Sonoma Valley Unified School District Special Board Meeting 04-22-25

001all right we are going to get started with our special board meeting and we'll call this meeting to order at 6 40 p.m um if we could do roll call please michelle trustee bell here trustee ching here can you hear me yeah yes president landry trustee layman here uh let's stand for the pledge of allegiance please i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america Okay our Spanish translation for this meeting is online with Wordly and at this time I am looking for an approval of the agenda is there a motion to approve I propose to approve A second Second Roll call vote please Trustee Bell Aye Trustee Ching Aye President Landry Aye Trustee Lehman Aye All right. At this time, we are going to move to public comment. The board recognizes

002the value of public comment on educational issues and provides us time for members of the audience to address the board. Per bylaw 9232, at the beginning of open agenda, there will be a public comment session for the public to make comments pertaining to items on the agenda. Members of the public who wish to speak at the meeting are asked to take a numbered card if appearing in person or raise their hand if appearing virtually so the board can determine the number of speakers to better control the timing of the meeting. All right, so at this time, it looks like we have three public speaker, or excuse me, three public comments in the room. And Michelle, will you help me with online? And if you are online and you would like to make public comment, if

003you could please raise your hand, that would be great. Do you have a question, sir? Oh, did you take a number? Okay, so this is a new system we have so if you are interested in making public comment on items on the agenda now is the time and you'll take a blue numbered card and we'll just go ahead and take it from you. Oh she's gonna do it. I can't see. Okay, fantastic. Thank you. All right, so at this time we'll call up public comment number one, please. Thank you. No, you can keep it. Yeah, thank you. We believe you Okay, Joseph Rose Iker boys hot springs It is too bad the community members like me who live in area 2 did not get more information on those applying previous to tonight's meeting We have

004a list of names, but we have no statements or background on each applicant Public comment has to be made before we hear from the applicant So we simply must trust that what we want to see in a trustee representing us will be reflected in your choice the project was the process was rushed and and not started soon enough after Celeste Winders resigned. I believe more time could have been allowed for a vote. You have until May 12th before being forced into a special election. We could have learned about the applicants and as a community given you our thoughts before the vote if things had been done differently. I, like many others who live in the Springs, want to see someone who stands up for the students, families, and teachers. I mean stand up no matter

005how poor, what color, what sexual orientation, or what special needs of that child is. We also want a school system that nurtures critical thinking about our society and planets. Planet graduates of the school system are the future of our community and our country Celeste Winders did this and she delved into and studied every issue before the board she resigned because of a social media post Since that time, I have to say I have often felt exactly as she did. And though I bite my tongue, I see our country and democracy being ravaged and everything we have fought for and what some of us have died for being destroyed. Thus, my concern for the students and their futures. Tonight, hopefully, tonight, someone who truly represents us puts students, their families, and the teachers first will be

006selected. Thank you so much. Thank you for your comments. Public comment number two. Hi, David Eicher, and I do live in District 2, and of course I would prefer to vote on this, but I totally understand it costs money to have an election, so I do understand that. But I don't know these candidates. The names didn't even come out until this morning. Please allow us to come back up here and speak briefly after you've asked the candidates the questions. That way we can be informed. Because if it was an election, we would have candidate statements. We'd be able to get to know the candidates better. And as for allowing us to come back up later, I believe you did this before when you have selected a trustee when someone has resigned. And I know Ron

007Wellender, when he was chair of the Planning Commission, numerous times reopened public comment to allow additional comment from the public on various items. I also request that... You continue the meeting until next Tuesday. You have lots of time that if you continue it, that gives everybody more time to get to know the candidates, to understand them, and to give you our desires as to who we think are the best candidates for the job. You know, one of the things I was just looking at the agenda, and it mentions that anything, any documents that are given to the board, a majority of the board, within less than 72 hours of the meeting are available at the district office and may be available online. So my question is... Did you get the applications everyone get the applications

008are they public records should we've been able to see them? You know, I'm sure there's information on there as to the candidates of why they want to be on the school board That would be very helpful to us Anyway, and I think that is it. Thank you. Thank you for your comments All right public comment number three. I think I'm becoming a frequent flyer now So as you undertake the difficult decision of replacing a board member at this stage of really important decisions, I would like you to please look for a candidate who understands the fiduciary duties of the school board. Someone with a passion for education and student learning. Someone who has a connection with the community. Someone who maybe is a leader in our community. Okay, and if possible, if there's someone with

009previous board experience or experience in a community of making decisions like you do on a daily basis here. So thank you. Thank you for your comments. All right, public comment number four and last public comment in the room before we go online. Hi, my name is David Dodling. I taught the high school for 26 years, retired in 2016. I'm speaking on behalf of one candidate who I work with. In 2008, when our economy went south, the school board was required by law to cut all extracurricular and all sports, and they had to eliminate 33 positions. Melanie Blake was appointed elected new president of the Union Teachers Union and which is very divided and within six weeks she convinced under her watch all the classified all the teachers and all the administrators took a voluntary 5%

010cut in wages With this done, they went to the community and in 22 days, community leaders raised $400,000 which covered all extracurricular. sport program for three years so that and I'm just saying that Melanie you she's got an amazing background but she got things done and she did in a collaborative way and that's why I came here at the last minute to endorse her thank you thank you for your comments all right Michelle can we go online please wait and who is that okay Nicole you have the mic Okay, can you hear me? Yes. Okay, thank you so much. I hope you don't change the agenda and make it longer than it needs to be. I'm glad you're doing this now. This is not a community vote. It's your trustee appointing positions. People that are

011interested need to do their due diligence and find out the information. You guys are not a marketing firm, and I'm sure if you were a marketing firm, you guys would get hell for that. In the meantime, dear esteemed trustees, this is from me, Nicole. I've been on this was on the school board for 15 years. Longest running school board member, Cam Howing and Salvador Chavez are two Latino trustees from the past. I write to you today as a community member, deeply invested in the future of our children and the integrity of our school board's reputation. As you consider the candidate for appointment, I urge you to select. The only Latino candidate, Geraldo Guzman, a person who embodies the lived experience of so many of the families our schools serve. This candidate is not only qualified,

012he is uniquely positioned to represent more than half of our district's demographics. He is a Sonoma native raised in the very community he now wishes to serve. He is young, a parent of young children, and intimately connected to the day-to-day realities, hopes, and challenges that define... the lives of many families in this valley. While I have no doubt that all candidates are accomplished and admirable, simply putting their names forward speaks to their dedication. This particular candidate is not just a good choice. He is the necessary one. His perspective is not theoretical. It is lived. He represents not only a voice, but a history and a future we must honor and include at the decision-making table. To overlook him would not only be a missed opportunity, it would be a failure to reflect the very diversity,

013equity, and inclusion that we strive to instill in our students. Representation matters. And in this moment, you have the chance to ensure that the families who make up such a vital part of our district see themselves in our leadership. Please choose the candidate who doesn't just understand our vision, but is living proof of it. And again, I was a brand new candidate running against an 80-year-old education veteran. It's really great to have somebody new with new eyes coming in. So please, I urge you to vote for Geraldo Guzman. Thank you for your comments. All right, so at this point in time, we're going to move on to the regular agenda. And so this is going to be what is considered 6.1. So I have a script I'm going to go ahead and read from. As

014announced on March 13, 2025, a vacancy was created on the Board of Trustees of the Sonoma Valley Unified School District due to the resignation of Board Member Celeste Winders, representing Trustee Area 2. During its April 10th meeting, the board decided to fill the vacancy by appointment and directed staff to make available applications to those seeking appointment. Applications were available from April 11th to April 18th and posted on the district website. The district received six applications, all of which were deemed eligible by the board committee. Excuse me, the board subcommittee. The board appreciates the interest of all applicants in serving the district as part of the board and expects that the board will have a difficult decision before it today. We want to thank all of the applicants for coming forward as part of this process.

015While the board may only select one applicant to fill the seat, we want to let you know that there are many ways besides filling the vacancy that you can continue to support the district. And we hope that you will take advantage of those opportunities. Before we get started, I wanted to let everyone know how the board plans to make this decision. The board has reviewed all of the applications and looks forward to hearing from the applicants. We will begin by asking all applicants to answer three questions. We will conduct a drawing to determine the order in which the applicants will answer the questions. Each applicant will have one and a half minutes per question. Trustee Lehman will let the applicants know when the time has elapsed for each question. We will ask the other applicants

016to wait outside before their turn. As there was an opportunity for public comment on all items at the beginning of the agenda, after the applicants address the board, we will move to discuss and entertain a motion for appointment. The successful applicant will be administered to the oath and take their seat on the board after a short recess. With that I would ask the board clerk trustee bell to pull the applicants names out of the bag to determine the order of the interview Use your mic your glasses around your neck Gerardo Guzman and then keep going Ryan Deakman Maggie Sarah Tuft-Marvel Tani Bouldinger Steve Williams last but not least Melanie Blake Okay, thank you so much trustee Bell. So we will now begin the interview questions. I would like to invite Gerardo Guzman to the podium

017and ask the other candidates to please step outside at this time. Guzman, sorry. Guzman. Thank you. A minute and 30 seconds. Hi, good afternoon. Thank you for being here with us. Okay, so I'm gonna ask the question and then the timer will start. Question number one. What do you see as the basic purpose of public schools? What is the role of the governing board and the fulfillment of that purpose? Well, thank you for having me the basic purpose is it's clear to all it's it's our kids. It's the valleys kids and I was one of those kids here a few years back and I have my own here now today and That is my purpose and I know it's each of your purposes as well. That's why we're all here tonight. As for the role

018of the board, it's advisory. These folks are elected by our peers to help advise the rest of the district. We're not experts in every single bylaw. We're not experts in the whole history of education and theory, but we can certainly speak to it. And we know how to lean on those who are the experts, the ones who are in the classrooms every day, the ones who are working with the students before class, after class, on the weekends. Those are the true heroes, and those are the ones that have continued to inspire me. They're the ones, you know, I still have two teachers, two former teachers. They're sitting in the audience here tonight. And I seek to honor them and I seek to honor my kids by, you know, giving a little bit of my experience

019and my perspective, having lived in this valley, having moved away and now back here for the long run. Wonderful. Thank you. excuse me question number two how does an effective school board ensure opportunities for parents and community members to express their diverse range of views to inform board deliberations on important policy issues and you are more than welcome to ask me to repeat the question that was a long one all right so one of the things that's been unfortunate in the last five ten years is the amount of turnover loss of institutional knowledge and it's at the same time an opportunity for new perspectives but it's not to say that that knowledge isn't still here in the valley. There are folks who have been here for decades you know their grandparents great-grandparents have been here

020and nothing that we're discussing at this moment is new. It might be in a different format from years past, but we're not reinventing anything here. We should always strive to listen first, then speak. And when we do listen, just understand that there are so many folks that are here in the audience, listening online, in the Valley, that have just this tremendous wealth of knowledge. I don't know how many surveys have gone out in the last couple years, last couple decades, and oftentimes these voices, they're asked to participate, but they're not actually listened to. So that would be one of the priorities is actually implementing some of this because there is just so much value out there that we need to put in place. Awesome. Thank you so much. Let me just... Finish that. OK. Question

021number three, last question. Please summarize the strengths you would bring as a member of the school board. First and foremost, my experience here in the Valley. I lived from preschool starting at the Sessorini campus, going through K through five there, moving on to Altamira when it was still a single campus, and then split. and threw on to the high school and I still go back. I've been going back every year multiple times to that campus to maintain those relationships with the current administrators and teachers. I can say I enjoy a very strong relationship with the folks in the College and Career Center. It's been very just inspiring to see What the results are what they continue to be? At this district of the kids who are coming out who are graduating tomorrow night's award ceremony

