Board Meeting 1-23-25

001All right. Let's go ahead and call this meeting to order at 5 p.m. on this day of January 23rd, 2025. Can I have someone motion to approve the board agenda? I do have a change request. I'd like to remove item D3 under closed session. Okay. Our superintendent has requested to remove item D3. Any other items? So moved. It's been moved by Trustee Villagrana. Can I get a second? Second. It's been seconded by Trustee Rodriguez. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. It's been approved by all those present minus one absent. Any public comment for the items in closed session? No public comments. All right. We're going to go ahead and move to closed session at 5.01 p.m. And I just want to note to the public and anyone who's watching that open

002session is scheduled to restart at 630 today. Thank you very much. Thank you very much for your patience this evening. I know that we are running a little behind schedule, but I want to thank our board members and superintendent and cabinet for your diligence in helping us get through. Now we are reconvening in open session, and I ask that everyone please join me for a moment in silence in memory of two of our staff members who recently passed away, Delia Samudio from Pioneer High School and Michael Owens from Woodland High School. Thank you very much. Let's go ahead and get started with the Pledge of Allegiance. Thank you very much this evening Trustee Rodriguez will be doing the land acknowledgement Thank you We should take a moment to acknowledge the land on which we are

003gathered for thousands of years This land has been the home of the Patwin people today today. There are three federally recognized Patwin tribes Ketchell D he band of Winton Indians of the Colusa Indian community Kletzl Dheewinnton Nation and Yocha Dheewinnton Nation. The Patwin people have remained committed to the stewardship of this land for many centuries. It has been cherished and protected as elders have instructed the young through generations. We are honored and grateful to be here today on their traditional lands. Thank you very much, Trustee. Moving on to item E3, announcements of any action taken in closed session. Item D1A, the Board of Trustees took action in closed session by unanimous vote of all trustees present to approve item D1A, expulsion for student 25-03. Item EAB, the action passed by a motion by Trustee Fowler

004and a second by Trustee Villagrana. The vote was as follows. Trustee Bautista Zavala, yes. Trustee Rodriguez, yes. Trustee Brubaker, yes. Trustee Garcia, yes. Trustee Richardson-Fowler, yes. Trustee Rodriguez-Molica, abstent, abstention. Trustee Villagrana, yes. Moving on to the next item. Item F, public comment for sections G, consent agenda, and H, community engagement. Right, no public comments on those sections. Any changes to the consent agenda? I would like to pull item G1A and item G3B. Any others? All right, seeing none, can I get a motion to approve the consent agenda? So moved. Second. It's been moved by Trustee Richardson-Fowler and seconded by Trustee Rodriguez. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any abstentions? Any no's all right. It has been passed unanimous and now we'll be taking up item G1 a Any questions? All right. Can I get

005a motion for approval? Make a motion to approve second. It's been motion to approve item G1 a by trustee Rodriguez Trustee Rodriguez and seconded by trustee Richardson Fowler all those in favor say aye Any abstentions? Myself. It's been passed by all except for myself, who's abstaining this evening. Moving on to the next item, item G3B. This is the approval of the December 17th, 2024 annual organizational meeting minutes. I would like for there to be a modification. Am stated to be the president at that board meeting and I am NOT the president until this board meeting So if we can please get that changed Can I get a motion for such? Make the motion Second, thank you very much. It's been motioned by trustee Rodriguez to remove trustee Bautista Savala stated as president and Making the

006edit to make sure that trustee Villagrana is addressed as the president It's been seconded by trustee Brubaker Trustee Garcia? Yes. Yeah. Trustee Garcia, you seconded? No, it was me. No, I'm sorry. Trustee Fowler, thank you. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye. All right, thank you. All right, moving on. We're moving on to community engagement. And the first one is recognition of our 2023-2024 board president, Mr. Rogelio Villagrana. This is why people want to be president, because they want one of these cool. Gables. I HAVE THE HONOR TONIGHT TO RECOGNIZE OUR PAST PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD, TRUSTEE VILLAGRANA. AND THANK HIM. IT IS A HUGE COMMITMENT ALREADY TO BE A TRUSTEE. AND AS TRUSTEE ZAVALA IS QUICKLY LEARNING, THERE'S ANOTHER LAYER OF COMMITMENT AS BEING THE PRESIDENT AND HELPING AND SUPPORTING THE BOARD WITH

007THEIR GOVERNANCE. SO I JUST WANT TO THANK YOU FOR YOUR DEDICATION, YOUR SUPPORT. for the extra time and diligence that you have put in that role. And I know that you will continue no matter what role you're in on the board. And so just thank you for your continuous support. And I want to present to you the reason that you really wanted to be present. I just want to say it was a pleasure serving in the role and again continue to support the goals of the board and a non- forget the agenda planning team role but yeah again I'll leave it at that thank you thank you very much trustee Villagrana the next item on the agenda is recognition of resolution 40-25 support for immigrant families thank you this is information action item and I

008had asked Trustee Garcia and Rodriguez to co-propose this and co-authored it. The good thing is that none of this language actually is new. Vast majority is from our current policies that we have in place already is just really restating I just didn't want to call it, you know Restating support of so that's why I just titled it what it was And then trustee Rodriguez added some language from the Attorney General's document as well. So again, there's nothing new We just wanted to make sure our families were aware of these rights that they have and they will continue to support them You know, unfortunately some some families already in fear of even dropping off their children at our school sites and right that should not be a fear they have that they might not be around

009for them to pick them up and they're worried about who's going to pick up their children there's nothing much we can do about that other than again support them as we have been and continue to do that. So the board believes that the education of the district students is a shared responsibility with families. The board of trustees respects the rights of district students and their parents and guardians with regards to their privacy and confidentiality of their personal information. The board of trustees committed. to the success of all students and believes that every school site should be a safe and welcoming place for all students and their families irrespective of their citizenship or immigration status. The district should not solicit or collect information or documents regarding the citizenship of immigrant or immigrant status of students or

010their family members or provide assistance with immigration enforcement at the district schools except as may be required by state or federal law. And no student shall be denied equal rights and opportunities nor be subjected to unlawful discrimination, harassment, intimidation, or bullying in the district's programs and activities on the basis of his or her immigration status. I just decided to, again, read those out loud. The resolution has been in the packet, so we've all seen it. I'll invite my co-authors, if you'd like to say something before I make a motion. First of all, I'm going to say thank you to Trustee Villagrana to include me in this resolution, and I will say some words. This resolution guarantees that no student or family will face discrimination, and our schools remain welcoming and supportive for all. As the

011first immigrant mother to step on the board, I support this resolution because every child deserves a safe and equal opportunity to learn. And I just you know, I want to thank my fellow trustees for allowing me to work on the resolution with them I think as you know much of what needs to be say it has already been stated but I think the resolution should affirm that This board will stand by our families and will stand by our students and make sure that we have the safest environment possible and that this board is willing to do you know whatever it takes within the confines of the law to make sure that that happens in our in our district in each and every school i'd like to invite the rest of my colleagues if i'd like

012to say anything in support of the resolution um i just want to thank my fellow trustees who brought this to us to approve um it seems like a little thing but having um the wording in our community that we support our students does indeed make a difference. It's not much in the grander scheme of things, I know, but I think that showing the leadership you guys did, I'm grateful. So thank you. Thank you very much. Anyone else? In that case, I'd like to make a motion that we approve Resolution 40-25, Support for Immigrant Families, and that we direct the superintendent to send out a communication, you know, at her discretion, and the wording, communicating to our families and our community the essence of the resolution. Second. It's been motioned by Trustee Villagrana to approve resolution

013to support for immigrant families, and it's been seconded by Trustee Bautista Zavala. All those in favor, please. Say aye. Aye. Any abstentions or opposition? Resolution has been passed unanimously. Thank you very much for bringing this forward, colleagues. Thank you very much. Our next item on the agenda is our resolution honoring Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Resolution 38-25 will be presented by Trustee Richardson-Fowler. I don't see him. Okay. So I signed up for as soon as Monica and Mary Beth sent out the what our resolutions were for the year, I sent out, OK, I want this one. I want this one. And immediately started figuring out who I wanted to honor with these resolutions. And I figured for a leader in the community who changed so many people's lives like Dr. Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King.

014I wanted to honor Garth Lewis, who is our superintendent of schools for Yolo County. He was my first boss as a teacher with Yolo County Office of Education, but the way he creates community is amazing. The way he rides hard for our kids is also amazing and creates space so that you can feel seen and heard and valued. I couldn't think of a better recipient to honor with this resolution than soon to be Dr. Lewis. So following in the tradition of another trustee, I decided to use my own monies to purchase this frame so hopefully he can display it in a place of pride. So without further ado, I would like to give him some time to speak as well. I'd like to honor. Girth Lewis I absolutely appreciate that sentiment It means a lot

015IT'S AN HONOR, ABSOLUTELY, TO BE BACK HERE IN THIS BOARD ROOM TO RECEIVE THIS AWARD AND TO RECEIVE THE RESOLUTION, REALLY RECOGNIZING THE LIFE AND LEGACY OF DR. KING. AND WHEN THIS IS ACTUALLY THE SECOND TIME I'M RECEIVING THIS RESOLUTION THIS SEASON. I think it's really important at this moment, particularly in our history, to acknowledge and remember that in addition to his iconic I Have a Dream speech, which is a really important part of his legacy for us to remember, it's equally important that we remember that he faced incredible opposition every single day. Though we celebrate him now, he was not always celebrated in his life and in his work. And then in fact, that on a regular basis, faced opposition in bodily harm to himself and ultimately lost his life due to his conviction

016and his belief that a better version and a better vision of America was possible. So I am honored to receive this. I would continue to urge. our board, our leaders, our educators, our families, our communities to remember the full breadth of Dr. King's legacy, the full breadth of what it meant for him to ultimately sacrifice his life that we in this time in which we live, lead, and learn could do so in a county where the only black county superintendent of schools I recognize that that is a privilege that I have as a result of the sacrifices of Dr. King. And to that end, I just want to again recognize the privilege and the appreciation I have for serving in a county where so many leaders are committed to justice, to equity, to equality, and

017not just in words, but in deeds. Again, and thank you so much for this honor to be here this evening. I will close with an invitation. to the Black History Month celebration kickoff that will take place at the Yolo County Office of Education on February 3rd, 530 to 730. There will be a meal served. There will be a beautiful talk by Dr. Mari Gray, who will share with us information about the great migration of African Americans. from the South into Northern California, 1910 and beyond. We will also have a talk by Christelle Johnson, who is a master quilter. She uses that particular medium to tell the stories of the contributions of African Americans to our country and to our world. So all are invited. And again, it's an honor to be here this evening. And

018thank you so much for this opportunity. Thank you very much. We're going to move on to the next resolution. I would like to ask for Jenny Tan to please come forward. Thank you, Jenny, for being here. I have asked for Jenny Tan to honor us in receiving this resolution this evening. And I have put together some words that I would like to share with all of you here today. in appreciation of Jenny's commitment to our county and her exemplary work that she provided our county during the COVID-19 pandemic. Jenny Tan reshaped the role of public information officer, PIO for Yolo County during one of the most unprecedented crisis in modern history. The COVID-19 pandemic demanded more than a routine communication plan. It required a leader who could respond swiftly, manage evolving information, and ensure that

019the community received accurate, timely updates. Jenny took on this monumental challenge, transforming the PIO position into a lifeline for the public by working tirelessly, often over 70 to 100 hours a week, to keep residents informed and safe. Her work went far beyond traditional media relations. Jenny became the bridge between public health officials, educators, businesses, and families, providing critical updates on ever-changing health orders, case counts, vaccination rollouts, and school reopening guidelines. Her dedication was instrumental in guiding local school districts through uncertain times, ensuring that students, teachers and staff had the resources and information needed to stay safe and eventually return to in-person learning. Jenny's commitment to public service during the pandemic was nothing short of heroic. She carried the emotional and physical burden of the crisis with strength, often sacrificing her personal time and well-being to

020serve the community. In reshaping the role of PIO to meet the needs of public health emergency, she not only elevated the position but also set a new standard for what it meant to serve with compassion, resilience and integrity. As a proud recipient of the Fred Korematsu Resolution, Jenny Tan, you exemplify the courage and perseverance Korematsu stood for. Your role during this lifetime crisis And your unwavering dedication to public health, equity, and justice is a lasting legacy that will continue to inspire all of us here in our county. Thank you very much, Jenny. Wow. Thank you so much for those kind words, Debra. You know, Fred Korematsu was known for a lot of things, for civil rights, for community, and to even be in the same conversation in the same league as him is truly humbling.

021The work that I did during COVID-19 was really to answer the call of duty, to serve my community the best way that I could because it was the right thing to do. When I was working during COVID, I was often working in a tiny little office with no windows, seeing the same five people every day. And I would think and ask myself, is the work that I'm doing actually impacting people? Are the daily briefing videos, are people actually watching those? It wasn't until one day that I had this experience that I really understood the depth of the impact that I was having. I was actually getting coffee at Bella Bean, which used to be open on Main Street. It was like 7 in the morning, and the street was empty. It was in the middle

022of COVID, and I'm walking to my car, and I hear this man yell out, Daily Briefings Girl, Jenny! And I'm like, what? Is that me? Oh, I think that's me. He's talking to me. And it's a local business owner, and he comes up to me, and he starts to tell me the impact of the videos and the information that I was sharing, how he was able to keep his business open, how he was able to keep his staff safe, and how he was also able to still give back to his community. And I am just as humbled today as I was back then when he told me that story to really show that the work that I did was making an impact to the community. I love Yolo County. I love Woodland. I used to

023live here. I used to teach here. Garth knows this story. I'm a Davis resident. I went to UC Davis for my undergrad. And so Yolo County is really where my heart is. I wanted to also thank my... husband and my family. I was not able to work the 10, 12, 20 hours a day without the support of my husband, who was mom and dad doing online schooling while I was out serving my community. So my husband really was the person standing behind me. So thank you so much. Thank you very much to all of our honorees for being here this evening. We're going to go ahead and move on. Recognition of the gifts to the district, item five. We want to say thank you to all of those who donated to our schools, beginning with

024a donation from Stephanie Scott on behalf of Jean Malcolm. The school recipient is Beamer Elementary School in the value of $500, and this was a piano donation to the music program there. Dingle Elementary received a donation from Nugget Market and this was a donation of $31.93 for donation towards art fund. Dingle Elementary received a donation of $15 from Joanne Sison and this was a monetary donation. Towards the Christmas giving tree site at charter school received a donation from Faye properties incorporated Eldorado ranch for $500 and this was a donation to the school and then Prairie elementary school received a donation from sprouts healthy communities foundation in the value of $2,000 and this was a donation towards their garden at their school site Thank you very much around the applause for them, please Thank you very

025much. We are now going to go ahead and hear from our students, reports from our high school student representatives. Can we please have Jem Hernandez from Cache Creek High School? Good evening, Board President Bautista Zavala and trustees, Supermortegate Lampkin, Executive Cabinet, and my community. Before I start, I would like to welcome our new board members. Congratulations and welcome. Thank you for being here. My name is Jim Hernandez and I'm a senior at Cache Creek High School. My report tonight is the following. We welcome 16 new students to Cache Creek High School to begin our third quarter in January. Last week we celebrated 21 students on the honor roll and 20 students for their attendance. Students were awarded with a certificate and a treat for their outstanding efforts. We recently began an after school program with

026All Leaders Must Serve, also known as ALMS. This is an eight-week session that supports students with preparing for the workforce. ALMS helps with job placement and preparing for interviews and public speaking. I recently had the opportunity, along with six other Cache Creek High School students, to visit the California State Capitol in Sacramento for a two-day... Interactive program focused on civic engagement and understanding how laws and bills are passed. The experience was designed to bring together students from different schools to collaborate debate and learn about the legislative process in a hands on way. It was both incredibly educational and a lot of fun. Throughout the trip we participated in mock debates taking on the roles of senators and representatives which helped us understand the complexities of creating and passing laws. We worked in teams to draft.

