001Gauge the timing for public comment to ensure that everyone has an opportunity to speak So if you have two of these which it looks like people may If you could just bring them to the podium and we'll collect them. That would be great. Thank you All right, well, thank you We are going to Reconvene an open session reporting in progress. That's okay at approximately 6 o 4 p.m at this time I would like to report that there is no reportable action on all closed session items for this evening. If we could do roll call, please, Michelle. Trustee Bell? Here. Trustee Ching? Here. Trustee Guzman? Here. Trustee Landry? Here. Trustee Lehman? Here. Awesome. And please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance. All right. At this time, I'm looking for a motion to approve
002the agenda tonight. I would like to move to approve the agenda with the following amendment. I would like to move item number three to be number one, and I would like to move item nine to be number two. All right. There's a motion on the table. Is there a second with the spoken amendment? A second. At this time, we'll take a vote. All in favor? Aye. Aye. All right, this evening we have our interpreter George here with us, with language people. Where is George? Is he out there? Can he hear us? George, if you're out there, can you make an announcement please? Thank you so much. Thank you so much. All right, at this time, we have a student presentation from the students at Presswood Elementary School. Good evening. I'm Laura Thomas. I'm the principal
003here at Presswood School, and I have this evening second, third, fourth, and fifth grade students to share with you a little bit about our school. You'll also see on the TV and on the screen some pictures of our journey this year. We've had quite a fun year, so I hope you enjoy. Super Independent chain and CVUSD board members. We are so excited to be here this evening to share with you some of our favorite things about Presswood School. Presswood School is home to 300 preschool through fifth grade students. This year we are celebrating our 75th anniversary. This evening we will be sharing with you an acrostic poem about Presswood. We hope you enjoy it. P stands for proud. P stands for proud. Just as our school song says, we are proud to go to Presswood
004School. Every day we come to school ready to learn and do our best. We are proud of our school, our classmates, and ourselves. Our teachers help us set goals and we work hard to reach them. Being proud means showing confidence in who we are, taking responsibility for our learning, and always trying our personal best. We are proud of our teachers. We are proud of our teachers who come to school every day to help us learn and create a welcoming space for us to learn. R stands for respectful and responsible. At Presswood, we have three school-wide expectations. Be safe, be respectful, and be responsible. This means we take care of ourselves and others and our school community. Being responsible means making good choices, being honest, completing our work. and taking ownership of our actions. Being respectful
005means treating everyone with kindness, using polite words, and listening when others are speaking and valuing our differences, whether we're in class or on the playground. We show that we care through our words and actions. E stands for excited. Presswood students are excited to learn and have curious minds. Every challenge we face, we never give up and are always ready to take a risk. Our teachers always remind us to stay curious, ask questions, and believe in ourselves. believe in ourselves. We know that learning is an adventure and we are excited to explore and learn new ideas every day. Next year in fourth grade, I am looking forward to going to outdoor ed and learning about the Gold Rush. S stands for students. At Prestwood School, we have students of all ages. We have preschool students from
006Ms. Sherman's ESN preschool class all the way up to fifth grade students, Ms. Hernandez and Ms. Mignone's class. One of my favorite activities at Presswood is the jog-a-thon when our whole school walks over to the high school track. Students of all ages enjoy running laps and participating in this fun event. I also enjoy spending time with my classmates both in the classroom and at recess time. Each school year, I get to know my classmates more and more. In a few weeks, I'm looking forward to having my last field day at Prestwood and celebrating promotion to middle school. T stands for together. We learn and grow every school day. Each day, our classes cheer each other on and celebrate. Celebrate individual student success every morning our class starts the day with a morning meeting. We all
007gather together in a circle, greet each other with smiles and share how we're feeling. Sometimes we play a quick game or do a fun activity to get our brains ready for learning. Our teacher tells us what our school day will be like and what they have planned. We have a class discussion about how to be kind, respectful, and do our best. Morning meetings help us feel like a team and start the day in a happy, calm way. We work individually and together as a team. My teacher reminds us to never give up. At Prestwood, we are also encouraged to try our best in everything we do. Whether we're learning in class or playing outside, working hard means paying attention, trying and trying even when it's tough, and helping each other out. We're proud of the
008effort we put in because we know that doing our best helps us grow and reach our goals. O stands for open to new ideas. At Presswood School, we believe that learning happens when you try something new and take a risk. Being open to new ideas and challenges means being curious, doing new things, and not giving up when something feels difficult. It's about asking questions and listening to others' perspectives. Sometimes you might make mistakes, but that's okay. Every mistake is a chance to learn. Whether it's tackling a tricky math problem, working on a group project, learning a new skill, Presswood students show courage and creativity by staying open-minded and ready to take on whatever comes our way. O stands for Out of This World Awesome. Presswood students are out of this world awesome. Each of us
009is unique with our own talents, interests, and strengths, and that makes our school so special. We celebrate what makes... us different and lift each other up. Beginning awesome means showing kindness, helping others, doing our best and bringing a positive attitude every day. Whether we're solving math problems, reading a new story, working on our writing skills, creating art or being a good friend, Presswood students shine bright and make a difference together. We are a team. D stands for determined determined at Presswood being determined means never giving up even when things get tough we face challenges With courage we keep trying until we succeed Determination is about setting goals staying focused and believing in ourselves whether we're learning some Something new solving a difficult problem or working on a project Presswood students keep going with grit and
010perseverance. We know that hard work and a positive mindset help us grow. With determination, we turn I can't into I can. Thank you for inviting us to tell you about Presswood School at the school board meeting tonight. We hope you enjoyed our Presswood poem. At the end of our assemblies, we sing our school song together as a Presswood community. We will now share with you our school song that we sing to the tune of Yankee Doodle. If you know the words, you are invited to sing along with us. Our golden feet study, that's cause Panther Power rolls. Proud to go to Presswood School. Proud to go to Presswood School. Proud to go to Presswood School. Let's cheer for the Golden Blues. Thank you so much, Ms. Thomas and all of these amazing Presswood Panthers. We
011appreciate you being here and we're very proud of you. Thank you. All right, at this time we're going to move on to our reports. So I would like to introduce our new student voice for this following school year and currently sitting next to us today, Miss Anu Haya. Hello, my name is Anuhea Breeland and I'm here to speak on Kendall's behalf as she is unable to make it tonight. I want to briefly introduce myself. I'm a 17 year old junior at Sonoma Valley High School and I've been elected to be next school year's student voice. I'm very honored to have been chosen for this position and while I've never done anything quite like this before, I've always been passionate about advocating for myself and my peers. I hope to bring lots of positive change to
012Sonoma Valley High. throughout the 2025-2026 school year. As someone who has struggled with school in the past and overcame many obstacles independently, one of my main goals is to try and make Sonoma Valley High a safe and enjoyable place for everyone to learn. And with that, I believe that communication between our student body and admin is one of the most important things. My slate and I look forward to sharing more of our ideas while incorporating lots of the student body in making these changes. I appreciate this opportunity and I look forward to sharing some of my goals and ideas throughout. the next school year. I'm now going to read a message from Kendall. Hello everyone. I'm unable to make it to the board meeting today because I was invited to speak at a Women in
013Leadership conference. I'm happy to have Anuhea Breeland, next year's Slate student voice, speak on my behalf. On Monday, leadership hosted a Cinco de Mayo celebration and there was music, a pinata, and games. Additionally, this week was Teacher Appreciation Week. Thank you so much to all of the Snowmobile Unified School District teachers for everything you do. At the high school, leadership made a video and is providing Otter Pops. Additionally, admin gave out chocolate and appreciation notes. Parents provided sweet scoops and the Education Foundation is bringing sandwiches tomorrow. This week has also been AP testing and students have been working all year to prepare. Thank you to our teachers and staff serving as proctors and all the support. Prom is this Saturday, May 10th, in Roanert Park from 7 to 10 p.m. And the theme is Great
014Gatsby. Leadership has been dedicated to finding beautiful decorations, catering, and a DJ. I hope everyone has a great time. Also, this week, Snow Valley High School hosted the annual art show on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, where students in photography, metal shop, art, and ceramics... And graphic designs and other electives displayed their artwork and sold some as well. Thank you to everyone that supported the students and purchased artwork. Senior week is coming up within the next two weeks and students will be visiting their elementary, middle schools, Six Flags, decorating their graduation caps, and getting to enjoy senior picnic and movie. Graduation will be on May 30th. Remember to show up and support our hardworking students in everything they've accomplished at 6 o'clock. Anyone that does not have a ticket can come in starting at 5.30. Finally,
015remember that Classified Appreciation Week is next week to show the love for our staff. campus supervisors, cafeteria workers, and other members. Thank you to the community and the district for including me on this board and allowing me to speak freely about my concerns and opinions. After I leave, I hope you guys will make the changes I've asked for, such as to include more students in decision-making, communication with the teachers and staff appropriately, and put the children first. I am excited to announce that I will be attending the University of Santa Cruz this fall and studying environmental science. with a minor in sustainability. I am proud of Slate 4 for winning this year's election and I know they will do a great job. Thank you. Thank you and welcome. Congratulations Kendall. All right our next report
016is from our VMTA. Good evening. Good evening school board trustees, Superintendent Dr. Chen and the Sonoma Lake community. I am Laura Hoban, a math teacher at Adele Harrison Middle School and co-president of the union, alongside Dennis Hausman, a physical education teacher at Sonoma Valley High School and co-president of the union. We remain honored to have served the educators, staff, and students of this district during some of the most challenging times in our history. This year has tested us all. The resignation of our superintendent under controversial circumstances and her desire to be close to family has left many with questions and few clear answers. As schools close and communities are disrupted, we continue to grapple with the real human impact of decisions that are never easy. Of particular concern is the consolidation of our two remaining
017middle schools, a process that was meant to be strategic and unifying, but has instead exposed cracks in our planning and communication. It has caused strain on families, confusion among staff, and uncertainty for our students. To the school board, I strongly encourage you to have teachers, administrators, and community involved in the hiring of the next superintendent. Yet in the midst of all of this we have seen the unwavering strength of our people. I want to say I was not reelected so you don't have to hear Dennis Hausman co-president of the VMTA anymore. You may not have people reminding you of the Brown Act or the importance of hearing public comments, but I hope you do. I mean I remain profoundly honored to have served the educators, the staff, and the students of the district during some
018of the most challenging times in our history. I want to express my sincere thanks to the teachers, to the staff, to the administrators, despite difficult decisions and public scrutiny have continued to show up each and every day committed to our students. To the Executive Secretaries Michelle Quinerez and before her, Kira Holvich, your support, your diligence and grace behind the scenes have kept the wheels turning in helping our district's mission. To our teachers and staff, you have remained the heartbeat of this district. Your professionalism, your courage, and the care you reminded us all what we do this work for. Your voices have pushed us to be better, even when change seems slow. And to our families and the community members, thank you. Your advocacy and partnership have helped ensure that our public schools remain grounded in
019equity, in transparency, and in hope. Although I step aside from this role, I remain a proud member of this union and committed to advocate for the public education. I trust that the new leadership will rise to meet the moment, to listen more deeply, and to carry forward the work we've begun together. Thank you all for allowing me this privilege to lead. I'm grateful beyond any measure. Thank you. Thank you both very much. All right, next we have CSCA. Good evening. My name is Terry Hernandez, and I am speaking on behalf of Andrea Dealey, our president of CSEA Chapter 376. The end of another school year. It feels like it flew by. As we begin the month of May, CSEA members would like to say we appreciate you to the teachers and thank them along with
020the classified employees educating the students of Sonoma Valley Unified School District. May 19th through the 23rd is Classified School Employees Week. This week is used to acknowledge all the dedicated classified employees throughout the state. So please thank a classified employee for all their hard work. We are in the market for yet another superintendent. As a CSEA member, we like to recruit from within. We should also look for within our next superintendent. We are very lucky that we live in a tight-knit community where we have a lot of talented people who could fill those shoes. Our district cannot afford to waste taxpayer money on a headhunter. As history has shown us, it has been a complete failure. How many superintendents have we gone through since 2017? At least five, if I think maybe eight. All using
021a headhunter at taxpayer expense. We need someone who is invested in our community. Have families here and students in our schools. Keep the search within the community. Thank you. Next we have our police chief, Chief Cuddy. Good evening, trustees, superintendent, student voice, staff. lots of community members thank you for the time to speak in front of you So the last month since our last meeting, I'm very happy to report yet again, we've had no incidents at the high school which have required law enforcement's emergency response, meaning there's been no fights or significant incidents, which is amazing. That I would say your staff and the student body have done an amazing job this year of focusing on learning at the schools and getting away from the outside influences. Walking away from that for a second to
022talk about the out-of-school incidents that are taking place that are leading to some concerns for law enforcement and the community, and I think awareness needs to be raised about it again, is we're starting to see, and I'll kind of go back to the beginning of the year, we started seeing gang tagging. X4, X3, if you don't know, northerners and southerners in this community are the largest gang representation we have. X3 is Southerner, X4 is Norteno. And they follow that. We've seen it throughout the school year. We've seen it for many, many years. This is not a new thing in the Valley, in Sonoma County, in Northern California. But we're seeing an increase. And I bring that up because on April 15th, which was a Tuesday, At 8.20 in the morning in Santa Rosa, there was
023a student waiting for the bus, city bus, to get to the school. And he was jumped by four kids, technically two, who actually physically assaulted him. The subject was stabbed multiple times, was taken to the hospital, and luckily is surviving those injuries. Two of the students were, two of these young people, 15 years old, were arrested for the stabbing. and they are being charged with attempt murder and they're in juvenile hall. Those two students are actually Sonoma Valley students, or were, excuse me, let me be clear. One of them still lives in the Sonoma Valley and the other one has moved, but they were both students out here in our district and they are no longer students in our district. And I bring that up because when students or when kids, youth, are in an
024area and they leave our area and they go represent the gang. oftentimes they represent the area they came from and my concern is that those actions that took place in Santa Rosa will represent the Sonoma Valley Norteños because it was they were both affiliated with the Norteños and that that will come back to the Sonoma Valley and reputation and cause increase in rivalry between the northerners and the southerners in our area. Last Thursday night, we had a fairly substantial youth fight on Highway 12 near Flowery. It actually was in three separate locations because there was a group of about 15 kids that assaulted three kids. And two of those ended up in the hospital with minor injuries. I bring this up again. I'm not trying to be negative, and I apologize. It may sound that
025way. But I really think that we as a community need to step up. understand what the kids are going through, and try to design and develop some programs so families can be aware of these influences and can have more impact on their kids and prevent this from becoming a true problem here as we have had in the many, many years past. I don't want to have any increased violence, especially through the summer months. And based on what we're seeing, we're seeing a trend in that way, and I would like to stop it. And to do that... requires this very large crowd behind me to step up and make sure that students know that there are alternatives and there's behavioral plans that we can put in place. Aside from that, we're stepping into the summer and
026I'm really looking forward to those last few weeks of the school being as the rest of the year has been, an excellent school year. Kids doing what they're supposed to do, graduating when they're coming up, and the ones that aren't graduating, preparing for next year and getting even better grades and doing even better in school. And we are hoping to continue our relationship with the district and with the schools. And through that, we know we have amazing communication, and I think we're doing a great job together. Thank you. Thank you, Chief Cunning. At this time, we're going to move to our superintendent report. Dr. Chin. I just have a few things to highlight and then also some reminders to our public in our community so the first thing I wanted to highlight was the community
027opening or the ribbon cutting opening of the north bay children's center over at sasarini i don't know if people are aware but we have an infant toddler program now available for our community i know that there's been a lack of child care services for our families and the north bay children's center stepped up and we had a because we're Servicing our TK students our four-year-olds They shifted to now serve infant and toddler students So if anybody's interested in childcare and thinking about early education We do have that program now at sasarini so you can contact the North Bay Children's Center We also had this last week at our high school a senior awards event And at that event we highlighted and recognized many, many students for their academic achievement, for their sports accomplishments, and some
