001Thank you very much to my colleagues for being here. It is 501. I'm gonna call this meeting to order in open session at 5 o 1 p.m Thank you very much for being here again Can I get a motion to approve the agenda board agenda for today make the motion to approve the board agenda Thank you very much trustee Rodriguez moves to approve the agenda Second. It's been seconded by Trustee Rodriguez-Molchica. Thank you very much. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposition? Abstention? Seeing none. The agenda for March 20th, 2025 has been approved by all board members. Thank you very much. Moving on to item C, public comment for items on closed session agenda. Seeing none. All right. We're going to move on to item D, closed session. We will move on to
002closed session agenda and return Reconvene an open session at 6 p.m. Thank you very much colleagues. Thank you very much superintendent. It's 10 Thank you very much. All right. Thank you colleagues. It's now 6 10 and I would like to reconvene an open session at 6 10 Can we please begin with the Pledge of Allegiance? Thank you very much this evening trustee Villagrana will be leading us in the land acknowledgement statement. Thank you 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 put when people today There are three federally recognized put when tribes catcher they he banned the Winton Indians of the Calusa Indian community gets a day he went in nation and the yocha that he went
003to nation the put when people have remain committed to the stewardship of this land over many centuries. It has been cherished and protected as the 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 Villagrana. Equity statement will be led by Trustee Richardson-Fowler. Equity statement. 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 fullest full potential. WJUSD will be purposeful about providing equitable access to all essential educational opportunities for all WGUSD students, especially diverse and disadvantaged students who have historically been underserved by educational institutions. Thank you, Trustee Richardson-Fowler. This evening, I will be reading the Board of Trustees agreements. As Board
004of Trustees, we agree to the following. To check in. Remember our larger purpose. Boundaries, remember that individual decisions are not personal. Open, aspire to finding common ground. Having empathy, being respectful, assume best intentions. Item four, announcement of any action taken in closed session or items to be approved in open session that were reviewed in closed session. Thank you very much. Thank you. All right. Item D 1 a the Board of Trustees took action in closed session by a vote of all trustees present to accept the expulsion recommendation for student 25-07 The action was passed with a motion by Trustee Villagrana and a second by Trustee Bautista Zavala. The vote was as follows. Trustee Bautista Zavala, yes. Trustee Rodriguez, yes. Trustee Brubaker, abstain. Trustee Garcia, yes. Trustee Richardson-Fowler, yes. Trustee Rodriguez-Molica, yes. Trustee Villagrana, yes. Thank
005you very much. Moving on to the next item. Public comments on sections G, consent agenda, and H, community engagement. All right, no public comment on items G and H. Thank you very much, Monica and Superintendent. Moving on to item G, consent agenda. Would any of our board colleagues like to pull any item? All right, myself would like to pull item G1A, please. Can I get a motion to approve the consent agenda without item G1A? So moved. Second. It's been moved to approve the consent agenda without item G1A. It's been motioned by Trustee Villagrana and seconded by Trustee Garcia. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposition? Any abstentions? The consent agenda without item G1A has been passed by all board members present. Can I get a motion to approve item G1A? So moved. Second. It's been
006motioned to approve item G1A by Trustee Villagrana and seconded by Trustee Rodriguez. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposition? Any abstentions? Aye. Trustee Bautista-Zavala abstained. Motion passes by all those board members present with the exception of Trustee Bautista-Zavala. Moving on to item H, community engagement, presentation of resolution 55-25, Women's History Month. Trustee Garcia, Women's History Month. Ready when you are, okay? Thank you. You're welcome. So... I didn't read today the resolutions because I would like to leave the floor to these persons who are here present. So I want to read something for if it's Maria Orozco is the person I will recognize as the resolution 5525 Women's History Month. And I would like to share something before I can go with you, Maria. And I will start. in Spanish. Without a doubt, Mario
007Orozco has made a difference in many families in our district. For over decades, he has made a valuable guide for parents, including myself. Her dedication encouraged families to advocate for our children's education, development, leadership skills, and a standard for the well-being of students. I am one of the many parents who have been deeply impacted for her work. For all this reason, I cannot think of anyone for more deserving this well-earning recognition. And I also want to read a message for her from the president for DLAC, Sonia Cadenas, who sent me this for you. y como ellos y nosotros tengamos mejores apoyos en los estudios y nosotros como padres contar con el apoyo de ustedes ha sido muy importante. Aunque no estoy presente, quiero darle a usted las gracias y sé que este reconocimiento es muy
008merecido. Gracias por todas sus enseñanzas. Good evening Board of Trustees, Superintendent Lapkin, and community. I'm deeply humbled and honored to receive Resolution 5525, which celebrates Women's History Month and recognizes the giants upon whose shoulders we stand. Throughout my life, I have been inspired by countless women, many of whom are in this room right now, who have modeled love, compassion, leadership, courage, and selflessness, all in the name of community and advocating for... women's rights. We are all here today because none of us who fought tirelessly. We are all here today because of those who fought tirelessly, shattering ceilings, breaking down barriers, walls, and anything that stood in their way. This resolution honors the innumerable contributions of women from all walks of life who have shaped our nation. and the world, overcoming challenges and breaking barriers along
009the way. By recognizing their achievements, we challenge outdated stereotypes and inspire future generations to keep pushing for progress now more than ever. Let us continue to uplift and empower the women we work with, live with, interact with, acknowledging their strength, leadership, and lasting impact on society. Lastly, I want to express my heartfelt gratitude to my mother. She's not here, but I think she's watching. Estela Orozco, who taught me the value of education despite never receiving one herself. Even so, she found a way to teach me how to read and write in Spanish. Her courage as a 21-year-old immigrant with a one-and-a-half-year-old child inspires and motivates me daily to do better for all women whose contributions often go unseen. Ahora en español. Firmamente quiero expresar mi más sincero agradecimiento a mi madre, Estela Orozco, quien me
010enseñó el valor de la educación a pesar de no haber tenido la oportunidad de recibir una ella misma. Aún así, encontró la manera de enseñarme a leer y escribir en español. Su valentía como una inmigrante de 21 años con una niña de un año y medio me inspira y motiva todos los días a hacer lo mejor por todas las mujeres cuyas contribuciones a menudo Finally, let us not forget to recognize and honor all our warriors, not just this month, but every day of the year. Thank you. May I say something before you go back, Maestra? Sorry, I know you're ready to go back to your seat. I just want to thank you personally. was a student teacher. Some of you may know I was a student teacher at Beamer Park Elementary many, many years ago,
011and I had fantastic mentor teachers. You were not my specific mentor teacher, but you provided so much mentorship and support, and you serve as a role model to parents, to families, but also to upcoming teachers. So I want to personally thank you for the impact that you had on me by taking me under your wing, even though I was not your student teacher officially, because I have taken those lessons that you taught me about how to be a student a strong advocate for our students and how to teach with high expectations for our students and always . And I've taken that and I now strive to share that with my student teachers. So thank you for everything you do for student teachers and your other colleagues in the district. Thank you very much. Please don't
012go yet. I think there's more board members who want to speak on your behalf. Trustee Villagrana. Yes, I've known Maria for many decades, actually. We were both in college together, so I've seen her be who she is since the beginning. Fierce advocate, hard, strong work ethic. brings quality and dedication and passion to the work that our young people need. And again, I can't think of another person today more deserving for this recognition and a great role model for our young ladies and our young men in our community. So thank you for your dedication. Thank you. Anyone else on the board would like to speak? I do want to share. MAESTRA, THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR BEING YOU. I HAD THE HONOR OF BEING IN MIDDLE SCHOOL WHEN YOU WERE A STUDENT TEACHER IN MAESTRA MORLIN
013MOLINA'S CLASSROOM. AND I ALSO HAD THE HONOR OF RAISING OUR DAUGHTERS TOGETHER. AND THIS EVENING I WANT TO THANK YOU FOR BEING A PART OF OUR WOODLAND UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT JOURNEY. BUT THANK YOU FOR LETTING ME RAISE MY DAUGHTER ALONGSIDE YOU. Thank you. Thank you very much All right moving on to item h2 presentation resolution 62-25 national Vietnam War Veterans Day I'm going to be presenting this resolution The family is not here to receive it in honor of this late veteran, but I have a story that I would like to share Good evening, everyone. Today we come together to honor and remember a remarkable man, Abraham Avila Jr. He was a soldier, a son, a brother, a husband, a father, and a pillar in our community. His life was built on service, sacrifice, and deep-rooted
014values that continue to inspire many today. Born in Miguel Aousa, Zacatecas, Mexico in 1949, Abraham came to the United States at just five years old. His family first settled in Oklahoma before making Woodland their home. He attended Woodland High School, where he grew up alongside many in this community. At just 17 years old, Abram made a selfless decision. He left high school to join the United States Army. Even while serving his country, he remained committed to his education, earning his high school diploma while in the Army. During his eight years of service, Avram rose to the rank of Specialist IV and served with courage and distinction during the Vietnam War. His bravery and sacrifice were recognized with two of the highest honors, the Purple Heart and the Bronze Star, testament to his valor and dedication
015to duty. After his military service, Avram returned to Woodland, where he built a family centered on family, friendship, and community. He married and raised two wonderful children, both of whom attended Woodland schools. One graduated from Woodland High and the other from Woodland Adult Education. To this day, his children still live in Woodland and are known as good, kind-hearted people, a reflection of the values their father instilled in them. But Abram's impact went beyond his family. He and his wife were compadres with my grandparents, and together they created a strong community support system to raise their children. Just like then, our families, our Woodland families, continue to build community supports to raise their children. They believe in the power of unity and helping one another in building a village where every child was cared for and
016every family was supported. And that legacy continues to this day. My grandmother and Avram's wife remained close friends, carrying on tradition of friendship, love, and support that they built together so many years ago. Tragically, in 1983, Avram passed away, leaving behind his beloved wife and two children, both under the age of five. His passing was a profound loss, not only for his family, but all those who knew and loved him. Yet this strength, his sacrifice, and his legacy live on in his children, his family, and in the Woodland community that continue to honor him. Today, the Woodland Joint Unified School District proudly recognize Abraham Avila Jr. not just as a Vietnam veteran, but as a dedicated father, a loyal friend, and an honored alumnus of the Woodland High School. His story is one of sacrifice,
017perseverance, and an unbreakable commitment to his family and his community. Even though his family was not able to be here today, I wanted to make sure that I shared this story with all of our student representatives that are here today. A lot goes to show of... the life that goes beyond once we graduate from high school and the commitment and valor that Abram had. And I hope to one day be able to bring his kids and share a moment with us. I know his children very well and they pride themselves in privacy and they still grieve the loss of their father. And I apologize for getting emotional. But I believe that the life of Abram Avila deserves to be recognized and his story has yet to be told. So I'm very, had yet to be
018told. So I was really, really excited to share that with you guys this evening. With that said, I will be presenting this resolution to his family later this week. And I just want to take a moment of silence in his honor. Thank you very much. We're going to go ahead and go on to item 4B, approve H3. Resolution 69-25 Cesar Estrada Chavez Day. Yes, Trustee Garcia. Thank you. So I'm going to say something in Spanish first, and then I'm going to ask you first to the Dr. Sireno. Rodriguez, can you come to the podium? And I will start with some words. It is an honor for me to give this recognition to Dr. Rodriguez, an activist leader, deeply committed to our community throughout his career. He has had the privilege of collaborating with great leaders,
019including César Chávez. He has also been a fundamental pillar in the formation of new community leaders and education, leaving an invaluable mark in our society. It is a great honor for me to present this recognition to the Dr. Rodriguez. He's a dedicated leader and activist and advocate in our community. Through his career, he has had the privilege of collaborating with remarkable leaders, including Cesar Chavez. Furthermore, he has been a driving force in developing a new community and educational leaders, leaving an invaluable impact in our society. So I will leave the floor to... I want to be with you to give your resolution. Thank you very much. And, you know, I really don't envy your positions today, given the uncertainty and the chaos at the federal government and the possible destruction of the Department of Education.
020It's going to hit us. And I urge you to always continue to be united and also to the community. We're gonna face some difficult times with the federal funding that provide funding you know for the poor communities special education and others and this is the time when we need to come together and put our differences aside Because it is our children that are going to be impacted So that's one word the other one. I Honored to see Maria or old school being recognized I didn't know this but some of you may not know that her commitment and love for woodland and the children is not only when she's been an employee she was a UC Davis student and From some years what she was there she volunteer and was involved at Lee Middle school along
021with some of the matcha stones That participated in those years so you know it's an honor to have her still in Woodland You know for many many years and many to come, but I I do want to recognize you know you guys and and and say that a monitor to be here and Thank you for your strong leadership you and the superintendent, and we're going to need it very much in the near future as as as a It's also an honor to receive the recognition for Cesar Chavez. It's a former campesino myself that worked in this area from 1960 to 1969. I was a campesino myself. It's an honor, and it's a very difficult... position to be in, but that's what I was. And, you know, gracias, you know, I was able to go beyond
022and obtain a doctorate and become a professor at the university. But I also served for almost 30 years sitting in one of those chairs in the past and it is a very difficult position. But it's also rewarding because whatever you do, I know you all do it for our children and there's no pay. They don't pay us. Actually, many times... We ended up paying out of a pocket more for some of the things and some of the activities they needed to be done So thank you very much for having the courage to serve on the board and is very much needed So I thank you. Thank you very much Hold on dr. Rodriguez. Yeah, not yet JUST A FEW WORDS. AGAIN, I'VE KNOWN YOU FOR A WHILE NOW, TOO, AND YOU KNOW, EITHER YOU GET
023CREDIT OR FAULT, ONE OF THE TWO, FOR CONVINCING ME TO RUN THE FIRST TIME BACK IN 2005. SO YOU AND, OF COURSE, DR. ORTIZ AS WELL ARE THE TWO INDIVIDUALS WHO ENCOURAGED ME THE FIRST TIME TO CONTRIBUTE TO MY COMMUNITY THIS WAY. AND, AGAIN, YOU BOTH SET SUCH A GREAT EXAMPLE. AND, AGAIN, YOU KNOW, TRUSTEE HERE FOR MANY, MANY YEARS, AND THEN TO THE COUNTY AS WELL. And again, you continue to contribute and not to mention again all the impact you had on students at Sac State as well and other spaces also actually. And again, just immensely grateful that you had. decided to continue to stay in the community and raise your children here as well. And your children are contributing to our community as well and other communities also because, again, you set such
024a great example of what it means to be a member of the community who softestly gives of their time and money at times as well. So, again, thank you so much for being such a great example and such a great role model for many of us. Thank you, Trustee Villagrana. Trustee, we'll go down. Go ahead, Trustee. I'm sorry, you're going to get tired of standing up there because I think I see a few of us have something to say. I have not had the honor of knowing you that long. It's been a lot longer, I think, than a lot of my colleagues up here. But you have made such a tremendous impact in my life. And you went out of your way to welcome me into Woodland. And that was really, really big and important
025for me. I want to thank you for sharing your wisdom, for sharing your experience, and for being who you are. I heard Maestra Orozco share in her comments that we're standing on the shoulders of giants. And there are so many folks that have come before us that have paved our way. But I hope that both of you know that you are those giants for many of us. And you have done a tremendous amount to help us, to encourage us. Being a child of campesinos too, my parents were farm workers. I feel very connected to you and to your story and I appreciate you being who you are and sharing what you do with everyone so generously. So I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for everything you have done for me
026personally and for everyone else. Muchas gracias. I don't want to keep you too much, but I... I know we come from different cultures and different communities but I still consider you one of my elders. Having served on the ethnic studies committee with you and and others I really appreciate what you've done for the community and how you don't back down and you don't stand down. You believe in something and you're going to stand up for it. And I'm also proud to be on the ethnic studies committee as a school board trustee now seeing that vision come to fruition. So thank you for being a pioneer. I suspect I've known you a shorter period of time than my other colleagues, but you, um, once a teacher, always a teacher. And, um, what the community may not
027know is you, um, have mentored many of us and hopefully many more to come. Um, and your willingness to pass on your knowledge and your hard, hard one knowledge in some cases, um, is invaluable in our community will, uh, benefit from that for untold amounts of time. So thank you very much. Dr. Rodriguez, you know, a lot has been said. I think I just want to deeply thank you for your commitment to quality education. And that was seen in this past year as your commitment to help us pass Measure P. Although, you know, we weren't quite successful. But the fact that, you know, you had no qualms about putting yourself out there and helping us make that very heavy lift. and you were one of the first to also come here and condemn some of
028the cowardly things that are being said about my fellow board members. And so you are a beacon of courage and a beacon of some of the best that we have here in Woodland. Thank you so much. C. Daniel, thank you. I almost don't want to speak as I feel I know I'm going to cry. I want to say thank you for opening up your home, opening up your family to everyone in this community and all of our students and families. If there's somebody in this community that I know that I could go for help, not only for myself, but for anyone, it's you. And I know that you're always down. Muchas gracias. You know, with the example of Cesar Chavez, he even gave his life for the benefit of our community. We have a great
029example to follow. Que viva Cesar. Gracias. I guess I better say something. I don't know if many of you know, but I've known Cerenio since 1987. And why do I remember 1987? Because that's when I was married. I was newlywed and I was still working on my teaching credential. And I transferred to Sac State because I wasn't done with school yet. And I remember back then Cerenio talking a lot about the school named Beamer Elementary. and all the advocacy that was happening in the community to get a dual immersion in our community. And here we are, close to 40 years later, I don't know how long it's been, but now Beamer is going to be recognized at the California Association of Bilingual Education next week for being a pioneer of bilingual education because of some
030of the groundwork that was being done with community members like yourself. to make that happen for our students and everything you've done for many, many of us who are now in these leadership roles to believing in ourselves, to believing que si se puede and that yes, I can be a superintendent, be a migrant farm worker, started here as a paraeducator and that I'm as qualified and worthy enough to be a school leader, district office leader. of cabinet member leader and now here the superintendent to continue serving this community and many of our families and and that was because of people like you who continue to inspire so you are more than worthy to be receiving this recognition on uh regarding this because all right we're going to go ahead and go to the next item
031thank you very much item h4 Presentation resolution 70-25 Dolores Huerta Day. Trustee Garcia. Thank you. Before I continue, I would like to say this is the first time I have the opportunity to give this type of resolution. And I'm very glad that all my colleagues are completely agree the person I select. So this is the first time in five years who I have the opportunity. y creo que es la primera vez que tengo la oportunidad en cinco años de entregar estos reconocimientos y me me agrada bastante que todos mis colegas y yo estemos de acuerdo en estas tres personas importantes que han hecho un impacto muy importante en nuestra comunidad este voy a comenzar con la resolución en español que es la resolución perdón 70-25 Dolores Huerta, El Dia de Dolores Huerta. is has been
