Board Meeting 8-12-21

001All right. Good evening, everyone. I will call this meeting to order at 5.02 p.m. That brings us to item B, approval of the board agenda. Are there any requested changes? Yeah, we'd like to pull purchase order number eight. And that's on item G1A? It's the paper contract. We are having our legal counsel review that. Okay. Are there any other requested changes to the agenda? I wanted to request for item L1 to be moved up after J5. Okay. Just L1 or both L1 and L2? Both, please. Okay. So we'll just do facilities and finance before governance support. Okay. Is there a motion to approve the agenda with the proposed changes? So moved. And a second? Superintendent and President, would I be able to move an item to consent right now during modification of agenda? Which item

002is it? K-1. Yes, that could be moved to the consent agenda. I would like to add that. Okay. You accept the amendment. So K-1 is now part of our consent agenda. I second. Okay. So we have a motion by Trustee Villagrana, a second by Trustee Bautista Zavala. We are pulling purchase order number eight. We are moving K-1 to the consent agenda. And we're moving up. What was it? We're moving up. Well, if we're moving K-1, we don't really have to change the order. Oh, okay. Got it. It all works out. So all in favor? Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes unanimously. 6-0 with one member absent. Okay, that brings us now to item C, public comment for items on closed session agenda. Do we have any green cards for public comment? Okay. That brings us

003to item D, which is closed session. So we will recess into closed session at 5.04 p.m. And our scheduled time to return is 6 o'clock p.m. Thank you for your patience. The board meeting will begin at about 6.15. Thank you. So the updated start time is 625. Thank you for your patience. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Apologies for the delay. Call this meeting back to order at 625 p.m. And before we start, I did just want to commemorate and hold this meeting in the honor of Jacob J.J. Miller, an employee of our district here at Woodland Joint Unified for 22 years. working in our food service department, and he passed away suddenly a couple of weeks ago. I wanted to invite Spencer Springer to the podium to share a few words. Hi, good evening. I met

004with a couple of trustees this morning. I told them, I said, I might get a little emotional. It's already kind of stirring up. What can I say? About eight years ago, I stood right here and accepted my position. As I exited right here, a gentleman kind of tugged me by the shirt and said, hey, I'm Gigi. I work in your department. And the following day, because that's what I thought I heard him say, ever since then I kind of had to bust his chops and call him Gigi. I didn't hear him right, and it was JJ. But he is very much so missed. He was a... I can't even really say that he was dedicated or devoted to his job. He was dedicated to this district. He was dedicated to CSEA like none other. He

005was just a very proud man of what he did, and he took pride in that, and he was gold in many ways, as much as JJ could be. You know, I just I appreciate you give me a chance to come up and say this because it's been a very You know want hit to our department and a shock but we're trying to Hold things together and you know pull up our bootstraps as he would do, you know get right back on the I would say get right back on the horse, but he has recently become a motorcycle rider, so hop back on the ride and get going down the highway. And so, yeah, we love them very much, and I appreciate you giving me the opportunity to say something. So thank you. Thank you very

006much, Spencer. Okay, and so now with the Pledge of Allegiance, Trustee Bautista Zavala, would you lead us? Okay. Announcement of any action taken in closed session. There was no action taken tonight in closed session. But we do have two new appointments to approve, which we're very excited about. And so that brings us to item E3A, which is board action to approve the hiring of a public information officer. And so I will take a motion for the approval of the appointment of Jerry. Jimenez for the position of Director III, Public Information Officer. So moved. Second. OK. It has been moved by Trustee Villagrana, seconded by Trustee Bautista-Zavala. And now we will do a roll call vote. I will vote yes. Trustee Villagrana? Yes. Trustee Bautista-Zavala? Aye. Trustee Rodriguez? Yes. Trustee Garcia? Yes. Trustee Fowler? Yes. OK.

007The motion passes unanimously with one member absent. And so I would like to invite Jerry to the podium. to introduce himself. We're very excited to have him as part of our team. And he comes to us with tremendous experience in the field of public relations. So Jerry, you have the floor. There you go. Learning every day. Learning every day. Good evening, Superintendent, members of the board, and staff. I would just like to say thank you for entrusting me with the responsibility for serving as the public information officer for Woodland Joint Unified School District. I grew up in a diverse community, much like Woodland, with a population of students that's very similar to our student population here. I am the son of immigrant parents myself, and I grew up in a bilingual and bicultural household. And

008I hope to use my experience to help us continue to keep all families and students informed and to help lift up and share stories of all the great work that our district is doing. Again, thank you very much for this great opportunity. I look forward to getting started and partnering with all of you. Thank you. Thank you. Trustee Villagrana? I want to say welcome, and I appreciate that you're already saying our district, so thank you. Okay. Now that brings us to Item 3B, another good one. We have our new Director of College and Career Readiness, so I will take a motion for the approval of the appointment of Lori Carrillo. for the position of Director, College and Career Readiness. So moved. Second. It's been moved by Trustee Villagrana, seconded by Trustee Garcia. We'll do a

009roll call vote. I will vote yes. Trustee Villagrana? Yes. Trustee Bautista-Zavala? Aye. Sorry, brain skipped a beat there. Trustee Rodriguez? Yes. Trustee Garcia? Yes. Trustee Fowler? Yes. Motion passes unanimously with one member absent. So now I will invite Ms. Carrillo to the stand. to not necessarily introduce herself, but to share some thoughts with the board and the community. Still on. I just really want to say thank you for the opportunity and for the trust that you've placed in me to do this tremendous job for our district. I'm very excited about being able to serve our students and our staff, our community in this capacity, and I'm really looking forward to getting to work. Getting things done. Excellent. Thank you very much. Okay, I saw Trustee Bautista Zavala first and then Trustee Villagrana. Yes, thank you.

010Lori, I just want to say thank you for your years of service. One of our goals for our board is to recruit within, and you are a true example of that. Your commitment to our district, your devotion. and the success that you have brought to every project that you have been a part has made you identifiable and considered for these opportunities of growth within our district. So thank you very much. Trustee Villagrana. Definitely echo what Trustee Bautista-Valladares shared. And I first got to know Director Carrillo back when we were at the conference, had some good conversations. And definitely I've seen her. be a person of action, not just words, but also compassion and passion for the young people that we serve. You know, she did a wonderful job, phenomenal job, actually, at Pioneer High School,

011continued at Douglas. Again, I saw many examples of her abilities, capabilities, and capacity for learning and sharing. And I look forward now to that being spread district-wide. No pressure at all, of course. But again, very, very happy to see that from within as it is a board priority, but always, always win this quality, right? Never just because. And so very, very happy to continue to grow this team for the betterment of the young people and families that we serve. So welcome. Okay. Congratulations. Now that brings us to item F, public comment for section G, consent agenda. I don't see anything in my cards here. Does anyone have anything to say about the consent agenda? Hearing nothing, that brings us to item G, the consent agenda. We did pull purchase order number eight from item G1A

012when we made our motion to approve the agenda at the start of the meeting, and we also moved item K1, which is approved new board policy 0416, cultural pluralism, to the consent agenda. So I will take a motion to approve the consent agenda with those changes, unless there's anything else someone wants to pull. Move for approval. Move by Trustee Villagrana. Is there a second? Second. Move by Trustee Villagrana. Seconded by Trustee Rodriguez. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed say no. That is 6-0 with one member absent. Now that brings us to item H, public comment to the board. So, first we have Mr. Phil Geibel. I hope I pronounced that correctly. And so you can approach the podium and give us your public comment. We have a three-minute time limit per speaker. I'm

013just curious if the district is going to teach critical race theory, and if so, how do I get a hold of the curriculum for review? That's all I have to say. Superintendent Pritchard. I can give a short answer. We are not planning on teaching it this year. We have not looked into that yet. So even if we considered that, it would be sometime down the road as it goes through our curriculum process. Okay. And if it was considered down the road, is a curriculum available to? Yeah, all of our curriculum, when they're adopted, are available for public review. We have them out in our front foyer, and so they're accessible at a variety of times so people can access them. But any curriculum process that we go through takes at least a year. And so

014it. It would be hard-pressed to get going for the 22-23 school year, but it is a public process when that happens. Okay. Thank you. Appreciate your time. All right. Thank you. And now we do have one voicemail public comment for this section, so Tina is going to be playing those. And just a refresher, we're alternating in person and then voicemail. First, I'm calling to ask the district to please implement universal outdoor masking in order to reduce the spread of COVID when children are together outside. This will also reduce quarantine requirements for students exposed at recess. Second, I ask the district to confirm that all families will be notified when a positive case has occurred in their child's classroom so those families can take precautions such as additional testing. And third, When determining whether a modified

015quarantine should be followed for a student exposed to a COVID-positive case while both individuals were wearing masks, that modified quarantine should only be offered if it can be verified that masks were worn by both parties properly, for example, over the nose and not wet or damaged. Thank you for your time. Sarah Martin, mom of a first grader and fourth grader. Okay. Next we have Garrett Wright. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. My message will be on freedom of choice and accountability. I'm here today not because I want to be, but because I've been forced to. My poor voiding choices of my constituents and in turn poor decision making by my school board of trustees. No longer will we sit back and let you disregard what's best for our kids. Studies and evidence are piling

016up everywhere on the negative side effects of wearing masks all day, especially for school children. Over 20 different studies produce numerous different results. Many, but not all, include anxiety and suicidal thoughts of young children, breathing issues, oxygen deficiency, glasses, vision impairments, face droop from excessive mouth breathing and not breathing out of the nose, bacteria building up in the mask as fast as 30 minutes when they become saturated, touching of the face and the mask and eyes, which makes the mask then irrelevant. learning impairment and distractions, not being able to see their teachers' faces and vice versa. One fun fact, in 2009 to 2010, the swine flu killed, and this is according to the CDC, pediatric deaths in that 12 months, 1,282 kids. COVID in the last 14 months is at 330. This list of issues

017is in combination with the sheer fact that our kids have extremely low chance of a COVID complication, as shown by the science and a host of private schools that have proved it to us. But besides these obvious problems of not standing up for our kids when you have the clear merit and responsibility to do so, you then sit there and dictate to us taxpaying parents that we aren't smart enough to make that decision for ourselves either. I feel enough is enough. I was lucky enough to grow up with some of the best teachers Woodland had to offer. They taught me more than just reading, writing, and math. I learned responsibility, kindness, tenacity, accountability, and pride in my community. I distinctly remember my excellent AP history teacher, Mr. Avalos, lecturing on the Constitution and it being

018the most important binding document in the world and the God-given rights that came with it. I must have missed the day where our rights are voided because of a pandemic. So I now am here in amazement as my local school board makes the authoritarian decision to move on mask mandates, vaccine mandates, when parents and community members disagree and the evidence isn't there or scant at best. Now this is where I get to accountability we have people making these decisions, and I hope their hearts are in the right place I'd like to especially address our president. Mr. Whitaker You have no kids and you have no real world experience with kids. And in fact, Mr. Whitaker, I'd like to know if you could swear as if under oath to your constituents and coworkers that you have

019never acted inappropriate based on company or government personal behavior policies or have ever even worse unlawful behavior. Because any sort of egregious behavior or action should be known by the parents that are counting on you to make life-altering decisions for our kids. Remember, in the end, we are judged by God, not in the terms of what we have done for ourselves, but in the terms of what we have done for and to others. God's watching today. Thank you. Thank you. Brings us now to item I-1, superintendent's report. Yeah, no report. Most of the items for follow-up are on the agenda, so we'll address them as we get to that agenda item. Okay. That brings us to I-2 report from California School Employees Association. Good evening. First off, I'm back. And tonight I'm going to do

020something a little different and dedicate this report to a very valuable co-worker and friend. Two weeks ago, J.J. Miller unexpectedly passed away. J.J. was an employee that will not be replaceable. He's been employed with the district for 22 years in the food service department. He's the second generation family member working in the food service department. JJ pretty much ran the food service department and there will not be a day when any employee would not be looking for him in his van. JJ has served as fellow co-workers as being part of the CSCA chapter by holding positions as president, vice president, job steward, negotiations team member, and multiple district committees. and most recently as past president. Currently right now, the past president's seat will remain unfilled until the day I resign, and it will be a