028of their CTE work. We also had a lot of students receive scholarships. And I just want to thank our community partners who stepped up and provided lots and lots of scholarships to our students so that they can finance their next steps in their education. An invitation goes out to everyone. We're going to be having a Special Olympics event tomorrow at Altamira beginning at 1130. If you're not aware of what that event is, it's a program that I think it's been going on now for a number of years where our students with disabilities go out and they literally participate in... athletic events and people are there to cheer them on. It's a really great opportunity for them to highlight their sportsmanship and they work along the Altamira peers. So everyone is again welcome to come and
029join that event. The other reminder is we're going to be having also culminating activities and obviously a graduation at our high school. So if any of you are interested in participating in any of those culminating events or our graduation, please look at the school's newsletters. They'll have specific locations and dates and times so that you can participate as we celebrate our students as they move on to the... Elementary school to the middle the middle of the high school and then obviously our high school graduating to either college or career And then the other thing I wanted to just say is that school ends at the end of this month. And so our students are going to go off on break. Parents, you're going to have them at home. Some of the students are eligible for
030summer school. So if your student is eligible for summer school, make sure that they confirm that. And for those students who are just going to have a good time this summer, make sure that you enjoy that. And so again, just wishing everyone the best of luck with their future endeavors and have a wonderful summer. So thank you. Thank you, Dr. Tin. All right, at this point in time, we are going to move on to communications, the board via public comment. So I'm going to go ahead and read this. The board provides this time for public comment under board bylaws this time is an opportunity for comment on items listed on the meeting agenda if you would like to make a comment about an item which is not on the agenda but still within the board's
031jurisdiction there is a separate time at the end of the meeting to do so. If you want to comment at this time and are in the room, please take a numbered card if you have not. If you are on Zoom, please raise your virtual hand on Zoom now. This allows us to determine the number of speakers for timing purposes. In most cases, everyone will be given three minutes for their comment, and the comment period will be limited to 30 minutes. However, if we have a large number of speakers, which it seems that we do, I may change these times with the consent of my fellow board members. So I'm going to just take a moment, and if there is anyone else in the room who would like to make public comment who did not... give
032us the other part of their number card and the color is green please bring it up to us right now and if you are online i ask you to please raise your hand this is the only time i will be calling for public comment online which means we will be writing down your name as it appears and we will be referencing this list when we get to the public comment for online so we will not be allowing additional people to add right Michelle roughly how many do we have? Well, I'm just wondering how many additional out there. So we originally and then you give us a tell let's see how many all right, so All right. Well you wouldn't mind writing their names down. So we have four Public comments online and I'm gonna announce
033your names just for reference But if this is not necessarily the time to speak so Michelle, what are the names of the people? We will be allowing when their time Okay, so we have Josette date Kalia David and Angelica and then we have approximately 26 in the room so at this point in time I would like to ask my board to approve to limit the time for public comment to a minute and 30 seconds but to allow for all people who have asked to make public comment to do so tonight is there yes Well, I just need, we don't need a motion. I just would need consensus. We need consensus. I agree. Okay. So at this time, we are going to limit public comment to each person for a minute and 30 seconds. But everyone
034in the room who's requested to speak will have an opportunity to do so. When you do come up to speak. but well I would just say before we get started I want to ask that when it is your turn please introduce yourself by name and let us know which item on the agenda you will be addressing also for those in the room just for efficiency please line up at the podium as your number approaches so at this time we're going to start with public comment in the room and if you are number one please come to the podium Thank you, I don't know what I honestly don't know which item but my name is Alita Matthews And I think you'll know what you item as soon as I start speaking So I'm an Alvarado teacher
035a parent of two children who attend flowery school and have been a member of the Sonoma community for 45 years I'm speaking today out of concern over the proposal to move flowery elementary to a different site as part of the school consolidation process I understand the need to address our districts budget issues and the overall declining enrollment I do not understand the proposal to uproot and disrupt two entire elementary school communities. Flowery's dual immersion program works in part due to its location and the community it serves. I'm concerned that you're making this decision without having had honest and informative conversations with teachers, staff, and possibly administration of Flowery, the experts of the dual immersion program. I also wonder why you have not reached out to Flowery families to get feedback on their interest in remaining
036in the program if the school were to move. Having taught at Dunbar for 15 years, I can tell you firsthand that neighborhood schools matter. Being able to walk or ride your bike to school matters. Attending school functions with your family matters. It's what builds community and connection. Being the overflow school, many Dunbar students were bused from the Boy Springs and Agua Caliente areas. This distance negatively affected parent and family participation, including ELAC and site council meetings, school-wide events, and classroom volunteers. Our students were subjected also every afternoon and morning to an hour-long bus ride rather than, they only lived 10 minutes away, but they were on the bus for up to two hours a day. Moving flowery to a central physical location such as Sessarini means taking it away from the center of the heat
037map. Thank you so much for your comments. Number two. Good evening. My name is Brian Shepherd, lifelong resident, former board member, addressing the proposal to close an elementary school. My kids all went through these schools. I went through these schools graduated from Sonoma High School in 73 and My grandson this year started at the dual immersion program at flowery Sitting on the board before I was it's a tough job process is always important and I I'm challenging you to improve the process of your decision making, to look a little bit closer. I haven't had much time. I haven't heard much about this. It seems to be somewhat of a surprise to myself and other community people I've spoken to. And that the study that everybody did, it's just a matrix. It's just pure numbers. And
038there's no... you know, reality of what is community, what is disruption going to happen, and the fact that I have read about the facilities, that Flowery is the worst facility, therefore that's... A reason for it to go away is not a good reason. It's no fault of Flowery that previous boards did not choose to send money to them. Thank you for your comments, Mr. Shepherd. Number three, please. All right. No, number three turned in. Okay. So just again, a reminder, if you're next in line, if you want to go ahead and as the time is going to get behind the person speaking, it will just help with efficiency. Thank you. Hello. I'm Carrie Cambio, and I've put in several years substitute teaching, and I have a parent of three kids who went through the district,
039and I spent 20 years teaching at Alvarado School. I'm retired now. When I started out and getting interest in Sonoma Valley Schools, it was the time of my issues about consolidation. But when I began, we had too many students, and we were talking about moving students, the sixth grades, to Altamira, which was a big change. So I have dealt and grappled with these kinds of big issues before with this district. And I just wanted to give my insights about how to approach this. Like Mr. Shepard, I didn't realize it was going on until kind of late in the game, so some of these things you may have already been doing it this way. We need to find a solution that can unify us because we are a unified school district. We need to make sure
040that we take community input seriously. and clearly communicate the rationale behind whatever decisions we're making. It does feel like things are getting kind of sprung on people, and I'm wondering if we're really listening to the people who have already been working on the consolidation committee closely enough. Thank you for your comment, Ms. Cambio. Also, please. Number three, please. Okay. Or excuse me, number four. Thank you. President Landry, could I just make a suggestion? So we're on a truncated timeline for people who aren't able to finish their comments that we welcome them to email them to us so that we can read the full statement. Thank you. Hi, my name is Anne-Marie Spastiani. I actually have two topics I'd like to address, so I feel a little weird that I only have a minute 30 to
041address two. I'm a longtime educator, counselor, parent, mom, community member here. I just want to say the location, location, location, that is the fabric of why the... the success of the dual immersion program at flowery works it is an enveloped in a dual immersion community that is why it works so when you pluck it out of a dual immersion community it loses its impact its effectiveness and its cachet my second thing is that i want to talk about the dismissal of one of the high school counseling positions i've had the privilege now being a high school counselor here at the high school And honestly, what I've come to understand my role is that I'm an advocate and I help all my students access free and appropriate public education. And so what that looks like is
042I might not be touching all students equally because not all students need the same service. So a lot of my work goes unseen and a lot of my work. is working with students that can't show up here today and say hey my my counselor is the one that told me i need to you know get those c's my counselor is the one that said i had to go to summer school my counselor is the one that got me that 504 that got me those services you're not hearing from those voices so when you cut one of those high school positions our caseload will increase and our ability to touch the students decreases thank you thank you number five Public comment number five. Hi, my name is Zachary. I'm from Presswood, and I don't think they
043should close this school down because it's really, really iconic to Sonoma. like grandparents or grandmas or grandpas or parents could have gone to this school and then it's just gonna close and It's just like we're now getting so many new things and then like while that we got a new cafeteria and then for it to close down I feel like that would just be a waste of money to just you know go all through that money to make a new cafeteria for what can only last like one or two years. I just don't feel like the school should close down because it's also in a really good location like right near the hospital and right near all these good locations and we got really good staff who like came from Dunbar which goes down and
044then it would be kind of hard for them to go through another the same school closing down and it would just feel like it's just like I said a waste of money for the new cafeteria just closed down. And I feel like we should keep press elementary. Thank you. Thank you so much for your comments Zachary. We appreciate you. Good job. Good evening and thank you all for being here. I know this isn't an easy job and I appreciate your time. My topic is school consolidation. Normally I call in. My name is Emily Jones-Rubledo and I speak tonight as both a district parent and a district spouse. The closing of Flowery would have an enormous negative impact on the students, the community, and the local businesses. I did not fully realize the domino effect that
045comes into play when you close a school. The owner of Cielito themselves said that the business wouldn't survive a flowery closes. The owner of El Brinquinto hosted a protest asking to keep the school in the neighborhood. If we are lucky enough to have a positive outcome and flowery remains open it doesn't make sense to eliminate a kindergarten class next year at the site with one of the highest occupancy rates. Typically there's only been three. I'm sorry. Typically there's been three classes every year at flowery three kindergarten classes every year at flowery and next year there are only two Yep, how does that make sense? I understand that the decision to close the school is not easy But if school is are being closed the community deserves transparency not just about money saved But also about
046the costs of maintaining those unused campuses because there are costs with closing a campus What is the plan to continue to keep those campuses safe? case Point in case is a thank you for your comments. Thank you Public comment number eight please. Oh I apologize I apologize. Sorry. Yeah. I made a dramatic entrance. Good evening. My name is Leonardo Lobato and I am the executive director of La Luz. I'm here respectfully to urge the delay of the decision of the closing of Flowery Elementary School until a formal equity impact assessment is finished. La Luz first raised this request in our letter to you in November of 2024 and again made that request two days ago in another letter. We do this because the consequence of the decision fall overwhelmingly on the most vulnerable families in
047Sonoma Valley, primarily Latino, low-income immigrant households who live in officially designated disadvantaged communities. in Boy's Hot Springs and Federer's Hot Springs Agua Caliente. Flowery is not just a school. It is a trusted institution rooted in community, cultural identity, and a big enrollment demand. Relocating it without fully understanding the equity implications risks creating lasting harm in academic outcomes, family stability, and public trust. Across the country, districts like Austin, San Antonio, and San Francisco have taken the time to conduct equity studies before closing schools. So please, don't rush in this decision. Finish the equity study. Thank you for your comments, sir. Public comment number eight, please. My remarks are in Spanish here, for the record. Wonderful, thank you. Hi, Sivani Lloyd, former teacher and current substitute. We all acknowledge the need to reduce spending. First, we moved
048too slow. Now we feel like we're moving too fast. We already have two schools closures happening right now. The board kind of seems fixated on just a couple of ideas to reduce the budget without explaining the process clearly that led to that narrowing. Many, including me, would like to take a fresh look at how we reduce spending evenly and fairly and not just look at the... at consolidation or the tk things like that the school district is both heart and a business we can't just fight for our territorial concerns nor can we cut out the heart of what makes a school community um i would also also outside consultants have shown if no efficacy and um Just haven't really helped us with our problem-solving I'd like to appreciate the district office the board the administrators
049the teachers the students and the parents that make up our district We desperately need to build trust that all of us are working together for our district Where our parties listen respectfully to each other feel we're being taken seriously All aspects of our district have much to learn from each other and I hope that we can We can bring that trust back. We need it. And we know you all work hard. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Lloyd. Comment number nine, please. Good evening. My name is Paula Salazar-Sarton. I am both a very proud longtime dream of mine to have my son go to Flowery. He's a third grader now. But I've been with the district 17 years. I am a school counselor here, mainly have been at Flowery, and now I've been lucky enough to
050also be at Presswood Elementary. But like I said my my home and my roots have been at flowery these 17 years flowery was created with a purpose to provide equitable high-quality education for the underserved families in the springs Relocating this program away from that community It was designed to serve creates barriers for those who need it the most and it sends troubling messages That equity and access come second to logistical ease Dual immersion thrives because it unites students from all backgrounds. Moving flowery will likely dismantle a successful and well sought-out program, one that we can continue to build and strengthen right where it belongs in the Springs. A disruption of almost 700 students if you were to decide to close a school and move flowery is more than just a logistical challenge. It's a deep
051emotional and financial strain on not only this district but its families staff and the whole community moving flowery would also likely result in a decline enrollment compounding the long-term costs and lost trust and a fractured and fractured community ties flowery belongs in the in the springs so let's honor its mission and the families it was built to serve thank you public comment number 10 please 20 or 10? 10. Okay. Good evening. We skipped a bunch there. First, thank you for the time you spent serving on the board. I appreciate that you took on this role. challenging time for the district. My name is Misha Anderson. I'm a Sonoma Valley High graduate and a parent of a fifth grader and an incoming kindergartner at Flowery and I've served in multiple roles at the PTO there. My
052comment today is about the consolidation decision and I understand the need there's a need for action that's been discussed since 2021. However most of you on the board have not been in these roles that long and the data information to make this decision has been inadequate. There needs to be more and the outreach to the community has been inadequate. For these reasons along with the short tenure of three of you trustees you need to postpone the decision. Please take more time to engage in meaningful ways with this community school communities that you will be affecting. We need to be heard. You may hear questions that you have not considered that need to be answered. You may hear ideas and solutions that need to be explored. If you make this decision today, please focus on mitigating
053the disruption to their vulnerable students. Our district is not currently under financial distress according to the definition, but this designation, if we were this designation, it would require an equity impact analysis, as the gentleman from Lelouse spoke on. And it should be considered. You'll be really drastically affecting the students flowering and I hope that you do the equity impact analysis. Thank you Thank you for your comments. Mr. Anderson public comment number 11, please Hello, thanks for having us tonight. My name is Eliza Shepard. I'm here about the school consolidation and closure. I have a kindergartner at Flowery. I went to Flowery. I went to middle school at Altamira, Snow Valley High. He's actually third generation to go to Flowery. I've had the opportunity this year to volunteer in his classroom once a week, and it's
054been amazing now that we're wrapping up the school year to see the strides in the... amount of learning that has gone both sides from English to Spanish and Spanish to English. It's really special to see. But I wanted to also say that I've been thinking about this a lot and flowery really is part of an ecosystem. And an ecosystem is a big web. And at the heart of that web is flowery. And you have all of the school, you have all of the nonprofits, you have Art Escape, you have all of the stores that are there. And if you take that out and you take an integral part of a web out, it all falls apart. And I love being in the classroom and seeing them grow, but for me, one of the best parts
055is every Friday, I get to take him and go up to Cedilito or go to El Brinquito, and we get to go and buy a treat. And he gets to use his Spanish. He gets to engage with the community, and that's really what it's about. It's the community that's there and what he's been able to develop. I just moved back into the city from San Francisco, and one of the major reasons was because I wanted my son to go to Flowery, and I wanted him to be part of that program and the community that's there. So I just want to piggyback on what everyone else is saying, and that really more time and energy needs to be taken to take this into consideration. Thank you for your comments, Ms. Shepherd. Public comment number 12, please.
