Sonoma Valley Unified School District Board Meeting 06-17-25

001Employment, two, public employment performance evaluation superintendent. Item three, conference with labor negotiators. Item four, conference with labor negotiators. And item five, conference with labor negotiators, the board took no reportable action. For item six, consideration of readmission of expelled student. The board voted unanimously to not approve the readmission of expelled student case number 242502. All right, at this time can we please do roll call, Michelle? Trustee Beall? Here. Trustee Ching? Here. Trustee Guzman? Here. President Landry? Here. Trustee Lehman? Here. All right, can we stand for the pledge? I pledge allegiance to the flag of- I am looking for an approval of the agenda at this time. So, we have a motion. I move to approve the agenda. Second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. All right, let's see. Spanish translation for this evening. Interpretation is only

002online and available via Zoom. Our guests can log into the Zoom and listen. We also have a room set up off of the lobby with Spanish translation available. Trustee Guzman, would you? Translation is available online through Zoom. For those who are listening, there is a tablet available in the hallway. Thank you. Okay, thank you so much. All right, at this time we're going to move on to our reports. Our first report is from our VMTA partners. Good evening. On behalf of the Valley of the Moon Teachers Association, we want to begin by thanking the educators who are already hard at work in our summer programs. Shelly and I are just two of the many educators. who are continuing to serve students during the summer months, and we're proud to be part of this dedicated group.

003We also want to thank you for approving the job descriptions for the elementary intervention specialist positions tonight. These roles are essential. Without them, we cannot effectively implement walk-to-read or meet Tier 2 intervention expectations. These are critical supports for our students and much-needed positions in our elementary schools. We recognize that the board is facing difficult decisions around potential further school consolidation. There is no perfect scenario, but this process must include thoughtful consideration of all factors that impact student learning, safety, and the overall educational experience. Our students deserve a transition plan that is responsive to their needs and reflects our community's high expectations for their future. We have now had the opportunity to meet twice with acting superintendent, Syphs Associate Superintendent Dr. Casillas, Director Ugren, and Director Knox. These conversations reflect a shared understanding that harm has

004been done and that we must rebuild trust and community together. We believe, as the saying goes, that change moves at the speed of trust. We are optimistic that through ongoing collaboration, we can restore trust, be valued as partners, and move this district forward together. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Our next report is from Acting Superintendent Syphs. So I'm honored by the trust and confidence that you all have placed in me to lead this district in the absence of Dr. Chen. I promise to use my powers only for good. This opportunity means a great deal to me, and I'm committed to serving the community with dedication and integrity. I'm excited to say that our summer programs have launched with great energy and purpose. Right now, we have 340 students, soaking up the knowledge at El

005Verano Summer School with an average attendance of 290 students. Fourteen students are enrolled in ESY program. Three hundred and sixty-four high school students are working on credit recovery, and 44 mathletes sharpening their skills in the program sponsored by Sonoma Valley and Silicon Valley Education Foundations. And it's fun. It's not just math because we were actually in Shelley's classroom this morning checking it out. It's truly inspiring to see our students embracing these opportunities. Construction at Altamira is moving along on schedule, and knock on wood, we haven't encountered any surprises yet. Our team, like Ms. Hoban had said, has had a couple meetings, thoughtful, meaningful meetings with the MTA's co-presidents, and we're looking forward to continued collaborations as we build stronger district together. Lastly, I want to sincerely acknowledge and apologize for the challenges of the past

006year. We can't change the past, but we can learn from it and maybe even laugh a little along the way and move forward. Let's renew our commitment to trust, transparency, and doing what's best for the district. I wish all of you a very happy summer and hope you get some good rest and relaxation. Thank you. Thank you. All right. At this time, we'd like to take public comment. The board recognizes the value of public comment on educational issues and provides this time for members of the audience. Members of the public who wish to speak at the meeting are asked to take a numbered card if appearing in person or raise their hand if appearing virtually. So the board can determine the number of speakers to better control timing. In general, individual speakers will be allowed

007three minutes to address the board during public comment. This comment period will be limited to 30 minutes unless the number of speakers as identified by the number of cards is considerable in public. It's not tonight, so we'll skip that. The board shall endeavor to allow every member of the public to speak who wishes to do so. Members of the public who wish to speak at the meeting are asked to take a number card if appearing in person or raise their hand if appearing virtually. Members of the board wish to speak at the meeting or raise their hand if appearing virtually if appearing virtually. Members of the board wish to speak at the meeting or raise their hand if appearing virtually. In order to accomplish this task, the board president, with board consent, may either extend

008the time allotted for public comment or adjust the speaking time for each person described herein. We only have one in the room. So whoever is holding Number 1 and has an item that is on the agenda, please come to the microphone. Hello, my name is Hayley Murray. My friend, Emmanuel, and I love to ride our bikes to school. I love to meet my friends at Sealy Toes Lowry's like a second home to me. I made some of my best friends there, and if you move that, it won't be the same anymore. And I bet that there are the same for a lot of other kids, and I want the kindergartners to have the same chance of making a tile as the fifth graders have. I have almost an entire class of walked over to my

009birthday parties at my school, from my school, and it couldn't happen if it got moved. So I'm asking, please don't move, Larry. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. All right, this. Oh, online, correct. Michelle, do we have anybody online? Okay, Gianna, you have the mic. Gianna, I think you're muted. We can't hear you. Yes, hi. Can you hear me now? Yep, we can hear you. Hi, I'm Gianna Biaggi. I am a Sonoma Valley Unified School District alum. I graduated from Sonoma Valley High School in 2013. One of the items on your agenda tonight is your contract with Magnolia Project. I'm a former teacher, and I'm the founder and executive director of Magnolia Project. We partner with public schools throughout Sonoma County to do hands-on career exploration and apprenticeship pathways. We hope that you'll consider

010our contract with Sonoma Valley Unified. We currently serve 15 school districts in Sonoma County. We don't yet serve the one that I graduated from, and it would be really, really special for us to have the opportunity to do that. Thank you. So I'll be available here on Zoom when that agenda item comes up to answer any questions you might have. We're very grateful for your consideration of our program at Creekside, and we're very excited to work with Liz Liskum at the school to make this happen for our students. So thank you. Thank you for your comments. Okay, at this time, seeing no other comments online, right, Michelle? Great. We are going to move on to the consent agenda. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. I

011have some updates to items that I don't believe we need to have removed for updates, correct? Okay, so I just want to make some announcements. Item 12.12, the MOU Wisco for the Superintendent Selection Coordinator Services has been corrected slash updated. And then item 12.14, the Certificated Personnel Report has also been updated. I have a request to move an item onto the regular agenda, which would be 12.0, for the opportunity to give some clarity to the community. Do you need a second on that one? No. I'm also going to request that we move number 5, 6, 9, and 10 to the regular agenda to discuss, if possible, please. So 2.5, 6, 9, and 10. Right. Any recommendations on where you guys would like these placed? No. Dealer's choice. Okay. Okay. Can we do it before the

012public hearing? Okay, great. So let's just... And I also have one I'd like to pull. Okay. 2.6. All right. So 2.5, 2.6, 6, 9, 10, and 12. We're going to go ahead and address these right now. Right after. Right after we approve the consent before the public hearing, and we'll go in order. So we'll start with 2.5. 2.5. Then 2.6. Then 2.7. 2.7. 2.8. 2.9. 2.9. 2.10. 2.12. 2.11. Okay. Oh, I apologize. I didn't mean to. So with that... 2.5, 6, 9, and 12. Yeah. With that, do we have a motion to approve? Yeah, I'll motion to approve the consent agenda with the removal of the previously outlined agenda items. Is there a second? Second. Second. Great. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Okay, fantastic. So Trustee Bell. Who removed 2? 2.5. 2.5. Great. Okay.

013Okay. Okay. We're going to take a moment to pause. Summer. It's summer. I know. It's the second meeting of June. Okay. So we're just going to take a minute before we move on. We'd like to congratulate Megan Russell. I don't know if you all know, but she was on the consent agenda. She is the updated personal report. She was selected as our new principal of Sasserini Elementary School. Congratulations. Oh, so, so look, I wanted to pull some of these items. I think from a couple of perspectives, I sort of, we've got significant budget constraints. And so I'm looking at sewn to grown at $6,000. You know, I read what it offers, but in some ways I think that we as a collectively as a board need to sort of essentially do it ourselves. Okay. We

014need to sort of essentially do a spending freeze on items that are not absolutely critical to our educational goals. And so I just, I'd love to hear why we cannot absolutely live without spending $6,000 on sewn to grown. So I got an issue with that one. The contract number six, I'm not sure if we should be using a San Diego contractor for number six so I think that that could be done is this is this what I'm supposed to do here a point of order yes I think what we do one at a time sorry okay sorry I apologize okay great so number five I just I'm just from a budgetary standpoint it's like by the time you add up all these six thousand dollars all the ten thousand dollars all this and that it

015actually turns into real money and from the budgeting standpoint we don't have the money and so that's why I'm saying unless someone tells me that we cannot live without this and this is gonna have a negative effect on a lot of kids then I say we don't spend the money all right I'll open it up for questions or comments from the board hi everyone okay so just to connect with so Negro so right now in our elementary schools we have character strong I'm sorry we have second step in our middle schools we have character strong and so so to grow would give us that opportunity to support our high school students with the castle competencies of building self-awareness self-management social awareness relationship skills and responsible decision-making during that SEL time that is already in their

016school day so just wanted to clarify that it is a it's a software online content it is online and is it integrated into anything or is it just a standalone integrated meaning like is it integrated into some sort of programming right now it's set to be utilized during that SEL time they had a couple teachers piloting it from faculty Senate and then they brought it back so this would be the work that they would be using as we already have it for our K through 8 I just had a follow-up question I don't know is this was this included as part of the LCAP priority in the LCAP for social-emotional learning and in student engagement there was an area where we were focused on building these pieces and so right now we do have them

017already established for that K 8 and we were looking to move forward with high school particularly the LCAP for social-emotional learning and then we're also looking at those castle competencies which we know will support them in moving towards college and career so I this is a suggestion I'd like to make so generally I saw that there was about a hundred and eighty six thousand dollars worth of things on the consent and I really think it's prudent at this time for us to put a spending freeze but I'd like to come back and maybe address the social-emotional learning sort of generally as a topic about what has worked out for us in terms of what we do in terms of what we need to do to make sure that we are producing the outcomes and results

018that we want and let's just let just table this and move it to some other time when staff can have you know have enough time to do a presented a presentation about looking at all the different investments that we're making in this area and and what the outcomes have been I think I think that's what the board is looking for but I don't practice I mean is this something that we're gonna hope that the kids log in and do or is this required material what what is this like real time yeah right now principal kiss was sharing that they were looking to do it in the end in the day because we already have the time for SEL so the students are already in classrooms so they're teachers and so they would be able to

019utilize this during the SEL time right now they're doing circles or they're doing community builders and so it would allow them that chance to really focus in on building these skills is on the computer yeah so there's parts of checks in checking and things but there's also things that they can kind of take that theme and bring it out if they wanted to so they had some student teachers that were trying it out with their students and then this would allow the whole staff to be able to do that and then with anything we would be getting feedback from students and from staff okay thank you any other questions of staff or Steve oh no I mean you know the the second part of this is we've got a sort of also kind of look

020at the school you know the district as a whole and less reliance on devices and so it just seems like every meeting there's an additional software program that we're adding and it's more screen time it's more computer time which I don't know if we need it we absolutely don't need it so so I'm a negative on this one so well if there's no further questions we want to go to discuss or if there's a motion on the table I don't know how it would work if we were not approving it would just there would not be an amount there would not be a motion okay so at this time I'd like to call for a motion to approve the zone to grow all right at this time I don't see a motion so it does

021not get approved emotion fails now we go to 12 points the 2.6 points 2.6 2.6 points 2.6 points 2.6 so I just I pulled five right that was 2.5 sorry so I'm the one that actually requested to pull 2.6 and my question is so we have we work with the Sonoma County SELPA so if you could somebody could just provide what's the rationale why do we want to rely on San Diego for this particular service is this something we that SCO can't do for us so if you could it's just expound so we do have duplicative platforms that give us the same data and so SACE is what we use to monitor our IEP progress and monitoring to ensure compliance with the state ITAP is it has a unique feature in that it does monitor

022our IEPs but it does give us a warning system so it kind of notifies us in advance I would say that SACE does the same thing I can also say that ITAP also provides some MTSS data but it has to speak to our power school and our CALPADS and there's been some some struggles with getting that data we do have again we have similar platforms that we think we can get by with sufficiently so this is a great so how do you communicate to your students with this data yes Sure well the thing I didn't understand based on the description it sounded like it was a service as opposed to software but I remember the we had a demo where they actually came and I always get them confused SACE is with SCO and ITAP

023is with San Diego County you're correct okay but so are we talking about the and ongoing initiatives in the area of data literacy, blah, blah, blah. So that's actually through San Diego's South County, and they work in conjunction with Expatiate, which is the online platform that we would use to monitor our IEP progress and overall MTSS data. Again, we have other programs that meet that need. So just so that I understand clearly, are you saying that it's redundant? Or that it provides tremendous value and it's important for us? We can manage without it using our existing programs, i.e. SACE, A2A for attendance tracking, SWIS for behavior referrals, and PowerSchool. Okay. Thank you. Is there a motion to approve 2.6, the San Diego South County SELPA? Seeing none, the motion fails. All right. Moving on to

0242.9. Is that my turn now? The Magnolia Global Academy. So, you know, this is obviously $20,000. You know, if we had the budget, then I may not be sort of questioning this, but there's a bigger question is that why are we not doing this in-house at the high school? We've got a counseling office. We've got staff. And is there some reason why? The reason is that the kids in the Creekside Program cannot be utilizing our existing counselors for the same job. That's my question. Can someone answer that one? I guess I'll try to take this one. Dr. Casillas isn't here tonight, and we were hoping that Liz Liskum would be here. Is she online? Kristina, are you there? You can speak. Yes, I'm here. Can you hear me? hear you thank you good afternoon good

025evening thank you for that question trustee bell creekside is eligible for equity multiplier funding based on their non-stability rate and their socioeconomic status so this funding is specific to restricted funds that we receive annually based on the eligibility and this is the second year creekside is eligible for that funding i do agree with you that we need to completely re-look and re-examine our counseling program especially at the high school to support all of our students in grades 9 through 12 the current counseling college and career support the college career coordinator and work-based learning position solely supports the students while at sonoma valley high school and our ideal vision is for students at creekside to have access to the support that they need to be able to access to the college career center to have access

026to the ap courses to the cte pathways the vapa pathways that the comprehensive high school does provide this time students are asking for more engaging hands-on real-world activities while they're attending creekside we see that in the youth truth survey data as well as their listening circles and we really believe the career exploration pathway that magnolia project provides is a first step in providing that student with that opportunity to be able to take that opportunity to be able to take that opportunity to be able to take that opportunity to be able to take that opportunity to be able to take that opportunity to be college or actually career ready once they leave creekside high school thank you dr cassius is there any further questions for her uh trustee jing um dr cassius i have a follow-up

