001Good afternoon and welcome to this afternoon's regular meeting of the education board. This meeting started at 5. Student Chibuki. Mr. Crenschfeld, present. Miss Garza, present. Miss Stuart present. This afternoon we have no requests for comments on items on the closed session agenda and at this time the table will retire to closed session and will begin at approximately 6 pm. Thank you. Thank you. Hey, they're writing to Cintrón. We have nothing here to replace, so the Pledge of Allegiance will be read by Bernie Powora P, who will conduct the salute to the flag, the Pledge of Allegiance. Place your right hand over your heart and let's begin. I swear allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice
002for all. Do we have any corrections to today's agenda? President Garza, we have no corrections tonight. Thank you. Student representatives, here are your updates on what's happening at your BFO High School campuses. We have Kin Vera. Welcome. Good evening, board members, president and superintendent, Dr. Simon. Let's begin today. This is the January report, the winter festival. During the month of December, the vocal department was very active in the community and on campus. They went to the tree removal and then later in the week they had an event called the winter festival. It's the last chance before the break to show their talents and their great work and everything they've done in the semester ended up showing the Christmas spirit. Uh, the back-to-school honor roll . The students are recognized for all their great achievements during
003the semester. More than 1000 out of 1000 students on the honor roll with the highest average in the semester were given pizza and also, obviously, a ticket to accept the pizza. Moving on to Capturing Kids Hearts, at the secondary school they have created the Excel model and by empowering students they can explore ways to celebrate and communicate clearly and concisely, engage with each other with their talents and lift each other up with the challenges they have. We have created a community of gratitude, growth, and belonging. You can see the team that is showing examples of each of these. We are incredibly proud of the commitment our staff has made to expanding the community. Special knowledge, first starting with the teacher of the year and the ranked teacher and employee, we have Daisy Cortés and Miss
004Satre. They show what it means to be a bellow buccaneer. We also have the honor roll, the recognition given to us due to our persistent efforts in expanding space to advanced placement classes that provide equity-informed support and counseling . This is further strengthened by the efforts of the AG criteria and advice, which encourages us students to have the tools and succeed in their work and exams. Beyond their high school achievements, they have received recognition from the Thriverly Pro Leaderboard, which is school-level recognition of commitment to strengths-based learning. This gives them feedback and agendas to create classrooms where all students have the opportunity and encouragement to thrive. Hence we have here the assessment of the school board. Thank you for your support and dedication, leadership and unwavering support of our staff and students, and your commitment
005to making very detailed decisions and advocating for an education that can help create schools where we can grow and thrive. And also, on behalf of ASB, we've gotten them a Starbucks gift card to show our appreciation. The events coming up next week, on the same day, January 29th, we will have the Buck kickoff event called Bug Blastf. These middle school students will see the opportunities that middle school has in high school, including the cheerleading squad with flags and also tours of the classrooms and also testimonials from the senior students where they will have the opportunity to hear from their peers around their age about what life is like in Belfower. Tonight we're having Navigation Night where parents, students, families, and teachers can explore the great work and incredible efforts of the staff and students and
006what they've accomplished throughout the school year. We invite everyone to come and see firsthand all the amazing things that are happening at the school. After that we will have the talent competition event and also the university exhibition. And then we have a dance night which is the World Languages Club and it's going to be held for the community, so everyone is invited. The event will feature dancing, arts and crafts, a piñata, food, and more. And this concludes my presentation, thank you very much. Thank you, Miss Verora de la Mayfir, we have Guil Friedman. Good evening, President Garza, your president Simen, board members, colleagues, I am Gilfre Man and this is the report for the January board meeting. The Mittle Juice musical had its opening last night. Eh, it was fun, we had fun, we did
007a great job. Students too. Okay, Be Juice, I'll give it to you . Thank you. He's not anticipating the beer coming. Enjoy it. That's my size. This works. No, you're telling me yes or no. So, what's going on? Hello. What do you want me to do? Should I give them a speech or what? Do you believe it? Well, as you can see, we have a lot of theatrical spirit here. Volle Juice, do you have anything to share? Ah, yes, that's right. Ah, on my dirty napkins. Here it is. I have the tickets I have. We're going to do it. We're going to do it, we're going to sell it because I want to make money. This is not suitable, Virol Juice. No, it can't be done . This is a very professional meeting. I think
008it would be good if we gave the tickets here to our board members and our superintendents, please. And why isn't this present here? Which professionals? One for you, not for you. It's your turn too. Ah, you ordered the raisins. Superintendent, sir, the superintendent, whoever is watching me, come to my musical performance, it's the best thing you've ever seen. Thank you, Busce, we need to finish this, but please, can we give the doctor here? Okay, we'll do it later, but there are other dates on the back of the tickets. If you can't go on this date, you can change it. Uh, our winter sports assembly is on the 16th and we play a lot of matches. All the sports teams came, they danced, they did everything they had to do. Hey hey, the teacher of the
009year, Esora Kenesara, thank you for your great work, dedication, and all the love you have for your students. It's quite noticeable. The PTS had some mini-locations that were awarded to some amazing teachers on campus and they were able to provide materials for our students. Hey, Open House, the Mirfers fair is going to be on Wednesday, February 4th in two weeks. Come on, we'll have food. drinks, games, and music. Come and see what the teachers are doing, how the classes are going, how the students are doing. And we also have the challenge of kindness. We will pray that they are as kind as possible this week. to earn something. We also have coffee with the counselors, the fair, the fair, and also visits to the sixth-grade staff. We also have the skills awareness assembly , it's
010very nice, you are invited, and also the African American jazz and blues recital night. And thank you. Thank you, Mr. Firmment. Now we have Summerset High School, Julin Dera. Good evening, President Garza, board members, superintendent, Dr. Simon, and guests. My name is Choline , I am a lawyer and a member of the student group. Thank you for sharing them and I want to share what's happening at our Summerset school. It's the school board's Appreciation Month. I want to thank you for your service to the community and our schools. This year, eight students from Summerset have earned enough credits to return to Bellf and SMFER Preparatory School to finish their twelfth year and graduate. We are proud of them for catching up academically. Uh, there were 14 parents who participated in parent education classes by factor
011this past fall. They learned about behavior, uses of fentanyl, additional information, and other skills for personal and academic success. They reported that they found the program very helpful in increasing attendance and providing enrichment activities at the school. We planned a fun Friday day before going on vacation. They selected several activities: frisbee golf, morale games, stretching, breathing exercises, and relaxation. Sir Guzman prepares two Summer students for Skills USA, skills in the areas of telecommunications, cabling and electronics. Students in Mrs. Amada's class, in the digital arts and Cups classes, attended the print exhibit at the Long Beach Convention Center. They gained hands- on experience and were able to talk to leaders in the printing and apparel production industries. Night of Vision is coming, it's going to be this March 10th. They can learn what students are doing
012at school. All parents are invited. Uh, sir, this is also going to take us students on a trip to Newport to see the ships and boats. There will also be some activities between February 13th and 16th, without school, and on the day the photos will be taken at the school. Thank you, Miss Lera. representing Las Flores, Home Education Independent Study Academy, Josana Torres. Good evening, President My Garsa, Superintendent, Dr. Simon, board members. I am pleased to return this January and give you this information about what has happened since the beginning of the year. Recently, high school students, including myself, have been taking the dual enrollment program with Colegio de Cerritos, counseling 1, 1B and 1A and other communications classes. We're all going to get ready. We have plenty of help for that, Mrs. Charlie Johnson,
013our advisor who is going to help us a lot in doing it. Sorry, I need to fix the graphic presentation. As you can see here we had the No Homework Night fall festival. This was in December. Many families and students attended. We played fun games, had a cinnamon candy day, and did karaoke. Many people enjoy doing that. President Mary of our student body, everyone had a lot of fun. And here you can see these are some extension learning opportunities. Some who aren't here, who work with ceramics, martial arts, cooking, but can see Spanish, hyperponics, gardening, everyone is having a lot of fun, they don't last more than an hour. Classes are from Tuesday to Thursday, and everyone is loving the experience the students are having outside of regular school hours with these other activities. We