056SPEAKER 1 Good evening. My name is Kambiz Dazaad. I have four grandchildren. Three of them are in here going on to the school. One more I'm going to contribute soon. So good evening school board members fellow community members and most importantly the heart of our future our students. I stand before you today with a heavy heart. Compelled to address the deeply concerned prospects of closing our elementary schools, we must remember a fundamental truth. This board is accountable to us, the public, and to the governing state. The potential closure of an elementary school within our valley strikes at the very core of our community fabric. We are not just talking about buildings. We are talking about the disruption of young lives, the uprooting of established support systems. and the erosion of neighborhood bonds. Many of you
057are aware of the proposed challenges to our dual immersion programs, changes that are deeply unsettling to many families. To consider forcing these shifts while simultaneously closing a beloved community school feels not only insensitive, but also counterproductive to the very educational well-being we all striving for. Let us not forget the wisdom contained within the department. California Department of Education's best practice guide to school consolidation a guide further reinforced by our own school local school consolidation committee it clearly states that having a neighborhood school in close proximity to one's home is part of every parent thank you for well-being freedom comes out of place thank you thank you public comment number 13 please My name is Anna Peer, and I hope 13 is a lucky number, because I want to ask you to take... Take to heart
058all the comments that you've heard tonight, so well spoken and thought, and maybe some of the things that we've written in the Sun, too. We have been advocating for you to not close Flowery and to delay this process. There are other ways to address. The Flowery new trustee said this can has been kicked down the road. We need to act. And this is true. But I think the reality is... The trustees have not addressed all the avenues that could be used to address the budget deficit. And I think particularly with the resignation of Dr. Chin, this is not the moment to make a drastic decision such as closing an elementary school. The district will need leadership to accomplish that. So I encourage you to postpone the decision. Thank you very much. Thank you for your
059comments, Ms. Peer. Public comment number 14. My name is Peter Livingston. I am the parent of a fifth grader getting ready for Altamira and then an incoming kindergartner at Flowery. wherever it may be. A lot of great things have been brought up today, but I also just wanted to thank all the teachers and everybody that were involved with this past school year. I think it's been a big success. My kids have very much enjoyed it. So everybody from the trustees down to the janitors and everything in between, you are fantastic. And thank you so much for all that you do. And yeah, just to kind of piggyback off of all the flowery stuff, this is about consolidation. Really the only thing I'm going to bring up is around the conditions of buildings and the number
060of students that we can hold, if that right now is the number one thing that we are looking at for criteria for consolidation or closures. And it was brought up earlier. It brings up kind of the history of how flowery has been passed over time and time again in terms of funds for improving regardless of the number of students that they've been operating at capacity why haven't they been looked at more often in terms of improving buildings improving the potential future of this fantastic little community my hope is i know that you guys really didn't have anything to do with that but maybe as a board in a community that's something we can look into going to the future thank you Thank you, Mr. Livingston. Public comment number 15, please. 15. Good evening. My name
061is Cecilia Garcia, and I've been an educator for 25 years, but I still get really nervous talking in front of people. And I'm concerned about the possible closure of Flowery. All the wonderful things that people have said about it's a community, the heart of community. It serves not only low socioeconomic students, it serves the community, it serves students that are coming in from different backgrounds that want to be bilingual. which is something that we need in education. And I have concerns also about if you just move the school and put a school within a school, you take everything away. You take all the community. It's like stripping the students, the teachers of a sense of place. And as an educator, it's so important what we give our children. And when we take away, it's... It's
062really heart-wrenching, and it would just be so incredibly sad. And there's so much I want to say. The one thing I'm just going to mention is going back to civil rights in 1947, where Cort Mendez versus Weinmister, this kind of touches on what some people have said. Why haven't we looked into the buildings and flowery? Why are we treating the school almost as it's... a less than inferior school and when it's a school that provides so much for the community and it enriches all of us and so I have big concerns about that that if we are treating it as a less thank you for your comments thank you public comment number 16. Michelle, could you scroll just a little bit on there? I think it's number, yes, thank you. I'm Regina Mellinger. I'm here
063to talk about a consent agenda number nine about recognizing National Teacher Appreciation Week. VMTA invited me, my mom, and my dad yesterday to attend the city council meeting, and they gave us the City of Sonoma proclamation for designating National Teacher Appreciation Week. I just want to give a shout out to our city council and our mayor. That was a lovely presentation, and we felt really special and honored, and this is for all the teachers. So I want to give a shout out because it is Teacher Appreciation Week. All the amazing teachers in our valley that work hard every single day despite all the chaos going around around us. So thank you, teachers. Thank you, and congratulations. Public comment number 17, please. SPEAKER 1 Hi my name is Carrie Anderson I'm a first grade teacher at
064Sasserini. This is about school consolidation. This has been quite a year. We've closed a fantastic school. My family and hundreds of others have been directly impacted by this decision. Our children are nervous and uneasy unsure of the future. But there are many other decisions that have been made this year that are going to negatively impact all of our elementary school students district wide next year. We have lost all of our TOSAs, teachers that work tirelessly to ensure that every student is where they should be in reading. What is going to happen to our libraries without the incredible librarians that support our students academically and emotionally? We are losing amazing teachers. We are losing our amazing leaders. I'm not talking about our superintendent. I'm talking about two fabulous principals. They have been driven out by this
065unending torrent of terrible decisions being made for our students. I ask that you wait on making a decision to close an elementary school. Please see how this summer goes with Altamira. Work out the kinks. See if you even save that much money. Is it actually worth it to destroy an entire school community? Is it worth it? Is there no other way? Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Anderson. Public comment number 18, please. Hello, my name is Rachel Earps and I'm in the Sasserini School District. I did send you guys an email this morning to all of the trustees, but one of the things that the chief just mentioned struck me. And he talked about gang violence, right, between the North and the South. So why do kids go to gang, right? I work in mental health.
066Why do they go to gangs? Because they feel like they don't have a family or that the community has turned their backs on them. right what are we doing with this decision we're looking at turning our backs on these kids especially in the springs my kids go to flowery all right i have biracial children and it matters that we keep that area intact so that people can walk to school. We live in Sasserini School District. We knew that we were going to be busing or taking our children to flowery. That's hugely important. So let's not show overt racism and microaggressions towards those that are in the minority, right? I look around and I see a lot of... faces that look like mine and we need more diversity we need change and we need impact and
067the way to do that is to bridge our community and to make sure that everyone knows that they are family that we are all created equal and that is what this town stands for so don't let gangs and all of that stuff and the reputation in santa rosa you know destroy us let us be a family thank you thank you for your comments Public comment number 19, please. Good evening. My name is Francisco. I'm a father of two kids at Flowery. Sorry. I am here representing the parents of vulnerable working people at Agua Caliente and Hot Springs. Today, we are thinking about hurting the most vulnerable. working class people in Sonoma Valley. So please reconsider your options. Affecting the working class, the low income people do not, is not the right thing to do. Please
068be on the right side of history. Flowery School unite cultures bilingually and It's a united thing. Flowery is part of a community. If you take the flowery out of the community, you're hurting the school. You're hurting the hands of the people that makes your wines. Please do not move the school. Reconsider. You are a board that is transitioning, trying to find a new... superintendent, so it's not the time to make a decision so crucial to affect the most vulnerable people. Please listen to me. If it's not broken, don't need to be fixed. Thank you. Public comment number 20, please. Public comment number 20, please. 20 to zero. Going once. Going twice. All right. Okay, no problem. Oh no not yet 22 and 23 we're at 20 but it sounds like maybe 19 didn't get turned
069in is there a 19 or is there a 20 19 okay so is there a 20 all right no 20 21 please hi good evening good evening thank you for having us all here today good evening board and superintendent my name is Dana Bravo I'm a district parent I'm a district alumni and proud lifelong member of the Sonoma Springs neighborhood Closing another elementary's campus is not the answer to solve the district's budgetary issues. It's been very clear in all the data presented over the prior few years that there was minimal savings in closing Dunbar, certainly not enough to justify closing another campus. To speak a bit about Flowers Campus and Community, this site is so centrally located to several neighborhoods where students reside, Mountain Avenue, Boys Hill. Rancho Vista, Deshane, Lichtenberg, not to mention the
070two large low-income apartment communities that were built and chosen those sites precisely because of the proximity to flowery. The district's decision to not consider flowery worthy of upgrades other campuses have received over the years is not the students' fault. In fact, when the success of dual immersion began to begin being more evident, it should have been received more upgrades. to continue its reputation improvement. In a budgetary sense, it makes perfect sense to close the most rundown campus. However, location, location, location, as so many others have said. We can't do this to our community. It's right in the heart, you guys. Let's take a minute, pause it, slow it down, think about it. Thank you. Thank you for your comments, Ms. Bravo. Public comment number 22. Fantastic. Yeah, welcome. Hello, my name is Lizbeth Tellez. Today
071I stand before you as a proud first-generation Latin college student, former Flowery alumni and older sister of a current Flowery alumni. Proof of the power of bilingual education for us bilingualism is a bridge to our culture our families and opportunities We might never have had flowery elementary schools dual immersion program was a lifeline for a community providing two languages in a space where our culture was valued But now this program is being moved and Flowery, our educational home, is being shut down. This isn't just a relocation, it's a disconnection. We're proof of what's possible when students learn in two languages, thriving because of that foundation. Don't take that chance away from future generations. Thank you. Thank you for your comment. 22? Oh, excuse me, 23. Good evening. My name is Esmeralda Taiz and I'm a
072senior at SVHS and the Student Activities Director. I'm also a proud graduate of Flowery Elementary dual immersion program. As a first-generation Latin student, learning in two languages changed my life. It helped me stay connected to my roots, speak to my family, and find pride in who I am while still succeeding in school. Now, this program is being moved away from our community. For many Latin families, that distance means losing access, losing connection, and losing a sense of belonging. Especially now, when Latin communities are being targeted across the country, we need support, not setbacks. I'm here today because I was given a chance. Please don't take that chance away from the next generation. Thank you. Thank you for your comment. Public comment number 38 is the next one we have. 3-8? I'm Lucia Chavez Goodman. I'm
073a teacher at Flowery for this year. I am also a mother of three children that went through Flowery. I'm a Flowery alumni myself. So a lot of the things I plan to say have already been said. So I'm just going to reiterate the item about you doing an equity study. That is concerning to me, obviously, because it is my community. I've been there for 24 years as a teacher and before that as a student and a mother. Seeing Dunbar close already affected the same neighborhood, the same community. Those kids were transferred to Dunbar, then back out. And seeing another side, that town, that side of our community close another school to move somewhere else is detrimental. I've seen for years families coming, walking there and home. Our events and community contacts are centered around that
074campus, around that area. So I just reconsider again your thoughts about equity and what you're doing to our community in that cultural group. Thank you for your comments, Lucia. Public comment 41. 4-1. There's the next one we have. 41. Does it look like there's somebody trying to make their way up? If I could just get a little help. No? Okay. Public comment number 48. Oh, excuse me. Okay. Sorry. We have a 47. I apologize. Is there a 47 in the hall? No? Okay, 48. You're up. Perfect. Good evening. My name is Refugio Mata, PTO president at Flowery, also a parent. I'm here to address the clear equity violation at the heart of this proposal school closure. Flower Elementary serves more English learners, more socioeconomically disadvantaged students, and more students of color than any other elementary
075school in the district. In start contracts, Presswood has the lowest enrollment, the fewest English learners, the lowest percentage of low-income students, and the highest percentage of white students. Yet this board is proposing to close Flowering and keep... other elementary school open. That decision violates both the California Department of Education Equity Guidance and Attorney General's criteria. If, for example, press would were not part of the equation, that decision might be legally defensively. But... by choosing to preserve the least diverse lowest need school while eliminating the most diverse highest need school. This board is making the choice that is not only unethical it is discriminatory. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. All right. Number. Yeah. 49. Good evening. My name is Lee Cavalier. Hello board. Superintendent Chin. Community members. Um... I am here to speak on
076the deeply flawed logic relocating Flowery dual immersion program. The proposed move to Sasserini doesn't displace just one school, it displaces two. Flowery's entire student body would be uprooted, and because students can't join a dual immersion program midstream, every Sasserini student would also be displaced. This is a mass disruption, not a solution. Let's be clear, dual immersion programs are not portable. They are placed-based, long-term commitments. Moving them mid-program risks language loss, academic decline, and cultural disconnection, especially for English learners. The very students the program is designed to serve. And critically, Sasserini is a Title I school. Pushing out both the flowery and Sasserini communities undermines the core principles of Title I funding to support and stabilize high-need populations, not scatter them. proposal is not just disruptive, it's inequitable, illogical, and indefensible. I have one last thing
077to say, and that is closing Flaherty is not a facilities decision, it's a values decision, one that sends a message to our Latino, multilingual, and low-income families that they are expendable. Flaherty is the largest elementary school in the district. Thank you for your comments, Ms. Cavalier. Public comment number 50, please, 5-0. Public comment number 50. Oh, fantastic. Welcome. Good evening. My name is Brenda Morales, and I'm here to close with what's at stake. Closing Flowery is not a facility's decision. It's a values decision, one that sends a message to our Latino, multilingual, and low-income families that they are expendable. Flowery is the largest elementary school in the district, home to a thriving dual immersion program and a hub of cultural and linguistic equity. Eliminating the school while preserving the least diverse, lowest enrolled campus is
078a choice that cannot be justified by enrollment. infrastructure alone. It is a choice that violates state equity guidance, risks legal consequences, and tears at the fabric of this community. This board has a responsibility not just to balance a budget but to uphold the principles of equity, inclusion, and educational justice. We urge you do not close flowery, do not displace the students, do not abandon this program. Thank you for your comments. All right, at this time, we are going to go to our public comments online. Michelle, who was our first commenter? All right, Miss Eicher, you have the mic. A minute and 30 seconds. I'm Joseph Rose Eicher, Boys Hats Breaks. I won't repeat a lot of what's been said. I hope that you've read my husband's very detailed letter and Leonardo's very detailed letter, which
079addresses the equity issues and the equity study and your legal obligations. I will say that Flowery, by its location and its dual immersion program, unites and serves our Springs community, which is often overlooked, and it's critical. Because we have the most children living in our area and if you look at the future from a real estate perspective With more housing going in that will be serving lower-income families. We will have more children in our in our location So therefore, I think keeping flowery as the hub, as the uniting factor for the Springs is the most important issue before you. And I urge you to take your time, do the equity study. In addition, look at what the future growth of the Springs is and what that demographic is going to be. Who those people... Ms.
080Egger, we are not able to hear you the last five seconds. All right, Ms. Iker, if you can hear me, I want to thank you for your public comment. We're having a little bit of technical difficulties, so I apologize if you would please email us your comments. We would appreciate it. Thank you so much. All right, we, oh, Kalia, you have the mic, a minute and 30 seconds. Oh, Kalia, I'm so sorry. I'm going to have you start over. We were having a little bit of technical difficulty, but I think we can hear you now. Okay, got it. Can you hear me okay? Yes, go ahead. Thank you. So, Kalia Gurney, school counselor, Sonoma Valley High School. I am so appreciative and grateful for all of the public comments on flowery tonight. I also want
081to share my disappointment about the certificated and classified layoffs that are on tonight's agenda, items six and seven. SVHS is losing one full-time school counselor next year after already losing our full-time counseling technician. We are also losing school psychologist services at the high school. You heard from Anne-Marie that we do the work of helping all students, especially our most disadvantaged students, access their education and opportunity. And this can't be understood simply by looking at caseload numbers. And yet another planned agenda item for tonight was a substantial... raise for the superintendent salary every year for the next three years. And so I am confused about our district and boards priorities. I don't understand how there is funding for a substantial district administrator raise and yet the support staff who work most closely with our students are
082being cut. A job posting went out earlier today for a part-time college and career coordinator. Until recently, this was full-time. And so again, I have to question these priorities. We have the budget for a superintendent raise, but not for a full-time college and career coordinator or counseling for our students. These budgeting decisions do not prioritize our students and do not reflect a commitment to equity. And I urge you to reconsider. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Our next public comment online is David Icar. You have the mic. Hi, yes, David Eicher. I hope you read my emails concerning potential lawsuits being brought against the district if it does not follow anti-discrimination laws and CEQA guidelines in its decision to close flowery. As noted by Leonardo Lobato, Executive Director of La Luz, an equity impact
083assessment should be completed. The assessment is specified in the guidelines in Assembly Bill 1912. The following is from the School Consolidation Committee's report to the Board of Trustees. While AB 1912 does not technically apply to the vast majority of school districts, on April 11, 2023, Attorney General Rob Bonta issued a guidance letter to all school districts encouraging them to follow the guidelines set forth in AB 1912. The Attorney General emphasized that complying with AB 1912, even if it's not otherwise required, is an effective means of complying with anti-discrimination laws and ensuring that school closure decisions are made equitably. Unquote. Also noted by Leonardo, the springs are designated as a disadvantage unincorporated communities. Further, Secret guidelines have not been followed. Traffic studies and pedestrian safety studies have not been completed by moving all the children to
084the other schools. Thank you very much. Thank you, David. All right, and we'll proceed to our last public comment online, which is Ms. Vargas, you have the mic. Yes, and like everyone, I hope you have the time to read my email. I think on all the comments that have been made today, But I would like to address something. It was mentioned the Latino family might choose Flaherty because the proximity of the school instead of the program. I can tell you Flaherty, it's been my family for 11 years. I have many families and all of us are just proud of the kids being fully bilingual. We are targeting the most vulnerable families of the valley. Did you know a couple weeks ago it was... And kids have to wait on the campus on the second round.
085How are you planning to transport all the kids from the Springs to the city? You are planning to move the school with the highest enrollment? Flowery is not just a school, it's a family for many of us in the community. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. All right, at this time, that concludes our public comment for items on the agenda. And we are going to take a quick five-minute break. So I encourage you all, if you'd like to stay seated, to stay seated. There are some empty seats for those of you in the hallway if you'd like to come in. And we will come back at 7.30. Thank you. All right, I'm going to ask everybody to please quiet down. If you'd like to continue your conversation, we can... have those doors closed so
086that we can finish conducting the business of the district. Thank you. Ms. Casillas, if they want to stay quiet so we can conduct our meeting, we can leave it open. But if they want to continue conversation, we have to shut the door. It's just too distracting. Thank you. Okay. All right, at this time, we are moving on to the consent agenda. The purpose of the consent agenda is to act upon routine matters in an expedious manner. Items listed are usually considered routine and are acted on in one motion. It is understood that administration recommends approval of all consent agenda items. There is no discussion of items unless a member of the board requests removal of an item to be inserted at an appropriate place on the regular agenda. Each item is approved by the board.
