001testing one two and two testing testing we can hear you all right thank you quiet quiet in the room please we're going to reconvene recording in progress in uh open session um with regards to the closed session item 4.1 student discipline nothing nothing to report on item 4.2 consideration of student expulsion case number 252603 The board voted 3-0 to uphold the recommendation. 4.3, consideration of student expulsion. Case number 252-604, the board voted 3-0 to uphold the recommendation. Trustee Landry arrived at 4.51 p.m. Item number 4.4 consideration of student expulsion case number 252 607 the board voted 4 to 0 to uphold the recommendation 4.5 consideration of student expulsion student case number 252 608 the board voted 4 to 0 to uphold the recommendation And then 4.6 In the matter closed session the board adopted resolution
0022618 to non-reelect certificated employees the matter the vote on this matter was unanimous that's it 4.7 conference with labor negotiations nothing to report 4.8 public employee appointment employment nothing to report so we're now going to go on to the roll call Board President Bell? Here. Trustee Ching? Here. Trustee Guzman? Here. Trustee Landry? Here. Trustee Lehman? 4.7. Do we have an approval of the agenda? I'll make a motion to approve. All in favor? I second. Sorry, all in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. announcement of Spanish language translation services. I think that there is an iPad outside and then online through Zoom. Thank you. Board reports, VMTA? Good evening members of the board, district leadership, colleagues, students, and families. On behalf of the Valley of the Moon Teachers Association, we want to welcome Jason Sutter as our
003new superintendent. We are hopeful this moment signals a return to a district that truly centers students and values educators. We want to rebuild trust, we want collaboration, and yes, we are looking to you with hope. because right now this district needs leadership that can steady the ground beneath us. But tonight we also need to be honest. Teachers, along with our brothers and sisters in CSEA, are at a breaking point. In just nine years, this district has cycled through ten superintendents. In normal conditions, that kind of instability harms students, families, and staff. But these past several years have been anything but normal around here. We've seen the board vote to close three schools. vote to eliminate almost 100 faculty and staff positions, and fumbled contract negotiations to the point of a 98 strike authorization by the
004teachers. Through it all we have seen the board fail to take responsibility, fail to take good advice, and fail to demonstrate an understanding of how to work together with our school communities to make better decisions. And that was all before the most recent series of decisions that are somehow unprecedented in the damage they have inflicted. To briefly recap the latest display of mismanagement, in the fall we asked you to slow the closure of an elementary school, especially as promised savings from previous closures failed to materialize. But you moved forward anyway and voted to close Prestwood. Following this decision, once rumors of a charter petition began to circulate, we again reiterated, why would we not postpone closure if savings were not going to be realized, as this was the number one reason for closure in the
005first place. And then, despite all of the warnings and findings about the financial and educational harm it posed to the districts and its students, the board approved a charter school, diverting more than $2 million annually from our district. And to cap it off, you voted with less than 30 seconds of discussion to award the charter school the site you had just closed. And now here we are standing in front of you on a night where you are being presented with two resolutions seeking to cut $4.3 million in salaries through the elimination of 17.8 certificated and more than 23 classified positions and an additional 11 unfilled positions, including every librarian in the district. Given that you've already cut all of the reading intervention positions and now you're effectively shuttering our school libraries, we respectfully ask that
006you not talk to us about reading scores anymore. You've lost that right. You can't make academic demands on students and then cut all the resources and support that make those demands achievable. So now we're asking you, what do you plan to tell the community tonight about why teachers are the ones to bear this burden? Why are teachers and staff paying the price for your questionable decisions that we warned against time and time again? Why are we being asked to absorb the cost of a charter school you authorized against the advice of your leadership team? Our ask to you is simple and urgent. Stop using a hatchet and start using a scalpel. If we are ever going to see the benefit of consolidation, you need to go slower and be smarter. The district's recent audit report
007had some findings that might help point you in the right direction. Finding number one revealed that for at least three years in a row, the district has had a lopsided ratio of administrators to teachers. In 2025, excuse me, in 2024, there were five excess administrators. Last year, there were six, and this year there are four. This resulted in a fine to the district of almost $100,000 last year. And you'll be fined again this year, probably more than $100,000. Maybe instead of cutting teachers, you should think about keeping some of us around to help with that ratio and avoid costly fines. This would also help us with finding number two, as set forth in California Education Code section 41372. The district is supposed to spend at least 55% of its total budget on classroom teachers' salaries.
008But last year we fell short of that mark by over $5 million or 7.5%. Instead of seeking to come into compliance on that state requirement, our district is requesting a waiver from SCO to avoid spending the required amount on the teachers. Even if we tried, we couldn't invent a better example of the complete disregard for the educational priorities of this district. And it truly begs the question, if you're not spending the $5 million on teachers, what exactly are you spending it on? Because it won't matter if there is a surplus if we have packed classrooms. It won't matter if there is a surplus if we have no intervention teachers, music teachers, art teachers. It won't matter if there is a surplus if the kids are unsafe. It won't matter if there is a surplus if
009we have empty libraries. It won't matter if there is a surplus if we have nothing to offer our students and their families. Superintendent Sutter, it feels inevitable at this point that you are going to be asked to play the part of a superhero in bringing this district back together after all of this carnage. But we have seen time and time again in this district that when board governance breaks down, no superintendent can succeed, even a superhero. President Bell, your tenure as president, while brief, has been one marked by grave governance failures. You haven't availed yourself of the governance training offered to school board members, so we would like to take this opportunity to point out to you that the title of president does not empower you to make unilateral actions outside of public meetings and
010without board authorization. Not only is this prohibited it violates established norms damages public trust and harms the credibility of this district The decision to remove the dragon pride flag was more than that though it directly overruled the will of the students who organized to mount that flag as a statement and a symbol of safety and belonging Your apology after the fact did not demonstrate an understanding of the deep wound this action caused to the very students you are actually here to serve. Not only did you fail to take any real responsibility for this, the attempt to shift blame onto the high school principal for the removal of the flag was unacceptable and it was shameful. This kind of disregard for proper governance cannot continue. We are calling for your resignation tonight. And if you choose
011not to resign, we are calling for the rest of the board to censure you for your egregious overstepping of authority. And further, we are asking this board to recommit immediately to transparent collective governance, starting with education for each of you on what that actually is. We are asking for accountability. We are asking for an end to unilateral decision making. We are asking you to govern as a body in public with integrity. Finally, we want to be clear about our contract. It is still open. Your lead negotiator, HR Director Ugren, is on vacation right now for three weeks, but we're ready to come back to the table when you are. Educators are watching closely, and we sincerely hope this district is not receiving bad advice again. Our members want to stay. Our members want to serve.
012Our members want to believe that this district values the people who show up for the students every single day. We are your best chance at making the progress we all want to see for our students. The choices you make now will define whether the trust can be rebuilt or whether it is lost entirely. Thank you. Thank you for that report. CSEA? FFTAFALA. Respectfully. Point of order. We're not going to have our speakers speak until it's quiet. It's really hard to hear. Thank you. Respectfully. Board members, superintendent, staff, members of the public, and Zoom land, yeah. Thank you for your time and attention. A quick tip of the hat to our union brothers and sisters in San Francisco. It is my honor and privilege to have an audience with you monthly. So tonight I will be
013brief in respect of the many people who want to address the board that don't have the regular opportunity. In a preface to their heartfelt information, let me say we are all dismayed at yet having, again, to pay the checks we didn't write. As a chapter, we want to acknowledge how frightening and destabilizing this is for our members. Once again, classified employees are being asked to absorb the consequences of decisions that were not theirs to make. These proposed cuts include classified employees who are critical to the daily operation of our schools. They are staff members who support instruction, ensure student safety, maintain campuses, prepare meals, and provide direct services to some of our most vulnerable children. They are not expendable. They are foundational. These staff members are essential workers, as essential as any board member or
014district administrators. If I can ask all classified employees to stand, please. And respectfully, certified folks as well, please, certified. Everyone standing makes a commitment each morning to work foremost for the children of Sonoma Valley. It is not a commitment made lightly. We are not motivated by pseudo-adept managerial displays, fiscal acrobatics, or special interests, but by civic pride, professionalism, and children. I, and all those standing, would like to invite the board to reflect our dedication, to give the best possible conditions and resources to our students to succeed and thrive. by voting no to the layoff resolutions before you. Thank you for your consideration, and thank you for your time. For that report, student voice is up next. Hi, guys. My name is Yamali Salis Casas, and Anu could not be with us here today, but she
015asked me if I could fill in, and forgive me, because I will be reading off my phone. Okay. Honest starts off by saying good evening everyone and so do I. She wants to say that unfortunately I'm not unable to attend the board meeting tonight so I'll be speaking on her behalf. and she would like to take a moment to update you on what has been happening over the past few weeks at Sonoma Valley High School. On January 22nd, our leadership class did an incredible job planning and hosting our winter rally, and it was a huge success, I gotta say, with strong student engagement and participation. One of the highlights was the staff versus student basketball game, and this year the staff took the win. As always. Last week, Leadership in Slate worked hard to put
016together a student assembly on February 5th in the Littles Theater during Dragon Time. The assembly was both fun and successful, and it gave us the opportunity to introduce the new Slates, learn more about each group, and hear about their goals and what they hope to accomplish if elected. We were pleased with the strong attendance and overall energy. At this time, I would also like to share a letter written with the support and collaboration of our Leadership class. Here it goes. Good evening, members of the board. I'm here today to speak about the decision to remove the pride flag from our school. Although the flag was eventually put back up, the fact that it was taken down in the first place had a real impact on students. For many of us, that flag is not just
017decoration. It is a visible sign that LGBTQ plus students are seen, respected, and safe in this building. When it was removed, it created confusion, hurt, and division. Decisions that directly affect students' identities and sense of belonging should involve open discussion and transparency. Many students felt left out of a conversation that deeply affected them. It is also unfair to compare the pride flag to sports teams or other organization flags. See, as a team represents wins and seasons, the pride flag represents a worldwide community and the identities of students who walk these halls every day. See, it's about the people and not just achievements. The LGBTQ plus community is inclusive. The pride flag stands for equality and belonging. While I appreciate that it was put back up, the situation showed how fragile that sense of security can
018feel when representation is removed without explanation. If our district is committed to inclusivity, then our actions must consistently reflect that commitment. Inclusivity should not feel conditional or temporary. I encourage the board to involve students in future decisions that directly impact our school climate and to ensure that every student feels supported, not questioned in who they are. Please stay informed, please stay educated, and remember that your decisions affect real students every day. And on my part, I will say... With everything going on in the world right now. I think that a removal of the pride flag is all I gotta say is that our school is not in position to be turned into a political statement and Any yeah, and then moving on to other Moving on to sports stuff girls basketball and boys basketball celebrated
019their senior night and on Saturday the 7th Girls soccer celebrated their senior night yesterday evening and tonight. Oh decline And tonight, boys soccer will celebrate their senior night as well. It has been wonderful to recognize and honor the dedication and hard work of our senior athletes. More recently, on Monday, leadership sold Valentine's Day candy grams in the rotunda during break and lunch. For $2, students were able to send a sweet treat to a friend delivered to their sixth period class. It was a fun way to spread positivity around campus. This week, we also hosted Spirit Week. Monday was Denim Day, and the campus was filled with overalls and jean jackets. Tuesday was Support Your Slate Day, where students wore their slate colors to show support. Wednesday was Wacky Sock Wednesday, which brought a lot of
020fun and creativity. And today we celebrated Valentine's Day. day with students wearing pink and hearts right additionally on Monday and Tuesday we selected delegates for convention which was an exciting opportunity for many students looking ahead we have a four-day weekend coming up which I know no students and staff are very much looking forward to that concludes on this update for today thank you for your time and for your continued support of cinema Valley High School great thank you for that report chief cutting up next Good evening trustees, superintendent, staff, community, student voice. Thank you. I wanted to report that there were three incidents on campus that required law enforcement response. One on January 9th, on the 12th, and then again on the 15th. These were three physical, separate physical altercations, only one of which required
021any law enforcement further investigation. The rest were handled by the school staff. which was fantastic. I also want to say that since my last report here, I talked a lot about the incidents that took place in November around the Thanksgiving break, a violent act that occurred out in the Springs area. And since that time, since that occurrence, we have seen... Little to absolutely no gang activity on the school campus on the high school campus, which is fantastic I'm not attributing it to those subjects, but I will say that since that event they the level of concern and safety has diminished incredibly since then and the school staff, the district and everybody are doing a great job on that including the students, thank you. The last thing I want to talk about is immigration. So I
022stood here this time last year and I talked about the law enforcement's commitment to community safety as it relates to immigration related issues and I... pledged and asked for the community's support in continuing to report crimes, family crimes and everything else because law enforcement, your local law enforcement, the sheriff's office, the police department, we do not and cannot. Engage in any immigration enforcement of any kind and we cannot communicate with them since then the state laws have been bolstered They haven't been they haven't diminished in any way So no standards have changed and we continue to stand by the community in every way we legally can but specifically to on scene crimes domestic and otherwise if you're the victim of something continue to report it and we don't believe we've had a decline I just
023wanted to put it out as a reminder that we stand in support of all of our community the On that note, there have been many reports of immigration activity in our area, and I will stand before you and attest that there have been absolutely no large-scale immigration-related issues in Sonoma Valley or in the city of Sonoma to date since the most recent presidential change. And that continues through today, and I'm hopeful it continues for a long time. Great. Thanks. Chief Cutting, board reports. Oh, sorry, sorry, Acting Superintendent. Sorry. Thank you, members of the community, members of the board. As we look toward the upcoming school year, we are faced with the sobering necessity of implementing layoffs for both our certificated and our classified staffs. These decisions are never made lightly and are the result of
024rigorous fiscal analysis aimed at ensuring long-term stability of our district. despite the comment that we've never been able to prove what those savings are, we have over and over again. To those impacted, please know that the reductions are a reflection of budgetary constraints, not reflections of your worth or your work. Our educators and support staff are the backbone of our schools, and losing any members of our professional family is a profound loss to our students and our community. As I prepare to conclude my role as Acting Superintendent, I want to take a moment to recognize the people who have made this work possible. To my staff, I have watched you navigate challenges with a level of grace and commitment that is rare. While you are individually incredible, brilliant in your specific roles, and passionate about
025your craft, it is your collective spirit that defines you. As a team, you are truly exceptional. You have supported one another, challenged the status quo, and kept our students at the center of every conversation. It has been an honor of my career to lead such a powerhouse of talent. Finally, I would like to extend my warmest congratulations to Jason Sutter on his appointment. Taking the helm of Sonoma Valley is a significant responsibility, but he is stepping into a district filled with potential and a community that cares deeply about its youth. I am confident that his leadership will provide a fresh perspective and a steady hand needed to guide the district through the next chapter. A couple of shout outs. Thank you to Flowery for hosting the family literacy night last night. It was a fantastic
026event, and I'm looking forward to more of them. So thank you for opening campus to the Valley. And also with Flowery, congratulations to the third grade math champs. And then sincere thank you to the Ed Foundation for their campus beautification efforts. that I'm aware of. There have been two in the last several weeks at Altamira, and I understand there's more to be planned, so thank you to the Ed Foundation. I also wanted to give a shout out. I was at senior night for the girls varsity basketball team on Saturday and it was senior night both for the girls and the boys. And I just want to say a little bit more about the girls, partly because my kids also were coached by JT and a great shout out to her. The Lady Dragons wrapped up
027the league play last week finishing. tied for second in our league with an impressive 20 to 8 overall record. And they now turn their focus to the NCF playoffs, which is also the boys are doing the same. And I'm very excited to see the community come out in hordes, and I encourage you guys because they're very exciting games. And I also have a statement that I've prepared tonight. So before... We move forward in tonight's agenda. I just wanted to briefly acknowledge the distress that many of our students have experienced in the recent weeks It's clear that the removal of the pride flag caused real hurt and anxiety for our students and staff Particularly those who face discrimination and bias on a regular basis I want those students and families to know that your voices have
028been heard and that your safety and sense of belonging matter to me as a trustee. And I believe we share a responsibility to ensure that every student feels safe, respected, valued. valued on our campuses. I also believe that moments like this remind me about the importance of transparency, collaboration, and thoughtful processes, particularly when decisions affect students' sense of belonging and well-being. We don't all have to agree on symbols to agree that our schools must be places where every student feels safe to learn and to be themselves. And so that commitment really should unite us. even when there's disagreement. So I want to reassure the community that we are not going to sweep this issue under the rug. Our incoming superintendent has requested that we wait until he is officially on board before we formally discuss
029this topic at a board meeting. Great. Thank you. I just want to thank everybody for being here and sharing your views on this issue. And I definitely absolutely appreciate all of you coming tonight to do that. We don't always agree on everything, but I'm always willing to sit and meet and talk with anybody who disagrees with me and to have a conversation. And we can agree, we can disagree, or we can agree to disagree. So I want to thank everybody for coming and speaking tonight. I met with Dan Gustafson. former board president and longtime trustee this week. I spent two hours with him and it was great. I had a great conversation and it was good that both of us had the time to discuss. I learned a lot from him and I think some
030of you in the room might be pleased to know that he left me with this, which is How Not to Be a Terrible School Board Member by Richard E. Mayer. And I've read it and I'm working on it. So for those of you that didn't accept my apologies. I can't help you. For those that did, I appreciate it. It was heartfelt. And for those... Point of order. Let's be respectful. We listened while you spoke. It's not going to be tolerated, you guys. We're not going to do this tonight. And so, you know, we can agree to disagree, but let's do it with civility. And if anybody wants to talk to me and get to know me better and understand why I'm doing this job, then let's meet. Give me a text, an email, and let's
031have a conversation. Thank you. It's still me. communications to the board. The board recognizes the value of public comment on educational issues and provides this time for members of the audience to address the board. Per the board by law at the beginning of the open agenda there will be a public comment session for the public to make comments pertaining to items on the agenda. Members wish to speak. The meeting will take a numbered card. In general, individual speakers will be allowed three minutes to address the board. The public comment period will be limited to 30 minutes unless the number of speakers as identified by the number of cards is considerable. And then the public comment session may be extended by the board president with the board consent. The board shall endeavor to allow every member
032of the public to speak who wishes to do so. In order to accomplish this task, the board president with the board consent may either extend the time allotted or adjust the time. per person speaking. So we've got how many? 240. So if it's three minutes, 40, 100, two hours, I don't see that as being productive. We've got a lot of other issues to talk about later tonight. So I mean, two minutes puts us at 80 minutes, an hour and 20. If you're online, please raise your hand electronically if you'd like to speak on agenda items. So I don't know. I mean, I'm suggesting that we knock it down to a minute each. Otherwise, we're not going to get to all the business later. And then, I mean, are all the comments going to be the
033same? Or is it going to be different? Yeah. So we're going to have this discussion, guys, not with the audience. So the board is going to decide on this issue. I mean, I'm willing to go to two minutes. So I'll defer to what? What everybody else thinks? My preference would be split the difference 90 seconds. Yeah, two minutes still puts us at 80-ish minutes. I would support, yeah, I'd support 90. Okay, great, 90 seconds. I mean, one thing that we have done in the past is when there's been a room and there's a lot of people that want to have public comment, to make sure that each speaker is really saying something different. And if they agree with the current speaker, they can raise their hand. I mean, that's another way to deal with it
034as well, to make sure that everybody is getting up and making sort of a different point. That I mean so I'm just throwing that out there I've seen other trustees and board presidents manage it that way how do we enforce that I think it's best just to keep because now we're wasting their time so 90 seconds if can we agree to that I mean one of the suggestions if we get to 60 minutes and there's repetitive comments then take it down from 90 seconds to No, because what you want to do is you want to you have equal treatment for everybody so it's hard to after public comment then to change the timing so We got 90 seconds so we actually each pulled a Thing so we're gonna read our entire letter in tandem. I
035hope that's okay Yeah, as long as it yeah. All right. Are we good? Go ahead. All right. We are the people who run libraries in your school district. Each of us curates a space that supports literacy and provides a safe environment for students throughout the school day. Access to literature for our students supports each school's reading goals and the push to raise the reading scores district-wide. We stand before you to ask that you not eliminate the two classified school library and student device technician positions currently included in the resolution that are not associated with the closure of Presswood School. The district has already eliminated a single credentialed librarian position. There are six of us techs now, and if these cuts go through, there will only be three of us left for the remaining five schools.