014also want to take this opportunity to highlight Aurora Hernandez, a student who won first place in the student short story and art contest. We are very proud of her and her achievement. What you see on this slide is a teacher participating in professional development on the use of Go Guardian, learning the tools and strategies to help online students, creating a positive learning environment for students both in person and digitally. And we also made these vision charts for ASB high school . Very funny. We're going to bring it back next week. It was an experience that brought us all together socially, and yes, what's coming next will be lots of fun things. Tomorrow he's going on a field trip to the Los Angeles library. Breakfast with our best friend, our favorite person. And to finish January,
015conferences with parents and collection of student work. In February we're going to spend Special Person Day during Kindness Week, Spirit Day, uh, School Spirit Week is also similar, and the Valentine's Day disco dance . Also, take a trip to the aquarium that we're taking the children from Parbolaria and a digital media fair on February 20th, and the student of the month will be on February 20th. Much February 26th, sorry. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Torres. At this time, after one of the students' memorable reports, we invite you to stay with us tonight, but we also understand that you have other commitments to attend to. Hey, you can have a good night if you choose to leave. Thank you. I don't know, but I do want to go to that play. Now, I do n't know
016about you. Thank you so much. We now have reports from employee representatives tonight. President PTA, you may come forward, please. Good evening, President Garsa Board, Dr. Simon, Superintendent in Cabinet. Thank you for inviting me tonight. This month included several collaborative efforts that support future thinking and coordination among many interested people. This work continues with the collection of this leadership, developing a graduate profile, a shared vision of what we want to see in a graduating person and what it has to do with graduating, right? It is something fundamental, this is about clarity, about long- term planning, it is not something we think we will do quickly, but rather with the development of time. We also want to create a framework for teaching artificial intelligence. We run the risk of using the same skills, but speaking different
017languages about expectations. language and work and skills developed. I want to work, we want to have a unified and singular message that the East District Council has developed for students and in the future also opens the door to conscious training for all staff, professional and non-professional. Uh, Dr. Omos is including the CSA and PTA in the development of the workplace violence prevention plan and is asking for our input. Early collaboration is very smart and very reassuring. I believe there is an inaugural school presentation that will take place at Steven Foster, and it is a positive step to connect with families and the wider community to tell them and share that very good things are happening in the classrooms and our schools. Thank you and good night. Thank you, Mr. Jan. It's time for Superintendent Dora
018Simon's report. Thank you, President Garsa, board members, cabinet, uh Bellflower community and school district. Happy New Year to all. It's great to see you again. I want to share a very important milestone, as presented and reported by our PTA president, a job that we started on January 9th. We had our first planning meeting that included members of the wider community. including the Chairman of the Board of Education, Mrs. Garza, Mayor Garza, Mr. Kchfield. This meeting formed a coalition comprised of educators, family members , administrators, classified staff, and community members and partners with the same purpose. In the coming months, the coalition will be engaged in very in-depth work and we will be evaluating what we are doing today in the Belf district and beyond, creating an inspiring vision of what schools in our community can
019and should be. Our work goes beyond visionary thinking. We are going to work for a united purpose and joint work, this, with a shared vision and a profile of a community student in our district that matches our intentions that are made with courage, want to accelerate progress focused on the success metrics of what matters. For young people, it's not what can be easily measured. I'm really excited about that job. A student was recognized, reminding us that Belf School won the 2025 Bronte honor roll. A special thank you to Principal Jessica Cings and all the staff at Belfower High School for receiving this honor. Congratulations to Bellflower High School . We also have another celebration today, if you heard us, we have a new doctor in the house, Dr. Alma Uyoa, a big round of applause
020for her, who successfully defended her thesis and dissertation. Thank you for inviting me. I was very happy to be there and I really enjoyed that important emotional moment for her. This achievement is a testament to his dedication. perseverance and commitment to continuous learning and leadership. Another round of applause for her, please. Also in the spirit of celebrations, let us celebrate Dr. Rin Smith. This month he was the catalyst of the month at the collaborative learning center, for his leadership at the learning center. We have to admit it. Um, last night I'd like to mention we talked about the evaluation for superintendent, uh, special meeting. I want to say that I am very proud of the board. Um, we've been investing quite a bit on shared goals, goals that guide my role as superintendent, but also
021reflect the collective aspirations for the future of this school district in Belflower. These conversations go beyond compliance. These are assessments to forge a unified vision, strengthen the team of six that we are, raising the bar for students, staff, families, and our community. I have deep respect and admiration for our board and their tireless commitment to the good and well-being of our community. They inspire me every day. They allow me to do the work as a team. That cannot be said for all districts together. We no longer govern, we dream, we build and we are leaders with purpose. The district is in good hands thanks to their wonderful service. I couldn't be more proud to move forward with them to work on that, honoring the board because it's Board of Education Appreciation Month. Congratulations to our
022board. Finally, I would like to invite Miss Monique Pew to come to the podium. And I have the pleasure of announcing that Miss Pew, now the principal at Ernie Pal, began her tenure in January 2026. After a very careful selection process guided by community input, Miss Pew was selected from several candidates for her alignment, values, and clear educational vision. The retuation had an imperative part in making the decision to contract. She brings more than 20 years of experience in public education. Most recently, she was a principal in the Compton school district. Sulerasco. It has demonstrated significant academic growth and a positive culture at the school. She is known for her integrity, her focus on equity, and her ability to lead by listening and authentically engaging with her proven leadership, including as a mathematics curriculum specialist,
023Seita Piusa, incredibly committed to attendance, social-emotional development, and language-rich instruction. We are very grateful that you are with us. She's here with her family too, and I'll let her introduce them since she's going to give us some feedback. Thank you very much, President Garza, Board, Superintendent Simen, Cabinet, and all the guests here. I am completely and incredibly happy to be able to provide my services to the Bellflower school district and read in Pal. I have here my husband Daren, my son Brandon, my daughter Lia and my daughter Briana. And I also have the PTA executive board , if they can stop. So, we're off to a great start and I just want to say thank you for this opportunity and I'm excited to have a lot of success in Pile. Thank you. They know it's
024true. One last thing for the board tonight, I'd like to report that the district recently completed the uniform complaint and summary for October through November 2025. As indicated by the county for William Cell Litigation, there are no instructions and instructional materials that are affected by it. Thank you, Dr. Simen. Does the board have any updates on the adwc committees? I do have some things, President Garza. First of all , uh, in honor and on behalf of COPS, I am excited to announce that on December 16th I was elected as the Chair of the COPS Board, so I am very excited to lead. And my colleague Crchfield, vice president, is now also at Callops. We are also going to work with our colleagues to explore different pathways, different pathways, and registration to strengthen the program. And
025from there we have the committee on climate and culture, environment and clutuma. Um, we want to bring to the board, we want to introduce a policy on equity, so we created two subcommittees this week, one for auditing and one for training and timeline. We are splitting up to explore the options we have for the equity audit and the implementation of the audit and the communication of the findings. And the other team will explore options for training and timelines. We are developing professional development plans for the future and monitoring the implementation of training and timelines and communicating these findings. The next meeting will be on February 4th, also very good work on creating a plan. So those are the two updates I have from the committees. Thank you, Mira Steart. We don't have any tonight. Sorry,