087Each item approved by the board shall be deemed to have been considered in full and adopted as recommended. So this is an action item. Is there a motion to approve the consent agenda? I propose to approve the consent agenda. Is there a second? I'll second that motion. All right. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Fantastic. We are going to now proceed to our regular agenda. And trustees agreed to move item three to the top of the agenda. So we are going to move 14.3 and to, let's see, we're going to make it 14.0. all right and i am going to introduce this so this is an action item and it's a consideration to approve the amendment to the superintendent's contract so i have something to read on behalf of the school board we are
088saddened to learn of dr chen's resignation as we believe her continued presence would have provided the stability our district needs to move forward with confidence In light of significant challenges our district has faced, including school consolidation and an ongoing budget crisis, this school board is committed to prioritizing stability and strong leadership. We recognize that in times of uncertainty, consistent and capable guidance is imperative to supporting our students, our staff, and our broader school community. We were prepared to approve the amendment to our superintendent's contract tonight, which included an extension to her time here with our district because we fully supported the direction and path of the district under her leadership. Therefore, this board tonight is prepared to honor the previously negotiated increase to her salary retroactive to July 2024. So at this time, I'm going
089to open it up for board questions and or we can move on to board comments and or an action to approve. I'd ask for order in the room, please. If you have comments, you had an opportunity to make them. If you're going to be disrespectful and interrupt, I'm going to ask you to please step outside. So I'd like to make a motion to approve the amendment to the superintendent's contract. However, striking paragraph A, B, D, and E, and striking the last sentence of paragraph C. All right. Is there a second to that motion? Second. Alright at this time prior to taking final action government code section five four nine five three requires an oral summary of the recommendation for approval on the salaries salary schedules or compensation paid in the form of fringe benefits of
090a local agency executive during open session of a regular meeting in which the final action is to be taken as Reflected in the amendment if adopted the superintendent's our annual salary would be set at two thousand Excuse me, $265,853 for the current 24-25 school year. Since we have a motion and a second, we will go to an approval. All in favor? Is there any further deliberation? Are we prepared to approve? All right. Then at this time, I'm going to take a vote. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. All opposed? Fantastic. Thank you. Moving on to our next item, which is item... I'm going to again ask for order in the room, please. I understand there's some big feelings here tonight, but we need to be respectful of our meeting and not be distracting so we
091can continue on for the work of the district. It was approved at the beginning of the approval of the agenda that we are now going to go ahead and honor the change to the agenda, which is to move item number nine to item number two. So we're going to call it 14.0B. So this is an action item. It's an approval of resolution number 25-23 regarding elementary school consolidation. And at this time, we're going to turn it over to our superintendent, Dr. Chen. Michelle, can you put the next slide up? So I'm just going to start off with a couple of slides, and then I'm going to hand it over to our attorney, Harold Freeman, to talk about the process and the timeline. So I wanted to start off with some slides that I had shared
092earlier this year around how did we get here in terms of school consolidation. As many of, again, a lot of people know that our enrollment has been declining over a number of years, and it's predicted to continue to decline based on findings from our demographic study that we had a few years ago. We have fewer students in each of our schools, which is obviously not cost effective, so that's one aspect of why we've gotten here. Another is the fact that we have now less federal dollars in grants that we had in place. We received federal dollars during COVID, which now have gone away, and many of those salaries, I'm sorry, many of those dollars were used for salaries, and we can't continue to fund the salaries without the dollars that were existent during COVID. So
093again, I'm going to ask for order in the room. I'm pretty sure we started this presentation tonight with students from Presswood who talked to us about respect and many other things. So I would appreciate that for our speakers. We gave that respect to you. We ask for that in return. Thank you. And I'm just going to say, if I have to do this again tonight, I'm going to convene. into that room until everybody can get their composure. Hey, we have district business to do and this is directly affecting our kids. So I'd like to be able to allow our superintendent to continue without any more disrespect. If I have to say it a second time, this meeting will come to an end. So please be respectful. Thank you. We also have been deficit spending for
094a number of years and as many of you know we also have not met our minimum required reserve. We have moved now from a positive status most recently with our P2 budget to a qualified status which means that we're going actually backwards instead of forward and we don't have that 3% minimum required reserve. And then the other reason why our reason why we've gotten here is also the fact that we have our class offerings are becoming more limited we don't have enough students to fill all of the classes that we want to offer and so that's also impacting the school consolidation decision So what are some of the financial impacts of having small schools? Some have to do with, again, the fact that we're operating small schools and we have finite resources and we have
095to be able to spread out those resources. And so it's becoming really difficult when you have a small number of students in each school site and we're having to deploy people across the system. Another financial impact is having under enrolled campuses and that continues to impact again our academic programs like I just discussed with our electives. And then we're also under utilizing schools and so we still have to pay for the facilities in terms of having the schools open. We have to hire custodians, we have to hire landscapers and others to continue to maintain, repair and clean our facilities whether they're being used or not. So I'm going to now hand it over to our attorney, Harold Freeman, and he's going to go over some of the timeline and process around, again, how we got
096here and why we're having to make these difficult decisions. So, Harold. Thank you, and thank you for having me here tonight I'm gonna walk you through this and some of it I'm going to go a little faster some of it I'm gonna slow down just to pause on One of the phenomenon that happens when you're dealing with school consolidation and we're dealing with this across the state is That you have some people that are there in the beginning of the discussion You have some people that are there in the end you have some people there in the middle and different people have different perspectives based on that. So part of the purpose of tonight is just sort of take you back through, especially as we have newer board members as well, the process that brought
097you here. So you heard some of the why from the superintendent. Now we're going to talk a little bit about the how. So a little bit on the history. First of all, the board originally in 2021 started looking into what it needed to do, both with its finances and with where trends were headed with enrollment. So really, this is the end of that process started for real in 2022, where the district brought in some consultants to start studying that. What you are looking at now is really the culmination of a three-year process. It's not the beginning of the process. We're towards the end of that process, and I'll talk more about that. So starting in 22 as you'll see the board directed a consolidation and closure process and part of that again was to look
098at budget shortfalls and how to deal with declining enrollment And as we note here, this is really similar to what school districts around the state have been doing the last two to three years You're actually significantly ahead of some who are now having to do a much faster process than anything you're doing I worked with another school district in the Bay Area not long ago that had to do this entire process start to finish in about six months, whereas you've been at it for about three years. So there's much work that has gone into this. I did want to just note there were some comments made tonight I know we've heard before, and I think the legislature does some wonderful things. I also think sometimes they do some legislation that can be a little confusing.
099You've heard a reference to AB 1912, which is this law that applies. to school districts that are considering school closure or consolidation. That bill applies to four school districts in California. There are only four school districts in California that essentially have been taken over by the state because they had a negative budget. There was no indication they were going to be able to get out of it. The state actually steps in, and they make the decisions from there. That usually means the departure of the superintendent, and that usually means final decision-making on fiscal issues. is taken from the board and given to what is in effect a state receiver, a consultant, often a retired district administrator from another school district. It's a difficult process, and the legislature saw fit to adopt this bill to guide
100what happens in those four school districts. Historically, this really came out of what happened in Oakland Unified School District, where they made an effort to close 10 schools, and the public process on that lasted for, I would say, two to three months. And that was it. And so the state was concerned that the districts that they had, I'm going to use the term bailed out here because it was state bailouts, that those districts were being put into a situation where they were rushing their decisions. And so the state came out and said, we want you to slow down and look at some things. And in that bill, it lays out what you're supposed to do. And one of the things you're supposed to do if you're one of those four districts is an equity impact
101analysis. The focus of the equity impact analysis is looking at particular criteria that the legislature has laid out to study to see that you are looking at objective criteria that make it less likely that you're going to make decisions based on racially discriminatory or other discriminatory basis. You're looking at rational criteria. The California Department of Education picked up, there's basically nine criteria. They picked up those nine criteria and put them in their guidance, which is just a suggestion. It's not a statute. It's not an adopted regulation. It's just the California Department of Education says it's a good idea to look at these criteria. The process you've been through looked at those criteria. So you've looked at every one of the criteria that were in AB 1912. every one of the criteria that's in the Attorney
102General's letter and every one of the criteria that is included on the California Department of Education's website for their guidance. What you did was not called an equity impact analysis. It didn't use those words. You used a committee that I'll talk about more with you that was your consolidation committee, which were community members who volunteered their time for a very long and cumbersome process. to take you through those criteria and to study them. And so I know that you're aware that the consolidation committee report has an appendix that goes with it that's about 745 pages long of data and of analysis. I won't do this a lot tonight because I don't have a lot of these page numbers memorized, but starting at page 630. You will see that that committee had a subcommittee that was
103appointed to look at diversity and equity-related issues and actually has a breakdown by school of all of the schools in the district looking at data like free and reduced lunch students, socioeconomic diversity, Latino population versus Caucasian population, what the percentage balance is like. Elsewhere in the materials there was analysis as well, and we haven't heard a lot about this tonight, but of special education students, which the state criteria also says you're supposed to be considering the effects on special education and special needs students. So I know there's been talk about more study. You've got 745 pages of data. You've got a 24-page report from the committee where a lot of this work was done. What the district didn't do was pay an outside consultant some amount of money to come in. and put their title
104page on it and take that same data and come to some conclusions. The committee worked on that and then they gave that data to the board. That's not saying that you shouldn't or couldn't do that. It's just to explain historically what's happened because I think there is some misunderstanding that this analysis hasn't been done, that this data has not been looked at. And it's been actually looked at again in some great detail. So talking a little bit about how we got here. um going back to 2022 the board commissioned perkins eastman who were architects and consultants to come in to prepare a facility master plan facility master plans are something school districts do that are often facilities focused they just look at what is the condition of your facilities work what work is needed what
105do you need in the next five years is typically what they look at you did something more you tasked perkins eastman with looking at how do you take the condition of the facilities and the capacity and compare that against enrollment and look at enrollment trends. You gave them demographic data that was done by an outside consultant, Davis Demographics, that looked at enrollment projections, and I think we know what those enrollment projections look like. They are down. And I have to add, too, this is the trend throughout your county. This is the trend throughout the Bay Area, throughout Northern California, throughout California. There are school districts right now going through what you're going through up and down the state. And I can literally count on one hand how many of the more than 1,000 school districts
106in the state are growing right now, or even at where they were. They are going down significantly. And you've probably followed some of the news, but we've worked with districts recently that have closed three schools, five schools, ten schools. This is the trend in California. So Perkins-Easman was tasked with not just looking at what do your facilities need and what are the costs are, but how could you configure the district in a way that makes sense with your facilities that exist and with your enrollment. Perkins-Easman, as you'll see on the second bullet here, had extensive community input. There's some wonderful pictures in the Perkins-Easman report, which is part of the data that you have here, of town hall meetings where there's... butcher paper on the board and all the ideas and the community input that's
107there they did get extensive public input on the ideas of how to configure the school's grade configurations and potential closures perkins eastman updated the board throughout this process and ultimately presented their report and also received direction from the board through that process On January 21st of 2023, there was a board study session that Perkins Eastman had presented at addressing all of these issues, consolidation, grade configuration, optimizing sites, that was all publicly done. And then you'll see there in March 25th, 2023, there was another board study session. Perkins Eastman came in with three possible scenarios for reconfiguring schools. And the board at that time directed Perkins Eastman to go back and look at 3-1-1 scenarios. And what they meant by that is a district that has three elementary schools, one middle school, and one high school.
108And I always have to say with the one high school, we're lumping Creekside in as part of that one high school with Sonoma Valley. I know they're their own school, but that was within the concept of the 3-1-1. That was an action item direction given at the board meeting for April 20th, 2023. So at that point, April 20th, 2023, Perkins Eastman came back with their 3-1-1 models. The board studied that further, and that was the night that the board voted to close Dunbar Elementary in the wording of what was done then to suspend enrollment at Dunbar Elementary for the 2023-2024 school year. And I want to pause on Dunbar. We spent a lot of time with the consolidation committee talking about this. I think you heard some public comment tonight. The savings from Dunbar from
109closure were not realized in year one because of certain decisions the board made at that time to carry over personnel to other school sites. That was not adjusted until the next year, so the savings weren't realized until I believe it was year two. So it took some time for those savings to be realized, but there were savings that were realized, and that was something that, again, there's data that's contained in what went to the committee that you put together. So on April 20, 2023, the board also directed the superintendent to form a school consolidation committee. to bring the committee together to have more community input before any other school closure decisions were made. And that's sort of where I came in along the way for that. So November 9th, Perkins Eastman presented its facilities master
110plan to the board. If you read through their report, you'll see they talk about a 3-1-1 model. And in that 3-1-1 model, what they're talking about is three elementary schools, one middle school with the two existing middle schools being consolidated. the one high school again really that's two high schools but we treat it as one for purpose of the analysis so this ultimately led to the appointment of your committee and you'll see here that process started in January that 18 members it was a very diverse group and I mean diverse in every way possible socio-economically from different parts of the community from different schools district staff school employees parents etc That committee met over a period from January to October, so we were at that for the better part of a year. It was almost
111a year. We had nine total school consolidation committee meetings. They all complied with the Brown Act. They were not necessarily technically required to comply with the Brown Act, but we wanted them to be publicly accessible. We did have public comment at those meetings. As often happens, there was fairly little public comment at the first meeting and by the last meeting. it looked a little bit like this meeting there was a lot of public comment in fact i see some familiar faces from some of those committee meetings there was also a tour of the schools where committee members were able to come get on a bus and literally go from school to school sorry sorry absolutely no problem thank you yeah my apologies it's we've been at this for so long it's It rolls off my
112tongue because I've told this story a few times, but I will attempt to go slower. So there was a tour of the different school sites. The committee members were taken on with district staff. They were able to see the sites for themselves. We visited all the multi-purpose rooms, the gyms. We saw what was new. We saw what was old on the campuses. We saw what the layouts were, where the access to the schools were, where the bus drop-offs were. all issues that the committee was looking at then you'll see also district staff conducted three town hall meetings in october october 1st 2nd and 3rd The committee was interested in the input from those town hall meetings, which is why they were held during the committee process in part. One of those town hall meetings was
113held in Spanish, and all were very well attended. And again, you'll see in the extensive materials, there is a summary of all of the public comments from those meetings. All of the questions that were asked, there's a summary of literally every one that is there. On October 15th, the committee had its final meeting where it approved its report. That's the 24-page report you have. I keep pointing to my big binder and the many appendices to that report. The report included the data and analysis of the committee. And on October 29th, the committee's officers, the committee had elected three officers, a chair, a vice chair, and a secretary. They came to that board meeting and they presented the report and reviewed some of what the committee had studied. I also know a number of committee members
114also were there that evening that also addressed the board during public comment. That led to the November 14th 2024 regular board meeting on the agenda was potential action on school consolidation That night the board did not feel ready yet to take action So there was a special meeting convened for November 18th 2024 Again, I emphasize these were public meetings very well attended regarding school consolidation scenarios And ultimately this led to December 13th 2024 your board meeting where the board adopted resolution that did the following three things The first one was the vote to close Adele Harrison middle school at the conclusion of the 2024-25 school year and to consolidate that school with Altamira And just as a reminder, I know a big part of the committee's discussion, a big part of the board's discussion, is
115that Altamira had the area, the capacity to take both schools. And that, I think, I don't want to say that made the decision easier because these decisions are excruciating for the board, I know. But that was certainly a part of the consideration. On the elementary schools, the board decided that it would close one elementary school. And I want to... pause and emphasize there was a decision, a commitment to close one elementary school, essentially to go to that 3-1-1 model. But the board wasn't ready yet to conclude which elementary school that would be. So when we hear discussion about the board's decision moving forward, I need to remind you of the board's decision in the past. You have an adopted board resolution that committed this board to close an elementary school. And the timing of that
116would be the conclusion of the 2025-2026 school year. The concept being that the board wanted a few more months to study that part of the equation. So the board, the third thing it did was it made a commitment to make that decision by or no later than May 8th of 2025. So you have a board resolution committing the board to make that decision by tonight. The board can always take action to change that, but I want to remind you of the action that was already taken by the board. March 13th, in talking about what the board did next, it met to discuss next steps on the elementary school consolidation. Again, a well-attended board meeting. You'll remember it was a long board meeting as well as we discussed this topic. On April 22nd, 2025, there was
117a board study session, again, regarding elementary school consolidation. Another well-attended meeting. A lot of discussion from the community and from the board. And now we are here on May 8th, 2025. This is the date that the board had committed itself to make a decision. And again, that's up to the board to decide where you go from here. One of the comments I know that we heard tonight and I wanted to provide clarification for you on the resolution that's before you tonight has a blank in it for which elementary school would close. You get to decide tonight if you are ready to adopt that resolution. Our recommendation is if the board for any reason is not ready that you adopt a different resolution that will commit you to another date so that we have a target
118to work towards. And that's something that the board can certainly consider. In the resolution you have, this is important to understand, it states expressly in the resolution that you are deciding on the elementary school tonight, but its closure is conditional on three things. So it is not a final decision in the sense that the school is closed. It has three things still have to happen. The first, and I'm not going to go into order in the resolution, the first one is that staff is going to come back with a plan, a transition plan, which obviously is going to happen as part of that. So that's a significant part of it. Second is that staff will come back to the board and the board will take action on the boundary adjustment. When you close a school,
119you then have to decide how you're going to adjust the boundaries. So that's the second thing. And the third thing is that the board would be committing itself not to go forward with the closure until the CEQA analysis is done. And you heard CEQA mentioned tonight. That's the California Environmental Quality Act. And we think of CEQA as talking about birds and bees and bugs and bunnies, you know, about the environment. But it also talks about impacts on people, traffic, safety, other issues you heard mentioned tonight. One of the interesting things about CEQA is it says right in it. that where you send kids and specifically school closure is exempt from CEQA. It is exempt from further analysis as long as the physical effects are equally exempt under CEQA. So what you have to do is
120an analysis to determine are you indeed exempt under CEQA from the other effects? And you look at things like traffic and safety and how many students are going to be added to a school and how it compares to its existing and to its historic capacity. So these are all things that still have to happen. The challenge with CEQA and CEQA and school closure do not fit neatly together. The challenge with CEQA is always this. How do you study whether or not you're exempt and what the physical impacts are until you know which school you're going to close and what the boundary adjustments are going to be? You need to know if the kids going to a particular location are going to go to another location because only then, for example, can a traffic consultant study
121what the effect of that is. You can't really do it in advance unless you literally spend a lot of money on a lot of consultants to analyze every possible scenario. And as you know, from the school consolidation committee, they had 10 different scenarios they studied. And there were, I think, four sub-scenarios under one of those. It was really a total of 13 in all when you do the math. So what would happen if the board were to take action tonight? is that you would be committing to close a school only if those three things happened. You had a transition plan, you came back and considered the boundary adjustments, which would be a further board action with further public input following your board policies on the point, and you had some degree of CEQA analysis done.