032invaluable. All my children have gone to Beamer and that school is full of teachers and teachers like you, Ms. Adelina, who care so much about the students and prepare them to succeed after Beamer, giving them a sense of leadership and abiding by justice and community in Goodland. Dolores Huerta is a dedicated activist and union leader known for her fight for her community, values that you, maestra, have. So this is the first time I have had the opportunity to present this resolution, and as soon as I knew I was in Turkey, she was the right choice. This teacher, Adelina Perez, is an activist whose contributions to our community have been invaluable. I am sending, sorry, all my trainees, I have to attend Beamer. And this school has a lot of dedicated teachers like Maestra Adelina, who
033deeply care about the students, preparing them for success beyond BIMER, and instilling in them the sense of literature and advocacy for the community with a strong commitment to justice. Dolores Huerta is a dedicated activist and labor leader who knows the fight for the community, values that Maestra Adelina... also embodies. So I'm going to leave the floor to the maestra. I also want to share with our community. So we received a very special resolution from the Dolores Huerta Foundation for her. This is a resolution for the foundation because that's the impact the maestra is doing on our community. Thank you so much, maestra. Good evening Superintendent Ortega-Lampkin, Board of Trustees, community. It's been a long time since I've been up here. It is with great honor and deep gratitude that I stand before you today to
034accept Resolution 7025 in celebration of Dolores Huerta. As the daughter of campesinos, Dolores Huerta's life and legacy have profoundly shaped my own. Her tireless advocacy and leadership have been a beacon of inspiration throughout my career as a bilingual teacher and as a resource support staff. It is my ongoing aspiration to follow her footsteps by advocating for and supporting our students and their families. Tonight feels like a full circle moment for me. Over 20 years ago, Maria Orozco and I With the sponsorship of the California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation under Amagda Perez and Juanita Ontiveros, organized a community assembly at Beamer in honor of Dolores Huerta. It was an event that forever changed the lives of our students. We taught them Dolores' story. her powerful corrido, and shared the struggles and accomplishments that defined her remarkable
035journey. Our students were in awe of her presence as she stood in front of them at Beamer, not just as a leader, but as a living symbol of strength and resilience. Dolores did not just inspire our students and community with her words. She took the time to engage personally with a group of our school mothers, breaking bread with them. listening to their concerns and offering them advice on how to navigate and improve their work situations. In that intimate moment, Dolores demonstrated what true leadership looks like, one that connects, listens, and empowers others. To honor her incredible impact, we bestowed upon Dolores the honorary title of Madrina de Beamer. that a title that reflects her unwavering dedication to justice and her significant contributions to our community. Trustee Garcia, I want to express my deepest gratitude to
036you for selecting me to accept this resolution on behalf of Dolores Huerta. I am truly humbled and grateful. Thank you, Board of Trustees, Executive Cabinet, everyone here for recognizing the profound influence of Dolores Huerta, not just on me, but on so many lives and for the continuing to honor her legacy. I am deeply honored to be part of this moment. Thank you. All right, comments from the board. I think I've been here too long. Let me say again, I've known you for a very, very long time. You know, the Lina R.K., Maestra Perez. I've seen you at school. I've seen you with the young people, the magic, you know, that you bring, the passion, the dedication. Yes, the first time that I met Dolores Huerta was when you and your sister and Maria brought her
037to Beamer a long, long time ago. And to be able to meet such an icon in person was very powerful and impactful. And again, just so grateful that you have chosen to stay here in our community and contribute. THOUSANDS OF LIVES THAT YOU'VE IMPACTED WITH YOUR ETHICS AND YOUR PASSION FOR EDUCATION. AGAIN, ANOTHER PHENOMENAL ROLE MODEL FOR YOUNG PEOPLE IN OUR COMMUNITY. AGAIN, THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR DEDICATION, YOUR CONTRIBUTIONS. WELL DESERVE RECOGNITION TODAY. THANK YOU SO MUCH. GO AHEAD. Gracias, maestra. So I also knew you when you were at Beamer many years ago as well. And I just want to say thank you for everything that you've done. And I just feel so incredibly proud to be a part of this beautiful woodland community with so many incredible maestros and maestras, but specifically
038maestras. I think. You are such an incredible role model and I hope all of the women, the young ladies in this room right now are able to see just what powerhouses of teachers that we have that do an exceptional job teaching but with so much love and care for the students. And I just want to thank you for being one of those teachers and like Trustee Villagrana said, for staying here in Woodland and making this space just... truly amazing and remarkable for all of the kids that are in our schools. Gracias, maestra. Trustee Richardson-Feller. Hola, maestra. I'm a Beamer mom, most of you guys know, and I just really do truly appreciate the impact that you've had. At a lot of school sites, you will see teachers come and go, but you have institutional knowledge
039and... And what you add, the value that you add to our children's life is immeasurable. So thank you for your stories of how you have been impacted by great female leaders and know that you are a great female leader who impacts the lives of my three daughters. Trustee Brubaker. Trustee Rodriguez. Hi, how are you? So, I mean, besides all the great things that people know about you, you know, your teaching, your work with students, you know, I've been very lucky to have known you for longer than Rogelio has known you, right? And it was actually at that very special time at UC Davis, we both went to school together in 1990. and her leadership, her ability to want to make things better for everyone. It was, you know, this is something probably not a lot
040of folks know, but Ade was part of coordinating and starting an organization called Mujeres Ayudando a la Raza, MAR, at UC Davis, which... From 1990 till right now still exist at UC Davis and also exist at Sac State and so you have literally just in that way have affected you know the lives of thousands of young Latinas and young college students to be better people to serve the community and to do it with joy and conviction so it is really a Once we came back here, once we connected in this way, it really is full circle. So it has been an honor to know you since way back then and that spirit that you have to really elevate those around you. That started a long time ago. So we're very lucky to have you. Thank
041you. Thank you, Trustee. Maestra, thank you for dedicating your life to our district. You've seen a lot of our students grow. You see me grow you were my maestra You were my oldest maestra and my youngest my my youngest is still there at Beamer but tonight We all honor you and who you are and the years of service that you've given to our district And I hope you never leave us I hope you never retire in the near future. Muchas gracias, maestra, por todo lo que ha hecho todos estos años y lo bueno que ha cambiado las vidas de muchos de nuestros estudiantes y no todos. Muchas gracias. I'm going to have to talk to Maria later. I have a lot to say about Maria, but I'll talk to her. I missed that opportunity, but
042she knows how I feel about her. But right now we're talking about Adelina. Adelina, you know, we've been through a lot together. and we had to deal with some very difficult things together and we dealt with a lot of successes as well. And I just want to always thank you for always being so compassionate, being such a good partner, giving an opportunity to collaborate and problem solve together and always keeping students' interests first and our community first. And that's what you've always led that way as a teacher or as... as a union president, as an educator, and just as an individual. And some of you may not know, but once in a while here and there, I'll call Adelina sometimes at 10 o'clock at night just to pick her brain. And so thank you for
043being my advisor. And veo que está aquí la mamá de Adelina. Y su hermana, si se puede para la mamá de Adelina. Gracias por prestarnos su hija que ha hecho una diferencia grandisima para muchas, muchas vidas. Y le queremos agradecer a usted porque creó esta mujer maravillosa. Gracias por estar aquí. Just to close again, thank you for allowing me to develop those relationships because we've always talked as women. being an educator, develop those relationships. So I thank you as my student to know my colleague, you know, again, those bonds. Noel, again, you know, hermanos, those connections and those bonds. I truly appreciate and value and know that I have a support system here, not just with my school, but with colleagues around the district. So thank you. Muchas gracias. All right, we're gonna let Trustee
044Garcia go ahead and go out. I'm gonna continue during this time to read the gifts to the district. This is just recognizing those who have gifted something to a certain school site or the district. Woodland High School recently received a $1,000 donation. towards ASB Buck Bailey Basketball Tournament, and this was donated by Bruce and Laura Bailey. Thank you very much to the Baileys. Educational Services received a donation from Adelina Perez for $453.05 recently, and this was for Know Your Rights cards in English, Spanish, and Punjabi. Thank you very much, Adelina Perez. Total report of donations received was $1,453.05. Thank you very much to all of those that were here this evening in respect to presentation of resolutions. I think this is a great opportunity for us to move on to our student reports. And I'm
045going to go ahead and ask for Woodland High School student, Metzi Solorio-Vazquez to go first. Good evening members of the board and community members. I'm here to share some of the exciting events happening out within high school. World Down Syndrome Day is tomorrow and we will support with a mismatched sock spirit day to raise awareness and show support. Students are encouraged to wear mismatched socks during lunch and we will hold a competition where the top three winners will receive a Dutch Bros gift card and all participants will also have a chance to win a prize. In addition, tomorrow at lunch, Club Vendor Day will take place in the amphitheater. Students are encouraged to bring cash to purchase treats and support our school clubs, clubs like Black Student Union serving foods like mac and cheese and
046barbecue chicken, Mecha Club with Antojitos, Puente with ramen and boba, Wells Tennis Club with Chick-fil-A sandwiches, and many more clubs and delicious foods. To add on to our busy schedule tomorrow, we have our WHS Staff vs. Pioneers Staff Basketball Game. at Pioneer in their gym at 6 30 p.m. and this is a free event and we invite all students and families to attend and cheer on our staff. Moving on, on Wednesday, April 23rd, Job Corps representative will visit our campus. Job Corps is a non-cost education and vocational training program which is offered by the U.S. Department of Labor which provides career training in various fields. Students are encouraged to sign up in student services to learn how to build a successful future. And we also have a lot of community service opportunities with the cool
047schools tree planting happening at various of our elementary schools, being Whitehead on March 22nd, Beamer April 12th, and Freeman April 26th. And that's it. Thank you. Thank you very much, Metzi. We're going to move on to Cache Creek High School. Jem Hernandez. Good evening, Board President Bautista Zavala and Trustees, Superintendent Ortega-Lampkin, Executive Cabinet, and my community. My name is Jim Hernandez and I'm a senior at Cache Creek High School. My report sent is the following. The fourth and final quarter began at Cache Creek High School on Monday. We've welcomed 25 new students from Woodland and Pioneer High School with the goal of making up credits to graduate. We've had 40 students who have achieved honor roll this past quarter and we are so proud of our seniors working hard with the very little time that
048we have left in the rest of our school year. Woodland Community College continues to visit campuses on Mondays speaking helping students complete applications for the fall. On Friday March 28th we will be hosting the annual spring carnival. This has been a tradition for the community of Yolo where the kids come into town. to campus after school highlighted by an Easter egg hunt. Many of our students will be volunteering supporting with games and distributing streets to the participants. We participated in a VAPA visual and performing arts survey that showed a lot of interest in the area of art. We had an opportunity to share what we would like to see in the incoming Cache Creek High School principal for the following school year. We want someone that is visible and accessible to speak to. The mural
049started a couple of weeks ago and the SSC is just about finished. The words and symbols of resilience and collective power have sparked important conversations around current events in our country and community. We hope you all will stop by and check it out next time you're on campus. Thank you for your time and that concludes my report. Thank you Jim. Next we have student from Pioneer High School Leila Lavarico. Good evening, Board President Bautista Zavala, trustees, Superintendent Ortega-Lampkin, Executive Cabinet, and community. My name is Leila Laverigo, and I am representing Pioneer High School, and my report tonight is the following. Last Friday, we had a great turnout for a blacklight rally, and many students were participating in our games, and they especially loved our three-on-three staff versus students half-court game. Today at lunch in our
050library, ASB invited students to make flowers out of pipe cleaners. We had a really nice turnout and we were glad because we're trying to incorporate more lunchtime activities in school. Our outreach committee in ASB is still hosting a feminine products drive in honor of Women's History Month and are planning to donate the supplies to women's shelters. On Tuesday, we had the Woodland Public Library on campus to show off their bookmobile. It was a fun experience for students and we are happy that they will be coming back soon. Earlier this week the Learning Center was encouraging students who are taking Math 2 to come get help if needed for their upcoming tests and if they went they would receive praise points which entered them into a gift card raffle. And also ASB and Link are currently
051in the middle of writing to our pen pals at Gibson. We can't wait to meet them when they get to visit Pioneer in May. And tomorrow we are having a club run vendor day during lunch, as well as our staff basketball game against Woodland that we are really excited about. And that concludes my report. Thank you. When is the deadline for your feminine hygiene product drive? When do you need the stuff by? It should still be going on even a little into April. I'm guessing maybe mid-April. Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much, Leila. All right. Before we move to public comment, I have an announcement to make. I am requesting that we move item L4 and item N. I'm sorry, M4. Ms. and Mary? The Cool Schools Report. Yes. Okay. I'm sorry, I'm looking
052at the wrong version. M, number four for Cool Schools. Let me look at the right one. All right. Sorry, you guys. I worked off of my notes that I've been having all week, but here's the correct. I am asking that we move item M4, information report on schools grants projects and all the items on item N up immediately after item K5, information board committee updates. So right before L, teaching and learning, we'll take up item M4 and N1, N2, N3. Any objections to that from my board? No. Thank you so much, colleagues. Superintendent, we are ready to take on the public comment. We have Marlene Molina and then Whitney Prowl. Good evening, everyone. I'm Marlene Molina, and I've been a teacher at Lee Middle School for 29 years. Talk about loyalty and commitment. This district
053was my choice because it was very similar to where I grew up. I stayed in the area due to spiritual connections and I really became very connected to the community that I serve. The last 15 to 18 years, I've also been a professor at Sac State, DQU, UCD, and currently USF for the last 10 years, where I work as a professor in the School of Education preparing teachers. I, as a professor, have been asked oftentimes, Molina, what do you think, Professor Molina? Should I teach in Woodland? And of course, I'm not going to deter them, but I do say, do you want to own your own home? Do you want to own your home in the community that you serve? Do you plan on having a family? Do you want medical coverage for all of
054your family? These are things to consider when you're considering a district. and do your research, find out which district will best serve you. Because this is the kind of conversation that I wish someone had had with me 29 years before I became so attached. I... Bought my home 15 years ago, but I bought my home in South Sacramento because I didn't qualify with my income even to this day I don't qualify with my income and I'm at the top of the scale I don't qualify with my income to buy a home in the community that I serve and That is a shame and that is embarrassing I truly believe in the community that I work in, and really I spend more awake hours here than anywhere else. It's a shame that in the community that
055I work in, Lee Middle School, there are teachers that have been there five plus years, and they qualify for WIC. That is embarrassing. That is shameful. That teachers that I work with from dual income homes qualify for WIC, qualify for Medi-Cal. qualify for food stamps. We need to do better as a district. It is embarrassing, it is sad, it is shameful. And this is the community that we serve. Our teachers are the ones that directly serve the students that we say we are working for equity for them directly. This week onto good stuff. Lee was recognized for improved attendance and I credit that to Brandy Carabello who is our attendance liaison. Every day in the last seven days that we tested in the ELPAC, she worked tirelessly to make sure that every one of our
056kids was there. And today is day seven. We have only one left to do the writing part of our test. And yet her position has been cut. And at the same time, We're seeing that on today's board packet, we see that our superintendent is asking for a raise. And it is very sad, especially when in the culture of our current country, the current situation, we see that we have a corrupt executive branch that is lining their pockets at the top and blaming those of us in the trenches for what is going on. Please quit blaming us for what is going on in our own student community and let's do better when it comes to equity. Whitney Prall and then Annie Burkholder. Good evening, superintendent and trustees. My name is Whitney Prawl, and I'm a proud
057history teacher at Douglas Middle School. I'm here tonight because I am pretty concerned about the proposed salary schedule for the superintendent, associate superintendent, and assistant superintendent that's on the agenda tonight. Recently, the district released a bargaining update that was not only disrespectful and divisive, but also degrading to teachers. The tone suggested that WEA's proposal is excessive and implied that reaching a new contract before the end of the school year is unlikely. The update also made it clear that classified positions must be cut due to budget concerns. If the district is truly facing such financial strain, how can the board justify approving salary increases for top administrators who are already earning more than twice the highest paid teachers in our district? Increasing this salary further widens the gap between administration and educators who are working directly
058with our students every day. It is unacceptable to prioritize administrative raises while teachers who are the backbone of the district remain underpaid. Nearly all the educators in our district purchase school supplies with their own money to support students. Instead of rewarding top administrators, the district should be finding ways to alleviate financial burdens on teachers. Approving a raise for the superintendent while refusing to adequately compensate teachers sends a message that the district values its administration more than its educators. This type of action could lead to public backlash and decreased community trust. If equality, pardon me, if equity is truly a priority, The board must focus on ensuring the best possible education for students, which you can and should be doing, to attract and retain highly qualified teachers. I urge all of you to critically evaluate the
059district's priorities before formally casting your vote tonight. Thank you. Thank you very much. Before we proceed. Before we proceed with the public comment, we appreciate your presence and engagement in tonight's meeting. To ensure we can conduct our business effectively, we kindly ask that everyone maintain a respectful and quiet atmosphere. If you need to have a conversation, please step outside so that the meeting can proceed without disruption. Your cooperation helps us stay focused in the important matters at hand. Thank you for your understanding and support, and thank you for being here this evening. Please call up the next one. Annie Burkholder and then Beha Springer. Good evening. I have comments on that item as well, but right now I just, it came to my attention that on Monday night there was a very troubling meeting with
060a lot of hatred, and I just want to say I'm very sorry to those of you who experienced that. That should never happen, and that's not going to be tolerated in Woodland. We will show up and fight against that hatred, and that closed my inness. And I want to thank you, Superintendent, board members, and the staff of WGAUSD for your commitment to making sure that every student feels welcome and accepted in this district. I support this district's diversity, equity, and inclusion policies, and I commend you for fearlessly taking a strong stance against the anger that so many have that creates hatred in our community. Thank you. Today was a perfect example of these resolutions where we understand how important diversity is and how we can all learn from each other. Thank you for bringing these
