001During the previous closed session, the board acted by a vote of 5-0 to authorize the district superintendent or their designee to notify pursuant to Education Code 44929.21 that the employees listed in Attachment A will not be reelected for the 2019-2020 school year. Okay. And we would like to invite Gavin to lead us in. Oh, before we leave, I want to mention that we have a motion to approve the application of the application to the district superintendent for the 2019-2020 school year. Okay. And we would like to invite Gavin to lead us in. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Before you go, announcement of Spanish language translation services. Irma, por favor. Buenas tardes. Soy la señora Pulido, y aquí estoy para traducirles. Gracias. Gracias. Okay. And Gavin is going to
002lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance. Gavin Mahe from Sonoma Valley High School. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, and under God. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Thank you. Okay. Now we will approve a little bit of housekeeping. We're going to approve the minutes from three different meetings. Do we have a motion to approve the special meeting of January 12th? Move to approve. Second. Okay. All in favor? Aye. Move a motion to approve the regular meeting minutes of January 15th? Move to approve. Second. Second. Second. Okay. All in favor? Aye. And approval of minutes for special meeting
003on February 2nd? Move to approve. Second. All in favor? Aye. Okay, those minutes are approved. And now, are there any changes? And if not, who would like to approve the agenda for tonight? I'll move to approve the agenda tonight. Okay. Second. All in favor? Aye. Okay, the agenda's approved for tonight. And now, Kathy Coleman will talk about a board norm. So my choice tonight is the fifth one. We ensure opportunities for the diverse range of views in the community to inform board deliberations. And I've noted as a new board member how valuable I felt public comment is. And how much I've learned from all the different views that have been. So again, I just want to say, we ensure opportunities for the diverse range of views in the community to inform board deliberations. Very important.
004Thank you so much Kathy. Okay, next up, we will have the students of the year for Prestwood Elementary School. Principal Jason Sutter. Thank you. Thank you very much, Board Members, and tonight this is a really exciting time of year where we get to bring two very important members. And they are the two finalists. Thank you. students from our school forward to honor them and we're gonna do it a little bit different this evening and I'm going to invite not only the the student in their family but also their teacher to come and present their award this year so first I'd like to invite Tilly Francis and her family to come up with her teacher Amber Williams I am a little nervous I might surprise some of you I'm Amber Williams and I get I am
005honored but to be Tilly's fifth grade educator this school year Tilly Francis is an amazing addition to our school community she takes great pride in her academics and is a respected leader amongst her peers her smile which I look forward to daily reminds all of us to stop and enjoy learning bottom line she makes our school better her desire to always do her best and her caring nature is contagious during readers and writers workshop she methodically implements the structure of the school and the values of the school and the values of the strategies within each mini lesson into her work she is a leader in her in mathematics as well often supporting students in her group that just need it delivered from a fifth graders perspective having her in the room raises the bar for
006those around her Tilly is also one of our co presidents and student council which I am the teacher leader of during meetings she has the ability to be kind and listen to all the representatives and guide them through a process which is focused her ideas are creative and engage her audience we can all learn a lot from Tilly and her ability to be kinder than is necessary we read the book wonder this year in our class and she reminds me of the character summer summer befriends the main character August who has treacher Collins syndrome and is new to his school and starting fifth grade both summer and Tilly are exceptional people aware of those around her and sensitive to the feelings of others all of these qualities and many more are without without any hesitation
007why Tilly is press with student of the year congratulations congratulations Tilly and now we'd like to call our other student of the year and her family that's Kate Sutter and her teacher Rhonda Pipkin hi I'm Rhonda Pipkin the fifth grade teacher at Prestwood and I'm honored to have Kate in my class it's been such a joy getting to know you and watch you grow up at Prestwood school she came with her dad a lot of the time as a little one and would be running around in the office and always that's the face and also had the pleasure of teaching her sister older sister Marley so I feel very fortunate it's my pleasure to recommend you Kate as press woods student of the year Kate has been a joy to have in class this year
008she's been an outstanding student academically throughout her years at Prestwood school she has been on honor roll all through fourth grade and since fifth grade we'll see she's also very well loved by her former teachers and myself she's not only academically strong but also a leader and is also on student student leadership and was a representative all through fourth grade in your co-president right yeah with Tilly yeah and I hear that they run the meetings and this has been really an exceptional year for the student leadership with the two girls she's active in sports and loves soccer very well well-rounded student in addition she's well liked by her classmates and she treats others with respect and a warm heart and she includes others and goes out of her way in the classroom to help students
009ask may I please help other students and is such a joy to have to help those kids and they like working with you too as you can see she's a bright caring student and I think that's something that enriches our learning in room 52 and it's a pleasure to be her teacher and recommend her this year as student of the year it's nice working with her dad too thank you and congratulations and if the families are more than welcome to stay but you can also go and do photos or whatever that you'd like to do thank you teachers for coming as well tonight thank you congratulations parents and grandparents here are yourấy great and congratulations and may this year be a great one for you thank you all right next up we have communication through
010the Board public comment the Board recognizes the value of public comment on educational issues and provides us time for members of the audience to address the Board and any school related matter not on this agenda the Board can take no action at this time each speaker is requested to identify themselves prior to addressing the Board until limit comments to three minutes is there any public comment and did you have any cards now? Okay. Next up, we have reports, and we will start with our student trustee, Gavin Lehane. Thank you. So when I started this job, my main goal was to change the thing that most students were complaining about, is that their voices weren't being heard. A lot of students complained about only leadership making decisions at the school. So what I did was, I
011talked about this at the first board meeting, I changed General Assembly to Student Forum, which is basically an open mic, or like a board meeting, kind of like we have here, but with students around by me. And recently, to show how effective that was, we had the Mr. Dragon controversy on campus, which was whether or not we should change the name of Mr. Dragon to promote including more people. And usually at General Assembly last year, there was about 25,000 people. And then in 2015, there was about 25,000 kids showed up. At the Little Theatre, we had 200 kids show up, just to debate this Mr. Dragon topic. And it just showed that throughout my term with George and Jackson, that we've been connecting with the students better than past slates have, and we've been having
012more opportunities for students to speak out. So Student Forum has been a great addition to leadership. And we hope that it continues out throughout the next following years at Sonoma High. And adding on that, on March 13th, we will have the next ASB convention, which we know decide who will be in my place next year. And we have three slates running this year. Past years, we've had two. Past years, we've had seven. So three is the perfect number. And that's all I have to announce today. Thank you. Thank you so much, Kevin. Thank you. There you go. VMTA? There's Janet. Good evening. Cheryl Koldirn and Renee Mignogny are in meetings at SCO this evening so they couldn't be here with you. They sent happy Valentine's Day greetings, and I will be sharing their report in
013their absence. From Cheryl and Renee, regardless of the office held, there are four basic ways VMTA officers spend our time. Listening. Investigating. problem-solving and planning. We listen to concerns from educators at all sites. We investigate their issues. We give suggestions and problem-solve on their behalf. Additionally, we spend time planning for the future for ourselves, our sites, and our students. There's an old African proverb, if you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. We collaborate and advocate for all our educators, students, and families. We appreciate the service of our dedicated school board trustees and administrators. However, to paraphrase an old Native American proverb, a person cannot truly understand another situation until they walk a mile in their shoes. That's why we continue to need our teachers offering input for
014decisions in our district. Whether it is lead teachers helping to create PD days, teachers on the LCAP committee or administrators listening to teachers as they plan for their sites, we must continue to make a conscious effort to hear each other. One way we listen to each other is through our growth and development committee, previously known as problem-solving, which we have found to be very valuable. The committee consists of district office staff and VMTA co-presidents, grievance co-chairs, and bargaining chair. Our grievance chairs are involved not just with formal grievances, but with many issues that arrive weekly. They work to solve challenges and misunderstandings before they turn into formal grievances. As Vice President, I myself am getting ready to send out our next newsletter, and I'm planning our spring social and election. Worst idea ever. Not the
015social, putting me in charge. The calendar committee is meeting to discuss next year's calendar and possibly a two-year calendar. VMTA's bargaining team has held several meetings with the district bargaining team. We want the DO to prioritize member salaries prior to deciding the district's overall budget. We understand there is a new governor and new Ed Code laws, and some things are unknown at this time. We remain hopeful that with the current budget, all VMTA and CSEA members will receive a raise for this year and next year. By next month, we hope to have more to share on bargaining. Educators spent another full day in professional development. Sessions are being offered three times throughout the year, so teachers can attend nine different sessions altogether. For the most part, teachers enjoyed the PD days. For next year, we
016hope our district office will offer more sessions focused on district goals. Sincerely, from the DO. Thank you. Thank you, Janet. CSEA, Kimberly? Hi, I'm Kimberly Smith. I'm office manager at Altamira Middle School and CSEA chapter secretary for Moon Valley chapter. And Teresa Hernandez is ill tonight, so she couldn't come, and I came in her place. So I just wanted to report that the negotiating team has been working with the district. And we have a tentative agreement. We appreciate working with the district, improving the living standards of all classified employees, which most classified employees live in Sonoma Valley. So we really do recognize that and appreciate that. CSEA members are feeling the changes in equality that are happening, kind of follows along with the LMI that we're implementing. At the upcoming February meeting, chapter meeting, we
017will be voting on the tentative contract agreement will be voting on our 2019 CSEA budget and we will be accepting nominees for delegates to go to conference in late summer. We are very grateful for our professional development that the district has offered all classified employees. We've had a lot of good feedback and classified employees are really excited about participating and even being invited to come this Friday as an option if they want to because it is a classified holiday. We have five instructional assistants who will be attending a three-day paraeducators conference in Sacramento in March and this is hosted by CSEA and the district and CSEA have worked together to provide and support these five instructional assistants to attend this conference. It's very exciting that we feel like we're moving forward in professional development. We
018have three classified employees that are participating on the calendar committee which just started so we're going to finish that up in February. And the Moon Valley chapter will be accepting applications and essays for the end of the year scholarships. These scholarships are provided to... They're offered to the CSEA. They're offered to any graduating high school student. It doesn't have to necessarily be a Snowman Valley High but one of the main requirements is that the member's parent has to be a CSEA chapter member for Moon Valley but we do offer a scholarship and we'll be working with the college and career center to get those essays turned in. That's all I have to report. Thank you. Thank you, Kimberly. D-LAC. Buenas noches. Buenas noches. Mi nombre es Georgina Gutierrez. Soy presidente de D-LAC. Se llevó a
019cabo una reunión de D-LAC el 7 de febrero. La agenda incluyó la revisión de la carta anual para los padres que se envía a los padres de los estudiantes aprendices de inglés con datos sobre el progreso de sus estudiantes. Información de reclasificación y programas del distrito para aprendices de inglés. Es una carta que tiene información que legalmente requiere compartir. D-LAC. Está tratando de hacer que la carta y la información sean más accesibles para los padres cuando la reciban. Rosemary Perez estuvo presente. Ella es una consultora del distrito y ella volverá a escribir la carta basándose en los comentarios de los miembros de D-LAC. Los miembros también llevarán la carta a sus próximas reuniones de D-LAC para obtener más comentarios sobre la legibilidad de la misma. Asimismo, se revisó el borrador de los nuevos criterios de
020reclasificación. Los miembros de D-LAC hicieron preguntas y aclararon los cambios relacionados con ELPAC y la sección sobre herramientas del distrito para demostrar las habilidades de lectura del nivel de grado. Finalmente, Mary Ann Spitzer compartió los datos de logros de ELPAC y ESBA a nivel del distrito para los estudiantes aprendices de inglés. Gracias. Mi nombre es Mary Ann Spitzer. Hoy estoy presentando mi lista de referencias en inglés para los estudiantes reclasificados. En ELPAC, el 32% de nuestros estudiantes obtuvieron nivel 4, el 38% están en el nivel 3, el 20% obtuvieron calificaciones en el nivel 2, y el 9% en el nivel 1. Las fortalezas se mostraron consistentemente en el área de hablar y todas las escuelas, todos los niveles de grado, y una amplia calidad de continuación. y un área de crecimiento es la lectura. En
021la evaluación estatal de la ESBA, los aprendices de inglés no les fue muy bien en la sección de ELA, arte del lenguaje en inglés, ni en matemáticas, al observar los puntajes de los estudiantes reclasificados. Obtuvieron mejores resultados en ELA, pero mostraron menos progreso en matemáticas. Esta refleja una preocupación sobre el progreso de las matemáticas para los estudiantes reclasificados. Hi, I'm Marian Spitzer. I'm the facilitator of DLAC. I'm just going to translate what Georgina just said. Our DLAC meeting was held on February 7th. The agenda included reviewing the annual parent letter that we send to parents of English learners with data about their students' progress, reclassification information, and programs for English learners. This is a letter that has information that is available to parents of English learners and is legally required to share. DLAC is trying
022to make the letter and its information more accessible to all parents when they receive it. Rosemary Perez, who is a district consultant, was present at the meeting, and she will be rewriting the letter based on the feedback from the DLAC members. The members will also be taking that same letter to their next ELA meetings to get more feedback about its readability. Also, the draft of the new reclassification criteria was reviewed. DLAC members asked questions and clarified the changes related to ELA. The students now need an overall score of level 4 and the section on district tools for demonstrating grade-level reading skills. Finally, I shared district-level ELPAC and SBAC achievement data for English learners and for reclassified students. On the ELPAC, 32% of our students district-wide earned level 4, 38% were at level 3, 20% were
023at level 2, and 9% at level 1. Strengths showed up consistently in speaking at all school sites and all grade levels, and an area of growth is the reading section. On the state SBAC assessment, English learners did not fare well on the English language arts section nor the math, and then looking at the scores of the reclassified English learners, they did significantly better in English language arts but showed less improvement in math, and this highlights a concern about the math progress for reclassified students. Any questions? No problem. You want this? Okay, superintendent report. Good evening and thank you. I want to follow what VMTA stated about professional development. So we do have three days throughout the year. One was in November. One was about a week ago, two weeks ago, and then the next one
024is this Friday. They come, this part of the year they come quickly, and so just as a reminder to the community Friday is a no student day, and we will have teachers on campus, and we've invited classified, should they choose completely voluntary to join us as well on that day for more professional development. We've kicked off some literacy professional development, and we're looking forward to grounding our forward discussions in language arts and English language development around kind of this common understanding of literacy. And one of the big discussions, one of the big discussions going on just across the community with many members of the community that I'm having is how we clarify and articulate mental health support in the Valley for our students and our families, just trying to find out who the partners are,
025who's available to do what, and when and where those services might be available both in English and Spanish for parents with different levels of insurance, just trying to map out where exactly services are. We certainly have some resources available, but we're not able to do that. We certainly have some available in the district. We have some partners that work with us in the district like SAY, but then we also have a lot of families that are in need of other services, and I'm not quite sure where we refer people in the Valley. So trying to map that out with people at Hanna and our community health center and all the other partners in the community just working together to make sure what we can get going. So thank you. Okay, next we have trustees report.