122by a CEQA consultant, and we already have a CEQA consultant aligned for this, to weigh in on whether you are truly exempt from further CEQA analysis or to do the further CEQA analysis. And just as a reminder, with the middle school consolidation, you did do CEQA analysis. There was an exemption that was determined there, where a CEQA consultant who had a sub-consultant who was a traffic consultant came in and looked at those issues. So that, again, was required before the actual closure occurred. So those, if action is taken tonight, are what the board would be committing itself to. If the board weren't to take action tonight and you were to instead choose another date down the road, you'd have those same conditions. You have to approve this conditional on that, and that's the same way
123that school districts around the state are doing it so that you make sure you're meeting all of the legal compliance. And these are all public procedures. All of this happens in open session with the public listening in, weighing in, and having an opportunity to comment. So that is the history of how we got here and where we are, where we're going next. I'm happy to take questions, and obviously I'll be here for the rest of the discussion as well. Thank you for that presentation and for all the clarity and the recap I think I definitely appreciate it At this time the board has the opportunity to ask questions. Is there any questions from the board? trustee bell Harold, thanks for that. You're getting better at that presentation every time. You've given it a lot of
124time. So one of the considerations that I'm thinking about is what I'm calling the split elementary model, which is K through 2 and a 3 through 5 and then a standalone dual immersion campus, so still the 3-1-1. But that would therefore eliminate any boundary maps. How does CEQA then, if there's not a boundary map, because it's grade level campuses and you're not mixing them. How does that factor into that C-Core requirement? Yeah, it's a good question. So the CEQA analysis, the primary part of the CEQA analysis is the traffic analysis. The two main things they look at are traffic and are you expanding the existing capacity of the school well beyond what it was designed for. You're not likely to have that issue. You're not trying to build a new campus on a campus. So
125it's going to mostly be the traffic. And this is where the traffic consultants work their magic. And they come in and they look at historically what has been the enrollment at the schools, where the kids have been coming from, and then they compare that to what it will look like after that process is done. If they can determine that there's no substantial impact based on that, you will still fit within those exemptions, and then your CEQA process is done. But they will actually generate a traffic report that analyzes all of that. Thank you. Any other trustee questions? Okay, so at this time, there's no further questions. We can move to board comments. Go ahead, Trustee Ching. Okay. So I prepared a bunch of comments here, and so bear with me because it's a little long.
126So, you know, this is an incredibly painful decision for all of us. We understand. Like, we're feeling it. Many of us are parents, have been parents in this district. It's not easy closing a school. I've said this several times in this whole process that our schools are our lifeblood and the center of our communities. I mean, it's going to be painful. I mean, I'm going to be in tears tonight when we make this final decision. But the reality is that we need to realign the number of schools in our district with our resources. And one of the driving forces in terms of, you know, we've had a reduction of... 40% of our school enrollment from our peak enrollment. And we still have the same number of schools. In fact, we added a school in this
127process. We added Adele Harrison, which was built or was opened in 2000. And we want to provide a quality education to everybody and that means not spreading our resources over too many schools. It means concentrating our resources and figuring out how to deliver the best quality education. So this comes with heavy heart and our constituents have asked us to make this decision, right? There's a lot of constituents that are not here in the room tonight, but I've spoken to them and they may have differing opinions here. They don't feel comfortable coming to the mic. And I also just want to stress something. That was said earlier listen all of our schools are beloved not just one school, but all schools are beloved all of our schools are communities and We don't treat any one school
128as inferior And we're not turning our backs on children. We've been asked to do this by voters So I think that's really important to state I'm actually prepared to make a decision tonight We have delayed this decision long enough, which is causing tremendous anxiety for families. I've been contacted by families that they want closure to this decision so that they can plan for the future, and I get it. I was not a fan of separating middle school and elementary closure. I think we should have ripped the bandaid off at once, and it's been a very painful process to draw this out. A lot of families have come to me and said, please make this decision tonight. And I don't I also think that we cannot gamble any longer with the dial dire fiscal circumstances We
129have two hundred thousand dollars. We are projected to have two hundred thousand dollars in reserves I mean, I don't I don't know if miss Sipes you can comment but is that Even one day of expenditures doesn't even cover one day of cash flow in this district So we have no We are operating on the thinnest, thinnest of margins that we can't afford. So I'm going to ask again for our community to please be respectful when people are talking. Thank you. So I want to underscore that we are listening to community desires. However, the community can't have everything it wants. Some things are mutually incompatible. We can't have a balanced budget, fiscal solvency, and all the educational programs that we want, like TK, and keep four elementary schools open. We all want that, but it's not
130possible. I haven't heard anybody come to me with solutions, saying this is how we can do it. We have already cut the budget. tremendously. We still, I don't know the exact numbers off the top of my head, but we're running a million dollar deficit now. We are deficit spending right now. And we, anyway, so I just want to acknowledge that the other thing I wanted to mention, and I don't know how we are going to resolve this, but I feel like I have received a lot of acrimonious and disparaging comments from parents and teachers about every other school except their own. And it really makes me sad, right? Because we're put up here to make a decision for all of the community. And we're a very divided community. It's this us versus them mentality. I
131mean, the nasty things I've been hearing about why my school should stay open and your school should close, it really makes me sad as a community member to represent that. So I think that we have an opportunity to reshape. and unify our community through whatever decision we make today. And I think it's gotta be really radical, to be honest with you. I talked about it at the last meeting. when I was participating via Zoom. I do want to also talk about the consolidation committee just to remind people. The school consolidation committee created an elementary school ranking based on all of the criteria that our attorney presented tonight. It's all in the report. We considered 10 of the 11 criteria. We did not consider, the consolidation committee decided not to consider the last criteria that was
132recommended by CDE, which is maximizing revenues through property disposition and leasing. So that was off the table. It was on an unweighted basis. And the results, basically, the results are that Flower received the lowest overall ranking and Sassarini received the highest overall ranking. So I think we have to discuss that. Are we going to look and take the consolidation committee's report seriously? That's on an unweighted basis. Do we want to weight it? Because I think there's a lot of considerations that we need to... that we just need to discuss. And so I'll leave it at that. Thank you, Trustee Ching. Trustee Bell? Thanks, Trustee Ching. I appreciate that. And look, I understand the sentiment. I think that you guys in the room who are advocating for your school have to also put yourselves into the
133shoes. If we were talking that Presswood was our number one choice, you would not be sitting here, you'd be sitting at home going, wow, I'm glad it's not my school. And those Presswood parents would be sitting here thinking and feeling exactly how you are. And so to understand that it's a community issue and it's a function of we're not making this decision to target flowery. the program or anything. We want to move the program and make it better. And so, and I get it. And so I'm just saying that you guys, if we were talking about it at Prestwood and the same thing, they would be thinking and feeling exactly as you were, as you are today. And so that's the reality of this situation. And so one of my sort of considerations is that
134Dual immersion is not available to everybody today in the district because there's not the capacity and availability. And so that's a significant problem of, I don't know if you call it equity or equality, whatever you want to do, it should be available to everybody in the district. And it's not. And that's a problem from my perspective. And I'm a huge fan of the dual immersion program, and I think it should be available to everybody in the community. The only way we're going to make that happen is if we relocate it somewhere else. And, you know, it's the smallest campus, the largest enrollment. There's a whole lot of different things that we've said many times, so I too am ready to make a decision. I'm not ready to decide where the program should be relocated. I
135think that in my mind there's... I don't think to relocate the program on a standalone basis to Presswood is a good idea. I think it should be, the two considerations from my perspective would be to move it to El Verano or move it to Sasserini, and I'm willing to spend more time to try to evaluate that. But I also think we should evaluate what I'm calling the split elementary model, where we remove boundaries and we unify all the grades. And so we have a single K through 2 or TK through 2. So we're no longer having, oh, Presswood versus Sasserini versus El Verano, and there's a lot of positives in that model, and we don't have any boundaries. And so I would like to study that option more. So in my mind, I'm hoping that
136if we all agree, or if the majority of us agree on the consolidation and we vote to move the flowery program, I would like to narrow the options down. as few as possible to evaluate for then the next part of the process. So that's kind of, I mean, I've got a whole bunch of things I could talk about. I'm not sure it's sort of, they've all been said before. All right, thank you. So I just want to, are you making that motion right now? We can have discussion. I'm just trying to understand. I'm ready to make the motion on agreeing to close the Flowery campus, move the program, and either move it to El Verano to evaluate the three options, either move it to El Verano. move it to Sasserini, or move it to the
137best location possible based on a TK through 2 and a 3 through 5 campus and then a standalone dual immersion campus. And so the rough numbers, the 3, 4, 5 location is likely could only happen at Alvarado based on capacity. And then it's going to be a debate between Presswood or Sasserini for the dual immersion. And I think that that sort of, if we're getting down to those discussions, in terms of those three options, unless someone's got a four, then that's what I would set a timeline for that for decision making. So just so I just want to talk to you all in regards to the resolution and what I, yeah, I'm going to absolutely, and I'm going to ask him to state it again after I explain the resolution process. So. What I would
138recommend is if we're going to make a recommendation and we're going to follow through with it tonight on a school closure that we have a second resolution as our attorney recommended that has a future date attached to it and That decision would be based on information that we would receive from staff Potentially at an additional study session or board meeting and the board can give that direction to staff. So it's it's really The motion to make a decision and then to adopt an additional resolution. So I guess clarity from our attorney is that two or can this be all done in one? I think this can all be done in one. The resolution that we have has the space blank for which school is closed. You can add whatever you'd like to that. You can
139amend the resolution to clarify any addition that you want. The resolution I was thinking of, if the board decided it was not ready to make any decision tonight, that would be a separate resolution, because that's not really how this is set. And I'm just thinking because of making this decision as you described and then knowing that we need the three criteria to then approve it, during that time while that is happening, the board can plan for time to give direction to staff and have study sessions on information in regards to programs, programmatic questions, where these programs should be, what it would look like, best options for the students. Would that be is that accurate? I think you're on the right path. Okay, my suggestion would be is It would focus on the substance first. So
140determine if there's a board majority that wants to go in a particular decorate Direction and then we can look at how that would fit into the resolution Probably ultimately with a motion that would be to approve the resolution with the following additions. Thank you for that clarity. So do you Absolutely. Trustee Ching? So I think it would be helpful before there's any motion on the table that everybody has a chance to speak once to talk about if they're feeling comfortable or not making a decision tonight so that we know where we all stand. I think that would be the first thing. Like, where are we on that? Okay. I'd be interested to hear from everybody if they would agree or disagree with my suggested three options that we narrow it down to. Is there a
141fourth? Is there two of those that are... Let's work on the substance first and then we'll get to that. Trustee Lennon? Trustee Guzman, would you like to go first? So, absolutely. So the three options. The first one would be to move Flowery to Alvarado. The second one would be to move Flowery to Sasserini. The third one would be to have a singular K through second grade campus. with all students and then a grade three through five campus for all students and then a singular standalone dual immersion campus. I'm calling it the split elementary model. Is there a particular term that we should be referring this to? No? Okay. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. And thank you for reminding us. I apologize. Trustee Guzman? Thank you, Ms. President. What I'll be reading here is a lot of
142what we've heard already tonight, a lot of what I've heard from our community. And we all understand why we are here at this moment today. We heard the summary about declining enrollment. It's the point where three of the four elementary school campuses are below a critical mass. It's highly operationally inefficient to have campuses below 60% capacity. And it has been agreed by this board in the past that consolidation is the path forward to meet the current and future needs of students. As always, student achievement is the priority. However, consolidating Flowery, relocating the dual immersion program, and completely displacing another campus is not the best option that can be derived from this multi-year effort. This action removes a neighborhood school from where a significant portion of students actually reside and unjustly targets many of the most
143disadvantaged families in this valley. Couple that with the option to relocate the dual immersion program to El Verano and we are now uprooting the majority of our students. I will not delve into the relative merits of each of the criteria deliberated by the consolidation committee. But along with Attorney General's guidance and our own governance handbook, this decision must absolutely be viewed through an equity lens. This move would create more barriers to access education, not less. I speak to you as someone who participated in the free and reduced lunch and bus pass programs. As someone who grew up in farm worker housing with parents working multiple shifts, parents who couldn't attend most school functions or help with homework. These are the kinds of families being affected. I have received an avalanche of emails from community members
144and organizations, parents, teachers, and former trustees, all stressing how intertwined the Flowery campus and the dual immersion program together are with the Springs community. That program was born on that campus and has flourished into what it is today, in large part due to its location in the heart of the Springs. As one parent said, you cannot cut and paste this program. One of the many questions is how would displacing the program make it better? Moving it to a campus with a larger capacity doesn't automatically mean the program will scale up without massive investments in teacher and training. Without improving capture rates, this becomes a zero-sum game where adding kids to the program will only detract from the other campuses. And as we know, it isn't even zero-sum as enrollment trends continue to decline and added
145capacity is added by default. What I don't have is a perfect alternate solution. A 17-person committee could not distill the myriad variables into a single recommendation, even after having the better part of a year to study the issue. Even then, they expressed a desire to have had more time. The onus is now on us to pull from their options or craft our own. I simply ask you to allow me more time to study this as you have. and allow us to develop a more equitable solution that doesn't harm the majority of our students. This is an opportunity to transform this district's foundation and it merits more consideration. Thank you. Thank you, Trustee Gizmo. Trustee Bowman? I do thank the trustees for your perspectives and for sharing those. I'm the trustee that represents the El Verano
146neighborhood, of which we hear very little public, I think the least amount of public comment from. It's also the elementary school with the highest percentage of disadvantaged students in our district today. It's the only, it's one of only. It's only a community school located on the west side of town as well. And as I host my office hours and hear from the parents and teachers and staff that are at that school, I feel the same sentiment from the people that are coming here to the mic. So this is the most unenviable position I think anyone in this community would ever want to be in. And I would ask you all to just take a minute and think about what you would be recommending if you were sitting here. The reality is there is not a
147great solution available. I sat in your seat two years ago when recommendations were made in the spring of 2023 to close other campuses. to consolidate schools into a split elementary school model and others, the public outcry in the spring of 2023 was overwhelming. And it was the first time I publicly spoke at a school board meeting personally, having sat in your seat as a community member. At that time, I vowed that I wanted to do more. My intent was actually not to run for this sort of seat. But a year later, the opportunity presented itself and I rose my head and said I will volunteer my time and give up time with my children and wife to try to do my best to help this community. What I'm realizing now in this moment is that
148regardless of what we do, there will be hurt. There will be serious hurt in this community. It'll be up to everybody who sits here, up here. those seats and everyone is listening online to help us figure out how we can continue to offer a better education in Sonoma Valley. Making the decision in December to close the middle school was my first board meeting as a board member. Can you imagine? We decided at that time that it was the right move for the criteria that we had to close the Dell Middle School, relocate all of our sixth, seventh, and eighth graders to Altamira. Use the remaining one-time bond money It's a multi-million dollar investment into Alta Mira as our future go-forward middle school My hope is that that has I don't think it we haven't accomplished
149what we wanted to yet with that solution My hope is that that solution will be bring better outcomes to our children in the district going forward We've had some preliminary looks and there are There are more programs available, when you break it down, there are more programs available for those students now than they were when they were separated at two different schools. That doesn't mean we didn't lose some programming. We did. But overall, we did gain programming and access for students. And I think that is what I'm thinking about as we do this. We had two different groups, a professional group, Perkins Eastman come in, and our community group both come to the same, the same. model that would best serve the remaining 3,000 students in our district and that was three elementary schools one
150middle and one high school That wasn't us. I didn't have an impact. I did not sit on those committees. I was not there in 2023 when Perkins Eastman did their assessment. That was an assessment that was done, and I think one that we're not taking lightly. That is the right number of campuses for 3,000 students. The question is how do we organize our students and how do we ensure that they have the best educational opportunities available, flat out? Again, there's not a great answer. There's just not. Looking at the recommendation from the committee you heard trustee Ching Read out how the rankings actually came out from that committee the one the top ranking and the bottom ranking and then two and three being Alvarado and Presswood I It is with a heavy heart that I
151am ready to move forward today and not drag this out for our community. I too have heard from countless people in our community asking for closure, resolution, direction, not just from them, but from their children. And I personally have heard from children in our district asking if my school will be open next year or the following year. Sorry, not this school year, but the following one. I can't sit here and look them in the eye and say I don't know. I can't. And for that reason, I am prepared tonight to move forward. Thank you, Trustee Lehman. Trustee Ching, did you want to add to that? Not at this moment. Trustee Guzman? A question for Council on those weighted, those rankings, those average rankings. Could you remind me of when we spoke? of what was ultimately
152done with those weighted rankings or not done? Let me clarify. So the committee never weighted the rankings in the sense of giving weight and saying this criteria is more important than that criteria. They ultimately did. Decide not to further study certain criteria the example I think I gave was some environmental factors that there was no None of the schools are next to a freeway where there would be an environmental issue for example What the committee did was they went through in a couple of different ways and Express their opinions where things lay and I don't want to misrepresent anything in that report because ultimately the committee decided they weren't going to recommend a particular school. They were going to give you the benefits of all their work and their study and pointed out that you're
153the ones who get to make the hard decisions, so they gave it to you. There was one exercise that we went through where each of the subcommittees that studied the different criteria, so there were three subcommittees of about four or five members each, went and each took two to three to four criteria. and studied them and ranked the schools. So we have that ranking from the subcommittees. Again, not officially adopted as the committee's position, but also not opposed by the committee. It's in the data that's there. There was one exercise that I went through that the committee ultimately decided they didn't want to do, which was to ascribe points to them, to literally say, well, if X school is ranked first as the... best meets the criteria, meaning you shouldn't close that school for a
154particular criteria, you would get one point. If it was fourth, it would get four points. And then averaging those out. And that data is all contained in these materials. So that was the closest we came to a numeric ranking. But again, the committee expressed discomfort with going to that more mathematical model. So that was never officially adopted. With those one through four criteria rankings, I certainly question the efficacy of that methodology in that it's just too narrow and it doesn't give it much nuance when we're talking about a sample size of four. It could be that one school was ranked on a 100 scale an 83 and the top one is an 86. and yet it's a hard and fast one and the other's a four. So that's where I certainly discount any particular ranking
155that comes out of those criteria. The criteria are certainly all valid, but the distribution is what's really hard to pull out from those rankings. Especially, you know, there's a criteria about aesthetics and the state of the campus. And can you remind me, did that trip to the facilities not occur towards the end of the process? I'm sorry, could you repeat that question? So part of the process, it was a very deep dive by the committee. I certainly do appreciate that effort. But in terms of actually visiting the campus, when did that occur in the process? I'm trying to remember the exact date. It was not at the very end. It was not at the beginning. There was a crush, as typically happens with these committee procedures, and I've done this with a few school districts.