027mock bills, discuss their implications, and negotiate with others to gain support. This taught us the importance of teamwork, compromise, and communication, skills that are not only essential in government, but in everyday life also. One of the most exciting parts was to sit in the same rooms where real legislators work. It made the entire process feel so real and so inspiring. We even got to meet with legislative aides and officials who shared insights about their roles in government and answered all of our questions. These conversations made it clear how accessible the legislative process can be when you're informed and engaged. This program wasn't all work though. There was a lot of fun too. Interacting with several students from several different schools gave us the chance to make new friends and to hear different perspectives on issues

028we were passionate about. These debates got lively and it was fascinating to see how differently people approached the same topic. By the end of the trip, I not only understood how bills became laws, but also felt more confident in my ability to advocate for causes I believe in. It was a reminder of how important it is for young people to be informed about our government and involved in shaping its future. This trip wasn't just an academic experience, it was an inspiring one, filled with laughter, learning, and a sense of empowerment. Thank you, community and board trustees. I hope you enjoyed my report. Thank you very much Jim now we have Leila la body la barrico from pioneer high school followed by Mason Stewart Good evening board president Bautista Zavala trustees superintendent Ortega Lampkin executive cabinet

029and community. My name is Leila la barrico I represent pioneer high school and my report tonight is the following Tomorrow night between 6 to 8 ASB will be holding an open game night in the cafeteria There will be free ice cream sundaes and students are welcome to bring their own games as well. Winter sports have started and we have a girls soccer game going on right now and a boys soccer game tomorrow as well as a wrestling match next Wednesday. Our activities team in ASB is planning on hosting a puzzle lunchtime activity next week, and students will have the lunch period to complete a puzzle for a prize. And recently, Pioneer has started using Minga as a fun way to encourage positive behavior. Teachers can now award students points on Minga to earn snack breaks,

030and there's a competition between the classes on who gets the most points. We also have an art show coming up on February 20th where students can submit their work to be showcased in the library. Our outreach committee in ASB is starting to plan our SCC prom and the theme is going to be old Hollywood. Lincoln ASB are also planning a freshman only rally where we can help the freshmen feel more comfortable and confident at rallies. ASB interviews will be held in the middle of February and we're excited to see what new personalities we can bring to the class. And then lastly, I also wanted to take a moment to recognize Ms. Zamudio. She's touched many hearts on our campus and she was my freshman year Spanish teacher and I just always remember her laughing and

031being a really bright light in the classroom. So I just wanted to thank Ms. Zamudio and may she rest in peace. Thank you, that concludes my report. Thank you very much, Layla. Mason Stewart from Woodland High School. Good evening Board President Bautista Zavala, Trustees, Superintendent Ortega-Lambkin, Executive Cabinet, and our community. My name is Mason Stewart and I am representing Woodland High School. My report tonight is the following. I hope everyone had a fun-filled and amazing winter break and enjoyed your time off. Thank you to our La Semilla program who also helped provide some activities for our student body over the break as well. As we come back, we are looking forward to many things planned ahead, such as senior nights for the girls and boys basketball teams, boys and girls soccer teams, and our wrestling

032teams, with dates to be determined for all of those senior nights. Link Crew is also taking applications until Monday, January 27th. Speaking of Link Crew, next Thursday, the 30th, we will be having our Lee Middle School 8th graders visiting our campus to look into our elective programs such as FFA and FCCLA. Later that day, we will be having a FAFSA application workshop for seniors from 4 to 6 p.m. Also this day, La Samia is hosting a parent meeting on Thursday, January 30th at 6 p.m. in room 515. We will have Catholic Charities Immigration and Legal Services joining to talk about their legal services, knowing your rights, and any other essential services they offer to support you and your family. All parents and students are welcome to this meeting. La Samia is also hosting a hiking

033trip to the Hidden Falls this Saturday the 25th. If interested, students can sign up and get a permission slip signed and turned in, hopefully by tomorrow if kids are still interested. Coming up in February, we are having a Valentine's Day themed dance called the Sweetheart Dance on February 15th and a rally to go with it the Friday before the 14th. Themes are colors that correlate with Valentine's Day, such as seniors are red, juniors are pink, sophomores are white, and freshmen are purple. Tickets will be sold starting February 3rd for $10 the first week, $15 the following week, and then $20 at the door. Make sure to turn in guest passes. few days before the dance if you're bringing a guest from another school. Also every Friday we have been celebrating Orange Friday. If you wear

034orange on Friday you get to come spin our prize wheel and you can earn either a snack or a prize. Lastly as spring rolls around our spring sports do too. We're getting ready for seasons such as baseball, softball, golf, and track and field. To end my report I would like to thank or to talk about a recent tragedy at our school. Woodland High School lost a true wolf this past weekend. Mike Owens also known as Mr. Owens was a much beloved teacher class adviser supporter of all things ag and a loyal attendee to our athletic events and musical performances at our high school. He will be missed by all. My condolence my condolences go out to his family. Thank you so much trustees and have a good night. Thank you very much. Thank you very

035much to our student representatives for being here this evening. We very much appreciate that We're gonna go ahead and move on to item J public comment to the board echo Camacho and then Jenny Perez Hello I'm here as a concerned parent and community member to address an issue that directly impacts the well-being of our children Recently President Trump signed an executive order reaffirming the recognition of two sexes male and female based on biological truth This is a timely reminder of our duty to ensure that's what's being taught and made available to our students aligns with both reality and the values of our community for instance My son told me today that in his fourth grade classroom at Rhoda Maxwell, taught by Miss Taylor, there was a new sign put up that says no homophobia allowed.

036Arachnophobia is the fear of spiders. Misophobia is the fear of germs. Hemophobia is the fear of blood. Homophobia, therefore, should be the fear of homosexuals. If we want to teach our children proper English, the correct term to use would be heterosexism. because they are not being taught that fear of anything is wrong, only hateful behavior to the LGBTQ community, which is taught through the use of good manners. I asked my son if he knew what homophobia was, and he said no. Please stop teaching this to our fourth graders, especially when the entire district is doing so poorly in English and math, according to the California School Dashboard. Additionally, as we have spoken about many times before, some of the books in our school libraries contain explicit content or promote harmful ideologies that are inappropriate for

037children. These materials confuse, mislead, and undermine the moral foundation we should be providing. As a parent, it's deeply concerning to know that our schools are offering content that contradicts basic truths and exposes young minds to ideas that are neither age-appropriate nor reflective of our shared values. I respectfully ask that the board take immediate steps to review all library materials, remove inappropriate books, and put safeguards in place to ensure future content aligns with what's best for our kids. Parents should be part of this process, and we need transparency to restore trust in WJUSD. Please initiate this before enforcement or legal action begins as a show of good faith to our community and to our children. This isn't about banning ideas or limiting education. It's about protecting our students and creating a safe learning environment. Let's work

038together to uphold the truth, protect our children, and ensure that our school remains a place of growth and learning without harmful distractions. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next. Tani Piraeus. And then we're going to have Emily Murphy. Good evening, Superintendent Ortega-Lampkin, President Bautista Zavala, trustees, and members of the Woodland community. Last board meeting, I brought up the question to our district from the PHS ag teachers as to what is the vision and direction moving forward for agriculture education in our district. Since then, I tried to supply... artifacts from the past six years as to why this is such an essential and pivotal question. The artifacts included documentation of the loss of the following classes and pathways due to top-down directives. AP environmental science and regular environmental science in the fall of 2018, both the

039floral and horticulture pathways in the winter of 2021. Our agriscience pathway in the spring of 2024 and our ag-er science just three weeks ago. These six to eight courses and their three pathways were lost to... due to directives that were made without talking or collaborating with department teachers, asking or surveying our students, or under advisement from our Ag Advisory Board. I'd like to take this brief moment to explain the importance of district directives. When they are given to district staff, if a member does the opposite or doesn't adhere or comply to them, it's the one fireable fence due to being seen as insubordination. So instead, we as ag teachers pivoted. We wrote alternative courses, came up with some ideas, and hopefully our strongest pathway, the agri-science pathway and ag earth was taken away. We simply

040don't have anything else to pivot to. Everything has been stripped from our department, and we don't know why. If we will be invited to share ideas, we do have some. Over the past six years, our once strong seven-person department has dwindled down to three and maybe two next year. I'm encouraged to hear that DO has recently met with our science colleagues about their physical science class concern and have found a solution. But we are still waiting to hear back from the original question that was brought up 10 months ago and then a month ago and then recently two weeks ago. What is the vision, the direction moving forward for agriculture and education? We have ideas, and we hope we can meet soon. I want to finally take the moment to let my students, their parents,

041and guardians know, and our community, and our ag industry partners, this wasn't my idea. This wasn't my ag department's idea. This wasn't our program's idea. And I'm sorry to our students that I couldn't offer, I couldn't do something more to give you more choices next year. Thank you. Thank you very much Emily Murphy and then Debbie Slater Good evening. My name is Emily Murphy and I'm a parent from Dingle Elementary I've learned that two things can be true at the same time meaning I can be a strong supporter of woodland educators While still being a parent who is frustrated with academic outcome that being said I would like to share a project that I executed on behalf of the PTA called the teacher listening project At Dingle, I sat down with 16 of our teachers

042one-on-one and asked them what the number one roadblocks to teaching and learning are. In a nutshell, I would like to share the answers in hopes to show every person in this room that collaboration is possible and that a small step could lead us to big changes. Students need art in the classroom. Lack of creativity is contributing to the loss of love of learning. Physical education ideas are needed for TK through third grade teachers. Homework completion should be required for all ELOP, which is after-school program students. Teachers are wondering why ELOP-enrolled students are not turning in homework assignments. Increased collaboration culture amongst Woodland teachers. Teachers would love to see an internal employee assessment that would identify leaders internally. Adequate training on new curriculum provided by the district, specifically science. The teacher is calling out specifically for

043GLAD training. Teachers want professional development extended to their parents. They feel they don't have the time to train their parents and the beneficial PD training they are receiving from the district. New intervention curriculum needed. Our struggling students that receive learning intervention support are seeing the same curriculum year after year. Increased SEL, which is social emotional learning. Teachers want SEL resources to be distributed and updated regularly in open time for collaboration. Teachers would like provided release time for student assessments. Let the teachers teach and minimize classroom interruption. Without this, teachers shared that they spend up to 10 days of instruction conducting assessments before parent-teacher conferences. Increase focus on math, not just reading. Math can be a more accessible skill set for language learners and it offers a different area of focus for students struggling with reading.

044Making sure a curriculum is available at the start of the school year. Student materials need to be on campus the first day of school. The second most popular roadblock that was mentioned was how can we teach at grade level when our students are so far behind? Teachers are having difficulty following the pacing guides when their students are behind. More on that later. The number one ask of all teachers that was mentioned by 15 was increased behavioral support. The number one roadblock to teaching and learning mentioned was poor student behavior and chronic disruptions in the classroom. I hope this list inspires curiosity amongst us all and eventually action. Thank you very much. Debbie Slater. Good evening, Superintendent and Board of Trustees. I am here tonight asking the board to reconsider bringing back the decision of eliminating

045Haltechs and in place of that hiring LVNs to the agenda for discussion and maybe a change in the decision. We have new board members that should have their input valued on a decision that will affect our students going forward. The framework that was provided at the November 21st board meeting was almost last minute without any time for a review of the information provided, as some of the information presented was missing or inaccurate. We currently have six of the nine health tech positions that are being eliminated due to budget cuts filled with dedicated employees that have been health techs for three or more years. In this climate, we know that retention is very low. Health tech positions are being replaced with LVNs which this year had a $5,000 hiring bonus added to encourage LVNs to apply.

046If a hiring bonus is kept for the four new positions, that is an additional $20,000 just in hiring bonuses. If the board decided to keep the six health techs, it would be less cost to the district and more coverage for our students and health offices. Health techs and LVNs work under the direct supervision of our RNs, so please talk with our RNs, staff, and students before making this important decision of eliminating the health techs. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Thank you very much for those who participated in the first public comment period we're gonna move on to reports item k1 superintendents report. Thank you very much Good evening. First of all, Happy New Year I hope everyone had a relaxing winter break. The year started with a lot of action happening in the

047district. And before I go further with my report, I also want to express my condolences to the families of Mr. Owens and Deborah Sambudio, who passed away a few weeks ago. I had the pleasure of knowing them both. Michael was a very dedicated teacher. I saw him at football games and he'd be sitting by the score, you know, all by himself out there with a camera. I don't know what he was doing out there, but I know he was very dedicated at every game, at musicals, and a very visible and very committed and vocal who really spoke up on what he believed. And so, you know, he did spend much time of his life in our schools, and I just want to recognize... his contribution and told us to the family. Delia, I knew her

048a little more. And she had a very special story. She came into this country as a single mom. And she had to learn the culture, learn English. She became very involved at Beamer as a parent. That's where I got to know her when I was a director because I used to visit out there a lot and would run into her. She got involved in ELAC. From there, she got more involved, asking a lot of questions. She had me on my... my toes all the time asking questions and she got involved in DLAC, she became a parent leader in DLAC and so she one day told me I'm going to be going to school I want to learn English. She went through an adult ed program and then transferred to the Woodland Community College and last

049time I saw her before I left on to Lodi SHE TOLD ME I GOT MY A.A. AND I'M GOING TO KEEP GOING. I SAID, THAT'S AWESOME. I WAS SO PROUD OF HER AND HER COMMITMENT AND HER FOCUS TO BE SUCCESSFUL IN THIS COUNTRY AND TO DO WHAT SHE COULD FOR HER FAMILY. ANYWAY, I WENT TO LORI FOR THREE YEARS, CAME BACK, AND I'M VISITING CLASSROOMS AND I GO TO PIONEER HIGH SCHOOL AND THERE SHE IS WITH A TEACHING CREDENTIAL IN FRONT OF THE CLASSROOM TEACHING. AND SO JUST AN AWESOME WOMAN. VERY SPECIAL PERSON AND I ALSO WANT TO SAY MY CONDOLENCES TO THE FAMILY. WITH THAT, I'M GOING TO STOP MY REPORT. LIKE I SAID, This was right before everyone went on break. We did have our winter holiday and Tony and his staff, our

050transportation did it again, outshined. Everyone in town, everyone was like, the students were so excited about our bus. We had a lot of fun. So thank you to the trustees that were there. We had students there, but we were basically, besides Santa Claus, besides Santa Claus, we were the main hit. So thank you for the time that they do behind the scenes to get. THIS READY FOR OUR STUDENTS AND COMMUNITY. ALWAYS NICE TO BE RECOGNIZED FOR THE CONTRIBUTIONS, TONY, OF YOU AND YOUR DEPARTMENT. ALSO, LIKE THEY MENTIONED EARLIER, PRAIRIE AND FREEMAN RECEIVED SOME FUNDS FROM OUR LOCAL SPROUT STORE. IT IS REALLY NICE TO SEE THAT OUR COMMUNITY WANTING TO SUPPORT OUR SCHOOLS, AND THIS IS SPECIFICALLY FOR OUR GARDENS AT THOSE SCHOOLS. SO, THAT WAS ON A SATURDAY MORNING, AND AS YOU CAN SEE,

051The employees from Sprouts were very proud and excited to be able to do our schools and they want to do more for our schools. So more to come on support from Sprout. We want to thank them. Also, we had our high school, we had another group of students that attended the Strengths-Based Institute. It was a two-day. They came in thinking it was one thing and came out feeling so empowered. They were a little shy. And then, you know, the first I walked in to say hello to them in the morning, they wanted to know it was for lunch. They thought that was going to be the Panda Express or something. They were so excited about that. But then, you know, later on when I came in the afternoon, they were also excited about what they're

052learning about themselves, understanding what their strengths are, understanding what they can, how they can use their strengths to reach some of their goals and how to work with others. So it was a very powerful experience. And we're going to continue to doing different groups of students and staff also through this process as part of our youth development plan of Goal 4. Also, Mrs. Parks. Mrs. Parks is a teacher of the year from Pioneer High School. She keeps getting celebrated. So she got celebrated again at the Yodel County School Board. And we were there. So it was her principal. And it was really nice to see her being recognized. And there's still one more recognition coming up at dinner, I think, at the county office coming soon. The superintendent advisory council so I met with a

053super superintendent advisory council These students are working on developing mini grants An application process. It's already been sent out where students in our in our district can apply They have criteria that they set and they're going to be here on Saturday morning To review their processes and to continue to do that work. I stopped by and ASKED THEM IF THEY HAD ANY QUESTIONS FOR ME. ONE OF THE THINGS THEY SAID, WHAT'S GOING ON? WHAT ARE THE HOT TOPICS? I SHARED WITH THEM, THERE'S ONE HOT TOPIC THAT'S COMING AND THAT'S GOING TO IMPACT YOU. EVERYTHING IMPACTS YOU. BUT THERE'S ONE I KNOW THAT'S GOING TO BE A VERY HOT TOPIC AND THAT'S PHONES. SO BY 2026, The district the board will have to have a board policy on addressing how we use the use of cell

054phones The state is not telling us what it is We need to decide and that's going to be a very controversial topic because if there's different layers I explained to them the different why This occurs some of the concerns from teachers from parents About how cell phone for using it at school. I will talk about you know the reality in their age THIS IS THE WAY OF THEIR SOCIAL LIFE AND COMMUNICATION. TECHNOLOGY, THERE'S NO WAY AROUND IT, IS PART OF THEIR FUTURE. AND THAT WE WOULD BE COMING TO GET SOME INPUT FROM THEM. I WANTED TO HAVE THEM TALK ABOUT IT AND GIVE ME THEIR INITIAL THOUGHTS. THEY HAD A LOT TO SAY. ONE STUDENT RAISED HER HAND AND SAID THIS TO ME. I WANTED TO SHARE THAT WITH THE BOARD. THEY SAID, SUPERINTENDENT, THERE'S

055NO WAY YOU'RE GOING TO MAKE EVERYBODY HAPPY. WHATEVER DECISION YOU MAKE, THE THING, YOU'LL BE REALLY MAD AND YOU'RE NOT GOING TO BE VERY POPULAR. I said, thank you, I know. Very wise. I also had the pleasure to attend the school, the city council meeting on Tuesday night. We had seven of our students who won some prizes. The little ones did an art display of Martin Luther King and other students did essays. Some of them read their essays at city council. And so I was just very proud that seven, I think there was nine. WINNERS AND SEVEN OF THOSE STUDENTS WERE FROM OUR DISTRICT. SO I WANT TO THANK THE PRINCIPALS THAT TOOK THEIR TIME AND TEACHERS THAT TOOK THEIR TIME TO PARTICIPATE IN THIS EVENT. WE WERE VERY WELL REPRESENTED ON THE NUMBER OF

