001Good afternoon. The board is reconvening from closed session. There was no action taken. Now, if I can ask for a roll call. Trustee Ching. Here. Trustee Kelly. Here. President Knox. Here. Trustee Landry. Here. Trustee Winders. Here. Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. Next, we have approval of the agenda. Is there a motion to approve this evening's agenda? I move to approve the agenda as presented. I'll second. All in favor? Aye. Announcement of Spanish Language Translation Services. We have Juan Morales from the Language People. Mr. Morales, if you could introduce yourself. Buenas noches. Si me escuchan en Zoom, si necesitan traduccion de la junta esta noche, pueden meterse a Zoom. Ahí está el canal. Nomás le tienen que hacer clic a la base de la pantalla. Va a salir un icono que es un globito.
002Le hacen clic allí y va a decir, les va a dar la opción para escuchar. Si quieren escuchar la traducción simultánea en español, ahí es donde se tienen que meter. Gracias. Thank you, Juan. Next, we have this evening's norm and inspiration from Trustee Kelly. Are we on over here? I think so. Good. So on Monday, well, first the norm and second the inspiration. So the norm first is we are curious, not judgmental. And I like this norm because to our longstanding selection of norms, I added this one as some of our trustees can remember a couple years ago. This is what I think of as the Ted Lasso norm. That's straight from the television show, but it's a Walt Whitman quote. And the idea there is that education is, of course, fundamentally about curiosity, not
003being judgmental. It's the ability to hear one another and to understand where each other is coming from. So I like that norm. I'm glad it got introduced and I'm glad it's going to be continuing as part of our norms. On Monday, I was in Hiroshima. And you can see that I was in Hiroshima. And you can see it there on the screen as a photograph there. That is of the atomic bomb memorial in the center of Hiroshima. It was a building that that's the only frame of it that survived, actually. It's directly underneath the place where the atomic bomb was dropped. And it has become an international peace memorial. It's an incredibly beautiful location for anyone who hasn't been there. The central island of the city of Hiroshima has been converted into a park, a
004peace park. And it's quite amazing. It's beautiful. If you could go, Michelle, please, to the second page. Underneath, the Japanese government has constructed a hall of remembrance to the loss that occurred. And it's an amazingly beautiful location. The architecture is incredible. And anyone who has a chance, I would recommend visiting. There's a long sort of path, circular one, that you take down to get to the underground floor of the center of the memorial. And along there are several plaques that talk about the sentiments that were in the minds of the creators when they did it. And I'm not going to read much of that text, but there was one very small portion of it that got my attention. And I took a picture of it, and I have the text here on my phone. So
005I'll read what the screen says now. What it said was, we hereby mourn those who perished in the atomic bombing. At the same time, we recall with great sorrow the many lives sacrificed to mistaken national policy, and the lives of those who were killed. To ensure that no such tragedies are ever repeated, we pledge to convey the truth of these events throughout Japan and around the world, to pass it on to future generations, and to build as soon as possible a peaceful world free from nuclear weapons. And I thought for two reasons that that was just incredibly striking and moving to me when I was there, the first is in the context of the danger that we all face in the world now. You know, it's a time when it seems like we've forgotten some
006of the lessons that a prior generation learned, and to which this memorial stands. Thank you. It stands as a memory. And so I just, I was incredibly struck by it, the over 300,000 killed by this one event, and the horrible scar that it left for so many. But the second part of it that really struck me was that the pledge to convey the truth of these events, that it was the one thing that they could take away from what occurred, the thing that was the ability to come to some comprehensibility for what they faced, was that sense that. They would convey the truth of the events, and they would make sure that they would always convey the truth of the events, that that was at the core of the mission that they undertook in the
007wake of this. And I just think it's incredibly moving because I think that resonates with us all. That's why we do what we do, is we try to convey the truth of what we experience and what we see, and making sure that it is remembered. So I just, I was very struck by it, and I wanted to share it with everyone, and thank you. Thank you very much, Trustee Kelly. At this time, I'm very honored to introduce. Thank you. From Flowery Elementary School, we have Principal Liliana Zepeda here, who will present her students, who will have a presentation this evening. Thank you. Good evening. I am Liliana Zepeda, Principal at Flowery Elementary. It is with great pride and joy I want to introduce our amazing fifth grade students. Tonight, you will hear testimonials from students
008whose lives have been shaped by Flowery, each sharing their unique experience and insight into why Flowery is the best, and why it is the best school ever. These testimonials will be presented in the student's second language, showcasing their diverse linguistic progress and impact that Flowery has had on their lives. I'd like to welcome our presenters, Bridget Williams, Daniel Hernandez, Leilani Lai, Yaritza Vega, and Luke Smith-Luciano, and immerse ourselves in their stories of growth and empowerment that Flowery has helped cultivate. Bridget? Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Bridget, you may come up. Thank you. Me llamo Bridget. La Escuela Flowery es una escuela donde los estudiantes aprenden español e inglés. Una de las cosas más importantes para nosotros es leer en los dos lenguajes. En Kinder, recitamos el abecedario cada día y aprendimos un poema
009nuevo cada semana. Una vez al año, tenemos un día donde los estudiantes de Kinder al segundo grado recitan un poema nuevo cada semana. Y en el segundo grado, recitan un poema nuevo cada semana. Y en el segundo grado, recitan un poema nuevo cada semana. Y en el segundo grado, recitan un poema nuevo cada semana. Y en el tercer grado, recitan un poema nuevo cada semana. Y en el tercer grado, recitan un poema nuevo cada semana. Y en el tercer grado, recitan un poema nuevo cada semana. Y en el tercer grado, recitan un poema nuevo cada semana. Y en el tercer grado, recitan un poema nuevo cada semana. Y en el tercer grado, recitan un poema nuevo cada semana. Y en el tercer grado, recitan un poema nuevo cada semana. Y en el tercer grado, recitan
010un poema nuevo cada semana. Y en el tercer grado, recitan un poema nuevo cada semana. Y en el tercer grado, recitan un poema nuevo cada semana. Y en el tercer grado, recitan un poema nuevo cada semana. Y en el tercer grado, recitan un poema nuevo cada semana. a la escuela entera. Para los estudiantes de tercer a quinto, los dos estudiantes de cada clase recitan un poema en cada idioma a toda la escuela. Por eso tenemos una biblioteca. Tenemos libros en cada idioma ahí. También para los recuerdos hay actividades como arte y juegos. Otra cosa que tenemos son los ferias de libros. En una de las ferias de libros tenemos cinco dólares gratis para comprar un libro porque participamos en el jogathon. En Florida tenemos un programa llamado Buddies. Es cuando Kinder y Quinto se juntan
011y cada niño en Quinto tiene una amiga en Kinder. Hacemos dibujos, ayudamos con matemáticas, hacemos galletas y celebramos días especiales con ellos. En el primer día de la semana, los estudiantes de tercer a quinto se juntan y cada niño en quinto tiene una amiga en Quinto. En el segundo día de quinto no sabía nada de español. Pero en nuestra escuela tenemos la mitad de los estudiantes de una familia que habla inglés y la otra mitad habla en español. Así podemos copiar las cosas que los otros niños hacen. Soy tan afortunado de ir a Florida. Es como si la mitad de mi familia estuviera ahí. Daniel? Also in front of you, you each have a yearbook from Florida. So you may take a look. Hi and welcome to Flowery. My name is Daniel Hernandez and I'm
012a fifth grader. I'm so glad that my parents took me to Flowery because it's a kind school. When you're hurt or feel sad, one of your duties will come and help you out with any problems you have. Flowery also has a library. Miss Sarah, the librarian, is so nice. If you're looking for the book, just ask her and you'll find what you're looking for. We have a lot of books your children can read. For example, if your children like sports, you can read a lot of books. You can also read a lot of books. You can also read a lot of books. You can also read a lot of books. You can also read a lot of books. You can also read a lot of books. You can also read a lot of books. You
013can also read a lot of books. You can also read a lot of books. You can also read a lot of books. You can also read a lot of books. You can books or picture books we have them but the most important part is we have books in English and Spanish. We also have the seniors come to flowery as for a single on in April. At recess we play with them. Later they come to our classroom to talk about their childhood at flowery and tell us about the college or job he or she is going to. You might even see your big brother if he's a senior in Sonoma Flowery High School. Flowery has a lot of fun events for example the salsa party Dia del Nino and my favorite one the jog-a-thon. In the
014jog-a-thon you run laps on our track. It might seem boring but you can win prizes for your class or for yourself. The jog-a-thon isn't just running laps. You run laps to make money for our school for field trips and fun activities. To make the jog-a-thon more fun while you're running teachers and students can come to the school and have fun. Teachers or parents throw color powder on us. It's so fun when they do that. Parents can come to the jog-a-thon and run with their kids or they can help throw the color powder. We have PE every week. We always do PE on the blacktop. But when it's raining we go to the cafeteria. Sometimes we play fun games or do have competitions with each other. Flowery has a lot of teachers and they're all nice.
015My favorite teacher in Flowery has to be myself. Maestro Valandran is my favorite teacher because he plays soccer during recess and my favorite sport is soccer. Speaking of soccer there are two soccer fields and two basketball courts. At recess you can play in the field, basketball court, playground on the green wall. PTO sponsors our school by helping pay for field trips and more. The field trips are really good. The most important thing about Flowery is the bien valengo. Here at Flowery you're going to learn Spanish and English. In kindergarten and first grade, you'll start learning mostly Spanish and some English. As you get older, you will go to the different classes to learn English and Spanish. Hola, mi nombre es Leilani y yo he aprendido mucho en Flurry. Antes que yo estaba en esa escuela,
016yo no sabía ni una palabra en español y ahora puedo hacer una historia completamente en español. Además, Flurry es muy divertido. Por ejemplo, para ganar dinero para la escuela, hacemos recortaciones de fondos como el Yogathon y el Día de los Niños. A mí me gusta hacer eso porque es una manera divertida de ganar dinero. Con el dinero que ganamos, podremos comprar cosas para el jardín, pelotas para recreo, libros y muchos más. Una tradición de nuestra escuela es que cada otro mes, nosotros hacemos un sing-along en la cafetería con toda la escuela. Cantamos canciones en los dos idiomas y es muy divertido. Además, es muy emocionante cuando podemos ir enfrente del escenario y ayudar a los maestros cantar. También tenemos nuestra propia canción sobre Flurry. El sing-along siempre es divertido y me gusta hacerlo porque ayuda
017a los estudiantes a cantar en los dos idiomas. Leer es muy importante. Nuestra biblioteca tiene muchos libros en inglés y español para todos los niveles. Además, nuestra bibliotecaria Sarah es muy cariñosa. Ella también hace actividades en los recreos para los estudiantes y book fairs para que nosotros podamos comprar libros. También tenemos una compartición de libros. Ella también hace una compartición de poemas donde los niños pueden decir poemas en los dos idiomas a la escuela para ganar un premio. Yo recuerdo hacerlo en el año pasado y fue muy divertido. Hablando de premios, Flurry hace algo muy especial que se llama Premio Best. Las supervisoras y maestras le dan premios Best a los estudiantes si son respetuosos, cuidadosos, o responsables. Luego, hacemos un raffle cada viernes para ganar un juguete y es muy divertido. Para mí, ser
018bilingüe e ir a Flurry era una oportunidad muy especial. Ahora que yo sé cómo hablar en los dos idiomas, se abren oportunidades muy especiales. Por ejemplo, cuando fui a México, yo podía hablar a las personas allí porque mis padres no sabían cómo. Además, ahora puedo hablar y ayudar a los niños. Además, ahora puedo hablar y ayudar a los niños. Además, ahora puedo hablar y ayudar a los niños. Mi nombre es Yorita Vega y estoy muy feliz de que mis padres me pusieron en Flurry Elementary. Antes de empezar a ir a Flurry, no sabía cómo hablar inglés. Ahora puedo hacer una presentación en mi segundo idioma. Empecé a leer y escribir cuando íbamos a la biblioteca porque nuestra biblioteca, Sara, nos leía y eso me ayudó a reconocer las palabras mejor. En nuestra biblioteca también tenemos
019muchos libros. En sanding squab town we have lots of books in every book level so kids can improve in their reading. Your child can also receive help if they were having difficulties in reading by teachers. ELD is a class that helps me a lot with nouns, verbs, and much more. ELD has such a good teacher who is Belgianenne Casanova. She has helped many kids get reclassified and passed many tests. ELD helps kids develop English and improve in writing. rhinoceros kitty cat. Maestra Montano would help your child a lot with any problem they have, such as math, reading, and writing. In my opinion, she is an expert in everything she does. That's why I think she would be a great use for your child. Some of the best teachers, in my opinion, are Maestra Montano and
020Maestra Coffey because they have helped me and others with spelling, speaking, and writing. They both have unique styles of teaching. They both also make sure all students are able to understand questions. They make their ways of teaching understandable for kids. The field trips that Flurry takes are mostly about what a class is learning. Our field trips are a fun way of learning. I think your child will receive a lot of learning strategies in this school. Like Westminster Woods was a field trip that taught us about nature. This school has made me really happy and proud of the amazing things I've accomplished. I'll miss all the teachers and fantastic field trips we have done. I am mostly grateful for learning to write and to write for my kids. I'm also grateful for the support they've given
021me in both English and Spanish. Hola, yo soy Luke Smith Luciano y estoy aquí para decirte unas cosas de la escuela Flurry. Algunas cosas fueron divertidas en Flurry fueron cuando fuimos a un paseo de LBC, Luther Brewering Center. Era una obra de teatro de la hora muy ambiente y era muy divertido ver a los actores hacerlo. Me gustó cuando el actor que interpretó lo hizo un poco de la obra de la obra. Y cuando se tomó los papeles de la oruga, se comió verduras reales. También algo que fue divertido fue casa abierta. Cada año, sus niños pueden mostrar sus proyectos que hicieron durante el año en la cafetería y los salones a tus parientes. Además, hay field de cada año, que es el final del año escolar, y podemos llevar juguetes y jugar juegos afuera
022y grande. ganar boletos. Si tienes suficientes boletos, puedes ganar un bocadillo. Mi juego favorito en Field Day es Limbo. También en tercer grado tenemos cohetes de botellas. Podemos decorar los cohetes con cosas como nombres, banderas, y otras cosas como así. En cuarto grado vamos a un paseo de béisbol de los gigantes en San Francisco. Al final tenemos Westminster Woods en quinto grado. Es cuando vamos a un paseo a un bosque redwood y podemos acampar en caballos con amistades. Ahí aprenderemos cosas sobre el ecosistema de un bosque y más obras tus amigos. Thank you. Thank you very much students and I also want to acknowledge we have former students here as well, flower students as well. Yeah, no? How's student government? It's late. Oh, yeah, that's why I was wondering. I also want to acknowledge the
023principal, directora Zepeda, gracias, y familias, gracias también. Gracias por venir y gracias por su apoyo este año. Okay, so we will take a two minute break. Is that okay? And then we'll, or do we need to do a, okay, so we're gonna, we're gonna let our student voice present right now and then we'll take a short break. I'm just like, oh yeah, I'm like, all right. Hi, I'm Brittany. I'm from San Francisco. I'm a senior in the Department of Education. Hi, I'm Brittany. I'm from San Francisco. I'm a senior in the Department of Education. Hi, I'm Brittany. I'm a senior in the Department of Education. Hi everyone I have to leave very shortly Hi everyone I have to leave very shortly So I need to make my report. Hopefully as soon as possible. So thank
024you. So just there's not that much really going on at the moment at the high school with some more like awards, et cetera, et cetera. As the school year is wrapping up, but just for a quick little recap the art showcase in Golden Hall just ended and there were so many amazing products completed by students on display from projects from woodshot medals and photography to ceramics, drawings and paint, be that stay you can always put, you can always go where you want and you and paintings also mr mitchell mr anderson's photography and medals classes went to cte foundation spark the future event on april 25th spark is the annual fundraiser for the cte foundation which provides scholarships and grants to cte programs throughout sonoma county 10 classes were selected to show work at the event
025medals highlighted projects created in class and photography set up a photo booth for participants and congratulations svhs photography students the following have placed in soco cliques a photography context open all to all photography students in sonoma county this includes sonoma state and srjc first place for documentary is georgina van heerden second place uncategorized is alessandra andres second place still world is andrew bonfili honorable mention goes goes go to solana stas salish nebo alexa torres genevieve smith jacob dobbins john kozak a andrea martinez these students have made it into the final round of judging also congratulations to the first ever svhs swimmer to qualify for the cif state championships remy harrison and at ncs swimming championships our girls broke the svhs record and the medley relay congratulations alegria sylvie remy harrison maya garcia and kendall caden
026and our girls lacrosse team made it to the bval championship and also placed second in league and overall our leadership class has been working to get ready for prom so we've been selling prom and senior week tickets that just wrapped up this week and overall as the school year is dropping up so is everything else on campus and the campus environment is stressed due to ap testing this week and next week but overall pretty mellow i also want to congrats say congratulations to all the seniors who have committed to their schools and i'm so excited to announce that i will be attending uc berkeley next fall as their regents and chancellor scholar yeah majoring in global studies with an almost full ride merit scholarship thank you and also i don't know when because i do
027need to go but we also have our slate three that's taking over next year um during that i don't know how you guys are gonna do that but just yay my name is kendall clemens and i'm going to be student voice i'm going to be esmer i mean i am and i'm going to be the student activities director and i'm teagan rhodes and I will be the financial advisor. We're also missing one member of our slate. His name's Chris Rivera, and he will be another part of our slate this or next year. So we're really excited. Okay. Congratulations, everybody. We'll take a brief three-minute break. Three minutes. Thank you. Our district is committed to providing a welcoming and inclusive environment to all and does not tolerate hate speech in any form. We recognize that the
028law requires the Board of Trustees to provide a forum for expression during board meetings, but in order to ensure the board can proceed with its business, the board expects that no person shall delay, interrupt, or make threats of violence during the meeting. Disruptive behavior, including comments on topics outside of the board's jurisdiction by any individual during a board meeting could result in removal from the meeting. Such removal may occur if an individual makes threats of violence or fails to adhere to the rules or laws governing conduct of the meeting. If an individual engages in inappropriate conduct as described above and is participating in a meeting remotely, they will not be allowed to continue comment. I would also like the audience to know that if we experience a disruption on Zoom, the board reserves the right
029to limit further public comment via this communication channel and may require all comments to be made in person. And with that, if I could have a show of hands for the people who would like to speak tonight. I'd like to get a sense of how many comments that we have. One, three, okay, four, and I see one. Okay. So with that, we can go ahead with three minutes for each speaker, and please step on up to the podium. Thank you, Nathan. My name is Becky Fitch, and I'm the music director at multiple sites, the high school and both middle schools. So the board actually already knows this, but I just need to say it out loud so other people know what's going on. So here I am again, so that when we ask ourselves why
030the music department looks the way it does, you have this answer. So on May 1st, I was part of a school board that presented with a choice between two positions. One would allow me to continue working with kids I work with, teaching curriculum I feel strongly about with students that I already have rapport with. In schools I've been teaching for six or eight years, the other would allow me to keep paying my rent and protect my permanent status in the district. So removing the emotions, the choice is obvious. Take the full-time position. It's even a music position. Great. But it does not feel like an easy choice. I feel like the kids I've taught for years and I feel like my classes that I've worked so hard to try and build are being taken away
031from me. Ed services gave me 48 hours to make my decision and when I sent in my acceptance of the full-time elementary position, I got an out-of-office response. And then, Trustee, thank you, Trustee Knox, for responding a little while later, though, who's cc'd on the message. So how did we arrive at point four being the entire secondary offering for a district with two middle schools and a high school? So I'm going to give you a little bit of a summary. So I'm going to give you a little bit of a summary. So I'm going to give you a little bit of a summary. So Adele is lumping their classes in with the zero period class, which they did this year, but there's three adult kids in it this year. Who can get to zero period?