036That essentially reduces the total district library hours and services by half. It's difficult to stand here yet again to justify the value of school libraries as literacy support for students and educators. But we feel it is important to remind our decision makers as well as members of the public who are listening just how critical school libraries are to improving student literacy and well-being. The list that we're going to read is a snapshot of some of the important tasks we complete on a daily basis. This is a good place for me to step aside. Okay. Literacy. Educators teach students how to read. Librarians support this work by teaching students a love of reading. We do this by... Curating collections that appeal to our students and support reading curriculum. Helping students find books that are the right
037fit. Checking out books to students, teachers, and parents, and then ensuring those books are returned to the library, cleaned, and reshelfed for the next student. Providing class readings. Currently, elementary libraries host approximately 60 half-hour classes for up to 25 students for weekly story times and related activities. Electronic device support. Chromebooks and iPads plus peripherals, chargers, headphones are integral to the district's curriculum. At the middle school and high school levels, multiple devices glitch on a daily basis and need immediate attention and or replacement. We support their efficacy by... Troubleshooting device issues, providing power washes, retrieving passwords and re-enrolling devices, processing broken devices for repair via Incident IQ, providing access and support to the only student printers on the middle school and high school campuses, ensuring parents and students can get help with devices before and after
038school. Wellness. School libraries are not only educational resources, but also places of safe harbor for students and educators before, during, and after the school day. We support this by opening library spaces as quiet places for students to read, do homework, and quietly socialize before and after school. Supervising library spaces as quiet places during recess, breaks, and lunch. ensuring libraries are staffed for students who need to make up tests or other work when classroom teachers are engaged in other activities. We'd like to emphasize that studies show curated access to books, which we facilitate in the district school libraries, create strong readers. For the reasons stated above and so many more not listed here, we encourage you to keep every school library and student device technician position staffed and funded. Thank you. Sarah Lake, Tara Neubacher, Leslie
039Nicholson, Tracy Salcido, Daniel Smith, and Guadalupe Torres. Thank you. That probably puts us at number six, does it? What? Oh, I'm sorry. Oh, sorry. Number two, then. I apologize. I don't know what. Okay. Hello. My name is Alita Matthews, and I'm a flowery parent. I'm nervous. A flowery parent, an El Verano teacher, and a lifelong Sonoma Valley community member. I'm here to voice my concerns about the school board's approval of Sonoma's third charter school and the effects it will have on our school district as a whole. The first being tonight's proposed gutting of our SVUSD teaching staff, including 12 elementary union teacher layoffs, four of which would be at my school, El Verano, almost one-third of our classroom teachers. These layoffs along with the extensive proposed cuts to classified staff are completely unnecessary and due
040to your recent decisions. Soon we will see increased class sizes, more combination classes, fewer resources and less funding. Not far down that road you will complain that our students test scores have dropped and say that public school is not working. We will hear the familiar cry that our district is financially unstable as you have completely erased the economic reasoning for consolidating its elementary schools. After closing Dunbar and Prestwood due to limited reserves and declining enrollment, the board was willing to approve and fund a non-union charter school. As a direct result, the district's plan is to fire dozens of established, classified, and certificated union members. Teachers, librarians, health techs, classroom aides, custodians. The decisions you are making are fiscally irresponsible, and the results feel intentional. I no longer see the board as supporters of public education
041or the children I serve. Children you were meant to serve when you became board members. Thank you. Thank you. Number three. Thank you. Hi, I'm Glendi Henyon, independent study and home hospital teacher. It is with a heavy heart that I stand here this evening. I'd like to ask everyone to pause and take a breath. Remember what Sonoma Strong felt like, taking care of each other during and after the fires. We are all on one team, always, not just for two weeks. It's an Olympic reference if you haven't been watching. The independent study program makes space for students who, for a broad range of reasons, have not been able to stay on campus. The program has provided... alternative to students who really need one. In many cases it has kept students in an academic setting and
042not in home hospital. We all know and understand that it's best for students to be on campus. No one disputes that, most of all not their parents or even the students themselves. We also all know that one size never fits all. Sometimes an alternate option, often temporary, is needed. The independent study program has been successful for many students, supporting them in making progress toward their goal of graduating. I have students heading off to college, both SRJC and to four-year universities as well. There is current and ongoing interest and requests from families as evidenced by the waiting list. The program has been full with a waiting list throughout most months of the year for the past several years. We are again currently full. We may not admit more students because we are at capacity. There is
043a waiting list. I am also the district's home hospital teacher. Home hospital students get an hour a day. I currently have four on top of my IS caseload. If you abolish independent study, who will handle home hospital? It looks like taking a position away from an active tenured union teacher who's already been doing the work for several years. It makes fiscal sense for the district to continue the independent study program in conjunction with home hospital. Great. I've been hearing from parents. Sorry, I just swore at the time. Thank you both for your comment. Appreciate it. Thank you. Hi, my name is Ronette Wesson, teacher at Sasserini, and I'm reading a parent letter. It says, to whom may concern, I'm writing to express how important the independent study program has been for my daughter, Kiara, and
044the positive impact it has had on both her academic success and personal growth. Since beginning independent studies, Kiara's confidence and self-worth have improved significantly. The structure of the program allows her to learn in a way that supports her individual needs, giving her the opportunity to work at her own pace and truly understand the material. As a result, she has achieved the best grade she has ever earned in school, which has further strengthened her motivation and pride in her accomplishments. Independent study also has provided Kiara with a healthier learning environment. Without the distractions and social pressures that can often come with her traditional high school setting, she is able to focus on her education and her personal goals. Removing the stress and drama that sometimes exists among high school students has allowed her to concentrate on
045learning, building confidence, and developing responsibility for her own progress. This program has not only supported her academic academically, but has also helped her grow emotionally and personally. It has given her the space to succeed, feel capable, and take ownership. For these reasons, I strongly believe independent studies is the best understanding and most supportive educational option for Kiara at this time. And really quickly, I have a letter from Kiara. I'm part of the independent studies program. My whole life I've severely struggled in school, whether it be bad grades, drama, or skipping school. Last year I had 81 absences and a 1.9 GPA. Now last semester I finally got a 3.9 GPA and I'm able to learn at my own pace in a way that feels right to me. Sorry, I'm out of time. Thank you. Hi,
046everybody. My name is Rob Roland. My son's currently enrolled in the independent study program, Snowin Valley School District. I'm under, as to my understanding, the district is considering cutting the program. My son, who is currently registered as a sophomore, started the program early this year and has maintained a consistent 3.0 GPA. My son struggled last year to maintain a 2.0 and was unable to participate in sports, was cut in the middle of baseball, and barely made the grade to play football. It was a stressful year and I constantly was trying to fix him, disciplining him with consequences at home. And we just, you know, the truth was he just couldn't do it. His learning disability has him incapable of focusing while other distractions are taking place in the classroom. When my son completed the ninth
047grade, He had a 2.0. It was mandatory for him to go to summer school. He failed English. I'm absolutely beyond words and so grateful to Mrs. Liskum, Mrs. Henyon, and the success of Independent Study Program. We're very happy with the results. It's removed a lot of stress from our home life, and it's been the missing link for my son's academic challenges. My opinions the classrooms are so overcrowded and extreme extremely difficult for teachers to maintain control of teenage students There's already a high student teacher ratio and it seems to me an option of independent study Would somewhat really thank you. I'm sorry. I'll interrupt you. We're over the time limit. So thank you Five six six anybody with six seven Sorry, seven. This is Kalia Gurney, Yesenia Tellez, Ann Marie Sebastiani, Rachel Diaz, and Yesenia
048Maravilla, school counselors, college and career coordinator, and school psychologist from Sonoma Valley High School. And before I start, I just want to shout out all of our amazing students who are here tonight. who are standing up for themselves and each other. So tonight you are considering staffing cuts proposed by the district for the upcoming school year. Included in the proposed cuts is the Director of Education Services, Student Wellness and Inclusion. The Director of Wellness and Inclusion oversees programming so that all SVUSD students have access to a supportive, equitable, and inclusive learning environment. She oversees district wellness and school counseling, ensures that students and families have access to school and community resources, and works to remove barriers to students' education. The acting superintendent owns this budget and proposing to cut this position. This, immediately following the
049board president's decision to abuse his position of power to pursue his own personal agenda to remove the pride flag at Sonoma Valley High School. This, after the acting superintendent, whose primary responsibility is the safety of students and staff, was complicit in this pursuit by directing compliance with his order. This after CFHS school counselors and school psychologists requested to meet with the district staff in October to review discipline data and practices that may disproportionately negatively impact Latinx students. The acting superintendent invited herself to this meeting only to shut down the discussion. This after the school board intended to close flowery impacting predominantly Latinx families until enough public outcry and courage from Testre Guzman forced them to reconsider. This after the board voted to approve the MacArthur Charter School application despite the absence of a defined curriculum,
050a comprehensive special educational plan, and a clear fiscal safeguards at significant cost to SVUSD. Would this same type of application be approved under the same circumstances if submitted by another community group? The acting superintendent is proposing and the school board is considering cutting the one district administrative position dedicated to equitable access for all students. This is now an established pattern from the acting superintendent and some members of the school board. An indifference to our act and actively harming our minority and most marginalized students. This is shameful. Reject the elimination of the director of education, student wellness and inclusion position. Thank you for your comment. Number eight, number nine, number 10, number 11, number 11, number 12, number 12, number 13. Here we go. What number do you have now? 13. Here we go. Lucky for
051something. Lucky 13. Hello my name is Morgan Momsen I teach fifth grade at El Verano. This is my fifth year teaching in the district my fifth year being potentially laid off and my fifth year showing up to board meetings in red. Red is the color of anger and I am very angry that the voices of those most impacted by board decisions continue to not be heard or listened to and are timed. I am angry that the board continues to make financially absurd decisions with no consequence to their positions. Red is also the color of danger because I don't feel safe knowing that some of my school board members don't understand the significance and importance of the pride flag. We are also in danger of losing many invaluable employees. We are in danger of losing what
052makes this district stand out to future employees, our health benefits. Red is also the color of passion because year after year, meeting after meeting, unthinkable board decision after unthinkable board decision, our union continues to come, stand out, and speak out for our students and our community. We are passionate about our jobs because we love coming to work for the public school system. We are passionate about making each day, each year, better for our students regardless of their socioeconomic status, their home language. their learning needs, emotional needs, or their sexual identities. And this passion I have for my job makes me wonder why do you serve on this board? If you are not passionate about public education, if you aren't passionate about making the best decisions for all of our students, why did you choose to
053serve in the first place? Well, I am proud of this red shirt I wear and the strong, empowered, and united union I belong to. I'm sick of wearing red. Great. Thank you for your comment. Number 14. My name is Ronnie Fabian. I work at Sasserini. I'm not here tonight just to say to save my job, but I want to save everyone's job. We've been through a lot in the last few years. I want to ask something directly. Do you truly know what goes on in our classrooms every single day? Do you know what happens in intervention classrooms? What small group instruction looks like? What it takes to help a small child learn their letters, their vowels, their sounds, their numbers, sometimes for the very first time? I invite you sincerely. to come into the classroom
054that I work in, go into any classroom and spend more than 10 minutes and see what we do with the children every single day. I work in TK. These are four year olds. We are building the foundation for everything that comes next. Literacy, number sense, social skills, independence. We're getting them ready for kindergarten and beyond. Now I ask you to imagine that same classroom with more students. not in TK, there's a big cap, but no aid, fewer small groups, if any small groups, less one-to-one support, less time to intervene early so they can be literate. Because that's what these cuts mean. In TK, literacy isn't theoretical, it's hands-on, it's sitting knee-to-knee, sounding out vowels, it's clapping, it's building number sense with manipulatives, it's rebuilding. It's rebuilding the directions three times in three different ways. It's
055helping the child regulate big emotions so they can learn to read when they get to kindergarten and beyond. I'm not going to have enough time. These cuts hurt. They hurt deeply. This last year was the first year I wasn't pink slipped, and I might lose my job with 50 other people. It hurts. Thank you. Number 15. 15. 16. Perfect. Hi. Who cares who I am? Thanks. This must be hard because everyone's coming up here. Cut. Don't cut. Don't cut. Don't cut. Point of order for the record. We really do need to stay. Oh, I'm Bridget. Hi. Nice to meet you. So I wanted to, again, say that I understand that all these people are asking you not to cut certain things. Sounds like you guys got to get out of that whole charter thing, which
056isn't impossible legally. It is not impossible. And then we'd win. $2 million worth of stuff back. We could do it. I've worked for a charter school. We did everything by ourselves. District did not fund us. I'm a teacher. I can teach rhetoric and Shakespeare and grammar. I am not equipped for students at my school taking tiny sharpeners, opening them up and cutting themselves. I don't know if this is going on. Instead, I go to the one person who's trained to do this so I can go back to my job. teaching because I'm not equipped to deal with the wellness but I will tell you you have and again this is hard because I like people but you have two positions that work on curriculum kids are not going to learn curriculum if they are not
057well thank you number 17 17 18 number 18 number 19 18 here we go do we know 19 19 Good evening trustees and thank you for the opportunity to speak. My name is Amanda Radzic. I'm a community member and parent of children within the school district. I'm here tonight because eliminating classified and certified positions will have real and lasting consequences for our students. Job losses on the scale of this damage include morale, stability, and continuity. These three things that students depend on every single day. Families in our district aren't seeing improvements. They're seeing fewer resources, fewer adults to support students academically in the classroom, fewer staff to provide supervision and safety on campus, larger workloads for the people who remain, and diminished services for the children who rely on them. These cuts remove the very
058positions that uphold basic education and well-being, being librarians, resource teachers, essential mental health and wellness staff. If we are willing to spend millions of dollars on a new hastily planned charter school, then we can certainly find a way to preserve the positions that directly support literacy, learning, and student wellness. I urge you, please do not move forward with these eliminations. Take the time to work with our new superintendent. Review these cuts thoroughly. and explore real solutions that protect the people who make our schools whole. Our students deserve a fully supported team behind them, not less. Thank you. Thank you for your comment. Number 19? Oh, 20. Number 20. okay um joseph rose eicher boys hot springs this is on agenda item 13.1 the approval of the contract for the new superintendent welcome superintendent sutter the
059students teachers staff and the community look forward to you serving us it is important to all of us that the school district board bylaws be followed under your guidance especially Individual members of the board shall not exercise any administrative respect or command the services of any school employee. Board members shall refer board member correspondence to the superintendent. Individual board members do not have the authority to resolve complaints and should refer all complaints to the superintendent. addition the California School Boards Association offers guidance authority is granted to the board as a whole not each member individually therefore board members fulfill these responsibilities by working together as a governance team with the superintendent to make decisions that will best serve all the students in the community CSBA also provides governance trainings for school trustees which all trustees
060should complete thank you for listening and welcome to our new superintendent thank you for your comment number 21 hello my name is Keeley O'Hara I'm here again tonight because you have closed all three of the schools that I've gone to closing that I need right now and there are so many other students that don't feel safe right now and they need the Wellness Center and you guys are rejecting that. It's not okay. The people that need theater and need art to express themselves but are scared to and they need someone to talk to and they can't focus in class because they need to talk to someone but there won't be that. And theater is a way to express yourself and people won't be able to do that. Art is a way to express yourself and
061eventually people will not be able to do that. And it's hard to see so many of my friends afraid to see who they truly are. And now it's going to be harder because they will not have theater and they will not have art and they will not have the wellness center to keep them going. Thank you for your time. Keely, I just want you to know that there are no proposed cuts to the wellness centers or to the theater program. No, we aren't cutting that program, and we're not cutting the wellness program. So if you've been informed, it was misinformed. So it's still there for you, trust me. It's there to still support you. So I hate to see you upset like this because you've been misinformed, but you're still good. Great, thank you. 22?
