Board Meeting 5-27-21

001We're on. All right. Good afternoon, early evening, everyone, and welcome to the regular board meeting for the Woodland Joint Unified School District. Today is May 27, 2021, and I will call this meeting to order at 4 o'clock p.m. That brings us to item B, approval of board agenda. Are there any requested changes that you're aware of, Superintendent Pritchard? No, no changes. Okay. Is there a motion to approve the agenda or any changes requested by trustees? Motion to approve. Okay. And I'll... Second. Yeah. Okay. So moved by Trustee Childers, seconded by Trustee Garcia. We'll go to a vote and start with Trustee Bautista Zavala. Aye. Trustee Childers? Yes. Trustee Garcia? Yes. Trustee Richardson-Fowler? Yes. Trustee Rodriguez? Yes. Trustee Villagrana? Yes. And I vote yes. Motion passes unanimously. That brings us to item C, public comment for

002items on closed session agenda. And we do have some public comments. Regarding hiring a Dingell principal, please select an instructional leader. Dear Board of Trustees, Dingell and the Woodland Joint Unified School District have let too many children fall behind academically, continuing a cycle of harm to the children, their families, and our community. All Dingell students deserve to achieve grade-level standards in all grades, and all staff deserve the support they need to deliver on that expectation. Other schools like Dingell and the USA are doing it. There is a formula, and we learned it. One key in the formula is the principle. The principle needs to spend most of their time coaching teachers and building student and staff culture. Be an instructional leader. They must know and love the craft of high-effect teaching. Not be an operations

003manager. Assign those duties elsewhere. Believe our students can learn at grade level. Believe our teachers can be masters in the craft of teaching. Remove roadblock teachers quickly. Be bilingual. Support dual immersion to its fullest. To learn more about how schools are closing the achievement gap that are just like Dingle, please contact Dingle PTA. Your decision affects hundreds of lives and families in years to come. Your decision will put Dingle children on the path of poverty or security. please choose wisely. Please choose an instructional leader for Dingle's next principal. This is from Beha Springer and Evan Springer, who's a seven-year-old at Dingle. Thank you. Yeah, we do have one live public comment from Vicki Keefe, but I do not see her in the participant list right now. Okay. Well. Yeah, let's just double check, Normie. Did

004Miss Keefe have the link sent to her? Yes. Yeah. And she knows it was four o'clock, not five. I did include that in the email. All right. Well, I guess we will take us to item D and adjourn to closed session at 4.04 p.m. Okay. Good evening, everyone. Thank you for joining us. I apologize for the delay in getting back into open session. Before we begin tonight's meeting, I did just want to acknowledge and say that we are holding tonight's meeting in honor of Ann Abel. She most recently served as a transitional kindergarten teacher at Whitehead Elementary and was with Woodland Joint Unified for 14 years. Also teaching at Zamora and also at Tafoya Elementary. I know that there are many who are impacted by her passing, and I just wanted to say that her

005family and all those who were impacted by her, that you are in our thoughts and our prayers and hold tonight's meeting in her honor. And with that, Trustee Villagrana, would you lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance? Absolutely. Okay. Ready? Salute. I pledge allegiance to the flag. of the United States of America and to the Republic for which stands one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. And so that brings us to item E2, announcement of any action taken in closed session or items to be approved in open session that were reviewed in closed session. And tonight I can announce that the Board of Trustees has voted to appoint the Associate Superintendent of Education Services, Elodia Ortega-Lampkin, to serve as interim superintendent from October 2nd, 2021 to June 30th, 2022.

006The vote was as follows. Trustee Bautista Zavala, yes. Trustee Childers, yes. Trustee Garcia, yes. Trustee Richardson-Fowler, yes. Trustee Rodriguez, yes. Trustee Villagrana, yes. And Trustee Whitaker, yes. I can also announce that the Board of Trustees has voted to direct the superintendent to prepare a request for proposals to solicit the services of a superintendent search firm to conduct a competitive hiring process to fill the superintendent vacancy. And the vote was as follows. Trustee Bautista Zavala, yes. Trustee Childers, yes. Trustee Garcia, yes. Trustee Richardson-Fowler, yes. Trustee Rodriguez, yes. Trustee Villagrana, yes. And Trustee Whitaker, yes. And with that, I will just say that the board is committed to a competitive hiring process that will bring forth the best candidate to serve as the next superintendent for the Woodland Joint Unified School District. Item E3, board action. We

007have three candidates to serve as new principals with our district. And so first we will call the vote for E3A. And give me just a sec. I need to pull up my script here. We have a live public comment. Oh, right. So if we could do that, and then we will go to our votes. Dear Board of Trustees and District staff, I am addressing the issue you've already made a decision, but I would still like to read my comments. This is a pivotal moment for Dingell Elementary School. I believe that strong leaders make successful schools, and I want Dingell to thrive, not just for me and my grandchild, but for all students at Dingell Elementary School. Tonight, as you considered the next Dingell principal appointment, please remember what parents invested in academic achievement at Dingell

008are hoping for. A leader who believes our students can learn at grade level, not for one year, but for every year they are at Dingell. A motivator who is invested in teacher success. A coach first who can remove roadblock teachers. a planner who is willing to do what it takes to help the dual immersion program thrive and grow. Please make the best decision for Dingle. What you decide tonight may affect Dingle's families for many years to come. Please put Dingle students first. Vicki Keith. Thank you very much for sharing your thoughts with us, Vicki. And I certainly hope that, and I believe that the candidate we have tonight will meet all of the points that have been brought to us. We've gotten a lot of emails from families of Dingell Elementary students. And I believe

009that we have a strong candidate who is up to the task with a strong background in dual immersion and strong credentials to lead that school forward for years to come. And so with that, item E3A. I will take a motion for the approval of the appointment of Laura Valencia for the position of principal of Dingell Elementary. Move for approval. Second. Moved by Trustee Villagrana, seconded by Trustee Richardson-Fowler. We will go to a vote. Trustee Bautista-Zavala? Aye. Trustee Villagrana? Yes. Trustee Rodriguez? Yes. Trustee Richardson-Fowler? Yes. Trustee Garcia? Yes. Trustee Childers? Yes. And I vote yes. Motion passes unanimously. Ms. Valencia, would you like to speak and introduce yourself to the WJUSD community? Yes. Hello. Muy buenas tardes a toda la comunidad. Good evening to the entire community in Woodland. It is with the greatest pleasure that

010I accept the position to be the principal at Dingle Elementary. It is a great honor to serve back the community that I respect, highly respect, and have worked with for many years. So I greatly accept this offer. ready to listen to our families and serve our children and work in collaboration with the district and with all my community. I thank you all. I thank all of you and I am ready to do this work. Thank you so much. Muchisimas gracias a todos. Thank you. We are very excited to have you coming on board. That brings us to item E3B. I'll take a motion for the approval of the appointment of Kelly Shevinan for the position of principal of Prairie Elementary School. Move for approval. Okay. Moved by Richardson Fowler. Trustee Villagrana, would you accept a

011second? Absolutely. Okay. So there's a motion by Trustee Richardson Fowler, seconded by Trustee Villagrana. Trustee Richardson Fowler. Yes. Trustee Rodriguez. Yes. Trustee Villagrana? Yes. Trustee Bautista Zavala? Aye. Trustee Childers? Trustee Garcia? Yes. And Trustee Childers, that was a yes, right? Okay. And I vote yes. Motion passes unanimously. So, Ms. Shevinan? Good evening, Superintendent Pritchard, Associate Superintendent Lampkin, and President Whitaker, and the Board of Trustees. I am thrilled and honored to serve as the new principal of Woodland Prairie, and I'd like to thank the Executive Cabinet and the Board of Trustees for your vote of confidence. Thank you. And again, we are very excited to have you as well. We have two principals coming on board for dual immersion schools that have strong experience in dual immersion programming and strong all-around administrative skills. And we have

012confidence in your ability to take the reins at Prairie Elementary. Thank you. Thank you. And thank you coming back to Woodland Joint Unified. And she had been with us for many years previously. And now item E3C, I'll take a motion for the approval of the appointment of Nicole Grant for the position of principal of Whitehead Elementary School. Move to approve. Second. It's been moved by Trustee Childers, seconded by Trustee Villagrana. Trustee Childers. Yes. Trustee Garcia. Yes. Trustee Richardson-Fowler? Yes. Trustee Rodriguez? Yes. Trustee Villagrana? Yes. Trustee Bautista-Zavala? Aye. And I vote yes. Motion passes unanimously. Ms. Grant? Hi there. Thank you to everyone who is viewing this meeting together, as well as those that are not able to be with us tonight. I am extremely honored and excited to be the new principal at Whitehead Elementary

013School. I look forward to meeting everyone in very soon. Gosh, I'm just so excited to meet everyone very quickly, getting to know the children first and foremost and all of the stakeholders that support them. I appreciate the opportunity and I will do you right. Thank you very much. We are excited to have you. Thank you. Likewise. Okay. And now that brings us to item F, public comment for sections G, consent agenda, and H, community engagement. And tonight we're doing something a little different. We're going to try to knock our consent agenda out first. Just before we go, Todd, any public comments? Not on this section until I. Got it. Perfect. Thanks. Okay. So are there any items that we need to pull from the consent agenda? Seeing none, I move for approval. I'll second. Second.

014Okay. So motion by Trustee Villagrana, seconded by myself. We will vote Trustee Baptista Zavala. Trustee Childers? Yes. Trustee Garcia? Yes. Trustee Richardson-Fowler? Yes. Trustee Rodriguez? Yes. Trustee Villagrana? Yes. And I vote yes, motion passes unanimously. So now that brings us to section H, community engagement. And first we have H1, recognition for the Measure Y committee, which will be presented by Trustee Bautista Zavala. Thank you very much. If you are here for the Measure Y recognition, if you could please turn on your camera, I encourage it if you'd like to and if you feel comfortable. I want to say thank you to our board for allowing me to bring this item on the agenda. I know that it took a little bit longer than what we would have liked, but. I just wanted to let you

015guys know that it's been, if you haven't already figured it out, it's been very, very busy. Our agendas have been very, very jam-packed. So it's taken us a little bit of time to bring this item up on the agenda. So with that said, I just wanted to honor each and every one of you on behalf of our Woodland Joint Unified School Board. And I wanted to share the following. In November of 2020, Woodland Joint Unified School District voters voted and supported the passage of Measure Y, a 44.2 million school facilities bond measure to upgrade our facilities of our schools. We are very grateful to everyone that helped pass Measure Y. The Board of Trustees recognizes the Measure Y committee members and everyone that assisted with the passage of the bond. This is a huge victory

016for our Woodland Joint Unified School District students. Lots of hours, unpaid labor were dedicated to get out the vote and gain the support necessary to pass this bond. I want to honor particularly and mention the committee members that participated from the start on the Measure Y committee. Beginning with no order in any preferential order, the following committee members. Trustee Jesse Ortiz, Karen Gossard, Magdalene Martin, Marco Lizárraga, former Trustee Teresa Guerrero, Terry Davies, Barbara Herms, Trustee Jake Whitaker, and myself. I also want to honor our volunteers. Our volunteers dedicated alongside our committee very long hours, days and nights campaigning, doing phone banking, walking precincts, holding events to get out the vote and make sure that our community, our voters were informed about what Measure Y was and the benefits that it would bring to our school

017district. I would like to honor our volunteers, beginning with CSEA, WEA members, our trustee Carol Souza-Cole, Supervisor Gary Sandy, Mark Allman, Magda Padilla, former council member Xochitl Rodriguez, former trustee Karen Bain, former trustee Debbie Decker. Jamie Ann Hopton, former trustee Zirano Rodriguez, Gloria Rodriguez, trustee Viviana Garcia, trustee Noel Rodriguez, council member Mayra Vega, and trustee Tico Sendejas. If I left anybody out, please, I do apologize. I also want to mention that there were students who helped us get out the vote. We did countless hours of precinct walking and phone banking. Our measure-wide committee was able to... Fund raised a lot of money. However, every dollar was spent to make sure that we got out the vote, that we dedicated each and every cent to make sure that our community was educated on what the bond

018measure was and for them to come out and vote according to what they thought was important. I just want to mention and once again honor our bond committee. This committee, I can't stress you. It was a lot of work. It was a lot of convincing that this was necessary. It took over 20 years to pass another bond for our school district, and we're very fortunate that it did. And it didn't just pass. It passed with highlighting numbers and a percentage that we... Didn't didn't didn't know what percentage we were going to pass, but we were hopeful that it would that we passed with Jake. What was the what was the final percentage? You're putting me on the spot there, but it was it was over 60 percent. Thank you. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Jake. I

019just want to say that I can't thank each and every one of you sufficient. But I also want to thank our superintendent, Tom Pritchard, and Louis Wiley and Nick Baral for making sure that we had the necessary data in order to go out and present facts and figures that were necessary for our community to know so that they could make their choice when they went to the ballot in November. Trustee Whitaker, would you like to add anything? Well, I would like to add, now that I look at it, that it passed with 61.47% of the vote, which was just a tremendous showing of support for something that, you know, this is the first time our district has earned that support from our community in 20 years in terms of the commitment to It was an

020extension of an existing tax levy, but something that will, you know, as it is renewed, bring in $44 million to support our facilities needs, which is very critical for our district and something that we have struggled with for a long time due to, you know, constraints on our financial resources. I would add, just as a point of personal pride, one other person, my little brother Luke, who designed all the lovely yellow signs that you may have seen around town. And I'm very proud of him and his graphic design abilities. And so that's that. But thank you very much, everyone who supported us along the way and to our community for your approval. And tonight we will have the appointment of the Bond Oversight Committee members. And that is an important next step. in terms of

021acting on the promise that the previous board made when they put this on the ballot, which is that we are going to make sure that these dollars are spent as responsibly as possible and that they make the maximum amount of impact that we can have them make to improve the condition of our facilities and to show and to prove. You know, that for the first time in 20 years, the community gave us that trust and that it was well-deserved and that we will repay that in kind with responsible fiscal stewardship of those dollars. So, Trustee Bautista Zavala, is that it? Thank you so much. Yes. Thank you so much to everyone for making time this evening to join our board meeting. Recognizing you is something very, very important. And I just wanted, we can't thank

022you guys enough for all of your support. We have a lot of work. in ahead of us as we start planning for starting to spend these dollars in the future. But I just wanted to reiterate our gratitude and leave the door open for future collaborations and partnerships with each and every one of you because you guys are a part of our Woodland Joint Unified School District community. Thank you. And with that, that will take us to... Item H2, presentation resolution 2521, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer LGBTQ pride month, June, 2021. And that was included in our consent agenda. So we don't need to vote on it twice. And so tonight's resolution will be presented by trustee Richardson Fowler. Hello everyone. So I asked if I could present the LGBTQIA Pride Month resolution. And I

023was looking around in the community for someone to present this to, but I thought it might be more important to highlight a loss that the world has experienced. A young queer young lady, Michaela Miller, lost her life last month. I think this is important that we bring attention to youth that are identified as LGBTQIA are subject, whether it's a hate crime or not, to a lot more violence than non-identified youth. So with that, I'd also like to bring attention to supports. four community members ages 7th grade through 12th, YOLO LGBTQIA team group. They meet on the second and fourth Fridays from 3 p.m. to 4.30 p.m. You can meet them on GoToMeeting. You can check out a flyer on either Woodland High School or Pioneer High School's website that'll give you more information. So I

024just wanted to use this moment as an opportunity to provide resources and to also alert students and community members to allies that you have on the board. And if you ever need a space to reach out or find resources. you can definitely reach out to myself or others. So thank you for that opportunity. Thank you very much, Trustee Richardson-Fowler. It was very well done. And I'll just say I'm very glad that we have started this tradition of the LGBTQ Pride Month Resolution, which is something we started back in 2019. And so next we have item H3, action, approve gifts to the district. I will move to approve the gifts to the district. Second. It's a motion by myself, seconded by Trustee Villagrana. I will vote yes. Trustee Bautista Zavala. Aye. Trustee Childers. Yes. Trustee Garcia.

