001Meeting to order. This is November 17th, 630. This is the regular meeting of the Board of Education for the Martinez Unified School District. Matthew, do you want to join us in the Pledge of Allegiance? For Stardust. Do we have any changes to the agenda? There are no changes to the agenda. Do I have a motion? I make a motion to approve the agenda. I'll second. Student rep? Aye. All those in favor? Aye. So moved. This is always the fun part of the board meeting, the highlights and recognitions. And John Muir Elementary Ukulele Club. Do you want to introduce them, Gigi, Dr. Patrick? Someone else can introduce them. All right, good evening. Hello, everybody. Thanks. This is the John Muir Ukulele Club. We're going to play a couple selections for you tonight. The first song is
002a song by Jack Johnson, and it's about friendship. Thanks, so just a couple things about the Ukulele Club. This is a group of mostly fifth graders. We've got fourth graders that we'll add a little bit later in the semester, and we practice every Thursday after school from, you know, after school until about 3.15. We do a lot of outreach in the community. Next month we're going to be doing a Christmas caroling concert with our TK students, Downtown Martinez. We'll be touring around. And we played at the ELAC celebration last year. It's always fun to play and give back to the community. So we're going to do one more song for you tonight. And this one was chosen by students several years ago and it's kind of become our signature song, which surprises me. It's a
003song called Riptide by Vance Joy. And I never thought for a minute that this would end up being the calling card for an elementary school ukulele club, but here we are. So our last song for the evening. And again, thanks, everybody. We appreciate your support. This is Riptide by Vance Joy. Can you introduce yourselves? I'd love to know the name of the kids. Yeah, that's a great idea. Why don't we start over here with Wyatt. Guys, introduce yourselves. And if there's any questions that you'd like to ask, we'd be happy to give you more information about the group if you're interested or whatever. Ah! Good plug. I saw her. She was here. You guys did awesome. I'm so impressed. So you guys do this after school on Thursdays, huh? Do you take the instruments home?
004You do? Okay, wow. Oh, okay, wow. I am very impressed. You guys look like you're professionals. So in fourth grade, we do an ukulele unit as part of the... curriculum. And then for students that want to continue studying or like they really got a fire under them and they want to play more, we have the Ukulele Club. It's sort of an outreach program. I don't know, but it's basically for anybody that wants to take it to the next level. So most of them, they buy their own instruments so they can practice at home. They start off with school instruments that we provide, but when they're ready to join Ukulele Club, and there's a prerequisite, they have to know their F, G7, and C chord before they get in, and then we just sort of build
005from there. So we try and do this. This is just two of the songs. We've got about eight songs. on our repertoire right now. We're constantly expanding. The students get to choose songs that they want to play. If they have a song that interests them, they can bring it in, and we add it to our set list. So we're always building our set list. And we're about to start our Christmas carol stuff, so we'll start that practice probably next week. You should let us know when you're going into Martinez and you're doing these things so that we can maybe tag along and listen, because you guys are great. That's wonderful. Any other? Comments? Go ahead. Just want to say great job, guys. I got to see you at the DLAC celebration and last year here.
006So you guys are doing awesome. I just want to say that was wonderful. And you also sing really incredibly as well. So it was really a joy to see you best part of the week. I agree. Riptide is actually one of my favorite songs. I was resisting the urge to sing along. You don't want to hear me sing, but you all sounded beautiful. So thank you very much for coming and sharing your music with us. Well, thank you. Have a great night, everyone. Matthew, did you want to say something? Yeah, I just wanted to say you guys did so great. I dabble in all kinds of instruments. I know my G7, my F, and my C chords. I'll come join you guys. I was just wondering, how long have you guys been practicing? Wow. Well,
007I can really tell because it's just so amazing. Yeah, you guys did a great job. Thank you again. It was awesome. Thank you for taking the chairs away. I think Sarah does this all the time. Next we have Martina's Adult Education, Indian Education. Hello, my name is Beckett Brown. I go to Martina's Junior High School, and I've been in Indian Ed since first grade. And ever since I've gotten me and other students have gotten lots of help and fun activities to do. Some of those activities are a summer camp that is at Nancy Boyd Park. And we get to do fun activities like making corn husk dolls and necklaces. And they teach us about our culture. And they go around teaching other classes, not just us. And it's been really fun. And we've all gotten
008the support we've needed. Thank you. Hi my name is Dahlia Dykeman and I'm a member of the Muscogee Creek Nation and a sixth grader at Martinez Junior High School and over the summer I attended the Ways of Our Ancestors camp and my favorite thing of this camp was learning about all the different local tribes in this area and I especially loved when the East Bay Regional Park District came and showed us the different games that the local tribes played. And another one of my favorite things that we did was in the winter gathering that took place in the John Muir Elementary Library last year. And I love this activity because I got to see all my family and friends and eat delicious foods and make things like medicine pouches. So thanks for listening. My name
009is Felicity Brown and I go to John Muir Elementary School. The Indian Ed program is really important to me and I hope it's important to you too. I had help from the Indian Ed tutor in class and this helped me be a better student with math and reading. My favorite part is the summer camp, making the crafts like corn husk dolls and medicine bags and necklaces. It was really fun. I love making fry bread and memories with my friends. Thank you for listening. That was wonderful. You guys didn't bring any of your little crafts, did you? That's okay. That sounds like a lot of fun. I'm so glad you guys are enjoying and doing that. Next time, if you guys come again, you'll have to bring the crafts. We'd love to see that. But great
010job. Anyone else? Comments? Just thank you for taking your evening to come and talk to us. I thought you all spoke really, really well and told us some really exciting things that you're doing. So thank you. Thank you. So you can leave if you want. You don't have to stay for the whole meeting. But thank you again for coming. We appreciate it, especially out in the rain. Next, we have comments from our student representative. Okay. Thank you to the MJHS leadership team for planning the end of October Spirit Week and for hosting an after-school fall fest for all the Bullpups. There was a DJ, games, photo booth, and lots of fun. 38 CJSF students took a trip to tour UC Davis on November 10th. Students were able to visit many different parts of campus and