026Who would like to go first? This is random. Go ahead. Go ahead, Melanie. I'm happy to start. So in this past month, I've had the opportunity to attend a SEAC meeting with parents one evening, attend a listening circle, and also attend a special board meeting that was held regarding our bond issues. And the one thing that that had in common was an opportunity for me to really hear from parents and members of the community. Thank you. And I really want to tell everyone what a joy it is to see familiar faces and also to have an opportunity to hear from new people as they come and share with us their interests in order to make our school district better. So I want to echo what my partner, Kathy, was saying earlier about how it really
027is important to me and I think to all of us on the board that we hear from the members of our staff, our parents, and our community members. So thank you all for participating and being part of that with us. As much as it's a joy to see familiar faces, I want to take just a moment to remember a face that we won't be seeing anymore, and that's an English teacher named Linda Dillon who worked for many years at the high school and passed away after an illness last week. We will be doing a moment of memory at the end of the meeting in her honor. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I know this is a longing for many of you to come to the school, but I
028also wanted to mention I know how much she's going to be missed and how much she was loved by students and faculty and those of us who called her a dear friend. Thank you, Melanie. Kathy? So I attended two listening circles. I appreciated what I learned. And had the opportunity to discuss it with—can we have a room? We have a little't to go around here to slightly discuss something, but here's going to be a little long. And yeah, we've been doing that for life right about now and then. community member from Alvarado who requested a meeting and I also just wanted to mention that he mentioned that he wished there had been a bilingual listening circle I thought that was important to note and I think that's all Thank You Kathy Britta. So I had
029the pleasure of going to two listening circles and and then a principal coffee at the high school was in the evening so I don't know if you'd call it coffee and it's and this is you know not the first time at these meetings but it's it's kind of a surprise I don't know why I feel surprised but it's always a little bit of a surprise at how some of these central themes just keep reemerging and so I'm really looking forward to getting the information from all the listening sessions because I have not been able to make them all and then all of the opportunities that staff and teachers and other PTO meetings. I'm really looking forward to getting all of that information and seeing if it kind of lines up with the different events that
030I've been at and then using that feedback and the stuff that we get at the board meetings and through emails to help guide our work in developing our next steps and our strategic plan. And so I really want to say I appreciate the district staff who have been at those listening circles and also that the administrators who are doing the outreach on a regular basis and have been, it's not new, the principal coffees, all those things are meaningful touch points. And the more that we can give people an opportunity to share their thoughts with us, the better informed we are about how we need to do our work as a board. And then I do want to just shout out to Linda Dillon. My middle daughter had the pleasure of having her for English and
031she was very sad to hear yesterday. She was a great teacher and she really was beloved by her students. And the Boosters Crab Feed, I was lucky to go to the Boosters Crab Feed and it was a great event. It was so great. It was a great to connect with parents, parents of alumni, parents of incoming students, parents of students are there, community members. It's just a terrific event. Since we're one high school town, I just love to see the depth and breadth of support for all of the programs that are happening, the extracurricular programs that are happening that are funded by the Boosters and just reminding people that it's not exclusively an athletics fundraiser. They fund a lot of clubs and a lot of other academic and the chess club and things that aren't
032academic, the hands-on electrical, put the circuit boards together club and all that kind of stuff. So anyway, and the facilities review meeting was great. Even though I've been here for a long time, I appreciate the district personnel showing up and spending their Saturday bringing us all kind of up to speed and getting us all in. And that's really helping us get into the same place in terms of our knowledge and understanding of what's come before. And then that will help us again going forward. So thank you, everybody. Thank you, Britta. John. Well, I have spent, since the last board meeting, a great deal of time in a cast. I have been rolling around with my leg up. I have a old Achilles injury and bone spurs on the ankle. And so I had the Achilles
033tendon detached, and they smoothed the back of the ankle out, and attached it to my leg. So it was great. it back on and it's about six weeks of in a cast six weeks in a boot and five months of physical therapy and it's a real reminder when you get a medical procedure as a trustee that we enjoy the benefits of the health insurance that all of our staff get and we have remarkable health benefits we really do and i reflected on that when i got this this surgery and i had caused to reflect on it this morning too when it looked like i might have a complication from this i had a apparently a blood clot form i had to go to the er here in uh here in sonoma i was in there
034at 3 a.m today and uh you know it wasn't it turned out it was a false alarm and it was okay but they did all the tests and everything and the amazing thing is the charge for that is 50 bucks um for our for under our plan and we as a district work very very hard to maintain that benefit for for everyone and it's amazing that we've done it and i wanted to draw attention to that i was very grateful that i was able to get that from the district it was sort of the district doing something for us and trustees do get that and it's an enormous benefit very significant and it brought me back to sort of a second question that was on my mind or i think that's on my mind and
035i was remembering a conversation i had with roger winslow who's deed's winslow's dad and a long-time figure here in sonoma valley for the wrestling community and this was it relates to the hospital because when we were doing the the hospital parcel tax last year i walked his neighborhood he lives right across from alvarano and uh he lived a lot of time here lost his son, it was very sad, and there's a family very dedicated to our schools. And I was walking with Peter Horhorst, who was the then head of the hospital board, and every time Peter tried to talk about the technicalities of funding the hospital and keeping it open, Roger just got very angry. He had a really hard time. The policy arguments weren't resonating for him. But then I would start talking about
036the high school, and I would talk about the community, and he would totally turn. And the thing that we were noticing, and Peter and I talked about afterwards, was the personal connection that the trustees and the people that are willing to do the work in the community have in building the trust of the community for the schools. And that's what you guys were all just describing doing with your reports, and it's a huge part of what we do. And it really does make the difference. We can make policy arguments and we can talk about it, but it's that lived experience and those personal connections we have that build the support for our schools. So I was just reflecting on that today. Thanks. Thank you, John. I wanted to congratulate Amy Alioto for her work on
037the school board. Thank you. Thank you for getting Sonoma County Teacher of the Month. And also, last month I talked about a book of the month, and I wanted to give suggestions for book of the month. And last month it was called Waking Up White by Debbie Irving. And this month the book that I finished is called The Distance Between Us by Reina Grande. And it's a memoir telling the story of illegal immigration as well as many other stories, including the story of poverty, that forces children out of school and into the fields. It tells the story of what one child has to go through to succeed as an immigrant and in a family of divorce and many other adversities that face many children today as well. So The Distance Between Us by Reina Grande.
038Also, I went to a trustee appreciation dinner in Santa Rosa all by myself. But I got to meet some other trustees from the University of California. And they were really nice. And so I was with the three of them. That was really, it was good. And what drew me to this dinner was that there was a freedom writer who spoke about diversity, equity, and inclusion. And that was really special. And he was super passionate. And so that was a fun night. It ended up going till 930 because he just was a really great speaker. I wanted to. I wanted to also just give a shout out during the, to Socorro and the team for the strategic planning process. Something she said was that this is not a one-time event, but more of a beginning of
039a habit that we will pick up and continue and improve upon. Somebody asked me in the community, they wanted to have the feedback from it. And I, and I, this was kind of something that I said, this is an ongoing process. It's not done yet. We will get feedback. But that. It's a continuation. It's kind of a shift in culture that this is a continuation of a discussion. I appreciate Socorro also talking about mental health issues. And if anybody saw the Grammys, they heard Lady Gaga's speech, speaking about mental health. Very important issue that the more we talk about it, the more it normalizes and allows others to come forward when they need to. I went to the Christmas party. I was there for the opening or the grand opening of the teen center's bike
040shop in the Springs. That Bruce was there. My neighbor's son is the general manager. And, and that was really, really exciting. And there was a little boy, Ulysses. Were you there when they were talking about him? Ulysses, he won a bike, a BMX bike that he built and put together. And he was, you know, down in the parking lot doing wheelies. And well, I guess they call them manuals now. They don't call them wheelies anymore. But so that was really, it was really cute because Adrian, who's the general manager, he's so great with kids and he has such a passion for that too. And so it's a great area for kids to go and learn how to fix bikes and hang out. And I think Ulysses was in middle school too. So it's not just
041for high schoolers. Let's see. I'm, I'm really appreciating the monthly budget update. So thank you for that. And I think, let's see, I think my last little, oh, the last little thing I want to say is, you know, to my fellow trustees, is that my intent during our meetings is to move things along and to keep things flowing and going. It's never to offend anyone. And so if I do, if I, you know, I may get it wrong sometimes. So I want to apologize in advance. And I know sometimes it's hard to speak in public. And I know sometimes it's hard to speak in public. And also for the public to speak in public. And so same thing, you know, we all get nervous and that's okay. And we'll just, you know, we'll, we'll move
042along together. All right. Next up, we have the consent agenda. And is there a motion to approve the consent agenda? I move to approve the consent agenda. Second. Okay. All in favor? Aye. Motion carried. Thank you. Our first item on the agenda is inter-district and intradistrict. Next up we have the board chair, Ms. Elizabeth Kaufman. And we move that agenda to the district meeting of the district. Ms. Elizabeth Kaufman. She put my glasses on. Then I can't see when I looked down. Okay. So. Let's see what I remember. Here tonight to talk a little bit about interdistricts and intradistricts. When I came on board, this was a function that was ran out of the human resources. And we took it over in ed services this year and have a new set of eyes on it.
043So we've been trying to figure out maybe how to streamline some of the processes and procedures. make sure again when we look at communication uh that what we're doing is clear and understandable so it's we're running it by you tonight um we are kind of experimenting this year with the process and we our plan is to kind of get your input but also to come back in september and share with you what we learned along the way first thing inter districts are when a student wants to go from one district to another so they can be leaving our district and coming going to another district or they can be coming from another district to our district and that is one process that's um kind of managed with a county protocol and then intra districts which
044is maybe more of the focus of the work we do in the district in terms of placing students at schools and and more of the time and and staff energy is when students are attended a specific residence in so they have a school of residence or a neighborhood school and they want to attend a school that's outside of their residence area so they apply for what's called an intra-district transfer and those are voluntary and we approve those through the district office and in the past there have been what you see right here is priority group one in terms of current priority ranking then there's priority group two and then there's a third priority group which is everything that was not included in priority one or two um and as you look at some of these
045pieces there's overlap um for example um child of a district employee or employee at a school um requested or child of a district employee in um priority group two so we really tried to look and streamline what you know trying to we spoke with the principals and we're trying like well what what's the most streamlined and effective way so that we don't have to have multiple windows and multiple times because we want to be able to let parents know we want to be able to set our classes we want to build our programs as again clearly and transparently as we can we do have a proposed ranking um dual immersion is a kind of a program choice so that's a little bit different it's not necessarily an inner district but the way that we approach
046it it is an intra-district um and then we looked at kind of combining the priority one and priority two into a single group with um the suggestion that we rank because it is difficult you know if we if we our our next priority would be keeping siblings together so you know and then uh honoring status as a district employee's child and then if you've been a child that's been displaced or moved from another school we want to get you in so we're trying to try to streamline those processes um and our recommendation is a ranking uh just because there's kind of no other way to prioritize with limited spaces if you just approve the whole group however a group you know group would work as well so that was you know a piece that that's
047a change and obviously something you you might want to weigh in on um next slide um the other language is we had a window like the first window and then we had the second window was like april the first window was i think till like march and then the next weekend was april to june well when we're approving the inner districts into june we've already tried to set up our classes and our staffing and we want to know who's in our classes our teachers want to know when they leave you know all right am i teaching a four or five combination okay well that might be triggered by enrolling students within their districts or not so we um looked at some policies of other districts and said you know what really if we can do
048this the first thursday we get back after winter break basically through the month of february then we gives us march to kind of find out all the spaces available and put our heads together and look at what what where we can place kids and then april to let parents know where they're going to be um so that's why we streamline that window so that everybody kind of leaves knowing what to expect um to the extent they can this um i pulled this out because this was some of the things that we learned from the policy um you know the policy says students are attending middle school outside of their area of residence will go to their area of residence when they go to middle school so if you were attending i don't know i'm trying
049to think of an example if you're attending presswood but you lived in um sasserini's neighborhood you would be going from presswood to altamira because of your your residence was sasserini that has not been a policy that's been followed so again it's another piece up to you um it's been inconsistent uh at the moment our plan is for this year to take the parents who were of the current fifth graders and just let them follow their their graduating class so if you're at presswood and you're a sasserini kid but you're have attended presswood all these years we're saying go from fifth grade to sixth grade with that class and you would be the attending adult um the question is then what what shouldn't when and how should we be enforcing this policy or should we change
050the policy moving forward so again we bought a little bit of time this year but up to you all to give your input for how we proceed in the fall or going into next year next slide questions or comments I know it's a lot of information and it's a lot of the real goal is to try to truncate it simplify it make it very understandable and communicable because it's coming from office managers it's coming from the student services coordinators coming from my secretary it's coming from principals like you know everybody has a different understanding of it and we need to just streamline it and then fix it if it doesn't work thank you so much Elizabeth is there any public comment okay are there any questions or comments from the board okay go ahead Melanie
051thank you for the presentation and also for the time you've spent with me as we had some conversations to clarify and I appreciated that very much so on the slide where we talked about sort of moving the window up to January and February I know that one of the things that would sometimes come up is when when we waited until April or even into June I know we had like all these different Windows that it helped me ensure that if someone moved into the neighborhood that there would be space for that person so my question is if we move the window up leg practice of the district to ensure some space is sort of you know reserved and or held in abeyance in case people move into the neighborhood after this window closes i think
052that our plan right now is to say your ten your placement is tentative and to try to firm it up by june like so you're placed it's april it's tentative placement we're looking forward to having you at such and such school next year um we will confirm again by such and such date and one of the things we we want to look at is where are those patterns of enrollment with declining enrollment as you and i discussed a little bit we may have some wiggle room and that's you know again but the flip side of it is with the the and the part of the the motivation to change the the um policies that we're not supposed to be displacing students from their neighborhood schools and so when at what point is a school full
053and that's a you know that varies district to district and you know we can have situations right now where a student shows up in the classrooms are at a grade level cap and you know we're not supposed to be displacing students from their neighborhood schools and is that school full or are we paying an overage how do we do that so those are those are those are all related to the reason why we want to start this policy and conversation because there are many other ripples that we need to figure out and i know that um intra-district transfers are a little bit different than say for example over enrollment students although the net effect can be the same where a school becomes the home school for the child even though it is not necessarily their
054neighborhood or resident school so i'm just curious in the proposed ranking slide where it says number five return to school of residence so it was my understanding that that was not an intra-district transfer but that if somebody has transferred and then that's not working that they would have an automatic return to their home school unless the school is full so are we saying now that this person would need to have an intra-district transfer to go back to their home school we usually i mean i i don't i'm going to say what i think i recall from this fall because we started this in this fall um is that we we when when you're in we say you're in for perpetuity so you would need to say please let me out and um you know and
055part of this the other one other reasons and i think this may be the case for the school is that the school is not a home school for the child so that's a good point and i think that's a good point and i think that's a good point and i think that's a good point more is we let people let us know like they could drop out after the school so we could approve an intra-district for you and you could tell us the first week of school i don't want to be there anymore and so that's another piece and i think that's where it is like oh i decided i wanted to be back at my school of residence well we already stopped for you at the school that you did your inner district for
056so now it complicates things so i think it's more of an artifact of that but again i think some of the things we need to clarify like for example flowery is a program of choice is that really an intra-district or is it people go to flowery because they want to go to flowery and it's a program and then if if flowery you know where do the students who don't as you explained to me earlier um over enrolled so if you're over enrolled meaning you didn't get into flowery or we you didn't want to be in flowery and you go to dunbar or another school is that you know is that your home school then by default so all these pieces are all connected but those are the kinds of things we have to sort out
057is you know peeling kind of one layer of the onion off and figuring out what are we doing that so in this proposal we would be saying as a district that once the intra-district transfer is approved and you're in your new home school that's your home school and if you want out it's not an automatic return you're going to have to go back through the intra-district process to get back okay thank you so the last piece is it sound it's sounding to me and from what i'm reading so i just want to be sure i'm understanding correctly that that what evolved as the district's practice is not necessarily in line with the board policy and the board policy and the administrative regs say that a fifth grader upon entering middle school goes back to the
058school of residence and our practice evolved into becoming that the district's practice is now a cohort of students in fifth grade get to go with their friends and their adopted homeschool into eighth grade and the question before us as a board is do we change our practice to match our policy or do we feel like the evolution of that practice is better for kids and better for families and maybe we need to change the board policy right right and you don't need us to decide that now we're going to leave it the way it is for this this term and this will come back to us for a decision and hopefully we'll have some more data i think part of the challenge is again like if you if a student has an intra-district it may
059or may not be recorded consistently in power school we have a database but again you know or if you change in the middle of the year because we over enrolled you or displaced you you could be called over enrolled or you could be called a transfer so we need to really kind of narrow down at least that middle school you know the the element the fifth to sixth grade transition and see how that how that flows and that's the most important piece to me is what's going to make the most sense socially and academically and for the parents in terms of whether we have those kids follow with their adopted homeschool or or whether we follow the board policy so thank you so much that's all my questions thank you melanie anybody else have any
060other questions no but i do i do so um so i will say that again just having been a parent it's i think um the sometimes the practice was not to follow the board policy but then sometimes it was so whatever however we decide whatever we do right evidence-based and it should be something that we do follow and um because i i think that that's um what we owe our you know administrative people who are staffing those classrooms it's what we owe our teachers and our staff and it's really what we owe the community i i think it's great to back up the timeline if that's what needs to happen um there is always the challenge of you know somebody moving into the district or making a decision kind of late in the year so
061the onus is on us to be good communicators about the date changes if we haven't had clear date changes or or clear dates or if they've been later dates so as we go forward just you know over communicate that um and not just to our own internal community because that's i think where we can run into some problems if people live in the district and then in you know june they decide they don't want to go to the other school anymore and they want to come back or something um and then i just had just a couple other questions on you know again going forward as we um tighten this up the um so we only list dual immersion as as the only program choice and you know we do offer other programs we offer
062avid and we offer multi-age and you know there might be some others that i'm not readily aware of on the top of my head and um you know for parity purposes you know it feels like these programs all should have some pretty clearly defined mechanisms of how you apply how you get in when you will know those sorts of things um because i think it can vary from year to year and without stated um uh specifics on how we're executing things um so i think going forward i'd like to you know make sure that we're covering those bases including those things um and making sure that the application procedures and the communications about what we're offering are consistent from year to year to year to year and um and then my other question uh kind
063of just more for future as we do this um the the lotteries i think there's like that in the past there's been sort of lottery but no one really knows when they're happening and it doesn't like the outcomes don't feel very lottery-ish maybe they really are lotteries but again trying to make sure that we're building the trust and we're building the trust and we're building the trust and we're building the trust and we're building the trust and we're building the trust and we're doing what we're doing um so being great about publicizing communicating you know when the lotteries are and who's actually doing them um and then oh my other thing is i notice that if you're communicating to people about a placement in a school and then they have a limited amount of time
064like two weeks to respond and say yes i'll take that if we're doing that in the summer by only snail mail or just by snail mail at all, because I'm not sure how many people are really looking in their post office box and things like that. So just thinking about maybe offering one other form of communication provided some other address or phone number is provided in the process of the application. So those are my, but I do think it is really important to make our board policies things that we can put into practice and not have board policies that don't really relate to how we do our practice. So I appreciate the work. I know it's a lot. So thanks. Thank you, Britta. Anybody else have any comments? Okay. Oh. Yes or no, John? Thank
065you. Nice presentation. Thank you. So I did get calls from parents about the middle school thing, and thank you. That's a very reasonable compromise. I think it really resolves all the concerns I heard. So way to catch that. Nice work. It always seemed kind of odd to me that dual immersion is an inter-district transfer. It just doesn't click. But it's that oddness where we had a neighborhood school that we concentrated. We concentrated the program out. And our attendance areas are very odd to begin with. I mean, that's the thing about the IDT process is it really is a symptom of a different problem, which is the drawing of the attendance areas and the way they've become. I mean, the attendance areas need to be looked at. And that will help us sort of some of
066the pressure that's being felt in the IDT policy, I think, will be addressed by that issue. But this looks like a very reasonable and pragmatic way to address it going forward. So thank you for that. And I think I'll leave it there. Thank you. Okay, thank you. So this is an action item. And any other comments before we move to a vote? I'd just like to clarify what it is we're taking action on, what specifically. It's just an interim for this one term to be brought back. Could we just clarify what the motion is? I think it can be whatever you want. I think at this point, we just want to, again, going back to following our policy, with the exception of middle school, we want to have a policy that we're following that reflects
067what we're doing now. And then as we collect data and really figure out what the impact is during the summer and what those windows, do the windows work? And, you know, are we displacing students inadvertently in the fall? Then we would have to look at that again in terms of our timelines and the nature of the policy. It's to approve the board. So it's a second read, the board policy 5116, which is in the packet. And so the action would be to approve the board policy and administrative regulation 5116.1. And have you, so with the proposal that you had, kind of following Melanie, I thought that, like, the choice between this ranking, do you need that made tonight? No, as long as we're talking about it. I mean, I just want to be transparent about
068the fact that we're not going to, you know, we're going to follow past practice without, and our plan in following past practice is to let the families who are currently in fifth grade know they'll be following their sixth grade class. And then to collect some data so that we know really how does it impact, you know, does one school end up full because of intra-districts, and other kids get displaced when the school year starts? You know, that's the data we kind of need to have in order to meet, come make a recommendation. To say keep it or leave it. Can I ask a question? Would it be, so if, because the proposed, right, there were some squishiness in the kind of current priority ranking groups and things like that. I don't see radical change from
069what there was before to what is here, other than just cleaning it up and I think probably making it more clear to our constituents and, you know, things like that. The users of the system and then potentially the people who are having to make the decisions. Would it be easy, would it be not because you want to do things because they're easy, but would it make more sense if we did go ahead and make this change now? I mean, just because we say, yes, we're going to clean this up now, doesn't mean we can't bring it back in a year or six months or nine months once you've collected the data. And a piece of thought. Is that the board policy could be approved and you're not required to approve administrative regulations. We bring them
070to you as a practice. But in terms of the policy, you know, the admin rig that we haven't been following is an admin rig. So we could, we could, I mean, I want to defer to Socorro, but we could, you know, do, do some tentative AR that we follow this spring and then, you know, document that and bring it back to you for final approval in the fall if, you know, based on what works or what doesn't work. Well, the things that I hold that will hold true to this year is one, making any sense of lotteries transparent. So being very clear with the community about when those are taking place, what that looks like, the mechanisms so they could be transparent, open. People could view them if they wanted to. And then clarifying and
071we'll figure out how. But this year for the passage of students from fifth grade to sixth grade, they will stay with the school which they have been attending and go to their traditional middle school for this year. We'll bring that back. We'll have more discussions. But that is not aligned with our policy right now. We'll bring that back and clean that up. So it will be. But we don't have to vote tonight if the board understands that's the practice. We will continue this year finishing out this year. Yeah. Sorry, I still need clarification. So we're saying that for this year, our fifth graders will follow their cohort wherever they are. Through eighth grade. Mm-hmm. They'll go to the school. Through eighth grade. And any changes then would not be affecting those kids this year. Right.