026I have one too. We're done now. Yes, I know. Thank you, Madam President. To add to what member Steart said, a few updates from Calops. At the last meeting we realized that we were awarded $00,000, a grant from Round 8 through K12, which is the Ignite Integrate Growth 903. It is a 3-year investment that will modernize the CET programs and equipment and enrollment for Spring Bell Flower High. It had 123 students who enrolled in Summer C7 Mayfer 120. I want to encourage everyone, all the parents, to investigate these classes, the classes that have the most attendance, have the most enrollment, vision, health occupations, graphic production, we need more attendance in urban agriculture. Thanks to Arlin Whitney for all the work she did to secure the grant and all the work she and her staff do
027to promote the classes in school settings. Thank you. Thank you. Notary. Crickfield, sorry, Vice President Crickfield. Tonight we have nothing to discuss regarding matters not on the agenda. So now let's move on to a seat for dialogue. Tonight's topic is California school services. I'm going to pass it on to Dr. Simon. Thank you, President Garcia. I'm now going to pass it on to Miss Marquez who will be introducing our presenter from California School Services. Good evening everyone. In June 2025, we partnered with School Services California to conduct a review of functional services. We wanted to maximize departmental operations, streamline duties, and improve communication with community departments. After months of data reviews and interviews, the final report has been provided for review . I'm going to introduce Matt Philips, uh, vice president of SC. He brings
028a great deal of depth to this project. He was an auditor and intern for a district almost identical in size to ours . He also has very good taste in NFL teams. So, thank you, and we have to welcome Medal Philops. With that introduction, I feel the need to announce the football team. I'm in the wrong state for this. It's not closed. I promise you, I promise you that. I'll leave it at that. Good evening, President Gars, this election. Public superintendent was a big introduction he made. I'm going to talk about the methodology, but I'm going to review it again. The review was to look at the distribution of work that exists in the department of fiscal services and procedures, this policy and procedures. Methodology that was used in a couple of days. I sat
029down with everyone in the tax services department. In each interview, I focused on the fact that the interviewees were confidential, but also on an assessment of their ability to do their job of gathering information, understanding how the district processes its decision cycles, and providing information, training, and advice, to be more effective and make everyone's job easier. As a lot of data was shared, quite a few rounds of information were shared, reviewing ways in those transition cycles. This is auditor language, but mainly after the transaction cycles of payroll, purchases and sales, this, who buys them? How are they purchased, what money is used, and how are budgets monitored? critically very important for education agencies in the state. We see that those resources are more restrictive; there are no dollars that keep coming and going. Sometimes we
030receive money only once, and we have to pay close attention to how those dollars received are used in the districts. The other component of the analysis, in addition to looking at fiscal processes and procedures, is a comparative personnel analysis . Uh, when we look at that, I'm going to explain to the board about the determination of how the districts are chosen for comparison. In interviews, you hear people saying, "We need more people, we need to push harder." This is a very common reaction in the interview process, and instead of focusing on what we feel, like how we think we need more people, we should look at the processes of how other districts are working with a similar number of students and the staff they serve. This needs to be compared with other districts and with
031the jobs we can assume that they fill those positions in other places, as was shared. I worked in a district very similar in size to Bellflower when I worked in the fields. Some of the observations I made and the full report have already been given to the board and some main observations are these, you have to see them in their categories, they are in the report and you will see in the comparison of personnel, the first component in terms of department operations, we realized that the interview process was a unique location with regard to the members in the fiscal district. Budgetary payroll function . Some recommendations I'm going to give will deal with the inequities in that sense so that everyone contributes the same amount to the district's function and budget. As for the organizational
032structure, I can say that it is not unique in that district, but it is an exception to the rules where quite a few staff members in the department have the same job position. There are two senior accounting assistant positions in the department with that position. That creates two challenges for us. Well, from the perspective of how that turned out, it was believed that having a similar position allows job duties to be exchanged without changing job descriptions, but it does provide flexibility from a managerial point of view . And I think that's the good thing, but the bad thing would be that it creates ambiguity, and as for the working papers, in terms of the work itself, it can have some morphology with pieces that do n't quite fit together, and in terms of the department's
033operations. Second, with the work duties that have been assigned to these five positions. In other districts, those positions have very specific roles and roles , such as accountant, or payroll technician. These positions generally have different salaries and academic requirements as well. What can happen is that if we have all the positions that the same job title and job title may require, it can cause there to be other positions that we need that require more experience and academic training outside of it, and also when people from outside the district apply for jobs, it's not very clear to them what they want to do or what is expected of them; it's a very different path to those positions. Regarding the position analysis, each candidate was interviewed to understand not only the required job duties as outlined in
034the job description, but also what each candidate actually does on a daily basis . I think it's worth noting that when the interviews were done, the head of fiscal services was vacant, and that puts quite a bit of pressure down and up, but more down on a couple of senior assistants because they have more work than they normally would. It was distributed equitably. Uh, in those two positions I mentioned reviewing those work exceptions. It was part of that. Many of the descriptions were quite old. A couple of decades ago, the current reality was reflected in our current practices, processes, and work duties required in that position. Speaking with staff during my work in the field and in the district in general, I documented the processes. People who have moved up in their positions feel very
035supported; everyone is very open-door policy. Everyone has their word, but there is a lack of training in the positions they are performing. That was highlighted in the report. Recommendations were developed based on these observations. The report format. First, the role of each position was documented in the job description review, going through the transaction cycles. When documenting transaction cycles, we apply what we believe is standard, what should be seen in any district with good practices. Um, an analysis of what the district is doing and recommendations to discuss changes to what they are currently doing in the district, to move to the standard in each of the sections. There are four categories where recommendations are made. First, and perhaps least important, is to clearly identify the job duties of each position. Job descriptions completed. It takes time,
036but it's easy; it's one of the easiest things you can do on the list of recommendations. It is important to have this position, the five positions of accounting assistant. Um, I'm recommending certain changes to the job duties for each position. From a transparency standpoint, I'd like to know who is responsible for what, especially in the workplace. There are quite a few jobs being left, others are leaving in the administrative and secretarial staff; they are very busy, and when new people come in, they can't go to the website to find out information about payroll and other information. It is recommended that websites be updated to identify job positions and their roles in general. In the next category, a component of the tax department divided into two components. The first recommendation has to do with the position
037control process. with position at the highest level. It is a budgeting tool that allows the district to identify at any time how many employees are in the district, are working there, their full-time equivalent or FTE, what funds are being used to pay for the position, and the wages and benefits associated with that employee. The district has a database, but the day-to-day monitoring and position control do not reach the standard. A key component is that when communicating changes to employees, the current process is very difficult and overwhelming. It has an account with the tax team that collects the information, and I believe the tax team initially gave it to the different departments. And they can help in that process, to make things more specific in the next fiscal department. Uh, we need to address the issue
038of hierarchy and positions. I will talk about how the accounting manager was responsible, is responsible for looking at the payroll and the budget, and the assistants had 100% budget responsibilities and reported to the director of tax services. And when we align or talk about alignment and hierarchy in the department, the people at the assistant level have the next step for them to be director of tax services, and that's not for everyone; that's another set of skills that are needed. It's a very big leap. I recommended that the accounting manager supervise his two tax assistants so they can move into the position. Before wanting to be directors, if they want to continue and achieve that position, or if they want to be accounting managers, that would be good too, but that recommendation is a better hierarchy.