06222, 23. Hello, fellow board members. My name is Madison Gray, and I'm a student at SPHS. I'm a junior. On Friday, July 16, 2026, the pride flag was taken down. The pride flag represents students, and aren't you supposed to represent students as well? Sorry, we can't have you commenting on items that are not on the agenda. We're not discussing the flag tonight. So if you have something that's on the agenda... Point of order. We have to follow the rules. You guys are requesting us to follow our governance rules and talking about training and we can't do something for one that we can't do for all. There is time to comment at the end of the meeting. There's public comment for items not on the agenda. So if you guys want to stay, you're more than
063welcome to comment then and we'll give you your time back. Okay, then I have a different proposition. Cutting the teachers is cutting people. I'm a student of a teacher, I'm a kid of a teacher, Mrs. Gray, and she and other teachers in the library, I love books. Teachers being cut and classified staff is cutting people from their jobs, which they need to survive in this economy. The economy is going up, and that is not okay. And when you cut... When you cut them, you're cutting more people from teaching students, who wants to go to college, or people who just want to have a good life and get a diploma. But if you cut them, then you are cutting students' chances from being important to the world. Thank you. I have something short to say. I
064wasn't originally going to talk about this, but teachers, they are like a second family to all of us. They help us get through what we've stopped. We can't handle it by ourselves. They helped me realize I had dyslexia when I was really young. And if they haven't realized that, I would have been suffering in high school like I am right now. But they notice. They notice things that others don't. So if you are going to cut more and more of them, we are going to stand with them no matter what happens because they are our family too. Thank you for your comments. We've got 24, 25, 15. We're going to make an exception to let 15 speak now. Good evening. My name is Lee Cavalier. And I'm asking everyone to step back and look at
065the pattern of decisions that this 4-1 majority has made since January. Sonoma Valley Unified School District currently holds about $8 million in reserves. Both SCO and Department of Education officials told this board that the amount is not sufficient for fiscal stability. Districts in our position typically need between $15 and $20 million. We are barely halfway there. Three months later, those same trustees approved a charter project to serve 200 students, redirecting roughly $2 million-plus more away a year from district schools while fixed costs are absorbed by the remaining 3,100 students. Now they propose eliminating librarians from our district, which will only have five schools, which include two Title I schools, after five years of anemic to literally no investment in elementary libraries, while repeatedly saying literacy is their top priority. You cannot close schools, divert funding,
066and cut staff and literacy instruction, I mean, I'm sorry, infrastructure, and claim this is about student outcomes. These are deliberate decisions made in our name, with our tax dollars, and with the children of this valley carrying the consequences. If that troubles you, this cannot be the last meeting any of you attend. Great, thank you. 25 my name is Logan Taylor I'm a current student of Sonoma Valley High School and a former student of Adele of Adele Harrison Middle School and Preswood elementary school god rest their souls the fact defunding defunding all these teachers is is is blasphemous because Because just having these teachers of what they need to do to perform as teachers, aka their funding, just ruins the entire system. And so many of them have supported students, including me, and even others like
067me who have sexual needs. And again, to cut the funding is just... Please take all of our takes into consideration to stop. Thank you for your comments. Number 25, or 26, sorry, 26. I was a, sorry. Hello, my name is Judah. I was originally here to discuss the pride flag, but since you all want to discuss it later, we can discuss it later. Cutting funding to these teachers is frankly... a hypocrisy that none of us can stand for. None of us will stand for. I think everyone here has posed a question to you. What is your role here, if not to serve your students, your student body, and all of the teachers that help foster a community of growth, respect, and learning? These teachers need resources in order to fund things. Often I talk to
068teachers about what goes on in their life, and frankly it's alarming the amount of resources they have to draw from, from their own personal funds in order to afford class resources that frankly should be supplied by the school district, but frankly are not. It is abhorrent that any cuts would be made to teachers instead of to anything else to allow teachers the opportunity to actually teach their class, which is what they're there for. Thank you. Thanks for your comment. Number 27. Good evening, board members. Because you won't let me talk about the pride flag, which we are all concerned about, I'm going to talk about something else. Let me take you back to eighth grade. Eighth grade, I had my first drink. And you know what that turned into? That turned into alcohol poisoning. And
069if I didn't get the help from that English teacher that's sitting over there, I'd be dead. I would have killed myself several times over if it weren't for the teachers in my lives. I'd have more scars on my body if it wasn't for the teachers in my lives. Cutting funding. to teachers doesn't just affect our education, it affects our livelihood and our well-being and it prevents saving student lives. So what I ask of you is to do the job that you were elected to do and represent all of your students and protect their well-being. And by that, you should really reconsider cutting funds to our teachers because they matter. Thank you. Thank you. Number 28. Good evening. My name is Lisa Stormont from Boyce. I'm a resident of Boyce Hot Springs. I'm also the president
070of Wake Up Sonoma. On the agenda is Resolution 2620 to eliminate the position for Director of Education Services. I know, Rena, you said that that's not happening, but that was on the agenda. This person is responsible for student wellness and inclusion, an essential position, especially in these times where inclusion is at risk in all communities. And now it appears even ours, as exemplified by the recent action of President. David Bell, removing the pride flag, a symbol of safety and inclusion from the campus. It would be hard to believe that you did not note the overwhelming reaction of students and community members who feel that inclusion is critical for the student's state of mind and well-being. Wake Up Sonoma calls for school board president David Bell to be censured for his abuse of power and that
071he be removed as president of the school board. Ideally, Mr. Bell, you will resign, as you are clearly not qualified, nor do you seem to understand the responsibility of this position. You acted impulsively, irresponsibly, and you don't seem to understand the limitations as board president. You even publicly admitted this. For us, this is the bottom line. In closing, if this position is eliminated, who will provide oversight of inclusive practice to implement required... Thank you for your comment. Your time's up, unfortunately. We've got number 29. Number 30. Number 30. 30, here we go. Good evening. My name is Sonia Castaneda. I want to let you know how these postings and... The fact that you posted so many people to be cut was shocking. I taught at Adele Harrison for 24 years. Great school. And I'm learning
072how to adjust at Altamira currently. I'm still grieving. A school that I left in a family that I had there. with the teachers and I was very lucky that I was able to move with that family into Altamira. But to be, I'm here to speak also about the closing of some of the... teachers that you're considering in the positions to eliminate because we're barely not even a year into Altamira and we were assimilated into that school. We were not consolidated. And to cut positions when we haven't even had a plan in place for that school, it's mind-blowing. I'm also mentoring a teacher who teaches art. And I've had that privilege and to hear that that point four position for that teacher might also be eliminated was shocking. I want to thank you for the consideration
073of the middle school positions and I want you to really reconsider it. Muchas gracias. We've got number 31 and if the 32 and 33 could get ready, that would be great. Thank you. Hi, Laura Hoban. I'm speaking as a math teacher now. I would like to speak to a lot of the cuts, but the one I would like to mention right now is the cuts to the bilingual instructional assistants. For a long time, I've been asking for more support for our EL students, our newcomers, et cetera, in the form of bilingual instructional assistants. And the answer I got many times was that they're really hard to find, which is true. And now I see that we're cutting the positions. Those positions are... really important for a number of in a number of ways they make
074students feel connected to school and we know that when students feel more connected to school they do better in school they help out especially in a math classroom I know that a lot of students are learning English but It's very, very difficult to teach and explain mathematical concepts without any support from somebody that speaks another language. So I would like you to consider all the cuts very carefully in their impacts on the students, those being just really, really detrimental cuts. difficult to support those students without those wonderful bilingual instructional assistants. Thank you. Number 32, please. Hi, David Eicher. Thank you. First, I fully support all the librarians, teachers, and students that have spoke tonight. It's very important to keep as many positions there available as we can. Regarding the new superintendent's contract, you've already heard
075how the superintendent and the board are supposed to interact as per the bylaws. So I won't repeat them, so I'm going to be quick. So as per agenda item 10, I ask that the future agenda item... for discussion of possible action to central trustee Bell and to remove him as president of the school board because of violations of the school board bylaws and CSBA guidelines as well. Thank you. 33, 34, 35, 33, 32. Do you guys have numbers? Oh, 36, 35, 36. Great, 36. You're up. Even though we only grabbed one ticket. Fantastic. Okay. Sorry. I'm Micah. And I'm Eleanor. We are eighth grade students at Altamira and part of the school community, including the Wellness Youth Council and the theater program. Last year, the theater program was removed from the school, and it's easy
076to say that many students, including us, were disappointed. These art classes can benefit many children in our community through self-expression in a stress-free environment compared to workload-heavy classes. To close off these opportunities to students would be devastating to individuals who find themselves comforted in those spaces. In these classes, we explore self-expression, writing, and pushing ourselves out of our comfort zone with experimentation. We implore you to please consider these students, as well as teachers who enjoy working with students to build their confidence in something like the arts. Though, there would still be available classes. The limited options would be very detrimental to the student body that is not able to make it to these programs. I was a part of the recent show Midsummer Night's Dream. Without the teachers who worked to give us this opportunity
077and the kids who were inspired and empowered by our theater program, I'm not sure if this show would have ever happened. I'm so grateful for any opportunity like this, and I hope we continue to support art programs. There isn't much time to talk about the wellness, and I'm pretty sure you said that wasn't on the agenda, even though we were informed it was. I would just like to say that even if it ever was on the agenda, we... These students very much appreciate the wellness and would suffer very very much from having cuts Thank you. Thank you 37 Okay, I was so sad and I'm just so proud of them those are my students two of my students and they I'm so surprised and blown away by them and Here's what I want to say.
078I think I just came back from rehearsal not for our school, but for an outside job I last year was a point for visual arts at Adele I won Sonoma County Arts Educator of the Year for our County. I was awarded at Luther Burbank No one from the district came to that. But you did celebrate me here, and my students got to perform with handmade puppets. They were amazing. And seeing them backstage was like seeing someone high-fiving at a Super Bowl. They were so excited. This year, because of the consolidation, I... Well, let me back up. So I won that award, and then I received one less art class, but... got two amazing theater arts classes. There's a lot of mixed messages going out, I think, for the children and myself today about a point
079four cut. I am the newest person, so that makes a lot of sense that people might be looking at me. I want to tell you that because of our consolidation, our stage wasn't ready, and I got a community partner. I said, please, can we get some scholarships? She said, I'll do you one better because of my faith in you. I'm going to open up a teen program that is free. It was supposed to be eight kids, 28 children. I directed 28 children in a musical adaptation of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, 7th through 12th grade. These students were absolutely phenomenal. Some had never been on stage before. They had professional music director, choreographer, Sebastiani Theater. I want you to ask yourselves, did anyone come? Thank you for your comments. I appreciate it. Number 37, please.