061role models to our attention so that we can all learn. The parents, the teachers, the students, I very much appreciate that. Thank you. In the past three months, you've had resolutions on supporting our immigrant neighbors. Thank you. Thank you for working to help this population feel safe at school. You're not speaking on, which item are you speaking to on the agenda? Resolutions. Okay. I was trying to talk about the resolutions, my support of your resolutions. Okay. If you've already stated support, then you have to finish there because you're speaking about items not on the agenda and that's at the end of the agenda this evening. Okay. Can I say thank you for your resolution on supporting immigrants and then move on to another resolution that I'm thankful for? Which resolution? The resolution from last board
062meeting on LGBTQ. It has to pertain to items on this agenda only. Okay. Thank you for your resolution today on Women's History Month. It was an honor to hear these stories. Thank you for honoring these great role models that show how incredible diversity is in our society and our town. including Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta. I believe that the diversity in this community is a great superpower. Please continue your brave work supporting diversity, equity, and inclusion in this district. And please know that we have your back. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Annie. If you would like to stay for the end of the board meeting, you're welcome to speak on items not on the agenda. Next person, if they could please state the item that they're speaking on once you start. Beja Springer. That concludes
063public comment on items on the agenda this evening moving on to item K K 1 superintendents report good evening Board of Trustees and community We had our again We earlier this month we kicked off and participated in a press release conference at Rich Gonzalez Park at our board president Deborah Savala did a spoke on behalf of the district thinking the community and celebrating this event We also had an elected leaders official forum this Monday where I had the opportunity to share a little bit about what we're doing here in Woodland along with my colleagues. We also have some special guests, the congressman and the senator present at this event. We are continuing with StrengthsFinder. Now we have another group of staff who are getting trained on StrengthsFinder. So I just wanted to just let you
064know the momentum is continuing. You heard last time from our librarians that got the training. Now we're working with other staff, our elementary counselors, behaviorists, yield specialists, new administrators, and other assistant programs. So we're very excited about that, continuing to move that forward. Open houses are starting to begin starting with Woodland High School. They had the big open house and so you're gonna be hearing a lot about open houses the next couple weeks and they're just gonna start rolling really quick. So you have those all on your calendar calendar and if you have a moment to stop by I know there's a lot of them but if you have a moment to stop one or two just to get the sense and seeing everything the students have learned. It's always fun to go to open
065houses because the kids have other projects up on the walls and it's always nice to see all the progress that our teachers have made with our students. We also celebrated our everyday count winners for the month of February, Whitehead, Lee, and Pioneer High School. We went out and visited, and it was really nice to see and reward our schools for focusing on school attendance. Also, we had a gate family night in this building on March 18th, so it was always a fun activity to come and see with families to come and do projects for our gate program. And then spring concerts, and you're going to also be hearing about lots of concerts and programs. I'm just giving you a glimpse of some of the things that are happening. I would take an hour to tell
066you everything that happens between four meetings, but we also have our spring concert, and here is Douglas Middle School that was held earlier this week as well. And then, unfortunately, because of unexpected weather concerns last Friday, we needed to cancel and reschedule our moon tree celebration at SciTech, but it has been rescheduled for April 7th. The date is already on your calendar. We're going to re-invite all our dignitaries. update everyone and so we're looking forward to very nice weather at that time and to celebrate planting this tree as you can see the tree is small and so it could have been heavily damaged with the winds and the rain that we were experienced last week And then you'll be hearing tonight a little bit about our Cool Schools designs and the reveal ceremony that's going
067to happen this Saturday. If you're able to make out, we will be out there. People are going to be out there early, around 830, planting trees. But at 10 o'clock is when we're going to have the official ceremony and speakers and the unveiling of the designs for our Cool Schools program. And I'm very happy that. that you're finally going to get to see some of the work that's going to be happening in our schools. And then I don't have that. Put it on my slides because things are keep keep moving so quickly lots of changes happening with our at the federal level and so today we did hear news that the president is signed a second order to dismantle the Department of Education and I just received at 530 an email from the California State
068Superintendent and basically He has sent a letter stating to hold off a little bit, that an order itself does not have any legal backing in order to dismantle the Department of Education. So we can expect a lot of pushback, legalities, lawsuits. So we're going to just hold back on panicking just quite yet and wait to see what our state superintendent... Guidance he gives us for the state of California and so I will forward that letter that I just received at 530 while we were in closed session So things are happening really quickly. So what I'm planning to do is that every time during my superintendent update I'll just give you update so that you know what's happening and When we start getting some concrete information where we have to start making decisions Then I'll officially
069have it posted on the agenda But in the meantime because things keep changing and our attorneys are still trying to figure out What this means to give guidance to districts, the state is still trying to figure out what that means for California to give guidance to county offices of education is that we hold tight. And keep a pulse on what's happening not panic quite yet And then get some information so that we can have an informed discussion Once we start finding out specifically what that means what the impact can means and what we need to adjust But for now, I just I will forward you the letter that I received from the state superintendent at 531 exactly today and that concludes my report Thank you very much superintendent moving on to the next report from
070California School Employee Association CSE a president Good evening, Superintendent Ortega-Lampkin, President Batista-Zavala, Board of Trustees, Cabinet, and community. My name is Rebecca Rossiter, and I proudly serve as the library tech at Douglas Middle School, as well as the president of Chapter 118 of the Classified School Employee Association. Our negotiation team met with the district's team where we discussed the classification study and exchanged a few MOUs. The MOU for early notification for retirement has passed and members are in the process of letting HR know. The deadline for that notification is tomorrow. The hot topic of the night is item N. Let me start by saying that every person in the district has had more put on their plate and Every person in the district deserves a raise When you eliminate positions that directly impact student health
071welfare and engagement and Turn around to increase the superintendent salary by more than thirteen thousand dollars each year It has a negative impact on your staff's morale When board members go out of their way to seek legal counsel to find reasons to not bring back a Discussion on those eliminations it has a negative impact on staff morale decisions like these are Why many of your own staff voted against to measure why? Decisions like these are why many of your highly qualified staff are leaving and communing away from their community to receive better pay Thank you, and this concludes my report. Thank you very much next report from Woodland Woodland Education Association wea Thank you very much. Good evening superintendent Ortega Lampkin president Bautista Zavala Board of Trustees cabinet and members of our community Thank you
072for this opportunity to address you. My name is Becca Bernard, and I'm the science teacher at Douglas Middle School and the proud president representing over 500 educators in the Woodland Education Association. Though this week it felt like miles, we are mere inches away from spring break, and our educators continue to show up every day, deeply committed to the students and families of Woodland. I want to take a moment to remind the board that on February 5th, I sent an email clarifying that our WEA board reports serve to update both the public and the board on our union, including context and progress about our negotiations. I understand that you receive countless emails, as do I, and I appreciate the time you dedicate to your roles. Only one of you responded, which I took to mean that
073the concern was resolved. In the meantime, I will continue to provide these updates to ensure transparency and keep the community informed. This is not bargaining at the podium. It is accountability, ensuring that all educational partners remain informed about this critical process. Last week on March 12th, our WEA bargaining team met with the district to move forward in their successor contract negotiations. Our proposals are rooted in the direct experiences of our educators, collected through membership listening meetings and forums, one-on-one conversations, site visits, and surveys. We propose the following. One, a 14% salary increase over two years to make Woodland competitive and prevent the cycle of losing talented educators to surrounding districts, including West Sacramento, Twin Rivers, San Juan, Natomas, and Elk Grove. Two, fully funded health benefits at all levels because no educator should have to
074choose between their family's health and being able to afford rent or groceries. Three, increased elementary prep time to provide teachers the time they need to plan highly qualified, high quality lessons for students. Four, fair compensation for work beyond contract hours, including IEP 504 meetings and overnight field trips that directly benefit students. And lastly, improved special education supports so that our most vulnerable students have access to qualified credentialed teachers, not virtual case managers and long-term substitutes. Our team was disappointed that the district's only proposal that day was an MOU to delay full contract negotiations until next year. Our educators, students, and families cannot afford to wait. Every teacher I've spoken to wants to stay in Woodland, but they are being forced to make difficult decisions about their future. We are ready to meet, to negotiate, and
075reach an agreement as soon as possible, because delays only harm our ability to retain the best educators for our students. Later in tonight's meeting, you will discuss the second interim budget report, which reflects staffing reductions and budget constraints. Yet, the superintendent's proposed contract includes a significant five-figure raise, bringing her salary well over $300,000. For context, the superintendent of the Yolo County Office of Education makes almost $70,000 less than our superintendent currently makes. That difference is more than what a fifth-year teacher all the way over on our salary schedule makes in a year. Let me be clear. Woodland teachers and staff believe that every dollar should be spent as close to the classroom as possible. We are facing dozens of vacancies, especially in special education, where some of our neediest students are receiving instruction from long-term
076substitutes and virtual case managers rather than fully credentialed in-person teachers. How does $300,000 salary support our students when we can't fill these critical positions? Meanwhile, The district's ending fund balance sits at almost $65 million, far beyond the legally required 3% to 10% reserves. The district has the means to make a real investment in its educators right now. We ask the district to honor its commitment to spending today's dollars on today's students, rather than hoarding reserves while classrooms go without the resources they need. We are ready and willing to negotiate. Back in September, WEA proposed 14 bargaining dates starting as early as November 1st. The district did not meet with us until January 30th. Three months wasted while our educators waited for progress. Every year, this cycle of delayed bargaining leads to teachers leaving for districts
077that pay more and finalize contracts sooner. I spoke with a dual immersion educator last week who shared how much she loves her students and the unique programs Woodland offers, so much so that she very much intentionally chose to start her career here in Woodland for our DI program. But every spring, she faces the same heartbreaking dilemma. Stay in the community she has grown to love over the past seven years, or cut her commute in half and earn $15,000 more working in Natomas. With the rising costs of rent, childcare, and healthcare, she finds herself with nothing left at the end of the month, forcing her to consider leaving a district she deeply believes in just to make ends meet. This is not just about the numbers. It's about the people. It's about the educators who mentor
078new teachers, lead clubs, coach sports, and provide stability for students year after year. It's about the students who deserve fully staffed schools with teachers who can afford to live in this community. If we want to break the cycle of losing great educators, we must bargain now in good faith. Not in the fall when too many teachers have already made the difficult decision to leave. WEA is committed to reaching an agreement that keeps great educators here in Woodland. We call on the district to prioritize negotiations urgently and meaningfully because our students deserve nothing less. The time is now. We can't wait any longer. Thank you. This concludes my report. Thank you very much. All right. Thank you very much. We're moving on with the agenda to report from board members. Point of inquiry before. Are we
079sticking to the five-minute guideline? We are. Okay. Thank you. Yeah, it's an ask. No, it's a guideline. It's not an ask. So I just want to make sure. Clarification, Superintendent. We asked for the... The board agreed during the agenda review. that we would that we include the staff keep to 15 minutes of 10 to 15 minutes on their board presentations and that we ask all the speakers to keep within five minutes in order to keep it you know keep us on track and so I'll just I'll send a reminder out next week for the next board meeting. Thank you very much so just clarifying it wasn't asked and we're trying to encourage them to stick to five minutes. All right, board member reports, who would like to go first? Does anyone have a report this
080evening? All right, yes ma'am, Trustee Richardson-Fowler. Okay, hold on just a second. I have some words, we'll try to be quick. So board report real quick. I'll let you guys know that I went to the Digital Minds robotics team for Woodland Joint Unified Open House. I also watched their competition, which was pretty good. Not biased at all. I also attended the Douglas Middle School concert at Pioneer High School, which was pretty impressive. And because I know we are coming up on some challenging times as a trustee and also as a teacher, I attended a nonviolent communication workshop. where I had a moment where I was like, okay, nobody's gonna do this. And then I had a moment where I was like, oh, I have to get over the emotions in order to make this work.
081So that was pretty epic. All right, now let's talk about some stuff. Public comment. And this is not off the cuff, I'm reading. Today my heart is heavy and my spirit is deeply troubled. As a school board trustee, NeuroSpicy special education teacher, a parent of twice exceptional children, and above all, a human being who believes in compassion and the well-being of our future generations, I cannot stay silent in the face of today's executive resolution to dismantle the Department of Education. I ran for school board on the belief that we must aim higher for our students, for our community, for our future. I was fortunate enough to attend magnet schools, blue ribbon schools, schools that challenged me academically, artistically, and civically, preparing me to be a proud American citizen and a globally minded individual, which included
082opportunities to... volunteer in as well as be an exchange student in various countries and see how education is valued in other countries. Those experiences instilled in me the belief that education is not just a privilege but a fundamental right, one that empowers us to build stronger, more inclusive communities. Today's decision is not just a policy shift, it's a catastrophic misstep that will be judged harshly by history. The Department of Education has long been a pillar of structure and support providing essential funding, oversight, and advocacy for students with disabilities and those in marginalized communities. Yes, that was R2D2. For Californians alone, it covers two-thirds of our educational funding. Stripping that away to offer trillions in tax cuts to billionaires not only abandons our students, but threatens the very foundation of public education. As an educator, who
083has weathered the challenges of teaching post-COVID, I can tell you firsthand that our profession demands selflessness, dedication, and unyielding resilience. If you haven't stood in the classroom since the pandemic, you may not understand the complexities we navigate daily, supporting not only academic growth, but emotional and social well-being. I also stand before you as someone who believes in the principle that you can measure the strength of a community by how it treats its children and its elders. We are already witnessing the fragility of the Social Security as some of our parents and grandparents go without their SSI checks that they so very much depend on. Now with this executive order, we are poised to leave our children without a robust support that public education requires. And I'll leave you with the African proverb. If the children
084do not feel the warmth of the community, they will burn it down to feel it. If we abandon our commitment to public education, we are setting the stage for generations of disenfranchisement and despair. Or maybe that's the plan. We owe our students better. We owe our communities better. Let's aim higher because our children deserve nothing less. Thank you very much, Trustee Richardson-Fowler. Trustee Garcia. So I just would like to share that I was able to attend the plant street at Dingle School last Saturday, and I would like to share my sighting and how this type of project means a lot for our community. I want to share also that I planted my first tree there. I only planted one. I planted three. And I want to... I want to see, I want to share with
085you how happy you are, the family, the students, the teachers doing this for their community, the schools, and I'm ready for the next school. Thank you. So that concludes my report. Thank you, Trustee Garcia. Trustee Brubaker. I am NOT going to share my board happenings. I do want to share I had a family emergency this week So I failed in my usual goal of replying to all of the emails I've gotten I did read all of the emails that I got as of about lunchtime today So I just want people to be aware that I am reading your messages I do not have a very nicely written statement like my fellow trustee, but I do have some thoughts I am a person with a physical and learning disability, and I was able to succeed because
086of public education. I also had the unique experience of experiencing private education as a disabled person, which in my instance was a failure and I still have emotional scars from. It's one of the reasons I am such an advocate for public education and one of the reasons I am sitting in this seat. I appreciate the superintendent's message that we don't know what this means yet, and I think that's very valid, but I also know that as a person who sat in that audience and at home watching these meetings, I would be looking to leadership here tonight to just acknowledge that we feel the fear, and we understand that. I wish that we had answers. We don't, but we are certainly working very hard to do the best we can to keep things rolling the best
087we can possible. Thank you. Thank you very much trustee Brubaker trustee Rodriguez I just make some comments Following the comments of my fellow trustees on the Department of Education As our superintendent shared boom, we don't quite know what the ramifications are going to be yet waiting for guidance from the state And waiting to see how you know the the process moves forward federally, but Indeed there was an executive order that will begin eliminating the federal Department of Education that was signed today. I think we should acknowledge the importance of the Department of Education. There's one point they handle 1.6 trillion dollars in student loan oversight. They handle 18.8 billion dollars for poor and disadvantaged students. They handle 15.5 billion dollars for students with disabilities. and $5.5 billion for school improvements. They also uphold civil rights
088protections and they uphold educational standards. this information that came from NBC News. The other fact is that while the elimination of the Department of Education is still going through its process, whether it be a legal process, what have you, but they have reduced the number of people that work in the Department of Education. So as of January 20th, there were 4,133 employees at the Department of Education. As of today, there are 2,183 employees in the Department of Education. And these numbers also come from NBC News. And so while we don't quite know what the result will be, we know that there is a scaling down. And in essence, this is something that is not going to be good for public education. So I think that it's time, if you haven't been paying attention to what
089is happening, And with our politics, it is time to pay attention. And it's time to let your electeds know that public education is important to you and to ask them what they're willing to do to protect it. Thank you. Thank you very much, Trustee Rodriguez. I am going to let your... Your report settle in and everyone's minds and not add to it because I concur with you 110 percent Thank you for saying sharing that Superintendent do you have anything? No, you had your report trustee Villagrana Thank you. Definitely want to echo what my colleagues have said so far about what's going on again. Yeah, we will continue to Be steadfast advocates for our community We'll continue to speak up and do what we can within the bounds that we have. No question of that. I
090don't doubt that at all. So again, thank you to my colleagues for speaking up and sharing those words with the community. Moving on, I wanted to provide... More context for the community and I'm sure my colleagues know this The County superintendents was referenced as a person to compare salaries But this County superintendent has nowhere near the level responsibility school staff Programming as as our superintendent is so it's not even apples and oranges, you know, no respect to to Garth Lewis at all But again, it's two different positions to the right context matter president I would like to have the floor without any disruptions. Thank you very much, Trustee Villagrana. If there is anyone that has something to say or needs to take a personal conversation outside or disagrees with the comments made, please step outside