022will be a testament to that These kids are incredible The district when I was here was I thought it was great I wouldn't be here standing talking to you if it were not for the incredible resources that was provided by the folks here I'm actually jealous of the resources that are available today relative to then there's so many wonderful programs and I'm just so excited for the potential that the district continues to strive towards and I know we can get there thank you so much I don't I well maybe in all fairness yeah recording in progress hi thank you for being here all right we are gonna ask you three questions you are more than welcome to ask me to repeat them if you need time the timer will start once I finish the question

023question one what do you see as the basic purpose of the public school and what is the role of the governing board in the fulfillment of that purpose Oh I'm so sorry can you please state your name? My name is Ryan Diekmann. Thank you. All right I'm going to ask you that question again. What do you see as the basic purpose of public schools and what is the role of the governing board in fulfillment of that purpose? So I see the basic purpose of the schools is to build a foundation for our youth regardless of background that helps them be prepared for the next stage in life whatever stage that may be whether it's the next grade level it's the next school what comes after high school it's really building that foundation. I also see

024it as providing free public education that allows access to resources and services such as sports and counseling and also to teach and build social and emotional awareness in our youth. As far as the purpose of the board, the decisions and actions of the board directly impact conditions of our schools and that would enable our district to achieve success or failure from the actions and decisions the purpose of the board is also to drive success of the overall system and when I say system talking about the board the district the staff the technology the infrastructure the the entire system and really driving defining goals and creating a vision that supports that on the board you know the main purpose is to be that support partner to guide these schools so that we can achieve success All

025right, question number two. How does an effective school board ensure opportunities for parents and community members to express their diverse range of views to inform board deliberations on important policy issues? So I would say the board has done Has achieved this you know if you look at where the board was You know previously there wasn't as much community outreach and participation from parents volunteers community members but through the topics that have come up and Decisions that have needed to be made it really has driven the community to now be have a strong presence I would say to continue that, it's continuing to communicate, be transparent with the information and the decisions that need to be made. I would say, sorry, also setting clear visions and goals that can be communicated so that the community can

026understand and be able to provide their feedback on anything there. fantastic thank you all right last question question three please summarize the strengths you would bring as a member of the board So I want to start with my commitment to Sonoma. I was born and raised here I went through all the public education the public schools I have four children all four will be involved in the public school system starting next the next school year And my wife and I chose to live and raise our children here I believe I'm able to see issues and topics from different perspectives. I connect what the board does to my day-to-day job. I see many similarities when it comes to that of defining goals and visions, collaborating with subject matter experts and stakeholders, using data-driven decisions on how

027to spend the budget, how and where. I would say I also bring an ability to ask the right questions and it might sound silly saying it right now but also an ability to ask the hard questions when they need to be asked. The culture that I bring is one of continuous improvement, commitment, accountability for actions, transparency, and support. Thank you so much. I appreciate you being here at this time. We'll just ask you to please step outside, but we're gonna give you a round of applause first. Thank you. Thank you. Just give me one second. I apologize. No worries. Before you start, we'll ask you to state your name. Yeah, if you could just please state your name. Hi, my name is Maggie. Hi, Maggie. So we are going to ask you three questions, and

028the timer won't start until I finish the question, and you can always ask me to repeat the question if you need to. Thank you. Question one, what do you see as the basic purpose of public schools, and what is the role of the governing board in the fulfillment of that purpose? I see the basic purpose of public schools is to create every opportunity for the child to further themselves within the community and create a strong community. Literally give that child as many opportunities as they're possible to. I'm sorry. What was the second part of this? No problem. And what is the role of the governing board in the fulfillment of that purpose? The role of the governing board, I believe, would be to listen to the students and the public about what is needed and

029to facilitate with as many resources and community members and whatever they need to, tools, funds, grants that they can look up to be able to facilitate that for every single school and student. I believe that using people that they know within the community being able to find technology using every resource and anything that they can to actually make sure that every student does is able to Learn music to be able to do art to learn mathematics engineering and everything else that they would want to learn second languages We have enough resources in this town to be able to provide that for every single student And I don't see why we haven't been able to do that so far OK, thank you. Question two, how does an effective school board ensure opportunities for parents and community

030members to express their diverse range of views to inform board deliberations on important policy issues? I'm sorry, say that one more time, please. No problem. How does an effective school board ensure opportunities for parents and community members to express their diverse range of views to inform board deliberations on important policy issues? I feel that there needs to be a better communication and transparency between the board and the community. I believe that individuals need to be addressed when they are speaking to the board members in the appropriate ways and in the appropriate settings. I believe the board should get more into the community and with the school and to actually be inside of schools, volunteer, go to programs, go to outside things, and not just to stand there and have their picture taken, but actually to

031be there, to be there with the kids, to help out and do all the stuff so they can find out what these kids actually need. Because at this moment, I feel that most of the public only sees unanswered emails. Okay, thank you. Question number three, please summarize the strengths you would bring as a member of the board. I'm a mom. I've been an accountant. I work in a school now. I am on the Sonoma Valley Soccer Board as the event coordinator and have been on it for five years. In 2017, there was no place for kids to go to when it was rainy that was affordable. So me and a mom made a place at Boys and Girls Club with no funds at all and just what we had. In 2020, Celeste Winters put a

032post on Facebook saying that COVID kids weren't getting their meals because they couldn't leave their house. And I emailed every single person in the district. And the next day, all the kids were getting COVID or getting meals delivered to their house. That same year, I had friends that couldn't buy masks because the only masks that were available were $30 plus. So I started making masks. right away and for a community that we were able to give free masks to foster families we can create an entire I mean hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of masks I basically I see a problem and I want to fix it and I will use any resource I can to get that done I that's my life kids are my life I coach I work in a school I gave

033up accounting so that I could be in a school because I really care about the kids here That's what I have is I try. I do. If I see trash, I pick it up. Whether I'm on the street in front of people or in nice clothes, I just do what needs to be done. And I listen and I try and learn. Well, thank you very much. Hi, just one second. We'll have you repeat that in the microphone, please. I'm Tarni Baldinger. Welcome. So we have three questions for you, and the timer will start after I finish reading the questions, but I just want you to know at any point in time if you need me to repeat the question, you can absolutely ask, and I'll be happy to do that. Kind of like a spelling

034bee. Yeah, kind of like a spelling bee. Okay, question number one. What do you see as the basic purpose of public schools, and what is the role of the governing board in the fulfillment of that purpose? Well, I see the purpose of public schools as being, first and foremost, to teach thinking skills. Are you listening to truth or are you not and how you look into it? And secondly, to raise students who want to participate in the community and contribute to the community. And supporting, I mean, as part of that, obviously, particularly in our community, supporting children from all sorts of backgrounds with all sorts of backgrounds in. educational backgrounds, environment at home, how that contributes to their learning situation and so forth. And I feel at this point critical that the community needs to,

035I mean, I think of the elephant image that the community really needs to encircle. are young people and their families. And the board, you know, the board makes all these decisions about where is the money going to be spent? Where is the money going to be saved, right? And those decisions deeply affect what happens in the classroom. And I have long experience in the classroom, pre-K through grade 12 at some point. So having that... Awareness of what it's like to actually be in there and be with the children all the time I think would be a great asset on the board Okay, thank you question 2 how does an effective school board ensure opportunities for parents and community members to express their diverse range of views to inform board deliberations on important policy issues well

036number one, I mean if I'm if I'm on the board I'll have office hours weekly and maybe at first more than weekly and I don't know about venue availability but I would have them in the evening early evening so parents who work and parents who have children can come because I think having it in the middle of the day you know who can come retirees or people who don't have to have two jobs in the family or you know it's it really limits so I would want to be as available as possible serve refreshments. It's always a challenge. I mean I found my first teaching experience was in the Delta in a largely Hispanic region and many migrant farm workers kids and it was hard to get the Hispanic parents to come partly because they

037are a little bit nervous about institutions and the other is they just respect the teachers and they don't think they should presume to tell the teachers what to do which is actually quite refreshing. So, you know, making it really friendly. And I would advocate for parent education, too, on nutrition, on screen time, and so forth, and really make it an inviting situation where we can share ideas about those things openly, where everybody's voice is, you know, pretty much equal. 10, 9, 8. No, you're good. Sorry, we had a little something on the screen. I apologize. OK, it's fine. Thank you for that. It's fine. OK, question number three. Please summarize the strengths you would bring as a member of our school board. Well, number one, maturity, obviously, and very deep experience. I've been the classroom

038teacher, as I said, from kindergarten, pre-kindergarten, actually preschool, running preschool, all the way through grade 12 as a regular classroom teacher. I've done night school. I've done... summer school and now for years I've been a substitute which I love I love we really need to honor and support our substitutes because I feel like I can make a really big difference because the kids don't have much history with me so if I talk really straight to a kid they can hear me because they know it's not coming out of a grudge or resentment or anything like that so that's a really strong thing and also the fact that I really love living in the neighborhood where I do, you know, one of these wonderful little streets in this pretty much 50-50 mix. And, you know, I

039get to go to quinceañeras and, you know, wedding receptions and so forth. And there's a very warm feeling. And I really want to support that, honor that, and honor that in the children, right? And I feel we really need to... At this time, we really need to protect our children. They're scared. They're scared. And when I talk to kids about it, I say, you know what you could do? You could smile. Just smile at people, and people will relax and feel better. Because they're all, and I say, we're all nervous, right? It's not just you. So I think the maturity and, you know, the long view, the long view is important. Okay, thank you so much, Tony. We're going to give you a round of applause. Thank you for being here. And then we'll just

040ask you to step outside while we finish our interview. Sure. Hi. Hello. Good evening. Steve, if you could just let us know who you are and introduce yourself, and then I'll explain the process. My name is Steve Williams. Fantastic. Thank you for being here, Steve. So what is going to happen is we're going to ask you three questions. You have a minute and 30 seconds to answer. However, if you do need me to repeat the question, feel free to ask and I can do so. All right. Question one. What do you see as the basic purpose of public schools? And what is the role of the governing board in the fulfillment of that purpose? Well, I mean, the only role of the schools is to educate our children, which are the future of our community,

041our nation, et cetera. And the board's role is to make sure that those schools are properly supported in pursuance of that mission. That includes properly managing the funds that the taxpayers so graciously give us in maintaining the schools, paying the salaries, running the programs that are part of the curriculum. The board also needs to make sure that That the kids themselves are actually learning something that it isn't just simply going through a curriculum that the kids when they come out when they graduate that they are learning that they are educated and they're going to become productive citizens in the community and and then you know lend themselves to a better society that we've created so The second part was the... Sure, and what is the role of the governing board in the fulfillment of our

042purpose? Yeah, so in addition, some of the other things that the board needs to do is obviously approve policy recommendations from the superintendent, from the administration. Sometimes those are self-generated. Sometimes those are interpretations of law. So it's a multifaceted role. But it also, you know, the board isn't just about internal to the school. The board also needs to remember. Oop, I'm out of time. That is okay. Thank you for honoring the time, though. Okay, question two. We're going to move on. How does an effective school board ensure opportunities for parents and community members to express their diverse range of views to inform board deliberations on important policy issues? I believe that the thing that the board needs to do more than anything else is get out in the community. It needs, each individual member needs

043to be in the schools that they represent that are in their district, as well as the schools where. where the kids from their district or their area are going to school. For instance, mine, flowery, so I should be on campus. The parents should know that I will be on campus at a regular basis, and I am because I'm walking my youngest daughter to school most days of the week. So I'm there to interact with them when they're there, when they're able to talk to me, because we all know that office hours, a lot of parents can't make office hours because they're working. So it's up to me to amend my office hours to be there for when they're available. I should also make sure I go to, my oldest daughter goes to Adele, soon to