011were invited to take a look at classrooms, labs, and more. Students shared that one of their favorite parts of the tour was learning about the pig statue that students touched for good luck on their next test. And of course, all the bullpups touched it right away. Thank you to the MJHS PTSA and all the vendors who came out for the holiday boutique last Thursday. There were treats, gifts, and crafts, many made by MJHS families and students. On November 18th at 5 p.m., there's a PTSA meeting in the MJHS staff lounge. Again, tomorrow the 18th at 6.30, there's a staff and student volleyball game. On the 19th at 7 p.m., Bullpup Music Boosters is going to have a meeting in the MJHS staff lounge. And congratulations to bullpups who have earned a pajama spirit day this
012Friday by reducing their tardies by 20 over the last six weeks. Way to walk with a purpose and make sure to be on time for learning. On Wednesday, the Alhambra High School girls water polo team defeated Dublin High School to advance to the NCS Division II finals on Saturday the 15th against Amador Valley. The team had an amazing season, and we are very proud of their efforts. Go Bulldogs! On Wednesday, AHS leadership, in partnership with the American Red Cross, hosted the annual blood drive in the K-Wing. Students, staff, families, and members of the community stopped by to donate blood. This week at Alhambra, the California Healthy Kids Survey was administered to the 9th and 11th grade students. The data from this voluntary and anonymous survey provides crucial information on student health behaviors, protective factors, and
013social climate. On November 19th, MJHS leadership will be visiting AHS leadership to share ideas and event planning strategies. On November 20th, MJHS yearbook will be visiting AHS yearbook to share ideas as well. And again, on November 20th, the AHS Arts Foundation will hold a Chipotle restaurant fundraiser from 4 to 8 p.m. So that's only at the Martinez location. On Thursday, November 13th, not even the rain could stop 27 Martinez Adult Education students who went by bus to Diablo Valley College. They toured the college, they were provided with information on different programs, and they had lunch before they returned to the adult school. One student commented that she had never been to a college campus before. On Tuesday, November 18th, from 6 to 7 p.m., labor and employment specialist Juan Calderon with CTWI will be presenting
014Unions 101 for those interested in learning more about traditional trades apprenticeship programs. And now for my personal comments. I know I just talked about that girls NCS water polo game. So I was actually, I went to that this weekend. It was super great. had no idea that water polo was so entertaining. It's like really fast-paced, back and forth every 30 seconds. And we ended up losing 7-9, but it was crazy because that was our first ever girls water polo NCS finals game. So I want to just say great job to all the girls water polo team. I know I know a bunch of them. And then I'd also like to mention that there's a Backroads Club. coffee house this week on Thursday and that's going to be at 7 and I'm actually going to be
015performing me and my friend Luna the ASB president at Alhambra we're going to be singing a song I learned how to play guitar for this so I'm just really excited for that and yeah I'm currently wrapping up college applications UC applications are going to be due before the next board meeting so by then I'll have all those done and I will say I'm looking forward to Thanksgiving break and that's all for me awesome thank you very much Okay, employee organizational reports. Do we have anything from MEA? Perfect. That's probably the first time in my life I've ever had to raise a mic. Look at that. So good evening. My name is Jen Fennell. My children attend schools in MUSD. I'm a teacher at Alhambra High and a member of the bargaining committee. You actually saw
016another member of our bargaining committee, Mr. Puzzulo, who is also a member as well. MEA representatives and MUSD representatives have met twice today and October 28th to discuss this year's negotiations. At the October meeting, MEA presented proposals for Class size, workday, salary, and benefits, and MUSD presented proposals on contract year. Today, MUSD only responded to two proposals, class size and workday. MEA counterproposed on class size. MUSD said they will not be ready to discuss salary, benefits, or any cost item until January. Mount Diablo, Benicia, and others have already settled their contracts, and we would like to do the same. When we negotiate, we are out of the classroom, missing valuable time with our students. MUSD is currently proposing a teacher work day in January be cut. This day is critical for teachers because elementary teachers
017use this to finalize report cards and secondary teachers finalize planning for the second semester. At the budget advisory committee, all the potential cuts were disproportionately personnel that work at school sites with students, and very few proposed cuts were district office management positions, services, and contracts or other operating expenses. If all district office personnel took a one-day pay cut, as the district proposed that MEA does, the district would save at least $125,000, and this would be the furthest from the classroom. Other districts are investing in staff with pay raises. Martinez is proposing cuts. If you want to save money, stop contracting out management work with attorneys, consultants, and school services. In the last few years, spending on administrators has gone up 31%. Every time a contract is settled, admin also benefits from the increases that MEA
018negotiates. Perhaps this time they could choose to forego the salary increase since they are already making more than other certificated and classified employees in the district. We hope at the next negotiation session your management representatives bring proposals that prioritize investments in educators to ensure the best for our students. Our community is trusting you to protect our students from harmful cuts and ensure Martina's kids get the best education. Thank you. Thank you. Do we have anything from CSEA? No, okay. Comments from the PTA? No. Public comments. The public may address the board regarding any item within the jurisdiction of the Board of Education of Martinez Unified School District. For items on the agenda, the public may comment at the time the board considers the agenda item. For items not on the agenda, the public may comment
019under public comment. These comments are limited to three minutes each. 20 minutes have been allocated for this portion of the agenda. Additional time is allowed at the end of the meeting if there is not enough time to speak during public comments. To comply with the Brown Act, the board may listen to comments from the speakers, but can neither discuss nor take action on issues presented. Members of the board are very limited in their response to statements or questions by persons commenting on items not on the agenda. Do we have any public comments? Janelle, no? Okay. Let's see. Consent calendar. Do we have any changes to the consent calendar? There are no changes to the consent calendar. Do I have a motion? Make a motion to approve the consent calendar. Second. Student rep? Aye. All those