027question is there any um policy or ed code that prohibits the high school from providing counseling services or access to their courses because we have a separate alternative school i don't believe there's any ed code restrictions i i am familiar with other districts where there's dual enrollment between comprehensive and alternative high schools for students who might attend one high school but i'd like to attend a tte pathway at another high school we call that dual enrollment or duly enrolled at high school that can be done right now we need to take a look at the current job descriptions that we currently have especially with new college and career coordinator position to allow our students and faculty to program at opposite companies right now we need to take a look at the current job descriptions that

028we currently have especially with new college and career coordinator positions and to allow our students at high school to endeavor to attend specific strategic positions and career variability for other governmental processes that may be relevant to need to see studentGA scrims policies that we have but i agree withugene what's with pendant gree and we support in this phase three part in adding these sisters of command And I know that you're weakness would wish you to make asses toward the actual position to allow opportunities to support both Creekside students and Sonoma Valley High School students. And then another follow up, the $20,000, was that already budgeted as part of the counseling in the actual LCAP? Yes, that is actually with goal five, action 5.3, I believe it's student engaging experiences. That is, we budgeted about $26,000

029in action 5.3 with $20,000 going towards Magnolia project. So my only other comment to just fellow trustees is one of the things I'm struggling with is that one of the things we're trying to achieve under consolidation is leveraging economies of scale. And it doesn't make sense to me why we have resources in house and that we're not leveraging them. We have a program for 40 students who are attending Creekside and the expectation is to create something separate and equal. I don't understand actually what the vision is in the future, but we have discussed in LCAP how there's definitely a problem of access for these students. So it's something that we need to address at a future date. It's not for this tonight. Thank you, Trustee Ching. Trustee Bell. So the job description, Dr. Casillas, does

030that specifically state that the counselors would only see Sonoma Unified high school students or does it specifically just address that a counselor would only see high school students and prohibits them from seeing Creekside students or would it just say students? I will have to defer to Director Ugren on the specificity. I think it's a good question. I think it's a good question. I think it's a good question. The specificity of the job description when we looked at the Work-Based Learning job coordinator position it does say at Sonoma Valley High School. Currently we do need to look at our college career counseling job description and we need to redo that. It doesn't say specific to a group of students. It's what the work is, the roles and responsibilities. But that could be something that we bring

031a job description forward in the fall and work with BMTA and have it be more of a merge. So that I would have to consider what groups we would bring. it be more of a merged Creekside and Sonoma Valley High School so it's kind of more about past practice at this point then yeah like where do we want to go moving forward and what do we want it to look like I mean based on that commentary I think it's a we need to we need to reconsider how are you using our resources and I think engage the the staff at both campuses to understand what people and personnel are there what job descriptions can be reworked to support the students we the goal here is not to leave our students unsupported but it's to use

032our resources wisely so that all students are supported clearly this group has been left out and that that's what we're trying to address I don't know if addressing it outside with outside kind of resources is the right route and twenty thousand dollars is not an inconsequential amount I mean that is a that is a real hard cost in our district and I think if we can find a way to solution and support those students in house That would be my preference. The question is how long would that take? Is that a contractual labor negotiation issue, or is that just a job description, or how did that work? No, it's not a labor contractual. We don't have to negotiate. Yeah. I don't know. It's working with the principal at the high school, working with the principal

033at Creekside, you know, bringing that together. So it could be a year out. Yeah, I don't know. I think this program provides something that the counseling services doesn't because it actually gives them more career skills. Like they'll bring in a plumber and, you know, bring in a barber and show them how to cut hair and so forth. So it's providing more career opportunities for the students. And as far as the funding, this is equity multiplier. It has to be spent this year. And I'm not saying we're just. I'm not saying we're just going to do this because we have to spend the money. It's state funds. It has to be spent for these students that qualify for the equity multiplier. But I think it does offer something other than what our counselors offer to these

034students. Okay. Thank you for that. Okay. Do we want to hear from her, trustees? All right. Ms. Biagi, you have your hand raised. Would you like to add some insight into this conversation? Yes. Hi. Thank you, guys. Thank you, guys, again, for considering our contract with Sonoma Valley Unified. I want to start with the top line discussion about the budget. So our program right now, we're slated potentially to schedule 40 students at Creekside. Should Creekside be enrolled with fewer than 40 students, the costs will not be $20,000, right? It's approximately $500 a student to participate in our program. So depending on enrollment, costs could go down, right? We work with Sonoma County. We work with Sonoma County's largest school district, Santa Rosa City Schools. We work with small districts like Forestville School and Guerneville School.

035And they all bring us in for the same reason, because our hands-on programs that are embedded into the school day can provide something that teachers and counselors, quite frankly, don't have the time to do. After I graduated from the high school, I went to college. I became a teacher. There is no time in the school day for a good classroom teacher that really wants to focus on teaching, which all of the teachers at Creekside are. And all the teachers at Sonoma Valley High are, because they all taught me to be able to implement programs like this. The way our program works is that it's a semester-long pathway. There's a pre-work curriculum and a teacher training that we embed into an English class into the school day. So we're not only giving students these hands-on experiences,

036but we're building the capacity of your staff, right, to be able to teach these durable skills. Then there's an immersive career exploration experience where we bring our trained, live scanned, TB screened mentors, and other teachers that are in the school day. And all the supplies to your campus, and your students get to do these hands-on career exploration experiences during the school day, right? So we bring a film teacher, and students work on making a film and learning about careers in the film industry. We do a plumbing class. We do a cosmetology class. We do a ceramics class. We do a marketing class, a law class. These are things that a regular classroom teacher, like I was, does not have the ability to do. And quite frankly, neither does a guidance counselor. We are not college

037and career counseling. We're not connecting students with opportunities after they graduate from Creekside or Sonoma Valley High. We are connecting them with opportunities during the school day while they are still enrolled in the district. After that immersive experience with the mentor, there's post-work curriculum, there's reflections, there's thank you notes that students do that are all in service of building durable career-focused skills. If you look at the data from our programs, students report after having these immersive experiences, these semester-long curriculum, immersive, post-work, that they feel more engaged in school. They feel more prepared for college and career. They feel more ready, right, to make meaningful decisions about college and career. We've worked extensively with other alternative education sites, including Moran Oaks High School in Novato, the Buena Vista High School up in Geyserville. So this is

038a population that our team knows really well and really cares about. And we've also really trained our mentors to make sure that everything they're doing is inclusive for this population. So I understand that the district is having fiscal challenges at the moment, but I would really, really encourage you to look at our program, even if you only contract with us for a year, as a stepping stone to building your own staff capacity. Some districts, like Santa Rosa City Schools, we've had long-term contracts with them. We're never leaving them. Other districts bring us in for a year because we really help teachers. In addition to helping students do these hands-on career exploration activities, we help teachers rethink about what the school day could look like. We help adults. We help adults. reimagine what projects they could

039do in their classrooms. We help guidance counselors connect with the trades or connect with professionals in film. So even I really truly feel that a year-long investment is really worth it for students, especially students at an alternative high school that might not have the same opportunities that I had at SVHS. And that's my spiel. I can answer any questions too if you want me to. That was great. That was very informative. Thank you so much for giving us that insight. We appreciate it. Bring it back to the board at this time for comments or a motion. Trustee Guzman? Our superintendent did bring up a good clarification there that these are restricted funds as part of that equity multiplier. So this, I don't see it as being as embedded with those other concerns of the unrestricted

040funds. I mean these are, these are the actions we are trying to take for goal 5 of the LCAP. And you know as Trustee Lehman stated, you know, there's, the support is needed there. And this is a way to provide it and the funds are there restricted wise. Okay. Any other comments, questions? Trustee Ching? Well I guess what occurred to me when I was listening to the description of, you know, the actual services that are provided this career exploration, for kids, it seems like this is what I was thinking was already being provided with our career, career advisor in the career and college center. So if it's not, I mean it's definitely something we need to bring back and talk about. Like what, what are we doing? What's not, what's redundant? What's not redundant? It's,

041that's what I was thinking that was happening in our college and career center. So, so that, you know, something, we need to think about sort of for the future. And even if we have the money to spend on it in our restricted funds and we've allocated and prioritized it, are we prioritizing it on the right way to actually deliver this service? That's the question I'm having. Where I have doubts or should we hold off on this and try to kind of rein in what's, or trying to understand what we're doing in our college and career center. Anyway. I have a question for staff and I understand Ms. Linscombe's not here, but I'm not, I'm not sure if someone can answer this, but it's my understanding that we don't have, oh, she is online. So do

042they have, do the students at Creekside have the opportunity for like ROP credit or work experience credits? Ms. Linscombe, can you hear us? If you can, can you answer that question? Yeah, our students have access to, to work. We partner with their jobs and they have our complete, complete work-based learning curriculum. So they have the full credits that fill the elective requirement and we follow the curriculum, some work, work-based learning curriculum they're doing alongside the hours that they're working at their jobs. Okay. Thank you. So they've received, so just to clarify, they receive classroom credit, they receive credits for their work experience, correct? If they have a job, yes. If they have a job, like if they have a work permit and they're going, have a job and they're working, they can receive, they can

043earn elective credits. Okay. And I'm kind of putting you on the spot, so I apologize. You were not expected to know all of this, but I'm just going to ask, um, how many students attended Creekside this past year? And of those students, how many students had work permits and were receiving credits? I can pull that up. We have kids. It just give me one minute. No problem. Thank you. While you're looking that up, um, Liz, what happens to the money if we don't spend it? If we don't spend this 20k? What does it, where does it go? Back to the state. Oh, wow. I proposed a motion. But we can't, we can't reallocate it to, uh, you know, like a 0.1 position for, for providing the same service internally. We don't really have the capability

044to provide the the same services internally. This also addresses the growth that's required from the WASC visit. So it helps address some of those deficiencies that were identified. So we had 11 students that had work permits last year. And out of those 11 students, five students took advantage of the work-based learning program. OK, thank you. At this point, I would say I would move motion in a second to approve. I think what we're trying to just get to the root cause here is, do we have, is there duplicity in the system? Is there an opportunity to pull out things that we can find resources internally to go solve for? I think we need to give staff direction on that. But I'm going to make a motion to approve agenda item 2.9. I changed my mind.

045I'll second it. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Thank you. Thank you. We are on to two. 2.10. Trustee Bell? So I've advocated for us to get the phones out of the schools. And I spent an hour this morning on a call with phone-free something, something. And overwhelming evidence is snowballing in the world that we've got to get the phones out of schools. So I just don't see how we're leaving our phones in our hands of our children and then spending $16,000 to tell them that's a bad thing that we've let you have the phones. So I would much rather spend $16,000 on buying Yonda pouches for the bell-to-bell phone ban that's going to hopefully be implemented as soon as we can. And I don't, I'm not an advocate of spending this money on this. Okay.

046Thank you, Trustee Bell. I'm going to turn this over to Trustee Beall because there's something that I think is important that she shares with us as part of the process of what we want to do. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Great. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you so much. So we are in the process of moving forward with the phone-free school day. We've already met with an ad hoc group. We reviewed local policies, model policies. And so that already is happening. This would be in addition to. So while we understand that we're able to move forward with the phone-free school day, we also want to recognize what our families and our students are

047facing with devices, even if they're not happening in school. Also, this would give us. would give us an opportunity to support that effort in the way that we're able to support our families with understanding the opportunities they have to also be mindful of what students are doing online and with these devices. So this gives them tools and resources to support really being able to help manage what happens on phones and also for students to be very mindful of what that means when they are on their phones, even as adults, right? Like sometimes we'll be on and we have to kind of like take a step away. So it really does help to also build skills. We have partnered with Larissa May before. She is a local woman who has done parent education in our district

048around cell phones about two years ago. And so this would also give us an opportunity to give that to more of our families in our district. It's a topic that keeps coming up as a need to really help support understanding the tools that exist for families to be able to restrict devices as well. Because it's a phone, so it's also the iPad. So this would provide the opportunity not only for our families to have more opportunities for that education, but also for our students to have that. So that is in addition to the work already being done for the cell phone ban. Thank you. Is there any further questions from the board? Trustee Usman? I see there's four seminars that are described here. Is this something that's like in full assembly with every student or

049is it? Yeah, I think it's a great question. I think it's a great question. I think it's a great question. I think it's a great question. I think it's a great question. So this is like an online, voluntary type of seminar. How many folks are actually reached by these seminars? So this would be in person. We are looking to support our secondary schools. So looking at the high school level as well as the middle school level. And we would want to do that in person. We'd also like to talk with the principals just to see what would be the best format. And so we'd also like to work with Larissa to talk about what, because she's done these in many schools across the nation. So being able to see what has been the most effective.