044be Altamira. I should make sure that I go there and talk to the parents who are available there, who are from my area, and talk with them. I'm not a big social media guy. I don't really believe the social media is the most effective way to communicate. So I'm, you know, I'll put out there that more is like a meeting opportunity for people, but I'm not going to have conversations on social media because as we all know, it goes south real fast if you allow it to. Okay. Thank you. Okay, question three. Please summarize the strengths you would bring as a member of the school board. I served in the Navy for 28 years, so I have a lot of experience running large organizations and coordinating activities of many people who have very dissimilar functions

045and making sure that the whole thing works together. My last tour of duty, I was executive officer of Naval Station Bahrain in the middle of the Persian Gulf. 3,000 family members and service members were all living on this base. You had to provide, you know, gallery, you know, food services, shopping, as well as support for the troops, ships, et cetera, who were through there. So I know how to organize people. I know how to talk to them, get out to them and say, what do you need? Because a lot of times people won't come to you with their needs. You have to go to them and ask them what they need. We also had to go at that same time we had to go through a similar process that we're doing now where we had

046to consolidate people into into you know into buildings and you know and part of renovating buildings. So I know that whole I know how painful that planning process can take even in the federal level. So my strengths are are you know going out, talking to people, understanding their needs, and bringing those back, and then finding solutions that is going to make sure that everybody feels like they won something, even though they probably only got half of what they wanted. Thank you, Steve. You're welcome. Hi, Melanie. Could you please state your name for us? Hi. My name is Melanie Blake. Okay, thank you for being here. So we have three questions. I'll explain the process. We're going to ask you question one, question two, question three. You'll have a minute and 30 seconds to answer, but

047if at any point in time you need me to repeat the question, just ask and I can do so. So just to clarify you're going to do all three questions. Sorry, that was a bit confusing I'm gonna start with question one and then you'll have an opportunity to answer and then we'll move on after the minute and 30 Seconds is up or the time that you need it could be less understood. Okay question one What do you see as the basic purpose of public schools? And what is the role of the governing board and the fulfillment of that purpose? The purpose of public schools is to provide the absolute best well-rounded start for children in our country. We were founded on the principle that a well-educated electorate stands for a strong democracy. And I believe

048that that is true still today. So in our little valley, I think that the most important role public school is to ensure that every child that walks through the door is seen, valued, and educated so that they can take advantage of the challenges and opportunities that await them when they move on from us after graduation. As far as the board, The board has a couple of main purposes as far as I can see. One of them is to represent the constituency and the other one is to be sure that we're representing all of the children, the staff. the families and the communities that walk through our doors every day. It's not my job to manage. It's my job on the school board to understand policy, leadership, and to be able to set a course so

049that staff can fulfill that vision through their management and that together we work in concert with our constituents and the staff and the people we serve in the community. Thank you. Okay, question two. How does an effective school board ensure opportunities for parents and community members to express their diverse range of views to inform board deliberations on important policy issues? I think that if we all knew the answer to that question, we would be like the best school board anywhere. But I think that the goal of the school board is to ensure that we provide a variety of opportunities for people to give input. Some people are able to go to an ELAC. Some people are able to attend a local function in their little school. Some people attend school board meetings. We have to

050be sure that we're communicating to people on every level that we can, from the teacher to the parent at a parent conference. all the way up to the school board having their special sessions, making sure that the word gets out. There's that old saying about tell people and tell people and then tell people again, because we have to be sure that we're putting out the message in a way that meets the broadest community base that we can. We used to talk about a 7-11 rule. I need to make things simple enough that if I'm talking to somebody in my 7-11, I can explain it to them in about 30 seconds about the basic nature of what it is we're trying to do. So it can be complicated and it can be full of all kinds

051of education ease and jargon. And part of the role of the school board is to ensure that we're reaching all of our constituents with language that can be heard and understood and that gives people a chance to then talk back. I think that a big part of communicating is making sure. that they can communicate back. Ms. Blake, thank you. I was the timekeeper and I failed. Well, thanks for the extra few seconds. Okay, question number three. Please summarize the strengths you would bring as a member of the school board. Oh, goodness. Okay. I've lived in the community for over 40 years. My daughter went to Flowery School. and it was a time before we were doing dual immersion, and it was a time of great opportunity for children. There was a lot of... opportunities in

052a small school. She then went to Altamira, the high school, and she today has a doctorate and is working as a psychologist. So we know that the opportunities are here for our children and our community and our public schools. I've taught in this community for many years, K through 12. I've been an administrator in this district. I know the staff. I also know my neighbors. I get out and walk a lot, and so I've had a lot of opportunities to speak with people in my community. Yo hablo espanol solamente un poquito, pero I know how to listen, and I know how to use the resources that are provided to us to be sure that every single person has a voice in our community. I think besides that, I bring the fact that I can hit

053the ground running. I served on the school board for four years. I was the board president. I've done the master's in governance training. I know how to read a budget. I understand the difficult challenges that are facing our district today. Thank you, Ms. Blake. Okay. Okay, thank you, Ms. Blake. All right, thank you. All right, at this time, I think we'll bring everybody back in, please. Thank you for your help, Ms. Williams. I had to figure that out. It was a little confusing. But I know where I am. Thank you. Okay. Thank you to all the applicants for your answers. We can give everybody a round of applause since you're all back in the room together. Thank you. Okay, at this time, I would like to turn it over to my fellow board members to

054start our discussion regarding the attributes we would like to see in an appointed board member and which applicant best fits these qualifications. Following board discussion, I will entertain a motion to make the appointment. It will take an affirmative vote of at least three board members to make the provisional appointment. So at this time, I'm going to turn it over to my fellow trustees for discussion. And, Anne, if you want to say something, if you could raise your hand. I don't see the bottom of your screen. Trustee Bell? Oh, sorry. I thought you were making eye contact like you wanted to speak first. Look, I'll go first if that's the case. So, first of all, thanks, everybody, for their time and effort put into this. I was in your position six months ago, whenever that was.

055So, a lot stiffer competition today, which is obviously... good thing for our district that there's six people willing to step up for the position so I certainly appreciate the time and effort. and we're going to pick one, and for the five that we don't pick, I thank you and would look forward to getting to know you guys better and getting ideas and things like that. If you've got to the point of submitting an application for the Board of Trustees, I would definitely like to hear from you and get to know you and see if we can come together on things from an opinion standpoint. So, you know, from my perspective, I think that, you know, there's a couple of people are standing out. I, you know, having no institutional experience in education and coming into

056the job, I see that as a benefit, to be honest, just to be candid, you know, and I'm not taking away from the people with a long history in the district. But, you know, I see that the district's got a lot of structural problems. And so... There has to be some outside perspective to try to right those problems. So I'm leaning towards Gerardo Guzman. He'd be my candidate today just based on everybody and now meeting everybody and things like that. He's got the resume in terms of local Latino success story. You know, all that sort of stuff. He's follicly challenged, just like myself, so we've got something in common. And... Sorry, that was... But I just... I kind of... You know, he's standing out to me as I'm sitting here today, so that's... You know,

057it's a... He's checking a lot of the boxes. And so... Yeah, I don't know I've never done this before so I don't know I appreciate we appreciate yeah Thank you for getting us started in conversation Maybe that our longest tenured trustee if she wants to weigh in on anything trustee Ching would you like to say anything? You know, this is a this is a hard. Can you hold your mic and I'm so sorry This is a hard decision to make because there are lots of everyone has a lot of strong qualities which are different. And I think the board has to figure out like what qualities excuse me. We want to prioritize. Do we value, you know, experience and. and trying to smooth the transition on this board, because we've had so much turnover, so

058much turbulence. Do we want someone like Trustee Bell said, which has less institutional knowledge and memory, but someone that brings a fresh perspective, somebody that comes outside of the sector, like Steve Williams, decades of experience working for the Navy, for example. I mean, he was also an impressive candidate. So anyway, I'm kind of struggling with it. And so I think we have to just decide what do we think will serve this board in the long run for representing all students. And I also see the benefit of, you know, we need more diversity on our board. And we are, at least at this moment, we are choosing to appoint someone over an election because typically, you know, we would let the constituents decide who actually represents their voice. So I'm just trying to put myself in

059their shoes because I want to choose somebody that best represents them. So I know that doesn't help at the moment because I don't have a candidate to necessarily put forward, but I think... I've kind of described some of the quality and challenges that we have to sort of balance. Thank you, Trustee Ching. Trustee Lehman? i'm just thoroughly excited that we have this many people engaged that want to join the board um just as a point of reference i ran last year and no one decided to run it from my district so um i think we are at a moment where i think the olive branch is fully extended to everyone that just rose your hand and came here today if you didn't feel that way before please leave knowing that like as trustee bell said

060like we want more engagement we will be better as a district with more engagement the qualities that i wrote down that were important to me as we go through deliberation was a real connection to their district and that could be a historical connection it could be a socioeconomic connection it could be a residence of you know either duration or having come through the district from that just that connection or come through that the district from that region I'm looking for a connection to the district I think that checks the box for me on can that person represent that district and speak to the people from that community When we look at the, we've done, as we've done school consolidation, we've looked at demographics quite heavily. I think we would be well, it would be advantageous

061for us to consider someone who is bilingual from the district. I only see one application of someone who actually. who had written about their language background. So I think that's a box that I'm looking to ensure we have, I would put as an advantage. And then I think two other things. I think a success story, whether it's a success story on their education background a success story that was firsthand or as a teacher i'm looking for some sort of success story that's connected to education it's not i think that helps when you have the first-hand experience whether it's as a student or a teacher or a mentor or giving back and again we have applications i actually think that's the strength of a lot of our candidates so for me i don't think there's a

062clear there's a a clear person there uh miss baldinger sitting right in front of me her application was um i think there's a lot of i think of impressive people in this group that have a connect connection to education and then uh one other thing i was looking for and and i don't know um if this is if any other anyone else considered this but it was some sort of endorsement of someone i mean i know the names only came out recently but i did you heard publicly during public comment i know one of the trustees that were mentioned former trustee from this district who who has endorsed a candidate sitting here i know of another elected official who reached out to me personally Or not personally but through the you know through my district

063email address to also endorse a candidate so for me you know that that actually I think weighs into my decision as well people that are elected from this community or have been Previous trustees from the community that are endorsing someone from the community That is my that is weighing into my decision Kind of going through all that again the the person actually that that checked a lot of those boxes was Mr. Guzman for me in terms of has the success story and background having come through the district bilingual has young children attending the district now which a number of candidates had has an education success story both as a student and giving back at the high school volunteering his time today and then the endorsement record of other elected officials from that region because of

064those factors i would rank him at the top of my list okay thank you trustee layman so when i Heard that we had six applicants I was shocked and excited all at the same time because as trustee layman mentioned when I ran for area one I ran unopposed as well. So I think that that's a testament to The people in the room really wanted to wanting to be a part of this board To be a part of change and the progress forward for the students in this district. So I admire you all To be completely honest. I I feel like I've gotten to know you all and I hope as Trustee Bell said that we can stay connected I feel that you all bring such value and experience that I can see being so beneficial

065in connecting with this board if you're not a member of the school board that doesn't mean that you can't support and help with your ideas and all the values that you've brought forward in these applications would be you know the children would be blessed to know you as we know you and So I just want to thank you all because you all seem like very incredible people and you all have great attributes that I think would make an incredible school board trustee. For me personally, the one thing that was really important to me as being a current parent in this district is that we have additional parent representation. I think it's really important to have someone who has students in the district to really have a great understanding of what our students are experiencing, what