039The accounting manager is not responsible for budget monitoring, no responsibility whatsoever, but only for the two assistant positions of the principal, who will report to the fiscal director and the manager will have other job duties to supervise the two assistants. The third component here is the use of technology. From what I heard regarding district purchases, without going into too much detail, uh, authorization is required to carry out a purchase order. That tells them they can go and get the service, buy the item, or whatever. In most school sites there is a purchase order option and one general option for a single item and another general option for several items from the same supplier. Has there been any hesitation or non- use of these general orders from , for example, providers like Office Tip, Amazon? The
040practice is that the school staff would inform them that they had to use a purchase order every time they had to buy something from Amazon Office or something like that. So if we think about the items they're ordering, they're purchases, purchase orders, hundreds of them because they have to do one instead of one, instead of doing one in general, where a staff says we want to spend $5,000 of the budget on Amazon so we can put it all in one general order instead of creating one each time. That's the same thing. For example, what would an open buy order be like? I thought it was like one that covers everything and one that's almost open. Uh, an open order means that the item you are going to buy has not been received and the order
041has not been completed. So you may have a purchase or they may be open and active, but the items have not been received. This does two things. The site requires you to create a purchase order for each purchase. This will create a lot more work for the staff, but when we're talking about the buyer, who has to take all these requests and convert them into orders and send them and also match them with the invoices, it's a lot of work for the buyer. So I'll talk about that in a moment. The financial system that he uses and everything, as I say, so as not to overcomplicate things , we have budgets in the school departments that are in the system. If a school wants to buy something, it has to request to buy something; perhaps
042it has enough money in the system's budget, but that doesn't prevent this order from going ahead. Then the person has to see what this request is, confirm if the budget is sufficient, if not they send this request back to the site. I think everyone has everything electronically. If it's not in the budget, you can't even send the request. So we need to rely on some of the electronic tools we have. The district's practice is the legacy from before they had these checkpoints in place, but they should be using those checkpoints to prevent the cite from blocking this request before it's approved, and the department and the prosecutor's team so that in the end they have to go back to the first step because it creates a lot of frustration when that happens. Can you explain
043a little bit about what the legacy system means? The practice is a legacy; if we go back to the 90s, financial systems didn't have the ability to verify if a site wanted to buy something, that there was enough money in the budget to buy that item. It was a manual process where someone on the finance team generally had to manually check this to make sure there was enough money. The systems have advanced quite a bit and it's like, I don't know, some kind of flag, some button that can be turned on to stop that purchase request if there isn't enough money in the budget. Can I ask you something else? Have you found that these requests sometimes simply haven't been verified? This requires a manual verification process, as this request is sent to the tax
044services team . I would say that, anecdotally, if the tax team does not have a leader or tax director, the person responsible for verifying that there is enough money. I do n't know what happened, but if anyone has enough work or extra work, I think it's the pile. We are also here for the Sintron member. I think he's also needed here for the general legal profession. Thank you for your patience. I believe that to address the question you asked, Madam President, there was nothing to suggest that the requisitions were not being verified. The additional requirement of manual verification creates a lack of efficiency within the fiscal team because they have to stop to check if there is enough budget before it is processed in the next step and becomes a purchase order, which could delay
045the services or goods being requested. So it just makes the process slower. Yes. A follow-up question. I think we already fixed that, but he's talking about verifying if there's enough budget when they place the purchase order. What if such a contract does not exceed this sum or this figure? It is verified when it can be verified, for example, by a supplier, that they do not exceed a certain amount. I haven't seen that in a system. This would be when the prosecutor arrives. If it exceeds a certain amount based on the board's policy or the purchasing manual the district is using, it is then passed on to the appropriate person for approval. The third component in technology for effectiveness is using additional platforms for employee absences. It would be that the district is not unique in
046the fact that employee sensations are collected and reported manually each month by site staff. Yes, I think you already know, it's not something unique, but there are platforms available where employees can actually report their absences through this platform; they have apps on their phones, and the sites simply verify it electronically instead of having to fill things out manually afterward. It's not that there were sciences that were n't reported correctly, that were identified; it's just a matter of looking at the manual processes and figuring out how we can be more efficient with the processes. And the fourth category again is the rebalancing of the functions. We already talked about the budgeting functions within their payroll team , which is incredible; they are very fortunate to have it. It was identified during the interviews that the work
047seems to be a little out of balance. Classified accredited employees are paid once or twice a month, and certified employees are paid once a month, and the duties are divided between classified and certified. What we frequently have in local agencies is an alphabet-based distribution, so both are working on classified, certified payrolls. It also has training among employees and is also more equitable, and the other person at least knows how to process either the payroll, whether it's accredited or certified. So the last thing I talked about was purchase orders, specifically the absence of using general orders for larger items. This requires that they are processing purchase orders. Using general orders will reduce purchase orders, and people will be able to focus on finding the best price, which is the buyer's job—to ensure they're getting the best
048price and give them the time to do so. Let's move on to the analysis with eh for comparison. During the interview process, almost 100% of us asked them and they said more personal, more personal, and more personal. Instead of saying no, uh, if they have enough staff, then we collected staff data from eight districts. These were outside of Los Angeles, other than Linwood, because we wanted to focus on finding other school districts that had the same grade levels and a similar number and demographics. The way we did it, the number of students is in the enrollment figure from 7,900 to 11,000. Bellfower is in the middle of these two figures. And the districts also had a percentage of non-duplicated students between 70 and 90%. The percentage of non- duplicated students is the percentage of those
049who are either eligible for reduced lunches or English language learning services or homeschooling and services for them. So, between 70% for the context of B Flower, it's 80% between these two figures. So, when we looked at the staff, the way we categorized the staff, we did it in four categories. The cabinet staff, uh, the superintendent's cabinet, the management staff would be supervisors, the fiscal services center and departments, personnel, department, the people who are dealing with the day-to-day, fiscal processes, payroll, uh, accounts payable, purchases, all that, and then the clerical staff, scribe. These are the four e's and these are the full-time employees . Queentente if they work less than 8 hours will have less than eh 1 FT the districts there that are not 00. From there we take that total of full-time employees. We