156The beginning is a data dump onto the committee. Here's a lot of information. Here's history. Here's these other pieces. As the committee asks for more data and we get further and further into the process, that's what led to the subcommittees that did the deeper dive on each criteria. And I believe that the subcommittees were doing their work in at least somewhat close proximity to when the tour took place. So that, again, would have been the latter, say, third of the meeting. Trustee Ching? I had a question for Trustee Guzman, but now I forgot it. Let me think. So I guess I'm trying to understand the line of questioning. Are you suggesting that maybe we should weight the rankings? We should ignore the report? I'm just trying to understand, how do you want us to go
157about this decision-making process? Lack of a solid recommendation from this committee who spent nearly a year and all these public meetings it makes it clear that it was not hard and fast with their own findings of ranking the criterias that Despite all that effort they still yet could not come forth with a recommendation. And so that's That's where I'm struggling with this, too, as I dive into it, is how can we hone in on one criteria or the other and how those rankings may have come out of the committee if they themselves had so much trouble with them? I mean, I think that that's just an illustration of how difficult this process is. I mean, I think that the committee decided they didn't want to close any schools. I mean, that was the interpretation that
158I took away from it. And I don't think that the board set clear enough guidelines that, no, you actually have a deliverable. So they said, okay, here are the rankings. I took the rankings, and I just created a matrix, and I summed them up. That's a good or bad process. I mean what I think a better process is that we all know and I think I've said this Multiple multiple times is that not every ranking should be equally weighted. You know when you look at You know special programs versus you know capacity of a school to accommodate excess or excess students You know neighborhoods etc. They don't have equal they don't have equal rankings, but That's why I did my own matrix and I said okay I have these are what I think are the
159top because you can't really have a you can't really like for example not consider capacity. That's like one of the things you have to consider because either your students fit on the campus or they don't fit on the campus kind of thing. So anyway, I'm open to suggestions. I empathize with your situation coming into the middle of this. I started this process in 2021. So I have a huge breadth of information and I want you to be informed. So I just want to get a better idea of what you need, because it sounds like the criteria and the rankings aren't satisfactory. So if not, how do we move forward? Well, the request is for myself to have more time to study this. That's the request. And can you give the board an idea of how
160much time do you think is necessary to do this? Like, you know, is it several months? Is it a year? I mean, it would be helpful for us to know kind of the parameters. I certainly, I want to accommodate you, I think, within reason. I think we should all consider that. So anyway, I'm just curious. Like, I want to help you make a decision and an informed one. Appreciate it, Trustee Ching. In terms of the timing, I certainly don't want to drag this out excessively either. Just looking at where we are in the calendar with the summer break coming up, it would be in the fall is when it seems that would be most appropriate to reengage with this decision. So I just want to encourage us to consider the fact that... We need to
161be specific we need to set a clear expectation for that timeline So I understand you want more time and I'm willing to consider it But I think that we can't give false hope to our community because I think it's pretty evident especially from our last meeting the direction that the board was going to go this evening and I just want to make sure that We know exactly what it is that we're asking for so that we take the time to get that information and that we don't further kick the can down the road has been described tonight because like many of you have said and I concur that there's many community members who do not feel comfortable getting up here and showing their face and speaking their truth, but they just want a decision to
162be made so that they can make decisions and proceed forward. One thing I do want to encourage the board to consider is, and I want to confirm this with our attorney, so there is three criteria and I want the community to understand this too. So if we make a decision tonight It allows us to get more information. And until we make a decision on a school, that CEQA report, all of this cannot happen. And so at some point, the board has to understand that. We cannot proceed forward with anything until we have this criteria aligned for us or outlined for us. So if we get to a point where we've gotten the criteria and... Trustee Guzman and everyone else has questions answered and we do not want to proceed forward with the decision on a
163school closure. What do we do at that point? I mean, because I think it is extremely important for us to get that information because that information in itself could prove to us that that decision in fact should not be. is not the best decision for this community. And so again, I know this is really hard, but you all are trusting us to make these decisions, and I think part of it is understanding the process. And what I keep hearing is, I need information on this specific school. Like, how much money are we gonna save? How are we gonna do this? How are we gonna get that? And a lot of the trouble is we don't have the answers because we haven't made a decision. And so at some point we have to be brave enough
164to make a decision to get information. And it may be that that information shows us that this is not the best decision for our community, but we can't get to a point to evaluate that until we make those decisions. So I know I asked a question and then I continued talking. Do you want me to repeat my question or can you? Why don't you repeat your question? Okay, so I hear what Trustee Guzman is saying. I also understand that the... My fellow trustees are interested in spending more time looking at where programs should be located if we make a decision tonight on a school on a campus to close and we are waiting on the three criteria, during that time, the board can set up study sessions where we have more time, we get more
165information from staff, and then with that criteria and that information, if we come together and we decide that all of that together shows us that maybe this wasn't the best decision for this community, what at that point do we do with that resolution? So the way the resolution is structured, and thank you for that clarification, you are making a decision that is conditional on those next three steps. And it's literally conditional. If you are not satisfied by the result of those three steps, you are not irrevocably committed. So you could... You could say that you are interested or the board majority supports closing X school. You can insert that, take it back to further study on these issues, what would the boundaries look like, which goes to the grade level questions as well. Come back
166to us with that information, give clarity on what data you need to get through it, as you said, to have further study sessions. and then make those further decisions or decide this was conditional and we don't feel we've met those conditions. We're not there. There's not, for example, an acceptable boundary adjustment that we've been able to come up with. Then the condition's not met, and that rule does not close. One of the challenges of putting in a resolution those conditions is it doesn't give certainty, but we almost can't put in that certainty because of the CEQA issue and because you don't know yet. This is that catch 22 that I mentioned earlier. Okay, so I appreciate that clarity At this point. I just want to let my fellow trustees know that I am prepared to
167make a decision tonight Considering all of the things that were just stated by our attorney Trustee Bell. I mean look I really we need certainty and I appreciate your you know joining the board unexpected and I horrible situation as a new trustee, as with kids at Flowery, you know, growing up in the neighborhood and things like that. I completely understand. So what I, but I'm still ready to make a decision, but what I'm ready to do is to sit down and hear out as you learn more over the next days and weeks. If you can come up with a better solution than what we're proposing, I am completely open to it. I've got no preconceived idea. aside from that this is the decision, and I have a complete open mind if you can come up
168with something better, and then if you can convince the other three of us, 100%, let's do it. But I don't really want to kick the can to September because it's just not good for anybody from my perspective. So that's my sort of take on the situation. Thank you Yeah, my take is with the conditions and with the additional time I'm still prepared to make the decision I too joined in December when we did make a decision I had to make a decision the first the first day I was there We also made the decision at that time to give ourselves six months to study it further We lost a trustee along the way which happens that is part of the continuity or lack of continuity of this type of and then I would say we
169still have time as has been stated by there's a few times that we have the ability to look at the last three steps of information and make the right decision and ultimately it's programming and people and we need to get that right and I think I'd like to focus my attention there knowing that we've got hopefully we have a decision on three campuses and really focus in and hone in on the right programming and the right people that would be there to support us. Thank you. Trustee Ching? So a couple of considerations. You know, we have a budget that we're going to have to actually approve. And if we can't build into that budget approximate school closure savings, we will probably go into a negative status. Is that how it goes? Does it go positive,
170qualified, negative? But if you could... If we could have our chief financial officer just confirm, if we don't build in any school closure, what can you say? I don't mean to put you on the spot, but I don't want to say something inaccurate that we would go into negative status. I believe so. I don't have the budget up in front of me right now. I don't have it in front of me either right now either, but when I presented... The second interim we had a two hundred thousand dollar reserve which was less than a one percent on the third year out and that didn't factor in any school closure. Okay, so So that is that's pretty indicative. We've got to decide soon. I'd be I'd be willing also to you know Delay the decision until
171June but those are the hard deadlines that we're up against if we go into negative status the county will come in and basically put a fiscal team in place and they will probably make the decision for us. So if we are okay with abdicating that, you know, we'd want to have consensus here about that. And I also want to just, I just want to say one other thing, which is, you know, just so that everyone, you know, it's been a while since you've looked at the... Criteria, I just want to read a couple of the criteria that I think are really important. So obviously education programs educational programs Are one of the criteria? Educational programs are generally mobile programs and staff can move from site to site That is what this is the criteria that
172this that this committee used I'm not saying that I necessarily agree with it. But there can be site-related high achievement schools based on innovative facility design, a 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 elsewhere. On the other hand, there can be historically low performing schools such as sites such sites may be good candidates for closure providing an opportunity for redistributing the students and staff and the reason i bring this up is i just want to return one last time to the points that i made at our last study session which is one of the criteria sorry i felt that uh so the the These are not statutory criteria. These are guidelines recommended by the state. I
173also feel that one of the criteria that's really important to look at, which is kind of alluded to in this criteria, which is historically low performing schools, but also High concentrations of highly segregated schools is what we have. We have very highly segregated schools Which no one should be surprised of because real estate basically segregates real estate values segregate communities generally and I really feel that it's important that we consider how do we desegregate our schools because we know there's a huge body of research out there um you know raj chetty leaving leading the sort of research on that sean reardon at stanford that high concentrations of poverty lead to low performance low student uh poor student outcomes so we have a problem in this district that we can try to address because we have
174highly segregated schools and i want to remind people that the reason that we're sitting here and we're trying to figure this problem out is that in our district In 2023-24, only 37% of our students, all students across every grade, have met proficiency in reading and only 20% in math. We have a problem here. We need a different solution. These neighborhood schools aren't working. And I know it's really hard. It's hard to face the facts. But look at where our kids are going. Look at how they're, I mean, seriously in high school. So anyway, I just want, part of my suggestion at the last meeting was that we really have to seriously look at how do we figure out this segregation problem that we have in our district. And then the other question I had was,
175do we need to look at student disruption in this process? And what I heard was, okay, that's not really a consideration. But I do want to just emphasize again, if we did look at student disruption, we would probably then, you know, if you close Flowery, you obviously disrupt 360 families. And then you will disrupt another 300 or so families by moving it to whatever campus you want to move it to. So that is a consideration. I would say that the two scenarios that I think are the most palatable, one is to relocate Flowery, or one is to allow Flowery to remain there. And I think to close, Alvarado would be the right one, because it's the most highly segregated. School in our district and those kids should be benefiting from a different program Thank You
176trustee Ching. I just want to say I'm just gonna remind everybody I know there's big feelings and I acknowledge that but please be respectful we cannot regardless of what school we close if we made a good decision tonight we have to wait for information there's three criteria that need to be evaluated we could kick this down the road forever but at some point that criteria is our next step so again i want to remind everyone if we make a decision tonight While we're waiting for criteria and information to see if we can even proceed forward from the CEQA report, we can, as trustees, ask for more information from staff. We can prioritize study sessions to ensure the time to get our questions answered and to have conversations about it. Because if it's not, if we,
177I don't know how the timing on this, Harold, and maybe you can. And I apologize if you did mention, I don't recall. So if you could give us a little bit of timing in regard to those three criteria and when we could potentially expect some information, I think that's valuable because if that information shows us that this in fact is not the school for our community to close based on the criteria, then we need to do this process with a whole other school. And we're talking about a serious budget crisis here. So we need to be realistic with our resources and we need to be. fair to our community. So we do need to make a decision so that we can get the next bit of information to proceed forward with school consolidation. So in
178terms of timeline, how long can we expect approximately to get these three criteria evaluated and returned to us for decision? Yeah, I can try to address the CEQA piece of it. The boundary adjustment and transition plan is going to be your staff, so I will turn to them on that piece. But for the CEQA part, we'll have to talk to the CEQA consultants. The CEQA consultant who did the work for the middle school is lined up and ready to go. They have a traffic consultant ready to go. It's really hard for me to give you an estimate because the decision you make changes things greatly. The middle school, they did this analysis, the traffic analysis, very quickly, but it was easier because you used to have all the kids at Altamira, and now you're going
179to have all the kids at Altamira. So that was part of the focus of their study. So that type of study can take anywhere from a few weeks to, I don't want to say more than like 60 days worst case scenario, and I think it would be less than that. But you're probably talking about, depending on where you go, we probably want to give them at least days, I would think. Okay, thank you for that and then and then Reina would you mind please? addressing the boundaries The boundaries they could have turned around within a couple weeks but if you're gonna do the Combo like trustee Bell was saying there are no boundaries So but yeah, the they've called us and they said they're ready to go and boundaries should I take no more than
180two to three weeks? Okay. Thank you So look at you know trustee Guzman that these What are these things called? The resolutions are not set in concrete. They're set in sand. We can pull them out and redo them. So I get your desire for more time, and I respect that, but also we have to represent all students and all parents and everybody, and we need to get this ball rolling on this issue. I've been staring at this problem for six months, and I've had that luxury that you have, which I get. I've spent a lot of time looking at it, talking to people and staring at it, looking at the numbers, trying to figure out distances, all that sort of stuff. And so I just, I don't see a better option, but I am absolutely
181open to a better option if there is one out there. I'll be the first one to admit that I was wrong and I'm stupid that I didn't see it. So I'm ready to propose a motion to, you know, to simplify, to close Flowery and then to study. moving it to El Verano, moving it to Sasserini as two options. And then the third option is my split elementary. I would love to spend more time digging into that, understanding what it is. I think there's a lot of positives on that model in terms of the segregation aspect of it, the community. We don't have the Presswood people against the Sasserini people. All the teachers are on one campus. They can collaborate. To me, it has a ton of positives. And I'd love to start spending time on
182specific, options to really dig into it and have those conversations. So if nobody else has any other input, then I'm ready to propose that. Okay, so is that your motion? That's my motion. Okay. I hereby propose a motion that the resolution would be amended to reflect that we agree to close the Flowery campus and to then study where the program would be. located and those three options would be option A would relocate the program to Alvarado, option B would relocate the program to Sasserini and option C would be the split elementary option where there's no boundaries and we would decide where the standalone dual immersion campus would go and where the TK through 2 campus would go and where the 3 through 5 campus would go. Thank you, Trustee Bell. Is there a second? I'll
183second that motion. Okay, we have a second. So, yes. Okay, so I'm just curious if anyone would consider not moving the Flowery campus and just closing one other elementary school and dispersing them between two others, and specifically Alvarado. i i'm before we take the vote i'm just curious is anyone open to that model trustee layman tonight i am i am not there tonight i have considered these options for the better part of two years from the first time the options were presented the first time i thought about what was available to us as a district start and then even back in december i was prepared at that time to to make decision if it came to be we punted it for six months in December we've had two sessions since that time I actually did
184the math we're having a session about every six weeks right now on this topic and I think we're putting our district through more angst than good at this point I understand we have one community represented very well here tonight I don't think our other if our other communities were here I think they would have similar feelings about their campuses and I think if it's three a few weeks before we're going to have all the reports back we probably won't review this until August is my guess just based on when the when the timing of sessions are in June I could be wrong we could decide we'll review them in August and that could give trustee Guzman and anyone else time to provide solutions that they think would be a better alternative so that would be