072Right. OK. They would kind of be grandfathered through their middle school experience. OK. And then we'll bring the board policy back to look at those specifics. Mm-hmm. And if we change it, we would give people plenty of time. They'd know the process, whatever that is. OK. So we're not going to vote tonight then on this item, is that correct? Mm-hmm. OK. So no vote. This is not an action item. It's information item only. Thank you so much for your presentation. Just before we close it, I had one more question. Sorry. I apologize. Go ahead. So I want to make sure, though, that I'd like to know the mechanics of it. Right? And so for AR 5116.1, on the first page of that reg, it's paragraph four. That's the one that's causing all the excitement, if
073you will. Right? That thumbs up is a yeah, that's the paragraph. Yep. So it's just that one paragraph. Yeah. That's causing the heartache. And I think, I don't remember, but I saw figures a couple years ago. And it was something like half of the IDTs in the district were coming out of Sasserini. I mean, some of them were IDTs going to Flowery, because we characterize them that way. But a lot of them were going to Prestwood. And the paradigmatic IDT that's going to cause grief is going to be a Sasserini kid going to Prestwood. That's the parent that's going to be on my, those are the parents that were on my phone. You can send them to me. Right? Which I did. One at a time. But I mean, it really just, if we'd modify
074paragraph four right there, that's the fix. It's just, we didn't, we're following the policy. So when we found out the policy wasn't followed, we're like, what? So then you gave me one last question I'm going to ask. If we move to amend paragraph four so that it is consistent with existing practice that students move from their elementary school to that elementary school's middle school, haven't we just saved you? A lot of other paperwork? Very, very possibly. What we don't know is the inadvertent effect of the middle school enrollments and kids getting displaced. So the challenge, like when I was first here and I came on board and kids were, people had just moved into Adele Harrison's area and we had to let them know Adele's full. Well, to me, if I'm a homeowner and I
075just bought a house and the school's full, I wonder what that means. So I think that's where we have to tighten up some of these pieces. Yeah. And it could go any number of ways. It's not just for that, but that's one example. Those parents have called me too. OK. OK. Thank you. Yeah. And for me, the issue goes much bigger than that. I also want to have the conversation about whether or not flowery school should even be an intra-district transfer. We may use the form, but I'm not sure that it belongs there anymore. So I think this is an opportunity for us to really look at our practice and make sure moving forward it all follows. So I appreciate you taking it. I appreciate you taking a little bit of time so we can
076get it right. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks, Elizabeth. And just one last comment. Just as Britta was saying, just have it standardized, because Dunbar will eventually, if not already, become also a school of choice with the AVID program. And we're going to be flooded with so many transfers. We like that. But also, to also pay attention to if number four, depending on how number four is set up, we don't want to just spring it on people. We want to have an automated way of allowing people to know about. OK. Great. And that's why we're targeting September. OK. Thank you so much. So information item only, no action. Thank you. Next item, number two, SVUSD expulsion procedures. And we'd like to introduce, I will let Socorro introduce Carl Corbin, our attorney. Well, Nicole just introduced Carl
077Corbin, our attorney. OK. Well, yeah. So yeah, it was great. He was here. He heard. Yeah. He was in the conversation about inter-districts, because he will be helping us modify and make sure we're meeting the laws, as well as kind of clarity in our board policy. But with two new board members, one of the things we wanted to do was go over the very process of how a student gets to this role of the expulsion, and what role the board plays in that, just so there's clarity and there is training on what that is that the board's being asked to weigh in on. And so Carl is here to share his expertise. So I'm going to hand it over to you, Carl. Thank you. Thank you very much. Good evening. And I'm going to go
078and I have some PowerPoint slides we're going to run through. I also have part of your packet is a one-page front and back. Ooh, and I have the . On the one-page front and back also that provides all of the information. I'm going to give you the process. I'm going to give you the law. I also just want to share for that, we're talking about students, and we're talking about expelling a student. And in the school system, we don't remove students from schools. Students have a right to go to school. Expulsion changes their placement. I'm a former school psychologist, and I've served on an administrative panel making these decisions. As an attorney, I have advised administrative panels, and I have advised boards on this issue. And I'd like to think that I have a pretty
079good understanding of this. But again, ultimately, you need to know board. When you're in your closed session talking about this, you're looking at an individual student and their trajectory for their education. So with that, let me go into the law. So you have on... The first slide is a summary of the process. Basically, the student is charged with an expellable offense. The Education Code Section 48900 lists all the various offenses. Once a student is charged with the offense, then there's supposed to be an expulsion hearing within 30 school days. The parent is entitled to at least one 30-calendar day continuance. But typically, it's going to be 30 school days. From there, it can go to an administrative panel. It can also be a school day. It can also be a school day. It can also
080be heard by the board directly. I am a fan of having an administrative panel hear this because there is evidence. It can be a very long, complicated procedure. And it reserves... By having an administrative panel hear that, it allows the board, as I'll talk about in a second, to act as the ultimate decision makers on this, essentially acting as the final arbiter. But an administrative panel can hear this. The board can hear this. Or you do have the option of going to the Office of Administrative Hearings and having a hearing officer hear the case. I'm not as big a fan as that because the Office of Administrative Hearings, they do a great job in a number of areas to include teacher layoffs, teacher dismissals. They don't do a lot of student discipline, and they're not
081as familiar with our good friend the Education Code. So I would encourage your administrative panel or if the board, you guys really want to hear it, go ahead and do that. No, I'm... Up to you guys. So then once it's heard by the administrative panel, that's option A. You also have option B. The option A administrative panel, call witnesses, have testimony, go through the documents, you have the administrator presenting the case, or a stipulated agreement is where sitting down with the family, the administration says, you know what, student at X offense, the parent's like, yeah, I agree, my student did this. What's the quickest way we can resolve this? Avoid the hearing, do a stipulated agreement. Stipulated means mom and dad understand what the student has done. Okay. So that's the first option. The second
082option is to reach an agreement, and then that also will then go to the board for final action on. The administration, the district can reach a stipulated agreement with the family. It has to be approved by the board. It's streamlining the process. It gets the student in their educational placement quicker. Another option you can do with a stipulated agreement is you can just, the family can agree to an expulsion. Or the family could agree to, and the administration may recommend, a stipulated expulsion. What that means is essentially that you... The student is expelled, but the expulsion is suspended, and the student can be allowed to, for example, continue at that school site. And assuming that they don't otherwise have any other misbehavior, the student would be able to finish up at that school site, and
083after a period of time, the board could choose to expunge the expulsion from the record, give them a fresh start. If the student commits another act subject to suspension, subject to discipline, then the expulsion can be implemented. It's implemented with no further action that doesn't have to go back to go through the whole hearing process. So that's the benefit of a stipulated agreement, which is why the board may, hey, receive a stipulated agreement and you haven't had a hearing associated with that. Once you have either the hearing decision or the stipulated agreement, then no more than 10 school days, that goes in front of the board. And then in closed session, because we're talking about students. In closed session, you talk about the specifics, the fact, ask the questions, go over the information, an open
084session, that is where you're going to make your decision. Yes, we are going to agree to accept the stipulated agreement. No, we are not. Administration is recommending an expulsion. The board wants to do a suspended expulsion, or the board may decide, you know, based on these facts, we don't want to expel at all. It's ultimately going to be your decision. So order expulsion or suspended expulsion, deny the expulsion request. Education code section, and again, here I'm going to run through fairly quickly some of the code and other information. But all the detailed information is in your one page double-sided document. So education code section 48900, et cetera, governs student suspension and expulsion. There's specific delineated grounds where a district can suspend or expel. Then education code section 48918 gives a very detailed hearing process. If
085a family does want to go to hearing, they have a right to have an attorney, they have a right to call witnesses, they have the right to share evidence. If a district calls a witness to cross-examine the witness, it's a full evidentiary hearing process. The legal standard for criminal matters, we talk about beyond a reasonable doubt. In civil matters, we talk about preponderance of evidence, basically 51%. For student expulsion, we're talking about substantial evidence, so it's even below that. So it is a much, the burden of proof is significantly lower in the district because again, the student is not being incarcerated. The student's not being arrested. The student's not losing school entirely, but the student's educational placement is changing. Your district, we're talking about board policy administrative regulations. You have a board policy and an
086administrative regulation, 5144.1 that you have. So if you have any interest more about your process, that's where you would find it. All expel-able offenses, except for the mandatory expel-able, there's five mandatory expel-able offenses in California. And that is where if the administration has these facts, brings it to the board, the board says, yes, these are the facts, you have to expel. And that is statutory in California. And those are fairly significant offenses like bringing explosives to school, firearms, selling drugs, sexual assault. They are the really big offenses. Putting those aside for all other offenses, physical altercations, possessing drugs at school, you have to show two things, that other means of correction are not feasible, or have other... Or have repeatedly failed to bring about the proper conduct, or two, the due to the nature of
087the violation, the presence of the student at school causes a danger to the physical safety of the student or to other students. So if you are having an administrative panel do the hearing, they have to bring you, not only did the student do X, but in addition, one or two of these apply. When you receive a recommendation for student expulsion from the administrative panel or hearing officer, all findings of fact and recommendations are based... So if you have the administrative panel's recommendation, you wouldn't go and say, well, let's go call and have more evidence there. You are basically making the decision based upon that information. If you don't think there is sufficient information there, then you can go and reorder the administrative panel to re-hear this, or the hearing officer, if that's what occurs, or
088the board itself has the opportunity, you could go at that point to hear the matter. You would schedule it for a different day. You would go through the whole process. But what you wouldn't be doing is when you receive in the closed session is to try and dig and get additional facts. That wouldn't be appropriate. If the board accepts the recommendation call for expulsion, acceptance would be based upon the review of the findings of fact submitted by the administrative panel hearing officer or upon the results of any supplementary hearing, and I just mentioned that. The board can then choose to adopt the administrative panel decision or deny it, or what you can do also is administrative panel says we want to hear the report. We can't do that. We can't do that. We recommend the
089expulsion, and we are going to agree with that, but we want to suspend the expulsion. The board has the ability to do that. And that's the second bullet. Third bullet, this period of suspension. Depending on the offense, the student can be suspended up to 365 calendar days. Some offenses allow for that. Some offenses allow just for the remainder of the current semester and the following semester. The administrative panel may... The administrative panel may say we recommend the student be expelled for the remainder of this semester and the following semester. The board can... Has the ability to reduce that or to increase that as long as you don't increase it beyond the requirements of the... Beyond the stricture of the law. Then you notice my font got a little smaller there. The suspended expulsion allows the
090student to return back to the comprehensive site. You could also have the student go to another site. We just talked about that earlier, about the revocation. Second bullet, we talked about that also. Parent can waive through the stipulated expulsion agreement. The third bullet, the decision by the board, administrative panel, stipulated agreement, unless the family waives that right for a stipulated agreement, they have the right to send that, make an appeal to the county board of education within 30 calendar days. And the county board of education makes a decision. They're not supposed to also do their own hearing. Gathering all their faculty. They're not supposed to do their own hearing. They're supposed to do their own hearing. They're supposed to do their own hearing. They're supposed to do their own hearing. They're supposed to do their
091own hearing. They're supposed to do their own hearing. So, the ability to waive the expulsion agreement, the decision by the board of education, would be based upon the record. The county board does have the ability though to send the case back to the district to be reheard. Questions? Thank you so much for that presentation. Thank you for coming. It's great to meet you in person. Thank you. First, we'd like to ask if there's any public comment. This is Les Winter's parent. Of course I do because this is a thorn in my side. Hi Carl. So, I have a few questions. During the 30 days or more if there's a continuance, where is that student placed to receive their rights to their education? So, the issue there is for the statutory law, while a student is
092suspended, and I'll talk about the special education students in a minute, but a general education student is not suspended. They are not. who's suspended pending an expulsion hearing does not have a right to receive education. We highly recommend it. We want to look at your board policy and the law talks about the purpose of the process is to get the student, go through the hearing process as quickly as possible to get the student in a placement, which is one of the reasons why doing a stipulated agreement can speed up the process so the student's education is not interrupted. The district can go and we do recommend is to provide the student with work during this time period that can be work packets that can be meeting once a week off that school site, the district
093office for example, with the teacher. There's a variety of ways to address that. That's a district practice that's not staffed. For special education students, there is a right after the 11th day of removal from school, so 11 days of suspension, 11 days removal, after the 10th day, beginning the 11th day, the student has a right to receive some form of services that allow the student to make progress towards their goals and to be able to access the curriculum. Again, what that looks like is going to vary from student to student and that would be determined at an individualized education program meeting and it may be for a student who has a specific learning disability, difficulties with reading, it may very well be that the general education teachers will be able to help them. The teachers
094will provide homework packets to the special education teacher. Special education teacher reviews them, makes accommodations to address the student's disability. Those homework packets go home and then the student meets at the district office for an hour with the special education teacher to review that during the period of suspension, pending an expulsion. That would be an example of a legally permissible, but again, that determination is supposed to be made. There's the I in Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, individualized. I think that addresses both your questions. It leads to my next question. Celeste, why don't you go ahead and ask the questions or questions or comments or whatever and then we'll see if other board, public, and then we'll pull you back up afterwards. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, so that led to my next question is in
095our district we have a much higher rate of suspensions and I'm not sure on expulsions because I can't find the data for that because it's not public. Okay. So that is also part of my question. But we have an inordinately higher number of suspensions for students with disabilities than we do for our other student population, which is really problematic and it leads me to a lot of questions regarding expulsion because our students with disabilities have the right to a manifestation determination hearing. And how is that happening? Are parents, how are parents supported in their meaningful participation in that, especially students who don't have a disability? Who don't have the economic means to get an attorney? Who perhaps are English language learners and their parents don't speak English? How are they being able to meaningfully participate
096in a manifestation determination hearing? And what is that looking like? And then going back to the issue that there's nowhere I can find the expulsion data for our district. The California dashboard has only suspension data and EdSource only has suspension data and it only has it up to 2014 and 2015 school year. Okay. So we're going to have to figure out some way that our district can have our expulsion data and have it broken down by subgroups and made public on the district website so that the public can review that and really get a clearer picture of what that looks like. And then lastly, we're going back to students with disabilities and manifestation hearings and what that looks like. How can we truly understand if this is a manifestation of a student's disability when we
097don't even currently have a behaviorist in the district? So we've got some big gaping holes. If right now we had a student with disabilities go through the expulsion process and go through a manifestation determination hearing when we don't even have a behaviorist. And if students are getting to that point where they're getting suspended and they're getting expelled and they have an IEP, that's really a failure on the team's part because a need is not being met. This is a student with an IEP. They shouldn't be getting to that point and not at the numbers that we have that are being reflected on our California dashboard. So those are my questions. And if I could get a follow-up on that data being public, I would appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you, Celeste. Is there any other
098public comment? Okay. So next, we'll go to the board with questions or comments. John, do you want to go since you went last time? Or do you have any questions yet? I have one. First, thanks for being here tonight. Really appreciate it. And then also, really appreciate kind of your easy manner of just kind of cashing a question, as I said. We'll be happy to answer as it comes and trying to answer it for us. We have some members of our community who are very knowledgeable about what's going on, and they put in the time to get up to speed on what's going on, and we as a board actually . . . you know, some people will come to your meetings and they will really put in time and they almost become like a
099sixth board member. In many respects, Ms. Winders is that for us, especially on this question. So thank you for just jumping in right away and answering that question. Although we don't like to do that, I appreciate that you did it. Thank you. And I think that's the sort of thing I'm wondering about has to do with the way we do suspended expulsions. So in another life, I spent some time working on CALPADS data, and I was looking at the way suspended expulsions were treated, and they ended up being treated as if they were just expulsions for the district. Notwithstanding the fact that we suspended it, we were still treated as if we had expelled the student. And I think I'm right that that is how the state treats it. You're correct, because what you're doing