032So that is really not offering that to those students on campus. And Altamira is offering no performing arts classes, no music, no drama, no dance. And there's with we haven't had an elementary instrumental program since 2019, so of course we do not have the requisite 28 signups to offer a music class, which is what's being demanded right now. And even if there were that many kids, I'm certain there would be enough schedule juggling that it would lower that number. I had Altamira teachers come and ask me why music was not on the drop menu for their students to select in their electives classes for next year. Yeah, of course we don't have those signups. So not offering any music classes at Altamira is such an unfortunate decision. It will shrink the high school band further.
033And how small will we let that class get before we, pun intended, disband it? So of course, the right choice is to grow the elementary program. And that is the one right thing that's happening here, but not at the expense of the secondary program. We it's disrespectful to the work of my beginning students who have done so well this year to not offer you to not offer them an avenue to continue playing. We'll bring it back when there is demand. There's demand now. It's in my students who have come up to me and said, I wasn't sure about band, but now I really love it. And who can track their specific progress, denying them the opportunity to continue that program. And I think that's a really important part of the program. And progress sort of
034goes against what I thought we were kind of all doing here. So I really hope you find someone great for that point for because those kids really deserve it. Please. Oh, sorry. Thank you, Miss. Fitch, our concerts next Wednesday at 7 p.m., May 15th of high school, the last one for Altamira. It's a while anyway. So please join us for that. Thank you, Ms. Fitch. Next speaker, please. So I'm Jennifer Creech. I'm a parent of a course, a couple of. girls back here and last time I was here I came and I spoke nicely came in my mom clothes but I heard you only talk to professionals and pencil skirts so I thought I'd obliged and no classism in here right so I'm gonna make this quick you lied to our kids and you let
035them down once again shocking right everybody shocked said I brought my girls here so that they can look into the eyes of the people ripping a crucial part of the education from them again music look into the eyes and study the people I want them to be nothing like make sure they understand what crooks cosplaying on a board look like quick question why did not one of you attend any of the performances you were invited this year check the minutes from last meeting you guys were all received invitations to our previous one and I know you guys love your photo ops but not one of you attended so I understand music is gone and I can't fix that for my girls but what I can do is make a promise to them I can make
036a promise to these kids who I watched cry and other kids from the music program cry and see fit that this entire board eventually becomes replaced I don't care how long it takes I have no hobbies but these kids you see behind me and not only am i educated thanks to a public school with a board that cared about cared about us and the teachers but I'm annoying that's one of my favorite qualities and I've now made it my mission to see new people of good moral character in those seats because besides loving my family that have been in this town for over 50 years I love the teachers I love the staff and the kids in this town that deserve better and I love Sonoma which we know you guys obviously don't so girls
037look into the eyes of the people who don't care about your education and be nothing like them care about education don't give up on being a teacher Selena keep looking up to the amazing teachers and staff who love on you daily despite no support or respect from this board by the way happy teacher appreciation week to the real heroes one last thing all things done in the dark come to light and there seem to be a lot of things being done in the dark I'll see you all at community hours thank you thank you my name is Terry Hernandez and I am a voter in area three John Kelly you need to resign from the school board your latest trick to try and move public comment to a time that does not work for the
038public is appalling you are here to serve the public not yourself do you think the public has forgotten about the half a million dollars of taxpayer money that has been wasted on baseless investigations by you and high turnover at the district office because of you do you think the public has forgotten how you slipped the PLA into the board agenda while firing the superintendent Socorro shields do you think the public has forgotten how you have not reimbursed the two board members for the most recent unfounded investigation that you initiated do you think the public has forgotten that we have been through eight superintendents in seven years since you have been on this board do you think the public has forgotten that your campaign to take a seat on the school board was based on Luann
039Carlomagno not being straightforward on the school budget seven years later you have nothing to show for it I have not forgotten and I'm here to remind the voters not to forget thank you for your comment next speaker please hi my name is Lisa Stormont I am a resident of Boyce Hot Springs I've lived here 47 years and I've raised three children in this school district I'm here in support of 5157 which Celeste will be talking about later when my son attended Sonoma Valley High School about eight years ago he was a person who struggled mightily with his gender identity issues of grief around the loss of classmates who committed suicide due to gender identity struggles mixed in with family problems and what he now describes as system issues of oppression against the queer culture I
040didn't know it at the time I just knew that he was depressed he had difficulty getting up to good get to school and that mental health was an issue that kept him from learning the school system was not adept or prepared to help him in fact some of you may remember that that was the year that there was a riot at the school as tensions between the students and staff bubbled over towards the end of the year my son was in the mix of that uprising at the school as tensions between the students and staff bubbled over towards the end of the year my son was in the mix of that uprising he barely graduated from high school and did so out of sheer will to move forward in his life even though I am
041queer myself I'm a different generation and there were many times I didn't know how to help him when I came out and my other youngest son was in middle school he was bullied mercilessly because of who I am he still bears the scars of those days mentally for my transgender son he got to where he needed to be in spite of that painful high school experience he's a transgender man thriving living in his life fully in San Francisco and owning his own business however some of his friends didn't make it to the other side at all or with their mental health intact they may still be here today and others in in better mental health if there was a policy like the one that Celeste and Jeanette are put art have been working on and
042at that time to identify youth who are struggling you need resources or being bullied as we speak from what I understand many of these issues of systemic ignorance of queer culture and systemic racism are still problematic in the schools I feel strongly that the training that would result from this policy will provide teachers and staff members as well as students and the support they need to become more aligned as a learning community to protect the physical and mental health of our students and our children at Sonoma Valley Unified School District I would have been so grateful for this policy will my children were at school thank you for your comment we do have one online speaker Adina Flores Ms Flores go ahead good evening board of superintendent kann you hear me yes we can hear
043you okay thank you good evening I'd rather not be here because I've attended school board meetings pretty much every day this week after my full-time job I'm only here per the request so the parenting background and using the system that whatそれでは asked too I am in prison due to ley by late doctor and a staff order from my плат standalone school teaching Richard M Its my responsibility to keep the student from the virusùng at the à torrent foreign documentation serves me a big pleasure I in the here per the request of the parents in your district. It's disturbing to me that you have Ms. Winders present to speak on behalf of the Latino community. It's very upsetting. I've had my words with Ms. Winders online and she said some pretty horrific things to me as
044somebody who would be considered a part of the BIPOC community. She told me that I'm an abomination to God and went on to at length insult the validity of my faith, which is my entire being. And so when Ms. Winders is supporting organizations like Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, they actually mock the Catholic faith. And as somebody who was raised Catholic, my grandmother is a sincere and devout Catholic. That is absurd and it's upsetting. And the Dodger Stadium was actually protested by a largely Catholic Latino community for this very reason. So to say that represents the Latino community is not accurate. . And if we're going out in the hood and these other places, they don't want to be called Latinx. They don't know what that means. So we are indoctrinating and gentrifying these communities because
045of the nonprofit funding that we're receiving Ms. Winders. So I don't appreciate this policy that's being pushed through this evening saying that it is biased or that we need to have an unbiased lens when supporting pronouns within the district. Because for me, as somebody who is practicing my faith, you're now telling me that my faith doesn't matter and I need to bow down to you. So how many Catholics do you have within your district? Because let's go out in the community and collect real data. It's just interesting that the data follows a political narrative. So thank you, God bless you, Ms. Winders. I'm not going to put you on blast like that and read the rest of the absurd things you said to me. So thank you. Thank you for your comment. Okay, so that
046wraps up public comment for this portion of the agenda. At this time, we are going to move on to our reports. We've already heard from our student voice. And so I would like to call up the MTA. All right. Hello, ladies and gentlemen of the school board, Superintendent Dr. Chin and the people of Sonoma Valley. We appreciate the opportunity to address your day. I'm Dennis Hausman, a physical education teacher at Sonoma Valley High School and the co-president of the union with Laura Holben, a math teacher at Adele Harrison Middle School. First, let's start with happy teacher appreciation week. As well as happy nurses week. Pretty much my belief that any career that needs a whole week for depreciation probably isn't getting paid enough. There's no one way to be a great teacher and there's no
047one model that works. That is what is unique about teaching. I want to thank the mom who spoke during the public comment and gave her thoughts as far as our music program. And I hope we all took that in. We are proud to be representing such a devoted and passionate group of professionals. Some of our colleagues have decided to call it a career and have earned a well-deserved retirement. We'd like to acknowledge all the retirees in the district for their service to our community and to our students. We would like to make a special acknowledgement to CSEA President, Kimberly Smith, for her many years of service and leadership as a champion of the employees at our district. We'd also like to acknowledge Shireen Ellis, an 11 year educator at Creekside Alternative High School for the
048most part. Daniela Ziemer, a nurse in the district for 12 years. Greg Campbell, 23 years, a very distinguished teacher at Flowery Elementary School. Lauren Ryan, a distinguished teacher and TOSA at Prestwood Elementary School. And some of my close colleagues, Allison Manchester, who has taught English for 35 years, been a department chair along my side for about 30 of those years. And finally, I'd like to recognize Mr. Dean Knight, who spent 52 years as an educator in our district, as a physics, chemistry teacher, and a science teacher at Sonoma Valley High School. We thank you all for your service. These teachers, like all teachers, have affected eternity and we will never know where that influence stops. We want to acknowledge Angela Ryan, and thank her for her great work in supporting our students and staff as
049she moves on from Sonoma Valley Education Foundation. Good luck to you, Angela. As the school year comes to a close, we wanted to take this opportunity to provide you with a summary of our union's activities and concerns. Despite our best efforts, we find ourselves in a position where a new contract has not yet been reached. Throughout the year, our teachers have demonstrated dedication and commitment to providing a quality education to our students. Our teachers have worked tirelessly, and have been a great support to our students. We have worked tirelessly to adapt to changing circumstances and overcome various challenges. However, it is essential to address the concerns that have been raised regarding compensation, our working conditions, and our support for educators. We have engaged in numerous negotiations with the aim of reaching a fair and mutually
050beneficial agreement. Unfortunately, we have not been able to achieve this goal thus far, and a lack of progress is disheartening, especially as we approach the end of a current contract. We understand the financial constraints faced by the district, but we also believe that our teachers deserve to be fairly compensated for their hard work and dedication. Additionally, we must address the issue related to workload, classroom resources, and professional development opportunities. As we enter the break, I urge the school board to prioritize discussions on the contract, and work towards finding a resolution that meets the needs of both parties. Our teachers play a crucial role in shaping the future of our students, and it is essential that they feel valued, valued, and supported. Thank you for your attention on this matter. I remain hopeful that we can
051reach a positive outcome for all stakeholders involved, as we do not want to put the start of next school year in jeopardy. As I close out the school year in a couple weeks, is an exciting time around schools, with promotions, prom, field days, celebrations, and graduation. We hope to see the school board members and the district's executive board at as many events as possible that they're able to attend. It is truly a special time. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Hausman and Ms. Hoban. Next, we have CSEA. I like to come with stuff. All right, good evening, Sonoma Valley Board of Trustees, Superintendent Dr. Chen, District Directors, I am Kimberly Smith, your CSEA chapter president, Area B, Region 24, Chapter 376. I want to thank Ms. Hernandez, who has already left us, but for her remarkable
052job as a student voice this past year. She has always been a bright and shining star and will take the ray of light wherever she goes making changes. We also want to recognize we have nine classified members that are retiring this year, and we will be celebrating them next Friday at the retirement event. The membership has voted, and we are going to be celebrating them next Friday at the retirement event. The membership has voted, and we are going to be celebrating them We now know the following members who will be attending this year's annual CSEA conference. Chapter Vice President Andrea Dealey will attend, as well as Chapter Secretary Tara Neubacher and myself. The dates are July 29th through August 2nd, and when I get more details, I will be inviting all of you to attend.
