001At 5 p.m. this board meeting scheduled for September 25th, 2025. Approval of the board agenda. Anybody like to make any changes, comments or questions on today's agenda? I do have some changes. Superintendent. I'd like to remove item L4. This is item L4 and it's related to an informational item, annual report. From adult education our adult education principal is not able to be with us today Okay, and then I like to remove a portion of one of the items that's an item l2 We're gonna go ahead and I'd like to move forward with the Disgusting and requesting your approval for the revised policy of 51 26. However, I'd like to bring the resolution back at a different time Regulation regulation. Thank you All right, so we're going to remove the and administrative regulation to item L2.
002So it'll just be revised board policy 5126, awards for achievement, civic seal. Any other changes, additions? Okay, can I get a motion to approve the agenda for... September 25th, 2025 without items L2, second half of item L2 and without item L4. So moved. It's been moved by Trustee Rodriguez. Can I get a second? Second. I'm sorry, who said that? Thank you. And a seconded by Trustee Brubaker. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposition or abstentions this evening? Seeing none, we've approved our agenda for this evening unanimously by the board. And we're going to go ahead and move on to item C, public comment for items in closed session this evening. Seeing none, let's go ahead and go into closed session at 5.02 p.m. And we will return at 6 p.m. for open
003session. Thank you very much. Thank you, board colleagues, for being in your seats. We're going to go ahead and get started. It is 6.01 p.m. Thank you very much to the community staff and teachers for being here and our students. We are now reconvening in open session, and we're going to go ahead and proceed to the Pledge of Allegiance. Please stand. Thank you very much. This evening, the land acknowledgement statement will be read by Trustee Rodriguez-Molica. 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 the Potwin people. Today, there are three federally recognized Potwin tribes. Kachaldehi Band of Winton Indians of the Colusa Indian Community, Ketzeldehi Winton Nation, and Yocha Dehe Winton Nation. The Potwin people have remained committed
004to 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, Trustee. This evening, the equity statement will be read by Trustee Rodriguez. 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, Trustee. Our Board of Trustee Agreements will be read this evening by Trustee Brubaker. Trustee Agreements. Check in. Remember our larger purpose. Boundaries. Remember that individual
005decisions are not personal. Open. Aspire to finding common ground. Having empathy. Being respectful. And assume best intentions. Thank you very much, Trustee. Announcement of any action taken in closed session. The Board of Trustees took action in closed session by a vote of all trustees present to accept the settlement agreement for Special Education Case 25-26-01. The action passed with a motion by Trustee Fowler and a second by Trustee Brubaker. The vote was as follows. Trustee Bautista-Zavala, yes. Trustee Rodriguez, yes. Trustee Brubaker, yes. Trustee Garcia, yes. Trustee Richardson-Fowler, yes. Trustee Rodriguez-Molkica, yes. Trustee Villagrana, yes. Thank you very much proceeding the item F public comment for sections G consent agenda and community engagement item H We do have one public comment No problem. Take your time Monica. Thank you very much. No problem We're gonna proceed to
006the consent agenda as there's no public comment for items G and H Any questions or comments on the consent agenda any removals trustee Villagrana like to pull G 1 a the purchase orders G 1 a will be pulled. Okay No problem trust to be a Ghana I've written down that you'd like to pull item g1a We're gonna go back to item F real quick and then we'll come back and continue where we left off item F I'm that Robinson. Thank you very much and excuse us for that mistake. Go ahead. You have the floor Hi, I'm here to speak tonight on the certificated personnel report, especially the item where one of my dear friends and former colleagues, Julia Ash, along with five other math teachers are being asked to take on an additional .2 FTE
007because of yet another vacancy in Woodland Joint Unified. I taught in this district for 11 years before leaving three years ago to teach in Sacramento City Unified. This seemingly small but significant piece of the personnel report represents something much bigger and that's why I drove here tonight. The continuing loss of teachers in this district is alarming and unnecessary. As you're well aware, each year over the past four years, 12 to 14 percent of teachers have left WJUSD and 20 to 30 percent in special ed. I loved this district. I loved my students, my colleagues, this community. I didn't want to leave. In fact, when I told my principal that I was applying elsewhere, I cried. But the year before I left, I stood at this podium to raise concerns about pay and about colleagues who
008were leaving. I shared that as someone who was commuting from Sacramento with rising gas prices and inflation, it was making it hard for me to stay. After I spoke, a board member told me, quote, well, we have to put gas in the buses too. That response was crushing. It made me feel not heard. It made me feel taken for granted and not valued. As much as I absolutely loved this district. These kids, my colleagues, I couldn't justify saying when I could work 20 miles down the road closer to home and earn so much more. This year in Sacramento, before taxes. I will make over $19,000 more than I would have made if I stayed in Woodland and 100% of my benefits and my family's benefits are covered. And next year, after I move all the
009way over on the salary schedule, that difference will be over $27,000 with 100% benefits covered. I know you care about students, and that's why you're sitting in the chairs that you're sitting in. But if teachers like Julia are continually asked to stretch themselves because positions remain unfilled, students lose. Those are they lose stability They lose experienced teachers who make the difference between a good education and a great one I feel like my teacher self grew up in this district I became the teacher I am today because of this district, but I couldn't stay last year I was honored as the Sacramento City Unified Teacher of the Year I don't share that to boast but to show that you are building and then losing Dedicated high quality educators who want to stay but simply can't afford
010to do that Please, for Julia Ash, her math colleagues, and every teacher still here, and most importantly, the students of this community, show that you truly value your kids' education by compensating and supporting teachers. Without that, more talented educators will continue to leave, and your students will be the ones to lose. Thank you, appreciate it. All right, is that all? Yeah, all right, thank you so much. Moving on, continuing with item G, consent agenda. Any other changes or modifications to item G? Okay. So let's go ahead and vote on the consent agenda without item G1A. Who would like to make a motion? Make a motion. Thank you. Trustee Rodriguez has motion to approve consent agenda without item G1A. Can I get a second? Second. Seconded by Trustee Garcia. All those in favor, please say aye.
011Aye. Any opposition? Any abstentions this evening? All right. Item G, consent agenda minus G1A has been approved unanimously by all board members. All right. Item G1A. Any questions or comments? I'd like to pull purchase order number three and vote on the rest. Okay. Before we do that, I have a question on number seven. Number seven related to Little Heroes. Can we get information on where the before school program will take place? Yes, so this is for the before school program and this is part of the ELOP as well that includes the the schools that receive those services and it is part of that. It's also inclusive of some services that happen during the after school and you'll also see in connection with another one that's there, I believe it's eight, to be able to have
012Let's see. There were two that close connected. It was number seven and number eight one was remote coaches Let's see Okay, I'm sorry, I was confusing it with number eight that has the schools listed there. I'll get back to the board on the before school. I thought it was about the media bus as well, and that also goes to all of the schools. But I can get back with you as far as the location for number seven of the before school program. Director Sharp, do you know that information? Hi, our before school programs currently take place at Prairie, Tafoya, and Dingle, I believe. But we're open to opening before school programs at any of our school sites, just depending upon need and staffing. Thank you very much. So item seven will be before school programs
013to be funded at Prairie, Tafoya, and Dingle. Correct. Thank you very much. All right, any other questions or comments on the purchase order list without item number three? All right, can I get a motion to approve the purchase order list minus three so moved motion by trustee Richardson Fowler second seconded by trustee Brubaker All those in favor. Please say aye Any opposition or abstentions Seeing none motion passes unanimously by our board members present Item three any questions or comments? Trusty Villagran. No, I just can't make a motion We need a motion for item number three on the PO list. So moved. Second. It's been motioned by Trustee Brubaker, seconded by Trustee Rodriguez-Mujica. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposition or abstentions? No. No. All right, so let's go ahead and do
014a roll call vote. Trustee Villagrana? No. Trustee Rodriguez-Molica? Yes. Trustee Richardson-Fowler? No. Trustee Garcia? No. Trustee Brubaker? Yes. Trustee Rodriguez? Yes. Trustee Bautista-Zavala? Yes. All right, item number three is approved. Moving on to item H. Before we move on? Yes, sir. Go ahead. I'd just like to state why I voted no. Even though it's a small amount, it's an amount that I feel we should be doing as the board, so that's the reason why I voted no, just for the public record. All right. Moving on to item H. Community engagement, recognition, Woodland Joint Unified School District, recipient of the Yolo County School Boards Association 2025 Excellence in Education Awards. Superintendent. Okay. It is my pleasure to announce the... awardees for the excellence of education These individuals that will be bringing up to recognize tonight will
015also be recognized on Monday night at the County Office of Education and I had the pleasure of announcing their nominations at our back to school in front of other colleagues, which was a lot of fun But now we get to formally recognize them today in front of our trustees and our community as well The first person that I'd like to have come up is Edelman Lopez fifth grade dual immersion teacher. And Irma is receiving a salute of educator for the K-6 Teacher Excellence Award. And I've known Irma for many, many years, and this is such a well-deserved nomination. And I was going to read a little bit of what the person who nominated said about you. Okay? Oh, wait a minute. Irma has over 25 years of experience teaching, and I believe all of them
016at Beamer. She is very passionate about her teaching and ensuring she reaches all of her students. She goes above and beyond her teaching duties to ensure students get the most of the content she is teaching. She continues to attend PD to improve her teaching and make sure that her students get the best education possible. She collaborates with her grade level team on a daily basis to check on understanding and academic progress of all her students. She meets regularly with parents to update them. their student progress. Irma not only meets the needs of students but also meets the needs of the school by taking on leadership roles as such as an action team member, guiding coalition member, grade level team leader, school leader, leadership and testing coordinator. Many of her past students continue to make visits
017to her and I've seen them visiting your classroom at open houses and back to school night and so Irma with that congratulations for a well-deserved recognition. Don't go yet. Don't go yet. Come back down. And Jerry, take out that camera. And I think you have some colleagues here. Would you like to say a few words? So I just thank you very much. It's an honor to teach in this district. LA was my home, but now being here almost 30 years, I can definitely say that this is my home. And I love Woodland and my students, my families, and my colleagues too, especially. Thank you very much. Are you going to take a picture, Jerry? And there's a proud principal. The next person we'd like to recognize is Leslie Marquez, math teacher from Pioneer High School.