021very humbling day when I do take that seat up. He will be sorely missed among all. This Saturday, there will be a celebration of life for JJ at the Woodland High Commons from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Spencer has graciously helped set that up for us and helped cater it, and that concludes our report. Thank you very much. Brings us to item I3, report from Woodland Education Association. Good evening. President Whitaker, Superintendent Pritchard, trustees, cabinet, and community, thank you for this time on the agenda. My name is Jen Druick. I teach world history at Woodland High School, and I have the privilege to serve the members of the Woodland Education Association as their president. I would like to thank... the board and spencer and todd for acknowledging the great life and tragic passing of jj

022miller we all like every single employee across the whole district will miss him because that is just who he was and he touched all of us Our WEA members right now are in the midst of participating in our five days of professional development, as has been curated by the Educational Services Department. Topics include universal design for learning, English language acquisition supports, behavior interventions, COVID safety. and we have also been given time to complete our annual mandatory trainings. We are very much looking forward to seeing our students in person next week on August 19th. WEA and WJUSD are currently in progress with coming to agreement regarding the impacts of the changing legislation for independent studies for the coming school year. And next we'll turn our attention at the bargaining table to the conditions of the reopening

023of schools in phase four. We look forward to finalizing these agreements very soon. And that concludes my report. Thank you. Thank you. Brings us to report from board members. Let's start with Trustee Rodriguez. Thank you, President Whitaker. So I'm on a committee with Trustee Zavala and with other city officials in regards to – hold on a second. I think I lost myself on the notes here. So we're on a committee in regards to child care. And this is part of the Coalition for Woodland Youth group. And so in regards to child care, we've had several conversations with city officials and YCOE officials and Yuba Community College officials. And through discussions, I think Trustees of all and I agree that. We've come to the conclusion that our district stands as a willing partner, although limited, in

024regards to childcare. However, we're willing to try and be creative, especially when it comes to how we use our infrastructure, how it could be used during off hours, depending on community needs. And we're working, again, currently in collaboration with YCOE in applying for funding opportunities that would provide space for temporary buildings based in our district should we receive funding. And if we receive that funding, we'll support the buildings with providing maintenance. And so these are some of the issues that we've been involved in. These are some of the results of some of that work through that committee. And I think we've also reached a conclusion that we wanted to share with you tonight, which is that we feel that the city of Woodland should continue to be a strong coalition partner and expand its abilities

025to act and advocate on child care issues. And we especially want to support the suggestion or the thought that... They add a presence on their website involving identifying resources locally and pertinent information to child care to allow the city's residents to be able to be as well-informed as possible. And those are the kind of conclusions that we've reached and we wanted to share with you tonight. I don't know if Trustee Bautista-Zavala would like to add anything to that. Yes, so we will go to Trustee Bautista-Zavala for her report next. Thank you. Thank you very much, Trustee Rodriguez, for sharing our findings as far as the Child Care Ad Hoc Committee. I think that the necessary next step is for us to agendize this request of the city for a future agenda so that we can

026act as a board, as a unit. to suggest to the city that they make this addition to their website and offer this resource to our families. So we are making that suggestion this evening. As far as my report this evening, I just wanted to highlight a few things that I did between the last board meeting and this one. We've been very busy with the child care ad hoc conversation. I want to commend Trustee Rodriguez and Trustee Villagrana for engaging in conversations on this item. I had an opportunity on July 27th to participate in a community input meeting with the county regarding the juvenile detention facility here in Woodland and where we were able to suggest future use for that facility should the juvenile detention center no longer operate in our county. So that was very,

027very exciting to participate and hear the different ideas. On August 4th, we recently had another CWY, which was the Collaborative for Woodland Youth. Did I say it correctly? I did. So we had that meeting bright and early on August 4th. That was exciting. But I also had an opportunity to visit. with my daughters at their orientation. So that was exciting. I want to give a shout out to all of our site directors, principals, and staff and teachers for putting together all of these, all the necessary work that goes into reopening our schools next week. So I'm super thankful and excited for what's to come back to school. I want to give a shout out this evening to our mariachi and folklorico instructors that put together a very beautiful performance on August 5th. A shout out

028to Eat Bean for putting together the mariachi program. This was the first performance of a mariachi program that we have been eyeing and putting together for a really long time. In fact, it was something that was drawn together by a prior board, and finally we're able to see that come together. And in the fall, when school starts, we will see the mariachi program get started with actual students in classrooms. So that's super exciting. Shout out to them. Aside from that, I think I'm done. I'm done with my report. Okay. Trustee Garcia? No report. Trustee Fowler. Okay, not much to report, but I've had a couple of meetings. I had a great meeting with Supervisor Don Saylor, Garth Lewis. I've liaised with trustees and executive leadership in Pasadena Unified School District, Napa Valley Unified, Palmdale School

029District. I've met with some community organizations like Woodland TV. as well as some teachers and students to discuss some ideas and brainstorm what we can do to improve. Also met with some CSBA leadership to try and suss out my role as a trustee. Also spent quality time at the makerspace at the library. I cannot plug that place. I mean they've got such great resources for our students. I too attended Douglas Middle School registration. I had to do the makeup since I had my own school orientation on Monday and then we started in person on Wednesday with our students so that was yesterday. Yeah, shout out to Douglas Middle School and the way they ran that registration. I punked out halfway through. I was like, we are gonna go and get those clothes when the office

030is open because it was hot, y'all, it was hot. So kudos to the cafe specialist who was sitting out there in the heat. Getting things done directing folks being as helpful as possible seeing some of the teachers there so as a newbie as a parent who my oldest is finally going to middle school it's a completely new experience after being a K through six Beamer Bear mom for seven years. So shout out to Douglas and Lee. Thank you guys for what you guys did and how you guys are transitioning not only the students but the parents. That concludes my report. Thank you. Trustee Villagran. Thank you. Had a great one-on-one check-in with the superintendent. Ended up just mostly catching up. Very little district business, but it was good. Been a while since we had sat

031down, so really appreciate him giving that time. I went to the Pioneer High School schedule pickup and ID picture taking time. I'm not sure what the whole thing's called, but very well organized as well. Very smooth process. You could tell that the families were excited as well about getting back to school in person or continuing, I should say, our full time in person. I also attended the mariachi and ballet folklorico performance and what a phenomenal job those young people did. The Nigro performance and many more to come and I look forward to see that growth and development of those young people. You can just imagine in five years what they're going to look like. You know, fully dressed, all decked out. So that's going to be awesome. The youth master plan is also progressing. that

032there can be conversations about when to start meeting with the young people for the listening circles and just get feedback as well. And overall, I'm very happy about the progress that we're making to open our schools in the most safe possible manner for our students and in our community. So as well, thank you to all the staff who make that possible. Again, there's a lot of uncertainty. There's a lot of... sincere fear for obvious reasons. This virus is a real potential danger to a lot of people just depending on our health conditions. So again, I'm glad that we're doing everything that we can, that we're able to do to keep as many people as we can safe under the conditions that we're under. So thank you. Thank you. So I had the chance yesterday to

033sit down with our Congressman John Garamendi at a roundtable that he hosted for Woodland elected officials and just spoke to him about some of the structural issues that we see long term just with Title I funding, with federal contributions towards special education programs. and also just the lack of funding, state and federal, for brick-and-mortar infrastructure in public education and how we've put ourselves in this situation where we rely on taxpayers to vote to increase their taxes to pay for. school infrastructure and how that's such a critical part in passing facility bonds is because there aren't other forms of support out there. So I was very grateful to have the opportunity. I'd never spoken to a congressman before, so that was interesting and felt like he listened. I'm hopeful that there might be some progress made

034in the legislation that's being passed through the Congress right now. Maybe some good news for us if everything comes to fruition. And so with that, that will conclude my report. Trustee Whitaker, if you would allow me, I skipped over some stuff in my report. Sure. Thank you. Real quick, I want to give a shout out to... Transportation and warehouse staff, I visited them earlier this week and I want to say thank you to Tony for giving me the time and walking me through your grounds. Shout out to the mechanics. They have a lot of work and there's only three of them. So I'm super thankful for all their hard work in preparing all of our transportation buses, getting them ready for next week. I also want to give a shout out to Spencer and his

035staff, to Nick Burrell and his staff for giving us some time, to myself and Trustee Rodriguez and visiting with us over at Lee School site, the cafeteria there and their food service facility space there. We had great conversations and I definitely look forward to working together and figuring out. how we can continue improving our food and nutrition services. Lastly, I had the opportunity to attend the... Facility Master Plan Steering Committee along with Trustee Villagrana on Wednesday evening. I just want to give a shout out to all the steering committee members. Thank you for continuing to come. Thank you for your dedication. Thank you for participating. Sometimes those meetings could be a little long, but it's those meetings that are going to get us to completing this master plan for our facilities. That's very, very necessary.

036And I look forward to opening up those meetings for community input, which is... in the near future. So thank you for everyone's hard work. That's all. Thank you. And trust Rodriguez, I see your finger on the button. Yes, sorry. I guess I confused my committee report for my board report. Let me just take a quick minute to give the board report. So I also attended the mariachi and folklórico performances this last week from our summer programming, and it was really great to see our youth and the routines that were put together in such a short period of time. It's really a testament to all our staff who were working with youth. And not only was it good to see the youth, it was also good to see the parents and families not just enjoying but

037rooting for their students, for their children. And I thought it was really an important example of how to engage parents in the community through our programming. And so these programs have not just been a success, but they've really helped families and students connect back to our schools, back to invest their time and their energy. And that's exactly what we talked about when we talked about why we would do these programs in the summer. And it was just really great to see it manifest itself. And I just wanted to share that. And just quickly, I also met with Spencer. and Nick as we toured the kitchen facilities at Lee to get a better feel for the status of our facilities and the day-to-day issues that they face and to establish some priorities for improvements. And it

038was just very insightful to see the hard work that goes into planning, the hard work that goes into dealing with the infrastructure to create our food programming. And it especially was poignant in that we are reflecting upon... JJ's life and understanding how much he gave to our school district through that department, especially as we were listening to his contributions to what Spencer was telling us. And so just it was a very gratifying visit and very grateful to really understand everything that goes on in our nutrition department and the efforts. Thank you so much. Okay. Thank you. And so that does bring us to item five, information board committee reports. So we already got one from Trustee Rodriguez. Do we have any additional ones? Trustee Garcia? Before we go to the next point, so I would

039like to say I'm so sorry I missed the mariachi event. Who know me, they know how love mariachi for me is. Mariachi is on my heart, and I'm so sorry I missed this, and I love to see the presentation online, all those posts for the families. I have the honor to... know the families from some students who take this class and made me so proud, so proud to be here in Goodland to embrace our different cultures. And for me, it's invaluable and it's amazing. And I want to say at the bottom of my heart, thank you to everybody who was involved to make this possible. Thank you. Okay. Board Committee reports? Seeing none, that will bring us to item J1. Did you guys want to take a break or just go straight through? Straight through?