066our teachers are experiencing, that connection. is pretty deep when you have students in the district, right? You have that connection on a different level. And I think that that's really important. So for me, that was at the top of my list. And again, as Trustee Lehman mentioned, and I don't want to reiterate too much for the sake of time and moving forward with this decision, but... you know i definitely take into consideration those of you who came with high recommendations from people within our community especially former teachers you know we did have council members we had many people reaching out and so i just want you to all know that many of you came highly recommended by individuals in our community and that speaks volumes at this point i definitely have a candidate who i

067feel stands out at the top of my list and that would also be Gerardo Guzman. I was very impressed with your application. I was impressed with your answers. And I just think at this point, you would not only make this board proud, but I feel like the community would be really honored to have you. And I think Area 2 would be pleased to have you represent them. So at this point in time, that would be my recommendation. I don't know. Trustee Ching, would you like to? Make a recommendation or or how for the discussion questions? Yeah, I have a question for my fellow trustees would would any would anyone on the board entertain? Taking additional public comment from people since now they've had a chance to see Candidates it'd have to be a majority of

068the board. What's that? Oh Let me ask trustee Bell. How would you feel about that trustee Lehman? I don't think that would be allowed not for candidates and I'm talking about the community if they wanted to and we can't and we can't hear you I'm saying public comment from from the community so what was that Oh trustee Bella saying no I've already made a statement that we were not going to do that so I need direction from my fellow trustees if that's what Okay, well I'll make it easier how about if I make a motion and then if it dies it dies Okay, and make a motion. I would I would make a motion to Make an exception to receive public comment for a maximum of 60 seconds for people in the audience and also

069online I'll second that motion. I'll in fate a roll call vote Trustee Bell? No. Trustee Ching? Yes. President Landry? Yes. Trustee Lehman? Yes. Okay, so we don't need to do cards. If you are interested in speaking, if you could just make a line behind the podium and give the person speaking the respect of a little bit of space. And then as with public comment. in any other situation we just ask that you state your name and when your 60 seconds is up just allow for the person behind you to come speak Michelle do you have the timer and please again state your name before speaking my name is Lee Cavaliere I'm in district 2 a couple of things no offense Mr. Guzman but you are asked what is the purpose of education and your answer

070was kids No, you know what? So I'm actually going to interrupt you for a moment, please, ma'am. So here's what I'm going to make a rule, and I have the authority to do that. You are more than welcome to speak to the board, but if you are going to speak to members of our community, then I'm going to ask you to stop speaking. Okay, that's fine. Then I'll answer you guys. So, Mr. Lehman, you said you like to see people who are involved in the community. It's funny because I went to one of your office hours and I asked you what you do for your community. you didn't have anything other than the mommy group that your mother or your your wife has so the thing okay so now you're making personal attacks against trustees

071and i'm going to ask you to please stop okay so that's disrespectful you're speaking about a person who can't be here to defend themselves we do not speak i am setting a tone you just spoke about spoke about a mommy group that his wife is so so at this point in time i think your time is up okay i think you guys already made up your mind before anybody else spoke tonight and you should be listening to the people of district thank you for your time miss cavalier next speaker please um hi david eicher and i really appreciate you allowing me to come back up and speak again i think that's great um i think guzman is a great candidate he um i probably would have gone with um Tony Baldinger but I would have

072really liked to have known more and got to know more of the candidates because I saw at least three of them that were really top and so anyway I just wanted to give you that information and again I really appreciate you allowing me to come back up here and express my opinion thank you for your comment I'm Josette Broseiker and just like my husband I do appreciate you letting us come back and speak and in hearing everyone speak Mr. Guzman, Ms. Baldinger, I probably get to say the name wrong, Balinger and Ms. Blake struck me as really coming from our community and understanding our community. I will put in one word for experience maybe because I'm 73 years old but experience is something that we do need. Thank you for your comments. Is there additional

073public comment in the room? Dennis Houseman, co-VMTA, co-president, and community member. First, I just want to say thank you to all of the candidates. I really appreciate you all putting your names in the hat and contributing to our school district. I also want to say again, thanks to the board for opening this up. Again, hearing the public speak and getting input from the public is really important, and I really appreciate you doing that. Thank you. Whoever the candidate is, VMTA is looking forward to working with you, and good luck. Thank you for your comments. Okay, at this time we'll go to public comment online Michelle I apologize, but my computer's not working Do we have if you are online and you'd like to make a respectful public comment to the board in regards to this

074item? Okay, Edie Hatcher you have the mic Good evening everyone. I just wanted to say that I think that all of the candidates had some really valuable feedback what they could do for our community and our schools. And I just want to give a special shout out to Ryan Diekmann. I think he would be a great choice for the board. He has a lot of diversity, a lot of authenticity. But whoever it is, I wish him the best. Thank you for your comment. OK, at this time, I'd like to bring it back to the board. And again, I just want to remind my fellow trustees that it will take an affirmative vote of at least three board members to make the provisional appointment. I'll state at this point that I will stand by my comment

075for Mr. Guzman being my top candidate. That is by no means do I not believe there's not a great candidate here. I had mentioned Ms. Baldinger in my comments, and I would entertain her as potentially a number two candidate, 1A, 1B, however you want to call it. So that's where I am today. This is not a – there's not a – clear sight I think I clearly laid out what I thought my four characteristics and criteria were that I was that I was looking for some of those characteristics I came to this meeting already knowing and one I did not which was added through feedback and comments by by trustees so I'll stand by what what the feedback I've already given but open to listen to my trustees about what if you have any other

076feedback you'd like to to share thank you for your comments Trustee Bell or Trustee Ching, would you like to add to this? Or is anyone interested in making a motion? I'd like to propose a motion to nominate Gerardo Guzman as the candidate to replace to District 2, the vacancy. Is that worded correctly? I was just going to ask, actually, William, are you on the line? And if so, could you please help us? I move that the trustee appoints the name of the person to fill the current board vacancy. I move to appoint Gerardo Guzman to the vacant trustee 2 position. Thank you. Is there a second? I'll second that motion. Okay. At this point, we'll take a roll call vote. I can't see Ann's. Trustee Ching? Aye. Trustee Bell? Aye. President Landry? Aye. Trustee Lehman?

077Aye. Okay. Congratulations, Mr. Guzman. And again, I would just like to thank all of our candidates for being here tonight. We really appreciate you very much, and we hope that we continue to see you being involved in this district and at these meetings and with our kiddos. Okay, so at this time, we're going to take a moment, and we will reconvene in about five minutes, so just before 8 p.m. Brian, thank you. of trustees engaged with. We have site council. District advisory council. District advisory council. Oh, okay, Zip-a-Bot, Zip-a-Bot, yeah. Finding ways, using them as like advisory bodies as well as closest to the country. We basically follow the process that our attorneys laid out and we've done the same process the last time when we appointed Trustee Bough. So we can just follow the

078same process. So let's talk about in terms of giving public information. Is it actually real estate? Is it a majority of the... I don't know if the applications are considered attorney claimant privileged or not, so I can point that out later. But in any case, I'm sure there's probably some sort of public statement or something. especially if they didn't allow us to speak later on. If you get another vacancy, it has to be another election. I remember the city council, that was the third vacancy. You can't have three appointed. Yeah, I know, right? I just feel like I want to get to know you more. I want you to not go. I want you to be in the classroom still. We need you. And just check out. I just want to see that because somebody

079said, Thank you so much for coming in. Good night. The reason you had six is because flower. Because if you know, if we're looking to save money and one of the students says, cut flowery, that gets people up out of their chair. So that's why you have six. in order to do a special election, you have to go to the county office and file a discus report. And that takes a lot of work. Thank you. If we could get back to business, that would be great. I believe Ann is on. And Mr. Guzman is going to take his oath of office with Dr. Chen. Recording stopped. Recording in progress. Okay. So, Mr. Guzman, you are going to read and take your oath. Thank you. I, Gerardo Guzman, do solemnly swear that I will support and

080defend the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of California against all enemies, foreign and domestic, that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of California. that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion, and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties upon which I am about to enter. All right. With that, congratulations. Thank you. I invite you to the seat next to Mr. Bell. Okay. So let's see. I believe. Yes, yes, okay. Thank you. So at this point our that concludes our special board meeting we are going to adjourn at 8 0 7 p.m. We are not going to take a short recess We are going to go right into

081the reconvening of the study session and we will pick up where we left off with Pardon me with eight Oh, we did not do that. That is right. Because we're doing two sessions, it's awkward. We actually did one session. Harold, go ahead. Yeah. So it's up to the board this study session falls within the category of a special meeting and for a special meeting you do not have to allow comments off of the agenda you are allowed to if you want to but you're not required to. Okay well I think at this point for the sake of time and since we already adjourned I would move to suggest to our my fellow trustees to not take public comment for items not on the agenda for the meeting we just adjourned and proceed forward with conversations

082on the study session which would be 8.2 school consolidation discussion how do you all feel about that I agree okay and I'm good I'm good with that okay fantastic oh Dennis okay yes okay I didn't I did not see that trustee Ching do you feel any different knowing who Okay, so we were in the middle of our discussion in regard to school consolidation and I have a way that I would like to I would actually like to start the conversation if my fellow trustees are okay with that because I have two questions that I want clarity on and but first I'm going to make a comment about just a statement that was made and then I have two questions and for me these the answers to these questions will definitely help guide me and my

083decision making process and I'm just wondering if my trustees may also have the same questions so Dr. Chin mentioned that we had and so did Harold that we had the school consolidation committee bring forth we have an entire binder actually a ton of information they did a lot of work and I will say you know the board deviated a little bit from that right we kind of went back and forth but ultimately we you know we landed on some decisions that were provided by the committee and we were moving forward with the process and we specifically spoke about the middle school right and so one of the things that i struggle with is that you know in my research and i did a little further research i i really wanted to see Just wanted background

084on our dual immersion program. You know I was a student in the district in middle school when in high school when it started and so I don't have a recollect recollection of the when and the why and the how and so that was very informative and one of the things I found that That was very interesting in my research is much of many of the programs throughout the state of California specifically the most rich programs and the most successful programs seem to be those that are K through eight. Now, I just want to know, I know that we have it in our, you know, we have guidance from our school consolidation committee that that in fact is not necessarily something that they found that would be beneficial in this community. I just want to know.

