority for that 10% cap to us, that'd be appreciated. Thank you All right report from board members who would like to go first this evening trustee Thank you. Let's see So from the roundup in the Sacramento B actually is reported, you know, because we hear often about Sacramento City High School, sort of Sacramento City Schools and the district and the compensation. And the news is telling us that they have to cut $43 million this year. And if they don't do anything about it, it's going to total $88 million by the end of 27, 28. So that's not a good place to be. And then... for Oakland School District, they have to cut $100 million for Nick Scher's budget.

061So, I mean, again, I've been saying this many, many times, and it's coming from CSPA, we're not an anomaly. And actually, the cuts we're making are nowhere near what other districts are being forced to make. We have to make these adjustments. As it shows, our enrollment has gone down. It's not just attendance. It's enrollment has gone down and actually our our staff has gone up right. And that's not sustainable either. You can't have less students and increase staff. It's just that's not able to continue it's not sustainable. So yeah that's it. Thank you. Thank you. Trustee Rodriguez-Molica. Thank you. I want to share that as our superintendent shared in her report. Trustee Brubaker Trustee Rodriguez and I went on some school site visits recently we were so thank you first to the team that helped

062organize that it was really really nice we did a little bit of site tours and then we also had time to be able to speak with teachers and staff at the site to classified and certificated and it was really really special I feel like and I hope that we're able to do that again we were able to visit some more elementary and Plainfield Elementary that one day and we're already working on scheduling future visits as well so I want to thank the superintendent and her team for helping us organize that it was really really nice and I look forward to more of those visits as well thank you trustee trustee Richardson Fowler trustee Garcia trustee Brubaker Well as trustee Rodriguez-Mahico already shared we had the opportunity to visit a couple of elementary school sites I

063had the opportunity to visit our secondary schools last spring and that was really illuminating and this was the first time I think this school year I was able to visit school sites and we had we had the opportunity this time as well to sit in and talk to some of our teachers and staff and that was really helpful there's so many things that we just sitting up here don't have the opportunity to sort of see what it's like from the side of sitting in our school buildings. And so it was really illuminating hearing concerns and joys of the things that are happening in our school sites. And I'm excited to continue doing that going forward even more. Also wanted to give a little update I had mentioned a couple of meetings ago that the some

064of the layoffs that had happened during the government shutdown were in the Department of Education affecting the offices that oversee IDEA and that those Those positions have now been reinstated Because of the way that that happened that was illegal and so that those Those workers are now back and doing their work. I will say cautiously that that is the way it is now. The fact that those cuts happen, I find incredibly concerning. And so it's worth keeping an eye on as the superintendent shared and you may have seen. There is now. Work happening to dismantle the Department of Education, which is not my words. That's their own words And as a board member and someone who's been committed to public education my whole life. I find that very concerning And so we have to we

065have to think going forward About how to sustain our district given the uncertainty of that and on top of that the news about the projected state deficit because I am sure I'm not the only one up here hoping we could petition the state to help fill any gaps of federal funding that we may not get and that does not look possible and given all that we have to make really hard decisions that none of us I think want to have to make I Want to say that the cuts last year were difficult But I'm grateful this year that because we don't have new board members coming on, we have the luxury of time to take a few months and several meetings to consider our options and make sure we're doing the best we can to

066make these really hard decisions thoughtfully. There's a lot more I can say but I'll see because we have a long meeting ahead of us But I do just wanted to say that thank you. Oh actually one more thing Today is trans day of remembrance and I wanted to acknowledge that and I want to encourage our community At a time when many of our community members are feeling unsafe to not only honor The existence of our trans community members who are no longer with us, but those that are still with us And make sure they stay with us as long as we can protect them. Thank you I just wanted to mention a few things I think that as we go through this budget process It obviously is a very difficult process to go through been

067through it before. Many of you in the audience were able to witness that. I think that we take the responsibility of being able to have a balanced budget very seriously, and we take very seriously the impacts of the decisions that we make. I'm glad that everybody who would like to come forward and inform us about how they feel those impacts or how they understand those impacts are taking the time to do so. I'm sure that we will hear from you and more in the future and they're welcomed because they're part of the process for building the context for the decision-making that is yet to come. And I just wanted to assure everyone and of course in the end everyone may not agree with the decision-making but we take that decision-making very seriously. Secondly, I also

068wanted to just mention that I also went out with Trustee Brubaker and Trustee Mojica Rodriguez to Plainfield and Zamora Elementary. Thank you very much to the teachers and staff that took the time to speak with us and engage in dialogue about their concerns, about what their everyday work life is like, and what... what decisions and what issues would help support them. And thank you to the teachers for allowing us to spend a little bit of time in their classroom so that we can also have that context of some classroom time. Look forward to continuing to spend time in our schools and to build context and to be enriched through those visits. Thank you. Thank you trustee Rodriguez To my colleagues and staff and community I've prepared a statement for this evening's board report as Many

069as you as many of you may know or seen today the Legislative Analyst Office announced a 18 billion dollar state deficit that is projected for the upcoming year and This is higher than the initial 12 billion that the state had projected as deficit earlier this year This is significant and it will require aggressive action by the legislature in the months ahead. I have sat today through three legislative analysts office budget briefings today on K through 12 and higher ed. And I want to share that with this uncertainty that was presented, I want to be very clear and transparent with all of you. and our bargaining partners. Yes, our district currently has restricted and unrestricted one-time funds, but those dollars were deliberately set aside by this board to prepare for exactly the kind of rainy day

070we are now seeing forming. These funds were never intended to support ongoing salary commitments or long-term obligations. They were meant to stabilize our district when the state falters, and today's news is a reminder of why that planning matters. I want to emphasize that I deeply value our educators and staff, and I recognize the work and dedication that they bring every day. But in this moment, it would be fiscally irresponsible for us to go beyond what is currently on the table. We must protect the long-term health of this district, our programs, and the stability of our students that they rely on every day. I remain committed to bargaining in good faith, continuing to dialogue, and supporting our employees within the reality of what we sustain, not just this year, but in the years ahead. Our economic

071situation is very, very uncertain. And the reality that I sat in today and the briefings that I was in for three long hours with other school districts and CBOs was sad. We're in a very, very tough situation. And the statement that I make today, I stand by it. Any other board reports today? All right, let's go ahead and move on to board committee updates. Coalition for Woodland Youth. Noel, do you want to? Yeah, let me take a quick peek generally the coalition for the youth met and we talked about adjusting times of our meeting times and and dates and so we will Be taking I think a few more couple of months off in terms of just having having breaks in between The city talked about its MLK celebration day where some of our students

072will be able to read their essays. They also have scheduled the Cesar Chavez celebration for March 31st and I believe they scheduled around our meeting times so we'll be able as trustees we'd be able to attend this year so thank you for that consideration. The Woodland Community College also talked about a cafe that they have on campus and it's actually open to the public and so any public members that wish to kind of support our students support our local community college. There's a cafe on campus and they're open to use it. Any other feelings? No. We did approve a schedule of meetings. The group has voted to cut two meetings for the year. Two meetings, I think, yeah. But nothing major in terms of scheduling. Early next year, they're hoping to talk about creating a

073new policy in terms of voting. because right now each elected has a vote. And there are instances where there's more representatives from the school district. So the three of us could essentially form a proxy. So there's conversations of revisiting that policy. potentially voting to see if each agency would have one vote versus it being counted by how many elected officials show up to those meetings. But we'll definitely keep you guys in touch in terms of any discussions. Yeah, definitely some revisions being made to how the meeting is run and the focus slightly. Thank you. Perfectly said. All right. Any other board committee updates? All right. Seeing none. You do sir, go ahead just on the evaluation committee. I'm sorry radio. Did you have say? You want to you because you're good you won't give it

074go for it. Nope. No So the evaluation committee that is overseeing the evaluation process for our superintendent has met twice and we are We have Looked at the tool that we'll be using and we have gone through the tool will meet once more and early December and in hopes of bringing back kind of a more of a final draft to to the board for discussion and for Moving forward in regards to that evaluation process. Thank you very much to those that are part of that committee We ready to move on to facilities All right, facilities and finances is an action item to approve AB 1200's disclosure of cost agreements with the California School Employees Association, Woodland Chapter 118. Thank you, Mr. Wiley. Yes, the whole purpose of these documents are they're required and essentially they

075demonstrate slash illustrate the fiscal impact associated with the agreement that we are. proposing with csca and so um we have to demonstrate the fiscal impact on the current year budget as well as the ability to afford the fiscal impact in the two out years and essentially that's what these documents are here for and they require your approval move for approval second all right it's been motioned by trustee bautista seconded by trustee rodriguez any questions or comments this evening All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposition or abstentions? Seeing none, motion passes unanimously. Thank you, Mr. Wiley. Moving on to item M, HR, action. Any public comments? No? All right. This is an action item public hearing, so I am opening up this public hearing at 7.13. And this is to approve and

076ratify the tentative agreement for the 2025-2028 successor agreement between the California School Employee Association, Chapter 118, and the Woodland Joint Unified School District. No public comment. Anything from you, Doctor? No. Any questions or comments on this item? All right. I am going to close the public hearing. Motion to approve? Motion to approve. All right. Motion by Trustee Garcia, seconded by Trustee Rodriguez. Do you need a roll call vote? Yes. All right. Roll call vote. Trustee Villagrana? No. Trustee Rodriguez-Molica? Yes. Trustee Richardson-Fowler? Yes. Trustee Garcia? Yes. Trustee Brubaker? Yes. Trustee Rodriguez? Yes. Trustee Bautista-Zavala? Yes. Motion passes. Six in favor, one opposition. Any questions or comments before we move to the next item? No? All right. Thank you very much. Item N. Facilities and Finance. Back to Facilities and Finance again. Item N. This is an

077informational item on daily attendance and enrollment for the 2025-2026 school year, and this is a written report. Any questions or comments? All right. Everyone okay to move to the next item? N2. We do have a public comment. Go ahead. Two public comments. The first public comment is for Holly Carr and then Becker Bernard. Hello again. I want to start with a simple reminder of how the system is supposed to work. The school board is the governing body of this district. The superintendent is the employee, the one tasked with carrying out our directives, our community vision, and the policies you approve. Yet we're watching right now looks like a complete role reversal. This board is not governing the superintendent. It's being governed by her. Instead of accountability, we see accommodation. Instead of oversight, we see obedience.

078What proof do I have, you might ask? Look at the cuts happening across the district at site level. Look at the teachers fighting for pay and support and getting nothing but pushback. How about the $5,000 being paid to an outside company to conduct the superintendent's annual evaluation? A job that belongs squarely to this board. Not only is that a waste of public funds, it's an abdication of duty. The public elected you to hold the superintendent accountable, not outsource it. A superintendent taking a raise while in deficit and handing out pink slips tells the entire community there is no fiscal responsibility happening here. Cutting more site-level jobs, taking away support staff, and telling the community there isn't enough money? Why are we paying 80% more for outsourced services for our special education students' needs, which aren't

079being met anyways? Why are we losing 20 to 30% of our special education teachers? Why are 15% of our gen ed teachers leaving every single year? Why would you all rather pay more for outsource people because you refuse to pay our teachers and staff? Well, give them the support and respect that they need Why does no one have the answer to we can't touch it? Actually you answered that so I'm gonna take that out Why are we paying special education parents settlements of more than $10,000 to fix a problem that we shouldn't even be a problem in the first place? You speak of transparency yet the community is done watching our district leaders and board members take from site level every time a budget cut needs to happen It's time to start cutting from the

080top or find people at the district who remember their why and never ask for raises while handing pink slips during the same meeting. Thank you next Becca Bernard I'm going to take my union hat off, okay? This is just science teacher looking at data. I have looked through this report, and I feel as someone who's been involved for about six years now as president and vice president, our community and our teachers don't often understand this. How can we... offer an opportunity to educate our community and even our staff on our budget. For the last six years, our reserves have raised from 17% to 37%. I get that you want to save them for a rainy day, but it's been raining for like three years now. I've looked through line by line and tried to really

081understand if we overspent by $8 million, where? Specifically. What categories? Is it because we thought we were going to spend something and then we needed to spend more? Or was it oversight? We weren't paying attention and we just spent more. I want to know. I want us to figure it out together. I love that, Trustee Brubaker, last year you called for those special meetings about the budget. And I know we had had informal conversations about that previously, about what you had hoped it would look like. And I envision it as we use that room over there and we all sit at tables together and we're not making decisions so it's not a Brown Act violation. We are just being educated. We're just talking. How did we do this two years in a row? How did

082we overspend last year by about $5 million? My estimate, and this is just my educated guess, is that you made that budget last year before we settled with WEA. And your WEA settlement cost about in, I don't remember exactly the million dollars, but it was very close to that amount. So is that why? Did that happen again? I don't think so because we still haven't settled. So I really beg that the questions aren't about, okay, what should we cut right now? But instead, how did we get where we are right now two years in a row? Last year was grueling to sit here with you guys, and I do not envy you to have that responsibility on your shoulders. But how can we gain community trust? How can we build those bridges to understand this

083budget and not be in the same position a year from now? I would love to do that with you, please. I want to stop this back and forth, me bringing up our reserves and being told we can't spend them. Well, what are we going to do with them? They're just going to sit there for another year, five years. What are we going to do with them? That's my question again and again, and I will keep asking. Thank you. Any more public comment? All right. We're gonna go ahead and get started on reviewing our proposed budget adjustments reductions and elimination of particular kinds of services for the 2026 2027 school year the superintendent is going to give us some instructions on how we're going to be taking this Presentation and I just want to state board

084colleagues I have asked her to set these instructions so that we can follow them and get through this as respectable in terms of time and you know be able to establish ground rules, okay? This was at my request. She's gonna tell us how this is gonna work. Go ahead. Thank you. So I'm going to start tonight to present to you an information item only. We're not requesting any direction or requesting the board to take any action tonight. There is a lot to consider. This does impact many areas of services. It impacts people. And so we want to make sure that we do our due diligence in going through everything carefully, giving you an opportunity to ask questions. bring it back, have more consideration and wait until January before you start making decisions on this very

085delicate and important topic. What I like to do is start by reviewing the first part of the presentation up to slide 13 and wait until I finish going through those slides before you start asking questions so that I can have a better flow in this part of the presentation. Thank you. And so if you can take notes, please, throughout that, that would be very helpful. Hold on right there. Is everybody okay with that order? Thumbs up? All right. If there's any objections or you guys have a better way of doing it, please, by all means right now is a good time to give your feedback. All right. So she'll go through the first set of slides. And then she'll give us a presentation and then we'll pause. And if you can please take notes and

086then we'll go around and everybody can ask their two questions, two comments. Thank you very much. If anybody needs to go to the restroom, would you guys like to take a bathroom break now or do you guys want to go as you please? All right. So just for the record of timekeeping, it's 723. We have unlimited amounts of time. If we need to go past 10, we'll need to make a motion. Take it away, Superintendent. Okay, thank you. And once again, this is a proposal, a discussion, a first look at this as we navigate through some of the challenges that we have. I want to start first by saying that we... began this process by considering the impact to students and families. That was what we started with. Our goal was to make sure that

087when students come to school and families drop their students at school and participate in events, feel the least amount of impact on their everyday experience on our campuses. So what does that mean? What does that mean to us as we went through this process? That means that Staff that our parents and students should see and continue to see safe and clean facilities. That when they come to school on every day, going to the experiencing school, that continue to see and experience healthy learning environments. And by that we mean that there's availability or continuing to receive counseling when needed. that there are healthy environments with the materials and supplies that are needed, that we have teachers available to our students in every classroom, that we have opportunities for students to continue to receive extracurricular activities, that