020in favor? Aye. So moved. First discussion information item. We have Martinez adult education. I mean ma e update Suzanne Murphy Thank you. Well, thank you for the time this evening and I want to say good evening to the board superintendent Sorry, Superintendent Patrick and Cabinet. And I do want to say a special hello to our ESL students who joined us this evening. We have three ESL classes. It was a very blustering night out. I don't think we got everyone to come, but thank you to all of you who did come and to the teachers. They learned a little bit about a board meeting. They learned a little bit about our board members, and so they're here tonight to listen to a presentation about their school. So I wanted to welcome them. And there we go.
021All right, so this evening I wanted to bring some information forward about the Martinez Adult Education and how we support the Martinez community and beyond. I'm going to discuss a little bit about enrollment data and outcomes. We just had our Career Expo on October 23rd. I'm going to do a little overview of that and some outcomes from that expo. A little bit about our English Language Learners Pathways Grant that we had. We just finished the first year. Last year when I presented, I mentioned about this grant, so I want to do a little update. And then I want to talk about supporting employment and training needs specifically for the Martinez community. And then we'll end with Martinez Unified School District family support through the adult school. I don't know why this is not working. Let's
022see. All right. One back. All right. So. A little bit about our outcome data from 24-25. Martinez Adult Education served 1,329 students in 24-25. We've noticed a slight increase each year in the number of students that we serve, and our largest program still is our CTE program, Career Technical Education, which served over 731 students last year, which also includes a couple of our outside apprenticeship programs that we serve in the community. That being said, we do serve people that come into our school. We serve anyone that comes out. But I think it's important to highlight how many Martinez residents that we serve. Last year, we had 357 residents from Martinez participate in our programs. and 177 of those participants from Martinez were ESL students, which made up about 45% of that program. So we serve
023a lot of students in Martinez community with our ESL programs. I wanted to highlight as well our high school graduation. We have seen an increase. The Martinez Unified School District has a very high graduation rate. High school diploma and high school equivalency programs are smaller than some other districts, but that's good. We want to see our students graduate traditionally through high school. So we have people that come to us that may have been out of school for several years. And what we've done is we've really worked on intentionally helping students achieve their high school equivalency so that they can move on into the next. phase of what they're wanting to do, go on to college, get their financial aid, go on to a career, maybe enroll in an apprenticeship program. And a lot of times
024receiving that high school diploma or high school equivalency is holding them back. So when students come to our school, they have a choice. And we let them know about high school diploma and high school equivalency. But when students come and they've been out of school for five, seven, 10, even more years, and they have 50 or more credits to earn, It can take them years to achieve that. So going through high school equivalency is a series of tests. It meets the same criteria and then they can move on to what they want to do next. And if you notice in our data in 22-23 we had 19. This last year we had 30 students that passed the high school equivalency and we're very proud of that and they could move on. Next slide please. So
025I wanted to talk about our career Expo and thank you to the board members Superintendent Patrick and also Martinez Unified School District for having a vendor booth at our at our event we had over 600 attendees we've run this for the last couple years this was our largest event by far we had 40 participating employers apprenticeship programs and training providers and we had 20 breakout sessions during this expo. Vendors that we surveyed said the engagement from all of the students, which included our adult school students, our Alhambra High School students, our Vicente students, and adult school students from around the county. Vendors felt the engagement was really good. Students were prepared. Each exhibitor or vendor said that they met with over 50 students when they were there. And breakout sessions had a maximum of 35,
026and they were all filled. Overall, they rated this expo experience as a 5 out of 5, would love to come back, and would love to let other people know about it. When it comes to... outcomes for this event. We really keyed in on preparation equaling positive outcomes. And what we did is we made sure that students were prepared, not just the students at our school, but I actually had two staff members, Bruno Sablon, our CTE coordinator, and Gardner Daniels, our vocational specialist. They actually went out to schools. They went out to Alhambra. They went to Vicente. They went to the other adult schools. And they helped students pre-register for this event and get prepared. If they were looking for a job, did they have a resume ready? Did they research some of the apprenticeship programs
027so they could ask appropriate questions? So we did a lot of work getting everybody ready, and it really paid off because the exhibitors really felt that students were well-prepared. We had a little passbook for everybody. I forgot to bring one. But what it had is it had a map. of everybody who was there along with all the breakout sessions and students went to the vendors and after they had asked adequate number of questions and showed interest they got a stamp. Once they had five stamps from the tables and then they attended one breakout session they got to be entered in one of the four raffles of the day and they won a $50 gift certificate to Dutch Bros which they generously donated to the event. So there was a fun aspect in there. I think
028it was fun anyway. But students were really prepared. And I have these two ladies that I wanted to kind of highlight because we were looking at how did this help? Did it help getting everybody and letting them know? So both of these students are in our optical apprenticeship program. And they met with one of our employer partners who was at the expo. They went to their exhibit table. They had their resume. It was Warby Parker. They went to their breakout session. And then a week later, they were invited for interviews. Well, last week, Their teacher came running in Tuesday. I was getting my presentation ready, and she said they both got offered full-time jobs, and they both accepted. So we will take that outcome, and we hope to hear from more, too. So definitely this
029was what we were looking for was this type of outcome and others as well. I wanted to go into our ELL, English Language Learner Healthcare Pathways grant that we received last year. This is a three-year grant, and it's for adult education. It is a state-funded grant, and it is really to help our multi-language learners get into healthcare pathways that lead to a job in healthcare. And we started out round one. We set goals for ourself. And we have three health care related programs at our school, pharmacy technician, medical billing and coding, and optical assistant. And what we did is we had to take these programs and make sure that they were accessible for our ESL students. We looked into what was needed as far as reading comprehension, math skills, everything to get into these programs.