053It's in San Jose this year, so it's an easy day's trip. And you can attend as a guest and sit in the back and see how CSEA runs with 2,000 more people in the room. Each day, they celebrate military service members and families honoring loved ones, recognizing new jacketed union stewards, members of the year, and past resolutions brought to the association by their own members for updating the association's constitution and bylaws. The four days are packed with affiliations. We have a full agenda, and this is a wonderful time. I always really enjoy networking with other chapters throughout the state of California. The week of May 19th is Classified School Employees Week. This year's theme is Empowering Generations. It is up to the experience classified to educate the upcoming new employees. It is vital that we
054steer and navigate them through their challenges to create a strong workforce and respect not just the employees, but the staff, and the staff that are involved in the organization. and respect not just the employees, but the staff, and the staff that are involved in the organization. and respect not just the employees, but the staff, and the staff that are involved in the organization. as educators and partners in education. We are now recognized as essential employees. I am excited to announce that the City of Sonoma will be recognizing classified employees next week at the City Council meeting. The chapter continues to work with the district to negotiate as the entire contract is open, and we have been working diligently updating people-friendly laws. We will also be negotiating for wages, and health and welfare. I am happy
055to announce after three years, the chapter constitution and bylaws project is complete. I am happy to announce after three years, the chapter constitution and bylaws project is complete. ratified by the members and updated through the association. I am hoping to continue to work with the chapter membership and increase the community outreach. We have a couple of projects in the works. The chapter is strong and forward thinking, improving the workplace conditions, keeping the members uplifted and empowering generations. Thank you for giving me time tonight to speak better together, stronger united. And I have a I have a badge for all of you. Thank you very much, Miss Smith. At this time, I'd like to acknowledge our police chief, Chief Cutting. Good evening, board members, superintendent. Thank you very much for this time. The last time we
056met was when the community resource officer was placed. And since then, I wanted to just give our first report. I would encourage all of all of you on the board and anybody in the community that wants to hear any statistic about what the community resource officer does to to ask for those ask for whatever information that you feel is helpful to understand this role. Deputy Esponda, Deputy Ed Esponda has been in this role. Full time since since the last meeting. And I'm going to refer to him as Ed because he's he's a person behind the badge. And that's really the goal in this position is to get that get the person known more so than the uniform. And so what he's done over the last the last month during school, we have done absolutely no
057policing. So no, no law enforcement contacts have occurred outside of situation. So we have had a number of incidents that have happened that required his intervention. So he's done no policing, which is one of my promises to you as a board. There were several incidents that took place. There's only been one actual physical altercation that's taken place on the high school campus. It's the only physical altercation that's happened since we last met. He was present. And because of his presence, it allowed the rest of the law enforcement in the city and in the valley to not have to respond in what we call a police response. And that's what we're doing. And that's what we're doing. And that's what we're doing. And that's what we're doing. And that's what we're doing. And that's what we're
058doing. And that's what we're doing. And that's what we're doing. And that's what we're doing. And emergency response, putting other people at risk. He came on the radio very quickly, advised everything was calm and had settled down and was working with the school administration who had recognized the fight taking place. He took a backseat and allowed the school to work through the problem. And it was quickly determined that this was not a there was no crime violations and law enforcement did not need to be involved. He exited the situation as quickly as he entered. And there was no. there were no repercussions from that from us the other three situations that happened were were also altercations physical altercations that took place off campus after hours one directly in front of the City Hall that was
059reported at the time and then two other incidents that happened at parks in the community after hours that were not reported until later the other two incidents did rise to a felony level and so there was some involvement where Ed worked with the school administrators of those sites and was able to work through the situation without having to directly involve himself with the students but did get engaged with the parents those were what I would call very positive outcomes for those situations relationships are the big part of this we're trying to make everybody understand that law enforcement is there to truly help and the relationships that Ed has developed on campus in a very short time have led to several very significant things one I can't talk about here because it's a surprise and I
060would ruin the surprise for the person if I talked about it but I can tell you that students are seeking Ed to participate in in their events both filming of movies participation and discussions I know leadership is reach has reached out to him and asked him to come sit with him and talk about his experiences and his experiences with the class and answer honest questions and honest concerns which I think is fantastic on top of that the another student and a couple of students are involved in I don't know if you understand what a sideshow is it's a racing issue where cars drive really really fast on the street and very dangerous we passed an ordinance in the city earlier this year as have as as has every other city in the in the county
061and you have several students here in community that have developed and built these cars they're very expensive it's a labor of love for these kids it's it's the old auto mechanics type of stuff and they've built these cars and so ed has been working with them and they are now going to be attending out at sears point raceway at sonoma raceway the top of cop event and they'll be racing against ed at night which is it's it's actually really super cool because it really keeps them on track of legitimate use of what they built and yet they don't have to do it on the street and cause problems so very kind of a cool process on top of that ed has attended several site site visits i believe with almost every facility now at least
062the two middle schools and both high schools with the superintendent and to go over expectations and roles and to ensure that ed's involvement with students is not disciplinary and is specifically only for particular law violations so and i think that's gone over very very well there's been a presentation along with some questions and answers i believe superintendent chin and ed were the two speakers there i have not attended those but i've heard they were going very well the only other thing i would like to add is that as we wind down in the school year and the summer is approaching quickly here i've spoken with many of you about training and education and we are very open to ongoing learning for ed and anybody else that would potentially be in that role in the future
063so if there's any courses there's a lot of law enforcement courses that teach about mental health and developmental issues that are that are taught to law enforcement and cops and how to interact i don't know that that's exactly what we are looking for when it comes to ed on campus so if there's any courses that you're interested in or courses that you think that would be beneficial for ed to take especially during the summer time please forward that on to us and we will we do have a fund to be able to pay for parts of that and there's some there are a lot of grants out there available as well so that's about all i have unless you guys have any questions or if there's anything else that you'd like me to talk about
064in the future if you just let me know thank you um chief are you going to entertain questions from the trustees i'm most happy to okay any questions from trustees no just thank you very much for the report and that is such a great thing that ed is going out to the racetrack with students and i mean to be able to use the stuff you're working on and then have that kind of interaction it's just it's very positive so glad to hear that thank you very much for your report okay um superintendent with all of these events so our adele robotics team took first place in this challenge which is super exciting i just want to thank mr juanis for his dedication to the students of adele harrison i went to go see him earlier
065this week and congratulate him and he's really excited about expanding the program i also wanted to take the opportunity to thank a few other people on april 26 our high school students were fortunate enough to have student day which was part of the awesome program we had a really successful event yesterday during the global student day which was the author's festival they had the opportunity to hear directly from some renowned global authors and were really engaged both trustee knox and i visited with the students and they got to hear about aliens which is also i guess kind of exciting for for the kiddos and so i just want to thank both david and jenny freeman and lespadaz for their generosity for sponsoring that for our I also wanted to recognize Sonoma Valley Unified's Classified Employee
066of the Year. Our Employee of the Year is Maria Compels. She is a translator at the high school and here at the district. Maria was recognized at the Sonoma County Office of Education. They had a reception and she was there with a lot of other classified employees that were recognized by the County Office of Ed. And so she just is a great representative for our district. I also wanted to recognize our classified week for all of our classified staff and also our teachers and also our nurses. We have a lot of really great staff working for our district and wanted to recognize all of them for their dedication. And then lastly, I wanted to congratulate our graduates from Sonoma Valley High School, the class of 2024. I know they have a great life ahead of
067them and I just want to make sure that they know that we appreciate them and want to see them succeed in life. So congratulations to the graduates. Thank you very much, Dr. Chen. We are now at the consent agenda. The purpose of the consent agenda is to act upon routine matters in an expeditious manner. Items listed are usually considered routine or are acted on in one motion. It is understood that administration recommends approval of all consent agenda items. Thank you. 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 approved by the board shall be deemed to have been considered in full and adopted as recommended. So with that, is there a motion to approve
068the consent agenda? I move to approve but should we take public comment? I'll give that opportunity, yes. I will second. Okay, we have a second on the floor. At this time, I'll introduce the board. I'm going to entertain public comment for any items on the consent agenda. I see a comment online for the consent agenda. Adina Flores, go ahead. Good evening, Board and Superintendent. I just wanted to note regarding the contracts that are over $50,000, it seems to be a common reoccurrence that there is nepotism through relations with board members. And so I do request a full audit of that. And I'm happy to help. And I believe there's a community of parents who are requesting this transparency as well. They've actually come to me and asked for me to speak on their half being
069that they're scared to do so. It's just concerning when we are saying that we're lacking funding as districts and we can see per tax forms where those monies are being allocated. And for example, at Boys & Girls Club, we have an executive director making, including her deferred compensation, $500,000. So I think it's a common reoccurrence. So the more there's a little bit of blockage, the more it'll toughen up. But we know now that 167 of the 15 positions are going to be nonprofit. So because of the lack of money, however much we can raise in the stage, we're actually going to have to raise $500,000 a year. Her husband is employed there as well, so a total of about $700,000 a year from a nonprofit. So when we're wondering where these nonprofit monies are going,
070we know absolutely where they're going. So I'd like to more thoroughly review speaker please hi Katherine stone Sonoma charter school and I just want to thank you for getting us a finally a facilities use agreement we are very happy we are just celebrating our 30th anniversary which has been really exciting for the school on that site our population is growing we are already full for next year most of our students do come from right around the school walk to school every day and we're very proud of that and we're very proud of the service we services we provide to all kids we're up to 17% special ed kids now which is pretty high but it's what we do we take care of all of our kids so thank you so much for supporting us through
071the facilities use agreement thank you very much see no further comment we do have a second on the floor so I'm ready to call for the vote all in favor aye aye okay thank you moving now to the regular agenda fifteen point one is an action item approval of resolution 24-27 regarding the layoff and non-reemployment of certificated employees good evening sorry good evening president Knox superintendent chin and board of trustees this is the final resolution 24-7 regarding non-reemployment of certificated employees and sorry it is resulting in an elimination of 4.6 positions and then it is resulting in a layoff of two employees as listed for a total of six point six positions questions okay questions from trustees okay I'm a little confused we're talking about item fifteen point one right certificated correct yeah yeah so
072can you just do your numbers again because they don't match the number of positions that you're going to be using in the table and then you can't do that in the table okay so the table that's listed on the very first page that is the resolution that we brought forward as a recommendation in February minus the positions that the board decided to take off so those were all the positions that were recommended and ultimately we have fewer positions that we will be reducing or laying off so it's not nineteen point six it is six point six in total and that the six point six comes from the next page yes okay yes because the original table was actually 25 now it's nineteen point six so that was the confusing part yes and then now you're
073saying that actually the number is on the next page yes which I think those add up to four point six let me just look at it really quickly and then six and then the two is it the two people employees that are being laid off so the four point six is positions and then the two are available employees that are actually being laid off. Okay, so we started out with 25, and then now we're at 6.6. Yes, that's correct. Any further questions from trustees? Seeing none, I'll open it up to public comment. Is there any public comment in the room on this topic? Seeing none, I do see one online comment on this topic. Ms. Flores, you may go ahead. Ms. Flores? I apologize. I didn't realize my hand was raised in here. Can you
074hear me? Yes, I can hear you. Go ahead. My apologies. I was saying my hand was raised by accident. Sorry about that. Thank you. Okay, thank you very much. Okay, so back to the trustees for discussion. No comment at this time? I'm ready to make actually a motion. Okay. I move to approve item 15.1 as presented. Is there a second? I will second. Okay. Do we need to do a roll call vote for this for a resolution, or do we just all vote? All in favor? Aye. Aye. Okay. Motion passed. Moving on now to 15.2, action item, approval of resolution 24-28 regarding the layoff and non-reemployment of classified employees. So this is actually positions, and you'll see the chart that does have the original total FTD reductions was 9.75, and those are the positions that
075we're reducing. Many of these they say currently vacant because we didn't have employees sitting in those positions. And so as a result, employees that are either having their hours reduced or they are being laid off, those are the one, two, three, four, those are the five employees that are listed. That's, yeah, that's, yes. Okay. I'm going to open up the questions from trustees. Trustee Ching. So the same question again. So the original resolution that we passed in March, the total was 16.675. So now we're actually, are we reducing 9.75 positions plus the additional hours that are listed below? So it's not the 9.75 plus the six because there are some people with bumping that ended up just reducing their hours. So what are we left with, I guess, is the question. Is it 9.75? Yes.
076Okay. Thank you. Questions from other trustees? Seeing none, I'll open it up to public comment. Thank you. Kimberly Smith, Chapter President for Classified Employees. And I know that we do have to discuss these as positions, but I just want to remind the board that these are people. And they're people that live in our valley. They're the people that have children that come to our valley public schools. Thank you. Thank you very much. Back to the trustees for discussion. If there's no discussion, is there a motion to approve? I move to approve resolution 2428 as presented. We have a first. Is there a second? Okay. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Thank you. We are now on item 15.3, approval of resolution 24-30 regarding the layoff and non-reemployment. Any discussion? Any opposition? Okay. I'm going to move
077to our next item, that is the recommendation of a Classified Employee. So, this is a separate resolution and it is not part of that overall that we proposed from February 11th. And this is a .5 FTE for our a day farm coordinator. And the reason is is that we were notified by the Agricultural ag, what's the word? Thank you. That they no longer had the funding for this position, and so even though it's March 15th layoff if we do lose the funding for it we still are able to lay this off questions from trustees yeah I just have a point yeah so I'm I'm sort of confused about this position is this the position so farm coordinator is not the same as horticultural coordinator where what site are we talking about this is the high
078school okay thank you sorry there's a fly attacking me I don't have a question but I just have something that I want to say I really want to encourage the public to really write your state legislators about education and the state budget and education funding and to go to your legislators coffee hours to their speaking engagements and to stand up and have the really uncomfortable conversations with them about what education funding looks like on the ground in real life because I think that's the bigger conversation that we need to have and I've been doing that I've been going to our state legislators and representatives coffee hours and I've been telling them what this looks like on the ground in real life for real kids and real programs and real people your state the state budget
079income 40% of the state budget is public education and so when the state makes their cuts the entity that feels that the hardest are the students and kids and within education budgets in most school districts throughout California employees and and their benefits are 80 percent of the budget and so when the state hits us it just trickles down and ultimately the end of the day it trickles down to the people that it hurts the most which are kids and our state doesn't fund farm programs and they should our state doesn't fund that and our state doesn't fund farming programs the most which are kids and our state doesn't fund farm programs and they should our state doesn't farm-to-table classes and they should and they need to recognize that that these classes that our kids take
080in these programs that our kids are in are really really important they're just as important as every other subject and we can't get the state to seem to recognize that and we are an agriculture state that feeds most of the country we are an agriculture County that makes a billion dollar industry in agriculture and if any of those billion dollar companies and million dollar companies want to fund and commit to 3 to 5-year funding of our program we would gladly accept that check and so I'm just gonna sit up here and have the uncomfortable conversation with Sonoma Valley that you run a tourism industry based on agriculture and we are having to make cuts like this and we are having to make really really good copies we don't have enough we don't have enough facilities
081really horrible decisions. And we live in a community that makes massive profits off of agriculture. So Sonoma County Farm Bureau and all of the wineries in town and the olive oil companies and all of those agriculture based industries in Sonoma County, think about where you should be getting your tax write offs and making donations and funding if you want your industries to continue and you want to have people who have the skills in those areas to grow and build that industry because those people are in our schools. Those people are children right now. And these are the places where they find their passions for that industry. So I'm sorry I needed to say it. I have wrestled with this one and this is so hard because I dig into the budget and I dig for
082money. And I've hit the pavement and I've been out into the community and I've been asking entities to fund and believe in these programs. And there's crickets. But they sure love to throw good parties around it. So what we see in a school district is a reflection of a larger community problem. And it is a reflection of a larger state problem. But we do live in an agricultural community. And so the problem is, is we can't have somebody, step up and say I'm willing to donate for a year. Because in six months we land right back where we are right now. We need an entity or a group of entities to come together and say we're committed to funding this for the next five years. So that we can build capacity and build these programs.