040Okay. J1. That is information action update on WJUSD's reopening plan and COVID-19 impacts. And we have Elodia with a presentation and I think some of her staff as well. Good evening. Good evening, President Whitaker. Can you hear me now? Okay. Good evening, President Whitaker, board of trustees, and members of the public. We're here to give you an update regarding the reopening plans and any impacts related to COVID. Next slide, Tina. Oh, I need a clicker. Yeah, there's no more next slide. I've gotten spoiled. I got to do my own clicking now. Keep the microphone close to your mouth. Okay. All right, so tonight we're going to give an update regarding Phase 4, our school reopening preparations, health and safety protocols, and next steps. So Phase 4, as you know, we've been continuing on on our

041reopening plan. You keep seeing this chart. You notice that the tiers at the bottom are no longer there because the state no longer has tiers. But we do have our plan that we passed in July, and we're continuing to follow that plan. And right now we are in Phase 4. And what does that mean for us? During Phase 4 is five days in person, regular schedules, full class capacity. physical distancing to the extent possible. We're going to avoid crowds and with that we're going to do our back to school nights virtually this year. We are preparing to do passive screening. That means we will not be doing temperature checks, but we'll be doing screening for social emotional and wellness of students. We will be requiring coverings will be required indoors as are we're following the

042safety guidelines. Transportation will be provided for special education students, redirect students, students who live, reside in rural areas, and for our homeless. And that all aligns to our current board policy. So that will be in place this year. We are continuing to grow in our virtual academy option for the parents who do not feel comfortable on coming back in person. We currently have about 140 students registered, so that's kind of been growing in the last couple days. And we will continue to implement online learning master systems, Canvas and Seesaw. And we've been working with our teachers on that. And we need to be prepared for a possible school-wide spread of the virus. We may need to do a school closure or a classroom closure. And there'll be sometimes when we have some quarantine with students

043in classrooms. And that will be the platform that we will use in order for kids to access their learning and to cause disruption, not to cause any disruption with their learning. And then we will continue to adjust with our health and safety protocols. We've been keeping tabs on that with our county officials. And I'm going to now pass it on. Oh, let me see. Wait a minute. I'm not going to pass it on yet. So we're going to be, you'll be hearing more about that in a bit. So our school reopening, we are in the. finalizing our hiring. Every day we're making final hires and it's been really difficult this year with hiring folks, but we are making good progress. We are distributing textbooks to our schools. Our M&L departments are working really hard on

044repairing facilities and you'll be hearing more about that in a bit. Food services and transportation have been great, getting the school off and started on getting ready for our students. We had an administrative leadership academy. on July 21st through the 23rd. And when we did some reflecting at the end of the year, and then we met it, we prepared for the opening of school and our staff development plans. We had a new teacher orientation on August the 6th. We had about 60 people participate in that orientation. And so it was a virtual. orientation and our teachers did get a chance to go to their campuses meet their principals get the keys to their classroom get their computers and get oriented with our district and then we did have a district back to school meeting with

045tom and the cabinet and we updated our district office staff and we had our we've been having our staff development our summer school staff development summer staff development, not summer school, staff development these last couple days. Everything's been going very smoothly. We did have some glitches today, though, with technology, but we recovered. We adjusted and recovered, and our site principals have been preparing for individual site reopening plans. So I just wanted to tell you about our staff development, some highlights. We are focusing on the first day, I have to say, our superintendent, Tom Pritchard, gave a great welcome and updated the entire district on our LCAP goals and the district, the focus for the district so that everyone was aware. And we had staff have an opportunity to discuss with their principals how their school

046plan goals are aligned to the district goals. And we've been, the areas of focus for our staff development has been on universal design for learning, which is the platform that we are using, our staff development that we're using to support first-test instruction. We've been doing a lot on social-emotional learning. I'm very proud to say that our own counselors have been doing the training on the curriculum that we're using and the mapping out of the year on how we're addressing social-emotional needs. We also had our school psychologist today who did an excellent job giving a presentation on drama and suicide prevention. and how to support students with behaviors. And that has been very powerful. And then we also have English EL Rice who's doing a training on integrated and designated ELD for all our staff and

047technology tools. I have to just say that I'm very thankful to my entire staff, our principals, our teachers, because a lot of this has been homegrown and it's been very impressive what they've been able to put together these last couple days. We have two more days to go. on tomorrow and then on monday our staff development ends district-wide and then our site will have tuesday and next wednesday to focus on specific site areas and i'm going to pass it on to christina to talk about some of the some of the features from the staff development Okay, thank you. So here we just have a couple pictures on the left-hand side. Second grade teachers at the elementary level, teachers yesterday afternoon had a presentation from their colleagues about the scope and sequence for the year for

048English language arts. And actually you can see Principal Phil Pinninger there at the table getting into it with the... with the teachers being a part of the group. So that's awesome. And then on the right-hand side, just an example of the getting to know you activities. This was a Scrabble, people Scrabble exercise that the staff went through at Pioneer. Let me see the... And then this, so this was actually a debriefing workshop that I visited over at Lee. One of the things we did with our staff development schedule was we put in blocks of time between presentations where principals could engage their staff in a debrief or collaboration. And so on the right-hand side is an example of the guidance that principals received for that collaboration. It all depended on what the content was of

049the training. And then principals organized. On the left-hand side, Lee did a gallery walk with posters of the things that teachers wanted to try out, the questions that they still had, et cetera. And that was all about universal design for learning. And then on the last slide, just the different ways that folks were meeting. So Woodland High at one point had departments spread out all around the campus. So they were outdoors there. And then another picture of our first grade teachers meeting all together from multiple sites at Samora for that scope and sequence training. Elodia, can we pause for a second before we go to the health and safety protocols? We do have some public comments on this topic, and so I'll turn it over to President Whitaker. Yeah, so we'll start with Ms. Camacho

050here in person, and then we have three voicemail comments as well. My name is Echo Camacho, and I have a six-year-old in the district. They say the most formative years are the first five of any life. My son was robbed of his preschool and fourth-year experience due to COVID and the district's distance learning plan. He was later robbed of his kindergarten experience due to the mask and social distance mandates the district employed. No wonder he doesn't want to start first grade. Our children need stability so they can grow up with a sense of security. They don't need mandates that infringe upon their basic human rights. The aim of the mandate is the imposing of a consequence for a refusal to conform. By its very definition, parties should voluntarily enter the contract, voluntarily. These consequences can

051include fines and denial of access to services such as schooling and sporting events. The school district is aiding our government in the stripping of our inalienable rights as American citizens. Our God-given rights are being trampled. I say to all of the parents and board members this, this is not what freedom looks like. And if you aren't angry, you aren't paying attention. If the board is worried about the liability of removing the mask mandate, I give you a much more concerning matter. There's nothing stopping any parent in this district from disenrolling their child and enrolling them in homeschool programs. There's also no law that prevents these parents from keeping their children from distance learning. There's no truancy court for distance learners. I personally had officers come to my door several times when my son didn't attend

052the Zoom sessions. And each time they left, because their only purpose for showing up was to ensure my son, a.k.a. a dollar sign, attended distance learning. which keeps the funding rolling into the district. If we all just stop sending our kids, the district would fall rather quickly, financially speaking. I propose to the board this. Instead of making our children breathe carbon dioxide for eight hours each day, Monday through Friday, create a policy that includes the option for parents to sign a waiver holding harmless the school district in the event our kids contract COVID-19. It can't be too difficult. I mean, the district sure whipped out permission slips very quickly. Permission slips to receive the highly questionable COVID vaccine without a parent's presence. How a 12-year-old can consent to anything without full disclosure, much less full

053understanding of what that entails is beyond me. Do these permission slips inform the students that along with their vaccine, they could also be, they could also be. having anaphylaxis, anxiety, disorientation, changes in their vision and hearing, bronchial spasms, hypoxia, tachycardia, nausea, diarrhea, decreased cognitive function. I implore you to remove the mask mandates and give our children stability, not the inconsistencies such as having to wear a mask at summer school, but not at the back-to-school carnival where 3,000 students and their parents were expected. The stability of their parents assisting in their classroom, give them the stability of a friend's warm smile and the stability of nonverbal communication as well as a normal socializing experience. My son has not worn a mask to daycare, and he has not contracted the virus. Let our children breathe the oxygen

054of our God-given planet. Let our children lead ordinary lives without the stigma of social distancing that this social race is being subjected to. Remove the mask mandates, or I will remove my child from your environment, an environment that has not been bred in the best interest of our children. Maybe not everyone will, but enough will. I will. Thank you. DIRECTOR DEWOLF. OK. Now we have voicemails. SPEAKER 11 Hi this is a public comment for the board meeting August 12th for item J 1. My name is Laura Brubaker. I have two children in the school district both in special ed. One is going to be participating in the Flex Academy because she did so well with distance learning. And my other one is going back to in-person school. So I kind of have a look at

055both of those aspects. But my comment today is about my child returning to school. And I've just sort of been thinking a lot about how safe he'll be and things like that. And one of the concerns that I have is, especially because my kiddo is such a little kid, that... I believe right now the district's rule for masking only applies for indoors. And I am hoping that you might consider, because our numbers are so crazy right now, masking being required outdoors as well for recess. I was trying to do a little bit of research on what some of the CDC and CDPH recommendations are for things like youth sports and summer camps. The best information I could find is from March 22, 2001 from CDPH. saying, quote, if... sports participants will be frequently or constantly

056within six feet of each other or during play and face coverings can be worn and face coverings can be worn without compromising player safety, then they should be worn. It goes on to say sports participants on the sidelines must wear face coverings at all times. Since the majority of youth sports are outdoor sports, I think that this goes to show that considering having masking be required outside, outside for recess when it would be so hard to try and keep kids more than six feet apart would be beneficial. I know that just with my two kids, when we've had a few small gatherings in our backyard over the summer, it's been really hard for me to just keep track of two kids, keeping them far enough away from their unvaccinated cousins. I would also like to

057get clarification on the decision tree from the YCOE that I saw in the packet for this board meeting. The first. Section for that says quote was the person within six feet of anyone for more than 15 minutes or more after a 24 hour period of someone testing positive. I'm wondering how that could possibly be determined with the younger grades. I just want sort of clarification from someone on this because I know, for example, my five year old part of at least in the before time part of their education included a lot of play time. And so I am sort of wondering how that will possibly work figuring that out after the fact. My name is Laura Brubaker. Thank you very much. DIRECTOR RIVERA- Hi my name is Donna White and I have grandchildren enrolled in

058the Woodland Schools. I'm calling in regard to item number J 1 the reopening plan on tonight's agenda. I'm in full support of requiring universal outdoor masking at our school. In order to help spread the stop in order to help stop the spread of COVID-19 and to keep our students and our community safe I urge you to make this a reality. Thank you so much for your time and have a good evening. of COVID when children are together outside. This will also reduce quarantine requirements for students exposed at recess. Second, I ask the district to confirm that all families will be notified when a positive case has occurred in their child's classroom so those families can take such as additional testing. And third, when determining whether a modified quarantine should be followed for a student exposed

059to a COVID positive case while both individuals were wearing masks, that modified quarantine should only be offered if it can be verified that masks were worn by both parties properly, for example, over the nose and not wet or damaged. Thank you for your time. Sarah, mom of a first grader and fourth grader. Yeah, apologies. Apparently we played that one twice. She put it in two spots. Okay. So, Elodia, on to health and safety protocols. Okay, so as we're preparing for the academics and preparing our school sites, our teachers for instruction, we're also preparing for health and safety protocols. I'm going to pass it to our assistant superintendent, Liany. Good evening. Thank you. I want to make sure I'm going. Okay, so just as an update on our health and safety protocols, we continue. So we're

060following the guidance from the California Department of Public Health. And with that guidance, the most recent guidance for this school year requires the use of face coverings indoors. for all and that is for staff and students and that is regardless of vaccination status. And so Superintendent Pritchard, did you have something additional that you wanted to add regarding this topic? Yeah, so as it comes to face coverings, we are following the CDPH guidelines and the Yolo County guidelines, but we've had some comments about face coverings and I just wanted to provide an opportunity for the board to have a discussion about that if you want to. I will tell you that the masking guidelines by the CDPH are mandates. They're not guidances, suggestions, or anything. So we need to do those to be in compliance. but

061we could also expand that if you'd like. So I just wanted to hear your thoughts. Okay. Please just maintain order. Okay. So I had the opportunity to talk with Dr. Amy Sisson on Monday, our Yolo County Public Health Officer, and I do follow the advice and guidance of leading epidemiologists in our country. And she suggested I asked her the question. Is there anything above the CDPH guidelines that we should be doing based on her professional expertise and her recommendation? She had two recommendations. One was outdoor masking and two was vaccine testing for unvaccinated employees. And so I did want to bring that to the board for consideration tonight. Obviously, it is a controversial discussion. But I would make a motion to adopt an outdoor masking procedure. I would second that motion. Thank you. Comments from