091the room. This is our meeting, and we reserve this space for us to be able to communicate. Thank you. Thank you. Where was I? Again clarifying to that ending fund balance cannot be used for ongoing expenses. We can be used for one time allocations which we have in the past and that these stopping us from doing that but cannot be used for ongoing expenses. I definitely appreciate that today's union reports focus on updating and I didn't hear any advocacy so I appreciate that you know because again that I stated in the past my my opinion about that. So again I appreciate it was a report on what's happened around negotiations. And let's see. Yep. Those are my comments. Thank you trustee Villagrana trustee Rodriguez Mojica. I Want to thank my colleagues for their comments as
092well. I think I'm personally at a place where I'm processing a lot I, in my full-time job, I'm a professor at UC Davis and I hold one of these large federal grants. So we feel like every day is a win that we still have that money. Those funds help prepare bilingual teachers. And there's a lot of grants out there like that. And there's a lot of people's jobs that I feel have been, are just completely gone. So I thank my colleagues because I think I am. I'M AT A PLACE WHERE I'M STILL PROCESSING AND REALLY TAKING THINGS DAY BY DAY. SO THANK YOU ALL FOR STEPPING UP AND SAYING SOMETHING. AND THANK YOU, TRUSTEE RICHARDSON-FOWLER, FOR THE WORDS THAT YOU PREPARED. I APPRECIATE IT. THANK YOU VERY MUCH. ALL RIGHT. I THINK THIS CONCLUDES OUR
093BOARD REPORTS. AND THEN WE'RE PROCEEDING TO ITEM K-5. AND THIS IS INFORMATION BOARD COMMITTEE UPDATES. I can update on our finance committee. Trustee Brubaker, the Regal of Mojica, and myself met today with our business team. We got an entire hour with them. They went into more detail than what we will get here at the meeting. We had several questions that we asked, and our team did a great job explaining, breaking down, especially in having two new trustees. reminder to me as well because again we don't meet that often that I can have it all down again they're the experts but again excellent job on doing that it was compliments made as far as the delivery how you know there was maybe there's a teaching history in the back experience and in the past because it
094was such a great job done helping us understand subject is very complex right it can be very complex but it was broken down in a way that that all were not all but the conversation we're having made made sense I don't know my colleagues have any other thing to add on the meeting just to thank you to both Norma and Louis Louis I can only see the very tip top of your head right there I see you there But yeah, I was telling Lewis, I'm like, in a former life, he must have been a teacher because he really broke down what the objectives were going to be, made the content really relatable with real life examples. And as somebody very new to school finance, that was very, very helpful. So I was actually having fun
095learning about school finance, and I never thought I would ever say that. So I think that's... Just speaks to just your talent and all of the work and how careful you are in explaining things So thank you both to Lewis and to Norma. That's quite a compliment Someone had fun whether learn about finance Wow. Thank you very much anyone else in terms of board committee updates We had the coalition of woodland youth meet That's all right, I'll just share very quickly That we did receive a draft letter of advocacy to go out to the state legislature to advocate for school facilities in both K through 12 or TK through 12 adult ed and community college facilities that was written by the Woodland Community College and we received the draft today. I made some initial edits
096and we're hoping to bring a formal draft letter for approval to the board next board meeting and then go from there. But we won't be holding an advocacy day this year. We are hoping to spearhead this year with an advocacy letter and then hopefully next year actually do on the ground advocacy. But we'll make sure to keep you guys updated. We'll talk about this again at the next agenda, on the next agenda, the next board meeting. And then hopefully as we receive responses from the legislators, I'll be able to bring you guys up to speed on that. Anything else that I may have missed? All right. And then I know that the Wellness and Nutrition Committee met. And I think that was Trustee Brubaker, Trustee Rodriguez-Molica. Spencer did ask us to consider bringing forward an
097opportunity for us to update the nutrition and wellness policy. So that's something that... we need to possibly consider in the near future. We do have a policy, but it's worthy of consideration for us to look at it and see if we want to make any edits. So think of that coming down maybe later in the year. All right? I don't have, those are the committees that I participated in in the last two weeks, other than executive and agenda planning. Anybody else? All right, let's go ahead and move on. Everybody good? Is this a good time for a bathroom break? All right, so it is 7.49. Let's come back at 7.55. All right, thank you, guys. All right, it's 7.54. We got one more minute. All right, it's 7.55. I'm going to ask the board to
098please take their seats. And I'm going to ask the members of the public to please take your seats and silence the room. Thank you very much any conversations in the audience, please take it outside Thank you very much All right Thank you as announced earlier. We are going to be picking up on item m4 This is an informational item report on cool schools grant projects Thank you very much We are very excited about this presentation We're going to have here our director, Ramon Manoa, and some special guests. I believe they're coming from Texas to be here with us today. I have to say, when I first heard about this opportunity, I was very skeptical. What do you mean a grant with some people from Texas? What is this? And after having some conversation and learning
099more about it and seeing how this worked and what it could do for our schools, we just got really excited coming to having an agreement to receive these funds. And you'll hear more about how much we received and why schools would benefit from this. So this was something that our local Woodland Tree Foundation kind of connected us to. So with Cal Fires and the cool schools from Texas. Welcome to California. And it's just going to make a huge impact for five of our schools and enhance the work that the board is doing with Measure Y. So it's just a combination. So it was a beautiful fit. And so I can't wait for you to learn more about it. And again, on Saturday, come and see the unveiling. You're going to hear some sneak peeks right
100here. But on Saturday, we're going to be celebrating. that'll pass it on toward good evening board of trustees and superintendent ortega lampkin um i was thinking about when we actually were going through the mou it's almost a year ago so i think it was in may of last year when we were approached to put together the mou to start this process so i'll keep it short because there's a lot a lot of information that they want to uh to share with you but between then and now they've been The Texas Tree Foundation has done a fantastic job of meeting with the sites walking them through they have the design charrettes had the teachers involved the kids and involved the community involved to show them what they wanted to do at each one of those sites
101and they deround or they designed it around that input. So they they're going to kind of show the progress of where we're at. And as the superintendent said we have had some tree plantings and we're having a design event reveal on the 22nd. But that's enough for me. I'll. introduce Samantha Bradley from the Texas Tree Foundation. She'll start it off and there's a lot of people that are involved with it. We have the Woodland Tree Foundation, Texas Tree Foundation, Davis Tree I think as well, Cal Fire of course who got the grant started. But we coalesced all together and I think it's going to be a great project out of all the five sites. So I'll pass it off to Sam. Good evening. We are so excited to be here. Yes, I'm from Texas Trees,
102so I'm out of Dallas-Fort Worth. And yes, it's a little confusing at first until you hear about the magic of our partnership. And so, like Jim was kind of saying, there's a lot of partners that have been involved in this project. And so our local kind of on-the-ground partners is Woodland Tree Foundation and Tree Davis, which is out of Davis. And they've been helping us here at Woodland along with our schools that we're working at at Washington University. as well. And so I'm just here today to give you guys a brief update and hopefully get everyone excited about attending our design reveal and tree planting this Saturday at Whitehead. And so I just want to quickly kind of remind everyone that really the benefits and the goals of the Cool Schools program is to connect
103students and teachers to nature. We do that through expansive tree planting and the creation of fun, experiential outdoor play and learning areas. We use evidence-based design. Jim kind of spoke a little bit that we take a lot of time. We took over a year talking to the teachers, the students, the school members, asking what is it that they need? What are they lacking? their campuses and how we can basically present and solve some of those issues with green based solutions. And so a lot of people ask why maybe not our campus, why can't you do all the schools? Well we were limited by a few things so it's just a reminder that we have five schools that we're working with Woodland Prairie, Beamer, Whitehead, Freeman and Dingle. These schools had to qualify through a couple
104different measures either a low CAL FIRE pollution kind of score or that 70% or more of the students qualify for free or reduced lunch. And of course we also did a comprehensive tour really chose the campuses that really could benefit the most from these greeting solutions. And hopefully in the future if we get more money we will love to work on other Woodland schools. And so one of my colleagues, Emma, is going to speak with me briefly about some of the engagement updates really quickly. Hello. Thank you for the opportunity to speak today. So the Cool Schools YOLO team for engagement has been working on what our... designers call the problem solution model. Sam alluded to it. We start off by asking people, what are the problems? What are the challenges that you're dealing with?
105And then through our expertise, we go through the literature and through past successes and find out what kind of things can we put in on the campuses that actually address the specific problems that the campuses are dealing with. We did that back last year in April and May with a lot of design charrettes. You can see pictures there of these. activities and sheets that we have out with kids and so many members of the community to get them dreaming about what their idea outdoor schoolyard would look like. Throughout the summer, our designers worked on it and then we organized some second round of community engagement where we spent August through September. bringing those designs or was a preliminary designs to the community and saying okay do these work does this fit exactly what you talked
106to us about how can we change it and then through the latter part of the fall we went through all the specific paperwork that we needed to do and as it says down there at the bottom administrators teachers para educators students and other parents shared their feedback and that what that's what built up the bulk of the designs that you're going to see on saturday um was it march 22nd if you come out And so as the superintendent alluded to, this is a multimillion dollar investment into your guys' community. I'm really proud that there will be about $10 million that's going into these five campuses. And also just kind of as we're all kind of suffering for some of the bad news that's happening from the federal level, we're really, really grateful. This is a
107state grant, and so I wanted to rest assured, like, or let everyone know that this money is... pretty secure. This is coming from the state of California. It's already kind of allotted to them. And so this is funding that we feel really good that's going to continuously be able to be implemented. And so a lot of this money is going towards that planning and design like we talked about. We spent that year really designing these really one-of-a-kind green spaces for each campus. We're now moving into the greening aspect. As you heard from some of the council members is that we've had a few of our first tree plantings already. They've been very successful with both the students and the community members. Tomorrow we will be at Whitehead Elementary planting 15 trees with some of the,
108with each one of the classes. And then on Saturday we'll be doing the tree planting there as well, right before the design reveal. So, but that is not the only trees that will be planted. We'll be doing more expansive greening throughout the summer into the fall after some of our construction takes place. And so we're really excited to bring heat safe playgrounds, outdoor learning environments, amphitheaters, art and placemaking, natural trails, just really everything to enhance that space. And so these are little previews. I'm going to go pretty quickly because I want to save it for Saturday, but just to kind of give you guys some before little previews of some before and afters. So we have Whitehead's current condition. As you can see, they have a lot of pavement surrounding the campus and kind of
109through a lot of engagement, we really wanted to prioritize shade, outdoor learning areas, social seating, and really age appropriate play equipment for the older students. And so you can see kind of the before and after. looking to pull out asphalt, replace it with greening, and really enhance the space in that way. It's going to be really, I think, magical with the end product. It's a little close-up for you guys. And a little digging in a little deeper to the young kids playing sensory path area so that front of this school where the students kind of have this treacherous little path to get to where they need to go it's going to be now filled with you know different pollinators and sensory experiences and like a sensory walk students can have a little bit more enjoyable
110experience there and then on the older sides play we're going to have a lot of parkour really nature-based play equipment and amphitheater and I think it's really going to be pretty amazing. Beemer is also one of our schools. You can see they have a lot of open field space. We're going to transform a little a big piece of that with a with a sensory path and some play and learning elements as well and lots of greening. Dingle. We're also going to transform the space. You can see the kind of theme is like this sensory path experience where you can experience a lot of play and nature while you kind of walk around the path. Woodland again getting expansive kind of play and learning in trees and Freeman as well really excited about Freeman I'm going
111to be kind of looking at how we can activate that large kind of campus area and really provide some more active space and nature equipment. And so I know I went through that really fast. That's because we're going to have really great designs on Saturday for everyone to enjoy and to really experience. And just as a look ahead, so we're coming into the spring. We're going to finish our tree plantings. We have three more in the next couple weeks. And then we, knock on wood again, are going to have our first day of construction, the first day that's... kids get out of school and we'll be working all summer on these projects and then a little bit into the fall with the greening to have an hopefully a magical final product by November of this
112year. And I just want to quickly if Trini wants to share a couple words about the educational component of this as well. Hi, I'm Trini. I don't think I've had the chance or pleasure to meet all of you. I'm the education manager for this project. I just wanted to update you all on where we're at with the enrichment side of things when it comes to teaching youth about enrichment with outdoor and nature play and also like stewarding. the environment. And so right now we have about 588 students enrolled in our program in after school across Woodland and West Sacramento. We've hired two more team members in order to help implement the curriculum that we have developed in order to teach the students how to be in nature, how to love nature, how to steward it.
113As we all know here in Woodland, we love the outdoors. We have a very strong connection to agriculture, and so we really want to foster that in our youth. We've partnered with the after-school program ELOP, and we've done after-school programming for grades K through 6 so far. And so we're going up from here, and the students have responded very well to programming. So that is it. We're excited to see everyone on Saturday. If you have any questions, of course, you can talk to me at any time. I have my email up there, as well as Jim, who's been our strong leader and our Woodland representative. So thank you. Thank you very much. Please stay up here. This is an informational item. Colleagues, do you have any questions or comments regarding this item? We'll begin with
114Trustee Villagrana. Just want to say thank you for... The investment in our community, a little bit of research just on the benefits of trees at schools, improve student health, well-being, enhance learning environments, and environmental advantages like cooling and air quality, right? Just a few of the many, many benefits to our young people. And again, just couldn't say enough for the partnership. Yes, same thing as superintendent. I was like, is this real? Why would they come all the way from over there? They're just trying to take our money. But no, it was the other way around. And again, very pleasant results. Again, just thank you so much for investing in our community and in the future of our young people as well. Thank you. Thank you, Trustee Villagrana. Trustee Rodriguez-Molica. I echo appreciation for everything that
115you all have done. I'm really excited about checking out those outdoor classrooms. I think that's going to be so much fun for the kids and for the teachers and the sensory play that you all have. I just can't wait for this to be out there and for us to be able to see all of the children and the teachers enjoying it. So thank you. Thank you very much trustee Richardson Fowler. I Met with some folks from cool schools and Woodland School Foundation with trustee Garcia I think about a year and a half ago when we were at the cafe And it was really informative, great insight. I couldn't wait to see everything come to fruition. So I'm so glad to see you guys here. I love, I'm a sped teacher here. I love an outdoor
116sensory space. My kids are gravity kids. They like to see things go up and go down. And there's no place better to do that than outside of my classroom. Cannot wait to see this all come to fruition. Thank you guys so much. Thank you Thank You trustee Richardson Fowler trustee Garcia. I just want to make a coin and I will say I really enjoyed to be a part of these different phases and Say this I'm looking forward to see that results. Thank you so much. This is a very great example how Collaborate with different organization is makeup impact our community. Thank you so much. Absolutely. Thank you trustee Brubaker. Thank you trustee Garcia So I had the benefit before I was a trustee of getting to participate at my school site in this process with
117my kids. And one of the things that I didn't really think about until tonight is our students are going to get to see their input come to tangible real life that they get to experience every day. And what a lesson that is. I know that's something we all want to prioritize, but like. this is a heck of a lesson for our students on what their voice can do and it's going to benefit our district for so many years and so thank you so much for for bringing this to our community it's it's a gift that it has no value thank you thank you very much trustee brubaker trustee rodriguez uh just kind of piggybacking on this is a really unique example of how being student-centered really can make a difference so really excited to like
118the rest of my colleagues to see the plans and then to see the work come to fruition. Thank you for the collaborative spirit as well. And it took a little while to get going, right? Yep. But all good things. Come to pass, you know if you keep keep going and working hard at it. I also wanted to just quickly I believe former trustee Whitaker also put some really good energy into making this possible. I just wanted to give him a shout out. Oh, that's very true Yeah. Thank you. Thank you so much for mentioning the collaboration and work from trustee former trustee Jake Whitaker I want to acknowledge The Texas tree foundation. I want to say thank you very much to Cal Fire to cool schools Yolo County To the woodland tree foundation. I know
119some of you are still here Thank you very much for all your hard work and for trusting our district and bringing this project and making it this great I had the, I want to share with my colleagues that, and all of you, that I had about four years ago, I had the opportunity to work on legislation to try and bring more trees to our school district statewide. And a lot of the rationale was to do these outdoor learning classrooms, but then also to provide shade for the outdoor play. And with the change in climate and the hotter weather in the spring and summers, there's a need for shade. And the more affordable route is for natural trees, right, that habitat. But then there's also the requirement of ADA. There's also the requirement of how are
120you going to water these trees during these hot, dry weather. So thank you for putting in this investment and making this a reality. I remember as a parent at Beamer, for a long time we wanted to create a shady space in the outdoor lunch area. And I know we're not there yet, but I know that this is going to be able to create some comfortable shaded places where kids are going to be able to eat and play and maybe even read a book and learn. And that brings a lot, a lot of excitement. But I also want to draw, I want to mention that having been born and raised in this community, I've seen a lot of trees be cut down or have grown old and have been removed. and more trees have been removed
121or cut down than we have planted. So seeing this effort is historic and I know that our students in the years to come will thrive in these environments and I know that this is making the right. the right change for our students. So thank you, thank you so much. And thank you to my colleagues for really believing in this. I know sometimes we're hesitant to really believe in an organization that we don't know a lot about, but I wanna say thank you to the Texas Tree Foundation for insisting and being willing to knock on our door. Superintendent? Yes. Back over there I see Mr. Wilkinson being very humble. But he was really a huge force behind this. I'd like to invite you up and say a few words because of you, this wouldn't be happening.