083Not just keep the programs where they're at, but actually build them and expand them and make them even bigger and allow our staff to dream big. And to be able to hand them the funds. To fulfill those big dreams for their programs. So throwing it out there to the community, we're making a really crappy, crappy choice based upon the money's just not there. In a community where I believe, because I've seen the dollars that this, that this industry makes in this valley. And most of the children that come to our school, so many of their families work as low wage workers for those businesses. Please consider reinvesting in the futures of the families who work for you. Thank you Trustee Winders. Are there any other comments or questions from trustees? No. At this time I'll
084take public comment on this item. Kimberly Smith, chapter president for Classified Employees. Again, I just want to ask the board to be more fiscally responsible. Because these are, these are positions, they're jobs. And. To have employees where you pay them off of grants and donations is, is not sound. When we hire consultants and outside agencies and outsource a lot of work. I just feel that it's fiscally irresponsible. Thank you. Thank you Ms. Smith. Laura Hoban, math teacher at Adele. Excuse me, co-union president. I am disheartened in the fact that, you know, we have a lot of people who are, you know, who are not in the community. And I think that's a big part of the reason why we're doing this. I think it's important. You know, we always talk about the fact that we
085had a presentation a couple board meetings ago about our electives. And what we're offering the students and if you remember that presentation, it was Adele and Altamira, number one requested elective farm to table. And I believe at the high school was culinary, yet our district with your board approval spends their money the way they choose to it so you know till their next visit. So, that's great. Yep. Celeste, respectfully, you're saying that the state should fund it. Respectfully, the board should fund it. And the fact that you sit there and applaud the presentation about what the students want, what the students want, what we're offering the students, and yet you cut the funding. You don't offer up the funding. You don't cut at the district office level when we cut the teachers. But then you're
086going to cut the farm-to-table assistant who makes that class happen. If any of you have attended one of those classes, maybe you would realize what a vital role that employee plays and wouldn't just rubber stamp the consent agenda. Thank you, Ms. Hoban. Dennis Hausman, resident of Sonoma Valley, co-VMTA president. Again, I will find it curious that this comes up as like, oh, no. But on the consent agenda, we just hired a firm to recruit employees overseas, and not one question was asked about that. We're going to pay for their visas to come to our community. And so we just put money. And to a firm to recruit people for overseas. Nobody even batted an eye and said, let's go for it. Again, we need to think about what we're doing in hiring our consultants. Thank
087you. Thank you, Mr. Hausman. Justina Montano, academic specialist, Flowery School. This is purely anecdotal, but a question that has crossed my mind multiple times is how much the district spends for utilities, how much do we spend on that? Do we save with the solar panels? For example, my classroom thermostat works great. And if I leave for the weekend or a break, I turn it off. But then there are other classroom thermostats where we can't control it. There's like a box bolted on top of it and that thing, and it runs. Like no matter how long we're gone, it's on heating and cooling, whether people are there or not. So anyway, it crossed my mind when I was in our library at Flowery today. I said, oh my gosh, it is so hot in here. And
088our librarians that I know, I keep putting in tickets. This has not worked all year. It's either too hot or too cold. Anyway, so I don't know. This may be something you've spoken of before, so I apologize if this is not information that's helpful at all. But I would be curious to know if there are ways that the district could save money just by really looking at our utilities and how well they're functioning. Thank you, Ms. Montana. We do have one online commenter. We have two online commenters. The first is LM. Go ahead, LM. Hi, this is Laura Monterosso. Can you hear me? Loud and clear. I'm a teacher. I'm a community member. And I'm appalled that such conversations taking place about cutting teachers when I'd like to remind this board that they need to
089prioritize teachers and those staff that are closest to the students. You constantly approve consultant fees in your consent agenda for under $50,000 and over $50,000 for not just this year, for the many years prior to this year. It's in the millions of dollars. I'm also on the negotiations team. We have sent you our presentation so that you can see that our staff that are closest to the students are not being prioritized. You spend, you approve spending from our district office. That propose it to you without considering those that are boots in the ground. We need to stop this. You need to take a look at it. I'm appalled that we'd be hiring another firm so that we can hire teachers from overseas. I am tired of it. I've been going to the board meetings for
090over 10 years. I don't want to hear about this, that we all need to reach out to our legislatures. We do this all the time. What I want is for this board to look at it. I want to see it. I want to see it. I want to see it. I want to see it. I want to see it. I want to see it. I want to see it. I don't want to make it out of this and put it on my list of donors. We need to look at what you're spending money on. And prioritize our students. Thank you. Next we have. Good evening board members. First of all I want to say that its a little shocking to me that I'm watching Celeste discuss how sad she is for the Ag program. music
091for the students and pretty much are decimating any kind of high school music that could possibly be a program in the future. Also I might be stepping back a little bit, but my hand was raised when you were doing your cuts of the two, just two elementary teachers. And I just want to say really quickly that we have a teacher that goes around right now and teaches art to all of our students. She's a multiple subject credentials teacher. And I'm being told that my current teaching partner, who is one of the ones that you just cut, she is not eligible to teach because now they're posted as secondary or single subject credential. And we really only had two teachers that you guys had to let go of. We couldn't possibly find a way to keep
092these valuable, wonderful community members. The other teacher you cut is a TK teacher who was here working for us as a intern. Working on her credential. But she was also a preschool teacher in our district for years. And she is highly regarded by many people in this community. And we've just let them both go. And now they're both going to have to go and seek jobs outside of the district. And that is a huge loss for us. And I can't believe we couldn't find some way to just keep two of them. Or that you can make it so she could possibly, one of my partner, Lisa Vallotte, could possibly be the art teacher next year. So we could keep her. So when we do have a classroom opening. She could step back into it. You
093guys are making some really poor decisions with money. And it's just heartbreaking to see what's happening in this district. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Weston. Any other public comment? Seeing none in person or online. Any further discussion before I ask for a motion? Is there a motion to approve? I will move to approve resolution 24-7. 24-30 as presented. I will second. Discussion? None. All in favor? Aye. Next we have item 15.4. It's the first read of board policy and administrative regulation 5157, gender identity and access. 5157, gender identity. So the, we wanted to bring forward an AR and a BP around gender identity. And we're going to do that. And we're going to do that. And we're going to do that. And we're going to do that. And we're going to do that. And we're
094going to do that. And we're going to do that. And we're going to do that. And we're going to do that. And we're going to do that. So that's the first read on gender identity. As probably many of you have heard, Title IX is a federal law that covers and protects many of our students and many of the staff members in our schools. The majority of those protected classes are students with disabilities. They're students that I, that are part of racial groups and also English learners and other types of students. the student groups that was not under the previous title 9 law were students who are identified as lgbtqia and so um we um put together a bp and ar for first week to bring forth to ensure that we have those protections for our
095lgbtqia students in sonoma valley since then literally when we were almost concluding the final draft of the first read of this board policy in ar title 9 got passed at the federal level in that federal law is now language around lgbtqia students and so we are in alignment with the federal law under title 9. and so this bp is in alignment with that but we also needed to put together an ar that describes how we're going to implement this policy so that's what you have in front of you today thank you dr chen is there any questions from trustees just real quick to just piggyback on that the federal department of education's deadline to update your title ix and title ix related policies is august 1st and since most districts also don't have board meetings
096in july we're actually right on time with meeting that federal mandate so i think that's just an important deadline to to note that we need to to get that done um and as an action item by the end of june in order to meet the federal deadline thank you trustee winders any other yes go ahead thank you i don't have questions i just uh well is this are we just doing questions you're going to take our comments after public comment yeah um yeah so we'll do this is for questions i guess for dr chen um um and then we'll do public comment and come back for discussion so any other questions yes um did did we get any comments from uh legal about around this language yet we did um they had the opportunity to
097review it they are still writing up commentary um around what additional language we might want to include what they recommended was that the board look at first read and if anybody had comments you can send that to me they would send their language and then we can bring a second read for approval the next month with all of the language included in that any further questions okay at this time i'll open it up to public comment is there any public comment on this item seeing none in the room i do have some comment online um we'll start first with miss flores go ahead miss flores uh good evening board and superintendent i am requesting for further definitions within this language it is very broad and generalized if we're going to refer to the language that
098we're going to use in the next round이에요 to all of you um i hope you will email our way I am a devout Christian, and that is my faith. And in my faith, there are two genders. There is a male or a female. And so if you're asking me if I were to be a faculty member to embrace these pronouns, you are asking me to violate my own faith. I do not care if you wish to practice Christianity or not. I'm not going to force that upon you. That is your right. You cannot not ask me to adhere to your beliefs, which are not my own. And so again, when we talk about the Latino community, are they aware that this is happening in the schools? Because I can tell you, my friends who are
099undocumented are clueless, and they are outraged. So if we want to collect legitimate data, let's go out into the community live, where it is not being misconstrued. By people who are placed as tokens to inherit nonprofit money and not actually reflect the community. So I ask again to please refine this language because I am going through it myself. And I will tell you what makes absolutely no sense and is a hypocrisy. Ms. Winders had lengthy words to attack me for my faith. Meanwhile, a nonprofit, Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, which she supports, is literally mocking Catholicism. They have... Ms. Winders had lengthy words to attack me for my faith. Meanwhile, a nonprofit, Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, which she supports, is literally mocking Catholicism. And our tax dollars are going to mock me. If I did that,
100some group to make fun of transgender people, you call it a hate crime. So why is it okay to do this to Catholics and Christians? I ask you to please explain this hypocrisy in your language. Thank you and God bless you. Thank you. Next, we have Iris Lombard. Iris Lombard- Sorry. Hi. I wanted to speak in support of the of the 15.4. It's very important. It's important for everyone in the community. It's important to me. It would have been great for my daughter to have been exposed to this in school. She might have felt a lot more comfortable. I have to tell you, as a child, I would have benefited from this language. I would have understood my own family better. So please. And obviously, it's mandated. I don't know. Being against it is tilting
101at windows at this point. Thank you. Thank you for your comment. Next, we have David Eichar. Okay. Yes, David Eichar in Boys Hot Springs. As a father of a daughter who came to the United States, I was born and raised in the United States. I was born and raised in the United States. I've lived in the United States all my life in my head is still skillfully not doisied to do everything I want to. All high school students need to feel safe and supported in school. photangelization Seep seen fall in the lower h טer need to know where to seek help if any issues do arrive. Please approve the policy and regulations. Thank you very much. Thank you for your comment. Next, we have Josette Rose Eichar. Yes, you just heard my husband speak. and
102you know I can I can back that up completely and I also look back to years and years ago when I was in high school in the 60s and and how you know LGBTQ students were treated and I think that we've come a long way and I also urge you also this is this is something that is a long time coming and it it's a matter of mental health safety and for children and it's very very important and I urge you to you know continue and pass this thanks so much thank you very much there is no further comment and this is a first read so no action will be taken at this time so we'll move on but before we move on can I call for a five-minute break would that be okay the
103trustees I'm so sorry I'm so sorry I'm getting I'm getting ahead of myself okay you trustees discussion please I'll go um so I first brought this forward to the superintendent very specifically because when he was at school campuses in particular secondary campuses and met with students and was in listening circles and then just conversations I've had with students they were very very explicit with me that they needed this and that they wanted this because there are things that are happening on campuses where this group of students are being targeted they're being targeted with with slurs they're not feeling safe they're not feeling welcomed and they've shared with me that they they look around for adults to to intervene and be interrupters and they're having a hard time finding that they're not feeling safe they're not
104feeling safe they're not feeling safe they're not feeling comfortable and that they wanted something in writing and they wanted something to be able to point to to hold adults accountable for upholding their civil rights in school and most importantly ensuring that they feel welcome to be them their genuine selves in school and I take that very seriously when students come to me with these things I take it really seriously especially because I know that when we don't protect our elementary and high school students we're not protecting our high school students we're not protecting our high school students we're not protecting our LGBTQIA plus students and their civil rights and when we don't keep them safe and having them feel welcome and having them feel like they belong we place them at great risk and that
105when we when we don't do that the kids die that's the reality they die and I'm not willing to to lose a kid and it also struck me when students talked with me about what they were experiencing and hearing and seeing on campus um in the hallways and and in classrooms and and at lunch that it sounded exactly like the experiences when I was on those same campuses in the 80s that I experienced and and I I always was able to say well you know that it was the 80s and now it's 2024 and I'd like to think that we've all evolved so much but in so many ways we haven't because these students are having the exact same experiences that that we had and they're looking around in the exact same way I remember
106looking around looking for the interrupter and so in in building this policy a lot of what's in here is actually the things that students brought to me and said I needed to say these things I need these things to happen in order for me and and for my friends to feel feel like we belong and to feel welcome and to feel safe and so I kept that in mind and I think that's what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to do it at the forefront when I was reviewing the draft policies when I was submitting my own edits and and reflections it really was based upon a lot of what the students had had brought forward um and then the last thing I want to say is it's the law and this is public
107education and public education follows our California Department of Education and our federal Department of Education mandates we follow our civil rights guidelines that is the mandate of public education and it is the law so there's the law and what we must do but then there's how do we do it and how do we do it in the way that has students feeling heard and supported and feeling a sense of belonging and that's the part that's actually really up to us is is the how and and how we care for our students especially our students who belong to protected classes and um you know everybody's entitled to have their own beliefs and and to talk about those and have those in their family and at their home but in public education we uphold students civil rights
108and in public education we ensure that we follow the law and in public education we do it with intent and we listen to our students because that's what public education is it's public and so we do that on our campuses we will do that on our campuses and It's not for me as a trustee, none of those things are negotiable. And I'm, we'll throw it out there that I'm absolutely unapologetic about it. And I do support our students and I do support this particular protected class of students and the reason they are a protected class is because historically they've been unprotected. That's what a protected class is. It is a group of people who have historically been subject to discrimination and abuse, so much so they had to become a protected law class and laws
109had to be written to uphold their protections because people wouldn't do it voluntarily just to be a good person. So they had to become a protected class. So it's not negotiable to me. Our students who belong to protected classes have rights. We have an obligation to uphold those rights, but we also have an obligation in how we do it and ensuring that they feel cared for. It's the most important thing that we do. So I think that's the way I would view it. Thank you, Trustee Winters. Trustee Landry. Thank you. So I agree with everything that's been said, but for me, this brought up a bigger issue that I want to just bring to light in my moment of speaking my truth is that it frustrates me that policies have to be created to uphold
110things, So I just want to read the first part of this says, the Sonoma Valley School District is committed to providing a safe, supportive, welcoming, and inclusive learning environment for all students. And then we go on to say including transgender and gender expansive students, and it goes on. I don't think we can say equity in civil rights, and especially in one sentence. I don't think that that's, I think we can do better than that. And what frustrates me about these policies is I feel like it makes everybody feel really good that we're doing it. But it's smoke and mirrors, in my opinion, because there is a lot of hate and discrimination on our campuses. And I would like to encourage us to actually do better than policies. I'd like to encourage us as a board
111to really acknowledge that it's not just the protected classes. All of our students and our youth true. We're hearing from students who are not part of protected classes who are feeling discriminated against by the clothes that they wear or the cars that they drive. And so there is just a lot of hate out there. And while I want this protection for this particular group of students and our students with special needs and anyone else that's in a protected class, I'd like to think that when our students walk on campus, they're viewed as students. Right. Because that's the one thing they all have in common. And so then from there, we uphold a level of respect for all people and all students. Right. And we as adults need to model that behavior. And I think there
112needs to be some serious training to ensure that that's happening. And furthermore, I'd like to think that the adults in the room, not necessarily in this room, but the adults in the world from, you know, the U.S. Department of Education all the way down into our campuses need to understand that the more we highlight these differences, the more problems we're going to have. When you talk to these students, they are friends. They don't see. They don't see each other the way we present it. You know, and I think that they're also saying there is hate out there. Right. So we need to make sure that we're ensuring that all of our students' civil rights are upheld. But we also need to understand that the more we highlight the differences, the more the differences are going
113to be at the forefront of these conversations. Right. And there's a time and a place for it. When we're talking about the needs of individual students in our education, then, yes, we have to talk about those things. Right. But I'd like to believe that we as a district can do better. And passing policies and this whole smoke and mirrors because it feels good doesn't actually do anything for this group of people that we're sitting here saying we want to protect. So I think that's everything. Thank you. Thank you, Trustee Landry. Trustee Ting? No? Okay. So thank you to both of the trustees for speaking and those who spoke from the public as well. Adam Kaiser died on May 30th, 2015. As the U.K.'s infrastructure was being built, the U.S. Department of Education was not able
114to provide the support that it needed. So we're going to have to do a lot of work to get that done. And I think that's what we're going to have to do. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Yes. Do you want me to go on to the state déliné? Do you want to just give some infrastructure. Yes. Wow. It's been a long time. did not protect him at Adele Harrison Middle School, about how we lost his records, about how we didn't track the students that were bullying him, about when he reentered our schools, how we put him in class right next to the students who were bullying him, how ruthlessly they treated him. The photo that the Independent ran of him
115with the rainbow flag which I have up on screen, Adam was proud of who he was, he was proud of his status, and he should have been. He had every right to be. We totally failed him and we failed him because we as a district did not take the appropriate steps to make sure we had the policies in place to protect him. We failed. I testified in court- you can go read the testimony about- I know exactly how it was implemented in our computer system. As many people know, I have worked for the school district for two years before I became a trustee and I actually reviewed all the records of how it happened. It was horrible. And it's a permanent stain on the history of our district that we allowed him to be bullied
116and that his life, that he took it in desperation for the mistreatment he received in our schools. It was one of the reasons I ran for the school board was because of the way the district handled that entire situation. It's awful. So I want to thank Trustee Winders for taking the initiative on this matter because it's something that has been needing to be addressed for a very, very long time. And we are now, you know, here I see, you know, nine years later, finally, you know, we're getting somewhere. Education is a really big ship with a small rudder and it takes a long time to make a change and you've got to start working on it and just keep working on it. And so here we are tonight and I remember when all this happened
117and I remember testifying. And I remember the entire setup of how it happened. And I mean, here we are. And finally, you know, 2024, right, you know, nine years later, we can get somewhere with policy on this. So I, you know, I'm very much glad to see it on for first reading tonight. Glad to see that we're going to have additional comment and review before it comes back. Glad we're going to get it done in the June meeting, it looks like so that, you know, we're prepared for August 1st. As Trustee Winders noted, we have, you know, we're dark in July there. So we have two meetings in June here. So if we do need to go to an additional first and second reading based on it, we can. So I'm glad, you know, procedurally
118we're taking the right steps too. But, you know, really for Adam's sake, for his family's sake, and for all the students who have suffered for too long in our schools, it's about time that we do this and I'm glad we're doing it. So that's the sum of what I wanted to say tonight. Thank you very much, Trustee Kelly. Okay. I don't have any other comments. Trustee Ching? No? Okay. So with that, again, first read. We'll revisit this in June. So let's take a five minute break. Thank you. Just a note for the record, Trustee Kelly had to excuse himself for the evening. So we will continue as agendized. So the next item that we have is a first read as well. Board By-law 9150, student board member. And I'm going to ask Dr. Chen to
119present this. So I'm going to ask Dr. Chen to present this. The second item that we have is a first read as well. Board By-law 9150, student board member. And I'm going to ask Dr. Chen to present this. So I'm going to ask Dr. Chen to present this. So the next item that we have is a first read as well. Board By-law 9150, student board member. And I'm going to ask Dr. Chen to present this. So I'm going to ask Dr. Chen to present this. This is an item that I requested that we as a board take a look at. And the reason being is because, well, there's two reasons. One is last December a few of us attended the CSBA conference in San Francisco. And I had the opportunity to attend some sessions that
120involved student board members. And I entered to this large ballroom with approximately 200 students student board members from throughout the state and I was energized to say the least it was so impressive to see that our future in this room our future leaders really have a presence and really care and demonstrate care and concern just like our own student voice and so I felt like this was something that we need to promote highlight and and codify for for future student board members for Sonoma Valley Unified so that is my interest and I will pass it on to dr. Chen with her background knowledge on this so when Trustee Knox brought this forth and in terms of us putting together board policy for a student board member and we I've had experience putting together these types
121of policies in my community and I think our board members have really been previous role and when we when this kind of work first came along the intent was to really give our students voice around what's happening in their learning environments and for the adults to be able to hear their experiences I think the other piece of this is that throughout the state the CDE pretty much every organization that you can think of and when it comes to education is really trying to lift student voice to give them agency about what is happening to them in their classrooms at their school sites and we've had student board members in the past where they are part of the board but they aren't always engaged or they're not always encouraged to ask questions to be part of
122a dialogue to have discussion and so what I did in terms of the process is I looked at our California School Boards Association has a language around policy that we could include here and then I looked at other policies and other districts to look at what we could include as a first read or first draft of this student board policy so that's that's the process that we took to put this together we also have a policy committee I think I didn't mention that earlier with the other board policy that we brought forth we do have a board policy we have a process that we put together to look at all of our board policies and administrative regulations so this again is a first read and so I'm gonna hand it back over to you okay
123so are there any questions from trustees I'll do entertain questions first public comment back to discussion I just have a question on choosing the student board members so student board members shall be chosen by students enrolled in the district high schools in accordance with procedures prescribed by the board what do we so what does that look like because I don't think that's how it's been done right that's pretty cool so I'm just curious what that's gonna look like that's a question that I too have and so knowing how we do the slates again how do we make that fit what the language says so that's a question that I also have well can I respond to that I mean I so this is the template that comes from CSBA and I really think it should
124be adopted I don't think that we should change the procedure and I don't think the board should set the procedure I think the high school has a pretty well prescribed procedure that we should incorporate that language into that paragraph and I concur I think that we should maintain our current system it does note for the student board member that there could be credit awarded for the time spent my only question in regards to that is the slate is not just one member there's other members involved so I just would want to think in terms of the equity of everyone's respective roles do we want to entertain credit for the other slate members as well I'm not sure it's a question so my question was in that same area because the policy says the policy says
125students enrolled in the district's high schools plural except procedurally the way it happens in real life is it's only happening at one high school and we have another high school and that's Creekside and so I I think I wouldn't say change the policy I think the policy is actually written correctly I think that our processes and probably need to change and I don't I agree I don't want to tell students how to choose their own voice like that's this is literally why it's students voice student voice I want the students to choose their voice I don't think the adults should do that but I'd like to see the potential voices the inclusive of the voices at Creekside and so looking at on a ground level I would wonder so that so we stay in alignment