100is you are, in fact, expelling the student. You're right. You're right. You're right. You're right. You're right. You're right. You're right. The student is under an expulsion order, but the expulsion order is suspended, and then it can be imposed, so it's going to count. Yes. Okay. But I mean, so this is, there's weirdnesses in the way we sort of account for data as a state, because your average person, when I say your average person, I mean just voters. The voters think if we expelled somebody, they're gone, like they're out. And if they see thirty seven expulsions, they're like, what are you guys doing over there, when, When, in fact, that may have actually been five, right? But we suspended a lot of them. Okay. Yes. So I thought in my head, couldn't there be a
101better way of doing this? Because I thought that the suspended expulsion was intended to allow us to have sort of a mechanical process if the terms of the condition of the suspension were violated. And then it's just boom, right, to expulsion and we're done, right? Yes. But isn't there a way we can stipulate to that without having to actually expel and then suspend and get this sort of false positive expulsion rate? You could reach an agreement with the family to change the student's placement to a different school without going through the expulsion process, like at the continuation high school. Okay. But if the student, if you just reach an agreement and it's not, doesn't go through the process of expulsion. Being a suspended expulsion and the student reoffends and the parent at that point says,
102no, I don't want to agree to this unless you have the mechanism of having a suspended expulsion, you would have to go back to the expulsion process. Thank you for completely and fully answering my question. Okay. Thank you. Anybody else have any questions? Go ahead, Melanie. Hi. Nice to see you again. Thank you. So first a detailed question. I have three total. Okay. On the slide where it shows no more than 10 school days. Yes. If the board wasn't meeting, are we, should we be doing a special board meeting to address that to be sure that we're in those, within those 10 days or is there some sort of flux there? So when I said no more than 10 school days and fitting that onto a slide, there is some exceptions for that. And 48.918,
103flipping to my much be raggled code. I get a new one any day now. So what the board can do is to get, let me just flip real quick here. If, so it's education code section 48.918A as an alpha three. If the compliance with the governing board of the school district within the time requirements for the conducting the expulsion here in the subdivision is impracticable due to summer recess, they can give you additional two weeks. weeks the recess period shall not be counted as school days and meeting the timelines. It talks about an additional not exceed 20 additional school days and then you also have a California appellate court decision that said that that timeline there is within the discretion essentially of the school district that if a school district violated that time period for
104the 10 school days, then a family would have the remedy of basically going to get a writ or an order to compel the board to do the hearing. What wouldn't happen is if a school district exceeded the 10 school days and exceeded these additional days in here for summer periods, other time period, they wouldn't be able to say, oh, the administrative panel met, they had a recommendation, but you took one extra day, therefore you can't proceed with expulsion. That is not the law. That's interpreted by the courts. Thank you. So next question. In closed session, you made some comments about what we can and cannot do. So if a case is presented to us, we could ask details, ask for clarification, or do we need to just simply basically read it as is and make
105a determination? You're supposed to be receiving, if it's administrative panel, you receive the findings of fact, you receive. The recommendation, you should have a rehabilitation plan associated with that also. You're supposed to be making your decision based upon the information you have there. The written record? Yes. Thank you. On the written record. Okay. So my last question is, as I was listening and taking notes over and over again, what I kept writing down was, could there be a restorative justice kind of option somewhere in this? I get that it's at code. Yes. I get all of. I get that. But I just keep feeling like if there was either in our board policy or in the process or somewhere along the way, if we had an alternative pathway to follow to this. So my question
106is, is there a place for something like a restorative justice kind of pathway or remedy? Not only is there a place for it, it's required by law. Okay. So you've got education code section 48 and 100.5. Okay. So you've got education code section 48 and 100.5. Okay. So you've got education code section 48 and 100.5. Okay. So you've got education code section 48 and 100.5. Okay. So you've got education code section 48 and 100.5. 48 and 100.5. So education code section 48 and 100.5 requires that before you suspend or expel a student, unless it's an A through E offense, a 48 and 100 A through E offense. Right. The mandatory. So the big offenses, physical altercations, selling drugs, having weapons at school, if it's not one of those offenses or if the administration does not
107feel that having the student at school would be a risk to the student or others. Clear and present danger, right. Then the school district can't do a suspension. And now the student can just choose to leave and drop hisأنthey earn a five out of ten. I can't. I know, I know. Thebral attack is a huge injury. . The spinal cord injury is a injury. The adrenal injury is a lesion. to try other means of correction before recommending expulsion. Or could it be this was the child's third fight and the first two times we did this and this and this was our attempt at a remedy and the third time we're feeling like, or do they need to be presenting that at every incident? Well, and again, what you have is there that other means of
108correction are not feasible or in the example you just provided, or have repeatedly failed about to bring proper conduct. And that would be the example the administration would do is, board, I'm hearing you, we're recommending this administrative panel. First, the administrator, go to the administrative panel, would say, this is the third time the students had a physical altercation. We tried this the first time. We tried this the second time. The other means of correction were now before you, administrative panel, for the third time. And then that's what you get to the board. It should be part of the evidence that other means of correction. That was going to be my last follow-up question. So it's reasonable for me to assume that. These other means of correction, if tried, should be part of the written record,
109since I'm not asking questions or doing that kind of detailed look. Is it reasonable for me to presume that that prior information, because if I want to know, well, what was done to make an attempt to remedy this some other way? Or, I mean, should something be stated in the record so that I would have a, you know, a little bit more knowledge of that? Let me give you a legal answer than a practical answer. Okay, thank you. The legal answer is they have to, you have to have item number one, other means of correction are not feasible or repeatedly failed to be about proper conduct, or item number two. That you're required to have. But if I'm going to presenting a case before an administrative panel, before the board, I'm going to absolutely be
110showing to the administrative panel of the board and have evidence that'll be in there that these are the other means of correction that we have attempted with the student that haven't been, that haven't addressed the need, or in this case, we just don't think it's appropriate or feasible, student brings a handgun to school. We, that may be something that we want to immediately go forward with an expulsion. So as an attorney, I want to give you the evidence to the administrative panel or the board so you don't have any lingering questions, because this is a very significant decision to do an expulsion. So I would encourage you, that is something that you can direct your superintendent and designees to make sure that is provided to you, not connected with the specific information. But you can
111absolutely, and I would encourage you to do so. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Anybody else have any questions or comments? No? Okay. So, just piggybacking off of what you were saying with Melanie's question, because you kept saying administrative panel or board. So, if you're going through an administrative panel, and then it comes to the board, right, versus going straight to the board, because you were saying that the board could hear them in lieu of an administrative panel. So, is it, is the full packet that the administrative panel saw and used to make their recommendation to the board, should that full packet come to the board, or does a truncated packet with a recommendation come to the board? That's an excellent question. Okay. Okay. Okay. And at the hearing, the administrative panel hearing,
112if the administrative panel is hearing this, then there can be a variety of documents that presented as evidence. And in some cases, something might be excluded, as it's not probative, it's not relevant to what's going on. But all of the documents that are admitted by the panel as evidence should be provided and be part of the whole packet, along with the recommendation that the board would be considering in closed session. Okay. And one. One other question for you, and then I have one other thing. And that is, can you just for our education, who makes up an administrative panel? Oh, it's, sure. Who makes up an administrative panel? And let me actually give you, when in doubt, go to the law. So, it's on education code section 48918, 48918D as in delta. And the administrative
113panel is, interestingly enough, in California, it doesn't actually, you don't actually have to have someone with an administrative credential. I mentioned back in Fresno, when I was, well, I didn't say Fresno, but back when I was a school psychologist, I had my PPS, pupil personnel services, but I served on an administrative panel. The law says that you have to have three or more, typically we just do three, or more certificated persons, none of whom employed on the staff of the school in which the student is enrolled. So, you could have an assistant principal, or you could have a principal from your high school do a, appear on an administrative panel at one of your middle schools. What you could not have is you could not, if a student was at the high school, you could
114not have any certificated employee who is assigned to that school site act on the administrative panel. Does that answer your question? Yeah, so it's just three, it's a minimum of three certificated people who are not working at that present school site of that student. So, I think that's correct. We recommend administrators what the code doesn't require. Okay, and is it practice to have more than three, or is three just the number that? I've been doing this for a while now, and I will tell you that no, I've never seen an administrative panel for more than three, because again, you're not going to want to have four, because you might have a tie, then you're into five, and you're taking people and resources and cost associated with it. So, I'm not aware of any situation where
115you've had more than three. Okay, and then, so this isn't for you, but this is just for me to go on the record. There have been occasion when we've, the board has had a student who's coming back after having been away, and I just would like to request that when we get a student who's coming back into the high school, that we also get in the packet, that we check in with the school and make sure that the student is well prepared, that they've already had a plan, that they've developed an academic plan, that the student has communicated with a counselor at, I mean, I'm looking at high school, looking at graduation, and that they've developed a plan for graduation, so that we can ensure that readmission is going, that we have a plan, and
116they're going to be successful, and that the students and families are aware of the possibility they may have to take a zero period, and we have a plan for them, and so if we get an additional student, or a summer school or just, you know, so that they know how they're going to be able to get to the finish line. So I'd just like to have that in a packet when it's feasible, right? Can I actually address that just real quick? There is a legal requirement. Whenever a student is expelled, there has to be a rehabilitation plan. And part of the rehabilitation plan should talk about some of the various things that you've seen. And then when the student comes, their expulsion period ends. They don't automatically return to school. They would come back through
117the board. And it had the rehabilitation plan, and they're supposed to talk about how did they meet their plan, what's the expectation. So that is information that you should be receiving already. Well, I'm actually looking for a future forward plan. So if you're 17 and you've gone and done your rehabilitation plan, but you only have, you know, I don't know, let's just say we have 200 units you need to graduate. And you've got, you know, 90 units or something. And you're coming in as a junior. Like, what's your plan? How are we going to get this kid to the finish line? Are they aware of what's involved? We want to set them up for success. That's what I'm, not so much the reverse, but the forward to the degree that it's feasible in the timelines
118and possible with available human resources. That's all. So. Thank you so much. I think I just want to ask a clarification. I'm for, because of time constraints here. The reason why when we're in closed session we can't ask more questions is that that's to protect the student and the families, right? Because they need to hear the same things that we're hearing if there's any extra information. Is that correct? That is correct. Okay. That is correct because you could be sharing, you ask additional questions for the administrator. The part of a hearing is the ability to cross-examine and for the other side in this case, the district and the family. The family brings evidence. The district can address that evidence. District brings evidence. The family's supposed to be addressed. If a district administrator shows up in
119the closed session, shares additional information, the family may be able to want to respond to that and it lacks the opportunity. So that is a process issue, not good. Okay. And the final thing, which I know is not tonight, but I would love to hear at some point, do a deep dive into this more about student service. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I think we want to talk a little bit more about students services, about models that are happening for alternatives to suspensions and expulsions and how to rehabilitate with, or those restorative practices that we talked about and, you know, this old-fashioned of sending kids home and then there's nobody at home, and, you know, and also kids with,
120you know, disabilities too. And so there's a lot, or poverty, they don't have somebody whose, who's there advocating for them. them. And there's a multitude of things that we've talked about throughout the years that I would love to do more of a deep dive, but that's, I know your tonight is specifically to give us the legalese, and I really appreciate you coming out tonight and meeting us all. So thank you so much. MR. Thank you. CHAIRMAN BRYANT LIMAGE. Thank you. And thank you again for coming. I have a follow-up. You talked about substantial evidence tonight. So there's the procedural requirements necessary to conduct an expulsion, and then there's the evidence presented at the hearing regarding why we're trying to do this in the first place. The evidence is substantial. That when we consider what is
121being presented by the district, it's that, is this the, you know, the reasonable evidence that a person would base a normal decision upon, right? But the procedure, that's, a court's going to review that for strict scrutiny, right? Because it's a fundamental right to an education that's at issue for the student. MR. There are statutory requirements that have to be followed, and insofar as the statutory requirements are in place, the court is going to review that for strict scrutiny. MR. They have a right to see a copy of the evidence. They have a right to call witnesses, to cross-examine. MR. Yeah. MR. But so as long as those are met as the actual substantive decision, was there enough evidence or not, that's where you're going to get to the substantial, and the courts generally don't second-guess
122that issue. MR. Yeah. But if we blow the procedure? MR. If you blow the procedure, then at best, and it goes to the, to a court or the County Board of Education, at best what they're doing is they're going to go to the court and say, what they're going to do is to tell you, redo it and follow the procedure this time. MR. Yeah. MR. At worst, they're going to say, you had your chance. You've lost it. We're going to overturn, and you're not going to have a right to proceed with that. MR. Thanks. MS. Thank you so much. Have a good evening. MR. Have a great night. MS. Thanks for coming. MR. Thank you. MS. Okay. Next up, we've got number three, 2019 summer school update. Elizabeth Kaufman. MS. It's my pleasure to introduce
123Jason Sutter, who will be our high school principal this summer, and Katie Hahn, who will be our elementary principal. MS. Hi, everyone. MS. Hi. MS. And I'm going to introduce our high school principal this summer, and not with us this evening, because I think he was hired two days ago, Ms. R. A. Williams, who is going to be our extended school year principal for summer schools. So we are very excited to have the team and to get started, and I'll turn it over to Katie first. MS. Thank you, and welcome. MS. Thank you. Good evening to all of you. We are so excited to be able to offer the Summer Literacy Academy again this year through the generosity of our students. We're so excited to be able to offer the Summer Literacy Academy again through
124the generosity of the Ed Foundation. It's a great opportunity to be able to extend student learning and build, you know, essential literacy skills during the summer months. Summer is right around the corner, so we're gearing up and fine tuning the program. The Summer Literacy Academy will serve about 320 kindergarten through third grade students across the district. district including the charters the primary focus of the summer school program will be the development of literacy and writing skills though we are looking at adding in some math games to enhance the program as well the instruction will be delivered in small groups with classrooms of between 15 and 18 students and we are working on plans for curriculum and determining which assessment assessments will be used for placement and progress monitoring once the program commences we're also considering
125a flexible schedule and maybe some other different daily schedule options as we move forward forward we're looking forward to partnering with various community organizations again as we have in the past there's brain game which is a program through Boys and Girls Club and pets lifeline and Sonoma Valley Regional Library all those organizations have worked with the summer school program in the past and it's been very successful the kids love it it adds a dimension of richness and fun and we're looking forward to doing that again so we're anticipating another exciting and learning rich summer school year and we're excited to be underway thank you so much let's have Jason come up next before we go to public comment and then board that's okay Jason and then we might Katie don't don't go away yet that's
126perfect I am very happy to have had the chance to speak with you in the morning at this time today and I'm so excited to welcome you to the school year 2020 I'm so glad to be here talking about summer school. I'm excited to be thinking about getting ready for summer school. Summer school is awesome. And I want to talk about four main – we're starting our planning now, and I want to talk about four main aspects of our planning that we're already working on. First of all is how can we make sure that our summer school program is connected to the regular school programs at the high school. And so the key to that is going to be connecting with the administrators that are there now, talking about what is needed and how we
127continue the work that's happening in both of our high schools, meeting with the counselors and really making sure that we're on the same page moving forward, and even its little details like making sure we have the same spreadsheet so that they're giving us the information we need and we're not going back at the 11th hour. Yeah, no experience with that. And working with the office managers. Working Terry Hernandez is going to do office manager again this year, and she's amazing. And we were on the phone today starting to talk about it. So that's the first thing is making sure that everyone involved is connecting now and talking about how we can make sure things go smoothly. The next thing, the other part of our planning is looking forward. How will we measure our impact? The
128impact, the way we measure it is, I think, pretty consistent. We've been measuring the impact of high school summer school on the percentage of students that are going to be in the high school program. And we're going to be looking at the percentage of students that pass their classes. I mean, it's pretty straightforward. Our main goal here is credit recovery so that we can have students graduating on time. And while we have offered some credit recovery different years, the bulk of all of the things we offer, I mean, some original credit, the bulk of what we offer is credit recovery. So we're going to be looking at what percentage of kids pass. And last year I shared with you, or the fall I shared with you our results, it was the equivalent of a third.