018And I've seen you teach for so many years, another amazing, very well-deserving recognition for you. So congratulations. I'd like to read also a little bit about what was said about you. Ms. Marquez teaches math. She transitioned to the dual enrollment calculus course from the AP class this year. She teaches advanced math. and credit recovery this year. She created an advanced math two and three. She's an advisor for the Women in STEM Club at Pioneer High School, and the club hosts the popular elementary math competition. Her excellence in pedagogy is twofold. She breaks down barriers to learning by creating a safe space in her classroom. Students who are not in her class visit at lunch to hang out and even ask for math help. Students who haven't been successful at school before try again to learn
019in credit recovery and in Math 1 courses she teaches every year. The reason students try to get in her class in both is because she creates a safe space to make mistakes and especially because of how she teaches math. Thank you for everything you do. Say a few words. Only if you want. You don't have to. Thank you. I appreciate it. Didn't plan a speech, but being here amidst all of this, wearing red, I just want to say I hope you listen deeply to what my former colleague said when she was here because it matters to us. The next award is the Student Services Credentialing Educator Excellence Award, and it goes to Monica Garcia, counselor from the Puente Program from Wooden High School. Ms. Monica, as she is the best known, as she's best known
020by her students, is highly dedicated and hardworking school counselor who is deeply committed to the academic and personal success of her students. Known for her tiredness efforts to promote higher education, she currently serves as a Puente English learner counselor. at Woodland High School, where she plays a pivotal role in supporting and guiding students towards their post-secondary goals. As a true team player, Ms. Mojica offers compassionate, emotional support, not only to students, but also to parents and to staff. Congratulations. And there's more. The Individual Excellence Award goes to Caprite Carr, our MTSS Behavior Analyst. Gapri exemplifies excellence in education through her unwavering dedication, expertise, district-wide impact in her role as behavior analyst for the Woodland Joint Unified School District. She works without hesitation and is consistently available to support students, families, and staff, often going above
021and beyond her formal responsibilities to ensure every student has what they need to thrive. Capri plays a vital role in managing Tier 3 mental health referrals, ensuring that students in need are swiftly connected with appropriate mental health clinicians. Thank you, Capri. Congratulations. I just want to say thank you to everyone, my colleagues and the students. I'm thankful that I have the opportunity to support the students, the staff and the families in our district, and especially my supervisor, Felicia, who has supported me over the years. Thank you. Okay, and last but not least, the Program Excellence Award. This year, the Program Excellence Award goes to our CAFE, Community and Family Engagement. And here to accept that award is Yaneth Alfaro, who is a project manager and the administrator who oversees the program, Maria Orozco. If you
022can please come up. And if we have any of the CAFE people, please come on up. This all is a recognition of all your hard work. The CAFE Community and Family Engagement Program amplifies excellence in advancing board goals through its deep commitment to equity, family partnership, and student success. Grounded in the belief that families are an essential part of education, CAFE builds trust with parents and guardians by offering culturally responsive programming and empowering them to play an active role in their children's academic journey. The program has made a measurable impact by expanding access to parent education, increasing volunteer participation, and strengthening home-school connections, all of which are supported by the support district priorities. So thank you for all the hard work that you all do. Congratulations. Yeah, and I gave me that look so I
023have to say something This is really for you net and the team. There's 12 coffee specialists. They're not all here today So I want to honor the work that they do they do the heavy lifting and I'm humbled to be included But it's really their award. Thank you We're gonna go ahead and move on to the next item and this is recognition of the 2025 2026 Yolo County Teacher of the Year Superintendent it gives me a great honor to introduce to you or the teacher of the Year Hillary Oliver Hilary Oliver exemplifies a transformative educator whose work bridges academic rigor with empathy, community engagement, and systemic change. Her application reflects a long life commitment to ensure inclusion. student-centered education and positions her as the compelling candidate for both state and national recognition. Hillary is a
024fourth grade teacher at Science and Technology Academy at Knight's Landing and has over 30 years of experience. Her teaching philosophy centers on growth mindset, inclusivity, equity, and student voice. She is deeply involved. and educational leadership, curriculum innovation, and community engagement. Hilary has been employed with the district for nine years with starting date of 2016 and has worked at Science Academy since then and continues to make a huge impact. So congratulations and I hope that you get the state award. You're going to make us proud. Congratulations. Thank you so much. Thank you. One small correction. I've actually been in the district for almost my entire career. I've been back for nine years, but I actually did my student teaching in this district at Prairie, and I was at Prairie for my whole growing up years. And
025then I left for a couple of years and then when my own children, who are here, were starting school, we came back to the area because I was like, we have to go home. But I did write, it's very small. But thank you so much for this incredible honor. I've been so fortunate in my career to work alongside and learn from so many incredible educators, most of whom I've met right here in this district. Several of them even have their portraits hanging in the hall just outside this room and it feels humbling to stand in their company tonight. I think one of my better qualities as a professional has been being extremely observant of my colleagues. Over the years I've made a habit of stealing or maybe I should say incorporating their very best strategies
026and ideas into my own program. Today I am lucky enough to work at the greatest little school with a team of fabulous teachers and staff members who continue to educate me every single day with their skills, patience, passion, and determination. Even after 30 plus years in this profession, I still have the privilege of learning and growing because of the people around me. I'd also like to acknowledge my wonderful family and especially my two sons who are here tonight. I am so proud of them and grateful to them for helping me grow as both a mom and a teacher and for keeping me focused on why we as educators do what we do. So thank you again for this recognition. I truly see it not as an individual honor, but as a reflection of the amazing
027colleagues, students, and family who have shaped me along the way. Thank you so much. Thank you very much colleagues. Thank you very much community All right. We have one more recognition this evening and it's a recognition proclamation recognizing the 25th anniversary of the Cache Creek Conservancy So tonight we're presenting on behalf of the board a recognition of recognizing the silver anniversary of the Cache Creek Conservancy of natural preserve and Here to accept the recognition is mr. Smith if you want to come on up Whereas yellow County has worked diligently to detect the decades to maintain and grow its parks and rural areas for benefits of those who live work and visit and whereas a cache Creek and services was founded in 1996 by the yellow County Board of Supervisors as a means of preserving the
028native habit habitat along cache Creek west of the city of Woodland and we're often out the nature preserve which itself was established in the year 1999, have cooperated with areas, businesses within. mines gravel along Cache Creek, the Conservancy work is to ensure the health of the local environment including water, soil, and wildlife. And whereas the employees of the Cache Creek Conservancy and the Nature Preserve have worked with the Patwin people of the Yaxu-Tuhi-Witten Nation to honor the culture and the heritage of those who first inhabited this region for thousands of years. And whereas the employees of the Cache Creek Conservancy act as stewards of the land, slowly restoring the native grasses, trees, and wildlife within the Cache Creek Nature Preserve that might otherwise be lost to the development. And whereas the nature preserve serves as
029an open air research laboratory for students and staff at UC Davis and elsewhere for those who study ecosystems and how we might better live harmoniously with nature. Now, therefore, they have resolved that the Woodland Joint Unified School District And trustees hereby proclaim September 13, 2025 as the silver anniversary for the Cache Creek Conservancy and Nature Preserve so that students, their families, and schools staff may recognize and celebrate the efforts being undertaken to preserve the environment as it once existed. Thank you. This is actually just a shameless plug to get everybody to show up out there. We're open from 8 to 5. daily, Sunday through Friday. And it's exceptionally fine this time of year. The weather's cool and such like that. There are no snakes out right now. There are a lot of rabbits and deer
030around, and the beavers are busy at their dams this time of year. So by all means, if you have an opportunity, come on out. Enjoy the scenery, enjoy the nature, and get a fresh walk. My goals as the chairman... of the Cache Creek Nature Preserve Board of Directors is to enhance community input and community awareness. For too long, it's been just neglected. Nobody's paid attention to it. Nobody's tried to promote it. So that is my goal for this year. That and to get rid of a whole tractor that occupies our barn, which is, by God, would fill half this room. So I'm trying to get rid of that. But regardless, thank you very much. Appreciate your time. Thank you very much. I will accept the proclamation. I will not have a photograph taken. My previous
031career, if you will, there are still people that don't like me very much. So thank you very much. Take care. Thank you very much, Mr. Smith. All right, this evening we're going to be recognizing those donors who gifted to the district. There's quite a number of them, so I'm just going to read out the donor names, and then at the end I would appreciate if we could give them a round of applause and appreciation. Donors for August 2025 were Walgreens of Woodland. Marta Villavicencio. Annie Torres. Rosie Ledesma, Premier Chiropractic. Maria Olmedo and Jose Eduardo Jimenez de la Cruz. Excel Photographers Leonard and Kathy Oliver in memory of Chris Whitehead. Premier Chiropractic, Christian Sherrill. Golden Valley Harriers, Aaron Quails in memory of Chris Whitehead, and Tammy Jimenez. Totaling this report September 2025, total donated was $9,250.
032Please join me in giving them a round of applause. Thank you very much. This evening, moving on to item I, we are welcoming our new student, high school student representatives. From Cache Creek High School, we have Ramiro Negrete. From Pioneer High School, we have Nicole Pimentel Solorio. From Woodland High School, we have Trevor Zane. Thank you very much for your commitment and dedication to being a part of our Woodland Joint Unified School District board meetings and representing your respective high schools as your student representative. We're going to go ahead and get started and allow you to introduce yourself and give your class report. And I'm going to go ahead and let you guys select the order that you would like to present this evening. While you're deciding let me just share with the trust board
033of trustees that I had the pleasure of meeting with our student reps Last week we had a little orientation. We kind of went over what an agenda looks like we talked about what public comment looks like and sounds like. We talked about the important role that you play as trustees and what their role is as student representatives and that we want to hear their voice. We came actually into the boardroom and we practiced so they can hear their voice on the mic for the first time and kind of got a sense of the room. And so I'm very impressed with the commitment and the enthusiasm that these young adults had on being here. to represent their schools. So with that, we'll see who decided to go first. Great. Thank you very much, Ramiro Negrete. We
034practiced the button too. Good evening, board representatives Bautista Salavero and trustees. Superintendent Ortega-Lampkin, Executive, Cabinet, and Community, my name is Ramiro Negrete, and I recently transferred as a senior at Cache Creek High School. My report tonight is the following. Let me actually hold this instead. Sorry. Cache Creek High School welcomed 42 new students to begin the school year, including myself. So far, things are going well, and I've already made up credits. Along with new students, we've also welcomed new principal, Ms. Lori Carrillo. We see her daily greeting students getting to campus at lunch and visiting classes. A few weeks ago, we held a yearly back to school night. Although I was not able to attend, I heard from Mr. Burrell's culinary class made a delicious spaghetti dinner and dessert. Our teachers were happy to meet
035some of our families. We were told we have 99% completion for data confirmation from parents. This is the highest ever at Cache Creek. Mr. Coronado moved his classroom and started a new art class this year. We don't have a senior paint day, so students create unique art pieces on wood panels and display their pieces in the halls outside his class. We will keep them up all year and add to it as new students enter his class. Cash Creek has already two graduates so far this year. Let's graduate them. Thank you, and this concludes my report. Great job. Great job, Ramiro. Thank you. All right. It looks like Trevor Zane is up next. Good evening, Board President Bautista Zavala, Trustees, Superintendent Ortega-Lampkin, Executive Cabinet, and our community. My name is Trevor Zane, and I am the
036Senior Class President, and I'm here to represent Woodland High School. My report tonight is the following. We are in the middle of a mental health spirit week where students are dressing up in PJs, green, workout clothes, bright colors, and favorite outfits. Flow building will begin on October 4th and will be going on until October 9th. We have our homecoming football game and dance coming up on October 10th and 11th. At the game, community members will be able to see our under the sea class floats and the crowning of homecoming king and queen. We will be having our second rally of the school year on October 10th to help promote school spirit and have a friendly competition between classes. Thank you. Good job. Great job. Thank you so much. Nicole Pimentel Soloria. Good evening Board, President
037Bautista Zavala, Trustees, Superintendent Ortega Lampkin, Executive Cabinet, and our community. My name is Nicole Pimentel-Solorio, Pioneers ASB President and this year's Student Representative. Today, my report is on the following month of September. Pioneer has implemented new student-ran video updates that are released weekly on Wednesdays. This new feature has made it easier for students to be informed of events and spirit days. Club Rush took place on September 10th. Many clubs made posters, informational packets, and social media accounts. Water Polo is competing against Rodriguez High School at the Woodland Community Center today. Let's wish them luck. The Pioneer High School football team is competing against Sacramento High School tomorrow. The theme for that is college life. Let's also wish them luck. All girls volleyball teams, including freshmen JV and varsity, have won their game against Woolseywood yesterday.