088they continue to have highly quality instruction and enrichment opportunities. By making sure that our students still have access to sports to the arts to field trips That our parents still have an opportunity to receive workshops Parent conferences that the teachers are able to give their day-to-day instruction in the classroom as best as possible So that when students and parents come back and forth on our school that they have the least amount of what they feel is different than what they're receiving currently now. That was not an easy task because everything eventually does impact one way or the other, but that was one of our very strong considerations throughout the entire process. We also need to take into consideration the priorities that you have set us aboard. We know that we have a literacy gap and

089that literacy is your top priority. So how can we ensure that we address this budget deficit at the same time making sure that we are not impacting progress or attempts to progress in addressing our literacy needs in the classroom and for our students? Our social-emotional learning and anti-bullying as well, as I mentioned earlier, how can we make sure that that stays at the forefront? Of course, special education. making sure that we try everything possible to keep special education at the forefront, family engagement, and youth development. So your priorities were consistently reviewed and discussed throughout the process. Other considerations for the process is to use an equity lens. There were some times that we could not find other solutions. It was difficult. So we also used an equity lens to make sure that we were not

090necessarily sometimes able to find a way to give everybody what they want, but give everyone what they needed. Focus on activities to support the board's priority in the LCAP. We have an LCAP plan and so we need to make some adjustments in reducing our budget plans for the LCAP, but at the same time, how do we keep the integrity of the goals that you have set within that plan? And then where can we find opportunities for reallocation of resources? Where can we move and make changes to take advantage of some of the options available to us through other resources? And at the same time, recognize that instruction is the key for student learning. And how can we make sure that we do this in a way that we still keep learning at the front and

091center? Again, our ambition of trying to do all this was very, very difficult and keeping the vision of excellence for all, excellence in student achievement, excellence in communication, and excellence in facilities and operations. We still have a lot of work to do and having to go through this process with the limited resources or the available resources. IT IS VERY CHALLENGING, ESPECIALLY WITH ALL THESE UNKNOWNS. BUT WE CONTINUE TO WORK TOWARDS OUR VISION, CONTINUE TO WORK TOWARDS OUR MISSION TO PREPARE AND EMPOWER ALL STUDENTS FOR A FUTURE OF ENDLESS POSSIBILITIES. AND AGAIN, IT IS A REMINDER OF OUR L-CAP GOALS. I KIND OF SPOKE TO THOSE ALREADY, MAKING SURE THAT WE CONSIDER THE IMPACTS TO COLLEGE AND CAREER READINESS, CONSIDER ANY IMPACTS TO MEET SOCIAL, EMOTIONAL, LEARNING NEEDS AND ACADEMIC NEEDS. TO CONTINUE TO FOCUS ON

092ACCELERATING THE NEEDS OF OUR ENGLISH LEARNERS AND ENGAGEMENT OF LEADERSHIP OPPORTUNITIES FOR OUR YOUTH. SO THE PURPOSE OF THE BUDGET ADJUSTMENTS, THE PURPOSE OF WHY WE'RE NEEDING TO GO THROUGH THIS PROCESS IS THAT WE NEED TO REDUCE OUR DEFICIT SPENDING AND WE'LL HAVE MR. WILEY COME UP IN A LITTLE BIT TO EXPLAIN WHERE WE'RE AT AND WHY WE ARE HERE AGAIN THIS YEAR. Any time that I will speak say I speak to it a little bit but any time that you Have a budget proposal put in front of you for approval. It's a budget proposal with the best Estimated guess on the information that we know at the time But throughout the process like even in our own personal finances sometimes things change expenditures that you weren't expecting increase increase Funding that you thought you

093were going to receive sometimes you don't receive And other unexpected increases on things that we thought we were going to spend a certain amount and then it's being more or less so that's just a reality of Finances in schools just like it is in our personal lives, right? We have a budget that we think we're going to have for the month and something happens that we weren't expecting or something rises it changes And you always want to be ready to be repaired in case of a rainy day or an emergency to be able to get through So reducing to be so the purpose of this adjustments is to reduce the deficit spending We want to make sure that we are not just thinking about today, but we're thinking about the future of our district I

094can share that there are many districts that have dipped too far into the reserves because they were addressing the immediate needs of today and at the time where they overcommitted and now they're facing serious consequences. And so we want to avoid, we don't want to be there. We want to think not only about what's happening now, but for future. boards for a future superintendent for future staff of what this we want to leave the district in good financial standing so that work can continue to be done not just today but future future years We also want to maximize and I've already spoke to this all available funding resources We have been proactive whenever possible to apply for grants. The community schools grant is one example This part partnering with cool schools the Texas tree foundation

095of helping with some Work that's going to be done in our schools. It's another example the board directed and went for a bond we took We brought those funds. There's another example. So we want to maximize those opportunities when they come forward to jump on those a little example I just mentioned earlier the glasses to classes In those types of things that we can partner with different agencies or different funding opportunities That we to help us through this time and then of course We want to make sure that we attract the most qualified and best staff possible And we do need to give our staff raise they deserve it And we do need to continue with that goal of making sure that we take care of our staff because our staff also has those rising

096costs and needs in their personal lives. And so we also need to do the right thing and make that a priority and then make the adjustments possible, make the adjustments needed in order to meet those obligations. So I'm going to have now... Was gonna say trustee Lewis, mr. Wiley come up and just review the analysis of the unordered auctions to describe where we are with the deficit deficit and Describe these parts you you are very trusted, sir Okay, so What I'm planning to do here this evening is to speak To what's here on the slide and this is an excerpt of our unaudited actuals specifically the income statement for our general fund as of June 30th and what we've done is we've highlighted the structural deficit that was displayed in our unaudited actuals and when

097we say deficit what we mean is essentially that our expenditures are exceeding our revenues by 5.4 million dollars And so generally when school districts are trying to address this structural deficit, they go about it two ways. One, they can increase their revenue, but trying to increase revenue, you do not get it at the magnitude or at the rate that you need to fully address the inequity or the imbalance in your expenditures and revenue. School districts generally address their deficit spending by... trying to reduce their expenditures. And so that is what we are proposing here tonight in the form of an informational item on some ways that we can reduce our expenditures. And so if we were to do absolutely nothing at all, unfortunately the packages that we are presenting to our bargaining groups, much deserved,

098somewhere we would see about $5 million go into additional expenditures. And so what would happen is our experienced deficit would double. And so what we're trying to do is we're trying to minimize what's happening in the imbalance of our expenditures and our revenues. But I also want to spend some time talking about the ending fund balance, $78.4 million. They're right below the highlighted number. And so just for the board to consider and also some ideas that come from my professional opinion, I believe that the reserves are somewhere in the realm of 26.5%. How does Lewis come up with that amount? Well... I take it by looking at the components of our ending fund balance. And just for starters, I do not include the $20.4 million and the $18.1 million, known as the restricted ending fund

099balance and the unrestricted carryover. Why do I exclude those amounts? Because, in my opinion, those amounts do not lose their identity. Those amounts are still what they were given to us for we still have to use those unexpended amounts for those purposes and so what's in my 26.5 million dollars is the thirty four point seven million dollars of the unassigned ending fund balance the 5.1 million dollars that represents the three percent that we were required to set aside by the state of California And by definition of reserves, we also have to include the amount that we have sitting in Fund 17, which is about $4.2 million. And that is how I come up with my 26.5 percent in reserves. Also, I'd like for the board to remember these facts. The first one is that Although

100the state requires us to set aside 3% of our reserves, the Government Finance Officers Association believes that a reserve for economic uncertainty should be somewhere around 17%. So that's the first item I'd like for the board to keep on their radar. The second piece I'd like for the board to keep on their radar is for 23-24, statewide average for unified school districts, the reserves were somewhere in the realm of 24%. Also, I'd like for our board to remember, just keep this in the back of your mind, that the monthly payroll for our district is just under $9 million. $8.8 million is the monthly payroll that we incur in our general fund for payroll. And so I share that with you just for some perspective on, how our ending fund balance is comprised. We've heard a

101lot of comments, a lot of views, a lot of opinions on what they believe should be done with our fund balance, but I just wanted to share with you my perspective on how I view our ending fund balance as well as what I believe to be our reserves. Next slide, please. Thank you. This slide here is a pie graph of the previous slide's total of general fund expenditures for the unaudited actuals. And so it's a visual. It's a way of getting you to see what that 168 expenditures is divided up or how it's made up. And so some of us learn better by pictures, and we're hoping that this can help you visualize what makes up our general fund expenditures. We took the liberty of highlighting the yellow and the yellow is to get you

102to see that the majority of our expenditures are in the form of people and we just wanted you to have some perspective on what each one of those pieces of the pie look like and how much they make up of the total expenditures. Next slide, please. And so you heard the superintendent hinted a little bit about what we're experiencing in our enrollment and as well as our FTE. But just on the first slide on the left there, what I want to share with you is that the local control funding formula is driven by the district's ADA. And ADA is a byproduct of what's happening with our enrollment. And so if our enrollment's going down, then it's safe to say that our local control funding formula, the main source of our revenue, is going down. And

103so we're also looking at the same snapshot of time in terms of what FTE has done in our district, and we're noticing that it's well-documented that our FTE has gone up. And so there's a pretty stark... contrast between the two fewer dollars more FTE Inherently we have a problem that we need to address and we're attempting to address those with our efforts here this evening So I will just add that our enrollment and Ada are two different things We get funded by ad by kids attending school. So if we have less students being enrolled and then some of those students are missing school, that equates to less funding coming in. I want to also underscore, we have been increasing in staffing. How and why? Part of it is that we have the ELOP program, right?

104So we receive some funding. We have ELOP. We have TK. TK, we're required to have... PARA EDUCATORS FOR EVERY 10 STUDENTS. WE ALSO HAVE SPECIAL ED INCREASES OF NEEDS FOR LIKE ONE-ON-ONE PARAS AND THINGS LIKE THAT. BUT WE ALSO HAD A HUGE INCREASE OF ONE-TIME MONEY THROUGH WITH COVID. And it was much easier, believe me, and I was much more popular when I was adding positions. And I came to you to add paraeducators for literacy paras when I came to ask to increase the counselors, when I came and asked the board to approve cafe specialists and all those things because we could at the time. And we benefited from it. Unfortunately, I'm here today to tell you we can't no longer sustain it. And it's very, very difficult. It's been something that has been weighing

105a lot because we're talking about people. And we're talking about things that we have benefited from, that our students have benefited from. It is not because any of these positions are not important to us. It's not because they're not valuable. It is not because our people have not been doing a good job. We just can't sustain it any longer. And so... We've gone through a very thorough difficult process to protect again the future of the financial status of this district Not for just today and for this board but for future boards future staff and for future families that we want to protect Our district and we also want to be responsible as we were with our own finances, right? We I want to treat taxpayer money as if it was on my own finances and

106protecting that we're doing the best possible in considering emergencies And considering that we're very thoughtful and they were making responsible decisions for the future of our district. I want to also highlight That again, this is not just woodland. It's not just something that Something happened here and something's going wrong here. It is a challenge across Nationally is statewide and it's even our neighbors are going through some difficult times There's a board meeting right now going on in the Thomas having the same similar conversations that we're having regarding some of the challenges That are being faced Sacramento be you see Sacramento City facing physical and solace II again They having some really a hard time just being there three percent reserve. We don't want to be in that situation Cal matters Cal California cities and schools

107face big budgets gaps were and there's not very many options. We're in the same situation I don't we don't have many options To offer on a budget reductions and adjustments and it's been very difficult Davis down the street. They're considering potential school closures You've been hearing Oakland Unified in the news for a while now continuing to have financial Challenges and then many districts will we know we don't know what's gonna happen with their offense And now that we the shutdown has ended we still have uncertainty because we haven't got clarity about how and when and we're going to be receiving funding and so Because of that that adds just another layer of why we have to make budget adjustments on top of the deficit spending we don't we have all these unknowns and we have

108to Look at our the federal funds that we receive for title one two three and four of the federal funds that we receive and I asked staff to Look at what staffing we've always tried really hard not to put staffing We started started last year on trying to protect staffing from funding from federal funds But these are these are the positions right now there are under those funds and we have to plan ahead and Assume and protect us from assuming that the money may not come in And so we are looking at moving some of those positions into other one-time block grants or move them into the LCAP as we wait and weather the storm to see what's going to actually happen with these federal funds. And so we have the Puente Councilor that we're

109proposing to move to one-time block grant and also the... Curriculum the artosis as well. We have some One-time funds that we still have a couple of years years some some are already expiring some already some already expired last year But we still have some money that will give us some flexibility there we're looking at the director of State federal programs part of her salary was in title 3. We want to move it into the LCAP and part of the elementary music teachers in the district. A small percentage was paid out of some, I believe it was Title IV, and we're proposing to move those into the LCAP, and our foster and homeless program manager. We're also proposing that we move her into the L cap right currently now. She's into in title one But we're

110not sure that we're gonna have those funds so we want to protect those positions and move them into other funds for the time being and Then we have some positions that we're proposing to eliminate The first one the first two are positions that are currently not open That's the migrant TOSA. It is not open. We know that we have other resources through the regional migrant program that can provide continued support for our migrant students. And then we have a migrant paraeducator as well that we're proposing to close, but we also have other positions that will be able to support the migrant students. And then our administrator professional development, that was something that we needed a lot of professional development. When COVID came, we had all this additional money. I was able to come. That was

111a very nice thing to be able to do something that we would want to have. But during times like this, we need to... We consider and going back to what we used to do when we didn't have this position and then we have a very small 0.75 Newcomer paraeducator. I want to emphasize that we have six six point seven five Newcomer paraeducators, so we're only proposing to eliminate the point seven five That is being paid currently out of Title III. The rest of the six are already in the LCAP. So the students will still have access to TheraEducators for our newcomer students. Okay, so at this time, I'd like to pause and give you an opportunity to ask questions. The point of the first part of the presentation was to kind of go over why

112we're here tonight and give you some of these considerations that we took in the process. Give you an update of what's happening around the area, the state, and what we need to also consider regarding federal funds. And Lewis and I are here to answer any questions you may have. Thank you, Superintendent. Thank you, Mr. Wiley. I'm opening it up for questions and comments from the board. We'll begin with Trustee Richardson-Fowler. So I know we've got a lot of suggestions that are person powered and I know last year we did I'm sorry you guys I was fine when I entered this building tonight. I can't breathe now and I feel like death on reheat So bear with me Our CSEA president had offered some suggestions of areas of cuts and I know that we cut across

113the board last year in our one on one meeting. We discussed that a bit. But some of the things that Rebecca had mentioned such as the contracted positions the portables canceling subscriptions those sorts of things are those areas that we have already looked at. Or not we because they haven't been presented to us but you and your cabinet and your staff Not all of them. We have not looked at portable leases or purses or portables I kind of hope I took down notes really quickly time. Not sure if I captured everything. Oh, she emailed us Oh Okay, hope you included me. Okay. Thank you We Have in the past not recently not through this budget process about the stadiums That would not help us right now because that would mean doing an additional cost so

114that would not help us with Putting together a budget to turn into the county. We have looked at software reductions. We made several of them last year We kind of we really went through that one last year very thoroughly The DO administrators you're going to be seeing some positions that we're recommending on there and if you just want to point out the pie graph if you look at the classifying management and certificate of management is really If we were to take all the cuts there, it would not if we were to eliminate all the administrators It would not be enough And we do need administrators to run the operate daily operations, but we did Deuce did recommending some adjustment said that you'll hear later, but We cannot just clean it clean and you know not