126with the policy how do we ensure Creekside students ability to participate in the process where students choose their voice because I hear lots of questions about like you know like I'm wrong I don't think it's appropriate to say that I would be fine with you just like I would agree I would have a policy and so what what does that mean policy is really important because policy is how we hold accountability to all following the system that we've agreed is is this is what we've put in writing we've all put our names on right so like the policy piece is really important and i want us to follow that policy and and it says high schools plural and i don't think that historically as long as i've been coming to school board meetings we've ever
127followed that and we've included preekside in in that process dr chen do you know of other in your experience how that would work with multiple high schools so typically well the process looks in other places very different than it does here in our at our high school typically when you have multiple high schools they have the students select a representative to then submit applications to the board the board then looks at the applications obviously they establish some criteria to look at the applications for their selection and then in some cases they interview i mean it's it's kind of a rigorous process but they interview the candidates and then they select someone they also select usually an alternate because in some cases the representative is a senior and depending on their caseload in terms of class
128classes and things like that they want to have an alternate so that's the typical process but again it's it's it sounds like what i heard from the trustees is we want it to be student up not board down right so i think what we need to do in terms of the actual practice is look at how do we engage our students to do the selection and include preekside in this conversation have them come to you with a recommendation of how they would like this process to happen agree with that thank you so much dr chen i'm going to turn it over to you dr chen i'm going to turn it over to you and then we'll go ahead and get started with the presentation and then we'll go ahead and get started with the presentation
129agreed yeah okay so we can take a look at establishing that process all right more to come thank you um so no further questions um i'll open this up to public comment and i see none online as well so again first read so we will take some next steps in taking this back to our students at both high schools to receive their input on this policy thank you all right so our next uh topic first read administrative regulations 6184 continuation education so um this board policy i'm sorry it's not a board policy it's an administrative regulation we do have an existing board policy for continuing education the reason this is coming forward today is because we're at the point in time where our high school is making recommendations or referrals to creekside our other high
130school and so usually they have a conversation i believe with the principal at the high school and then they have a formal meeting at the beginning of june to make those referral recommendations when we were digging into that process what came to light was that we had a current board policy but an outdated administrative regulation so in order to ensure that we were following an administrative regulation that was updated we are bringing this forward now so that we can clear up the administrative regulation and be able to look at those referrals that are going to creekside for the following school year questions from the trustees um i not so much a question i just want to thank you for cleaning this process up and making the process actually more clear and and um so that
131it's consistent and and so i appreciate that i think it's something that has needed to happen a long time and thank you for being so timely with it in alignment with what's actually happening right now so that this is in place so i appreciate it i read it over um and it just felt um very very clear and very in alignment with with what standards um typically look like in public good for that thank you other other questions no okay uh public comment on this item seeing none line we'll go ahead and move on to our next item first read board policy and administrative regulations 6164.41 children with disabilities enrolled by their parents in private school i i don't know if you and trustee ching want to present this or but um you know as
132part of the the policy subcommittee just generally we've been trying to sort of update all of our outdated policies we have so many it's it's like it it's endless this this was last i think adopted in 2008 so it's it's long overdue um and um we uh developed this policy by looking at kind of what the best practices are currently that is recommended by cs csba but then also also we uh we wanted to improve upon it with sort of um the best practices that we have and then also to kind of what best practices are with our relationship with selpa and maybe you can sort of explain selpa to the general public who doesn't really know what selpa is maybe you should come up to the microphone i'm sorry dr chen i didn't realize
133that you expected me to do this so i apologize for that so um the selpa is a governing board that operates only in california and helps support our special our students with disabilities um long ago students were sent to programs far away and so what the selpa did is come together and help support our students so that they could stay local in their communities and their counties and get services closer and as we've moved along over time what we have done as districts is try to keep most of our students in our school districts with all the support that they need when we can so um i think and i'm going to say that um on the 7th there was an update from the california department of ed on this specific bill that i believe
134we'll have to review again and maybe have another read at this bill um it just came out and i was reading it today so um so do you think we should hold off the next time yes because we're trying to realign we're trying to align it with like best practices because it was so out of date but it sounds like the legislature has now updated it's updated and just to make sure that we are in line with california department of ed i think we should hold off okay all right okay is that it questions comment um yeah i i also am on the policy committee and so we went through this and i had read that too and so i was like oh gosh we're gonna have this on tonight and i was reading the
135same thing so i would agree that we we definitely i think we need to pull pause and make sure that we're in alignment with the the updated policy but i think this is also just great having on here because i think it's a great kind of educational moment because a lot of i think a lot of parents and a lot of people in the public don't realize that if your child is homeschooled and you have a private school affidavit or if your child goes to a private school and your child has disabilities that they can still receive their services um through public education and i think a lot of people may not realize that and it's part of our child find mandate and so i think that this policy um is a very important bottle
136um but a couple other things after the other two um is that we're also going to be considering the policy and the policy itself and what we can do about it um in terms of making sure it's in alignment with the update that just came out the updates that we did um really make um that really clear i think that anybody that were to go look up the policy trying to figure out hey i'm a parent of a kid i heard that we can get services but we go to private school how does that work they could actually pull this policy and actually understand it and understand um how to get those services so update is going to really clarify what it means when you have a student privately placed what that specific placement needs
137to look like in terms of when you can and cannot get services okay okay is there any public comment on this item okay thank you very much let's move on now to the next topic it's first read advanced placement environmental science textbook adoption good evening Don winning director of educational services and we are bringing forth tonight for your consideration the AP environmental science for the AP course fourth edition by Friedland and I'm going to say rally a because I don't know what it sounds like and the CAC met on April 4th and heard a presentation from Elizabeth Bach who is from the high school science department environmental science we went through why her recommendation was to be a part of the AP course fourth edition by Friedland and I'm going to say rally a because
138I don't know what it sounds like and the CAC met on April 4th and heard a presentation was that and what her process was the CAC on their second read they approved was that and what her process was the CAC on their second read they approved it to bring it forth to the school board so tonight we are asking you to consider that in a first read questions from trustees I just have a more general request so I mean I will support this is is there a calendar of just general different adoptions that we can somehow formalize so the board knows what's coming up and what's in the pipeline that's just a general request yes there is for the most part we have the dates for the years of when we look at adoptions for
139environmental science it got dropped off the list last year when we did the rest of science and so the environmental science teacher brought it forth this year and said this was missed last year and I'd really like it to be brought forth okay public comment okay seeing none thank you very much next topic is informational presentations special education monthly update okay good evening board president Knox dr. Chen Board of Trustees and Sonoma Valley community this is your special education update tonight I'm going to share with you progress on a few of the steps in the special education plan that was presented to you in December December 14th by dr. Chen and some other things that are coming along next slide okay so short-term I'll share in depth an update on our compliance improvement monitoring CIM
140and provide some more information on our end of year transitions so I'll give you more information as we go along in the presentation we're continuing to monitor compliance with iTAP and that information is shared with administrators and case managers that's our our data system that we're using that provides us in time for complianceirdt with ITAP and that information is shared with administrators and case managers that's our our data system that we're using that provides an end times affairs that provides us with commanders that are completing the science and watt™ Inform our eight standards Asha policies support city and safety strategies we'll apply for that following the Nahs with NIC and what we completed the school and the RCS hub's weather draft poster in FY19 that we interesting performance of a three-year explore policy change and
141at reporting a between students in these two sub-group different strategies that make sure what we send it launcher coordinator andジャff Kick home data. We're looking forward to training in the upcoming year in UDL using our collaboration with our tech assistants from open access through the CIM process and we've been working with Ed Services team, HR, Dr. Chan to develop and address assignments and responsibilities in our special education department. In terms of the long-term actions, we're looking we are working with Ed Services team to review current and new curriculum. Our efforts to recruit special education staff have not waned. We look forward to training our professional development opportunities in the new school year. A brief update on PD, we provided training in February for unique learning which is a program to help students with special learning
142needs master their academic and behavioral social-emotional skills and so that's in terms of some of our curriculum. And we're looking forward to training our special education staff in the new school year. And we continue to work with Ed Services and the SELPA and county to provide training to both special and general educators on compliance, modifications and general education for general education teachers and our special education teachers. Next slide. So good news and concerning news. We're no longer in disproportionality. So we are no longer out of compliance with our speech and language and multiple ethnicities and in addition to that we are in the discipline of Hispanic students specifically in regard to suspension. So that's really good news. However, in reviewing the ITAP data it shows that we're moving towards being in disproportionality in discipline for
143the upcoming year. So we'll need to monitor closely and monitor ITAP closely and that data system will give us the in-time data we need to do just that. To help support so that we don't move into disproportionality. The SPED department will work with the wellness and health inclusion department to provide training on alternatives to suspension and expulsion as well as training and restorative practices as outlined in our LCAP. Next slide. So what is significant disproportionality? It is so much. I can tell you that. So significant disproportionality focuses on the identification and placement of disciplinary action in general education settings. So identification, placement, and discipline. You have to be disproportionate for three years in a row in one area, one indicator, in order to become significantly disproportionate. So once you're identified as significantly disproportionate, which we
144are because I don't think I mentioned that on the last slide, we are significantly disproportionate in our placement of white students in non-public school settings. And that is the way that it's termed in the from the California Department of Ed. That's how race and ethnicities are marked and so that's where we are disproportionate. Okay so once we're identified as significantly disproportionate, the school district is required to take mandatory actions including but not limited to reserving 15% of funds to develop and implement a compliance and improvement monitoring action plan. So that is our CSAIS action plan. So we had a SIM, which was in compliance improvement monitoring. Now we're going to a CSAIS action plan and provide comprehensive coordinated early intervening services to the identified targeted population. Significant disproportionality becomes a wider scope of work because
145it now involves looking at how we serve students in general education before they are referred to special education. There are some first steps that we have to do in the very beginning. So we received an annual determination letter on March of 18, 2024, which let us know that we were in disproportionality. We then had to attend a two-day training meeting, and submit an MOU for technical assistance by April 18, and then submit an MOU for compliance, meaning that we knew what we had to do, we were willing to do it, and that was due on May 3. Next step. Next slide. Yeah, there we go. So there's four steps required in disproportionality and significant disproportionality. Step one, we gather a team, which is a team of three, which we did do. All the rest of
146the points that you see on the slide were in progress. We have started our policies, practice, and procedure review. We are, we have already gotten parent input. We're doing an infrastructure analysis, a data drill down, and we did complete a student case study. And the team that completed the student case study, we have to have representatives from a variety of different areas. Principal, teachers, gen ed teachers, special ed teachers, district staff, all had to be a part. We had a psychologist on the team taking a look at these IEPs and using a rubric provided by the California Department of Ed to see why we might have had those students placed in a non-public school setting. Next slide. So as I said, we had to have two mandatory meetings, which we held. We held focus monitoring.
147Oh, we got a focus monitoring technical assistance, which is vetted by the California Department of Ed. That person is called a FEMTA, and they will help support us in this whole process. We also have 20 hours of technical assistance to support the parent input and gather information. That TA is also vetted by California Department of Ed. We are required to use. One of three self-assessment tools in order to get some qualitative data. And all of this needs to be completed by June 30th. So it seems like a rush. It feels like a rush. But we'll have a lot of really super good information by the time we're done with this part of it. Next slide. Step two, we will do a data drill down. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
148And we will take a kind of cultural lens and try to flush out a root cause for disproportionality while keeping an eye on behavior and discipline using the ITAP data system to support our in-time data collection and work proactively with school leaders to support us and help us keep us out of disproportionality next year for discipline. Next slide. Step three and four, we'll have the support from our FEMTA again. We'll have support from our ITAP. ITAP expatiate team and open access will also support in the process of bringing our data results together and creating a plan and then sending that plan to the California Department of Ed which we will then implement and monitor over the next 27 months. Next slide. So that's it for disproportionality. Transitions. We are now at the end of our
149transition season. This report I believe was supposed to be provided last month. So we have transitioned, transitions across the district. There to support students and families on the sites as students matriculate from pre to kinder, from elementary to middle, from middle to high, and from high to postsecondary for our students with disabilities. So secondaries for students with disabilities age 18 to 22. We are continuing our parent connection meeting. We're actually done. We held our last one and we'll continue next year with our parent special education parent connection meeting. Next slide. Just an update. Training and testing on accommodations. I know accommodations are always one of the really difficult and hot topics amongst our teachers. We've held meetings. We've held meetings at both the elementary and secondary levels in our special education department to discuss the
150accommodations and decipher the differences so education specialists are not randomly assigning accommodations but putting more thought into the process. We received input from education specialists on how to better facilitate the legally mandated accommodations to general educators. And so we'll be working on creating a plan to support both sides. So that we are all working together to support students to make sure that they're receiving their accommodations. Next slide. Okay. In terms of our professional development, in March we held a five-day hands-on with our preschool, providing information and training on how to work with the littles and autism. Our next steps are IEP compliance and the role of the teacher in the IEP. And then we're going to be working on the implementation of the IEP. And then we're going to be working on the implementation of
151the IEP. And then we're going to be working on the implementation of the IEP. And then we're going to be working on the implementation of the IEP. And then we're going to be working on the implementation of the IEP. And then we're going to be working on the implementation of the IEP and how to support teachers in general education with behaviors for some of those students who are in gen ed that have some more challenging behaviors. We also are providing an Orton and Gillingham training on June 10 through the 14th. And so we have both general education teachers and special education teachers attending that training. Next slide. So as part of the action plan, we are also working to improve our continuum of online learning. of services. We've had a lot of feedback from both
152general educators and special educators. We are building our continuum by adding an additional TKK to our extensive support needs classroom, which is our self-contained classrooms with students that require their core academic services in one space, in one classroom. And we will pilot a mild-moderate classroom scheduled to be at Sasserini. This classroom will address the needs of students grades three through five that will need a more intensive academic support with an emphasis on behavior, social, and inclusion. Next slide. And this is really, really exciting. We hope that you all come out and cheer on our athletes. Altamira will host for the second year in a row our Sonoma Valley Special Olympics. Students from the leadership and PE class at Altamira will be the peer coaches, and they have been prepping for this since March, along with
153their teachers. It takes a village. We have custodial support, food services support, transportation, teacher support, students, administrators, community support, the health team support, and our ed services will all come out on that day to help support our students and cheer them on. Students parade onto the Altamira track, displaying their personalized banners that represent their unique style and artistic flair. And the national anthem will be sung by Sonoma Valley High School senior Raina Gibbs, and the games will begin. So we hope you all come out and join our event. Next slide. And that is it. All right. Thank you very much, Director Vanderpool. Questions from trustees? Thank you. Thank you so much. My read of this at home was it was great. And of course, questions sometimes don't arise until I hear you speak so eloquently
154about it. So I apologize for not asking this earlier. And it's just something that popped into my mind. And thank you for explaining disproportionality. But I'm just curious because this has to do with special education, why is it that they look at race? Because I'm just sitting here and I'm just sitting here thinking it'd be really interesting to see of these white students like what we're actually looking at in terms of their needs and what needs are not being met. And then furthermore, sometimes it just seems so easy, and I know this is not, but wouldn't coordinating early intervention services for all of our students with these needs be the solution to the problem? It's absolutely the solution. Okay. Yeah. Absolutely. Okay. So, you know, we look at how we're supporting students from when they
155first enter school. We do. Because some of our students get services when they're infants and toddlers. So, I mean, early intervention is key to how we support our students. I think that we have really grown our preschool program. And that's looking really good for us because that will mean that those students will get those early intervention supports. Okay. So, those are some of our students that they need. The race and ethnicity is just part of how we all check the box as we enter school. Dr. Chen, you might know better how to explain that portion, but... Sure. Mm-hmm. So, the state Department of Ed requires us to look at all of our assessments through the lens of groups, student groups. They look at groups like race. They look at groups like English learners, students with
156disabilities, foster parents, and so on. And then the other part is the language. foster youth, homeless, socioeconomic status. They look at looking at all of these assessments in aggregate to see how are we doing as a district with all our students and then they have us look at disaggregating that data by all of those different groups. The reason why they do that is because they want to see if some students are performing better than others and if they are, why? And we have to determine that root cause so that we can serve those students in a different way. If we have to differentiate instruction for them, if we have to provide additional support services, if we have to provide different kinds of interventions. So that's a requirement that we look at all our students first
157and then we disaggregate the data to determine if there's other resources or other things that we have to do. During that, when you disaggregate the data, the actual needs of these students are pulled so that their needs, right, so that that can be assessed to ensure that the needs of these students are being met. Okay, all right, thank you, that's all I have. Can I ask a follow, a related question? Yes, please. So, but is this underlying assumption, you know, that the incidence of special needs should actually mirror the composition of your demographics, which I don't agree with. Like, I think that's a flawed assumption. You know, I mean, I don't, I, like, so for example, if you have a population that's, you know, 20% Asian, 60% white, and like 20% Latino, it's like the
158state assumes that if you have special education populations, they should, your special ed population should be 20, 60, 20. Is that, in the groups that I just described? Because that's, it's just proportional, right? Because in this case, we're saying, like, I don't know what the number is, but let's say 80% of all of our NPS are white. There's some disproportionality, because it doesn't reflect the actual proportion in our student demographics. It, they don't say if it's 20% a certain group, 80% another group, that it has to be that, in terms of assessing and identifying. They don't say that it has to be that certain percentage. They do use a certain percentage. They use a different formula. I don't know what the formula is. It's the risk ratio formula. I think last year, I presented how
159it was, and it was super complicated, and it still is to me. I need the math department to help me with that one. I mean, the only reason I raise this is because I went to a CSBA presentation where WestEd actually did a pretty in-depth study around disproportionality issues, specifically with respect to NPS, and just to say that, you know, I think that's, you know, generally in California, you have disproportionality that. I don't remember exactly what the findings were, but I have the report, and I can share it. And what they conclude in that WestEd report is that there's a larger number or percentage of NPS students that are white in the state of California, and they have their whole sort of analysis of why that is. So they're looking at it in a much
160bigger lens, right? Well, they're looking at it in a much bigger lens. Well, they're looking at it in a much bigger lens, right? the aggregate right right that you know if we have a population that is is like a high proportionality of Latino but then most of our NPS kids across the state are white anyway there's a whole research study on it and it just seems like it's a it's a huge onus for the my observation is that there's so much time and energy put into this monitoring thing and it I know it's important but I I can see that we're stretched really thinly and it's a it's a huge it's a huge cost to our staff anyway it's just an odds in a variety of ways well in a variety of ways and I
161know the goal is to better serve the kids but I sometimes wonder like are we spending more money and resources on the monitoring part as opposed to delivering the services you know at the ground level anyway can I can I sure add a little bit sure control of the numbers I'm not sure I don't know if I'm right but it's not I don't know if I'm right but it's not it's not clear so you covered the slide I'm worrying around disproportionality I think setting the context is really important so we have accountability from the state for all our students with academics as you know with Casp and SBAC and all of that in this case we have accountability for our special education programs when the state finds that we're not meeting SIM phase one. The
162expectation there is that we will do our work to try to alleviate that concern. And if we don't alleviate that concern, we move to phase two. When we don't alleviate the concerns in phase two, we move to phase three. When we don't alleviate the concerns in phase three, we go into significant disproportionality. So I think it's important for us to recognize that we've had issues in our special education program for at least four years that the state has said to us, you need to do something about this. And so I think it's important to understand that, yes, it's a lot of work. And, yes, we are in a position where we're being required to do a lot of work. But we've had four years to try to alleviate some of this. And so now, unfortunately,
163it lands on us to do it. But it's not for me, at least personally, not a compliance issue alone. I think this is what we need to do to better serve our students who are in special education. And it's also, I think, part of the significant disproportionality piece is to address what's also happening in general education so that we don't have so many students identified. I think I mentioned before, typically, prior to the pandemic, you have about 10%. Of students in the general population who are identified for special education. After the pandemic, it rose to about 12 to 13% just because of mental health and behavior and a lot of other factors. But in Sonoma Valley Unified, we're close to 20% of the students that we're identifying. So I do agree that it's a lot
164of work, but I think it's work that we have to do. And I think if I could just say that, you know, we can set there's there's celebration in this, too. But I think that we're not in disproportionality in two identified areas that we were last year. So we did make some gains. I think that non public school is that we need to do what we're doing, which is start to build a continuum so that we can serve more students in a variety in a variety of ways. Not just Jed Jen Ed and not just moderate to severe, you know. Are. They're called. I'm so sorry. That is not the right terminology. Essential support needs classroom. So, right. We've had for a long time to very extreme situations. And so we have to just put
165in that that middle part so that we have a continuum for our students. Trustee Winders. Yeah. So I I have the benefit of having a job in which this is this is my job and this is my. My job. And so the reason that the actual breakdown of the demographics within the demographic of students with disabilities is really important is because that's where we have to look at the intersectionality piece. Right. So students with disabilities also are students, some of whom are socioeconomically disadvantaged. Also, our students who are African-American also are students who are Latino also are students who are English language learners. And that. Intersectionality piece becomes really important, especially when you're talking about students with disabilities, because a lot of disabilities have what's called disability related behavior where certain behaviors are part of
166that student's disability. Right. And so it becomes important in the ethnicity piece becomes important because we also have issues around implicit bias. And so sometimes some students based upon their. Their racial demographic have a higher rate of the implicit bias and then compounded with being a student with a behavior, a disability related behavior. We see that spike in the discipline for certain racial groups within the the the group of students with disabilities. And so that's what we're seeing when we're looking at the discipline piece. And so what that informs us as a as a district is that we need to do some work. Right. On the. Disability related behavior. And so we talk about and training and understanding what is a disability related behavior. And then we also need to do work around implicit bias.