038Homecoming is on October 4th. The homecoming game for Pioneer is on October 3rd, and it is against River City. Pioneer also has a homecoming spirit week coming up starting the next following week. Monday is pajama day, Tuesday is guess who, meaning dressing up as a character and having someone guess who it is, Wednesday is student dress as teachers and vice versa, Thursday is white lies, and Friday is class themes. Lastly, our homecoming class themes are based on games. Freshmen are Clue, sophomores are Candyland, juniors are Monopoly, and seniors are Mario Kart. Thank you, and that concludes my report. Thank you very much. One question for you. What is white lies? White lies is like, it's a shirt that you wear that's white and you write like a lie about yourself. That's like, I think it's
039a lie. That's like the opposite of what. you're intending to say. Like, if I'm good at, like, jump rope, I would write on the shirt, I'm terrible at jump rope. So that is what the Spirit Day is. And this is our first time having it in quite a long time. We haven't had the Spirit Day in many years. So I'm quite happy about that. I'm excited for that Spirit Day. Great job. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much, class. School representatives for being here this evening. You guys did a great job Always welcome to come to our board meetings and engage and give your report This is your opportunity if you want to exit or if you want to continue to stay here You're welcome to stay as long as you'd like and you're
040also welcome to participate in public comment for any of the items on the agenda And even items that are not on the agenda. So thank you very much. Muy bien. Excelente. Thank you We're gonna go ahead and move on to the public comment for the items on the agenda this evening and we do have two public comments take it three public comments take it away Monica Our first is Maria Luisa Tafoya and the second is Becca Bernard, right? Okay. Thank you Candace Good evening superintendent. I love your lampkin Elodia Ortega-Lemkin, Board President Deborah Bautista-Zavala, board members, and our community, our Woodland community teachers, and all those that are being recognized and that have left, congratulations. I would like to begin by thanking all of you, board members in our community, for all of your ongoing
041hard work, commitment, and dedication to our amazing Woodland community. I am honored to be a teacher, parent, and a member of this community. And my name is Maria Luisa Tafoya, and I have been invested, and I am an invested educator, a valuable teacher in this community, and I have been here for nearly 30 years, most of which have been at Beamer Park Elementary School. I love what I do, and I find great joy in learning and teaching. Today I come before you to share some thoughts and ask some questions. Questions that I would greatly appreciate a response in writing so that I can return to my colleagues as team members and community members that have asked this question. First of all, I'd like to say that our students deserve the best. And we have approximately
04278 point million dollars on reserves. Of that, from my understanding, is that 34,727 is undesignated and unrestricted funds. And that about 20, roughly 20 million is restricted. And that we have a carryover of nearly $15 million. When I think of carryover, I think of something rolling over. But really, if we think of a stair, like when you're carrying over, it's actually climbing. These reserves have not been, have been carried over, but think of it as a step higher and higher. Get the visual? So that's what's been happening in our community for the past, rounded up to 10 years. So I'm asking why do we have such an excess and what are the plans for this incredible bank savings? We can't wait to hear your response and answers. We would like a response in writing. Again,
043I will reiterate, how do you plan to spend our very own taxpayers' dollars, the roughly $78. million, so that it returns and comes back to our students, our community, and not carry over from year to year? Our students and our community of Woodland deserve the best. Another question is how can you justify having those rollovers year after year and that effect of going up and up? We are Thank you for your time. I had other Questions, but I'll go ahead and put them in writing and send them to you. Thank you very much next Monica Next up is Becca Bernard and then David Bain All right Good evening, trustees. I wanted to come forward as a community member, a homeowner, a teacher, not necessarily as president, but I wanted to share this separate from our
044union report tonight. So this is a little bit from the heart. For the last seven years that I've been paying attention, been here for nine, paying attention for seven. We've been sitting on reserves, millions of dollars of reserves every single year. And like Maria Luisa shared, it is growing. This is actually the first time that I don't think it has grown. But we are still sitting at nearly 40% in reserves. And the question really is when will the community, the parents, the teachers, the homeowners, and the public get an answer? What's the plan? Are we going to spend them or are we going to sit on them? I sit in meetings with unions across our state every time. Woodland Joint Unified is in the top one, two, or three, four reserves. It is embarrassing. We
045get called, and not from my mouth, from other mouths, corrupt. People have described it as it should be criminal. Again, not my words. Words from leaders, from budget advisors, from people in CTA who are looking at Woodland and asking, what is going on? And I have to sit there and be like, I know. This is not a bank. This is not a savings account. Our community deserves this year's dollars to be spent on this year's kids. We are a top-heavy district. Last year, you paid a fine to the state because you had more admin than teachers from the legal ratio. Our business and HR departments have grown since COVID, and yet we have gone back to pre-COVID health tech levels. We've gone back to pre-COVID for other staffing in the classroom close to the students,
046but our HR and business departments and admins keep expanding. Why are we not spending dollars as close to the classroom as possible? Why is our teacher salary percentage for what you spend, why is that going down the last few years? It's not a different number of teachers. It's because our veteran teachers are leaving and you're replacing them with new teachers or interns who are paid significantly less and you're losing not only the institutional knowledge of those teachers, but the mentorship for those new teachers. I really hope that you will give us some answers soon. Thank you very much. One more public comment. David Bain. Thank you for letting me speak tonight. I was asked to speak tonight because I left the district mid-year last year. Sorry about that. I know it impacted you personally. I
047miss your daughter. I was with this district a long, long time. I spent a lot of time thinking about what to say, and it could fill a whole lot of these three-minute comment sessions. But I'm not going to say a lot of things. Not here, not in front of everyone. But I want to say I should have been completely unrecruitable. I was recruited for where I am now. I should have been unrecruitable. I left just short of my 30-year pin with this district. I was eligible to retire, but I didn't retire. I was eligible to retire and have the district paid toward retirement benefits, but I walked away from that. That shouldn't happen. And it's important to remember that I've said no to other recruiters in the past. This isn't the first time I've had
048recruiters call me. from other agencies, from other school districts, from private employers. This is something that happens to me. There are other opportunities for me. There's a saying that people don't leave jobs, they leave management. And for those of you in the public sector and those of you in the private sector, you understand that. All of you work. When people lose faith in leadership, they look for opportunities elsewhere. That's how I ended up here back in 1995. I had lost faith in my prior district leadership. That happened here. And not at the school level, but at the district level. And at the board level. There was turmoil here. There is turmoil here. And it's not something you don't know. Board, I'm going to put you on notice. You know this. You've been told this. I've
049been one to tell you, and I've heard my colleagues tell you, and I've heard the parents tell you. I've heard the community tell you. This is not new. But when someone like me leaves, After having taught for decades, after having built flagship programs of this district, helping innumerable students to success, that should have set off a whole lot of alarms to you. And it didn't. And the fact that it didn't should be a cause of alarm as well. And from what I'm hearing from my colleagues, it's getting worse. It's also expensive. Because to replace me costs tens of thousands of dollars. It's always better to retain. Thank you very much. I'm here if you need me does that conclude our public comment? Yeah. All right. Thank you very much Let's go ahead and proceed Next
050item is k1 superintendents report Good evening. We've had a lot of activities, especially right now reaching out to our parent communities engagement. Again, I want to remind the board, these are your priorities that you've set forth, and I'll be giving you an update and letting you know which priorities we've touched on since the last couple weeks that we met. And here again, a reminder of the priorities for facilities and the ones that are crossed out, the ones that we've already have accomplished. Today we had the youth empowerment summit. Oh, I think we were the biggest showing in the county where we had many of our students at UC Davis learning about civic engagement They have an opportunity to meet with many elected officials across the county The one student that have that picture it was
051a little fun because she came up to me and told me that she Had a project at school to research and write about someone and she let me know if she CHOSE ME SO I WAS HER SUBJECT FOR ONE OF HER ASSIGNMENTS AND THAT WAS REALLY NEAT TO HEAR ABOUT THAT BUT THERE WAS A LOT OF STUDENTS THEY'RE VERY EXCITED TO BE THERE AND LEARNING MEETING OUR TRUSTEES AND MEETING OTHER ELECTED OFFICIALS SO AND THAT ACTIVITY FOR TODAY TIES DIRECTLY TO OUR CIVIL ENGAGEMENT WHICH IS ALIGNED TO PRIORITY 21 AND OF COURSE OUR YOUTH DEVELOPMENT FOR PRIORITY NUMBER FIVE We have a lot of sports happening. We've had our wisdom world in high school versus pioneer high school big ol rivalry game very have a fun event a community event that we went to Participate
052in we had a lot of families just a huge fun family event this time the pioneer high school team did very well against wooden high school is a little rough to watch You know, I want to cheer on one side and I decided to console the other team but All in all, there was a lot of good sportsmanship and a lot of fun. We had Grandparents Day at Beamer Elementary School. A huge turnout, as you can see, where grandparents got to come and feel special and to come see their grandkids at our elementary school. It is just one of many events that our schools do to support our priority number four on family engagement. We also had an African American Parent Advisory Committee honored our first African American trustee, Brenda Louis-John Smith, on September the
0539th. A beautiful event, very important for us to remember our history. And if you don't know who she is, we're going to be having our students do some research. on her and get to see, you know, to learn more about her because our students need to know about her impact to our community and to our district. And there's a picture of her out in the hallway that we're going to be putting up pretty soon. But she served for many years in our district and it was just great to hear. more about her from people that knew her personally and also to see the students to realize, wow, you know, we have, we've had the African-American community have made an impact here for many years and we need to remember that and to honor and to
054honor the impact that she has made and others who follow her pathway. A little bit of cultural relevance, we also had Loteria Night. So Loteria Night is like a Mexican bingo at Woodland Prairie, and that was another way to engage parents to come to the school and to interact with their students, to have some family time and interact playing Loteria. So here's one example of those efforts from Woodland Prairie. Also, again, supporting priority number four, family engagement. We also had our new CT program at Woodland High School had featured in the newspaper. There was a lot of interest. As you know, we had a ribbon cutting during the first day of school. But there was recently some outreach done through our goal, our priority number 17 on communication and marketing that got the attention of
055local media and media from around. The regional Sacramento region we had the news crew yesterday I'm not sure when that's gonna come out But they actually came out to photo to take some filming no maybe still was interested And so that just only helps us get the word out to get more adults INFORMATION ABOUT THIS OPPORTUNITY. CONGRATULATIONS TO THE ADULT EDUCATION PROGRAM FOR STRENGTHENING THE PROGRAMS WE OFFERED THAT ALIGN TO OUR COMMUNITY COLLEGE. THIS ALIGNS ALSO TO OUR GOAL NUMBER 14 WITH OUR CTE PATHWAYS. And then we're going to state federal funding and planning to bring more information at the next board meeting Spend a little more time on that. There's just a lot of movement happening more information coming out this Continues to be some significant changes that may be occurring next year And
056so I'll be giving more information to the board with a more written report on that but for now, you know, we are Fine for this year, but things are going to be coming and impacting us next year and that concludes my report Thank you very much superintendent any questions to the superintendent on the report. All right seeing none. We're gonna quickly move on to Report from Woodland Education Association as there is no report from CSEA this evening. Thank you very much Thank you, good evening superintendent president but trustees and members of our community My name is Becca Bernard. I've been teaching seventh grade science at Douglas Middle School for the last nine years, and I am proud to serve as president of the Woodland Education Association. I want to begin by recognizing our very own
057WA member and SciTech teacher, Hillary Oliver, who rightfully earned the title of Yellow County Teacher of the Year. When she received this honor, she humbly said, everything I've done in my career has been more rewarding, more effective, and more enjoyable when it's been accomplished as part of a team. That is the true spirit of Woodland educators. Education is the ultimate team effort. It's not just teachers. It's our SLPs, our school nurses, our bus drivers, our paras, our lunch ladies, our custodians, and so much more. Every single one of us shows up each day for the same purpose, to give Woodlands students the very best education possible, with wraparound support in every corner of their lives. But what happens when that team keeps losing players? The answer is simple. Our students lose. I recently went back
058through all the certificated reports in your board packets since last August and confirmed. We lost 65 educators last year. These balloons represent those 65 educators. That's 65 dedicated, caring, compassionate team players. They were counselors, psychologists, RSP, SDC, English, math, science, art, PE, CTE, culinary, health, music, business, tech, flex, and 21 elementary school teachers. That's 12% of our educators. And in special education, it's even worse. 30%. Almost one in three SPED educators leaves every single year. Teaching in Woodland is unsustainable right now. And our students deserve stability. They deserve teachers who stay, who care, and who can afford to plant deep roots in our community. But right now, we have numerous vacancies being filled by long-term subs, and on tonight's certificated report alone, eight teachers are being asked to take on an extra 20% of work.