085if that is something we can take off the table because if it's not and maybe not now but if it were going to be something in the future it's something we need to consider because this is a big decision so if that is something that we are not considering i would just like to have a conversation about it because that definitely determines the location of the program if it is the will of the board to move the dual immersion program so i would love to have a conversation about that specifically Are we in agreement that, is there consensus that the program will stay K through five and then will continue in the middle school as it is, except obviously it will be at Altamira for six, seven, eight? And I'm okay with the answer. I

086just would love to know what my fellow trustees, how they feel about that and what we think might happen. Yeah, I just don't think I'm qualified to make a recommendation, right? This is something that the experts along the wall there should, you know, be coming back. I mean, and so, look, if I had a do-over and I was a dictator on this school consolidation, then I would take all the elementaries K through 6, I'd make dual immersion K through 8, and I would leave the middle school. at adele and not spend the millions on the seismic at altamira right and that's a little complicated it's clear in my head but that ship has sailed right we've done the consolidation of at altamira so now adele couldn't didn't have enough capacity to change the the you

087know the direction on that decision making so obviously now we're left with elementary school consolidation And so I'm still back to highest student body, lowest capacity, you know, campus in, you know, one of the lowest quality campuses. And then, you know, where does it go? And I don't have, I mean, I would like to have more input from district staff or other board members to say where Flowery should go. if that's the decision. If someone else has got an idea saying, look, we should just close Presswood or we should just close Sasserini, then let's put it on the table. If not, then let's narrow it down to two to three options and start actually discussing specific options and give us an opinion. And I'll tell you my opinion and lead with it. Because the sooner

088we all kind of put our cards on the table, then the sooner we can really start discussing. you know, get down to 10 tax. Okay, thank you for that. So maybe it would be a better question for Dr. Chin to explain. And then also the second question I had, and I'll just put it out there, and then I think it's a question for you also, just for clarity, is the question that seems to have arisen tonight is that, or maybe we just need clarity, is that can a school like Alvarado also be... a community school like Alvarado also has a program like the dual immersion program. So those are two questions. So I don't know that I have and it's probably not something you want to hear that I don't have a clear answer. I'll

089just tell you my perspective. So can we have a K-8 dual immersion program? Yes. Have I seen it be done effectively? Yes. Is it the ideal situation? I don't know that there is an ideal situation what I could say is we have some work to do with our secondary dual immersion program right now it's two periods a day for our students what we what we do have is some challenges especially at the secondary because we don't have a lot of bilingual staff out when we have turnover of teachers it's really difficult for us to get single subject credentialed folks to come in and teach the DI program. So I mean, could it be done K-8? Yes. That's a possibility but I think as a district we are kind of far from implementing an effective k8

090program I think what we need to do is what this board has asked in the past is to relook at our di program and really Get tighter with what that looks like. I Spoken to the principal. I know the principal has spoken to her staff about This being an optimal time for us to go back and look at is everything the way it was planned out is still being done effectively or not and and this is probably the time for us to do kind of tweaking to that program so i would say yes it's possible it's probably not the ideal or the priority right now for us to implement a k do a di program in terms of um alvarano taking on the the di program so it's just something for you to consider i

091would say if you're looking at co-locating a school with another school that already has programs in that school it's more difficult for not just the staff but also the administration to carry two programs and so in terms of alrana we know that it's a community school they just they have a grant they're getting another grant possibly and here in the new i don't know oh jillian you're in the room did they get the second grant or are we still waiting how much is the first grant the current grant Yeah, you want to go so while she while she goes up there, I think that's that's one thing is out The staff there is carrying the work of the community school, and then now they would have to carry the work of the dual immersion. It's

092the same thing with Presswood. Presswood right now has all of our, the majority of our ESN classes, obviously, with the exception of the secondary. So then that principal and that staff is having to sit in all the IEP meetings, and then on top of that would have to have the dual immersion. Is it impossible? No, but it's more challenging. The grant that we applied for and received about two years ago was a planning grant for community schools for the district and so it was 200,000 over two years and it was meant to support our our application for the implementation grant which we did submit and we're waiting to hear back we should hear back in May or June. So the one we're applying for is then how much is it not a hundred a year?

093No, it's more we applied for three of our schools And so we are waiting so we applied for Creekside Altamira and Alvarado And so we're waiting to hear and it's a five-year grant I would have to look at specifics because it changes the amount of funding changes based on Whether it's a secondary school how many student like the student population out per year roughly 100 grand 500 grand a million 20 million let me go ahead and double check it because I have it and then get you more specific this is separate yeah it would be additional do we know what the title one funding for the school is I don't have access to that but I would say that this funding would come with implementing the community schools model from the state Trustee Ching or

094Trustee Guzman, do you have anything to add? I don't mean to put anybody on the spot. I just don't want to exclude anyone from the conversation either. I had a follow-up question. I didn't hear what Rena said. If you could repeat that into the mic. Rena said Title I funding for El Verano is $150,000 a year. That's Title I funding. Title I funding. Correct. I just wanted to respond also to the K-8 question. So what I understand and what I recall from the surveys that were done with parents with respect to a dual immersion K-8 model was there really wasn't a lot of community support for it. And I think part of it... was because of the trade-offs, at least the way that I understood what the trade-offs were. You know, the trade-offs of students

095really wanting to be in a bigger school and then trading off having like, you know, being in 6, 7, 8 and not having subject matter teachers. was and not necessarily having the robust electives being offered. So I think that's why the K-8, in my recollection, and I don't have the booklet or the the notebook in front of me, that was my recollection of why that was kind of taken off the table, because there really wasn't a lot of parental support for it and also student support. And the other thing I wanted just to add to that is it doesn't seem like It seems like we're talking, we're kind of conflating discussion around programmatic issues, which I feel like is that really fall under the domain of the board? We're doing consolidation. for a couple of

096reasons. One is to sort of better concentrate and use our resources more efficiently to deliver a high quality instruction. Can you not hear that part? Sorry. But we heard that. Just keep going. Yeah. Let me see if I... Yeah. So I'll just repeat that the whole driver behind doing consolidation is, you know, our... we've lost about 40% of our population from peak enrollment and we're trying to use our resources and concentrate them so we can deliver a higher quality product to our students. And so, I feel like that's a separate discussion than talking about, well, how do we improve the program and dual immersion? I mean, that's kind of like a whole separate issue. I don't feel like they're the same issue. And just to clarify, I wasn't interested in necessarily improving it. I just

097was curious if the board or staff. sees in the future that that is something, if there's going to be growth to that level, right? And so if it is, it's definitely something we need to consider because we need to consider a campus for the purpose of not having to move students yet again that could house that number of students. But if that's not... the interests of the board or if staff is saying this is not something that we see happening in the near future that's information for for me personally i feel like to make a better decision i'm not necessarily looking at evaluating the program as it stands i just needed to know if that if that was something that we were interested in and if not then that for me that removes an option

098off the table which is helpful I would say I understand why you went that direction, where I'm coming from. And this is a reminder for everybody. Our occupancy rate across our four elementary schools is 62%. So we have a lot of space at all of our schools. The goal here is to be more efficient with our spending. One way to do that is we can easily accommodate the current school population from these four campuses to three. And actually, if I look at the math, if you just take our three largest campuses by capacity, it's El Verano, Prestwood, and Sasserini. If you were to keep those remained open, it gives you the most future capacity. Those three schools total 1559 in capacity. So 1559, we currently have 1254 across all four schools. So we still have

099300. Again, I understand the way that the. perkins eastman like there may be some differences and we've got different programs on campus and like we may not have exactly 350 seats left but it does give us the most say extra capacity to give staff direction that hey like if we do think it makes sense to extend it k to six even or k to eight like let's set them up in a scenario where they're they're we're not we're not spilling out of every classroom like i i want to give give that like let's not pack every every occupancy rate to 199.9 percent and i don't think we're going to end up doing that if we were to select the three largest campuses now conversely if we let's just say we closed our largest campus presswood

100and said we're not putting any students there i mean we'd effectively been to be taking that extra capacity of 350 and cutting it in half and really putting ourselves in a constrained space so again going back to the ag's to his guidelines. I know I messed up and said statutory requirements. They are not requirements. That was, I misspoke, but they are guidelines. Capacity of a school to accommodate excess pupils is one of the factors. And that fits into my reasoning to get to, let's keep our three largest schools. Our three largest schools also happen to be the schools in the best. you know, condition. So like, that's actually a really a fortunate thing. We should look at that as we are fortunate that our three largest schools are, we've all believe in the best condition

101based on the information that we have. Okay. I would work under that pretense that, Hey, like those are the three schools we're going to consider how we organize our students into those three schools. I'm open to whatever makes the most sense from staff and maybe that's a decision we make we say hey We're going to keep these three campuses open. They make the most sense for us based on size I know they talk about Geography and transportation needs as long as we can meet those needs for our students I understand there's a disproportionate number of students on the west side I love the idea that we kept the middle school open on the west side and we're balancing I think feedback from our community on where our schools are located. For me, it's just like

102I could coalesce around the keeping of those three campuses open and then instructing our, maybe our staff to say, how would you best organize our students knowing that we have these programs, whether they're ESN, whether they're dual immersion, how would we fit those into those three campuses? I'm going to say something quickly then I'm going to let our newest trustee opine on this because of all his deep experience. So we talk a lot about displacement of students and I think that that's absolutely something that we should consider but we're also making a decision not just for the next few years we're making a decision for a long time in the future and it's time for us to right-size the district so while we need to consider student displacement kids are resilient and sometimes parents are

103not the most. And so we just need to keep that in mind in making this decision because it's for the benefit of the district for the long term. And I think that we should consider it, but we should give it appropriate weighting because it's a 20-plus year decision is what we're doing. Absolutely. This is for... 20, 30, 50 years. It's great to hear that there's been so much investment in these facilities in the recent past. Obviously, Altamira is coming up as well with its seismic renovations. And the beauty of these facilities is that they can adapt, that they can change over time. I mean, look at the high school campus, which opened in the late 1800s with one single building and how it's been able to grow organically, a little chaotically at times, but it

104has morphed to adapt to the needs of the time. And those needs have changed in the 100. 30 plus years of that campus. And those needs have changed since then at all the other campuses. I was at Altamira at that point when it was so overcrowded that Adele needed to open. And to Trustee Bell's point, the kids were absolutely resilient at that time. It was a little weird to see your friends kind of just get. sent across town, but we saw each other again in a couple years, and we made new friends in the meantime. But from what I've heard regarding the middle school consolidation is that the kids are excited. They are excited that they're all coming together from the various elementary school campuses as one, and they can make those new relationships together.

105I have a lot of homework tonight. I'll be reading up. If I may request the council's binder over there from the consolidation committee. That's my first point of reference is to go back to all the input that has been provided in this period. We can't forget that there has been a ton of effort put into this already. And yeah, let's continue to rely on those folks that know the campuses intimately, that know those neighborhoods intimately, and have the best understanding of which is this most difficult decision of the four campuses. Thank you. Thank you. Trustee Ching, oh, your hand's up. I see it. Will you hold your mic? I'm holding it. Can you hear me? Yes, we can hear you. Thank you. So I had a question for staff, and I don't expect them to

106be able to answer this tonight, but I would like to follow up with them about understanding. We talk about the ESN program at Presswood, and I just want to get a sense of why it would be so prohibitively costly to move it somewhere else. And if I could get sort of an idea of the costs that were incurred to move those programs from Dunbar to Presswood. Okay, I have a suggestion, Trustee Ching, and I'm just wondering, with your question, I think comes like a next step, and so I think that's valuable information, but maybe as a board we can agree on that next step, and then that can be part of what we, look for as information to make that final decision. I mean, because I don't think that there's consensus, but I really like

107Trustee Lehman's suggestion, and I feel like it's a step in a direction so that we can then give direction to staff that is a little bit more clear. So for instance, could we potentially come to an agreement on a school to a campus? to close and could we then give staff direction to provide us with what would be the best option based on all of the guidelines put forth by the Attorney General and then maybe if there's other guidelines or suggestions that we as trustees have to look at we can add those as well and then for instance like questions specific to what you're asking would be really helpful Like the reason behind that question really is a two-part question, which is trying to understand you know Why it's so prohibitive Not just in terms

108of financial costs, but emotional costs to move this this particular program but if you close if you if you follow trustee layman's sort of logic and thought about keeping the three campuses with the largest capacity, with the most recent investments in them. The question is then, You have to have a campus that you can relocate flowery to so that would be one scenario and then figuring out where you relocate Flowery really depends on some of these other questions around like alright if it was at Presswood Can you displace everyone at Presswood and where and where they would go? Right because you can't it seemed I I the conclusion I came away with tonight is you really can't in a reasonable way, co-locate the dual immersion program on Presswood, Alvarano, or Sasserini. That's basically, so that,

109so, I mean, we can come up with, you know, a couple other scenarios that we can look at. So then, if that's the case, what's the next scenario? Right. I would say I agree with you. Oops, sorry. I agree with you, Trustee Ching. That wasn't something that I spoke on before, but I actually feel like every time we talk about co-locating, I just feel like it feels really messy, and I just don't think that it's the best option. We want to do this with respect to our families and our students, but also our staff, and it just sounds like... What we're hearing from district staff is that this is not the best option and in my mind just my gut feeling and I don't know how better to articulate it than it just feels very