050divided it by the registration. Well, we divided the enrollment by the full-time employees per district to normalize how many students we have per full-time employee in the fiscal services department . Based on this overall analysis, the district is number four out of nine, so it has more than just nine. We're almost halfway there. Uh, it would be good to tell the stories. The details are in the report that the only other district that has winery staff on this list is Lorenzo. The district, out of the 18 full-time employees, has two delivery drivers and one warehouse manager. If we exclude this district, it would actually be number six out of nine if we compare it. That's what it tells me is that the district doesn't have too many staff, and sorry, they don't have too few
051employees, they have enough employees performing the functions to carry out the fiscal service and their department. So there is no recommendation to implement changes to the staff in the tax services department, but more than anything it's about changing and moving some of the functions to have a more streamlined hierarchy, but also to balance some of the functions in the department's positions. I do n't know if it matters, but I see here that the Maryville ranks also have number four. This pushes us another number, passes us another number. This must be, excuse me, we still have the fourth because San Lorenzo, Monterrey, Penuza San Jacinto have less registration with respect to the full-time unemployed, so we are at four, there is no eight, so it does not impact our rank, but it impacts some other district.
052I think this is number eight, actually. Maybe if they replace the quad with eight, then we'd be right. Excuse me, I just wanted to make sure. Thank you. So, this concludes the presentation. Are there any questions from the confiscation officers that anyone can address ? Member has questions. I have a question, but it's for the district staff, not for him. Regarding the site's funds, I was looking there, uh, director. I'm going to use Ern because we had Ern and I wanted to get services for a certain person. It's within my budget funds on the site. Is there any reason why it would be rejected? From a fiscal standpoint, we'll see if it can be done. If the funds are available, it goes through different processes, so I don't know if maybe another department might say
053no, it doesn't align with something else, but from a fiscal point of view, we allow the purchase to go ahead if they have the funds. And for the site or staff point, if a director felt that it was not aligned with the goals or the work they are doing, then they could deny the request. And my question is, if they have a specific person they've been working with, do we tell them no and allow them to use the same services from someone else? I do n't know if I understand your question; in fact, you want to hire someone for, I don't know, some kind of specific thing at the school. What I'm hearing is that it has nothing to do with the funds. If I told them in the funds that they cannot use this
054provider, they have to use another provider that is doing the same thing, but they have already worked with those providers that they like and have used before, they want to use it, they are being told no. And I wonder, if there are dedicated funds, why can't they choose who they want to work with? Sometimes it depends on the provider whether we find out about anything or if there are results that we are seeing that they are presenting to us. It must be said that we are talking, for example, about academic matters, and we have already looked for another provider. That might be the case, but we're trying to be more efficient, to know who the suppliers are, who the contracts are. ensuring that it's in alignment with the goals of the board, the mission, vision,
055core values, but other aspects that we learn about regarding vendors and the work they're not doing, that does n't support the contract that was said, so it can be a variety of things, and sometimes it can be something very specific, and sometimes it's a very specific reason that the district is saying, "We need to look at another vendor." And if they say no and want to demand that they use the reasoning of someone else to go to or where they go with it, they would talk to me. Usually it starts with... But the final conversation would be with me. Um , I have a question now. This is for the staff as well regarding the signage of not exceeding limits. What is the process now and how has it changed? I think if we receive
056a purchase order with a vendor, not to exceed 300,000, we create a purchase order of 300,000, so we have that contact with the vendor, but there we have limited the purchase order to 300,000. When passing the bill and They start with the payables and begin making the payments. They review each billing and its components. If they receive 100,000, 100,000, and 150,000, the system doesn't allow them to pay 150,000 because it exceeds the allowable amount of 300,000. There's a second check that we now align with the Los Angeles County Department of Education. If something goes wrong, that department also checks our contracted purchase orders and doesn't send the check. So, we have two checks that require us to respect the limits and require the vendor to submit another request to cause a change and for it
057to appear in the information matrix. So, is there anything, any recommendation that the district disagrees with and doesn't want to implement? We're reviewing all the options and looking at what's best for our department. Yes, it's a very political answer, but you mean yes, right? Well, What would be one of the recommendations that we know we want to make, and what does that timeline look like? What do we expect in the next 90 days? As you know, we started the process around the end of June. We've been communicating quite a bit, and in the interim, we met Rachel D., the new chief financial officer. Some constraints were recognized in my hiring process when I reviewed this report. I can tell you about things we 're already implementing based on the recommendations in this report, including optimizing
058processes for monitoring personnel costs and purchases. We've focused on the financial system so they can see what we need to see. There are areas where we want to be the ones who ultimately do a physical, visual review. We're also reassigning responsibilities among our staff who review the report and see what can help us the most. Mr. Felips has told us that there's an effort to maintain this effort, and when we didn't have a chief financial officer because there was movement up and down regarding the director's responsibilities, there was pressure, hiring the director has made the work lighter for us. the affected people. We've all come together to figure out how to do these things more efficiently. We've already reviewed our organizational structure . Oh, we're about to speak with Dr. Omos. We've updated job descriptions
059because we've hired in that area. We're not going to hire people with old descriptions. We already use that method of updating job descriptions. No, I don't want to miss anything, but we've increased efficiency by looking at procedures digitally. The director has made videos about how we do things in our system. There's a Google platform where our procedures are displayed. She learned that way, she asked the staff how to do it. She makes videos now that are available to all staff in the tax services department . If a certified person needs to be paid tomorrow, there will be a video to help them go through that process. That's an example. From October. I think the site has 30 videos and screenshots about how to do things in our department. One thing that caught my attention was
060how frankly she put The job postings on the website . Good recommendations, anything we can do, or is there a reason why we shouldn't? I think it refers to within our department. There's going to be a list of what everyone does when we redefine duties and responsibilities. We want a clear list. Quite a few people have been here a long time and know who to call, but we want the work, the alignment, to be very clear so they know who to call now instead of finding out later. In a couple of months, we're going to finish aligning the positions in the hierarchy so they know who to call. And you mentioned legacy technology, and we have invested in it considerably. We're happy with the system, like the business fiscal system, that we have. We're partnering
061with the human resources department to improve the process of positioning and controlling positions and jobs. We've already had interviews; we've spoken with several vendors to present things they can do, like recommendations for paying employees electronically. It's something we 've considered a high priority, and we're working on it now. Thank you, you're very welcome. Does anyone else have Questions, comments? No. Well, that was a pretty thorough presentation. Thank you very much, Mr. Philips. I think we're done with questions for now. Well, thank you all very much. I appreciate the opportunity to present. Moving on, are there any items you would like to withhold from the agenda with sentiment? I know I've been given a request to withhold item 12.17. Anyone else? Well, without hearing from anyone, that's the only item we're going to withhold tonight, 12.17.