059They are selflessly taking one for the team. But I can tell you from experience, it doesn't come without a cost. It's exhausting. It leads to burnout and it pushes more good teachers out. Our students deserve fully staffed schools. Yesterday morning, our Woodland teachers gathered for a district-wide walk-in. We showed up at our schools early to reconnect, stand together, and remind our community why we are here. Because our students deserve the best. Even in the midst of frustration, the walk-in was filled with joy and unity. But the truth is, our teachers are tired. We are tired of being disrespected and undervalued, tired of being exploited for free labor and not being paid correctly or on time, tired of watching millions of dollars sit in our reserves year after year while we beg for classroom basics like
060markers and crayons. Some of my takeaways from the unauded actual report later on in the agenda, the district ended last year with almost $79 million in reserves, nearly half your budget. More than $34.7 million is unassigned flexible dollars. The state only requires $5 million. You're also holding $15 million in unspent equity dollars, while one in three SPED teachers walks away each year. So I ask, how does that serve high-need students? How does that strengthen the team? Yesterday, a teacher told me, as a parent of a student in the district, it really bothers me that these millions of dollars in reserves aren't being spent on the students that are supposed to benefit from those funds. It's unacceptable that Woodland is still the lowest paid district in our region. It's unacceptable that our superintendent accepted a raise
061in the same months that this board cut health tech positions. Trustee Rodriguez, after you voted for her, you said she doesn't deserve to be the lowest paid in our area. Well, neither do Woodland teachers. And what message do you send when you offer $10,000 to hire someone new, but only $2,500 to retain the teachers already here? That looks like you value filling vacancies more than preventing them. Right now, this district is letting our team fall apart. Recognition without investment is hollow. Praise without fair pay is manipulation. We can't keep waiting for you to do the right thing. We've asked politely. We've implored you. We've nearly begged. Our union is strong. Our members are united. And our bargaining team has our full support. We look forward to returning to the table next week on September 30th
062and October 2nd and hope to swiftly reach an agreement centered on fair compensation, fully staffing our schools, and improving stability for our students. Thank you, and this concludes my report. Thank you. We're going to go ahead and go on to reports from the board. Trustee Villagrana. I'd just like to report that I submitted two yellow sheets. One is for the board to consider building the second gym at Piney High School and adding the bleachers, visitor bleachers at Woodland High School. And then the other one is adopting a policy on youth engagement and development. That's it. Thank you. Anyone else that may have a report this evening? Trustee Brubaker. So I have been very busy since our last board meeting. I went to the CLSBA conference and I wanted to share a couple of highlights. It
063was a fantastic conference. One of this one of the sessions I went to was about collaborating across school districts This was from Santa Clara County School Boards Association. They have a legislative action committee Where they come together and they look at bills that they might want to push forward or advocate for for their students And then they advocate at the state and federal level in the interest of their students and they have built quite a bit of Political capital to be able to best support their students which I thought was Kind of creative way to be more effective than just as a singular school district another session I went to was with the superintendent and staff of Vallejo School District, who's had some pretty difficult financial trouble the last few years. And they had a
064session about communicating budgeting challenges to the community, which is a sort of special interest of mine. And among the many ideas they had that I really thought was interesting is they have a section on their website called Straight From Our Ship, where people can anonymously send questions that are then answered on the website. archived there so people can go and look at that if they have questions, easily access questions that have already been asked or answered. Ask their own questions. They also do a thing called a budget roadshow that starts with the governor's Proposed budget in January and they go to school sites and they have a PowerPoint presentation that sort of explains the proposed budget and the potential impact and then as more as learned throughout the budgeting process they sort of go back
065and revisit that and update it as as they can so it gives more clarity to the community and our teachers and staff of why we're making some of the decisions and why we all how we ultimately end up in decisions that we've made. And then there was a section on elevating classified leadership. They talked about how important people like our nutritionist specialists and our M&O department are on the running of our schools and how there's not always, and I actually don't know what we have for PD for those staff in our district, but how that's sometimes overlooked. But there's such an integral part to every district that they need to be included. Let's see I'll skip over that one because the one I want to most mention is that there was a session with our
066own superintendent and board president about supporting our immigrant students and I was so so proud they had at the very beginning there was a slide that talked about all the resolutions that we've had as a district long before I joined but that I have actually been part of I think I helped author one of them and I'm just so proud to be part of an organization that has worked so hard even before our most recent challenges to work to try to make our students feel safe and accepted. So kudos to you both for being leaders in that. So that's my report from CLSBA, but I also wanted to share that I attended the special education, I always get the acronym wrong, special education parent advisory committee meeting. That was a little bit of a contentious
067meeting, but also really illuminating. We are starting the process, thankfully, finally, of having an independent assessment of our special education department and that there was a representative from West Ed there. I am so hopeful for this being a good turning point for our district. And so I just wanted to highlight that change. And I wanted to share that the next meeting is, I think, December 14th. Yes, December 15th of the Special Education Parent Advisory Committee. So I hope that people keep that on their calendars. I think it's in this room. I don't know the time. I apologize. Does anybody know the time? 5.30. I'll send you an invite. Let's see. Oh, and then today we attended the Youth Empowerment Summit, which was amazing. That's my first time attending. The table I was at had students
068from both Woodland High School and Pioneer, so I got a little bit of both, which was great. They had such good questions. I did not know what to expect, but there was a lot of interest about the budget, a lot of interest about how we make decisions, what we can actually do, and what is getting too in the weeds. And they were just... I'm so impressed with our students. I'm sure I have more on my list, but I've rambled on long enough, so I'll stop. Thank you very much. Anyone else with a board report this evening? All right, seeing none, we're going to go ahead and proceed to the next item. If anyone needs a break, please let me know and we can pause at some point. Board committee updates. Seeing none, moving on. Trustee
069Rodriguez, Mojica. Thank you. There's been several committees that I have been in that have met recently the first one since our last meeting was a wellness and nutrition committee and That was really helpful We got a presentation from eat real on our progress on the certification process and I don't know trustee brew Baker if you want to add anything to that I do want to say that the because of the federal budget bill that passed recently Snap ed is ending and that as an organization that had been I believe funding or helping to support the gardens at several of our school sites The state has stepped in and I think is continuing to fund that through April but after that there is no support for those Gardens, so if anyone in the community wants to
070step into that very large hole that are important part of our schools. I'm sure there's other fantastic things that that group did, but that's the one that I made note of. The other committee I want to share on is the safety committee that both Trustee Garcia and I attended. So feel free to add anything if I miss anything, Trustee Garcia. It was a meeting with the full agenda. There was a lot of really interesting information shared with us at the meeting. There were some safety updates or response to immigration officials on campus and what our schools are doing to respond and how that information has been shared with them. We got some updates also on measure Y and updates on the school resource officers. We spent quite a bit of time talking about emergency preparedness
071as well. So safety drills that are going to be coming up and also the. Great Shakeout that is happening very soon. And that sounds like it's going to be a really big event with a lot of Different folks coming together to support that is it okay if I share that date with folks? So that great shakeout is going to be on October 16th. So you'll want to mark your calendars for that We also talked about the Assembly Bill 3216, which is the Phone Free Schools Act. Last time we shared a report, we shared that there was already a lot of research going into it to see, to gather information from. teachers from families and also from students. So the surveys weren't sent were sent out but it seems like we got pretty low response rates
072from our high school students and pretty strong response rates from middle school and elementary school. So what folks are going to do is they're going to send the survey out again because we want to make sure we hear from our high school students. And I thought that was a really great idea. So those surveys will be sent out very very soon and there will be a presentation to our board based on that feedback on the. recommendations from the committee on things that we should consider in terms of moving forward with our own school phone policy. And I think that was about it for that. I don't know, Trustee Garcia, feel free to add anything if you had anything to add. No, nothing to add to resume very well. All right, Trustee Richardson-Feller. For the Yolo
073County School Board Association we have excellence in education award in this Monday September 29th It will be at Woodland Community College's Performing Arts Theatre on 2300 East Gibson it will start social hour at well social time at 4 45 p.m. And the event program starts at 530 the reception and food will have light fare So come check it out. It will be provided by Woodland Community College's culinary program. All right. Moving on. Trustee Villagrana. Just report that three of us... Trustee Brubaker trustee really hit on my mojica and myself met with associate superintendent of Business Services to go over in more detail on the budget, which you are gonna get later You know, we had some good conversations good questions. There's more clarity on some of the nuances But again, nothing that there was not
074being presented to you all but just just updating them we met Trustee Brubaker in that vein. We also had the coalition for woodland youth, but I failed to bring my notes from that. So that's okay Second help fill in a little bit some some of the information that was shares that There would be a dedication for the dr. Jesse Ortiz jr. ECE Center naming of the building at 5 p.m. On October 3rd October 13th in Woodland Also, there is a statewide financial aid workshop on October 17th and that would be at Woodland Community College and any high school counselors, advisors, student advocacy groups, outreach specialists and community education partners are invited to come on by. Also there is a 2025-26 cash for college workshop happening in Yolo County. Last year only 66.19% of graduating seniors
075in Yolo County completed a financial aid application just below the statewide average of 68.7%. 4% So we're trying to increase that in terms of woodland. There'll be workshops taking place at Woodland High School Tuesday November 4th from 6 to 8 p.m. And Pioneer High School Thursday January 22nd from 6 to 8 p.m. All right any other reports Okay. Now we are going to move on to item L teaching and learning And this is an informational item update on Yolo Farm to Fork within Woodland Joint Unified School District Schools. And this is a requested item by a community member. Take it away. Hi, I'd like to welcome Yolo Farm to Fork up to the microphone. One of our wonderful partners from our community who help to support our after school program, programs within the school day.
076And Jessica Friedman, one of our teachers at Plainfield will be doing this presentation. I believe she's also a member of the board. Correct yes, you'll little farm to fork sport. I'm not your board not this board Okay. Hi. This is my first time with a clicker So bear with me Thank you Dr. Ortega Lampkin trustees my esteemed wea colleagues and all of you who care about school gardens For those of you who don't know Yolo farm to fork is the entity or we are the people that make school gardens happen in Yolo County. And tonight I'm specifically talking about Woodland. So we are the ones behind school gardens and we are a fully nonprofit organization. Okay. I have a lot of notes. But I am going to read this slide even though I know you're