129And so we're going to be looking at what percentage of our student population getting semester credits this last summer. So that was huge. And so we're looking for similar impact or better for this year. The other part of our planning is how do we entice teachers to come experience the wonders that is summer school. We want SVOSD teachers. We can find teachers, but what we really want is our teachers because they have a vested interest in the success of our kids. And they know them. And those are the people that we need. So our goal is to get the best out of our students. Our goal on that was, I mentioned earlier, was to start early. When I reported to you last time, we need to start early. So we have started early. We have
130posted the jobs for, we posted the jobs with HR just this week, right? And we're going to be, I'm going to be planning with the principals and the counselors this month so that we can start hiring and making sure that we get people before they make summer plans that conflict with the summer school. The last aspect of our planning is that we're going to be working with our teachers. And the last aspect of our planning was Socorro asked me, like, how are you going to bring Joy to summer school? And, which is a great question. And I, maybe she didn't know, but everyone is happy to go to summer school. There are no frowny faces. No. It's a great question because it's really hard. Like you, kids are going to school all year and it
131was hard when everyone else is going. Now they got to get up on their own and go in summer. It's a really hard sell. So, one thing that we did last year and I want to continue is make sure that we have smaller class sizes so that kids can be known by their teachers, that they can develop relationships, that they can try and connect with them so they feel that the adults there are caring for them. And then I'm going to be having to think of other ideas. I have a couple things that are percolating I'll have to share with you later about how we can make it both joyful for the teachers and the students because if the teachers, the students are not joyful, then the students won't be joyful. It's got to be,
132everybody's got to be bringing some excitement because like it or not, we're there. So, let's try and make it good. And I am looking forward to getting started. So, thank you. Thank you so much. So, we'll start with, is there any public comment? Okay. So, I have a couple of questions. Are we going to be addressing the students who are in fourth grade and up this summer or are we going to be ignoring them again? I think we're going to be addressing the students who are in second grade and up this year like we did last year. There was nothing available for them and these are students, many, many students who are two or more grade levels below in their reading who had no summer opportunities whatsoever because this program doesn't address them. Second of
133all, how are students with disabilities going to be supported in the summer literacy program because last year it was a disaster. We had a few students with disabilities and IEPs who were in the program but their parents had to fight tooth and nail. So, we're going to be addressing them. So, we're going to be addressing them. I think some students were in the program but their parents had to fight tooth and nail to get them the modifications and accommodations that they needed to participate in it, especially if those students required a one to one EAD. They were basically excluded from the program. And that's a major equity issue that needs to be addressed this year. And I'm going to be really, really clear that if it's not addressed this year and we have a repeat
134of last summer, I'm personally going to file an OCR complaint because last year was shameful because there were students who were literally excluded because they needed a one to one EAD. one-to-one aid and if we're going to have a summer literacy program for all students then it needs to be for all students and many of our students with IEPs qualify for this program because they are two grade levels or more below in their reading abilities also addressing high school students who are covering credits for RSP courses we had numerous students last summer who were doing that some of them also didn't pass the summer course so they didn't pass their RSP course and then they didn't pass their student recover their recovery course are we catching them mid-year and realizing that they're gonna go into
135credit recovery these are students with IEPs they shouldn't even be getting to a place where they're in credit recovery so I'm hoping that that's going to be addressed now that we're hitting the mid-year mark that we can take a look at those students who are in our RSP courses at the high school and see who's in danger of being in credit recovery and swoop in and make some adjustments to their IEPs um so that they don't end up in this program and then also last year the data from the literacy program was just really loose and I actually requested some of that data I wanted to look at what data was used to create the report that was presented to the board because it was presented that the majority of the students who were two
136years or more behind were suddenly at mid-year grade level in a 20-day program and I'd like to see the data on that and how that's possible and if so I think we should bottle it and sell it. Thank you. Because as somebody who spends a lot of time in literacy and structured literacy and the parent of a dyslexic kid I just don't see how that data is possible and I'd like to look at it before we move forward this summer and that we're using programs that are peer-reviewed and data-driven and we're not just doing something because the Ed Foundation is paying for it and that's what we're doing that we make it meaningful and that we're really looking at the data and that we're making it accessible and we're not just putting together a pretty
137report. So those are my questions those are my concerns if someone could just follow up on that. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. If you have any comments or you want to follow-up or if you want to address them tonight I'm I'm open to both possibilities. Thank you. Thank you Celeste. Is there any other public comment? Good evening Mario Castillo, a parent. I wish that Celeste will wait until until the board could actually ask questions. I think that she's very eloquent and very smart on her comments and I just wanna you know also second that that she does the does the job of the six board member here. So I wanted to follow up on the summer school. I really, you know, I'm
138really, I'm particularly interested on the issue of the curriculum and the type of curriculum that is used for summer school. And also about transportation, us, you know, it's often, it becomes a challenge and an issue for a lot of our parents who cannot afford to pay for transportation. And that's oftentimes, it's not looked into, it's not taken into consideration. Another issue that is also, that is sort of like overlooked is the fact that a lot of the students who are either chosen or have to do summer school, it's not really their desire to attend summer school. They are really forced to attend summer school in order to make up credits. And oftentimes, these are also families who cannot afford to take on vacation to go to Disneyland or to go to the movies. And so,
139I think it's really important to make sure that they go to enjoy an alternative fun activity. And so, there hasn't really been, it seems like every year, there's sort of try a multiple of ways to either make it fun or it's just, it's a very, very interesting dynamics that goes on between parents, teachers, and administration trying to come up with something between trying to, students to make up their credits, and then trying to make it fun for students to attend summer school. And parents who are struggling to get their kids to school because they're having to work. So, it's not easy. And I don't think that there's enough thought put into. So, I just wanted to bring that to your attention. Thanks. Thank you. Is there any other public comment? Okay. Board comments or questions
140for either Katie or Jason? Thank you. Katie? I'm also curious to know which grade levels the plan involves this year for elementary. Kindergarten through third. Kinder through third. Was there any conversation about a four or five program? Do you know? I haven't heard that. Okay. And I'll speak to this. Okay, three. So, we are, part of what we're doing is kind of building right now. And so, we know that we have some funds that are going to be used to build a four or five program. And so, we know that we have some funds from the Ed Foundation, which is committed to this. And we also know potentially we have some other funds that we might be able to contribute. So, we are considering several things. They're not formalized like this. I don't know that
141they'll have a principle like this. They might not be as long a period as this. But things we're looking at, there's a mariachi camp that we're looking at this summer. There is, at the middle school, an interest in doing some math fortification activities. There's also a very initial discussion. We need to meet more with the elementary, with the principals in general. But could, is there anything we could do for the transition years from five to six and from eight to nine? And that might not look as academic. It might be a little academic and social emotional to really bring students together and begin to prepare them. So, we haven't formalized that. What we know is we have enough. We have enough money to do what we've, a version of what we've done in the past.
142We do need to look at our budgets and see what else we could do. And if we had the funds, we would love to grow programs because we know many of our students need extra support. It is unfortunate that we have to make fiduciary decisions about what to offer and what not to offer over the summer because it is a time when we could do things to address both the summer slide, but also to really fortify the school system. So, I think that's a really important thing. Fortify some skills that are missing. So, we are weighing all of that. At the very least, what we know we will offer is what we offered last year because we know those funds will be available. How many weeks? Four. Thank you. And do you guys have a
143location yet? I believe today it was determined that Prestwood would be the location. Prestwood. Okay. Thank you. And you guys are working, I heard you say, on appropriate assessment. and follow along assessments. And I'm assuming that that will be folded into curriculum and activities so that it all sort of blends together. So I would love to hear about that. I don't know. Maybe that's a message over for Elizabeth to be able to hear a little bit more as the program unfolds. I'd be interested in that. And Jason, just a couple quick questions. Is the high school going to be doing exclusively seat time for credit? There's no opportunity for an independent study or online learning. It's going to be all seat time for this summer? Well, one of the programs that we have offered, and
144at this stage we're planning. So assuming that it will be similar to last year's design, we do offer Odysseyware. So that is a more flexible way to recover credits. It's not about hours. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. It's not about hours. It's about finishing the course. You need to come into the school to do it. But the hours that they come in are flexible. And if a student gets all their credits and passes the class in four days, then they pass it in four days. And if it takes them five weeks, it takes five weeks. And Odysseyware is all grades which subjects? So ninth grade, 10th grade, 11th grade? It is all four grades. It has a range of subjects. We're using the history. OK. They have other things that we, like for example, they have English, but
145we don't do that. We don't feel that it's as rigorous as we need it to be. OK. So history right now? So history and some, I think there are some humanities that we offered. And are there any plans for doing original credit courses again, or do you know yet as a tour lead? I need to meet with Justin, Mr. Mori. When he and I talked initially, I asked him to be considering what original credit he wanted to offer, if any. And he said, obviously, if we offer original credit, that can impact what they can offer the next year. If they have a teacher that's slated to do certain classes and we offer two sections of it, it might undermine their planning on the master schedule for the next year. So waiting to see where the
146need is, what pops up. I know there have been some pretty consistent ones. It was living skills. It was chemistry. There were a few that sort of popped up for a while. Yeah. And I think it kind of rotated. Like one year, it was like living schools geography. The next year, it was geometry. And then the next year, it was chemistry. But it was geometry two years ago. And then this last year, they didn't want geometry. They only wanted chemistry. Right. So I'm going to really trust the high school to determine if we offer any original credit and which ones it is. Thank you so much. So I would just like to comment, sort of following up on some of the public comment, that I really agree that moving forward. I want us to look
147at our education as year-round education. And that the work that we do in summer is as important as the work we're doing the rest of the year. And I really want to thank you both for stepping up and taking on what I consider to be really valuable work. I love the idea of original credit. So kids that have a lot going on have a chance to jump ahead. And I feel like it's so important that we're talking about making sure that we have literacy opportunities for every child that walks through the door at every grade level. And I understand that sometimes our budgets don't allow us to reach that place. But it needs to be the place that we plan to reach for every single child. I'm especially concerned when I hear someone tell me
148that somehow special ed kids didn't get what they needed last summer. And. And I want. And I just want to say that it's incredibly critical that we make sure that every single child, at least if they're in K-3 for this year, and at least if they're in the high school, that we know that we're making the services available. And for students that are still learning English as their new language, have the support that they need to be successful year-round in our schools. So thank you for your concerns. And thank you for all the work. Thank you, Melanie. Is there anyone else who has any comments or questions? So I just want to say thank you to everybody for getting a head start on this. This is the first time that I've seen or heard that
149we've had, by February 12, hired the summer school principals. And if you don't have the leader of the ship, you can't get any of the other work done. And so. I agree that last year was very bumpy, and we don't want to have a repeat of that. And I think just this early planning, getting the people in place, having those conversations so that it's not like you're a whole separate principal. And the other principal over here is like, I don't have anything to do with that. That having those conversations and doing the work early and hiring the teachers early will help make sure that it's not so bumpy this year and that we ensure. I mean, you said you hired the extended school year principal. They just weren't here, right? So yay, that's great, because
150that was one of the other bumpy things that happened last year. So it's February 12. And so I hope I know that the next few months are going to go really well. And so hopefully we'll get it right this year. So and thank you, though, for doing this. And this timeline. Great, thank you so much. We appreciate you guys coming out tonight. All right, on to our next number four, which is an action item. Working plan for implementing low performing student block grant. Elizabeth Kaufman. Bye, thank you. So this is a new funding source for us from the state. Under local control funding formula, we've had the supplemental and concentration funds that targeted students who were. Students with disabilities or socioeconomic disadvantaged students or English learners. And lo and behold, there need to be additional
151sources for additional students. And so this is a new funding allocation that we're receiving from the state to support students who don't qualify in those areas. And you'll see the breakdown. Hispanic, Latino is 3.88% of our population. White is 2.13%. Asian is 0.13%. And Native Hawaiian. And I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Hawaiian or other Pacific Islanders, 0.03%. The intent is to do the same things for the students that are represented in the low performing student grant as we're doing for the students who are providing supplemental and concentration funds. So we will be sweeping the process together with the LCAP so that we're building streamlining and focus rather than starting a whole different plan, which is why we said this is the working draft that we wanted you to approve today, because we've just got
152the money and we want to have the opportunity to again really have an LCAP process that's focused and to align all of our plans with the outcomes we need for all learners so that's what you have in front of you today. Thank you so much is there any public comment? So once again it's you know again and again when the when the subject or the issue of Latinos and English learners and and the group that performs the lowest, they become a great sort of like incentive or residence to go after money, yet when it comes down to really making sure that the money that is that is gonna be used or that is intended to be two use for, they oftentimes there is not in the specific plan or there is not specific measurements on
153how that's that's gonna deliver you with the money. the results that we're spending. In fact, when you look at LCAP monies, there's still yet a lot of discussion that needs to happen around that. The deliverables of LCAP continues to be a subject of discussion, and yet there is still questions that hasn't been answered. So I'm just, you know, once again asking you guys to really ask questions. Take the time to study and be clear as to how we're going to measure success and how we're going to really make sure that the money that is intended or that is intended to benefit that particular group, that's actually happening. Because I'm just, I'm really tired of coming before you over and over and asking questions. I'm just, I'm really tired of coming before you over and over
154and asking specific questions about this specific group and how the monies are being spent on this particular group. Thank you. Thank you. Celeste Winder's parent. I sat on the LCAP last year, and I'm sitting on the LCAP committee again this year. We had our first sort of just overview meeting, and once again, I'm, and Elizabeth and I have extensive conversations about this. Once again, I'm sitting at a table, and I look across the table at the LCAP, and I am not seeing the group that is being, you know, being discussed. I'm not seeing, you know, being represented in the LCAP. And this is very, very frustrating for me. We are making a decision about the distribution of funds that are for a specific group of students who fall into three categories, and I'm not seeing
155them being represented on the committee that's writing the LCAP and making these decisions. And I feel like every month I stand up here at the school board having my equity lecture, of can we please have a seat at the table for the people that we're talking about? Can we stop talking about the people and start talking with the people and empowering these parents and this community to be able to make decisions about these funds? I fall into one of those categories, socioeconomic. I fall in the socioeconomic category. I sit as a co-chair on the CX. I can speak towards the special education aspect of it for our students who are English language learners, socioeconomically disadvantaged, who also happen to be special ed kids. The LCAP doesn't specifically address special ed kids, but it addresses those
156kids that happen to be special ed that fall into those other categories. And I can sit and I can give perspective on that. But my children are not English language learners. I don't know what works in real time, in real life. I don't know what works in real time, in real life as the parent of an English language learner. And that's what we're talking about in a big bulk of this LCAP. So I cannot emphasize enough to you as a board, to you as a district, that when we talk about equity, I'm so tired of, quite frankly, the non-person of color person sitting at the table saying, do we really know what equity is? Do we really understand it? What is the district's definition of equity? I'm so tired of that conversation. Equity is a