115have it administrator. So we did proportionately Considering the number in place in those areas There was the other thing we have on here Some some of the audit of contracts we went I think we cut Quite a bit last year significantly and we have a few This year I mean this time around too, but the majority last time we had over seven point something or other close to seven point two million dollars of budget reductions And six million of it did not touch any positions. And so within that six million. I don't have the number on my head right now but I think it was close to two million dollars that we would reduce contracts so we looked at that last year very very closely and we could continue to continue to do so but

116yes some of these we have and some like the portables we haven't considered or the stadium that could be a future a future type of savings but it wouldn't help us for this for this round of reductions all right that exhausts my questions for right now I'll keep taking notes thank you Trustee Garcia. So I have a question for the item number 46 and 47 are how many positions are in those categories? We're not there with the presentation yet. We're still in the first 13 slides. Yeah, I said. Oh, I'm sorry. I forgot about that slide. Which one? Item number 46 and 47. How many positions are on those categories? Two. Two on each? Two on 46. And where's the other one? 47. 47, it's three. Okay, got it. So if you look at categories,

117it's category FTE that tells you how many positions. And my other question is, is a different person the migrant paraprofessional than newcomer paraprofessional? Yes. One thing that we probably going to fix when we come for the next presentation because somebody brought to our attention and they made a good point is that paraeducators. We don't have a specific job description for a new their para educator ones all of them are para educator ones But all those para educator ones are assigned to specific program supports So all of those are actually para educators ones, but we'd like to let you know what types of programs they support So at the future board meeting I'll make sure that I put para educator one so that that's that's clear to the board Yes for now those are my question

118I have more for the next round Thank You trustee trustee Brubaker Am I remembering correctly and some of our budget? Talk last spring that our federal revenue For lack of a better word generally is about ten million dollars annually Your eyes got really big so I think maybe I got that wrong. That sounds about right. Okay, so right now we're only looking at about a million dollars Covering by shifting things for that through through the title things. We're not worried about those other things I say that just because there's concerns of various other things So we're being somewhat conservative still within our future planning of what we're concerned about making sure we have covered I just want to make sure I understood that properly. Okay. That's my only question for now. Thank you Thank You

119trustee trustee Rodriguez. Hi Lewis. How are you? We can go to page 9 analysis of unaudited and what I want to ask you to do Lewis is the 5 million 418 856 that is in yellow Into that is that is telling us how much our expenses are Passing our income our revenues, right? Correct And so if you could go, I know you did touch on it a little bit, but if you could go a little bit more in depth about how that was created. Why is that number existing right now? Okay, so when we closed the books as of June 30th of last year, we incurred a couple things. One being that we had to absorb the salary increase for last year, so we paid for that. That's one issue. The second issue is when

120you hear us talk about the help or the contributions or the encroachment required by special ed, That is nowhere in the expenditures. What that is is a direct hit to revenue, meaning that we have to take money from the local control funding formula and move that into the resources associated with special ed in order to ensure that they balance. And so we had some unanticipated costs in special ed that required us to move over an additional $2 million to $3 million toward the encroachment that we did not anticipate when we built the budget. And so that's another issue. Another issue that happens is that we are slowly beginning to really have to live on what our real ADA is. No longer do we have the conventions in place that require us to say that, you

121know, we're coming out of a pandemic and we have three or four different ways of... of absorbing the impact of declining enrollment. Now we have to actually live with what our real ADA is and as a result of you seeing in a few of our slides, we're seeing a decrease in our local control funding formula and the revenue that's being generated. You're catching me cold here, but we are also, there's more and I know what it is, is we're seeing an increase in our utilities. Utilities were up between 23.24 and 24.25, somewhere around a half a million dollars. And so that's part of it, but at the same time, we're in a place where we're trying to improve compensation, and that's going to add more expense, but at the same time, we're also trying to

122reduce expenditures because inherently we have a situation where we're spending more than what we're bringing in. Yeah, I think it's and I'm just trying to bring more light absolutely important justified your questions are valid and which is I think the overall theme is that our expenses in a wide variety of very important places right whether it be PG&E whether it be a better compensation they continue to increase. And so we, you know, and our revenues are not keeping up with that. And it's very fluid over any particular year. And especially as we want to be able to build programming and meet the needs, meet unmet needs. Here's the rub, right? Here's the rub. And coming out of COVID, essentially, where we have to make adjustments to the amount of ADA. We have to make adjustments

123to that flow. And all these things kind of contribute to what we see here. I don't mean to make anyone uncomfortable this evening, but another thing that we're needing to make sure we incorporate in this conversation is we have these unfortunate things known as these sexual abuse and molestation claims. And so we're standing under the umbrella of our insurance company. We're not actually paying these claims out of our general fund. However, we are seeing where we need to put in our share. of what's known as the school's excess liability fund, it's not uncommon for them to send us an invoice letting us know how their pooled resources are fluctuating as a result of the claims that they're paying. And we're under that umbrella, and what happens is I get an invoice, and we have to

124move money from the ending fund balance up in order to make our contribution to that fund. Schools Insurance Authority is working really hard to provide us more accurate information so that I can include those types of unexpected SAMS claims in our projections, and we're trying to work on that moving forward. But in the past, we'd get an invoice and we had to pay it. Yeah, it's just it's essentially exists because of the issues of costs that are simply No costs go down. All our costs are continuing to increase and they increase in a very large way Thank you Thank You trustee Rodriguez I had a variety of questions on the first 14 slides that I already has during my board briefing I'm not gonna ask them again. I do have some other questions in the

125second set So I'm gonna go ahead and go around trustee Villagran. I already asked all my questions and my answer. Thank you Thank you. I appreciate that trustee Rodriguez Mojica I also sent my questions ahead of time but I did want to just get clarification on one point. I had a similar question as Trustee Rodriguez essentially of like you know how did we get here and I heard a lot of people are interested in that as well and I want to recap what I heard and I know that there's probably more right to add to this list but one thing I noted down is absorbing salary increases, right? Special ed costs are a direct hit to revenue. It was about two to $3 million. We also now have to live on our real ADA because

126we're out of the COVID times. Correct. utilities are up also just like in our homes right by about 0.5 million correct um and on that i'm also wondering if um cost of food like nutrition has gone up like in that department because i know i'm paying a lot more on my grocery bills does that also impact us as a district not it it impacts us and and i know i have spencer behind me and he's probably going to throw something at me but we we We capture our food service expenses in a separate fund, and that is Fund 13. However, that fund itself has to live within its means, meaning that it has to live within the dollars that it brings in and it has to absorb the expenditures that it incurs. But I'm comfortable

127saying that they're absorbing the costs of the fact that food is higher and raw materials are higher. He's experiencing it on his side of the house as well. Okay, but that is not reflected in this not reflected in here It's a seven one way that I think that it is we could be reflected and this please our paper ink for the printers supplies parts for the parts for With the whole thing with the tariffs on computer parts and things like that do indirectly impact this Thank you for that and I have questions on the others in the future, but you answered my questions earlier. So, thank you Thank You trustee Rodriguez Mojica. I do have if you guys allow me I'm gonna make a comment on her statements. I Remember in earlier conversations We talked

128about how cost of living adjustments the Cola Has not kept up with the rise of expenses so you know, prices of supplies are much higher than the adjusted quota that the state has allocated. So I think that's part of it. Trustee Richardson-Fowler, I think you may have some more questions. I don't have questions. I have more comments and just levels of frustration. I find it really challenging that school districts are funded by ADA but we must be prepared to function as if every student is showing up every single day. I am rabidly livid about that. I wish there was a coalition that we could join like the state of Pennsylvania. That had NGOs and school districts sue the state to have more equitable constitutional funding for their school districts That being said we've got some

129Massive cuts to make for this year. I am prepared to cut positions That said I want to make sure we exhaust all of our areas Before we start cutting people that impact our classroom and our student achievement I don't have much more to add or questions for this portion. I will have questions in the second portion and definitely more when this comes back. Trustee Fowler, if I may add, there are some individuals in Sacramento that voice your frustrations. There's been two or three bills that have been brought forward. However, I don't know how far they make it through the legislature, but they've been trying to change how school districts are, how the local control funding formula is driven by ADA. They're trying to flip that and change it to enrollment, but it seems that certain...

130Parties or certain powers keep those from coming to the you would think the coalition with CSBA CTA CTA CSE a all of those groups would have much more of a fight much more of a bite But it did take about 18 to 15 years in Pennsylvania for these groups Including the NAACP and then parent groups and whatnot to make that change in Pennsylvania But yeah, I digress I think the Department of Finance probably pushes back because of how expensive it would be. One more thing I also want to indicate. We're always talking about the cost of SPED, and SPED teacher here, we wouldn't have that problem if the federal government fully funded IDEA like it has never done in the existence of IDEA. Trustee Garcia. I don't have a question for now. I have a

131problem. Trustee Brubaker. All right. I want to echo everything my SPED teacher colleague just said. I will say I've heard for years about our attendance issues and then talking to principals, a lot of them are actually are disabled students who, like, because they have medical problems, can't go to school. I know in my own household, sometimes my kids have missed school, not because they were sick, but because they had. severe asthma attack and had to be monitored for a week at home because they might need emergency medication suddenly. Like there are reasons why families may really genuinely want their kids in our schools and it's not just like the flu. Um, so it's frustrating that, uh, we continue to have this problem. I know I'm preaching to the choir. Um, Did want to sort of

132bring some real-world Relevance to some of the issues you mentioned about why we have this five million dollar deficit You were talking about the insurance and I know this is something put into the context of something that's really relevant to woodlanders A lot of homeowners are obligated to have flood insurance There are a lot more floods because of global warming. And so that means their flood insurance prices are going up every year. They don't get to opt out of that. We are happy. We have to be in this pool. We don't have control over whether that goes up or not. Like, that would be great if we could just be like, here's what we can put into that. Sorry, guys, but that's not something we can do. We can't not pay our electric bill. There

133are things with all of the careful planning we can do. We just don't have any control over. And so we are left in a situation like we're in now. We're doing the best. I mean, this looking forward in the future to plan with those parameters in place. But we can only do so much. I had something else I wanted to say, but it's gone now. So I'll turn it over. Trustee Rodriguez. Hi, Lewis. I'm back. I want to touch on reserves for a second. In your calculations, you said we have about 26.8% in reserves. Sure, I'll tell you the components of them. I believe that it's worth including the $34.7 million, the $5.1 million, and also in Fund 17, this district board made a decision to set aside funds, and so we have about $4.2

134million sitting in Fund 17. And in these reserves, through your calculation, 26.8. 26.5%. 26.5. And when we had an expert come in not too long ago, he gave us a 23, 24 estimate of what the state average of reserves was, and that's 24%. Our statewide average for unified school districts are about 24% right now. About 24%. 2.5 ish. A little bit off of it. Okay. In the 26.8 reserves, and if you need more time to answer this, you certainly can take it and come back at a different meeting. But of those reserves, How many are, how much, what percentage is restricted and what percentage is unrestricted? The numbers that I'm sharing with you, those are all unrestricted funds. Those are all unrestricted. They're green dollars and they can be used at the board's disposal. So

13526.8 is all unrestricted? Correct. However, we can't spend the 3% because the 3% is required. Right. So you so you would take that 3% off of that 26? I would because it's it's required by the state and I get out we have to have that right so be more like 23.8 Okay Okay, those are my questions. Thank you. Thank you trustee Rodriguez. I just wanted to make a few comments on the Potential, you know adjustment for LCFF to be based on enrollment versus a DA It's been a challenge for a long time. You know, I think school districts CSBA CTA CSE a County offices of ed are finally coming on board and I think there's a little bit more momentum on there But it also reminds me like Sometimes I feel like our district needs

136to be more present in advocacy, especially that I always say this. We're so close to the Capitol. Why aren't we at the forefront? Why aren't we speaking up? Why aren't we chiming in and supporting or opposing legislation? You know, school districts have, you know. lobbyists and advocates and that's something that we don't have so we need to take the opportunities that when we visit or we see our legislators we need to be taking those opportunities to say hey we're supportive of the moving to the enrollment based LCFF formula we're supportive of it if it is that this board decides to go in that direction or if you want to speak on behalf of yourself and say hey I'm supportive of it let's talk I think it's very very necessary the other thing as I'm speaking

137about advocacy you guys may have noticed when the city took off took up the vote to allow for waste management to increase the waste fees to increase I sent an email to Luis and Elodia and I was like, hey, this is going up, heads up, right? That's advocacy. We need to keep in mind that when our bills go up, our utilities go up, our taxes go up, the districts are going up too. So we can submit a yellow sheet and say, hey, let's go and oppose this because we can't afford this. Maybe we could, but we shouldn't. And we need to be at the forefront telling the city how it is that we are citing. Do we support it? Do we oppose it? Can they lock in a deal with waste management and say, hey,

138keep local governments out of this. Go and target businesses and residents, but keep us out of it because we rely on tax dollars and we could barely make it. Waste management is a company. They're here providing a service and they're making a lot of money. I myself, I was looking at my bill and I'm looking at my home residents. I'm looking to be increased $14, I think, between December and January because the adjustments go up in January. And look in your mailbox. You should have already gotten your January bill. $14 is a lot of money. That's for one waste. That's for the equivalent of three waste bins, right? So I can't even measure. I won't even ask you the question how much our waste management bill is. But if it's going up 2%, 3%, 4%,

139it's a lot of money. So just taking into consideration, like where can we advocate ourselves without having a paid advocate? I'm going to stop there. Going back around. I have a comment on your. Sure. And I think just piggybacking on your general sense of more advocacy, I think to me it's pretty clear that we need to take up that topic in the future as a board to see what we all collectively within the rules can do to advocate our local legislators. our local state legislators, and perhaps others as a force because we're the ones that are sitting here trying to get through these budgets. And if we want to be able to do the things we know are needed, whether it's pay raises for teachers or having, you know... MORE PROGRAMMING. WE ESSENTIALLY HAVE TO

140EAT OURSELVES. I THINK THAT'S A PRETTY ACCURATE DESCRIPTION. I KNOW IT FEELS THAT WAY, AT LEAST TO ME, WHEN WE'RE LOOKING AT THIS BUDGET. I DON'T THINK AS A LARGER CIVIC INSTITUTION THAT THAT IS NOT ACCEPTABLE TO ME. And so that, you know, moving forward here in the near future, I think we'll have to do some things that are out of the box to advocate and make sure that our local legislators understand the difficulties we're going through and demand that we do better and to use, you know, our own abilities and our own influences to... To take on these these budget issues for public education Thank you. All right. I'm gonna go back around trustee Villagrana a question came up and if you could not right now necessarily but Early was mentioned that there's a

141legal gap cap of 10% which I don't think that's accurate So if you could provide information if you have on if there's any if there isn't just let us know there isn't I mean Let's you know the answer now Well, there is a cap clarification 10% cap for what sir reserves. Okay. Thank you. Go ahead There is a cap and the cap applies when certain actions take place at the state level and Without getting too far into the details the cap is in effect when Governor Newsom and the Department of Finance do things where they're moving funds in and out of their rainy day fund or what is known as their reserves. And when it reaches a certain level, it pushes down on school districts and it says that we are required not to have

142anything in excess of 10%. As far as my understanding, we are not in that position to where the cap is effective. There was a period, if I'm not mistaken, it might have been two years ago or three years ago when the cap was in effect, and we had to comply with that, and we did. You have to justify or explain what you're going to do with those funds in excess of 10%, and we had an exercise where when we adopted the budget, we went through that process. But to my understanding, the 10% cap is not in effect right now, and that is why we are not complying with that code and law. Thank you. Thank you for that clarification comment sir and I think Louis that that theme came up when we had the our

143expert come in in April and it was basically it's a fund that has to do with education that the governor has and when that THAT FUND IS FULL, THEN THAT CAP GOES INTO EFFECT. AND IF I RECALL, OUR EXPERT DIDN'T THINK THAT FUND WOULD BE FULL ANY TIME SOON. AND BECAUSE IT IS NOT FULL, THEREFORE, THERE IS NO 10% CAP. THERE IS A NONEXISTENT CAP. NOT AT THE MOMENT. NOT AT THE MOMENT. UNTIL THOSE PARAMETERS, THOSE THRESHOLDS ARE MET. THANK YOU VERY MUCH. WE'RE GOING TO GO BACK AROUND. TRUSTEE RODRIGUEZ-MOJICA. Yes, thank you. I wanted to piggyback on some of the things that folks already shared in terms of how we don't have more money coming in, but our expenses are really going up and how a lot of things are not within our control.