062trustees? How is that going to impact lunchtime? So like when they're physically eating? Yeah. Yeah, so during lunchtime they are allowed to take their masks off, and we try and maintain as much distancing up to three feet as we can, and then they would be required to put their masks back on on the playground, just like we did at the end of last year, except we had grab-and-go lunches versus lunches at the school site. And will there be any restrictions on bringing lunch to school or any of those sorts of things? We have not considered any at this point. And they would take their masks off when they're eating. Only then. Yeah, sir. Thank you. Point of order. This is a board discussion. You have had the opportunity to deliver public comments. Yeah, and sir,

063you had the opportunity to give a public comment. I am not going to answer your baseless allegations, sir. So please. I would like to. Yeah, so Trustee Zavala has a comment. Yes. Thank you. So I have some questions. Are any school districts in our county, under our given county numbers and rates of COVID-19, imposing other regulations on masking above what's being mandated right now? So I'm not aware of any right now, although I do know that at a meeting this evening at Davis, they are considering the same thing. So I was a part of the PIO phone call with the county. I did hear the questions that you made, Jake, and I'm addressing you because this is our conversation. I think that those were excellent questions. I do respect your view and I do respect

064your motion this evening, but it's not the direction that I agree with as the next step. For me, outdoor masking is something, in my opinion, Dr. Sison should have responded to that question by saying that the county needs to consider imposing those regulations on all school districts so that the Board of Supervisors makes this, has this conversation so that it's a countywide regulation or mandate. That way individual school districts are not making decisions on our own. When I read CDPH guidance, school districts are held to the standard of following what their local governments are requesting, given the circumstances of the pandemic in their county boundaries. So when I heard your questions, great questions. But I think our next step, if the majority of the board agrees that outdoor masking is necessary given our COVID rates,

065the next step should be to urge the county to have this conversation to impose this requirement on all school districts and private institutions for outdoor masking. I, as a school board member, am not in favor of outdoor masking without it being imposed by our county. I've looked at the data. I've looked at the data in terms of vaccinations in our city. And we're the second city with the most vaccinations in our entire county. 95776 has more vaccinated people than the 95695 area code. And what does that tell me as a school board member? It tells me that right now as a school district, we have a responsibility to educate our families and our students on why they need to get vaccinated. What are the advantages? Where... where higher numbers of vaccinated people in our community

066could get us to the point where we don't have to wear masks and our students could be safer. That's what I think we need to do. We need to do outreach and education. But for me, I don't believe that we need to do that next step of imposing. in making the requirement of outdoor masking right now because our county isn't asking for it, our state isn't asking for it, and the CDC isn't asking for it. So I don't feel that I have the right to do that. Well, so I would just ask you, so you're in favor of advocating for outdoor masking at the county level but not in favor of us doing it on our own? So I'm in favor. I'm in favor of having a discussion here so that we can vote to

067urge our county to move in that direction, to advocate. But I'm not in favor of supporting your motion tonight. Okay. Other comments? I have a question first. When students are wearing their masks in class, are they able to take a break? Is that kind of a policy? Do teachers understand that if a student says, you know, I need a break from this mask, they can step out and remove their mask for a minute and come back in? Elodia, do you want to respond to that? So the reality is that time to time, you know, people will take it off to take a drink of water or to... blow their nose or or they walk outside you know that that does happen naturally and so our teachers do their best to make sure that kids wear

068their masks to as much as possible but there you know there's that's the natural thing that people do they take good off to just take a breath and put it back on. But they are monitoring that they wear them as much as possible. But, you know, if a student takes off their mask because they need to blow their nose or take a breath, you know, that's okay. Yeah, so then, and students are, I'm sorry, and teachers are aware that they're empowered to go ahead and let a student take a quick break, a mask break if they need to. They have been encouraged to make sure that they wear their mask all the time. And so, but our teachers, you know, they know their kids. They watch their kids. We did it in the spring. Kids

069wore their masks the entire time. And, you know, kids did once in a while slip off their mask to take a breath or, like I said earlier, scratch their nose or blow their nose, grab a glass of water. If they walked outside, they could take it off briefly, put it back on. So they're being reasonable. With that question, I'd like to request that we amend the motion that they be communicated to all of our staff. that students, when they request an opportunity to step outside, you know, again, seconds, to take a breath that they'd be allowed to do that. So, I mean, I thought that was happening already, but if that's not the case, then we need to communicate it to all our staff. So whatever programming it is, again, as long as they're away

070from people, you know, they're not congregating, then, again, that's something that should be happening. I was hoping it was, but if it's not, are you okay with that? I would be happy to accept that. Go ahead, Trustee Rodriguez. I mean, we could give some guidance, but I think it would mostly be up to teacher discretion to figure out what length of time. It would be a very short time, I would imagine. I don't know, 30 seconds. But I would leave that up to teacher discretion. What is important to me, I think, is that the families and the students understand that they have that ability and that the teachers understand that that's something that we need to find a way to allow to happen if needed. Point of order, Mr. President. Yeah. It is because they

071are away from other people. Point of order. I would ask, can we go to the next slide actually? I did have a point related to the decision tree that I wanted to talk about in regards to this motion. Yeah, in regards to the motion, which is, oh, Trustee Rodriguez, I'm sorry. I had more to say, but if I can wait, if you want to make a point, then come back in the conversation. My apologies. So I would just say with the decision tree and make this point, if you see that part at the bottom right there, the CDPH's guidelines say for quarantines, we're both the person and the exposed student wearing masks during the exposure. If the answer is yes, they were both masked, it means that the student who was exposed to someone who

072is positive while they're both masked under the CDPH guidelines may continue to stay in in-person instruction. If the answer is no, it means both kids have to be quarantined at home. And so the reason that I bring this tonight is because I think we have a responsibility to do everything that we can to keep our kids in the classroom where they belong. And that's why I'm doing it. I'm not doing this because I like masks. I'm not doing this because I want to take away anybody's freedom. I'm doing it because from a policy perspective, I want to keep your kids in class and out of your houses. And that's why I am proposing this tonight. Trustee Rodriguez. And so I think continuing on that line, I think just reiterating that point is that I don't

073think any of us want to be in this particular situation. But we understand, you know, according to our local experts and national experts, that there is a lot at stake here. If someone gets sick, someone gets ill, you know, not only to their particular lives or health, but also the disruption that it causes. uh uh in in uh in our school uh system it doesn't take that much right to have a couple of folks that uh come up positive in in in the right scenario to be able to cause some disruption you know last last year uh we you know people wanted their students back in school so badly, right? And so now we have our students back in school and we are trying to figure out the best way to keep them in school,

074keep them here and not having to deal with a situation where they're, you know, being taught by Zoom. And so to me, generally speaking, I think I do agree. that we should have masking outside, inside and outside, with the caveats that when students are in the classroom that they're able to get a breather if they need it, right? That makes sense to me. But I also agree with Deborah in that... as we're looking to try and make the best decisions possible to keep everybody safe, to keep our students in school, that it's more than just that decision. We do need to push, I think, the Board of Supervisors to be able to, if Dr. Sisson felt comfortable enough to tell you that, it should at the very least be a recommendation, a list of recommendations

075that is out to the public. But even more so, really, maybe something that the county does get behind. And so I think that... In that way, I do agree with Trustee Batista Zavala that we have to continue to push all of our partners to make decisions and be clear about the decisions. that would help our students stay in school. So that to me is eventually masking outside. But it is also about outreach, right? It is also about vaccinations and what, you know, we've done a lot around vaccinations and yet there's still, you know, a lot of work to do there in terms of getting people to be vaccinated, understand the importance and finding ways to keep engaged. So to me. I agree with what you're saying. I also agree with what Deborah is saying. But

076to me, the better strategy is to try and have a multi-pronged strategy moving forward. Okay. Trustee Bautista Zavala? Trustee Whitaker, you stated that... that this graph or pyramid determination system, it also applies to outdoor situations. And I was on the PIO call when this question was asked if the same regulations that were set out by CDPH, which only outlined the indoor masking, because that's all they are mandating, the question was asked if... the same masking, mask to mask, mask to no mask, no mask, no mask, applied to outdoor. And when I heard the answer that Dr. Sison made, the answer was, that's a really good question. I do not have an answer. We are waiting for clarification on that. And I have yet to hear on the weekly phone calls Dr. Sison make the affirmation

077as to what the answer was. So although I hear what you're saying that This system should apply to outdoor masking the county hasn't even said Flat out that this applies to outdoor situations. So if we could get clarification from dr Sisson if this CDPH guidance applies to outdoor situations I would appreciate that because she has not from the PIO phone calls that I have participated on she has not confirmed that it does apply to outdoor situations The other thing, too, that I wanted to say is going back to my point that we should have a conversation about advocacy. I'm going to go back to Dr. Sussan. If Dr. Sussan really believes that outdoor masking is necessary in our schools to bring down the rates or chances of exposure, she needs to urge her board of

078supervisors to make that change. She needs to make that, and that conversation needs to be done and held at that government level. And if they feel positive, if they feel, the majority feel that way, they also need to start urging people at the state level. Because, you know, it goes up, in my opinion, it goes up in a chain of government command, you know. We, as a school board, we could, yes, we could talk about this and impose this. But what impact is outdoor masking going to make in the rate differences of our entire county if we're the only school district making the requirement of outdoor masking? You know, what promise does that make that rates are going to go down? So we've... Okay, listen. Okay. So we have already heard that Washington Unified actually

079is implementing a form of an outdoor mask requirement. In hallways, yes. So as a teacher in Washington Unified at one of the high school campuses the kids are wearing them outside in the common areas all around not just in the passing periods and the only time they're taking them off is for lunchtime and the lunch space has been moved outside. I think that's personal responsibility though. CHRIS JERRAM, M.D.: OK. So to me, I mean, we can ask ourselves what other districts are doing, but I think we have the responsibility to manage our district as well. And I would just say I don't agree that we should ask the Board of Supervisors to make this decision for us. CHRIS JERRAM, M.D.: Yeah, I think that it's, you know, It's more about trying to really understand what

080Dr. Sisson is saying, which is one of the reasons why I had asked to have Dr. Sisson here as we got closer, because this is what we should learn less from less. You were right about that. And so. What we really want to, and then I think it's clarification, right? Because by outdoors, what does that mean? Because outdoors in a hallway where the kids are squished together, that's a different situation than them running free on the soccer field or on a football field. So there may be some detail that's missing here. And one may be, you know, we may be more open to one situation than another situation, depending on how we may do it. So I really think it's really important for us to be able to talk to her directly. But with a

081board of supervisors there or, you know, visiting board of supervisors, for us to first understand what it is that she means. and to ask our questions and then to seek clarity through that questioning and then see where we are after that. Trustee Villagrana. I guess at this point I would like to ask if there's support for the motion. If not, there's no point of continuing this conversation and we just move on to the next agenda item. So I guess there's support. If not, then let's move on. I don't necessarily want to vote on it, but again, if there's no, I just want to move on then. Yeah. I mean, I would just say that when Dr. Sisson gave her rationale for why this policy was important, she specifically mentioned the YCOE decision tree. I participate

082on the weekly PIO COVID response phone calls as my personal choice. I'm not obligated to participate. And when I have participated, all of the information I try to bring forward as much as I can. The only reason Dr. Sisson... stated that she recommended the COVID, the masking outdoors was because with all due respect, Trustee Whitaker asked the question. And I do believe had he not asked the question, she wouldn't have made that recommendation during the PIO phone call. So the reason I'm stating that is because if she really believed that was necessary, then her responsibility. as in her capacity is to advise her board of supervisors that such action is necessary. That's my point. So either withdraw the motion or let's take a vote then. That's our only option here. I'll put it for a