050And so that's something that we're still going to be working out with her. Trustee Ching? So can you just describe, I mean, what I'm envisioning is we're hiring Larissa. She's going to do parent education at the high school, one at the middle school, and then one for high school students separate from their parents. Is that the deliverable? So three seminars. And we're working with her to make it four. So because we do want to make sure that it's available to middle school students, high school students. And then I think two parent opportunities, which would also extend to our families for students in elementary, they would be kind of focused on those secondary ages, but that she'd be able to accommodate any of our district families. Because we do have families interested in knowing this prior

051to putting a device in the hands of their children. So it would be open for all. And we think that she could do it better? I think she could do it better than we can internally. I mean, is that why we're doing it in an external person? Yeah. I mean, she has expertise in this area. And so it would really allow us to have her bring forward the current pieces that she's been working on. I have a question for you. Have we not done this in the past? Have we offered parent information in regards to cell phone safety? And I think we have, right? And do we know what the attendance and participation has been in the past? So we have. So some of our schools have done it on their own. So I know

052that El Verano did it, I want to say a couple of years ago, and they got a good turnout with their families. But we only did one in district a couple of years ago. And something that we're always working on is really trying to figure out how do we get to our families. So turnout was okay, but we're always looking to make sure that we get more families turning out and thinking about how we can do that. Trustee Guzman? Or sorry, Trustee Croninger. That's okay. We look alike. What I would say is our middle school policy today on cell phones or in the last few years has been what, again, just remind me? Cell phones are not allowed on campus during school hours. So all of, presumably if you went to our middle school, you

053knew what it was like to go to school and not have your cell phone on you. And then you go to high school. So you should have had some sort of educational experience very recently. Yeah. I don't know if there was any like explicit education around how to manage the digital world and social media. But yes, the restrictions of not having your cell phone with you during school should be. Well, and I think there's a difference between what the policy says and what's actually happening. There's a little, so I don't know that the reality for our middle schoolers are, is that I don't have my phone in middle school and then I go to high school and I can, I don't think that's realistic. Yeah. I mean, I, I, yeah, I understood. I mean, other

054questions, I'm going to use this question. Can we get clarification on these being restricted funds? Is this similar to the last item where, you know, where is it from the state and it goes away? This one wouldn't go away. It is restricted, but it could be repurposed for something else. It's not specifically tied to this activity. This is out of the, I think it's the community and safe schools title four. Okay. Could this money be used to purchase yonder pouches? Um, possibly. You'd have to look and see. Okay. All right. Well, at this time, if there's no further questions, is there a motion to approve 2.10, the Ginkgo Digital Wellness? I want to just suggest that we table this and maybe bring it back at a future date. Um, I think that parent education is

055important, but it just seems it's like, is it worth it? To spend $4,000 a shot? I mean, that's where I'm like, I've got sticker shock here. Um, and I also feel like we need to figure out what is our engagement strategy around rolling out the implementation of the, of the high school bell to bell ban? Um, I, I don't know. That's how I'm feeling about it right now. Um, I'm just a flat no on this. I, you know, like we just have to rip the bandaid off. We've take the phones away from kids. Some kids are going to be fine. Some kids are going to have some teething problems and whatever it is. But to spend $16,000 to educate people on what they already know is ridiculous in my mind. It's like, we don't have

056$16,000 to spend on this. So why are we even discussing it when we know that taking the phones away from the kids is the absolute right thing to do? And if kids are going to struggle with it for the first week of school, okay, so unfortunately, but they're going to get used to it. Kids are adaptable. And when they realize that it's gone, it's gone. And I don't think we need to... Anyway, I've said it. Okay, so is there a motion to approve? Seeing none at this time, we're going to move on. Okay, so I believe that was all items from other... I said 12. You said 12. Oh, shoot, I meant regular agenda. Sorry. So we need to correct. Apologies. We have to go back and correct the record. No, it isn't consent. No,

057it wasn't. I apologize. Consent item 12. Yes, sorry, not 12 in the ratifications of... Yeah, not 2.12. Do we need to go back and do that for the record? Are we okay? Okay, so item 12. So this is our contract with SCO, and I wanted to pull this, and I'm going to pull this out of the way. I'm going to read something, and I think it's important for clarity and transparency for our community to understand what engaging in this contract means, if the will of the board is to approve it, just to set some realistic expectations and understanding for everyone. So just to clarify, this item would mean that we are working in collaboration with the Sonoma County Office of Education to address immediate and ongoing work, including seeking their support for our superintendent. I

058want to clarify that the board is grateful and pleased with the work and leadership that our acting superintendent, Dr. Sipes, and this entire team... Sorry. She wrote... Miss Sipes. Ms. Sipes. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Ms. Sipes. And this entire team. We have to say, this entire team has been providing these last couple weeks. Thank you all so very much. We plan to allow the team to focus on preparing us for the upcoming school year, specifically to help ensure a smooth transition for our middle school teams students and families the board is holding on a search until this later fall after we have opened and consolidated our middle schools and launched a great school year for staff students in our community so just cook for clarity and approval of this does not mean we are going to

059start this process immediately it's just clarity for our community that we are relying on school to provide support financially and administratively for a search so just for clarity so it so if there's any questions or comments from the board we can do that now otherwise is there a motion to approve I would just I would comment I know there's been a lot of questions on what are we what are we doing to address our superintendent search we heard community feedback that we wanted time engagement and low cost and I think we're our attempt is to hear those that that set of feedback prioritize it and our strategy is to address it with SCO so it's a low-cost way it is a smart way to engage a group of people who are long tenured educators and

060can help us find the right superintendent for our Valley and it does so I think on the right timeline to do it in a condensed format I think I and we felt was could be problematic so we are looking for the best candidate for our district and we are not putting a time crunch time constraint on ourselves any other comments I think the other point of clarity it's an hourly contract with a cap of $20,000 and so the estimates is going to be significantly less than the $20,000 that was the other point that was clarified to to us ome us we any other comments or questions no all right at this time is our motion to approve I make a motion to approve 12 point the three-twelve point 12.12 second all in favor all right

061at this time we're gonna move on to our public hearings 13.1 okay just want to clarify the Sonoma Valley Unified School District Board of Trustees is required to conduct a public hearing on the Sonoma Valley Unified School District SVUSD and California School Employees Association CSEA chapter 376 initial proposal for negotiation negotiations for the 2526 school year this is the time and place set for the duly notice public hearing I would like to welcome everyone and declare this public hearing open Thank You chief cutting for this very aggressive gavel all right at this time the Board of Trustees will receive comments on SVUSD and CSEA chapter 376 initial proposal for negotiations for the 2526 school year you are there any members of the public who wish to speak on this matter if so please come forward

062to the podium state your name and present your comments seeing none is there any comments online no okay seeing no further speakers I hereby declare declare the public hearing closed moving on to our regular agenda I think we're gonna take a quick five-minute break and we'll reconvene at 715 board meeting when the board adopted the resolution of the board's resolution in May they asked for the resolution they specified various items one of them being updated boundaries and so we worked with a demographer to provide a presentation for all of the boundaries that the board had requested instead of going through each slide and I will just open it up to questions if the board has any thank you is there any questions at this time from the board for miss sites all right seeing none

063Oh trustee Chang so I guess I just wanted to know like if looking at plan a how how did how did they actually the demographers come up with these boundaries did they actually look at census tracts at all in kind of drawing these lines I don't believe they looked at the census data they took our student data and I can if you have specific questions I can direct those to them in the chat box and I can get you the answers for those like were they actually trying to balance the unduplicated ratios in like plan a is the one that has the the most balance no it wasn't no way okay no we'd asked that after they developed the plans is to include those unduplicated counts okay thank you trustee goes on okay no problem

064any other questions from trustees I don't see any we also have an opportunity for discussion and questions on the next item if you want to take a minute yeah great okay so this is just a discussion item this is not an approval so if there's no further questions and no discussion from the board we can move on to item 14.3 all right that's what we will do 14.3 this is an action item it's an approval of a resolution number 25-40 resolution rescinding resolution number 25-23 regarding elementary school consolidation and postponing elementary school consolidation decision and I'll turn this over to Ms. Epps so we and I refer to our attorney because of additional information that you all were provided regarding the boundaries and so forth we've prepared this resolution in the event that you want

065to rescind the original resolution to be able to further look at data and answer other answer additional questions so we're going to go ahead and do that. Thank you. All right thank you at this time is there questions from the board we also have Harold here with us to answer any questions we might have Trustee Guzman. The first clarifying question is regarding the current capacity at Flowery Elementary and in regards to the dual immersion actual enrollment and projected enrollment and the understanding of of how to do that. So the first question is what is the current capacity at Flowery Elementary and in regards to the dual immersion actual enrollment and projected enrollment and the understanding of how the Flowery campus has served and can continue to serve the DI program. So I think I understand

066your question from a capacity standpoint. So right now we have four to five classrooms that would allow expansion if we choose to expand the program does that answer your question. So it's stating that there's there's no imminent need to relocate the program from the flowery campus. So I think I understand your question. From a capacity standpoint. From a lack of ability to grow the program. Okay so as it stands. Yeah so right now we don't have anybody that has been turned away we don't have anybody on the wait list and we do have additional classrooms if there was a need. We don't have staffing for additional students at this time depending on the grade level but we don't have anybody on the wait list so. And those those enrollment rates have stayed relatively low. Yeah.

067And so we're seeing that the program has been relatively steady at least some of the numbers I saw in the like last seven years or so it's increased seven percent but relatively flat is what we're seeing that the program has reached kind of this stasis and that there's not this this wave of folks that are trying to get in. Locking down the door. Yeah. All right. Thank you. Trustee Bell. So I'm trying to understand we've had there's a lot of discussion about the wait list at Flowery and I've been under the impression we've had a wait list and kids have been waiting. Yeah. I mean I've been looking at a wait list and kids have not been able to go to the Flowery because of the wait list and they haven't been and we haven't

068got capacity and so I drilled down onto capacity and there's two capacities one is you know teaching capacity and staffing essentially and then one is physical capacity and so I've been you know looking at this under the sort of wrong impression because apparently you know Perkins Eastman says Flowery has a capacity. Yeah. It's a capacity of 440 kids and we currently have an enrollment of 363 kids so that puts us at 83 percent occupancy but now apparently we've got four classrooms that are vacant and one classroom that's occupied by a CCC so if we take those four or five classrooms multiply it by 23 kids we have an additional capacity beyond the 440 that Perkins Eastman says and so I guess Perkins Eastman was using a. I guess it's the same thing. I mean I

069think the same thing. I think the difference is that we have a load factor of 18 kids for the total number of classrooms which I really was a detail I missed in the beginning and we've got a limit on classes from you know K through four or three at 23 and then fifth fourth and fifth grade is 28 so theoretically could each classroom at Flowery accommodate 28 kids. Yeah. of the classrooms could accommodate 28 kids. I said the physical size of the classrooms. Right. Right. So essentially the capacity of Flowery is significantly larger than the 440, right? And so I want to apologize to everybody. I've been operating under the assumption that we didn't have physical capacity at Flowery. So we obviously do. And so then, you know, from my perspective, we have to decide

070from a programmatic standpoint in the future, you know, or not, and we have to kind of have it as a consideration today. Can we fit a K through 8 dual immersion model at Flowery? Which it seems to me is we likely can. That's one question we need to sort of answer as a district and as the board to understand that that could be an option if it's in place, if we left Flowery in place today, if we all decided that the K8 model was more effective for learning outcomes. Then the current model of K5 and then 6, 7, 8 at the middle school. And so, you know, what I would like to know is can we absolutely fit a K8 model at Flowery? Right. And I think we can based on the fact that there's

071five classrooms available. Maybe, maybe not. You know, that's a question of logistics. And then particularly because we're not doing any transitional kindergarten classes at Flowery, right? There's one. There's one. So we could move that to a regular school. So anyway, that's one question that I kind of would like to know as part of the data of the decision making. And if we all say, you know, if the majority says, look, it's always going to be K5, then it's not a consideration. But I think we need to sort of evaluate and say, does the current location have the capacity for K8? And then. And so. Okay. So, you know, today I'm kind of rethinking the whole thing as far as the Flowery option because we don't have a space constraint issue. We might have a staffing

072constraint issue, but that's sort of set, that shouldn't be a factor in relocating a school. So that was kind of long winded. I apologize. No, that's okay. Thank you for clarifying. I mean, I think that's the whole point of having this on the agenda, right? Is it's our opportunity to, to clarify. So is there any other comments or questions? I think we're still on questions. Cause you proposed a question. Okay. So we're going to go with some questions. Any other questions from trustees at this time? Trustee Guzman. So regarding the point of the program evaluation and potential grade reconfiguration, that is something that has been offered as part of this SCO partnership is to do those type of evaluations, you know, and specific to consolidation. So in terms of this ongoing discussion and more data

073points. And I think the, to recap, this is something I am certainly looking forward to working with SCO to help us better understand, you know, what is the best format for that program and you know, other ways that it's currently structured. If it stays K5, you know, let's further evaluated on those points. But with, with the additional data you know, we're, we're receiving this stuff kind of in real time and it's very illuminating and I think we, we need more guidance on that. So thank you for that. Thank you. time to just chew on it and just make this a better program. Okay, thank you. Trustee Ching, any questions? The conversation that I'd like to have is that if we want to change our decision and rescind anything or propose something different is I want

074to go back to first principles, which is we have to agree on the criteria. I know I feel like a broken record, but there were criteria that were proposed by the Attorney General and the CDE. The Consolidation Committee adopted 10 of the 11. They didn't weight them. They said that all of them are equally weighted. And I really think also they're not an exhaustive list. And so if we're going to change any decision, I think it has to be, we have to, I would like to use an objective criteria. And I would like to delve into some of these in a little bit more detail. And specifically, I would like to propose one is that I don't think that there was enough detailed analysis of criteria number nine, which is education program. And I would

075like to understand specifically what's the disparate impact of the educational programs at each of the schools if they were to be eliminated. And so what I would suggest is I just want to read this to you guys so you can just be reminded of what was the... what did the intention of that criteria. It was, you know, generally educational programs are mobile. Programs and staff can move from site to site, but there can be site-related high achievement schools based upon innovative facilities design and particularly fortuitous dynamic among staff and just the right mixture of students. Often these high achievement schools are unique and perhaps may be hard to reconstruct. On the other hand, there can be historically low performing schools. Such sites may be good candidates for closure. So I'd suggest that that's one of

076the things that I would suggest. I think that's a good point. Okay. So I think there, I believe, a lot of microphones that you've heard. I don't think that there was a really great answer to that. Like I said, the big concern is that they're bringing an opportunity for redistributing students and staff. So one is I think that we should lean on SCO to have them look at this more thoughtfully because I don't think that there was really, when I looked at the analysis, there really wasn't an analysis of historically how the schools were doing vis-a-vis each other and then what would be the impact of closing them. So that's number one. And then I think that we are... Okay. All right. All right. Great. All right. also might want to add a few more

077criteria. I think that, or maybe wrapped up in the educational program is, you know, by closing one particular school, which, you know, what is going to be the irreparable harm? Like, does a program because of, you know, movement or relocation, does that really result in harm where the program actually dies in the end? So that's something to look at. And also from the perspective of, I think we really have to look at the ESN program much more thoughtfully and bring it to the forefront. Because I do feel like having spoken, so those children, and maybe our attorney could also appoint a person to be the head of the ESN program. Those children are a protected class, is that correct? And that they would be unduly impacted under civil rights considerations? I won't comment on the

078impact one way or the other, but yes, they are a protected class. And that is one of the classes that we are supposed to be considering through the process. And what are the other protected classes that we have to take into consideration? You know, legally, you're supposed to be looking at minority groups, and you're supposed to be looking at, you know, the children who are in the minority groups. And so, you know, we're not looking at special needs students, disabled students. Those are the primary categories that we look at. You can look at a whole host of other categories that touch on those, like English language learners, migrant students. There's a host of different categories, but generally the two big categories that legally get looked at are minority groups and special needs students. And do,

079what about socioeconomic disadvantaged students or families? Are they also protected classes? Are they also protected classes? Are they also protected classes? Are they also protected classes? Are they also protected classes? Are they also protected classes? That's not a protected class on its own. Okay. But again, it's something... But if it's combined with one of those other, that makes them a protected class? Yeah. So you look at it in, absolutely in connection with, for example, a particular minority group. Correct. Okay. So I just think that we need to look at whatever, is there going to be a disparate impact on enclosing any of these, any of these schools? So really kind of delving into the... Yeah. ...to number nine. And then I think we should probably consider some other criteria. And I'll throw out a couple.