08038. Number 38. 39. Hello, my name is Maria Petuccia. I am a former teacher in this district. I was fired, well, I was let go when Dunbar closed. So my experience was first as a student teacher at Alvarado. I fell in love with the district. I fell in love. with my co-workers. I then worked at Dunbar for one year as an elementary school teacher, so I am not surprised because of the way the Dunbar closing happened that we are here again, that you're treating your teachers and your staff members like this again. I still live in this valley because I moved for that job, and I'm grateful to live here. I hope to be a mom one day. I don't know that I would send my kids to the schools that you are making. I
081would trust my future children with any of these people in red shirts. They are amazing. But what you are asking them to do is ridiculous. Why are you giving them less when what we need right now, when teachers, which we already know is one of the most stressful professions in the world, like... Top three always most stressful professions. Why are you making their jobs harder? Why like how do you think that helps students? Would you send your kids to our schools the way that you have budgeted for it? Do better please so I can send my kids my future kids to schools in this valley. Okay? Thank you for your comment. Number 40. That was 40. 41? I'm 40. 40. infrastructure I can talk about that right now so I was lucky fortunate on Gardner
082Smith I was fortunate enough to be part of the garden program at flowery and during that time I developed some friendships with the maintenance and crew and through that I learned just how bad some of the infrastructure is and then when I was listening to the meeting about the solar and what was assessed, what was really going on, it was frightening because there's so much money on the table. So I hope that that's going to be a priority coming up. Sorry, the solar is not on the agenda tonight. But it's infrastructure, right? I don't know. I'm not sure what we're talking about here. Okay, so can you guys hire another maintenance guy? Because they really need it, and the school needs it. And so thanks for listening. Thank you. I'll leave that one to Rena
083or to Jason. Okay, any online comments? Kimberly Smith. You've got the mic, Kimberly Smith. Thank you. Can you hear me okay? Hello? Sorry, we can hear you. Yes. Kimberly Smith, homeowner, taxpayer, and active CSEA Area B Region 24 member. Why is it when the district is financially unstable and cuts are brought to the board as a resolution, these cuts are most heavily hit on the backs of classified staff first? Cutting the hardworking and dedicated employee positions directly affect the student safety, student nourishment, and classroom support. You are all well aware a day without classified employees is a non-student day. And remember, statistically, classified employees live in this community and send their kids to public school. You have a new superintendent starting, and I have full confidence he will bring a new perspective on how to
084turn the district into the thriving district this community deserves. I recommend a no vote on tonight's layoff resolution. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Rachel Hairston. You've got the mic. Rachel? Can you hear me? Yes. My name is Rachel Hairston. Caden Loveridge is my son, and I'm going to read this. There are moments as a parent that split your life in two, before and after. For us, that was the pandemic, and later my son's suicide attempt. Ms. Hunyon, as an independent study and home hospital teacher, did more than teach. She kept my son connected when isolation could have swallowed him during the pandemic. She met him where he was during home hospital, not just academically, but emotionally, and that saved him. The librarians gave him something equally powerful. refuge when hallway bullies felt unsafe
085and felt unsafe and bullies felt louder than his confidence the library became a sanctuary they didn't just supervise they protected his dignity the wellness team was the first to take my panic seriously they walked me through what helped look like step by step when i was terrified they didn't minimize they mobilized and his art teacher heather gobe the one adult who consistently checked in who saw him beyond grades and behavior reminded him that he mattered these educators didn't just do their jobs they built a net and when my son fell that net held If we remove these nets for other students, we need to understand what we are taking away. Because of them, my son is still here. Thank you for your comment. Karen O'Hara, you have the mic. Karen? Can't hear you, Karen. Ms.
086O'Hara? Karen? Sorry. So we are going to take a 10-minute break, 8-minute break? 5-minute break. And we will resume back on the consent agenda, I think. Thank you. open session and we are going to go to item number 12 the consent agenda the board is asked to approve the consent agenda as consent agenda items as submitted the purpose of the consent agenda is to act upon routine matters in an expeditious manner items listed are usually considered routine and are acted on in one motion If there's no discussion of items unless a board member requests removal of an item to be inserted at an appropriate place in the regular agenda. Each item approved by the board shall be deemed to have been considered in full and adopted as recommended. Anybody want to pull anything? Yes, I
087would like to actually pull the audit report. Okay. Is number six, 12.6. Is there a suggestion where to move it to? Can we move it to the back? To 13.11? No, sorry. Regular agenda. It's 14. So 14.12. So before public. So 13.11. Okay. Is there a motion for that or what do we do? No. Okay, great. And I'd also like to pull item 12.2, .4, and 5. And we put that at 13.12. Well, it concerns two gentlemen in the audience, and I'd like to be respectful of their time. Oh, great. Well, they're not here for that. No. No? Okay. They're here for the handling. Okay. Well, if we can couple the discussion. Okay. Do you want to? Right after. Okay. So after that? Great. So that would be then 13.2? 13.1 a okay not for
088me okay great so do I have a motion to approve that with those modifications I move to approve the consent agenda as modified 13.1 action item approval of the contract between Sonoma Valley Unified School District mr. Jason Sutter unless he's changed his mind No? Great. The board is asked to consider approval of an employment contract with Mr. Sutter as superintendent of the Sonoma Valley Unified School District. Any discussion? I don't really have anything to discuss. I'm excited for Mr. Sutter to join us, and I'm looking forward to working with him. Yeah, I'm just so happy about it. That's all I really have to say. I don't have any issues with the contract, and I'm ready to approve it. Agreed. And we've heard a lot about you, Mr. Sutter, prior to this process. I believe your
089reputation precedes you, and we really look forward to pushing ahead. Thank you. Yeah, look Jason I look forward to working with you as the board and I'm very optimistic that we're gonna do great things together as a collective board and I apologize for the Little bit of the rocky road on my way in that I you know as an inexperienced Board president, I you know apologize for that and look forward to moving Moving in the right direction. So welcome. So any we have a motion to approve the item. Oh Sorry. Yep. I don't want Item 13.1, discuss approve the contract with the district and Jason Sutter from a trustee motion. This is the motion. Okay, so I move that we approve a three-year employment agreement with Jason Sutter to be our full-time 225-day-per-year superintendent for
090$275,000 with the same health, dental, and vision benefits as other certificated administrative employees in the district. Do I hear a second? I'll second. Roll call vote. Board President Beall? Aye. Trustee Ching? Aye. Trustee Guzman? Aye. Trustee Landry? Aye. What was that? We can do that too. I wanted to thank, say a few words, just I wanted to thank you trustees. I do appreciate the trust that you're placing in me tonight. I'm grateful for the opportunity to serve Sonoma Valley Unified as superintendent. This community is home to me and my family. Being able to work here with the people that I care about, it means a great deal. I also understand the responsibility that comes with this role. We've seen it tonight on display that we have some real work ahead of us. and I'm ready
091to get started. I look forward to working alongside our staff, our labor partners, our families, and our community as we move forward together. And I also want to thank my family for their steady support. I'm looking forward to begin March 1st. Can I just take a moment really quick to say something? Please. Okay, great. I just want to say thank you for being here, your family, and we welcome you and we're very excited. Thank you to Ron and Scott for all the hard work you put into this. Not to take away the shining light on you all but I do want to take a moment to say thank you to miss Ives for her leadership for stepping into this role for Everything that you've done over the last seven months. It's been absolutely incredible There
092is so much work that got done in such a short period of time and I have so much respect for you You know working as the board president during that time was definitely challenging and Thank you to staff for accepting Rena and being amazing and working with her so well and you all working so well together. You guys all are like a different group of people from last January to August. It was just even like 30 days, right? It was crazy to walk into the district office and see just such a change and we can't let that go without being noticed. So thank you for everything. And thank you, Jason. Thanks, Rena. So now we're going to go to 13.1.a, which is Trustee Guzman has asked for the contract approval for Ron Scott to be
093discussed. So go for it. It's on 56 and 57. Thank you. So these two items are for consulting services on an as-needed basis. They are with Mr. Ron Callaway and Mr. Scott Mahoney. Thanks for joining us for supporting our new superintendent. And on that note, thank you very much for your assistance in that process. So through that lens, we very much appreciate your efforts. Moving forward. I believe it's our duty as trustees to first and foremost begin with our superintendent. Any questions we have, start with Mr. Sutter, and they start with our acting superintendent. And I don't believe we need these consulting services at this time. I would like to sit down with our incoming superintendent and go over our ideas and his ideas for how to conduct board governance. Until that time, I think
094that would be a more appropriate time to seek these particular services, or if it's someone else in-house, whatever it may be. I just don't think this is the appropriate time to execute this agreement. Thank you. Yeah, so I think that from the perspective of, you know, we need someone to run board governance for us, and that is going to take place on March 7th. And so we have to have someone to run that. And so if we wait for Jason to take the position March 1st, we're then going to have a very short amount of time for the governance discussions on March 7th. And so I think the decision was that these guys would run the governance for that March 7th meeting. And we can discuss at that time if they continue in that role
095on an ongoing basis. And so I think there was somewhat of a consensus which through Acting Superintendent that that would be the decision. I guess I you know, it was the decision It's not quite accurate. There was not a consensus And my understanding was that we already had folks lined up to conduct to facilitate that March 7th Which had already been rescheduled a couple times and that we have folks who are experienced at facilitating these particular kinds of workshops and if you could Confirm they were being offered at no cost to us through the Sunwell County Office of Ed. Is that correct? Yeah, that was my understanding that SCO was going to pay for that So I was looking forward to you know honoring that commitment at no cost to us and It's not like
096one day of governance and we're set, you know We can definitely come back a month later two months six months and continue At least as far as March 7th is concerned. I was hoping we could continue on with our perk amendment So I I hear what you're saying, but unfortunately it's it's that it's that you know Hey, I got a question phone call Where we have to decide as a board, you know are we okay with spending attorneys fees for those questions and All those go is willing to compensate for the time that is the study session for governance, they're not going to compensate from that time moving on. And so developing the relationship that we've developed with Ron and Scott, for me, I feel very confident in their leadership. I feel like they listen
097to our community. Our community is very confident in their leadership and their experience. I would prefer to learn. from the two of them who've had experience in the field, not only in the teaching profession, but working with boards and so on and so forth, than our attorneys, with no disrespect to our attorneys. I think it just makes the experience more personable, and now they actually know who we are and what this district looks like, and clearly you've heard tonight a little bit of what our specific needs are. So I don't think it's, I've sat through governance with both. not Scott and Ron, but we've brought people in and I've done it with the attorneys and I just feel like the experience, I come out feeling more confident in myself as a trustee when we work
098with people who know who we are and what we're dealing with and it's not so cookie cutter, if that makes sense. And I have to say, you know, you guys... This is a cost, but it's not to exceed a certain amount. And for me, post... superintendent search with questions I had. I mean they were available all the time and I really appreciated that and if they weren't available they would let me know when I could when they would reach out and unfortunately and this is no disrespect to our attorneys but they're not available all the time and so I would like to develop a relationship with someone who is going to be available for those times when we need to talk about things. So I'm not sure. I'm supporting this contract is what I'm saying.
099Long story long. The question is if SCO is willing to pay for the services of F3 to do the... It's my understanding that SCO is already on contract with them to do the services. And it wasn't Namita, it's Tara Lynn and Diane Kitamara, I think, that was going to do that training. But I think we could ask Mr. Sutter what... His thoughts are I know he was in communication with With SCO and I don't know are they willing to pay for Ron and Scott or I I don't I don't know. I haven't talked with SCO I I know that Rena and I had been talking with Tara Lynn to to plan March 7th. We thought that was the way we were going and Tara Lynn had informed me Oh SCO that SCO was going to
100cover the cost for it So I don't that question has not been asked if they would pay for another or not And so, you know, from my perspective, my preference is to go with Ron and Scott on this role. And so, you know, I probably settle this, but... So I don't have a very strong feeling about it. I had like a third idea, which is I think CSBA is really the expert in governance. I went to the training this year in Sacramento. They offer good beginnings training for new teams. So I'm just complicating things. I do believe... Yeah, I mean, I think it's really helpful to have I think what this board has been missing is having kind of a third neutral party to be able to brainstorm problems as they arise because there's a
101lot of stuff that hits us and we don't know what best practices are. And so to be able to, so I think there's two things going on here. Are we talking about Ron and Scott leading just one governance workshop with us or is it, is it? that they would also kind of serve as, I guess, coaches to the board. That's what I'm wondering. And my thinking on this is both. And so they would be a resource for board members to be able to call instead of a lawyer to say, with your extensive experiences, superintendents and longtime superintendents in their individual districts, what is your opinion on this as a sounding board for advice? And I don't think that... the F3 and Terrellyn who doesn't have any superintendent experience, she's a board president in a Southern
102California district. I am more comfortable and would like to deal, you know, have a couple of people that know the district better than some and have that long extensive experience, superintendent experience. That's my personal preference and that's why I've sort of gone this route instead of. law firm and a person you know a board president versus superintendent experience I will say from past experience that we haven't we've only used law firms to do specific governance topics that are very legal focus so the Brown Act particularly and ethics And for all other governance, we have used in the past other firms, teams, that consist of retired superintendents. So that seems to be more of a standard approach, is not to go the legal route. So what I would... I don't want to spend a lot of
103time talking about this tonight. I mean, I think that it would be easier if once our new superintendent joins. But I think we could have as a backup, we could approve the contracts for both Scott Mahoney and Ron Galloway, have that in our back pockets. And then. We could still keep them on contract, and we could still also do the initial governance program that has been sort of, I guess, discussed or planned with F3. And then as follow-up, we could use Ron Scott. I don't know. That's kind of a compromise. I'm not – yeah, I don't have a strong feeling about this one. I could really go either way, guys. I would be okay with that as well. Just knowing that the one we already have scheduled is being covered by SCO. I don't want
104to blow half their, you know, not to exceed on their prep time, travel time, the day of, you know, reports. And, you know, that's already half their time that we have them for. So, yeah, if we could shift that beyond that workshop, that would be great. My desire is for Ron and Scott. And so I don't think that having a board president that works for F3, a law firm, is the people that should. We've got to set goals. We've got to do whatever it is. We've had experience with these guys recently that's very good. The sourcing of Jason. So my preference is to go with. Well, just to clarify, the co-facilitator would be Diane. Is that correct? What was previously scheduled. Is that there'd be two facilities, not just Terralyn. Right, but Terralyn would be
105running it. That was what was being presented, a secondary person to the... So that's my opinion, and so if you guys want to do something else, then great, we can vote. That's my preference, is to have Ron and Scott do it for the reasons I've articulated. I'll make a motion to approve the contract as presented. I will second the contract. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Very happy for you for Jason. Yeah. Thank you. I'll say, on behalf of Scott and myself, because he's talking to Jason, it was a great experience for the both of us, and the choice of Jason was magnificent. Your board did an excellent job. Community, your board picked the right candidate. Great. Thank you. Moving right along, we are going to... The other agenda item, the consent agenda
106item. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, no we're not. Sorry, regular agenda. 13.2 this is an action item to approve a resolution number 26-20 a resolution of the Sonoma Valley Unified School District Governing Board to decrease the number of certificated employees due to a reduction of particular kind of services the board is asked to consider approval of resolution number 26-20 a resolution of the Sonoma Valley Unified School District Governing Board to decrease the number of certificated employees due to a reduction of particular kinds of services this resolution identifies certificated positions that will be eliminated or reduced as of July 1, 2026. Thank you. Good evening, Acting Superintendent Seifz, President Bell, Board of Trustees, Sonoma Community, and incoming Superintendent Sutter. Congratulations. Tonight, the Board is asked to consider two resolutions regarding the reduction or elimination of certificated and
107classified positions. While we bring forward to you two separate resolutions, this background information applies to both. Resolution 2620, particular kinds of services for certificated, and Resolution 2621, classified reductions. These reductions are necessary due to lack of funds, the elementary school consolidation, and recent charter school approval, declining enrollment, rising costs of operations, salaries, and benefits. and to balance the budget with a healthy reserve. At this stage, the board is determining which positions should be eliminated, and this is the first step in the process. These recommendations were not made lightly. Input was gathered from administrators and principals and based on research, data, and staffing ratios. We recognize the difficulty of these decisions. To remain fiscally solvent, they are necessary. Some positions in the resolution of classified for example are vacant. We are closing those positions. Other positions
108due to school closure declining enrollment and approval of the charter petition causing further declining enrollment. There is also a lack of work with some positions. Position eliminations must follow Education Code regulations including specific procedures and timelines. Once the resolution is approved, we will identify the affected employees. Preliminary layoffs will be issued by March 15th. The board will make a final decision at the May board meeting. And final layoff notices will be issued by May 15th. For Resolution 2620, we are recommending a total of 17.8 FTEs in a particular kind of service for certificated staff. It includes an administrator at an elementary school due to the closure, a director position at the DO, as well as teacher positions in our district. I want to clarify the 12 elementary teachers include five teachers due to the closure
109of Presswood and declining enrollment, plus seven teachers due to the approval of the charter school. For the independent study teacher, we are currently serving 16 students in independent study. We will no longer offer independent study as a district. Families are welcome to enroll back to in-person learning. However, if they choose the flexibility of independent study, they can enroll in free online accredited programs across the state with several options nearby Sonoma. And we will continue to offer home hospital instruction. For the middle school and high school positions, we are right-sizing staffing based on enrollment and student course requests. The point for our position is specific to visual arts. We will continue to offer a robust art program and other electives. Executive cabinet has met with both secondary principals to review their draft schedules and section needs