030So we created a pharmacy technician boot camp. We did a medical terminology class where we had an ESL teacher supporting with the CTE teacher. And in our optical assistant, we also had an ESL teacher in there supporting the students. The outcomes where we set targets, we made them. We had three licensed pharmacy technicians that are all from our ESL programs and are all working in the field. We had 20 out of the 21 enrolled in our medical terminology get a certification in that, and they actually can apply for college credit because it's an articulated course. And then our optical assistant program, we had six people obtain licensure and employment. And there's kind of a long quote up at the top, but I'm going to summarize for this student. So she's been in our country for
031two years, and she became a licensed dispensing optician. This is her first job in the U.S. And she said to me that in her country at 35, you can't start a new career. So when she got a job and a full-time job, she said it was life-changing for her to be here and be able to do that. So those things are, that was one person, but the experience was we're going to continue on. We spent all our funding, we reached our goals, and next year we have higher goals to keep going and to make sure that our students have access to healthcare pathways at the college and other adult schools as well. So I wanted to talk a little bit about the Workforce Development Board and the grant that we share with our Rubicon programs.
032We are part of what's called the Contra Costa Workforce Collaborative, which means we have a full-time career coach at our site. She's there Monday through Thursday, and it's really for anyone who walks through our doors that's either unemployed or underemployed. They can receive... support with looking for jobs. They can receive assistance with career planning. But one of the major things they can do is they can get money to go do job training wherever they choose, as long as it's a job, as long as it's a training program that leads to a job that the workforce development. board feels is in a sector that will continue on. And I wanted to highlight because this is really for the Martinez community. It's here in Martinez. There's a comprehensive site in Concord, but they don't have to go
033to Concord. They can just come right here and receive the services. I have some data from the last year and so far this year. So in 24-25, we had six residents that qualified for $27,034 in training dollars. This is not money they have to pay back, and they can do training. They can do whatever training they find, whether it's with Martinez Adult Education, with a college, with another training provider. It's their choice, but those funds are given to them so that they can complete their training and get a job. So far in 25-26, we've had four residents that have received over $18,000, and those are for training. We also have supportive services. Someone can say, I'm having trouble, you know, I need gas to get to work, or I need gas to get to school.
034They'll help people with supportive services, gas cards, sometimes they'll provide a computer. And in 24-25, we had a total of 1,059 in supportive services, but we don't have any data yet for 25-26. And again, this is anybody who walks through our doors at Martinez Adult who's unemployed and underemployed and just needs that help. And lastly, but certainly not leastly, is how we support the Martinez community. A couple of things that we're doing and we've been doing for a while is the community food pantry. This, I think, has been especially essential over this last month. People have really, you know, experienced where they needed to go, where they could find food. We've been doing this since 2020. We have a food pantry that's open from 2 to 4 every Tuesday. We are through the Contra Costa
035Food Bank. So we have volunteers, and this is just some pictures, and they do it very, very organized. They're fantastic. They put together 175 bags of food, and all somebody has to do is come through the drive-up. They say how many members are in their family, and they get a bag of groceries and other things. They bring a lot of different things. They go around and get donations. They're fantastic. We will keep doing that. And one of the things just today is a food pantry actually sent us a donation check so that we can provide even more over the holidays for people. And we just got that today. Lastly, we are collaborating with Ms. Yadira Zapata, the coordinator of ed services. She came and asked if we could offer a class. for the DLAC families
036or parents that really focused on them being able to access technology on their phones or on a computer through ARIES and ParentSquare, communicating with their teachers, and just really essentially navigating technology a little bit better. We are more than happy to do that. And it looks like we're gonna start the class in February. We're gonna offer something in the morning and in the evening so we can make sure parents can attend. And I want to thank you from Martinez Adult Education and if you had any questions. Thank you very much. It's very informative. One of the things I love about your food pantry is that they just need to go online and say this is what we, how many people, because I know that like Monument Crisis Center and all these other places you have
037to fill out forms or give information. So this is just a really wonderful service that you provide. Is there any... Way that you could increase that to maybe two days a week or is that just something that is not feasible? I'm just wondering so Right now this is all that this is what we have for our food pantry I think there's other locations in Martinez that give out food different days so Tuesday is our day and It's run by a group of ten volunteers, and I know they go to different pantries, so I think that's pretty much What we're able to be allocated right now Yeah, and how we can serve. But still, it's wonderful. And then I also had a question. Oh, I know what I was going to ask. So I know last
038year you came to us and you told us that you offered to the district if people wanted to learn Spanish. Yes. Are you still doing that? Or is that a special? We did it for a special for the office managers. They had asked. They wanted to, you know, learn how to communicate better with the families. And we ran that for a couple of quarters last year. We can certainly looking at doing it again. It's kind of like we did that. We fulfilled what they needed and, you know, moved on to what can we do next. So, but no, we still do offer classes. It kind of turned into more of like a workplace Spanish where anyone, first it was just district employees and then it kind of opened up. The teacher took on another class,