167And it's really becomes really important because there's really negative impacts for students who are repeatedly disciplined for behaviors that are related to their disability. And the most important piece is that they lose instructional minutes. They lose instructional minutes from. You know, being able to. Have a good day. You know. being removed from the classroom, they lose instructional minutes from suspensions. And so those, that's where that piece gets important, becomes really important because if we see that certain groups of our students within our students with disabilities are experiencing that loss of access to instruction at a higher level than other groups, other groups of students based upon ethnicity within that group, then we need to take a look at our practices and what we're doing as a district. And so that's why those pieces become really,
168really important. And that's why, you know, in many, many times race matters and implicit bias is real. It's not my opinion. There's lots of research, lots of data, lots of science around the studies of it, and especially a lot of research and data and studies around. It, when we're talking about students with disabilities because there's disability-related behavior. And that's especially true of students who have ADHD and students who are neurodivergent and are autistic. We see students who fall under the disability category of emotional disturbance, so who have anxiety disorders and lots of different disabilities that fall under that category of disability. I think that the monitoring is actually really important because it helps give us that yellow light that we need to stop and we need to take a look at what we're doing and
169then we need to take corrective measures to ensure that we correct that. So that leads me, though, to my question because I'm sorry, but I just think that context really matters in that conversation. So when you were talking about the potential of disproportionality for students with disabilities regarding discipline. That's part of it. That's, so we're looking at, that's showing up on the ITAP that we're seeing that data that we're, okay, that's what I was trying to understand. So we're able to see that in the ITAP and correct before we actually land there. Correct. Okay. That was the piece I wasn't sure if it was the ITAP. And then the next question is are we, as trustees, are we going to get a report about the plan that's going into place so that we know what
170areas, how we're going to prevent this and what our preventative steps are? Absolutely. All along. So we have 27 months to talk about this. Okay. Okay. But I heard there was a June date. June is all of the things that I told you, the checkoff, all of those things have to be done by June 30th. So our TA meeting with parents, with teachers, with administrators, and doing, you know, her interviews, the meetings that we had to go to as a district team. Okay. The infrastructure analysis, the student case study analysis. What else? Oh, there it is. Okay. Yeah. The policies, practices, and procedures analysis. So all of that has to be done by June 30th. Okay. So I'm wondering if after that June 30th date, if we as a board could get like a summary
171of all of that and where we're at and what it all says just so that we can be better informed. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Dr. Vanderpool. Yes, sir. I'm curious about if we can move to the slide where it says professional development. It's towards the end, Michelle. Right there. So I'm noticing that on the bottom half for next steps, I recognize these trainings that were listed as recommendations from the special ed report that we received. And I'm excited to see that general education teachers are going to be a part of IEP compliance. IEP compliance role of the teacher and behavior is there is that a plan to be ongoing throughout the year or is that a one and done or what do we know what the game plan for that looks like is that
172still in development well it's still in development what we're trying to do is we're connecting with the SELPA and then we're also reaching out to is it open access open access and I was thinking about the county office of that they're located in Placer County Placer so Placer SELPA and a couple of other organizations to see how this plays out because I think one of the things that we recognize prior to even them doing that the dig the deep dig with the IEPs was that we had already identified that there were some issues with goals for example in our IEPs there is some concerns about progress monitoring issues and that kind of thing so it does not take a one-and-done to have teachers really truly understand all the different components of the IEP as you
173know the document is long and has a lot of different elements so it can't be just be a one-and-done so we're trying to reach out to different organizations to see how we can support us with the different chunks of the IEP wonderful thank you and then my other question in terms of Orton Gilliam training taking place in June I did see I saw that a list of teachers are participating this summer so that's fantastic thank you for that. fantastic. Is that meant for case managers? General ed teachers. Okay, great. And then will they be certified after the completion of that training? I don't know the answer to that. I can get an answer to that. Yes. I'd be curious to know because I know that in other programs that relate to science of reading, it's
174a pretty long process. So I'm just curious. There's another program too through the county office that is also providing a similar kind of training for teachers. And I feel like that one they'll get ongoing, right? Ongoing support. So I think what's happening with the science of reading initiative is that we have all of these trainings and people are saying, well, this is Orton-Gillingham and they're teaching some strategies around Orton-Gillingham, which are great for teachers. But then there's also the science of reading. And then there's also an Orton-Gillingham training where you get the certification. So, you know, again, I think having our teachers go to any of those are really great because they're learning strategies. But to get certified, it's a more intensive program. Thank you. I just want to highlight that because I think that's
175critical and important. So thank you. With that, any public comment? Hi. Kimberly Smith. I work at Altamira. I'm going to kind of fix my sign here. Okay. I just kind of want to wing this. I want to brag about Altamira a little bit. And I know that this is data-driven programming that, you know, we are supporting the special ed department. But I seem to be wanting to talk about humans tonight. And I want to talk about our Altamira students. And we have the ESN class. And this is the second year that they've participated in the leadership program. And my whole time, even as a parent, we've always had students with disabilities that are mainstreamed. And our students in this valley are so loving and welcoming. And they don't, they treat them human to human. The
176whole data at the human student level, you know, is normal for them. And I'm glad that we have that. And I'm just really proud of our leadership students because they've had this buddy program. And you'll see that at the Special Olympics. And I just want to also point out that last year at the Special Olympics, we had our band playing as well. And that will go away. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Smith. Because that program, the Altamira program in that middle school, to me, it's a model program. And it's what I would hope we would aspire on all of our campuses. So it is really wonderful to watch, to be a part of. And if you come on the 22nd, you will see it. It's pretty beautiful. Dennis Hausman, excuse me, co-VMT, co-president of the
177VMTA. Sorry, it's a long night. Sorry, I'm going to have a lot of information here because that was a long presentation. But I applaud you for that. I'm going to say I've been sitting in numerous meetings with the VMTA. I'm going to say I've been sitting in numerous meetings with the VMTA. I'm going to say I've been sitting in numerous meetings with the VMTA. I'm going to say I've been sitting in numerous meetings with both district auditors and CTA auditors. And they both say the same thing. We're spending a great deal of money for students to go to somewhere else to be taught. And it's coming out of our district funds. Again, having the alternative education because of our disproportionate amount of people being identified in our valley is really hurting our schools. Again, having
178the alternative education because of our disproportionate amount of people being identified in our valley is really hurting our schools. Again, having the alternative education because of our disproportionate amount of people being identified in our valley is really hurting our schools. That being said, I also will say, speaking for myself and probably many others, if a student does an action that requires discipline, they should receive discipline for it. That being said, I also will say, speaking for myself and probably many others, if a student does an action that requires discipline, they should receive discipline for it. That being said, I also will say, speaking for myself and probably many others, if a student does an action that requires discipline, they should receive discipline for it. That being said, I also will say, speaking for myself and
179probably many others, if a student does an action that requires discipline, they should receive discipline for it. That being said, I also will say, speaking for myself and probably many others, if a student does an action that requires discipline, they should receive discipline for it. myself and probably many others. If a student does an action that requires discipline, they should receive discipline for it. It shouldn't matter their race, their socioeconomics, their ELL, or any other class. The student does something that deserves to be disciplined, they should get the discipline for that. And however the numbers pan out, that's how the numbers should pan out. I also will say, having gone through a couple of different explicit bias trainings, when you go on about that, you're implying that we are racist by disciplining students or identifying
180students. I will say, I actually have taken two tests recently and have actually both times come out of being partial to other races other than white. So. The fact that when people go on about explicit bias and how it affects our schools, again, it's implying that people in our schools are racist. And I don't agree with that. Thank you. Oh, one more thing. Sorry. The, again, the trainings that are proposed, I fully agree, and I hope they happen. Our district has a history of providing trainings during students' cl, our district's class time, or not paying for the trainings. So if we can remedy that in the future, that would be fantastic. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Hausman. OK. If there's no other public comment, this is an informational presentation. Thank you very much again, Dr.
181Vanderpool, or Dr. Director Vanderpool. Yeah. Next item is 15.10, informational presentation, safety committee update. Good evening, everyone. Dennis, though. If you really want to, you're welcome to join us. Dennis is on our safety committee. All right. So I'm here co-presenting with Camille Garcia, a district social worker, as well as Connor Snow, our vice principal at the high school and incoming principal of Altamira. And so we're here to just give a brief update for you on the SVUSD safety committee. And so this committee was a recommendation in spring of last year to meet regularly throughout the school year, with the intention of being able to do specific things, like look at school site safety plans, as well as address fugitive night. And then also look at the greater scope of safety in our district, take input,
182and develop an action plan to identify specific actions that we wanted to address. So we have met five of these dates so far. And I do have to correct that May 2 is now May 16. So we are meeting next week to talk about implementation of the plan that we created. But we met in November and December just looking at voice. Last year, looking at the Youth Truth survey data, we had a lot of questions around school safety. And so we led some listening circles with students, some listening circles with staff. So we were able to collect some information there. And we also had the Youth Truth survey from our families, as well. And so we met in November and December and kind of established a purpose for our group and began to dive into
183that data to see what the initial data was telling us. And then we also had a group meeting with the school safety department to talk about what we needed to do in terms of school safety. In February, we broke off into small group work. Some of us took a look at the school site safety plans. And then a group also met to address fugitive night. And so Mr. Snow will talk a little bit about that after this slide. In March, we have our new Youth Truth data. And so we took that data, as well, and just started diving in and really identified some specific areas of need in which we wanted to address. April 4, we met about those. We broke into groups based on those actions and started creating some goals and objectives to
184meet those needs. And we will take a final look at that and then bring it forward to sites for feedback after the May 16 date. All right. Good evening, everybody. So the next slide just summarizes some of the actions that were taken as part of the safety committee in trying to address the concerns around fugitive night, which you may remember from last year. All right. Good evening, everybody. All right. So some of the items are identified here in three different categories, supervision, communication, as well as collaboration with our youth, with our students. So a lot of work has gone into increased supervision at the high school campus and many of the surrounding campuses, as well as throughout the school district so far, and increasing monitoring through, I believe, a very large investment was made last
185year by the board, thank you, to increase the surveillance cameras and the quality of those cameras. They are exceptional and definitely help in our work. And also law enforcement presence in the city of Sonoma and on the SVHS campus when we become aware that fugitive night may or may not be happening. We have a really, as we know, great collaboration with our police department and Chief Cutting and Officer Esponda have been very responsive and helpful to us and available when they're needed. And communication. So we do have very clear communication coming from staff, from myself and the fellow administration, from the city of Sonoma Valley High School, going into all senior classes. We've already done this. We went into all senior economics classes to go over kind of end of year expectations. Seniors, it's, you
186know, there's that very contagious illness known as senioritis that some of them catch and it's a little bit challenging and it's highly serious. So we want to go and talk about that with them and just, you know, let them know kind of what we're expecting of them for the end of the year and to be able to celebrate together all the fun stuff that we have to celebrate them as graduates. But we also talked about Fugitive Night directly with them and that it is not a school sanctioned activity. It is not something that should be taking place, especially when we have so many other wonderful things to participate in in a positive way to celebrate the end of the year and to mark that kind of ceremonial transition, right? Which I think is what they're
187trying to do, but not in a very effective manner, right? And so we also have communications out to families about the, you know, significant damage and consequences that can come from participating in Fugitive Night. Including different laws that were broken, there's trespassing, property damage and the like, right? And the seriousness of the event that some maybe took lightly as, you know, not very serious but it has really serious outcomes, very serious potential outcomes. And so we also have collaborated with our students talking about preventing it from happening to begin with ideally, right? And educating students about those unintended consequences, right? Such as the violence, you know, the sort of fear that it puts into the community throughout the year. Right? And then, you know, the town, you know, I know I believe Chief Cutting spoke
188to the number of calls for service that come, that came last year with that event. As well as the property damage, et cetera. We also then, you know, really talk a lot as I just alluded to some of the pro-social end of year activities. We have a lot of fun stuff planned for our seniors. And so we've really been emphasizing that with them. End of year is a very exciting time and a very busy time at the high school campus, obviously. We have prom coming up very shortly, right? At BYU. Right? Right? Right? We have the B.R. Cone Winery. It's going to be a lot of fun. The kids always have a fantastic time. And then we have our senior week activities coming up. The final week of school. That four-day week after the Memorial
189Day break. And a lot of fun things planned for our students. We go to Six Flags. I go to Six Flags with them. I believe my colleague, Miss Dowdy, also goes with us. As well as many teachers and staff. It's a lot of fun. I like to ride all the roller coasters with them. The Lasso of Truth was particularly terrifying last year. I don't know if you've been on that. But whew. It's dizzying. And it's just a good time. Right? It's fun to go celebrate and just kind of be in just a relaxed, exciting environment with our graduates. We have our senior picnic. We have a cap decorating activity where they can decorate the top of their caps for graduation. Other things as well. And of course, the actual graduation ceremony. Right? Which is the
190true culmination of all the hard work that they've put in. And they work really hard on putting that on. The students really lead the work of the ceremony. We're working with them now. Our valedictorian, salutatorian, and all the different senior officers. Etc. That are going to perform. So I say all that to say that there's a lot of fun stuff to do at the end of the year on the high school campus and at the high school that are not Fugitive Night. And so that's what we're really trying to emphasize with our students to celebrate those things with us. Right? Thank you. Good evening. I'm Camille Garcia. And I'm going to talk a little bit about how we collected some student voice around this area. So Director Beal did talk a little bit about the
191data that we dove into in these meetings. And we spent a lot of time reviewing youth truth-seeking. Youth data, especially in the areas of school culture and climate because there are questions specific to safety in there. So we looked at our student and staff and family caregiver perceptions in those areas. And we also reviewed, I may have spoken to you in the past about the listening circles that we did last spring with students for students in eighth grade, third through twelfth grade across the district. So we interviewed over 100 students. And we asked them empathy interview questions about times that they feel safe on campus. And we asked them about the impact of the pandemic. And we asked them about the impact of the pandemic. And we asked them about the impact of the pandemic.