144I do want to highlight, though, what is in our control and what we have done already. We saw on slide 13, and we'll see it in the upcoming ones, where we are... proposing to move some funds into one time block grants. Right. And they have a set expiration date and they can only be used for certain things. One of those block block grants that we are moving things to is the California Community Schools Partnership program that we recently received. We had that presentation and we had a discussion about it and I just want to highlight that. and give a big thank you to Dr. Felicia Wilson for going after these funds and securing the funds. It is a total of $5.2 million over a period of five years. So roughly broken down, that's about $1

145million a year, even though I'm sure the funds are not split that evenly. And I just want to highlight that because we are right now talking about ways to make adjustments and reductions of approximately $8.7 million. And if we did not have people at the district that were pursuing one-time grants like these, we would be looking at about 9.7 million, closer to 10 million. So again, just a really big thank you for all of the work that went into that. And I know it was multiple steps, and I'm sure you had help. So I just wanted to take a minute to thank you because these are the kinds of things that we need in order to... And it's going to hurt either way, but it's at least $1 million a year that we don't have

146to worry about. So thank you for that. I have one more thing along those lines. Also, I'm sure there's other grants that you can add, Superintendent, but I know we also have the Promesa grant that is nearing the end of year five. And I want to thank Maria Orozco for her leadership on that as well. We see the Promesa kind of timesheets on there, but that would be a whole lot more expensive if we weren't part of that partnership and that grant as well. because that PD is coming to us at no cost and it's high quality professional development. So again, just want to just give it a little shout out to that because I think our district folks are doing a really great job in securing those funds. And I hope that we keep

147doing that work because it's one way that we can bring more money in. Very good point. Thank you very much, Trustee. Trustee Richardson-Fowler, Trustee Garcia, Trustee Brubaker, Trustee Rodriguez. Nothing from myself. We're at the one hour mark. Anyone else with questions or comments on the first section? All right, do you want to take a break? All right, we're going to proceed. If you need to take a personal privilege, please do so on your own. Superintendent, second half. Thank you. Okay, just to recap, as we move forward, the purpose... The budget adjustments this to reduce our deficit spending you have time to discuss of why developing multiple year projected budget maximize available funding as we discussed and to also be able to Address ongoing costs which also includes staff raises So when we went through all

148these things we looked at first thing we went through so many steps but just to describe a few things and then before I go through the These things but one of the things we did Right from the start is do we have open positions? Do we have open positions that we can maybe close? Do we have? When we went through lists and making sure We looked at can we do without some of these positions? And my question Hollywood staff tired of hearing me say this. What did we do in 2018? How are we doing this without these positions? I'm in 2018 and we looked at 2018 to now and it was about 130 staff additional staff and then of course everything I said earlier of considering we're not I kept my kept visualizing the student

149walking into school and their experience for the day How can we make it seamless so that they don't notice a big change? How do we make it seamless so that parents don't see a big change in their experience in our schools? And then keeping your priorities at the forefront. Well, it's not easy and But we did look at well, what position what things can we move? Into some of those one-time money that needs to be expended because we don't want we don't want to return one-time money back Especially the block grants the block grants have an expiration date and we want to make sure that we take advantage of those and they have specific things That we can put in there and so we have to follow those guidelines, too So it's not like we

150just move anything had to be very thoughtful So we found some things in the LCAP that we could move. So I'll go over some of these things and One of them is curriculum action teams. We have some timesheets, and those are nice to have, but once we run out of money, we can do it without. But there's a lot of work to do because we still have an achievement gap. It's important for our teachers to meet and to discuss curriculum and instruction and standards and look at assessments. So we felt that was something that we should try to continue doing as much as we could while we had funding available. Elementary action teams. Similar we have elementary action teams that teachers that come to work on report cards work in assessments and we want to

151Continue doing that while while there's other funding available, but once that money burns out we may need to do without summer school professional development, this is something that We just had it in the LCAP budgeted And but we don't have every year we do we work with the union Negotiate and then will you to maybe consider? Providing some staff development for the summer. We haven't done that Discuss had the discussion but it was sitting in the El cap So we wanted to remove it out of the El cap and put it to one-time money and say well we can maybe consider that if the unions open to that but something maybe we can do with out or we can do less of So we moved it over. It's still up for discussion But we removed

152it from the El Caponero to save other things that we didn't want to cut So it saved us from having to look at other reductions of over, you know, two million dollars professional paraprofessional I mean, I can't see that far and I have this in front of me for a reason so let me get For our professional development, we have done a lot to continue to do professional development for our paraeducators. We want to be able to continue with that while money is available. So we also moved that to one time grant money. classified PD the same thing for other classified staff like not necessarily paraprofessionals, but other classified staff We feel that everyone in our organizations because we are a learning organization to continue to grow we want to support professional growth for all

153our employees, but when the times get tough and there's no money available we may have to Reduce that but we have some one-time monies that allow us to do that for the time being Timesheets for the promessa grant we found some monies on the promessa grant Though the promessa grant pays for high quality professional development that pays for top-notch consultants that come out at no cost to us. The only thing we've had to pay is time sheets for the teachers, but that grant's ending, and we found that still in the line in the budget, so we cleaned that up, and we want to continue to support our teachers with the training that they receive, but that can also, well, this money lasts. And then our gifted and talented, our GATE program, moving it into the

154expanded learning program. Our expanded learning program already offers a lot of enrichment for our students, and we want to fold it into that and continue those services, move it into that resource. And then travel and conferences, we cut a lot on travel and conferences, and this is just for district office, not sites. The little bit that was left there, to move it into the block grant and only consider essential staff development that some of our directors need in order to be kept up with important information so that we can continue to have the latest information available to us as we're moving forward. But if those monies are not available, then we won't be able to do that no longer. General education behaviorists, this is one position that was paid in the LCAP and that we

155received through, we added additional educational behaviorists during COVID because what we learned when we came back from COVID is there was a lot of behavior challenges with our students. We did have behaviorists available for special ed. support but we didn't have anything for general ed but we found one in the LCAP and we want to we feel like we can we still need that support so we moved it also to one-time block grant the community and family engagement the cafe specialist we are proposing that we move uh four of those positions we have actually um 11 positions those positions oh did I not click it thank you no all right thank you I am on number 10. Our community and family engagement, cafe specialists, we currently have 11 positions. These positions, again, were something that

156we added during a very much needed time. When COVID came and we were closing schools and we learned really quickly that our families needed assistance on how to get through this time. How to turn on the laptop how to do a zoom how to support their children at home? through outline online learning that was the main reason we I've hired increase those positions we hire those positions Unfortunately those one-time monies and we've been trying to keep them and move them around and we move them around last year to try it keep as many as not to touch those cafe and at this point we're having a difficult time finding a way to sustain them all but we feel that if we keep four of them and move it into the community schools grant that we

157can restructure the way where they're using them and have like a hub where they are the staff that parents and families can still access support from cafe we have also literacy para again this is A big chunk is about 1.6 million dollars. I believe in this area in this for this these positions and we had A big need on supporting our students with a lack of in-person instruction that we support. We want to support literacy. So we came to the board at the time for these positions to offer at all our schools. Unfortunately, we're having a challenge with that. We still see a need, however, and we propose that we move these into one-time block grants only for our low-performing schools at the elementary level. We have some custodian as well. Our custodians have increased

158work and other responsibilities with different programs that come in. And so we can, it is justifiable and appropriate for it to pay part, just a portion of their salary from the ELOP. Into the ELOP program which would give some relief to the general fund same thing with office managers is just a small percentage of their salary move into the LCAP because they do support a lot of the ELOP program during the school day after school We have an office, I talked about that already, the RTI specialist. There was a lot of discussion on the RTI specialist at the secondary level. We'd like to continue providing support for RTI at the secondary level and move them into one-time funds. And then our nutrition supervisor, services supervisor, we found that we were paying out of the LCAP

159and we wanted to move that into Fund 13. uh with spencer's fund which is an appropriate expenditure and also provides some relief and then in elementary counselors we did hire additional counselors during coven And there was four of them that we hired additionally and we're just having a hard time maintaining that and so we are proposing that we also move those into one time grant. So these are all things that we're not proposing. We're proposing to move some reduction there and to keep these services and of course this is always open to revisit in future and if... additional funds that come that are more ongoing that we can eventually move them back to ongoing funds but this is just a way to Continue some of the services that we felt were critical for our students

160Are there any questions so far because I'm going to go into reductions on some of the movement of funds this is the greens and the Vice president will have to step in and any questions anyone have any questions so far? I'm sorry Slide 16, the summer PD, the $2 million that we're moving to one block grants. You shared that that still has to be negotiated and that might be reduced? Yes. Right. How would that happen in this budget reduction process? Like, is that something that we can explore and maybe move to the yellow slide already? Because right now you're wanting to move all of it. What if we only moved part of that and then eliminated a chunk of it? Does that make sense? So right now there's $2 million budgeted in the LCAP for

161that. Right. I need to get it out of the LCAP. so that I don't have to reduce other positions in the L-cap. So here it is here. Reducing it, we can do that, but it's not going to save anything from reducing the L-cap. It will just provide additional one-time money to do other things with yes And that's my question if maybe other things that are in the reductions or elimination can be then moved into the block Yes, there's no guarantee. There's no guarantee though that that we will Have you know We don't have an MOU and we wouldn't do that. We wouldn't be negotiating that right now We have we have other things. I think you would rather negotiate at this time I'm asking though for this process like where does that come in if

162we are if you're moving this to or we are moving this to the one-time block grants then we're in the and maybe this is a question to our trustees that have done this before where might we look into that for reductions because I know I wasn't on this side but I was out there when you all were doing these reductions in several meetings and it came down to just line items and some were approved and others were not. So again, my question is when would this come back so that we can free up some of the you one-time block grants for other things that maybe we do not want to eliminate? Yeah, so you could give me direction to come back with some other option Okay, and then I can bring like here's another way

163that you can look at this. Okay. Thank you Are there any comments on? What just you have a comment on her? No. No. Okay. No other comments. Okay. We'll keep going down the line I remember and it was in passing but I remember last year when we were going through these cuts we had our columns with FTE but they did not articulate the people. I just renew my request of when we're talking about FTE if we could also have a column that talks about people because when we're making decisions about reductions cuts. all that stuff, it is good to not only know about the FTEs, but about the people that might be displaced as well for a comprehensive decision making. Also, we keep talking about high quality PD and... I'm willing to make even deeper

164cuts with PD for not just this year but maybe the next two three years and see how much training and PD we can do in-house as well. I think that we can have quite a high caliber of learning. I don't like to say that teachers and educators are thieves. I like to say we liberate ideas and supplies. And I know that we have a wealth of information even in our veteran and our new staff too that could possibly do some trainings in-house without having to have an exorbitant cost. If we can look into those areas, that would be phenomenal. Thank you. Absolutely. Are there any comments on Trustee Richardson's following remarks? I would like to second the... Suggestion of adding the actual number of positions When we come back one of our future meetings about

165this just so that we have a that with clear clarity of decision-making When we're thinking about these things because it may it becomes down to this or that that may tip the scales one way or the other potentially Any other yes, I would like to add Remarks on trustee Richardson's values. Okay. Yeah, I would like to for the next meetings to see how many families will be affected with if we will remove these positions and Also, because I remember trustee Rodriguez always asking about this how many families are being affected. And also I would like to see if you're mentioning, Superintendent, some of these positions are being created during COVID? Yes, some of these were. And these are not being, we're not proposing that we cut these. We're proposing we move and continue these here.

166Yes. I may have a challenge on connecting it to families. But you know we can look at it. Okay. I'm talking about all these the in the green No, are you talking about the ones later the later? Okay. Can we if you can bring it up there so that I'm clear that so I'm very clear on the and Yeah, I would like to see how many families if you're This position was created during copy that way we know that position which which position are being created during the copy is me is clear You want to know which positions were created during COVID? Yes. Didn't okay. Do you have a I don't know if you this is time to talking about the item number number 10 or We wait for the next like just to clarify

167She's not done with her second part of the presentation. Are we doing questions in Congress part? This is on the first part. So this this is on the green or she moves on the only the green I'm sorry on the things that we're proposing to move into other funding sources. So are you we're on page 16 Yes, this too these two slides so Are we not gonna wait for questions and comments until she's done with the second part she asked? Yeah, so you're ready. I'm gonna go by the just the colors. Okay. I apologize I was in the restroom while this is gone. Okay, you're gonna go by colors. Yeah. All right Thank you so much and I apologize because I came back and I didn't know what we were doing. So Yes in terms

168of if she has any questions this part that she could okay Tracy Garcia any questions or comments a big way for the next part. Okay. I appreciate that trust you Brubaker Trustee Rodriguez. Just a clarification on item three, the two million for summer professional development. So moving it over to the block grant. Contractually, is there anything within our agreements that, is that money obligated to be spent by any agreements that we have made? No, no, we are obligated to spend it on professional development. So some of these block grants have specific rules and guidelines we just can't spend it for anything we want and so this is a little tricky and complicated because We don't want to send send any of this money back Right, so we need to and we and there have expiration

169dates So we want to kind of take advantage when these up monies are available because some point they may not be available This particular 2 million was in the L cap at some point it continued to stay on the L cap I did not want to budget that 2 million next year in the L cap Because I want to relieve the L cap from 2 million so we can save other positions and other things I put it in what temporarily and this one-time funds to see if potentially there could be some staff development that we might be interested in. It doesn't have to be the $2 million. It doesn't have to be any of it. It could be used differently. I just heard Trustee Fowler who has some bots where we can pay our own

170teachers to do the trainings. I think teachers love hearing from their own colleagues and paying them to do workshops and having them come and gather together and meet together to collaborate. They don't have... We also give them time with these funds. We've used them to do the mandated training, which takes a lot of time. I don't know if you've sat on a computer taking those mandated trainings where we've given teachers time separate from this regular school year to do before summer school. I mean, before school starts during the summer to get some of that done and compensate them. And so there's different things with that we can take advantage of these funds. But right now there's no earmark plan. No ties. Just kind of to be clear. So we moved them over to the block

171grant because they fit what's allowed in the block grant. Yes. But the $2 million and change in and of itself is not tied into a labor agreement? No. No. Okay. No. But if we were to come to an agreement. Then what we have done is paid per diem for our teachers and that's why it's such a high price. We can still offer staff development and pay at the hourly rate potentially and there's different ways that we can approach it but there is an opportunity for professional development for summer. If we have an adoption, curriculum adoption that's important to us. And you know for example that we want teachers to attend that's what we want to Do something with the union to work on this if you want them to have Anti-bias training that the board

172have requested You know, we want to make sure that we get as many people there That's when we could become we do these agreements, but right now there is not existing one. Thank you. All right Going back around trustee Rodriguez. Mocha trustee. I don't know. Did you? I do. Yeah. Thank you. Okay. Go ahead. The summer PD monies. So it's in the, you said it could be used, sorry, superintendent, you said it could be used for professional development or it can only be used for professional development? Because it seems like the grant I thought this the block grant was student support and professional development block grant not just only this different Yeah, okay. So it doesn't all have to be used for PD. It can be used to support students So for instance for Paris