083vote. Okay. So all those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed say no. Okay. Motion does not carry. Okay, so we will move on on safety protocols. Lainey? Thank you. Trustee Rodriguez? Yeah, so the motion didn't carry, but that doesn't mean it should die. Well, I know it does die, but we could bring it back again with what we have been talking about, which is that we need more homework. We need to be able to address Dr. Sisson and any other county official so that we as individual board members understand what was meant by what you heard. That's an important piece of being able then to carry forward in a positive way what you were suggesting. I just want to make that clear. Well, let me clarify then, because Trustee Zavala said it doesn't

084matter what Dr. Sisson says. She needs to get the Board of Supervisors to take action. So does the majority of the board want me to coordinate Dr. Sisson coming or not? I would like that. I would like an opportunity to be able to speak with her directly. If not to ask why she hasn't pushed her beliefs, then yes. So there's four of us? Mm-hmm. Okay. I feel comfortable bringing Dr. Sisson here. And in all due respect. Yes, yes, I'm sorry. I feel comfortable inviting and requesting the presence of Dr. Sisson at our board meeting. I am not belittling or minimizing her points made at the PIO phone Zoom meeting. I am stating that had you not asked the question, she wouldn't have made the recommendation. That is my point. That's why you ask questions. But

085if she knows who's in the room and her intentions and beliefs according to data are such, you go into the room and you say, these are my recommendations because all of you school districts that are in our county are here. This is the dilemma. This is the emergency, and this is now. She didn't do that. Okay. We will invite Dr. Sisson. Lainey? Thank you. So going back to the safety protocols that we will be following here as we reopen schools is, again, face coverings and doors. Self-screening at home is going to continue to be something that we prioritize and reinforce. Again, just making sure that you're healthy before coming to work or school. Staying home when you're ill is, again, another important mitigation strategy at this time. And we will be encouraging testing regardless of

086vaccination status. We have healthy YOLO together continuing to be on our campuses and in our district office. And as we begin to prepare for the start of the school year, our director of human resources, Teresa Dunlop, has worked to develop a new testing schedule that should be shared very, very soon. Lastly, on our slide is the safety protocol that we will be following if we do have a positive case are the quarantine guidelines as developed by CDPH. And YCOE has created a decision tree, which is on the next slide, which we viewed very briefly. This will be used to inform our decision making. when we if and when we have a positive case on campus. So one side of the tree deals with an adult. The other side of the tree are the decisions that

087are made when the close contact is a student. And so the biggest changes to what we've done in the past in the spring are the modified quarantines because testing is is being reinforced and and highly encouraged because CDPH's goal is to keep students in school as much as possible. So with that, there have been some adjustments on the close contacts with masks and allowing modified quarantines with testing and monitoring that testing that occurs during that period of time. So we will be following that, training our contact tracers to follow this map. And also in the board packet, you may have noticed in a template sheet. that our site will be communicating within the next couple days to families. It talks about expectations, arriving to school, leaving school, lunchtime, recess, giving details. So that's the template

088they're using, and of course each site will make modifications of anything additional they need to add that's specific to their school. But the information that will go out the same to all schools is there for your review. I'm now going to pass it on to our maintenance and operations to discuss preparations for opening of school in their area. Before we go on, I'd like to ask the superintendent, how was the vote recorded for the minutes that we just took? Okay. Just want to make sure. That's my understanding. Just want to make sure that it's also. Perfect. Thank you. So just a quick update at what we're keeping going. We're still working on our classroom preparation. What we discovered when we got back is all the teachers don't have that right desk that we moved around

089last year. So we're working on that one still at the last minute, shuffling some furniture around yet still with some guidance from teaching staff that's come back into their classrooms. We'll continue with our hand-washing stations placed throughout the campuses as we did last year. As you know, the district purchased quite a few, and we also put rental units to fill in the gap. Drinking fountains, we will continue to not use the bubblers and block them off. We have been able to supply retrofit bottle filling stations, and we continue that march as product comes in. Things are hard to get. We got a few units just yesterday that are going out to a few more schools, but every school has got a minimum of one and as many as four or five, and we continue down

090that road. Cleaning protocols are following the guidelines that came out till the tail end of last year, which is back to that routine cleaning. General detergents, not disinfectants, so we're not overwhelming the kids with the amount of disinfectant in the classrooms. Of course, unless we have a positive COVID test in a space, then of course we'll go in and disinfect. We've still got our standalone air purifiers out, two in every classroom, many in common spaces. They have a 3,000-hour filter in them. We anticipate they'll last through this school year. We do have a stock on hand. We do have a stock of additional purifiers on hand if some break, and we send them back for warranty, so we're in good shape there. We've instructed site staff to know that just put a work order in

091like you need anything else fixed, and we'll be there to take care of it. Signage, rolling back on our signage. The social distancing signage that we put out in the middle of last year isn't very relevant anymore. The directional signage will continue to emphasize hand washing, masking, and of course to stay at home if you're sick. So that basic signage will continue. We're not issuing any new signage beyond that type. Plexiglass barriers are not mandated anymore. We have them in most of our common spaces. We're not going to go out and remove them. But we're not installing any more anywhere. We're just kind of moving forward with what's in place. If trustees went out to Tony's warehouse, they saw our stockpile of PPE. We are well stocked. We're ready to go. We have an electronic

092form, informed K-12 form, that anybody on the site, any of the site coordinators can fill out. It goes for approval. It comes through my department for approval. It goes straight out to the warehouse. The warehouse staff fills the order and sends it out. With any luck. We'll get it all straightened out in the next couple of days. Thank you quick question Do we have sufficient staff to put all the furniture back where it needs to be or is there a need to? I don't know, go and... Most of it's one and two desk things. Okay. You know, I had 30 before you did social distancing. Now I have 28, yet I have 30 students where those two desks belong in my classroom. So it's a little more detective work making sure. And we were fortunate

093enough that my maintenance supervisors felt the best not to take anything off a site. So nothing left a school site. So I think that's our saving grace. But as far as like in the summer, they do all the cleaning, they stack everything up. Right. You put back. But a lot of stuff got stacked up when we still had them social distance and all the furniture hadn't been restored to that classroom. No, I mean just the general cleaning in the summer. They stack up the desk for cleaning. Right. And so is there enough stuff to put them all back so the teachers don't have to do that themselves? They should all be getting back. They should be just about back down everywhere. Okay. Can I just say thank you for all of the stuff that you

094have done over the summer? It is a thankless job, and it's often unseen what you guys do behind the scenes to make us be able to do what we do. So I just wanted to say much respect and thank you. And how were you staff-wise this summer to do all of the work with the PPEs, with the removal of the furniture, and then bringing back double-duty staff? Short. Yeah, of course. Yeah, we're short staff. And, you know, as I've explained before, our employees have families too, and they wanted a little bit of summer break, but I think we'll get there. Awesome. They always come through. Thank you. Speaking of coming through, I have to do a shout out to our transportation department. They, on Tuesday morning at 6.30 in the morning, we have some bus

095drivers going and picking up some pastries and delivering them all to our school sites to welcome our staff back. So I want to give a shout out to our transportation staff. Next steps, as we said earlier, back to school nights will be virtual. We'll be sending out after tonight's discussion, we're very clear on the direction that we're going with our protocols. We're going to continue to follow the current health guidelines and communication will start going out in the next couple days. And we will continue to monitor health safety guidance and adjust as information comes towards us. So with that, if there are any questions, we're here to answer. Okay. COMMENTS, QUESTIONS FROM TRUSTEES? TRUSTEE RODRIGUEZ. THANK YOU FOR ALL THE WORK THAT YOU GUYS HAVE PUT INTO THIS. WHEN WE LOOK AT ALL THIS INFORMATION

096ABOUT WHAT WILL HAPPEN DEPENDING ON WHEN SOMEONE TESTS POSITIVE AND WHERE THEY WERE AND THINGS LIKE THAT, IT'S A LOT OF INFORMATION. AND SO I THINK THE The more we can think of different ways to be able to connect with the community about this information, the better, because some segments of our community are good at being able to pick up a piece of paper and understanding it. Some need to hear it or see it in a different way. So I don't know if we have any kind of video capability, anything that we could create, some sort of video that we could put on social media in regards to. what the steps are to stay safe, regarding all the best practices. I don't know if we have the capacity to do that, but I would just

097urge you, if we did, to find a reasonable way to use that medium to connect with our community. We do have some resources available to us, and we'll start communicating that. I think the first step for us was to reexamine the new protocols, get some feedback from our board, which we got tonight. We are working with communicating this. We deliberately scheduled the safety protocols for teachers on Monday. So that's going to be for this Monday. So after tonight, we will make sure that we're very clear with them. And then we have back-to-school nights, and our principals are working on doing communication. So we do have some resources. We will continue to do our best to get that information out. There's already some things online that we can use as videos too. The challenge is finding

098them in bilingual videos, but we will see what we can do to get some resources that are in both languages. Well, I don't want to say it, but we do have a new public information officer. I know he's got a schedule. I know he's got a schedule. Yeah, I was going to say he hasn't started yet. But I did, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Right, that's right. And so, but keeping within this topic, so I think that we shouldn't wait to our next board meeting to meet with Dr. Sisson. I think we should call a special board meeting to be able to meet with her. I think it's that important to be able to speak with her and move in regards to what we're going to do because it's an important issue and we need to make

099the decision sooner than later. Yeah, I agree. I think it just depends on her availability. So I will work with Superintendent Pritchard to take care of that. Well, we probably should determine our date first and then see if she's available. Well, we have a special meeting next Thursday as well if we need to do that. But we can also look at something for Tuesday, although making a decision like this the day before school starts is kind of challenging. So it's a challenge for implementation, certainly. I mean, the question is to make a quality decision, right, regardless of when we make it, as soon as we can get to it. And if that was our process, then that was our process. Absolutely. So the 17th or the 19th? Sounds good. I think people are checking their

100calendars. I can make both dates. I just wanted to share that some sites have started to send FAQs to their families. And some of the FAQs are already stating that outdoor masking is required when it is not a requirement. So I just want to make the Board of Members, my colleagues aware and the necessary clarification should be made. I've seen other districts put out in social media and emailed their families clarification as what are the requirements for masking, social distancing, what protocols we're going to be following. I know that I've had conversations with Elodia and I know that you guys are working on it. But I think it's important not to have any misconceptions out there because right now outdoor masking is not required. And even though we're going to be having conversations next week,

101then maybe the communication should be such. As of now, outdoor masking is not required. But, you know, things could change by the day. We were getting ready to send out the communication after this evening. But which school sent out the information about full-time masking? I'll send it to you by email. Thank you. It's important for us to know that. We want to be very clear on our communication, and we gave clear directions not to send any information out until we got clarity from the board. So that information will help us. Okay. Other questions or comments on this item? Well, I'm not. So 17th or the 19th? We'll try and get Dr. Sisson on one or the other? Majority of the board, yeah. Can I get it? Right? Yeah. Okay. So. I think we should take

102a five-minute break at this point and then come back and get to the rest of our agenda. Let's get back to our seats. So I will call this meeting back to order at 8.07 p.m. That brings us now to Item J2, Information, Initial Discussion Regarding the New Grading Policy. Yeah, actually, that might be inappropriately titled, but what we wanted to do is give you information that this year we will be beginning to tackle developing a grading policy. One of the things that we realized back in the spring of, gosh, it was. 1920 when we first closed schools and then considered adjusting grades later that spring was that there was no policy to waive because we did not have a general grading policy. So we got through the main part of the pandemic where we're at

103distance learning and now we're ready to tackle that. So Elodie and her team will be forming a committee and they will be working on that throughout the year. So you're not going to see anything soon, probably in mid to late spring, the results of that effort. But we just wanted to let you know that is one thing we're working on, and also to see if there's any interest in serving on that committee when it does get going. So do we have trustees who are interested? I see Trustee Villagrana. We can have up to three if there are other people who are interested in participating in that effort. Trustee Garcia, Trustee Rodriguez, and Trustee Villagrana, unless there's any debate, that is our committee. All right. So we will, again, you'll be contacted once that gets going.