192And we asked them about the impact of the pandemic on campus, times or areas where they don't feel safe on campus. We asked them to give a rating scale, how safe they feel on a scale of one to five. And things that they like about their school and really try to listen to what they shared. And in that we took really detailed verbatim notes from the students. And then we also offered like a Google form version, so that if they didn't feel comfortable sharing. And I also recognize that some students may not have felt safe in a circle setting. So I think, Director Beal will talk a little bit about that. Dr. Beal will talk a little bit more about our plans moving forward, but trying to give students other avenues as well to be
193able to speak freely about how they perceive safety on campus. But the overall prevailing theme is they do feel safe. And if you go to the next slide, I'm going to read you a quote that I think really kind of captured what highlighted what most students said about what makes them feel safe. And so they said, one student who was a senior last year said, everyone knows each other and has some sort of connection. It is hard to define, but I don't feel insecure or unsafe because you just know people. We have good connection and community. When you feel unsafe, you can talk to anyone here. This is obviously a student who was a senior, well-spoken, and was having a positive experience. I recognize that this isn't every student's experience, but I do feel like
194it captured what we're doing right. And I think that when we look at our first area of focus that Director Beal will cover is connection and belonging. And we see this as just being a really big highlight of our work and what we're going to do moving forward. And I think that it helps us to guide where we see not just students feeling like they belong at school, but that they belong with each other. I think that's really where their feelings of safety come from. And so in our work in the next meetings that we did kind of dive into action planning, we did make some plans around how we can kind of build out on this theme amongst some of the other things as well. All right. So our district safety committee, which is
195a multidisciplinary team. So we have membership of campus supervisor, a classroom teacher, educational specialist, social worker, site admin. We've had the chief of police come. Our superintendent has come. TOSAs, IT. I think I got everyone, but if I didn't, correct me. So we do have a lot of different views that are looking into it. And so these are the four areas that were identified based on the data in which we were looking. So that first piece being that belonging and connection. As Camille spoke, so much of safety lies in students feeling welcome and a sense of belonging and a sense of connection on campus. And so that is the first area that we will be addressing as we look to put actions towards this need. The second is looking at emergency preparedness and violence prevention.
196And so how are we proactively getting in there and ensuring that our campuses physically have what they need, but also that we have plans in place that will be prevention of violence. Area three is looking at bullying prevention. In the Youth Truth Survey data, we did see decreases of students in elementary and high school reporting bullying. So it did decrease a bit and went up a little bit in middle school. And so even though we're seeing a little bit of growth in that area, it is still something that is coming up as a need that our families have identified, that students and staff have identified. And so we will be taking specific areas in bullying prevention. And also looking at the bystander effect. We noticed, especially with like social media, phones, really that bystander piece
197is something that we have to address. And so that will be a component in that area. And then lastly, looking at our communication systems in terms of crisis communication. We did a lot of reflecting on that November day of our yellow code and just thinking about how can we get in front of communication and let families and students and staff know what communication will look like in terms of crisis communication. All right. And that's really little. But that was just the action plan. So we are busy filling that in. So again, our final meeting, just a date correction, is May 16th. So we will be moving forward with implementation of that planning. Identifying action steps. Sharing that with sites. And then identifying the safety committee would like to meet again next year. And so we're
198really excited to talk about how that work will continue into next year. And we can continue to utilize that group to move forward with a lot of the actions that will be coming up. And questions? Okay. Thank you very much. Are there questions from trustees? So thank you. When you talk about the bullying prevention and the bystander effect, like let's go I'm going to kind of go back to the youth . We did see like the overall decrease. But I noticed when I was looking at that data, we are still seeing an increase in higher rates with specific groups of students, in particular LGBTQIA plus students. And there's also students who are in the community. And there's students reporting like racial harassment and that kind of stuff. So when we're looking at that and we're
199talking about campus safety, I think people, you know, we sort of have like one idea of what we think campus safety is. But diving a little bit deeper that maybe it feels not safe for other groups of students in very specific ways. And then how we're going to address that. So in this context of a safety committee, are we looking at that of like what does safety look like and that it can look different depending on what group we're in? That was one of the things that we wanted to do because when people think of school safety, sometimes it can be interpreted as how do we feel in terms of emergency response. Or others might view it as like how do I feel safe on campus in terms of me feeling included and a sense
200of belonging. And so we wanted to make sure that the group was looking at so many different aspects of school safety because it is so big. And it means so much. And so that was one of the questions. Thank you. And then we have some questions that we ask the students too because when you look at the Youth Truth Survey, it says like do you feel safe on campus? And so how are we even defining what it means to feel safe on campus? So some of the work too that Camille kind of brought up is we plan to move forward with some empathy interviews just even talking about what does that even mean to feel safe? And doing that, that is individual because we recognize as Camille shared a lot of times you get into
201a group and you might not feel safe to be able to share all that you're thinking. So that is some work. And then you will see, I mean we can bring forward the action plan as we're moving it forward. Some of the areas will be finding out more information and others will be very clearly actionable. But one of the areas is diving in and learning a little bit more about what that means for students and how they're experiencing it. Looking specifically at student groups. Thank you. And actually you raise a really good point. Thank you Camille. Maybe you can actually speak to this too. The fact of when we're talking about those subjects, when you're talking about homophobia, transphobia, racism, implicit bias, those types of things, the ability to feel safe in who you're talking
202to about those things, that's a really vulnerable conversation to have. And so I know that that conversation can make people feel defensive, they can feel uncomfortable. But I can tell you I've been meeting with students. I've had students who are coming directly to me about these issues and they've shared with me that when it happens or when they get asked about it, sometimes they don't really feel safe even saying how they really feel or what they're really truly actually experiencing because they're afraid of sort of those repercussions. And so I'm really grateful that we have our Wellness Center. I'm really grateful Camille that we have you there and creating that space. And I'm wondering if those things are coming up at the Wellness Center because I'm hearing them. Yes. Yes. And thank you. So one
203thing that I have learned in my many years of working with teenagers is that peer support is kind of everything. So what I have sort of started to do when I'm trying to help identify students who need support, because for that exact reason, they're not necessarily going to walk in and talk to me. I'll ask students that do feel comfortable coming and saying something to me, do you think there's anybody else that you know that maybe I should be talking to? And so sometimes that word of mouth is sort of what helps get other students to get in a space where they can be vulnerable with me or with a wellness staff or any adult. So being able to sort of leverage peer relationships. Because that is in those empathy interviews or in those listening
204circles, we heard a lot about students talking about relying on one another. And so I really try to help lean into that because I do think that there is a really important connection amongst students. So if I can help them by helping each other, I find that that's to be a really effective way of doing it. And I think just moving forward, like creating better systems for students to be able to, you know, we do kind of have like a no wrong door policy. Students can self-refer through QR codes. They can do all kinds of different ways. Honestly, they just come and talk to us most often. And they actually said, we don't use the QR codes. Can you just have paper in here? And so that's a lot of their feedback. Like we don't
205want everything electronic. So we really try to do a good job of giving students every opportunity to have access. And I do find students go to their teachers or they write something in an assignment and the teacher will come to me. So I do think that creating, I do think that a lot of things that we do, we do have to do. And I do think that a lot of students feel comfortable with an adult on campus. It may not be me or wellness, but having those conversations and then having systems to support is really important. And then again, just trying to lean into students supporting one another is I've seen the most success in that area. They tend to go to each other first before they come to us, which is not a bad
206thing. It's developmentally appropriate. One, oh, sorry. Thank you for this presentation. One thing I'm kind of disappointed that I didn't see in any of these areas is that there is discipline, right? Because this is a safety committee and I think we are missing a big component and that's accountability and discipline. I think we need to set some standards and I think that there's this idea that we want to provide emotional support for students who are experiencing these sorts of discrimination, but what's happening to the students who are acting in that way, right? And so I think that there's a component missing here and it would be that discipline and that follow through. And it goes back to the conversations of creating campuses that promote inclusivity and we treat students as students and we value respect,
207right? We value each other as people. We treat each other as we want to be treated. And then we have this foundation that we've created and so discipline is not hard to enforce when it's expected and understood amongst the entire student body, right? And so it's keeping, setting those expectations. And keeping those expectations and then focusing on, you know, those students who are creating that sort of, you know, who are creating this behavior or who are performing this behavior towards other students, whether it be, you know, towards students that we've identified tonight or anybody, really, anybody at the school. Because I think ideally all of our kids just really want to come to school and learn and feel safe. Many of them are showing up because they're excited for their sports after school, right? And
208so I just think it's really important to consider discipline in this because I think that we will, you know, we need to set an expectation that it's not tolerated. Like those behaviors are not tolerated. And in fact, the students who maybe should be seeking help and support in our wellness centers are the students that are actually have that inside of them that are projecting that on our other students. And one other piece of that. I think is really important that you pointed out is it's not necessarily just the wellness center. There are people on campus that our students do feel safe going to. And that's something to acknowledge because when you walk into the wellness center, you know, that in itself can be a statement. And for some students that's absolutely fine. And they don't
209care. For others it's really hard to just take that first step. And so I think it's important that we acknowledge that our teachers ensure that they really know their students because they may be that one person. That that student feels safe coming to. And lastly, I'm just going to say you made a really good point about students going to each other. And I have students, you know, on the campus and I hear a lot of really great things about the support that the students have for one another. And so I'd really like to see us to continue, as you said, to really give them the tools to be advocates for each other and their own safety. And to be empowered to speak up and not be afraid to be bullied because they're speaking up for
210their students. So I just love that idea. I wanted to end it on a positive note and say I'm so glad you brought that up because, I mean, when they leave our schools, right, they don't have all of us. And the world isn't, you know, always so kind. And so giving them the tools and providing them the tools to be empowered in that way I think is just so crucial. Thank you. We see that as being a big need. We don't want students, students don't necessarily have a wellness center, you know, when they go off into the world after high school. So we don't want it to be something that is the only way that they know how to support themselves. And so I think you'll see at some point with our action plan, like
211the first item under connection and belonging was to have some form of a peer-to-peer support system at every school site. So we haven't completely like fleshed out what that's going to look like, but that's like one of our main action items that we would like to see is having, you know, starting year one but then evolving so that students learn how to resource with each other I think is really important. Thank you. Trustee Sheen. Yeah, I had a few follow-up questions related to that, Camille. We used to have something called Link Crew, which was some kind of peer-to-peer support. Does that not exist anymore? It does exist. But does it serve a different purpose? It doesn't. Actually, Connor, Mr. Snow could probably speak to that a little bit better. Yeah, so Link Crew, it does
212still exist, yes. And they help support the transition for our ninth graders, particularly onto the school campus. So they're upperclassmen and, you know, 11th and 12th graders paired, you know, with small groups of ninth graders. They spend a lot of time, especially at the beginning of the year. You know, they have an entire day of activities as their first day of school where our Link Crew students help work with our incoming freshmen. And then they have various events throughout the year, right, to support building connections with those juniors and seniors, with the smaller freshmen, and to allow that opportunity to have that peer-to-peer support. And so that's a really good example of that peer mentoring, right, because as many people have spoken to here, right, they don't necessarily always want to talk to an adult
213about what's going on. Or they might ask different questions of their peers than they would of an adult. And that's totally appropriate and okay. And we want to provide opportunities for that to happen, right, and that sort of peer-to-peer space is one of those opportunities. There's definitely opportunities to do more of that and more, you know, extensive, like, peer-to-peer support. Okay. And since I have you, I want to go back to you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I want to go back to Fugitive Night. So first I want to just thank Dr. Chen. I want to thank the Safety Committee. I'm glad that this is happening. There's ongoing dialogue. We gave clear direction that we, you know, we wanted you – we wanted a group to sort of look at these issues. So specifically
214with Fugitive Night, what I heard was a lot of discussion with students about creating all these pro-social events. But did – was there any discussion with students about, like, can we replace Fugitive Night? fugitive night I mean there must be students who admitted to participating in fugitive night and are they open to having another event because we it hasn't no one has tried it yet I don't think right this year it hasn't happened not not as of yet to our knowledge no yeah so I'm just curious did you address that specifically with kids about hey if you were to redesign you know fugitive night what would it look like I did I did interview students about it this year and they were like no absolutely not there's nothing you could do that would be school
215sanction that would replace that is the fun of it and you know granted that's not every student at the high school has said that but that was sort of like the resounding response that I heard from many students was that no it's tradition it's this it's this it's that it's fun because it's not part of school that's why we do it so it they kind of said exactly what I was saying I think it's a good question and I think it's a good question and I think it's a good question and I think it's a good question like there's nothing you could do that would replace it that we would want to do so that was why I think we sort of changed our focus on to like we're gonna focus on what pro-social events
216we do have available but in speaking with students it didn't feel like there was a school-sponsored event that they were gonna want to replace fugitive night with okay and then the follow-up question to that is you talked about legal consequences I mean as a board I'm speaking for myself I wanted to there to be clear language in policy that if any any kid was involved in that event, that there would be pretty severe consequences to them. I'm still, I'm very supportive of that. I don't know how the rest of my board feels about it. But I think we as a board have to enumerate. We know that it's not school sponsored. But if you get caught, there's got to be some consequences. You have a responsibility to the community, you know, not to shoot projectiles
217out of your car, not to terrorize, you know, younger kids, older people who don't know what's going on. So I'm just curious, do you have recommendations to the board about policy changes or policy adoption that we should take in discipline, specifically around Fugitive Night? So I can speak to a few parts of the question, I think. So I'll speak to the discipline. We definitely communicated very clearly in all of our messaging to families that there would be severe disciplinary consequences from the school side if there were. If there were policies that were broken related to discipline, such as trespassing, property damage, right, all of those things that we can discipline on. And so that messaging went out really clearly to families from the school. But also you likely saw some of the communications from Chief
218Cutting to the community as well around the consequences from a law enforcement perspective, right, on what students are doing during the, you know, out of school, not on school property necessarily, but that where law enforcement would take. So I think that's something that we should take a step in to help support with ensuring that those that are breaking laws, right, are held accountable to it. And, you know, there was a very nice message I believe he sent out recently about that, that was circulating to be really clear to families and to students, right, the severity of participating in the legal activities ultimately, right, in the community. Can you, I didn't see any of those communication. So if someone could forward it to me, that would be great. And let me just see if there's anything.
219I don't see anything else here. Okay. So that kind of addresses my fugitive night question. And this is a comment or this is, I guess this is sort of a question related to bullying. In terms of like looking at bullying, it's still a pervasive problem as I, when I went and looked at the Youth Truth Survey results. And I'm just curious, is there any discussion, I mean, the root causes and the things that are amplifying it, are we talking about that at all? Is there, do you have recommendations for the board? I feel very strongly about this topic and that we have to, if we don't address the underlying causes of bullying, you know, forget about wellness. There's no amount of wellness that's going to cure that unless we address the root causes. Absolutely. I
220think that that is why also that's one of like the main four areas that we are focused on is because we recognize that. Yeah. We recognize that that is something that is prevalent in our nation, right? But also right here. And so what we want to make sure that we're doing is looking at the specific policies. I know that we talked about like updating BPNA board policy and administrative regulations specific to bullying. And so we do have a team that's ready to take a look at that. I believe it's next week. And utilizing that in some of the work that we're doing as a safety committee. We have done some bullying prevention. We had, you know, we had a team that was involved in the BPNA board policy and administrative regulations. Kim Bellock go in.