157language that is not just a language. It's a language that is not just a language. It's a language that is not just a language. Equity means giving a seat at the table to the people you're talking about and empowering them to make the decision. That's what equity means. Can we please, as a district, make a commitment that this year for our LCAP, we will do that and that we will make this equitable and that we will have not one seat, multiple seats at that table for the people we are talking about who this LCAP directly impacts? Thank you. Thank you. I'm just smiling because Elizabeth is nodding her head. So you've already got the answer. Okay. So is there any other? Is there any other public comment? Okay. Board comments or questions? No. Okay. Go
158ahead, Melanie. I was trying not to go first. That's okay. Nobody else? Okay. So I just want to be clear that this is an action item and what we're being asked to approve tonight is basically that we're going to have a meeting with the board of trustees and the board of experts that, in the principle that they are convictedции that we're receiving these funds and that work is occurring through the LCAP, and that you'll be coming back to us with a more detailed plan as that work proceeds. Is that what I'm? So the simple answer is the state has this little, tiny little form that they want us to fill out, and that's due to the state by March 1, and it's interesting... Okay. it like three weeks ago it's a very it's a new
159law in January meant to capture the students who aren't in those key categories and the intention is that the board recognized that that we have the board recognized we're eligible for these funds will be receiving these funds and that will incorporate these funds specifically for this new student group that isn't represented by those other three categories and that will be clarified and spelled out in the LCAP process so so so we're we're approving this this form is what you're saying tiny little plan the plan to plan it is thank you that's what I wanted to be sure I was because I am interested in knowing about how the process works and and I and I would like to be able to sit in and on some of the LCAP conversations and and see who's on
160the committee this year I know in the past when I served on LCAP we did have EL parents in the group and we did have a pretty diverse representation and so I'm just a little bit concerned at what I'm hearing this evening about who is or isn't on our current LCAP so as long as I'm just being asked to approve a plan to to plan this and to be sure that that money gets included in the LCAP process that's what we're doing okay thank you so much is there any other public comment or question or public sorry board questions or comments okay thank you so much we appreciate you coming well what oh I'm sorry is there a move to approve I'll move to approve second oh you what oh it's okay we discussed the
161motion let's go motion is seconded sorry question this is not LCAP money correct is nothing to do with it whatsoever correct this is just money that was given to us to help some kids that don't get covered by LCAP except that the way the state is defining us monitoring the use of this is we have to show how we're working on this plan in conjunction with our LCAP so so in essence what we're going to do is streamline to the you know because these are also students I guess long story short this is the decision we made because these are also students that I guess long story short that's what we're going to do is streamline to the you know because these are also students that I guess long story short these are also students
162who aren't making it so we need to provide the support for them in the same way and kind of under the same umbrella um however it is something that the state just gave us very recently with apparently what appears to me not a great plan for how we're supposed to document what we're doing with it um so i mean we talked about this when we talked about lcap at the end of last year when we said brand new state legislature coming in brand new governor and they were gonna take a whack at lcap and lcff and this is the first one right block grant outside of the normal framework sort of the camel's nose under the tent towards changing the local control funding formula and this is the first test right and of course they
163didn't do it very well right so now we've got money coming at us and they're not really telling us anything about how to do it and so i can completely understand everyone's frustration it's going to be bumpy right there's going to be some more of this that's going to happen so i really really respect the flexibility of staff in trying to just fit it into the existing framework as best as possible i mean very helpful and i'm prepared to vote now okay we have a first and we have a second did you get who that was lisa okay and it was britain and kathy wasn't it it's britain coleman and um all in favor aye okay motion carries thank you so much next up is number five strategic planning um update and this is an
164information item yeah and this is actually a little quick um so we've just recently closed the window and um i have some preliminary numbers of people who participated so said and done we had about a hundred people in the listening circles the four listening circles we did we had approximately and this is self-reported but 46 staff 22 parents and 32 community members we had in english 605 survey responses 365 of them were students and then we had about 20 parents 12 staff two percent local business um another two percent of community members and 20 or four percent who self-identified as other we had two spanish speaking surveys completed and so right now where we are is trying to get all of that in pdfs working hard on survey monkey which i thought was going to
165be easier than it is but you know we're we're dealing and um so we will have pdfs by question up on the website so everybody can see those answers and the ssu staff is working hard to try and come up with some themes they were a little surprised at the 365 student responses which doubled their number of responses to look at because across this is again across six questions um we will be taking out curse words and um it was one or two derogatory comments which we will um take out a little bit i mean we'll leave some but we will not allow kind of derogatory or demeaning language to be not about it not about this webinar but you want to go ahead and change the slide i think um one of the things
166that has been really true one of the things i was afforded by being able to watch is that it's clear uh communication over and over and over and over again came up as a huge issue for people uh both staff and especially parents who really didn't understand many of the changes or rules or habits on the online classes around the community or how things worked or operated. And one of the things we have found, many of us being new to the district and the district office, is we haven't necessarily well documented what we do and why we do it and how to easily figure out what happens next. And so we're working very hard to create procedure manuals and processes both for staff and parents. I think we also learned, and I was advised this
167before even beginning, and I thought we might have a plan to address it, and we did not. But bilingual outreach, we had, what became clear is we have such limited staff. We, of course, have some translators at every site, and they work very hard. Having them do after hours is difficult. People have lives. Very rich, full lives. And so thinking about how we create opportunities to really engage and connect with our bilingual families, we really have to continue to look at that on a grand scale. And while we have some information, and I think it will be valuable and important, I think ongoing as a learning organization, we have to have stronger mechanisms to reach our families and build in time and opportunity. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And I think that's
168really important. And I think that's really important for them to tell us what's going on. And I think I'm grateful for the partners who stepped in and helped us. The Boys and Girls Club has been great, and La Luz, and they really were able to help us get some feedback. And I appreciate meetings like SIAC and DLAC. They mentioned it. They sent the survey out. That's helpful. But really, I think for many of our families, especially ones who have not been kind of in the school tent before, being at the table, as it was mentioned earlier, and really kind of those face-to-face personal conversations are critical, and that is not done online. And so we need to look for more ways to do that. Even today I was speaking to someone about models to just
169empower students and parents that allow them to kind of be amplifiers for all of this. So what happens next is we are feverishly, trying to get some assemblance of trends from all these 600-plus surveys and 100-plus people commenting at the listening circles, get some assemblance of feedback so that by the March study session, which will begin at 8 at the district office, that you really as a board will be able to see the trends from this work in conjunction with trends from all the other work that I can at least get my hands on. And so we're going to have to look at the trends and the trends that we're going to be able to get our hands on historically. So you have the strategic plan from 2003. You have a graduate profile, which the
170district created in 2015. You have the equity and inclusion task force recommendations from 2017, and we'll have some trends. And what I believe is going to be true is that there'll be persistent themes over time that really should help us prioritize things we need to address clearly. And so I think we're going to have to keep that in mind as we begin on March 2nd. And really we need to kind of concentrate again on those very persistent issues that have been at the top of the minds of our community and our parents that we need to address and finish. And still working on the process for where we go from talking about what's important to creating an action plan that has everybody's voice in it, teachers, principals, support staff, parents, students themselves and the rest
171of the community. do know it'll be aligned, that all of this somehow will come together with LCAP and our site plans. I think I'm on to an idea that might allow us to have small groups working on independent. So if I assumed that March 2nd, the board can get to, you know, three to five strong goals, that we could form committees, groups, design thinking teams, actually, to address each one of those goals and come up through a process and procedure together. And those small teams would include parents, teachers. I still have to write it all out and document it, but this is where I'm going. Parents, teachers, community members, students, and really kind of tear apart one of those goals and come up with one change idea that we could go after. We can go
172after strongly together. We can fund. We can build capacity. That probably is a way that we can begin to really unpack and get to doing something very specific for each of these areas so it can move forward. We can evaluate it. We can gather data that people believe in. And we can really show evidence that we're making steps forward to change conversations that we might have been having in the community for the last five to seven, if not longer. And so in March, we'll start at the board meeting and bring that information back. We will, again, I know there's been questions about where will all this data go. Once it's in a document, we will put that up on the web. Anybody will be able to see any of the, you know, 600 times 6.
173It's over 3,000 answers. You know, all of those answers will, of course, take out any identifiers. And we'll try to make sure that we have a lot of identifiable information. But those answers will be made to the public. We'll translate the Spanish and put those up. Those are public comments that everybody can read. And we'll share how we got to trends and share what we think the trends are from that data. And we can continue to work with it. Thank you so much. Is there any public comment? So, thank you. So, just moving forward, I would like the board to consider that whenever the district is a project that's seeking public and parent input, that it become just standard practice that at least one of those information nights or forums or listening circles or whatever
174they happen to be with that project be held in Spanish first with English translation. I think that it should just be standard practice of our district to do that because of the demographics of our community. We are a bicultural and a bilingual community. And I think that that's really important that it just becomes our standard practice. And I encourage anybody who is an English speaker to attend one of those. Thank you. And to be on the receiving end of translation so that you can truly understand how it feels to try to understand the information coming through through translation and your ability to participate in it while you're trying to navigate what's happening. Because you're always a couple steps behind what's already been talked about. And I think it's a really great experience. So, I want
175to encourage anybody who is an English speaker to, if you have the opportunity to attend a forum that is being conducted in Spanish, to put on a headset and be on the receiving end of that translation. It's a really valuable experience. And then the other question I had was, we're having a special education deep dive review. And we don't have a copy of that review yet. But my understanding is that it's coming soon. Looking forward to it. What part is that going to play in the strategic plan? Is that going to be folded into it? And what is that going to look like? Could you speak to that a little bit? Thank you, Celeste. Is there any other public comment? Mario Castillo. So, I. I was invited to participate at the first meeting that happened
176where some of the questions were developed. And from the very beginning, I expressed concerns of the lack of participation from parents with broken English like mine, or parents who are not able to speak English. So, from that moment on, knowing what I know about this district, I knew that there would be trouble. And I continued to express those concerns. And they were sort of brushed away or not validated. And now we have what we have. So, I feel really. I feel sad about this sort of situation because it's not about being right. But it's almost like again being right about something that happens too often. And I really. I had hoped that we would find ourselves, you know, having. You know. I. I. I had hoped that we would find ourselves. I. I. I. I.
177I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. You know, awesome. Well, okay. But it's actually really being assertive and asking, making sure that these specific things that did not happen this time are not going to happen again. And then that's really holding accountable the person who is really leading this project. That needs to happen. That's your job to actually do. Begin to start holding your employees accountable. Thank you. Thank you. Is there any other public comment? Okay. Is there any board questions or comments? Britta? So I just have one thing for tonight,
178and that is for on, you know, slide number, whatever that slide is, number four, actionable plan, that we can also, you know, memorialize or include measurable goals. And then I do want to say, you know, it's a, I hope that we can find ways to engage the English language learner, parent community, and just community in general. It has been a challenge for many years. It's, there's not an easy solution. If there was, I think we would have done that by now. And I do appreciate, though, all the work that, you know, just being able to do this work is a starting point. And, you know, we're not at the finish line. You don't, I always tell my kids, you don't start at the finish line. You don't know everything that you don't know until you
179know it. And I know that one of the things we're learning through this process is we do need to, it's, you know, evidence. We know we need to be better. And part of this strategic planning process, hopefully will be that we'll talk about how to engage more voices. And then also just, this is a brief overview tonight because we are spending four hours on March, second, to do that deep dive, to ask those deep questions, and put more shape to this with that data in front of us. So just for the public information. Thanks. Thank you. Is there any other public comments or board comments or questions? Kathy, did you have a question? Because your mic's on. No. Okay. Thank you. I also want to thank everyone for their work on this. I applaud the
180outreach. And I feel like the intention is good. I am a little bit worried about the disparate numbers in terms of feedback that we've gotten so far. I do feel like we need to continue to reach out and to hear more people. And I hope that we can continue to do that as this process develops so that we, even if we can grab one or two more people. I'm, I, I applaud the optimism in the timeline and I'm, and I'm concerned. I'm concerned that in March, we want to hear about some of the back plans, which I think is a really critical step. I don't feel like I really know as much as I could know about where we are currently in terms of student achievement and student performance. I know we have plans to
181do that deep dive also. Um, and so the thought of hearing about past plans, hearing about the trends and the data from, from this current work, and then asking the board to do vision, mission, values, core beliefs and goals. Um, I just don't feel like I've heard from enough people yet, and I'm not sure what that stakeholder group looks like. I, I, I hope that tons of people attend March 2nd and talk to me so that I know that I'm representing interest. But I'm just concerned about, um, getting all of that done in a few hours and then jumping into action plans. And so I just hope that we, as a board, can continue to look at this as a flexible process and be willing to say the difficult things about, wait a minute, I
182need to step back. I haven't heard from the Latino families quite enough yet. I'm not sure how some of this information is going to fit in. Can we, can we please, um, take a little more time if we need to? Or can we get a stakeholders group if we need one? Or can we make sure that we're hearing from everybody? When I write a mission, when I write a vision, I got to know that it's not mine. It's, it doesn't have anything to do with what I think we should be doing. It has everything to do with what the teachers think we should be doing and what the parents think we should be doing and what the staff think we should be doing. And I want to be able to represent you guys. As best
183I can. So timeline thing, but otherwise I appreciate the work. Thank you. Is there any other comments or questions? Thank you so much. And this is information item. Okay. Next up we have some of our unified school districts presentation of initial proposal to Valley of the Moon Teachers Association. Good evening trustees. Jonathan for our director of human resources. Thank you for your time this evening before you and person went to the public employment relations. You. I want to recognize that the district's board, which is the district's relations board, are the articles or openers that the district would like to move forward with negotiations with the Valley of the Moon Teachers Association. They are centered around article seven evaluation, article 11 class size, article 15 salary and article 16 salary schedule placement as well as article
18418 health and welfare benefits. The district would also like to open any articles that are mutually agreed upon by the district and the Valley of the Moon Teachers Association's during our negotiations. this year. Thank you. Thank you so much. Is there any public comment? Any board comment or questions? Thank you very much. That's my comment. Thank you very much. Number seven, Sonoma Valley Unified School District's presentation of initial proposal to CSCA. Good evening, Trustees. Jonathan Ferreira again, Director of Human Resources. Before you and pursuant to the Public Employment Relations Board are the openers for negotiations between the district and the California School Employees Association Chapter 376, CSCA. Our only opener and focus for conversation is Article 7, Wages. We also will open any article mutually agreed upon by the district and CSCA Chapter 376. Thank