025Yes. Trustee Richardson-Fowler. Yes. Trustee Rodriguez. Yes. Trustee Villagrana. Yes. Motion passes unanimously. And I would just like to thank the generous financial support we've just approved, a donation by Life Touch National School Studios to Dingle Elementary, a donation by Nugget Markets to Dingle Elementary, a donation by Paula Driver Shimada to Pioneer High School, and of course, the generous, very, very generous and fantastic outpouring of support that we've received from the Woodland Rotary Club, who donated a new scoreboard for the Woodland High School Stadium renovation project. We had our ribbon cutting the other day, and it was just fantastic, you know, the way that they gave back to our community and lived up to the legacy of that stadium, which is that it was something that was the product of community members coming together to make

026something happen and a public-private partnership. And, you know, thank you to Dan Stroste and to Councilmember Rich Landsberg for really picking up the torch and making that a reality. And we couldn't be more thankful of that generous financial support and the effort that our community made to support that project. And now that brings us to item I. Public comment to the board. Yeah, I think Todd said there was a public comment. Correct. We have three voicemails. Okay. Trustees and Superintendent Richard, we have worked many hours over the last 14 months, hours during a pandemic that stunned our country, state, and city. Many of us lost our second jobs due to COVID layoffs. Most of us are living paycheck to paycheck. This shouldn't be. As minimum wage has gone up, some of our jobs have not

027had the same benefit in a percentage increase. We are now closer to the minimum wage than we were five years ago. We have six pay ranges that start at $14.37. Starting January 1, 2022, minimum wage will go up to $15 an hour. We need our pay scale fixed and a reflection of that now. You wonder why the district is having a hard time finding employees? stores, and fast food restaurants are starting their pay at $16 to $18 an hour. These same places offer benefits to their part-time employees. The district must have more competitive wages and benefits if they want to be able to employ community members. Stop looking for outside vendors and support our community members. Give us a living wage. concerned classified staff members. Board of Trustees and Superintendent Richard, thank you for all

028that you have done this past 14 months. As a classified staff, we know what a thankless job you have undertaken. We know this because we feel the same way. For the past 14 months, many of the classified staff have been on our site day in and day out. Those of us not on site were working in other capacities. We have each had to learn a new way to work and get our jobs done. Our negotiations team has gone into numerous meetings this year. Many of these meetings have left us feeling unheard. We have come to an agreement on a few job descriptions. There have yet to be salary proposals for us, realistic salary proposals for us to look at. We have yet to see contract changes. any contract changes that are being asked to be

029made or contract changes that are being reevaluated again this year as they were last year. We ask you to have the negotiations team for the district to come prepared to our next meeting. We have been ready and on time for many times. They have asked for a later start time that we have agreed upon. Please treat us with respect to the community members, Board of Trustees, Superintendent Pritchard, and superintendents, and each and every department. Can we stop this voicemail for a second? That's the same person three different times, and they're limited to three minutes. Trustee Whitaker, how would you like to address that? So we're certain it's the same person, not just similar sounding voices? Well, it's, it's my bargaining team members are verifying that it's the person at the bargaining table. She's identified herself

030as a classified person as a bargaining team member. I'm, I'm curious as to, as to see if she'd actually identify her name this time. Okay. Yeah, I think we can, you know, I think we can, if we're certain, limit that to three. I won't say we're certain, but we're pretty confident. In that case, I think we'll just, let's just play it. Okay. And we'll take care of that offline. Woodland community members, board of trustees, superintendent Pritchard and superintendents and directors of each and every department in our district office. As a classified staff member, we were recognized through just public recognition. Many of us went unrecognized when it came down to classified staff week. Few of us had some administrators give us some recognition of one kind or another. Others went totally unrecognized. The way we

031would like to be recognized is to get our pay scale fixed, please. If you do not know what our pay scale looks like, please go online and look at our classified staff pay scale. You will be amazed at how little some of our classified staff are being paid. Remember when you look at the pay for the yearly wage? Well, we're on hourly basis. So that yearly wage is only if you're full-time. Community members. I beg you, we're the people that are behind your children, cleaning up after them, helping them in the office when they're sick, helping them in the classroom, pushing for them to do better and be better. We're the ones that are feeding your children lunch and breakfast. I beg you to look at our pay scale. Fix our pay scale. Many of

032us are living at or below poverty level. Many of us have not had a raise in many years to reflect a cost of living that has gone up. And those people who have had a cost of a minimum wage increase, the rest of us are getting closer to minimum wage, not getting a real raise. I beg you, please. Look out for those of us who live here in your community and work for your children. Thank you. Okay. Is that the end of public comment? That's all of them for this topic. Okay. That brings us to item J, reports. And first is our student board members. We'll start tonight with Hannah Fettig with Woodland High School. Good evening, Board of Trustees, President Whitaker, all meeting attendees. My name is Hannah Fettig, and I will be reporting

033on behalf of Woodland High School. I have the following items I would like to report on. Woodland High School is continuing to prepare for upcoming graduation. Last night, FFA had their scholarship and awards night to celebrate seniors in FFA. This week, Class of 2021 advisors finalized the plans for Senior Week. Senior Week dates and events are available on the school website. ASB class is preparing for our Spirit Week taking place next week, starting Tuesday. ASB and theater have joined forces to host a drive-in movie and a showing of theater's newest project, The Addams Family, that will take place tomorrow night. All senior scholarships were notified this week. In addition, I would like to thank all teachers on behalf of students as Teacher Appreciation Week just passed. This concludes my report for Woodland High School. Thank

034you. And next, we have Kayla Calderon with Cash Creek High School. Hello and good evening Board President Whitaker, Superintendent Pritchard, board members and WJUSD staff. My name is Kayla Calderon and I represent Cache Creek High School, home of the Wolverines. Here are some things I would like to share about our school. This week we are finishing the final round of NWEA testing. There are incentives to do well and it comes at a great time, especially for seniors finishing their last few credits of English. Next week, some of us will start state testing, and for others, the push is on to earn enough credits for graduation. Though the staff were uncertain about how many graduates we'd have, it looks like 2021 will be one of the largest graduating classes in Cache Creek history. So look for

035the CCHS class of 2021 lawn signs popping up on the house around you. That's my report for tonight, and thank you so much for listening. I hope you all have a great three-day weekend. Thank you very much. And last but not least, we have Bryn Webb with Pioneer High School. Good evening to our community, President Whitaker, trustees, Superintendent Pritchard, and executive cabinet members. My name is Bryn Webb, and I represent Pioneer High School. My report tonight is on the following. As we approach the end of the school year, I want to point out a few highlights that have taken place, beginning with our senior banner. As sad as I am about the elementary walk, there's not happening this year. I am thankful. I am thankful. we get these opportunities of a somewhat normal senior year.

036In place of these walkthroughs, we have placed our senior banner at each elementary school on designated days for seniors to get some sort of recognition at their elementaries. Right now, the banner is at Tafoya Elementary and it will be there until the 29th. As for any Tafoya student or any Tafoya parent watching this meeting, please head to the Pioneer Maine Instagram and fill out the slideshow that is linked in the bio for all Tafoya alumni students that has been created. These will be shown to all the elementary students there. Also, our event titled called Oh, the Places You'll Go has already begun virtually. Follow the Instagram at PHS Senior 2021 to see where our seniors are headed. I'm super excited to hear about the possible six guests at graduation, as it was very difficult to

037leave out a sibling at my own graduation. So my fingers are crossed that we stay in the yellow tier by June 9th. As always, I want to thank our teachers for how tirelessly they've been working to give us the best education they can during this final stretch. This concludes my report for tonight. Thank you for your time. Thank you very much. That brings us now to item J2, superintendent's report. Mr. Pritchard. All right. And I can just clarify a little bit about, you know, the possibility of six tickets. So what we are doing is we are watching very closely the tier that Yolo County is in. If Yolo County does move to the yellow tier, then that would allow for doubling of the tickets allotted to each graduate. So we're keeping our fingers crossed that

038everyone in our community continues to wear their mask in public. Keep washing their hands. Keep your social distancing because ultimately that could help our students have more family members attend their graduation. I really only have one thing to report tonight unless I've forgotten something. But I wanted to honor and congratulate three of our trustees for completing the master's in governance. Trustee Whitaker, Trustee Zavala, and Trustee Avigrana normally would have completed this in one year. Because of the pandemic, several of the courses were canceled and moved into this year. But they recently completed that. And what that does is that is professional development for our board members on how to be board members. And also to collaborate with other board members throughout the state and take a look at best practices and see if we can

039adjust what we do. So I just want to congratulate them for completing that program. And I believe our new trustees have started. So eventually we'll be congratulating them as well. And with that. That ends my report. Trustee Rodriguez? Hi, Tom. I was just going to ask you if you could just mention the banner that should... Absolutely, yes. I did forget that. So we are teaming up with the City of Woodland to provide a banner congratulating our graduates, actually congratulating all the graduates. in the town of Woodland. And we're very happy to be able to team up with the City of Woodland to do that. I believe the week before graduation, it will be displayed above Main Street in downtown and it will be there for two weeks. In addition to that, the City is working

040with us on a design for the I-5 electronic billboard out by the Chevy dealership. And so we're hoping to also be able to recognize our graduates as people are going to work and coming home or just people driving by Woodland. We want to make sure that they know that we're proud of our graduates, especially this year. You know, they've overcome quite a few obstacles to get to that graduation stage this year. Thank you, Trustee Rodriguez, for reminding me. Thank you very much. That brings us to item J3, report from Woodland Education Association. Good evening, President Whitaker, Superintendent Pritchard, trustees, cabinet, and community. Thank you so much for this time on the agenda. I would also like to leave my report tonight with an expression of gratitude to this board for dedicating this meeting to the

041memory of our dear colleague, Ann Abel. She is well-loved and will be missed. So thank you for that recognition and that honor. I'd also like to thank you for your resolution tonight, dedicating the month of June as LGBTQ plus pride months. I want to take this opportunity to thank Nick Baral for his recent communication with our WEA equity team as we were inquiring about single stall restroom signage. And so we'd like to thank him for his efforts at bringing our single stall restrooms into compliance. by designating them all as being for use by people of all genders. After a few weeks, without meeting at the bargaining table, negotiations resumed this week between WEA and WJUSD on the classic topics of wages, benefits, and working conditions, and we do look forward to reaching agreements very soon.

042And then finally, as the school year comes to a close, I want to take an opportunity or just a moment to share a statement of gratitude on behalf of all of our school staff to each and every family in the Woodland Joint Unified School District community for the privilege it has been to be able to work with your children this school year. Thank you very much. And that concludes my report. Thank you. That brings us to... Item J4, which is report from Classified School Employees Association. Good evening, President Whitaker, trustees of the board, Superintendent Pritchard, cabinet, and community members. With the close of the school year coming, I'd like for us to take a step back into 2020. And when COVID was running rampant, our schools were closing down. Chromebooks, hotspots, curriculum. We're all being

043distributed to our students all across the district by library techs. paraeducators, and various other classified staff. Food services stepped up to provide lunches and breakfast to all the children within our community. Tech worked diligently to implement and maintain all of the applications necessary for distance learning. Paraeducators had to adjust to assisting and supporting our students via Zoom and Google Meets. These are just a few prime examples of how Classified remained the backbone and supported our district through these challenging times. My name is Brandy and I am CSEA Chapter 118's Vice President. I work as a library tech at Plainfield and a textbook clerk out at the warehouse. I have witnessed firsthand how we have worked through the challenges and hard times to provide our students with everything that they needed to get through this year.

044I personally have been responsible for providing tech support, helping distribute curriculum and technology, and keeping students interested in reading or at the very least being read to. CSEA has remained the backbone of this district, providing essential services to our schools and our students. But the consensus amongst our membership is a feeling of unappreciation. The membership does not feel valued or appreciated. And this stems from a lack of gratitude and a lack of a competitive salary. A thank you goes a long way. That is a common saying that we often hear, but it's not something that we often hear from our supervisors. I am one of very few that are fortunate enough to have an administrator who appreciates the hard work and recognizes my hard work each and every day. But most staff do not receive

045a thank you. These are the staff that run our schools. They clean, they maintain our grounds. They transport our students, they feed our students, and they support our students, and so much more. But they hardly ever hear a simple thank you. And that has left them feeling disheartened and devalued. For those of you that don't know, last week was Classified School Employee Week. And we did not see a whole lot of recognition for classified school employees. The week prior was Teacher Appreciation Week, and we saw teachers get... lots of recognition for all the hard work they have done. There were signs, there was thank you cards, there was all sorts of stuff for the teachers that they so rightly deserved. But when it came for classified school employees, Very few people even so much as

046got a thank you. I had site representatives of CSEA reach out to me and tell me that they didn't even receive a thank you from their administrator. That's all they wanted. They didn't want donuts. They didn't want gift cards. They didn't want to sign. All they wanted was an email to say thank you for the hard work that they have done. Moving on to salary, we are by no means trying to negotiate with the board on our salary. We would, however, like to bring to light the history of not investing in the people who keep our schools running, students fed and supported, and the school sites clean. It seems that the bare minimum has been invested in our unit, and this has resulted in structural issues that require more than a Band-Aid solution. The district

047will be receiving over $600,000 through SB 86 funds to be used only to expand the hours of existing paraeducators and hire new. Investing in our current paraeducators by increasing their hours is a way to ensure this money is put to good use. Your plan indicates you would like to hire 30 new paraeducators. At our current rates, we have concerns that these positions will be filled and the money intended for paraeducators will be lost. Similarly, The district has acknowledged a shortage of custodians. Addressing our salary schedule is a way to stay competitive. Instead of investing in us, the district has brought a budget line of $250,000 to subcontract our work to non-district employees, which we are not okay with. Minimum wage has been steadily increasing since 2000. 2017, we attempted to negotiate the salary schedule and

048resolve the issue of the minimum wage increase five years ago. At that point, the district declined to negotiate. the salary schedule. We continued to pursue this issue and received the same answer. We are now five years later in the predicament of having to adjust a salary schedule with a 15-hour minimum wage instead of slightly increasing every year. Currently, five ranges of members start at $14.37. This will then need to be increased by 5% next year to reach the 15-hour minimum. If we continue the way we have been by just blocking off those steps, our positions that require members to at the very minimum have an AA degree will be making the same amount of money as the people who are making minimum wage. They will be making less than those who work in entry-level positions

049such as fast food and retail, where people are hired at $16 to $18 an hour. It is no wonder that you currently are struggling to backfill open positions and departments that are short-staffed. I want to share with you a couple of stories that we heard from our members this last week. We have one member who works in food services. She's been a dedicated employee for 20 years. She shared how excited she was to finally be making a little over 20 grand a year. Cumulatively, over those 20 years, her rate of pay has only gone up by $6 an hour. Over 20 years, only $6. Another member who is a paraeducator, again, has to have at minimum an AA degree, has to also have two additional jobs just to make ends meet. And she's not the

050only member who struggles with this. Appreciation and validation is so important to everyone to feel in their place of work. These have been incredibly trying times. The jobs we do are often thankless, but we do them for the students. The students of this district are what makes our jobs worth it each and every day. However, it is not the same as hearing from your employer that you are valued, that you are appreciated. It is not the same as being compensated for the hard work and dedication you have put into your school site and the students at your site. I challenge you, trustees of the board, to take a look at the work your classified staff have put in. I challenge you to look at how many lunches are made and distributed each and every single

051day. I challenge you to see how much work it takes custodians to clean those sites with the new regulations. I challenge you to look at the extra effort and coordination it has taken our transportation staff to plan and execute bus routes. I challenge you to look at how a classified staff member is enabling us to conduct this very meeting. Finally, I challenge you to invest in our classified staff. An investment in us is an investment in our community and our future. Thank you. Thank you. That brings us to item J5, a report from board members. And we'll start with Trustee Villagran. We have a pretty lengthy agenda, so I will pass on my board report for tonight. Okay. Trustee Rodriguez. Yes. Yes, I do have a few things to say. Just generally, I wanted to

052acknowledge that tonight we're simulcasting in Spanish for the first time. And I want to say that is a great step forward in regards to equity. And I look forward to this practice being very useful in the Spanish speaking community and that becomes a regular practice. And I actually wanted to take some time to thank those who are with us tonight in Spanish. And I'll take just a quick moment to do that. Buenas noches y gracias por estar con nosotros esta tarde. Nomás quería darles una bienvenida y decirles que usen este servicio porque es importante. Es importante para estar informados de la educación de sus hijos. Espero que sí va a servir este servicio para mejorar los servicios educativos que ofrece este distrito a la comunidad. Gracias por estar con nosotros esta noche. And that's it.