104It'll be throughout the year, but don't expect to call next week. And that's all for this item. Okay. That brings us now to Item I-3, Action, Approved Revised Board Policy 6158, Independent Study. Yeah, the legislature has made some changes that affect our independent study policy, and so we've worked with a consultant through School Services of California to update our policy to align with the new legislation. And so typically we would do a first and second read on a new policy like this, but it is time sensitive due to changes in the law, and so we do need to implement this expediently. So, Superintendent Pritchard, there's a board policy that we need to waive. There is, and I'm sure I've emailed that to somebody, and I'm hoping that you remember which one it was. I think

105it's 6154, but... Yeah. My apologies. Which one? 6158? Yeah. So the motion would need to include... We are waiving 61 board policy, 6158 and approving the changes to the independent study board policy. So moved? No, wait. 6158 is the policy we are approving, not the waiver. So we are waiving 6154. Hang on. We will find it. You gave me the number we are approving. 9310. I will make the motion to move or to waive board policy 9310 for this item specifically and to approve revised board policy 6158. Second. Without a second reading. Second. Second is by Trustee Fowler. I just wanted to make sure we don't waive it indefinitely because we did that last year. Okay. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries unanimously with one member absent. That brings us now to

106item J4, information, school resource officer quarterly report. That is a written report. It's a written report. I would just say this is also a transition report. This is the last report by Director Villasenor, and when we have our next report, we will have Dr. Wilson provide that. If, in the meantime, you've looked at these reports and you have any suggestions for how we can maybe meet what you're looking for better, if you could please email those suggestions to Elodia. and then she will work with Felicia to tweak these reports so maybe they're more beneficial to the board. Sounds good. Thank you. Thank you. Any questions, comments? Seeing none. That brings us now to item J5, information action resolution 3-22, waiving the district's academic eligibility requirements for students participating in extracurricular and co-curricular activities during the

107first semester of the 2021-2022 school year. And I see Mr. Lambert has approached the podium. Yeah, so we'll be asking you to approve a resolution, but prior to that, we do want to give Mr. Lambert an opportunity to kind of get you up to speed as to why we are requesting this. Good evening, Superintendent Pritchard, Board President Whitaker, and members of the Woodland Joint Unified School District Board of Education. My name is Peter Lambert, and I'm the very proud principal at Woodland High School, and I'm here representing our principals and our league to talk about sports guidelines, extracurricular, and eligibility updates. Changes from last year are that last year all of our sports were... Remove my mask for just a minute, please. Last year, all of our sports were during one season. Next year, we

108will return back to our normal sports season in which we will have three seasons, fall, winter, and spring. We'll have two different types of sports, indoor and outdoor sports. During the fall season, which is underway now, we have indoor girls volleyball, and we have outdoor football, cross country, girls golf, girls tennis, and sideline cheer. The new guidelines for this year, according to the CDC, the CDPH, CIF, and the Woodland Joint Unified School District are that all athletes are allowed to use the locker room, which is a change from last season. Masks must be worn in the locker room at all times. We will also resume charging for all sports that we typically charge for. Coaches and students should review the daily screening list of questions prior to arrival at any sports activity. And anyone who

109doesn't pass the daily screening should not participate. And there's a link to the daily screening. Students who must quarantine due to COVID exposure may not participate until the end of the quarantine period. Mr. Lambert, when you refer to charging for athletic events, you're talking about for admission, correct? Not charging students. Correct. Correct. Yes. We are at the end of last year during our spring season in which all of our sports were. We did not have spectators and we did not charge for any of our sports seasons. So we would return back to our normal policies. And then for indoor sports, there's currently no requirement for. Mr. Lambert, if you could put your mask on, please. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. During our indoor sports, currently there is no requirement for COVID testing, no capacity limit

110for spectators. Masks are required by all bench personnel, including coaches and players. Masks are required for all spectators and no food vendors at this time during indoor sports. During outdoor sports, currently, there's no requirement for COVID testing unless COVID guidelines, according to CDPH or CIF or Yolo County, change. Bench personnel and players should wear masks while they're on the bench unless they're vaccinated. No capacity limits on spectators, which is a change from last year that we had the capacity limits on spectators. And food vendors for outdoor events is to be determined with the recommendation of the board. current eligibility for 2021. The board approved a waiver on March 18th, 2021 resolution 5521 that allowed students to participate without meeting the eligibility requirements based on the COVID restrictions that were in place. And we're asking that

111you extend that until the first grading period of the current year so that students continue to not be made ineligible based on last year's year of COVID restrictions. And in alignment with the graduation with, I'm sorry, in alignment with resolution 5521 and AB 104, grades during the second semester. of 2020-2021 school year should not negatively impact the fall 2021 extracurricular and co-curricular eligibility. And we're requesting that the waiver be extended only until the first grading period of this current year. And so students would go back on to the regular guidelines as soon as the first grading period does, grades are entered. And along with that, we would continue to maintain that students who are below that eligibility point would still participate in the tutoring sessions that were required, and we would still monitor their grades.

112Thank you. Are there any questions on this item? Trustee Villagrana. Not a question. I would like us actually to add a reason why, because I don't see why. Right, which is the impact, like you said, the negative impact. So we should have a whereas and actually, and I don't have exact language and I really don't care what it is, but the document itself doesn't have a why for it. So we can do that again. Now it doesn't matter to me. We don't have to bring it back. But yeah, it's not there. It just says, you know, it's important. But the reason is, again, because COVID had a negative impact, like you said at the end of your presentation. It could even be that language. Again, I really don't have a preference. And I do have

113some data about our participation rates, if you'd like that information. So currently at Pioneer High School, we have 156 fall athletes. The total number of ineligible athletes that are currently at practice are 14, or approximately 9% of the current students. Generally, Pioneer High School would have a lot more than 156 athletes coming out at this time, and we feel like possibly part of that is the number that are ineligible. At Woodland High School, the total number of fall athletes is 203 athletes that are out at this time. The total number of fall athletes that are ineligible that are currently at practice are 15. which is about 7.3% of the fall athletes. The total number of students at Woodland High School are 1,285. The total number of ineligible students are 347. So that's about 27% of

114our student population. And what we feel is that part of the reason why our participation rate is so low is because we had a higher than normal number of students that are ineligible based on last year's grades. And so our goal is that as we reopen school, we feel as though one of the... major ways social emotional learning and to re-engage students is through co-curricular and extracurricular activities and we want to provide our students with every opportunity and we don't want to disencourage students from coming out and participating. We feel as though if we continue to maintain the current standards as far as providing the tutoring services, helping them to get their grades back up, but then as we also return to in-person. We'd just like to encourage our participation to continue to go up

115and to get back to our pre-pandemic rates. Trustee Bautista Zavala. Go ahead. Go ahead. My question is... So many of these students, these 25% student population, is potentially eligible for the AB 104 implementation and being able to take advantage of the fact that they can change to a pass, no pass grading policy. And it's just a matter of them requesting and going through the application process with our staff. What are we doing to reach out to these 25%? population of students and letting them know, hey, you're eligible for AB 104. You may be able to increase your GPA. You may even be able to obtain your diploma if you didn't get it. Elodia, you want to talk? In terms of sports, what are we doing to reach out to them? If you want to answer

116the one about the diploma. Yeah, I think Elodia can describe what we're doing for AB 104. For AB 104, we sent out letters to all our students. We put it on social media. We made phone calls. We sent Parent Square. We've also met with our counselors. I think it was last week. Things have been happening so fast. To make sure that they worked on identifying and reaching out to our students. staff is starting to get requests and we don't know the numbers yet. There's 30 days that they have, 15 days for them to submit a request and then 30 days for us to review and respond back. So specifically how we are targeting those specific students regarding sports. I'll have Mr. Lambert see if he can address that. So with regards to sports, we're reaching

117out to all of our students and we're encouraging them to come out pending. pending a decision by the board. And as they just received information on AB 104, our counselors are also, based on the information that was sent out by the district, are reaching out to the students that are eligible for that and responding back to everyone who has requested any grade change. And so we're in the process of working through that right now. And we feel as though both of these things in conjunction together will support our students. because it's a lot of information that our students are just learning about and becoming aware of and we're learning about as well with AB 104 and with regards to how it can help and impact our students. And we feel as though as our students

118are learning about it, it would just help to be able to extend the waiver because then that would allow our students to learn about AB 104, our staff to learn about AB 104, and how it can help our students. Thank you. So Elodia mentioned that we have a bandwidth of time. We have about 15 days for students and families to request the grade change policy. What school districts have the capacity of doing is to give more time. So what I would like to know is, and I don't expect you guys to have this answer for me today, but what can we do? to increase the amount of time that families have so that they could take full advantage of this because i do see that as an opportunity and benefit so we can have more

119students benefit from the extracurricular activities that they may have lost out because they were impacted disproportionately due to the pandemic so if there's something we can do to increase the amount of time that the board can consider that the board needs to take action I would like to see that. If we don't need to take action and you guys can make that decision, I would love to see that. AB 104 has a very short turnaround. And I'm telling you guys because I'm living it in my own career, seeing how AB 104 is truncated. And it's impacting our students because they don't have enough time to respond. Some of our students may still be on vacation or not be, you know. on their device, maybe not even be checking their emails and their parents are not

120here for whatever reason. So we may not be able to connect with them. So whatever we can do, let us know. So we have actually already handled that as staff. We've directed our counselors and our administrators to be flexible just because of some of the reasons that you just said. Some families may have not read their mail, maybe not heard the message, maybe didn't understand. And so we want to wait, give it a little more time as we come back to school, back to school nights, so that more information is shared. So we're going to be flexible and extend it to the end of August. before my turn is over. I wanted to say thank you, Mr. Lambert, for taking on this presentation. And it seems like this may be an added responsibility or duty

121on top of your principal duties. So thank you. Thank you for doing that. I appreciate it because this is a lot of information. Okay. If I can, while Mr. Lambert's up here, he does a fabulous tour of Woodland High School. Just saying. Okay. So before we keep going, we do have a request from public comment from Tammy McMillan, who has not spoken yet. And so we will have her come to the podium. And honestly, I was going to give you people a break today. At first, I just want to say forgive me. I had a TIA last week, and so sometimes my comprehension and my brain just isn't functioning properly at the moment. But I did want to say that usually I'm a proponent for not changing requirements. And usually I say set the bar

122high and the students will rise to that occasion. And as a special education teacher, I really worked my butt off to make sure that that happened for my athletic students especially because I thought for my special ed kids, that was their buy-in, that was their tie-in. I was disheartened. when I worked so hard at the middle school level to know that only one out of the 15 kids I had qualified for sports this year. I would be curious to see how many of those kids that didn't qualify are special education students and if they got their accommodations and if they got their modifications and if they got all the supports that they were supposed to get in order to say they qualified or didn't qualify. Rebecca and her team does an amazing job. I'm not

123saying that. But I just want to thank God every day that I was not part of teaching in the last year and a half special education students because I don't know how you do it. And so I just would really like you to think about those students and how the last year and a half wasn't conducive for their learning. They're not self-directed people, most of them. It's hard for them. They don't like it, and they're not going to do it on their own. So they need that push. They need that encouragement. They need that every day today. This is what you need to do. This is what you need to work on. Let's get this in. Advocate for yourself. Yes, it says no late papers, but you're a different case. Let's talk to the teacher.