110based on student course requests. These are the recommendations for reductions and we know that the final decision rests with the board. Please let us know if you have any questions and I'm turning it back to you for questions and conversations before we talk about the next agenda item resolution 2621. Thank you. Can I ask a question on the independent study? So the the online alternative how different would that look in terms of the sort of if we're doing independent study our students today doing a lot of stuff online or it's all online so It's online and administered by? So the independent study in Sonoma Valley Unified, students enroll in subject, which is our online program that also offers our credit recovery program. Our teacher offers to meet with the students in small groups or individually,
111virtually. Yes. It depends, but she does meet with students every single day. Correct. The instruction is provided through the online program. Can I ask a question about that? Are the students who are on independent study able to participate in sports in our schools when they're on independent study? I don't have the answer to that question. Yes, I believe so. And if they enroll online, would they be entitled to participate in athletics if we switch them to the... No, because, no. They will not be Sonoma Valley Unified students. Can I ask a follow-up question to that? So if the instruction is purely through an online provider, why is there a cap? Why has there been a cap on independent study? It seems like if you're basically delivering instruction through a digital platform, it should be sort
112of... Unlimited but I'm just curious what what make what what's the constraint here? Well, we are honoring our collective bargaining agreement with VMTA that states the independent study teacher has a cap of 25 so Thank You dr. Casillas for elaborating some of these We heard a lot of public comment tonight relative to the director of education services position Could you please give us some of the history with those responsibilities as they've been handled in our district over the years? Yes, we know that we needed to reduce the number of administrators, especially at the DO. When the position was first originated, it was funded by the safety grant funding that has sunsetted. All goals of the grant has been accomplished with the establishment of the wonderful wellness centers that we do have. In terms of the
113responsibilities, it includes the attendance, student supports, when we take a look at our positive behavior intervention supports, suspensions and expulsions. nursing school counselors Wellness centers and the list goes on in terms of supports to our schools our community and our students The responsibilities will still continue and I do want to say the Wellness centers will still remain open We are reshifting the responsibilities within the different bodies of our organization and Wellness centers aside prior to the creation of this position These duties were had previously been handled by is that were these fully new? Responsibilities that were created as part of that job description the wellness centers Aside from well. Yes. Yes. We also had a monitor attendance. We still had a Behavior and positive behavior intervention supports. We still had nursing and we still had
114counseling in our district If we approve this today, the resolution as is, we could then still collectively as a board decide to keep the independent study teacher? If you choose to approve something other than what the staff has recommended, you just make that in your motion that you approve it with the correction to independent study. Right, but can we get more information and kind of think about it versus taking it out now? Because I haven't given this a ton of thought. prove this as is. Right, and then we just don't have to notice that person. Then we don't have to notice that person. Is that something that people would be interested in? If the independent study position is of a concern, it's a little bit of a concern to me. And one of it is,
115you've got online students and kids are not great doing online students if they're already at Creekside independent study. And then move the athletic component to it, that they can't then compete in sports. I think that that gives them less purpose at school. So if a kid wants to play baseball and then they can't do it because they're doing the online program and it's not the independent study, then that would be... And so it's for a small number of kids, I get it. It's 16 students. Revisit. Yeah, I mean, I agree. I know we're sitting here talking contractual, but it is unfortunate that there is that cap if there is a need. And we hear from our students... And we've heard from a lot of students, specifically tonight and over the last weeks, about how people
116feel at school. And if this is an option for students to be able to continue a high school education, I mean, online school isn't ideal, but it's an option. And I'm not comfortable necessarily taking that away. If it provides an opportunity even for one of those 25 to participate in sports or... if there's something else that they can participate on in campus, whether it be theater or anything. So I would like a little bit more time. I'm just not willing to take this one off the table yet. Wait, to take it off the table? Right, yeah, you want to. I'm not going to support this position being eliminated tonight. And really for me, and I mean no disrespect to the person, it's not so much the position, it's what this provides. for kids as an
117alternative after sitting here and listening to so many students telling us how they're feeling on campuses. I don't think, I mean I know I don't feel comfortable at this moment taking that option away. And if there was an option for them to still continue to participate, then all of these other options that you've shared would be great because it sounds like they're similar if not the same and free, which is great. There's that one component that we provide that they don't and I'm just not willing to take that away right now I'm not quite sure if I understand the position that That you guys are taking are here. So are you suggesting to approve the resolution with by amending and taking and Not including it in the list of pks or just leaving it in
118there because we have until whatever May 15th to finalize it So I'm confused about what's on the table I'm fine either way, but I just don't want to make the decision. I'm happy to approve this as it stands with the caveat that we're going to look into this and have a further discussion on this particular position, which we don't have to notify until May. I'd like to talk to Jason about it and get his input on this specific position. And I don't, so I'm happy to pull it at the position and take it off, or I'm happy to leave it on with the understanding that we're going to have a further discussion and get advice from district staff on it. We've got 16 kids in the program, and there's a cap at 25, so we
119don't, yeah, I don't know. This is, and this is. Isn't there home hospital students that are sharing this resource? Oh, I see, okay. So the position is restricted. It's not just in the study. The current enrollment is four students at home hospital with one pending referral and 16 in individual. So we don't have a wait list now then? Correct. At this time. At this time. It does fluctuate due to the needs of students. Okay. So we can either leave it and don't do it or have a further discussion or we can pull it now. But then if we pull it now, we can't, we're losing the ability to take, we don't need the position. Can I clarify something? Sure. So the... positions on the PKS they will those that are affected will still receive a
120preliminary notice on March 15th and then the final notice is on May 15 so I know we said May 15th but they will be getting your preliminary notice I have some other follow-up questions around the the PKS list so is there an a projection enrollment projection that the that the Do you have an elementary projection in terms of what enrollment is and also middle school? Like I'm looking at the enrollment report right now, but I'm just wondering what are we projecting to lose next year? I have the middle school right now. We have a projected enrollment at middle school of 584. We're currently at 602. And for the elementary schools, we're projecting, I think it was 230 for the charter school. And then the difference of about 20 some, between 20 and I think it's
12120 students for just general attrition. But for general attrition, didn't we have more than 20 last year? We did, but we figured we were already losing the 200 for the charter school, so. So that's, I'm sorry, can you just repeat the number? So 20 plus? 230, I believe. Okay, and then my other follow-up question is. With respect to the the partial positions at the middle school are these extra assignments currently like are these part-time teachers I guess is that part-time positions or these positions in which teachers are actually working an additional whatever the the rate the fraction is So these are preliminary reductions based on our core section needs. We're not talking about people per se. We're talking about FTE. Right. So in other words, just so that I understand the context here. So if
122we're reducing history by 0.6, that means that how many sections, I guess, that's the way to think about it, right? We're offering a certain amount of sections. based on 584 students and so now we are reducing, .6 represents a certain number of sections, is that correct? It represents three. Three sections. So I could give you an example for art. We currently have six sections of visual art. We're reducing art by .4, which is two sections, so we will still have visual art. So instead of having six, we will have four. And then also, can you just clarify for people in the audience and people listening, there was a comment made earlier that we would be eliminating the performing arts program. That was the impression from comments. Could you just clarify actually the accurate information about
123that program? Yes, the position on the PKS is .4 visual arts. The theater arts that's currently in place is funded by Prop 28, and that will remain intact. We will continue to offer robust VAPA programs such as dance, music, visual arts, as well as the other electives of maker space, farm to table, Lego, etc. To our acting superintendent, if we can take a holistic view at what removing some of these PKS line items would entail, the impact in terms of how... That shook out and passed in the last few years when that had been done and you know how it could potentially impact labor negotiations and The balancing act with you know building our reserve which we've committed to and you know trying to hit that minimum 3% reserve I Understand it's all a balancing
124act. Did you elaborate on that a little bit? So really the first year that we brought the PKS was I think this is our third year of bringing reductions in staff forward. And the first year we brought the list to the board and the board changed it significantly from what staff recommended. And it resulted in almost a loss of a million dollars that we had projected in savings. And then the positions were eliminated the following year. Staff has worked real closely with the principals in doing our projections and at the middle school specifically we've gone through his tentative schedule. The high school has already put their tentative schedule based on the desired courses that the students want and that's how these lists were developed. Did I answer your question? For the most part. Yeah, I
125guess just to remind ourselves that There's a lot of work that had been involved in generating this list and to not be too quick to undo some of these recommendations. I do appreciate that we do have some time between the initial and the final notices to continue to discuss these. Thank you. And as we get closer to May, we should have a better idea of what the actual enrollments are going to be. And maybe we're not going to have as many students leave in elementary school than we are anticipating. And so if that's the case, then they won't get the final notice in May. So some of these positions could be saved. And I just want to emphasize too that we're adhering to the class sizes in the contracts. We're not projecting overages in the
126classes. And I know last year under negotiations we had some significant cost to the district because of overages. But we've been able to right size our classes and working with the master schedules. development with the principals and so we feel that working with the elementary principals as well that we're going to still maintain the the small class sizes that we have i mean we won't have classes of 12 and 15 like we've had in the years past but we will be right around the 20 22 23 to 1. in terms of um So you described how you know the process was for determining sort of you know class sizes and teachers in the classroom I mean one of the questions I have is how do we figure what is the right size for administrative staff
127right so we had a report that was presented by a consultant Diane Kitamura former superintendent Talking about you know, how do you go about the approach for figuring out? No one seems to be able to provide, like, here's what the ratio should be. Obviously, it really sort of depends on what your district looks like, the kinds of students you're serving. You know we we fail to kind of demonstrate a Shared pain in the in the last two pks is that was the the feedback that we received And I'm just having a hard time figuring out. What is the right administra administrative ratios because on the one hand You know that we currently have administrative 19 administrative FTE based on the current sort of audit analysis, yet in the Kitamura report, She reports that we have
128only 14 FTE I believe so it's hard for me like to figure out. What is the single source of truth? How are we counting? Administrative there's different definitions. There seems not to be a standard. I look at the Saks report I'm just wondering how have you guys how have you thought about staffing the the district office in terms of figuring out? What that right number is? Well, I actually sat down with with Mr. Sutter and we reviewed the district office positions. I made it public that we would cut a position from the district office and we talked about what's the best position to cut to ensure student success. If you look at the classified I cut the business manager. Last year we cut another. We combined positions. But those don't go into the administrative ratio
129that's in the audit. That's an administrative position, but it's not a certificated, so those aren't in the count with the administrative to classroom teacher ratio. I think with increased reporting, the special ed. department with the increase in the IEPs, I really don't see how we could cut another position at the district office other than the one director that we cut. You know, depending on class sizes of elementary schools, you might be able to do a shared principal, but you know, I personally don't see how we can make much more cuts to the administration. This is you know for board discussion, but we ought we really should think about trying to figure out having a conversation about this In terms of what's our what's our long-term plan here? You know, what's the five-year plan for figuring
130out? What are the right ratios? I mean, I know that the Kitamura report kind of looked at Administrators to students then you have you know the audit looking at administrators to teachers and I think I think it's worth it that we invest the time into starting from the ground up and backing into what the right number is. And I think taking Diane's suggestion, which is looking at seriously the needs of our students and kind of rolling them back up to what are the most absolutely necessary ones that we cannot live without. And I don't have a sense of what that is. I mean, we have to rely on staff. And I just think it's a really important conversation that we have to have. And I'm not willing, I learned my lesson from three years ago,
131which was tampering with the PKS list that was given to us. We whittled it down. We ended up in a terrible fiscal situation. It exacerbated. You know it didn't help negotiation So I'm not willing to fiddle with the list right now that is being put in front of us because it's not final but it does still raise the question like is One enough from the from the you know administrative side of the equation and so this is an action item We need to come I think that I'm happy to approve it as is with the caveat that we get more information as it relates to the independent study position and I'd love to learn more about it. I'd love to get Jason's opinion on it and I think all of us could probably get a
132little more information to be a little better informed on this particular position and I agree that you know part of the board goals that we're going to start doing on March 7th I think that those is to how to figure out what is the staffing level and I thought that the Kitamura report was going to sort of address that but it's You know, there's still more. We still need to learn more about it. Well, I think a huge takeaway from her report was really, like, I was jumping for joy because it really called out the fact that we don't ever go back and look at our return on investment of a lot of these things, whether it be people, whether it be programs, whether it be curriculum, whatever. We really need to start having progress
133monitoring across the board so that we don't go years down the road of serious spending and we don't have the return on investment. And that needs to be a priority. When would we, just a question, when could the board talk about this again? So are we gonna agendize this in March, did you say? I know we have till May, but if we, as individual board members go out and start talking to families and getting more information, when would we have that opportunity? Do we know? It's okay not to know. I'm just curious. The notices, the preliminary notices need to go to the affected employees by March 15th, and we like to have time. I know there was a board meeting on March 12th prior to that, but we do like to have face-to-face conversations with
134each individual impacted employee. In a situation like this, if we were to leave it as is, would you still... notice and then the board technically has until May to make a final decision is what you're saying? Correct. Okay, I just want to make sure I understand that. I think that's really, I mean, you guys, I hear what you're saying, but I think what's really hard about that is families are going to need to be planning for next year, so is waiting until May, I don't know, I'm just throwing it out there, is waiting until May. Like, I would love to see us commit to talking about it before May. You can do it at a, I would suggest you probably do it at a work session, and you can do that before May. I think
135there's one scheduled in April. But there's March 31st. There's a March 31st is a study session. There's a study session. You can always address it then It's just they have to be noticed by May 14th, but you can withdraw that notice at any time All right I'm comfortable with that if the board would be willing to entertain a conversation on the 31st because I do want to give our Families as well an idea of the direction of where we're going with this Okay, so action on him. We need a motion on this and then with the explicit understanding that we're going to continue to discuss. I'll make a motion to approve with the very clear, yeah, I make a motion to approve as is, knowing that we are going to revisit at the March 31st
136study session. Second. Aye. Second. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. So we are on 13.3. No, sorry. Yes. 13.3, yeah. Approve approve resolution 2621 a resolution of the Sonoma Valley Unified School District governing board to decrease the number of classified employees due to lack of work or lack of funds the board is asked to consider approval of the resolution 2621 a resolution of the SVUSD governing board to decrease the number of classified employees due to lack of work and the lack of funds the resolution identifies classified positions that will be eliminated or reduced as of July 1 2026 Thank you. So resolution 2621 is to decrease the number of classified employees due to lack of work and or lack of funds a total of 23.0 75 filled FTEs is being recommended for reduction The positions
137are identified with a double asterisk are due to a school closure So you see a number of those classified positions with the two asterisks at the end that's due to the presswood school closure Also, as we could not reduce hours for staff based on this process, we eliminated some positions with the plan of bringing some of them back with hours to a line of student instruction. So from eight hours, we want to reduce to six hours when students are in session, but we had to eliminate that eight-hour position with the intent of bringing that six-hour back. In addition, as I mentioned before, there are 11 vacant positions that are being closed due to the vacancy. And the Resolution 2621 lists all of those positions that we're bringing forward. Do you have any questions? One thing
138I'd like to point out is the Instructional Assistant Special Education. Those positions were reclassified. So as a paraprofessional. And so they're just the old positions are vacant, but I think most of those instructional aides moved into a paraprofessional. I just want to expand on something that Christina said. We've got some positions that are eight-hour positions, like possibly an instructional aid. I'll just put that out there. Students are only in school for six hours a day, and then on Wednesdays, they're only there for four hours a day. So in trying to right-size it, what this qualifies under is lack of work because students aren't present. for all of those hours. So in order to rectify that, then we cut the position and then change it to be the hours which students are in session. So it
139might not be six hours because Wednesdays are still short, but it might be five hours, but it's spread out over the whole week so that they're there when students are there. Okay, so just to follow up on a couple of the key positions here. So all of the double asterisk positions Would have been eliminated regard for regardless of whether there was a charter school. Is that correct? Correct. Those are the Presswood So that position those would be well Okay, got it and then can you also? I'd like to understand a little bit more about the instructional bilingual assistants and what they're currently doing. There's four of them. So are they assigned to sites? Or are they roaming and are they only elementary? Are they middle? I mean, how do you share those resources across all
140of the schools? That's an example that Rena was talking about. The IA bilinguals are elementary, middle, and high school. As Ms. Hoban said, there's one in the math classroom as well, specifically to support our newcomers and our multilingual students. This is a position that's a lack of work, that we're just adjusting hours to reflect when students are present. Okay, I think that's all my questions for the moment. What's the exceptional child position instructional assistant? How do we define an exceptional child? It's on the second. It's a vacant position. I've just never seen that term. This position was reclassified to paraprofessional exceptional child typically refers to students in ESN or students receiving this special education services. That was actually the old language, students with exceptionalities. I just want to say this is a really hard thing.