053Thank you. Thank you. Trustee Richardson-Fowler. Okay, I have a couple of things to report. For the sake of time, I'll be quick. I was a part of the African American Student Leadership Conference, which was pretty awesome. Last Saturday was Sacramento City Unified School District's ninth annual LGBTQ plus Youth Leadership Conference. Pioneer High School Skills USA chapter meeting and officer installation was awesome. I was very, very excited to be able to join them on that one. The Yolo County School Board Association had a working meeting where we had people talking to us about dual enrollment, the Washington Unified Middle College High School Program. And then we also had reps from Woodland Community College and Los Rios there. And we're trying to figure out how we can recreate that so that all board members in the community

054can be a part of that. It was very enthralling. If there's any board members who are interested, let me know. Let's see. And I think that pretty, oh, yesterday I had a wonderful preschool self-program review meeting. We have, if I'm not mistaken, eight sites that do California State Preschool within Woodland Joint Unified. They were going over their self-review, going over their numbers and their matrix. They cater to three-year-old and four-year-olds. There's always a waiting list to get into this program. It's phenomenal. And their numbers reflected it as well. So that concludes my report. Thank you. Trustee Garcia. Yes, thank you. I just want to say I have an opportunity to attend to the celebration for the new school world. Goodland High School, as the same with my other college. And also I want to thank

055you to the district to do everything possible to do the translation interpretation for our families today. And I want to invite us to continue attending the meetings and use this facility for you. So I want to say thank you. Thank you. Trustee Childers? No report. Trustee Bautista Zavala? Thank you. I'll be very brief. I wanted to say thank you to Woodland High School and our superintendent for being able to provide and borrow, let the Little League borrow a podium for their Bukiani Field that launched earlier this month. So that was amazing that we were able to collaborate with Little League for that. This week, I was able to also attend the grand opening of the new Woodland High School football stadium sign. That was exciting. And I want to say thank you to everyone who

056pitched in to make that happen. But I also was able to attend the Flex Info Session via Zoom two nights ago. And that was super exciting. I want to thank our staff for putting that together. They did an amazing job. And I also want to thank the translation services that were done were excellent and spot on in both English and Spanish language provided. I think that we're doing an excellent job in providing simultaneous translation for our families. And that's great. I also wanted to say thank you to Nick Baral in expediting. Some answers that I had in regards to football field, excuse me, softball fields and the condition that they are in and also looking into the electric vehicle charging stations at Woodland High School. Thank you very much. Thank you. I also was able

057to attend the ribbon cutting for the new Woodland High School scoreboard. And it was it was an honor. First time I've ever cut a ribbon. And it was definitely an honor to be there and just thank you again to all of the people who came together to make that a reality. Otherwise, I have been pretty busy serving as the board president serves as the point person when there is a superintendent vacancy to fill. So that has kept me plenty busy over the past couple of weeks. And I did just want to say. That I understand that the integrity of that process is something that's very important to our community and to our district. And I believe that we as a board are committed to upholding the best possible process that we can go through. A

058deliberative process that will result in the hiring of the best candidate possible. And so with that. That will take us to item K1 under teaching and learning, information, local control and accountability plan, LCAP 2020-21 annual update. And we have Associate Superintendent Elodia Ortega-Lambkin. And also congratulations to you, Elodia. And Christina Lambie to present tonight. Thank you. Tonight, Christina Lambie will be presenting to you the LCAP. update report. I'm going to go ahead and pass it on to Christina. This is not the LCAP for next year. I just want to make sure we're clear with the community. This is an update report giving the state an update of how we have done with our LCAP that has sunsetted. Christina? Thank you. Yes, so as Elodia said, this is a report of the, it's called the annual

059update. This annual update for this year actually includes two separate pieces. One of them, the first one, is the LCAP annual update for 2019-20 school year. If you recall, last year the The state postponed the creation and adoption of the new LCAP. So we have tonight the LCAP annual update for 2019-20. which includes all of the data and expenditures from last year. And then we also have the Learning Continuity and Attendance Plan Annual Update, which is a report of this year, 2021, the actions and expenditures that we engaged in as a part of the LCP, which was the sort of temporary year plan that the state put into effect in between the old LCAP and the new. Just to remind everyone, our previous LCAP, which was written back in the spring of 2017, had these

060five goals. So the LCAP annual update covers our progress on these five goals, which are not the same as the goals we'll see in our new LCAP next week. I just wanted to include a couple of slides about how the LCAP annual update is set up in the document. So on the left-hand side, we have the metric and the expected outcome. Those expected outcomes were written back in 2017. And on the right-hand side of the slide, this is a screenshot of one of the actions. in the update that where we describe what we actually did for that metric or that action. Moving on into the expenditures and how those are set up, we have the planned actions and services as they were planned back several years ago. And then what was budgeted which was budgeted

061back in the spring of 2019, and then what was actually spent. And so you can see by budget. by budget type and the amounts that were planned and then either spent or not spent. This is actually a good example of a situation where due to the pandemic, actually, we didn't spend some funds in lottery. You can see there were 500,000 budgeted for books and supplies, and we ended up not spending. That money, because an adoption that was planned for last year was put on hold and rescheduled. So we do explain those changes in the goal analysis section for each goal in the update. So we explain where funds were not spent, and then we talk about the successes and the challenges in implementing the goal. Just a couple of highlights. So back in 1920, and

062it seems like it was about 10 years ago now, we had been working solidly on developing an instructional focus centered on inclusive practices. created and adopted the graduate profile. And then we had a significant effort to improve our stakeholder engagement through committee meetings and then also through the LCAP prioritization process with town halls and focus groups and lots of other opportunities for community input. So moving into the LCP annual update, it's a little different, not organized by goal, it's organized by these sections here listed on the slide. And the setup is also different. So the annual update for the LCAP was in pink. This one's in green. So if you're looking at it, you can tell those two things apart. Much fewer actions in the LCP annual update. It was not designed to reflect our

063entire program or our entire budget. And so there are reports on what we did spend. and how that was laid out back in September when the LCP was approved by you. And so the big question, and that is in the blue section, actually, the very, the last piece of the annual update is this question. So how, you know, looking back at 2019-20, and then also at what we've been going through in 2021, how have our experiences, our successes, and our challenges informed the new plan that will be published tomorrow and in the board packet. So next steps for the new LCAP as we're moving forward. We've actually already received feedback from the Yolo County Office of Education and the annual update is ready to go. The document that you have here tonight is ready to

064go for review and approval by the county. It will be coupled with the LCAP, the new LCAP itself. when we do send it off. It has gotten feedback from the LCAP Collaborative and from the DLAC as well. We have already solicited questions. So this has actually already happened. We've solicited questions from the LCAP Collaborative and from the DLAC. And we will be publishing the responses to those questions that in statute as a requirement for El cap development process. So those they're called the superintendent's responses to questions, and we will be publishing those tomorrow. And then finally, next week is the public hearing and then moving for El cap approval later in June. And That's it for the LCAP Annual Update. I look forward to hearing your feedback or questions. Thank you very much. Are there

065questions or comments from trustees? Hearing none, thank you very much for your presentation, Ms. Lambie. That brings us to Item K-2, Action. Approve the Expanded Learning Opportunity Grant Plan. Mrs. Ortega-Lambkin. So we're presenting to you tonight the learning plan. This is the plan that needs to be turned in in order to, right, and it needs to go approved and reported to the county before June 1st in order to qualify for those funds. We reviewed this expenditures during last board meeting. So it's here for additional review and for approval. Okay. Are there any questions or comments from trustees? Ready to motion if one's ready. Okay. Move for approval. Second. Moved by Trustee Villagrana, seconded by Trustee Bautista Zavala. I heard them both at the same time, so I put that point in my head. And so

066we will go to a vote. We'll start with Trustee Richardson-Fowler. Yeah. Trustee Rodriguez. Yes. Trustee Villagrana. Yes. Trustee Bautista Zavala? Trustee Childers? Yes. Trustee Garcia? Yes. And I vote yes. The motion passes unanimously. The Expanded Learning Opportunity Grant Plan is approved. That brings us now to item K3, Information Action. Approve the Secondary School Plans for Student Achievement for the 2021-2022 academic year. Mrs. Ortega-Lampkin. Thank you. We have here to present to the board the school plans for the 21-22 school year for our secondary schools. Our secondary principals are here to answer any questions you may have. I'm also going to have Danielle Sharp, our coordinator of categorical programs, just to briefly describe the process that the principals went through to get these plans forward for you tonight. Danielle? So tonight for information and action, we

067present the secondary plans for student achievement. All plans have been approved by school site council, reviewed by the DLAC student advisory councils, as well as leadership groups at each individual school site. Metrics within the plans are aligned with metrics in the proposed LCAP that will be coming to you next week. Goal four within the plans is also aligned and will be in year one of implementation. As this is a new goal, we're building capacity and understanding of youth engagement, and we will be adjusting metrics and actions in subsequent years as we build our understanding. Principals are here to answer any questions you may have this evening. Thank you. Okay. Thank you very much. Trustee Villagran. First, I definitely want to thank all the work that went into these documents. I mean, just looking at the

068language, and I'm going to read a paragraph. So student input was gathered through a survey focused on student attendance and engagement, of which 424 students responded. Student focus groups were created with a balanced representation of the students. 55 students participated in the focus group process. Student focus groups completed a needs assessment by reviewing the survey, academic, and local data. Students identified engagement and recovering from COVID and distance learning as areas of concern. And then it's one of my favorite parts from this paragraph. Students then provided an analysis of causes and collaborated to provide recommendations to improve outcomes for students. And there's more language like that. And just, I mean, when I read that, it was just the music to my ears. Again, it's not just young people involved, but the level and the quality of

069the input, it just blows my mind. You know, the progress that we've made, and to me in a very short amount of time because of the support that has existed in this district and the passion as well. And I know there'll be some adults that are still the mindset, and that's how it used to be as well, right? That, you know, adults know better. That's not the case. You know, working together with our young people, we will be more innovative and way more engaging. And this is the one for Douglas, and they've identified that engagement was the focus. But all the plans have similar language about the level of engagement and the quality of engagement with the young people. And I've shared with staff some of the concerns I have with the metrics, but as

070you heard, they're going to be revisiting those as capacity builds as well, be refining some of them. So I'm not too concerned about that. But again, big props, big appreciation. And I look forward to even in the future how more they shared some of the ideas they have as well. And again, just talking about goal four here now, but every goal that we have that we identified would definitely set a different direction. And again, then embedding the graduate profile as well to these two. help guide, again, the decisions that are made for young people. So again, thank you. And if any principal would like to just comment about the kind of experience and going through the process this year with more youth voice, I would really appreciate it. Thank you. Mrs. Reese, would you like

071to share? Sure, I would love to. The addition of student focus groups and the student advisory board was absolutely amazing. We already had pretty active students involved in the site council and our students are not shy on the site council and participate vociferously. So we already kind of had that piece in place, but it turned out that it really wasn't enough. So having the student advisory council review the site plan having the student focus groups review the site plan was incredibly useful. And there are changes in the site plan that are a result of that input. For example, at our school, the kids identified the need for social emotional support as absolutely key. And we instinctively kind of knew that. But, you know, we get wrapped around the axel on academics and all of those

072sorts of things, as we should. But knowing when they came so clearly and so cleanly about that particular item, it really did translate into action in our action plan for the student site. plan for the site plan for student achievement. So I, for one, I never want to go back. So I am very happy to have had that particular input. And it did make a difference. And just one, just super fast, I know how long the night is. Our student advisory council asked us Could you please bring back grade data for us to look at? Now, we happen to have that sort of handy, but the next meeting was all about ripping apart grade data by course, by demographic, and they had a lot of suggestions around that. We're a school that I think our

073district is better for this particular input. Thank you for sharing that. Yeah, wow. That's all I got to say. Wow. All right. Any other questions or comments from trustees on this item? Is there a motion? Oh, go ahead. I move to approve. Second. It's been moved by Trustee Bautista Zavala, seconded by Trustee Villagran. We will go to a vote. Let's start with Trustee Garcia. Yes. Trustee Childers? Yes. Trustee Bautista Zavala? Aye. Trustee Villagrana? Yes. Trustee Richardson-Fowler? Yes. Trustee Rodriguez? Yes. No. Alphabet. Oops. Okay. So the plans are approved. That brings us now to item K4, information action, approved cooperative agreement between the Regents of the University of California on behalf of the Puente Project and Woodland Joint Unified School District. This is Ortega Lambert. Oh, I was going to let her talk first. I don't

074mind. Go ahead. So moved by Trustee Villagran, seconded by Trustee Childers. Misses are taken on that. We are just very proud to be part of the Puente project that we've had in our district for several years. And Maria Orozco, the Director of Equity and Access, is overseeing this Puente agreement. And so she's here tonight to offer any questions that you may have. There's a motion and a second. Are there any questions or comments before we go to a vote? No, just it's a great phenomenal program that provides a... good access, quality access to our young people in our district. So I'm very happy that we have that available. All right. Trustee Villagrana, how do you vote? Yes. Trustee Rodriguez? Yes. Trustee Richardson-Fowler? Yes. Trustee Garcia? Yes. Trustee Childers? Yes. Trustee Bautista-Zavala? Aye. And I vote

075yes. The motion passes unanimously. And I believe we have gotten through teaching and learning in record time tonight. That brings us now to item L. L1 is information board agreement check-in. And originally I was hoping that it wouldn't be such a packed agenda when we added this. But I would say, you know, I think we've done a good job of moving through procedural items tonight. That's something I would like for us to just think about and be conscious of trying to build a rhythm. so that we can become more efficient as a school board. And part of what I wanted to talk about tonight is just, you know, the question of how we can be efficient and effective while still creating that space for people to speak their piece and to bring their value to

076the table. And so I would. you know, open up for that conversation because we have spent a lot of hours in open session this year and there has been a lot to do. But I think that we can always challenge ourselves to be better and challenge ourselves to be more efficient. And one thing that came to mind as I was thinking about this is just that we might think about, you know, adopting a new agreement, which would be that we agree to focus on questions and conversations that are timely and relevant to the Knights agenda. And I don't propose that to, you know, constrain people. That's not really my intent, but sometimes there are things where, you know, it's like, okay, we can write it down and come back to it later. And so that

077would just be not necessarily, I would say that that's kind of, you know, maybe a mentality that we can adopt. as we approach our time in open session, just prioritizing those two things. And so I would love to hear feedback on that or any other ideas that we have so that we can keep moving forward and continuing to improve our efficiency as a board. Trustee Villagrana? I might get briefed to practice. But yeah, I am guilty of, you know, sometimes like we go off on a tangent and the more that we stay focused on a topic and get those questions answered ahead of time or after the fact, right, that would be helpful so that we can do more of the work that needs to be done to keep moving forward. At the same time,

078I do agree that, again, sometimes questions come up and that, you know, we need to be able to ask those questions. Again, if they're related to us, how we're going to vote on that item versus something that just kind of was tangent to it, then maybe we can just write that down and follow up with the superintendent at a later time. But, I mean, I'm definitely in favor and, you know. The year past definitely was more wordy, and I promise, and I think I've gotten better. Definitely, I think Morgan can attest to the past. So, yeah, I'm definitely in favor of something like that to help us be even more effective as also as being more efficient. I don't know if that was brief or not. It was good. Are there any thoughts from anyone

079else? Trustee Rodriguez. Yeah, I mean, I actually think we've been doing a pretty good job all year. I think it's actually very relevant that we're in, you know, in COVID mode, coming out of COVID mode. There's been a great number. I don't know of any topic that was trivial or that should not have been on the agenda. And I think, you know, discussion, I think Trustee Batista Zavala made this comment several meetings ago that this is one of the few places where we can actually have dialogue about something without having the constraints of the Brown Act. And so I think that efficiency doesn't, if efficiency means getting through the agenda as quick as you can, I'm not sure that relates to quality. So I would just caution that we don't confuse getting through the agenda

080as quick as we can for quality, because I think that our ability to actually have conversation in the public, and that takes time. It does. I'm sorry. It does. It is useful not only for us as a board, but for the public to understand why we are trying to get through things. And not everybody here is a rhetorical genius, right? So some of us, it takes a little while to get out what we think. And yes, of course, we have to prepare. But I just think it's a slippery slope to put so much emphasis on getting through our agenda quickly. One, because we have a tremendous amount of things with large importance that we have to understand and we have to think thoroughly. And so I just think we actually have been doing a good

081job. I don't know. I mean, I guess we could always do better, but. I just want to caution that we don't confuse moving quickly with quality. Yeah. And I appreciate that point. I mean, I think there's a balance to it, right? That there are things that we have to get done and there are conversations that we have to have. And sometimes, I guess I would say sometimes when things are, when we're running short on time, trustees might not feel able to participate fully in the conversation either. Right. And so that, I think that that's also part of creating the space for people to speak their minds. And so I, I, I'm just talking about it. You know, I thought that we were getting in a pretty good rhythm, but we were meeting like every week

082for like two months. And so I don't know if part of that was people were just getting burnt out. And so they were a little more. sparse with their words or if we were, you know, I think we were getting into a good rhythm. And then we came, we took a two-week break and then came back and it was kind of like, okay, we need to get back in the groove again. But a normal board calendar does have at least a week or two between board meetings. And so I just bring that up because that is something that I noticed and we did have to, you know, extend our meeting past midnight last time. And there was a conversation at one point about, you know, we need to be concise with our comments so we

083can get through this. And I just wanted to bring that up for us to discuss. I trust each other. Yeah, I was bored one day. And out of curiosity, I compared. our meetings with Davis School District meetings. And I added up all of the times from every meeting that we've had this year and every meeting that they've had this year. And we have spent almost exactly 30% more in open session time than they have. So I don't know what their board is like. I don't know what kind of decisions they're up against, but I imagine that they're up against very similar things. than what we are six miles away. And we're spending 30% more time talking about it. We also have had about 35% more meetings than they've had. So I don't think we're as

084efficient as we could be. And that's not a surprise to anybody. I think we could be more efficient and I think we should aim for that. Trustee Villagrana? It's an observation. We do have 28% more board members than they do though. So there's at least a 7% disparity I think we might be able to close the gap on. Okay. Questions, comments, anything else that anyone would like to add or any other ideas that we might be able to embrace? Just to clarify the fact that a lot of people are not also chiming in. I don't always feel the need if, like last meeting, I felt like I was echoing Rohilio, the trustee of the entire time. And so half the time I would just pause and not say anything because snaps, I was echoing everything.

085It wasn't necessary for me to speak if I was saying the exact same thing. I think some of that may be going on now. But I just wanted to articulate that, yeah, not every, if it's been said, it doesn't necessarily need to be said and amplified. Good point. I just wanted to say that I don't necessarily come to a meeting with my decision made on each and every agenda item. There's some agenda items that I'm looking to build. on a consensus with all of you in this space. And I, I take into consideration what all of you are saying. And I try to build my, my, my, the direction that I'm going to take action according to the conversations and opinions. So I do appreciate the time that is spent on each of the items.

086I'm trying something different today where I'm coming prepared on the items that I do have something to say. I wasn't necessarily planning on speaking on this one, but I decided to chime in so that you guys understand where I am right now. I'm trying to limit the amount of. air time as I can, because I do tend to speak up and I'm not timid and I'm not afraid to speak my mind during the board meetings, because this is our opportunity to chime in on the conversations. One thing that I do want to end with is that this, and it might've been said differently tonight. This has been a year of COVID response. A lot of our board agenda has been dedicated to that response. And we have been triaging so much. It's like constant reaction.