185my proposal is to move forward with where we are today get all the information necessary from the three-step process we need to make and review that in August thank you I don't think we have enough capacity if we close El Verano have you run that if you looked at the numbers on the high level it works roughly with very little room for margin is that what I mean, yeah, I think so. And look, I'm happy to add that to the list of options. I'm trying to get us to the point of making a decision and looking at specific options. We're just talking about the school we're going to close. Let's start talking about specific options so we can drill down and get to the point here. So I'm open to, you know, two options, but
186we need to reduce it down to more than, you know, if we're still talking four options, that's still too many in my mind, but I'm... I'm open if it makes some progress. I'm open to it. Okay, thank you. At this time, that is not something that I'm going to consider. I'm not saying it's not something I would consider in the future. I'm just saying right now I'm prepared to make a decision so that we can get more information to understand if this decision, in fact, will even be permitted per the secret report. Trustee Levin, any other comments? Trustee Guzman? Trustee Ching? All right, there is a second. So we have a motion and we have a second. So no roll call. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. All opposed? No. All right, thank you. With
187that, we are going to take a break. We will come back at 9.15. Thank you. Welcome back, everyone, and thank you to those of you who are still here with us. At this time, we are going to get back to our regular agenda. So we are on item 14.1. This is a... Just real quick. I forgot we have a resolution that if we go past 20, we have to have a supermajority that agrees to go on. Correct. We do have that. So just maybe make that quick. Thank you. Okay, so I just want to ask my fellow trustees if we... One, if everyone's okay continuing, there's some very important items in this agenda that we need to get through. And then two, if we want to set parameters for ourselves, is 10 o'clock a realistic
188goal? It's not a realistic goal to get everything done, so I think that we need to move up items that are of greater, higher priority. And I think we definitely have to get through items. Sorry, I think it's item seven and eight and six sorry and four and four so so it's all right there's a lot of priorities on this and Yeah, and I think I think we can I would I would ask you guys to maybe Consider the 10 o'clock so we can get through that because it is important. This is district business This does directly affect our staff and our kids. So I'd like to make it all a priority. It's on the agenda for a reason And we have two board meetings in June that are going to be full of other
189important information So can we try our best to get out of here at 10 giving everything the attention that it deserves? Okay Right, so let's let's try and get to ten and then we can have a discussion at ten if we only have a few items off We can consider. How do you feel about that? Cho si jing? Yeah. Okay. All right 14.1. This is a sunshine letter This is not an action item. This is an information only and Who is preparing? Who is? Rena, you are. Thank you. Hi, members of the board, President Landry. We received on April 28 the Sunshine Letter from VMTA that wanted to negotiate Article 6, hours of employment, Article 11, class size, Article 17, extra pay assignments, Article 15, and Article 18, health benefits. Okay, thank you. Is there
190any questions from board members? Seeing none. Board discussion any discussion on this item? All right. This is an information only item So seeing as there's none we'll move on item 14.2. This is a sunshine proposal by Sonoma Valley Unified School District and Right now I'll turn it over to you. Yes. So the The contract states that we can open four articles plus health salaries and health and welfare when we can also agree to negotiate any articles mutually so the district proposes article 7 evaluations article 19 early retirement reduction service plans article 22 calendar work year article 25 discipline lesson dismissal in the district also would like to open article 6 11 17 15 and 18 under mutual agreement by the district and the association during the negotiation process Okay, thank you. And I know it
191wasn't listed as an action item, but this, in fact, is an action item, correct? You are looking for direction from the board? No, it's just an information item. Oh. I don't believe you do. I don't know. Oh, you did last year, so you can this year. Okay, yeah. All right, Mr. Tunick, can you hear us? Are you there? Yes. Hi. All right, so this item, we have approved this. And so I'm wondering what your legal guidance is at this time. Is this an item that we need to approve? Sorry, and we're on item 14.2? 14.2, correct. I'm just taking a look at the agenda for a second here. Thank you. I believe on the agenda it's not indicated as information only, so I believe the board would like to take action if it may do
192so. I'm sorry, say that last piece again. The board what? May take action if it would like to do so. Okay, but as I understand it, it is not necessary. It is okay that this is an information-only item. Oh, yes, I'm sorry. I misunderstood the question. No, that's okay. All right. All right. Thank you for that clarification. All right, so this is an information-only. At this time, we do not need to take action. Is there any questions from trustees to Ms. Seif? No? Any board comments? Seeing none, okay, thank you. Thank you for that. And we'll move on to 14, no, excuse me, hold on, 14.4. This is an action item, approval of declaration of need for fully qualified educators. So this came back around again. You did see this in March, and this was
193on the consent agenda, and the Commission on Teacher Credentialing requires that this is in open. As an action item and so this is a declaration of need for fully qualified educators We do predict in every year. We do need teachers that will be on Either a stip it's a it's a permit so before we can put teachers on a permit Especially those shortage areas you have to approve this declaration of need. Okay. Thank you questions from the board I had a question about special education, and I have concerns about you're requesting eight special education teachers to allow us to hire them with a PIP. Is that correct? We are, but this is just a prediction right now. There's just one that we need. Yeah. I mean, my only concern, and I don't know because we
194have not faced this before, if we did not approve a PIP. What happens like if I say no, we're not gonna approve a pip For special education specifically. How does that play out? So when they are on a pip they are in a program to get their credential Yeah, so it's better to have them in a program getting their credential than having like a long-term substitute without the credential and the only reason I bring this up is because this is an area that district is suffering in and you know having turnover of special education is teachers very costly to our districts very costly to kids anyway so I that's why I asked the question but I'm ready to to make a motion to approve agenda item 14.4 is presented second all right there's a second
195any discussion seeing none all in favor aye aye thank you thank you All right, 14.5, action item, approval of updated bylaw 9323 for meeting conduct. Excuse me, conduct, Dr. Chin. So this is now the final read of the bylaw. You've seen this now come before you a couple times. This is with... the change in language around public comments on Zoom. And so we're putting it forward now as time for approval of this bylaw. Thank you at this time we'll take questions from the board trustee Chang. I just want to let my fellow trustees know that I will not support the approval of this Policy, I don't think that we should remove the ability for for people to give public comment via zoom I agreed to Move our meetings to this chamber on the condition that
196we continue to maintain zoom. I understand the concerns about Zoom bombs and inappropriate behavior of people who tend to do this online, but I still feel like it's important for our community for for access And I would have appreciated this opportunity as a parent. So I'm gonna vote no on this Any other questions from trustees? The incident that took place this spring and whether that's changed your view at all on this This potential policy that we're considering enacting because I do recall that we started this process to move if I remember the timing of it and the Approval we made actually happened before the zoom I guess you could call it derogatory comments and the back and forth and the disruption that it made at our at our Meeting and again, I've only been on
197here six months. I've been following for about two years. I've heard other disruptive comments Just want to know if that that incident changed your mind at all No, actually it didn't for the following reason which is that It has been very rare in this body to have disruptive comments. I've seen it in city council where they've had to shut it down with the supervisors. That was an issue several years ago. But I just feel like... It's a pretty rare incident, and I think we're trying to prevent something that is probably going to be a rare event. Also, I also thought that we made a bunch of changes that we were going to evaluate at the end of 90 days to our meeting format, and I would just like to have a broader discussion about it.
198Anyway. Yeah, I would say like the staff and teachers and folks that show up at my office hours at El Verano have voiced some concerns about this as well. So while I'm torn between the... the lack of efficiency that we've had in the past in conducting meetings and getting business done with the fact that it's difficult for people at times to be present physically. And so I would say I'm torn at this time. I mean, one option is to delay the vote. We can table it and then come back, you know, at the 90-day mark and talk about all the different changes that we've made. So that's one option. So anyway. Trustee Bell? I'm supportive of the motion. I think that the opportunity for someone to send us an email, I think that holds more
199weight than a public comment, to be honest. If I receive a well-written email versus a comment online, COVID's over, we're trying to be more productive, and a lot of other districts don't have online public comment anymore. And so, look, I'm supportive of it. I think that we need to, you know, it's all good until we have a contentious issue and then there's a whole bunch of comments and then someone says something and then it opens that up again. Just because that's in the past doesn't mean it's not going to happen again. And as soon as we put on the agenda the split elementary model. then, you know, it's not just the flowery people who are going to be here, it's everybody, and then it's the people at home, and then the meeting runs till midnight,
200and then district staff is still here. So the original part of the reason was for meeting for efficiency and to finish these meetings before whatever it is. Anyway, so I'm supportive of it, and I'm ready to propose a motion to vote on it. And if we get it goes, if it doesn't, then it doesn't, right? So I would like to propose a motion to approve this as it stands on the agenda. Okay, thank you. There's a motion on the table, so... Oh, sorry, let me withdraw that until Trustee Guzman speaks and to Cat speak. So I'm probably a little... Too early on that one. Trustee Guzman? Thank you. Can you remind me of that 90-day period, when that ends, and what are the other items to discuss at that time regarding meeting procedures? I don't
201know if I can remember everything. I can. It's getting late. I can try. I can do my best. So we originally made a decision to move to this location, and we made adjustments to our public comment. So we are now taking public comment at the beginning of the closed session agenda. for items on the closed session agenda and then we come back and we reconvene and prior to the regular agenda we take public comments on all items on the agenda. Right and then at the end of our meeting we take public comment on non agenda items and an additional piece is the numbered system So that was that was essentially designed to help with efficiency To understand that we want to respect everybody's opportunity to comment however three minutes for let's say 90 people That
202would that in itself would keep us here extremely late. So being realistic with our you know efficiency but giving people the opportunity to have public comment and and us to hear what what their public comment is so those were the adjustments and so i i actually don't recall us putting in still i mean i think we've all agreed that we would reevaluate it after 90 days it was never i don't believe it was ever written that we would do that but i think it's a it's an important it's an important thing to honor um so it would essentially just be looking at what our meetings have looked like since we made these changes are we more efficient you know how are people feeling about the comment they're taking a number so that we can you
203know see how many public comments we have for those purposes that i outlined so yeah i believe The place where you were going to go back and have a conversation and a reflection of your meetings was at the next board governance session, which was scheduled, and now is being pushed, I believe, until August. So that might be the next available time if that's what you see fit. But that's the original schedule that we had. So I would agree then with Trustee Ching that it seems most appropriate to... Lump this item in with all of those others and look at the meeting procedures as a whole And not just split it out at this moment Okay, any other further comments? questions No, all right. Is there an This is an emotion on the table, sorry So
204if the if I if my motion fails We keep in place everything we did tonight regardless, right? The only difference is online public comment at future meetings. Correct. Okay. Sorry, you could also make a motion if you so choose to, like Trustee Ching said, to postpone the approval of this until August. Well, how are you going to vote? Well, I'm prepared to make a motion. Show me your cards. I've shown my cards. I'm prepared to vote on this tonight. I am torn, but I am prepared to vote on this. So I propose a motion to approve the agenda item as written. Is there a second for discussion? One more discussion. No, well, we have a motion on the table. Sorry, we have to have a second or the motion has to die. I withdraw the
205motion. Is there a second? Oh, sorry. I will second. Now we have deliberation. So go ahead. So if this is passed tonight, we still do have that opportunity in August to evaluate it again. So depending on, you know, if Zoom goes away or not, we can still talk about it. Can I just, can I add a comment? I mean, any decision can actually be brought back. This is one of our bylaws. So you can always... Change bylaws basically you can make a proposal to change anything. Do you have a At this time. I mean we can also just go to a vote at this time Do you have something you'd like to say? Yeah, William William can you please help guide us through this process right now? So we have a motion on the table
206and we have a second wait William. Can you hear me? Yes. Can you hear me? Yeah. We have a motion on the table, and we have a second for approval. We have a trustee who would like to make an amendment to the motion. Do we need to proceed with a vote on the original motion and the second, or can Trustee Lehman make an amendment at this time? I think if the amendment is accepted by the individual who made the motion, then... You could you could vote on the amended motion. Okay. Thank you for that clarification Okay, so then we're at the point where we're gonna vote. Yeah, is there any further comment by trustees? All right all in favor aye aye all opposed No, no, okay, so the motion fails All right. We are moving
207on to 14.6, action, approval of resolution 2524 regarding the layoff and non-reemployment of certificated employees. Ms. Ugren is going to present this item to us. Good evening. So due to our current fiscal situation in our qualified budget it is necessary to move forward with resolution 25-4 24 regarding non-reemployment or certificated employees Since we did not receive enough Retirements and resignations it is necessary also to proceed with the employee layoffs. So after you Discuss this item Then I would move forward with noticing employees that are listed here Thank You miss UG written at this time. We'll turn it over to the board for questions any questions any comments from the board at this time Seeing none. All right. This is an action item. So I am looking for a motion to approve this item As presented
208at number 2524 regarding the layoff of non-reemployment of certificated employees. Is there a second? Second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. All opposed? Abstain? Abstain. Thank you. Sorry. All right. Thank you, Ms. Zufran. We are going to move on to 14.7, approval of resolution 2526 regarding the layoff and non-reemployment of classified employees. And then I do need to give you, it was a draft in the board packet on Friday, and I need to give you the most current, and I'll explain to you why I'm swapping that out. Amber does have them for the public, so I've got about 10 copies if you need one. Okay, thank you. So this agenda item the reason for the change from last Friday is we did have a hearing Employees are entitled to have a hearing and we had a
209hearing and we did get the hearing results back on Tuesday May 6th so you'll see that reflected in the resolution with that date and We did have the findings that we are able to move forward with our layoff as planned Okay. Thank you At this time, does the board have any questions for Ms. Ubran? Seeing none, is there any comments from the board in regard to this item? So I haven't had a chance to actually read the legal conclusions, but are you saying that the legal conclusions by the judge affirmed the original list put in front of? Yes, that is correct. Yes, we can move forward with the layoff. Okay. And one last question is, for some reason I can't seem to remember the 19.0625. Did that change from the April 15th? It's the same
210number? Do you mean from March 15th? I'm sorry, March 15th. No, it has not changed. And then we also do have the vacant positions, which we didn't have employees in those positions. Yep. All right, any further questions or comments from the board? Nope. Okay, this is an action item, so I am looking for a motion. Yes, I will move to approve Resolution 25-26. Is there a second? Second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. All opposed? And all abstain? Abstain. All right, thank you. Okay, we're moving on to Item 14.8. This is also an action item. Approval of the effects of layoff MOU between Sonoma Valley Unified School District and Valley of the Moon Teachers Association. And this is also Ms. Ucran. Sorry, that's me again. So this MOU is required as part of the layoff
211process, and we met twice with our partner, BMTA, and their team, and this MOU does reflect how we will go about placing in open positions for those people that have been displaced or bumped. Thank you. Is there any questions from the board? Oh, Trustee Ching. So just so I understand this clearly, there TOSAs are going to be given higher priority than the seniority rankings in the certificate employment list? That seems, no. Can you just explain it a little? So our TOSAs, which were in the positions that were being cut, they have higher seniority. So we had to notice, we just do it based on their credential, lower seniority. So the lower seniority are actually going to be the ones that will be losing their position to make room for the TOSAs. to go into those
212positions. Any other questions from the board? Seeing none, any comments from the board at this time? All right, this is an action item. I'm looking for a motion to approve. A motion to approve the effects of the layoff MOU between Sonoma Valley Unified School District and VMTA. Second. All in favor? Aye. Thank you. All right. We did that. Moving on to item 14.10 approval of the Altamira seismic alterations phase one contract award Ms. Sipes, you were going to present this to us. Yes, members of the board, we actually received notice today that DSA has approved the project as it was finally submitted. And in the first part of April, we issued the bid documents. And at the end of April, we actually only had one contractor that submitted a bid. They did come under the