062Any motions to approve the agenda with sentiment and withhold item 12.17? I move . Second, I vote, please. Mr. Armstrong, yes. Mr. Stuart, yes. Ms. Cintr, yes. Mr. Kfield, yes. Ms. Garza, yes. First item withheld, 12.17, the only one for tonight. Does the board have any questions, comments? Central. Uh, the only thing, I have just one question about this item, it's on page 18. I have a question about the item that is On page 18 of the report. Well, as I understand it, contracts and services are different from indirect costs, but indirect costs can go up to a maximum of 15%. Correct? For a grant like this, all districts develop a cost proportion. In ours, it's 5.4%. Each grant has a cost limit. The grant cannot have more than 15% allocated to administration. A grant
063can have a director who manages the program. In our perspective, with this grant, up to 15% (5.6%) is allowed for indirect costs, and administrative costs can be up to the difference of 954. This grant allows up to 15% for administrative costs, although we 're not using that at all . There's a position that might be considered administrative, and everything else is for the grant itself . To clarify, so the administrative cost is within the indirect cost; it's like a budget item, that is. That's my question. What? And without getting into it... To complicate things, we have budget item 1, 2, and 3 in indirect costs, based on the amount shown in the table. How much or what might someone assume constitutes an indirect cost? The amount in the table represents about 5.54%, which can be
064charged as utilities, maintenance, salaries for human resources, the technical department, compliance, audits—all the things we have to do are charged to the general fund without restriction. However, in a grant, we use all of that; we can charge those expenses to the general fund and use them that way. The 450 is indirect; that's in terms of operations, it's the 600,000 area. What we're looking at there is adding an advisor to the program. We have 100 students, and we've found areas where an advisor can support the extended learning program. Thank you very much. That was my only question. I really appreciate it . Well, I didn't realize it was working. I wanted to ask a few questions. The teachers are doing field trips through the funds. LOP. There are some that are going on field trips. We
065have a pre-approved list of field trips they can take. We had a few suggestions for field trips. The state and federal program compiled some things. There were some ideas for teachers who wanted to go on field trips, but I know we already have a list because they have lists that have already been approved by the board, right? As far as I know, it's not something we might be able to do in the future. Yes, I think it would be good if people want to, if teachers can take field trips, they already know they can, because the field trip enrichment program is really great. The next question is, maybe you won't have the answer, but it would be best if you could, maybe it's better for René, but if you could get me how much money
066from the OPI we put into the general fund last year that was used, we had about 7 million dollars that was used. It's not something out of the ordinary because it was the first year of the grant, and this is what has been happening in all the districts, and I'm supporting the processes. The first year the grant was implemented so late, but We were given a full year's worth of funding, so there weren't many things the school districts could do back then, and that was four years ago, if I'm not mistaken. Then, going into the second year, the grant was already in place, and they're working on things. We're basically passing on the grant allocation while it was incoming, but again, we reviewed it, passed on the amount, but we received new funding. So the
067Department of Education has been looking at things we can do, the fiscal department has been looking at what we can do to see what's left. What we do n't want to do is do something super spectacular with what's left and then realize, out of the blue, that we don't have this money to do things. So we're being very cautious. I don't think we'll be able to provide the services to students that the state of California wanted us to provide because we've been using the grant every year. We're just looking at what's left from the first year that's been circulating in the system and figuring out what kinds of things we're going to do to improve things without using up the remainder completely, without having thought through a good process for it, and I know we
068have to renew it. Every three years. I didn't see anything significantly different from last year. That's what we need to know that's different. There's nothing very different, but there are things that, for example, we're adding a counselor, behavioral assistance to support students, those who have challenges, but we want to provide them with access after school. Yes, we are looking at some different services added to the contract , for example, world language opportunities. We're also looking at sports, we're also looking at robotics , some different services so that we're not running the same services and because we receive feedback from students and parents about what they're looking for, so it's not something completely different. The core program at the YMCA is the same, but we're trying to add additional supports and additional enrichment. Thank you, I
069love it. Any other questions, comments? Yes, go ahead. Thank you, Madam President. One question I have: I know that a few years ago we changed a lot of the funding from LOP to YMCA Think Together, but I have n't really seen any data regarding that. Based on what has emerged from these results, we have this available. We have seen a significant improvement by changing the programs. We did n't just change programs; the YMCA, Think Together, we've always had Think Together and we've always had the YMCA as well, so there wasn't really a change. Yes, definitely Think Together in the morning, and the YMCA continued to operate in the morning. I think maybe that's what you 're mentioning, but can you tell me that there has been an increase in enrollment in the Think Together program,
070and the YMCA program, yes, is a civic enrichment benefit, it's very good. The students who participated in Think Together, uh, attendance, in fact, was better overall, but in the enrichment program, we've seen that the scores have improved somewhat because we have, uh, I think, increased the size of the contract with Think Together in recent years. The Think Together contract increases also due to the increased enrollment. That's why Think Together would increase because it's a foundational program, the enrichment programs with all the added services more than Nothing. So we've invested in the added services, but it's not connected to Think Together. Yes, we're looking at it, I think what it's focused on is whether the students are performing better or coming to school more, and whether the students are improving. We are figuring that out; we
071have a system in place to monitor students, and we're going to be doing that, but with regard to attendance, we are seeing that they are coming to school more. Thank you. We are only monitoring attendance. We are also looking at other factors to see the effectiveness of the program. We are definitely monitoring attendance because we want to see the increase and effectiveness of this program. We do this primarily through surveys of parents and students to make sure we are providing the enrichment resources they are interested in, but we are also going to be looking more closely at more individualized tutoring. So we want to see if that is impacting the students, if we are seeing if they are improving their starting points, or the potential tutoring we could provide in the future. When do you
072do these reports? We usually do the attendance thing daily, but we also look at it From time to time, regarding how they're going to perform, we also link it to the mentoring program. If we do it, we do it through a contract, and you might see that. So we're looking at when these achievement reports will be released. It's something your staff is looking at. We have dates already set for these points. If you're involved in the mentoring program, and we submit it, then we'll monitor your progress every six weeks, or depending on how long the mentoring cycle is going to be. Thank you. Anyone else? I have a motion to approve this matter. Motion seconded. Roll call . Armstrong, yes. Stewart, yes. Sintron, yes. Critfield, yes. Garza, yes. Now it's board member communications. We'll start