173for eel specialists Those are services to support. Yes, correct. It can be okay. However is One-time money. Yes, and the recommendation right now From I'm sure you heard this at meetings that you attended is not to use one-time monies as you know create, you know, we have to start weaning off of that and and that's as and you know, we could continue to keep some for temporary and we have to be very clear with staff that This may be maybe extend something for one more year be because those types of things cost a lot more Okay, but I just for my clarification question it can be used for things other than PD like student support things There's just some things that are recommendable and some that are not. Yes. Okay. Thank you All right, we're

174going back around No Anybody? Okay Superintendent you can continue. Okay. Well, I'll just ask the board. All right. I'm gonna ask you guys a question There's a request for a public comment to be made in the middle of the presentation I am asking you, I'm letting you guys know that there's this request, and I'm going to ask that we wait until the end of the presentation. If there's any opposition to my request, please raise your hand. Trustee Villagrana. Not a opposition, but public comment is a specific time public comment has happened and we're done with public comment. And if we're going to make an accommodation each time, we're going to have to make it every time. And I don't want to change that. So my position is period to the comment, not where it lands

175because it shouldn't land anymore because that happened already. At the beginning of the item. If I can also clarify the request is to ask a question. Okay. Trustee Brubaker. I think given that this is not a meeting where we're making a decision, we're going to be coming back and continuing to discuss this. I am hoping that we can have that question posed at the end so that we can have time to think about it. And when we come back, we can potentially ask that question ourselves or at least have that in our minds. Okay. So I don't have any, I don't go, I'm sorry. Go ahead. I'm sorry. I didn't see you. Go ahead. This is specifically why I have asked in the past that we entertain different formats of our meeting because in all

176honesty when we're talking about cuts if there's a salient point or a question from the audience or somebody who has information that I don't have I would really like that information so I can continue to make informed decisions. I understand that this may not be the venue right now and I disagree with Trustee Villagrana just because we do it once does not mean we have to do it every single time. There are situations and there are extenuating circumstances but that's just my two cents. Okay so I'm okay with I'm okay with doing the public comment at the end of the item. Any concerns with that? Trustee Brubaker I would like to request that the agenda planning committee and the superintendent work together and potentially do a Question break like we did for the budget workshop

177And one of the upcoming sessions so that there is an opportunity in the agenda built in to do things like that because I do agree with Trustee Fowler that it is to our benefit. You're welcome to submit a yellow sheet for that. I want to stay within the parameters of this agenda item because now we're going into a different area. So I'm happy to take the public comment at the end of the presentation. If it's a question, that'll be up to whoever wants to answer it because a question is a question and a public comment is a public comment. So, all right. I was gonna say, I mean, if we were going to make an exception, maybe it would be better made under public comment for items not on the agenda, but at least that's

178a reserved spot for public comment. But I mean, that's. But it's a public comment for item on the agenda. Yeah, I know. And if you go over here where it says public comments for items on the agenda. IT DOESN'T STATE WHETHER THE POLICY IS THAT THE ITEM BE AT THE FRONT OR AT THE END. SOUNDS LIKE IT'S BEEN WITHDRAWN. LET'S MOVE ON. IF YOU CAN EMAIL YOUR QUESTION. GO AHEAD, SUPERINTENDENT. I'M PRESENTING. OKAY. GOT PAST SOME OF THE RECOMMENDED MOVEMENTS. Here our work is little starts getting really tougher is working we reduce Last year we we reduced a lot. I said over six million dollars It was very difficult to find options more work and we continue to reduce But we did find we went to the the El Capo's really adjusted last year So

179we went through and said okay from all the goals every El Capo's has a section of time sheets, allocation for time sheets. Not very much, but each of the, they have for time sheets to pay for additional hours of planning or overtime and things like that. So we said, well, you know, everyone will just. This how about 25% reduction from each goal equally from from time cheats from and it was $20,000 not very much, but every bit helps We also looked at the site funds last year. We tried really hard to keep away from site funds But I have been monitoring our school site funding our school sites expenditure their spending patterns and I was very transparent with the principals let them know over two years that I've been watching to see how their expenditures

180are especially before purchase order deadline. They spent a lot more of their money last year which was good because they knew I was monitoring and of that because what we want is for those funds their site funds to be spent on students. resources throughout the year and not at the end of the year which a huge jump of purchase orders and so I looked at only one fund supplemental concentration not the entire budget for the school site just the one section and I'm recommending a 25% reduction there is over $300,000 that were not spent last year in that area no no it was more than that 500,000 was about $500,000. So it's a reduction. So we didn't take all of the money that they didn't spend before PO, just 25% of it. Also, all goals,

181also the same thing, same idea with the timesheets. We took a lot of reduction on the district office level. for materials and supplies for meetings, for parent trainings, for office supplies, for things like that. And I asked them to deduct another 25% across all goals. And that ended up being another $20,000. We also looked at the youth development goal four, which is really nicely budgeted right now, but we thought that we also needed to reduce some on the contracts by 25%. And then that doesn't mean that some of the work won't stop. We're just going to reduce some of that. And part of it is because when we hired Brandon last year, he started around this time. He was learning, and we had some contract work with the Youth Development Network. But now he is

182catching on and learning, and he's able to take some of those responsibilities on himself and do some of the own training himself as well. And then the English Learner Specialist, just like our enrollment has been decreasing, so have our English learner numbers have decreasing. This one is particularly hard for me to be putting this forth, but the ELL specialists have also increased throughout the years, and now we need to adjust accordingly to the numbers that we have now. So that is only for reductions. I'm gonna stop here because it is the yellow color for reductions or any questions on our discussion on this slide Thank you very much. Who would like to go first? Trusty Garcia. Yes. Yes. My question is yeah, I would like to know if you with these reductions Every every school

183will have a EL specialist Yes, every school would have an eel specialist Maria would I have to work with whatever remaining staff she has and redistribute But everyone would have maybe not like definitely not like they have now Maybe they'll have a three-day eel specialist versus five days or half-time or it all depends. I would give her The autonomy to make that decision Yeah, I would like to make a comment. Yeah, it is very difficult to me to imagine school without EL specialists as a migrant mother, parent for myself. And they will still have them, but they won't have as much as they have now. Right now we really have, like Marnie Molina said, we do have the Cadillac program. I don't think there's a district that I know of that has a level of

184support in those positions. We would love to keep them, but our reality is that We might need to make some adjustments to the realities of our funding. So those are my comments and questions for now. Thank you. Great questions. Trustee Brubaker? Trustee Rodriguez? Just a question about the EL specialists. Is this recommendation also coming because is that population also shrinking? Do we have? Yes. And do we know by how much or is can we put a percentage to you know? I I had that information with me and I think I misplaced it but I can bring that next time Okay, or I can send it in a Friday update. Thank you make a comment for the absolutely. Go ahead. Oh, yeah, and that's why my point my previous point about to have how many families

185will impact with this reduction or cuts FOR THE NEXT MEETING OR MAYBE FRIDAY FACT TO HAVE THIS INFORMATION IN ORDER WE CAN MAKE A DECISION. IN THIS CASE, I CAN GIVE YOU NUMBERS OF ENGLISH LEARNERS. NOW, DO ALL ENGLISH LEARNER FAMILIES ACCESS THE EL SPECIALIST? I DON'T KNOW. SOME MAY NEVER MEET THE EL SPECIALIST. AND SOME DO. But do they receive services indirectly by the EL specialist? Yes, because they do the reclassification, they do assessment of the EL, of the students and those types of things. So I'm more certain that I can provide students impacted versus family impacted. I think that's gonna be difficult. I don't think I can give you real numbers. All right, so my turn. I think what would be helpful with the English learner specialist, you know, considering that three FTEs

186are proposed. Seeing the ratio at the different school sites like how many English learner students Compared to specialists at the site do we have so if we're still gonna have one site Specialists for English learners how many students that are English learners at that site You know, so I think it would be helpful to be able to see it that way. I think that would be more feasible since We don't really know how many students the specialist is supporting, but rather what's the ratio? Because if at any moment the English learner wants to see the specialist, they have the right to seek the supports. We just don't know how many or the volume. So I think the ratios would be helpful. And then that way you guys can work on the distribution of the positions

187that you would be keeping should this reduction take place. The other items and the categories, you know, I always, you know, looking at site funds is always a challenge. I expressed this during our briefing and I'll share it with, you know, my colleagues. Having been a parent on site council and seeing, you know, how necessary site funds are and the variety of uses. that it's used for, it's hard for me to say, yeah, you know, I'm supportive of a 25% reduction when I've seen schools that have not so active PTAs or boosters and how those site funds at that school site are more used or relied on because there is no high volume PTA. Because when you have a high volume PTA or boosters at that school, you have more support that you can tap

188into for other resources that the site funds may not be able to capture. So that's something that's challenging. But I also, you know, on the other side, like we can't rely on PTAs and boosters, you know? So I'm just thinking of it and I'm bringing it up for a sense of equity. How do we look at the site fund reduction in a sense of equity? Because when you have low participation from parents, your PTA is not going to be as active. It's not going to be fundraising. It's not going to be able to give back to the school at the frequency that a high participation parent PTA or boosters is. So you may have a site that needs more site funds because of the low participation from parents. And I might have repeated myself, and

189I'm just trying to hone in and trying to explain myself. So I'm not saying that I'm not supportive of it. I'm just trying to see it from the lens of how do we not reduce from a site who doesn't have a PTA or doesn't have a boosters. Go ahead, Trustee Rodriguez. Mojica. Thank you. I had a similar concern or worry and I had an opportunity to talk with our superintendent about it before because 25% reduction in that. Superintendent, can you remind me the category? It's the supplemental because it's not across all budgets, right? It's just one category. Can you remind me what that is again supplemental concentration? So it's one category of the larger site fund budget. So it's not 25 Like across right? It's 25 in that little category. Yes So that that helped

190right because it's that's different than saying 25% across the entire budget that the administrator gets That number would be much bigger. Yes. Okay, so the other piece though Is that my understanding is also that we arrived at this number because we've been monitoring the use of the site funds. And in that particular category, what was it, spring? Like by spring, the money had not yet. Yeah, right before PL deadline. Which is? Around April. Around April. So that money hadn't been spent, right? So that to me says that the money is not needed. Again, not across the entire budget, but at least in that category. And I don't think the PTA has, I don't think that the reason that they didn't spend it is because PTA is paying for stuff. You know what I mean? So

191I feel like that kind of helped me understand that reduction a little bit because I did share a similar concern. Can I come back to you? So you brought up the point that I was talking about during my board briefing. I don't believe that, I don't want to believe that principals are waiting until the end because they don't need the money. Like I could see principals working with their teachers and saying, okay, here's the deadline. So get me your lists, you know? And since in the past, principals may not have felt like. This is the use it or lose it deadline. It just might be their deadline to order, you know, so that's how I kind of saw it I also believe that we could be more proactive in encouraging our sites to request for

192material orders from our teachers to be submitted earlier in the year. Why are we doing it towards the end of the year if this is for the current academic year? Are we working in arrears? So I think the culture and the practices also need to be revisited. And we've heard stories where teachers submit a list. teachers never got the supplies because the Amazon order never got there and You know, these are real stories that we've heard from our teachers. So I'm not saying that you know, we're doing wrong by submitting the orders late or you know the deadline of site funds and I don't want to go into the trenches in this but I Just I'm not saying that I'm opposed to cutting I just I would hate to see some teachers not get their

193supplies that you know that they deserve because sometimes More often than not we hear teachers pending their own money on supplies. So if I can just add again You know if we went through this process and I'm looking at this list I'm thinking about our students are thinking about our families and And you know it all somehow indirectly touches something and then Also want to point to the board because sometimes I get emails from you or text messages for you Is it true that that the site is still having enough money to buy pencil and paper? Why are they asking for? donations My answer is they shouldn't be asking for donations There's plenty of funds to pay for those things and this is only one budget item They still have other resources and funding and

194so there's just one way to take a little here and take a little there 270 000 saves a couple jobs thank you okay going back around trustee richardson fowler trustee garcia trustee brubaker i'm so sorry oh I, YES, I'M VERY SORRY. I GET IT. IT'S BECAUSE WE WENT BACK AND FORTH HERE. I GET IT. THANK YOU. I WANT TO ECHO WHAT TRUSTEE RODRIGUEZ-MOJICA SAID IN RELATION TO THE SITE FUNDS AND MANY AGAIN, THEY'RE NOT BEING SPENT FOR THE REASONS TO ME ARE IRRELEVANT AND THEY NEED TO ADDRESS THAT. THEY'RE JUST NOT BEING SPENT SO THAT MONEY NEEDS TO BE SHIFTED TO WHERE IT WILL BE USED AND BE MORE IMPACTFUL TO THE STUDENTS. The question to the superintendent are we required to have EL specialists? We're not required to have EL specialists, but we are

195required to do some of the functions that they do. Yes, for example We are required to have an ELAC Whether it's the EL specialist running it or the principal running it you have to have an ELAC. You need to assess students yearly or the on the ELPAC And you need to monitor some way of monitoring English learners progress which could be done The support of the ELL specialist it could be done through PLC. There's different ways And they said, you know so the main requirements is the the ELAC the testing the monitoring and the Making sure that we go through the reclassification process. This is a basic But we have been fortunate enough. We have very talented EL specialists that provide additional support and advocacy that support our teachers. Believe it or not, in 2005

196when I first came to the district, EL deal was not happening. And that's so critical. ELD is required and the EL specialist supports to make sure that ELD is happening and supports the teachers and the principal making sure there's ELD groups. But it doesn't, it's not required to have the EL specialist do that, but they have been very instrumental in our district to make sure that we are in compliance and that we have some kind of mechanism to support our English learners. Thank you. And I'm not being we don't have any and just want to make sure we were clear as to whether it's a requirement or not and then I know that they do is a 20 or 30 percent of coaching time They do some coaching time. They'll be very honest and transparent.