039but if it's something that we think that the district might be interested in having us run again, absolutely. Yeah. Thank you. Other questions? Yeah. Well, first of all, thank you. It's always really informative, and I think what is really vital for our community to know is how many Martinez residents that we're serving. As you know, our community has been very generous with our bonds, our most recent bond especially, and so I think it's really wonderful to highlight not only the classes but all of the services that Martinez Adult Education is offering to our community. And my question is... I know because I'm a Martinez resident that I get that pamphlet every so often with the course offerings. How else, because a majority of people are still coming from outside of Martinez, how are they finding
040out, I guess how far, how broad of a reach does the pamphlet have and then how else in your experience are people finding out about our program? So when we have a couple of unique programs like the pharmacy technician and the optical, those are not offered really anywhere else. So I think we draw people into those programs. Our brochure comes out twice a year. It's Martinez. It does go somewhat outside of Martinez. I'm not sure exactly the whole geographic, but I think we have like 11, I don't know how many, like 110,000 brochures that go out. We do some social media. We have our website. And if you Google Martinez Adult Education, it does come up pretty high up there. And I have to say, the school has a very good reputation, always has been.
041I actually came and took a class here once, a digital. I was learning Photoshop, and I came here long before I knew I'd ever work here, and I live out in Fairfield. So there's always been unique offerings here. So I think people, you know, word of mouth and just looking things up, generally they find out about it. Great. Thank you. I just want to say great job. Maybe you can squeeze another one of those expos out. We're planning next year, but maybe not. Yeah, next October we'll do it again. I was there with Trustee Leal. The amount of people and how organized it was and just seeing all the engagement. I was very impressed. It was very well put together. You guys did a great job. So thank you. Yeah, that's about it for me.
042Same. Thank you so much. The resources and the support you offer to our community is just wonderful. And I've taken classes at the adult school and have always been very impressed. Thank you for your hard work. Thank you. Thank you. It's always wonderful to hear all of the things you're working on. I'm really excited about that technology class for parents. I know there's a big need for that, so thank you for doing that. I'm curious, so could somebody that wasn't currently a student at the adult school meet with the career coach that you have there? Yeah, there's no requirement to be a student. They literally just walk in and say they're needing help. with job search. They want to do career planning and she is excellent. She, she is actually an employee of Rubicon programs.
043It's part of the grant. And then we received some funding, but she's there to meet with anybody. They can email her drop in and she's there Monday through Thursday from eight 30 to five. Okay. That was my next question. Is it better to drop in call first or she has a lot of appointments, but if you drop into the main office, we can check or, um, we, it's on our website with her email address, but But, yeah, she takes appointments, and she's excellent at getting back to people. Great. That's a really great service. Thank you. Sure. Thank you. Yeah, I just wanted to say, sounds really cool. I actually took a class this spring. It was at Martinez-Dole Education. It was like one of the DVC ones that they held on the campus. That was
044super cool. Great professor, all that. And I just wanted to mention the CTE program. I think that's really cool. I actually went to the state senator's office recently, and I spoke to their chief of staff about programs like CTEIG, the incentive grant, and the ELOP programs that... fund programs like that so it's just really cool to see that like that advocacy and that that that funding is going somewhere you know it's helping hundreds of students so yeah just really cool great presentation thank you thank you thank you everyone and thank you to our students that came today next we have the citizens oversight committee report bond measure rno andy cannon Thank you and good evening board. Each year we bring our CoC reports to the board. It is customary for a member of the Citizens
045Oversight Committee to do this, but they have seemed to advocate for me to do that on their behalf for the last three years at least, so that's what I'm going to do. Measure R was originally voted on by the citizens of Martinez to modernize or renovate elementary schools. And we know this because we've seen each of these schools and those projects are completed. In addition to just modernizing the building itself, it wanted to increase the technology, all the plumbing, electrical, and new roofs. So what we do when we have our Citizens Oversight Committee is we have a group of individuals who have been chosen by the board to be able to go over and review all of the documentation for any given fiscal year to determine whether or not the district met its obligation to
046fund projects that are only listed and described within that voter language. So Measure R was about our elementary schools. And then the other document that we're looking at online tonight is Measure O, and that's for our secondary schools. And that's the one that Trustee Martin just spoke about. So Measure O itself was supposed to modernize and renovate our secondary schools and our adult education, which is going to be a future project, hopefully in the next few years, that we'll get working on that. So the reports themselves, if you wanted to look at those, outline what our spending was for the fiscal year 2024-25. And I'll start with measure R first. So what you'll notice about Measure R is that we sold approximately $120 million worth of bonds. You might ask, well, why doesn't it say
047$120 million at the top right-hand line there? That's because $700,000 of that was issuance fees. So every time we sold one of our four tranches of bonds, we had to pay different companies to go out and sell it on the open market. But with interest earned and other revenue, we were almost $125 million, so $124.5 million that we brought in. And of that, we have about $1 million left. Now, we have completed almost all of those projects. It doesn't look like it here because, again, this is for all the projects as it ended June 30th, so we do have some residual dollars amount left. All of this will be done with. most likely by the end of this year or at least the end of next summer as we finish the Morello Park TK project