141We've had to do this three years in a row. We know that these are real people. They're not just pieces of paper. Many of us who've had kids know these people. Our kids have grown up here. My kids have gone to the school here. I know it feels like this is a callous exercise, that we don't have connection. This is why we were elected to do the jobs that nobody else really wants to do, which is we don't have 5,000 kids running around Sonoma. I mean, go to the playgrounds. They're not there like they used to be. I don't know what to say. We're trying to respond to external factors. So anyway, I understand that these are real people and these are livelihoods. But we're also trying, the public wants us to be responsible fiscally
142and we're trying to match, you know, it's a hard job. We're trying to match resources to the conditions that we currently have. I mean, there are real trade-offs here. Trade-offs in terms of can we have a budget, I'm sorry, budget reserves that we need? Can we afford, you know? salary increases. I mean we can make these trade-offs, but then we have to live with the consequences of it. We can't have it both ways. And I just feel like that's important for people to know. This is not easy. I don't like this. I don't think anyone up here likes doing this. So anyway. Could you clarify just a little bit more on the eight-hour positions that are intended to be brought back at five or six hours? Is that every single one that's listed here at
143eight hours, or are some of these eight-hour positions truly to be reduced altogether? Well, like the senior custodian, that's due to school closure. The library and student device technicians, those would be brought back at a reduced. Health assistants, is there six hours? Those, they would be brought back at a reduced hours as well, I believe. The instructional assistant bilingual at eight hours, those would be brought back at a, the eight and the six, those would be brought back at a reduced number of hours. The administrative secretary at special ed, that was a reduction at the district office level. the leap custodian district-wide and the grounds foreman district-wide those would be eliminated positions I'll make a motion to approve as presented second I'll second all those in favor aye aye team point for approval of the
144change of date for the regular May board meeting orders are asked to consider the approval of a change of date for the May regular board meeting The board originally scheduled May 14th, but must be changed to an earlier date to ensure compliance with the statutory requirement to issue final layoff notices by May 15th. The revised meeting date allows for sufficient time for the required hearing process for the board to consider and act on the outcome of that hearing prior to the legal deadline, adjusting the meeting schedule. Sorry. Do I have to start again? No. Oh, summarize it. OK. So we're changing the date for a deadline from May 14th to May 15th. well it says the week of May 4th so that's what I wanted just to ask is it May 4th or some day
145that week okay yeah sir people okay with that can does everyone need to look at their calendar You mean the 20th? So you're saying March 20th, I mean April 28th? I see the April 28th scheduled already. Yes, I'm available Monday the 4th, but if it were later in the week, Wednesday, Thursday. Why can't we do it on April 28th? Is there a reason why we can't do it on that date since we're meeting anyway? I don't remember what April 28th was. Oh, the regular board meeting. Sorry. Couldn't we just put this item on? No, because that's a study session. On study session. Whatever you guys tell me. I'm available. So Monday or her. Yeah, but he's not available. Yeah, he's available. We just want to see you. Oh, too bad. We'll get something special for
146dinner for you. Okay, so this is an action item. Do I hear a motion? Motion to approve that. changing of the date of the May regular board meeting from May 14th to May 4th Monday a second that 13 point 13.5 decision regarding Sonoma charter school petition renewal okay so hang on a second I got to read something who's got that Oh, sorry, sorry. So pursuant to the California Ed Code section 47605B, the board will hold a public hearing and take action on the charter renewal petition for Sonoma Charter School submitted December 11, 25. What? Open the public hearing. Okay, sorry. Hi I'm Mary Reynolds I'm the director at Sonoma Charter School. I want to thank the board of trustees for your time this evening as well as district officials. Thank you for having us. We're
147excited to present our charter renewal petition and I want to briefly talk about our background and then move directly into the three criteria for charter renewal. So we are proudly the ninth charter in the state of California having been at the location since 1993. We are asking for a five year charter renewal and we serve a diverse group of students who are diverse in many ways linguistically socioeconomically racially. Now I'll move on to criteria number one. And so criteria number one is really about academic performance and how our students show and demonstrate growth on formative and summative assessments such as STAR Reading, CAASPP, and ELPAC. And the data I've pulled for you this evening is our STAR Reading student growth measure reports as well as STAR Math growth measure reports. And so we see a
148lot of gains in formative assessments from our students across first through eighth grade from beginning of year to end of year making progress and then also at the end of year CAASPP scores are also comparable to state and district growth as well too where over 50% of our students meet and exceed standards across content areas. Next slide, thank you. And part of what helps support our academic performance are our curricula which are listed there for you in the areas of math, science, social studies, and reading. We also have online curriculum as well too and an area that we really excel in is providing those targeted interventions to students not only through staffing as we staff to full-time instructional bilingual assistants as well as a full-time bilingual community liaison. But also in our after school intervention
149program that's run by our credentialed teachers that has targeted small group support in English language arts and math as well as our in-house during the school day intervention systems which includes our reading intervention teacher. She pulls small groups to target phonics and reading comprehension and then also our K through I proficiency project that we've been a part of since that program. program inception which uses one of our online curricula, Lexia, to target students' needs and areas of growth, specifically in English language arts. Teachers work with students in small groups that are grouped accordingly to areas of need, and students demonstrate progress based on that targeted, consistent routine. Intervention next slide. Thank you. And then that brings us to criteria to our financial data We've pulled some data for a three-year projection for you. We are
150Fiscally solvent we do not borrow our budget is set and transparent We have reserves to cover upcoming school years and then next slide And that leads me to criteria three, compliance and equity. So our oversight exists through our independent audit, and our audit has zero or one findings every year, which we resolve very quickly. It's from an outside auditor, and the audit is always clean and unmodified. In terms of our fiscal alignment and impact of equity, our board oversees and provides that insight, as well as our staff input through LCAP input meetings in our community and at staff meetings. And we really do a high level of intentionality, making sure our LCAP aligns to the needs of our unduplicated students. And that is our presentation. Thank you so much. While we're waiting, you guys can
151come to the podium. Sorry. This is the time and place set for the duly noticed public hearing for the decision regarding the Sonoma Charter School. I declare this public hearing open. And then for today's public hearing, we just had the presentation. And then now the board will take public comment. So please identify yourself, and you will have how long we're giving them. Three minutes. I'm a rambler, but I'll try not to. How many do we have, by the way? Do we have a lot? Well. If you'd like to make public comment, please raise your hand. I see a lot of charter families here behind me, and I think. Everybody raise your hand. So we've got three minutes. And we've got in the hallway as well. Wait, everybody wants to talk? Oh, no. We're just here
152to support Ms. Mary. Just tell us how many people want to make public comment. So we've got two. Three three all together you see okay. Are you guys okay with two minutes each sure great two minutes on the clock Let's go. Thank you. So my name is Kate Cherry. I'm glad to be here in person. Usually I listen from work on Thursday nights. But yeah, we have been privileged to stumble upon the hidden gem that is Sonoma Charter School for our kids. They have been absolutely thriving. You can probably tell I'm not great at public speaking. My oldest daughter is extremely shy as well. And just... You know, at our school, we have a really robust program for performing arts. And the feeling of watching my daughter get up on our stage and perform as
153a kindergartner and give a monologue was just mind-blowing to me. And that speaks to the feeling of safety that they provide. You know, the students are just comfortable there, and they're doing so wonderful. I just, I really love this school. Thank you. Great, thank you. Hi, I'm Alex Henry. I have a son in kindergarten and I just I want to say huge support to Miss Mary over here. She's incredible. I just almost don't have words to express how much we love her. And I will say that when we were looking at charter school or Sonoma Charter School, we noticed before anything else that the eighth graders were so happy. And I don't know about all of you, but when I was in middle school, eighth grade was not me smiling at eight o'clock in the
154morning. I was probably a little grumpier. It probably took me a little while to warm up, but they're beaming. And I just, it speaks to how we've had. our time on campus go. Everyone is friendly and happy. And I also have to say my son was diagnosed with ADHD this year and Mary and his teacher, Elizabeth, have been incredible as a kid who grew up with ADD. It's so refreshing to see someone so open and supportive and just able to like jump in and help without making him feel other or different. So just huge support. Hi, I'm Ross Kennard. I'm currently the chair of the board of the Sonoma Charter School. I just want to say how incredibly lucky we have been to have been able to hire Ms. Mary Reynolds. This is her second
155year, and the charter school was doing really well before, and she's taking it to even greater heights. It's really been fantastic to be able to work with her. Hi, my name is Christina Burnett. I have a fifth grader at Charter and he's been there since 2020. So we've seen the evolution of the school since the pandemic and all that it has had to offer. It is such a supportive environment and that is... partially to miss um reynolds here and the sunshine and the energy she brings and the excitement and along with the staff who create such a great supportive environment for everyone we actually just did on monday a little presentation about he will be going into sixth grade next year which will be the middle school obviously and um i actually didn't know much
156about the curriculum and we lack of child care for my son and we also wanted him to be involved and to find out what's going on at the junior high cluster three as we call it and I'll admit it he did not want to go he was as most kids he wanted to stay home but at the end of the presentation by the teachers and Miss Reynolds who was also there he was actually really excited and he's like most 11 year olds not excitement about schools not always at the top of his list but he was very excited about the electives about the sports and just all that it has to offer so i just wanted to give some of that insight so thank you great thank you so okay i closed the meeting so
157i now hereby declare the public hearing is closed so this is an action item i can speak is it yours it's my turn So good luck, Jason. The renewal of petitions are covered by standards and criteria described in education code. A board may deny a renewal petition, may only deny a renewal petition if it fails to Meet the specific criteria which I won't repeat because Mary already said what it was But staff did an analysis of the petition and we found that they've met all of the required components and recommend approval of their charter petition So this is new for all of us. We haven't had to do a charter renewal before, and so don't take any of these. Anyway, I just want to understand the process. We want to get this right because in
158five years from now, we're going to do another charter renewal. So please bear with me. I really want to understand a little bit just this is these are questions right now for staff just so that I understand the charter legislation requirements of the board. So so my and so is the timing is I guess if you could describe how the renewal process is different from. approval process for a charter because there are some differences and I just wanted to know especially is the timing and the timeline any different we still have 90 days for the to bring forth the petition for approval and we requested an extension because we would have missed it by a couple days and the charter school was willing to extend it by the couple of days to meet the 90-day
159approval process. So in other words, because the way I looked at it was I thought that maybe we actually had until March to actually approve this. We do not. So tell me how I got my thinking. I messed up my thinking on this. The charter petition was submitted on December 11th, right? So 60 days from December 11th is when you, by that date, you have to do a charter, a hearing, a public hearing, which is we're doing it now. Is that correct? Right. So then don't we have another 30 days from today to approve the charter? I don't believe so. I think today is the day that we have to approve it. But the only way you can deny it is if they fail to meet any of those three criteria and their petition met
160all of that criteria. So there would be no basis for which to deny the charter. Right. The point I'm making is that, I guess for me, I don't feel like I had sufficient time to pour over the charter like I did for the MacArthur Park charter. And I want this to be a fair process. I did I did delve into it, but I just felt like we didn't I didn't get the petition until whatever Monday Or whatever Saturday or the weekend when this when this was actually sent it out in a BC It was it was shared with the board when they presented it. Okay. Well, so I haven't I Apologize I did I did spend quite a quite amount of time this weekend reviewing it So I don't want you to think that I
161I didn't review it I just wanted to understand what the process was and how a renewal is different from approving a brand new established charter school. So I would actually like to get a little bit more detail. around the composition of the student body. I do remember the original petition and I've looked at old petitions that the charter school has submitted and there's been a huge improvement in terms of trying to serve a demographic profile that looks more like the district overall or the valley is what I wanna say. I mean, I remember I saw data from the last time the charter wanted to renew its charter. And I think that there was a huge improvement from having Hispanic students, you know, less than 20%. Now it's up to about... It reached a peak of
162over 50%, but then in the last two years, there's been somewhat of a decline. And I'm just wondering if you could tell me kind of what you think is going on in terms of recruiting your Latino families and Spanish speakers. Yeah, it's been about a decline of 5%. I think we are working on doing additional community outreach and bringing the community in throughout the city of Sonoma and the county of Sonoma, really. So that's why we have office staff who are bilingual and our community liaison who's also bilingual who helps plan community events and different types of... um, cultural events with cultural dancing and, um, Also just kind of informational nights and being really intentional around translation services for our families in newsletters and all types of meetings to allow translation to happen in Spanish
163from everything from open house to back to school night to have translators in each classroom because we also staff TK through third grade instructional assistants and all of our instructional assistants. classrooms just happen to be bilingual as well too so they're available to provide on-the-spot translation for those big school events such as open house and back-to-school night as well as parent-teacher conferences so a lot of our outreach is done in real time also to create that sense of strong belonging and inclusion in in the school through language verbal written electronic Can you talk a little bit about your recruitment in terms of enrollment? Oh, yeah. Yeah. So we start with school tours, and school tours are scheduled typically at 8.15 in the morning because we start each morning with a morning school assembly that we
164call our morning ceremony. So tours take place from 8.15 to 9 a.m., and everyone's welcome to come. on school tours and our events such as like our middle school information night, open house. We have a spring fair for TK and K perspective families each spring. This spring it happens to be May 1st. We just scheduled it. And so those are ways that we invite the community onto campus during the school day and outside of the school day as well too. Let's see. I also wondered, I was looking at your, I was looking at English language performance for your ELLs or multi-language learners. And Sonoma Charter School does, this is just, this is all students, right, in front of me? Right, yes. So Sonoma Charter, you know, outperforms the district. And also, the state both on
165math and ELA. And I was just wondering if you could speak to us about what you think you're doing sort of in the classroom that's really kind of moving the dial. I think for us it is that sense of community where we always have a level of calm and predictability, routine and structure. Based on that, we will always staff. one class of each grade so Every year starts with each child knowing who their teacher is going to be who their aid is going to be and that there's going to be one class with a maximum number of 25 children in that class so that provides I've seen a peace of mind that then deescalates people's stress levels and when people part of learning is not being stressed out. And so when the stress level is
166substantially decreased because we don't have external factors impacting the school day that helps with routine and consistency as well as the small group interventions that we do within the general education classroom setting as well as pull out too which is. strategy we've used that's been effective and our teachers are really invested in and see our curriculum as dynamic and relevant. So we do have fidelity to our curricula that we use across content areas too. So what I'm curious about, so GLPP has been around for a very long time, and I'm really curious, I don't remember the exact year of when that program actually started, but it's really an ELD sort of strategy and intervention, if I understand it correctly. It's not the main sort of core. Right, and now it's transformed into the K3i Reading
167Proficiency Project. And so what that initiative and program does is it takes one of our supporting curricula, which is Lexia, the online computer. reading program that helps with kids making reading progress. And it's targeted in primary grades. And so teachers are actively using data to progress monitor students' progress. And it actually expands to the whole class. So it's whole class intervention so that groups of kids are strategically pulled. So if a child needs help with sight words in kindergarten, multiple children who need help with those same sight words are pulled by the classroom teacher. The classroom teacher runs the small group intervention while the classroom aid circulates around the classroom and helps all the other kids be independent while the teacher is working with the most vulnerable students because the teacher has the credential and