073with Ms. Armstrong. Thank you, Chairman Garza. Welcome back, everyone. It's been quite a while. Let's see what I've been up to over the holidays. I went to a lot of parties. Also, in December, I was able to participate in legislative workshops. It was a two-hour meeting of lawyers with the National Board of Education. You know I do the education workshop for Latino leaders, and we're planning for the annual conference in March, so it's the last weekend in March. We're still planning to see what we're going to do for the annual conference. It was also a cheerleading camp. You know, sometimes at Mayfir and Bellflower, they bring in the elementary school kids or the younger kids, and the cheerleaders teach them a routine, and they can do it at a football game, a cheerleading match. I
074participated—well, I didn't participate, but they also do it for basketball, so I thought it was fun. You have to be outside during a football game , but maybe in the future, schools can implement something like that for basketball because it was really fun to see the young cheerleaders trying to learn a routine and perform. And it was also the Martin Luther King Jr. ceremony. Something that stood out, we recognize that of all the cities in this particular district, Cerritos was the only one that had a Martin Luther King ceremony, and it's been doing so for years, but it was my first time attending. The Greek organization Delta Sigma Tira X was also a co-host. We had dignitaries there, and they were very excited about what's coming up. Obviously, they're talking about advocating and fighting for
075our rights and not letting our rights disappear. I'm also part of the National Education Association, a representative at the assembly. I'm a delegate. I gave an update on participation regarding ongoing plans, about what's happening at the Department of Education, since there's a lot going on. I also attended a conference with Amy, and we went to Knowledge with LA. It was a really good conference, especially considering it was her first one. They did a great job; she had a lot of merchandise, and the presenters were really outstanding. They were advocating for students and making sure that, as educators, we are... Learning things for the children. Many of the presenters were saying, "We have to make sure that we also take into account what the children say they need." So, we have the desire to do what
076we think is best for the children, but some of the presenters were thinking more about how to teach children to articulate what they need and advocate for themselves. And you already know that Dr. Victor Rios was there, he was also a presenter, I love listening to him and his stories. He also presented with another associate, Villa, so it was very nice to listen to them, and what I learned from them is that they simply want us to remember that the most imperative component in student success is the combination of emotional belonging and high expectations. And being the teacher you wish you had, a teacher who doesn't give up on a student no matter how much they think they are a problem, who never gives up on the student. And there was another workshop that Iva
077Lorine Charles attended, and she spoke about the fact that every year schools have initiatives to try to fix problems, try to improve the things to get them to participate better or to address the behavior. And again, most of the people who are most impacted by these issues are not present; he is referring to the students. So, she created a program called youth participatory action research . And this is to have to teach the child how to be that voice that will not be defeated and teach them how to be a lawyer. Then, he showed some examples of how it works in school. Identify the challenge, how to guide the student to arrive at a solution. If you have a student who is not complying with things, instead of punishing him, talk to him, give him
078verbal instructions, and support him. It's a way of telling her how this will be beneficial in this environment, in this room, because it's for you, not for me. Always try to focus on the student and again try to build more confidence. Regarding student leadership, I will advocate for myself. I need the help of my teacher, but in the meantime, make sure that the students are developing and formulating strategies to propel themselves forward, so that I can support them. And this is what I'm going to say because I know that my members here have much more to say because I could go on and on, but I'm not going to. Thank you very much to the board of Armstrong Stuart. I have enough, but they ask me to speak more slowly than normal. You can stop
079doing that if you stop making gun gestures when I speak. If you can, I don't appreciate that. Good night. Happy 2026. I'm so excited to start this year with all of you. I want to thank the president and former president for the beautiful ceremony . Thank you for all your kindness and gentleness. I am very grateful to all the staff who work hard to make our district run smoothly. I hope you enjoyed your vacation. On December 12th I went to Bellflower High School. I saw all the work by Jessica Cins as director and her staff, a great place to be. There is a lot of respect for students, staff, and families, and the environment and culture of this place changes dramatically. And many thanks to the Bellflower High School team. They are capturing the hearts
080of young people. The students came as leaders to talk to me, they talked to me. That was very nice. I spent quality time with my family during the holidays and I wish all students and staff a good vacation. Austin Miller, I like to talk about him being chosen as the league's offensive player, but he has won more, he has had more achievements. He was chosen as the year in the all- star team with 573 yards achieved, many accomplishments, many achievements in his sport. Amir Perry or Mary Linton was named as a CF star . David Nanson, air Neil. Congratulations to all those student athletes for a great season. Last Sunday I attended the Knowledge Con conference, as my colleagues said, a very cool event. Board member Armstrong, Vice President Ly of WRF, were also present
081representing the Belfower district. I went to separate sessions to talk about different things, acknowledging the brilliance of our schools. Dr. Tyron Howard. The presentation addressed strategies for recognizing the greatness that is sometimes not acknowledged by students of color. He passed us information and I would like to share it with you and the teachers watching. This, they have their base in the critical, connect with the cultural legacy, draw strength from community networks, look to the wisdom of elders, empathy is the accumulation of disadvantage. Recognize centuries of disadvantage, center student voices in an authentic and sustainable way to also promote mental health for students and families, and identify racial zones we should avoid. The word "n" has become normalized, and we don't know the history of the word and hate speech, and how that has a negative
082learning effect for students, and there is negative racial language . We must have a policy in our district against this type of language that discriminates based on race, religion, and gender, and that gives us options regarding information and reports about these actions. The word n, this language, uh, explains that it is no more against the rule, but it damages. We use simple language; we don't want to use them in schools. We have to inform the community in schools and everywhere else because this type of language is a problem. We must also investigate, we must ensure that all students know and investigate why there are important things in basic education. We also need to encourage children to be unique, to have courage, to be brilliant, to be above average, and to be authentic. And that makes
083them more committed to learning. We must also acknowledge success, how it manifests itself in the students' brilliance and intelligence. Bright students sometimes don't fit within what one thinks is academic success, and we learned quite a bit. One session was about music and hip hop to have more contact with students, songs and the words in the songs that help us as a tool to recognize feelings, what resonates most with us and why. And we talked about these songs and it was very nice to talk. I know you were at the session, how to create connections between the people who were there sharing their ideas. I also went to a session on how to better manage and use money, and we talked about how to teach young people to be confident and ultimately achieve financial progress over
084time. We also talked about the associations that exist in the community that provide greater access to affordable, high-quality education for students. There's an app I really like, Zogo Zo, a free platform that teaches economic information, has modules on saving money, and maybe we can share this app with students, teachers, and staff. We can all learn a lot from this kind of information. I also want to acknowledge that I had another workshop where we talked about how to cultivate sustainable practices in schools and not burn out as teachers in our work. He highlighted very bright students, teachers, excuse me, as an example celebrating strong academic practices that make students shine. It was a phenomenal conference, one of the best I've ever attended. Eh, it triggered my mind. We spoke with the governance team last night. I