087I mean, just being a part of the agenda planning meeting, we have had to have, in some instances, more than one agenda planning meeting so that we could reprioritize what's going to be on the agenda. So what I do want to share with you guys is that. The agenda planning meeting meets for an hour and a half, if not more, just to plan the agenda. And we go through so many different scenarios to try to minimize what's the content. So I just want to make sure that you guys understand that the time. is being invested to make sure that everything that's on paper for the board meeting is effective and that we try to limit it so that we're not keeping everybody here past 11. But there's just been some instances where we can't shorten

088the content of the agenda because everything's important. And in all due respect, there's been times when our staff says, We really need you guys to put this on the agenda. And I don't hesitate to say, go for it, you know, because they need it. And they also deserve an opportunity to be able to put things on our agenda that deserves our attention and action on. So a lot of things go into the agenda planning that aren't necessarily talked about during. our board meeting. So I just wanted to share that today. But you guys do have my full commitment in trying to maximize our agenda prioritization. But at the same time, I do think that if I do have something to say, I don't want to feel like you guys are going to be mad at

089me after a board meeting because I talked and asked too many questions. Thank you. Trustee Villagran. I'm going to suggest that at this point we move on with the rest of our agenda. We had some good dialogue and good conversation. And just let's move on. Sounds good to me. And it'll kind of dovetail because now we're going to item L2, which is discussion of the board self-evaluation, which is an annual process that we go through. Superintendent Pritchard. Yeah. So at the request of the board, the last time you did your self-evaluation, you had shared that you would like to continue the practice of having a staff survey. That survey is actually being done this week. And the idea is that once that comes back, unfortunately, for the trustees, it's an anonymous report. So you won't

090see any names of people who did fill out that survey, but we'll summarize the data. in charts for you. And then the other thing that we had talked about at our last self-evaluation was the idea of each of the trustees doing an online self-evaluation. CSBA, the California School Boards Association, does have an online tool. which they will provide for us. I believe it's between $200 and $500. So it's very inexpensive for the trustees to take that online. And then they will provide an anonymous summary. I know some trustees wanted to have names attached to the board survey. So if you still wanted to continue with an online survey, we would need to look somewhere else. But those two items. are things to consider as you talk about how you want to go about your self-evaluation.

091Boards in the past have just done discussions, but you can also have those as well. Maybe I was the only one who wanted to not be anonymous. I think it was good for us to know who was saying what, but if that's the best option, I'm fine moving forward with an anonymous tool. It's very affordable compared to other companies out there or tools out there. So again, I'm fine. As long as there was no others that were dead on and not being anonymous. I think that we're all adults. And I think that, you know, we, we all, I mean, at least I would have a comfort level saying how I responded to the survey in talking to you all about it. And I think that we are able to have those, those kinds of open

092conversations. So I'm not sure that, you know, I'm not really diehard on it has to be, you know, names attached. I think we can still have those conversations and get useful data out of it, right? Because part of, and this is something since I've been on the board, is it's, you know, we didn't really have a self-evaluation. Then we added a survey for staff. And so I think that. One of the things that we can do, and now that we have a new board as well, is think of ways that we can kind of build that out and do a more robust actual self-evaluation reflection of our performance as trustees. And so that's just kind of, you know, the intent behind adding the additional layer of, you know, a board member survey to just add

093to that discussion. It doesn't look like there was any opposition to it, so we're good to go. Right, team? Okay. And then that's also, so I think that will dovetail us nicely. Or actually, I would say, does anyone have any other comments in terms of ideas of things that we could add to our board self-evaluation? Okay. So item L, oh, go ahead. Just one last thing. I'll work with the agenda planning team to determine when we do that survey. Okay. And then that brings us to item L3, which is information action. So these next two items are going to kind of play together a little bit. So one idea that came up in the agenda planning process was we had a board retreat at the start of the year. to bring us all together and

094we had a new team and that was a really productive exercise. And so the idea is that maybe we would turn our self-evaluation into a mid-year reflection retreat. And so we wanted to bring that to the board for their consideration. The proposal was for a July 17th Saturday session so that we would have some time to go through that. Obviously, at the discretion of the board, it can be a different date or we can just dedicate a special session that already exists and just spend an evening on it. So it's just kind of open to whatever you guys want to do. So if nobody speaks up, we're going to go with that Saturday. Is that the case? Well, no. Someone needs to make a motion in a second to add that to the calendar. I

095want to hear what people think before I make the motion. I would like to use our special meeting. I didn't hear you. What did you say? I would like to use our official meeting during the week instead of Saturday. Okay. Trustee Rodriguez? I mean, I'd actually like to know more what we would do at the board meeting, what we would do at the retreat. That would actually better inform me about, you know. what time we should have the retreat, you know, the duration of the retreat. So working actually on the substance of what is it, what is it that we're trying to get out of this retreat, I think is a, is a better avenue to follow. And then that will dictate, you know, the times that we need. That's what I think. Yeah. And

096I think that it would be sort of a combination of. in my mind, going over the results of the two surveys and having some space to actually have a real discussion about that instead of just, you know, going through it. It's like, okay, thank you everyone for replying and making some brief comments and moving on with the agenda. And then also just kind of incorporating some of the different group team building exercises that we did in our first retreat. in ways that would build upon, you know, basically, you know, the efforts that we've made this year coming together as a group and just trying to focus those on how we can work together in ways that are effective. If I could add before you go to the other trustees and more than likely, I can't

097guarantee it right now, but more than likely, this would be an in-person retreat. And so there'll be maybe some different opportunities for, you know, team building activities to expand upon what you guys did on January 7th and January 9th. I want to add, Jake, to me also, it's like the deep reflection that can only happen when you have that space to do that as a board, reflect on what we've done, how we've done it, what can we do different? So to me, the reflection is the most important part because, you know, getting the feedback is great, reading it through it is great, but if we don't reflect on it, then... then it's kind of like, so what, right? So that to me is the most important part. Yeah. Trustee Richardson-Fowler. We are having a retreat

098like we did in the beginning of the year with the same collaborative, getting to know each other, coming up with our ground. That was productive. I think that got us all on the same page. If we're going into a retreat with that kind of a tone, I am two thumbs up for it and would prefer a Saturday. Trustee Rodriguez, do you have an opinion on Saturday versus Thursday? Yeah, I mean, I would prefer a Saturday. I know it's difficult for Trustee Garcia to make, I think, you know, a week, a weekend, you know, maybe if a Sunday would work better, I don't know. But time, you know, probably a day that accommodated a nine to four type of. you know, agenda. But I also, you know, maybe this is not the place to bring this

099up either, but I'd also like maybe, you know, a different method way of also self-reflecting upon what we've done, you know, actually getting some, if we could, you know, arrange it, some personal testimony from our students or teachers or, you know, all, you know, some of our partners. to talk about how they've seen the board interact, to see how they've made decisions and what decisions. And it was something that is actually. more in depth so that we could kind of process things in real time. It will be different if we meet in person. There's just a bigger, more depth quality. And I think that besides just kind of talking about ourselves and how we work together, we also work together for a purpose. We work together for our students. We work together to try and

100build the best possible decision-making for. for everybody, for all our staff. And I think that might be an interesting piece to add on. Okay. And so the intention would be if the board wanted to do July 17th, or if we just want to try to find a time that works for everybody, that's better if that one doesn't work. But the intention, we also have on our next item, eliminating three other board meetings from our calendar. So hopefully that will help lighten the load. Even with the addition of a retreat. Question. Yes. Morgan, what was your preference? Well, Jake didn't ask me because he knows he doesn't have to. I am not going to be for a Saturday meeting. And if that date, that particular date is chosen, I won't make it. Got it. Okay. So

101I think it's important for all of us to be there. So I think then with those two. concerns on Saturday, then we do it dedicated that whole Thursday, the 17th. Okay. Or not the 17th, the 15th. The 15th. Yeah. So we would not take action on this. And then we can potentially on the next item move to eliminate two out of the three proposed meetings from the calendar. Okay. Let's move on. Okay. That brings us to item L4, information action, agenda planning consideration. Eliminate June 17th special board meeting, July 8th regular board meeting, and July 15th special board meeting. We're keeping one, remember? Second. So there's a motion and a second to eliminate all three. So we're going to have the retreat on one of these days. But isn't it important to make sure we're

102all there? Yeah, that's why it's on a Thursday now instead of a Saturday. Will we all be able to make it this summer? Just a general question. Well, if I could add, if the board chooses to eliminate these three board meetings, then I will work with Noemi and the agenda planning team to do a poll and we will find a date maybe closer to the beginning of school to protect summer. But we'll find a date for the study session. Yeah. Yeah, I think we can do that. There's two special board meetings, one in August, one in September, that may or may not eventually come up on the chopping block. So that might be, you know, something to look at as well. So we can definitely, you know, we have a motion and a second. So

103let's go to a vote on eliminating the June 17th, July 8th, and July 15th board meetings. Trustee Childers, how do you vote? Yes. Trustee Bautista Zavala. I'm going to. Abstain? Okay. Trustee Villagran? Yes. Trustee Rodriguez? Yes. Trustee Richardson-Fowler? Yes. Trustee Garcia? Yes. And I will vote yes. Motion passes 6-0 with one abstention. Now that brings us to item L5, Information Action, Discussion about Returning to In-Person Board Meetings. And so in talking with Superintendent Pritchard, and we have the upcoming June 15th date, which Governor Newsom has indicated will be the date that the color-coded tier reopening system will no longer be in effect. And so I wanted to bring to the board a proposal to resume in-person board meetings effective June 24th. And this would be with public attendance so that there will be public in-person

104public comment. I believe the intention is that we would still space chairs apart for some social distancing. And we have some overflow capacity that we use before transitioning to virtual meetings last year. So we would resume that that format until the until such a time as we, you know, it's deemed that social distancing is not necessary. How about masks? Yes, masks would be required. With those two things, I move for approval. Seconded. Okay. It's been moved by Trustee Villagrana, seconded by Trustee Richardson-Fowler. Comments or questions before we go to a vote? Can you restate? Yeah. Trustee Villagrana? Back in person on June 24th with distancing of chairs, the proper distance at that time, and wearing masks. Okay. Let's go to a vote. Trustee Rodriguez? Yes. Trustee Villagran? Yes. Trustee Bautista Zavala? Aye. Trustee Childers? Yes.

105Trustee Garcia? Yes. Trustee Richardson-Fowler? Yes. And I vote yes. The motion passes unanimously. And now that brings us to item L6, information, presentation on redistricting, and this is going to be a multi-part discussion. Yeah, so every 10 years with the census, public organizations need to look at the census data and redraw boundaries for their elected official areas. So I'm going to turn this over to Louis because we have some consultants here who are going to take us through the redistricting process. They're going to talk about what that means for us. And then eventually we're going to talk about what that could look like. if we chose to move from seven to five members in the future. So, Lewis. Thank you, Tom. President Whitaker, fellow trustees, this evening we have Mr. Larry Fershaw with us. He's

106with Cooperative Strategies, and I'm going to turn the control and the ability for him to present his screen, and I believe he has some important information to share with the board. Yeah. Trustee Villagran. Before we start, just a comment. Is the plan to talk about the redistricting first and then after the discussion when that is done, go into the other item? Or are you going to talk about both at the same time? Larry, are you there? Yeah, he's there. I see him. Yes, I'm here. I have a presentation that walks through both items. if that's helpful or we can take a pause at the appropriate breaking point. Yeah, I prefer if we just talk about redistricting and then, you know, get that whatever and then MOOCs. I don't want things to get crossed and get

107confused. So if that's okay. Yeah, so if we can just pause before we get to seven to five and then just take it from there. Okay, it's all yours, Larry. All right, thank you, Louis. Members of the board, again, my name is Larry Furchon. I'm figuring out how to share my screen. Here we go. Thank you. We have a, as we said, it's kind of a two-part presentation. So I'll go ahead and talk a little bit about the redistricting process as a result of the census, which Dr. Pritchard has gone over as well. But it stems from Education Code Section 5019.5, which discusses that school districts such as yours that elect their members by area. are required to do, take some action after census data is released. And what you're supposed to do is when

108the population data is released, look at your existing areas and determine the populations in each of those areas to see if they are still roughly equal in terms of total population. And what's allowable is up to a 10% variance or difference between the largest and smallest areas. It's considered to be the safe harbor. Anything Under 10% is considered to be okay. Anything above that, we would need to look at adjusting. And so you would first look at the data and then make any necessary adjustments to those areas. And under the current law, you have until February 28th of the year following the census data's release to make those adjustments. So what that translates to is February 28th of 2022 to... make any adjustments to your voting areas as a result of the 2020 census. That

109legislation also presumes that the census data is available by March 31st of 2021, and we are still waiting for that data. Like everything else, the pandemic has reached some havoc with the 2020 census through the counting process and now through the enumeration process. You probably recall hearing a couple weeks ago about the state level total so that we know how the congressional number of seats are being reallocated by states. So that's the first level of release of data that was supposed to be out. December 31st originally, and that just came out a couple weeks ago. So you can see we're already fairly delayed there. What we need is block level data. So that's the smallest geographic unit for which there's population information. And so until that comes out, there's really nothing we can do on

110the redistricting process other than wait. But the Census Bureau has indicated that as early as August 16th, there may be some usable data, but... For sure, by September 30th, they will have released the data that we will need for this process. Obviously, that compresses the timeframe that we have to get this done in. And as a result of the California Voting Rights Act, there are many multipliers, more school districts and other public agencies that have to go through this process than had to go through it 10 years ago. So it's going to be a compressed process with a lot more agencies having to do it. There is the potential for some legislative changes to give us a little bit more time through this process. And we'll keep an eye on that as we wait. So

111this is the information based on the 2010 census data, 61,308 people within the district's boundaries. You can see the ethnic breakdown there. Hispanic population just under 47%, the white population at 43, and the Asian percentage at just under 5.7. You can see the population 18 and over. And what we've done here is there are other data providers besides the census that, you know, recognizing that 10 years is a long time to wait. And there's people that like to have information at this level. Sooner than that, there are folks who provide estimates of the census or estimates of the population every year. So I've highlighted the word estimate. There's a private company called Geolytics, and their estimate for the population within the district's boundaries is an increase of about 5,300 people over the last 10 years.

112And you can see it's based on some Census Bureau state and county level estimated populations. They use actuarial tables to figure out how many people on average have kids, how many people on average pass away. And they also use U.S. Postal Service data to look at the movement of people. So new addresses, people moving from one place to another to estimate household movement. It is an estimate. We won't know how accurate it is until the actual census data is released. But in looking at some of the options in the second half, of this presentation, we wanted to be able to look at it with some fresher data in mind. The map here on the left hand side shows areas of growth or decline in total population from 2010 to the 2020 estimate. go one more

113slide to advance that to show where those areas are. So the darker the blue, the larger the increase in total population. And then as you go towards the yellows and oranges and reds, you see some declines in population. So not a surprise to see the Spring Valley Lake area growing in population. We know there's been a substantial number of homes built over there. So that area is all blue and very blue around Spring Lake. I'm sorry, not Spring Valley, but Spring Lake Elementary School. So that's areas of growth and then some areas of moderate decline or smaller growth in other parts of the school district. So that's kind of a high level view of what it looks like the population change would be. So what that does and when we look at your... Before I

114do that, this is again census data. When your areas were drawn back in 2010 or after the 2010 census, we would have looked at information on citizen voting age population in addition to total population. And so this is actually updated estimates from the Census Bureau of citizen voting age population. and the concentration of Latino citizen voting age population throughout the district. You can see about 37% Hispanic, Latino, 52% white, and six and three quarters percent Asian. And you can see some concentration areas. I will say when you see these large census blocks here that are very, very dark in color, that may indicate a high percentage. And that's what those, the darker colors represent as a higher percentage, but those are really large. which also suggests a very small population total. So, you know, don't

115get distracted by some of these large outlying areas that are darker in color. It's when you look at the more zoomed in version of the map and you see them more in the center of town, those higher concentrations of Latino citizen voting age population where the numbers really are. Question before you go on, on the previous slide? Yeah. What is the reason that we need to take this data into consideration when drawing districts? So when you're drawing these districts, we're going to want to make sure the areas are equal in terms of total population, but we can't do anything to, when we create areas or adjust areas to inhibit members of protected classes, which are historic, racial, ethnic, or language minority groups, can't do anything that inhibits their ability to influence the outcome of the

116election. And so, without forecasting too much, what we will see is there is the ability to create areas of higher Latino citizen voting age population percentages than in the district as a whole, and perhaps even a majority area where a majority of the citizen voting age population in a particular area is Latino. And to the extent that we can do that under the Federal Voting Rights Act, we should do that to ensure that we are not doing anything that... inhibits members of that class from being able to influence the elections. Got it. Thank you. No problem. So these are the current trustee areas, the district-wide view. and can zoom in here so we can see more of the dividing lines in the center of town. So area one is yellow, two is green, three is

117that reddish color, four is blue, five is purple, six is the, we'll call that gold-ish area, and then this light aquamarine color down there is area seven. So you can see all the current board members residing in each of those respective areas. You can see we've color-coded the stars representing the board members to indicate when each board member's term is up. So those that are in red, those terms are up in 2022. Those that are in green, those terms are up in 2024. And based on that, you can see the sequencing of elections for the current areas in the legend in the upper right-hand corner. Based on this updated population data, what we see is if those numbers hold, if those are accurate, that we would have voting areas that are out of compliance with

118the roughly equal population rule. You can see area three is a little bit too small and area five is a little bit too big. And those combined variances equate to 11.35%. which is outside the bounds of what is allowable under case law and the education code. So with that, what we would come back to the board. So if, again, these numbers are accurate, when we get the census data, we'll share that with information with the board based on the actual census counts. And we'd want to get feedback from the board in terms of any suggestions for what those changes might be. These are fairly minor changes that we would have to make given the overall population variance isn't, you know. far over 10%. We're just a little over 10%. So it could be some very

119minor tweaks around the edges to bring this back into compliance. And we've got an example of what that could look like next. Mr. Furchoff, so I just have a question for you, which is, you know, there's one thing about this data that kind of strikes me as odd, which, you know, trustee area seven is the spring lake area. And we mentioned earlier in the presentation, You know, that there's a lot of homes that have been built out there. And but this is showing a population. I mean, so basically, you know, we haven't seen a real I mean, shouldn't that be the district that's out of whack in terms of population? Well, it doesn't mean that it hasn't grown. So that's just because it's less than the ideal total doesn't mean it hasn't grown. It just

120may not have grown as much as Area 5. So if we scoot back, again, this is not data we produce. This is data that is provided. And people use this for marketing purposes and other purposes. you know, one of the few data sources out there for population estimates at this small level. And so I think what we would expect is Area 5, which is the area that's grown. We've seen a lot of housing in here that's probably filled in. And we've seen housing down here as well. And perhaps the data just isn't capturing all of that quite yet. And that there would be additional folks who, when the census data is released, are in Area 7 than what this data is suggesting are there. The blue is area four, actually. Area five is the lavender.