197It's not Necessarily happening at all the school sites all the time some some do more than others some some are very For sure are doing 20% Some may do 5% some might not do any but it's up to a certain percentage money Is it 20 or 10 up to how much time? Do they coach? Because I know this I know it's not consistent across it I want to be honest and transparent about that and there's some that do beyond that Clarifying the question how much percentage they coach or how much percentage they teach notice. How much was a percent of coaching they're supposed to do Anywhere now it's closer to 20 percent. Thank you. We've been focused on that several years so so my question would be then if we remove that and Then you

198know how much would that save right then they can focus the 80% on doing the everything you described and then that 20% that could be teaching right and then we will shift the cost over from that to a section so Mainly at the secondaries, I guess. I don't know how it would work at the primary. So that's why I was asking. Because that's not a requirement that they do that. Something that we have in place. And so I would propose that, again, we stop. If it's not really happening consistently, too, across, then what sort of efficacy is there? Which part? The teaching part? The coaching. The coaching. Yeah. I don't believe it's happening consistently across the district. That's my point. So then why would we do that. We just eliminate that and save that cost

199and reduce you know the position from 100 percent to 80 percent. I know that's the question to be considered. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Trustee Rodriguez-Molica. I am curious what is there a percentage of teaching time for our EL specialists. Sorry Maria. Not necessarily a percentage, but we ask for them to support ELD groups because they don't, ELD groups and levels don't fall into perfect little numbers. And so they, Maria asked them to support when needed, sometimes it's not needed, up to a certain number of groups because they also have other work to do. Do you want me to elaborate? Yes, I don't know how many of those are. Yeah, they're required to teach two groups per day. elementary yeah and our secondary do a lot of pushing better elementary I'll teach two

200ELD groups per day and those are about 30 minutes each 30 to 45 45 is what required only at the DI is 35 yeah okay still with the EL specialists I'm curious as to how many we have now looking at the reductions I want to see how many we'd be left with FTE but then also positions that we have that available We do it on high memorized. Yeah. Yeah, I currently we have 14.2 Positions and we have 13.2 filled we have one vacant and I believe there's three to be cut here And then the one reduction would be less so that would be minus four So we'd be at ten ten point two correct. Okay, so that means that some would have to go across sites We wouldn't be we wouldn't have one eel specialist

201at each site Most likely not except for maybe schools like Perry who have 380 something English learners. Okay, so she would have to for example Some of our schools have very low numbers. Like let's say this is used us Spring Lake for example, it might have a one day FT one one day, you know specialist for like the step That's one way but you know Maria might distribute it differently depending. So I'll have to have a little puzzle if this goes forth Okay, but we wouldn't have one full-time ELL specialist at each site, right? They'd have to be shared across sites that have lower. Yes. If there's a site that has a high number of ELLs, then that one probably would have one full-time, maybe even two. But some would have to be shared across

202sites. None would have two. Right now, we don't have two anywhere. We have one at 1.5. We have two schools that have 1.5. Okay. Okay, thank you. No problem. Going back around. I am about to head out so please forgive me for jumping ahead real quick. First I just want to say I'm going to double down on the PD and doing in-house training even if it is teachers going and observing other teachers teach and liberating ideas. That being said I have committed to not going to any. paid PD on this district's dime as a trustee for this year for the remainder of this year and next. Just to be cognizant of my commitment. That being said I also want to say thank you for keeping the same format as last year and made it much

203more easy to digest of the move column the reduce column and the eliminate and just jump ahead since I'm bouncing. I'm really concerned about any eliminations in the area of PLC's and I understand the need for cuts but literacy paraprofessionals it just gives me the heebie-jeebies considering that is one of our number one board priorities and I'll just leave that there. Thank you. And I appreciate your comment about the same format my staff smiled at me because we were like let's use the same format Make it easier for all of us Thank you very much trustee Richardson Fowler. Have a good evening going back around trustee Garcia I'm ready for the next part. We're already on the elimination part. Are we going right? We're still on slide 18 Yeah, there's no is it unless there's

204no other questions we can move on All right, Trustee Brubaker. So my understanding is currently for EL specialists, we have 14.2, but we have more schools than that. So we don't even have a full-time at each school site as it is, right? No. Okay. I just want to make sure I understood that correctly. That's it. All right, Trustee Rodriguez. Anybody else, questions or comments on slide 18? All right, let's move forward. Thank you very much. Okay, here comes the most challenging part. Looking at potential eliminations. These professional learning community PLCs, this is on top of, it was like an extra of timesheets available that were provided. So the sites already have built in PLC within their budgets. And then we also provide the PLC time on Wednesdays. So this is on top of. that for

205additional PLC if you wanted to do things after school and Not all sites are using this as fun hasn't been used fully. So that's it's the reason why we recommending reducing The next one is the path for exploration platform and I just went on the blink of what that is And somebody come help me. I forgot what that is It expires at the end of the year. I say someone knows here It's a special ed Contract that has was purchased in 23 24 and it expires at the end of this year Yes, and it's currently not not being utilized. So we took it off the books. We recommend that we take it off the books and We also have the trans family contract that's a contract also that expired and we want to take it

206off the books Those are low-hanging fruit there We also have a data dashboard, something that we thought was going to be, that brought high promise, but after implementing it for a few years, we have not gotten the service that we thought we were going to receive. They've changed owners. You know how companies sell each other, and they're having lots of difficulty with the new owner of this platform. And we're also looking at something else that we are going to be Using that I think we could take the place of this. So we're Recommended that we eliminate it. It's very expensive for not getting what we need to get We also have another consulting. This is for a consultant that it's been supporting Brandon and then transition That's actually if you guys remember Andy and he

207was working I forgot his last name and the Thank you Andy Paul was doing some work on supporting with a transition with Brandon that Brandon's picking up very quickly So we recommend that we could discontinue doing that the pair educators the title the total amount for the 29 FTE it's about 1.6 million and So we are proposing that we eliminate 17 of those positions and keep the remaining ones to for our lower performing schools which are Dingle Freeman Whitehead Prairie and which one okay and Beamer Beamer this year okay so we're proposing that we keep those for targeting targeting them to that Secondary English development, we have very, very, we have given extra sections for ELD at the secondary level. Those classrooms are very, very small. And they also have several adults in the classroom,

208including a newcomer, Paris. And so we feel that we can reduce those sections. And we continue to still serve our students. We still believe that those classes will still remain small. Cafe specialist, we are proposing that we eliminate seven out of the 11 FTE and only keep four and to restructure that and place the remaining four at our four community schools. And one of the things I wanted to explain about the community schools, those community schools are not just for that school. So if there's a community school at Dingle, it's not necessarily just for Dingle Elementary. It's like a hub. Think of them as hubs, community school hubs. where families can come from different area schools to receive services. They're in those specific schools because they were identified as high needs and that's why the

209hub is there, but they're not restricted to just being those. So families could be referred to those community schools and we can have EL specialist, I mean, cafe specialist there to continue to support the work. And with that, we're also recommending that we eliminate the cafe manager because of this change. And that is a district office level administration position. And then the director of college and career readiness. So I know this is kind of confusing, but the director of community college and career readiness is still in the books at the district office level. We no longer have not filled that position. We do have now a director alternative education, and that salary is being covered with the same salary that was being covered with the principal of Cache Creek. But we're looking at, we restructured

210it differently because we have a very talented person to support us, not only with Cache Creek, but helping us district-wide with alternative programs. And so it is a savings, and it is a cut in administration. Any questions on this side before I go to the next? There's a lot on there. All right. Trustee Rodriguez-Molica. The last point you made on item 32, Director of College and Career Readiness, just to make sure I understand correctly, it is a complete elimination. It's not just a swap in a new position? No, it's complete elimination. Okay, because that position is now, it's title director of alternative programs, but it is the Cache Creek. Principal position that position so think of it this way the cash creek principal position That one was changed one of the things that I want

211to make sure work that I communicate is that the high school principals are Paid the same salary level salary schedule as the director of college and career readiness So at the cash creek so we wanted to have like another of those positions add additional responsibilities to keep it at that same level as a director which is the same level as a high school principal and Be able to reduce an administration position in the district office So it's not like we didn't there is a savings of a whole this whole this amount here that you're seeing Thank you, and the reduction could be could have we don't want to fill it right now during these times Thank you very much. We're gonna go back around trustee Garcia. Yes. Yes. So you say already one of my

212our conversation superintendent about the cafe about the services can be sharing with them more than one school, right? so we have a more than one conversation about this and I would like to know if you these families we serve I would just say and different schools or can be centralized here on the district or can be bought. It could be a combination of both. This would be something new. So we would have to, if the board were to take action in eliminating some of these positions, we would have to have a conversation about, well, how can they support the community schools? How can they be part of the district? How can they do, you know, we would have to work out the details, but it could be a combination. Yes, and I would like to

213also say about the manager of CAFE. So I see this person by first hand to see how many classes and resources are given to the families here on the district level. And I see how the participation is growing after COVID. And my question is, if we remove this person, who will do this job? So what I've asked my staff, how did we do it in 2018 before this? Before this, we had parent workshops here all the time. Yes. And we did not have cafe, and we did not have a cafe manager. And so it will need, for example, it will have something. that we added on that took some things off other plates of folks. Something that we needed when there was a huge intensity and need from like, let's say, I'm going to pick

214on Felicia right now. When Felicia needed to spend more time on monitoring COVID testing and those types of things where everyone was dealing with a focus on how we're going to do online learning that we needed to take some pressure off. and have additional support for parents. Those things are off now the plates, but when I was a director of English Lawyer Services, for example, I'm the one who scheduled and did workshops. I partnered with community partners. You know, the teachers could also do the workshops as well. And so it's just doing it back to how we used to do it. Okay. So those, I think, I'm going to wait for the next round. So about the literacy paraprofessionals in my notes here from our discussion previous to the meeting, I think you also mentioned

215we're keeping those in TK, SPED, as well as the low-performing schools you already mentioned. Is that correct? Yes. SPED is not, SPED paraeducators are not at all in this because special education paraeducators are things that we need to have. Not that we want to have, that we need to have, and we must, are required to have in many cases because some of them are one-to-one. There's a difference between what we need and what we want, right? And so I kind of used it in that lens. We can all use a paraeducator. I know I could use one in my classroom and I appreciate it. I was one of them. But where do we really, really absolutely need them and have to have them is in special education. And we have to have them in TK

216required. Everything else is additional support. And so having to look at this, you know, where can we reduce versus what we want and need and what our students need. Our lowest student, our schools that are having the most difficult academic growth are the ones who would need to have to discontinue support. So, for example, our parent who has a dyslexic child, they would continue to get literacy paraprofessional support. In this, well, that student could be anywhere in the district. Well, yes. Okay. That student could be anywhere in the district, right? But some schools are more impacted. Yeah. So there's going to be a lot more of those types of students at particular schools when our data shows where those schools are. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. trustee Rodriguez So have a couple questions The director of

217college and career readiness that that is that will no longer exist it exists in our Position control so that means that it's in our budget is as an open position. I need to officially close it So that does not show up any longer in our in Lewis's budget in his numbers when he closes the books Okay, let me ask. Let me ask it. Okay, so All the responsibilities that the director of college and career readiness had previously. Mm-hmm those responsibilities they've been Will they be absorbed elsewhere and where or are they or they will not exist? No, all the responsibilities still exist. They've been Divided or absorbed by other positions for example Felicia because and we because she is student services and Things anything that's not in the classroom Like discipline or other mental health

218health Counseling would go under student services. So for example in this case extracurricular activities sports that we moved out from the secondary director over to Phyllis's department. Christina is the director of teaching and learning. So she now oversees CTE, career technical education, because that falls under her umbrella of teaching and learning and programs. What else is another example? Those are the biggies. Some of the alternative programs, Lori still has. So she kept some things. Now, this was the first year going through this, and so we make additional adjustments. Some things that we think that maybe Lori can continue to adjust. So this is just, you know, we continue to monitor and adjust as we're learning how this feels. And so I've already talked to Lori about keeping some of the other areas. which she is

219happy to do, but we haven't gotten there yet because we're too busy with the budget stuff. But we'll continue to monitor that and making sure that all those things continue. But I think the big ones is CTE, sports, dual enrollment, which is now under Christina, and there's a bunch of other things, but those are like the big heavy, yeah, secondary site support. And that's really a responsibility of all our directors and our associate superintendent. So the responsibilities of that particular... director position will be added on to to Laurie and Christina's Responsibilities so those the responsibilities of that position that is currently not filled have already been assigned Across the directors have already so we are suggesting that we continue that and officially close the position second question in terms of the the cafe specialists we're

220going to keep Four of them and they're gonna move under the community schools grant yes, that's the Idea that we restructure and so when they do that Essentially are they they no longer are going to be cafe specialists or will they now? undergo some sort of transformation to where they may do other duties because now they're in their community grant or how will HOW DO WE FORESEE THEIR CURRENT RESPONSIBILITIES CHANGING UNDER? ANY TIME WE CHANGE ANY KIND OF RESPONSIBILITIES, WE HAVE TO WORK WITH OUR UNION AND WITH HR TO RENEGOTIATE ANYTHING ON IMPACTS AND THEIR CURRENT JOB DESCRIPTION. OKAY. SO THERE'S SOME WORK TO DO TO BE ABLE TO MAKE IT FIT. YES. GOT YOU. And those are my two questions. I'll wait to come back around. I have one more question. All right. Going

221back around. Trustee Rodriguez-Mujica. With the cafe specialists is there anything in their position as of now that would limit them to only working with one school site or is that something already that is open because if we move them to the community hubs they'll be working with multiple sites now right. Is that something that will need to be negotiated or is that already. An option. I don't, well, I have to work with HR, but I don't believe that would be something that's negotiated because they're providing a service to families and to students. Yeah, I think that, I think to me that's important because otherwise it seems to me that. We wouldn't need the cafe specialist as it's written now and maybe it's a new position that is able to do the work that we would

222now need that position to do in supporting a hub instead of just one site. So that would be really helpful to know. Is that all? Yeah. Trustee Garcia? Yes. Yes. Again, about cafe specialist. So. What you say superintendent is we just keep four or five for the community schools for so it's hard for me to to to him just to him visualize I or Middle school or especially high school without cafe, especially for the big population of these schools And I would like if you can, I don't know, I know you're the professionals, but I think high schools really need a cafe specialist. Yeah, from my perspective and my experience, cafe specialists and EL specialists are the person, are crucial for the families. This is the person or the only person who... Who they can

223contact them and they can guide them. I would like I don't know if you my college Think the same as me but I think for for especially for for high school is very crucial because it's a total different from elementary to more school and to high school especially for For the population we serve. All right, so this is an informational item Definitely, you know, we can continue the conversations. Does anybody have anything to add or share regarding Trustee Garcia's input? Yeah, I am curious, in what ways do you see the work of the cafe specialist as different in the high schools? Okay, I'm going to give you a sample, right? For me in elementary, so it's English learning specialist is very crucial because it's the contact person. But in elementary, there's a lot more help

224for the parents and for the families. But high school, the schools are different, are bigger, are more population. Some families who came just at that time, our schools, and also it's totally different. process families of classes is totally different for the families and for the students and in order we can the families can guide to the to the students or to be involved I think those person are very crucial I don't know if you understand my trustee Garcia feel free to speak in Spanish if you want Yeah. It's the person who guides you. But in the primary, there are more resources, there are more people who can help you. However, to start in the transition of the middle school is very difficult. It's a very big change. in high school is even more difficult. The

225age of the students, the changes, the different ways of taking classes, many things that are happening in that time. And I can't imagine a contact for the parents, that there is no special contact for the parents, especially in secondary level. These people are very important. I'm not saying that we have to have full-time, but I know that here we have many people who are professionals in this, but I, seeing myself as a migrant mother, I can't imagine that there isn't a contact person there who can guide you. And not only that, but also knowing that the population we serve is mostly migrant. So Yeah. I want to make sure all these parents and families have their source of the contact. Even if they're not in the same school, they'll serve and they know who they

226can call to help them. It's based on my experience. Trustee Brubaker? Trustee Rodriguez? I just had a comment on Bebe's comments. Or more, maybe more to the superintendent. In regards to the cafe specialists, who would absorb their most, you know, some of the most more critical things, more important things that they attend to? Who might be able to absorb that if they were gone from the sites? Well, before we didn't have them at all. And so that would be the question that I would pose to my staff. What did we do before when we didn't have a cafe? A lot of the main contact was for the EL specialists, partially, right? Because the EL specialists are the ones that provided the workshop. So, you know, it's nice to have additional, a want versus a need.