077not supposed to. The collaboration between Yolo Farm to Fork and WJUSD has provided multiple opportunities for students grade K-12 to connect with planting seeds, harvesting vegetables, food prep, art, writing, science, and creating a sense of community. Yolo Farm to Fork believes that kids love to eat what they grow. Our goal is to help students, grades K-12, learn where their food comes from, develop healthy eating habits, and connect with residents and local farmers who are part of that process. Part of our agricultural heritage as a community is teaching our children how to grow and harvest fruits and vegetables. School gardens are the perfect place to do that. We have established more than 70 school gardens throughout Yolo County. We, as an organization, we are fully non-profit, have awarded more than $70,000 across Yolo County, including to
078schools at WJUSD. And we have grown over 31,000 pounds of fresh produce, which is shared with our families and students. We do this through teaching, organizing, volunteering, composting, and providing plants and seeds within school gardens. YOLO Farm to Fork supports gardens. It supports children by giving them healthy produce to eat. It builds lifelong skills to grow healthy, cheap food so that our children come away with the knowledge of how to grow food. And we also provide field trips which give a firsthand look at agricultural life. Our mission is to welcome children. young children and students to love and value school gardens. The lessons that students get when we are involved are art in the garden, seed saving, planting, a lot of measurement, a lot of math, pollinator identification and writing, etc. So how do we
079do that? We have a team of UC Davis and I left out Woodland Community College interns that we bring together. We are this organization of which I'm a very proud board member bring to this district. young people from Davis and Woodland Community College, we get them fingerprinted, we get them TB tested, and they come and work in the schools with our students. And we want the board to recognize that without Yolo Farm to Fork, there would not be school gardens in Woodland. As a teacher, I can tell you, teachers are burnt out. They are not going to go and plan garden-based learning lessons, as much as I would love us to do that. But we have this organization that comes in and brings children into the school gardens, which brings the seeds and the plants
080and the people. It's amazing. And it's in the after-school program and during the day. Okay, in the Expanding Minds ELOP ACES after-school program, whatever you want to call it, I'm very familiar with it. This is my 25th year in Woodland, Woodland Joint. We work with over 450 students at nine school sites. Students there explore, learn how to tend the fruits and vegetables, create art, write stories, and take home a lot of produce. And I would say our impact in the ELOP program, Expanding Minds, is significant because after school, The students need a break from just being in the four walls of the classroom. And every school in Woodland has a school garden. It is remarkable. And I want to say this again because I'm old and I can say this. I feel this organization deserves
081a lot of recognition for what it has done. I have been at Woodland Joint Unified since my son was one years old. He's now in graduate school. He's 26. And I've been a member of this board for 12 years, Yolo Farm to Fork. I really care. All of us who work with school gardens and with children care. So since 2021, we've welcomed over 2,500 students to our community gardens in Woodland on these trips. Children, as I've now repeated, but I'm just trying to get the word across, they plant, harvest, learn about seed savings, and cook. Seed saving, pollinators, and they cook. We've been able to offer this at no charge to school districts. The field trips are at no charge. The field trips that our children rave about. They tell me it's their favorite field
082trip. I mean, they love going to this farm. They love it. And we don't charge the school district for that. So here's a few pictures of tortilla making, making popcorn, making beet salad, picking pumpkins, all at a local farm here. Yolo Farm to Fork aims to make school gardens a place where children learn to love nutritious food. Thank you for supporting school gardens and field trips and that ends my presentation. Thank you Are there any questions? But any questions this evening from the board? Okay, Brubaker. Do you know the names of all the school sites? You guys have a garden that I do but I have my colleague here Who's I I mean I could say I think it starts Beamer Dingle Freeman definitely Gibson Plainfield You want to help me out? Whitehead. Zamora. Yeah,
083I'm a little put on the spot. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to put you on the spot. That's okay. It's not your fault. You're doing your job. No, that's great. I'm shy. I'm very shy. I'm so grateful. My own kids benefit from this program. So I am so grateful for your work. Thank you. Thank you. And thank you for your support. I hope that we will be supported by Woodland Joint Unified for years to come because... Oh, I left out the most important part. I'm sorry. This is the antidote to screen time. That is my message. That is my stand on the soapbox and preach. I, as a teacher, talk to my own families about screen time. These little gardens right outside the door, they're here. We don't have to take the kids. This is
084the antidote to screen time, and I want to emphasize that. I apologize for leaving that out. Yes. So I just want to share that I've been with the district since my firstborn who's 16 was in kindergarten at Beamer and At Beamer my first parent experience and I don't know if you guys remember this trustee Garcia and trustee Bautista Zavala But the after-school program welcomed the parents and they had a garden party Based on all of the stuff that was grown in the garden. Yeah, we were this was like I remember. 2011, I think, 2014 maybe. And it was amazing because the after-school program made their own salsa. That's right, their salsa. Stuff for us to take home. And that was like the buy-in for that. And then when my youngest went to school and I
085went back to the classroom, oh, but, and believe, I was involved in the garden program. And even right now, as an ESN teacher, my classroom is right next door to the garden. The teachers are fighting for the use of the amphitheater space or to have their kids reading, drop everything and read is in the garden. Kids need to touch grass. I mean, so many of our kids became tech when the pandemic happened. So the fact that this program is thriving and an outlet for our kids and an opportunity. Thank you. Thank you. And we do need your help, but thank you. Thank you everybody. And respectfully, I'm signing off now. Okay. Thank you. I have a question. Yeah. First to comment. Thank you for where am I looking? Okay. There you are. Thank you for
086all your hard work. I mean, obviously, as you say, it's a kind of antidote for screen time, kind of a way to be able to do hands-on teaching, right? And I think that one of the things that struck me when you were talking about you take our students and you teach them about agricultural life, in essence, and the process. And I was just wondering, in that process, are students taught about the roles of farm workers and their important... Oh, they are in my classroom. And how does that happen? Well, I think that that is dependent upon the education that the teacher, her or himself, is going to emphasize. I don't think that YOLO Farm to Fork, per se, is going to be specifically responding to the different roles within agriculture as much as... How can
087you make a salad out of seeds that grow from the ground? And why is that better for you than hot talk, you know, hot Cheetos? But I, I think that connecting those dots is the single most important job we can do. And starting with the farm workers, letting our students know where their food comes from. And in my fourth grade or fifth grade classroom, fourth or fifth, depending on the year, that is an important topic. And I value that. And I think that topic of where the people that are growing our food and harvesting our food and getting up at three in the morning and our students who are coming in, their parents are these laborers. I think if we don't connect the dots, we're missing out. And I think that's why I care about
088this organization so much. Yeah, absolutely. It's a great opportunity for them to see their parents as models in the whole agricultural system. Yeah, I agree. For sure. Thank you. Okay, thank you. Any other questions or comments on this item this evening? Superintendent and then we'll move on so I'm not surprised that you're so involved in this and I want to thank you For hard work and your commitment throughout the years. I want to thank Suzanne too for their very Commitment to bringing this to our district. We're very thankful and we are committed to continue the partnership. Thank you very much. Thank you Thank you very much your presentation and your hard work board. We're moving on to the next item Item L2, information actionable items, revised board policy, 5126, awards for achievement, and this is
089the seal of civic engagement. I'll have Brandon Killian come up, and Dolan, last name, Casey, come up. We have an opportunity to offer our students a seal of civic engagement. on their graduate, before they graduate as seniors. And so there is a, they'll explain to you about. opportunity and the state criteria similar to what we do with CLLite by literacy and so we need what we need to do to start doing this is to first pass the board policy so that we can begin to act and have our students have an opportunity to receive this award so I'm going to go ahead and have our staff here give you an update of how we've come to this time Well, good evening, Board of Trustees and Superintendent Ortega-Lambkin. My name is Brandon Killian. I'm a teacher
090on special assignment with youth development. I'll let my colleague introduce himself. Good evening, everyone. I'm Dolan Casey. I'm also a teacher on special assignment. My specialty is social science. So we're here to talk about the seal of civic engagement. We actually chose today to present to you all because it coincided with the YOLO Youth Empowerment Summit, which was kind of a nice follow up to that event today. So the seal of civic engagement, I'm going to try this out, falls within all of our areas of our four LCAP goals. Primarily in my role, I work with goal four, youth engagement and leadership opportunities for youth. So a little overview of what we're going to talk about, just some background of this seal, some current board policy that relates to it, what our staff work group
091did last school year. We also took into account youth voice in drafting a policy and method or process for this. We took into account parent feedback. We will talk about the statewide criteria, our local criteria, and next steps. So the background for this in 2017 California Ed code developed this statewide criteria to award this new seal of civic engagement to eligible students the SBE the State Board of Education adopted this statewide criteria in September of 2020 and then they charged LEAs to develop local criteria based on the statewide criteria so you can kind of think of the statewide criteria as these buckets and the LEAs measure how they would see fit the statewide criteria. The background for this, it's a recognition for students in grades 11 or 12 who demonstrate excellence in civics education. And
092that's an image of the seal that they could, an insignia that they could receive if they successfully receive the seal of civic engagement. Particularly this aligns to our district goals one and four. LCAP goals one and four for college and career readiness, so developing our students kind of critical thinking, problem solving, all those things that we want for college and career readiness, and then our youth engagement participation. They're building leadership skills. They're using their voice to make a change in the community somehow, and then they're being empowered to influence in the community. It also aligns with our graduate profile. Basically all of those things are encompassed in this process of them identifying a problem in the community and then working towards a solution for that. So they're using critical thinking skills, they're doing research, they're
093using those literacy skills, they're being creative and problem solving and working with others. They're showing responsibility, they're showing civic mindedness and communicating throughout the process. with different parties, organizations outside of their immediate peer group. So it touches on all those areas. I'm going to hand it over to Dolan for a few slides. Sure. So the SEAL civic engagement really builds on some existing board policies and it's also you know, a nice happy sort of coincidence that Jessica was here to talk about farm to fork and kind of service learning as well because the board policy on service learning as well as history, social science instruction, those are really kind of the foundation for the seal of civic engagement. So building off of those, we're going to have some really powerful opportunities for students to really