221She led some bullying prevention lessons in our elementary schools. And so we really are looking to see like what more can we do specific to bullying. And that is why it's a focus area for us because we will have specific actions. And so we are looking forward to taking a look at the BPNA are specific to that to see to how we can utilize that and then implement it. Thank you. So I think a big piece of that that, you know, part of our team is looking at is trying to, how to engage families around that conversation. And how do we hold parent education nights too that are going to be geared specifically towards that. And then how do we, you know, reach as many parents as we can in that area. So I do
222think that there, it happens in the classroom. It happens at every tier in MTSS. But it also has to happen, I think, with our families as well. I'll just add one more comment to that. So we have a lot of opinions on this, obviously. I think, you know, it speaks back too to also building trusting relationships with adults or with peers where students feel comfortable enough. You know, reporting bullying when it's happening. That's not getting to your question about the root causes of the people that, like of students that are perpetuating this behavior. But those that are experiencing it, right, so that we and staff can be aware and respond. Right. I think, you know, we do a lot of work pushing out lots of different ways for students to report things, but really I
223think the most effective way is for them to be able to speak to someone that they trust and that they know cares about them. Right. Or as Camille alluded to in the wellness center, right, like if you're speaking to someone about an issue that others may, you know, They may have a problem. may also be experiencing, like asking that person, is there anyone else we should be talking to? Is there anything else we should be doing to address this? In addition to all the reporting mechanisms we do have, Stop It, different ways students can report things that are anonymous, but again, kind of like the QR code, not everybody's gonna do it that way. We need to have lots of different avenues for students to feel comfortable coming to us or coming to an adult
224or going to a friend who can go to an adult to let us know when something is happening that needs to be addressed that's making them feel unsafe on campus. I'll add one more. We also know that bullying looks different now, right, with social media, like there's just a different level of like access to students that didn't occur like when we were in school. And so thinking also about how we navigate our work from that approach as well, knowing that this is not just something that happens like in our schools from 8.30 to three, but that this is something that goes home with students. And so how are we helping to navigate that piece of the social media, and how do we help to navigate that piece of the social bullying as well? I'll be
225very brief. I just wanted to say that I'm glad to hear there's gonna be this committee continuing the work next year. I look forward to having students come back and speak with us like they did in the fall when they were talking about area one, belonging and connection. I think that really made an impression on me. And I feel like that's what it's all about is getting kids who are struggling themselves and trying to figure out the world themselves, but still reaching out, extending themselves, putting themselves out there to meet someone or help someone. And yeah, I just really appreciate that very much. So thank you for the great work that you've done. And we look forward to hearing more later. Great job. But before we go on to our last item, I'm gonna open
226it up to public comment. Dennis Howson, VMTA Co-President. Yeah. Thank you for the great work on that committee. So you asked the question, what can we do to prevent bullying? How about we ban cell phones at school? You want a solution? You can just a couple weeks ago, Norway just put out a study of banning cell phones at school and look at the results they got. So that would be one quick step. Again, when you want to find discipline for fugitive night, or something that isn't school sanctioned, we can go a long ways to discipline for school sanctioned things, like tardies and attendance and cussing out teachers. I mean, those are things that happen during the school day that are sanctioned. So before we start worrying about discipline for unsanctioned school things, let's start with
227there. I want to also invite all of you to volunteer to chaperone the senior week. We are needing chaperones. So you're getting one. I got a roller coaster with some seniors. Have a good time. And so please volunteer to be a chaperone. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Hasman. Hi, Laura Hoban. This is as a teacher perspective from Adele Harrison. We do have an advisory class where once a week, once to twice a week, the topics are social emotional learning. And we did have, I believe Kim came in and trained us on giving a lesson around hate speech. And so we are doing things with the kids and having conversations. And the way our advisory classes work in the middle school is their sixth, seventh and eighth graders. So as the eighth graders leave, we get
228new sixth graders. Then they're in the same class for three years. So they do, I think, build that community. We do circles on Mondays. So we are doing things in the classrooms to build those connections, build those relationships. Have trusted peers. And an adult and address the topics that they're speaking of. And we do have a good system. I feel like in the middle school for implementing as much of what the plan comes up with. We do have a good system for implementing it. So I do think it's something to be celebrated. Thank you, Ms. Homan. Any other comments? OK. Thank you again very much. OK. Next item, 15.11, informational report. Monthly budget report. Good evening, members of the board. So this is a report, your financial report as of April 30, 2024. The first
229slide is restricted and unrestricted combined funds. This is your general fund. So, so far today, we've recognized 88% of revenue and 80% of expenditures. So we're right on target with our budget there. So on the next slide. This is our budget. This is our general fund unrestricted. I'd like to draw your attention to where it says other state revenues. At second interim, we had a negative $5,424. And currently, we have a proposed budget of $649,000. So as you recall, during the audit last year, the transportation plan hadn't been approved by the board. So it was an audit finding originally. That was a two-year plan. So originally, we were told that they were going to disallow both years. The auditor was here doing interim tests work. And he said that they were not going to disallow
230this year's revenue. And I have appealed last year's findings. So hopefully, we can still get funding for that. So we will be receiving that $649,000 this year. I hate to be I hate to burst that bubble, but as we were preparing for the budget for this year, we will get that $649,000. That was one year. It will be free of charge. Getting up to a budget or whatever, it's publicis yes. AN acontecendo esta gabina. Son spreading researches. Statement of approval of the propre project described. rounded off by the board members. Executing ideal Saint Lawrenceunity as a priority. Do I agree with the signature? In closing the year, we went in, we were reconciling accounts payable and receivables, and we found in the general fund there was a prepay of $600,000 from two years ago that
231never got cleared. So we're going to have to clear that this year, and we're going to do that as a restatement, so it will go against fund balance. So we're going to be reducing fund balance by that $600,000, so this is going to pretty much be a wash. But the good news is that we also found a payable from 2017 that never got cleared in fund 20, so we'll be clearing that payable as a restatement, and then we're also going to transfer that balance over to the general fund, so we'll have a net positive for $300,000 and some thousand dollars. And then on the restricted, again, the restricted revenues we receive mostly from the federal, federal funds. So we're going to be doing that in the state, and we're going to be doing that in
232the state, and we're going to be doing that in the state, and we're going to be doing that in the state, and so the revenues are usually behind the expenditures, and a lot of times we have to book receivables for those. So we're still pretty right in line with what our budget was for the restricted expenditures. So any questions? Questions from trustees? Yes. Can you just repeat what you said earlier about the prepayment that was never cleared? How does that work anyway? What expense? What expense? What expense? What expenses was the district originally prepaying? Do you know that? So we pay the health insurance a month in advance. Okay. And so they had booked the prepayment of the health insurance, and then the following month they should have, in June, and in July they should
233have cleared it. So it's been on the books for over two years, and so we're going to have to clear it this year. So in order to clear it, you have to post it to an expense. It clears the prepay, which is an asset, and then you, you have to book the expense the following year when it actually incurs. I see. So in other words, they set aside money in advance to pay the health insurance premiums, but they didn't actually expense it. Is that what happened? Well, we actually spent the money. So for accounting terms, if you write a check, you credit cash, and you have to debit an expense or an asset. So we wrote the check, and we debited the prepay, which was an asset. Okay. So the following month they should have
234gone in and cleared that, so they would have debited the expense in July and cleared the prepay. But it's been sitting on the books for two years, so they never, they underreported expenditures a couple years ago. Got it. And then, and just explain, what is Fund 20 again? I always forget. The post-retirement benefits. So, and there's going to be a net gain of 300K from that? From there, yes. And the reason there's going to be a net gain is because? In 2017, they booked a payable and never cleared it. Okay. So I don't know exactly what the payable was for, but it was in 2017, so it's been sitting on the books for all these years. And the recent audit sort of discovered that? No. No. You discovered it. Yeah, we discovered it in going
235through all of our receivables and payables. Okay. That's all I have. Okay. Thank you. Anyone else? Okay. I do have one quick question. Will the governors may revise have any impact on our school district? It might impact some of the categoricals like ELOP, some of the special funding, but as far as our total, our overall revenue, no, just some of the special programs. And the last I heard, the COLA was going to go up to 1.07. So. Okay. Thank you very much. I actually had one other follow-up question. So the expected ending fund balance for the on the unrestricted side, what is that in terms of percentage? Do you know what that is? I don't know. I haven't calculated. Okay. I just wondered if we were how close that was to meeting the 3% mandated
236or the reserve requirement. For this year, we should meet the 3%. Okay. So. Thank you. Okay. Public comment? Dennis House, VMTA co-president, also on the negotiation team. I really strongly encourage you to go through the e-mail that the co-president sent you in regards to the budget and what the district can afford. Doing the math for the percent that we that VMTA is asking for, we're going to have to do the math for the percent that we that VMTA is asking for. The district could have afforded that raise last year. So money is there. I also want to remind you, we are a basic aid district. COLA matters very little to our district. Okay. We are basic aid. Not cost of living increase by what the other districts are getting. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Hausman.
237Kimberly Smith. Chapter President. I'm the board president for the CSEA, classified employees. I just am curious, asking the board, if there's any action that you are able to take, because we understand that there's a very wealthy person that has purchased a lot of buildings in this community, and those buildings sit vacant. And this person was, it was public knowledge in the newspaper that he owes over a million dollars. And they pay a lot of property tax. And I'm sure it's unusual for somebody who has purchased an apartment in this community to have more than $1 million or more than a thousand dollars in property tax. I pay my property tax. I work three jobs so I can pay my property tax on time and I think it's unfair. I would be supporting you if you
238need some advocates to get some of that revenue for property, or all of that revenue for property tax. Thank you. Thank you. Ms. Smith. So that wraps up our informational reports. We are now at trustee reports. Do we have any trustee reports to seek? I'll just say briefly that I was able to attend the student session also for the authors festival and I was there for two authors that really had the kids mesmerized and one was a mathematician from Harvey Mudd who has written many books and he had everyone all eyes on him and it was very exciting to see kids like so engrossed in algebra because that's really what they were learning but he was tricking them into thinking they were learning something else so I just have to say that I loved it
239that everyone was so engaged with that I just want to give a shout out to our boosters club at the high school I don't know if you guys know but we are or they are I am part of boosters club as well they raise money yearly in their yearly event and it's super exciting I don't know if I'm thinking about it but I'm thinking about it and I'm thinking about it and I'm thinking about oh am I supposed to be announcing this so I'm gonna do it anyways so our at the high school our weight room just got a ton of new equipment we're talking $50,000 worth of beautiful new equipment for our students to use it's amazing pop in there and see it check in at the office first and then we just got
240a new sound system they were able to fund the new sound system in the big gym which is amazing and a new scoreboard and more is coming so there's some really great things happening with the support of our community members financial support from our community members and beyond and then these wonderful parents who show up as part of boosters who put in the hard work to make things happen and yeah so I just wanted to give a shout out to them thanks for all the work that you guys do and then congratulations and you know good best of luck to all of our graduates 2024 whoo-hoo thank you so for the past month I continued to go to site visits and our campuses and turn classrooms and meeting with students and hearing from them and
241that's been really really informative and I really want to thank the campuses who who welcome there and took their time out I I always try to come and through be quiet in the background because I don't want to interrupt the work that's being done but then also having the opportunity to engage with the students as well and I really appreciate the sites for that I'm also had the opportunity to go to the art show oh my gosh I just we have amazing artists in our school I mean just mind-blowing I actually took photos of a bunch of the art that I saw because I just was so just stunned by the depth of it and I'm really looking forward to Special Olympics I was there last year for it it was amazing and Miss Smith
242to your point the students there and the level of inclusion and camaraderie last year was just really wonderful it wasn't just our neurotypical students going and being like oh I'm here to be a helper note they were participating they were cheering on the outlets they were it was very peer-to-peer there was it wasn't contrived in any way it was very genuine and I was just it was such a beautiful I'm so honored to be here and I'm so excited for it this year and I already told director Vanderpoel like I'm coming but I'm not there to just like be a trustee and it's so awkward to do that I put me to work I'm there to volunteer as a volunteer and and put me to work because it's just a really incredible experience and I
243really encourage everybody to come out and cheer our athletes on it's it's amazing and then I participated in the portrait of a graduate work which is what's part of the what will become our strategic plan and we I went to two sessions and I just wanted to point out that we had students there who are participating and in many and in many of the activities actually leading the activities we had students from Creekside there and we had a student from Adele there and they were phenomenal they're very candid very honest in their feedback and letting us know like what's working what's not working what do they need more of and I think when we needed engineer like person like them otter what would they like it to look like and how does that benefit students
244and I just really want to appreciate them because they came on a Friday evening and they came on a Saturday after having been at school and and one of the students commented that he didn't realize how much he was going to enjoy it and he's like well I wish I known like that I was an enjoy this much go tell my friend Michael go tell your friends because there's more work to be done but it was it was a really great really great experience and most importantly it was a community experience. There was generally a very collaborative space and those students were a big part of it and they were really leading the way on a lot of that work. So I want to thank them for that. And then lastly, this past month, I
245mean for the past year and a half, two years, I've been working with families in our district who have lost their housing and who are houseless. And this month continued that work with more families who abruptly lost their housing. And I, we have a very broken system in this county and it's very disjointed and the agencies are not talking to each other and they're not communicating and trying to do things like get people a hotel. They're not getting a hotel voucher because they don't know where they're going to sleep with their children that night and being told that the person who gives those is on vacation because that's what the last month has looked like and the months before that and the months before that. These are children in our district. These are families in
246our community. These are our neighbors and they're literally trying to figure out day to day where they're going to sleep and trying to get them through the hurdles. You can't have a voucher. You can't have a voucher until you go fill out your stuff with Cal Works and then Cal Works is like, well, we can't see you today. Did you make an appointment online? But then there's no way to make an appointment online because the cell phone that you had got turned off because you couldn't afford to pay the bill because you were trying to keep your housing. I mean, these are like these broken systems and so I'm saying this because there is no centralized case management. There is no wraparound services and I have been working really hard this month in communicating with
247directors at HUD. With our county supervisors, with Cal Works, with Share Housing Sonoma who by the way are amazing. They're an amazing organization. They've been the most helpful. And I say this as a trustee because the impacts of houselessness on children is so massive because they don't know where they're sleeping that night and their families while they're in school are scrambling. Trying to figure out. What that's going to look like and then the kids are at school worried about what that's going to look like. And these kids carry a heavy load with that and we have to fix it. We have to fix it and it results in not being able to get to school because sometimes the only place you have to stay is out of the county but your family doesn't have a
248car. And so trying just to get to school and show up becomes a hurdle and there's just not supports out there. There's not a system that works for our families. And so I say this because as a district and as a trustee and we have to take the charge in getting our county to develop a coordinated system and we have to develop that to the best level that we can because we have to fix this because this is not something that is happening in other places in the county only. It is happening here. And these. These are our friends. These are our neighbors. These are our children. And I'm sorry but this is just their names and faces to this. And I'm seeing what's happening to them. And I'm trying to fix it. And I
249am a person who knows who to call and knows the email and has people's cell phone numbers who are directors of stuff and I can't even get people what they need. And I'm literally calling the director of HUD's cell phone. And I can't get people what they need. So how are people without a phone and without a car and without housing supposed to get what they need? And so I say this because I think we have to explicitly call this out and we have to have this conversation because these are children who are in our classrooms every single day when they can get there. So I'm sorry that is my board report and we have to fix this. This has to be fixed because this is causing them great harm. Thank you. Trustee Winders. I
250want to echo Trustee Winders in terms of the guiding coalition work that took place last weekend. It was not what I expected. It was even better than I expected. It was a lot of work and planning and it was on a topic that we all wonder about but don't really spend a lot of time thinking or applying it and that's the future. So the topic was what's the future for HUD? And I'm sorry. Who's the future for? Who's the future for our students? And that kicked it off. And for the next, I don't know, two days, we really immersed ourselves into that, those questions. And it was really a great opportunity to connect with different stakeholders and want to acknowledge Principal Jordan who hosted at Sasserini. I believe are the next two also at Sasserini?
251So they're all there. Okay. And that will be in September? Okay. So I'm just, to Trustee Winders, in terms of the student voice, so impressed. And they offer so much insight. And so I was really invigorated by that activity and I really look forward for what's to come. And then I want to also acknowledge someone because she's in the room. Kimberly Smith. Kimberly Smith. So I think this is probably going to be your last regular board meeting. Come on up and set the record straight. Well, you can't get rid of me that easy. Okay. We did just update our Constitution and Bylaws. It was a three-year project for our chapter. And a recommended language from CSEA is to allow retirees to maintain officer roles, and serve on committees for our chapter. This also brings revenue
252to our chapter. So I'm super excited that I will be continuing for the time being as the chapter president. Well, that is great news. Yes. And the reason why I want to acknowledge you is because you use the word human. And that's what this is all about. We're all about, it's all about human interaction and trying to make our way and find our way and go our separate ways. And find our way and guide our students. And you do that. You've done that your whole career. And so I just want to commend you and honor you. And you always bring some light-heartedness to our district opening of the year events. So thank you. Because we all need that. And it just brings a level of levity. And it just shows what an amazing person you
253are and what a great leader you are. So thank you. Thank you. My mother always said I thought, God, I'm going to be a leader. And I'm going to be a leader. And she always said I thought differently. And for example, today wasn't a spirit day, but I made my own spirit day. I have 30 Altamira T-shirts and four jackets. And I wore them all. And in layers. And then just I had to take one layer off every 15 minutes. So that's, I'm just quirky that way. Well, keep that quirkiness going. So thank you for that. And so that concludes my report. And so next we have future agenda items. I think that one is I would like to have us discuss what our vision is around community schools and converting our schools to community
254schools, where we stand on that at some point. I think it's also worth having a conversation about cell phone use on our campuses. And understanding the impact. Understanding what other districts, states, countries are doing. So those are my two requests. Okay. Thank you. Doesn't have to be next month. But in the next couple months, if we could take a deeper dive and look at our McKinney-Vento processes, policies, and see if we can build those up and how we can partner with the county office of ed. Thank you. Trustee Landry. I concur with what Trustee Ching said. I would love to have a conversation about and start looking at ways in which we can talk about and remove the use of cell phones during our school day. I think that that is brilliant. Okay. Noted. So,
255with that, I want to say thank you all for being here. And thank you all for being here. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, everybody, for being here this evening and in attendance. And is there a motion to close the meeting? We did it last time. I will make a motion to adjourn the meeting. Okay. Is there a Second? Second. And third it. Okay. All in favor? Aye. Aye.