227And so when we were able to provide CAFE, that provided additional support that took off some pressure off the EL specialists who needed it during that time because there's all these other impact with English learners during COVID. They have also recently have been, took a lot of pressure off the office staff. Before it was office staff that took some of those questions and calls. A lot of it now is referred to CAFE. and that's taken off some pressure off of our office staff. When we had a high need, especially when all the calls, all the stuff that was going on with the COVID tracing and notifying parents, communicating with parents about the protocols of COVID, all those things, we felt that the office staff was impacted highly because they couldn't be doing their regular job

228and calling parents about You know 10 day 10 days or have you tested positive? Are you tested negative now and all those things? Those are the kinds of roles that they played But before that we didn't need all those things and other people assisting staff before that 2018 took care of the day-to-day things but At the elementary level it was mostly the the the eel specialists at the secondary level. Um I believe some of them had hired, this is how it all started. Pioneer High School had already had a position that they had had, and they used site funds. And I believe, what are the secondary, was it Pioneer High School? I know Pioneer High School for sure. And I don't know, I can't come from the other ones. I'd have to ask staff. I

229have a question related to this. So prior, some school has a parent liaison? Some schools had a similar parent liaison, and they used it out of their site funds. Not all of them. And that's how it started with Pioneer and Notre Dame. Villagrana is very familiar with that, at Pioneer High School, but not all of them. Some of them had a part-time person or they hired somebody on the VSA. And so when COVID hit, it was a lot of pressure on our nurses needing support on calls, our office, our EO specialists were busy helping with the online learning and all the other impacts. And that's why we, with those monies that came to us, we were able to get a cafe specialist. For every school, our parents didn't know how to use a computer, how

230to turn on a computer, how to help their kids get online for online learning. And that's how they came in. Now all of that is gone. And now, you know, it's nice to have. They're very valuable to have. But not necessarily the need that they were intentionally hired for. Thank you. All right. Where did we leave off? Trustee Brubaker? Trustee Garcia? Okay, so I have a question in regards to the literacy paras. So we're going to keep some literacy paras, and then they're going to be placed at the students of most low-performing schools. And we said that was Dingell, Freeman, Whitehead, Prairie, and Beamer. Didn't get that right. Those are currently our low-performing schools So once the test assessments come out we will relook at it and see which ones are our low-performing schools And

231then we'll assign them to those schools and so that's kind of my question. What what assessment? What measure are we going to use to? Identify we're going to be looking at cast assessments and also our local assessments. I ready And the casp and also the l-pack, but what will you be using the dashboard? Well, we would be using it that yes the dashboard that would be another looking at chronic absenteeism and those things those types of things Okay, and then my other question is Would would the literacy paras qualify Just generally to be moved to a block grant Would that would that function of that literacy para serve be able to be moved under a block grant? Is that possible? It is possible But the the block grants aren't limited of funding. I'd have to

232see if there's even additional space For that and it would be limited limited time as well. All right any show of hands for interest in the superintendent Seeing if there's any possibility For the literacy pair professionals to go into a block grant Well, I was just kind of asking in general is that is that a possibility I would have to it is possible so but This list list. Let me give you as example Let's say we have four million dollars in one of the block grants and we've already committed three million in it or Or the majority of it I can put the literacy paras in there, but I have to pull something out Yeah, and so it is a huge Movement of things I can look into it And if the board wants me

233to look into it and come back and say I looked into it and I can do it maybe for one year, but we're gonna be right back here again and We need to start moving away From using one-time monies for ongoing staffing slowly but surely and we happen we happen but you need to continue moving in that direction But you know, that's what the board desires. I can definitely look into it. And my purpose is just to see if that is a possibility. I mean, I think there are many issues that are important to all our board members and we kind of have to see how things might fit. So like for now, I just want to know if it was a possibility. And and you know, we'll we'll go through a process of trying

234to to figure out what what makes sense because there are there are other needs possibly in terms of being able to reallocate but So so it is it is possible. There is possible. I just don't know for how many and for how long yeah, gotcha and So the the other thing is just a comment in that we already acknowledge that literacy is our number one goal and that when we eliminate 17.9 FTE of 29.9 FTE, that's slightly over 50% of those folks that will be working on that particular goal that we've identified as our number one goal. And I think that's factual. And I just wanted to bring that up. Thank you. All right, so are we giving is there four hands to try and see if the superintendent can find block grant one-time block

235grant funds for Any possibility with literacy paraprofessionals? Can I ask a question for thank you? So this is kind of what I was getting at with the summer PD monies that I asked earlier, right? So we have two million a little bit over two million 2,020,000 right now that is being moved into the block grant that is for student support and professional development that expires in 2029. So it has an expiration date, but it's not 2026 or 2027, right? And we were discussing earlier. The possibility of either eliminating it or reducing it either by half or by I don't know it's if we break it down into days a PD because this is PD timesheets right there are teachers do and correct me if I'm getting any of this wrong superintendent. But if we break

236it down I think we can let's say we just cut that in half just throwing something around right. Then it frees up one million dollars from the student support and PD block grant. Paraprofessionals provide student support right like I don't think it's a stretch of the imagination to say that it would be able to fit there so we are eliminating or reducing something in order to help something else fit. It does have an expiration date so it's not a permanent solution but it is a possibility and I want to open this up to not just be for literacy paraprofessionals but what can we do with that one time block grant money. to be able to support some of these key positions for at least a little bit longer. So I want to throw in there

237to the EL specialists positions as well. So if we can take a look at how we can carve up the summer PD monies that right now is over $2 million. And if we don't use all of that into that block grant, what might that support? Does that make sense? Some I'm raising my hand for your question, but I'm requesting that we also add in there the EL specialist positions I'm okay. So if the board wants to tell me what they want me to look into I can tell you how if we can do it Yeah, but just to give in perspective the the Just to give it in perspective the para educators right now are 1.6 million dollars a year So I might be able to do a combination of some or some parts But

238I can't see how we can have all of them and the EL specialists all continue on for too much longer, too much on that. But, you know, if you tell me you want me to look at how I can have less impact on the EL specialists and the paras, I can come and bring options to you. Yeah, I think that would be helpful to help us do that analysis so that we can have a discussion about what that could look like along with what the repercussions are of changing that plan. All right. Do we have a consensus? Can I add about the cafe specialist for high school? Yeah, I can look at that too, but we're not gonna be able to do them all I'm telling you right now There's no way that we'll be

239able to do all the cafe that yield specialist and we're talking about several million dollars All right. Okay. So right now we're at our three we're into our three It's 946 if we're gonna go past ten, we're gonna have to extend time Oh, it's 11. Thank you. Okay, I'm getting my hours. Just one point about the cafe specialists. By moving them into the high school, I won't no longer be able to take advantage of the community schools grant funds. So that I won't be able to move into the high school and use those funds, which is going to have to bump something else. And so I will bring you options and tell you how much it costs. And then I'm going to ask, and what else do you want to reduce to make this happen?

240No problem, so this is an informational item right now. We're giving suggestions. We're asking questions and we're Tasking the superintendent with hey, what would these things look like and can you fit it in there? Okay, so We're gonna go back around If anybody has any questions that were past the two-hour mark on this item. We don't need to extend. Thank you for clarifying sir Any more questions or comments on the eliminations Reds? We get on it. So just just a comment again that For a long time probably 10 years or more this has been happening where the board has been just pushing it down pushing it down pushing it down So these are not cuts and that's fine if the board's gonna do that But we're not we're not making adjustments to the budget and

241the structural deficit will still continue Because we're not making any cuts right until the cuts happen. Then you're addressing the the budget shortfalls Yeah, we're moving it over But then in so many years we're gonna that board is gonna be in the same situation again So just be mindful that that that's that's all we're doing We're just pushing it down like someone else did it for us and we're here now We're doing it and it's gonna be that situation and I mean if that's what it is and that's what it is, but That's not what we're doing So in other words, we need to cut the fat And we need to cut because if we don't cut it down We're just moving it somewhere else For us to deal with it in two to three

242years So I wouldn't use those terms. I'm sorry, but I would say that you know, we we've had programming that's you know been ABOVE AND BEYOND. I DON'T KNOW ANY OTHER DISTRICT THAT HAS THE LEVEL OF EL SPECIALIST SUPPORT, THE CAFE SPECIALIST, THE PARAS. AGAIN, WE HAD FUNDING TO DO THAT. IN A SENSE IT WAS LIKE AN EXPERIMENT TO SEE WHAT WORKED. I GUESS I WOULD WANT TO SEE DATA THAT SHOWS WHAT THE IMPACT. PART OF THE RATIONAL INITIALLY WHEN I PROPOSED THE CAFE SPECIALIST WAS THAT THEY WOULD ACTUALLY generate revenue by increasing engagement and increasing attendance like and they pay for themselves. If that's not happening then so they're not paying for themselves right. And then we can't continue to sustain them because the intent was for them to sustain their position and not

243encroach into the budget but actually generate income for the district by increasing engagement therefore increasing attendance. But I don't think that's happened and I haven't seen evidence of that happening. So therefore why don't we continue. to move in the direction when what the intent was has not resulted. And again with the Yale specialist you know again there's that coaching part. I mean it's not being done across the district with fidelity. Let's remove that. Right. And have them do other stuff. So again I agree but just yeah. Thank you. Trustee Rodriguez-Bojica. Yeah. I think it's going to be really helpful to see how we can carve up a little bit of that summer PD. So I look forward to seeing that information and hopefully it doesn't completely eliminate that fund, right? But we can see different

244ways of how to leave some in there for some PD in the summer. But one thing that I was thinking about, or I realized rather, while we were discussing the CAFE specialists, the EL specialists, was it brought me back to our conversation at the beginning about the site fund. Right now there's a proposed 25% cut in the supplemental and concentration category of each site fund. I realize that if we do end up cutting eel specialists and if we do end up cutting cafe specialists and if we do make the 25% reduction to the site funds, then sites are not going to have the ability that they had pre-COVID before these monies came in to use their site funds to cover that if they choose to. So I just bring that up because I think we

245need to be careful when we do these things in combination, right? That if we... If we are unable to find a way to keep the cafe specialists and or the EL specialists then I would really want to see the site funds not be touched. I know it won't be enough but at least so there's something in those site funds for administrators to make decisions about bringing in a point five parent liaison or whatever it is. And my understanding superintendent is that supplemental and concentration funds can be used to fund a parent liaison. Is that correct? Yes, it can. But just to put it in perspective, if you divide that amount of money by the number of schools that we have, it's about $10,000 to $15,000. It's not going to go very far. Okay. Thank you.

246Trustee Garcia? Trustee Brubaker? So I just want to explain my thought process right now because I don't want staff to see... I WANT TO EXPLAIN MY THOUGHT PROCESS. FOR ME, FROM WHAT I UNDERSTAND, WE HAVE MORE ENGLISH LEARNER SPECIALISTS THAN WE HAVE A NEED FOR. FOR ME, THAT'S NOT SOMETHING I'M LOOKING AT CONTINUING ON. I RESPECT THAT OTHER PEOPLE DISAGREE WITH THAT. FOR ME, I I'm concerned about the percentage of cutting of literacy paraprofessionals as we're also rolling out our literacy framework. So from my perspective, in my head, I'm thinking, okay, right now it looks like we would be reducing from 30 to 12. Maybe we could carve out a little bit to have one per school site and see how that goes and then maybe next year revisit that maybe even say let's do

247that but then next year let's revisit that and see how that's doing just buy ourselves some time with some blog grant to make sure we're making careful thoughtful decisions. That's just where I'm at. I don't want people to think oh my job is potentially saved by there being support for this because that's just what's in my head right now. So that's that's all I wanted to say. Trustee Rodriguez? All right. I'm just going to share with my colleagues kind of like where my mind was jogging when I was doing my board briefing. When I looked at this red, the first thing that came to mind was, man, these are a lot of positions that we're cutting. These are positions that were filled with people with seniority. that were in other positions prior to becoming a

248CAFE specialist, prior to becoming a literacy paraprofessional, for example, or English learner development. So my point is that there's going to be a bumping effect, a really, really bad one. In a sense... It could be good because these individuals are going to be absorbed into other positions. But if you have a different position outside of these and you have less seniority than those that are currently filling these positions, you're going to get bumped out. And people that are not on this list are the ones that are going to be losing their positions potentially. So I just want to say, like, I look at this with... you know, a magnifying glass because the people that are going to lose their jobs are people that are not holding these positions necessarily. So, you know, I can't sit

249here and say, like, oh, I'm supportive of these eliminations because I want to continue learning and I want to continue seeing what other solutions potentially there are. But I'm going to go back and say, like, I agree. We need to start cutting. And if there are positions for these individuals that get bumped out to keep them in new positions that are hard to fill, you know, I really want to hear those solutions, too, because I know we do have positions that are funded that we're having a hard time filling. That's it. I just want to make a comment. You make some good points. Just because TK para is not on the list does not mean that the people who are in TK para because they're para ones could be impacted. So I'm hearing so far

250from the board on ways of things that you want to try to keep, but I haven't heard anything that you want to reduce. So as you continue with discussion, I just want you to keep that in mind. Yes. Well, I think. Think this is you know to our you know to our It will be bringing you forward I'll look into all this but I also will bring forward if you want to keep these These are different options. This is how much it will cost and these are some other ways that you can reduce and it's not gonna look pretty It might be science camp. It might be sports It may be additional counselors Everything that I was trying to protect might be on that list. I just want to be very transparent because you might

251not be too happy with what I bring forward. And that could be the other way around, Superintendent. You might not be too happy with what we may suggest. Exactly. Some of us may have not come. None of us like this. Some of us may not feel like. You know, this is an informational item. Some of us are probably waiting to hear what we as a collective have to say to come back and say, all right, now that it's actionable slash information, I'm ready to say X, Y, and Z because I heard you say this and this and this, and I want to bring you along, and this is what we want to move forward. So we have to work as a collective with our superintendent and, you know, if we can, with our collective bargaining

252units and seeing what we can do. All right. Any other questions or comments on this slide? Trustee? To your point, Superintendent, when we met, I did ask, what are some things that we have not yet touched? Because in preparation for this meeting, I went back and I reviewed the slides and. Viewed some or I wasn't able actually to view the videos from the last meeting so I viewed all of the slides and information that was shared when you all were making these cuts and I was over on the other side and it does seem like there are certain things that we have not touched at all in terms of budget reductions but there are things that we keep. reducing in the budget cuts, right? And one of those things that I've noticed that we keep

253reducing are unfortunately services to EL students, right? Newcomer paras, I think were on there before. I don't think they ended up getting touched, but I would like to see what are some things that we have not yet touched. Not saying that I am interested in going there, but I do think that it's important to look at everything instead of continuing to Reduce in the same areas that we have been consistently. I mean one thing is going to be popular when I say right now that we could is looking at closing one school you know the lowest enrollment the one that requires the most maintenance shutting the school down that'll save a significant money ongoing. Right you distribute the students to the schools and that will save a certain amount of money. So I mean if

254we're looking at other options that is an option to consider. You're right it's not a popular option. Yes. But thank you. All right, anybody else questions or comments on slide 19? Thank you very much colleagues. We are respectfully moving forward and just to We give it our first best shot on trying to bring forward to you Not necessarily little like that we like doing having to do this but trying to protect Things that we know are aligned to the board priorities and to students everyday experience at schools for example field trips and those types of things. Anyway, so next slide. Continue on with recommended recommendations. Most of these are the beginning part, beginning number ones are anyway, are district office positions. A technology specialist, that's one. Technology position for the technology department. Special education secretary,

255four. That position got added on a few years ago. And so we're proposing to eliminate one of the secretaries. They have three right now, plus two translators and a data analyst. We also talked to Tony. Tony, is there anything that you can, you know, we kind of made everyone kind of give, you know, what can everybody reluctantly. Work in the reduce and still keep operations operating because no matter what happens we still have to provide services and we still have to do the everyday operations and be as efficient and effective as possible and so a half of a warehouse worker We also have a risk manager position that's under the HR department And and so we're recommending that we eliminate that position It's a newer position. We also, same thing with another personnel technician. So

256that's two positions in HR. I know there was comments about we want to see HR, we want to see technology, we want to see admin at the district office. And so we did look at all that. So we are looking at two positions at the risk manager, that was just an admin position, and the personnel position for the HR. And then same thing for a business department, a payroll technician. We also feel that we can reduce by two custodians and make some adjustments. Some of those probably will be by a natural attrition. One of them is actually open. Actually, I think both of those are too open, so we would just not fill them. A vice principal, that would be the Woodland High School vice principal. That's something the board has discussed in the future.