124Let's make an appointment. None of that. I'm sure it's happening. I'm just not sure it's happening on a global size. So again, while I'm not one to say. Oh, let the rules go aside. I do see the positive side of this and getting kids back into school and getting the buy-in back to school. So when you vote, don't just think about academics. Think about that social emotional piece. Think about all the students and how it would support all students, not just a special group of students. Your EL is probably the same thing, right? If it's hard for you, you're not going to do it on your own. And that's here nor there. I just think that. setting aside the rule for this first grading period, which I believe, according to Mr. Lambert, is just the

125progress report, not the semester grade, but the progress reporting period. And so I think that's a reasonable request at this time. Thank you. Thank you. Got to keep the streak alive. Okay. So, Trustee Rodriguez. So I'm in general in generally in favor of you know continuing this waiver on but I do think that we need to kind of address one of the issues which is the the grade point average right this is a student who has not been able to make a 2.0 so we have to have some sort of interventions. I totally agree with you that extracurricular participation is one of the ways that you help students find their way to improving their academic performance. But I also do think that I support this, but I would like to amend the amount of time

126that is required for them to do tutoring. I'd like at least to go up to four hours. Because if we're talking about a 2.0 or we can't even make the 2.0, that generally would suggest that the student is struggling in at least one or two classes, probably three, maybe more. And so two hours is about enough to maybe try and make some headway on one probably subject. And so what I would like to see is that requirement increased at least to four hours. And that we not just make these changes, but that we take these groups, this subgroup of students, and we kind of do an analysis at some point about, you know. how did the four hours of tutoring affect them? Or it's two hours of tutoring or similar services per week, right? I'm

127not sure what the similar services per week would be, but I would imagine that would be counseling or some sort of mentoring opportunities. But I think what we need to know is when we try to address this issue within this particular category, how do we do? you know what did we learn from our students as we went through the process and that i think is really really important in terms of looking at this issue but also looking at all issues what are we learning from these interventions that we're trying to to to place upon our students so i'm in favor of it but i'd like to see that the time of tutoring increased to four hours and i don't know if any of my other fellow trustees have any opinion on that or not I

128would support the four hours. Okay. Yeah, I agree with it. I think that not only do we want to help our students get back on track, but we also want them to strive for a higher GPA, for a higher academic achievement, and we need to do our part to give them those supports necessary. So, yes. So, Mr. Lambert, do you have – is there anything about four hours that we should know before we approve it? I would just ask if there are any unintended consequences before we take an action. No, I think that all of the principals would agree that we can accommodate four hours, and we would support that as well. If we turned the term to at the minimum of four hours, would that give students access to more if they needed it?

129Yes, we do have it available at all schools every day, so they can definitely get at least four hours, if not more. Okay. So is there a motion to approve? Well, before you make a motion, let me just clarify the suggested changes to the resolution. Change number one is that in the title we would change semester to quarter. Change number two, we would change two hours to a minimum of four hours. Change number three, I just sketched out a wise statement as a way to keep our youth engaged and connected to our campuses, both socially and emotionally. We are requesting action to eliminate barriers that may have developed as a result of the pandemic. Love it. So that would be the wise statement. We'd fold that in to the resolution. So, yeah, I'm in favor

130of what was just stated. So I move to accept the waiver with the ongoing changes that Tom just mentioned. Second. Okay. So a motion by Trustee Rodriguez, a second by Trustee Fowler. And let's go to a vote. All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed say no. Motion passes unanimously with one member absent. Thank you. So now that brings us. Item L1, information weekend food distribution update. I believe we have Mr. Lewis. Mr. Lewis. Mr. Wiley. Yeah. Thank you, Mr. Tom. Garth isn't here. Thank you, Mr. Tom. Mr. Wiley and Spencer. So this item is basically an update. Nick Spencer and myself have been meeting for the past two weeks to try to begin to. look at our facilities and and finding out if there are opportunities for us to support providing meals during

131the weekends and in the after hours. And so, you know, Nick's got some ways of you in our facilities, which were much creative, much more creative than what I thought about. And then of course, Spencer, he has some connections with, uh, yellow food bank and some other entities in in, uh, here in Woodland. And so we think that we we are pretty close. We're kicking around some ideas and we're most important trying to find ways of doing this with minimal impacts to staff. And so that's kind of where we're at with that. We still have some more work to do. I've had a conversation with Principal Lambert, and I still need to connect with Principal Reese over at Pioneer High School to see if one of the challenges with these types of endeavors is finding

132folks to help or some manpower. And so there are lots of students out there that are looking for ways to satisfy that criteria on their resume. or in their background for volunteer work. And so Mr. Lambert said he was going to take that on for me and put the hook out there to find some interested students to make that happen. And I'm sure we're going to get the same support from Sandy on that. But with that being said, I'll step away and let Spencer provide kind of what he knows about this. He's a lot closer to it than I am, and he's the one that has the direct connection with Yolo Food Bank and some of the other entities here in Woodland that might be interested in taking us up on this offer. Yes, so

133I reached out to both the Yellow Food Bank and also Yellow Farm to Fork because I work with both of those entities quite closely. The Yellow Food Bank, having email conversations with the director of programs and the program coordinator, they're right now gearing up. So they call what the food distribution has been taking place kind of their kids' farmer's market because they were coming in and doing that at some of the sites anyway. And so gearing up for starting up the school year, they're going to be working with the ACES programs to kind of get some of that going as well, but also hopefully still maintaining the process of distributing food boxes to families either throughout the week as they do. And I... extended an offer for them to you know join us on the

134committees that we have you know spoken about and so they are gonna hopefully work with us to get on those committees you know or at least be kind of a stakeholder if not join us for a few of them to express you know what they see in the community as far as insecurity or food insecurities and what we can do to better improve that situation Yellow Farm to Fork. They're more coming in to help with school gardens and whatnot, but they're a very good group of people to help with any resources that they can muster up for us. So that's kind of where we're sitting, and we'll see what they can suggest or what their ideas are. Any follow-up or any questions? Yeah, comments, questions? Trustee Rodriguez. Yeah, I just think it's thank you very

135much for the time that you're putting into this. I think it really is important for us to be able to. to move forward and take on this issue of food insecurity outside of our capacities on our Mondays to Fridays. And I can't reiterate how important it is for us not to impact you too much. And for that, for me personally, that means that the trustees that are on that committee, you know, we need to be able to make sure we're doing our fair share of this work. So, you know, less of it falls on you because I know you already have your plate full. But that being said. I think it's a tremendous opportunity to partner with our local agencies. I sent over that email to you with my contact without it impacting too much

136on us, but really being able to share our facilities with our community who pay their taxes and pass our measures. And I think this could be a really great program for everyone involved. So thank you very much for your time and your willingness. Thank you. Trustee Fowler. I just want to thank you guys all on the collaborative nature of this. The social capital of this endeavor is just astounding. Getting the students engaged to use their volunteer hours, engaging some of our middle schoolers, engaging community organizations to holistically work around a problem that we found and that we are addressing. It's that kind of collaboration that keeps moving us forward. and so thank you for helping us move the district forward all of you guys i appreciate it you're welcome trustee batista zavala thank you so

137much for uh continuing to work on this project um i had a conversation with with you spencer and nick earlier and trustee rodriguez said something very important today he always says important things all of you do but today he said something that THAT REALLY RESONATED WITH THIS CONVERSATION, AND IT WAS THAT FOOD IS A PART OF OUR STUDENTS' EDUCATION. THEY NEED TO BE ABLE TO CONSUME NUTRITIOUS FOOD IN ORDER TO BE ABLE TO COME TO SCHOOL AND BE ABLE TO FOCUS AND LEARN, RIGHT? AND IF WE ARE ABLE TO PROVIDE OUR FAMILIES WITH NUTRITIONAL FOOD AS... another you know a free nutritional option over the weekend when they need it I think that's super helpful and it's going to improve our students academic success long term and we just have to keep in mind that

138there's students out there that eat during the week that are insecure on the weekends and those are the students that we're trying to help out One of the ideas that I want to bring forward is that as we continue working on this project and start up the meetings for the committee meetings on this issue is that we try to incorporate our labor partners and our PTAs and our PTOs into these committees. Because if we bring them on as collaborators early on, we will have their buy-in and they will see the need and urgency for this. And when I mean labor partners, it's because our staff may be food insecure for whatever reason. Okay? I'm going to use myself as an example. Even though I have two kids and I have a job, I may lose

139my job tomorrow or in 30 days. I may not be able to provide for my kids. So I'm going to look to my labor union for assistance. So let's use this opportunity to bring together all the stakeholders because it's going to be our labor partners, it's going to be our parents, it's going to be our community that we could also count on to volunteer for these shifts to make this happen on the weekends. So I encourage you to look and see who we can bring to the table to help us make this happen. And use me and all of us if you need any assistance in any way. I mean, I'm willing to sit down and brainstorm groups of people that I think should be a part of this. Thank you. You're welcome. And we'll

140be looking closely for the committee committees that you and Trustee Garcia signed up for because I'm going to start Looking at the calendar and when we can set that up quarterly so any other questions We good. Thank you. Okay. Thank you for your work on this That brings us now to Item L2, Information HVAC Improvements Options Using ESSER Funds. And we do have one voicemail public comment for this before we begin our discussion. Hi, this is for the public comment for the meeting 812 for item L2. First of all, I want to say how really excited I am to see this on the board agenda. I know a long term project that we've been hoping to have addressed and how heartbreaking it's been to see ballot measures fail in our town to have this really

141needed upgrade done and how much better we would all feel about sending our kids to school if this had been done before. So now that we have some funds for that, that's super exciting. I also wanted to get some clarification on a few things that were mentioned. One of my kids is going back to in-person school and will be in a classroom in a portable. And so I saw on the presentation in the packet that there was a question about how well the existing units are functioning with the MERV 13 filters and I guess I kind of want to get clarification on what that means. Are they still functioning well enough to keep my kids safe? I'd also really like to hear how the units have functioned on the few smoke days we've had. I

142know we've been pretty fortunate so far considering what a big fire we have in our region, and that could change, and we could get a lot of smoke days in the school year since the Dixie fire is still so out of control. And that's a concern I have. And so I guess I'd like to hear how the units that were running during the high smoke days did with the MERV 13 filters. Thank you so much. My name is Laura Brubaker-George. Okay, so this is a written report. Basically, the board has already taken action to develop priorities for our ESSER funds, and they've also allocated the $5.1 million for HVAC projects. This is what staff was working on, and we just intended this to be information for staff, but Nick is here if you have any

143questions about the projects that we will be working on. I do want to point out the projects that he's listed are... uh uh uh estimated at 11.5 million dollars we only have 5.1 so so we'll we may be working on all four of these or parts of all four of these but we won't get all of them done uh but but these are ongoing uh priorities that we've had and uh we believe that even when we get our future uh facility master plan these will align with uh what we find out with that plan okay Comments, questions? So I had an opportunity to talk to Nick earlier today. Thank you, Nick, for your time. And I had an opportunity to talk to Elodia and Tom earlier and ask them questions, so I'm not going to

144ask them again. I'm going to keep my comments to a minimum. I think I've talked enough today, and I'm sure I've irritated a few of you for over-speaking. My point is that I appreciate the... I appreciate bringing this forward. We have an opportunity and I would like to suggest that we move, obviously this is an info item, it's not an action, but I would like to suggest that we as a board encourage the Woodland High School HVAC project in conversations with Nick. It's my understanding that the Woodland High School one is the one in most dire need. He has made improvements at the other sites, but this one is the one that presses us with the most challenges. And I would like to encourage the support to please ask Mr. Burrell to move forward with

145Woodland High. So I will take a turn real quick, and then we'll go to you, Trustee Rodriguez. But I would just say, you know, express my support for Trustee Bautista Zavala's. You know, advocacy for the Woodland High School HVAC. I think that, you know, this is a project that's been on our radar for a long time. It was so important that we put a ballot measure on the ballot, which unfortunately failed because it was such a critical need that we needed to address. This is something that we know is a ticking time bomb. And if we don't address it, we're going to put ourselves in a situation where we're going to have the HVAC units will go out and we will have to replace them. And in order to do that, if we don't pay

146for it. We're either going to have to take it out of the bond, this, or take out a loan if we don't have money. And before we passed Measure Y, that was one thing that was hanging over my head is if that thing goes out, we're going to have to take out a loan, and that's not in the best financial interest of our district. But this is an opportunity, I think, not only to address a critically needed infrastructure project in our district that we know has been an issue for a long time. But it also, you know, by using the ESSER dollars in this way, it's going to take one project off the list that we would be putting for Measure Y and help us stretch that money out further as well. And so I