121Area five is purple. Thank you. But there hasn't been, like, homes or apartments, complexes built there in, I don't know, how long. So that's what we're confused. There's car construction in area five. Yeah, but not like Spring Lake. Not like Spring Lake, definitely not. Yeah, I can look a little bit more into the data and understand it and try to see why it's not capturing that. But, you know, this is, this is the best information that we can purchase at this time and really is just to illustrate potential changes we know we're we're not going to rely on this data for any decision making in terms of what the areas are going to look like it was really just to provide a snapshot of what the population data could be at this point perfect thank

122you thank you Mr. Furcha yes for for district five When we were working on the bond campaign, my observation was that that area of woodland had a drastic increase in multi-generational household living over the last few years. Meaning we saw an increase of households bringing in grandchildren, children, aunts and uncles, grandpa and grandma. And it happened pretty quickly, but I would say over the last five years. And that's what we notice in the voter data. But the reason I'm sharing this is if you have any type of way of checking on that and, you know, just double checking to see if my observation may be relevant to the increase in numbers and that. What we can do is we can look at census bureau estimates. That would be at a... higher level. So the lowest

123level that the Census Bureau produces data at between censuses is at the block group level, which is where you combine a bunch of blocks together and it's a block group. So we can look at that information. Obviously, that's not going to be the level of detail that we need perhaps to see this, but we'll certainly pull that information and we can share that next time. I mean, there's really no point in looking at that because you're not going to use that to create the districts. We should just wait for the final data from the census and then, right, because there's no point of looking at data that's old. Right or no? I mean, I think if it helps, you know, see if there's any reason why this geolitics data is suggesting more growth in Area

1245 than Area 7 and 4, it could be worth it. But as you said, hopefully, fingers, toes crossed, by the end of August, we'll have real data that will be what we will be using. My concern is cost. Would it increase the cost of the work you all are doing for you to do that? I don't, it would be a quick poll of the data to see that information. Cool. So again, with that, we, you know, just looked at what a potential change would be. Again, this is as, as illustrative as you'd like given the questions about the data and its accuracy to this point, but it's certainly a potential of what it could look like and what you see is Area 5, since it was the largest area, got geographically smaller. Area 3 got

125geographically bigger and just some little changes around the edges to balance out the numbers. Really, this is just to show as population changes, And given the type that this data is suggesting has occurred, this is the level of change that you would see between your current areas and potential new areas. And again, fairly minor. If you were to toggle back and forth, you would notice those differences. But again, at this point, that's what this data is suggesting would be the case. In terms of all this other data, this just shows the population information. So you can see under this, then area one is the smallest and area five is the biggest. But at that level of variance, we're well within the limits there. We do see area four on this seven-member configuration where the Latino

126population is at 49.38% on citizen voting age population. almost a majority, you know, just a couple people away from being a majority. We also have area five, where it is a the largest group but not a majority. So again, we go back here. Those are the purple and the blue areas where we're seeing the highest concentrations of Latino citizen voting age population at this time based on the current data we have. And I should probably stop there and turn it back over. Okay. So I would propose at this point we take a 10-minute break so everyone can get up, stretch their legs, and, you know, that was a lot to process. And then we'll come back and continue our discussion on redistricting. Sounds good. So I will recess this meeting at 831. We will come

127back at 841. Are we going to be able to ask questions on the first part before we go into the second part? Yeah. Okay. Okay. And it is 841. So I will call this meeting back to order at 841. And so now, having received the first half of that presentation, are there questions or comments from trustees? I have a few questions. One is, can you explain more what the process would be like once you have the data? And I know some districts have like a redistricting committee. Is that required? So those sort of steps. Sure. So unlike the conversion from at-large to by-area elections, which requires, at this point, it requires five public hearings when districts go through that process, which is a little bit different than when this district went through that process. But

128there's a whole regimen for that. For the redistricting after the census, there is no formal procedure that is outlined in the education or elections code. You know, as best practice, it probably would make sense to hold at least one or two public hearings on the matter. There's all different, from there, there's all different levels of engagement the district could do. There is no requirement to have a commission. There's no committee or anything like that. The district could hold community input meetings. The district could host a public mapping tool if it were interested in allowing for that. there's really to be determined by the board and the district, what level of engagement, but you know, there's, there's, it can run the gamut. And then this is a question for my colleagues. Right now, the maps are

129where three districts have rural and five do not. And so I'm just wondering what's thoughts on when we redraw the lines about every district having rural representation. So I'm just curious, thoughts on that. So I guess a question that I would have is, are we... By doing that, diluting the voting power of rural voters. I don't know. You know, I think we'd have to see what those look like. It's almost like a maybe it's because I'm hungry. It's almost like a pizza that meets in the middle. And that's something we could certainly look at, but it could lead to some strange lines when you get into town. It could lead to dilution of protected classes potentially. And I think we'd have to see when the data is available what that could potentially look like. Yeah.

130It could also lead to everybody actually being responsible as well for rural areas, which often get left behind, especially if you have a high concentration within the city. It's hard to keep the rural communities in mind. So I think a lot of issues that are important on both sides. I mean, I would be interested in seeing both scenarios once we have the real data. to see if there isn't a negative impact or disparate impact on communities that are protected. Again, unless there's four members that are like, no, we like the way it is now, we want to stay this way, then my suggestion is out the window. Can you recap your suggestion? Sorry, I got kicked out. Yeah, no worries. So right now we have three districts that have rural representation and then five districts

131that are just city representation. And so my question is, could we do it so that we draw and it won't look like a pizza to me. I mean, it would look very different, but every district would have rural representation. And then the comment was made about that it could dilute the rural vote. And then Trustee Rodriguez said that it actually could make it so trustees are more aware and more responsive to the rural community because all would have rural representation. And then my last comment was just that I'd like to see, unless there's opposition from four trustees, I'd like to see both scenarios come to us so we can evaluate them and make the determination at that point. Okay. So we have four. Awesome. Thank you. Okay. Okay. Are there any other questions or comments

132before we move to the next question, which Trustee Villagrana alluded to would focus more on the community engagement process and what we want to see on that end. Okay, so item L6A is information action discussion of WJUSD redistricting process. And I would like to propose that we do a community redistricting committee to develop in consultation with the company three maps to bring to the board for consideration and adoption of one of those three maps. And I think that having a community redistricting committee is important. I've always personally struggled with the idea that there are opportunities for politicians to pick their voters and not the other way around. And I don't think that that's so much an issue here, but I think that it's important to embrace processes that reduce the possibility of that happening. And

133so I just wanted to propose that for the board's consideration tonight that we would move forward with a community redistricting committee and determine how to identify membership for that. I've seen in other nearby. bodies, the Yolo County Board of Supervisors, they had where, you know, they have a seven-member committee, each board member appoints one committee member, and then five of them come together to appoint two at-large members. So there would be a member from each district involved in the redistricting process, or there, you know, any other way that we would want to provide for community members to participate in that process. Good question. Larry, do you have experience working with committees in this process? For the most part, we've done this through the transition process. There's been occasionally board subcommittees that we've worked with. At

134the same time, we've also done work for districts on student attendance boundaries. So we've done a lot of committee work there through attendance boundary processes. So the answer is yes or no? Strictly speaking on redistricting commissions, no, I have not had that experience yet, but I think we've had very adjacent experience in that field. So you feel comfortable taking on the task if the board decided to go in that direction? I always love the idea of working with groups and trying to reach consensus on ideas. And then you... I don't want to get off too much topic, but you mentioned the boundaries. Would the boundaries be redrawn at the same time as you're doing this process, or is that a whole separate process? This does not touch school attendance boundaries. I probably shouldn't have even

135mentioned it during this presentation because it conflates the issue, but this does not affect where kids go to school or anything. Let's move on. So to Jake's recommendation, I'm also in support. Again, we don't have to talk today about how we would identify that committee. I like what you suggested, but I'm not necessarily sold on that approach, but definitely in support of the concept of a community committee. Okay. Trustee Rodriguez? I'm actually more in support of a community meeting which allowed the community to give input. on the topic. I don't know that I necessarily am in support of a committee. I think that, you know, we are all put through an elected process to represent the people at the highest level. So that, you know, we are representing the people and we should take in

136what their opinions are through a process. But if you create a committee, it depends who's on that committee. And I think the surest way to make sure that the people are represented is to allow us to make the final decision because we went through an election process to represent the people and that's our job full time. But I do think it's very important to hear what the community has to say. so that we could have some sort of a needs assessment or some sort of committee input so that we can hear what the community has to say and take that into account. So that's a different idea. Trustee Childers. I don't think just because we choose a committee doesn't give them the final say. We still have the final determination. Yeah, so at least the

137concept that I have is that the committee would develop maps. to bring to us for consideration. And it's also possible too, Trustee Rodriguez, that you could have the committee conducting that type of community meeting as part of their process in developing those maps. Well, I guess here's a larger issue. You know, what are we going to do to ensure that diversity is part of those committees? What are we going to do to ensure that the people that come to those committees are educated about a process that's very complicated? And so, in fact, if you can assure that, then maybe I might be better with the committee. But I think that's a very hard thing to do. And so if we end up with a committee that is not diversified and that is perhaps populated by

138only those individuals who are politically savvy about what this might mean, I might have an issue with that as well. And I think that's an important distinction and an important issue to consider. Okay. Thank you. David Soldani? Yeah, so he's an attorney from Atkinson-Andelson that's helping cooperative strategies with this process. Okay. Mr. Soldani. Yes, thank you. Good evening. Legal counsel for the district. I was actually the individual who did the initial discussion about making a move from seven to five at that time. I wanted to weigh in on this discussion about a commission. One thing that we have done in the past to engage the community, and this is typically done when you're taking a district that elects at large and you're doing that initial changeover, that initial formation process. What we do, what we've

139done in the past that was effective, was kind of a direct community engagement. So we would offer like to do an open house style presentation or two. We would make our way around a couple of school sites. We would have it. you know, at hours where people wouldn't be at work, right, where they can come in just like a rolling meeting. They can come in when they wanted to come in during a certain time. We would have draft maps set up around like a classroom, for example, or gymnasium. And then members of the public can come in and they can ask questions of the demographer. They can draw their own maps. They can, you know, we collect all of their feedback and their comments. And then when we report back to the board. With our

140draft maps, we can say, hey, you know, we had 20 people show up and 10 of those were really in favor of map number one because this, that, and the other. And then we had a couple of stray comments that said we shouldn't divide this neighborhood or that. But, you know, that's a way to really, it kind of cuts out the middleman of what the commission is, right? Going directly to the constituents. But I also want to express a caveat. You know, I was around and did this in the last census. I will tell you, having gone through many of these changeovers, that there typically is not a lot of community interest. There just isn't. If you were to have a public hearing on changing your school attendance boundaries, you'd see a lot of people,

141right? But for changing your voting areas, the folks that really care about that are folks who would run for the board. So it's not unusual that we would have an open house and there'd be, what, Larry, two or three people sometimes. So I just, I want to make sure. that I'm setting a realistic expectation for you in terms of the level of engagement or the level of interest that your constituents are going to have on this particular topic. So anyway, I just wanted to discuss that option for community engagement, just direct meetings, open house style, members of the public can come in and gather the input in that fashion. Okay. Well, thank you for that, Trustee Rodriguez. Mr. Saladoni, I have a question for you. Yep. And how many of these meetings or committee meetings

142have you had in the last two years? How many, what type of meetings? Or the kind of meetings that we're talking about. Let's just say the last year. These open houses? Mm-hmm. These community engagement meetings? Oh, golly. Larry, you've been into at least half of them with me. Over the past two years, what, 40? Upwards of 40, maybe more. And what would you say would be the diversity ratio in those 40 people? You mean in the 40 meetings? How many people of color did you have in those meetings? You know, it would vary from community to community. And it would tend to be in proportion to that community. So if I'm in a heavily Latino community, I'm going to see that in the turnout. If I'm in a less diverse community, that's going to be

143reflected too. I don't, except, where was that, Larry, where you and I were there and they had actually a pretty large turnout? Was that in Mount Diablo where we had that? There was like 20, we had interpreters. But the difference in that instance was that there was a plaintiff's lawyer who was representing an actual group. And I think that was he increased that turnout because they were kind of interested parties in this process. And I don't think that we have that here. We're not operating under any kind of a demand letter. We're already electing by areas. This is really, you know, typically for the post-census redistricting, it's almost treated in a perfunctory manner. It's, you know, a lot of times your numbers don't move enough to where you're out of whack. Now, in our case,

144and one of the reasons we wanted to see this data that we're ultimately not going to use, we wanted to see it because it would give us a heads up in terms of whether we thought we were going to have to make some changes. And based on what I'm seeing, I think we will. So when the official data comes out at the end of September, I think we're going to have to make that change. Now, you know, a lot of districts just make it and bring adjusted maps to a meeting and have a, they can do a public hearing, even though that's not required under the law. And then folks can speak at that meeting. But, you know, as a middle ground, like I said, we can do community engagement where we roll it out

145at times that aren't board meetings and just let people come in and ask their questions and provide their feedback. Okay, thank you. That's probably a longer answer than you were looking for. I apologize. No, no, that's fine. I like long answers as long as they're informational. That's a good thing. Thank you. Actually, David just changed my mind based on what he said. I'm more in line with what Trosteo Ligas is saying about keeping it. Getting input and then the board getting maps drawn by, again, the experts, right? Knowing the law and what has to be followed, voting rights acts that, again, have to be strictly followed, not based on, again, opinions of how things should be. And then, you know, we making a decision. So, David, thanks for that information. So I would ask, you

146know. You mentioned that sometimes, you know, you have like two to three people show up to these community engagement meetings. And so I'm just going to question the utility of that. You know, if it's not well attended, is it really community engagement at all? Well, you're right. And the problem with that is all you can do is advertise and do the outreach. You can't physically bring somebody there if they're not interested. And I'll tell you this, in fairness to the districts, in some cases, I think they didn't do a good enough job of outreach. But in other cases, I can tell you a number of cases where we went above and beyond and we reached out to the groups and they just, this just wasn't on the top of their list of priorities. There's just

147too much going on. And again, remember that this stuff is of most interest. to the candidates, because that's who's impacted the most are the folks that are running for the seats. And I think that's how a lot of the community looks at it, too. It doesn't affect them in the same way as if you are changing where their child attends school. So it's kind of a mixed bag. Sometimes you can have the same level of effort and outreach from the district and the community just for whatever reason they don't respond. Other times, with minimal effort, for some reason, whether they're being represented by counsel on the other end or there's something else driving it, we'll have a larger turnout. But I will tell you that large turnouts for this type of issue is the exception.