257And we said we would discuss it here during this round. So I have it on the list. And Administrative Secretary 3, this is an open position at the office that we've been holding off and not filling, knowing that this time would come. And so we're proposing that we not fill that position and close it. And then we do have two school sites that have a 1.5-year specialist. That's the other one. There's three and one here to reduce. and those are also open positions. Any questions? No questions, no comments. Continue, Superintendent. This is the end of the presentation, but just before we continue on, again, our intention was to keep a focus on imagining students coming to school and parents coming to school. and trying to have them feel the less difference in school, their experience

258by making sure that our school stays safe and clean. So there was not a bunch of custodial reductions. We do not want to reduce any more from Jim's budget. Last year all departments took budget reductions. We don't have any more to move on those reductions without impacting. Healthy learning environments, you notice that we did not have the nurses or the LVNs on the list? Or did we try to protect our counseling positions as well? And high quality instruction enrichment opportunities, we kept away from those opportunities that our students have. field trips college trips We don't want to go and do this mantle went the program or avid programs It starts going into programs and that's when it starts getting harder So we did everything that we could to make sure that students continue to have

259the experiences and options that they have during during school these days so And then one more time we just can't sustain this very simple this we can't sustain We do not need to do anything if the board wishes and we can use the reserves to get through the year But that really puts us in a situation where we might end up like sex city another district you see in the news where they Dipped into the reserves and years later. They're suffering the consequences especially right now with all the unknowns and so what I want to just Make sure I review with the board. Let's make sure I got clear direction My understanding is the board would like for me to bring additional options for English learners for cafe and for literacy para educators looking at

260how we can adjust that and We look at how maybe One idea that was mentioned is reduced thing how how reducing a staff development could help was helping some of these positions and to And if that doesn't work that you the board would like the to consider more information about site budgets I just want to make sure that that was What I heard and my rush that I leave tonight with the correct interpretation of your request The thing I would like us to consider which would save money eventually as things change is having a minimum for a section at a school site to move forward, right? Because right now there's some courses or sections that are very under-enrolled, like in the teens and some even below that for the past two years. So if there

261was a minimum that we had, like say you need to have at least... 25 students interested in that course for it to move on in the process. And if it's like 20, then it's like, nope, it stops. And then it doesn't move on, right? And the thing to explore is, again, at the secondary, going to a sixth period instead of a seventh period, which we have right now. So, again, other things that would save money. I don't know if others are interested in exploring that as a way to save money. I think there's definitely interest if you want to submit a yellow sheet. No, no, not a little shit. Just a conversation as others requested items to come back Oh something I would want to consider as a budget cut. Okay, so Superintendent is that

262something that you can bring back? I can Like show us the number challenge is that I can't guarantee what sections are gonna look like next year So, I mean that definitely it would be an action that we can take for on future savings The six to from seven period that's something that would have to negotiate as well. So we wouldn't just be able to automatically but we can discuss about the board wanting to Look at that how much savings that would be? for future savings and there's some other things that were brought up earlier from like Mr. Rossiter about that I think would also help with future savings. It wouldn't help with immediate savings, but something that we definitely, that we can look at. Clarification question. Go ahead. For the periods, wouldn't you just let

263the MOU expire? We wouldn't negotiate, right? Just say it would expire and then we'd go back to. The reason why we have it is because we've extended the MOU that we have in place right now. Yeah, I'd have to follow up with HR. You can look into it and get back. Yeah. Thank you. Just a question for Trustee Villagrana. Can you repeat again? So the two, you gave two options to look at, right? And one was to reduce the periods. Well to have a minimum number of students who are have shown interest enrolled in a course in order for it to move forward to an actual course because we have 20 students the you know the attrition you're gonna end up with like 14 15 students and you have a teacher with 15 students when

264you have other teachers with like 30 some students as well right so it's also a fairness issue and so you have less sections right to fund that's one. The other one again is going from a current seven period to a six period and that also will reduce cost because you'd have less sections to to allocate. Yeah. OK. Thank you. All right. Any other questions or comments. Well I want to say thank you to all of you. So one more question. In terms of the light item on page 20 the device principal line item. Can you just talk about how we arrived at the conclusion that that that's something that we needed to consider and And what its impact might be? The reason is on this list is that the when the board discussed this during

265the budget Proposal process in June or I'm not in that time I Said to the board at the time That I would consider it during I would bring it to the board during this budget cycle That's what I said and that's what I'm doing because at that time I felt it was too soon To prepare the site for that change But I did tell the board that I would bring it back during these butch before discussion and decision on that and so if you if that vice principal position would be moved how many vice principals would they have they would have to it will in high school and three a pioneer Two at Woodland and three at Pioneer. And you're kind of looking at the populations just in terms of trying. Is that like a...

266Yeah, Pioneer has a lot more students. You took that into consideration in this calculus? Yes, they do have... Pioneer high school does there's two options in order to address that and that difference in staffing for those schools Because Pioneer high school does have a lot more students and they have the same number of VPS So the only option we have to even the field make it fair equitable is either to add more expenses and add a VP at Pioneer high school or Reduce one at one in high school Well equitable is a deeper analysis. Yes, that's not about fair It's about equitable. That's a deeper analysis and If we we redraw boundaries, would it in essence? We end up with a with a more level population in which case would we then We have to

267reassess that once we do boundaries the numbers can shift and we're gonna have to shift staff Anyway, even teachers are gonna have to shift even custodial everything even the number of Counselors the whole thing's gonna have to shift at that point when we start doing getting serious about boundaries Not only just at the elementary level, but I mean the secondary level but also at the elementary level so in essence if population is one of the main issues and why we're looking at this cut we may AFTER OUR BOUNDARIES AND IF THE BOUNDARIES ARE MOVING IN SUCH A WAY WHERE THE POPULATION EVENS OUT, WE MAY BE LOOKING AT BRINGING IT BACK. IT'S POSSIBLE. THANK YOU. WE MIGHT HAVE LESS NEED OF LET'S JUST PRETEND THAT WE MAKE ALL THESE BOUNDARY CHANGES AND ALL OF A

268SUDDEN THE FOIA BECOMES 500 STUDENTS INSTEAD OF 800. WE MIGHT NEED THAT VP POSITION SOMEWHERE ELSE. I DON'T THINK THAT WILL HAPPEN. Right now it is highly impacted and so is Woodland Prairie, but when we do all these boundaries, that can also shift and move more students over to Gibson, which is low enrollment, to Dingle, which is low enrollment, Samora, which is low enrollment. We have a low, and that will shift the staff just because they have a VP now at Tafoya or Woodland Prairie does not mean that'll stay when the boundaries, it could be that they stay. But yeah, we're going to need to look at all staff, and we can't make those shifts and make those schools smaller and be back to where we're at right now, having more staff than we need

269per student population. Yeah, I think I just have an interest in diving deeper into the equity issue, such as, you know, what are the more population one and the other, but is there a higher suspension rate at the other? Are there other issues which would require? an extra vice principal to deal with, socioeconomic issues, we can have that conversation later, but I'd want to take a deeper dive into that. Thank you. I just wanted to make sure, is that the desire of the rest of the board? So can I add it to my list? I'm interested in terms of looking at this principal position from a lens of equity. Each high school has their own specific populations and supports that are necessary for the students. Yeah. And then as it relates to, you know, their

270academics overall. Yeah, I would want to take a deeper dive into the equity issue to see what we see, to see what the data shows, not just necessarily population-wise, but equity. If we're using those terms in terms of why we're doing some of these things, then I think we need to put more depth and more energy into that analysis. Are there two other individuals that are interested? I think having more information to make decisions is always a good thing. So I would be interested in seeing data. It doesn't necessarily mean I would change what's proposed. All right. So there are four. Rubaker, Rodriguez, Rodriguez-Mojica, and Bautista-Zavala. Okay. So let me reread my list. The board would like to have more options to consider for EL Specialist, for CAFE, for Lucy Perez. potentially adjustment of site

271funds if what that would might look like that one I think that one might be an after we look at this more information on data vice principal specifically equity men look taking up what it would look like what we save on by minimum minimizing sections and doing the update on the board of where we are with sudden setting, like current MOU on the seventh period. Is that correct? Everyone's good with that? Yes. All right, superintendent. So just to clarify, the running total is 8.7 million? That's our target. But your proposed at this point is only 3.1? No, that's just from that one slide. From this slide? Wait. That doesn't look like three point. That's the total that's a total category of the red for the red That's a total for the red. Oh, it's how

272close we get to the eight point seven If we do all of that if the board approves everything the yellow The green and the red we get to eight point seven great. Okay Any other questions or comments trust you be Baker? One of the public comments mentioned that there were no cuts at the district office. So I was making notes as we were going through and by my count there were eight cuts at the district office. Just for general information. Thank you, Ms. Brubaker. Very good observation. All right. Thank you very much for all the hard work that went into this presentation. I know this is a very difficult one. We do have a public comment for the next item. This is the first touch first information That this item comes to us. It is

273coming back in December and then again in January I invite you guys to work collectively whether with with any of your colleagues me or anybody else I invite you to Start discussion so that next time if you guys do have suggestions that you want to bring forward it will be actionable so you guys can Begin working on that if you decide Anybody else closing comments on this item, okay. Thank you superintendent for all the hard work Public comments for items not on the agenda miss Bernard. I don't want to keep us from our pillows but I do have a closing comment and I want to point out that there are one, two, three, four people who are not paid by the district office or your wonderful trustees here. And there are about 45 people who

274are watching on the live stream about 10 minutes ago. It worries me when you are making decisions that are going to affect the people who are not in this room. And you are making them based entirely on information you are receiving. from your district staff, which I do understand is their job. And I appreciate the clear outline job that they've done and that you can give them feedback to make it even more clear, especially about having the number of people, not just the FTE. So we know how many people you're affecting, but it is not a very transparent, inviting, inclusive environment. During this presentation, I apologize for the confusion. I just had a question about your presentation because as someone who's actually here and actually paying attention, I was really having a hard time with

275something and I wasn't able to ask that question. If I was teaching a lesson... and my students asked for a clarifying question and it interrupted my thought or my flow, I wouldn't tell them, sorry, you already lost your opportunity to ask a question. I understand it's not the same. It's a different metaphor. But my question was really trying to be able to be engaged and understand. And this I understand is your meeting. You love to remind us that. But it's also about transparency. It's really hard to sit and be only one of like five people who are left here at the end and not be able to have that opportunity. So I hope that in the next one, maybe there's an opportunity to ask questions in the middle. Maybe there's an opportunity to submit just

276a question. It was just really. Something that would have made the rest of the presentation a lot easier to understand for somebody who's not on the board So I appreciate the conversation. I hope that you will consider including teacher input and CSCA staff input for how those decisions will actually affect those people Rather than just considering them a budget line Thanks. Have a good night. Thank you. Miss Bernard. You're invited to email any questions you might have All right No more public comment any requests for future agenda items information closing comments Date and time of the next scheduled regular board meeting is Thursday, December 11th that comment. Sorry. I was too slow. No, that's okay I'm sorry about that. No, it's okay I I just want to say that this is a really difficult process

277and I know a lot of my colleagues up here have already done this Once more than once a lot of times and I just want to invite the public to share your questions with us We do receive them And we do do our best to bring them in and to ask beforehand and to connect We're going to be moving through this I think December again, and then in January again twice i believe in january so send your questions um i if you email me i'm happy to meet as well one-on-one if it's more of a conversation but do please take advantage of that opportunity and reach out to us because it is hard for us to i can't personally reach out to every single teacher or classified staff or family but Our information is made

278available to all of you, so please reach out with any questions, comments, or concerns that you have as we engage in this process. I know for me it will be very, very helpful. Thank you. Go ahead. Just to follow up on that. I have been checking my email like crazy the last several days, expecting a lot of questions and concerns, and there hasn't been. So I echo my colleagues' openness. I do want to say emails the day of a board meeting are really difficult, if not impossible, to be able to have input. I've gotten emails that I saw after a board meeting that had questions that I would have loved to have answers for that didn't occur to me. So if you have questions. please send them sooner rather than later because we are not

279magicians that can just magically know what is in our email box. Thank you. I will put it out there for the record. I got one email regarding this agenda item. So, you know, just for your guys' records. And yeah, I am always available by email and phone. My personal phone number is listed on there. If you guys want to call or text me, happy to meet. the date and time of our next regular scheduled superintendent. Oh, gosh. We also welcome suggestions. We want to say, you know, we need suggestions as well. You know, it was our first shot at it to give it the best that we could. Very difficult process that we all fall welcome tonight. Thank you for your suggestions that you emailed me Or email desk. I also want to make sure

280that the board knows that by the first meeting in January I'm going to start asking to begin to take action The last meeting is not for all the action to have because we're going to have many other items on the agenda We have many things to cover. I have a long list of yellow sheets that everyone is asking to get their items on and I can't do that if, you know, so we need to start moving on the other business of the district. The first one meeting in January will be just about the budget because that was not added. It was an additional meeting. And that is the meeting that we need to start making significant decisions. And I expect that on the second meeting in January, it will be just any little final things

281that we need to do to get to the 8.7. So I just wanted to just kind of put that in perspective because we don't have the luxury of spending too much time on not getting to the decision-making, the hard part. Thank you superintendent and I think it's worthy of reminding ourselves that this is a we're really early in touching this budget Item like I don't remember ever being on the board and having this approach be on our agenda this early So, I mean this is two months before We normally start looking at this in January if I'm not mistaken and please correct me if I'm wrong I mean, I've never had this on the agenda in November and I just wanna give appreciation to our team for getting this on as early as we could.

282I know that our agenda planning team was encouraging our superintendent to get this on the agenda as soon as possible and to establish a plan to get us through this budget process. And I have to say that I really do appreciate that we're seeing it right now and that this doesn't come to a crunch period. because it's being spread out over time where we have sufficient opportunities to have that community input. All right, anybody else? Yes, ma'am. Oh, go ahead, you guys. I think our superintendent beat me, I'll go after. I was just gonna thank my team, our team. Spent Saturdays and late evenings. I wanna let you know that the level of detail that we're giving and providing our board is... above anything I've seen in any district I've worked for and it's because

283of your hard work and your expertise and the knowledge that you have in your programs and I appreciate you working with me to bring these recommendations to the board putting so much thought into it and then I want one more time to congratulate Tina. Thank you, Tina. So two things I want to take Rebecca thank Rebecca Rossiter for the recommendations from CSEA. I think those were really helpful you sharing them during your update but then also emailing us. So thank you again. Second thing too I just want to share with the board our superintendent shared that we have a lot of yellow sheets that are in one of the yellow sheets I'm really really hoping we can talk about in February or March. It's right now slotted but I know agenda planning committee you have

284a lot of things to agendize. is the ELOP sliding scale. So an information item to be able to look at that. It was a really big issue last year but by the time that we really had time to dig in it was too late for this academic year. So my hope is that we're able to agendize it in time for us to be able to do something with that information take action so we're not in a similar position next year especially since we don't know what funding is going to be like. So. I put it on, I yellow sheeted it. I think it was back in August or so. So again, I just want to say that because. As we were talking about this with the budget we want to have enough time to actually

285do this right. I really want to see if we can have enough time to discuss ELOP and the sliding scale options see if it's something we can pursue that will be helpful for us to actually do something for it to kick in in 26 27 school year. So I just wanted to share that with everyone because we need time to be able to put that in place. Thank you. All right. Seeing no further discussion, no further closing comments. All right, now I'm going to say it. Date and time of our next scheduled regular board meeting is Thursday, December 11th, 2025, closed session at 5 and open session at 6. With that said, we stand adjourned at 1027 p.m.