080I've thrown them out before. There really isn't really a criteria that looks at population and demographics so much. What we look at enrollment and population and demographics are very different. I think about it as what is the potential growth or the median age of... Yeah. ...the median age of, you know, the various areas on our attendance map. If we're really trying to size for the future, shouldn't we be looking at not just capacity, but we should be looking at potential population growth, right? So for example, I won't be able to cite exactly what census tract, but I did look at all of the... I looked at the census tracts of our valley. And there are... Yeah. ...there are definitely census tracts that have much lower median ages than others, you know? So I think like

0811502 or 1501 has like a much higher median age than other ones. And I... I don't know. I just wonder if we need to really think about that. Because what we're thinking about is where are schools going to be located relative to population centers in the future? And if, you know, there are different parts where we're not... You know, we have zero birth rates like in the... Yeah. ...in the last two years in like Glen Ellen and North. So what does that mean for capacity? You can't look at capacity of schools just in isolation without population and demographics. And let me see. I think I had one other thought about this. Yeah. So those are the main two things I would say are... would be important. But I think we just have to... we have

082to nail down this, you know, this criteria or threshold. Yeah. So... ...the... to, you know, the criteria or throw out the consolidation report completely, I don't feel like we can just suddenly like... What I don't want to end up is in a situation that Santa Rosa is in right now, which is consolidation committee delivered a report and recommendations. The board threw it out. They decided to completely go rogue. They closed all their middle schools and said we're just... we're going to do 712, four 712 high schools and that's it. And I just... I don't want to end up doing something that seems so abstruse. ad hoc and so random. Sorry for being so long-winded. That's OK. I just want to offer some point of clarity, too, on this resolution, just as a reminder. This was

083contingent upon information. So it's being brought back because we have information. So I personally made a statement at that meeting, and I said, if the information provided gave us an opportunity to look at better options or other options, then I would absolutely consider. So this is part of an unfortunate process that is painful, and we acknowledge that, and we recognize that in our community. But it's one of the ways in the process by law that we're required to get through these steps. And so I just wanted to make that statement. I was going to make that statement earlier. I just think it's really important to remind our community that we did get information that we were looking for. And so that's why we're having this conversation. And having an opportunity to evaluate the information and

084then reevaluate the resolution, if that is the will of the board. I did have a question for Harold. Anne, did you want to respond to that? Well, I just want to make sure I understood what you're saying. So there were three conditions that the original resolution was predicated on. So it was the SQL reports, a transition plan, and then the resolution. And then the resolution. So it was the original resolution. It was a transition plan and a boundary study. So are you saying that we have new information about those three conditions? I'm saying that we received information from staff that I thought was new information, one of them being boundary studies. And then additional information on capacity. I think I was personally enlightened with information in regards to flowery. And so I think it's imperative

085for transparency, regardless if it's specifically what we stated we were looking for. it is new information and so I wanted to ensure that this board had an opportunity to get the information and have a conversation because this is such a sensitive process and provide the opportunity to the community as well. I have a question for you Harold and it piggybacks off of Trustee Ching so if you guys are okay I'm just going to ask. So one thing that I've struggled with in this process when we talked about protected classes specifically our students in special education at our ESN site or class in ESN at specific sites is isn't it our responsibility and correct me if I'm wrong to really do our due diligence to ensure that those placements and those campuses are like the best

086places for them to be and so when we talk about them it's not because we don't recognize that movement would be disruptive but if there is a better opportunity that provides access to certain things like playgrounds and such that it is something that we need to consider and so in fact it should be talked about because I struggle with this process when we talked about protected classes as if we shouldn't consider everything so when we talk about protected classes I think it's important to acknowledge that we have to talk even though they're protected classes we have to talk about the options and like what we have provided. So I think that's the key to understanding that as of today understanding that movement would be disruptive but also considering the fact that we could potentially be

087providing a more enriching environment and so can you help us understand that process I mean is that not the responsibility of the board? What I would say is it's a balance of the two. It's two sides of the same coin one of them is you have to think about the disruptive effect to those students and that's a population where disruption can have a very significant effect. The other side of the coin is where are those students best placed and when we've gone through this process with other school districts it does open up for example the IEP process for some of those students to figure out what is the right placement and how do we work to the right placement. So I don't think it's as simple as just saying the one or the other. In

088other words I think you can look at those and balance them I think that when the committee looked at this and I think to some extent when the boards looked at it there was a great focus on not disrupting. Disrupting those students. If programmatically there is an advantage to moving those students that's a balance the board's going to have to engage in to determine what is in the best interest of those kids. Thank you that's helpful I appreciate that. Trustee Bell? Harold I had a question. You talked about minorities in the district and so they're a protected clause so how do we define a minority in the district when the majority of kids Latino the majority of the kids in school are Latino. And Latinos is the largest population in the state you know as

089in terms of a class or however you want to describe it. Right when we talk about the definition of protected classes it all really derives from federal law and it's not talking about what the population of California is or what the population of Sonoma Valley is it's talking about nationally what are the protected classes. And so when they talk about the ethnic minorities or the racial minorities generally speaking we look at that in the categories of African American. Okay. Asian Pacific Islander, Native American or indigenous and Latino or Hispanic and those are the recognized protected classes that the federal government's recognized. So essentially in our district it doesn't matter what the if we had a district that was 90 percent Asian American that's still the minority group that's still the class that you're considering. Yeah.

090It's the point of clarification. Any other questions? Trustee Guzman? Yeah. I have another question in terms of this notion of protected classes specifically to ESN and this disruption. Also tying into the demographics that Trustee Ching was mentioning is there when considering disruption is can we place more consideration on where these students actually live and that perhaps if they're clustered more on one side of town residency wise as a whole. I mean I think that's a great question. I think that's a great question. You can't just put as many kids in one class or as many students in other classes as they have access to. And I think that's a cool question but I think it's a great question. I actually have a question as to what the school district is thinking about. So I want

091to stretch that out a little bit. I mean it's a great question. It's a great question. And I think that's a great question. I mean I think it's a great question. I think that's a great question. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks. Thank you. And as you've heard from one of your trustees, one of the criteria is talking about the educational program. And are there specific facilities that are well suited to them? The travel issue is a really interesting one, because when equity is looked at in the courts, when it's looked at in the law, they don't really look to the travel issue. The distance of where the students are is not something that is legally something you're compelled to look at. You look at it from sequence standpoints of traffic, and you look at it

092from transportation availability to families. There's really nothing legally that says you look at it on the effect on the kids. There's also nothing that stops you from looking at that as something as part of the criteria. Just a follow up question. Does anyone have a data point or a reminder, just a clarification for me on the percentage of students that are not going to their local elementary school? I know this is the map of where our students live today. But do we have an either overall number, or is it here? Oh, it is there. OK. All right. By school? This is the attendance matrix from 2024. So what I'm seeing here is that about a third of the students are choosing to go somewhere else. That's not their local, quote unquote, in-boundary school. Yeah, that's

093across the board. That's pretty much every area. Inflow, outflow is kind of consistent at a third. Yeah, so to the point Harold just made, it's like it's not a consideration legally on, like, proxy. So we're not going to be able to tell what the actual level of the level of the school is. We're going to be able to tell what the actual level of the school is. But the other thing that's interesting is that, like, the proximity, our district, one in three families in our district elementary school is choosing to go to a school that is technically outside their boundary. I know we're trying to engineer the right outcome. But ultimately, like, the proximity, it doesn't fit anywhere for me. And I think Trustee Ching, you had brought up, as one of your five criteria,

094I think you mentioned, was some sort of proximity to campus analysis. I know I had left that out of my criteria. I know I had left that out of my criteria when we were going through this over the last year. Unless something else tells us that that is one of the top considerations. I think some of the other considerations you brought up around kind of the harm and displacement to a program or community by moving the school, Trustee Ching, I think you brought that up as a criteria. And I absolutely think that's worth considering. But just the data that we see today for our existing families and what we're seeing in the community, what we're being told legally, it doesn't seem like that is another criteria to add to the already 11 state recommended criteria,

095in my eyes. Trustee Ching, did you want to respond? But it doesn't mean that we can't consider it. So I just want to throw that out. I mean, we didn't consider valuation of property, which I feel like number 11 was really important. And we should have considered that. So I don't know how people feel about that. I don't know. But I think that we didn't consider it. So at this point, I think we've moved on from questions. Are we into discussion of the board? Okay. So just for point of clarity, I have one last question for Harold. Can you help provide options for the board so everyone understands exactly what our options are today? I would try to do it, but I'm going to go ahead and let you explain. So the language per the

096Brown Act and just all the laws. We put rescind on your board. We put rescind on here because that's like the top, right? We have options underneath that umbrella. So can you help guide us through this process so we can be a little better with our governments and timing in this moment? Thank you. So let me attempt that question. If I don't get to all of it, let me know. So the way that this was agendized is as a rescission. It basically puts you back to where you were before the last resolution was adopted. We didn't do it as a motion for reconsideration of the prior action, which would have actually, put it back in front of you tonight to make a decision again because the purpose of this resolution from what we were hearing

097was there's more information now. Does the board want to put a pause, remove the action that was taken previously, and as we've written the resolution, come back at a date certain to attempt to make a decision. Tonight as part of your discussion, you could certainly identify leanings, places you want to go, possibilities of where you'd like to get more data. It is not agendized for a new school closure decision to be made or consolidation decision to be made tonight. It would just come back to the board at a date certain. And again, we've proposed putting that in. We've had in all of the resolutions a date certain for you to decide just so we make sure that we're keeping on track and that things can come back to you again. Is that what you were

098getting at? That's perfect. Thank you. I just wanted to make sure my fellow trustees understood the language and what our options were. So essentially, we are not required to make a decision on closure of an additional elementary school. We have the option to rescind this decision and revisit looking at our options at a later date. We would just recommend, well, we have to put a date down. Is that correct? The way the resolution is written, yes, you could amend that resolution if you prefer not to. It's certainly our recommendation. I think it has helped in the past when we've done this to keep things moving. It's a nice way to get to the next meeting where you pick for this to go. It also helps inform staff and your consultants when do you need the

099next set of data. Okay. Thank you. I have some discussion points, but I'll open up to the board if anyone wants to take the lead. Trustee Guzman? Just to follow up on the previous discussion item in terms of the proximity, I think where it is carrying a little bit more weight for me is that we have seen these population trends throughout the valley. A few years ago, we were at the point where Dunbar could no longer sustain itself because of that proximity. There just weren't kids there. That decision was made. Now we're seeing a continuation of those trends in the rest of our valley where there are campuses that continue to see that drop relative to seven years ago. We're seeing a 20, 30 percent drop at some of our campuses. This is very recent.

100The trends aren't looking good. The development is not occurring in our valley. The birth rates are flat or below replacement level. It's such a high cost of living that we don't see our enrollment bouncing back anytime soon. Hopefully it stabilizes. If it continues to stabilize, we'll see. But if it continues on the current trend and we continue to see these big chunks of enrollment drop, some of our campuses, they're going to be below 50 percent. That's where I'm looking at where the kids actually live because we're going to be not as drastic as Dunbar with some of our other campuses, but it's kind of headed that way. Thanks. Just for a point of clarification. Thanks. I'm going to go back to the question about the population. At our four elementary schools, we have a larger

101kindergarten class today than we have in the last three years. So I understand it has been a ... Again, you could go to the Press Democrat article. They did a big thing on all the districts in Napa and Sonoma counties. Yes, everyone was losing population. COVID crushed the public school systems and there was a precipitous drop off. A lot of districts are seeing districts either get to that point of stasis, which you had mentioned with Flowery. Where do ...? I think we're at a point of stasis at least with our elementary school populations. That's what I think you see with the kindergarten class of this past year. It's like we actually have more kids than we do in first grade or second grade. I think the second point is we need to run a better

102district. We've had a lot of chaos here. I think people understand that this has not been a magnet district to come and live and raise your family and send them to school here. I think people can justify cost if the educational experience is exceptional. Yes. I think we need to challenge ourselves to get out of the narrative of this doomsday downward spiral of enrollment because that's what we're seeing at schools that are the Petalumas, the Rohnert parks, the Napa. Again, stasis and in some cases they've grown a few percentage points in the last couple of years. I understand the population projections and I understand closing Dunbar totally made sense and consolidating the middle schools made sense. I'm not certain that I'm sold on this idea. Yes. I think we're going to have to look at

103half the students in 10 years that we are today. I'm not. I haven't seen anything that has told me that in the most recent data and I haven't seen that from anything anyone I've talked to who's teaching at the kind of pre-K or TK and lower levels in the valley. Time will tell and I think we'll know. We haven't seen the 25, 26 school year enrollment data yet. I think that would be an interesting data point to understand how many kindergartners have enrolled. We've seen about a quarter of them in these four schools. And I know this is a point that doesn't come up very often but our charter schools are growing. They're seeing an increase in enrollment. We have data on their enrollment. I would love to add that as a data point that

104can help influence of like, hey, are our children choosing to go to other alternatives but staying in the valley for education. I was told recently that one of our charter schools has seen one of its largest incoming classes for the fall. So I think it's worth just understanding a little more macro than what we've been told. Thank you. Do you have any other comments on that? Trustee Kuzma? No, I think it just illustrates why we're so keen on getting these additional data points to clarify some of this. There is enrollment data out there for the fall that has just come to light. It's just because that's where we are in the academic year. So I think that's where we're looking for the clarity and that's why this discussion is occurring. Trustee Ching? Yeah. Can I

105just follow up? Can you explain how enrollment will change your decision? So for example, like what I've been doing is tracking the predicted enrollment that the demographers did. I think the last time it was updated was in 2022, which maybe we should have them take a re-look at the data, their projections, and I've been comparing it to actuals. So there has been in the last year, it looks like it's plateauing. It's going a little bit. But the trend is still downward. So if in fact you see like a spike, you know, one data point pivot, how does that change your decision or how you weight the criteria? Can you maybe just explain how that translates into the decision-making process? It's from the sense of not having our facility resources in the areas where the kids

106just aren't there. And, you know, if we keep, I guess in looking at these boundaries, like we see, you know, clusters that are more dense than others. And so I guess that's what I'm trying to reconcile is, you know, do these trends show us that, you know, some of one boundary area is going to be way less populated than one adjacent to it? And, you know, are we going to have this? Yeah. I mean, I think that's a growing disparity in terms of where the kids are and where, you know, where our facility should be. If you overlay the census tracts over this map, what you'll see is the, where you have the densest population of students, there are two side-by-side tracts. They actually look like this. So I won't even call it the numbers

107because they're kind of meaningless. Those are the census tracts. Okay. So, you know, the census tracts that have, number one, the highest Latino populations and also the lowest median ages, these are two separate tracts right here, side-by-side, and they're very tiny. So it, I mean, it, I don't know what additional enrollment data is going to say that's different than what the census data said in 2020. But. Okay. Thank you. Trustee Bell? Can someone refresh my memory? The heat maps that we had, how old are they? Is there any need to update? Is there any need to update those? Has anything changed really, do you think? These are sort of the heat maps that you're looking in front of you in 2024, right? They're just represented in a different way. Yeah. I mean, they show the

108actual physical location, right? Right. On a. Yeah. I mean, the challenge is we've got four elementary schools and there's two that are a mile away and two that are a mile away from each other. So there's this sort of terrible sort of distribution of campuses that we've, and we've got obviously this dilemma to kind of figure out. And so I'm, Presswood has the sort of the most sparse heat map, right? Is that, and then how, what's the difference between Sasserini and Presswood in terms of the heat maps? Does anybody got any numbers on that in their heads? No. Yeah. Just, you know, we had the heat maps done, right? With the circles and figuring out where students live and, you know, Alvarado and Flowery have the most contact. They're the most concentrated. And so I'm