185you. Thank you. Any public comment? Any board comment or questions? Another giant yay. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Number eight, our monthly budget update. And thank you for your patience, Tracy, for hanging in there with us. I appreciate us trying to get you to that timeline. So thank you. Okay. Bruce, take it away. Well, hi. So this is the monthly update on the budget. As of the end of December, I just want to highlight the major things impacting the budget. As you'll see, most of them are around restricted funds. Restricted funds tend to be more volatile. Our unrestricted funds kind of run our day-to-day, and they tend to be a little bit more fixed for the year. But programs start, and new funds come in, and then we adjust the budget for those kind of
186things. So if you see under number one, other local revenue, we got the plein air grant that came in. And then we, of course, spread that around. So you see now number four, you'll see offsetting expenses to that revenue coming in. But offsetting, the revenue, we also moved some of the preschool into fund 12. Preschool is, some of it comes into fund 12, which is our state funds. And then we have our local funds and our ed foundation funds come into fund 01. That's unfortunately a little complicated. But we moved the revenue and the associated expense. You see now number five, where we moved some of the preschool expenses out, and we moved some of the revenue out. So those all kind of offset each other. We also then made some adjustments. Summer school, we
187got more focused on summer school and put the money together. Those budgets, as well as updated some, a couple other programs that were initiating or changing throughout the year. So it's all around restricted. Net, it was not a huge difference. But you can see the amounts. And if there were any specific questions. Thank you so much. Is there any, well, yes, there is. I've got it here. Tracy, come on up. Thank you for coming. So I actually blew it. I meant to come to your public comment. And so I'm squeezing this in. And I apologize, but it does have to do with budget. My name is Tracy Salcido. I am currently the library media tech up at Dunbar School. I'm also a longtime community resident of Glen Ellyn. And my kids went to Dunbar. And
188I've been involved with the schools for, for many, many years. Esteemed author, you forgot to say that. And I write. And the reason I'm here today is because I went to a meeting, um, with the other librarians in your school district. Um, and we were hoping that Elizabeth would be there to speak with us. Um, and, and I'm really glad I sat through what I've sat through because you talked a lot about literacy. And, um, when we were sitting there in our meeting, talking to each other, we, I was struck by how important the libraries are to literacy across the school district from high school to elementary school. And I'm happy to be here. And I'm happy to be here. And I'm happy to be here. And I'm happy to be here. And I'm happy
189to give you a rundown of what, what happens in, in Dunbar. Um, but from English language learners to special ed kids to general ed kids, they're all coming into, into these libraries. And they're finding in that place books where they're not looking at Chromebooks. They're not looking at, at, well, some of them are, but in some grades, but they're really excited by the books and by the literacy that's being taught in these libraries. And one of the things that's very, very frustrating, particularly for me, but I think for all of the librarians is that there's a, um, there's a lack of budgetary support and also of time. So, um, at Dunbar, I have 15 hours a week to work with these kids. I've got 230 students thereabouts that are coming through. I'm checking out books
190and, and bringing in books. I have stacks of books I can't even get on the shelves because I don't have time. Um, and, and so I would hope that as you're looking at your budget and as you're looking at your negotiations with, um, CSEA, that you take a look at what your libraries have to offer and that if you would like to know more about what your libraries are, are doing and what they do have to offer in terms of literacy, in terms of bringing in diversity, in terms of just kind of calming the atmosphere of, of school. schools, and you know, there's something just brilliant about sitting down in a library and having everybody be quiet for five minutes. Sometimes that's all it lasts. But it's really, really important. So like I said, I'm
191sorry that if this is an inappropriate time for me to have brought it up, but I do appreciate your time, appreciate all you're doing, and yeah, let's get everybody reading. Thank you. Is there any other public comment? I want to second that because my student spends a lot of time in the library with you. I have two students at Dunbar who come home with stacks of books every week, and they race to finish them so that they can go to the library on Tuesdays and come home with another stack. And one of my students is autistic. And on the days when the library is closed because we have staffing needs, that literally ruins his day. And I say that very sincerely. Like the rest of the day falls into hell in a handbasket because the
192library is closed. So our students really do value the library. And I'd like to just point out that, you know, in solidarity with our teachers union down in Los Angeles, one of their negotiations was a librarian in every middle and high school. I think that we need to look at that here. We should have a librarian and enough resources for that librarian. Yeah. We should have a librarian in every single one of our schools because when we look at our data and we look at our literacy scores, it's literally screaming at us that we have to do something. And a big piece of that something that we can do happens in the library. It's not a lost art. And my kids know how to find the books on the shelves. They know how to find
193their AR number. They know what AR tests they're going to take next. They know that they can go to the library. They know that they can go to the library. And they know how to find the books on the shelves. They know how to find the books on the shelves. They know how to find the books that are at their level and how to find that. That's a skill. I mean, we don't have the little Dewey Decimal anymore that we had when I was a kid. Now, they have AR levels. And they know how to find that and it's because they were taught that in the library. So, yeah, when we look at our budget, I feel like in the last decade, we have started to treat our librarians and our school libraries as this
194extra thing. And it's not an extra thing. It really is. It should be seen as an investment in our kids' education, not an expense. and something that we don't treat as negotiable anymore that every single school in this district deserves a full-time librarian and enough support for that librarian to be able to serve our kids and they serve a lot of kids I know we've had budgetary constraints Bruce is a magician and I'm looking at him to wave some wands this year and get us librarians thank you is there any other public comment okay is there any questions or comments from the board okay I was just going to say thank you to Bruce for giving us the monthly updates it's the first month I didn't have to come into your office and ask you
195questions to decipher it so I appreciate it I don't have any questions and my only question is just like a future forward question it seems like every year we budget budgetary constraints and we don't have any budgetary constraints and we don't have any budget in June this amount for books and supplies and every year for I don't know it's been like six years so um we exceed that by a pretty substantial amount and you know I know that the revenues are a little they fluctuate and as do the expenses so you know your June budget's a bit of a projection but I worry that if we are doing a great job in June in a couple categories by a lot that we may it may not turn out some year where our property taxes and
196stuff don't kind of counterbalance where we so just going forward my my question is specifically looking at books and supplies and I don't expect you to know how all the data tonight and but just when we do our budgeting how can we you know how can we do better at projecting that particular line item in future years so I can't address some I mean I can't talk about prior years okay but but first of all what one of the issues is a June budget is so we are projecting next year's budget in April May and the big unknown at that point is carryovers because you don't know what you haven't yet finished spending yet because people are still spending money and and this year's budget one of the huge ones we had to do was
197was a title one carryover we went from about seven hundred thousand dollars in 1617 to over a million dollars in 1718 and then we dropped back down and this was unpredicted and so it created this three four hundred thousand dollar carryover so that was one of the things also since that we had that volatility we bought we budgeted title one low in just to be careful and so you know you see that we have a big jump in revenue and federal expenses from September to first interim and that offset a jump in expenses so some of that was matched I mean if you do the original budget had it had a net you know a hundred and twenty twenty two thousand and our net now is what is a hundred and eight thousand so you're
198seeing fluctuations but some of them that we're not sinking deeper or rising we're just kind of things are adjusting so carryover is hard to predict most of that volatility is also on the restricted side which is where you know under on the unrestricted side we're actually pretty stable that's the other thing to note and in title one I don't know what you know it's kind of hard to predict title one used to be this solid thing that hardly ever changed in the last two three years it's gotten quite quite volatile but it was mostly that the carryover on title one and then that unexpected revenue and title one drove a majority of what you see there so it's going to be very hard to not have carryover and so and it's very hard to predict
199carryover so and carrie most carryovers the expense hits the four thousands and that's why that's the one that always varies is because that's what EXPENSE. SO WE WILL TRY AND MANAGE DOWN CARRY OVER. I DON'T PARTICULARLY THINK IT'S A GREAT PRACTICE TO CARRY OVER A LOT AND WE'RE WORKING WITH THE SITES ON HOW TO MANAGE THAT BETTER AND WE'RE HOPING TO KEEP WORKING THAT ONE DOWN. BUT YOU'LL ALWAYS SEE SOME VOLATILITY IN THE 4,000 AS A RESULT OF CARRY OVER. IT'S HARD TO AVOID IN THE WAY SCHOOL BUDGETS WORK. THANK YOU. THANK YOU. ANY OTHER QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS FROM THE BOARD? YEAH. I JUST WANT TO THANK YOU FOR WORKING SO IN SUCH INTEREST BASE WITH OUR UNIONS AND WHILE AT THE SAME TIME KEEPING US FISCALLY SOLVENT. THAT'S A MAGICIAN'S WORK. SO THANK YOU
200SO MUCH. IT'S A PLEASURE TO WORK WITH THEM. THEY'RE QUITE A I THINK EVERYONE IS IN A GOOD PLACE THIS YEAR AND I THINK WE'RE ALL TRYING TO PULL TOGETHER AND MAKE IT WORK. THANK YOU. IT HAS A LOT TO DO WITH EVERYONE'S EFFORTS. THANK YOU SO MUCH. OKAY. NEXT UP. YOU CAN JUST STAY THERE I THINK. OH, IT'S AN ACTION ITEM. I'M SORRY. THANK YOU, LISA. JOHN MOVES. IS THERE A SECOND? SECOND. ALL IN FAVOR? AYE. MOTION CARRIED. THANK YOU FOR THE REMINDER. NEXT UP WE HAVE NUMBER NINE. SO THIS IS AN EASEMENT THAT WE NEED TO GET YOUR APPROVAL ON TO ALLOW WORK ON THE SEPTIC SYSTEM AT DUNBAR. I DON'T KNOW IF THERE'S GOING TO BE A LOT OF QUESTIONS ON THIS ONE. IS THERE ANY PUBLIC COMMENT? OKAY. IS THERE ANY
201BOARD QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS? NO. I READ THE EASEMENT. I'VE WRITTEN EASEMENTS BEFORE MYSELF. I DON'T HAVE ANY QUESTIONS ABOUT IT. I'M READY TO VOTE. I'M IMPRESSED. ANY OTHER QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS? OKAY. IS THERE A MOTION? MOVED. SECOND. ALL IN FAVOR? AYE. MOTION CARRIED. THANK YOU SO MUCH. NEXT ITEM IS NUMBER TEN. DISCUSSION ON BOARD MEETING TIME AND LOCATION. THIS IS AN INFORMATION ITEM. HI. THIS IS JUST SET UP TO GIVE YOU GUYS PARAMETERS. YOU ASKED KIND OF TO HAVE THIS DISCUSSION. BRUCE IS GOING TO COME BACK UP AND BE READY TO TALK ABOUT. BRUCE? YOU KNOW, THERE'S SEVERAL AREAS THE BOARD WANTED TO TALK ABOUT, I THINK, ABOUT MEETINGS. ONE TO CONSIDER IS JUST WHAT TIME PERHAPS WE GO LATE. THE DAY OF THE WEEK, WHETHER THE MEETING IS AVAILABLE BY VIDEO ACCESS AND THEN
202KIND OF WHERE WE PHYSICALLY HAVE THE PEOPLE IN THE COMMUNITY. AND JUST A REMINDER, THIS IS OUR BOARD BYLAWS. THESE ARE JUST THE AREAS YOU PROBABLY WANT TO TALK ABOUT. THE TIME OF DAY, THINGS YOU MIGHT WANT TO CONSIDER AS YOU HAVE THIS DISCUSSION. DAYS OF THE WEEK, WE KNOW, YOU KNOW, WE WANT TO HAVE PEOPLE HERE. WE WANT TO HAVE PEOPLE ENGAGED. SO CONSISTENCY MATTERS. VIDEO ACCESS, THIS HANDOUT, AND THERE'S SOME AVAILABLE, I THINK, FOR ANY MEMBERS STILL IN THE PUBLIC. YOU'LL SEE ITEM 10, THIS IS A GUESTIMATE FOR WHAT IT WOULD COST TO HAVE A VIDEO SET UP. IT'S THE SAME THING. PASS IT DOWN. WE WERE GIVEN A MUCH BROADER SCOPE, THANK YOU, OF HOW MUCH WE MIGHT NEED. SO WE DID PAIR SOME THINGS DOWN. BRUCE WORKED WITH I.T. AND THEN
203THE LOCATION, WHETHER WE'RE HERE OR SOMEWHERE IN THE DISTRICT, I'LL JUST LEAVE THESE PARAMETERS OUT THERE. YOU CAN ASK BRUCE ANY QUESTIONS. I THINK WE'LL HAVE A LITTLE BIT OF QUESTIONS ABOUT KIND OF THIS GUESTIMATE OF HOW MUCH THIS NUMBER 10 IS, HOW MUCH IT MIGHT COST US IF WE DID SOMETHING ON DISTRICT AND NEEDED TO KIND OF RECREATE THIS VIDEO ACCESS, HOW MUCH THAT WOULD COST. THIS IS IN THAT BALLPARK FOR YOU TO CONSIDER AS YOU HAVE A DISCUSSION ABOUT WHAT YOU THINK MIGHT BE APPROPRIATE CHANGES TO BOARD MEETING TIME OR LOCATIONS. OKAY. DID YOU HAVE ANYTHING TO PRESENT BEFORE WE GO TO PUBLIC COMMENT? NO. I JUST WANTED TO, THIS WOULD BE A LITTLE BIT OF A TEST OF THE COST OF REDOING EXACTLY WHAT YOU SEE HERE. I DON'T KNOW THAT WE
204WOULD WANT TO DO IT EXACTLY AS YOU SEE IT HERE. SO JUST KEEP THAT IN YOUR THINKING. FIVE CAMERAS, FIVE, YOU KNOW, KIND OF ALL THAT KIND OF STUFF. BUT THIS IS TO JUST RECREATE THIS ROOM IN ANOTHER ROOM. IS THERE ANY PUBLIC COMMENT? OKAY. SO FIRST OF ALL, WHY? LIKE, DOESN'T, THE SETUP IS HERE. THE FACILITY IS HERE. I DON'T KNOW WHY WE WOULD, LIKE, SPEND $23,000 TO RECREATE IT IN ANOTHER LOCATION WHEN IT EXISTS ALREADY. SECOND OF ALL, BY CAMERA CONTROLLER, DO YOU MEAN THE PERSON WHO IS CONTROLLING THE CAMERA AND WHO IS MANNING THE STATION? BECAUSE I JUST WANT TO REMIND THE PUBLIC THAT SVTV AND KSVY IS OUR LOCAL RADIO AND TELEVISION STATION. THEY RECEIVE NO PUBLIC FUNDS. THEY EXIST COMPLETELY ON DONATIONS. AND THEY DO HERCULEAN EFFORTS TO COVER LOCAL
205THINGS LIKE OUR SCHOOL BOARD MEETINGS, OUR HOSPITAL MEETINGS, OUR FOOTBALL GAMES, YOU KNOW, OUR BASKETBALL GAMES, PUBLIC FORUMS. I MEAN, THE THINGS THEY DID DURING THE FIRE WERE, LIKE, UNREAL. THEY WERE RUNNING AND COVERING MEETINGS WITH, LIKE, NO CELL TOWERS AND STUFF BECAUSE THEY BURNED DOWN. I MEAN, SO I WANT TO MAKE SURE THAT IF WE WERE TO DO SOMETHING LIKE THIS INTO ANOTHER SPACE, THAT WE WOULD BE CONSIDERATE IN OUR BUDGET THAT WE WOULD SOMEHOW SUPPORT OUR LOCAL TELEVISION AND RADIO STATION IN THEIR STAFF TIME THAT IT TAKES FOR THEM TO SEND A HUMAN BEING TO COVER THESE MEETINGS BECAUSE THAT'S ONLY APPROPRIATE. AND I JUST THINK THAT SOMETIMES AS A COMMUNITY WE FORGET THAT SVTV AND KSVY ARE NOT GOING TO BE ABLE TO DO THAT. I THINK SOMETIMES WE GO, WHY DIDN'T
206THEY COVER THIS MEETING? WHY DIDN'T THEY COVER THAT MEETING? BECAUSE, LIKE, IT TAKES A HUMAN BEING AND FUNDS TO DO THAT. SO I LOOK AT THIS, AND THAT'S WHAT COMES TO MIND FOR ME IS JUST AS A SUPPORTER OF THE TELEVISION AND RADIO STATION AND AS A SUPPORTER OF OUR SCHOOLS, YOU KNOW, I THINK IT'S IMPORTANT TO BE SMART WITH OUR MONEY, BUT I ALSO THINK IT'S ALSO IMPORTANT TO ACKNOWLEDGE THAT IT TAKES MORE THAN JUST THE DISTRICT TO MAKE THIS ALL HAPPEN LIVE FOR THE PUBLIC IN ORDER TO BE ABLE TO DO THAT. SO I THINK THAT'S WHAT I WOULD THINK IS IMPORTANT TO BE ABLE TO DO THAT. AND I THINK THAT'S WHAT I WOULD THINK IS IMPORTANT TO BE ABLE TO MAKE THIS ALL HAPPEN LIVE FOR THE PUBLIC IN ORDER TO
207HAVE PUBLIC PARTICIPATION AND ACCESS. THANK YOU. IS THERE ANY OTHER PUBLIC COMMENT? SO MARIO, I WAS JUST HAVING A COMMENT WITH CELESTE DURING THE COMMENT, DURING THAT PUBLIC COMMENT ABOUT BOOKS. AND I SAID, WHAT ABOUT CHROMEBOOKS? AND NOW THE DISTRICT IS ALL ABOUT, FOR THE PAST TWO YEARS, IT'S BEEN ABOUT CHROMEBOOKS. ALL THE KIDS HAVING CHROMEBOOKS. AND SHE GOES, LIKE, WHAT DID YOU SAY? AND IT REALLY BRINGS DOWN THE IMPORTANCE OF ASKING QUESTIONS AND LOOKING AT THE FUTURE AND LOOKING AT THE INVESTMENT AND REALLY THINKING WISELY AS TO HOW ARE WE REALLY SPENDING MONEY. YOU KNOW? SO, I MEAN, I REALLY AM NOT OPPOSED TO IT. I MEAN, LUCKILY WE HAVE SOMEONE LIKE BRUCE WHO HAS PROVEN, YOU KNOW, FOR THE PAST TWO YEARS THAT HE REALLY KNOWS HOW TO WORK WITH NUMBERS. SO I,
208YOU KNOW, I'M, YOU KNOW, I'M, YOU KNOW, I'M A LITTLE BIT OF A LITTLE BIT OF A LITTLE BIT OF A IMPRESSION. BUT, YOU KNOW, I'M CONFIDENT THAT HE'S GOING TO GUIDE US THROUGH THIS PROCESS TO MAKE THE RIGHT DECISION. BUT I THINK THAT IT'S WORTH, YOU KNOW, REALLY ASKING GOOD QUESTIONS. YOU KNOW? IS IT AN INVESTMENT? WILL THIS BENEFIT US, YOU KNOW, TOWARDS THE FUTURE? HOW WOULD THIS INVESTMENT PAY OFF? YOU KNOW? DOES IT MAKE SENSE? I MEAN, TAKING INTO CONSIDERATION CELESTE'S POINT, I MEAN, REALLY, IT'S, YOU KNOW, WE JUST, I JUST THINK THAT I'M COUNTING ON YOU GUYS TO CONTINUE TO ASK GOOD QUESTIONS. THANK YOU. THANK YOU. Okay. Any other, any board questions or comments? Okay. Go ahead. Start off. All right. Well, so first just about SVTV, because what a well-taken
209comment, right? So about SVTV, what a well-taken comment. They do incredible work on a shoestring to inform everyone in the community about what's going on. And there's a wide array of City of Sonoma meetings that no one would know is going on, or almost no one would know, but for the fact that SVTV creates a record. Planning commission meetings, they take place in this room. And because they take place in this room, SVTV can produce them. They can get them out there so people can see what's going on with their government. And I mean, everybody who watched the Shotkin Hill fiasco over the last year knows that it created an invaluable record to see what happened. And there's no substitute for actually watching the people when they're talking and petitioning the government. I mean, the
210newspaper writes it one way, but if you're here and you see what happens, you know it's frequently completely different. And one of the biggest problems we have as a district right now is getting out information about what is going on. So right now, we have three members of the audience, and we have hundreds of constituents that are interested in what we're doing. And right now, they can't necessarily get to these meetings to be here. So the time and place of these meetings is hurting us. 10 o'clock at night, 9 o'clock at night, kids are asleep. Parents are asleep. They're at home. They can't be here. If you do this on a Saturday morning, different group of people can show up. You do it on a Wednesday at 5 o'clock, different group of people can show
211up. We can move our meetings around if we control our room. Right now, we have exactly one time each month we can use this room. We are completely constrained by the city of Sonoma's determination in making this room available. So we are lacking flexibility in being able to get our meetings done to speak to our constituents right now. And then the only meeting we get to hold in here is the school board meeting. Which sometimes is the least important of the various committees that our school district has. DLAC should be televised. The CAC should be televised. We have a variety of different site councils that probably should be televised too. We've got a lot of things that we do in terms of continuing education for our staff, where if we had the video equipment in
212place, we could record what was being done. We have teachers that can't attend, but they might want to review that program. And if we have a high quality audio video setup put in place like this right now, we can use it to create videos of our own professional development work. So there's a variety of reasons why we need to have a room like this. I mean, this was version one. If we're going to have engaged government, which is what we talked about with the strategic planning process, we're going to need a lot more informed citizens. We're going to need a lot more eyes on this district and a lot more people who are able to hold us accountable for what's going on. And that's what the TV cameras let us do. Now, I mean, doing