110messy and I don't want to start off on that foot and I and for me personally finding value in the program that to me just doesn't elevate it. It kind of I don't I don't know I'm just really not interested in furthering that discussion Personally for consolidation and that would be specifically to co-locating two programs for instance putting the dual immersion program at an For instance at Alvarado with those students, right? I am interested in keeping the dual immersion program, moving the dual immersion program, but I'm not interested in co-locating the program. So the question is, does anybody have an option that doesn't involve moving flowery? The dual immersion program, sorry, moving the dual immersion program. Yeah, no, does anybody have an option that doesn't involve that? like closing the campus and moving the program

111to a different location. Does someone think that closing Presswood on its own is the solution to the school consolidation, right? Does anybody think that closing Sasserini is the solution? Does anybody think that closing Alvarado is the solution to the, because if none of those are on the table, great, then we take them off. We don't even have to think about them again. I would prefer to eliminate. options that are not realistic and focus on ones that are realistic. And so what I'm hearing is there's, and what I believe, there's three realistic options, is to close the flowery program and move the dual immersion program to either Alvarado, either Sasserini or Presswood. If we can narrow it down to that tonight, we've made a significant achievement. And then we can then focus on the three options

112and really start comparing apples to apples. Yeah, I would say that's where I am. Listen, we don't want to close any schools, but we are there. Like, I am there today with where the guidelines are, that that is the facility, remember, not program, facility that is, again, it's the smallest facility we have. It is the facility that would need the most future upgrades to get, or has had the least amount of upgrades at it. And I think the proximity of where all of our schools are in Sonoma Valley, like this isn't Santa Rosa, right? Like we're not talking about busing kids an hour away to go to school. We have the ability, we have transportation already in place. I think half of the children that attend Flowery today actually come from outside of like that

113region. So it's like we're putting together all the pieces in my mind. I don't, the answer is I don't. I would like to move forward with what I had recommended. Okay. So your answer to my question is no. Oh, sorry. Trustee Landry, do you have an option that does not include what? No, I do not. Okay. And Trustee Ching, what's your thoughts on that? Do you have an option outside of what we just talked about? Yeah. I mean, I've also considered this. this point again that I've made, which is we have highly segregated schools right now. And so I've considered also closing the two most highly segregated schools in terms of socioeconomics are El Verano and Sasserini. And... How do we recombine our schools so that we have better socioeconomic balance? I mean, if we

114actually are going to close flowery and then displace an entire school population to wherever it goes, you know, one of three campuses that are being proposed, that's pretty disruptive. And I'm just going to throw this out to be the devil's advocate here. Would we ever consider or would any of you consider if we're going to do that much disruption to our schools, why not create two other campuses that basically recombine all of our students where we have a K-2 campus and a 3-5 campus? And I know that the consolidation committee didn't like that idea and it was not moved forward. But at this point, because there's going to be so much disruption, it just seems to me that we will get better outcomes by combining these great clusters. And I'm just throwing that out. So

115I'd also want to hear what staff have to say about that, because maybe it's too cost prohibitive. Is anybody interested in? Taking a shot at that. So I don't know about, I mean, I think we know you'd have to look at the dollars, but in terms of, again, is it doable? Yes. I think the only thing that we would have to consider if we were to do something like that, again, is like. the amount of programs. So what I would assume is if we're, let's say we had a K-2 at Alvarado and a 3-5 at, I don't know, Sasserini. We wouldn't want to take away the community schools program, right? We wouldn't want to take away dual immersion programs. So those two programs would have to live at each of those campuses. And so that

116makes it, again, a challenge to a certain degree because now... We have an administrator that's in charge of two programs at two schools. You know what I mean. So it's just more work on behalf of the staff and the leadership. But again, it's possible. Can I just follow up with you on that question, Dr. Chen? Yeah. So I'm not sure if I'm understanding the challenge in terms of if you're already operating a community school and now you have fewer grades, you have more sections, but now you are doing a K-2, why does that change the landscape at all? I mean, you would still offer the same. you know, community programs in terms of addressing people's, you know, social service needs and housing and after school programming. I don't understand why that's different than what's currently

117being done. So I guess the question back to you, Anne, is are you thinking that the dual immersion program would stay at one school or be split into two schools with both grade levels? No, I was thinking, I'm sorry, I didn't explain that, that basically the dual immersion program stays intact on a campus. And then the other students would be divided between this K-3 model, lower elementary and upper elementary model. Sorry, I didn't explain that well. That's easier to implement, for sure, because then you have your community school with one grade level. And then, yeah. The other one would be just a school at a different grade level. So that would be an easier scenario to implement. But we would need to know. I mean, this is a very disruptive. But I don't see it

118any more disruptive than actually taking flat closing the the current flowery campus moving the dual immersion program to one of the three other existing campuses because it's going to require full displacement of an entire campus anyway. And so, and if we really care about student outcomes. I just this notion of having highly segregated schools, which we already do. I'm just trying to see if there's a way to also address that. And so I'm not trying to complicate the problem. So anyway. I mean, I could see, I mean, the social benefit, right? So if you had a K through two and then you had a three through five. and then you had the middle school and you got the high school kids are going to be with all the other same kids from the same age

119group throughout their whole schooling if they go K through 12 right so I see that as a benefit isn't that a positive of it of the proposal the challenge is I just see it as who goes where and which schools K through 2 or K through 3 and which schools dual immersion, you're sort of back to the same puzzle. And I don't know if that's going to be, you know, is it being done somewhere else, Ann, that you know about with success? I do. I don't know about the success part of it. I do know that it is done in some school districts. I don't think it's super common. I remember the committee actually talking about this and mentioning different models in different school districts in California. So the only reason I brought it up

120was because I think that it would also address the grade level coordination. that is difficult to achieve when we have, we're spreading out, you know, among four campuses. So that was, I know there's definitely benefit to that. And I know that there's been some research on that, but I don't, I'm sorry, I can't speak to the specifics. I'd have to go back to some of the old meetings to look them up. So can I just add a little something so I would just say maybe to get us back on track well That's a that's a suggestion I feel like similarly to how we just discussed about the potential for a K through 8 model Like this was also explored by the consolidation and I think ultimately one thing I remember from our community was that

121parents would then have kids in multiple different schools and you know what do we value as a board right do we is that important to us and i i think listening to our community was important so in the same regard of um the dual immersion program i think we should consider that at this point like for me that's just not an option um because we definitely heard the challenges that that would pose now if we're not if we didn't take value in that and we were more interested in like investigating and getting data on like program like programatics and seeing how when this is implemented it positively or negatively affects student outcomes and that would have been great but we we didn't necessarily do that and so I'm just not sure if that's productive at

122this point and moving forward I'm just wondering if that would just be my suggestion is for me it's not on the table because I don't believe it's something that our community desires at this time and I'm taking that into consideration. Yeah, I don't see it. I'd love to if it was, you know, like if it was really something that was logistically working somewhere else or whatever it is. I just we've got to focus on like not chasing waterfalls, right? We've got to focus on really the business at hand and is that really a realistic option what's the probability of it I think it seems very low to me so I mean let's spend a day or two on it district staff give us an opinion otherwise we've got to focus on the three options that

123we've discussed and really nail down and spend our time wisely on those and get on with it that's my personal opinion I'm looking forward to my newest colleague here to chime in on this and give us an opinion Thank you. Yeah, there's certainly some compelling arguments for that K through 2 model. But at the same time, the traditional K through 5 has had its benefits of having the youngest kids being able to literally look up to their peers, having the sort of buddy systems. President Landry's point, I think we're getting a little too deep in the weeds here on programming. I have a more immediate logistical question, if somebody can enlighten me on the immediate reshuffling, remapping, all 440 kids from Flowery. Excuse me. Oh, that's the capacity. Yeah, capacity. 363 current enrollment. They would.

124remain within the program. If they select, so choose to remain in the program. If the program, in fact, relocates. Let's say it goes to Sasserini. Do the kids in the immediate attendance area of Sasserini then also get dibs on entering the program? Because that school is a block away from their home. And do they have any say in being displaced? you know, mile or two away. That is a really great question. So this, this, I'm going to answer the question with another kind of question. So typically, well, not typically, but. In general, when you participate in a dual immersion program, you want to start in kindergarten, right? Because you're learning both languages. And so if students at Sasserini want to be part of the dual immersion program, I would say you probably wouldn't want to

125have anyone above first grade going into the dual immersion program because they've missed now instruction in both languages in second, third, fourth, and fifth grade. So if they were littles, they would have the opportunity to be placed in the dual immersion program. The question part of it is, this goes kind of back to either... the board or if you want to give me direction to look into this Do we really do we want to have a school that's completely dual immersion and if that's the case then that means we're displacing all the kids who are not part of that program or let's say if we move those students like you're saying hypothetically to sasserini For the kids who don't choose to go into dual immersion who are in kinder in first grade Then that means

126we would probably have a dual immersion track and then an English track like Trustee Bell had described Much earlier. Yeah No, dual immersion and English. It's DI. So that would be, and we have to have that kind of thinking done pretty quickly once a decision is made because that is going to be a factor that we have to let the demographers know when they're putting together the boundaries so that we know how many students would be displaced. What can I just weigh in a little bit so what I'm hearing and a lot of this conversation and I don't know this will help I'm kind of going back to what you were all saying is that it sounds like you're saying you want to potentially close the flowery facility Move the dual immersion program somewhere else

127now. We have to figure out where that somewhere else is and I think in terms of a recommendation from part of the staff in terms of implementation of programs, I would just say it's more difficult to move a dual immersion program to a school that already has another program that has, again, curriculum, staffing. So again, community school, ESN, make it really difficult, not impossible. So if you chose to move, um the flowery students to alvarano can we do it yes makes it more challenging can you move it to presswood yes but it makes it more challenging the only school right now that doesn't technically have another kind of program and they have they do have environmental program they have a maker space they have other things there but it's not like a school-wide designated state

128program would be sasserini but then again and the other thing when you're thinking about the criteria is again looking at all of those different aspects So I would just say just I think those are the considerations is that in terms of the program is it more challenging and then number two if you're moving the students from a dual immersion on in the Springs area you want to also consider distance Because I mean, I know it's not far like you were saying it's not an hour that students are gonna have to sit on a bus However, we also have families that don't have transportation to get to their kids. So That's gonna be I think another consideration Is it an option to move the ESN program to Adele Yes, I think that was a question that

129was asked before if We have our elementary ESN classes. That's considered most restrictive environment instead of least restrictive environment. That's technically against the law. We can't move kids who are not at that grade level into a facility. We're basically segregating those kids, and we can't do that. Yes, I think that we would have to work with the state though and I'm looking at Troy because with our CIGDIS designation because the ESM classes are at Presswood our CIGDIS plan right now requires us to do work with our ESM classes at Presswood. And I see your hand is up. Do you want to say something? Yeah, I had a follow-up question. It's related to what Trustee Bell was saying. So I just want clarification. When we talk about the closure and relocation of Flowery, we need to

130see, you're not imagining, your vision isn't that you relocate and you don't co-locate the program, right? So if you were to move Flowery to Presswood, all the current Presswood students would have to... be put at a different school except for the ESN. Is that kind of what you're imagining? I mean, substitute any school for Prestwood. Yes, that's the only way this is going to happen. Right. And the other comment I wanted just to make is at least the way I'm thinking about it, and I've thought about this, I've thought this way for a long time, even when my children attended Flowery, was that, you know, Flowery really has become a school of choice, a magnet school, even though it is in a neighborhood, it started out as a neighborhood school and then kind of morphed