122And I want to make sure that you are recognized. He's a little tired. He dug holes today. So he's literally doing a lot of the work. So we appreciate you so much, David. Yes. Thank you very much. It's really quite an honor to be part of this consortium, the district, CAL FIRE. This is really a gift from, I don't know where, I guess the state of California, but you know, the Woodland District and the West Sacramento District are one of the very, very few. schools, districts in the entire state of California that were awarded this first ever round of Green Schoolyards grants. So it's quite an honor and it's an honor for the Woodland Tree Foundation to be partnering with such a wonderful nationally known tree foundation. Texas trees out of Dallas who have done
123really some extraordinary work on many schools in the Dallas area and that's why they were personally invited to apply for the Green Schoolyards grant through CAL FIRE and hook up with Tree Davis and Woodland Tree Foundation. We're actually celebrating our 25th anniversary this year and we're all volunteer driven, the Woodland Tree Foundation and volunteers over the last 25 years have planted close to 7,000 trees in Woodland. quite a few at school campuses. I also want to thank Jim Helstowski for being so supportive and taking this on. So come on out Saturday. The holes are dug. We'll be planting 15 trees with students tomorrow. And then Saturday should be a... a really fun day to celebrate and we're looking forward to working doing the same thing at Beamer and Freeman Elementary next month. So anyway, thank
124you again. It's an honor to work with all of you in this great community. Thank you. Thank you very much. All right, any other questions or comments from my... All right, I think we're gonna, are we good to move on to the next item? All right, thank you very much, colleagues. We are on the move on to items in H, human resources. The first one being item N1, and do we have any public comment on this item? We have one. Thank you, Monica. Irene Diffindor. All right, before you go on, I'm sorry, Irene, before we begin the time, if we can please silence the room, I'd greatly appreciate it. Any side conversation, please take it outside the room. Irene, you have the floor. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Irene Diffentarm. You've all seen
125me up here before. First, I want to thank the district and the board for the strength-based training, a.k.a. the personality test and analysis. Belief. It was one of my top strengths. That's probably why I come up here almost on an other every week basis. My strong belief in goal number two is probably going to go with me on my deathbed. That focus on goal number two. Why am I here? The district does not seem to have money to pay certificated or classified staff a competitive salary. but they seem to have come up with the funds to give the superintendent and associate superintendent significant competitive salary increases, well above the 3% that was given to teachers and classified staff. Why is it that we can always find the money for those at the top, but for
126those of us who work closely with students, we never have funds to pay them a competitive salary? I doubt that very many students will remember the impact that our superintendent or associate superintendent has made on their lives. But I can guarantee that they will remember those of us who are at school on a daily basis working with them, watching them, helping them to succeed, teaching them life skills and life lessons. listening to them, and being their constant in their lives. Goal two, social-emotional academic needs. When you have a staff that is feeling undervalued, how can you expect us to meet the social-emotional needs of our students? One of my top strengths, belief. My belief is that students will feel our value when we feel valued, when we are given the same competitive salaries that you
127are thinking of approving tonight for the superintendent and associate superintendent. I encourage you to reflect on what you are offering them before you offer it to them. Many of you tonight spoke about those teachers having an impact on you. I know that I remember my bus driver, Ruby, my librarian, Harriet, and all of my teachers, but I do not remember my superintendent or the head of business. Thank you very much. Any more public comment, Monica? Annie Burkholder? Thank you, Irene, for that really heartfelt message. I want to thank the teachers who spoke out today. Many teachers feel very concerned about speaking out on these issues because they're afraid of retribution. So this is a small percentage of teachers who have these similar feelings and many just don't feel comfortable speaking out. I want to thank
128the teachers that have spoken out today about this issue because they're showing a lot of bravery. So I believe one definition of integrity is when what we say and what we do are in alignment. And I know that every one of you on the board would say that teachers are the backbone and the center and the foundation of our educational system. And I want you, because you believe this, I want you today when you vote to think about whether you're voting with integrity with what you say you believe and how you act are the same. I'm going to present some data. This is all from the SARC, so it's publicly available if you ever want to look it up. So the mid-range teacher salary in this district is 21% below the state average. The average
129principal salary is 18% below the state average. Our superintendent's current salary is 2% less than state average. So mid-range teacher salary is 21% below. Average principal, 18% below. Superintendent, 2% below. I am not a teacher, but I can only imagine, or a principal, but I can only imagine what it feels like when you are presented with that information. Some of the teachers here today have expressed how that makes them feel. They feel devalued. They feel angry. They feel hurt. They feel betrayed. And they feel like, maybe I should just get the hell out of here. In addition, we are slashing mental health experts and health experts from our budget, even though we say that we are committed to our students' health and mental health. How do these classified employees feel? They've also expressed their concern,
130including Irene. They feel devalued in the district. To give our superintendent a raise at the expense of our teachers and classified staff is against the values of this board. I know it's a hard decision, but it's a decision of equity, as has also been raised tonight. And if you do do this, I want a compelling argument of why the superintendent should make salary on par with the state average, whereas our teachers and principals should be 15 to 20 percent below state average. I ask you to vote with integrity on this issue. We are watching and we are listening and the talk is easy. And the action is but the action is the true test of character. Thank you Thank you very much Monica any more public comment? All right I'm gonna ask that we bring
131order to the room Thank you very much. We are now taking up item n1 and I'm gonna give the oral report This is an oral report and approval of contracted management salary schedules On tonight's agenda is a new 2024-2025 contracted management salary schedule containing changes to the salary schedule for the superintendent and the associate superintendent. Our superintendent is getting a salary schedule with step increases for the first time, and this new salary schedule brings her to the same salary level as the superintendent for the Washington Unified School District. She will be at step one, and thus her salary starting July 1st, 2024 will be set at... 3 2025 will be set at $307,770. Like the superintendent for Washington Unified, the step increases on the superintendent salary schedules are increases of 4.25%. However, beginning with September
132with step five, the increases on the salary schedule will only come every other year. If you look at the chart, for example, you will see that the salary for step five is the same as the salary at step six, and the increased salary at step seven stays the same for step eight. Among the factors that influence this proposed new salary schedule were one, the Woodland Joint Unified School District is the largest school district in Yolo County, and the three comparable size school districts in Yolo County, Davis, Washington, and Woodland. The Davis superintendent salary is the highest, and our Woodland school. and our Woodland Superintendent salary is currently the lowest. All superintendents in Yolo County except our Woodland Superintendent has a salary schedule with step increases. And four, the Woodland Joint Unified School District is the
133only school district in Yolo County that achieved academic growth in SBAC results for both English, Language Arts, and Math from 2022 to 2023 to 2023 to 2024. In short, given that our district is the largest school district in Yolo County and is the only district with academic growth in both English and math, I believe our superintendent should not be at the bottom for compensation among our county's similarly sized districts. After tonight, she will still not be the highest compensated in Yolo County, but she will no longer be at the bottom for similarly sized districts. Our associate superintendent has served our district for so long that he ran out of steps. He is currently at step five for his minimum base salary, which will be raised under the new salary schedule to $229,051. The new six
134new steps have been added to the salary schedule. The increases between each step starting with step five are set at 3% every other year only. Again, looking at the salary schedule, you will see that the base salary is the same at step five and six, the same at step seven and eight, and then the same at step nine and 10. The assistant superintendent salary schedule is not being changed at this time, but a proposal for an increase in the assistant superintendent salary schedule may be placed on the agenda at a future board meeting for consideration. I now open it up for our board for May discussions, questions, or comments. Super, I'm sorry. let me just take a deep breath go ahead board member villagrana please thank you i move for approval i have a motion
135on the table to approve item n1 approval of contracted management salary schedule is there a second second it's been seconded by trustee rodriguez mojica any questions or comments discussion all right trustee rodriguez I just want to say that, you know, I know that these kind of decisions can seem very difficult to the public, but for those of us that work very closely with our superintendents and our cabinet positions, that we have to reward. Though you know our superintendent our cabinet positions For their commitments and it has to be you know commensurate with with with compensation that is within our area and remember All question any side noise, please. Take it outside Can we close the doors, please? Thank you very much Trustee Rodriguez, you have the floor. I apologize. And so besides recognizing their deep,
136deep commitment for multiple decades to our school district, we're recognizing their talent and we're recognizing the care that they have to serve everyone in the district, our students, our families, our teachers, classified. We're also choosing to, Give our district and our families stability to not be able to offer a compensation which where they feel fairly Compensated you know could open the door for LEAVE WITH A GREAT DEAL OF DISTRICT KNOWLEDGE, A GREAT DEAL OF PROFESSIONAL KNOWLEDGE, WHICH WOULD HURT THE CAPACITY FOR THIS DISTRICT TO IMPLEMENT PROGRAMS, TO DO ALL THE THINGS THAT A DISTRICT DOES. AND SO I JUST WANT TO SAY WE'RE VERY PROUD OF OUR SUPERINTENDENT, ELODIE ORTEGA LAMPKIN. WE'RE VERY PROUD OF HER. for all the work and commitment that they've done. And so we feel that we're doing the right thing.
137And just as we do the right thing here, we also work very hard to do the right thing for our teachers, for our classified. And this is just a symbol of us trying to do the best that we can and to do the right thing. And it's well deserved. Thank you. Thank you very much. I just want to clarify that the superintendent will be at step one Clarify that her salary will be at step one effective dollar during July 1st 2024 so there will be I just want to clarify because I I thought it was 2025 but I misspoke so I just want to clarify so she will have retro. Okay Thank you very much for allowing me to explain that So we do have a motion. Any more questions, comments, or deliberation? All right.
138I'm going to go ahead and call the vote. And I'm going to go down the row, okay? Trustee Villagrana? Yes. Trustee Rodriguez-Molkica? Yes. Trustee Richardson-Fowler? No. Trustee Garcia? Yes. Trustee Brubaker? Yes. Trustee Rodriguez? Yes. Trustee Bautista-Zavala? Yes. All right, so the motion to approve item n1 approval of contracted management salary schedules has been approved by all board members present with the exception of a no vote by trustee Richardson feller All right moving on to item n2 oral report on approval of associate superintendent business services contract Under agenda item n 2 is a consideration of amended and restated employment agreement for the associate superintendent business services as He has served our district for a very long time. There have been a number of amendments to his contract in the past So for convenience, we combined the
139original agreement and all the amendments into one amended and restated agreement I will now summarize only the compensation and other significant provisions of the agreement that are new Term. The Associate Superintendent contract term now extends through June 30, 2028. Salary. Mr. Wiley's salary is set at $229,051, effective July 1, 2024. He will now move up on the newly approved salary schedule each year contingent upon satisfactory valuation. The salary schedule steps approved by the Board only includes raises every other year after year five. During the term of the agreement, Mr. Wiley will get the same increases or decreases in the total compensation that the board may approve for other classified management employees. Work year. Language has been added requiring advance notice to the superintendent when Mr. Wiley will be absent for more than two consecutive work
140days. Health and welfare benefits. Mr. Wiley will receive the $50 monthly increase to health and welfare benefits. Retirement language has been added to allow him to participate in retirement benefits in accordance with BP for 117.13 questions comments deliberation Trustee Villagrana move for approval. It's been moved for approval to approve item n1 approval of associate superintendent's business services contract second seconded by trustee Rodriguez Any comments questions or deliberation? All right seeing none. We're gonna go ahead and do a roll call vote Motion on the table is to approve the associate superintendent business services contract. Trustee Villagrana. Yes. Trustee Rodriguez-Molica. Yes. Trustee Richardson-Fowler. Abstain. Trustee Garcia. Yes. Trustee Brubaker. Yes. Trustee Rodriguez. Yes. Trustee Bautista-Zavala. Yes. It has been approved to the contract for associate superintendent business services has been approved by all those board members present
141with an abstention by trustee Richardson Fowler. We are now moving to item N3. I'm going to read an oral report of their suggesting the approval of superintendent contract. The board is being asked to consider an amendment to the superintendent's employment agreement that includes the following changes. Term, the superintendent contract will now extend through June 30, 2028. Salary and evaluation. The superintendent will now have a salary schedule and will start on step one of the salary schedule just approved by the board. The salary schedule steps approved by the board only includes raises every other year beginning with year five. During the term of the agreement, the superintendent will get the same increases or decreases in the total compensation that the board may approve for other certificated management employees. The superintendent will move a step on the
142salary schedule on July 1st for the 2025-2026 school year. The superintendent's annual step increase, therefore, will be contingent on a satisfactory evaluation for prior year. Health and Welfare Benefits. The Superintendent will receive the same $50 monthly increase to health and welfare benefits as was provided to the Certificated Bargaining Unit. Retirement. The language has been classified to ensure that all years of the Superintendent's service as a Certificated Administrator in the District are included for purposes of eligibility to receive health benefits in accordance with BP 4117.13. Automobile allowance. This was increased to $500 per month to match the Washington Unified Superintendent's contract. Any deliberation, questions, or comments? Trustee Villagrana. Move for approval. Second. All right. Item N3, approval of Superintendent's contract has been moved for approval by Trustee Villagrana and seconded by Trustee Rodriguez. Any questions or
143comments or deliberation from the board? Seeing none roll call vote trustee Villagrana. Yes trustee Rodriguez Mojica Yes, trustee Richardson Fowler abstain trustee Garcia. Yes trustee Brubaker Yes, trustee Rodriguez. Yes trustee Bautista Savala. Yes item n3 Approval of superintendent's contract has been approved by all board members present with the exception of trustee Richardson Fowler who has abstained Thank you very much Yes, sir, please. I want to wait till we were done approving everything So I actually I have belief in my top five as well and for me believe My values guide every decision that I make And I know that retaining the two individuals Retaining the two individuals is in what's the best interest of our students. They are extremely student-centered extremely capable I know our superintendent is highly coveted. You know, I know that other
144districts have attempted to Recruit her and she has chosen to stay in our district and I'm sure mr. Wiley as well has gotten requests from other institutions and he I mean He knows this his stuff As I said, there's levels to this game, and he is at the higher level of this. And we are in the state, we are financially better now than other districts because of the team that we have and because of the board, of course, as well. But, again, our staff advises us on what to do. Again. Based on my experience regardless of what rationale I say, you know, nobody's gonna be happy with with my rationale So I'm not gonna state the rationale again. I'm gonna say that I value these two individuals highly highly respect them And you know if
145we were out in the market right now to replace and we would have to pay probably the same or more To find individuals even close to them. I mean the the level of experience in our district alone, right? You can't find anybody to replace our associate superintendent of business with that level of experience because nobody else in the world has his literally has his level of experience in our community. That person does not exist. Right. There's other people that have experience. Absolutely. But not in our community. And then going to our superintendent again nobody. I mean. paraeducator and teacher and moving along the decades that have been dedicated again literally nobody in the world exists that the same level of experience and qualifications again Will superintendent come in when they retire or associate. Absolutely they
146will. And they'll eventually learn and I'm sure do a great job as well. But again why do that when we have people that are beyond capable to do the work that needs to be done for for our students. So yeah can I just wait it to the end. And I am very proud of my vote. I have no regret of my vote. I again. Yes. Thank you. Thank you, Trustee Villagrana. Anyone else would like to chime in? Trustee Richardson-Fowler, yes. So tonight I voted no on raises in salary schedule and abstained from two decisions for the contract renewal at this rate. I want to make it clear that these decisions are not personal. As you need four votes to move the needle on anything, I made the decision knowing our leadership would remain intact regardless.
147My vote isn't influenced by any of my personal beliefs, but rather a sense of responsibility and fairness. I find it difficult to give with one hand while taking jobs away from folks with another to balance the budget. It doesn't sit right with me to approve raises while others face insecurities. To me, my leadership means making tough choices and staying true to my values. So no, I don't regret my decision. And it wasn't made personally. I hope this decision reflects my commitment to thoughtfulness and balanced stewardship. As it was not made personally, I hope it is not taken personally. Thank You trustee Richardson Fowler order in the room order in the room, please Trustee trustee Villagrana. Yes. I was saying point of order, but you took it. Thank you. Thank you. All right, trustee Garcia Trustee
148Ruby. No, go ahead. Go ahead Yes, I just would like to share that I want to remark as the trustee Villagrana say that My college and I we make every decision based on our values and with full conviction, no matter how difficult or controversial, we always chose what we believe is right. So that concludes my. Thank you, Trustee Garcia, for your comments. Trustee Brubaker. I will be honest, this is a vote that I struggled with, but I made the vote keeping in mind that. Before I was on this board raises were approved for other staff members We also negotiated these Raises before we sort of had the full picture of the potential federal impacts But just like I would hope we would not back out of an agreement with other staff members after that was
149made I felt like I needed to stand by that decision I Understand that these numbers are very big But I also have seen firsthand the amount of work behind the scenes that goes into these roles. And it is more than I ever imagined. All that being said, it was not an easy vote for me. And I did feel conflicted. But I also felt like there were a lot of reasons that I was honor bound to vote the way I did. Thank you. Thank you very much, Trustee Brubaker. Trustee Rodriguez, no comments this evening. All right. I would like to... You do? Yeah? No? Okay. Yes. After you. All right. Thank you, guys. I wanted to say I wanted to appreciate the support, the opposition, the neutrality, everyone who came together this evening to speak your...
150Your mind and you know offer your feedback suggestions comments on this on these items I think that at the end of the day. Yes, the board has the ultimate decision and the power to make change But all of us hear that feedback all of you all of us hear your public comment and we take it into consideration so I want to invite us to come to a space of collective and try to move forward with our leadership. The board, the majority of the board voted to continue with our superintendent as our district leader. We entrust her to continue leading our district for all the reasons stated. I won't go into that. And I just I would like for this to be a new beginning and a new contract for all of our super superintendent and
151Our associate superintendents and or contracted management. Thank you very much for your continued service You guys also deserve Your pay increases. So thank you very much trustee Villagran Thank you. Forgot to mention in my notes that the position of superintendent is not a eight to five. It's literally any time I've called or text, the superintendent response is like on call constantly. Even when she goes on vacation, she still checks her emails, even though we tell her not to. And when she's sick, she's working. I mean, she probably has. Probably works and correct me if I'm wrong 60 70 hours a week sometimes more I think I mean Saturday Sunday You know regardless something urgent happens at whatever time, you know, we'll get an email something at 10 p.m. And I've said this before like our
152staff is the most transparent staff that I've ever seen as a trustee in this district and even other districts that I work with like the level transparency and You know, the thing is like you elevate that and people expect more which is you know fine, but we need to understand right like Their their ethics is above board as well. But again, just want to recognize the hours that you know, I mean I text Mr. Wiley and the weekends and he replies back right like no hesitation with whatever information I need, you know We read our packets on the weekends and we send questions and they're handling the answers. That's their job And that's why they make the money they make because they are not working five days. They're working seven days a week sometimes. Actually,
153most of the time for the superintendent, for sure. Like, no doubt about it. So, again, I forgot to add that to my comment. Thank you, Trustee Villagrana. Trustee Rodriguez-Mojica. Thank you. Yeah, I want to share that I feel very confident in my vote and in my decision. I feel like our superintendent has a really, really difficult job. I have seen you fight for your staff for your cabinet and for your teachers and classifieds just the same With Lewis I'm getting to know you but I am already learning a whole lot From you and I know that you bring so so much to our district So I'm very happy that you are here with us and the same to you superintendent that being said It is really hard to hear from our teachers that they feel
154undervalued and the financial struggles that they face, right? And then issues with benefits as well. I remember what that was like. I think quite a few of us remember what that has been like. And that is really hard. So I do want to say that I made this vote, I feel, with complete integrity. I feel extremely confident. And I also want to work to see what we can do to improve conditions for all of our staff. Because it's not okay to feel the way that you're feeling. And I understand that. So I hope that at some point we're able to reach a place to where... Bringing somebody up to parity does not feel like it is taken away from others. I really wish that we had More money from the states and from the federal
155government so that we can bring everyone even higher I would love for us to not just be at level with everyone else but bring it even above that So I hope that at some point we can have We can be in that space. But I want to reiterate, thank you so much to our superintendent for all that you do and all that you give and the way that you treat people. I really appreciate you bringing people in from the audience, noticing that they're there. Our teachers' mothers to stand up and recognizing them as well in Spanish, nonetheless. That's really special. So thank you for everything you do. And thank you, Louis, for everything you do as well. Thank you very much, Trustee Rodriguez-Molica. Anyone else would like to chime in on this? All right. We
156have a comment. Absolutely. Superintendent, yes. Oh, yeah. Okay. Would you like to end it? Perfect. Trustee Brubaker, I'm sorry. I hadn't planned on making the comments I made earlier, so I do want to add that my hesitancy did not have any reflection on the performance of our staff. It's just the times we're in makes me feel very uncertain about anything financial. So I just wanted to make that clarification. Thank you very much. Nothing else, Trustee? All right. Trustee I'm sorry superintendent. I I had a lot of talking this evening So I'm really sorry if you guys if I'm fumbling a little bit Okay, no, I just want to say I recognize this is a very difficult decision a very uncomfortable decision and I want to thank you for your support I want to especially thank
157you for supporting Our associate superintendent lose Wiley. He is my right hand. He has been extremely loyal to our district he We're very lucky to have him. And, you know, he, so thank you for acknowledging the expertise that we have and for his commitment to our district. I also want to say that there's not going to be anything personal at all. Please, you know, I understand that there's a... It's difficult especially in the role that I play and the feelings and I understand the perspective from the teachers Yeah, and how this may feel or or look I am the only superintendent in the district. I am one employee the employee your employee the board and I just want to reaffirm my commitment to you to all of you, to our community, to our students, our
158staff, our parents. And one of the things I said, those of you who were in the interview when I interviewed the superintendent, one of the last things I said is that I have been underestimated my entire life. All right. Order in the room, please. There's been moments because of a woman because I'm Latina or because Many of our kids hear that right and somebody some staff members here may also feel that that we're not worthy enough That we're not capable enough And I'm still not even though we are the largest district in the county. Um, you know I did not ask to be the highest paid in the county Even though I think I probably am worth that because I was mindful about what that was for the district in these hard times. But I
159certainly need to model to our students and to our community that we need to also stand for ourselves for some equity and some, to feel that I am deserving to at least not be the lowest paid for a district of our size. So thank you. for considering that and I can promise you that I'll continue working hard and I felt it was not intentional but you know tonight when we had the resolution for Women's History Month and then Cesar Chavez and then the Doros Huertas and I was like Okay, the contracts not on here for that purpose right because it's hard to advocate or even ask for anything I can tell you it's very hard as To do that but you know as a woman as a migrant farm worker and The Lourdes Huerta is
160also my hero You know the commitment to the community I just want to thank you that you know those all those things that happen today kind of align in in my life But I'm also very committed to every single family because every single family wants the same thing for their children They're all loved and everyone wants the best for their children regardless of what language what economic background? What? family history Every student that comes to our district is My expectation is that they're going to be respected and we're going to do the best that we can working with all of you and working with our staff and principals So again, thank you and I acknowledge this is a difficult decision and there are no hard feelings with anyone at all Thank you very much superintendent.