056STUDENTS THAT PARTICIPATED. Last night we had our SRO officers that were here. We had a roomful of parents that were receiving workshop on the dangers of social media trustee Garcia attended And check check the training out that there's a lot of good questions From parents so we were very want to thank our SROs for supporting us with important information for families And then yesterday, was it yesterday, everybody? Yes, yesterday. We had our ribbon-cutting celebration for our first two electrical buses that have arrived. Very exciting. We had some students from Whitehead join us. You know, made it a big deal. You are the first ones to get to see an electric bus for our district. They got to see a tour inside. And then we hopped on the bus, and we took a little tour. We

057visited. Plainfield, I'm not sure if Phil saw us but we drove by Plainfield to see what it felt like driving an electric bus and We have a very excited about this huge milestone. I want to thank the board for your commitment and moving in this direction as part of our our supporting the green schools green environment our contribution we're expecting another 10 buses coming soon and If everything goes well, we will have a total of 21 electrical buses So more to come on that but this is our first step we wanted to celebrate and I want to think that trustees are able to make it Also, did you know that January is board recognition month? So I want to thank all of you for your contributions in the roles that you played, the commitment, the

058time that you take reading the packets, asking the questions, and for taking on this important role for our community. And so I just want to recognize you all for your dedication and thank you. And tonight, I do want to make a statement. AND THANK THE BOARD FOR PASSING THE RESOLUTION IN SUPPORT OF IMMIGRANT FAMILIES. I WANT TO READ A STATEMENT THAT IS NOT NEW. I HAVE READ THE STATEMENT BEFORE. I THINK WHEN I READ IT YOU WILL REMEMBER. I WANT TO UNDERSCORE THE STATEMENT AND SAY IT AGAIN DURING THIS TIME. AS YOUR SUPERINTENDENT, I AM COMMITTED TO WORKING WITH YOU. continue to ensure a safe space and welcoming environment for all staff and students and respecting the diversity in our community as reflected in your board policies, vision and your direction. I want to especially

059say to all our students that we embrace each of you just the way you are and wherever you come from. I want each of you to be happy, to be proud and to know that you are safe to grow and learn in all our schools. I'm going to repeat this statement in Spanish because I want to make sure that the families are listening and for the record for our Panino families. And that concludes my report. Thank you very much, Elodia, for those words. We're going to continue on to our report from CSEA. As we're waiting, I'd like to thank Superintendent for her statement, for reminding us of that statement from before. I appreciate your leadership and your support for all our students. Thank you. I want to make echo what the trustee Villagranas say and

060also to talk in Spanish. They feel and they connect with you because you're one of them. Thank you. Thank you very much. Okay. Good evening, Superintendent Ortega-Lampkin, President Batista-Zavala, Board of Trustees, Cabinet, and Community. My name is Rebecca Rossiter, and I serve as the library technician at Douglas Middle School. I am also the proud president of Chapter 118 of the Classified School Employee Association. Happy New Year! A lot has transpired since my last report on November 21st. First, I would like to extend a warm welcome to the new board members and congratulate trustees Batista Zavala Rodriguez and Brubaker in their elected positions. President Batista Zavala has already joined our labor meeting with the superintendent and I look forward to continuing to build that relationship. While there have been no changes to our eboard members as

061it wasn't an election year several of our committees have welcomed new members including our negotiation team We have updated the district's negotiation team with their names accordingly Additionally our scholarship committee is preparing to send out information to pioneer Woodland High Cache Creek High School and adult education Our chapter is honored to award four $250 scholarships to students from these schools. We are hopeful that the classification study will be wrapping up soon, although we do not have a scheduled date. It's really close. But and our initial proposal for the successor contract negotiations are on the agenda today, though I was disappointed to see that the district's initial proposal was not included. We look forward to reviewing it when it becomes available. There is a negotiation session scheduled for late February to discuss the impacts of the

062board adjustments that the board has made over the last few months. Over the past couple of weeks, I have had the opportunity to meet with a few board members to gain insight into the process used to gather information, as well as to share some of the concerns from our chapter. These were productive meetings, and I look forward to continuing this dialogue with more of you in the future. I must also mention that we are still advocating for the retention of the health tech positions. Recent meetings with student services and the superintendent included a slide presentation during which it was acknowledged that there was misinformation provided to the board, which influenced the decision-making process. While it was stated that changing the board's decision would be challenging. It's not entirely off the table provided action is taken

063swiftly I understand the board's intention to fill the health tech positions with LVNs One of our vacant LVN positions has been posted for 10 days now And I think it would be beneficial to know how many applicants we currently have I was also informed that the board plans to trial the LVN hiring model through the 25-26 school year While our chapter disagrees with this direction We recognize that all decisions are made with the goal of doing what is best for students based on the information That's being provided to you. I will be looking forward to hearing the results of the survey That was initiated by trustee Rodriguez to assess the impacts of these budget adjustments Thank you for your time and consideration this concludes my report Thank you very much Now we're going to move

064on towards to item K-3 report from Woodland Education Association. Thank you. Good evening, Superintendent Ortega-Lambkin, President Bautista Zavala, Board of Trustees, Cabinet, and members of our community. Thank you for this opportunity to address you. My name is Becca Bernard, and I'm a science teacher at Douglas Middle School, and the proud president representing over 500 educators of the Woodland Education Association. First, I'd like to recognize and congratulate our new board members. Hello and welcome. As well as our new board leadership, President Bautista Zavala, Vice President Rodriguez, and Clerk Brubaker. Our union looks forward to continuing our partnership working together to ensure the best possible education for our students. Thank you for stepping into these roles and continuing to serve our community. This past month, our Woodland education community suffered two heartbreaking losses with the passing of

065Delia Zamudio and Mike Owens, two beloved educators who dedicated their lives to our students. When I think of Delia, my heart fills with gratitude and hope. She gave so fully, whether to her students, colleagues, family, or even a stranger she just met. She made everyone feel seen, heard, and loved. Delia taught us that making the world a better place doesn't require grand gestures. It happens through kindness, passion, and care. Maya Angelou once said, people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. Delia made us feel valued and loved. May we carry forward her example of compassion and courage. We also lost another remarkable educator, Mike Owens of Woodland High. At our rep council meeting on Tuesday, we took some time to reflect

066on his impact. Mike was a site rep, a history teacher, and a deeply involved kids sports advocate, especially swimming. He was never afraid to speak his mind and always advocated for what was best for students. His energy was infectious. He could light up a room with his passion and at times his exasperation. He was a force for good, and his absence will be deeply felt in our schools. In honor of Delia and Mike's dedication to education and our community, WEA has established the WEA Memorial Scholarship. This scholarship will celebrate the legacy of all Woodland educators that we have lost and the lasting impact they've had on shaping the future of our children. We will share more information soon on how graduating seniors can apply for this scholarship. As teachers, we strive to create ripples of

067positive change, guiding our students to be thoughtful, compassionate humans. Every day, small interactions grow into something larger, touching countless lives. I encourage all of us to carry forward Mike and Delia's legacy, turning their ripples of kindness and passion into waves that extend far beyond our community. On the topic of making positive change, I'm proud to share that WEA recently received another grant to fund release days for our executive board to visit school sites, check in with educators, and hear directly from the source. These visits have been invaluable, strengthening relationships across the district and deepening our understanding of what our teachers experience every day. It is remarkable how much you can learn simply by asking questions and actively listening. Of course, when discussing the realities of our profession, conversations can easily slip into a downward spiral

068of frustration, apathy, and negativity. But as we emphasized at our general membership meeting last week, we must always shift back to an organizing mindset. That is a mindset that turns challenges into action. For those less familiar with CTA's organizing mindset, it centers on four key principles. One, action is better than complaining. Two, problems are waiting for solutions. Three, solutions are collective, not individual. And four, when people come together, we can make a difference. At our core, whether we are teachers, administrators, district staff, parents, or trustees, we are all here for the same reason, our students. No matter which site we visit or which faculty group we talk to, the message is clear. Woodland educators are deeply committed to our students. We care about them, we believe in them, and we want to give them the

069best possible education. Yet, despite this shared purpose, significant challenges stand in the way of providing our students with the education they deserve. As we listened to teachers, common themes emerged, issues that must be addressed if we want to move our district forward. Educators want to feel heard, valued, and seen. Too often, teachers feel like their voices go unheard, their tireless work underappreciated, and their most basic needs overlooked. And two, our district's compensation is unsustainable. For the second consecutive year, Willingal Unified ranks last in pay among the 15 largest districts in our region. This reality cannot be ignored. Reflecting critically on these challenges is not easy. Looking in the mirror rarely is. But if we focus only on the positives, if we celebrate the programs we love, like Dual Immersion, AVID, Agriculture, Puente, and our incredible

070school communities, while ignoring the cracks beneath the surface, We are not being honest with ourselves. And without honesty, there can be no change. A good friend of mine recently reminded me that systemic change is a marathon, not a sprint. This work takes time, persistence, and commitment. As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. wisely said, change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. We cannot wait for change to happen. We must actively create it. We must ask ourselves, are we thriving or just surviving? What would it take to shift from survival mode to a district where educators feel supported, valued, and empowered? And how can we create a sustainable teaching environment, one that fosters not just retention, but true investment in our schools and our students? Our district is at

071a crossroads. The instability caused by constant teacher turnover affects everyone, most of all our students. Imagine what it would mean for them to see the same familiar faces from freshman year to graduation, to learn from teachers who stay, who grow alongside them, and who invest their lives year after year. Stability isn't just about teachers. It's about the students who depend on us. One of the most rewarding parts of my site visits, beyond the incredible conversations with teachers, is seeing my former students, now practically grown adults, driving cars, which terrifies me. It is astonishing to witness how much they've changed since they were wide-eyed 12-year-olds shorter than me in my classroom, and yet their faces still light up with joy when they recognize me. Those moments of appreciation and human connection are what keep me in

072the classroom. And our students deserve those same moments. They deserve teachers who stay, who build lasting relationships, and who remain a steady presence in their lives. WEA is ready to work together to make this district a place where educators don't just come to teach, but where they want to stay. A place where teachers feel respected, where their voices matter, and where they are not forced to choose between doing the job they love and supporting their own families. The time to reflect is now. The time to act is now. Our students and our future depend on it. Our WEA bargaining team looks forward to rolling up their sleeves to get started on making these changes happen at our first negotiation session with the district's team next week on January 30th. Thank you, and this concludes my

073report. Thank you very much. All right, next is K-4, reports from board members. Who would like to go first? All right, does anyone have a report this evening that they would like to share? All right, Trustee Brubaker. Hi, I just want to say I'm trying to do a lot of learning very swiftly and I want to thank the superintendent for Taking me on a little tour last week of our middle school and high school art program We got to see some really student really amazing student work and here's some amazing music from our students And I really enjoyed learning more about that aspect of our school district And then as you all saw we got to be at the ribbon-cutting of our new like buses I want to thank our continuing board members and our

074passport members for making that a possibility for us and our staff who spent a lot of time making sure that we could accomplish that without as much of a financial toll on our district, which is amazing. And I'm glad that I came on just in time to be in those photos. And then I also spent the morning at a CSBA Zoom webinar for sort of updating the status of immigration and policy and the school district's roles in that, which gave me a better understanding of the situation as it is right now. Thank you. Thank You trustee Brubaker anyone else with the report this evening trustee Richardson Feller Let's see. So over the break I had an opportunity to meet with a lot of parents current groups. I got to meet with what I like to

075affectionately call them the Rebecca's to hear their concerns from a labor perspective as well as going out to sites to see what those look like. It was really a fact-finding mission as I start my second term just to investigate what really is what's going on to hear the voices so I can make up my own opinion from what I call the subject matter experts. I'm by no means done. So if you are a group out there who has concerns or an individual, please hit me up. My information is on the website and we'll go from there. I do have a report for the next one, but I'll end here. Thank you very much. Anyone else going once, going twice? All right, we're moving on. I'm going to forego my report today for the next board

076meeting because we do have an extensive 10 items on our agenda to go. Through this evening and it's almost 8 p.m The next item on the agenda is board committee updates trustee Fowler so my last act as the president of the Yolo County School Board Association was to Open our immigration event and if you were not able to attend it is recorded on the YC oe website I Highly encourage everyone to check it out see what was said, get some information. There are red cards available that give you some instant information in multiple languages regarding immigration and your rights. And I have ordered quite a few for the school that I teach in, in both English and Spanish, as well as for the site that I represent as well. So I just wanted to make

077sure everybody knew what their rights were and what was going on. Thank you very much any other committee reports Collaborative for Woodland youth all right, so I'll participate and Give my portion and trustee Rodriguez and trustee Villagrana if you guys have anything to add is that okay? So we did attend the Collaborative for Woodland Youth meeting on January 8th at 8 a.m. at the Woodland Community College. This year it was voted on for Woodland Community, sorry, Yuba Community College board member Dr. Jesse Ortiz to serve as our committee president. And then just some updates. Woodland Community College is working on a 2025 strategic plant and poverty. The city is launching their new bookmobile on Saturday, January 25th. Sub the committee voted to approve new subcommittees and really the one that is Working ahead is the

078roadmap to the future which is being led by our Yolo County Office of Education. And then just highlighting that the next future agenda item that came up at this meeting was for the City of Woodland, Woodland Joint Unified School District, Woodland Community College, and Yolo County Office of Ed to consider legislative advocacy day and setting priorities to advocate on whether it be budgetary or legislative policy so that will be coming up at our next meeting and that is set to meet on February 12th they also discussed a variety they also shared a variety of events the Yolo County Office of Ed is holding a FAFSA and college exploration day with UC Davis early academic outreach set for January 27th I have this here I'll pass it to the superintendent There's also going to be a

079foster youth financial aid night, and that's being co-hosted by YCOE, Woodland Community College, AmeriCorps, and a variety of other groups on February 18th from 4 to 8 at Woodland Community College. There's also going to be a parent university co-hosted co-sponsored by EAOP Mesa Yolo County Office of Ed on March 8th from 8.30 to 2.30. Passing that on to our superintendent. And then the City of Woodland in connection with the Yolo County Office of Education is doing their Adulting 101 Life Skills for Teens again. And that's scheduled for March 15th from 9 to 3. Passing that on. And then just lastly, the Cesar Chavez Youth Leadership Conference and Celebration at UC Davis is taking place on Saturday, May 10th from 8 to 3, passing that on to the superintendent for our students and for our board

080members and community. I don't have anything else to add. Trustee Rodriguez, Villagrana. The only other thing to share that the city reported the... success of the ice rink and the collaboration across the community from you know different nonprofits supporting that and They got great feedback People loved it basically and they're talking about how to bring it back next year. So great success Thank you for mentioning that. One thing that I wanted to add, echo the sentiment of the ice rink, is that it costs a lot of money. It costs, I want to say it was about $150,000, and our hoteliers help support and make that happen. But, you know, the costs to make it all come together didn't necessarily make up the expense. So, you know, they need to figure out innovative ideas on how

081to generate the funding for next year but i'm i'm honestly really crossing my fingers because this was a huge success we just need to we need to be we need to put on our thinking hats and how to be supportive of this endeavor and project that the city is putting together alongside the hoteliers but also as community members to make sure that it's a success and that we can bring it back All right, so we're moving on. Would anyone be interested in taking a bathroom break before we go on to the next item? Yes? Can we do about three minutes? Is that okay? So it's 8.04. If we can come back at 8.07. Thank you very much. All right, you guys, it's 8.09. I'm inviting my board members, my colleagues, to please come back to

082your seats if you can. I have a quorum, so I'm going to go ahead and get started. And we are at item L1, and this is an actionable item. Public hearing and approve the initial proposal for the successor contract negotiations from the California School Employees Association, Chapter 118 for the collective bargaining agreement between CSEA Chapter 118 and the Woodland Joint Unified School District. Thank you, Leni. Good evening, Superintendent, President, and Trustees. This evening we present to you the initial proposal from CSEA to start our successor negotiations for a new contract term. And so we recommend that the board initiate the public hearing and then accept the proposal. Thank you. Thank you very much. I'm going to go ahead and open up this public hearing. Public comment? No public comment? Oh, all right. Sorry about that.