147think that, you know, by leveraging the funds that we have available to us by this one-time opportunity we've gotten from the federal government, that... It really gives us an opportunity to make some solid progress on critical infrastructure needs in our district, and so I would support Trustee Bautista Zavala's advocacy for the Woodland High School HVAC system being prioritized in this process. Trustee Rodriguez. And that's my understanding as well in terms of talking to Nick earlier in the day that Woodland High School should have priority through their analysis. That is the direction which... in which would be smart to go to when we're prioritizing. But I just wanted Nick to kind of maybe reiterate that a little bit, the process that went into picking these individual sites and why you think Woodland High School should be

148prioritized. The process is really just interaction between me, my historical knowledge of what goes through my office, and with our skilled HVAC staff. And there's certain things we know about the Woodland High School that's different while these other projects are in need, and we have many more than this at that. The impact of something happening at Woodland High is much greater to the district. If a unit goes down, it serves, like I stated here, serves several classrooms. It's not something we can order and have shipped to us next week. These end up being custom-built units. So starting today... If we put everything on an emergency fast track and the board gave me authority not to procure things by public procurement, it's eight months before we'd have a new one up there. So that's Woodland High

149School losing five to eight classrooms, four classrooms for six months. These are big impacts. We know that they're the original to the school. We have done some upgrades. We took our... Prop $39 and spent a million dollars on putting a new chiller in that unit, in that school, which feeds all these units. But at the same time, these units have fans and the heating unit is in these units. And now we have 50-year-old fireboxes that we start to be concerned about. They're very inefficient, but I think the real thing that falls on this is the timeline for a repair. And that's what makes it such the emergency. If this unit that's running now goes out, my staff can have it changed out by Tuesday. Go out, get the unit, not a problem. If some of

150these other projects we talk about in here, those units qualify for that same one unit, you can get it off on one time. This project becomes severely important. It's older than anything we own. It's more antiquated than anything we own. and it's just inefficient and hardest to repair. I think that everything you said is about the best argument you can make of why we should put Woodland High School as a priority in terms of making these repairs. So I'm in favor of going with Woodland High School as well. Trustee Villagran? I'm in favor of letting the professional staff make that determination. If that's what they're determining is the best, then that's what's best. If they determine something else is a higher need, then again, I'm nowhere near knowledge to be able to make a determination.

151So again, mine is just let staff make the decision that they know is the best. So that's what it is, and that's what it is. Okay. Other questions or comments? Okay. That brings us now to item M. Thank you. I just want to make sure I don't forget anything. Item M1, action approve resolution 4-1. I just want to clarify, where are we leaving off on this item? It was an information item. Nick identified those four projects as focusing his $5.1 million, and he'll continue to use his judgment and his staff's judgment to work on those projects. Yeah, and he did come up and express to us that he thought that the Woodland High School project was a top priority for the district. So that we all feel comfortable with where we are? Okay. Okay. I

152guess just a point of clarity for me. So if we've decided that's number one priority for these funds, are we ready to engage design professionals and move forward with this project? That would be the purchase order that I would bring back for the board to approve. Go for it. Thank you. Okay. Item M1 is action approved resolution 4-22, elimination and or reduction of classified employee services due to lack of work slash lack of funds. Good evening again. So we have, as you can see in the board packet, there are some positions that are identified for reduction based upon a change in the Title I funding. Individuals in these positions will be reassigned to open vacancies that we have. Okay. And this is my understanding is this is due to a reduction in Title I funds

153that we're having to approve this resolution? Yes. Okay. Comments, questions? Trustee Villagrana. And just to add more from what we understood is from the reduction in free and reduced lunch applications. that affected this, right? So that does affect the Title I funding, yes. Yeah, so and I know that, again, we've talked about different strategies they're going to use to communicate to the families the importance and the impact that that had. So they are aware of, again, I guess the domino effect that happens. It's going to be harder for us because lunch is free for everyone now. So the incentive is not there anymore to submit the applications. to qualify for the free lunch. So clarification, just so that we all understand this. Even though food is free for all, the free and reduced lunch application

154still needs to be filled out. Is that correct? That is correct. Okay. But they're not filling it out. That's the issue. So we probably need a strategy and plan. Yeah. Because, you know, the free and reduced lunch applications are what the federal Title I money is based off of because it's a federal program. The universal meals is a state program, so there isn't necessarily a synergy. One might call it an unintended consequence of the legislation that was passed is that school districts, you know, do need to put in more work to make sure people fill out those forms because otherwise our funding will be impacted. It has been impacted. Well, it hasn't been impacted by universal, well, I guess it has been impacted. Yes, I appreciate this conversation. However, the item is a PKS resolution.

155Yes. True. I take your approval for the resolution. Yes. I move to approve the resolution. Second. Moved by myself, seconded by Trustee Fowler. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. All those opposed say no. Motion passes unanimously. Thank you. That brings us now to item N, information trustee requests for future agenda items. Does anyone have any requests? Trustee Garcia. Yes, me. I would like to have a presentation how our teachers address mental health in the classrooms. Yeah. Trustee Rodriguez. And so I'd like to also suggest bringing back as an agenda item the changing of... of the Board of Trustees from 7 to 5, that issue. Okay. So we will bring that back for further just open-ended discussion, or is there anything in particular we might be looking for? We can bring it back for

156a discussion and decide on that discussion whether we should do action or not. Okay. Yeah, and with the... keeping in mind that we should try and do our best to let people know that we're going to be discussing this and dealing with this issue and being open to hearing people's concerns. My understanding is that there are several people in the community that are very concerned about this, and so we'll want to be able to hear them, and we'll do our best to make sure that folks know when this is going to be put on the agenda. okay and i would i would make the suggestion you know trustee childers is currently out on leave uh that we bring this back once our full board is here to uh deliberate it okay when will we get

157our census information does will that have an impact on our discussion i think it just came out today okay it'll just affect how the map's drawn out but not whether we do it or not okay Any other requests? Trustee Bautista Zavala. So we just had a conversation on the Title I and then the effects of free and reduced lunch applications. As a Friday fact, maybe some information on what our strategy and our plan to... to obtain those forms back from our families. I think that's crucial, critical that we do. And I'm just curious, what are we gonna do? And if I could give feedback on the process, I would love to. And then my other one is, it's a conversation. Well, maybe a Friday fact on, not necessarily right now, but later down the road.

158I'm curious about sports and fees. And I know that there's some sports fees that are optional if you want to get certain uniforms or equipment. And then there's no cost associated if you go with the loaner package. So I'm very curious to dive into that at some point. I'm interested in the equity of both the loaner and the non-loaner options that are out there. Nobody talks about those things, but I want to dive into that at some point. Okay. Any other requests? Okay. Brings us to item O, information, closing comments, if anyone has any comments that they would like to make. Hearing none. Oh, sure. I'm so sorry. Thank you. I wanted to make some comments on the passing of our employee, JJ. I was very saddened to hear this news and I want to

159send my condolences to his family and also all of our employees. I wanted to share an opportunity that I had with JJ recently. I happened to bump into JJ and his wife at the 4th of July pancake breakfast over at the fire station this year. And I was excited to see them, and I had a conversation with them. And in fact, I felt that I needed to go back and talk to them again. So after we stopped talking, I went with my family, and they went their way. I felt like I needed to go back over there and continue talking. So I left my family and I went over there and continued talking to them. And I got to know them a little bit better. And one of the things that he shared or that

160they both shared was that they had gotten to the pancake breakfast on their bikes, on their motorcycles, and they were super excited. And they both had their leather gear and they were going to go enjoy their day on their bikes. And I got a picture. I asked him if I could take a picture of them, and they said yes. And I got a really nice picture that I would like to share with CSEA at some point. But the reason I'm sharing this story is because part of me felt like I was bothering them. at this event when they were trying to spend time together, but I felt the urgency to continue having a conversation. And now after this, I feel glad that I was able to capture that moment. And I want to say, I

161want to apologize that I will not be able to attend his services this weekend, but my utmost respect to everyone. especially his family during this time. And if there's anything that I could do, please let me know. I am more than happy to help in any way that I can. And I am very thankful for the experience that I had with JJ. And Spencer, I won't forget the day that we went to food services and toured for the first time that we went a few weeks ago. I remember JJ on this side of my eye watching us tour, but he wasn't just watching. He was working, and he was next to you in a way where he was there to support you, and I have a lot of respect for that. And it's going to

162be, like you said earlier today in our conversation, it's going to be very hard to fill his shoes, and he leaves a large void in your department. But I want to say thank you for everything that you've done to support his family and CSEA during this time. Thank you. Thank you. Trustee Fowler. I just have two, and I'm going to piggyback off of what Trustee Zavala was saying. The Wednesday. before JJ passed, I had the honor of working in the Douglas Middle School with this food service team. And it opened my eyes to so many things. It opened my eyes to people taking 20 years to get to $15 and how hard they work and what they do to help support our students. And it was great to get there and talk to all of

163them and have that interaction with JJ, who really didn't have time to chit-chat because he was about that business. And mad respect for that kind of a work ethic to the point where we'll check in later because we think we always have time. So out of respect, I will be at JJ's service to help set up and to help clean up. I'm not gonna be there as a trustee. I just wanna be there in solidarity and to show my respect. So I will be there to help clean up and to help. setup and cleanup. That also being said, I want to also acknowledge that some of our community members were experiencing some hardships and also had family members who were evacuated from the fires that were up north. And I don't know how much of

164an impact that had on our local community with taking in other family members and supporting those things, but I just wanted to acknowledge. that we have families that are going through some things right now, and I don't know how we can support them, but I believe we have a mechanism for if somebody is in need, they can come and reach out to the district and express their needs, right? Do we have any kind of mechanism for families in need? We would have that through our homeless liaison. Okay. Just checking. Thank you. That's it. Okay. Trustee Villagrana? Apologies for not. bringing this up during the request item, but in my mind, the substitute teacher schedule, we approved it in the consent agenda, and in my mind it was not in the consent agenda, and I was

165going to bring up actually asking recommendations from staff to recommend increasing the amounts because I think we need to be more competitive as we start the school. We might have a need for more subs, and I feel that we need to increase these amounts. So if we can come back. at a future meeting with recommendations from staff as to what these rates should be at, I would really appreciate it so the board can deliberate and decide whether we agree or not. So is that okay with everyone? Yeah. We'll just call that a request for a future agenda. That's what I'm saying. Thank you. Yeah. Okay. Anything else before we go home? Okay. Brings us to item. I have a question. Can I ask a question right now? Comments? No? What is the question? I just

166wanted to ask the question if we have a job fair scheduled and if that could be shared during this board meeting so that the public can be made aware. I believe we're working on one, but I'm not sure if we're ready to make any announcements yet until we can nail down final details. But I would say within a month? No. Uh-oh, I got the shake-off. Soon? Okay. I'll just, yeah. You heard it here first. We are going to do one hiring event. We're going to start it. We're going to do that next Friday. And we're going to test out something new where we hire at these events. So it won't be a job fair where we're giving information about jobs. What we're seeking are actively, active seeking applicants. So our communications will ask individuals to

167call us and set up a time, and we will have some of our operational administrators there so that we can interview candidates right away and get conditional offers. So we're going to try it, see how that works, see what kind of response we get. We're not the only district in the area that is struggling to find employees. We're not the only organization, period. I know everyone's heard that. So we're going to try this instead of just a passive job fair, more of an active hiring event. Thank you so much. Thank you. So with that. The date and time of the next scheduled regular board meeting is August 26, 2021, closed session at 5 o'clock p.m. and 6 o'clock p.m. for open session. However, as we discussed earlier tonight, the superintendent and I will work on

168trying to schedule a special session as soon as possible. We're to invite Dr. Sisson to further discuss the possibility of implementing an outdoor masking requirement at our school campuses. And we also have a special board meeting scheduled for August. 19th already on the books. So with that, I will adjourn this meeting at 9, 10 P.