109just, you know, looking at that, if we're really looking at now, you know, from my perspective, the dual immersion is available to all and it has been because we've never refused anybody on the wait list. So that sort of one of the whole things was everybody should have the opportunity for a dual immersion education in the Valley. And that's, has been the case. And I was being given information that's not entirely correct in that we don't have a capacity issue physically. We may have a capacity issue from a staffing perspective, but that's irrelevant to the campus. So now it's a function of now I'm reevaluating my sort of thinking and then it's a function of then one of the more important criteria in my mind is obviously proximity to schools and physical condition. And so

110if you look at Sasserini and Presswood, they're, the density is a little bit less at Presswood. And a little more at Sasserini and then you've got different levels of improvements and capacities almost equivalent. So it's, it's a decision that I'd be, if I had to make a decision today, then it's like, well, it makes more sense to close Presswood, right? If the ESN, the ESN students can be moved to a different location, if that's not going to blow the deal up. And so, you know, to Anne's point, you know, there's a lot of, there's a lot of, there's a lot of, you know, there's a lot of, you know, the whole, you know, concentration of, of lower socioeconomic, lower socioeconomic students. If we did then the cluster model, then all that sort of takes care

111of that aspect of the, of the district because it brings all kids together K through two and three, four, five. So, you know, if I was now reevaluating the whole thing and looking at it and I was going to make, if someone said gun to your head, what are you going to do? to do. I'd say, okay, well, look, I want to go with the cluster elementary model. I see more positives than negatives on that. And I would be looking at Presswood as a better option to close than Flowery if I was going to make the decision today. And I still need some more information and discussion and things like that. I think one of the criteria in my mind on the Flowery thing is that we've got to kind of make a decision in

112this. We've got to understand the K8 opportunity for the dual immersion and either rule it out or rule it in and have a definitive. If we rule it in as it is a criteria, then we've got to make sure that Flowery can handle the K8 if we decide to go down that road. So that's the moving pieces in my mind. Thank you. Is it okay? Are you guys okay if I add to the conversation? Okay. So you're going to be talking about the K8. The last couple of weeks and months, it's been brought to my attention and it's information I was trying to get earlier on. And it was kind of like, well, it's not really relevant. The program will succeed. And so I really feel like something that was brought to light for me

113was that it's not just the dual immersion program at Flowery. It is the Flowery campus. And so in terms of what Anne is talking about, I think it's a really important thing. I think it's a really important thing. I think it's a really important thing. It's a really important thing. And so in terms of what our Trustee Ching is talking about, you know, I do think maybe rather than us consider the evaluation of the priorities, listening to the community, it's clear now that it's not just the program. They want access to the school. And so then an evaluation of the program and not wanting to make a decision that could essentially dismantle a program, are we doing the right thing by moving the program, right? And so those were questions that were in my mind.

114And I too thought that the that we had this wait list and so then I started reaching out to community members who had engaged in conversation with me online and who have been to my, or via email, and who have been through to some of my office hours and I've met one on one with and many of them aren't interested in following the program. It's really important to them to have the school. Additionally, if I threw out scenarios of moving the Dual Emotion Program to a different campus, people who were on those campuses would choose to not stay. And so this idea that we're going to move it because we're going to fill this school and it's going to grow, I think the beauty of what we have in this community is we have community

115within our schools. And so I want time to reevaluate this. I think, I don't necessarily feel like I need time personally to go through and decide what is more important. I think my community, this community is. My community has told me what is important. I also would love to know if a K-8 model is better. I mean all of the data out there I see it is, but what the community is telling us and if we're going to use the information that we received from our consolidation committee is that it may be a better model, but it's not what our community wants. And so what I would encourage us to do, and this is not part of this process, but once we make a decision is to do our due diligence and do something that

116I don't think we could find data that's better. I think one of the things that we've been doing since conception is to evaluate our dual immersion program and see if we are doing it and giving it fidelity, right? And see how, because this idea that we're going to move it and we're going to have this exponential growth, I think that was my idea. We wanted this opportunity for kids and this idea that we couldn't give it to everybody and that's not equitable. And so we wanted to find a way to have it be equitable and in fact, that's not what we're hearing. And so it feels, in my opinion, very disruptive. Right? Which is why I'm so thankful for this information. And I think at this point in time, you know, I'm not interested in

117saying what I'm ready to do next. I am comfortable rescinding my decision to put Flower East Campus on the table as a school to close. And I would just encourage the board to start working towards, you know, some sort of option here where we can agree to move forward. I mean, I haven't really specifically heard. I've heard from Trustee Bell that this is not necessarily an option you're interested in, but I think we owe it to the community. I don't recommend we sit on this decision and not rescind it if that's a decision we're going to make in the future. I don't want the community to sit through this summer and not have a meeting in July and not hear the board talk about options and then come back in August and say, okay, well,

118we decided not to do this. Like if this is something we're not considering or we're considering could be taken off the table and everything is kind of fair game again. I think that's a good point. Thank you. If it's an option we're considering again, then I think we owe it to the community to do that in this resolution. And so I'm just going to ask that we kind of work towards that in our discussion and see where we all are and where we can come to an agreement moving forward. Trustee Bell? I have a question. Are we obligated to do what's best for the students or what is best for what the parents want for their kids, even if it's not in their best academic interest? That's a great question. In my – Are you

119loyal to her? That is a question for the board. That's a policy decision. You know, because obviously what's going to happen is if we put, if we go flowery dual immersion, or sorry, if we do K-8 dual immersion, we're going to lose middle school kids who value a middle school experience versus the program, right? And I get that. But are we then, is it better for those kids that remain in the K-8 dual immersion program, are their educational outcomes going to be better to keep it at the campus, and do we not listen to the parents who say, I want both? But when we offer both, the middle school experience and dual immersion, we're failing them on the dual immersion, right? So that's one of my questions as it relates to this whole thing. And

120that's why I've said we've got to evaluate the program from the K-8 model because what I'm being told by the experts is that the K-8 model is better than the K-5 model. And, you know, so, you know, that's the, do we focus on what's better for the students and we realize we're going to lose kids in the middle school in the dual immersion and then those kids do better, and then, yeah, so, yeah. Trustee Lemon? I mean, listen, we're making this decision, again, because we have a budgetary impasse. And what we know is that Dunbar made sense to close. Adele was a really difficult decision. But it had, we were hopeful that that will end up being the right decision and monetarily and from a fiduciary standpoint, it made sense. The question is, if we

121close all these schools, we're going to save 2% on our budget annually. It's like, the other option is, do we figure out another way to save that 2%? Like, I mean, quite literally, that's the discussion we're having here because we are finding it so extraordinarily difficult to make the call on how to reorganize our schools without some sort of, and I know we're asking the Sonoma County office. We're asking the county office of education to help support us in some data and best practices that could help steer us to a decision where we could do this. But I know our entire, our community is struggling and we're struggling. We're trying to do the right thing and make the right decision to get our budget in line. It's 2%. Like, that's, you know, that's essentially what

122we're going to save here. And we're hopeful that we can bring a better education by consolidating resources at fewer campuses and getting things like arts back in and music, where you can have all the programming offered at every single school. Like, that is the future vision of this for our district. You know, it's worth understanding, like, you know, is there, what are all the options on the table that can get us to where we need to go? Thank you. Trustee Ching or Trustee Guzman, did you want to weigh in? Trustee Guzman? You can pass. Sorry. No, I just have a question in terms of trying to pick a date. Do we have our fall meeting scheduled so we can pick a date? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I

123don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I still want us to agree on criteria here. I know, listen, what I'm hearing then is that the rankings at the consolidation committee, we want to throw those out. Based on all your, based on what you're, what I've heard today, is that we want to throw those out and we want to start over. Because if you look at how all the elementary schools were ranked, Flowery had the lowest performance ranking and Sasserini had the highest performance ranking. And from the conversation today, what I'm hearing from you guys is let's start over. We're going to disregard that and we're going to come back to some of the criteria or considerations that have been brought up today. Is that, am I hearing that correctly? You know,

124when the consolidation committee started, three of us were not here. Hey, we have a new board, we have a new superintendent. Like it's a different, for sure a different group and I think direction and, I mean, potentially, yeah. The counter to that is like they ranked the criteria, but they didn't make a recommendation. They didn't make a recommendation to say Flowery was the school to close. You know, so. But it was implicit, it's implicit in the recommendations. I get it was implicit, but nobody wanted to say we got to close Flowery for whatever the reason. And so if the committee met for the year and went through it all and said, yeah, Flowery was the school to close based on the criteria and based on a recommendation from the majority of the committee, that's, now

125we're in the situation where it's a really tough decision. And if you're going to go with ranking, you're going to have to make a decision. And so, you know, I think that's a really important point. And I think that's a really important point. If you're going to go with rankings, then okay, but there's other considerations in the sense of, you know, yeah, anyway. So I think what I'm trying to get us to do is let's agree on what are the most important ones. I still think from a couple of meetings ago, I said, you know, would we ever consider disruption, right? And I gave kind of the sort of example, like should disruption be a consideration as one of the criteria? That because Flowery, you have to wholesale move the campus and it can't sit

126with, it can't co-locate with any other campus, then you dislocate another whole campus, right, that then dislocates all of the campuses. So should that be a consideration or not? And I think I got some pushback, which is no, we shouldn't look at dislocation as being, you know, a criteria. I just think that it would be really helpful for all of us to agree on the criteria. I do think that it would be helpful for us to still get help from SCO on the educational criteria, right, looking at is there disparate impact right now for kids that are not doing K-8? I mean, I think that would be the question. Not like, I can't remember how you posed the question, but, and that would help answer the question, like do we really need to think about

127capacity of a K-8 or not? I mean, I don't know. That's just a, it's a really difficult question. The last time the Flowery program was actually formally evaluated was in like, I want to say like 2011 or 2012, there was a study that was done where there were blind control groups across the district and they were compared to actual English only students and, you know, native Spanish speakers. So we could probably dig up that study and see if we can, you know, replicate it currently. But I do think that we should delve more into the educational programming and whatever disparate impacts would be for all the schools. And I do think that we ought to think about how we want to consider population demographics and this notion of disruption. Anyway, that's just my suggestion. So

128I would like to comment. I definitely don't mean to say, and I think it's really important that the population is not a problem. I think it's really important that the population is not a problem. I think that's where, you know, the board remembers, you know, legally, we do need to adhere to some of these guidelines, right? The Attorney General's guidelines. I think, Harold, you said something that really struck a chord for me, which is this holistic opportunity to evaluate. And I think that's where all these other options that you're talking about trustee Chang come into place. So I think we need to be mindful of the guidelines set forth by the Attorney General because they're there for a reason. extend our olive branches to our community and say we're also willing to evaluate the holistic,

129which could be things like you suggested, disruption, programmatics, all of that. To move us forward, could we, could the resolution, would it be appropriate, Harold, for the resolution to have an August date to, I don't know if you want to use the word holistic, but for the board to create an additional list to be used in addition to the Attorney General's guidelines, and we could do that in August so that, you know, we know what we're looking at and we can give direction to staff to look at what those things are, because I imagine that it's going to require information, and then that kind of sets the timeline. We can get an idea from staff when they think that that information can be provided for us to evaluate and then make a decision. Yeah. I

130mean, that's certainly up to the board. Whether you call them criteria or just these are additional data points that we want to reach, I don't think is necessarily as critical, but if there are additional considerations you have or you want staff input, you can set that as the timeline, for example, for the board to come back with, come with your list of the additional things that you need, and then from there, set a date for staff to come back with that information, and then set a date for a decision to come back with that information. So, I think that's certainly up to the board. And then, when you make a decision, you will want to be thinking just about timelines, because we're starting to push then into the fall, and at some point, it's going

131to start really compacting your ability to make and implement the decision. So, again, that's up to the board. It's a policy decision, how you want to approach that. So, then it doesn't necessarily need to be done in a public meeting. I mean, we can give direction to staff. If there's additional, I mean, this, rescinding this resolution gives us an opportunity to ask for more information. I mean, that's essentially what we're looking at. That's essentially what we need, right? We're essentially asking for more information. I mean, you're stating these different criteria that would require additional information, programmatically, all these other things, disruption, right? And so, those are things we don't have answers for right now, and I would be interested in that information as well. I don't know that we have time to weight everything, but

132I do think we have time to give direction to staff to provide us with additional information, and then I think we, as a board, have to do our due diligence to utilize the Attorney General's guidelines and whatever additional information we can to make the best decision for students in this community. And so, could the resolution state that we would come back, I mean, just thinking this through, the board could spend the next couple weeks deciding, you know, talking to staff, while staff is still with us here in the office, figuring out what it is additionally that we need, and then our resolution. And so, I think that the resolution could give us a reconvene date for data presentation on any data that's available so that we could update our community and the board could have

133an opportunity for further discussion. And if at that time, we feel like, okay, now we have all this information and we need to, you know, make a list of priorities and we can do that, but I just, I don't know that we have time to prioritize, and that's what I'm concerned about. I think everything is a priority, and so if there's more information we need, then we need to have it. So, could we, what would language look like that in a resolution? As it's currently written, we just have the blank of honor before a blank date. The board shall determine which elementary school will close at the conclusion of the 2025-26 school year. You could either take that out and simply give direction to staff as to when to come back, or you could replace

134that with the sentence to the effect of by the board meeting of X date, staff will come back with data as requested by the board. And the board can agree amongst itself tonight, you know, when would you each individually need to let the board know, or let staff know what additional data is needed. I'm also sensitive to the fact that it's going to be the summer and, you know, folks are traveling in July and heard about Tahiti trips and other things that are happening. So, just making sure that there's enough time built in. And I also have heard that SCO may be helping with some of that data gathering, so it's a little hard to. I mean, I think the board has the ability to say what their availability is and the timing. So, you

135know, there is the option of simply taking out that sentence and giving direction rather than, because right now it's written as to come back to make a decision by X date. Okay, thank you for that point of clarification. Trustee Bell? So, to bring up one of Trustee Ching's points, right, so Flowery ranks as our least performing school academically, right? No, sorry. That's not, that's not. That's not how it is. No, so tell me. So, it was, it received the lowest ranking from the school consolidation committee based on all of the criteria. Yeah. On an unweighted basis. Trustee Guzman? If you don't weight the criteria, is that really accurate? Yeah, and that's why you want to define the criteria. That's why I think, I really am not trying to be a broken record, but that's why

136I really was trying to emphasize that really not all of these things are, should have equal weightings. You know, for example, environmental factors and transportation necessarily, right? School condition. I mean. Okay, so then I have a recommendation or a question for the board. Would the board be willing to entertain a time to weight the criteria put forth by the Attorney General? That's question one. And two, is the board interested in giving direction to staff for further information? So, we've got a question. So, we could just, are you interested in those two things? I mean, before I answer that, didn't we just give staff at the last, at the end of the last meeting, a list of data questions, which they came back to us for answers? Yes, we did and we have them, but I'm