213total bid price that we had anticipated. We did reach out to... contractors why they didn't submit a proposal and one because it was so late in the year at such a quick turnaround and a lot of some of the vendors couldn't submit a bid because of the PLA so we're asking for award of the contract to Arnett's builders for a total of six hundred and thirty five thousand nine hundred sixty four dollars Thank you any questions from board members at this time for Miss Ives Trustee Bell? Just a question on materials. Is this a fixed bid with the materials included, or are we at risk of increasing material prices? No, it includes the materials. There is a contingency of $20,000, but that's mostly for wood rot and unforeseen things like that. But that's included in
214the 635. I'm more thinking tariffs. Thank you. Trustee Ching? So can you just remind me what happens in Phase 1 and Phase 2? So this is Phase 1. Right. Phase 1 was removing the canopies, and Phase 2 is the anchoring, the joists, and the more detailed work. So the Phase 2 is going to be a lot more expensive. Yes. And when do we get the bid on the Phase 2? They're still drawing up the plans on Phase 2, and they haven't been submitted to GSA yet. So we have risk. of that, of having escalation of materials because of the tariff environment. It could happen, yes. Okay, any further questions? Trustee Guzman? Will there be a third-party construction manager hired by the district to oversee this work? We have CounterPoint. They were awarded through the bond
215as the construction managers, and they will manage these projects. Trustee Lehmann? Just a comment. I always think it's important that the public is reminded that this is one-time bond money. It can only be used on facilities. People hear the number 635,000 and think we have a fund there that's available for operating costs annually. This is not the case. This is set aside through a bond measure and can only be used for... specific Costs like like facilities upgrades. So this is an investment in the Altamira campus as our go-forward middle school Utilizing the remaining bond money. That's it. Thank you for that comment any further comments from the board Motion I would like to Make a motion to approve the Altamira seismic alterations the phase one of the seismic retrofit for Altamira Thank you. Is there
216a second? Second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Sipes. All right. Last item here on the agenda. 14. No. Oh yeah, 14.11, discussion. This is not an action item. Mobile communication devices, next steps. Dr. Casillas. Yes, good evening, Dr. Chen, President Landry, members of the board, and Sonoma community. In March, the board approved a mobile communications device policy to provide uniformity across the district in terms of mobile devices. And this also aligns to Assembly Bill 3216, which is the Phone-Free Schools Act. At both board meetings, there was discussion from the board members about bell-to-bell restrictions, and staff is asking direction and guidance if we should continue moving forward with a plan to implement a bell-to-bell restrictions, or do we have the ability to consider other options through an ad hoc
217committee for our high school. So we're just asking for some guidance and direction from the board in terms of implementation at the high school. Thank you. At this time, we'll turn it over to the board for questions. So let me just clarify. I understand that the item here is you're looking for direction. Once you have the direction, you'll craft the correct resolution for us then to have a first read and consideration. That would be the next step. Yes, we just need the direction so that we could put together an ad hoc committee made up of students and staff and family members for next steps Regardless there's gonna be a committee but the ask here is Does the committee have the latitude to look at various options or do you want us to only focus a
218committee on the bell to bell ban? Because we can go both directions, but if we're saying about to bow then we don't open up the other options with the committee So we're just asking for direction Thank you for that clarity Yeah, so I think the direction should be solely focused on a bell-to-bell ban using the yonder pouch technology. I don't think that there's a better alternative out there, and I know that New York State has now implemented a statewide ban on bell-to-bell in their schools, and I think that this is a sea change across the country, and we should have done this two or three years ago. But I don't see... an alternative and I'm a big proponent of a bell-to-bell ban for phones for all students. Thank you. Trustee Ching. So there's a strong
219body of research that really supports a bell-to-bell ban. So I'm definitely not considering, I don't, what I'd like to do is give, if there's consensus, give direction to staff. the high school to maybe run two pilots. I mean, I'd like for them to come up with the solution. I don't know that we should be picking the solution, but they should be determining what the best solution is. I know some schools use a magnetic pouch during the day. So I would like to leave that up to whatever task force or group at the high school to actually come back and say, hey, we've tried two things, and here's what works better. I mean, if they want to do three things, I'm fine with that. Trustee Guzman. Yes, I would also like to hear from an ad
220hoc group, you know, composed of staff and students as to what has worked in the past. It's not like this is just has never been done before. So what are best practices? That's what I would like to hear. Is it okay if I say something on this? Okay, so I'm really passionate about this, and I would like to also give direction to staff to only explore a bell-to-bell option. As a parent, I can come up with a bunch of different reasons on why it would, because we're so accustomed to having that communication. And so I just, and I think the kids are going to have a hard time. I think we have to be brave as a board and be... you know, solid as a five and say, this is for better student outcomes. This
221is, you know, there's data out there that shows the effects on mental health of our students, bullying. I mean, the list goes on and on. So I'm not interested in any information that isn't a bell to bell, but I would support giving staff the ability to. come back to us with what the best options are i have heard from the staff at the high school many of them do support this however the implementation and the buy-in i think is a big concern and so really making sure that they're a part of the process um is really important to me from what i'm hearing from our community because we we need this to work um i also just i i not that i don't think the yonder pouches are an option but i think that there
222was a conversation we had with a community member and I can't recall if it was here and we heard it or if it was at my office hours but it's really important that we try to help not only We want to pull this option away from our kids during the school day for all the reasons we talked about, but we also want them to learn the skills to have the ability to put their phones down. We want to teach those life skills because nobody's going to provide them with a resource once they leave high school to take their phone away from them. As a parent and a community member and someone who cares deeply about our kids, I really want to make sure that we're providing that. experience for them as well. And so I
223would support, like many of you have said, a bell-to-bell band with staff, giving staff direction to come back and tell us what you feel after exploring these options with staff at the high school and students would be the best way to implement that. Trustee Bell. Did I hear pilot? program you would like a trial implementation or something like that I mean many schools have done pilots to figure out what the best solution is so I don't want to predetermine that I don't know how the I think that the staff have to figure out how they're actually going to implement this is this is very challenging when we've already trained high school students that it's okay to have your phone all the time anywhere and everywhere so That's why I said pilot. It doesn't have to
224be a pilot, but it could. Yeah, so all I hear when pilot is that we're going to be another year away from implementation because we're going to try it and there's this and that. And so in my mind, there's enough evidence of other schools' successful implementation of that policy, so I don't think we need to have a trial to prove what they already know is the case and a successful implementation. So I think that the direction to staff should be research a school. where they've implemented the bell-to-bell band successfully, and we replicate that. And we've got to put a time frame on it where it's going to be implemented day one of the new school year. That's my opinion on this. I hear that, and I want to say that I, too, have heard from
225our staff. Many of our staff members at the high school specifically are really asking us not to delay this. But I just don't know realistically. I mean, I'm not sure with given the month left of school, less than a month left of school, and the July. And, you know, I just don't know if that's realistic. But I don't think we should. hesitate away from implementing this at whatever point in time we have the information that shows that we're ready right so maybe we you know it seems like starting at the beginning of the school year would be the most effective however we may learn from staff that it could happen at another time you know the challenge is is that getting student buy-in into it is like trying to get a junkie to I don't
226know what the analogy is, but the kids are addicted to their phones. And the kids are going to go, no, I don't want to give up my phone. I need my phone. I want my phone. It's like you're going to be trying to reason with someone who's addicted, which is what we're essentially doing. So no kid's going to go, yeah, this is great. I buy into it. It's going to take too long. And so, again, we've seen the successful implementation and we've seen the successful results. from from numerous locations you know within the US as well as internationally so there's a great body of evidence so the point is is that I don't think that this issue personally needs to be studied. I think all we need to do is to study how we, you
227know, the best implementation and then a time, we've got to put a time frame on it to say this is when it needs to be implemented by. It can't be an open-ended sort of study and we need to get buy-in from this and we have to have meetings and we have to do that. We're beyond that. There's worldwide evidence. of the efficacy of a bell-to-bell band. So we just have to, as a board, figure out the quickest and most expeditious way to implement this. And so the teachers are a big component of it, so I get buy-in from them, but I can't imagine that there's going to be significant resistance. But if we then include students to get them to buy into it... I don't see it, to be honest. Trustee Lemon? I would make
228a recommendation. I believe we have a majority or supermajority here that is behind the bell-to-bell ban. The direction I would give staff, and I would ask for your input on this, is come to the group with the options to select from. So do the research, find the three options that have been successful on how to implement a bell-to-bell ban. real options, give the group the ability to discuss them, debate them, select one of them. There is no, we're not selecting one, so there's no opt-out or none of the above. It's just ABC. You pick from ABC, we roll that out campus-wide with the support of the group. And I would say I would not make the group, you know. exclusively students I think staff is is extremely important in that but I think we need
229options that we know and it's out there we have we have the options they're available like let's pull the ones that we know are successful put it on a multiple choice select one and let's go. Chelsea Chang. I also feel passionate about this but I also want to consider there just a realistic timeline we have you know less than a month of school left I mean, I don't know, two weeks. I'm like, I don't even know what day it is today. They've got a lot on their plate. And I just, I think it's. I don't think it's realistic that this is going to happen on August 13th when we restart school. I would love for it to, trust me. I think it's a high priority. It's hurting our children. But I think we have to
230be realistic about what we can put on our staff's plates, our teachers. They're the ones that are going to have to be implementing this. So I'm flexible, but I think... I agree with the direction. I would ask staff then to include in this by at least give us a date that we're committed to doing this by. The date not be December or January. Within the first 60 days of school coming back. I could support that. I would ask staff or a superintendent if they think there's enough bandwidth to figure that out within the first 60 days of the next school year. 60 days, that's about two months, right, considering everything that's happening at the start of a school. And I would agree that starting it after school starts could help with the education, the information,
231right? There's a lot of training and educating that we'd have to do to remind students, you know, we're going to start this policy on September 30th or October 1st. Right, so at least that will give folks the two months. That's something we could probably put in a voluntary ad hoc committee now before the end of the school year and then revisit in August. Okay, thank you. Yeah, and I think 60 days is a generous amount of time for that, so I think that we should encourage that that's the outside date that we'd have it in place and working on it. Trustee Ching? Yeah, I would also suggest that you contact... San Mateo High School and their principal I had a long conversation with her they they implemented a belt a belt ban in 2020 and
232they have a lot of experience in terms of the the implementation and rollout and I'm happy to I'll make the connection offline with you just that it seems like we're just talking Almost verbatim what's the request here is the second step is to develop an implementation plan that would include input from staff and students And that's what we're looking for. So yeah, I think we're ready All right. Well, this is a discussion item. So as long as staff feels that they have clear direction we can proceed for it Okay, great. Thank you we have Communications to the board via public comment. So at this time, the board recognizes the value of public comment on educational issues and provides this time for the members of our audience to address the board on any school-related matter not
233on this agenda. The board can take no action at this time. Each speaker is requested to identify themselves prior to addressing the board and limit their comments to three minutes. At this time, do we have any public comment for items not on the agenda online? If so, can you please raise your hand at this time? We have two. And what are their names? Okay, so Ronette and Rachel will be our two public comments online for items not on the agenda. In the room, we will start with public comment number one. Is there a number one? You can be number one. Okay, come to the podium. It's your turn. Welcome, Ms. Hermosillo. Let me adjust this to my height. Thank you. It's great to be here. It is not going to be a normal occurrence for
234me. Good evening, trustees, superintendent. Trustee Guzman, great to see you here. I want to say two things. The first one is I've been in government and around elected officials and appointed officials for many years, over a decade, and I'm moved by people that want to serve and be of service to help the community. It's not an easy job. As the years go by, it doesn't get any easier. People that are appointed or elected give up a lot in their personal life. They are attacked for decisions they make in a governing body, and it's just so unfair. And I just, I want to really call to attention that people that are willing to give of their time to better our community need to be given a chance to do that. We keep on burning through elected
235officials and superintendents that want to help our community and it only sets us back more and more. The bottom line is we are further impacting our kids, our community, by making harsh judgments and not sticking through with the folks that we appoint or we elect to appoint to help our kids and our community. And I just don't want to be in a position where the state comes in and takes over and makes decisions in what happens in our community. And so I just, I encourage the community to have more patience and more grace. Everybody is trying their best for our community. And with that said, I know that consolidation and closing schools is not easy. You guys have a big burden to tackle. I just encourage you to understand that when you make decisions on
236already impacted community members, that you do everything you can to mitigate those impacts on people that are already struggling to meet their basic needs. So, thank you. Thank you for your comments. Public comment number two in the room? No? Number two? How about number three? How about number four? And how about number ten? Okay, we'll go online. We have two public comments online. I believe it was Rachel. Rachel, you have three minutes and the mic is yours. Hi, my name is Rachel. I emailed you all and I did say I was going to call in to talk about the bus policy for students with special needs. On Friday, April 25th at 630, I think like at least eight parents got a phone call that our kids were going to be sitting on a bus for
237three to four hours. And that was going to be their new agenda, their new schedule for the bus. Most neighboring. districts have policies in place so that there's a limited time no matter how far you are even sacramento which is huge has a 90 minute to two hour policy so i was wondering why our district doesn't have that policy if we do have that policy why we can't find it all that aside i also want to take a moment to publicly acknowledge troy knox who has been a beacon of light and a breath of fresh air to this special needs community i have had probably the hardest five months of my life um Some people know, most people don't. This is the gentleman who has called me at 7 o'clock in the morning, 8 o'clock
238at night. He's shown up during spring break. He has literally kept us alive. And so I just also want to acknowledge him and let him know how much I appreciate him and let you guys know what a great job he's doing. Thank you. Oh, and what a great job you guys are doing. I could never do you guys, so thank you. Thank you. All right, Ronette, was our last public comment correct, Michelle? All right, Ronette, you have the mic. Hi, good evening. I just wanted to say a couple of quick things. One, I was there in person tonight and I was supposed to be speaker number three at the end, but the facilities out in the hall, when I first started in this district, the meetings were held at this location and the TVs were
239on and you could hear through the speakers out there, but nothing was turned on tonight. So it was very difficult and it was also extremely hot out there. So maybe something could be done to make that more. accommodating for people who are going to be the overflow that can't fit into the room. And secondly, when it comes to you doing your superintendent search, I beg you to please not pay exorbitant amounts of money to headhunters and companies to try and find someone to please include your teachers, your parents, your community members in making that decision. We've tried it the other way multiple times and it would be great if it didn't have to be that way again. Thank you very much. Thank you for your comment. Okay, at this time I'm going to ask the
240board to please go back to item 14.2. So that is an item that was not listed as an action item. However, this does need to be voted on. I was just notified by our attorney. So 14.2 is the Sunshine Proposal by Sonoma Valley Unified School District of the district's initial proposal with Valley of the Moon. Teachers Association, BMTA. So at this time, it was already presented to us, so I would just ask that if the board has any questions of Ms. Seif's, they ask now. Otherwise, I'm looking for a motion. I'll move to approve the 2025-26 Sunshine proposal by the district. Is there a second? Second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Thank you. Alright at this time we have board reports. It is 1015 I'm just wondering if our trustees would be comfortable emailing staff
241or if there's something that you would like to share with the public Do we have any board reports at this time? No, okay seeing them future agenda items Something that can also be emailed to staff. Okay. Are we in agreeance on that? All right, and at this time we are going to adjourn 10 14 p.m. Thank you everyone.