161All right colleagues. Are we ready to move to the next item? Thank you very much without any further delay We're gonna go to item L teaching and learning and this is l1 information update on naming of natives native student Resource Center We have two public comments. No problem. We'll take the two public comments and I've estimated this item We'll take about 20 to 30 minutes. We can we can first we time First we have Michael Duncan and then Joshina and Kenai Clough. Good evening. Thank you for having us. We just wanted to share some words in support of the name change for the Native Student Resource Center and also provide a little bit of insight. The proposed name change of the resource center to Ticha Wole was shared with our families by local Native community
162members Michael Duncan and Pam Gonzalez. Ticha Wole means learning room and encapsulates the purpose of our center to provide an equitable space for our Native students and our Indian education program established this year. Efforts like this name change helped to fortify and reinforce our partnership and seek to go beyond the land acknowledgement. Our first experience with America's education system was a brutal... cruel one where we saw our people, culture, language, and way of life extinguished with the impacts of still reverberating throughout our communities. Here we have an opportunity to work towards transformative justice, positively impacting our Native American students where they get to witness actions behind words. I believe approval of this petition will help to demonstrate the district's willingness to actively acknowledge whose land we occupy while simultaneously uplifting our Native students. The name
163change also benefits all student staff and the community at large, creating a catalyst for dialogue and opportunities to share cultural knowledge. I'm grateful for the opportunity to bolster our partnership and create meaningful and much needed change. I appreciate your time and consideration on this matter. Thank you very much. Next public comment. I agree. Nick now. Kenai Little Feather Cluff. Hello, my name is Kenai Little Feather Cluff. I'm Yorak and Tolowa, and I will be sharing my perspective on the petition being addressed tonight. I believe the importance of this petition is to further represent my culture. I also think that the approval of the name change would help to strengthen our partnership, enabling people to see more native impact in the community, such as the mural at Douglas Middle School that I had helped to paint.
164I also think that more Native projects would help all students to see the importance of my culture, and it would give acknowledgement to the tribes whose land we are on, which is the Putwin Wintun Nation. We are still here, and it's important to have these discussions to reinforce our presence and the fact that we never left. I appreciate your time and consideration. Waklo. Good evening. Not new yet. Mike Duncan, Chu Wintu, Maidu Waidaki, and I am also the executive director of Native Dads Network. I'm really happy to be sat here today in front of you. It's kind of late, so I was kind of dozing back there, I ain't gonna lie. And I had something written, and now I'm all over the place. But I just thought I'd come from the heart. You know, our
165relationship with the district, you know, Executive Director of Native Dads, being part of the mural project at Douglas Middle School, the resource center that's been put in place, and also now the Native American Library, working with the district has been really great for us, trying to give our tribal kids in the district a safe place to go to. It's really been important for us, you know, working with other tribal elders in the community and looking at different ways that we could recruit and start supporting our students from the district to come into the center and learn. Also, non-tribal members to come into the library and also use it as an educational piece for them. And so, the Teechewole is a Putwin word that really speaks to everybody and it really helps students, non-native and tribal
166kids, to also share the language with us. It's a teaching tool. It'll help, it's a very, we were choosing the name, I thought was one of the easiest ways, I thought for people to say, Teecha, it's really easy to say, but it's also sharing the language and it's also teaching, creating a bridge. to the original people here, the Putwin people. So as we're growing and developing this project, I'm really excited to be working along with Joshina Cleff and her son and other tribal members from the community and the American Indian Parent Committee. And I'm hoping that we could have, on the next meeting, we'll be able to have the name change for the resource center. Thank you. Thank you very much. All right, order in the room, presentation. Thank you very much for your public
167comment. Okay, before we start, I just wanted to say we have, it's been a while since we've named anything at all in our district. So today we just have it as an information item. So review the process. Make sure that you're familiar with the policy here. You know, you heard public comment. But we're very excited about the potential of naming this space. with a special name that has significance for our Native American families. But we wanted to give you an opportunity to hear how this came about, to hear what our board policy is and what the next step will be. And then it will come back to the board for a more formalized next step. Thank you Thank you to Mike Duncan and joshina and keen I clough for being here And speaking in support
168of of the naming of the native Student Resource Center, so it was two years ago This month that we held the grand opening of the center. Sorry for interrupting. We stopped the clock, please. Oh, yeah. Thank you Trying to limit my time. So it was two years ago this month that we held the grand opening of the center. Since that time, so much has happened. We've built the library. We currently have library techs that come to each meeting or workshop held in the room as a resource to be able to check out books. So students are coming and doing that. When we have a meeting and a workshop, we've used it for events, for the creation of the mural that was sponsored by the Native Dads Network. There was a Winton Homelands Teacher Institute in
169the summer of 2024 where we hosted a day or two of that institute. So a lot has... been happening and there's still much more to come. We, the committee has since the beginning talked about giving the space a name that was meaningful to the community. And so So we're bringing this forward with the the board policy 7310 naming a facility which we're doing something a little bit different with this so the the board policy covers naming buildings or facilities in honor of individuals or the geographic area in which the school or building is located. And what we're really trying to do here is honor the Winton community. So the board policy really talks about having community participation in the selection and identification of a name. And we do feel like we have done that with
170the committee. We held a language workshop where families learned strategies to both learn about and maintain their native languages, and that work continues and will continue in the center. So I'll stop and see if there are any questions. We do want to bring it forward for a public hearing and approval at an upcoming meeting. Thank you very much. Miss Lambie any questions or comments trustee Villagrana I'm so happy that we're here having this conversation today. I mean 1,000 support of this I'm very excited about this Lost for words actually That this happening it is such a powerful message for for our community and our young people I love the name powerful name Yeah 100% doesn't present support can't wait for it to come at our next meeting so we can again have the hearing and
171Take the vote to make this happen and make it a reality So again, thank you to everyone who did all the work for us to be here today Thank you very much trustee Villagrana anyone else questions comments All right trustee Brubaker I want to echo everything Trustee Villagran has said and I love the use, I think it was the word bridge for our community. What a gift for all of the kids in our district to have this resource and what a beautiful name and so I'm very excited for this next step for this project and thank you for even bringing this project into being. Thank you very much. Trustee Brubaker, Trustee Rodriguez. Yeah, again, just want to echo what my fellow trustees have said. This is really just a testament to all the hard work
172that's gone into creating these opportunities, creating this center. This is a natural progression to be able to incorporate more the name into the center, right? And it's really a great example of our commitment to diversity and to be able to share, not just to support, in this particular case our Native American students, but also to share knowledge with all the other students about the peoples that were here before us. And so I look forward to bringing it back and look forward to making it so. Thank you very much. Miss Lambie any other questions or comments? All right. I have a question Do you think that we can bring this back? Would it be ready for next board meeting for us to potentially take action on this for the April 16th or 17th meeting? Yes, I
173have a calendar for April 17th. Yes. We're ready for that. All right. Can I just get head nods? Yeah, all right. So this was an informational item. Thank you very much, Ms. Lambie. Very, very excited for this. Thank you very much to our guests for coming. We'll see you on April 17th. Thank you. All right, moving on. It is item L2. This is an information action item, and this is our Children and Youth Behavioral Health Initiative, known as the CYBHI, and we're gonna have a presentation. Thank you very much. So we have our Dr. Felicia Wilson who's going to be introducing this item. But before we start, this is something that's very new opportunity, something that really hasn't been done before. But it's an opportunity for us to get some funding by going through a
174fee process of services that we provide. It's a very complicated process and it needs a lot of technical support. to be able to do this. And so the state has given out money for the districts to, a startup money to put the systems in place. What I learned through this process is that it's very technical. And we do not have the capacity internally to be able to do this. The rest of the school districts in the county are doing a consortium together to try to figure it out themselves. And we decided to go on our own and look out for the support from a contract out these services. And these are the same. It's a different name now, but they also helped us during COVID when we had all the testing that we had around
175town that they provided, and we liked the partnership, and so I believe that we can continue doing this through their services as well. So with that, I'm going to go ahead and pass it to Felicia. Good evening President Baptista de Val Zavala Board of Trustees and Superintendent Ortega Lankan I am here to present to you information about the children and youth behavioral health initiative affectionately known as CYBHI it's This initiative lands smack in the middle of goal two for us. It is all about social, emotional, and academic needs for our students. And it can't emphasize more fully what we do here in Woodland to support our students. What is Seaway BHI? It's an initiative. It's a five-year initiative, $4.7 billion effort by the state of California to transform the way we support our students mentally,
176emotionally, and behaviorally. The initiative enables local LEAs, which Woodland Joint Unified would be one of those, to... receive reimbursements for services provided and offered to students in our district. The objective is to both prevent and provide prevention and intervention to build more resilient future generations. So it's to strengthen the behavioral, mental, and physical health of our students. In order to do that, there were cohorts developed for application for this. Four cohorts were developed. We are in cohort four, and we have applied for cohort four, which is the last one. If you ask why did we wait, there was a lot of talk, discussion, thought. thought with our county, thought with our superintendent, and just going, as she says so eloquently, go slow to go fast. Taking our time, being methodical, knowing exactly what we're getting
177ourselves into, and then finding the right partners to continue with this. CYBHI allows us to bill for services that we would provide for students. And it's beyond what... We may know as just medical billing it's actually billing private insurance students in private insurance to recoup funding for what we may do in our In our school day in our normal school day There are many things that have to be in place in order for us to say okay. We're going to send a bill there there's a laundry list I won't read all of them to you but there are things that have to be in place according to this initiative one of them do we have medical billing we already currently do that we have an established program we have a department that does that and
178does that well we have we would have to have a service delivery infrastructure that that requires us to have partnerships. We have started developing those partnerships all through COVID. We would need to develop a workforce capacity, contracts, which again, we have started developed and through our COVID times. We would also need to be able to collect and manage student health information. That's a massive undertaking and a security undertaking. We need to handle insurance information, documents, understand what services have provided, all of that. And when our superintendent just said it's a massive undertaking and having the infrastructure to be able to handle that within is nearly impossible. We would have to have, again, that infrastructure for billing, being able to bill, being able to, when the bill is sent back and said, no, we don't think
179so, and you want to argue the bill, who's going to argue that? All of that back and forth. Again, readiness. We have to be ready. We have assessments. The state will do audits, all of those things. We would have to understand the fee schedule. What can we bill for? Who can we bill? All of that. So many, many steps. And again, I didn't go through every detail, but I think you're getting the picture on this. Why do we even do this? Why are we even considering this? Well, we know that our students have a need. We know that there's a need for a broader spectrum of behavioral health services for our students on campus, directly on campus. We would be continuing those services. We've had a wonderful go these last few years with our dollars
180from the COVID funds. Those are, as you know, sun setting and leaving us. And so what do we do to sustain this? So we're trying to find sustainable funding to continue some of the work that we have already started. And how do we do that? So I will say that. This is how we're going to do that. I have two gentlemen behind me. I have Christopher Carisi and I have Dennis Marinello who are here. They are representatives of a healthy campus. Like our superintendent said, during COVID times, they were campus clinic for us. They have changed their name, but they have not changed their dedication to providing students and districts with what they need to make. behavioral health, mental health, and physical health a priority for our students in California. So we are seeking to
181enter into a platform service agreement with Healthy Campus to help us streamline this implementation. As you heard earlier, the state has provided LEAs with a startup fund. So we're not coming out of pocket to start this and to enter into this agreement. That startup fund is for us to use to get started on this. We would use that to help fund this partnership and what they offer us. I will say that Healthy Campus has already signed with over 100 school districts in the state of California. So they are well aware of how this works and what they need to do to move forward, and they're here to prepare us to get ready. I'm going to step aside at this moment, and they will be able to share with us how do they and will they
182support. What does that look like? what kind of a partnership or agreement would that be? So I'm not sure who gets to get the mic, but go for it. Hello, board, superintendent, community. Dennis Marinello, VP of Partnerships for Healthy Campus. Can you all hear me okay? So a couple clarifications. The startup capital can only be utilized on the seven focus areas and the 24 priority funding areas set out by the state of California. Ultimately, Healthy Campus, what do we help districts provide? Barrier-free mental wellness access for every student. There has been nothing, there's been no precedent until now to achieve this. It's not actually doing anything more than your people are already doing, it's just getting credit and being reimbursed for the stuff you're already doing. And so when you talk about having to cut
183mental wellness staff or needing more cash for a number of different reasons, this is a bright spot for the state of California who says the mental wellness of our students is important and we need to prioritize it and we need to invest in it. And yet there's a number of not just technical things. So we say we're at the corner of high tech meets high touch. So it's not just here's a great software. It's HIPAA compliant safety, right, when it comes to this new pieces of data, wellness data in the care journey of our kids. How do we protect that? How do we get more on and off ramps for our students to enter in when they say they need help? We're not going to tell them they have an issue, but we're doing this
184all over the state of California. And the types of things it actually looks like on school campuses is actually a parent on their phone piping in and watching an interaction between a provider and their students. That's what it looks like. It's identifying students that are suffering in silence we know nothing about. that aren't on any of our radars right now because how we're measuring mental wellness in most school districts and these are districts telling us that is we're doing it reactively and from the negative standpoint of chronic absenteeism behavioral issues but we can't point to positive mental wellness metrics that we're measuring right now If I could simplify it down to we need to be asking ourselves how we're doing more often, but we need to be asking our kids how they're feeling. And every
185time we ask, we should get compensated $17 to $35 per the new fee schedule the state of California is telling you have access to. So it's not just the systems that's needed. It's the communication. It's the capacity building. It's the training. It's the onboarding. And we stay with you. Chris represents an in-person, in-region resource for you. We're not going away. A lot of this is capacity building. And so, yes, we are an infrastructure and a services partner. We have a head start of about five years because you all got to benefit from us figuring out how to deliver on-campus health care. But the new era that we all live in, and if you're going to be in education for the next foreseeable future, is one where we provide. teaching and learning, and healthcare services. The
18652 codes the state of California has initially approved in January 2024, they cover really mental wellness. But the goal is to expand that schedule out to primary care in the future. The only thing stopping you is applying to a cohort where you're in, also an implementation strategy that's approved by the state of California, and building this infrastructure to start capturing what you're already doing. Do you have to do anything? No. But the longer you wait to start documenting and tracking the work you've already done, the longer you're waiting that reimbursement that you ultimately deserve. So Dennis Marinello here, here to answer your questions. Happy to help however are able to but this is an this is an initial be looked at as an opportunity not a risk and And our job is to help guide
187you through handhold Compensate, you know however we can to make sure it's as easy as possible and we have to think through multiple stakeholders from the perspective of our parents and our families our of our providers of our staff all these things that we you know we're working and you'll work with Chris to work out how this works for you because if you've seen one district you've seen one district Just because we work at Chula Vista Elementary School District in San Diego does not mean it's going to work the same here. But ultimately, we want to surface those who are suffering in silence, do it systematically and on purpose, and become proactive and preventative versus reactive. That's ultimately how we do it. There's a lot of cool AI and machine learning when it comes to
188parent portal, when it comes to scheduling, when it comes to rostering of your providers, when it comes to analytics. We take care of all your audit tolerances, and as well as your integrations, right? So this idea... is that education's been not delivering healthcare for a long time. You've done some billing in Medi-Cal, which stays in place, not a problem. This is in parallel. But what happens now is that since you're entering into a healthcare delivery, we need to actually make some systemic changes or foundational changes to how we're collecting that information. But we'll take care of also really the billing. If we can, documentation also from our providers, they don't want to do double entry. They don't want their job to get harder. We actually... Whoa. Simplify that. And our job is to make sure
189they become more efficient, more effective, and are serving more students. That would be our goal for them. But technology can do a lot, a lot of cool things. I can't wait to show you. But the reality is that the whole goal here is to surface those who are suffering in science and get them immediate need. The stats that we have are heartbreaking. Fifteen percent of seventh graders are going through some level of self-selected. They're saying, I am depressed or I have a measure of anxiety. Fifteen to seventeen percent have thought about hurting themselves or someone else in the last two weeks. And the stats on depression is from when it's discovered to when it's treated is 11 years. And our goal is to get that down to 11 minutes. And we can do that with
190a lot of technology and AI. And of course, empowering the great stuff you're already doing and the great people infrastructure you already have to support your kids. Any questions? All right. Board members, we'll begin with Trustee Villagrana. First of all, thank you for the work that you all had done in the past. And second, I move for approval. Thank you very much. I second. There's a motion on the table to approve the Children and Youth Behavioral Health Initiative. And it's been motioned by Trustee Villagrana, seconded by Trustee Bautista Zavala. Any questions, comments? Trustee Richardson-Fowler. What does the training look like, the onboarding for staff to get them ready to be able to utilize these services? Yeah. Do you want to? I can speak to that. So my name is Chris and very nice to meet
191everybody here and thank you for having me. The training is specialized for each of the districts so it will be customized for you guys. But it basically is targeted to each persona so we focus on admins for their overseeing the kind of health of the program. We focus a lot of the training on that. For practitioners, it's just charting with their students and with families. It's really just education. And we'll do a phased rollout. We usually start with a pilot program of just folks that are usually ready to get started. We're aware of a lot of the credentialing requirements and stuff like that, so we have a very nuanced understanding of all that. So we'll help guide that pilot selection process and be able to give some really good guidance on who's ready and kind
192of who maybe needs a little bit more work. But we'll focus on that pilot group, see some success, and then be able to eventually roll that out to the remaining schools. And we're already seeing success with that across a number of different districts and counties that we're working with. Good deal. I do realize that some of our service providers who will be utilizing this system might be contract folks. So I would like to suggest. as I frequently do when it comes to training, that we find some way to make a webinar so that it is easily accessible to everybody. If we do a training and we do it via Zoom, if we can record it and have it accessible to everyone, that way, whenever anybody enters our system, they will have access to the same
193information. Yeah, absolutely. And I think we're going to be doing on-ground training. So we'll be doing live training. I'm based out of Sacramento, so I'll be here. But we're also very understanding of the fact that we're reaching a wide audience. to need one-to-many solutions so we'll be having you know office hours and a lot of other you know webinars and things like that throughout the summer and through the fall one more thing to add is that there's already existing partnerships with other service providers and we also we're integration centric so this idea is we do need it documented in your proprietary system in order for you to get credit to from this from the program itself. That being said, we integrate with your student information system as well as any of your other third party.