094put their learning into action. So in terms of eligibility and recognition, Brandon touched on this, but This is just for students in grades 11 or 12, but it also includes in alternative school settings. And so it's really key and a big part of this process, as you'll hear, is that in the work group we wanted to make sure that this was as accessible as possible to all students because this is an opportunity for many students who might not otherwise engage in sort of traditional and what we would consider academic work and opportunities. So this is a way to involve them in the education process in a really powerful way. And again, Brandon touched on some of these recognition criteria, so I won't go over all of them. In terms of the work group, so we
095convened and we worked. last year and so we had staff from all three high schools represented 11 total participants and so we had a wide range and it was a pretty diverse group so we had Tosa's we also had counselors we had classroom teachers Yale specialists sped teachers as well so we had a lot of representation and so we had a diverse array of perspectives and so we feel like the criteria that the work group is recommending really reflects that and will serve our students well. In terms of kind of the process, you can see there we took a look at previous work that was done, and then we also, Brandon mostly, he did a lot of this work, taking a look at sort of other districts, how they have done it, and so based
096on that research, we kind of built our criteria from that. We also collected a lot of feedback, as you'll hear in the next slide. Then we reviewed that feedback and tweaked the criteria based on that. So in terms of the feedback so for youth voice We created a survey for high school students. So that's grades 9 10 and 11 at all three high schools And so that means that there are over 1,100 students who responded to the survey so pretty significant amount of data and kind of the big takeaways is that the proposed criteria Which Brandon will go over those five key areas students responded that they were achievable by most or all students. So when they were asked is this kind of an achievable or realistic thing for students in WJUSD to achieve, most
097students based on the survey felt that was the case. The thing that was highlighted in the survey is that the biggest potential challenge was for students was not knowing where to start, which, you know, that's kind of how it goes with lots of assignments in the classroom, right? You have students, they're going to write an essay. Where do I begin? Right. And so that's something that the work group is going to continue to address is to provide resources and that spark for students so that they can take advantage of this opportunity and we can really see some of the amazing results. So in part of collecting feedback from the community, we presented at three parent committees. They were district-level parent committees, so DLAC we presented at the LCAP Collaborative and the African American Parent Advisory
098Committee. Last school year, in speaking with those parent groups, we reviewed the proposed criteria. We talked about, kind of gave some background points, talked about the proposed criteria, collected ideas from them. Feedback was really positive. Parents were really excited about this opportunity for their students. And it was overwhelmingly supported by the parents, the proposed criteria. There were some questions about implementations, and we took some of their suggestions for how we can support students into account as we developed those supports on a later slide in the slide deck. So here on this slide, I'm not going to read through it, but these are the statewide criteria. So there's five buckets, so to speak, of things that we need to locally measure. The first one's about academic work. The second one is about understanding government structures. The
099third one is carrying out a civic engagement project. And the fourth one is showing or demonstrating civic knowledge through self-reflection. And the fifth one is exhibit characteristics of basically a good citizen. So those are the five statewide criteria that LEAs are charged to measure for this award. The local criteria that we in our work group came up with, again, after, like Dolan said, analyzing local districts, local and other districts in the state of California. The first one for that area of academic engagements, we decided that and collected feedback that this seemed appropriate to earn a minimum of 2.0 and a weighted total GPA or met. all goals within the current IEP. That would be the year in which the student applies for the seal. So during that annual IEP review process. Number two, understanding government
100and citizenship. We decided to measure that with a C or better in all high school history or social studies coursework. For a student in 11th grade, that will be two classes. For a student in 12th grade, they will have completed an additional class. So again, this is an award for either juniors or seniors. So it depends on where they are at in their studies in high school as far as how many, which classes they've taken. Number three is that civic engagement project. This is the bulk. This is the main emphasis of this award is that the students identify a problem and that they research it. They attempt to resolve that problem or work towards a solution for that problem and then they reflect on the outcome. So they measure their effect on whatever issue they
101choose. We would like to have a kind of a fair styled event where students are able to present their findings to the community or what their process looked like. We think this could be a really powerful moment for students to talk with community members, showcase their work. And so that's our idea with the civic engagement project. That's kind of the culminating part of it is this fair styled event where they are able to showcase that. Number four is a self-reflection, writing a short self-reflection and being prepared to talk about that at their presentation. And the fifth one, the last one, is character references. So obtaining one or more recommendations from a mentor or non-familial community member. Again, that category being exhibiting good citizenship. Many districts are using one or more recommendations as a method to
102measure that, and we felt like that was a good method to do that. What that looks like in kind of a process would be that students complete an intent form in the fall of the year in which they intend to receive the seal. They work on their civic engagement project throughout the year. They complete a final document submission in April. The project submission is reviewed by staff. And then there's a community showcase where they present their work in a fair style format. Some things that we... plan to use as supports that we took into account from the parent groups, from our work group suggestions, from basically how students responded on the survey, would be classroom presentations for juniors and seniors to go over what this looks like, a parent information night. And then we talked
103about hosting check-ins on campus where the students can meet with an adult, a staff member, that they can receive feedback from as they go along this process. and then guiding documents or checklists for students to kind of know what's the next step now that I've done this. And the last one, the YCOE is working on a countywide bank of resources to support our students who are attempting to receive the seal of civic engagement. So we want to continue working with them to support our students and providing that for them. So some next steps, we'd work with staff on implementation, offer more PD for teachers to incorporate service learning in the classroom. We've already started this last school year with having some groups of teachers go to SCOE for some civic learning professional development. Continue to
104equip teachers through the YCOE, YCYCI, another acronym. Group, so that's a group of teachers who are meeting regularly to go over how to incorporate service-learning into the classroom We had a good cohort last year of I think nine teachers who participated in that I think we even might have had some prior to that school year as well And then our recommendation is for the board to approve board policy 5 1 2 6 which is to include the state's field civic engagement in our awards our district awards and That's all I have. I await your questions. Thank you very much. Any questions or comments? We'll start with Trustee Richardson-Fowler today. All right. Love the idea. As a person who is a part of one of the panels, I know that rigor was one of the things
105because we really wanted this to be valuable and meaningful. That said... When do we think we're gonna roll should we approve this when do we think we're gonna launch and roll this out? We would like to start at this school year Okay, and then do we have systems in place for it to be able to roll out effort like without snafus Well, I think the current thought is that we're going to have to make slight changes as any program initiates, that there will be changes made along the way. It's part of our – there are several things that kind of emphasize the need for it. It's part of our LCAP goals, metrics I should say. It's part of the board's priority list. So I do think starting sooner rather than later, we'll adjust as we
106go along. But, yeah. The committees have already started working like on timelines and rubrics and like notifications so they have everything ready to go We have supporting but we can't go we can't start until there's a board policy and so our hope is to Get approved from the board like yes Get this opportunity we want to do it this fall because they wouldn't to apply Give teachers an opportunity communications and all those pieces before we do anything. We need a board approval and then you know, we'll visit it next year to see where we can BRUSH UP SOME OF THE THINGS WE LEARNED FROM THIS. LIKE WE DID WITH THE SEAL OF LITERACY, I REMEMBER THE FIRST TIME WE DID IT WE ONLY HAD THREE STUDENTS. WE HAD TO GO BACK AND SAY, OKAY, WHAT
107CAN WE DO TO INCREASE IT FOR MORE STUDENTS. NOW WE HAVE OVER, I DON'T KNOW, 300 A YEAR. I DON'T REMEMBER HOW MANY. OKAY, I DOUBLED IT. IT FEELS LIKE 300. BUT ANYWAY, WE'D LIKE TO GET APPROVAL FROM THE BOARD SO WE CAN START OFFERING THIS OPPORTUNITY FOR OUR STUDENTS. I absolutely love the idea, but my question is also a mechanism. With the student survey saying that the hardest part about this is going to be where to start, we have a lot of opportunities. You noticed in the presentation resources with YCOE, but I'm also thinking, do we have internal mechanisms to support the kids? We just had a presentation on YOLO Farm to Fork, but we also have a service project for our kids who are in the ag track for the CTE programs. Just
108now I'm thinking, okay, well, is there a way for our kids in the ag track to volunteer at the Farm to Fork? Because that just is a no-brainer. I'm asking the question and then also asking the question for this. Do we have set internal mechanisms to facilitate those sorts of things? So one thing that kind of you reminded me of in asking this question is that students are also required to have a certain number of community service hours to graduate this work in this process can basically they can use those hours they can use that as community service hours as well as their work towards achieving the seal of civic engagement so their students are already doing a lot of things that may kind of coincide with receiving this seal and like you said partnerships
109like that, we can create a resource bank of ideas where students, you know, things are already happening that they can jump into to help further what we're working on. Perfect. My last comment is by the time their kids are in high school, some of them are ambitious. Some of them are slow to start. I just want to make sure we're meeting all of the kids where they are and not providing an opportunity for a diamond in the rough because. Well, all these other opportunities are out there. So thank you. I appreciate all your answers and all the work you guys have done. Thank you, Trustee. Trustee Garcia. Thank you. Thank you for this presentation. I'm very excited for this. So can you please clarify about besides the 2.0 GPA and C on those classes, the
110students need also to do the civil engagement or you can explain the same. the simple process to qualify for this? So there are basically five areas that the students need to meet to qualify to receive the skill of civic engagement and they would have to meet all five of those areas. So the first one being the academic engagement, so having a minimum of 2.0, having the C or better in those history or social studies course. courses and then they would have to complete a civic engagement project. So they would choose what area they want to work on. It could be something that maybe they're already engaged with. I'm thinking you know going back to Trustee Richardson-Fowler's idea of like agriculture related for those students who are already interested in agriculture but they identify an issue
111or need and then they work towards a solution. They can work with governmental structures like elected officials, they can work with nonprofit agencies, they can even just do it on their own if they so choose. But yes, they identify a problem and they work towards a solution and then they reflect on how that went. Okay, my other question is again about the classes. Is one another or two of them? So it depends kind of on where they are at because this is an award for juniors or seniors. They would need to achieve a C or better in any history or social studies coursework completed by that school year, by the end of that school year. So for juniors, they have typically taken two history classes already. For seniors, they will have taken three history classes.