131into this school of choice. And I really feel like it shouldn't have boundaries. I mean, it should be located somewhere and there shouldn't be neighborhood boundaries for it. Like if I were to make a decision or give guidance on boundaries, I would be creating district boundaries for the... two other elementary schools and flowery would be would be treated as a magnet school. I mean we have quite a few students that actually are granted inter-district transfers to be able to meet that you know that ideal 50 50 60 40 ratio of English learners and Spanish learners Yeah, I would absolutely agree with that. And the problem right now is that we've got, you know, we're at capacity and it's probably more of a staffing issue than a physical issue, right? But hopefully if we moved it

132into a location that had the potential for more students and it becomes a school that people want to go to, why would we be restricting? attendance based on where someone lives it should you know you know for the dual immersion everybody who wants to go should be able to go to it and then the boundaries would apply to the other remaining two elementary schools so at this point i feel like we we're we're definitely engaged in great conversation it's almost nine o'clock and the point of this was just to get some guidance so that essentially we don't spend this much time this deep in kind of in the weeds and in conversation at the May meeting when we have a resolution where we were going to make a decision. So the purpose of this in

133my mind was to give the board an opportunity to do what it's done, but then to hopefully leave here with an idea of what we might be looking at. in May. And I just don't feel like we're almost there, but I don't feel like we've gotten there. So maybe back to Trustee Bell's question is, you know, and we talked a little bit about the option of like the K through two and the three through five. And if, you know, are you comfortable taking that off the table at this point with what we've heard from staff? Yeah, I'm, I'm, I wanted to throw that out there and it seemed like, It would it would take a lot of a lot more work to get people on board with that idea but I I also am I'm

134also toying with this idea of you know at least looking at the scenario of closing Alvarado and and and mostly around this Highly segregated problem that we have in our district So it would be interesting to hear like how do the numbers work if you close Alvarado? Where what school can accommodate those kids and how do you divide them up by grade? So I'm happy to have that be one of the scenarios that we consider. Yeah, I would say there's two things that you'd have to consider. Obviously, again, the boundary changes, so the demographers would have to look at that and weigh in to a certain degree, and then also, again, just in terms of capacity. Sorry, and are you saying leave Flowery in place and just close El Verano? Yeah. yes yeah so the

135challenge with that is Alvarado is our largest capacity second second no no it's the largest it's I think it is the largest and Prestwood's 504 so yeah you're wiping out a third of your capacity by closing that school so if you were gonna move flowery to Alvarado and then those kids who were not seeking the dual immersion program get displaced to Sasserini and Presswood, then that's a good idea. But just to close Alvarado and leave it and get rid of your largest elementary campus makes no sense from a real estate perspective. Well, but a real estate perspective is not one of the criteria. Let me go back to my criteria. I think you misspoke that. Hold on one person at a time. Can I? Go ahead. Go ahead. Just teaching capacity. Well, it depends how

136you weigh the criteria. Right. Which is. How important for example is disruption of students do we do are we equally waiting all of these criteria? Because if capacity is the most important then we ought to wait the criteria But that was we never had consensus around that so I agree with you I agree with you trustee Bell that yeah If you wait capacity as being one of the most important criteria, then that would be not a great scenario But we ought to look at one more scenario. I mean Anyway, I... But the distance... The distance between Flowery and Alvarado is very short, right? I can't remember what it is, but it's minimal. And so then you would say just move Flowery to Alvarado and then those students get... Displaced so it's the same benefit, but

137you're getting rid of your smallest campus and and utilizing your largest campus So I don't I don't sort of see just that that is an option. I doesn't make any sense to me. I'm sorry. Yeah, just the alignment I I would just say I don't like the idea of adding require like adding to our list of characteristics that we're considering. Disruption was not on the original, either the school consolidation nor the AEG's list. I just looked at both of them. I don't like the idea that we've been talking about this for quite some time and now that's now a guiding principle. I've been operating on a set of guiding principles that came from both the AEG and from our school consolidation committee. And the ones that I am pulling from that to try to narrow

138the focus and and I'm fine being wrong on this I and the one I agree with you which is the balance of pupil demographics that should be considered I absolutely agree but I would put that in the same level and I'm not putting 10 I would put again three or four in here which is condition of school facility capacity of school balance of people demographics and then special programs available because that has both a cost. I think there's a cost component to that and there's a management component for a principal, from what I understand, that's being said of having to manage essentially two programs on one campus. There's a difficulty to that. So I'm trying to narrow the focus of what we're talking about and not expand it. I do agree with you, though, that

139El Verano could be on one of the schools that we say, we would move the dual immersion program to and we're going to keep our three campuses that fit condition, capacity, special programs and then we have to get with the demographers to figure out the balance of pupil demographics and how we get there. But I think we can only get to that and figure out the pupil demographics if we're making the decision on campuses. Maybe another question logistically. So if we have, let's just say we move Flowery to Alvarado, and we've got kids at Alvarado who are fluent Spanish speakers, and they're in the fourth grade. Could we admit them to the dual immersion program if they're fluent Spanish speakers? Not necessarily, because remember fluency sometimes, well, when you talk fluency, that means they're able

140to listen and speak, not necessarily read and write. No, but it's just a logistical question of those kids, because then there might be a greater portion of them who would say, look, I'll stay at Alvarado and I'll enter the dual immersion program. Could we accommodate them? I actually personally think we get too in the weeds when we bring that up. Bring up? Bring up a specific case like this. I like the ideas of cases because it helps us frame, but I actually think we're overcomplicating the role, which, again, we are not going to facilitate the... The I think the how we are structuring the programs how the programs are assigned to campuses like that's our that's our staff That's our staff and our principals to figure that out and I want us to I want

141us to do our holes like our roles are to fix the budget we're taking the recommendations of the 3-1-1 model which have been which have been talked about for three years at this district we've been talking about this at this level of detail for two years and that's why we put the May I just want to I want to coalesce around, like we put the May target out there because we started talking about this, well, really in depth two years ago, but the whole process probably three and a half years ago. So we need, I think, to give staff direction. I would recommend to give staff direction. And I'm certain to get emails about this that people are unhappy that we're trying to move forward, but we really do need to move forward. And to

142me, the move forward, and I'm speaking loudly again. not to assert my like you know agenda here I'm just trying to get us to progress and so so you know where I stand yeah so I would at the direction I would give staff if I could just I'll wrap it up here the direction I give staff is like firewood campus closes I want to see what does the student population look like if you move the dual immersion school to, and I would give them two options, either Sassarini or El Verano or Presswood. Give staff the option of what does it look like? We can get into demographics and how we split it up, but just where are we moving? Which programs line up? That's where I'm at. So I think to move this along. Is

143anyone prepared to say, let's remove one option? Like, should we take Presswood off the table? Should we take Sasserini off the table? Should we take Alvarado off the table? Does anybody have a firm opinion to remove one of the options, to narrow to two today, or let's... put a schedule in place at some point in time at the next meeting, we are going to remove an option based on staff recommendations or whatever it is and then continue the conversation so it's an iterative two-part process. Remove the third option and then remove the second option which leaves us with the option. Is that something that anybody's willing to do today? And I personally am not ready to say let's take a campus off the table because I would really like to hear from staff and have

144further discussion on the benefits, right? It's really quite a, there's no clear obvious choice in some senses because I see the benefit of putting it at Alvarado. I see the benefit of putting it at Presswood. The ESN stuff can stay there at Presswood, theoretically. Is that true? It can, but it goes back to my recommendation of not having two programs, especially with ESN because, remember, ESN classes, especially there are the most needy kids who have lots and lots of IEPs. So does that alone preclude Presswood as being a potential option? This is the question, right? I'm not qualified to answer that, but we need to answer this pretty quickly to get to the point. So I think we've got three options that we all kind of generally agree on. That's three options. So what we

145need to do is work towards removing one of those at a minimum within the next very, you know, short period of time. And then we can then be just considering the two options that are left on the table. And then we've obviously got a time and a deadline to make that decision. That's what I would be suggesting we do. So I think I hear what everyone's saying. I think the most important thing we do, though, is we make a decision on. I'm not sure how we could give direction to staff without saying that we are in agreement at this point that there is a campus that we see closing. And so just to be clear, I think that would be step one. And then giving direction to staff to come back to us. I just

146want to make sure that's what you're saying. Giving staff the ability to come back to us with. and agreeing that we see value in the dual immersion program and we'd like to see it move to a different campus, what is the best option? And then at that point... Why don't we start with district staff telling us what's the least... Well, I think we've heard, I mean, I don't know. I guess I'll just talk about the elephant in the room. I mean, it's clear that there's two schools that are housing a, or that house, that this will happen. So we go after nine o'clock just to make it clear that there's two schools that we're speaking about, which would be Presswood and Alvarado that have other things going on. Right. And so we know the answer.

147I mean, we know, we, I mean, we know the answer without. dr chin saying it specifically is that sasserini although she did say sasserini doesn't have a state essentially a state program and so i think we we understand that that essentially would be maybe right now if we had if they had to give us direction what they would give us what else are we looking for i guess one of the questions i had is Is the ESN program at, and again this gets into the weeds and I don't really want to go there, but is it at the best location? Is that where it needs to stay? Do we want to move it to a different location for accessibility? Let's say the playground at Presswood. from what I understand, doesn't have the accessibility that, say,

148Sasserini does. So I think there's other options to explore, but we can't get there until we give guidance. So can we agree, can we, or is someone willing to make a motion? Maybe we're not all in agreement, but at this point we have to move forward on a school that they would recommend for closure. So I would like to propose a motion. There's no action item tonight. This is just a proposed direction that we identify flowery as the campus that we are going to close the program will be relocated to either Alvarado sasserini or presswood and we're looking for a recommendation from district staff as to what location would be best suited for the district And I would say with the caveat that we understand that Sasserini may be the leading candidate at the moment.

149Maybe the directions actually come back to us with any information that would preclude or inform us better to understand whether Sasserini is that right location for it or not. But what I also want to really hear is tell me exactly why the ESN program would be difficult to move and the cost. to move it somewhere else, right? What is the actual physical costs? And then what would we lose if we lost the funding on the community school? And then what I'm hearing is that the Title I funds likely wouldn't be at risk if we moved it to Alvarado because we would fit the criteria and we wouldn't lose that funding. But so we, you know, I get the programming aspect of the negatives, but we really need to just fully understand them. And then is

150it... Is it not enough to preclude us from making a decision to move the school to go for example? I don't want to just dismiss it without understanding all the facts and all the Actual physical costs and things like that. So we have full information when we make that Trustee goes one would you like to weigh in and then trustee Chang and then we'll bring it back And it's okay. If not, you don't have to I just want to make sure you have an opportunity I appreciate it and it does seem like we're all coalescing towards this option that was just forward as the leading candidate. One additional data point I would like to dig into the consolidation committee's findings is the traffic impacts. Anecdotally, it seems like Alvarado is very challenging to get to

151at drop off. Flowery certainly is, but given Sasserini's more centralized location on the main arterial that has a number of collector streets leading to it, it seems like it can handle more kids coming to that campus. And I do like that notion of the dual immersion program becoming a true magnet school. able to take kids in from across the valley. I know there's certainly been a lot of frustration from folks that I know who have wanted their kid to attend, but they happen to be in a different attendance area and they just couldn't get the lottery to work. So yeah, that would be incredible to have a magnet school like that serving the entire valley. Trustee Ching? Yeah, I just, I had a question really for Trustee Guzman, which is, so, you know, the board