213it in the district is just smart because right now we hold this in just the very of the Prestwood attendance area. We're in the rich part of the valley. This is the city, and it has a narrow set of interests, which in many respects has, it has managed to bend the district over the years to meeting the needs of the city's residents rather than the valley's residents. This is the Sonoma Valley Unified School District. It's not the Sonoma City Unified School District. This is one where everybody in the valley is part of it. And the meetings should take place in the center of the valley. It shouldn't be happening over here in the place in Boardwalk, but that's where we have it right now. And that's wrong. It's a mess. Then there's all the issues
214we have with getting our staff over here. Lisa, watching you decamp, oh my, it's quite something. If you ever need someone to run D-Day, I'm going to call you. There's the loss of time and distraction of getting over here and getting this done. Then when we get our meetings in the summertime, when we have our most serious meetings, when we got our budget meetings, we got to come and fight Tuesday night market. Every Tuesday, we come up here and it's a 15, 20 minute hike just to get up flipping First Street West. It's a joke, there's no reason to do it here. Then when we have a really big meeting, we don't even do it here anyways. We go over to Altamira, right? Which is frankly a school district property and probably where we should
215be. So getting us out of this room is a good idea. Now getting us over to the district office makes sense because our staff have their resources available. You guys need a question answered, you just walk across the hallway. Right now, you guys need a document, you're not going to get it. You're not going to be able to answer the person on the spot. But if we're doing it in the district office, you can. So it matters. So I want to bring it back though to the discussion about SVTV, which is actually where I started and I want to land on that right now. I talked to Bob Taylor two years ago and he came to me about the finances and said, we just don't have the money. And John, we got to find a
216way to get the word out about what's going on because broadcasts are the way you do it. And I said, you're right. And I said, but there's no money in the budget to do it right now. There is literally no way we can afford to pay SVTV to come do that. One thing we have the ability to do in the long run though is put in place the infrastructure, it makes it easier for them to do their job. And of course that's bond money, not operating revenues, right? So right now they have to lug their equipment over to the district office, set up the cameras. It's a suboptimal setup. It's one camera setup. It's awkward. Then we're turning the lights off halfway through the meetings so that people can see the PowerPoint, right? And everyone's
217sitting in weird positions on top of it. It's not conducive to a discussion. We need that room to actually work for us. And SVTV shouldn't have to deploy across town and then, by the way, broadcast it the next day, live, right? Because they don't have the transmission equipment. Instead, let's get them the equipment in place. So, I mean, I'm a big advocate for us both changing the location and doing this at the district office. It's our office. It's where we should do it. And I'm an advocate of us changing the times because we want to do this at times when parents can be available and come in here and talk to us rather than 10 o'clock at night when everyone's at home, getting their kids to bed, getting themselves to bed and getting ready for
218getting to school at 8 a.m. tomorrow morning. Thank you, John. Is there any other questions, ideas? This isn't information and I suspect that this will be a continuing conversation. Yeah, this is really set up for the board to discuss what you want to do. Yes, thank you. When I sit up here and I look this way and then I look this way and I feel awkward in attempting a conversation with my board members. And it's so important to me to have relationships with all of you and with the staff. And so I know I was one of the people that asked the question in the beginning about do I really need to be sitting way up here, up high and away from the audience and unable to speak directly to my fellow board members because
219this is the only time I get to do this. And in attempting to navigate these conversations so They feel authentic to me, so I feel like I'm actually really getting some work done. This did not feel like the best setup, and so I have asked questions about would it be possible for us to have multi-uses for this equipment? And John, thank you so much for sharing just some of the ideas, because I don't want it to be for us. I want it to be for all of us. I'm extremely interested in continuing the conversation and looking at other options to get me closer to the audience and facing and having eye contact with my other board members. I feel like the work's going to be much more productive when I don't feel like I'm making
220a presentation every time I have a comment. So I'd also be very interested in hearing from community members. Is there a better time? Is it better to always have it on the same day, on the same time, so that it's super predictable, or always in the same place? You know, what's going to help us facilitate even one or two more people in the room? Would earlier be better? And so forth. I think that if we had a different location, we might have opportunities for more flexibility. So again, John, thanks for pointing all of that out. And whatever we need. to do to continue this conversation to maybe look forward to next year at some different alternatives. Thank you. Kathy? Yeah, I'll just say that having experienced two meetings in the district office and three here,
221that I agree with what you said, Melanie, about just the physical, like the distance between us and the audience. The ability to sort of... Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's important to just talk to each other and not feel like we're kind of performing. It's a very different feel at the district office. So 23,000, if you're just looking at price tag, it seems like that doesn't make sense. But if there's multi-use and multi-years and greater participation, and if it facilitates us to work better, then it's worth continuing the conversation. Yeah. And also I'd say you make good points also about just the time. I mean, it's hard after a long
222day of many other things to do it from 5 to 10 at night. Britta? So, and this is sort of the most outfitted quote, right? This is reproducing the five cameras. And so it would be of interest to me to, you know, get with someone who is an experienced video person who can take a look at what facilities we have and which one we would set up, you know, where there would be over in that meeting room or, you know. And then what's kind of the minimum practical to still deliver a good, you know, experience, right? So I'd be interested in looking at that because maybe this is the minimum that's practical to deliver a good experience. I don't know the answer to that because I'm not, you know, I see some cables and some
223cameras and stuff. So, but I think, right, it is really limiting to, I mean, we're limited on the dates and times. I'm a fan of consistency though. So I actually think it's easy for, you know, once you put your stake in the ground, if your meetings are Tuesday at your monthly meetings, if we're only having one official monthly meeting a month, I do, I'm a believer that that actually should be the same day and the same time every month. And then extra meetings could be maybe at different times on different days to accommodate different needs and maybe get more voices in the room. So I think it's an interesting concept. I am, I've been uncomfortable with this setup since that, right, since March of 2015. It's really awkward. It's awkward. No matter where you're sitting
224in this arch, it feels wrong to be on these different levels. And it does feel very performance based and not really very interactive and, you know, really thoughtful. And the purpose of the broadcast of the meetings is so, you know, people can, can watch us do the work that we need to do. It isn't really for us to come with preformed statements and opine to the audience. And so, you know, so I think in that sense, I would like to move more towards that more interactive meeting and the dialogue and if it helps us get our work done better. But, you know, I've been saying for a long time, I would love to be able to have some opportunities for our district staff to even reach our own staff. And, you know, I think that's
225a great question. And I think that's a great question. And I think that's a great question. And I think that's a great question. And I think that's a great question. And I think that's a great question. And I think a lot of people will log on and watch a five or six minute video from the leader or a leader, the curriculum person or whatever, versus reading a two page paper, single space with laden with text. Because everyone's pretty overwhelmed in that kind of email space world. And it's hard to sort out what's important. And so sometimes it's easy, it's easier to deliver that information. And then we could even think about dubbing over some things in Spanish and having an English and Spanish one that some people could go to watch. If, you know, to
226again, try to, because when I have sat through the meetings in Spanish with a translator thing in my ear, and it is really hard to decipher, participate, get the full depth and breadth of what's happening in the conversation. And I have gotten feedback from the community that if English isn't your first language, you miss a lot of the nuances of the educational language period when it's word for word translated live in action. So it would give us potentially opportunities to do some videotaping of explaining to language learning parents, how do you get your kids reclassified? Or how do they become reclassified? Why that's important. And in a way that can give people the full depth and breadth of that message. So, you know, so I do see that there is potential value. I hate to
227spend money that we don't have. And so, you know, how this would play with the other projects on the list is something that we have to look at because it's just one part. But every time you move one square, then everything else, something has to move. We don't have so much flexibility that we can just kind of, do whatever we want. And so anyway, but also too, as I think there was some discussion, I know over at Prestwood, one of the librarians was doing a video feed. And I think there was some conversations about possibly looking at doing that at some of our other library media center things. So that it actually be a kind of neat way to have the district office connected with the school sites as well. If we were going to
228do that, we would have to have a lot of people in the district office. And so I think that's something that we need to do to do something like that at the site level. So anyway, just so that's, I don't have, I don't have a fully formed opinion, but I definitely think it's worth more conversations. So. Thank you. Just got a couple things that occurred to me while you guys were all speaking. I agreed with like everything you all said. You know, this is a law enforcement building. I never forget that. And we have people who have status who's at issue, who have to come in here, and they're intimidated already. They're like, oh, this is going to get worse by coming in here. And then, you know, there was this, you know, police-ization, quasi-militarization
229of education that took place like 20 years ago. All the school resource officers, people that have cops in schools, you know, and it's not consistent with restorative justice. And holding school board meeting in the police station is sending a freaking message. And I mean, that's not the message I want us to send at all. So getting us out of this room actually is a big symbolic step. And this is a courtroom. It's a court, on top of that, it's a courtroom in the police station, right? I mean, it's just not, and I agree with you guys, we're all up high, exactly wrong. You know, maybe the city council gets there on that, but I don't, and I think it sucks. And we should just be at the same level. And then, you know, multiple meetings
230a month would make a lot of sense. We do a marathon because we only use the cameras once. Let's do two meetings and split them in half. I mean, we'll probably do better. And then, you know, I was up at 3 a.m. this morning. It's been a long day. And I'm not the only one that gets up early. Some of you guys are driving around, and you know, when we're here this late, the quality just collapses. I would love to see us do an SAP, a second audio channel of our broadcast. That'd be fantastic. That comes back to the importance of SVTV. I don't know where we can find the grant money, but we've got to try to find it. Because I would like to pay them to do this so that they can come
231more frequently. And then, you know, I could just... The last thing I'd say is, you know, imagine in the strategic planning process or when we were doing the equity inclusion task force, if we could have broadcast some of those meetings, because there was great stuff that was being said, and it just... You know, there's a written record afterwards, and it's nowhere near as compelling. So, I mean, we have to drive more civic participation. Like, that's what we need. We need 300, we need 600 comments for our strategic plan. And getting the word out there and getting, you know, the video out there is the way we do it. So, I say spend some money. Thank you. My final comments will be brief. That, yeah, this is talking about more about communication, which is something that
232we hear over and over again. Just a few ideas maybe as we try to separate times that we start the meetings and location of the meeting. Because that could be something that timing, maybe we just even have it start a little earlier. That's something we could implement sooner rather than later. Location and days and things that are more long-term, that maybe we separate that out so we consider that. Doing a survey, consider that. Partnering with Peter Hansen. Obviously getting Peter Hansen, maybe students, Bob Taylor. And, you know, we want our students, and we want to model what we want our students to be looking at. And so, if we're more in the dark ages, you know, how can we expect our students to be? And that video you sent us was really poignant in that.
233And so, I think it's important for us to look at this. And not only the different ideas that you guys brought up, but also maybe having clips so that, you know, this is the budget talk. This is the, so that if somebody just wants to hear the budget, they don't have to listen to the whole meeting. So, that could be another aspect of it. It is, this is, this is our meeting. It's the only time that we can speak together, but also hear the same things at the same time. So, that's an important piece, a legal piece that we need to keep in mind. I also like to be more in a circle when I'm talking to you. I actually am lucky because I can look at all you guys being in this position. You
234guys have to, you know, go back and forth. And so, I like to be more in a circle. And, you know, I'm not sure what the configuration would be, but, so. So, that's all I have to say. I look forward to having more of this conversation, to hear more potentially from the different players that have already done it, like Bob, he's been doing it, you know, because I think you've talked to him. That's how we got this. Oh, perfect. Okay. So, yeah, to have him maybe come and so we could, you know, ask him a few questions. But an ongoing discussion. So, thank you so much for getting this started, getting the discussion moving. Hopefully we can separate the two out, because I think it's a great discussion. And I think that's a great way
235to start. And I think that's a great way to start. Because, you know, we need to start earlier, I think, as a beginning step, at least. And I love how you're doing these deep dives in these study sessions. So, I think that will also help us move along and us not feeling like we have to rush through items. Okay. That's board meeting time and location. It's just an information item. Our next two items are action items. Number 11 is recommended expulsion. Just want to say the board will be asked to take action on the expulsion of a student from the district. We appreciate the significance of expelling a student, and we only do so when other means of correction are not feasible, which you heard earlier in the night, or have repeatedly failed to bring
236about the student's proper conduct or due to the nature of the act. The presence of the student causes a continuing danger to the physical safety of the student or others or in the other extreme circumstances mandated by Education Code Section 48915. We also recognize that expulsion is only for a limited term, and the student has the right to apply for readmission within the district upon completion of an individualized rehabilitation plan. We're hopeful that whatever our decision on the next agenda item, that the student in question will be able to learn from this experience and rehabilitate their behavior. So, does anybody have, is there any public comment on this particular recommended expulsion? No. Okay. So, we're going to move on to the next item, which is the application of case number 18-1903. Okay. Is there any
237board comment or questions? No. Is there a motion to approve? I motion to approve. I'll second it. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Thank you. Next item is official California School Board Association 2019 Delegate Assembly Election. There's just one person to vote, Jenny Closs. And, Socorro, did you want to say a couple words about her? Well, I just know she's a long time Santa Rosa and represents this area well. I don't know how many other delegates there are, but I just know that she understands this county quite well. Okay. Thank you. Is there any public comment? Any board comment or questions? Jenny's willing to do it. Yeah, before. Okay. So, is that a motion to approve? Move to approve. Is there a second? I'll second. Okay. Britta, all in favor? Aye. Aye. Motion carried. The next
238informational reports, is this something that we're going to talk about now or next? They're just attachments so that you have them. Oh, thank you. I see. Thank you so much. Future agenda items, remember you can propose an item, but please don't talk about it. Anything? Okay. I just, before we adjourn, I want to just say that I appreciate our board. You know, we go to different things so that not all of us have to, and I do appreciate that we each cover each other's back. And so, thank you very much. Melanie, will you adjourn the meeting tonight? Thank you. In adjourning the meeting, I would like to say that this meeting was in memory tonight for Linda Dillon. She was a long-time English teacher at Sonoma Valley High School. She needed to step away from
239her position a few years ago when she became ill. She kept up a valiant fight to the very end. She had many colleagues and friends and family members close to her during this time. She gave so much to the students and the staff. And I think that's what we're going to do. Thank you. Thank you. And I want to thank the staff in our Valley. There was a teacher just recently in memory that said how much she had learned from her as a colleague. There were so many wonderful projects she did, like the time capsule with ninth graders that they would then come back and open up and have these wonderful, wonderful experiences around what they'd put in and why they did it. I personally had an opportunity to work with Linda for several years
240for several years and I always remember her smile. You could walk down the halls of the English building and that woman would light up the hallway with her smile, but she could also be very fierce. And most of the time she was very fierce in the support, in her insistence on all of us doing our very best for the students, not just at Sonoma Valley High, but she also mentored those ones that were coming over from the middle schools and coming in and just starting ninth grade and having these great big eyes and looking completely lost. And Linda was one of the people that could really make magic for those ninth graders when they transitioned over. I know Janet probably has lots of Linda stories that she could share along with many parents. I know
241Britta had many wonderful Linda stories from her own children. So thank you for allowing me to adjourn the meeting this evening in memory of our wonderful teacher, Linda Dillon.