083I just want to say thank you for having this on the agenda and We agree with the recommendation of approving this proposal. Thank you Thank you very much. All right. Can I get a motion? My motion Oh God, I motion to approve Second. All right. It's an emotion by trustee Brubaker and seconded by trustee Rodriguez all those in favor Aye. Any abstentions? Opposition? All right. This has been passed by unanimous consent. Unanimous approval. And then I have to close it, right? I now close this public hearing. Thank you. All right. We're moving on to item M1. This is an informational item, actionable. Review and approve the school accountability report cards. So we have our principals here tonight and our director of state and federal programs who helps facilitate this process on the school accountability report

084cards. There's a requirement that we need to... put these forward every year. Every school in the state goes through the same process. This is a template from the state. And we have principals here to answer any specific questions. I do want to alert the board. I did send an email, but in case you did not, if you missed the email, we need to have these approved and to the state by February 1st. So if there's any kind of... We would ask of the board if there's any changes that's included in the motion so that we can get these on time to the state. Thank you very much. We do have eight public comments. So there is a time limit of 20 minutes. If we do extend, we would need a motion. So just letting my

085colleagues know that. Let's go ahead and begin the public comment. The first speaker is Sarah Martin. And the second is Jim, oh, excuse me, I apologize, Annie Burkholder. Good evening. My name is Sarah Martin, and I am a parent of two kids in the district. One is in elementary, and the other is in middle school. While I am here tonight to discuss the student accountability report cards, I want to speak to a particular aspect, which is that the public largely doesn't realize the scope of the problem in academics in Woodland Joint Unified. WJUSD needs to acknowledge that in some schools, 85% or more of the students are failing to meet grade level standards in math and ELA. I'm grateful that the board is getting this information tonight, but the public needs it too, especially given

086the multitude of ways the district has to communicate with families. In the superintendent's weekly report, for example, we hear WJUSD sing its own praises, point painting an exclusively rosy picture that does not necessarily match families' experiences. On the district Facebook page, we see fabulous news, genuinely fabulous news, about electric buses and student leadership opportunities, but nothing about how more than two-thirds of our kids are not meeting grade-level standards. WJUSD is not being transparent or actively forthcoming, and the community can feel it. The recent failure of Measure P was largely due to the public's distrust of this administration. Parents are feeling gaslit, and perhaps most importantly, because these issues are not being presented honestly, frequently, and actively, families cannot be a part of a meaningful effort to help. I do believe this can be done with

087hope, not despair. I don't believe we need to do anything that is going to risk a lawsuit. I also don't want to do anything that endangers our teachers or gets the public mad. But I do believe that if we have good communication, then commitment and excellence for all is actually able to happen. I genuinely believe this board has students' best interests at heart. I have seen it multiple times. Parents and families want their children to succeed too. And to our teachers, who are dedicated, caring, and work so hard, thank you for all you do. There is so much good in this district. But to work together and effectively make change, we need a robust and open dialogue from the district about what is and is not working. Thank you. Thank you very much. Monica, can

088you call the next few names? Annie Burkholder and then Jim Collins. Hello. And I'm the mother of three kids at SciTech and a member of the School Site Council. The education of our children is a sacred responsibility, and I have deep gratitude and respect for all of those who commit themselves to this, many of whom are in this room. Whether we rise to the occasion now, in this moment, will have ripple effects for decades. Not only does a quality education change the individual, it transforms the family, this community, this country, and our world. It is through education that the societal ills of ignorance, poverty, and inequality can be healed. I'm going to provide some data that comes from the SARC as well as some specific class data that I have researched along with some friends.

089And I think the data can sometimes feel dry and disconnected and you forget that these are children. These are people's children. And each child matters. I'm going to share with you some data now. I have assumed that about 30 children per class. At Whitehead, only 10% of students, or about three per class, meet the state standard in ELA. Only 5%, or about one student, meet the standard in math. At Dingle, only 2% of sixth graders, zero to one student, meet the state standard in math. At Plainfield, there is not a single fifth grader. Sorry, who, yes, who meets the standard in science. Not a single child. And only 9%, one to two per class of Hispanic students meet the standard in science. Eight out of 12 of our elementary schools perform worse than the state

090standard in science and ELA. And the state is ranked 37th out of 50. So that's not even a goal we should try to get to. We should be better than that. The thing is we know what we need to do. There is plentiful data and metadata analysis on what works and it's empowering and supporting teachers. It is helping teachers collaborate together for the benefit of our students. If we know what we need to do, why are we not doing it? Why can't we choose right now to be an example for other districts on what is possible when people get together and think bigger and are courageous and strong and decide to make a change. I really have hope as well, just as Sarah does, that we can do this. Please, I'm here for you to

091help you. Jim Collins and then Emily Murphy. Good evening. I'm Jim Collins and I have three wonderful grandchildren in this district. We all should be humbled and alarmed by the continued poor student outcomes in the district. We are failing our students and the consequences of this failure fall not on us but on them. And this harm will reverberate in our community for years to come. I am sure that district leadership, teachers, principals, and staff have the very best intentions and put in long hours. However, the sole valid measure of these efforts is not intentions or long hours, but whether they sufficiently improve student outcomes. I urge the board and district leadership to critically evaluate whether they are allocating the district's time, resources, and processes on the most effective and efficient efforts to improve student outcomes.

092It is particularly revealing that the draft comprehensive literacy plan states in goals two and three that, quote, there are concerns regarding the consistency and rigor of standards-based instruction and the alignment of curriculum across grade levels and programs, end quote. Clearly, issues exist concerning the way instructional standards are being carried out in district classrooms. We know that no initiative to improve outcomes can be effective unless it's properly implemented throughout the district. There is one practice that has been shown to achieve this essential goal, collective teacher efficacy. Ample evidence shows that when teachers are empowered and supported to collaborate, receive timely and meaningful peer-fed feedback, and believe in their collective ability to make a difference, student achievement improves dramatically. Collective teacher efficacy is more important in explaining student achievement than student socioeconomic status. I support the district's

093effort to develop professional learning communities, but they will be ineffective only if teachers are supported in three ways. One, having a work culture that is nurturing and open. Two, being provided sufficient time and training. And three, having timely and effective evidence-based peer-led feedback. I urge the board and district leadership to critically evaluate their current practices in this regard and focus every available resource on providing our teachers with these enabling conditions which have been shown to support collective teacher efficacy and thereby student success. Thank you. Emily Murphy and then Mike Zelazo. The following words are pulled from the Woodland website, Woodland School District website. Prepared, empowered, endless possibility, excellence for all, achievement, college ready, career ready, proficiency, rigorous curriculum, intellectually rich, academic leadership, and accelerated English learner achievement. Additionally, on the DI program, the words used

094are greater academic, occupational and economic opportunities and better prepared to meet university requirements. This is straight up disinformation. Disinformation is defined as false information which is deliberately intended to mislead. I look back at 2017 when I was excited to pick a school for my three children. I drank those promising words up like Kool-Aid. I've watched the required one hour DI presentation three times now. First as an excited parent, next as a skeptical parent, and most recently with my jaw dropped. The data on that presentation is from 2013, and the promises made on it are not in accordance with fact or reality. Disinformation is so easily ingested when it comes from an institution that is viewed as credible, like a school district, a district with an elected board of peers that govern it. I stand here

095today completely misled, and it's time to debunk the misinformation with fact. These facts will be coming from Dingell Elementary. The 23-24 state standard test from the SARC. 82% of our students are not at grade level for English and literacy. 88% of our students are not at grade level for math. 82% of our students are not at grade level for science. And in full transparency, 100% of my children are performing below grade level. How do these facts support the claimed mission of the district? They don't! These facts do, however, predict words and outcomes that are not currently listed on the district website. Failure, struggle, frustration, less than, underachieving, missed opportunity. powerless, unprepared, not college ready, not career ready, intellectually poor, less academic opportunity, less occupational opportunity, less economic opportunity, a path to poverty, hopeless. This may

096sound dramatic. This is my third year up here begging you to do something different. We have the information, the budget, the ability to solve this crisis. We don't need a photographer. We don't need a performance. We need leadership and a new plan. Mike Zelazo and then Leanne Hartman. I'm not Mike. Mike had to leave. He didn't realize how long board meetings take. So he gave me his speech. So I will just read it for him. Wait, wait a minute. Is that allowed to print in it? No. I spoke with Monica during the break and she said that I was able to give his presentation for him. You can give her the, is it written? Yes. We can accept the written statement. Leanne Hartman hello hi good evening trustees and Superintendent and community members hello My

097name is Leanne Hartman, and I have been a proud parent of Dingle Elementary School Panthers for almost a decade I Appreciate the opportunity to speak tonight, and thank you for listening My husband, who actually had to leave because he also didn't realize how long board meetings were, we both work at UC Davis and are fortunate to have resources to send our daughters to different schools in the area. But when we moved to Woodland 12 years ago, we deliberately chose our neighborhood school, Dingle Elementary, because we believed our kids would be able to have a greater understanding of diverse perspectives, develop greater empathy and social awareness, and be exposed to real-world challenges faced by different communities while getting a foundational education that would prepare them for their future. This has all been true, though our children

098have been among the 12 to 18 percent of Dingell scholars who have met or are above grade level. It's truly heartbreaking, heartbreaking to witness what's happening to their friends, our neighbors, our community, despite dedicated efforts from teachers, and the support from families like ours for 10 years, the data reveals that our students are not meeting state standards, with 85% of socioeconomically disadvantaged students particularly affected. The way I see it, the lack of meaningful year-over-year growth indicates that current strategies and resources that this district has, including our after-school programs, which we have also been a part of, are not effectively addressing the needs of our students. To achieve the district's own LCAP goal, number one, college... career ready means these kids need to be academically prepared for middle school so they can go into high school

099and beyond to foster real measurable improvements we must realign our resources and focus on targeted interventions that directly support students the reason we are here as parents what more can we do 10 years of volunteering and giving money and doing homework and listening to our kids cry. What more can we do to partner with you all, with the district, to turn this crisis in our community around so we can produce educated leaders for Woodland and the world? Thank you. Thank you very much. Beha Springer and then Irene DeFentorum. Hello? Good evening trustees, superintendent, and community members. My name is Beha Springer and I am a parent of a student at Dingell Elementary. I appreciate the opportunity to speak tonight about something that deeply matters to all of us, academic performance and student success. For the

100past three years, the California State Assessment results at Dingell have not shown meaningful year-over-year growth. I know that our teachers work hard, our students are capable, and our families want to see every child thrive. But the data tells us that despite these efforts, we are not making the sustained progress our students deserve. We also know from our advocacy this year to improve parent engagement, programming, and implementation that nothing at a school site stands in isolation. We can draw connections from you, the board, through the district office, down to the classroom, and out to the community. As a parent, I'm here to ask, what do you as trustees need from us, the community, to ensure that our students and teachers are fully supported? How can we work together to remove barriers to improvement? Parents care about

101academic performance, and we stand ready to partner with you in making real, measurable progress. We cannot afford to let another three years pass without improvement. Our students' futures depend on it. Thank you. Thank you very much. That concludes the public comment for this item presentation. So I'm going to invite our director of state and federal programs, Daniel Sharp, just to kind of just briefly describe what this process is and then open it up for any questions for the trustees and if you have any specific questions. For our principals, the majority of them are here. There are a few that were not able to make it. I think that they just weren't able to change their calendar. But we have a majority here. Thank you, and the school accountability excuse me the school accountability report cards

102are an after-the-fact reporting of Data from the 23 24 school year and a little bit prior to that as well And we're required to be approved by schools in school districts annually for your just to kind of give you a little bit of context or and the cast data that you see within and that was referenced by some of our parents here will be used to develop the school plans with the school site councils to make measurable change moving forward and Our principles are here with questions. So Thank you very much any questions trustee rule trustee Villagrana. Thank you. Can you summarize the purpose of these documents first? I have a few other questions, but that's the purpose of these documents are to comply with the Williams settlement Which is to ensure that parents and

103the community are aware of deficiencies within schools Is it also to help families decide which schools to choose when it's open enrollment district? I mean, I would say that that would be possibly one of the intentions, but I cannot speak for what the legislature was thinking when the settlement was negotiated. Thank you. And a few times you responded for the student voice part that the board directed. I don't remember. Was it directed in that specific spot or just that it would be added? Just that it would be added. It's been in that specific spot for three years. Perfect. I would like to request my colleagues, did we actually move that part to the beginning where there's a description of, if there's no objection from the board, I think it's a better spot for that voice

104than in the parent. involvement part of the report card Any any thoughts on that my request? I'm supportive I don't think I'm understanding what you're asking. Can you clarify? Sure. In the report card, there's a section. So we have the parent involvement section. And in there, they add the student voice part because there's no other space for the student voice. And I'm saying that to me, I'd rather have just clean parent elements there. And then therefore, the voice, we could add it at the top where it's like description of the school. To me, that's a more appropriate space than there. All right, can I get four hands up? Perfect. Thank you. All right, unanimous. And then my question, if you can ask a few of the principal, I asked the question of from their perspective,

105what caused the decline? And I know there was different responses from different, like for my colleagues to hear some of those responses. Do you have a specific school in mind? Because some schools actually had a very positive. Result from the casp testing and there were some that had a decline so I'm yeah only for the ones that decline if they identified What would cause that absolutely? Okay, I don't want you to be nervous. Principals, you work really, really hard. And there's multiple factors that play into our student achievement. And, you know, yes, we do have significant work to do, very serious work to do. And we do need to work together. parents work with their site principals to support their schools and their goals and to give feedback directly specifically because every school is different,

106every school has different challenges, different populations. I know you've been putting in a lot of work, so I don't want you to feel, let's just be honest. and transparent and I am going to pick our principal from Dingell since your name came the school came up so much this evening I want to give you the opportunity in the floor to speak from your perspective everything you're trying to do at your school and please be honest your challenges as well thank you and I would just add that Dingell's brought a full team today to a needs assessment and data analysis session and so I'm sure she has some really good insights after that session today good evening president Board and superintendent would you like to ask a specific area or just kind of share in general?

107No, the question was the Again, there's a section that specifically has the outcomes by subject, LEA math, writing science. And again, there was a drop. And if you were able to identify some of the root causes of that, because it had gone up and then, yeah. We are in the process of looking into our data analysis and finding out what happened in our math scores that went down. We declined about... almost 3% in this area. We had an increase in our language arts. And I've been diving into data chats with my PLC guiding coalition teams, which is my staff at Dingle. We are looking into so many efforts that we have started at the site level to create strong foundations for what are the best practices that should be happening in the classroom, how do

108we empower the teaching that is happening in there. How do we support our teachers to be knowledgeable about the standards? A lot of ground foundation work has been done and a lot more focus has been guided around literacy. Naturally, we are in the process of improving. literacy plan that supports kinder through second grade. We are doing a lot of PROMESA work with dual immersion schools and our partnership with CAVE and so everything has been around language arts supporting those foundation skills we want to have and so we signed an increase in language arts and so As we were reflecting on what happened in math, it can be an area that is forgotten just because we're so excited and so motivated about the groundwork that is happening in one area and needs to be across all

109subject areas. Thank you. I know another school mentioned that again they had a team that was very focused and then they had some people change and you know they felt that that was part of the reason. My point for my question again is that you know every school is unique, every school is different and every school has different factors and influences as to what causes it. Obviously you know we had a huge event in our world right that has affected every single student which is a factor as well. But nonetheless, we have to figure out how to provide the best opportunity for young people to develop. But again, my point is that there's different variables, different elements, and that's why I want to give the opportunity to the principals who would like to come and

110share what those are, those challenges, like the superintendent said. And if I can add a little bit more, if I could, about what you're making me think. Part of our analysis is going into how do we build capacity and how do we build a strong team of teachers at the end of the year. We want to make sure that we have the highly qualified staff in the classroom in order for this heavy work that we're doing to really create that impact. And unfortunately, we have had staff who has left along the last, you know, not even considering COVID and all the destructions that happened with distance learning. distance learning, I'm sorry, but coming back from COVID and trying to rebuild and move forward and having to deal with now we are losing staff and go

111through those challenges of not only train and bring on board new staff members, but our reality with a teacher shortage is that some of our teachers are not fully credentialed and they're going through the preparation program, many of them, so they have multiple things that they're trying to figure out as they're also trying to teach and so it creates those it creates extra barriers as to It's it's a process that naturally takes time and it's a little longer but because of this extra Factors that are in place with trying to fill classes with Staff was not fully credentialed just adds that extra layer of it's gonna take us longer to get there I'm very confident that the staff I have on board right now is fully dedicated into doing that groundwork Without that foundation. I

112think it's gonna be a lot harder to get to get the the boat moving in the right direction Thank you. Um, thank you. Thank you I'd like to have another principal come up and share before kid before he leaves. Can I chief leave? Can I make a question? I'll yield for a question. Sure. Thank you So, hi, principal. My question is, where is the place the parents and teachers can collaborate to make the plan? I know the answer, but can you tell us where the parents can collaborate to make plans for the, to work on the, with you to, for the school? We have our established, parent groups, we have our ELAC and our site council that we have our scheduled meetings and we review data and we'll go through the needs assessment process together

113in the next few weeks. And aside from that, I have a very active PTA group and we constantly talk about like this high concerns that my families have. So we're trying to, I'm trying to be very cognizant about all the work, all the communication that they're trying to bring towards my attention and channel it to the people that I meet with when we meet with site council and when we meet with ELAC. We've done some extra work in trying to bring our groups together so that More voices are in the room with our PTA and our ELAC committees together just to continue to hear what are those real questions that our parents have, what are those real concerns that they have, so that I really have a solid understanding what needs to really be addressed

114in our plan. So it's my understanding that on ELAC, by requirement, they check the scores. and these graphics and also on site and the school site council. So I just want to mention this because I hear comments where they say the parents don't know about these reports scores and I'm sure by law the ELAC and DELAC know where can they find these scores. And also in seconds. Is that correct that that would be correct because we are presenting that data So I have my council and my Eli go through here's where you can find the dashboard and all the information that comes in it and how to drill down into how to really go into subgroups and Like for our e lag because they're so interested in knowing how our English learners not only progressing