085want to ask again, Dr. Simen, your staff, my colleagues, and our own teachers and staff, to ask yourselves this every day. Teachers, your students are at an advantage because you, the teacher, colleagues, our district is better because we are one of the leaders, we have the advantage as a leader in this team. As a teacher, I have to ask myself if they have an advantage, and I think that sometimes they do, sometimes they don't, but I have to do a better job and I have to ask myself that every day. Tuesday I went to an academy meeting for these students. I liked seeing many administrators. Dr. Simon joined the panel, and many friends and colleagues came to tell me how Dr. Samel's advice helped them and others. He does a good job, always in the
086district. Not a day goes by that I don't remember and I remember how grateful I am that we contacted her and the position she holds here in the BF district. Also last week, everyone had a great day celebrating Dr. Martin Luther King, and as he said, as long as the mind is enslaved, the body will never be free. So thank you all very much, have a good night. Thank you, Member Stuart, uh , Secretary of the Central Board of Education. Thanks, as always I'll keep this short and sweet. Hopefully everyone enjoyed their vacation and holidays. One thing that comes to mind and I want to thank the families at Craig Williams School on their way to and from school when they see me and let me know how much they appreciate the teachers and staff
087at the new school site superintendent for bringing joy. These are their words that I am quoting. Hey, I hope so, they're growing up, they like it, I hear the laughter around my block, that really fills me up. I also want to talk a little bit about the meetings we 've had on immigration, one in December and one recently. One was virtual, the other was both virtual and in person, so the meeting was hybrid . I mean, not many districts do this. Not many districts either can't or don't know how to navigate the issue. My heart continues to grieve for those who are afraid to walk their children to school or go grocery shopping in this political environment. I hear you, I sympathize with you, and I want to know what we can do as a
088district. Please get in touch with us . what we can do if we only give him resources on something local. I would be very happy and willing to do that for everyone, including the cabinet. I just want to add that. Also, a shout-out to all the good people on the student governance team . Thank you for recognizing us and the hard work we do. We are not usually recognized, I am very grateful for that. Uh, I learned quite a lot at the special meeting last night, which was very encouraging, and I just want to say thank you again to the cabinet because we couldn't do the work we do without all of your support, and hopefully we're giving that support back to you in any way we can. Thank you, thank you all very much.
089Thank you. And the PTA, as I see many of you here all the time, don't look at me like that, it's good stuff. I just want to say that it's very nice to listen to. This is a personal note. Our, well, the legal advisor might call me out later, but I want to say thank you for coming to the district and being open and trusting us, us who are sitting here, our cabinet. Negotiations, especially, are always quite difficult, and given the history, the trauma, the disagreements from the previous district, I want to say thank you because a united collaboration is what relieved us to hear that everyone, even on the difficult issues to debate, is okay, everyone feels free to say what they want to say, collaborating with the district. I want to acknowledge that
090and continue to encourage that collaborative environment. Thank you so much. With that, I return to our president. Thank you, member of this Sintron. We move on to the KCHF vice president. Thank you, Madam President. It's been quite a while since we've had a meeting. I think it's five or six weeks. Now I'm not going to go over all the events, but I want to highlight one thing that's important for us to know: AB 292 adds a one-semester personal finance graduation requirement starting with the class of 2030. That course must be a single, one-semester course. The economic requirement, different schools must begin offering the course from the beginning of the school year 2728 . The state must adopt the curriculum by May 2026, otherwise they will have to adopt their own financial competence. It was definitely
091needed in public education. I am very excited to learn about this law. All parents should know about interest rates, mortgages, and all the financial information that young people should know after graduation. Instead of waiting for the state to force us to do something like this , it's a responsibility we should start preparing for each year. We do n't have time to do this, and it's something that young people need, and I would like us to continue doing it . I also want to congratulate the wrestling team in our district. There are many injured players on the team, such as the CF team, who are resting because they are knocked out for league competitions and CF competitions. There was also some discussion about moving forward and when we look at the contracts and try to evaluate
092all of that with the advice we receive, we must make decisions focused on what is most important and what the students need most, especially the most needy. We need to align that in our minds. I think everyone does it, but this needs to be maintained and it's on my radar and as superintendent I also ensure that I was doing the right thing, that the report from the families, our work, is clearly included. Lastly, I want to say, we had a special Board of Education meeting. I thought it was very effective. I want to thank my colleagues on the Board of Education. I thank each and every one of you, Dr. Simon and the staff. We had some very good conversations last night and I left that meeting feeling revitalized in quite a few ways. Eh,
093I felt the essence of the team. I feel very good about the work we are going to do in the future. Thank you all for your commitment last night. I'm very happy with what we did. Thank you, and thank you all for being here as well. Have a great night. Thank you, Vice President KField. I hope everyone had a good three-day weekend that just happened for the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. We're excited for next month to arrive. I know I am, but I want to take this opportunity to more or less... mention again what Vice President Cretield said, the meeting we had last night, seeing how we met, and instead of updating you on what I've been doing and where I've been, I want to take this time to acknowledge some very special characteristics
094that I see within the board. So, hey Armstrong, thanks for always seeing the positive side. I appreciate this. Hey, member Cintrón, thanks for your profound contributions. Member S, thank you for your passionate advocacy. Member Critfield, thank you for being open and courageous in having conversations with the superintendent. Thank you for all the skills you bring with you, because I appreciate that all this time you have been preparing for us. We are so lucky to have you here with us and leading us into the next chapter, Chapter 23. We are very excited to do this work with you for the staff. We see what they do, how they come and work hard for everything they do for our children, and we are excited to roll up our sleeves and continue doing the work for each and
095every student. But we know where the BTA and the CSA come from. We also see what we have achieved so far and we are excited about what lies ahead and what the future holds. I think we're all heading in the right direction, and before I start crying, I'm going to say that this meeting is postponed to 8:30. That's not true, we have information issues here. I keep doing that, all night long, I keep doing it. So, on to news. Do you have any questions about these matters tonight? Perfect. So if there's one more thing at the board right now , the board will adjourn this session, right? See more action tonight. Therefore, this meeting is postponed in memory of Dr. Noxis's mother. Please keep it up, keep praying there. And as we say, we are
096all one family, I think you can feel it, so please continue to pray for her and the meeting is adjourned at 8:34 until the next meeting which will be on Thursday, February 19, 2026. Thank you.