168is skilled in working with data and intervention. So that's kind of K-3I for K-3. Oh, Mark Eland's here. Hi, Mark. Good evening, board. My name is Mark Elan. I was the former director at the school. And specifically to your question, which was during my time, about six years ago, we did two things simultaneously to address literacy. We adopted a completely different ELA, English Language Arts, curriculum program that's all based on targeting. children to specific reading levels, making them personally knowledgeable about what level they are, what goal they're working on, but specifically the classroom teacher is also aware of that. In tandem with that, one thing that you might have heard about is multi-tier systems of support. And there's usually a triangle, three tiers to that. Tier one is what happens in a classroom, every classroom,
169every day, not kids who get pulled for reading. And that is our... K-3 proficiency project. That's where Lexia happens for all students working on targeted skills, getting the data for those teachers. And so kids, families, teachers, everybody knows what... how to move forward and it's within their comfort level and that extends into the ELA program we selected also takes content reading into social studies and science so they learn how to do research reporting research report writing through all the grades in an articulated way it's both of those things that came and and kicked off but it was all about classroom level one Can you remind me the name of the ELA curriculum that you adopted? The American Reading Company. Yeah, I saw that. Yeah, ARC. I haven't heard of it. It was developed by the
170Columbia University in New York. And it was a major investment for us because basically what it meant for us is in each classroom we have a complete library. Everything from pre-primer to high school in each. classroom so these kids know what level they are they know it how to get to the next level and it's all about being able to sort of touch the bottom of the swimming pool uh that that's that's what rigor is where you're just stretched just a little bit more i i do have a few more questions but i want to pass it to other people on the board i and i'll try to be brief with my next questions but i want to give other people a turn so i'm going to try to move you know Are any of
171your questions sort of helping you make the decision if we're going to approve this or not? Because it's now 9-25, and we still have the LCAP, which is important. We've got board policies. We've got artificial intelligence. We've got management districts. You know, like, we've got a lot of stuff going on. So if this is helping you make the decision on the approval... And then we have public comment. So my challenge is we're going to not get to all this stuff if we continue to. So I want to push back a little bit. This is like a really important thing. This is an important function that we play. I understand it's 930 at night. But I didn't make the agenda. This is this is an important thing that really shouldn't be done in one meeting frankly
172This should be done in multiple meetings. We should have like we did with the other charter school We should have a first round of hearings We should be able to to synthesize the information and then come back with questions or we should have a study session where we're able to ask questions so I just think that this is the oversight that we are supposed to provide, and this is our obligation to the public. And this is my only chance. I mean, I can actually go to the charter school and sit down in Mary's office and talk to her about this stuff. But I do, there is one thing that I, so if we wanted to change anything about any charter school, this is nothing related to Sonoma Charter School, this would be the time that
173we actually do it. If things aren't working or if we want. we want to request changes or improvements right isn't this the time we can't request changes to their petition we can review their petition and if they meet the criteria then we approve or deny but it's if if if they do not meet those few criteria is the only reason you can deny you can't ask them to change their program that's up to them and their board you can gather information about it and I did I did check on the timelines and it is 60 days to approve the petition. And so. I would love to hear the questions, right, and the answers. And so, but I'm just saying that it's now 930 and we've got a lot of other things to do. And I
174apologize for the agenda. And I don't know if we can move any of these things. But I'm going to join you to go meet Mary separately and answer these things. Because I'm interested in the answers. I'm just not. Yeah, we could take a tour. And we'll take a tour. But so. The question is just timing. So can we push any of these items at the end of the agenda, or do we have to deal with all of these tonight? Yeah. So what I want to understand is I have a lot of questions, but obviously I'm not going to be able to ask them all tonight. I have a question. I have a general question about if you could explain how the lottery system actually works. I did read it, but I don't have a sense.
175One, is it kind of like a man? You have a third party that oversees the lottery process. Is that correct? Right. And is it a computer-based kind of lottery system? Right. So what will happen for, because we do have a kinder lottery coming up on March 1st or 2nd, which will... be held just similar to a board meeting in room seven and online. Our board president and our office manager as well as myself will be there. The families who are in the lottery will receive a letter with their child's number on it and then the number will be generated by a computer program and then the number of children, which it looks like five right now, will be enrolled because we have 20 TK returning in the fall. And we can take five additional kinder
176in the fall. Can you explain the order of priority and how that actually works for each? It sounds like there's a bucket of the first priority group. And then if the slots aren't filled by that first priority group, then it goes to the second priority group. Am I understanding it correctly? Yes and no. So for TK and K, they both would have lotteries. However, TK has always substantially, at least the last two years, been substantially less enrolled than our kinder class. So all of our TKs return. And so if we have less than 24, we wouldn't have a lottery. So we haven't had a TK lottery the past few years because we haven't had 24 TK. So that's a bit of a moving target. And then in kinder, all the TK returns. So then we
177also get additional kinder applications when we open registration in January. And then that creates the need for a kinder lottery. And then anyone who does not get in on the lottery, their number is not pulled, we keep them on the wait list through to eighth grade. The only time we remove a family from the wait list is when our office... staff calls and says we have you on the wait list we have to date the wait list very regularly and so the family would have to tell us please remove us from your wait list we're not we're going with a different school thank you for keeping us on there yeah i'll defer to other people i have my questions answered through the staff report and christy ching asked some of my questions as well so
178thank you for answering the ones regarding uh community outreach um so that's it for me i'm good i don't I had the question on the lottery stuff, so that's helpful. So how many, just one follow-up on that, how many kids in the last number of years have not been admitted who've wanted to go to the school? Probably across all grade levels, K-8. 20 have remained on the waiting list across the last two years. It varies at grade levels. Fourth grade has about 12 kids on the wait list for fourth grade, and third grade only has 22 kids in the class, so we could take additional third graders. So it's a bit of a moving target. So generally speaking, it's around 20 children for K-8. So this is with respect to... parent donations and contributions. That
179was kind of a hot button topic many years ago. So I'm just curious of the annual revenue, what percentage comes in or is represented by donations? That's through our... Charter Community Connections, which essentially functions as a PTA, PTO. And it varies based on the events that we have. We do a read-a-thon and a jog-a-thon. So typically those events will bring in anywhere from $5,000 to $10,000, depending on... the year and the time of the event and then that our fundraising efforts goes to help offset the costs of some art supplies and materials performing arts set designs expenditures field trips those types of things are all based off of donations I was You know pleased to see that your reserves had grown so much since the last time I actually looked at it I'm curious. What
180was the strategy because there were there were some years that things were very lean in terms of your reserves so Don't know if you can speak to that you're you're pretty new to the position. I love a good budget though. I am a math person So for our budget, we really try to have cost-effective budget decision-making So we do not pay a lot of money for like our student information system is school wise We don't have power schools or Aries. So are that substantially cheaper and cost-effective for us? And we are really strategic with our staffing. So we're not having to do like the eight hour classified workday reduction because our classified staff all always work six hours. you know when schools school is in session or six and a half with breaks and lunch
181approximately so it's just kind of being so much smaller and only having a maximum number of 249 children helps us be really strategic and intentional around our budget and kind of use what we have all right I will I will take the rest of my questions offline with you thank you great so an action item motion I'll make a motion to approve as presented. Do we have a second? Second. Aye. Thank you. So we're going to take a five-minute break, and then we're going to return with the LCAP. And we're going to 13.6 of the regular agenda, the mid-year LCAP update. Thank you. The amazing Ed Services team is here to provide with the public and the board a mid-year review and presentation of our 2024-2027 LCAP. And as a reminder to the public, the
182LCAP is our three-year plan that describes how we address student needs, specifically our unduplicated population in terms of English learners, low-income students, and students in foster care, as well as how we provide positive student outcomes. A little background, we are required to provide a public presentation on or before February 28th, so this fulfills that education code, and the report has to include two items. It has to include all available mid-year outcome data, as well as all available mid-year expenditures. You are all provided with the 48 page LCAP mid-year review that describes everything that's required in Ed code. Specifically you will see in the column for mid-year outcome data anything that's available to date. So you will see you might see in the document that there are data points that are not yet available. For example,
183Youth Truth data is not yet available. You'll also see in the columns regarding implementation data how we are progressing What are some of the quantitative and qualitative data pieces as well as expenditures to date in terms of an update for budget overview for parents? When we presented the budget in June and approved the budget in June We adopted a budget amount of 69 million dollars the actual amount was adjusted to 74 million dollars with an change of 5 million dollars of projected revenue You can see in this slide the year-to-date expenses compared to our planned expenses for each of the goal areas. On average, we're about 50% of our spending based on what we planned at this point of the year, which was right around December or January timelines. So now we're going to go
184over each LCAP goal. We do have five goals, and I'd like to introduce Director Beal, who will talk about LCAP Goal 1. Thank you. So goal one focuses on engagement connection and belonging and student wellness So these are just some of the highlights from the work that we already started I do just want to call attention to that increase of sense of safety that came out of our youth truth data And so we did see an increase in elementary as well as high school going up 10% and we did quite a bit of work through here We started the safety committee district-wide implemented a safety action plan to address sense of safety and then we also did Listening circles with students to gain more information into what safety means to them and then made any
185changes So it was positive to see that growth and we are eager to see the results that are coming up in the next month. These are just some of the expenditures and programs and software that we utilize through this work I do want to call attention to PBIS Swiss apps on the bottom This is the data that manages our behavior referrals and it gives all of our school sites real-time data regarding when they're receiving behavior referrals so that they're able to work with their PBIS teams to make in-time decisions on how they are going to be proactive on campus to support student behavior And then we always have areas of continued focus. One of the ones that I just want to draw attention to is our work to continue increasing our attendance supports. We are
186excited that we continue to see decreases in chronic absenteeism, but it always remains a focus for us to increase attendance for our students and really build out our multi-tiered systems of support for attendance. Goal number two addresses academic success and excellence for all each and every student some of the highlights that I want to share are increases to the college and career indicator that was increased from 34.4 to 49.3 percent and I shared with you in the dashboard presentation that we moved from orange to green we also saw increases in a through G completion AP pass passing rate and CTE pathway completers Some of the other highlights instructionally is that we launched the reading difficulty risk reader for kinder first and second grade and as a staff we are focusing on elevation strategies to support
187multilingual pedagogy for our secondary teachers and we're really focusing on EL reclassification and launching and I want to applaud our teachers or educators who engaged with us in the conversation of how we refined that practice so that all of our teachers could provide their input on students' EL progress. And we understand that we do have some highlights and bright spots, but academics is still an area of urgent focus for us, as we could see in the data. Some of the pieces that I do want to point out is that we did dip in ELA math and math based on the cast EAP is considered the early assessment a program or placement for 11th graders Determining whether or not their college prepared and we see some other dips as we talked earlier in the year regarding
188a graduation rate decline Some of the areas that we're focusing on is improving core academic instruction and that begins with strong tier one MTSS, support for multilingual learners and students in special education, and we're really thinking about high school graduation planning, working in partnership with our high school counselors and SCO. And that's some of the work that will be happening tomorrow in the afternoon with our PD day. Here are some of the programs and softwares that's associated with goal one. I mean goal two and These are total cost of programs and software specifically it does not Include any salaries that are associated with the goals. I like to introduce coordinator Williams for goal three That's me. My section is highly qualified educators and staff would like to cultivate a culture of professional learning to develop
189high quality staff to facilitate innovative, inclusive, and culturally relevant learning experiences to each and every student. Some of the highlights I'm gonna talk about the ones on the top the most the k5 seal we expanded our seal professional development with our through to fifth grade teachers this year and I'm looking forward to Moving everybody into year two next year together collectively our secondary Teachers and their math building thinking classrooms work the elevation strategy work that's happening at the middle school and the high school And then something I'm really excited about that's up and coming in this, I took 16 teachers to SCO for math adoption. And we're starting that process. We'll have four meetings where we will narrow down three. We've already narrowed it down to three publishers. And our goal is to get it
190down to at least two by the end of the school year and start a pilot process next year for math. And so I'm excited about that. The educators that are on that team are very excited about this work. It's been very, it's going to be fun. The theme is basketball, in case anybody is wondering, Mr. Sutter. I have big shoes to fill. He did it the last time. Our areas of continued focus are... Of course, strengthening our data meetings through professional learning communities, supporting our new teachers and staff. That's something that I think about a lot as we're onboarding new teachers or professional learning ongoing, so it's not just one and done opportunities. Culturally inclusive and relevant pedagogy, so SEAL really addresses this in the literature and the lessons that connect with a student's home
191language. Not even necessarily just Spanish speakers, but any home language. and making sure that they feel seen and valued in their classrooms. All right, Mr. Knox, your turn. Okay, I'm going to speak to family and community engagement. Next slide, please. I want to point out some of our highlights. El Verano specifically is in year two of its community schools grant. As part of the grant, there are four pillars that the school is incorporating. One of the pillars is active family and community engagement. So there's going to be a lot of opportunities for parent education classes, ways that parents, we can connect families with community resources. and also how families can support their children at home with reading, math, and their academics. So more to come from El Verano on the great things that will be
192happening there. In terms of district monthly newsletter and communication, that along with student test scores that parent access, I was noticing on our parent square application that we have seen growth in parent interactiveness from last year to this year. Last year it was at 30%. We are currently at 35% where our parents are receiving a message and they're either reacting with an appreciation or they're sending a direct message. So slowly we are seeing more parents using ParentSquare as a communication tool. A lot of our families are busy with work. They're not always available to talk to staff at drop off or at pick up. So we do have some quantifiable data that we might want to spend some more time on in figuring out how we can continue to grow our usage with ParentSquare. Also,
193in regards to every school having two family engagement events, Trustee Guzman spoke to the literacy night at Flowery last night. I also want to give a shout out to Sasserini, who recently had a movie night and invited all of the area schools. So that was a great gesture that I think we should consider for all of our schools so that there can be some cross-collaboration and just kind of... Really generating a sense of even greater community as a unified school district And so if you stop by the district office to the Welcome Center We have a lovely display board of all of our school events that are happening right now and it's There's a lot to take advantage of we have So that's okay community lays up liaisons at every site that's been very helpful
194in terms of connecting families again to community resources and our special education parent connect we've been focusing a lot of our discussions this year focused on our ESN program specifically with the move from Presswood to El Verano and Sasserini for next year also we've had a parent Cafecitos at El Verano explaining about the IEP process and there's been some really good engagement there. In terms of areas of continued focus, a few years ago we did go through the process of the portrait of a graduate, including the adult portrait and the system portrait. That's currently on pause, so we will have to revisit that and determine what direction we want to go in terms of developing an overall strategic plan. And we are always continuing our efforts for family outreach and support. And our last goal