137under, how I understand it is there's other things that you're interested in getting information on since we've been given this data, like disruption and things like that. Well, I mean, I raised that tonight, but I'm just saying that to get us to a closer decision, I also don't want to prolong the process. Like is this going to help everyone make better decisions or is it just going to prolong it? I mean, from my perspective, the one thing I need is to figure out if we can accommodate flowery K through eight in the current location, right? So that would, that's just one of the factors in my mind. And then I think collectively we as a board have got to say, is that even something that we're going to consider? And if we dismiss it, then

138fine. If we rule it in, then. And it ends up being a problem. If it can't fit, if flowery can't accommodate K through eight, then it makes the decision even more difficult, right? Because then we have to consider that and how seriously do we consider it, right? So because you've got to consider the programming now because it's too late in the future if you leave it there and that's what's best for the kids. And we go, oh, hang on, we can't do it there, right? So and I don't know if anybody else feels strongly on this or not. You tell me I'm the outlier and I'll give it up, you know? I think that would be a programmatic question and that would be something you would direct to staff. And I think that's something that

139SCO could help us with. I think the board needs to focus right now on are we going to prioritize prioritizing the list and ranking? Is that the will of the board? Cause if that's the will of the board, then that's what we need to talk about the resolution. And then we need to, to be mindful that it's eight 30 and we have a lot more on this agenda. This is all very important. important it's great conversation but is it the will of the board to put priority to the rankings that were put forth by or the list put forth by the Attorney General I mean it'd be interesting to see it because if we all ranked each of the ten criteria one through ten ten being we rank this as important one we don't rank

140as important and then apply that to the the school the rankings that the committee did what is that what number does that you know which school is that then it's a way to exercise so that might be I mean I look at its data it's interesting it doesn't hold us to anything okay so trustee Bell you're yes trustee Chang yes I did it okay trustee Guzman are you interested in that yes I am okay and trustee Lehman probably I'm not certain what outcome we're going to get from it frankly I'm a little concerned about us continue to put in kind of into individualistic work and not getting to a resolution that that's my concern and for that reason I would probably say I don't like that path forward I think there are probably other paths

141forward but that wouldn't be my first choice I concur I think just hearing you trustee Bell you talk about it now we're gonna sit here the five of us and we're all gonna have our own personal opinions on what is most important and that gets a little bit messy I think that's what I was trying to say is everything is important and everything should be considered and I know that that's not ideal but I think the Attorney General gives us those guidelines because in some way shape or form it's all important I think the holistic is what's missing and I would rather focus on if we have more questions in terms of programs and data we already have the list from the Attorney General guidelines which we know we need to follow for school consolidation

142if there's questions that are you know like you said programs displacement and you know all of those things that you listed like that would be information I that would be additional information I would be interested in considering and we're able to do that but at this point I don't see value in sitting up here and trying to figure out as a group of five of us what is most important in ranking I don't know that we're gonna get to a point where we're gonna come to a consensus and then what right like the entire list has value so I don't know it's not my first choice but if it's the will of the board I'll support it well I think the most important thing for me right now is really this more in-depth study with

143respect to educational programs because I think that is a key key factor for me in terms of disparate impact of closing particular campuses and the way the dual immersion question can be woven into that is is there a disparate impact right now with the fact that you know flowery just goes k5 and and then there's this very separate kind of discontent discontinuous program at middle school and I don't know if this is important to anyone here but you know Perkins Eastman did surveys right of families when they started this process and they did a survey were people interested in a k8 dual immersion assessment and they did a survey where people interested in a k8 dual immersion school and they also did what do you what do you think about the idea of a k2

144and a 3-5 and that we have the results here I mean 50% of of parents were actually interested in a k8 dual immersion and only 12% were interested in it if it was at flowery and there was a pretty large percentage of significant percentage that didn't want a do didn't want k8 dual immersion so I mean we we do have some of these results we could go back and confirm them also there was a slightly greater there was a majority 53 percent who don't like the the the um cluster elementary cluster model I I struggle with that I mean 2022 I would assume so you have uh probably more than half of those families that you know unless they had younger students come through I've graduated out of the it's like we're taking the data

145from 2023 okay so still maybe half the families have probably graduated out of like okay so maybe we evaluate current data I mean if that's important to us then we should ask for current data I think that that's information we could we could get that would be valuable and that is data but it's also that holistic approach right we're engaging the community to find out what it is that they want because to your point I'm not interested in disrupting communities of schools if it means that things like the dual immersion program a program that we have that's valued wouldn't be sick isn't going to continue to have success like I don't want to dismantle a program I'm not that's not my goal and so that would be information that we can ask staff for so

146again I think where I would like to bring us back to that okay so are we going to rescind are we going to take language out how are we going to move forward with this resolution you and are we going to come back at a date for further discussion I mean what what what is the will of the board at this point in time we need to make some sort of a decision here yeah I mean we've definitely got a rescind or delay or you know pick the word for it I it doesn't whatever you want to do we can't make a decision I'm not ready to make a decision today I think one of the things that we may want to consider is parents saying you know here are the pros here are the

147cons and the cons of the cluster elementary model would you be in favoured or not right I don't know if that opens another can of worms same as the you know polling flowery parents or you know sorry dual immersion parents you know if we could accommodate k8 at flowery would you continue would your student continue there or not right and I don't think it makes a difference if you move дулномер champagne止 flowery to Alvarano I think it's not a problem there's some economic lees nah it's not an effort it'll Carmen внутри of perché leage a honeyatamente I don't know the above of things and doing so just come back to our questions and I think annologist how are you quite clear about the topic of learning we will get back to the that the numbers

148are going to be the same it's sort of more they want the middle school experience of the running track and out you know I don't know is that I think I think that's the consideration right so but how many parents would say yeah I'm gonna keep my kid at flowery ka right okay so again to the resolution we can as a board direct these questions which are all great questions to staff we know you can pull staff and see a realistic timeline it can be communicated through a board communication and then I don't suggest we put a timeline on it I think that if it's data that's important to us that we collect the data to evaluate and so Harold what would a resolution look like with that you could simply strike that third paragraph

149the honor before blank 2025 shall determine which elementary school will close at the conclusion of the year and the rest of the resolution really stays the same okay trustee Chang Harold can I ask you a question do what happens if we just don't pass a resolution and we just kind of put on pause the the prior resolution and I'm still not clear why we're not doing a sequel study anyway on that on the prior resolution and why we're not coming up with the transition plan and I mean we have some new boundary studies but they would definitely have to be revised I mean so I'm kind of thinking about that and I think that's a good solution but it's kind of confusing I think that's a good answer I think that's a good answer I

150think we've got so much more time left to go over so I'm just kind of confused like why why do we even have to do this and why not just put it on pause what's the difference yeah so let me give you a two-part answer that whenever the board adopts a resolution that resolution remains in effect until there is a board action otherwise so if you take no action tonight you don't do anything one way or the other it still means the board has made the decision to close flowery conditional on these other things happening if that if the board's comfortable with that don't pass the resolution that's that was my take and it doesn't matter that's it's up to the board and I think we'll move on to the next question your call tonight

151whether you'd like to do that or not and we just stay where we were before if the board is now thinking you really want to take flowery off the table not that you wouldn't put it back on the table later but to put it back into the the hopper with the other three schools and reconsider later we do recommend doing a resolution usually if you've done a resolution to undo the resolution we recommend doing another resolution the timing on the sequence study you know there's a there's a domino effect that you have to go through with this and we go through this whenever there's school consolidation until we have a sense of what the boundary adjustment is which is one of those three things that the board conditioned everything on it's very hard for the

152sequel consultant to do the study because they don't know where the kids are going to be going so for example how do you do a traffic study until you have an assumption you can give them of which what the boundaries are going to be as compared to the school consolidation study and then we go through those three things to try to figure out where the kids are going to live the the transition plan again it's going to be affected by which school is it going to be so the model that came out with the resolution the board adopted before had seven variables in it it could be one school it could be flowery closing and those the dual immersion program going to Alvarado that's one flowery closing and the program instead going to sasserini and

153then the possibility of the I call it grade reconfiguration, the cluster model. For the grade reconfiguration, it really could be any one of the three schools. So it could be you're setting TK2 to Presswood and 3 through 5 to Sasserini. And you're putting the dual immersion at El Verano. But then you have to do all the other variables. So if I did the math right, I think there's seven different variables. The CEQA consultants could study all of those, but they're going to charge you for each one of the different variables. So you literally are increasing the cost potentially sevenfold by doing it that way. So that's why the boundary piece is such an important part to get through first, so that then we have a model to give the consultants to study. They can study

154more than one, but giving them as many as there are now is significant. And I've heard Trustee Bell say before, maybe one of the starting points is let's determine if the cluster model or the grade reconfiguration model is on the table or not. If that is on the table, then it's going to be a very difficult task. And if it's not on the table, the variables are much greater. If it comes off the table, there's fewer variables. But if you keep it on the table, if you then determine boundaries and say, this is the school that would be the TK through 2, this is the school that would be the 3 through 5, this is the school that would be the dual immersion, now we have something that we can give the consultants more accurately

155to study without having to run all of the variables. So that's, again, why the boundary piece of it is really the starting point in what you see tonight. Thank you. And I would just like to go back to that. We made this decision based on getting information. And so that's what's really hard about this process is we had to make a decision in order to get one foot in front of the other. It's kind of backwards, because now I have this information. And it does change my decision personally. And so had I had this information before, I might not have, well, I would not have made the recommendation to close the Flarey campus. And so again. I think it's important for the board to remember it's a process, the community to remember it's a process.

156It's painful. It's awful that we have to go through making a resolution and identifying a school and then potentially rescinding that. We wish we didn't have to do that. But in order to get information and not spend a ton of money, this is the process. And so it's the will of the board to get additional information outside of a sequel report. I would say that that's our next step. If we don't have all the information we'd like to make a decision, then I would recommend, it would be my recommendation, like I mentioned before, to rescind this because I don't want our community sitting out there. And by our community, I mean our students and our families sitting out there thinking that we're going to do this if there's an option to not. And so that

157was why I wanted to make sure we brought it to the table. It's causing a lot of pain for a lot of people in this community. Everybody is going through it. And so I think it's important for us to acknowledge it. It definitely changes my decision. As of right now, if I had to make a decision just given this information here tonight, it would not be to close the Flattery campus. And so I'm just asking to consider that tonight. If it's something that you're willing to do is reconsider based on additional information, then let's give that opportunity to our community to know that this isn't the only option we're going to make. And so I think that's a really important thing to explore. It doesn't mean that it's not going to be an option on

158the table in the future given further information and data. But as of right now, we're rolling it back a little bit to get additional information. Can I ask for a recess? Yes, we're going to take a five minute recess. We'll be back at 8.45. The sort of three areas that I had suggested that we kind of do more in-depth analysis, number one is looking at the population demographics, if they were to close, looking at the population demographics, and then also the sort of, I don't know what the word is. Yeah, I mean, basically those two things. So I think that having us do this independently and sending questions to staff, I don't think that's a really good idea. I think that's a really good idea. I think that's a really good use of time. And

159I think that maybe a committee could help work very closely with Diane Kitamura and her team to kind of review some of these issues. That's what I would suggest. And we can put a pause on our decision. So anyway, that's what I'm going to suggest. It's not really a motion, right? Because the action, we don't need to take action on what I'm just suggesting. It's just direction to staff or to the board to form a subcommittee to work on these issues with our SCO partners. And then the motion would be something separate, right? Is that correct? You could, for an ad hoc committee, you could actually just have, if the board's interested, have two volunteers, if that's something you want to move forward with, that would be willing to work with them. Whether you call

160it as a subcommittee or just a couple of people to liaison with the SCO on this. And I would be happy to be one of the ones who would be the volunteers on it. I have a question for staff. I just wonder what Trustee Ching has proposed that we need information on. Is this something that we could do over the summer and get information internally to then? I mean, I want to elevate staff, but I also know that we have these great resources. I'm just wondering if we need an ad hoc committee and if we need SCO to do the work, or if this can be done internally. And then we can, as a board, we already have an ad hoc. I don't know. I'm trying to figure out if that's the best use of

161time and resources also. I mean, I'm just, I don't know. So my question would be, given what Trustee Ching is asking for, do we think that we can get this information with staff over the summer? I feel certain that we can, and we can bring back the information that you need at the August board meeting. I feel like there's an opportunity. I think there's an opportunity to take advantage of resources of a SCO team that's writing a playbook for mergers and school closures in Santa Rosa and Sonoma County that we ought to try to figure out how to leverage. It doesn't mean that staff can't do work, too. But I don't know. It just seems like expertise outside of, you know, we tend to have a myopic view in Sonoma because we're so geographically isolated.