148It's not the rule. I know Larry would agree with me on that. Well, I would argue, you know, the point that you're making, that the candidates are the ones who have the most interest in this. There may be candidates sitting on the board who have interest in that. And so that's where my position comes from. And I would say with a commission, you have people that are committing to be part of the process versus just the community engagement. You're just saying, hey, whoever shows up, shows up. And, you know, we said, hey, we engage the community. And so my position is unchanged. But if there's not support from the board, then we will move on. Yeah, I don't hear any. So, OK. I do support Jake's idea. I do like the, sorry, Trustee Whitaker. I

149do like the idea of having committed community members who are invested in this, whether they may have potential self-interest or whatnot, we've done our due process, rather than having, I don't know, willy-nilly. Maybe even having something to the element of seeing if we can get a representative from each school site or something like that. I don't know. but making sure we have dedicated folks who are invested. That's what I would like to see, some meaningful engagement. Okay. Well, are there four people in support of that position? No. Nope. Okay. Then we will move on. So are there any other comments or questions in terms of the redistricting process? So we have this conversation about community engagement. Is that something that we want to follow up on later? In terms of, yeah. Okay. So we will

150do that and bring that back for further discussion. That brings us now to item L6B, which is information action. Reduction in trustee areas from seven members to five members. And so I guess we will go with the presentation first, or does the board just want to... I guess I would ask, you know, do we have four people that are interested in having the conversation about reducing from seven to five? I think, I mean, for me, I'd rather see this come back when we have the accurate data. Okay. And so, Mr. Fershaw, is there a timeliness to this decision that we would need to consider? The only timeliness is, you know, because there is a process that the district would have to go through if the board were in favor of making this change, that involves

151potentially getting a waiver from the State Board of Education, and there's some lead time involved in that, that we would look to, you know, have a decision or direction, you know, by... by the end of the summer, I would say at the latest so that we can make sure we can go through all the required processes if that is the board's inclination in the end. Yeah. And so would we, do you envision us having an opportunity to have that discussion with the actual census data? You know, assuming we. Yeah, the Census Bureau holds true to their August 16th timeframe, and we are able to get that data that we could look towards September for that discussion. And I think with that data, we would still have time to get the process through if that was

152the board's decision at the time. Okay. So do we, okay. So do we want to table this for further discussion or thumbs up if you're interested in hearing, okay. Trustee Childers? Well, okay. So just in general, I am for reducing the board from seven to five. This is something I brought up with the previous superintendent and was in support of then. It just sort of didn't get off the ground. So I would like to express my support. I'm just not sure that looking at these maps would be, would be beneficial tonight since the numbers may change. Yeah. So I think we, I mean, we can definitely skip the maps in that discussion. Trustee Villagrana, did you have something you wanted to add? Yeah, I mean, I agree that the maps are irrelevant to our decision

153because we're going to be using data that's real. So I also don't see the reason to wait until we have the data to make that decision if, again, the maps are irrelevant. But I'm okay waiting if people are more comfortable waiting to have real data to do that. But to me, it doesn't make a difference in my decision as to what the maps look like. Okay. So I would ask for thumbs ups. Are there four trustees that are in favor right now of exploring the reduction in seven to five? Okay. So that is five trustees. And so the second part of that question. And Mr. Fershaw, you have some stuff for us about, you know, a waiver versus an election process for how that decision would be made. I can go through the first couple

154slides of the presentation and stop before we get to anything that has colored maps on it and just kind of do that. That would be helpful. Sounds good. Okay. Let me reshare my screen then. Alrighty. So the reduction or increase of a number of seats on a board is also governed by the Ed Code. This is Section 5019. If you were to desire to do that, it requires a resolution that goes forward to the county committee on school district organization. It's a resolution that takes the form of a petition, if you will, to the county committee. The county committee would... to receive that petition they would then hold a public hearing within within our boundaries and they would vote on whether to or approve or deny your request to reduce the number of seats on

155the board. That's the slide here. The approval of that petition would then constitute a call for an election, an election within the school district's boundaries. on whether or not the voters approve of you reducing the number of seats on the board from seven to five. But there, so there's that option. You could go through that. You could accept the county committee's approval and hold an election. And it would be on the next regularly scheduled election within the district's boundaries. Depending on timing, that could be the June primary, for example. But similar to the conversion from at-large to by-area elections, and similar to many other requirements of the Education Code, you can seek a waiver from the State Board of Education to waive that election requirement and get the go-ahead. with the county committee's approval to

156make that reduction in the number of seats without holding an election on the question of whether to reduce the seats. So because of the timeframe of getting that waiver application in front of the State Board of Education, roughly it's 60 days prior to a state board meeting that you have to have the application filed with the state board and they only meet every other month. So if you time it wrong, it could take up to four months. If you time it just right, it's about two months. But that's why we just suggested here a fall of 2021. decision and movement towards that waiver process in order to make sure all the necessary approvals were in place in advance of the November 2022 election. And we just have a brief timeline here of what this process

157would look like with this idea. So obviously tonight we're having that discussion, reviewing the process minus the potential options if there's poor direction. In order to seek the waiver, the district has to hold a public hearing. And prior to holding the public hearing, you also have to consult with your bargaining units as well as your district advisory councils. School site councils district English language Advisory Committee and those are the kind of groups you may want to consult with So prior to seeking a waiver, you're just required to do that and you would hold a public hearing we just again for illustration purposes we assumed August 26 that we could Do that public hearing on the waiver request the board approval of the waiver request as well as the board's consideration and approval of a resolution

158to reduce the number of seats That would trigger a County committee meeting probably in September October We moved in August. We'd probably get a November State Board of Education meeting date Which would allow us to to be done with that state process by November. And then we would also look once the census data is released and we've gotten our waiver application approved, start looking at new maps that would be required with five members instead of seven members and hold, you know, we suggested two meetings on that process in November and December so that the board by the end of the calendar year has selected its map of what things will look like. and can file all that with the registrars of voters. And then in November 2022, it would hold elections in two areas instead

159of four as you're currently scheduled. So you would have in December of 2022, two board members would be seated from those two areas, joining the three board members whose terms don't expire until 2024. So that's the process, and I won't go into any of the maps that follow. I just want to add something briefly, and that is if you go the route of reducing your trustees, I highly recommend that you get a waiver. If you don't get a waiver and you are forced to go into an election, aside the fact that the voters could turn it down, you have a timing problem. And that is you already, by law, have to adjust your areas. So if you are, you're doing that, right? So imagine we adjust those areas, but if you're waiting for an election,

160we're adjusting your areas based on seven seats. So then the election cycle rolls around. it gets voted in favor of, for example, by the voters, now you're going to have to do another set of maps down to five. It's best that if you're going to do it, that you do it at the same time so you're accomplishing everything in one fell swoop. You're creating, you're adjusting your areas, but you're adjusting from seven to five so that you're not having to undergo that mapping exercise twice, if that makes sense. Thank you. Trustee Viagrana. David, couldn't both sets of maps be done at the same time in anticipation of a potential approval of the voters? You could create two maps, but you can't get approval for two maps. You have to go with one map or another

161map. No, I understand that. We would approve the current seven configuration. Right. And then have the maps still created that would what we would approve then after the voters approved going to five. But the maps will be done. So you in other words, during this mapping process, you would have your seven person map that's adjusted and then you would have waiting in the wings, a five person map that's already been vetted and approved by the community so that then you could implement that following. if you were to go to an election, yeah, you could save a step there for sure. Okay, thank you. Yeah, I would be in support of more in that direction. If the direction is to pursue a waiver, I will vote no, because I feel very strongly that decisions about the

162representation of the voters should be made by the voters. If the people want to reduce from seven to five, that's their decision. I don't feel comfortable making that decision for them, but that's just my position. So questions or comments from trustees, if we have four in favor of a waiver, that would be the direction that we pursue. Is there a timeline that we could see if it was to go up for a election? We can provide that at the next meeting or through an update. Can you talk to us a little bit about what the timeline, could you share with us a little bit of the timeline if it was to go up for an election? You mentioned June primary 2022. When would we start seeing the phasing out of seats should this be passed?

163Most likely, I think you would see that happening at the November 2022 election. And then in 2024 would be the first reduction. So in other words, on that 2022 ballot, you're voting for four seats and your voters can vote whether or not to reduce. If they vote to reduce and those reductions would kick in. So in 2024, we have three seats up. So what would end up happening? Yeah, that would be tricky because you have four now. And then you would have, you would go from three down to two, but that's still, that gives you a six. So that's one over. Yeah. We'd have to, we'd have to figure that out. We've in, to my knowledge, we've never had that issue go to a vote. We've always gotten a waiver on that. So we'd have

164to, we'd have to quarterback that a little bit. Maybe work with elections to figure out how to phase out those seats in a way that makes sense. That doesn't. result in a wholesale overturning of an entire board once. I think it would come down to the question of whether or not it could be on the June primary election or not. Depending on the timing of the county committee's action, there may be the ability to ask for it to be on the primary election in June and then have it take effect so that in November 2022. It would be the reduction elect. You would be having an election in only two of the five areas. That would be ideal. But we'd have to we'd have to work with the elections department to see whether we could

165make that happen and figure out what the timeline, what the deadline for that would be. The other trick of the election being in June on the question of the reduction and then the election in November for actual seats is just the processing time for those new maps and the precincting time that needs to occur at the registrar's office. And typically they want any changes to voting areas. by June at the latest for a November election. So we'd have to make good friends with our friends at the Yolo County Elections Department if that were the indication to see if they'd be okay with that process. So I think, you know, what we can do is follow up with the timeline, assuming an election, and have some conversations with the County Elections Department on their feelings about

166that issue. Trustee Childers, then Trustee Richardson-Fellow. President Whitaker, can we find out if there's four board members interested in going to a five-member board? Well, we did do thumbs up on that prior. That was for discussion, though, not to go. Okay. Okay. Well, we can re-poll that. Are there members in favor of moving to a five-district board? Yes, no. So I just want to say that I had requested for timelines for both an election and a Board of Education waiver. And I was under the impression that we were going to see both timelines, and I'm not seeing the timeline for an election. So it's really hard to see what somebody that's up for an election in 2022 or has interest in it, wouldn't really know if they qualify until after the June primary when the

167boundaries, when the redistricting is on the ballot. So, I mean, and that's just a guess because it might, I mean, from what I'm hearing, it might not even be, if it is that it's voted in, those redistricting. maps may not be eligible for the November election. So it's just kind of, I feel that we don't have enough information, but I do want to restate coming in here. I was in favor of going to five seats, but not having the information as far as timelines, it's really hard to say that we could actually make, make a decision tonight. Well, so I'm only asking because if we don't have at least four who are interested in moving forward, then we're done right now. We can move on to the next topic. But if Trustee Batista Zavala, if

168you're saying that you are in favor of, I'm not saying a waiver, I'm just saying, should we keep talking about this? Do you want to keep talking about this or do we not have four? So I am in favor of moving to five, but I'm not 100% on board, whether it's an election or it's a state board waiver, because we don't have enough. I don't have enough information to make that decision tonight. So the first question to answer, Morgan, we do have the votes to go to five. Yeah. And so my second question is answered. Do we have four that are interested in a waiver? And it doesn't sound like we do. No. Sorry, I lost track of the count. How many were in favor of the waiver? I apologize. I didn't see. Do we

169have two, three? What was that number? No, the waiver. Nobody on the waiver. Three, I think. I'm on the waiver. Yeah, it was one. One. Okay. Thank you. And the reason being, and David, maybe you can speak to this. It sounds like this could become a confusing topic on a ballot with. redistricting and going from seven to five. And when people don't fully understand it, they just vote no. That's right. So you could end up trying to accomplish something and you don't get there. So you will have spent that time in vain, which is another reason why districts get it waived, because if they want to implement something, they implement it. But you do also run the risk of confusion. at the ballot box, because at the same time, you're voting for candidates, you have

170new areas. And now on top of that, do you want to reduce and people look at that and go, I don't even know what that means half the time. So there, I understand your concern. And so I just want to point out, it feels almost exactly opposite of the topic previous to this, that there was concerns that people won't turn out to express their opinions in the first place, and that we are elected to make this decision. So I don't care which way we go. I just want arguments to be consistent from one topic to the next. And right now we're not consistent. Trustee Richardson, Fowler, then Trustee Rodriguez. If I can hear from possibly Trustee Childers and Trustee Villagrana of why they're interested in moving from 7 to a 5 member. I know, Trustee

171Childers, you had mentioned you've been wanting this for a while, and I know Trustee Villagrana brought this up, but why is this important? Can you just try to wrap my head around this? Can you go first, Marlene? No? Okay. I can go. Go ahead. Thank you. For me, there was two main reasons. One is the cost associated with having seven trustees over whatever number of years you want to go into the future. the benefits associated with the trustees, the materials, the equipment, mileage reimbursement, professional development, all those costs. And then the other part is the staff time that it takes to respond to seven trustees instead of five trustees. So those are my two main rationales for going. And then. We're the only one that's, again, that's not a good rationale, but we're the only

172elected body in Yolo County that has seven. The rest all have five. But that in itself is not a good rationale. But the other ones are at five and able to function more than effectively. That's it. Sweet and to the point. Yeah, I mean, you put it perfectly. And that big unknown is the staff time that it takes to respond to seven instead of five. But your three reasons are spot on. Same for me. Do we have any information on how absorbent we are as a group on staff time? Actually, sorry, before we go, there was one more. Not as an issue now as before, but there was a long period of time where people were running unopposed. So there was no challenges to those seats. Again, that changed recently, but I predict it's going

173to go back to that. And so, you know, the argument was like, oh, there's so many people. No, there wasn't that many people interested in seven seats anyways, right? So there was no democracy. happening. People were not being elected into people running unopposed. So that was the other reason, actually. I totally forgot about that one. I'm sorry to interrupt your question. No, no. And that one is a very sage one for me because when I'm trying to wrap my head around... going down, we're decreasing access to the population. I know that if people can't get a hold of one trustee, they'll keep reaching out to all of us until they get a hold of someone who will listen. So that access will go down, which is a concern of mine. And then I also didn't

174know if it had anything to do with representation and diversity on the board. With seven, we have more diversity and different viewpoints. And so those were just my concern of if we are narrowing the field, but very, very solid point about creating fiefdoms and running unopposed. I appreciate that. Thank you. Yeah, but the points you made are the valid points on the other end about reducing perspectives, input, diversity of opinions and ideas. Absolutely. Those are valid points on this side. So to me, it's like, which ones are stronger? points for each individual of us. And that's, we're going to go based on, based on that. Okay. Trustee Rodriguez. And I think along the lines of what Candace is saying, you know, I don't, I don't know that we've had enough discussion. We're having it now,

175but why seven to five? I mean, if you think about what it takes to do our job, Woodland's getting bigger. It's not getting smaller. There's more people. to try and connect with, to try and be in touch with the issues. So think about all the emails we got, right? Whenever we have all these major issues, which are always major issues. So you think you want to now, you know, we barely have enough time to connect as it is. And now you want to shrink it down to five. And you think that's going to get better representation? You think that's going to make a trustee's job easier to connect with the community? Assuming that you're the kind of trustee that wants to do that. So that's my assumption that the kind of trustee that would do

176as best a job as they could is someone who's always constantly trying to reach out in the community in their own way. But if you increase the number of responsibilities and you lower that number, then I think you do a less effective job. The other point about staff time and staff cost, you know, I mean, I'm all for saving money where we can, but I don't know that representation is about staff cost or about staff time. It's about representation of the people. And can you do an adequate job of representing the needs of the people? The trustee. I'm not done. I'm not done. And so, you know, you if we were if we were like over the top somehow bankrupting the the district, you know, that might be one thing. I don't get the sense

177that that's what's happening. Right. And the question the tradeoff is at what cost do you want quality of representation and what comes first? The ability to reasonably represent. the people as well as you can, or the amount of money that it costs to bring seven people up to speed or to give them trainings, because that's actually what you want, right? You want board members who are informed and educated and understand the process. It costs money. It costs money to do that. And I don't mean, again, I'm not talking about bankrupting the district, but to me, the importance of having seven members is representation. Unless you can prove that somehow you're disproportionately, desperately impacting the district in a way that is somehow affecting the students, the families. And that's the other issue. Shouldn't we be making

178these decisions by what's best for our students and our families? Is that not our job here? And so to me, that should be what leads here, right? Whatever decision we make, it would mean that it's best for our students, for our families, that we can represent them as best possible. So that's why I'm okay with having seven. I think if we go down to five, it's harder for us to do our job and it's harder to get representation. Thank you. trust each other's. I appreciate your passion, but under your argument, the county should have 13 supervisors instead of five. And that's what it comes down to is, you know, do you think they're an effective body? Do you think the city council is an effective body? They are. And they don't add more people to

179it and call it representation. They're able to effectively represent an entire county of people with five. So... I think that's kind of a false equivalency, but why don't you tell me how are we ineffective as a body right now with seven people? I mean, the same thing. Then why don't we talk about going to nine or 11? Well, we're not. We're talking about staying with what we have. So tell me, you say it's ineffective. No, I didn't say it was ineffective. You're saying there's 13 people, right? You're making the case for going to five. So make the case for why having seven trustees is ineffective. I didn't say seven is ineffective. I think five can be just as effective with a cost savings to the district, a time savings to the district. And, you know,

180the reasons that Trustee Villagrana laid out. And I just think it's a, you know, I just think that the argument you just laid out means that those other bodies should be adding in order to be effective. And I just don't see it that way. I think we can be just as effective. with five, which is the same number that every elected body in the county has. I don't know what makes us think we're special that we need seven. Okay. Trustee Garcia, Trustee Richardson-Falla. I would like to say, I understand this to the table because before this past election, it was a totally different dynamic. So, but based on my experience, I see the interest on my borders, in my area, to having a representative to have, to listen them, to represent them. So I don't

181see the need to go to seven to five after we having really a campaign, who I see how the people wants to have a person who represent them. So, and also, I see the other perspective. Think of this if you're thinking in our area in particular, knowing all districts represented. I see, of course, in Spring Lake is a population where it's increased the most. So I know they don't be affected for this. for the change. And I would like to all the parents, families on Woodland to have represented. And for me, to keep the seven for now. Thank you. Trustee Richardson-Fowler? Thank you guys for the conversation and the discussion. This is really what I wanted to get to, to figure out where our motivations were. I think the most cogent argument for decrease was

182Trustee Villagrana's point of... people frequently running opposed and how there was no engagement. I think that also dovetails into the next topic that we have about the parent advisory and the committees. Are we doing enough to engage parents so that they're interested? Now, this has been an anomaly and I find it very interesting that some of the people who are interested in keeping it seven just ran during a pandemic and we were out in the public. and helping out and rolling up our sleeves and still engaging. And people had stuff to say. And, you know, during this pandemic, parent engagement has been through the roof. Civic engagement has been through the roof. The collaborative nature between all of the different bodies. So I appreciate getting these points. But it seems like for me, all of

183the arguments to going down are straw man arguments. I see that we are changing as a community and I see that we are the most diverse board that is A, in Yolo County and B, Woodland has ever had. So yay, I'm so glad to be a part of that. But two, we also come with a diversity of viewpoints. And if I'm not mistaken, I think we are also the only school district that has a teacher or a spouse of a teacher. on the school board. So we also have parents, we have educators, we have policymakers. We are coming with, if I'm not mistaken, one of the most educated and... and occupationally diverse boards. Yeah, we've been meeting more and yeah, we've been spending a lot of time on these meetings, but the outcome has been

184phenomenal, in my opinion. I don't know if Davis has been getting the amount of comments. There was a point where we had a group of parents to the tune of 900, if I'm not mistaken. organizing together so that they could have their voices heard. I don't think we're going to be having a problem about unopposed seats. Heck, for that matter, I don't even know if I want to run again. I'm here to do some work. I'm exhausted, less than six months in, but that's what I'm here for. And I think we've got parents in the wings who are ready to take on the mantle and do that work too. even some students who are ready to gear up as well. So I don't think we're gonna have that problem of unopposed, which would have been

185the only argument for me. So that's where I stand. Thanks for this conversation. I appreciate it. Thank you. Trustee Bautista Zavala. Thank you. I just wanna say that I was elected through a campaign in 2018. I represent Area 1. I got elected with a differential of 80 some odd, 90 some odd votes. And... Area one has a significant amount of people and interest that want to run for elected positions. And we just saw it with the council district that opened up recently. They had over five or more applicants just expressing interest for that position. So I can't say that my area is not interested when clearly the numbers are there in my area. This seat has always been challenged since I could remember that I have lived in this area. So in terms of my

186voters and my residents that I represent, they want to get elected. They want to they want to they want to sit at the table. So I don't necessarily I can't agree with the fact that. seats are going unfilled or unchallenged in northern woodland surrounding areas that represent that I represent in this area. Now, what I want to get to today is that we have board agreements. And in my opinion. We need to try to work as collaboratively as we can. And I would like for us to make a decision this evening that is in sync with each of us, all seven of us, that we could work together in finding a sound solution. If we cannot do this right now, moving from seven to five, maybe we put it on the table to revisit later.