194already existing partnerships. This is a team effort, right? And so our goal is integration centric as well as to work on what additional opportunities are out there for you through as we go in phase one to phase two to phase three, like the opportunity of a wellness coach. These are people that have humanities degrees that we can certify and they can actually have conversations around wellness and those can also be opportunities to build to the fee schedule. And we don't want any of our providers to have to make a decision whether this is FERPA or HIPAA. or what code, the technology is set up in a way to make it very user friendly to make sure that the right student is validated, gets put with the right practitioner, and we start with a clean claim
195from the very beginning. The cool thing about the AI is that we're going from insurance agencies that are taught not to approve claims because they want the money to stay with them to using our AI and actually us actually helping get 95% reimbursement rate for any of it. But part of it too is it's an order of magnitude more claims than what we've ever known in Medi-Cal billing. We're going from 12% of our students to all of our students who are eligible and understanding where they're at. So there's a lot of opportunities throughout that. So we want to be integration centric. We're partner focused, but ultimately you as the school district is the one that the state is saying you are now universally a network. You are the value to all of your third party
196providers because you have that delineation from the state of California. So you are. You're the man. You are who they want to work with now, and they need to do it correctly in a seamless way. And we're happy to share data where it's appropriate as well as with the county or wherever the data needs to go. But this is the central unified management platform that's going to be the foundation to all that work. Perfect. Okay, I did a question and a comment. My last question is, what is the time commitment for the staff who will be utilizing this both in training and day-to-day application? We're looking at a couple of hours of training and very minimal overhead for them. One of the feedback points we get from every single district is minimum, you know, additional
197work for the practitioners. We know that they're overburdened already. Once they see it and literally everyone we've shown it to is like, oh, my God, that's so much easier than what we're already doing. And like Dennis mentioned, all that claim stuff is happening behind the scenes. They don't have to be involved in that at all. So whatever their normal documentation process is, that's exactly what they're doing on our system. Step further is we can use AI to do digital note-taking so the the practitioner can have an eye-to-eye conversation without taking notes then they approve that that record that's been created and that digital recording gets destroyed immediately and so ultimately We work with a lot where we have a lot of practitioners They're spending 30% 30% of time reconciling notes And so how do we
198increase their efficiency which would only increase the claims volume as well as service delivery to your students So again, that's another thing how we utilize it. But again, we want to make this as seamless as possible and for the practitioners their perspective I don't want to do double entry or it's taking a step further let's do no entry let's validate what the note taker can do for you right and so that's ultimately the goal is find those areas of efficiency awesome thank you last comment I really love your guys's use of AI in this I mean I use AI regularly in my classroom I jokingly say chat GPT's name is Chad and Chad is my co-teacher Thank you very much, Trustee Trudeau. Go ahead. One last thing on that note is we have a closed-loop
199AI, and it is proprietary to us, and we have that because of our work with the military and the Department of Defense, and so we have the highest level of security, which is called FedRAMP High, where no other solution in the state of California that's addressing this will have that clearance. So I just wanted to also bring that forward. Thank you very much trustee Garcia. Yes. So my first comment it will say I'm always happy to see more Mental health support for our students definitely and my first question is how will the students and family? Know about these services of this Correct. Yes. And the first thing they want to know is, will my premiums go up and does this cost me anything? And the answer is definitely no. So by law, this program will
200not pass through any cost sharing, any deductible to families. So that needs to know that the insurance companies are on the hook for paying for this. But how I would know is we'd actually create custom messaging strategies with you and get them approved for you. And if you need us to do the outreach on your behalf, we're more than happy to do that. That's what this guy's for. So it would depend on. on what the congregation needs, right? Exactly. And we're literally working on this very type of stuff right now across the entire state of California in multiple languages because we know that's really important for a lot of our communities as well. So we're happy to do information nights, coffee with the principal, back-to-school nights. We show up. Because we know that's what it
201takes right? That's the high touch part of this Yeah, you're a risk on my second question about how you make sure that all the students and know about this service So thank you. So those are my question excellent questions. Thank you very much trustee Garcia trustee Brubaker so the other trustees have asked my questions, but I do have a comment which is When I was trying to figure out what my mission might be as a new trustee this summer before I was officially on this board, a friend of mine who I went to high school with's child committed suicide. And she said she was a single parent, low income mom. And she said she wished she had the resources when he was in elementary school and started showing signs of mental health problems. And so
202that. became one of the things that I wanted to accomplish for our students and this sounds like a great avenue to do that so I'm grateful that we have the opportunity to do that so that's just what I wanted to share because I think that this is not a problem that's going to go away and it's probably going to get worse as days go by. On that note we've been asked to do universal well check surveys all the way down to fourth grade And they're five minutes. They don't take any time and that's a child self-selecting how they're feeling Thank you very much trustee Brubaker that concludes you nothing from trustee Rodriguez Any other questions or comments? We do have a motion on the table Before we do the roll call vote. I do want
203to say that this is Approving this tonight goes to show that we set out a plan to increase our mental health support services for our students And this goes to show that we are making definitely headway in making sure that we meet that goal. Thank you very much to our superintendent and staff for making sure that we hold ourselves accountable and moving in that direction. Thank you very much to you both for being patient and waiting for us to get to this item. Roll call vote, Trustee Villagrana. Absolutely, yes. Trustee Rodriguez-Molica? Yes. Trustee Richardson-Fowler? Yes. Trustee Garcia? Yes. Trustee Brubaker? Yes. Trustee Rodriguez? Yes. Trustee Bautista-Zavala is a yes. Motion passes by all those board members present. And that was item L2, Children and Youth Behavioral Health Initiative. Thank you very much. Have a good
204evening. And we are moving on to item M1. And just so that you guys know, it is 928. And this next item is an action item to approve Resolution 71-25 of the Board of Education of the Woodland Joint Unified School District to approve the award of Lease-Leaseback Services Agreement to Core Construction for the Group 2 Measure Y Projects at Douglas Middle School. Mr. Jim. Good evening again. I'm just here to answer questions. This is one of the... We approve the 10 same documents. Last board meeting, this is the last one to get in here for measure-wide projects, and this one's at Douglas Middle School. Thank you very much. All right. Any questions, comments, or discussion? Trustee Garcia? Trustee Richardson-Fowler? I'm sorry, I didn't see. Motion to approve. It's been motioned by Trustee Richardson-Fowler to approve
205Abingdon M1. It's been seconded by Trustee Garcia. Any questions, comments, or discussion? Trustee Villagrana? Just want to confirm and if it's your so pretending that the language was changed. Yeah, we were We count we asked legal counsel instead of changing the document We just add an addendum to that addressing that and we did we did forget to put it in initially toward this So thank you for that That clarification and we did put that in there into this document. Thank you Thank you very much trustee. You've via gonna for your question clarification Any other questions or comments? Thank you very much for your input on the document. All right. So we have a motion. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposition? Any abstentions? Seeing none, motion to approve item M1 is approved by
206all those board members present. All right. Thank you. I'm gonna try to move on with these without a roll call vote. Okay item m2 This is actionable to approve resolution 72-25 authorizing change order based on the finding of futility in competitive bidding regarding the completion of roofing in conjunction with concurrent LLB measure Y at Douglas middle school project And there we have one public comment on this one, sir. Okay, becker-bernard This public comment goes out to Jim. Thank you Jim. I just want to say as a person who will benefit from not having rain leak through my classroom on this item this year we have had an extreme issue with the roof at Douglas. We had over winter break about six or so teacher classrooms that were completely flooded and ruined and we were literally
207had an indoor pool and we spent our teacher work day about probably 10 of us moving all of Teresa Wiles's objects out of her classroom and moving them. Ms. Bernard there's no clock so my count is about a minute can we start it at minute two I'm sorry yeah no problem and thank you so much for all your hard work in the IT department. It's okay. I'll just stop. Oh, there. Okay. All right. So I just want to go back to, so our teacher work day that we were supposed to be, you know, grading, lesson planning, doing all of that. We all came together as a family at Douglas, which is what we do. And we removed all of Teresa Wiles's. things from her classroom for 20 years and put them in another classroom so
208that they wouldn't get damaged. There was a literal waterfall coming down the wall. I mean, we're talking like this isn't just small leaks. It was really, really bad. And then it happened again three times. And so it's been an ongoing issue. So I really want to commend Jim for finding a way to make this happen so that we don't continue to have to put buckets in our classroom, at least at this one site. Also, thanks to all of the teams that have cleaned those classrooms and Jim shared all of the work that goes into making sure that there's not mold when we return to those classrooms one of which is still not returned to but the other ones had Quite a bit of damage that got repaired over winter break and in January and in
209February So again, thank you for finding the ways that we can improve with the means we have. Thank you Thank you very much for the public comment Any more public comments none. All right, go for it Sorry, I'm just here for answering questions. All right any questions or comments this evening? All right question All right, sorry it made a motion to approve. All right I have a motion by trustee Richardson Fowler and a second by trustee Villagrana to approve item M to resolution 72-25 all those in favor say aye aye any opposition any abstention seeing none item M to resolution 72-25 is approved by all board members present and we're moving on to item M 3 action item to approve certificated of the SEC Certification of the second period interim financial report for the period
210ending January 31st, 2025. We're approving our first interim report of the year. Second interim. Oh, second, I'm sorry. Second interim report. Yes, sir. And if I may request, can I have him put the three-minute timer on me? Okay. I'll do my best to be brief. It's late. And I'll try my best to hit the high points. Before you is the approval for the second interim report. It's the last informal check-in of the district's finances before we physically close the books. And it's our check-in on the projected revenues, projected expenditures. and the projected ending fund balance. And just know that Norma Palomar, myself, and everyone else in business services, we take these reports extremely serious, and what we do is we do our best to use the most current information available to ensure that the board
211has the most accurate information. You have some very important decisions to make, and it's important that you have quality information in front of you. And so that's what we hope to deliver here. And so in this first pie graph is where we are demonstrating or illustrating the projected revenues in the second interim report. And so as you can see, the largest slice of the pie comes in the form of the local control funding formula. And what's in that local control funding revenue is the base grant, the supplemental, the concentration. all those dollars that you hear christina talk about when she brings to you the l cap Some of the other projected revenues that we are projecting in our second interim are the federal revenues. That's where we have the Title I, the Title II, and
212various special ed funds. And then we have the state revenues, and that's where we have ELOP, ACES, some special ed state funds, and a variety of other funds. And then we have the local funds. That's where we capture a lot of the local. input or local help that we receive as well as interest and some other funds. But as you can see we're projected to have projected revenues at the second interim of $161 million. In terms of projected expenditures the other side of the budget we're projecting about $180 million. The majority of our expenditures are committed to people, salaries and benefits. Just under three-fourths of our budget is committed to salary and benefits. The next biggest piece of the pie goes towards services and other operating expenditures, and those are for things like legal expenses,
213investments in professional development, and so on. We have another piece of the pie, books and supplies. That title works well with the items that are captured in that part of the expenditure budget. It's where we pay for instructional supplies, instructional materials, custodial supplies under Jim's area, and so on. Other outgo, that's where we pay for things like lease payments, debt service payments on copiers and things like that. And so that's what other outgo captures. And if we have money that we have to pass on to YCOE for services, that's captured in that slice of expenditures. And so generally when we talk about... these milestones we're comparing one to another and so what we're doing here is we're comparing the second interim projected ending fund balance to the first interim projected projected ending fund balance. And
214so what we're showing based on our work is we're anticipating that the ending fund balance is going to decrease by about $11 million. And in the next series of slides, we will share with the board and try to outline the impacts or the items that caused that decrease in the projected ending fund balance. And so I'll just go right to the meat of what caused the change. So what you see here on this slide is where we're using the ending fund balance to... absorb additional expenditures that we did not have in the budget. And so the first one under expenditures are the special ed contribution. We all understand special ed education, some of our most neediest students, and you see where we needed to go into the ending fund balance to absorb the additional expenditures
215being incurred by the special ed program. You'll also see where we use the ending fund balance to absorb $5.9 million in salary and benefit improvements. And so essentially what this represents is where the board approved the one-time payments associated with the last salary increase for WEA, CSEA, and management. And so that's what's covered under that large increase. from the ending fund balance. You'll see where we're utilizing carryover. That's where we go into the fund balance for carryover for the respective programs that are mentioned here. For example, under supplemental and concentration and working closely with the superintendent and Christina Lambie, we're providing that department with the carryover because they have identified needs for that carryover. And we do this in an effort to ensure that we're not moving money into the expenditures that are eventually going
216to fall back into the fund balance. creating the perception of unspent more carryover. So this is a team effort. We do the same with ELOP. When the staff in Ed Services and working with the superintendent identify additional expenditures for that carryover, Norma and I ensure that those funds are there and available for staff so they can continue those investments in that program. And so we have a variety of different things that we're doing here where we're moving money from the carryover up to absorb additional expenditures related to the relative funds. The self-invoice is something that where the administration in Sacramento and the governor opened up an opportunity to take on the SAM claims from a few years ago. And so unfortunately, we have to ensure that we contribute our share to our insurance provider self.