162I don't know. I think staff can always work with SCO to get you the answers. But we could still do that by the August board meeting. So what I'm hearing is we don't need to have an ad hoc committee of board members. I'm happy to work with you on it if that's the case. I mean, I don't know if we could work directly with someone, you know, with Diane Kitamura and get input or whatever it is. I think we could work with her. I think we've got to put this decision off until August. And so however you word it is however you word it. But staff's got to get us more information. I'm happy to work with SCO and to get input from them. It would be great to have some input on the questions

163I've got and then whatever else it is. But we could do two things at once, can't we? I just want to remind you, too, that SCO said they will not help you make that decision. That decision will help us. But. I think they can give us at least some of the background on. Listen, I think Santa Rosa made a major mistake. Let's just be clear. I don't know if I want to trust some of the things coming out of the district in particular on how they did their school consolidation. So I think we should be mindful of what we get and who, like what districts they're utilizing as a good example. So I think what I'm hearing is utilizing SCO to offer, like, thought partners, right? So they'll be thought partners. So what if we

164went with the idea that we would give direction to our staff internally? And I mean, I would want to be a part of that committee, too, if you guys were hearing from experts with feet on the ground who have done this. And so once we. What? What I was going to say. Once we have the information, we can also schedule a workshop where we can invite SCO in and we can do an evaluation. I mean, I definitely would want to be part of that conversation because that's also going to be part of those next step decisions that we make. And so I would support that, but I would definitely think that we'd all want to be a part of that. But I think we can, if we can get the information internally, it gets the

165ball rolling. We still are moving in the right direction of getting information. We're not waiting to create a committee and to get people together. If staff was confident they can do it by August, then we could essentially schedule a study session in August. And that's great. So that would be, if we, could we make a motion around that? The board. OK. I'm going to make a motion. They're going to help me, Harold. Because it's almost 9 o'clock. I make a motion. Do I have to read the whole thing? OK. So, no, I don't? You do not. OK. So I'd like to make a motion that the board remove, or sorry, well, I was saying, so you said we could take out the last sentence, correct? I need to put my . Right. So one possible

166motion would be that you would move the approval of resolution number 25-40. And that's the one that's going to be stricken. And then how do we proceed? What would we put in addition to next steps? Because doesn't that, don't we need to have something in terms of next steps, even if it's just a date to come back together and discuss? Is that correct? You don't have to have that in there. We had it as a blank for you to decide if you wanted to have the date certain. You could also adopt it without that section and just give direction to staff to come back to the board meeting in August, which would be a little bit more complicated. But that's a good point. All right. All right. All right. So I'm going to turn it

167over to you, and then I'll get back to you with the information. Yeah. Go ahead. I'm wondering, you know, I've been trying to move this decision making along. So could we agree in August that we decide on a cluster elementary versus a traditional elementary? Is that, you know, in those two months, do you think we'd have the information to be able to make a decision on that? Is that something that anybody would be open to? Yeah. Let's do the workshop. We can get our questions answered. Okay. Let's go to the next one. So I see that we have a motion to remove number three at the bottom. Right, starting with honor before. Okay. Okay. So, and that would remove Flowery as the named school for consideration for closure. Right. So this, with that out, it

168would still have the effect of undoing your prior resolution on consolidation. Okay. So I make a motion to remove number three, which dates honor before blank 2025. The board shall determine which elementary school will close at the conclusion of the conclusion of the 2526 school year I second that so Harold could you for so it's open for discussion would you be able to read what the resolution or would you like me to read what the resolution would say I think for clarity that's really important to ensure that we all understand what we're agreeing to here yeah it's a fairly short resolution I can just read my way through it as amended so taking out that one paragraph so it would read I'm heading resolution rescinding resolution number 25-23 regarding elementary school consolidation and postponing elementary

169consolidation decision whereas on December 13th 2024 the Sonoma Valley Unified School District's Board of Trustees board held a regular meeting and adopted resolution number 25-10 resolution approving school consolidation in which the board approved the closure of Adele Harrison Middle School at the conclusion of the 20 24-25 school year and committed to closing one elementary school at the conclusion of the 2025-26 school year while committing itself to select the elementary school for closure on or before May 8, 2025. Whereas on May 8, 2025, the Board held a regular meeting and adopted Resolution No. 25-23 regarding elementary school consolidation in which the Board approved the following. Closure of Flowery Elementary School at the conclusion of the 2025-26 school year and relocation of the dual immersion program either to El Verano Elementary School or to Sasserini Elementary School

170or as part of grade reconfigurations conditioned on, one, Board approval of revised elementary school attendance boundaries. Two, presentation to the Board of an elementary school. One, the elementary school transition plan. And three, consideration of the foregoing elementary school consolidations and attendance boundary adjustment under the California Environmental Quality Act Public Resources Code Section 21000 at SEC or CEQA. And whereas the Board desires additional time to consider which elementary school will close after the 2025-26 school year and therefore wishes to rescind Resolution No. 25-23, the Board will consider the following. . Now, therefore, be it found, determined, and resolved by the Board of Trustees of the Sonoma Valley Unified School District, Sonoma County, California, as follows. One, the foregoing recitals are adopted as true and correct. Two, Resolution No. 25-23, resolution approving elementary school consolidation, is hereby

171rescinded. Three, the acting superintendent and or his designee are authorized and directed to take such further actions. Four, the foregoing resolution is adopted by the Board of Trustees of the Sonoma Valley Unified School District, Sonoma County, California. The resolution is in accordance with the regulations as may be necessary and appropriate to carry out the intent of this resolution. The foregoing resolution was adopted at a meeting of the governing board of the Sonoma Valley Unified School District on June 17, 2025, by the following vote. Thank you. I think that's really important for clarity. So we have a first and a second discussion, or can we do role, is it a roll call vote? No, motion to, or we have a motion. So discussion. I just wondered if there is a motion to approve the proposed resolution,

172and then we are open to discussion. So, a motion to approve the proposed resolution, and then we are open to discussion. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. discussion or can we do roll is it roll call vote no motion to a motion so discussion I just wonder why we don't have a card deadline of when we're going to actually name the closure because we're coming up to a very close deadline here we and we keep pushing we keep kind of kicking the can down the road so I mean I I think that I director Ugin did you say November one was like the absolute like last day but it seems to me it should be earlier should be no later than October so we just have to bring the PKS for certificated and the reduction resolution

173to the board the past year we did that in February and then everybody has to be noticed by March 15th so it was a lot of work this past year it takes many months and I believe we made the decision and you made the decision in December for the middle school so so ideally I mean so is not to give you enough buffer and cushion what would be a better time frame to deliver this yeah I mean at the latest November and he you know the sooner the better but yeah I would say November I mean I think we should be committed to October but anyway yeah I mean I would just say I this idea that we're putting forward a new school year resolutions we did one in May we didn't hit it I

174mean we made a decision where we're sending the decision and changing the date we all know it's November at this point I don't I don't see a reason why this needs to why we have to have that forcing function in there I mean at the end of the day we know we need to operate a budget and we need to operate that budget with a minimum three percent reserve and that is that is the goal we're all striving towards I'm like I would move forward with the resolution as amended and you know I'm not going to hold a lot more people down I'm like I it's not me tonight I'm gonna release it that I had a good day that's what I'm gonna do I'm gonna do if it's not me tonight and I would

175say like let's be professionals here and hold ourselves to giving the decision done as quickly as possible with the information that we need you know I look you put I'm happy to put a date in there everything in this job is sort of generally it's movable until it's not right and so if that's what's gonna I don't know if it makes any difference we all know the dates now and let's just focus on the getting the information and eliminating options I think the way we got to do this is eliminate options to narrow it down to then getting to a point where we've got two options and we've got to then make a decision so I think that we should be trying to figure out the you know yeah I've said you know all right

176so we have two motions and we have two motions and we have two motions and we have two motions and we have two motions and we have two motions and we have two motions and we have two motions and we have two motions and a second sorry we had a motion on a second but no further discussion all in favor aye aye aye thank you all right we are going to move on to item 14.4 it's an action item and it's approval of the adoption of the 2526 local accountability excuse me local control accountability plan also known as the El Cap and dr. Casillas I believe is yeah so tonight we're asking for approval of the 2526 l cap we presented it to you at a public hearing and had a workshop on May 3rd

177and we're asking for the board approval and then we will submit it on to scope for a review thank you all right turn it over to the board for questions is there any questions at this time seeing none just got vote nope discussion nope all right this is an action so I'm looking for a motion to approve I'll make a motion to approve 14.4 on the agenda is there a second second all in favor all right this is an information item it's the local performance indicator and self-reflection Amber's going to miss Williams is going to guide us through this I'm gonna you know I'm gonna go ahead and I'm gonna go ahead and I'm gonna go ahead and present what dr. Casillas sent for me to refer you to this evening so as part of

178California's accountability system district performance is measured annually on the state dashboard which includes state and local indicators state indicators are measured through state level data such as CAS l pack and graduation rates local indicators are those where there's no state level data available for these areas the state Board of Education approved local indicators that are used for modeling and promoting the education framework and are based on data gathered and collected by the district these areas include priority one basic services and conditions priority to implementation of state academic standards priority three parent and family engagement priority six school climate and party seven access to broad course of study the other two priority areas are priority nine and ten are only for county offices and therefore do not apply to districts as a district we used input

179from educational partners through student family staff el cap surveys district advisory council meetings and leadership meetings to reflect on each of the identified priority areas you will notice that you will see a lot of similarities to this to the information in our el cap as this information helped influence our goals and actions districts are required to utilize the State Board of Education self-reflection tool and presented to the board when the el cap is being adopted the self-resect sorry the self-reflection results are included in your board packet and will be reported to the state and it will be reflected in the 2025 dashboard that will be released later this year thank you all right Thank You miss Williams we'll turn it over to the board for questions seeing none comments oh yep trustee Guzman so on

180these tables here for the self-reflection there's a scale of one to five and there's a lot of twos and threes some maybe emens from those twos are these values that we see consistently and as a self-reflection like is this where we've been seeing ourselves hit these you know of the academic standards laeством is trends wise do we have any understanding of of where those numbers have been in recent years that's a great question I'd have to go back and look at what the past years are in whichever of those numbers have been in recent years old now since 19 Sunshine Records those Air Teaching students are based What did a 10 West New shotgun Band go from the como del Valle gebracht into California are means that don't bring up to the truck is the

181same what is the situation for engineering as a please Dratos Now let's look at all those lessons ‑‑ 164 A&U clearly the increase concerning each experience impact on our residential천정� sa analysis them okay it depends on which I think families are These are just how we reflected on this year's current reflection tool. But I could get you that information from the past, but I don't have it with me tonight. Just teaching? Well, I just think my observation is the first LCAP was done in around 2014, and I was a parent on that committee. And it's a little disappointing to me that the self-reflection is that we are still in initial implementation of our ELA, Common Core State Standards, our ELD, mathematics. I mean, it says a lot, right? We've been at this for 11 years

182now, and I don't mean to beat a dead horse here, but we ought to take this into consideration of how are we going to get past this? It's like a decade. I think we're pretty harsh on ourselves as well. So, you know, just one year. You're self-reflecting on just where you're at and all your different things. I think our work that we're focused on in the next year, focusing on MTSS and best first instruction, will definitely address those areas that you're talking about. And I would hope setting that foundation, again, like revisiting that and focusing on those priorities within our district and training for our staff will help increase those priority levels across the board. Yeah, this is not. This is not an indictment of staff. This is just more of a commentary to the

183board, which is, you know, I think we need to do more thinking about have we allocated in the LCAP the right allocations to things, for example, because we don't seem to be. Like, for me, the core is, like, the basic is you have to have your teaching aligned with whatever your core curriculum state standards are. And if we're only in the initial implementation, or that's what our perception is by staff, I mean, that says a lot. So we, anyway. When you look at our CASP data and you look how we're performing, you can make that correlation to, like, where we are on that continuum of, like, why would we self-reflect in that matter, correct? Any other questions? Trustee Guzman? No? Okay. All right. Well, this is an information only. Item. Thank you. Moving on to

18414.6, which is an action item approval of the 2526 budget. Mr. Sykes? All right. So I just wanted to give myself a brief introduction, because I believe we do have a couple board members that were not here when I took on this role. So I'm the manager of business services here at Small Value Unified now. I've been here since January. And without further ado, we are once again looking at our proposed budget for the 2526, fiscal year, last shown at the public hearing on the 5th. So the district received the majority of its funding from the local control funding formula. And since we are a basic aid district, the majority of our funding comes from specifically property taxes. And this funding makes up our unrestricted budgets, which was the major focus of our previous presentation.

185Okay. The public hearing. But we also received funding from various federal, state, and local sources, most of which are grants with specific spending requirements. And these constitute our restricted funds. I know it's a little bit difficult to see on the screen here. But so here we have a summary of both sides of the budget, unrestricted and restricted. And we have $57.9 million in revenue. We have $55 million in the unrestricted side, 55 million of which is LCFF funds. And we have $11.2 million in revenue on the restricted side, with $6.6 million in restricted state revenue, and then $1.6 million from the federal government. And I'd like to draw your attention to the line item titled number nine, total expenditures. This reads as $43.3 million, although I would like to draw your attention, as well, to

186the number nine total expenditures. And I'd like to draw your attention, as well, to the section here that says other financing sources. We have $15.5 million in contributions, the majority of which goes to special education. And that brings us to the same deficit spending number that we had presented last time of $920,000, which we also presented in our multiyear projection in the last presentation. The last presentation is projected to recover from that in subsequent years. And speaking of multiyear projections, this is a multiyear projection that includes both our restricted and unrestricted revenues. So across restricted and unrestricted revenues, we are projecting a 1.28% increase between the 25, 26, and 26, 27 fiscal years. And then a 3% increase into 27, 28. Moving on here, we're looking at the first group of expenditures. So we are

187projecting a 2.4% decrease in certificated salaries to 26 to 27. And then 5.63% decrease in classified salaries. And then in the subsequent year, 27 to 28, we're projecting an 0.63% decrease in cost-specific relation to RIPA. That's the same number together. twenty eight slight increases in our numbers for salaries mostly just due to step and column though and then the final group of expenditures here in our multi-year projection we have a lot of things staying mostly the same we have benefits remaining about the same considering the reductions in salaries but then also considering the projected increase in benefits year over year and that same year-over-year increase in benefits projected for twenty seven twenty eight as well and lastly one thing where they have noticed we're not projecting any new capital outlay in the subsequent years twenty

188six twenty seven and twenty seven twenty eight and that concludes my presentation thank you very much I'll turn it over to the board for questions so we have any questions oh so on the last page you've got the ending estimate of any fund balances right which is this sort of essentially the multi-year projection right so ending fund balance at the end of the year 25 26 is going to be two million dollars roughly right and then I'm sorry it's on 370 371 so I'm just saying these numbers in this number these numbers include step and column it includes the closure of an elementary school at a million five right so that puts us in the second year at a four point eight five percent ending fund balance or three point four million so to Jason

189to your you got it even though it's only a small percentage it's so any other questions trustee Ching so I didn't follow your math where do you get this three point four million because I see two point two two four million okay okay okay okay okay oh I see okay by year three we've got five point six million but that's not assuming any contractual labor cost two major assumptions yeah no no no salary increases and one and and then obviously a school closure what to because the first benefit of this current year has has the mirror consolidation and the second year had any other questions trustee I have continued I have a few more questions for Harold so I was looking at the expenditure side of the budget and the benefits I noticed in in

19026 27 in your one of your tables went up by like three percent maybe three point oh eight percent but somehow I don't can't find it in my binder three point five percent is that because the premium you're expecting increases in like the overall cost of the plans or it's because we have more employees or is it a combination of both so it's an increase in the cost of the premiums that's correct and and that's based on kind of what the the plans are giving you now like they've already kind of given you what what the likely premium increases will be like out one year out two years out three years I don't think we have the numbers for those yet but it's based on historical historical right now okay any other questions seeing none

191this is an action item item so if there's no discussion I'm looking for a motion I'll make a motion to approve 14.6 as in the agenda second the motion all in favor all right we are going to move on to 14.7 this is an action item as well approval of the 2526 school plans for student achievement also known as the SPSA and good evening trustees I'll be presenting on behalf of associate superintendent Casillas I do have a statement to share annually the CDE requires schools to develop a school plan for student achievement otherwise known as SPSA which is a plan of actions designed to raise the academic performance of all students sites work with their school site councils and English learner advisory committees elacs to review data progress on towards goals and their actions SPSAs

192were adopted and approved by each school's school site council this past spring just like how our district has the LCAP each school site has their own plan to guide their work to improve student outcomes the individual 2025 26 SPSAs are included in the board packet as attachments for your review I also have them here with me if you'd like to take a quick look at gander and we are asking for the board to approve these SPSAs this evening thank you mr. Knox and I'll bring it back to the board for questions any questions from the board no that's all I have. Thank you. Seeing none any comments all right looking for a motion I'll make a motion to approve 14.7 as listed in the agenda second I second thank you all in favor aye all