112Okay. Those are my questions for now. Thank you. Thank you, Trustee. Trustee Brubaker. Trustee Rodriguez. Hi, very excited to see all the work that you guys have done. Thank you for putting such tremendous thought and work into this and to take this on and make it happen. I think just some reflection on criteria student process number five, the character references. I think, you know, I would ask you to just monitor that really carefully. I think most students, you know, wouldn't have a problem. But then I think about the students that are introverts and that have familial structures where they don't really have a lot of access, right? It's just the family. AND SO I WOULD HATE TO BE ABLE TO DO ONE THROUGH FOUR BUT, YOU KNOW, NOT SOMEHOW NOT BUILD ACCESS TO THAT FIVE,
113RIGHT? WE WANT TO HAVE A PROGRAM THAT IS giving accessibility, not necessarily gatekeeping. Right, that, yeah. And to speak to that, one idea is that they can reach out to a teacher, either a current or a former teacher that they've had as another adult, to provide a recommendation for them, coaches, anyone that is an adult in their life that they have worked with. So that... that it is accessible for all. And one board member suggested in reviewing the criteria that we provide it in multilingual format, and I think that's an appropriate idea as well. Thank you. This has been a long time coming. I remember we went to, I want to say maybe it was CSBA or CLSBA, and we heard a presentation on the seal of civic engagement, and we came back super excited
114about it, but we knew that it was going to take a lot of work. So thank you very much for putting it in. I'm excited to see our students go through the process and be able to graduate with these seals of excellence and just really go out and put them to use in their careers. I don't have any questions. I'm excited and I trust you guys to undertake and bring this to fruition. Trustee Villagrana. I have several questions. The first one's on the GPA. I heard rigor was a consideration. To me, 2.0 is not rigor. So I'm curious how the 2.0 was identified versus a higher GPA to exemplify rigor. Yeah. So I can let me pull up the statewide criteria. So the states charged LEAs with basically examining the state right statewide criteria and
115then identifying what that looks like for their local context. So that would be number one which is being engaged in academic work in a productive way. In our work group we again we looked at local districts and then we talked about kind of access for students to this because this is not necessarily an academic award an academic achievement. We felt like it. 2.0 represented being engaged in academic work in a productive way. We're not saying that we want students to only earn a 2.0, but we did consider, for example, like our alternative high school, if we were to raise that bar too high, it would exclude a number of students who may really benefit from having this as a means to engage in the community and have like recognition for them for the work. Just
116to clarify the the consideration for rigor was Presented by one of the committee's it wasn't the state. No. Yeah, I didn't say it was a state Again, I just I heard that mention and to me it should have some element of rigor It's a recognition, right? It's it's an award It's I'm still struggling with that You mentioned access and so I'll piggyback on what Dr. Rodriguez said earlier about the character letter. It's an issue on access. Not every student feels comfortable going to an adult on campus, whether it's a teacher or a coach, not every student plays a sport. So that's a huge concern with me right now. I am definitely not in support of having that as a requirement. To me that is a... kind of like a barrier when we at one of
117the middle schools when we had a leadership class and the requirement was a letter recommendation you know that was removed because it was a huge barriers to some of the families that don't don't have the same social capital right to be able to to access that. So that's that's a big concern. That's a question in the in a statement so I'll go back to to another question. Let's see. On the third criteria, the civic engagement project. I emailed you about my concern about solely focusing the role of local government and then you responded that it would include but it's not included and to me if it's not included then it's not included. So to me the language needs to reflect that it's inclusive beyond local government or else once you move on to some other
118position, new person comes in, they don't know that it was there. Yes, the wording here needs to be changed like you pointed out. It's more than just local government. This is working with broader government structures but also advocacy groups, nonprofits, et cetera. So this wording after number one, their knowledge of the role of local government needs to be tweaked and adjusted before we, this is not student facing. We have other different student facing and family facing documents that we would adjust to reflect that. And then so that was my second statement. And so the last question is related to that. You know, where would this criteria land? Where is it going to be? Where is it going to be documented? Because it's not in the policy. And I'm assuming it will come back in the
119regulations. And I hope that it does. So I'll wait for the regulations. That's it for now. All right. Trustee Rodriguez-Molica. Thank you. Thank you for all the work that you all have put into this. Like my colleague trustees, I think this is really great. And I'm really excited to be able to see where this is going to go. You answered already some of my questions that I had emailed to you before. I did want to take a minute, though, to talk about the character references a little bit. I really appreciated how under number five character references, it says obtain one or more recommendations from a mentor or a non-familiar. community member. So when I read the non-familial community member to me I was thinking even a neighbor right like if I go over and help
120mow their lawn or if I help you know whatever to me that's open to that not just somebody that has there's no requirement for a degree or a requirement for being in an office or anything like that. I do think that in the student facing and maybe family facing documents. really expanding on that and expressing what we want from that character reference. And I went back to look at the state criteria, and I think it's under number five, and it says exhibit character traits that reflect civic-mindedness and a commitment to positively impact the classroom, school, community, and or society. So I could see some props that we might be able to provide to community members so that they don't feel like, oh, I can't speak to this, right? It's about being a positive member in
121the community. And again, I think a neighbor could do something like that or anyone else. I shared with you my interest in a multilingual option, right? I think you had shared before it could be as simple as a Google form. So it's not like a letter that they need to submit. I really like that because it provides scaffolds and it makes it a little less intimidating for someone that maybe hasn't done this before. To that note though and thinking about access that Trustee Rodriguez and Trustee Villagrana shared, I'm wondering now too if maybe we could also open it up to like an oral form of a character reference to just be able to open up access opportunities to. I don't know what that might look like. I know Google Forms do not have an audio
122recorded option, but maybe it's a phone call that they do, but just a way for people to feel like it's more accessible and they don't have to have letterhead and to do this fancy character reference. So I personally like that character reference. I just think, again, elaborating on that and really... Just really expressing that it doesn't have to be you know Somebody with a degree or whatever like it's really it can be a community member as long as it's not a family member is what I read Yes, right so that those are just kind of my comments Related to the accessibility, but I think this is really great the just the last thing I will mention One of the things that I really like about our seal of biliteracy and I'm sure this took a
123while to be able to develop and add is the pathway you know recognitions that we do at middle school. So I would love to see later on when we're later down the road some kind of pathway to this seal as well at the middle school level. So students start thinking about it already. But that's something for a later conversation. But I just want to express again my gratitude for all of the work that you put into this. And I'm excited to see where it goes. Thank you. Okay. My last thing I just want to say that I love how well thought out this is. I'm very excited. I didn't see the same equity issue where character reference considering the way you described it in the groups and maybe it's because I've had more time to
124sit with this and I was on one of the parent groups. But when you guys articulated that they can ask parents not parents teachers administrators hopefully our kiddos feel comfortable talking to their teachers and their administrators for things because. we really want them to embody our graduate profile and being critical thinkers, problem solvers, responsible and productive and finding ways. I know that some of us thought that the civic engagement project might be a barrier when it was presented as a presentation for our truly introverted folks and have true fears of public speaking and whatnot. But the way you guys have thoughtfully positioned so much. I appreciate it. I can't wait for this learning year and to see what you guys do with it from here. And with that, motion to approve. Second. We have a
125motion by Trustee Richardson-Fowler to approve the revised Board Policy 5126, Award for Achievement. Seal of civic engagement and a second by trustee Garcia. I'm gonna go ahead and do a roll call vote. Okay Okay for the discussion sir. Yeah, I wasn't done with my questions yet So are we approving just the policy or we're proving that criteria as well? First we need you're improving the what today and the what is that we're gonna move forward on offering students the seal of civil engagement that is aligned to the States criteria the regulation will come back with how we're gonna do that So we heard some input tonight and we'll consider that input and being forward for information item for the board Just a policy The great the policy says that we are going to implement that
126we're going to offer this little by literacy following the state criteria So again the information the slides were not approves want to be clear so that What you're looking at right now the state criteria that's what you're approving. Thank you All right, sir. We are the action on the table is to approve the revised board policy Not the criteria not the regulations that will show up the Yes, your regulations were pulled at the beginning of the meeting so that shouldn't even be a part of the discussion since that was pulled at the beginning of the agenda. So, call the question. Thank you, Trustee Richardson-Fowler. You are correct. All right. There is a motion on the table. It's been motioned by Trustee Richardson-Fowler. It's been seconded by Trustee Garcia. Roll call vote, Trustee Villagrana. Yes. Trustee
127Rodriguez-Molica. Yes. Trustee Richardson-Fowler. Absolutely. Trustee Garcia. Yes. Trustee Brubaker. Yes. Trustee Rodriguez. Yes. Trustee Bautista-Zavala. Aye. Thank you very much. The motion to approve the policy passes unanimously by our board members present. We're going to quickly move on to the next item, item L3. This is an informational item, Science and Technology Academy Charter School Annual Report. This is a written report. Oh, no. Sorry. That's okay, Trustee. Go our charter school maybe yours is one of the things that is an agreement when you have a charter is for the charter to give an opportunity to update the board on The program and so you have a written report and we have our principle here if you have any questions Any questions this evening? I have one You thought you were gonna get off easy All right,
128I mean, so I have a few questions here. I'm gonna I'm just gonna ask you one question of the three. Okay So how are families especially those from underrepresented backgrounds being engaged in decisions around curriculum and school climate? So I meet personally with all our committees, especially the elect because sometimes they don't want to voice their opinion and I always say if I if you don't give me your opinion I don't grow our students don't get the best so I really sit down with them talk to them go through the El cap they'll tell you what the El cap is now because I really am informing them and wanting their opinions and even in the Surveys you see it in Spanish. They're coming there. Their opinions are coming in there their comments Thank you. I'm
129gonna ask one more question My daughter went to TK at SciTech and I know for a fact that your PTO is super organized, very well established. You have their powerhouses and. My question is rooted more on you know on equity and I know that it's embedded in your in your report How is your school partnering with community organizations be beyond your PTO? to support equity and student enrichment You mentioned ELAC, but... Yeah, but the community at large, too. So we have the community that comes together. A lot of the boards in Nikes Landing, like the water board and the fire department, all that, there's a lot of our families there. There's a lot of theos and all that, so we pull them in to that. And so even the farmers around. the community. So we
130really try to involve everybody. And ELAC and PTO work really hand in hand together. Thank you. My closing comments for me this evening is congratulations on the opening of the brand new park. That's a huge undertaking. Congratulations on your anniversary of your school site. A lot of successes to be celebrated, to continue to be celebrated. Thank you for your dedication. Thank you for giving your all to the community and to our students. Gracias. Gracias. Gracias. Thank you. Anyone else? I have one question. Hi. Welcome. Thank you for your report. Thank you. Very thorough. Thank you. You mentioned the science camp at Sly Park that you participate in and that over the program, when they come back, that you're able to see a remarkable transformation. That's how you described it. Can you tell us a little
131bit more about the program, what happens there? And is that a lasting effect from that program? It is. I get to go. So every year I go and visit the students there. Even if I have the ability, I stay overnight with them and participate. And I see them grow either their acting where they were quiet. One of the big challenges is a climbing wall. And so to be able to see those kids. surpass their struggle or their fears and just touch the bell and come back with this amazing empowerment that's brought back to school. And you see that more willingness to step in or to different activities whereas before they were quiet and they didn't want to try new things. The ability to go through the hikes and sometimes I go with them and they're
132hard for me. So, you know, the encouragement to go beyond just their abilities is really great. They come back as a team, like more together and willing to share their experiences. A more sense of community as opposed to feeling isolated. Definitely. Alright board we're good to move on. Thank you very much for being here and being so patient and I invite you guys to come out and visit Thank you so much. When I was not just thank you all right, just remind the board that The board has approved in the LCAP for all students at the element all our elementary schools to go to science camp and I think the majority of our principals go out for at least one day or two Thank you for that reminder superintendent. We're not item l5 and this
133is an actionable item and this is a public hearing That I am opening up at 8 o 5 p.m To approve resolution 8-26. This is a resolution of sufficiency of approval of approved instructional materials No public. Sorry. I was looking at that's okay. No public comment. All right I'm gonna go ahead and close the public hearing any questions or comments on this item Can I get a motion to approve? Make a motion to approve. Second. All right, we're going to do a roll call vote. It's been motioned by Trustee Rodriguez, seconded by Trustee Bautista Zavala. Trustee Villagrana? Yes. Trustee Rodriguez-Molica? Yes. Trustee Richardson-Fowler? Yes. Trustee Garcia? Yes. Trustee Brubaker? Yes. Trustee Rodriguez? Yes. Trustee Bautista Zavala? Aye. Motion passes. Resolution 8-26 has been approved. Item and facilities and finances is an action item to approve
1342024 2025 unaudited actuals financial statement statements Mr. Wiley Okay, good evening this evening we present to the board for approval the unaudited actuals as of 2425 which was last fiscal year and Before I begin this presentation. I have to think Norma Palomar and her team in fiscal services for all the hard work that they did in order to close our books. If you've ever taken the time to look at these unaudited actuals, there's a lot of detailed work that happens behind the scenes in order to pull this information together. And so I wanted to publicly and formally thank Norma and her team for all their hard work. Thank you. The unaudited actuals are... are a moment in time when we're acknowledging the close of the fiscal year for last year. And this is something that
135the board does every year where they sign off on the closure of the books. And so I'm just going to briefly go through some of these slides. There's a lot of important information on all of these slides, and I'll do my best to hit the most important points that I think need to be made. And so this first slide is a... pie graph of the actual revenues for for last year as of 24 25 and as you can see three-fourths of our revenue coming comes in the form of the local control funding formula and that's where you find our base grant and our supplemental and concentration funds This next pie graph shows the pie graph of the actual expenditures for last year when we closed the books. And so clearly, as you can see, there
136are various things that we spend in our district, but more than 75% of our budget is made up of supplies. I mean, I'm sorry, salaries and benefits. We're heavily invested in people. And then, as of June 30th, another piece of our finances in the unaudited actuals is the actual ending fund balance at June 30th. And so, as you can see, we ended the year with a fund balance of $78 million. Also, what's displayed here on this slide is there are some components of that ending fund balance. And so this is where we learn about the unspent funds as of the end of the close of year. And so we have some restricted carryovers. We have some unrestricted carryovers. We have an obligation with the state where the state requires us to set aside 3% of
137our ending fund balance for economic uncertainty, and we meet that requirement. And then you do a little math and we end up with a undesignated slash unappropriated ending fund balance of $34 million. The next series of slides, we do a couple of things. We provide a visual for the ending fund balance. And then we also provide a breakdown of the components of the legally restricted balance as well as the unrestricted carryover, just so everyone is informed what's actually embedded in the ending fund balance. And so this here is a pie graph, a visual of our ending fund balance, the $78 million that I talked about a little earlier. And each of the segments of the pie all have a purpose or designation. And we have those spelled out for you here on this graph. Another
138item of note is the unrestricted carryover as of June 30th, and we have those listed for you here. It's a total of $18 million, and they're each individually outlined here. And so we can talk more about that if the trustees have questions as we move toward the end of the presentation. We also have restricted carryover within our ending fund balance and it totals to 21 20 million dollars and we have all the different categories of those various restricted carryovers and I think it's important to note that When we say restricted carryover, it's important to note that those dollars do not lose their purpose. They don't lose their identity. So if it was a restricted lottery fund last year, it's going to be a restricted lottery fund next year. It doesn't lose their identity. It's important
139to learn that all of a sudden these are unrestricted funds. This next slide shows a couple of things. One, it shows our unaudited actuals compared to our adopted budget for the year that we're in now. But most importantly, the unaudited actuals resets the starting point or the beginning fund balance in the adopted budget that we're in now. When Norma and her team and myself prepare the adopted budget for the year that we're in now, we're making an educated guess on what that beginning fund balance is. And then when we actually close the books, the ending fund balance from the prior year becomes the new starting point for the adopted budget in the year that we're in now. Another thing that we do when we close the books is it's a good time to look at
140what our trends are for our actual expenditures and other items in our district. And so we have a couple of areas where we look at how we've done in various rubrics across our district in terms of our finances. And the first one that we look at is we look at our local control funding formula. Again, this is the significant source of our... revenue in our district and so as you can see the trend has been that we saw a little bit of an uptick in 21 22 and 22 23 but slowly we're starting to see where those dollars are starting to uh level off and uh they're slightly declining because of of various reasons, but I think the most important one is the local control funding formula is driven by our average daily attendance and
141you'll see on a later slide that we're really beginning to see the impact of that because we're having a we're experiencing declining enrollment which equates to a decline in our ADA. And so I got a little ahead of myself, but as you can see here on this slide, the trend of our enrollment and our P2ADA has showed that we're seeing a decline. The rust-colored bar represents our enrollment, and the green-colored bar represents our P2ADA. P2ADA is the actual time that kids are in the classroom, so that's extremely important. If kids aren't here, they're not learning. But also from a fiscal standpoint, if our ADA is starting to decline, we're starting to see... where the negative impact it's having on our local control funding formula. Fewer kids equals fewer dollars. Salaries and benefits. This is a
142bar chart of what's happening with our certificated salaries, our classified salaries, and then our overall benefits. And so as you can see, there's been an increase in the commitment toward compensation. But I just wanted to clarify the last two section of bars on the right-hand side of the bar graph. It can be a little misleading. We closed the books for 2425 and in this slide. We're reporting what the salaries and benefits are for both groups Classified and certificated but then in that next bar over that's what we had in those Categories when we prepared the adopted budget and you notice that there's a decrease the decreases it it's the reason for the decrease is because the actual expenditures in 2425 for both categories included the one-time payment that we negotiated with our employees last year.