048where we're adding two new classrooms there. Other costs that are still ongoing is some of the staff costs that we use to have personnel help us to facilitate this bond. And the other one is going to be Measure O, and you'll notice that we haven't had a lot of spending here as it relates to the next attachment, if you don't mind, Joe. We don't have much spending here because we just got started. And so we will easily ramp that up this year. And within the next two years, we will have spent the first round of that bond. So at the very top right, you'll notice that we sold $30 million of that $200,000 was issuance fees. And we project so far to this point that we have about... a little bit more than that some
049interest earned and we actually got a good interest check just this last time around that's not reported here that went through the summer time so we'll see these proceeds continue to go up because of interest and at the same time we'll see those expenditures start clocking in so we've spent a little bit of money at the high school and the junior high through the band room but we'll continue to spend throughout the next couple of years and I believe our next bond sale is scheduled to be around May of 2027 and at that time we'll sell about another 30 million dollar bond and then wait another two years and sell our final 30 million dollar amount. So we've got a long ways to go here, but we're excited about the prospects of having modernized and
050new facilities for that. So tonight is just a staff report. There's no action needed by the board. We're reporting out from the Citizens Oversight Committee that we have met our requirements. The one trouble we have had the last year now is that we're not getting all the members to show up. So we did have an informational only meeting. We did not have a quorum. But we're gonna keep reminding folks to join us and we'll find interesting ways or unique ways to try to get them to be there and show up and to participate. But that is the extent of the report for the Citizens Oversight Committee for Measures O and Measures R. And I'm happy to answer any questions you may have. Thank you. So when you say you're trying to get more people to
051serve on that committee because you haven't had a quorum, how do you... They just have to be Martinez residents. Well, we have a full committee. We just want them to show up. Okay. And is there any way you can just get more people so that or you're not? No, it's limited to the positions that we have. Okay. Yeah, that's we just got to get the folks that are assigned to show up Okay So if they don't show up after like two or three times and do you like put it out for someone else or how do you I'm just curious if there's the bylaws talk about What happens if people don't show up? Okay and so there's a way to go ahead and ask them if they want to resign or if they want to
052be removed and then we would open the position back up and bring possible candidates to the board Okay, all right because it's kind of sad if you don't have a quorum and it's just informational That's correct. All right. Okay. Thank you. That was my only question other questions Yeah, I'll just tag on to that one. They'll go back to the other one What percent of them are not showing up? You know just ballpark was it like most or some or you're just like shy one or two for? There are various different reasons. We were close to meetings ago this last meeting we had We had three people show up a couple were sick. So we're close. Okay, but we're the majority so we're I think six or no five didn't show up last time Okay,
053and then are you able to have alternates at all or? No, we don't have any alternates just those that are on there. Is it possible to change it to where they have alternates that way? I'd have to look at the bylaws again to see that but the bylaws don't establish at this time alternates Okay, and then can we go back a couple slides? Which report would you like to look at our measure are? I'm in to ask this a while ago So yeah with the I think it was the look Yeah, so for John Lasuntas, do you know what the bulk of that million dollars was in the revised budget? Where that savings was because it's pretty rare that you see a you spent less than you needed Yeah, we've for all of our projects
054What's hard to see here is that there are times when we do add-ons so we might add on a parking lot or a building that we didn't necessarily a budget for in the original budget, but there was an add-on piece to it and then So it may look like some of the budgets went up, but the reality is that every one of our elementary projects We've had a change order that's actually returned money back to the district So each of the builders have been able to save cost on various things to be able to do So I can't off the top my head I don't remember Los Juntos, but I know that we had a change order before I got here That was a savings to the district. Thank you They're here in person during
055the pandemic as was every meeting Ms. Rossi had them online. And then when we came back from the COVID, then we had them in public in meetings here. So it's something we talked about a couple of times. We actually had one member said they could do it at the house, but I think that'd probably be wrong when we have a Brown Act situation going on. So we'll continue to have them here and we'll look at possibly the option of doing a hybrid version. Okay, thank you. Very, very informative as always. So thank you. Any other questions Matthew anything no any okay? Thank you very much Andy and you're up again with the citizens Oversight Committee on the parcel tax So this is the first time I've done it this way. I thought I'm going to
056be here for two Citizens Oversight Committees, so why not do it at the same time? And then I also had a hidden agenda, which is maybe I could parlay some of the folks who are at the bond oversight to be on the parcel tax because you can do both of those. I was unsuccessful, but I did attempt to do that. We do not have a full roster for parcel tax. We haven't for a few years. We've done different outreach with... PTA and principals and other groups and for whatever reason I cannot get any takers. We had one individual show up, another one send their regrets and that's where we are. So we had another informational meeting which was me and another gentleman. and we went over these two documents. The first of which is showing