193right moving along 14.8 action approval of change order Altamira middle school voluntary seismic upgrades phase 1 PC01 DSA approval changes yes members of the board during the DSA review and approval DSA identified some changes that need to be made our construction manager today is here if you have any specific questions but in these are changes that we had originally planned on phase 2 but DSA is requiring us to do them as phase 1 and so we have are requesting approval of the amendment to the original contract all right thank you any questions from the board trustee Guzman if this were to have stayed in phase 2 do we have a sense of the escalation between now and when that work would have occurred hi I what we've been looking at in escalation it's kind of

194a moving target right now with a lot of this going on the numbers we used to use were you know before between four six percent and hard years we're looking at eight to twelve to fifteen percent I'm a little skeptical about that but this is just an example of what we've had to do think about what the system and the state have done before a lot of the studies that we've looked at this year and are these things are these projects that we have to consider and as a result nothing seems to have been done particularly well for our There's a little bit of added scope that we'll have to do next year again by taking down the soffits. But in general, doing this work just means it's not part of what we were going

195to have to do next year. I don't know if that answers your question, really. It would cost a lot more. It would definitely cost somewhere in between 8% to 15% anyway. Yeah, thank you. So it's kind of fortuitous that it was accelerated and we're seeing some savings from that work. And it means we're adding more structural stability to these three classroom buildings this year rather than next year. And I think the last time we talked about all this, there was a question, can we just do it all this summer? I think that's a positive as well. Awesome. Thank you. Any other questions? Trustee Ching? Yeah, I was wondering if you could. Could you explain in lay terms what soffit is and what the split beams are? Like, I didn't really understand all of that. And

196then I have some financial questions. Absolutely. Just explain how this is additional to the supports that were originally proposed for Phase 1. So Phase 1 was really just taking apart the covered walkways that connected the buildings, right? So you have three buildings connected by covered walkways, so they all move together. Removing those covered walkways. We allowed those buildings to move independently. That was pretty much the scope of Phase 1. What now we're doing is all the way around the perimeter of those buildings, so all three of them, there are beams that basically are at the top of the wall. Those beams, you know, lumber only comes in so long a length. They have splices. They have joints. Those joints are not reinforced to what DSA wants us to do. So we're putting these big metal

197brackets on there, tying those beams together so they're now more structural. They're now more structurally connected all the way around the building, which means we have to take the underside that is a finished panel off to get there to do that and then put the panels back up. Does that answer your question? Yeah. That's much clearer. I didn't imagine that when I read it, so that's very helpful. And is this going to actually delay the completion? No, it's not going to delay the completion of the work for Phase 1. No. But there will be no covered walkways, right? for covered walkways already gone they've been demolished oh they have okay and so just like when we approved the first phase one it was in the six hundred thousand dollar ballpark this change order is 375

198on top of that correct and i don't remember seeing like an estimate uh did did you or did anyone provide like a what what we roughly think uh phase two is going to look like because i'm just trying to track like do we hopefully like do we have enough money are we going to have enough money when phase two starts so um we initially when we put this project this first phase together we thought the cost was going to come in roughly somewhere between 7 15 a million that was sort of the budget we put together obviously came in under that we ended up having to do this we're going to use more of that phase two we've estimated somewhere between six and eight um the engineers were actually just on site taking the money

199and then we're going to use it for the next phase and then we're going to use the money and then we're going to use it for the next phase and then we're going to use it for the next phase and then we're going to use it for the next phase and then we're going to use it for the next phase doing a lot of investigation while kids are gone once we have a better idea of what actually has to be done i think we might be able to hone in on that number a little bit that's why it's a wide range but okay and my question is how much what do you know offhand what the roughly up the outstanding bond funds are any other questions no seeing this as an action item just looking

200for a motion i make a motion to approve 14.8 as listed on the agenda is there a second a second all in favor aye aye thank you so much it's in the price thank you for staying and waiting to appreciate that 14.9 this is an action item as well approval of notice of award and contract and contract for altamira blacktop project jd engineering and mistakes so last month or a couple weeks ago this board meeting last board meeting we brought this forward and the question was what would it cost to tear it down grind it and redo it and it's roughly between 1.2 and 1.5 million dollars but if we were to do a complete tear down and resurface that would trigger some dsa ada improvements to i think it's 20 isn't it so that

201would make it significantly much more expensive yeah it would give you 20 years but it's a lot more expensive so if the board wants to move forward with this project we're asking for approval of of the reward of the contract i know trustee bell has asked if we could reduce the scope there is a little section where we could reduce the scope of but that would probably only save us about twenty thousand dollars does this factor in um replacement of the backboards or any sort of netting or anything like that no it's just just blacktop stripes if the board wants to wait to see how much bond money we have left because this is out of bonds funds um that's something that we can do next year when we have more time as well could

202we possibly paint it for the kiddos this year i mean is that an option no well we could redo the striping sorry sorry paint the lines yeah we can do the restriping and what's that maybe five thousand now yeah and just to be clear this is not a slurry this is a this is an asphalt overlay yeah i'm sorry yeah yeah um and we could um we could go out and we could easily under cupca get a a price to repaint um part of this also included just fyi there are four ball walls that are there and this uh included removing those and patching where they were built so that they had more asphalt area than they have now and more supervision yeah but yes we could absolutely go out and get a a repainting

203price you know so in my mind we've obviously need to make sure that we've got enough money for the seismic work first of all and then we've also got to get to make sure we've got enough money for consolidation and you know the elementary school consolidation do we have to do anything as it relates to that um as well as you know i think that in in just chatting briefly with laura hoven and shelly ryan it's like maybe we should postpone this we could do it in a school break in the future but get more buy-in and input from everybody when they're on campus and we're back and okay what do we do because i think one of the things is that the replacement of the backboards for the basketball is probably more important and

204is more important than you know resealing the whole thing you know so new lines and new backboards the kids are not going to be that fussed in terms of the quality of the asphalt so i think that we need to kind of put a little pause on i don't think it's a huge rush and then we'll see what happens but i think it's a huge push to do that and i think that's a big step to make sure that we're not just going to have to wait and see what happens but to do it in a way that's going to be a little bit more flexible and i think that's a big step to make sure that we're going to have a lot of input from when everybody's back on campus and say hey guys

205we've got now this much money left what do you guys really want to do here and let them kind of give us the input so my vote would be to postpone this and do that to wait get input and figure out you know basketball and move forward with this i think it's the right decision now and for the next five years if you hear the yeah i understand the concern about elementary school consolidation and what happens you know 18 months from now um but all of our all of our schools that were currently operating we're not hearing these um i think facilities complaints coming out of them today we knew the seismic upgrades were needed uh you know according to the at least for the conversation today we actually have a buffer um well in

206excess of three hundred thousand dollars um for bond money so it's just a question of do we want it for this or do we want to save it and we want to do we need a fund for something later in time like i i mean i think it's it's the right signal for our community and the investment making making this investment in the middle school i do agree just in in passing hearing that backboards are needed and some you know some additional uh you can call it games or activities which you know i know we have a facilities fund as well like and i don't know the cost of that is not going to be a hundred thousand dollars so i i'm probably leaning towards saying yes and and moving forward with this thank you

207trustee jane your goose one uh i think trustee bell made a good point tying back into um the previous item of the the change order uh moving on the structural improvements as part of the seismic renovation is there's a lot of uncertainty period with the construction environment right now but particularly with with that seismic project and having dsa involved we changed what was approved and and are required to do additional work and there's nothing to say that wouldn't happen again as part of the phase two work and so there's you know we have this front load of the work that we just discussed um for uh the front loaded to phase one and so i am concerned that um we won't leave ourselves enough buffer um for those uh uncertainties there um and uh and

208i guess could you clarify uh for this particular scope for the blacktop um in terms of the expected lifespan yeah i think we figured i mean again we're not removing the existing there are cracks um there are holes in the ground we're not removing any of the old the old there's a lot of i think of pollution that we're going to see as it's a lot like this it so um it's only a 10 inch. five years is a reasonable expectation the cracks are eventually going to show through yeah i have a question you've been doing this for 30 years like do we have enough of a buffer to prove this or are we going to be really constrained potentially next summer for the phase two like what where are we in europe i just

209don't know what the cost of construction is going to be that's what scares me personally and how much is left to do i mean we move we front loaded just a little bit of work up 100 000 or you know just approved but sorry sorry if i could add to that too one of my nervousnesses is what are we going to find when we go into these next set of buildings i mean again we found some conduits that weren't where they were supposed to be when we took the covered walkways down they were in a concealed covered walkway we're having to reroute those that's that would be my concern is um one of the things you know you don't know what you don't know until you get into it so buffer and construction construction for

210me is always a positive so what is our buffer today going into that into phase two again it's it's it's minimal i mean if you take this project and that project again that project our number isn't really there so that's my concern like if we start the project closer to eight and we find something yeah versus if we start the project at six and find something and i just don't know yet so part of also my conversation with lauren and shelley is the other aspect of it is okay i get the the need for the um asphalt on the the blacktop and the playing ground but i you know i went to school on the weekend and i walked around and i took a hard look at everything and you know that whole place needs

211some beautification and so then if we did have three or four or five hundred grand left over and that then is the priority going to change in four months or six months and then there's an evaluation and we say well look because there's a whole lot of blacktop all around the buildings that's in terrible shape as well right and so to me i just think that if this is not super necessary it's still usable for a period of time i think we get buy-in from the new school combined and everybody and staff and things like that when we know we've got the money and then we make the decision as to is it the blacktop or is it something else or whatever it is i that would be my cautious brain um on this one

212thank you any other comments i'm just leaning towards putting a pause on this and waiting um i think it's a good idea to get the kids involved in some of the decision making and thinking about you know if you had a fixed resources what would you beautify first and would you have you know a smaller footprint maybe you just have you you repaint a certain section because it's when i've gone out there to recess and and watch the kids they're hardly any i mean i realize it's still half the the um the enrollment that it's going to be um but there's very little usage like it's never it doesn't feel crowded whatsoever you know so i don't even know what the what the usage would be of that huge space okay so at this point

213i think we have said what we can say do you have anything to add no okay so this is an action item um is there a motion to approve and or is there a motion to postpone to a later date for review all right seeing no motion we are going to let it die thank you thank you all right so 14.10 our last item on the regular agenda it's an action item approval of easement agreements with towerpoint regarding sale of telecommunications tower leases yes members of the board want to have to apologize for getting this to you so late we have added it to the agenda have we added though or we're going to add it to to the minutes um we didn't get the final approved agreements until probably close to four o'clock today

214the um the draft redlined versions were presented to you at the last meeting and we were able to negotiate some of the changes that we had made in the last meeting and we were able to negotiate some of the changes that we had made in the last meeting and we were able to negotiate some of the changes that changes that we had proposed the other ones that we didn't agree to they weren't significant so we're asking for approval of the um easement with tpa6 llc or formerly otherwise known as towerpoint for the sale of the leases of cell towers okay thank you any questions from the board Trustee Ching? COMMISSIONER WRIGHT- I was wondering, in the motion, can we also restrict the funds from the sale, or that has to come at a separate agenda

215item? COMMISSIONER WRIGHT- Typically, we restrict those. I would recommend restricting or committing fund balance at unaudited actuals, which will be presented in September, October. So I would do it at that point. COMMISSIONER WRIGHT- So I'd make a motion to approve the easement agreement with TPA 6, LLC for the properties located at 18751 Railroad Avenue, Sonoma, California, 95476 and 2000 Broadway, Sonoma, California, 95476, and to authorize the acting superintendent, Rena Sifes, to act on behalf of the district to close the contracts. COMMISSIONER WRIGHT- Is there a second? COMMISSIONER WRIGHT- Second. COMMISSIONER WRIGHT- All in favor? COMMISSIONER WRIGHT- Aye. COMMISSIONER WRIGHT- Aye. COMMISSIONER WRIGHT- Aye. COMMISSIONER WRIGHT- Aye. COMMISSIONER WRIGHT- Aye. COMMISSIONER WRIGHT- Aye. COMMISSIONER WRIGHT- Aye. COMMISSIONER WRIGHT- Aye. COMMISSIONER WRIGHT- Aye. COMMISSIONER WRIGHT- Aye. COMMISSIONER WRIGHT- Aye. COMMISSIONER WRIGHT- Aye. COMMISSIONER WRIGHT- Aye. COMMISSIONER WRIGHT-

216Aye. COMMISSIONER WRIGHT- Aye. COMMISSIONER WRIGHT- Aye. COMMISSIONER WRIGHT- Aye. COMMISSIONER WRIGHT- Aye. COMMISSIONER WRIGHT- Aye. COMMISSIONER WRIGHT- Aye. COMMISSIONER WRIGHT- Aye. COMMISSIONER WRIGHT- Aye. COMMISSIONER WRIGHT- Aye. COMMISSIONER WRIGHT- Aye. COMMISSIONER WRIGHT- Aye. Item 15. The board recognizes the value of public comment on educational issues and provides us time for members of the audience to address the board on any school-related matter not on this agenda. The board can take no action at this time. Each speaker is requested to identify themselves prior to addressing the board and to limit comments to three minutes. Did we have someone in the room? All right, we have a number one. Please identify yourself. Good evening. My name is Lee Cavalier. Are you going to put a clock on? Oh, is it here? Okay. With Adele and Altamira Middle Schools consolidating

217this fall, many families are deeply concerned because there's no visible transition plan from the district. Nothing on the website, no clear communication with parents and students about how this merger will be handled in a safe, thoughtful, and supportive way. Students have said that during last spring's campus tour when Adele's students were bused to Altamira, a fight broke out between the students. Parents say the incident was never addressed by staff or the district. Since then, anxiety has only grown. Some students have sought counseling to deal with the changes they face in the fall. This matters. So I'm asking, what is the district doing to make this transitional successful, not just logistical, but emotionally and socially as well? How are you planning to calm students' fears? How will you help students resolve differences peacefully? And what are

218you doing to build shared school identity and culture? This is the first question. This is not just a facilities change. It's a major cultural shift, and it requires more logistics than, oh, I'm sorry, yeah, logistics. It needs leadership, empathy, and a clear plan grounded in real emotional needs of students you serve. So if a plan exists, share it. If not, start building one. The first day of school will be here before we know it. And I've had people say that they want better communication. I don't know if you guys can do Parent Square. A lot of people are on that. They get their hands on it. They get their information on that. And I only have one suggestion for your consolidation process. Read A.G. Bonta's A.B. 1912. Sorry, that's not on the agenda. Just read

219it. That's on the agenda. Thank you for your comments. Are there comments in the room? And we'll go online. None? All right. Fantastic. We can go on to board reports and or if we could just email them. How are we feeling about that? I'd love some direction. Do we have any reports that are urgent? Okay. No? All right. Moving on to future agenda items. Are we comfortable emailing those to Ms. Seif's or would you like to mention them right now? No? Email? Okay. Great. All right. Well, that concludes our meeting. We will adjourn at, I can't say that, 945. Have a good evening, everybody.