115in there English learning process, but also how are they performing when they take their math test or when they take the language arts so that they know how to go and like find additional information. And I'm pretty sure that there's still a lot of space for me to explore and continue to improve in getting the... information out to the community at large so that it's not only the subcommittees that are well informed and know where to go and find it but that the rest of the community feel the same. So based on those meetings they can make comments and to yours and make goals at your school is that correct? So that their parents on a lot right so yeah They they we go through the needs assessment process so they can provide feedback to

116me and we collectively and then I also include my guiding coalition's with teachers so that collectively we have The information all the information that might that would be needed So for now, those are my question. Thank you very much So I want to make sure that everyone gets an allotted time to be able to ask their questions trustee Villagrana I'm gonna go ahead and ask that you ask one more question And then if you have more that we come back to you, well, it sounds like my colleagues have questions for the specific principal Yeah, so I can wait for that. Okay, so you done then I'll continue after that. All right, just a second I just want to make sure that we're cognizant that it is gonna be 845 And I want to make sure

117that everyone that wants to ask questions has an opportunity to do so. So I am going to be asking that you refrain from asking questions until I, my point to give you the floor, okay? Just so that we can continue operating fluidly. So Trustee Richardson-Feller. I'm just a little concerned because we had so many Dingell parents coming up here and I feel like we are putting Principal Valencia on the spot. It feels very uncomfortable to me. Very uncomfortable. Please hold. Excuse me, Trustee Fowler. Please refrain. Please refrain. Thank you. I know that I know a lot of the parents from Dingell. My walking buddy is in the audience right now. I know that they think you're doing a fabulous job, but I just feel really uncomfortable with you being on the spot right now after

118they had very, very caring and thoughtful comments. That being said. You know what I'm going to let you go. I will ask other principals. I don't want to add to the questions pointedly directed to Dingell. I have broad questions for all of the principals. So when I ask my questions anybody who's willing to come up can answer them and we'll go from there. But if you have questions for Principal Valencia directly. I will I will give up my place so that I can ask some broad general questions for all of the principals. If I can just make a comment. This is Laura calling me today and she knew there was going to be comments and she wanted an opportunity for you to also hear from her. And so this was no intention to put her

119on the spot. Laura thank you for your bravery. Thank you for calling me. and wanting to speak up so that the board has an opportunity to hear some of your challenges and the things that you're trying to do. Because we know that you really care. Your parents know that you really care. I know that you do. And you want to make sure that the board hears you too. And so that's what I just wanted to clarify that. Thank you very much. And I want to clarify that. Just a second. Thank you very much. Okay. Let's take a deep breath for a minute. All right. Trustee Garcia. Can I? Yeah. I do want to clarify. I want to put in a spot. I visit a lot of times Dingo, and I know how the students love

120you and how the parents really care about you. I just want to clarify those comments because I know for a fact how the school's working. Dingo is definitely a very unique place where we genuinely care and want to get the students to a right place. All right. Thank you very much, Trustee Rodriguez. And then Trustee Rodriguez-Molica. So thank you for being here today. You know I would hope I don't like using the word on the spot because I don't feel that the board at least generally speaking does that or wants to do that to anybody that would come up. I think this board is entirely focused on trying to get more information and trying to utilize your time all the principals times. to just have an honest dialogue. I know that can be a little,

121given the systematic way we approach each other, but you're here and we're happy you're here. And you're willing to answer our questions and we're happy that you're willing to do that. We are... We face and we face for many years now the difficulty of trying to raise student scores. COVID did not help. But I know that at least you know if I think back from when I came on the board We have talked about these scores and we have definitely told our superintendent the expectation is to bring them up We definitely have shared that with staff and I think that you know if you look at it Over a long period of time. I think you know anybody Anybody would be upset whether you're the principal, the mother, the father, the community assistant looking at

122scores that we know need a lot of work, right? And that means that our schools need a lot of work in general. But we know that everybody is working very hard. And, you know, to the comments from the parents and community members, yes, we do want to work together. And we will. work together and we are going to continue to make this a priority and focus. I think there should be a focus especially on those schools that need the most help. Maybe in a way that we haven't done it in the past. So we can kind of explore that in the future. But just generally, what I wanted to ask you is what We know you're doing a lot of things but what more could the district do to help to help you do your

123job? So that you know our students can can flourish and we can see you know some of that in their test scores and the test scores aren't everything but These test scores definitely tell us something. What more could we do? Part of what we have been going over and trying to process what needs to change I talked to Danielle earlier and I said definitely having more funding is going to be very helpful and We know that money is not gonna fix everything, but it's definitely gonna make things a lot easier I talked to superintendent earlier today. We talked about having such a small school we serve three hundred and forty four students yet we house two Programs that are very different very unique in their own ways. Dual immersion brings a lot of needs that

124are specific to the biliteracy process and being able to create students who are globally thinkers and in both languages, it requires a lot of work and effort. And our English immersion program, it has very different needs. And our early literacy, we reviewed with my staff one of our benchmarks with iReady, and we really highlighted how our kinder students who took the assessment for the first time were very low. So that means they're coming into our classrooms already showing that deficit in early literacy skills. And so we're facing that as a whole school, but it's very different in both languages, in both programs. Both of them bring, and you heard from some of my parents, there's a high concern in social-emotional needs that are high levels of low socioeconomic percentages that we serve. Also, it's part

125of the support that our students need. So both programs are very unique, and they deserve a lot of dedication and time. And so trying to serve both of them is very challenging. being able to bring our staff together and still go through a PLC model where they collaborate, they get to know the standards, they get to create assessments and all of that great teaching practices. It's sometimes a second thought for the staff because they're just trying to figure out how do we get this literacy scores up and HOW DO WE IMPROVE SPANISH? THAT'S A BIG PROMISE FOR OUR FAMILIES. HOW DO WE SUPPORT CHINESE SOCIAL EMOTIONALLY ON THE OTHER SIDE? TRYING TO NAVIGATE SO MANY THINGS ADDS AN EXTRA LAYER OF COMPLEXITY FOR SURE. THANK YOU VERY MUCH. QUESTIONS FROM TRUSTEE RODRIGUEZ-MOJICA, PLEASE. Thank you,

126my question was similar to trustee Rodriguez I was really interested in hearing what we could do to support you and what you might need So as a follow-up you mentioned funding right? What what do you need the funding for specifically? What would you use it for that you think would benefit an increase in scores? because we're trying to build that capacity with our staff and we have had the A lot of the Title I funding that we get goes directly towards students by providing small intervention groups. We hired additional staff that can do three days a week, additional reading support for students in primary grades, and moving, shifting our... Shifting our work towards supporting the teachers to empower their practice is going to require a lot more. How do we coach them? Who's going to

127be there doing lesson planning with them and ensuring that the lessons are going accordingly? And so, as I mentioned earlier, what I spent in intervention specialist is definitely not enough to hire a coach or someone who would be doing more of that supporting the teachers, which is where we need to go. then that's where we would have to as a site council try to figure out how all of the money that we have bring it back and try to reconfigure it to support the teachers. So having additional funding would again really be helpful. If I can just add regarding Dingell because we've been having some conversations and we had a more serious conversation as times has we have a lot of things going on lately with the things we've been going through COVID and recovering

128from all that but one of the challenges at Dingell specifically is what she just said about being a small school so there's two teachers per grade level one is the English model the English program And then the other one is the dual immersion. So you heard tonight, which is totally correct about the research, that teacher efficacy and collaboration, the Hyatt research is very clear, that teacher collaboration and working together to plan lessons and look at assessments and intervention is critical for student achievement. The model that she has right now in that school does not accommodate that. And so because of that, I want to, I've been working with staff to develop a timeline to determine, we look at that model and see what we need to do to come to the board and potentially propose

129a different model. But we will need to work so we can get input from the staff. from the the teachers I know that Dingell house the ability to succeed because they used to be And I was here as a director of elementary education Title one a ribbon award-winning school. They were the highest performing title one school not only in our district, but in the area and they were awarded by the by the state superintendent at the time so Dingell does how the You know, they have had the history and the taste of what success is, but the model changed. At that time, I was, I did not recommend that model at that time in my role as Director of Elementary Education and English Learner Services because that was my fear. And I think that has

130been very critical because she's facing many obstacles that's very difficult to support. TO PROGRAMS IN THAT SMALL SCHOOL WITHOUT THE OPPORTUNITY FOR COLLABORATION. SO THEY'RE WORKING IN ISOLATION. THEY'RE DOING THE BEST THAT THEY CAN. SO WE REALLY NEED TO LOOK SERIOUS ABOUT LOOKING AT THE MODEL. THANK YOU VERY MUCH. ANY OTHER QUESTIONS? TRUSTEE RICHARDSON-FELDER. I have a general question and I'm not going to be asking you any questions so you can have a seat unless anybody else has a question for you. Thank you everyone. Great question. Thank you very much. Respectfully. Thank you. Thank you. So it's my understanding that the SARC's purpose is to inform parents and community members of what's going on to promote accountability, transparency and resource allocation as well as legal compliance and supporting schools. I know that most sites have

131very active and involved ELAC, school site councils and PTAs. They know where the data is. However, there is a whole group of parents that are not part of that 5% who don't know what's going on. And so these documents are very vital for those who are going to go on their fact-finding mission and to figure out what's going on. Every year we come up with these gorgeous plans but the only way we can make significant change and move the needle is if we look at the data in the lens of humility and collaboration. Every school is unique like Trustee Villagrana said. However a lot of this documents are cut and paste. The only original data really is the data insets that is being put in. What I would really like to know is. What are

132you guys doing outside of ethnic studies differentiation PROMESA. We have 12 to 30 percent special ed students at each site. Differentiation is not going to cover how teachers support the SPED students. SPED teacher here. So of course that's something of a concern for me. At our reorg meeting we found out that not all schools are using their Title 1 funds. What are we going to do to make sure that all sites are using their Title 1 funds. And I hear that we need money for coaching interventions and support groups. So my teacher brain says we need time for the teachers to plan and pivot. So any principal who would like to address those things I'm talking about what additional development are you doing. I know as a Beamer parent there's Kaveh and there's professional development

133with Kaveh but that wasn't listed in the professional development site. I know that you guys are doing wonderful work, but I did not see that in the document. So if there's any willing soul to come up and talk about that, I would love to hear what you have to say, specifically about how we are supporting our SPED students since they are such a large portion of our population as well. Good evening, Superintendent, President, board members. SciTech is very different. I mean, we have our own... our own LCAP and everything, but I think I can answer your question in terms of special ed. We have a high percent of special ed at our school. And I think, and you'll see if you dig into the data for our dashboard, there's our students are making growth. And

134I think it's a strong collaboration between our special ed. teachers teacher and our general teacher and so we've been bringing the PLC model and I think they're part of it and it's really important to continue that work so that we see our kids as you know all our kids and not just you know these, the ELs or the SPED or, because they're all our kids. And so I think that's one key of collaborating and doing more collaboration between all our teachers to meet the needs of all our groups and subgroups. I make a recommendation that principal Friary come up and talk about the special education program at her school because her school was actually identified for targeted support for that group and has exited that and I think that she might have some great things

135to share. Thank you. And then if we can also remember that I was also asking about Title 1 funds and allowing teachers time to pivot and regroup so that they can incorporate this into their lesson plans. Good evening. We've worked really hard over the last several years at Lee to make sure that we have focused on the needs of our special education students as well as our English learners. Those were the two groups that we were in ATSI for. We've done a variety of things, but a lot of it does come back to our PLC model and having our RSP teachers push into gen ed classes with our special education students and participate in those PLC meetings with the gen ed teachers so that they are discussing kids and their needs and interventions and different

136needs that our students have that we see. and different ideas for reaching all of those students with the special education professional and the gen ed teacher working hand in hand. And so I think that has been a big part of our success. We also have revamped the directed studies class. And so in those directed studies classes, not only are they getting an opportunity to work from their classes and more. guided help from their special education teachers, but they're also getting those skills that they need to fill some gaps, executive functioning skills, organizational skills, those kinds of things. And so really putting it in students' hands and empowering students with the skills that they need to be better students and more successful in their general education classes. Thank you very much trustee Fowler are all your

137questions addressed No, all right trustee Brubaker Trustee Rodriguez kind of stole my question earlier, but I would like to address it to anyone who is willing to answer what can we do as a district to support our students. I mean, I'm obviously very new to this, but it's very difficult for me to look at numbers on a chart and try to envision how we can improve that. And so I rely on you all who are in the trenches of this to give us some advice. If your answer is funds, then I want to echo Trustee Rodriguez-Mahiga's. question which is where specifically would you aim those? Can we have can we have other principals that haven't participated? Somebody from a secondary? Oh we already have middle school. How about high school? How about uh let's pick

138up Sandy. Oh is she here? Oh but I think Mr. Salcido might have. Okay let's pick a high school. I'll just echo that he saw some really great score improvements in both ELA and math in his SBAC scores and was able to exit Comprehensive Support and Improvement in one year at his school site. So I'm sure he has some great things to share. Thank you. Good evening, everybody. So in terms of kind of what we're talking about in terms of numbers, one of the things that we did last year was set up an 11th grade assembly with our students because high school, we essentially only. testing our 11th graders every year. And it's not the same 11th graders every year. So it's different students every. So essentially is meeting with the students, educating them on

139what the SBAC is or what the CAASPP is, educating them on kind of the reasons that we maybe didn't reach our scores. What we figured out was that there's a lot of opt outs for the CAASPP. And most of the opt outs are coming from students that don't normally. that normally do a lot better on the assessment. There were a lot of our AP students that were just stressed out. They're about to take AP classes or AP tests in May, didn't want to be bothered with the CASP. So a lot of those opt-outs, and when they don't test, we get a zero. So we get the lowest score possible. That averages in with everything that was kind of what was affecting our overall scores. So the year prior, we had about... I think 20 something

140kids that opted out last year. I think we only had about six. And that came from educating them, educating parents, educating them in terms of some of the things that were embedded in the program or in the cast, like the early assessment program so that they're, if they do well enough, they can be, you know, jump into straight into college level English and math. but are also providing just opportunities and incentives for our students. And with that, I think we were able to make a tremendous growth over the year. I think we raised up with like 13% in English and 8% in math. This year, kind of wanted to continue on with that. We devoted some of the money that we have kind of to go off of what... Trustee Richardson-Feller was asking was to

141UC Davis Math Project to bring in some coaching, bring in supporting our math teachers, because all there was 80% growth, we're still significantly lower than the state. So we wanted to make sure that we were supporting our students, supporting our teachers, building capacity. So we brought in coaching to kind of support that. The other thing we did was have coaches from Cave come in. So we have coaches from copper that are coming in teaching best practices strategies making sure that our tea again building capacity within a variety of our teachers throughout different departments so that they can bring that back to the rest of their department and build and work within their PLC is because again, it's a PLC model that we're trying to Impress upon them also one of the things that is whatever

142is important to you is you? Make time for so making time for it was making time so our site level meetings on Wednesday Majority of those site level meetings that are kind of for site level I give them time for PLC's making sure that they're working in their teams departments Following up with that making sure we're looking at the data to kind of review any of that that information, but and as of right now We have a lot of good work happening at Woodland High School, so hopefully that stuff continues and hopefully continues to show in our growth for next year. Thank you very much. Any other questions? Trustee Villagrana? You're fine. Oh. Some of the elementary school under the ratio of pupils and academic counselors listed academic counselors but then in the response was

143that they're not academic counselors and so to me we should not be listing them as academic counselors in the document then they should be listed somewhere else or else it gives the impression that we're have academic counselors at those sites. Thank you for that question. So as I shared with you when you asked that question earlier The California Department of Education gets that information from what we enter into CALPADS and how we identify staff So we will be working one of the things that we can do is look into if the superintendent would like us to how we are identifying our counselors at the elementary school level and see if there's a different way that we can identify them within CALPADS So some elementary schools identify them that way and some don't because again, they're

144not there's no consistency Yeah, thank and I and we are not a hundred percent clear on that This is only the second year that CalPADS has been automatically populating that information And so that's something we need to look into to clarify. Okay, and then my next question for any principal like to come up and share their perspective on because some schools have you know in the 20 percentile and lower the chronic absenteeism and like to hear what impact they feel that has on the performance of the students as a whole. Good evening, trustees, superintendent. I'm Stacey Falconer. I'm the principal of Spring Lake Elementary. Attendance has been one of our primary focuses since I arrived a few years ago at our school. In the last three years, we have dropped our chronic attendance or absenteeism

145rate from approximately 20% down to 13% to last year's 6%. And I can tell you that it has a significant impact on student achievement and academic outcomes. If the kids are not there we can't teach them and in looking at some of our district data I would point out that some of our schools that have lower achievement have significantly higher levels of poverty and significantly higher levels of chronic absenteeism and that's not always something that school teachers and staff Can completely control it takes collaboration with parents community members education Support to make sure that families have what they need to be able to transport their kids to school every day with consistency One of the things that we did at Spring Lake that was really helpful was having parent openness Spacing out here forums so