195of this year's LCAP is for Creekside specifically, as Creekside is eligible for equity multiplier funding based on their non-stability rates as well as the number of students who are identified as socially economic disadvantaged. In this goal, there are three action items. The first one is specific around social-emotional learning, where we have small groups and one-on-one youth empowerment groups with our partnership with Awakening Wisdom. Action 2 is on student listening circles and we're really excited that Camille over at the high school is working with a small group of students over at Creekside to pilot a Creekside specific Youth Wellness Council. And action three is about engaging learning experiences and enrichment. We are partnering with Magnolia Project this semester. Our teachers have received PD, and I invite you to come out to Creekside the end of April,
196where students will be working with mentors on a career exploration activity. And again, that's with our partnership with Magnolia Project. In terms of next steps, this presentation was required as the mid-year update. We continue to draft and review and reflect on our goals and our data as we take a look and develop the LCAP for 26-27. That's through engagement with our community. We're going to continue to work on drafting the LCAP for the upcoming year. We'll have our required public hearing around the beginning of June, maybe end of May, and then I'll come back for board adoption in June before it gets to SCO for final approval. And with that, we thank you for your time. Board discussion? Questions? I already got all my questions answered beforehand. Thank you for the concise presentation. If you
197could select one of those focus areas from each of the goals to help us with our just overall goal setting. Thank you. I'll jump right in for goal four. We do need to revisit our strategic plan. Goal two would be specific to core academic instruction. So tier one instruction. Goal one chronic absenteeism making sure that our students are coming to school feeling welcomed and ready to learn I would say in goal three it would be strengthening our data meetings through professional learning communities Thanks Thanks for the Presentation so that's an informational item. So we're gonna if there's no more questions or discussion. We'll move on to item number seven President Bell, can I interrupt you for a second here? I don't know if you would entertain bringing up item... 14 and changing the order because
198I see we have this group of students who are have been waiting so patiently to be able to make public comment and I like to let them go home so that they can go to bed and or do their homework or whatever I mean you guys have been waiting really patiently so I don't know if you would entertain that and just let them I'm okay with that. I also think that we could do this really quickly and possibly move the majority of the VPs to the next meeting except for what's the one that we have to... The immigration enforcement. Does anybody have any stuff on the VPs that they want to talk about? I think they can be moved to the next meeting. I do, but... Yeah, let's move it to the next meeting. Maybe
199just let them come up, though. It's such a weird item that we'd have to approve and then we could shoot the audit. Well, there's absences that... Yeah, all right. I'm fine with that. And then there's 13, 11. Right, and then we moved one. Just move 14 up right now. So we're going to move 14. So we've got, does everybody have a ticket? How many have we got? Are there any more yellows that haven't been? Just start calling them. Number one. We're going to go two minutes? Yeah. Great. Number one. Number two. You're not allowed to talk about anything on the agenda. Hello, my name is Judah White, Secretary of GSA, and I will be representing Madeline Edwards and Kimberly Torres, the President and Vice President of GSA at Sonoma Valley High School. I love our
200school. It's an environment that truly encourages students to grow into competent adults. It was the environment I came out in. That it was in no small part because of the community that is fostered here at this school. Losing that community by silencing and downplaying the message that just because someone is different does not mean they deserve any less love, that is the message the pride flag sends. It extends far beyond just gender and sexuality. It is a message to every student who walks past that flag that no one deserves oppression. To equate that message with, for example, extracurriculars such as FFA or a winning sports team is an inherent misunderstanding of what that pride flag represents. I wish to believe... in the best of everyone, but one cannot look at this decision outside of the
201context of U.S. politics. With our own president creating mass anti-DEI initiatives, such as removing the pride flag from the Stonewall National Monument, it is easy to see why someone may want to remove our pride flag. But to give up that flag is to lose our community built on acceptance and respect. To lose that flag is to lose the ability for future queer people just like me to come out. Because I knew and hope to know now that this school is a place where I can be different without fear. Thank you. Great, thanks for your comment. Number two, front row first. I'm sure we're all very tired tonight, so I'm going to keep it short. My name is Madison Boeder. I spoke earlier, but I'm going to tell a story. Once I was flipping through a
202Bible and stumbled upon a group of readings titled 1 Corinthians chapter 6. Passages 9 to 10 and some additions loop in homosexuals with thieves, the drunk, and as people who would not inherit the kingdom of God. Because of that, I spent many years believing that I would be condemned to hell for that. When I went to SF Pride, I felt at home seeing the flags of many and the flag that I knew belonged to me. I knew peace on that day because I saw the symbol of acceptance held high above me. It took me time to get to this point, the point where I can say I'm a proud, flaming homosexual, but my purpose tonight is to address all of you who sit before me. So let's talk about that flag. When I heard about
203the flag being removed because of a board member, I felt targeted because that told me that this member in this district's governing body did not represent all students. And such a small act like that can sound so far. My community has fought to be here from before the Stonewall riots. We eliminated homosexuality from the DSM to the flag being created in 78 to represent this community. We fought AIDS, we put drag queens on TV, and we legalized same-sex marriage in 2015. The high school's flag was created in 2019 and it represents every queer story and every student in the community under it. We are here. What I ask of all of you is to represent all of your students, even if you don't agree with who you are. Your students will right your wrongs and
204keep that flag up, because at the end of the day, it is your students' well-being that is in your hands. Thank you. Thank you. Number seven. No particular order, so whoever wants to speak next, come on up. My name is Logan Taylor. I also spoke previously, and I am a member of Sonoma Valley High School's GSA. The removal of the pride flag at Sonoma Valley High School should not have been a problem we were dealing with, and yet it is. A board member created this problem for no discernible reason. The flag represented community and safety, and one of our community leaders decided to tear it down, sending a message to the queer students, including me, that they are not welcome. A community leader who creates a problem out of thin air should tell you that
205they are not meeting the rigorous demands they were elected to fulfill. And yet, here we are before you today being forced to question the authority that is supposed to guide us. The apology that was written had little substance to questioning what... Questioning what flags the school has up is a valuable thing to think about, but removing one was the complete antithesis of what was the intended proposition of the apology. These were the mistakes of a leader that should never have been, and all that we ask of you is to learn to right the wrongs, to craft a future that we can all be equal in. Hello, my name is Sean Brady. I'm a member of the GSA community. at Sonoma Valley High School. When I was first deciding what high school to go to, I
206was pushed to a high-performing private high school that was less supportive, but I chose to go with Sonoma Valley High as I was told that it was a more supportive school and more welcoming. I was still worried that I would be hated, discriminated, or pushed out of my community, but when I walked onto the school's campus, I first saw my friends and felt joy, but then I saw the flag, and I felt pride. I felt I was supported and welcomed into a community that I had not been previously. Though throughout the year, I look at the flag with warmth in my heart, like I was sitting in front of a flourishing, roaring fire. When the flag was taken down, it felt like the government, influenced by hate. I know you are not the government. You
207are a group of people I regard in great power who have control and can make positive change, or negative change, as you see fit. Like a bucket of water had been thrown on the fire, drowning and washing away the support I had gathered over the past school year. There are still embers in the community and the teachers that had fully welcomed me with open arms. When it was put back up, it was thanks to the border community that had put a log on fire, refueling the flame in my heart. When a community, not the district, came together to fight, Mandeleus disillusionment. An example of this is on January 20th. Around 40 to 50 members came together to put flags of the LGBTQ plus community on Sonoma Valley High School field, one of the fields in
208front of the school. It fuels more and more logs are added to that fire, making it start to roar like it was once more. Thank you. I'm Micah Yohan and as a member of the LGBTQ community, representation, even something that can be brushed off as just a flag, is important. I have faced harassment and discrimination for my identity and I have known so many others that have had the same experience. For example, I was simply trying to drive to the library with my mom and a student yelled queer from me from the sidewalk. Behavior like this is created from harmful environments that do not normalize kindness towards things they may not understand. Removing this flag is enabling this treatment. My name is Maisie Kottner. I go to Sonoma Valley High School. I don't have a
209speech, and I know it's late, and I'm sorry. I think of everybody who just spoke as pretty much my family, and we need a community, and we need people to support us, and... We don't need a flag for that, but we need to not be working on negative changes to go farther than that, and we need to keep our students safe. Hi, my name is Chrissy Brady. I live in Boys Hot Springs. I am a teacher and a parent. In regards to Resolutions 2620 and 2621, a lack of work does not exist in education. As an educator, I work an average of 50 hours a week. So I'm sorry, this is items not on the agenda? Damn it. Okay, well, that was my first point, but I have three. Okay, so if it's not on
210the agenda, let's talk about it, but we've had public comment on items on the agenda earlier. Regarding, point two then, regarding the high school pride flag and what it represents. The pride flag was chosen by this community, for this community, and should only be changed by the community it represents, the high school and its students. Representation matters. One of the very first data-driven and evaluated studies regarding the impact of equal representation to reach a broad audience hails from 1954. And the psychological studies completed determining the broad negative effects of the lack of representation. Specifically, those studies swayed the Supreme Court when deciding Brown versus Board of Education. Being seen matters. It saves lives and is a foundational value of education in the U.S. Point three, I do not and will not ever agree to disagree
211with removing symbols of safety, inclusion, and love. Hello again, my name is Maria Petuccia. When I was a staff member myself and other staff members, didn't necessarily come out as queer because we didn't necessarily feel that the district was a safe place to do so. So I'm speaking as a queer woman as well. I want to point out that there are certain educational codes. that help to foster an inclusive environment including the newly passed ed code 51930-51939 which makes sure that sexual health information is queer inclusive and so i urge the board to make sure that they're in in compliance with such ed codes i also urge especially because our current school year just and shortly into the month of June that Pride history, queer history is incorporated throughout the school year as outlined by
212the state of California. In addition to that, I would also mention that David Bell in his apology referenced Future Farmers of America. farmers and queer people have something very sad in common, which is a very high suicide rate. But the difference is that farming is a profession where being queer is not. And part of the reason why, or one of the ways in which queer suicide rates decrease is by community acceptance, family acceptance, and peer acceptance. So by removing the flag, your action was a moment where people felt less accepted. So please take that into consideration and please abide by the bylaws. Thank you. My name is Colleen Bowden. I stand here as someone who has witnessed firsthand, very personally, the detrimental harm that is done to another human by removal of the pride flag,
213sending a message that we don't see you and we don't welcome you. President Bell, you have caused great harm to our students. And if you can't see that even after hearing these students tonight, then there's something gravely wrong with your thought process. And as someone who has harmed students now, I strongly ask you to resign. And if your fellow board members are sitting there supporting you and not asking you the same. Their silence is telling these students that they agreed with your light dismiss that you called a so-called mistake. An apology is about acknowledgement, accountability, and repair. I do firmly believe that you think that you did issue apology in your mind to you. I hope after hearing from these students, you go back and you rethink what a true apologies to our entire student
214body really would look like. Thank you. Great. Thank you for the comments. Oh, Madison, you have the mic. Hello, Madison. Hello. My name is Madison Gray. I spoke earlier. I just want to say that. On Friday, January 16, 2026, the pride flag at SBHS was taken down because of a certain board member decision. The board is supposed to represent students, and representing students means who we are and how we identify. For many students, the pride flag represents them. And when it comes down to it... It feels like students are being told that they do not matter. I am part of the Wellness Council at SBHS. We focus on student mental health and affects our schoolwork and much more. We talked about the pride flag at our last meeting. The LGBTQ plus students are seen and
215supported. The support can save lives. According to 2024 U.S. National Survey on Mental Health of LGBTQ plus. Young People by the Trevor Project quotes, 39% of LGBTQ plus youth thirsty considers attempting suicide in the past year, including 49% of transgender and non-binary youth. And more than one in 10 attempt suicide, and half of those who wanted mental health care couldn't get it. These, unquote, these are not just numbers. These are students on our campus. LGBTQ students often face bullying, cyberbullying, and lack of support at home. The straight kids have never been bullied because of their sexuality, but the people of the LGBTQ plus community has. When they see the pride flag at the school, they see a place where they belong and they are respected. The pride flag has been flown since May 23, 2019,
216and it hasn't harmed anyone since. A board member asked why should the pride flag be flown, not FFA or the football team. The answer is simple. FFA and sports are... Sorry, thank you for your time. We've hit the two-minute limit, so we have to move on for agenda item. Oh, sorry. Any other online comments? No. Okay, great. So are we going to amend 13.7 and just vote on one, or are we going to do them all now? It's 10.20. Can I make a motion to move all but the 1.445 to the next meeting, and we'll just address the one VP? Okay, great. Any discussion? Yeah. I just want to say that I actually attended a legal symposium regarding 1445 and one of the recommendations they made was to all school districts is that it is
217helpful in your policy to actually define and specify non-public places and also assign times to them and I'm happy to approve it the way it is but we ought to think about that in the future so Really being very thoughtful about non-public places, for example, during the school day would be including fields, you know, and being very specific about that. Anyway, I just wanted to mention that was kind of a key thing that was discussed at that meeting. So anyway, but I'm happy to approve what is put in front of us, but to look at refining it down the road. All right, does anybody have any questions on? Access to district records. I looked at those. I think they're all fine and they actually incorporate. Student records? Are we okay with that? I'm good. But
218if you want to look at it, it's fine. Release of directory information. I'm happy to. I do. Okay, good. Okay, so I need a motion then for just. Oh, sorry. So I agree. I'm okay with how it's currently drafted, the policy. But one of the observations was. that it's really focused on how staff should react in the event of an enforcement activity, but it doesn't really address any training prior to any activity. So I believe the recommendation was that can be captured in the AR, not in this specific policy. And likewise, training for students and how they should be responding in the event of an activity. So if both of those could be captured in AR, I think that would be helpful. Any more discussion? Do I need a motion? So I move to adopt
219BP and AR 1445 as presented. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. So absences, are we pushing those? Yeah. Okay, great. So do we need a motion for that? I think we can just table it. Okay, great. So then we're at 1311, which is the... So I had most of my questions sort of answered in the previous conversation for the resolution, so I'm happy to actually approve it. Because we have to approve it, is that correct? We have to adopt it? I'm just looking for it, sorry. So I move to approve the fiscal year 2024-25 audit. I'll second. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Oh, sorry. Report. Action. So I missed out at the beginning board reports that the second part of that is future agenda items. There is one item I would like to
220have to bring back to mind for folks. It was an item that was tabled last spring, which was the renaming of the Altamira Middle School campus. And if that so it was tabled at the time it was prior to my tenure But I recall it was tabled and I think it's appropriate to bring that back so I don't know what the mechanisms are for that but I believe that Time is to continue that discussion. Yeah, I agree and I've got it on my list of items to talk to Jason about I was gonna suggest it and so I think that it would be great in some process to figure out how we can rename it and can we afford to do the floor and the gym and different things to turn. I think the first
221step would be opening it back up, right? I mean, this would have to go through a nomination process? Well, we already have the list of nominations. I think we just review the suggestions that were made. We'll reach out to legal and get clarification, but we've already got the recommendations and the possible names from students. But we can talk to Jason about it too and see if it's something that the students want to talk about because I think that's something that was done in the discussion was to open it back up once the staff and students had been there for a year and see what they wanted to do. Meeting's adjourned at 1027. Thanks, everyone.