057our last year's completed budget. And for everyone to know, this is our partial tax. So our partial tax, we raise about $785,000 annually. It's a partial tax that was renewed by the voters two Novembers ago. Has it been two years ago now? Or May, it was in the middle of the year, so a year and a half. So a year and a half, we did a straight renewal of our parcel tax, and that parcel tax is going for our arts and education and music education and also for libraries and for counseling services. So what you see in front of you for 23-24 is our carryover amount. So the previous year, we had about $30,000 remaining. We had a revenue of just under $800,000. And because our expenses were a little bit higher than that, we
058did contribute to the general fund for it. And you'll see that we also had some stipends for musics and we have our annual partial tax admin. So all in all, we spent every dollar using it on our music teachers at the elementary school. Middle school, we had a music teacher partially funded through that, the librarian and our counselor at half. Now, as we look towards. The current year, we had some changes to staff, and because of those changes to staff, we saw that our cost increased. Now, this doesn't mean that salary in general went up. It's just that the people who were moved into the parcel tax positions had a higher salary than the person before. The person who moved in there was in a general ed setting at one of the other schools. So
059there's no increase. It's just where we shifted it to from a different funding pool. But what it means is that we have to contribute almost $140,000 to the parcel tax. Now, depending on which staff member and how far along the salary schedule that they are, sometimes this amount goes up and down when there's changes that take place. What we do know, though, about our parcel tax is that when it was initiated many, many years ago, it was able to fully fund many of these programs. But as we've seen inflation, the salary cost increase and other services, it is no longer sufficient to cover the same amount of staff as it had previously. And that's why we see that larger contribution. Plus, what we talked about is different staff members being in there. So this year,
060we are planning to contribute about $140,000. And that will mean we will have no carryover for next year. So now we're just running year to year on these services. And that'll probably be the case for well into the future, unless at some point in time, the parcel tax changes. For example. The board may in future years choose to add on an inflationary amount, whether there's a CPI or some other type of increase annually, or the voters may choose not to renew the parcel tax in seven years' time. It's all dependent on a lot of conditions. But what we know right now is our parcel tax will run for another six and a half, seven years. And with that, I'm open to any questions you have about the parcel tax and the Citizens Oversight Committee. I
061have a question. So for example like Vincent over at the John Muir Elementary, it's 0.8 FTE. Yes Where's the rest of that? Is that just... So 0.2 will be at a general fund. Okay. Years ago, trying to squeeze it all in, we started moving the amounts of people that were funded by it. And then last year we said, why are we doing this? It's unnecessary. We'll just contribute from the general fund instead of trying to make people a 0.6, a 0.8, a 0.4, for example. Okay. So then for like Julia, for example, that's... So it covers half of her salary and benefits, correct? Yes. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions? Yeah. So I know that the committee positions are specific in terms of criteria for meeting them. If you don't have it now, that's okay,
062but do you happen to know which positions are open for parcel tax? Parcel tax is different from the bond. There's not a title. It's just that you have to be within the voting area of the district. So this is one where let your friends and family know. Contact me. I'll give them an application. We'll have a great time here in the boardroom great. I mean I see you like a couple of people here tonight That could be just saying how often how often do you meet and they can't be staff members? I see no one never mind Once to twice a year, okay. All right. Thank you one last question. When's that parcel tax end? Seven more years. Yeah, I'd have to give you the exact names. We did it in March to continue your
06323 or 24 Think so yeah, and I know it was ten years okay. Yeah was eight yeah, okay? And the weekly update it was at 23. Yeah, I'll give you the information in the weekly update So you have it and the only other thing I would just add to that is that the parcel tack it's $75 per? residence and If they're over 65 they do have the option to decline So that could be why there's some fluctuation, but they have to renew that every year I believe No, I thought the parcel tax they can Not all that's no that used to be there for some parcel taxes if you're over a certain age and your income is limited You can I thought for this school one. They could a school one. I thought they could
064okay What I'm going to do is I'm gonna provide you the information on the amount which I believe is still 75,000 per 100,000 assessed value on the home $75.00 and then I will also give you the the other Criteria for those that get exemptions that way you have I just yeah, just curious to see why that fluctuates sometimes, you know, okay. Thank you Any other questions? All right, next up we have Review and Adoption of Resolution 202606, Providing Workers' Compensation Coverage for Volunteers, MUSD Framework of Focus, Sound Fiscal Management, Janelle Ayotte. Good evening tonight. I'm asking the board to consider and adopt resolution 2026-06 This resolution establishes that volunteers will be covered under the district workers compensation Coverage in case they sustain an injury while they are on our campuses Performing volunteer duties on behalf
065of the district. We already have this in place the board authorized this back in the 80s, but our workers comp insurance Company has advised us that the board should renew it given the length of time since the resolution has been passed. So this is for your consideration and approval this evening. Do you know what the, I mean, I think it's a great thing, obviously. What is the actual cost for the volunteers? Does that change what it is normally or is it just continuing what we've always paid? It's continuing what we're already doing. It's all within the umbrella. Questions? I was wondering, and I didn't realize this was something we already had, so maybe my question is moot, but for example, our coaches, are they considered a volunteer or are they an employee because they receive