146a couple of years ago and looking at our achievement data and our chronic absenteeism rates in February I held several several parent forums with different subgroups that were showing higher levels of chronic absenteeism compared to others and we talked about why and One of the big things that came out was that parents didn't understand That it was very crucial and impactful to have their kids come to school even for part of a day so a lot of families have medical appointments, they have transportation challenges. When one child is ill, it's difficult to get all of the children to school. If a child has a medical appointment that can't be scheduled outside of the instructional day, they were just choosing to keep their kiddos home for the entire day. And by encouraging our parents to show

147up and have the kiddo come even for part of the day. and then come back after the medical appointment, we saw huge decreases in chronic absenteeism, and we saw students gaining confidence. They were walking into school knowing what was happening. They were more encouraged to try, and we saw a lot of positive achievement there. So when it comes to absenteeism, it's a huge impact on our schools. And so anything that we can do for our families to support students in coming every single day, we're here to help. and we really want to encourage our families across the district. If you are having issues at home that you need assistance with, we don't want you to be embarrassed. We don't want you to be afraid. We don't want you to feel like we're not on your

148team. We're here. Reach out and let us know because we do have a lot of support staff that our district has provided to our school sites to support families with whatever they need. Thank you in the types of services funded section What's the rationale that we put district level type instead of the schools because it's the school report card. Why don't we put school? That's a good question. I That is historically what we've done and that was a past practice that was inherited and I went and looked after you asked that question for the Sark Directions, there's really no direction in regards to that. So It was part of my assumption that we would be talking about what has happened at the district level because there is a district level of information and school level

149information in the report card So for this section, I'd like to request my colleagues that we, again, so it's not a copy and paste, right, Ross? This document kind of loses its meaning if it's just like 20% that's unique to the school, that we actually have school types of services funded, not this, I mean, Ross, it's just the same thing over and over, and it's like, what's the point of this report card? So any objection to that request? Can I add to that to request that we actually have that I know we have to pass this today as is But that we actually get that information this year because I think that's pretty valuable information to have Superintendent with that's something that can be done again. Not fast, but reasonable time Yes, I can work

150with them depending on all the other Things they have on their to-do list. Yeah for me. It's future not here now because again There's a lot of stuff that this house working on again not not for this again. We're gonna approve it how it is but definitely for the future and then my last request is in in the description that Principals get specific instructions because as you saw there were in all different focuses And I think it'd be good to have some consistency in the information that's provided to our families around in that category as well. And that's something again that superintendent can work with staff to determine what instructions those are. Right. If any objection to that I think that's a good idea that we add that direction. So my understanding this is all

151for improvement of the of these reports for next year, correct? That would be very doable and very appreciated by our principals because they're also deep and getting ready to write the school plans which is Very critical for them to be working with theirs whether teachers or staff in their schools like councils to bring those forward later on this spring so I would Request that these changes changes for next year And unfortunately last year I didn't get a chance to read all these so I didn't catch any of these things. And this year I was able to and I was able to catch these items. So those are the items that, again, I requested we change so that, again, for next year, not this year. Thank you for your feedback, Trustee Viagra. Thank you very much.

152I'm going to take a turn before I send it back to you, Trustee Rodriguez-Molica. Thank you to my colleagues for all your questions. I do want to zone in on the school facility conditions and planned improvements. I do want to get the support from my colleagues this evening to make sure that each of these report cards does hold the site accountable to make sure that the maintenance and repairs that are necessary at each of the school sites do get processed with maintenance and operations for those repairs to be considered, if at all feasible, for repair. Because when I look at the report cards, a significant portion of this report is on school facility conditions and planned improvements. but we need to make sure that we hold our sites accountable because there are some repairs that

153may not be significant in cost, but should be addressed. Go ahead. I apologize. I just wanted to clarify that on the school facilities report, the numbers listed next to them are the work order numbers that were established once the issue was identified and maintenance and operation has already submitted those work orders and are working through those processes. Thank you. And all of the school sites are doing that. Correct. Okay. Yes. So it's automatic when they do the reports. And a lot of the things on there have already been taken care of. And some are pending because of other priorities. But there are on, as you can see, Jim's ready and he's already on it. Yeah. He's taking care of it. Thank you. Jim, I would love to hear from you. Good evening. What would you

154like to hear from me? I just want to hear how you're working with our different sites to make sure that you guys are aware of what is reflected on these report cards. And how are you considering them? How are you navigating all of these? Because you're getting, I mean, when I read this and I hear from Danielle, it sounds like you probably have gotten a lot. Sure, and we actually are intimately Involved in the process because we actually go out I go out myself my staff go out and we actually create these reports Excuse me, so we walk through every site as requested two three years ago. I think we only had to do a third of our sites of the classrooms. That changed about three years. So we have to go into every single

155classroom and we open up doors, we check lights, we do all the safety issues. So we walk through as a team sometimes or sometimes we do it individually. They take a few hours each site. So it does take some time to go through physically the sites. As we're going, we have our laptops, we have cameras. We're noticing everything from stained tiles to, I mean, you name it, broken tiles, doors that don't shut properly, all that kind of stuff. We log it on the computer. There's a specific program that we use to do that. Once we create the report, as Danielle said, we go into our work order program and we create work orders based on the findings that we have. And then we start to issue those but as you stated there's a lot of

156work orders that are generated through that process We already have a backlog of work orders just created from general work orders from the sites So we do try to prioritize those work orders from the fit inspections Anything that is just safety concern will take care of right away some it might be a painting issue or you know cracker peeling paint You know those kind of get pushed down a little bit. So we we do generate two to three hundred work orders just on that walkthrough So we are ushering through the system on those and trying to keep up with the standard work orders that we get anyway. But it's a process. We'll be done probably in another two to three months that those work orders will be completed. And in the work order system, the

157site can always check to see where that status is and see the notes, any pictures that were taken from that. So it's a lengthy process, but every year we keep on marching through. Generate and take care of the work orders. I appreciate that Jim and I also know that you probably when you guys look at all of the sites needs You know in collaboration with our facility master plan that you are also looking at it from a lens of equity and process that you determine what gets fixed when and trying to make sure that our facilities all look similar. Sure and I think when we first started this when I first came on board and we started doing the fit inspections which is nothing new they've been around for a while it is difficult sometimes

158to walk into a room and prioritize that so we did as a team again starting with safety fire life safety things those types of issues that are if they're that need to be immediately addressed. So we're focusing on those. We started the process to look at every little nook and cranny, every little crack, and started to list those, and then we're generating 300 to 400 work orders. So we did try to scale it back a little bit on things that were immediate needs. Thank you very much. Trustee Rodriguez-Molica. Thank you, I actually have two questions and maybe I'll start with you if that's okay I Notice in two foias a Sark Cleanliness was a big issue, right? So And it's a big concern to me, right? Some of the comments on this observation tool, it

159had a rating of poor for cleanliness. The comments about the facilities was that they weren't, they were inadequately stocked, bad odor, ants all over the floor, ants on the drinking fountain, ants on the counter, in multiple restrooms at the school site, not just in one. So I did email, right, and I did get a response about this. And it sounds like... Tafoya is one of our bigger schools, right? So it does have a higher student population. Do we have additional custodial staff to be able to support that student population? Or is it the same as it is at the smaller school sites? I think that one has like a floater, like a half more custodian there. So typically we have it at elementary sites. We have a morning and an afternoon sites that do have

160more. Students there we we do tend to augment with someone that kind of stays for lunch and then stays toward the end of the day as well So I believe that's how that site is is handled with the custodials of sort of a crew as I mentioned in that in that email It can be problematic with with restrooms to keep them clean because I know I've talked with the custodians before at that particular site I want to say they have 800 ish kids at that's at that site and to and they are they they they don't have quite as Many restrooms as they would like at that site. I think it was built One or two short so Having that many kids run in and out of that that bathroom through the course of the

161day Sometimes it's hard to keep up with that It's a constant conversation, you know, it's it's worthwhile to bring it back up to the custodian and the principals I had noted on that particular concern When we're done with work order, I'm sorry when we're done with our fit inspections Ones that we don't create work orders for Will send an email back to the site and we'll list the things that we noticed that cleanliness those types of things and to pull in the team at the site the principal the VP coordinator and all that and just hey we noticed that this was an issue please let let your custodial staff that this is an issue let us know MNO if we need any assistance to do that our custodial supervisor can work with them to try

162to make sure maybe we have to change the schedule which on that site I know that we have tried to do that shifting people around trash gets full, but they're over in the lunch area and they can't quite get to it all. So things like ants and all that, we have pest intrusions and we try to, those types of things, again, as I was mentioning to President Zavala, that we address those right away. We'll call the pest company right away and say, hey, we got an issue, and they'll usually come out within the next day or so. Getting the sites involved on on some of those issues that we don't typically ourselves and M&O on our side see And they're usually very responsive And if there is some ongoing issues that either the teachers bring

163up say hey We notice that there's there's some issues in our in our bathrooms We'll work as a team to try to take care of it I've sat in the principal's office before to try to coordinate the the custodians on that site If it's not the outside trash, it's the inside so it's it is a little bit difficult school with the facility size that we have Yeah, I appreciate that and I I mean I it's concerning to me because this seems like a problem We really shouldn't be having right? It's not structural. It's not anything big It's cleanliness and it worries me that it's a it's not just one restroom at Tafoya It's actually multiple restrooms and with ants in the water fountain I mean kiddos aren't gonna want to nobody's gonna want to drink

164from there right with these conditions in the restrooms The kids are not gonna want to use the restroom. They're gonna wait want to wait until they get home and it could cause health issues for them. So I would really like to see just consistent communication on it and making sure whatever support you all need, if you could share that with us too, because this seems like it should not be an issue that our schools should have. Our students should not have to see that. So I do appreciate everything that you're doing to remedy it and all of the communication. And I understand the school size and everything, but it just... I'm really surprised to see it, right? Especially because it was, it seems like it was just a random day, happened to catch it. I

165am sure it was not just one day, right? That those restrooms were in that condition. Yeah. Thank you. I can certainly follow up with the site and follow up with my email to them. AND CHECK IN AND SEE HOW THEY ARE DOING. THANK YOU VERY MUCH. I HAD A SECOND FOLLOW-UP QUESTION. SECOND FOLLOW-UP QUESTION, TRUSTEE GARCIA, TRUSTEE VILLAGRANA, AND THEN I WANT TO MOVE ON. THANK YOU. THIS ONE I THINK IS GOING TO BE QUICK. I ALSO EMAILED ABOUT THIS, SIMILAR TO WHAT TRUSTEE VILLAGRANA SHARED, IN THE PD SECTION OF ALL OF THE SARCS, WE HAD A COPY AND PASTE ACROSS all of them, elementary, middle, and high school. And it's the PD opportunities that the district as a whole offers. I shared in my email that it's not, that's not helpful, it's not informative

166because the high schools are listing early literacy PD for their teachers and I... Don't think that's actually happening there So I know we communicated about this so for the next round of the Sarks if that could be also added in the same way that we had the earlier request and I understand you all are doing a ton of work right now But actually sharing with us the actual PD that the teacher is participated in In those schools would be helpful information for us and I appreciate that feedback and I just want to Clarify if it's okay to clarify with the board that I think some of the things that are copy and paste was a prior attempt to have more consistency between our school sites and what was being reported and so the feedback of

167It would be more helpful to have more specific information is good for us and I will work with the superintendent to make sure that we address those things So we heard a lot of feedback tonight For how we can improve this moving forward and we have a lot of items So if there's any additional last-minute questions, I do want to send our principals home They need to it's 930 and I need them to be ready to for our students and staff tomorrow. So Trustee Garcia. Yes. I have a question for the superintendent wait, we When we can get the plan for Dingo in front of the board to discuss? Because I hear and we talk a lot. I'm going to do a Friday update to update the board on a timeline. In that, we will

168discuss when we bring an information item to the board. You know, somebody to... I'M GOING TO DO A FRIDAY UPDATE FIRST TO GIVE YOU A SUMMARY OF WHAT OUR INTENTIONS ARE AND THAT FRIDAY UPDATE WILL PUT IN WHEN WE ANTICIPATE HAVING IT AS AN INFORMATION ITEM. I DON'T HAVE THAT DATE ON MY MIND RIGHT NOW BECAUSE I STILL NEED TO FINALIZE WITH STAFF SO I DON'T WANT TO SAY A DATE AND THEN HOW PEOPLE WILL DISAPPOINT IF IT DOESN'T HAPPEN ON THAT SPECIFIC DATE. BUT IT WILL HAPPEN BEFORE THE END OF THE SCHOOL YEAR. I WOULD LIKE TO SEE sooner than later because we can use the carryover fans if we can use for this school in particular, it will be awesome and soon is better. I WORK WITH THE AGENDA PLANNING COMMITTEE BECAUSE THERE'S

169ALSO SOME VERY SENSITIVE ITEMS. I HAVE A LIST OF YELLOW SHEET REQUESTS. I'M STILL TRYING TO CATCH UP ON THEM. WE HAVE SOME REQUIRED ITEMS LIKE SCHOOL PLANS. BUT I'LL WORK WITH THE AGENDA PLANNING COMMITTEE TO SEE AND WITH MY STAFF TO SEE WHEN THEY'LL BE READY TO PRESENT. I HAVE TO HAVE STAFF READY TO PRESENT. AND THEY ALSO HAVE TO FIT WITH THE AGENDA. BUT YES, I KNOW THAT IS AN URGENCY. I completely understand, but I think this school has a lot of needs, and we hear from the principal, and she says what she needs, and I think in our position, we can not just listen to them. We can provide the help. So I would like to ask the agenda planning if we can put this up prioritized item. Has there been a

170yellow sheet submitted for this? No, there hasn't, but I still have to have staff ready to present. So I can't present where we have to make sure that we work with the principal and she communicates with her staff. Trustee Garcia submit a yellow sheet please. Okay I will. All right. Trustee Villagrana. So my last just want to say thank you to the principals and you know pass on the appreciation for your staff to your staff for all the work you all did to again put this document together but also in all the efforts that you have done to you know again keep the scores we're at and also all those those of you that were able to increase the scores. The purpose of my questions again was to Basically, I highlight the many challenges right

171that exists that you all are over overcoming and working with your staff Again to provide the best education for for the students that you serve So with that said I'd like to motion that we approve the school accountability report cards All right. There's a motion on the table to approve the school accountability report cards. Is there a second? Could I ask a question really quickly that I don't expect them to answer tonight? I will give you a chance to ask a question, but there's a motion on the table. Can I get a second? It's been motioned by trustee Villagrana and seconded by trustee Rodriguez question I again, I don't expect an answer to this. I would love an email if anybody has any ideas I was concerned about some of the percentages of rates of

172suspension of some of the more disadvantaged and marginalized members of our student population if any of the principals have ideas about how we as a district can make improvements or Support on making changes to hopefully improve those rates. I would really love to hear them. Thank you Thank you very much. All right All those in favor of approving please say aye aye any abstentions any nose Opposition. All right. All this motion passes unanimously by our board. Thank you very much to all of our staff and teachers who participated in this item. Thank you to my colleagues for participating and asking great questions. I know that there was a little bit of back and forth, but this is part of the process, so I do respectfully appreciate. THE DIALOGUE. WE ARE MOVING ON TO THE NEXT

173ITEM. VINCENT BOLZ, PLEASE GO HOME. THANK YOU VERY MUCH. GOOD NIGHT. IT IS 930 ON THE DOT SO I WOULD LIKE TO MOVE TO THE NEXT ITEM QUICKLY. ITEM M2, WE DO HAVE ONE PUBLIC COMMENT. THIS IS AN INFORMATION ACTIONABLE ITEM TO REVIEW THE SECONDARY COURSE REVISION PROPOSAL FROM COLLEGE AND CAREER ARTICULATION TEAM, THE CCAT. IT'S THE ART, CULTURE, AND THE MURAL DESIGN COURSE. Thank you. I'm going to try to be super quick. I personally absolutely support and love the changes that are being made. I wish these classes were offered when I was in school. I did want to address these classes will be offered to grades 10 through 12 and less than 200 students were surveyed. So, as I was going through that, it makes me wonder when changes like this are being made,

174are we reflecting on the data enough? Are enough students and voices being heard? Also, the college and career articulation team. I'd like to know who's on that team. How do they get chosen? And if it's staff, are they being paid for their time? I've had counselors reach out to me about different groups and committees that they've been asked to participate on that sound similar to this. I do not know if it's this exact one where they've been told that it's optional and they are not paid. And so that makes me wonder if we are not valuing the staff who are making these decisions. Is that really a valid decision of our staff? Right? Or is it a biased decision? Because it was really just the people who were willing to be there or just happened

175to be there or felt, because they're new and not tenured, like they had to be there. So I have those questions. Again, I don't know if this is the same committee, but those are my questions. Thank you. Thank you very much for the public comment. All right. Presentation. Thank you. She hit the button. Good evening trustees and superintendents out of the room at the moment, but we are here with two course revisions Both of these courses are currently on the books They have been revised and updated to more accurately reflect Well, the art and culture course has been on the books for a number of years. It was revised to update the with the ethnic studies standards and our ethnic study policy as a district and also to include the youth participatory action research project.