187I want to bring up the fact that we have a lot of projects on our list of things that we want to do. And right now we're going to be entering a phase where we're going to bring in an intern superintendent. And that in itself and bringing on a, you know, a hiring process for a superintendent is going to be a lot. On top of that, we have our redistricting process. Do we really want to entertain moving to five right now? Is that something that we can, that we're up for right now? And I won't even mention everything else. Debra, you were the fourth. If you're not in agreement anymore, we can move on. I'm not saying that I'm not in agreement. I am asking, can we work collaboratively to come to a decision together?

188Is there an opportunity for that? Am I backing out from moving to five? No, I'm not. But I would like for us to try to see how we can work on this together. Is there an opportunity? So I guess I would chime in and I appreciate, you know, striving to that ideal. And I think it is something that we should always try to do. I think this is just an issue where it's yes or no. And that's what it is. I mean, I don't see a compromise. It's either we do it or we don't, unless I'm missing something. Trustee Rodriguez. Yeah, I mean, you know, we're going to take a vote, you know, either we do or we don't. I guess what I would simply ask the trustees is that for all the reasons that

189have been stated, for all the reasons, that the number one reason why we're here is to do what's best for our students and our families. And I believe your decision should be led by that analysis. What is best here? This is not a political thing. This is not about numbers things. What is best for our students and our families? And that should lead our decision making. Superintendent Pritchard, did you have something that you will? Well, I was just going to mention on the chat, in a private chat, Mr. Kershaw had mentioned he has a timeline for the June election or the November election. I'm not sure. I think Deborah was asking for the SBE timeline. Was that correct, Deborah? I think we did get the SBE waiver timeline. What we didn't see was putting it

190on the ballot. Mr. Kirchhoff, could you share that one if you have that available? Sure. Let me share my screen again. Sorry, we didn't have it in advance, but I was able to put it together quickly on this side here. So, sorry, one second. So because we're not sure, the only thing we're not sure is if whether it would make a June election or a November election. So I did both options just so you can see, again, not knowing the uncertainty. Similar upfront timeline in terms of August 26th when the board could make that decision. Again, this is for a June election. On the question, the county committee would... to conduct its business in September, October, and the call for the election. And we would suggest that June election. At the same time, we'd be

191meeting and reviewing maps. And we, as you suggested, we would do two sets of maps. We would have a five-member map and we'd have a seven-member map. But the goal would be that that would be done in that November, December time period that we talked about in the prior scenario. This can obviously go a little bit longer, but it would definitely need to be wrapped up by February, end of February. Then in June, there would be the election on whether to reduce from seven to five. And if that were approved, then we would pull the map that had seven that we had previously sent to the county elections folks and send them a map that says five. And then in November, there would be elections held in two trustee areas. So that implementation is similar

192to the SBE waiver process. So we'd have two board members who would be. elected to new four-year terms starting in December of 2022, and then the three board members whose terms don't expire until 2024 remaining on the board after that election. Let me advance here. So it gets a little bit... a little bit more confusing on a November potential election. If, you know, again, we follow the same process here of approval of the reduction in the seats, the county committee process. But if we knew it was only going to go to a November of 2022 election, we'd really only. take the time to draw one map in November of 2021 and then select that map for the 2022 election. That's the only one that would be used for if the voters approved it in November.

193So the voters would vote in November of whether to approve the reduction from seven to five seats. But at the same time, because they haven't made that official yet, we would still hold an election for four seats in November of 2022. So we would elect four people to new four-year terms. So we would elect people to four new terms. And so then in January of 2023, we could start the process of looking at five member areas and, you know, just do a process. And again, I have February 2023. It can go longer than that. But at some point we would select the map that would be used with the election starting in 2024. And then in 2024, we would only elect for one seat because we can't have six board members. or seven more members

194anymore. So we would only elect one seat in 2024. And then in 2026, there would be an election for four seats again. But one of those would have to be for a two-year term because under the education code, we're supposed to have staggered terms, three and two or four and three, depending on the size of the board. So that would be the one wrinkle here is that we would have a kind of a odd phasing in of this process of, again, four seats up for election in your current seven-member configuration in 22. And then to make that reduction happen, we'd only elect one seat in 2024. And then in 2026, four seats up for election, but one of those would have to be for a short term. So hopefully that helps answer those questions that

195were there. And like I said, it is a little more complicated on a potential November election. Thank you. Mr. Pritchard. Yeah, I just wanted to add one other comment related to one of the comments made by Trustee Zavala. And she said that, you know, do we want to tackle this while at the same time we're doing a superintendent search? In doing a little research on the last time the district went through a superintendent search, that involved eight special sessions of the board. So it is a significant time commitment. And so I don't know if that has an impact on your decision here tonight, but that gives you a sense as to how entailed that process will be by itself. Okay. So I'm at a point right now where I'm really torn about this, and I'm

196sorry to throw that wrench into things. But I hear the arguments from our three new trustees, and If we don't have the support of the people who just went through a campaign cycle, then I'm not really sure that I'm comfortable moving forward with this at this point in time. And so I will withdraw my support. And I, you know, I was set on an election, but it sounds like the election implementation is just going to be very chaotic. So that's where I'm at. That's it. We're done. Let's move on. Okay. That brings us to item L7, information, discuss the need for apparent advisory. Oh, I just wanted to see if we can get three minutes. I need to get some water. Is everybody okay with that? Yeah. So I will recess at 945. We'll come

197back at 948. Okay. So we have four, now five. And so I will call this meeting back to order at 948 p.m. And that brings us to item L7, information, discuss the need for a parent advisory committee and staff advisory committee. Yeah, this was a request by one of the trustees just to have it available for discussion. I believe that our Elodia has generated a list of committees that we currently have. in which parents and or staff have an opportunity to participate. So I believe that she can provide additional information, but we were really pressed for time to get that list. So that's what we have at this point, but she might be able to answer some additional questions if needed. But really, this is a time for the trustees to have a discussion. Okay.

198Trustee Richardson-Fowler. So I brought this one up to the table, and I don't know if other people brought this up as well, because of the volume of... comments and one in particular had mentioned how the teachers have a union and the parents don't have any recourse. I appreciate this three-page list of all of the different committees that are going on in the district. I would also really deeply value information on frequency that these meet. how these people are selected if they're appointed. I know like our school site council or PTA sometimes they are assigned. Thank you honey. Sometimes they are assigned. or appointed or voted on, such as in school site council for the parents. But getting that information, if our goal is parent engagement, we have quite a few ways for our parents to

199be engaged. And as someone who was a fairly engaged parent before becoming elected, I didn't know. half of these committees. And as a trustee, I'm super concerned that I don't know of the majority of these committees, what they do and what work they produce. So that's my two cents. Okay. So maybe I would propose, and this is just a thought, but maybe we could come back with more information on the role of each committee. And, you know, I'm not sure about a parent advisory committee or, you know, having dedicated committees for them, but I think that we could definitely examine how we can strengthen parent engagement in our different committees that exist. I think that that's a, you know, that would definitely be a conversation worth having. I guess, Trustee Richardson-Fowler, the question I have

200in my mind is, you know, you brought forward the idea of a parent advisory committee, and so what in your vision would be the purpose and the function of that committee in terms of how it would impact what we do as trustees and decision makers and how the district operates. Having just run a campaign and listening to not just my voters, but tabling at the farmer's market and just listening to community members and whatnot there. And I don't think it's COVID specific, but there is a need for meaningful engagement with parents and community members. Even in reaching out this week to several different parents who are, as I like to call them, the usual suspects. who are on LCAP committees, school site council, PTA, and whether they are a Zamora parent, a Douglas parent, a

201Pioneer High School parent, you know, we all know each other because we've all served on the same committee. We've always talked about a need for generating opportunities for parents to engage. That's new. Meeting parents, you know, to co-opt the United Way, saying that allowing parents to volunteer their way. You know, there's been meaningful conversation on. transforming our programs and reclassifying them as magnets, bringing different performing arts programs to the district. These are conversations that parents are having in small cohorts, and they are not knowing what to do with these conversations. You know, when you hear somebody who listens, then it becomes like, okay, you're my go-to person because this is, and I'm constantly reminding folks, you need at least four board members to move any decision forward. Just an outlet for engagement. Okay. Thank you.

202Trustee Villagran. Thank you. So I've been. I mean, you all know I've been a strong advocate for family engagement for, you know, since my first term. I've been working in this field, you know, before even I was on the board when I was with Legal Services of Northern California. I had a project where my goal was to help parents of second language learners and migrant students become stronger advocates for their children. And so we did conferences, district-wide conferences. We did presentations of workshops at the sites. And I've gone through many actually trainings on family engagement. And what I found from my experience is that the best engagement is going to happen at the school sites, not at the district level, unfortunately. It's just really, really hard when we've done district wide. You have a tiny,

203we have 10,000 families and you do a district wide event and you get like, if you're lucky, 15, 20. families to show up. Now we've gotten more because we actually hired a parent engagement person. And now we have the family engagement specialist at each school site. And so again, from my experience is at the site, you get the most, it takes way more time, way more energy and way more money, but it's way, way more impactful than having something centralized. And again, we have already a bunch of opportunities. I agree with Trustee Richardson Fowler that we need to promote these opportunities. Having the purpose or a description of what these committees are, seeing if they're a full capacity. If not, what can we do to increase the participation of what we currently have? We have

204a lot of opportunities. So I'm also not in favor of creating another district-wide committee because I just don't feel that it'll have the effect that we want when we have so many opportunities already. I know that Dr. LaVoy started the Key Communicators, and I think, Tom, you remember that group. And to me, that was very successful. They met once a month with the superintendent. She had a morning group and an evening group. And I remember that there was an interpreter. I can't remember now. It was so long ago. Or, yeah, I think there was. But the point is that, you know, these these these parents that you're thinking about, Trustee Richardson Fowler would go. to those and they were scheduled and there was a representative from every school and to me that that was very

205effective but it was more of a listening uh um and you know they would share some stuff but it was not where they go and you know complain about situations that was handled in in a different venue uh that worked um and i'm gonna start saying that We need to go that route. But to me, that was more effective. And I'll just reiterate my point again. At the site level is the most effective, the most impactful, and the most efficient when it comes to increasing the number and quality of family engagement. Thank you. Trustee Whitaker, if I could just add to Trustee Villagran's comments. So yes, when I first came here, the Key Communicators was a group. They were meeting at lunch at that point in time. And there would probably be 20, 25 parents

206who would come, some representatives from each of the school site councils, but also just at large. And that was a great way to garner that input from a wide variety of people. Dr. Armstrong actually eliminated the key communicators and moved it to the LCAP Collaborative. So the LCAP Collaborative has become the main source for input from community members. My first year as superintendent, we tried to bring back the key communicators and we had two sessions at lunch. had, I believe the maximum was two people show up. So we moved it to the evening to be accessible and the same two people showed up. And when we inquired as to why, many of them were already serving on the LCAP collaborative and people are just busy. So yeah, we tried to bring that back, but because

207of the other opportunities we had, people were just spread thin. but certainly we're willing to look at any way we can to engage our parents. Thank you. Trustee Garcia, then Trustee Richardson-Feller. Yes, thank you. So I know fully agree to make a centralized committee because we have, as Trustee Villagrana mentioned, there's a lot of opportunity. And if you, based on my experience, I've been part of more than three committees. There really are. And I can say there is enough representation for different groups, for different campus to have those perspectives to take the, to give the advice. So that's my... Your internet is not working. My ping, thank you. Oh. Do you hear me? No, you went in and out. Okay, sorry. We heard most of it just at the end. Okay, so thank you. Okay,

208let me... Let me do it again. So based on my experience, I think there's enough committees already. The Trustee Villagrana said you're ready. And based on my experience, I've been part of at least three of those committees. And I see that different kinds of people, parents, are involved. And I think those are enough to advise our board, to our staff, to have enough. view for their perspective. So for me, no, we don't need a centralized committee. So that's my opinion. Thank you. Thank you. Trustee Richardson-Fowler. Thank you guys for the conversation around it. I don't know if we, I do appreciate Trustee Whitaker's suggestion of getting more information and then revisiting this. I think it may be a moot point on a parent advisory committee. I still want to make sure our staff are given

209ample opportunities to engage. And it looks like there are several different opportunities. I don't want to table the topic of the staff teacher. something or other. But if we could get some more information and then revisit this at a later date, that would be wonderful. I would just ask, is there support for the parent committee? Because if there's not... There's no point of revisiting the parent committee part. I agree with getting more information. Yeah, we don't need to revisit the parent committee part. Okay, that's what you're saying. We said revisit it. I wasn't sure what you're referring to. The part that I wanted to revisit is in getting more information, I do not want to table the topic of making sure we are hearing the voice of. And when I said teacher, it was definitely

210not exclusive to teacher. It was also teacher, staff, the gamut, employees. So I just want to make sure that everybody's got an opportunity to engage. Got it. Thank you. Okay. Trustee Baptista Zavala. Just wanted to suggest that in the information that we're requesting to come back, I think that this, this information page, the attachment, this is great. I really like this, but I would like to see what the role or mission of each of these committees is. And then who leads these efforts? Who supervises them? And then I guess I'm just curious if some of the responsibilities or missions of each of these groups may be intertwined or intermixed. And how often do they need, you know, or how often should they be needing, I think would be helpful. And not that I'm trying to

211create more work or anything, but it also is something of value if we ever wanted to update this information on our website, if and when we get there. But also, you know, having this information available for anyone that may have interest. in not necessarily being a part of it, but curious where they could, you know, when I ask for who leads these efforts, if I, for example, as a parent wanted to reach out to DLAC, you know, who could I send an email to? Who's the contact? You know, if I wanted to visit a meeting, when do they meet? Where do they meet? What time? You know, those kinds of information I think would be really helpful. Thank you. Trustee McGranagh? I mean, this is a, I don't mean a bad way, but it's an

212example, again, of where, you know, we can go in a direction where we're giving staff, and I know that Stephen was, we don't want to give staff work to do, but we are going to give them work to do by sending them in that direction. So my question is, how is this supporting, right, our goals or the graduate profile? Those are our main, right, things directional, and we can make a justification for it, no question about that, right? I agree 100% with the descriptions. We're putting some money aside for the revamping of the webpage. So that would be a perfect thing to add to that. Whoever's in charge of that, they will say, okay, you're in charge. We're going to make a section on the webpage for, you know, committees, right? And then all that

213information is there. The contact person and the dates when they meet, and that would have to be updated frequently. But again, right now is we have, you mentioned all the things that are on the plate, right? That we want staff to focus on. And so I think we need to prioritize what it is that we want to do. And this was going to take a good significant amount of time, I believe. So I'd rather put this on hold until we identify basically a priority list of what we have staff working on right now, because we're giving them a lot of projects. So that's my final comment on this. I just, and allow me to respond. I can't agree more with you. We keep adding to the list. But if we're saying that these committees already