143That is a one-time payment for last year. And the budget for 25-26, we wouldn't continue that one-time payment. It was a one-time payment last year, so we wouldn't have that incorporated in the figures that you're seeing on the far right-hand side. And that is the reason for the dip of the one-time off-schedule payment that we made to both of our groups as well as unrepresented. And so I wanted to explain that because it can be a little misleading when you see that slide. Another important slide that I want to... Point out to the board and just kind of spend a little time talking about is the general funds contribution to special ed and essentially a contribution means that we are spending more than the state and federal resources that we're getting and as a result
144the general fund needs to contribute cash to bring those expenditures into line and so as you can see when we close the books in 2425 the general fund was contributing $18 million to, had to contribute $18 million to special education. And if you notice, the year prior, we contributed $15 million. So the contribution's up $3 million. And then even more important, in the budget year that we're in, we're projecting to contribute an additional $2 million more. And so this is the type of thing that Norma and the team and myself were watching to make sure, because contributions to special ed are a direct impact to the local control funding formula. The revenue that we have, this is less revenue toward... other things that we have in the district, but I wanted to really get the
145board to understand that a contribution is a direct deduct to the revenue that comes into the district. We also contribute to transportation. Transportation is one of those programs that in 07-08 the state gave us, gave many school districts an option to decide if they wanted to continue with transportation. And our district made that important decision and wanted to continue to transport kids both home to school as well as meeting the state requirement or the federal requirement for special ed. And so this slide here is a bar graph showing the ongoing contributions that the general fund has made. to the important program of transportation. But I wanted to give the board credit for one aspect of this slide and it's on the far right hand side. You'll notice in 2526 we have a contribution that we're
146projected to make for special ed but we don't have a contribution that we're anticipating to make in regular home to school transportation. And that is all as a result of the board when you went through the exercises last year of deciding some of the adjustments we needed to make in our budget and tighten our belt and prepare ourselves for some of these tough conversations we're going to need to make, the board committed to putting the general funds contribution or the expenditures associated with regular home-to-school transportation, we placed that in the supplemental and concentration funds. Targeted students benefit from transportation and that is a perfect place to have some of those transportation expenditures in the LCAP being funded by supplemental and concentration funds. And that is why we have a zero there in terms of a
147contribution is not expected from the general fund for home to school in the current year that we're in. Restricted routine maintenance is a state requirement that we have to make. It's 3% of our total general fund expenditures have to be put into a specific place so Jim and his team can handle routine maintenance across the district and take care of a variety of different important things to help our facilities and our... buildings across the district and so we're required to make this as well as other districts statewide are required to make this contribution the reason why it's increasing is because our general fund has grown and so if your total expenditures are growing then your percentage or your your contribution restricted maintenance is going to grow In terms of things we like to keep on
148the board's radar, you've heard me say this every year, and I think we've talked about many of them here tonight. Special ed is something that we need to continue to monitor, and we're taking that step by having the conversation we're having here tonight as well as the investment we're making with West Ed to do a study of our special ed. Declining enrollment I kind of demonstrated the impact of how declining enrollment and decrease ad a Has a negative impact on our local control funding formula And then, you know, we're constantly watching to see what the governor is going to put out in his proposal. We learned a little bit about that here in January in terms of what his spending plan is for next year. And then that last bullet is new. Norma and I
149were trying to think of some other things that we'd like to keep on your radar. And we just want to remind the board that measure-wide funds are beginning to dwindle down. And what that means is we'll start to have to really begin to think about. general fund needing to pick up any additional expenditures that or some unexpected Expenditures that may happen on the facility side. We're grateful the measure Y funds We're trying to use them as effectively and efficiently as possible and the board has supported that But all good things are slowly becoming to an end And so we have to be ready for our general fund to pick up any obligations that might pop up if if they were to arise So with that being said, I did my best to be as brief
150as possible, but now I welcome any questions that any of the trustees may have. Thank you very much. Any questions or comments this evening on this presentation? We'll start with Trustee Rodriguez. Thank you for the presentation. Just quickly where we ended on Measure Y, can you kind of give us a ballpark about when we could expect those funds to essentially be ending? Boy, you really caught me off guard on that one, Trustee Rodriguez. No, I think it's a legitimate question. You've approved us to move forward with the last round of the investments that we're making to improve safety and fencing and painting, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. I think that the presentation that we had a few meetings ago where we shared with the board the conditions of our roofs. That might be probably
151if we were to move in that direction, and I don't want to make a unilateral decision on how we spend those dollars, but that would begin to really wrap up the last remaining pot of funds that we have left over. So I think that it's safe to say that. Probably within the next year and a half, most of those funds should be exhausted. To two-year window? Yes. To save something like that? Yes. Okay, thank you. And then my other quick general question, page 10, analysis of unaudited actuals under revenues. WE HAVE LINE ITEM OF FEDERAL REVENUES AND SHOWS 2425 GOING FROM 6,500,000 AND CHANGE TO 5,300,000 AND CHANGE AND OTHER STATE AND LOCAL REVENUE, 2425 GOING FROM 32 AND 25, 26 GOING TO 23. I WANTED TO HAVE CLARITY ON WHAT ACCOUNTS FOR THOSE LOSS
152OF FUNDS. YOU ARE REALLY BATTING A THOUSAND TONIGHT. Norma probably can articulate this a little better and refine the answer, but what's happening is in 24-25, remember, we're actually spending money that we have, and we also have carryover that we anticipate in some of our state monies. What we don't do is we don't try to anticipate what some of those funds are going to be when we're building the budget because we haven't quite closed the books yet. So that could be one issue that's contributing to that. Also, there are some state dollars that we received in 24-25 that we are not receiving in this year. And I would probably have to provide you with a detailed report of that. I'm saying in a long-winded way that you only recognize the revenue once. In other words,
153if there's unspent monies, I don't put them in that revenue line at the adopted budget there. It normally sits down in the ending fund balance. And so that could be a contributor to the difference between last year's actuals versus this year's adopted budget. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Yep. Thank you very much. Any other questions? Trustee Brubaker So a couple of these things are gonna be repeats from our Budget Committee, but just for transparency. No problem I just want to make clear to the community that these unordered actuals do not account for Going forward the changes that this board before I joined them made in the ongoing budget last fall And so some of the things that were ongoing expenses Not going to show up the same because they were either cut or reallocated for the
154budget going forward So thank you for the people who did that before me But I just wanted to highlight that and then can you go to slide 9, please? So I just also wanted to highlight just because this is something I've taken a special interest in item number three proposition 28 the reason that there is that carryover is because Until I think it was last fall We didn't have guidelines from the state of how we could spend that money. So it would have been irresponsible to be spending that money and then potentially find out we did it incorrectly and maybe have that be a big problem. And that I have been assured that... The money that does have a deadline to be spent by we're working on getting that spent so we don't have to
155give any back because we don't want to have to do that. So I just wanted to highlight that because there is there is that is a you know, not a huge chunk of that 20 million dollars, but it's not insignificant and that is why that is there. So my last question and I apologize if this is catching off guard because it just occurred to me as we were looking at the slides. Can you go to 16 please? And if you don't have the answer to this, this is that's fine, but I'd love to get some. Follow-up so that last column for sped funding I know we have had an increase in special education students But I also know just cost of doing business has also increased Do you have a guesstimation on how much that
156increase over time is just for an increase in costs? versus an increase in students I do not because the contribution is where Our total expenditures in special ed, whether it's for people, whether it's for services, whether it's for things, whether it's for items, you know, they're they're exceeding what we're getting in revenue. And so the general fund is saying, OK, I'm going to help you level out and break even. And so it's for a variety of different things. Clearly, it is. An indirect cause is the fact that we have a growing population of those types of needy students. So I know that's a long-winded way and it's kind of dancing around the exact answer you want, but it's hard to pinpoint that right now. Yeah, that's totally fair. I just thought I'd see if you
157had a ballpark there. Thank you so much. That concludes my questions. Thank you very much. You mentioned earlier with measure why funds ending what impact and you know potentially we could have some additional costs to absorb once those funds and With that in mind What the measure Y funds ending what impact will this have on facilities and how is our district like how are we planning ahead? Because we've been able to do so much on measure Y and I know you captured a lot in in your presentation but my biggest worry is We're not done and we don't have a second bond How much of it can we absorb Anything that you can share to give me a little bit of... Yeah, I didn't mean for it to sound an alarm or create a totally
158different conversation. I think I was just trying to make the point that with Measure Y funds ending, the general fund... specifically the reserves might find itself in situations where Jim may be standing here trying to explain to the board that we need a A and a B because something happened on site X Y and Z that's what I was trying to get the board to think about and I know that there's ways of messaging and and I wasn't trying to negatively message but I was just trying to say that our general fund is going to be Next man up or next person up if something were to happen in one of our HVAC systems were to go down or a Building had a roof problem similar to like the unexpected roof that happened over at
159Douglas And so I was making that point all of a sudden now the general fund becomes the contingency plan again When something goes wrong Mike I'm sorry you guys My second and last question is how will one-time funds like the Learning Recovery Emergency Block Grant and Prop 28 Arts and Music Funds be sustained when these expire? Is there anything, any hope that we'll be able to sustain them? just from the outlook right now? So I look over at superintendent because it's conversations that we have quite a bit. You get into efforts and initiatives and things that you're doing in those funds and you have to think about, okay, the funds are starting to run out or they're beginning to exhaust or we're needing to spend all these monies by now. Are we going to continue
160to invest in these programs? Are we going to stop those programs? Those are conversations we have as a cabinet. I don't know if the superintendent wants to say more, but it's the hard part of accepting state and federal dollars because you start something, sooner or later you have to make the decision whether or not you're going to continue or are you going to stop. nine times out of ten your general fund picks up those those expenditures if you're not able to identify another restricted fund that can continue that I'll just add that we won't be able to sustain it but we're doing we have done and we started doing it with the prior adjustments that we made last year reprioritizing so if there was anything that was put into those one-time funds And they come
161now something that is important to the board that lines to your priorities That we need to make adjustments and reduce other areas in the LCAP for example of things that we know is ongoing and Just having to juggle and make decisions that way and then having to make some tough decisions on what we need to let go and So as you recall when we did the budget adjustments last time That was a lens that I used about what the board priorities were and then looked at our one-time monies and we started shifting some of the things already into the l cup that we knew we wanted to continue to sustain and then move those other things out we moved a lot of contracts majority of the pieces that we moved out from the first budget
162adjustments were contracts and so we weren't able to do all the adjustments but we're going to have to be going through adjustments ongoing and refocus and make decisions based on our goals your priorities and let that help us make the difficult decisions that we need to make but it's not going to be sustainable to how it is everything in there you know so we're going to have to make some important decisions. Thank you superintendent. Go ahead. Just want to make the comment that I mean it's why it's so critical to really think about the decisions that we make that impact the reserves because these reserves are like a you know like a retaining pond and as we see is the perfect example as Lewis was saying of Another hose a pump that that takes out
163of that retaining pond, right? We you know, we know about the discussions that we're having and no you know, what it might be used for. But we have to be really cognizant that as, you know, as we go down the road, it's a diminishing resource. And many things will take from that diminishing resource. So just something to be very, very aware of. Thank you very much. Going back around, any other questions or comments this evening? All right, this is an actionable item so we do have to approve this Sorry, I'm going back from my notes All right, can I get a motion to approve the 2024 2025 an audited actual financial statement? I make the motion trustee Rodriguez motions second seconded by trustee Garcia all those in favor, please say aye aye aye any opposition
164Any abstentions? Seeing none, we have approved our 2024-2025 unannoted actuals financial statements by all board members present. Thank you very much, Mr. Wiley. Moving on to item M2, this is an action item, public hearing. So at 8.33, I'm opening up a public hearing to an approved resolution 9-26, district GAN limits for 2024-2025 and 2025-2026. And no public comment. closing at 833 Any questions or comments on this item? Can I get a motion to approve make a motion to approve? motion to approve resolution 9-26 by trustee Rodriguez second seconded by trustee Brubaker all those in favor, please say aye aye Any opposition no abstention motion to approve resolution 9-26 is approved unanimously by our board members present Mr. Wiley, next item is item M3, informational item on ADA and enrollment report for 2025-2026 school year. This
165is a written report, non-actionable. Any questions for Mr. Wiley this evening? Seeing none, is everyone okay to proceed to item N? Thank you very much. Item N, human resources. Thank you, Mr. Wiley. This is an actionable item to approve. Approval of local assignment options, Ed Code 44258.3. Motion to approve second secondated by trustee Richardson Fowler Any questions or comments all those in favor? Please say aye aye aye any opposition? abstention one abstention anyone else abstained no opposition motion passes by six board members and one abstention Item n2 actionable item to approve variable term waiver request for Spanish bilingual authorization any questions or comments See none. Can I get a motion to approve so moved second? Is that Brubaker? Yep. Thank Thank You trustee Brubaker motions seconded by trustee Richardson Fowler all those in favor, please
166say aye aye aye any opposition abstention one abstention any any more abstentions All right, seeing none, motion passes by six board members and one abstention. Thank you very much, board. Item O, governance support. This is an informational item. Update ad hoc committee developing a state survey of the board. I'm sorry. Let me say that one more time. I'm so sorry, you guys. I feel like I'm still at work. Information item update from ad hoc committee to develop a staff survey of the board. I'm so sorry, you guys. I'll start giving the update and then if any committee members would like to chime in. and clean up what I may have forgotten. But essentially, we met yesterday to begin this work. We had an outline. And that outline kind of consisted of trying to come to
167agreement on what the goal of the survey was, taking a look at the survey body, potential identifiers we would use as to try and track characteristics of who's taking the survey so that we can get better data, kind of a disaggregation of the data. That includes demographics, school sites, et cetera. And then we were able to get into some of the potential questions that we wanted to see on the staff survey and so we were working hard to try and Get to a consensus on on many of these issues that will appear or any of these The content that would appear once we get into a survey and so we plan to meet Once more at least in October I believe and we kind of generally felt that it would take us about about three
168meeting dates to try and come back to the board with a draft of what this survey would look like and That's that's pretty much the update and I don't know if anybody else wants to add anything else Would just say that we committed to at the very latest having it done by the organizational meeting in December just to give ourselves plenty of leeway but Also have a deadline that is always nice to have as a fixed goal Thank you Thank you for the update. I appreciate that All right If we may we'll continue to item P public comment for items not on the agenda seeing none Q information requests for future agenda items All right, trustee Villagran, I mentioned those two items earlier. Item R, information closing comments. Anyone? Trustee Brubaker, take it away. So
169I forgot to mention when I was discussing the special education parent advisory committee, something that I had not been aware of actually until that meeting, it was mentioned that... Communication was sent out to special education families through parent square and I was standing at the meeting going I don't remember getting that but I went home I dug through my emails I did in fact get that so if you are a family member with students in special education And you have not gotten that go look through your past messages if you don't find it reach out to someone with the district office so you can get that information because It's a very important part of this process. That's it Thank you very much. I see Brie Baker trustee Rodriguez and then just a general comment Going
170back to the item the ad a item when I took a look at it. It looks like our elementary schools probably could use some energy about trying to get our ad a up basically our Norse do our students showing up? Maximize I also saw a cache Creek was fairly low in regards to ad a And so maybe we could talk about how to put some energy into those two groups to kind of boost our ADA, similar to what we've done in the past that was successful. Thank you very much trustee Rodriguez for that Thank You trustee Brie Baker for that as well any other question any other closing comments this evening I have one I'm sorry superintendent. Yes, ma'am Just like to remind the board that on Monday is the excellence of Education Awards of
171the county office Also this Saturday, I know it's a very late notice, but there is the interfaith pick piece picnic event If you're available to go they always have some good food And then on Friday is the Pioneer High School Homecoming. It's always fun to go see the students during Homecoming. They have their king and queen celebrations and the floats and all that fun stuff. So that's always a fun event. And I'll put that in my weekly update. Thank you very much superintendent. All right seeing no more closing comments the date and time of our next scheduled regular board meeting is Thursday October 9th 2025 closed session at 5 and open session at 6. With that said we stand adjourned at 8 40 p.m. Thank you very much. Have a great evening