176Murals and collective resistance was just approved last year. This is the first year that we have offered that course. When it was originally brought forth to CCAT and approved by the board, it did not contain the ethnic studies component. So our teachers... Two of whom are super troopers and have been here all evening waiting for this moment worked with our Consultant Carlos Hagedorn for four or five sessions to look at the content of both of these courses identify areas where they overlap and include Or could be expanded to include the ethnic studies work. So these courses are here for your consideration And we are here to answer questions. Thank you any questions from the board trustee Villagrana Another question just a comment that I appreciate that you all infused youth participatory action research into I

177mean many awesome additions as well, but again that's dear to my heart and again so once I thank you for You know the individuals who worked on this to enhance it make it better And bring that element of culture to to these courses But again, especially white bar. So thank you for that thank you very much any other board members trustee brubaker and then trustee rodriguez mojica So I have a studio art degree and I minored in art history and anthropology. So I am thrilled to see we have such amazing classes for our students. I don't think I had the opportunity to have anything at all like this in college. And frankly, I think this is better than the classes I had in college. So I just want to say how grateful I am to

178our educators for teaching our students in such an amazing, well-rounded and vital thing. So thank you. Thank you, Trustee Brubaker. No questions from Trustee Rodriguez-Molica. Anyone else? All right. Can I get a motion, please? So moved. Second. Motion by Trustee Villagrana, seconded by Trustee Richardson-Fowler. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any abstentions? Any opposition? The motion passes unanimously. I just want to acknowledge the teachers that were here. Ready to answer any questions about your courses as you can see there's full confidence and what you have provided and thank you for your hard work And please go home to you. Please go home Thank you And I also want to just thank them for the amount of work that it took to revise these courses absolutely amount of time and writing and The investment that

179they're making in our kids by putting these courses together. I'm very proud of them Thank you very much All right, we're swiftly moved to the next item. It's M3, and this is an informational item on foreign exchange student programs. Trustee Richardson-Fowler. Okay, guys. There is one for M3. All right, there's a public comment. Yes, ma'am. I'm sorry, Trustee. Very sorry. I just want to make sure that we have some support for this because I love that we are bringing an enrichment program up. I want to recognize that when we have programs like this that students can work towards throughout the year or years in high school, it connects them to our our school community and it builds their future goals and it makes them think beyond the walls of our community. So I really am

180grateful that this is on the docket tonight. So thank you. Even though it's just informational. Thank you very much. And I'm sorry Trustee Richardson-Fowler I had no idea we had a public comment but thank you very much Becca Bernard. The floor is yours. This is my first time doing a presentation. I thought I would be nervous but I'm just excited. So if we can go on to the next slide. So I've wanted to move forward on this since I decided to run in 2020. I spoke about in preparation for this over the last four years, I've spoke with various programs, staff, parents, students, community members, and now it's finally here. Oh, thank you. I get the clicker. Okay. Thank you. So now we're here. I yellow sheeted this back in April of last year. And

181so I'm really grateful that we are finally here. So the why. There's I'm not gonna read the slides for you guys living away from home fosters independence and responsibility and adaptability for our students to learn to navigate something that's unfamiliar and environments that is not common to them situations that are new it helps them to build resilience and that's something that we don't just get in the classroom or playing sports or being an arts program it helps to develop a broader worldview and appreciation of of global diversity, which in this day and age we need more of. So there are several forms of exchange programs. You have independent programs like AFS, ISE, and others. Those are programs that people seek out independently, sign their kids up for, pay however they want to pay for them.

182Then there are recommended programs for the U.S. State Department that usually come with funding. And then there are district-developed programs, and those are programs that each individual school district or school site implements. creates runs all by themselves. So I wanted to talk specifically about one of the US State Department programs, the GAP program, which is the German American Partnership Program. It's a lovely box program that basically is set up and provides VETTING AHEAD OF TIME. IT PROVIDES SECURITY WHICH IT IS BRIDGED WITH THE GERMAN COUNSELOR, GERMAN GOVERNMENT AS WELL AS THE U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT. THE WAY IT IS SET UP IS THAT WE APPLY FOR A PROGRAM. WE ARE, WE APPLY FOR THE PROGRAM. WE'RE MATCHED WITH A SCHOOL IN GERMANY. AND THEN WE PROVIDE AN OPPORTUNITY FOR OUR KIDS TO SIGN UP FOR IT.

183They're matched with a German student. They correspond. And the German students come here first, usually around a spring break for anywhere between three to five weeks. And then at the end of the school year, the way the GAP program is run, I think about 5% of the program leaves during fall, and that would allow the Americans to go to Germany in the fall. I think it's about... 15 no 10% allow the students to go in spring however 85% of the program goes during summer so it does not disrupt academics for our American students here is a list of some of the gap programs throughout California if you note San Diego and Concord they both have two programs that are in their two high schools so this provides us an opportunity to create a program that

184Bridges the two high schools and it's a woodland joint unified program not just a pioneer program or a woodland high school program adds to equity This program has been around since the 1970s over 750 schools both German and US are involved and I am one of the 400,000 alumni of this program. It's the largest established long-going biliterate exchange program So for community there are so many benefits to having a program like this for our community it allows an opportunity for our students to interact with government As the German students are preparing to do presentations for the board, school board, for city council, as well as the board of supervisors. And typically their American students come along with them. Now, as you've seen at our board meetings, typically we don't have a large showing of students

185unless they are. Concerned about something that's on the agenda one thing that is very unique about our German counterparts their students are Highly involved in what's going on in their community as well as in their government I remember when I was in Germany and I asked my German sister why you guys are so involved and why you guys know so much that's going on My German sister said well, there was this guy who came to power about 40, 50 years ago, and we want to make sure that never happens again. So those kids are very invested in what's going on in their community and their politics, and bridging that gap by example would be amazing. Some of the benefits, and I know there's going to be trepidation, but some of the benefits for students and

186parents is that the Germans come here first. There's an ease in that and getting to know the kids. gaining comfortability and knowing where you will be sending your kid and who they will be supported by. There is no language requirement as most Germans are fluent in English. Most Europeans are fluent in English. Having that connection with the State Department has that extra level of safety, security, and support. Programs like this get our kids out of their bubble out of their comfort zone and Really help support them and growth and development. It's an enrichment program that Gives kids something to work towards the first year of the program when you see the German kids come to the community and come on campus It's it's a game-changer it is so enlightening to have folks from a different

187community come talk about where they're from and and they They're a pleasant spectacle. They dress differently, they talk differently, and they're very notable when they come to campus. So being a part of that as a parent, you get that experience. As a student who's hosting, you get to usher these new people around and share your culture and your community. Now, I know there's going to be some concerns, and so I'd like to address what a lot of the concerns are. So for example, priority. Why are we talking about an enrichment program like this as we heard from some of the parents when we have struggling meeting our state goals with our district goals and levels for ELA and math? If we're always focused on our deficits, we don't give any of our high achieving students

188anything to continue aspiring towards. As well as giving our students who are middle of the road or don't have a lot of why, why do I need to go to school? Why do I need to be motivated? Why do I need to do this? This is another carrot. A lot of our parents were hoping that after the pandemic, we came up with out-of-the-box ideas, and I'm hoping that you guys will see this as an out-of-the-box idea. The GAP program promotes critical 21st century skills such as global awareness, intercultural communication, and adaptability, which are essential in today's interconnected world. Financial accessibility. There are a plethora of grants available, financial aid, fundraising, partnerships. They also help you reach out to local community organizations such as the Rotary, Odd Fellows, and other groups to seek funding. Language barriers

189and concerns. I just want to reemphasize that the German students speak fluent English, eliminating the need for participants to learn German beforehand. Cultural relevance. So the German partnership is value in a predominantly Chicano, Latino, Hispanic community because it provides a new point, a touchstone. So I won't say that we're a completely homogenous community, but it does give us another experience, another culture to kind of look into in a very safe and meaningful way. It is very also important to foster global awareness beyond our region and linguistic boundaries. Now our community has a sister city in Michoacan. But this would allow us to have even further global connections with the city of Woodland Let's see equity and inclusion. This program is accessible to all students including those from disability communities socioeconomic disadvantaged backgrounds You name it

190if you are between the grades of 9th and 12th this program is available to you safety and oversight so again with it being affiliated with the State Department every program is vetted the teachers are properly trained there's a lot of support front end back end during and logistics the program takes anywhere between three months to a year to establish And from start to finish, when the kids are getting to connect to one another in August, September, students don't usually show up and arrive until the spring. So that provides several months to build connections and get to know one another. And in this day and age, we've got email, Skype, Zoom, and there's multiple ways to make sure you're familiar with where your kids are going and who they're going to be with. So I just

191also wanted to provide some data and statistics on what our students are doing when they are going abroad and what that looks like. So in the, well this is post-secondary, but we see these are demographics of kids who are usually traveling abroad. And, hold on a second. Then here I also have a list of host countries and what that looks like. As you see, Europe is one of the most predominant places that we have exchange programs established for our U.S. students. So this would be in alignment with the norm. And then I also wanted to include demographics that are traveling abroad as well. And it does also include our able and disabled students as well as types of disability just for that equity and inclusion component. So I did a rapid one since I didn't

192want to take up too much time, but I wanted to provide you guys with ample amount of information so that you guys can decide if this is something you would like to see in WJUSD. When I talked with students, there was an overwhelming majority of them were interested in doing a program like this. Few kids who were trepidatious about going away hadn't really left the county and I think one of the wonderful things about having the bilateral exchange program is that they get to see cohorts of students coming here first and it kind of normalizes getting out of your community spreading your wings learning something new and reaching out so I hope you guys are interested in pursuing something like this. What is our format? Do folks ask me questions? What do you? You can,

193the board can ask questions if the board wants to direct staff to come back and if that is something the board is interested in pursuing, the board. can direct staff to come back to see what that might look like for our district. So at this point you know the trustee has expressed an interest on a topic. She's bringing it to the rest of you and then I've been waiting for direction from from the board whether you're interested in pursuing this and you'd like to have direct me to come back with more information. I just want to make sure that just to clarify this is an informational item. So in order for us to give direction to the superintendent, you would have to get four head nods, four hands to bring this back as an action

194for us to take a vote to give the superintendent direction, similar to like what we did with the item on food and nutrition. Okay. Any questions for trustee Feller? Trustee. Brubaker thank you. I'm sorry you guys it's late. It's okay. Yes, ma'am. So this is not a question. It's just overwhelming support My school district did not have a program like this But I did have the distinct benefit of being able to study abroad as a college student and it had a pretty found Impact on Who I am and I ended up marrying someone I met there so big impacts I think that this would meet many of the things we want for our students for our Having good global citizens and many many aspects. I'm sorry I meant to look at all the list of

195things and be like here's bullet points what what qualifies but it's late and I'm tired But I think that this would be a great option to have our students have the option of being able to do So it has my full support I am particularly interested in the the program you proposed because I feel like as a parent knowing that there is the support of the State Department I would feel a lot more comfortable with a program that I don't feel like I have to then go out and sort of like back up that. So that's just my two cents. Thank you very much, Trustee Brubaker. Anybody else? Trustee Villagrana and then Trustee Rodriguez-Mojica. What's the cost per student? It varies, but the way the GAP program is outlined, it's about $1,500 per student. Anywhere

196between $1,500 and $3,000. And how many students would participate per year? Anywhere between 10 and 40, depending upon the interest. We could divide that up by school sites. So when I say 10, I'm thinking 10 at Pioneer, 10 at Woodland, on up to 20 at each site, with each site having at least one teacher advisor, up to two or three is the way the program's set up. What's the cost for the teacher advisor? The teacher advisor, I don't have that number off the top of my head. Okay. And then the students from the other country, where do they stay? They stay with the host family. So if the student is going to Germany, then the Germans would stay with the student that they're matched with. Okay. Thank you. So I have I mean it's a

197great opportunity. I just have several concerns. One again the that students stay with a host family. You know we have our families that don't have accommodations for that because of their situation financial situation. The other one is that we have students who are not able to travel and they will be automatically excluded from this opportunity. And I I'm not OK with excluding students automatically from an opportunity that's really great opportunity for them. And then the other one is, you know, we'd have to cover the cost of all these students, whether they were for the fundraiser or not. And that's another concern of mine. You know, if we sent 40 students, that's an expensive amount. And those are my main concerns. Again, it's a great program, great opportunity, but just the fact that a segment of

198our population would be automatically excluded, I'm not comfortable with that. Trustee Rodriguez-Mojica. My question was about the cost as well. Are there any other costs associated with this outside of the cost per student and the cost for the teacher? There is your... pocket money so like when you go to Germany if you decide to do any traveling with the German students so I'll give you an example when I did this program during the 1993-94 school year it was my junior year we had snail mail back then my mom and I and my foster sister lived in a two-bedroom apartment Rebecca came and stayed with me and my foster sister in my our room we made it work we had her over Spring break. We took some trips during spring break. Unfortunately, at the end of

199our break, her mother had passed away of a heart attack, so she had to go back early. When I went to spend time with her, I flew over there and spent the four or five weeks with her in her room, got to go to school with her. We went and did some traveling, which was included in the price. We went to go and visit the Bundestag, which is their government building. We did presentations. just like they did presentations here. And it's what you make of it. If you want to have extra pocket change so that you can go out on excursions and whatnot, you do. Not everybody did. So it's kind of what you make of it. What about food related to this? Does a host family, are they expected to house you and feed

200you? Yes. And I will tell you, it's been 31 years and my German sister and I still talk monthly. Thank you very much. Trustee Garcia? Thank you. So I have the same question as about the cost, and I make echo what Trustee Villagrana say about this is not equitable for, not all our students can be able to do this because different families, different opportunities. I think it's a great program. It's not regret, but I think this is not equitable for all our students and I fear that the only, just some students can be able to benefit for this. I will say that when the experience is not just limited to the travel, but the interaction with the students when they come here. As a special ed teacher and as somebody who has traveled abroad I

201will say that not everything is for everyone. And so while I respect that you and Trustee Villagrana don't want to support a program that's not for everyone I'm going to tell you not all of our programs are for all of our students. And I've heard trustees want to dial down and look at how to support a very unique specific demographic. But that being said, we still need to give enrichment opportunities for all of our kids. Thank you. Thank you. You know, Trustee Fowler, you bring up a good point, and I'm not saying that I'm here or there, but you mentioned, you know, not all of our programs are for everyone. And having gone through our, having gone through our, oh my gosh, I'm drawing a blank, you guys. Having gone through. Yeah, it's it all

202right, so we have to extend time in three minutes So let's do that while I gather my thought because I had a point that I wanted to make all right, so we have we have six more items to go and We need to extend time We have three minutes to extend time. I'm gonna propose that we extend till 1045 Second all right all those in favor say aye. All right Any opposition or abstentions? All right, we're extending time to 1045 for this board meeting. All in favor? Thank you very much. Okay, so the program that I wanted to mention that's not designed for all of our students is our enrichment program. It's the, what's the word that I'm looking for? No, the GATE program. Thank you. I don't know why I wanted to say Bill

203and Melinda Gates program. And that's where I was crossed with. No, our Gates program is not built for everyone. And our school district supports it and funds it. So, you know, I'm trying to make sure that I am preparing myself and I'm comparing what other programs are similar to this and, you know, which are open to all our students and which are not. One question that I am curious about. is when students participate in this foreign exchange program, does the school district that they belong to still able to collect $88 for that student during that given timeframe? If you know the question, if not, we can do some research. Are you talking about for our WJUSD students? Yeah, for example, let's say my child from this district goes to Germany for one semester. Is the

204district still entitled to collect ADA for my child during that semester? It would function similarly to when the band kids went on the trip to Disneyland. However, we can also fashion the programs that our students are gone during summer so that that's not. Okay. So that the foreign exchange program is over the summer. Exactly. And it is not a full semester. It is about anywhere between three to six weeks. Okay. Any other questions from any other board members? Trustee Rodriguez. I have a question, though. It's actually for Elodia, but it will be connected to you. So in a program like this... If we had it in our district, what would it be considered? Just an extracurricular activity? Would this be a club? How would we define this program within the district? I think it would

205be an extracurricular activity that students can apply for, a different program they could apply for. We'd have to come up with a process. If it's limited to so many students, we'd have to figure out how do you select the students and how would we communicate with staff? with the parents. Yeah, so it would be, you asked me if it was extracurricular, what was the other question? Would it be like a club and then this emanates out of a club? No, it wouldn't be a club. It would just be a straight extracurricular activity for the benefit of our students. And so, I mean, I definitely like the concept of the program. I think... I think, though, the way I would see it is that if we're going to kind of go down this path and we're

206going to invest some money down this path, I would like to kind of know what are all, I'd like to look at it as maybe one piece of a larger concept of extracurricular activities. So I'd want to know what are... What other opportunities are there available in the high, this is just for the high school, right? For the high schools so that we could compare what's there. Maybe we, from that, you know, we could, we would see where our, who do our extracurricular activities, who do they touch, you know, who do they connect with? And so maybe we have some, but it seems to only. be for a particular type of population. In other words, I'd want to know the larger picture. Like, where does this... So if we're going to invest money in something

207like this, then that means that we're investing money in more extracurricular activities for our students, which is not a bad thing. I think it can be a very good thing. But maybe it wouldn't just be this. Maybe it'd be a couple of other things. But just depending on... what else is happening within the high schools in terms of extracurricular activities. So I'd like to kind of almost do an analysis, an evaluation in that way. And cost is also very important. That's why I'd like to maybe see it come back. Your thoughts I just want to reiterate that there is ample funding for this with grants and financial aid scholarships through the State Department Some civic organizations have individual scholarships for people who are traveling that being said this is an information item and like President