214have some way or some way or form of parent involvement, how do we leave the door open for parents that are not a part of it to be able to contact or become engaged with these groups without necessarily being a part of it or already invited to it? Because if we're hearing that parents are a part of two or three or four of these committees. Then does that go back to what Trustee Richardson Fowler has said in the past, that it seems like we keep picking out of the same basket to fill positions in all of these committees? Yeah. So I would propose that we bring back a discussion, not time sensitive, but that we have the interest and framing it in the context of, you know, reviewing. the different committees that provide input to

215the Education Services Department. We would want to bring back the information that trustees have requested with information about the purpose, the mission of each committee, who's heading it up, you know, how we're, you know, creating meaningful engagement with staff and parents, and just kind of couch it as review of educational service committees and stakeholder engagement. And I think that we can come back and have a longer discussion at that point in time once we have more information. And also consider, you know, do we need all these committees? Would we be more effective at engaging people if there were fewer of them? Because we'd have more people that we wouldn't be spreading a limited number of people so thin. So that would be my conclusion. Thank you for addressing efficacy, because I've sat on a couple

216of committees where we felt like we had no T for purpose. So thank you for bringing up efficacy. Yeah. So, Trustee Garcia, do you have something that you want to add? Yes, please. So, I would like to answer what Trustee Bautista Zavala said about GILAC. So, I'm going to give you an example. So, from my perspective, so, the people for migrant kids and migrant families, they can be a part of the decision, a person who are not migrant. kids, immigrant parents. So they take the decisions. They say what they live, what they live, what happened with them. And they give it a perspective to the district. So it's not open to the public. You have to be one of those kind of persons. So it's especially DLAC or PTA is open because every single committee

217has different rules. And it's for different people. So that's answer. And also, yes, one parent can be part of three committees because can be, can be a English learner, can be a PTA teacher, parent, sorry, and can be also a teacher or can be also a psych counsel. If you, if those positions are the people chose, they is not just I want to be and I be there. No. So that's mine. That's based on my experience. That's my opinion. I just wanted to clarify that. The meetings are open to the public outside of the committee. There is no committees that are closed only to committee members. It's my interpretation of the policies. So my reference was, if me as a parent, I'm not a part of a DLAC committee, I am still eligible and entitled

218to be a part of the room, not necessarily have a voice at the table. That was my. So. Absolutely. I'm not sure that we need to answer this question right now or that it's pertinent to our discussion or our agenda. No offense to anyone. And I appreciate you, Trustee Garcia, sharing your experience. But I would just ask, you know, do we have trustees in favor of bringing it back with additional information to kind of do that more thorough review of committees and the roles and the engagement? At some point, yes, but not soon because there's so many other things. Not in the prime sense. I'd want to give the staff the discretion to decide when to bring that to us as they evaluate what they're working on. I agree. I agree. And the staff could

219come back and say, you know, when is this feasible? When is it feasible? You know, totally fine. I'd like to see this before the end of the year, mainly because at the beginning of the year, we had asked for all of the committees dealing with the boards. And I kind of thought that this information was included in the committees. So this information that is just this list. It should have been given to us in the fall. If we can not just couch it, if we can at least revisit it sometime this year, that would just be my preference. Thank you. The request you made was about the board. Not all of these are board related. That's why they weren't included in your request. There's committees that report directly to the board and most of these

220do not. I hear you. My request was for all of the committees that engaged parents in all of those. That was my request in January. That's why we put this on the agenda and have been kicking it down the road for a while. Okay. I'm sorry. I right now heard you say that related to the board when you said it earlier. So that's why I said what I said. Okay. So do we, so staff, do we think that's something that we could try to set as a goal for the end of the year? Yep. Okay. All right. So with that, We'll move on to item M1, action approved bond oversight committee members. Mr. Wiley. Yeah, I think Lewis has this one. Thank you, President Whitaker. Before you is a staff recommendation for participants on the

221bond oversight committee. And in my attachment that you have there, you can see where we filled a lot of the spots on the committee, but we still have a little more work to do. We still have to fill the spot for students. We still have to fill the spots for a business leader in town. as well as retired teacher, and there's a couple of other categories that don't come to mind right now. But we are doing everything that we can to work with entities and site staff to help us with filling those remaining spots. And so that is staff's recommendation, and we are prepared to modify, amend, or move forward with whatever you'd like. And if I could just clarify, we basically, just to be a neutral recommendation, added people to the slots available based

222on the order in which the applications came in, correct? Correct. Yeah. So it's just a neutral start, a neutral recommendation, and then we leave it up to the board for discussion. Okay. Trustee Bautista Zavala. Thank you. I just wanted to say thank you for all the work that went into this. This was a huge step forward in putting together a recommendation for the bond committee membership. I know that we had an extended deadline, which is totally understandable. We haven't had a bond pass in over 20 years. We needed to make sure we got the word out that we needed some folks to join this committee. So thank you for all the work that was involved. I do want to make a recommendation and I have something prepared. As a board of trustees, we have agreed

223to the following to meet with unique stakeholders to increase our local and statewide advocacy via resolution or proclamation. For these reasons, I believe that by approving a bond oversight committee this evening, we have the opportunity to incorporate unique stakeholders that we don't already know, those that are not already participating in district committees, with those that we could build new relationships and begin to rebuild our reputation and trust as a public education institution, as we all believe is necessary. I would like to thank Trustee Fowler for suggesting earlier this year that we expand the number of our district committees and membership. Together, we can vote to approve a bond oversight committee composed of members that resemble the communities we serve and targets we set out to capture. That being said, I want to thank our staff

224for making the initial recommendation, and I would like our board to consider the following change in tonight's motion. For item number six on the list for member of community at large, I'm recommending Debbie Decker to be replaced with Dagnus Ruiz Sutherland for the reasons already stated above. Second. That's a motion and a second. Are there comments from other trustees? Can you repeat why she's being replaced again? I'm recommending that we replace with Dagnus Reese Sutherland as Ms. Sutherland is not already an existing member of a committee. She's a member of our district resident, a connection not already made. And this is an opportunity to broaden the horizon of those who we have relationships with in continuing to rebuild our reputation as a school district in a project that's very, very important to us. There's a

225number of familiar names on this list. Would you recommend removing them also? So there's only one name that was not, that Ms. Sutherland was the only person that was not. that wasn't given a spot on the bond committee. Everyone else was eligible to be placed. She was the only one that wasn't, there wasn't a spot available under the section that she applied for. Could we just add another position? I support that. Louis? Mr. Wiley, so would we need to bring back a bylaws amendment? Well, you know, I unfortunately, Bond Council had a scheduled conflict. She was going to be here tonight, but couldn't. I'm happy to pursue that with Bond Council. I'm willing to say that she's made it clear that if it's in your bylaws, you know, you should follow them. But again, the

226board has some flexibility to make changes as they say, as it sees fit. But I will. absolutely explore what the board is considering right now. I will explore that with bond council. So essentially what we'd be doing is we'd be adding one more at-large position to our committee. Trustee Richardson-Fowler? Well, we need to add two more. Do we need an even, an odd number? The goal is to have an odd number. And would we need to add two more members? Well, I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the students come in in nice, even threes. And so I will ensure that if I need to pursue two, I'll pursue two with bond council. Or if I need to pursue one, I'll get one and I'll keep the board informed on the best route to go. Okay.

227I would say that if we're going to select people, You know, we have six open slots, seven applications. If we were going to narrow it down, I would say we should do a subcommittee and do interviews, if that's what we wanted to do, or add a seat. And so I would ask, you know, are there trustees in favor of adding a seat to allow Dagnus to also serve on the Bond Oversight Committee? Yeah, so we can bring back the bylaws at the June 3rd meeting. And that'll give, I mean, we'll put it on the agenda tomorrow because we're getting ready to post the agenda. And then we'll hopefully connect with bond council. I think it's, hopefully it's just a matter of changing the bylaws and then we can accept everyone who made an application. Okay.

228Thank you, Trustee Whitaker. I would like to say thank you to Trustee Childers for offering that solution. When I was reviewing the applications and I brought this to the attention of our superintendent and Mr. Wiley, the solution of adding an additional seat was not something that we discussed, nor was the idea brought up at the time. So this is not in any way or shape or form. anything to dissuade the recommendation of Ms. Debbie Decker. Instead, it's to hold that Ms. Agnes Reese Sutherland is of equal qualification as any other of our applicants as the process was determined by date stamp. Okay. So there is a motion and a second on the floor made by Trustee Baptista Zavala. So if there is, a withdrawal of that motion, we would be able to vote on something

229else or if we want to vote on the original motion. I would like to withdraw my motion for this evening with consideration of bringing it back depending on the information brought forward from our county. Okay. So do we need to take action tonight or do we have a direction and we'll take action in a later meeting? We had four more thumbs up to table it to June 3rd and then adjust the bylaws and then vote in the BOC members. Yep. Okay. Sounds good. Bringing us to item M2, Action Learning Loss Mitigation Expenditure Plan. Mr. Wiley. Yes. So before you is the plan that we've... where we've allocated the different federal and state pots that have been approved or have been brought forward by Governor Newsom as well as President Biden. And I don't believe we've

230made any, I believe we've made some minor changes or maybe- Excuse me, Trustee Whitaker, we did have one public comment for this item. Oh, yes. Sorry. Hello, Board of Trustees. The following public comment is in regards to item M2, expenditure plan. To be honest, I'm exhausted from calling in comments to these meetings. I believe that I have spent more hours drafting my concerns in my over 15 public comments this year than you have spent cumulatively visiting teachers in their classrooms, virtually or in person. Let me ask you to honestly reflect on your time as board members this year. How many of you consistently sought out the input from teachers? How many of you checked in to see how our workload was going? How many of you spent the time to ensure that you were hearing

231the voices of all stakeholders when you made decisions that directly affected how we were able to perform our jobs? I would wager that you spent drastically more time listening to parents and the district cabinet than you did listening to teachers. We shouldn't have to call in to beg for recognition. We shouldn't have to formulate letters recounting in detail all the sacrifices we made this year. We shouldn't even need to be asking for reimbursement for the untold number of unpaid hours of overtime we worked this year. Last year, we were heralded by the community for the amazing job we did pivoting to distance learning at the beginning of this pandemic. This year, we had to listen to angry parents every week calling in public comments that blatantly blamed teachers and our union for trying to protect

232the safety of our students and teachers by reopening safely. And your board sat there and allowed these public comments to be listened to without any of you coming to the defense of teachers, reminding the public that we were the ones working tirelessly to ensure that their children still got an education, even though we teachers were enduring all the same struggles of this pandemic. It is both disappointing and embarrassing to me that you have waited this long to recognize your teachers. Other districts are honoring teachers for their hard work with stipends as much as $3,500 from what I've seen. And all we have gotten from this district is a unanimously passed resolution declaring the month of May as Teacher Appreciation Month, a resolution that showed exactly how little you care about your teachers. Since my word

233as a teacher means about as much as your resolution, I would like to reject your resolution. I do not accept May as Teacher Appreciation Month because you have not shown us any appreciation. I did not receive a single email or message from any of you thanking teachers for their work this month. Davis is only receiving $6 million from the American Rescue Plan, and they are giving approximately $4 million of that to teachers in the form of stipends of $2,500 each. Woodland is receiving $20 million in the same funding, and yet you haven't even openly discussed the value of using some of those funds to recognize teachers. And you wonder why teachers leave this district. I have a handful of coworkers who are leaving to a different district because of the way you mistreated them this

234year. You claim that students are your top priority, but let me remind you that you cannot have students without teachers. We are just a couple of weeks away from the last day of school. Please do not let your teachers go off to summer without feeling that they are valued and appreciated. Thank you. Okay. Yes, I was just going to say attached for the board's approval is the plan to spend the learning loss mitigation funds. And staff is available to answer or address any inquiries or questions from the board. Knowing that, again, we're going to have the opportunity to revisit this in the future and make modifications as needed. Unless there's a need for discussion, I move for approval. Second. There's a motion and a second. First by Villagran, second by Childers. Any comments or questions

235from trustees? So I will throw out one question. So the conversation around stipends, is that something that would be appropriately handled as a conversation in the collective bargaining process? Yes, that is part of the bargaining process. And I believe that that has been addressed at least initially at the bargaining table. Okay. Thank you very much. With that, we'll call for a vote. And we'll start with Trustee Villagran. Yes. Trustee Bautista Zavala. Yes. Trustee Childers. Yes. Trustee Garcia. Yes. Trustee Richardson-Fowler. Yes. Trustee Rodriguez. Yes. And I vote yes. Motion passes unanimously. Trustee Whitaker, if I could add. So yes, the understanding that Trustee Villagrana pointed out, which is this can be revisited at any time, is correct. But also there was one other request, and that was that after six months, we do an evaluation of

236paper. And so that is in our notes to check in on how that is working mid-year. Thank you for bringing that up. Appreciate it. Okay. Thank you. Item M3 is information, average daily attendance and enrollment report for the 2020-2021 school year. Are there comments or questions from trustees on this item? None for me. Hearing none, that will take us to item M4, information, financial status report, including cash flow report. Mr. Wiley? Yes, this is information for the board. To keep the board informed on the district's finances through March 31st, 2021, this information becomes more and more critical as you hear Luis and I talk about deferrals. When you hear the state talk about passing on their cash flow challenges to school districts, it makes us watch our finances a little bit closer, including our cash

237flow. And so there's good news to reporting this information here. We have no real challenges with our cash. and our budgets are in line and are moving forward as projected. Okay. Any comments or questions? Hearing none, that takes us to item M5, action approve resolution 62-21, revision to the 2020-21 budget. Mr. Wiley. This here is a report that requires your approval. Essentially, anytime we modify or adjust the budget, we need board approval. And throughout the year, budgets change. They increase, they decrease as a result of new information that we're receiving related to a state program or federal program. And that's what. happening here in the attached document. We're given the various reasons for modifying the budget and it requires your approval. Okay. I will move to approve. Is there a second? Second. Okay. Motion by

238myself, seconded by Trustee Villagran. Are there any comments or questions? Hearing none, we'll go to a vote. Trustee Childers? Yes. Trustee Garcia? Yes. Trustee Richardson-Fowler? Yes. Trustee Rodriguez? Yes. Trustee Villagrana? Yes. Trustee Bautista Zavala? Yes. And I vote yes. The motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Brings us to item N, information. Trustee requests for future agenda items. So we did add one tonight in terms of bringing back additional information on the communities by the end of the year. Trustee Bautista Zavala and Trustee Villagrana. Thank you. I just wanted to ask for a feasibility analysis on whether we could allow for our students to keep their laptops over the summer. We've made a significant investment in this. And this is an ongoing investment, in my opinion. Our students have grown. dependent on their devices and internet to

239deal with the times at hand. And there's been families that have invested in alternative support services that students have been able to access. through their devices. And recently I was asked if this is something that we could consider. So I'm just interested in hearing what the feasibility is and what would it take. Okay. So I'll add that to our list. Trustee Villagrana? At some point I would like for us to explore, and maybe it's not going zero. but definitely reduction in the use of paper in our district, across the district. Being away has shown us that we actually can be paper-free or low paper. I know paper is really expensive. I think like one box of paper when I was running like $60 and has increased dramatically. And so that's a huge savings over the

240year across the district. Again, if others are interested in that, I think it'll be very beneficial. Also for the environment. So that's something we'd like to explore if there's interest. Okay. We'll add it to our list. Any other requests? Okay. That brings us to item O, information, closing comments, if anybody has anything before we go to adjournment. Just thank you, everyone, for the dialogue, the conversation, the perspectives that were shared. Again, we still ended at a good time. We got through everything. We didn't have to move something to another meeting. So, again, we can be effective and efficient and get a lot of things done for the students and the families that we serve. So, again, I'm... definitely proud to, to serve with you all and have you all as my colleagues. So thank you.

241Thank you. I just want to, I just want to add that I agree with everything you just said, but I want to add that we had some very constructive conversations and it is my, my hope that everybody could leave here knowing that we're all one team. And I did not I'm leaving here with a clear mind that it was not my intention. If I came across disrespectful in any way, shape or form, that was not my intention. It's more to try and build and make sure that I'm understood correctly and my words are not misinterpreted. Well, I'm hopeful that when we get back to in-person meetings, it'll be a lot easier for us to understand each other. I think, you know, there's a lot of that goes into body language that goes into all the

242different sensory elements of human interaction that I think we're missing out on right now, you know, behind the screen. And we'll have a mask. Well, yeah, well, yes. But I still think it'll be better. And I would just say, you disagree? When you have half the face covered, it's hard to pick up. I can actually see your face in front of me in the board meeting. I have to like move this way to see people's, you know, reactions and expressions. I can see everyone at the same time here. Yeah. Well, maybe I'm wrong. It wouldn't be the first time I'm wrong about something. Look at Morgan right now. That's how we're going to see him. But I am looking forward, you know, to seeing you all in person again. So there's nothing happening. Come together

243in person for the first time as a seven member board. When that, when that happens. So cool. Thank you very much guys for, for everything tonight. Is there anyone else? Okay, so let's go. Let's do our formalities. Date and time of the next regular scheduled board meeting is June 3rd. Closed session starts at 5 o'clock p.m. and 6 o'clock p.m. for open session. And that brings us to item Q, which is adjournment. And I will adjourn this meeting at 10.33 p.m. Good night, everybody. Good night, everybody.