066a stipend? It depends on the position. So some coaches are volunteer and some are paid. Okay, thank you. Do we have any public comment? No. Discussion? Any more discussion or anything? No? Matthew? Am I allowed to vote on this? You are still allowed to vote on this, yes. So do I have a motion? I'd like to make a motion to approve Resolution 2026-06, Providing Workers' Compensation, Coverage for Volunteers, slash MUSD Framework of Focus. Second. Student rep? Aye. All those in favor? Aye. So moved. Next we have superintendent's reports. Thank you, Trustee President. Again, I'd just like to acknowledge that MUSD continues to celebrate Native American Heritage Month. So I just want to highlight that, shout that out. As well as during the recent Superintendent's Council meeting. we discussed the Assembly Bill 1390. Now we haven't
067received updated recommendations for board policy changes, but we anticipate them coming in the near future. But I did want to share this information with the public because I think it's really important. So the Assembly Bill 1390 is the public school governance board member compensation. So the legislation was signed into law October the 11th, 2025, and it introduces several updates. One is increased monthly compensation ranges for school boards and county office board members. It authorizes stipend increases and expands options for board member compensation. This might include course credit or making some adjustments to the stipend. It's determined by the board, but I wanted to let you know the state has, the governor has signed this bill into law. And this change, it basically addresses the longstanding issue of compensation limits, which had not been updated since
0681984. So it makes a significant step towards modernizing support for public school governance and so specifically with how this could potentially impact in USD possible changes because of the ADA range that we fall in which is between 1,000 1 to 10,000 students based on that number right now, I believe the The 1984 rate was approximately $240 a month. Now ours may be slightly higher than that. But we could now ultimately decide to compensate up to $1,200 a month. And so this is just... It does not require that boards have to do this, but what it is recognizing is that compensation rates that existed in 1984 would certainly not be applicable today. So it might be something that in the near future that the board may want to consider, but I wanted to make it clear
069that this was due to the new bill that was signed by our governor this past October. And this concludes my report. Thank you. Thank you. Do you want to start for board reports? Sure. So on Saturday I attended a lovely event that Trustee Leal and Trustee Campbell and our superintendent Dr. Patrick also attended. We were invited by Congressman John Garamendi to his Rosie the Riveter luncheon on Mare Island. And it was really just a nice lunch and kind of I thought it was very educational I didn't realize Mare Island is the oldest naval station on the west coast. It was established in 1854 And one of the attendees was Janine Gibson who is a real-life Rosie the Riveter and today she's a docent at the Richmond National Park So it was really cool to hear
070from her and just kind of a really important piece of American history and women's history. So it was nice to be a part of that. And last week, I also attended our DEI committee meeting here in the boardroom. And we had a really, really informative report from. Principal BD at AHS about the status of their equity audit and I would love for maybe some type of report on that to come in front of the entire board because it just Really shows that a lot of really good work is happening there. So that was nice to hear Thank you I'm not going to report on that because there's so many of us that went. I did get to go see the man who came to dinner, and I just want to say that I won tickets
071to the performance in the spring, so really excited about that. And, yeah, I enjoyed the report from Alhambra High School and all the progress that they've made, and I agree that we definitely should have a presentation on that. Thank you. So One of the things I was able to attend was the curriculum committee. That was great. And we had presented a new potential course that will come back around in the near future. Also, which is not just for the fishing pier, I know Martins has a rich history and there was a lot of families out there I recognize from the district that were out there, so that was exciting. I also want to thank Andy and the district for putting on the budget advisory committee meeting. inviting so many people from different areas within the
072district. I think everyone attended and it was very informative. And again, there's going to be upcoming meetings and I hope those are posted so other people can attend even though there's so many people that are able to participate. I believe it's open to the public. And then I also thank Amy for inviting me to the CTE meeting. I got to hear all the different teachers present. And here's some of what Frank's ideas were coming up. And I would encourage anybody to attend that if you want to know more about what's going on. And then the last... No, I'll skip that one. I'll let it pass over to Annie. Okay. MEF had a meeting last week and good news from MEF, we had a banner run week with fundraising from both the run and the golf
073tournament. And we've already started using some funds to fulfill district-wide grants. And what that will do, which is really great, is we've done a lot of education with MEF, thanks to Andy and Dr. Patrick, that everything that MEF spends for the district is really freeing up general fund money, which we all know is really critical. So that's been really wonderful, and we're gearing up for the third annual read-a-thon, which will happen in March. And I guess most importantly, I hope everyone in this room and all of our staff and students and family take next week to really relax and spend time with people they care about and come back for the rapid fire three weeks that are the weeks between Thanksgiving and winter break that I know are just very, very high energy, but with
074lots of fun things coming up. So I hope everyone gets a lot of good rest. Just want to remind the seniors that you see applications the deadline is December 1st as well as state universities So I know that That's always a long process. So don't wait till the last week the week of Thanksgiving if you haven't started Get on it because it's a little bit There's quite a bit of information to do on that and I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving and enjoys the holiday And then we a little bit out of order because we're doing a closed section session at the end But do we have any public comments for closed session? So we will adjourn to closed session and we'll be back a little bit later Thank you regular meeting and I
075have nothing to report out for closed session And we do not have any additional comments from the public. Do we have any future board agenda items anyone wants to mention? No? So we are adjourning at 9 p.m.