152passed a resolution last year to, you know, make a decision about school closure, elementary school closure by our May 8th meeting. And I'm just wondering, you know, is that realistic? Does the board need to reconsider a different resolution? I mean, we have the option of changing it. It's probably not the will of the board. I'm not sure, but I'm just guessing that people seem like they're ready for it. But, you know, obviously we want you to feel prepared. So I'm just wondering if you had any feedback for us. Because the May 8th deadline really was. was, I think, an arbitrary date. I mean, I don't think we have, there's a reason why it has to be done on May 8th. So anyway, I just wanted to throw that out there. I was just curious if

153you had any thoughts or reactions. My thought would be, you know, similar to the sentiment expressed earlier of the, that this has been set in motion for a few years now. And the can has been kicked for many more years prior to that. We're at this point now. We can't keep doing this. We can't just keep prolonging it. And it feels like we're starting to turn a corner and things are becoming more efficient. And if we just keep doing this longer and longer, I mean, the deficit is still very real. And as has been expressed in prior meetings, There's other funding sources that are set to sunset soon enough in the next five years, and we still have more work to do. And if we're going to keep prolonging this that we've known has been

154coming down the road in terms of the declining enrollment, we're not doing ourselves any favors. So yeah, I think it is time to take action on this item. So you're saying you don't have to? In as many words, yes. Right. Okay, so with that, Ann, can I ask you, or Trustee Ching, can I ask you, do you feel confident giving direction or comfortable giving direction to staff? Like with what Trustee Bell had mentioned, which would be that, and again, I don't want to put words in anyone's mouth, but what I understood was that we are in somewhat of a consensus to give direction to staff that we are interested in looking at closing. Fari campus and moving the dual immersion program to either Alvarado sasserini or presswood and Providing us with that information at our

155next regular board meeting So that we have it to then be prepared to make a decision on school consolidation for the elementary school Did I say that right? Yeah, and I think the only thing you missed is that trustees have to ask their questions have information that they need and require in advance of that, we need to get that. If that, the answers to those questions can be disseminated to all the trustees when it's provided to that singular trustee, that would be helpful to understand what the questions are being asked and what the answers are. I also have a logistical question for Harold. So Harold, hearing what the trustees are saying. So if they have questions, they give them to me. I share them with the rest of the trustees. My interest would be that

156we can do this and possibly give the information to the trustees prior to May 8th, either through a board communication so that they have time to look at it, delve into it, ask further questions before they come to the May 8th meeting. Would that be appropriate? Yeah, that is appropriate. We have to keep in mind, too, the Brown Act's limitations. So you can't turn this into a back and forth where a board member asks a question. It's then sent to all of the other board members. Answers are sent. The best thing to do is to send all of the questions to staff, let staff compile one comprehensive set of answers, and make that available to all of you. I also just wanted to mention because the issue would come up particularly for your new trustee

157if you go to the website for the consolidation committee the entire report the entire appendix is up there and on the traffic point there was actually a traffic subcommittee that was put together by the committee that included city representatives and it page 622 and the following pages of the attachment you will find the discussion of drop-offs and bus areas and traffic issues laid out to the extent that they had it. Okay, thank you. So my original question was for you, and I just want to make sure, because you're on Zoom, how do you feel moving forward with direction to staff as we've presented in the last few minutes? So I'm in agreement with the direction, the way that Trustee Bell had stated it. Particularly, like, my focus is really understanding the cost and barriers for

158relocating the ESN program. So not just the financial costs, but the other considerations. Yeah, I guess you know seeing what it looks like to relocate flowery because I'm still not I'm still don't get a sense of how that can how that's gonna be done so like what is the ideal campus and I also wanted just to mention, I actually had posed a question, I think, at our last board meeting. It would be helpful for me also to understand the transportation impact and just knowing the percentage of kids who actually take the bus at each of our campuses, like the number and percentage. I don't know how easily that can be obtained. So I'm fine with the way Trustee Bell worded the direction. OK, and just to be clear, because I know sometimes we say things

159that we do. So just to be clear, to relocate the dual immersion program, however, we are giving direction to staff that we are making the decision at this point to close without taking a formal vote in this scenario to close the Flowery campus. So the options for the dual immersion program would only include El Verano, Sasserini, and Presswood. Are we in agreeance? Yes, we are. Yes, and I just want to make sure you're in agreeance with that. So what is the agreement that we can't propose another scenario? We can't propose another scenario? No, so we are giving direction to staff. to guide us through the process of evaluating which campus would be the best location for the dual immersion program and closing the flowery campus, which means that would only leave three campuses. That would

160leave Alvarado, Sasserini, and Presswood. And our questions, like the question you just mentioned, can be given to staff sooner than later and will be communicated in a board communication prior to the May meeting so that we have the information we've requested to come prepared to the May meeting, May regular board meeting, to take a vote and be in compliance with our resolution. I can't think of the word. Well, I haven't I have it I know that trustee Bell didn't think that this scenario made sense Which is closing a Lerano because it had the biggest the largest capacity but you know when you look at when you look at all of the work that this the committee the consolidation committee did and you actually waited equally or you or you compile the results and wait all

161the criteria equally or you weight it with different weightings. El Verano doesn't come up as the top school not to close. So I just want to see, like, if we were to close that, where would those students go? Because part of my own thinking is... How do we achieve a better socioeconomic balance in our valley? And I just want to understand that. Can you say that? Yeah. So, and to address that, I'll take that into consideration when we're doing the pros and cons for each of the school, our schools, because we do know what the demographics are at the existing schools. So I'm hearing... Four trustees saying that they're interested in closing the Flowery campus, relocating the dual immersion program to one of the other three campuses. What I'm thinking right now is tomorrow I

162can send you all basically a process map with dates and say, like, by this date, I need all your questions. By this date, we'll give you the three schools with pros and cons and a recommendation. I'll send that information out to you by this date so that you have it to review. And if you have any last questions, you can do that right before the May 8th meeting. So I'll send a timeline, I'll send out the process so that you all know what that looks like. Is that okay? Okay. Yep. Anne, are you okay with that? Yep. Okay. Yes. Okay, so with that, we have given direction to staff, and we are going to move on from this school consolidation discussion. We have a review of our 2025 board governance calendar. This is information only.

163Dr. Chin, would you like to take us through this? And maybe as a board, we can make it a goal to get through this in 10 minutes so that we can all head home to our families. I think Trustee Ching actually wanted us to look at this and review it again. I'm not sure, Trustee Ching, what the interest was in bringing this back. My understanding was just to kind of get on the same page in terms of the work that needs to happen and to see if there is any movement that we need to make. Is that your interest in bringing this back? Yes, I made some notes and I need to find my notes. It was generally that I felt like we needed to formalize one, the budget development process and these are the,

164are kind of meeting schedule. So. Shoot, I sort of I can't seem to see where I put these notes about specific things on the governance calendar because I did. I did make notes of it, but I'm not finding it very easily. But it was I was particularly focused on the governance schedule and our onboarding, especially because now we have such a new board. generally speaking, and we probably need to schedule more regular expected sort of training. So that was one thing. And I also felt like the budget development process, I always felt like we were behind the eight ball. And it would, I think, be beneficial also to figure out. the meeting cadence of the budget committee and when they report back to us. So those were the two things that I thought were important.

165And I will also, like, tangential to this, I, you know, I went back and looked at all of the sort of meetings that we had, regular meetings and additional meetings that we had scheduled, and... You know, we may have to also reconsider our regular calendar because in mostly every single month, we've had more than we've had at least two meetings. And then we've had, you know, like in January, we had one regular meeting and three study sessions. We probably maybe need to think about formalizing it, you know, so it's not so ad hoc. And I'll just throw that out. And I know this is not for taking any action, but I just wanted to say that. Thank you. So can I just be very frank? Yeah. So I think the reason why we have so

166many ad hoc committees is because of the lack of efficiency in the past. And many times we... continue to kick the can down the road i think one of you said it over there and so i think as the meetings become more efficient and we don't do that that we don't necessarily have to have as many meetings i think one of the things that we do see and michelle and i kind of rack our brains sometimes with this is that we do really have two meetings a month one typically is a regular meeting and then we end up having a study session or a special board meeting so I mean if you wanted to look at having more meetings we could have two regular meetings a month or we could keep it the same but

167really it's up to you as a board to get through the meetings the way we plan them to not have so many meetings I mean sometimes emergencies will come up and things will come up where we have to have a special meeting but I think typically we have so many meetings because we keep on Moving agenda items that we don't get to because we don't finish on time and that kind of thing So the tighter that we get the better the number of consolidation in budget meetings. We've added. I mean that's been huge. We've had Yeah, I mean there's been a lot of additional meetings that we've had I agree If I can be honest, I don't think I have the mental capacity to get through this efficiently and have an actual conversation about dates.

168But I do appreciate Trustee Ching wanting to bring it forward because I do think it's something we need to look at. And maybe the suggestion, and I don't mean to do this for lack of importance, but more or less to give our new trustee an opportunity to look at it, is that we bring it back. and maybe a specific suggestion if it needs to be an action item. I'm not sure. I'm not necessarily... in favor of adding any additional meetings, but I would like us as a board to like really pick the days we do our study sessions and at least have some consistency. I think Trustee Ching and I have spoke about that, like so that we can plan for that and the community can plan for that specifically because now we have our

169meetings in two different locations, right? We have our regular board meeting at the council chambers and we have our study sessions here. So it would be helpful and. and provide our community with some consistency. But I don't know if I'm prepared to really have much further conversation about all of this right now. So would you be comfortable, Ann, just letting Trustee Guzman and the rest of us absorb all of this and think about your considerations and then bring it back? Yeah, so I'm not suggesting that we necessarily take action. I just thought it was important for us to have a realistic conversation about what our meeting schedules have looked like in the past, what areas do we really need to be more sort of methodical about. And also, I mean, I'm not a big fan

170of having, you know, two regular meetings a month myself, and I know that it would... I don't want to put the staff on a hamster wheel and constantly always preparing for meetings and never getting any work done. However, I do think that as a working professional, it's really hard to, it's hard dealing with all these ad hoc meetings. We're all busy people. And so anyway, I just wanted to throw that out. If it's a regular thing every month that we're having to plan an ad hoc meeting, we might as well schedule it. So that's all. And I don't think we have to take action on it. We probably want to wait a couple of months just to kind of observe what patterns are taking place given our new meeting format. and you know we're in

171the middle of very difficult decisions which are time consuming so okay thank you for that so I would move to suggest to the board that we give direction to staff to bring this back at our August regular board meeting for evaluation for the upcoming year how do you guys feel about that okay and are you August regular board meeting unless you would like to suggest that no you are more than welcome to suggest that I'm just thinking my thought process around that as we get through some big ticket items like we have LCAP and budget in June so we have two regular meetings and then we have a consolidation so I'm just thinking let's let's get through these next big meetings and let's get staff through these meetings and then we come back with a

172fresh mind and a fresh school year calendar in august to then be able to evaluate how we want this next school year to look for our personal governance calendars okay all right with that Would you like to give public comment on items not on the agenda Mr. Hausman? I'd like to entertain Mr. Hausman's public comment and any public comment on items not on the agenda in the room or online for those of you who have stayed with us for this portion. Is the board okay with that? Can we move to approve? Okay. All right Mr. Hausman you have the mic. President of the VMTA, welcome Mr. Guzman. Thank you for joining us. Again, I just want to go back to allowing public comment throughout the meetings. I know people want to stifle the public, but

173again, we want to make sure the public gets the opportunity to talk when they can. Thank you. Thank you for your comment, Mr. Hausman. Is there any public comment online for items not on the agenda? If so, please raise your hand. Nope, seeing none. Okay, well, thank you for coming to this extended version of our study session this evening. Congratulations to Mr. Guzman. And we missed having you in person, but thank you for being here via Zoom. And we are adjourning this meeting at 9.34.