208Bautista Zavala said I just need three other people to say they're interested in learning more so we can kick it to the folks at the district to look into further Alright do we have four people that want to put their hands up for this item to come back as an actionable item to It would still be information it would still be informational action and then trustee Val or you would be able to Make a motion at that point or anyone else here. I just want to recall when we've done Requests we bring information to kind of give you this is what we learned And then we get direction if you want us to proceed in a certain direction. So we wouldn't come back the first time with information. Actually, it will still be information because

209we'll allow staff to look at the options that we have, how it fits in our regular program, some of the information that a trustee. Rodriguez requested about you know, what other opportunities are there for students? So we would want to have the board have all that information and maybe give the board some options for to bring back further consideration So just to clarify these four individuals that raised their hand are in favor of this item coming back For us to take a vote for us To task the superintendent and staff to do further research on the feasibility of this. All right Okay, is it clear trustee Villagrana which four individuals you said it was trustee Rodriguez Mojica trustee Fowler truck? Charter Brubaker and myself I'd like to again state that we're automatically excluding and I

210heard what you said about you know gate but students can still benefit from the gate program a parent can ask for the child to be placed in AP classes like they still have access. We literally will be excluding students from this opportunity who have do not have the ability to fly for a variety of reasons and I am just not comfortable with the fact that we're automatically excluding a segment of our population and then the cost to again our low income families. They don't have spending money to send students. They don't have the ability to host either. So again, just by income, we're excluding. So to me, it's not equitable. And again, if you all want to move forward with it, I mean, nothing I can do about it, but I just got to restate

211my objection to it. And I would like to restate, sir, that I am supportive of us coming back to figure out the feasibility of this and what all of this looks like and what it all means. I'm not saying that, this is not taking action for it to happen. It's just let's do our research, let's do the due diligence. Anyone else before we move on? I mean, I'm in favor of it as long as we're looking at it in a larger threshold in terms of what else do we offer students and then having the costs come back so that we can, you know. physically plainly see what the costs would be and I mean if we went forward with it if we decided to do it, I mean it would be to covering costs so

212You know The scholarships would be supplemental if we went forward with it. I think we'd have to cover costs To make it equitable for everybody. Thank you very much. All right. Are we ready to move on to the next item? All right, let's move on. Thank you very much. The next item is M4. I don't have any public comment for that. And this is an informational item to review the quarterly report on Williams uniform complaints. There is none. So we can go ahead and move on from that. Assuming no questions, correct? All right. Moving to N1, there is one public comment and this is an actionable item to accept the external fiscal audit report for the fiscal year 23-24. Public comment. There's two public comments. Oh and two Okay, I'm sorry. Yes public comment is

213for n2 and I apologize because I see n2 and then I see the number one Sorry colleagues. All right n2 no public comment, sir. Please lead us in the presentation. So we're on in what? We are. Yes, we're on N1. We are at N1, and I have a public comment on N2, and I apologize for the confusion. All right. It's N1. Okay. So attached. President Zavala, trustees, attached to the agenda is a copy of our audit report for our audited financial statements for 23-24. And this evening we have Tori Joko here with the firm of Crow, and she's a representative of our external audit firm. And she's here to say a few words about the report as well as answer any questions from the trustees. Thank you for the introduction. It's good to be here

214this evening. All right. So as he said, attached is going to be the audited financial report. But out of all of these pages, which I will not be reading tonight, I promise, the most important is actually going to be on page 76. That's going to provide you with a really good summary of all of our auditors' results. So turning to page 76, first off, The financial statements we issued an unmodified opinion, which is exactly what you want to see. Next, it shows that for federal compliance report, also unmodified, and breaks out the different federal programs that we tested this last year, which were education stabilization funds and special education. And then finally, state compliance, also an unmodified report. So moving on to the next page, page 77, you're going to start seeing a summary of

215findings. So page 77, financial statements, you'll see that no matters were reported. Next page, page 78, federal award findings, also no matters reported. Page 79, state compliance, there was one finding reported, and you'll see that there's going to be some details there. It's on the ratio of administrative employees to teachers. So on page 79, you'll see the different components of that finding, a little summary for you, as well as management's response and plan for correction. Now, just to give a little background about that finding, and then I'll move on to the next section here of my presentation. Per the education code, the district is required to maintain an allowable ratio of eight administrative staff for every 100 teachers. And with this particular finding, what happened was that the total district administrative employees exceeded the allowable

216amount by two. And again, that page 79 is going to go into that a little more detail, and I'll be open for questions in just a minute here as well. All right. So next part is just getting through some required communications. So as part of the auditing standards, we are required to communicate the following items. So bear with me for a minute here. First off, our responsibilities under generally accepted auditing standards and government auditing standards is that we express an opinion on the financial statements. We're required to communicate any significant estimates and management judgments. For Woodland Joint, that's going to be the local control funding formula, useful life of assets, and other post-employment benefits. We're also required to communicate any new accounting standards, but there were none in the year under audit. Any audit adjustments,

217there were none in the year under audit. There were no uncorrected misstatements not required to be reported, no situations where our independence was impaired, and no disagreements with management. So that goes through all of my presentation here. But lastly, I just do want to thank Norma Palomar and her team over in fiscal services. As you can imagine, it takes a lot of coordinating with departments and individual sites to provide all the information for us to issue this report by the December 15th deadline. So we appreciate all their efforts. And any questions? Trustee Brubaker? This is more a question for our superintendent and we are I already asked this of her but for transparency I want to ask for the public's purpose Given that we are out of compliance on the admin to teacher ratio for

218the last school year are we on track to be in compliance for this year and are we putting Things in place so that this won't be an issue going forward Yes, I've already been meeting with the cabinet to analyze our current staffing ratios and we're Analyzing that piece and making sure that we improve on our tracking of that so it doesn't repeat again part of the challenge of How these things happen is when you have all this one-time money coming your height all this extra staff and your higher extra administrators and all of us and the money's going and we're trying to We release some certain programs you start losing track of those pieces So I think I think we're not alone in this situation. I think it's a common thing It's not okay, but

219we're gonna definitely make sure that we improve in that and put systems in place to make sure it doesn't happen again Thank you very much anyone else? Trustee Villagrana, where does the penalty go to? The or the administrator being over okay, so that's actually gonna be coordinated between the state and the district office So it's this has been submitted to the state. So the state's gonna analyze this penalty and get in contact with Mr. Wiley's team over here and they will move forward with that penalty and what's gonna happen with that. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you very much trusty Rodriguez Is there any opportunity to mitigate that penalty? So if the state sees that we're taking corrective action, does that play come into play at all? Yes, with any of the state compliance, when

220there's a fiscal penalty involved, there is a chance for a waiver. Again, that's all going to be processed by the state and managed by Mr. Wiley's team. So yes, there's definitely an opportunity for a waiver. Okay, and secondly, in all of your work, did you see anything that would tell you that we are not handling our funds properly or any signs of impropriety? No, no, no, no. If we identified anything of that nature about fraud, we would be required to communicate that to the trustees immediately. Okay, so no signs of impropriety, no signs of fraud? No. Thank you. All right. Seeing no sign of more questions or comments, I am going to move to accept the external fiscal audit report for fiscal year 23-24 with the request that Woodland Joint Unified School District seek a

221waiver with the State Board of Education to request that we do not be penalized for the R2 ratio. Yeah. Second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Abstention. All right. Let's go down. Okay. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Abstention. All right. And then he knows. All right. So it's been passed by all members except for Trustee Villagrana who abstained. Thank you very much. Before you leave, I think it's important just to help us. perspective. How do we compare to this to in the big picture when you're dealing with all these districts? You know, how how does that how do we compare to that? Yeah, absolutely. So while the ratio may not be the most state common state compliance finding we come across, it does happen. And as you mentioned, it's most common when

222there are significant fluctuations in funding. So, for example, COVID funding, you know, as that runs out. That's when we see it. So it's the exact situation Any other questions? That's all thank you very much for your presentation. Thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you safe travels All right next now we are going to end to and I apologize for that mistake I had prior And to is an action item to approve resolution 41-25 annual and five-year reportable fees report for fiscal year 2324 and we do have Two public comments? Just one. Eric Garber. All right. Thank you, mr. Barber yeah good evening board and Thank you for sticking it out No one questions your commitment no one questions why you're here here. It is this late at night. You're still here everyone has the same

223goal I know there's a lot of passion here tonight. I'm welcome new trustees. My name is Eric Garber I'm father of three kids in the district. We'll have four coming up soon enough And I invest as much time energies I possibly can in my own kids lives in their public education being active participants in their schools school site council and whatever i can do by trade i am very focused on curriculum instruction that's that's where i spend all of my my time and energy and that's where my expertise is in but I feel like there's a big gap in knowledge and understanding of some fiscal responsibilities and some goals of facilities in the district. And there's not a lot of people coming to talk at these items. So here I am to add a voice

224to this item. I want to go over a few things for schools and school construction. And that's what this item is all about. And so we have the funding sources, Fund 25. I just want to give you a quick update on this. Very important for all of you to understand. These developer fees don't come from Spring Lake. They come from everyone else in Woodland. And it's based on a need that you say you have and most of that need comes from the projected tech park now this projected tech park says that you're gonna have and with all the other development 960 kids coming to the school district next five years in elementary schools that don't have a seat in a school So that's the projection So when you hear and like in December that declining

225enrollment is coming up You have a fee study that you voted for that justifies fee collection that says you're having an increase in enrollment and so what? It's also important is there's nowhere in that fee study or in what's on here tonight that says you're going to use any of that money to actually expand seats in schools. You're going to spend that money on leasing existing portables. And so I'd really encourage this board to look at why are you spending money designed to go to new schools on leasing portables. The second thing to under... Asked about is are we increasing or decreasing? 960 kids the next five years next is fun 28 that's exclusive to spring lake area that comes from a fee development from a fee agreement that was used just to mitigate spring

226like kids. Now that is collected with the intention of building at least two, maybe three schools. We don't really understand what's in that agreement. We've asked the board at least to tell us what is your obligation, what is your commitment? And the board has declined to have that discussion publicly and to tell us what are the agreements in that. Now the capacity need. We're getting the tech part coming in. This board, the seven of you, if all goes as planned, we're gonna have 15,000 residents in the southeast area of Woodland. That's gonna generate, based on your most recent student generation rates, 1,230 elementary students. So what is the plan? I would like to restore transparency. We don't have the study that shows us how much money's in the Spring Lake account. That's missing from the

227report. It's been there every year for the last 15 years, but it's not there tonight. Thank you. Thank you very much, sir. All right Mr. Wiley, thank you very much Yes, thank you. Um before you is a report that It's our effort to comply with the reporting requirements in two government code sections for developer fees or reportable fees. And the two government code sections are very prescriptive and this attached report helps us ensure that we are meeting that compliance. What I'll share with you is that this report only speaks to the developer fees defined in those two code sections. The fees that are collected over in the Spring Lake area are known as mitigation fees because they are helping us be in accordance with the turn of the century mitigation agreement. And the plan is

228to share that specific report at the next board meeting in February to avoid the confusion of blending these two. In the past, we've tried to bring those two together at the same time, and it's created some confusion. In my conversation with legal counsel and working with the superintendent, we've elected to bring this one here first, and we would bring the second report for the fees collected in the Spring Lake area at the next board meeting. Also, I'd just like to share with the board that when I presented the unaudited actuals on September 12th, In that report, we share the balances as of June 30th in all of our funds, including the capital facilities funds. So I just wanted to add that tidbit in terms of there's no shell game here. There's nothing to hide. I'm

229an open book, and we do plan to present all of the information to the board so that it's at your disposal. So with that, I'll take any questions from the board if there are any. Thank you very much. Any questions from our board? Trustee Villadrana. Just to make sure I heard accurately, you consulted with legal counsel. You got legal advice as to how to structure this, how to present it before the board so that we're all in good company. That's correct. Okay, thank you. Thank you very much. Any other questions from my colleagues? Any comments? Motion to approve. Second. It's been motioned by myself and seconded by trustee Brubaker all those in favor. Please say aye aye Any opposition or abstention abstention abstention by trustee Villagrana all everyone else is in favor of the motion

230Thank you very much, sir next item Next item is n3. This is your item as well. Mr Wiley and this is approval We need action on this one as a resolution 42-25 change key executives on the Wells Fargo bank account sir Yes, just trying to correct some names that are listed as key executives over at the bank account that we have at Wells Fargo, and they will not move on making any updates or modifications to that until we have this signed resolution from our board. Thank you very much. Any questions or comments on this item? Seeing none, who would like to motion? I'll make the motion. Second. Thank you very much. It's been motioned by trustee Rodriguez seconded by trustee Garcia all those in favor. Please say aye aye aye Any abstentions or opposition? None,

231it's well one one trustee is away from her seat. So it's been motioned Seconded and approved by all those present here and then let's mark her as temporarily absent. All right next item Information item, average daily attendance, ADA and enrollment report for 24-25 school year. Any questions, comments on this one? All right, seeing none, we're moving on to the next one. This is item 01, information action, board governance planning meeting, draft agenda for Saturday, January 25th, special board meeting. Superintendent. So we have attached the... the agenda for the Saturday board governance planning meeting. It'll be held here in this room. We will have, I've worked with the president, board president and the facilitator to put an agenda together. And basically the main thing is that we're going to be working together on reviewing your governance

232plan. And that's an opportunity to recalibrate. for an on board our new trustees to make sure that we're that you're working together and with governing the school board the school district so if there's any questions I'm happy to answer thank you very much I just wanted to add that this will be a working meeting please dress comfortably you're welcome to bring Any snacks or, you know, water or beverage. Or something to share with the group anything that you would like to bring dress comfortably again We will have some staff here and it will be open to the public But most importantly let's make sure that we recharge between now and then and that we come ready to collaborate and grow together And that we bring a positive perspective and uplifting attitudes so that we can

233do our due diligence of doing our team building to be able to make the best decisions for our students, which is the primary reason that we are here. I want you all to please trust that both our superintendent, myself, and our facilitator have spent a tremendous amount of time putting this together. I want to give kudos to our superintendent for selecting a facilitator that I think will be essential and I couldn't have, I don't know anyone else that is more fitting in this time than Dr. Francisco Rodriguez to come and facilitate this session. I do want to end on this item and if you guys have anything to add, I think that we are coming towards this meeting in a critical moment. I could say that we've attempted a bond and we've put that behind

234us. or attempting to put that behind us. We are attempting to continue to put COVID-19 behind. So we're not battling that at the forefront necessarily. Our city tried to pass a number of measures and we've put that behind us. We are not facing any elections on our board. And we are all here at a time where we could actually do some really, really positive work without any other projects at hand that could possibly distract us or steer away from the objective, which is our students. So I'm excited for us to continue working on our mission and vision together. Anybody else would like to share anything? Trustee Villagrana. Just that I was happy to see they will be discussing board meetings because I did want to have a discussion on that. So glad to see it.

235And this is an opportunity if you guys have any comments or would like to suggest edits to the draft, this is the time because we do have to take action tonight to approve it as is. We need to post tomorrow Second it's been motioned by trustee Fowler and seconded by trustee Villagrana all those in favor. Please say aye aye Any abstentions or opposition? All right. It's been passed unanimously to hold our special elect our special board leadership and planning session. No elections On Saturday, January 25th with the agenda draft as is All right, so moving on to the next item. Information, request for future agenda items. Anyone? Yes, me. Yes, ma'am. I would like to say I already sent my yellow request, my yellow sheet to request board meeting agenda item. Thank you very much.

236Anyone else? I have a slew of them. I haven't posted them yet, but I will email both the board president and the superintendent in the honor of no surprises. All right. Seeing no other ones, we are moving on. Information, closing comments. I do have something in R, so we will adjourn after that. Okay. our date and time of the next scheduled board meeting. I am going to ask that we change the start of our next board meeting on Tuesday, February 4th. The superintendent has informed me that there is a significant amount of items that we need to take on for that board meeting. Can I get a show of hands of who would be available to be here to start a board meeting at 4 p.m. on that Tuesday, February 4th? No problem. Go ahead.

237Sorry. Go ahead. We need four board members. Just waiting for Trustee Fowler to check her calendar real quick. Trustee Garcia, are you checking as well? Yeah. All right. And can, all right. Who's available four o'clock on that Tuesday, February 4th? All right. We have one, two, three, four, five, six. All right. Six present. You have sufficient so the next scheduled board meeting will take place on Tuesday February 4th at 4 p.m. And Those that are not available to come at that time We we ask that you please come at the ordinary time We do have a lot of work to get done and I totally understand it and I apologize But this is the only scheduled board meeting that we had between now and then Superintendent you have anything to add No, there's just a

238lot to go over in during closed session and you just want to I'll just You know you're gonna get mad at me, but I'm sorry so our assistant superintendent HR Will be that that will be her last meeting We have significant things that we want to cover in closed session as part of the transition and that is why I'm requesting an earlier start so that we can have more time and you know that there was a lot of things that we still need to discuss Today we want to be a picture that we have some clarion directions that I can transition that to the interim Thank you very much IT'S 1031 AND I MOTION TO ADJOURN THIS MEETING. THANK YOU.