217They're paying claims, not necessarily related to Woodland, but we all have a portion of claims related to that funding source. And so since we're not able to budget for that amount, we're just told based on when the provider tells us how much our share of those are. This time it was $85,000. We have to take from the ending fund balance, put that in the expenditures so we can pay for that invoice. And if I'm not mistaken, that was on one or two PO lists ago. And so again, not in the budget, but that's what the fund balance helps you for for those unanticipated expenditures. Moving forward, we're hoping to actually budget what we believe our obligation is going to be in the next. fiscal year based on information that we're receiving from our insurance provider
218schools insurance authority and so as you can see all of these extra expenditures that we're absorbing and a slight adjustment to our revenue in the local control funding formula this details the overall net change in the ending fund balance between the second interim and the first interim So this is a bar graph just kind of displaying the difference between the first interim and the second interim for revenues, expenditures, and the ending fund balance. And so I won't go over that too much. But these are some of the overall themes of what causes the expenditures to change. And many of these themes are addressed in those 10 million plus items that I just talked about on the previous slide. This here is an overall view of the combined general fund of our second interim. And what
219we're doing is we're showing you the difference between the last major check-in on the district's finances at the first interim, which that's represented in the first column. And then the next column represents those budget revisions that I quickly went through. And then the last column represents the revised or the new projected second interim for revenues, expenditures. And then that last number represents the ultimate impact to the ending fund balance. And so let's spend some time talking about the ending fund balance, the district savings account. Yes, we are projecting that our ending fund balance is going to be $65 million. And so just from a numbers standpoint, and this isn't the best way to look at it, but we're hoping to show you a more visual illustration on the next slide, what are the components of
220that $65 million? Well... A couple of pieces represent revolving cash in the store's inventory. $16.5 million represents what's set aside in that ending fund balance for restricted balances in the categoricals. Then we have some other assigned items in that ending $65 million, and we're going to hopefully show you what those are. Also in that $65 million, we're required by the state of California to set aside 3% for our reserve for economic uncertainty, and that's what that $5.4 million is. So if you take the $65 million and subtract the items that I just spoke to, we still have an unassigned, unappropriated ending fund balance of about $28 million. Pies work maybe because it's late and we're hungry, but we think a pie graph illustrates that ending fund balance of $65 and so hopefully you can see
221by the different colors that the bigger piece of the pie represents the unassigned unappropriated amount of $28 million. You can see the green represents the unspent supplemental and concentration carryover. The large red up top represents the carryover in the unrestricted funds that I spoke about on the previous slide. And then down below, we also have some other assigned amounts for unspent money related to Medi-Cal. We have some one-time funds that we received from the state, as well as we hadn't paid the... retros for CSCA and the unrepresented. So when you haven't budgeted those yet, you have to set those aside in your ending fund balance. And so that's what that is there for. And then we also have the $5.4 million for the 3% reserve that we have to have set aside in our ending
222fund balance. And so visually... This is what this pie graph is supposed to illustrate of the projected ending $65 million that we're projecting as of the second interim. One of the things that school districts also have to do is we have to not only look at our current year projections, but we also have to look at two years out. This was all put into place as a result of Assembly Bill 1200 as well as Assembly Bill 2756. And so essentially we're doing everything that we can to see where we're at and where we're going to be. And so there's a couple of pieces of information to take from this slide. One is that we're projecting to have a positive ending fund balance in the current year as well as two years out. The second piece
223is that we're projecting to have our 3% reserve in the current year as well as two years out. Lastly, and most important, is the very last line. We're projecting to have a positive certification in the current year as well as two years out. Well, what does that say, Lewis? What does that mean? A positive certification is a fancy way of saying that we as a district are able to meet financial obligations in the current year and two years out. We will be able to meet our financial obligations in the current year and two years out. Districts that are having problems generally have the word qualified or negative there. That means that there's some doubt as to whether or not they're going to be able to meet their financial obligations in the two out years. We
224are not in that situation and because of very smart decisions made by our district. we're continuing to be able to maintain that positive certification. It's not easy. It takes a lot of work. And we do everything we can to continue to stay in the green, so to speak, if that's the appropriate adjective to use. But again, we always end these types of presentations with just things for the board to think about. These all should look familiar to you. I think the second to the last one is probably new to this slide. We've heard many of our trustees speak eloquently and relatively very passionate about things that are happening in the eastern part of our United States in Washington. And all we can do is just try to keep ourselves in a position to where we're
225ready to respond. I'm working closely with the superintendent to ensure she has all of the information she needs so that she can share with the board where we're at. And we're really watching what this... California Department of Education and Mr. Newsom and his Department of Finance team is doing to respond to what's happening in Washington because it impacts more than just school districts. It's impacting the entire state in terms of a variety of different places where we depend on federal assistance that helps us with things that we need. former trustee Cedeno Rodriguez speak to some of those things, but it's impacting everyone. We all feel it and we're doing everything we can do to mitigate those and make sure that we're able to continue educating students. And so with that, I'm going to be criticized
226about speaking too long, but it's important for me to share the information that I've shared with you tonight. Thanks to Norma and the team in business services for all the hard work they've done. And trust me, none of this would be possible without. the work that they put in so with that i'll do my best to answer any questions also i'd like to thank the finance committee for meeting with me earlier today me and norma and uh the superintendent joined us and we were able to kind of dive into the details of a lot of this information um the two new trustees as well as uh trustee viagrana asked very Pointed questions very detailed questions and norman I welcome those kind of conversations So anything we can do to help you with the information and
227to help you make the very important decisions that you've signed up to make Thank you very much Any questions comments? trustee Villagrana Just again. Thank you for the work that you know, you know my team do to keep us all it as a district to be able to continue to provide The best services we can with with the revenue that we get from you know the different funding sources that that you Showed at the on the slides at the beginning. So yeah, that's it. Thank you That's normally how you talk when you're getting ready to tell me. Hey, can we go to slide? 5 I won't Anyone else? All right. So this is the second period interim financial report for the ending period of January 31st, 2025, but it's the first that we approve in
228this calendar year. So I'm sorry for the confusion. And this is like my 9 p.m. brain. So can I get a motion to approve? Move for approval. Second. Motion for approval by Trustee Villagrana, seconded by Trustee Richardson-Fowler. Any questions, comments? Trustee Rodriguez? No, all right. All right all those in favor say aye aye Any opposition or abstentions? None. All right item m3 has been approved by all board members present. Thank you very much. Mr Wiley All right, and we're moving on to the next item here quickly and this is item M5, informational item only. And this is our average daily attendance and enrollment report for the 2024-2025 school year. Any questions or comments? All right, seeing none, we're moving on to the next one. We have item O, public comment for items not on the
229agenda. And we have some students that have been waiting here very, very patiently. And I know that you guys are extremely tired and I do apologize. Monica. All right, first one is Jillian. And second is Isabella. Lillian, I apologize. Thank you very much. Will you turn on your mic? Okay. I'm Lillian from Woodland High. I'm not here to speak about the grotesque gap in salary for the teachers and people here. I'm not here for the lack of care or funding for the arts. Certainly, no. No, I'm digressing. I'm here to discuss the safety around your schools, right? Just this Tuesday, I was nearly hit by a car right next to Beamer Elementary School. You know, it's not that bad. Happens one-off, right? No. This is, weekly would be a conservative guess, okay? Now, this is
230nothing in comparison to last week, May, sorry, March 12th, when I almost got hit by a district work van. Hey, isn't that fun? Right next to my school as I was walking to it, you know, in the morning. And wow, ain't that fun? Weston Beamer, what a horrible place to go. You know, so that happens so often, right? Why doesn't that get fixed? Why doesn't it get fixed? Yeah, maybe. Maybe because nobody can fix it, right? Because nobody's complained about it? Nobody's talked about it? What about the kids in 2019 who got hit by cars at West? West Street. What about that? I argue that it's a school's most basal requirement to promise the safety of their children. And that's not being met. You know how close Weston Beamer is to Woodland High School? What,
231it's yards away. It's a stone's toss. And how is that not protected? Every day I get scared of walking across that street because I've almost been hit an upwards of 30 times. Is that not just terrifying to you? I expect to see change because if this is not fixed, if this is not addressed, someone will get hurt. More than likely, it's going to be a student. And you know what? Last week, if I had been a foot away, a foot closer to that district work van, if I hadn't stopped for it, then I would have been either seriously injured and not been able to do the musical at our school. God, I love it, huh? Or my mother would be mourning me right now. My friends wouldn't have me. Take this into consideration, as well
232as everyone else's complaints, because they are very serious. Very indeed. They will lead to the harm of kids. Children. Do you not see that? I'm finished. Thank you very much for your public comment question or if you can tell us exactly what your request is Implement safety standards like near crosswalks at schools, okay We actually have spoken to the city before that's we don't control the streets so we could definitely right outside your campuses though. I understand that but the streets are the city jurisdiction so we can definitely have a conversation with the city about your. You can't put like an officer on the edge of your campus. The officers are employees of the city. You can't like put a sign there like. Maybe I want people not to cross that's on your concerns to
233the city and we you know the district and city often Yes, these are only happening near your schools. I'm sorry. These are only happening near your schools I cross Main Street in the morning every day and I've never experienced anything like this near there. Thank you I can't get information to you and your teacher here to the contact the people who are could we have no jurisdiction on the streets or Siding or anything we don't we don't we can't we would get in trouble if we messed with the city streets and like but I will definitely give you contact So that she can you know come make comments at City Hall. All right. Thank you very much next public comment Monica Isabella to for you question trustee Richardson Fowler I just wanted to acknowledge the
234young lady's passion and I'm sorry about pronouns but just wanted to acknowledge your passion. I can hear the fear in your voice of how many times you've encountered these close calls and please rest assured that even though we Izzy honey can you scooch over just a second. Even though we cannot directly control what happens on the street our our our control front is the physical property of the school. But we will take these concerns into consideration and work with it We have several committees that coalesce with the city So I don't want you leaving here deflated and thinking that you weren't heard because I think we all felt and heard what you were saying Our hands are only tied so much but we can reach out to others I want to make sure you were
235picking up what we're putting down and hearing that we are gonna move forward on that. Okay All right. Thank you very much. I'm going to go ahead and limit the discussion on this topic because this is not on the agenda. However, as it pertains to the public comment, thank you very much for participating. But we can't discuss your topic in detail because it's not on the agenda. Okay. So thank you very much for coming today. Next public comment. Isabella Tafoya. Hello. I'm Isabella Tafoya, a student at Woodland High School that has a chronic illness, but I'm more than that. I'm also the treasurer of Woodland High's GSA, who raised over $100 for the club. I'm also the founder and president of Nerds for a Better Tomorrow. I also won first place for FCCLA Creative Cakes
236Level 2, and I wouldn't have been able to do it without Health Tech's and nurses' support, because my parents would have been too afraid to send me to school with my chronic illness. I have received encouragement from them that I have not received from so many people. When you take these same opportunities away from other students like me, all students deserve to feel safe and comfortable to go to school and learn and discover who they are and go on to the path that will lead them to their success. I want to say I've lost all respect I have for this district. I'm not going to be proud to wear Woodland's emblem in state competitions. You looked me and others in the eye as we pleaded with you not to cut health techs, and what did
237you do? You cut them. I know you think hiring LVNs is the solution, and it will solve the problem, but it won't. We have five already, and you plan on hiring four more. Even then, half of our schools will not be covered. You plan on paying them $28 to $29, and that is not even average. Average is around $35. Our board voted on giving our superintendent a raise. She makes more already than the governor of California. It seems strange that the district had to cut out a bunch of essential positions due to budgeting issues, but can give our superintendent a raise. Do you think LVNs would want to work for less when they could be making up to making $35 an hour at a hospital in town? You say you want a safe environment for
238us, but you cut resources for the most vulnerable kids. Let me ask you this. Can first graders do long division with decimals? Poke themselves with needles constantly? Add large numbers, stick needles into themselves, squeeze blood out of their fingers to check their blood sugars? That's what a type 1 diabetic has to do every single day to live. There is a plethora of chronic illnesses that I don't have experience in, but nurses and health techs sure do, and they could take care of those students. And without them, things bad could happen to kids. Is that when you will realize that nurses and health techs are important? When a kid gets hurt or worse, have the day you deserve. Thank you very much for your public comment. Next one, Monica. Jade Harris. I've never used a mic
239before like this. I'm going to start off just, oh, whoa, we already started. I kind of just wanted to come up here and talk to you guys about the ignorance of staff and the district as a whole. Never before. I know I haven't lived long, but never before in my entire life have I even heard stories, rumors, legends about people that have seen and done nothing about so, so, so much. I've... It's so saddening to see children, you know, people my age, children younger than me, they can't do anything. They'll be bullied and they'll go to a teacher. I've been a victim of that and I've went and I asked and I told and I talked and there was nothing. I've had my own boundaries violated, ruined. And when I had went to the principal
240about it, because it was a very serious matter, it was swept under the rug and they weren't even given a suspension. The only person that stood up for me at that point was a teacher, a teacher being underpaid by you guys. And it's unfair. It's unfair to everybody. And ignorance... It's scary. It's dangerous. And when we let things just sweep under the rug like that and we feign ignorance on important matters, it really tends to hurt the community as a whole. I've seen groups, minorities, just all discriminated against. People of different genders, sexualities, people of different races. Slurs have been slaying. slung more at my school than I've seen ever before. I could list each one, but it wouldn't be allowed and it would take way too long. But just think on it. You know,
241food for thought. I'm not the greatest at this. I'm a freshman. I'm just trying to get my point across. I'll leave you guys with this one quote. The most scary thing is ignorance in act. Thank you very much. Next public comment. We have Sandy Reese and then Renee Mendieta. First public comment ever. My name is Sandy Reese and I'm the proud principal at Pioneer High School. Tonight I want to share some exciting news about what's happening in our school. We're in the thick of master scheduling right now and the numbers we're seeing are astonishing and I just couldn't keep this to myself. I had to come here and share it with you. Superintendent Ortega-Lambkin. Didn't know I was coming tonight, but I'm hoping she won't be mad. I'm wondering why you're here. At Pioneer, we
242are seeing an incredible surge in student interest in dual enrollment courses. Nearly 200 juniors and seniors have signed up for dual enrollment English. 122 sophomores are on board for dual enrollment history. 50 students have enrolled in dual enrollment math. And here's something new. 67 incoming freshmen have signed up to take a dual enrollment college success course in their very first year of high school. This means that before they even finish ninth grade, they'll already have a college course under their belts. And this is remarkable. And the momentum doesn't start there. In our Ag department, we have built a dual enrollment pathway that allows students to earn 11 college credits. We now have course requests that result in us having two full sections of the first course in that pathway for next year, along with sections
243for the second and third courses as well. In our animal science pathway, we are filling an entire section of the dual enrollment course. I know there have been concerns from some of our ag teachers about the viability of a DE pathway in their arena, but these numbers should put those concerns to rest. The success we're seeing is a testament to our outstanding teachers, Ms. Piraeus and Ms. Zallo, whose dedication and expertise are helping students excel. The current class averages are strong, proving that our ag students are more than capable of thriving in a dual enrollment setting. I wouldn't be surprised if we are the only ag program in the state offering this level of opportunity. And it's something to be incredibly proud of. And clearly it's something students want. And all of this is happening
244in addition to our full complement of AP courses. Next year, you ready? We will have 603 students taking a combined 1,058 dual enrollment or AP seats. That's more than one third of our school. engaged in college-level coursework. While I wanted to update you on these phenomenal numbers, I also came here to say thank you. None of this would be possible without the vision of this board, this superintendent, your belief in our students, and what they're capable of. We've had some bumps on the road, but every time we hit an unexpected challenge, Lori Carrillo... and Christina Lambie were there to problem solve. And our partners at WCC have been incredibly flexible and supportive in every way. Together they helped us clear the landing pad for a plane we were building in Minare. What's happening here is
245extraordinary and I have no doubt that our district will serve as a model for the rest of California. Thank you. Thank you very much. All right. Renee Mendita. And then we have Liam. I come today as a concerned grandfather who has three kids in the school district here in Woodland. We moved from the Bay Area out here six years ago, and I've been very disappointed with your ability to teach my grandkids. I have one in, the youngest is in Roto-Maxwell. My middle... grandson is in Douglas Middle School and my oldest is in high school alternative high school and Did a quick look at Maxwell as far as the great schools rankings math 21% English 33% science 32% the state average for math is 36% so below that 47% in English and 31% in science so
246That's the only one where in Maxwell you're up by 1% in Douglas Math is at 26% versus the state at 36 English 43% state at 47% science 16% and And state is at 31% So you guys are doing a failing job the last Level of schools that you need that you can fail the student is elementary Because if you fail them at elementary middle school is going to be challenge really difficult and of course if you fail them in middle school then it's going to be even more problematic at the high school level and so it's funny I came to this meeting not knowing what was going on with the overall agenda and to think that you guys think that razors are to be handed out with this kind of performance, a little shoddy in
247my view. When you guys were ready to do the vote on the increases, immediately, remember, this gentleman here, immediately went to voting to approve the vote without even discussing some of the concerns that the teachers had talked about. I see that my time's running out. But very disappointed in all of you. And you really need to start bleeding for these kids because their futures are in your hands. And right now you're failing them. And like what some of these other kids have said, incredible. So do a better job. Thank you very much. Any more public comment, Monica? One more. We have Liam. Hello, everybody on the board. My name is Liam. I actually had a few things I wanted to talk about tonight, but I feel like the very brave students who came up here
248earlier and the gentleman before me just now actually said a whole lot in their time. I, as always, anytime, say I appreciate you guys. In the short couple of years that I've... been coming to these meetings here or Davis. I've gotten to know and listen to all of you. I've definitely heard some wonderful things and have heard the disappointing things too. Superintendent, I apologize right now. I apologize to anybody on the board right now. When I joined the military as an E-0-0, I was making roughly $1,100 a month after taxes, and that was as a married soldier. My first law enforcement job, I made $24,400 a year with overtime and holiday pay before taxes. I hear about teachers, paraeducators, reading specialists, SPED programs being cut. And I believe you are great at your job. I
249truly do. Nobody in this country right now should be making the amount of money that people are making. People like Elon Musk type wealth or anyone else who is getting this type of wealth for doing things that they say they love. That's the thing that they always said in law enforcement. You don't become a police officer for the pay. You don't become a teacher for the pay. You do it because you love it and you care about it. And you would do it for nothing because you love it that much. So I hope that with the raises that are given, that there will also be some major givebacks, even anonymously, as you can. to our community that supports you, that loves you as our superintendent and our assistant superintendent and our associate superintendent. Thank you.
250Thank you. Thank you very much. All right. No more public comment. Thank you very much. All right. Moving on to the next item. P, information, request for future agenda items. All right. Seeing none. May I proceed to the next item, item Q, information closing comments by our board members or superintendent? Yes, ma'am. Trustee Richardson-Feller, thank you. I would like to share, and I missed this in my board report, but I also went to the Pioneer High School production of Little Shop of Horrors. At that production, I just saw some of the most amazing artistry. A beamer bear named Remy Caballero, who in my head will always be a fifth grader, even though he's almost taller than me, made all of the puppets with the help of the young lady who played Audrey, and they built...
251all three puppets from scratch and Remy Caballero was inside one of the puppets playing Audrey II. And in her mission I had to pull his mom aside and say, oh my god, those puppets are amazing. They did such a phenomenal job. Who was the voice of Audrey II? And she noted that was Remy also, but in my head still fifth grader, even though he's 16 and has the voice of Barry White. I would like to highlight that with the proposition that is going to provide more arts, our kids are going to have so many more outlets to develop different skills and traits and interests. And I look forward to seeing more. It was beyond my wildest dream seeing that production. It was phenomenal. So I hope that our students get that ability to explore who
252they are in academics, in arts, in public speaking, in civic. And so I just say thank you to the drama and arts departments over at Pioneer High School and throughout the district. Thank you very much, Trustee Richardson-Fowler, Trustee Garcia, Trustee Brubaker. I just want to thank those students who came and shared their concerns. It takes a lot of bravery at a young age, and I appreciate that they took time to sit through this meeting to share those concerns. Thank you. Thank you very much, Trustee Brubaker. Trustee Rodriguez. I also just want to echo those sentiments. I want to thank the students that came and expressed themselves and let us know what was on their mind and what the concerns were, as well as all of our speakers today. It's a very important part of us
253being able to be connected to the community and to have that depth of knowledge of how people are feeling in regards to the services and the actions that we take. And so they're all meaningful and they all help to create a depth of understanding of who we serve. So thank you. Thank you very much for my closing remarks I would like to wish all of our staff and teachers and students a happy and restful spring break Our next board meeting is a special board meeting on April 10th. So that's in three weeks Thank you very much for all the hard work today I know that we've made some difficult decisions, but I do appreciate the unity in our decision making that we were able to attain today. And thank you very much to our superintendent,
254our cabinet, our management, our teachers and staff. I look forward, we all look forward to the continued collaboration and the leadership of our superintendent. Thank you. Thank you, Monica, for helping us out. Thank you to our IT department. I know we had some challenges, but I want to acknowledge the fact that... You did an amazing job, so thank you. Thank you very much to everyone who presented this evening. Can I move on to item R? Any closing remarks? No? All right. Item R, date and time of our next regular board meeting is Thursday, April 17th. Closed session at 5 and open session at 6. And once again, April 10th, we have our special board meeting beginning at 5 p.m. With that said, I adjourn this meeting at 10.18 p.m. Thank you very much, colleagues. Have
255a good night.