Board of Education Meeting - March 13, 2025

001good evening and welcome to tonight's meeting of the Board of Education this meeting is called to order at 400 PM in Open Session roll call please student Board member snet Miss Armstrong present Miss Centron present Mr critchfield present Mrs Garza Miss Stewart present tonight we do have requests addressing closed session agenda items while meetings of the governing board are not public meetings they are open to the public individual speakers will be allowed 3 minutes to address the board on each agenda item the board will limit the total time for public input on each item to 21 minutes per board bylaw 93222 all right can we have Miss Christina Williams um you have to turn the mic on real fast uh you just pushed the little like the one with the little picture or the microphone

002there you go okay shoot sorry okay it's like being in my classroom get afternoon board members and District staff um I'm Christina Williams I work at Mayfair in the middle school I'm a seventh grade teacher I've been there for 28 years I'm here to speak today about um a couple of our counselors in the Middle School Miss yepes and Miss contras um I understand that their contract is end is ending they were hired as seal counselors initially um and I just wanted to just talk about the impact that they've had at our school um I'm going to talk first about the consistency that they've brought so they've been in our they started out as oural counselors they've been our middle school counselors for the last two years um and they have just been great at

003working to support our middle school students they have very open communication um they're very quick with feedback when I talked to one of the counselors about a situation with a student usually the same day if not the next day they'll stop by my room they'll call me into the office you know just let me know hey this is what we're going to do um they're very collaborative they work with the teachers they get input from us to help make best decisions for our students uh we finally have an experience we finally have a consistent team there we have Mr Wright now and we have our counseling staff there and we feel like it's I feel like it's moving in a positive way for our students there um our counselors have really worked to build in

004some systems they've done things like um doing these minute check-ins with the eighth graders to talk to them about hey promotion's coming up make sure that you know you're staying on track they met with each of them individually uh they do things like backpack cleanouts with the kids their folder cleanouts helping our students to stay organized because it's definitely a struggle for our middle schoolers um they are accessible to our students really easy for them to find them um they have a QR code that the students can use to make appointments with them and they're outside a lot so they'll see them a lot too the second thing I want to talk about is how their seal background is such a strength for our middle school students um I watch them and they really understand

005the emotional needs of our students um they're so patient with them they check in with them I was actually last week I was outside of my room and I walked past I think I don't know which one of the Miss yies or Miss contess I think it was Miss yappies and I watched her walk up to a student who was sitting on the ground with her head down like you know just looking really upset and just seeing her check in with them and they just it's almost like it's their superpower this ability to look at our students and see their needs I think that there's such an asset to the middle school and I'm really hoping that we will continue their contract on because they're really helping to move our Middle School in the right

006direction thank you thank you so [Applause] much can I have Mr Dan Fong welcome Mike is already on for me thank you hi good afternoon uh board and cabinet I just say superintendent oo because she's definitely done a better job than any interim uh superintendent I know of um I've been here uh a long time and spoken to all of you in different capacities but this my first time speaking with a three-minute timer which I can't believe um I've been in Mayfair 18 years now and yesterday was the hardest day of my career there um I'm thankful for the support that the district offered the dis the school support that was given and it really helped teachers as well as uh grieving friends and teammates cast members uh as they as they navigated a a

007very unexpected event it helped me realize how important it is that we have people there that know our students and support them and have the tools and the training to be able to provide what students need when these kinds of tragedies uh face us we have an incredible Middle School team right now as Miss Williams just mentioned thank you to thank you to all of you for realizing the need needs of our middle school students especially uh they are different than our high school students and they often get overlooked uh as we are combined uh 7 through 12 school we made an incredible hire with Mr Calbert Wright and we made some incredible hires under some categorical funding with miss yepes and miss contras and they are a wonderful wonderful team it's amazing to see

008the movement that has happened just within a month uh with the combined uh resources and support as Mr Williams said oh man is this on video all this too wow um as M Williams said uh these seal counselors are not just doing seal now they are fullon counselors the last couple years with loads of over 300 students each and uh they have again done a remarkable job I've never gotten up here for any sort of bargaining business any sort of business that happened with the people that were at the board or uh over here at these tables and I'm here now for students not for teachers uh not for my own self but because our students and our school are benefiting from these people and I hope that as we balance fiscal responsibility with the

009responsibility towards students that will take that into consideration thank you thank you so much can I have Miss Kirsten Clinton please welcome hi welcome everyone um Kiren Clinton I like my colleagues have been reflecting upon the um the work that our counselors have been doing the last couple of years um as you all know it has been tough to get the right people in the right spots right you guys on the board right people right spots our cabinet right people right spots it has been an effort in all kinds of ways and I've just been reflecting on how finally after so many years of really trying to maneuver people into the right spots how it's starting to feel like it's working how it's starting to feel successful for our students um I I'm afraid that

010if our counselors go away what is the school going to look like again you know we've been fighting to get people positions filled people in there and finally it's it's a moving train and it's working and the kids are finally responding because there's enough adults on campus to really help their needs um so I you know counselors the counselors are doing such a great job um they're more than just counselors they are putting in their heart and soul into these kids and it's paying off I'm seeing kids who don't feel cared about actually being cared about and working to do the right thing when it's hard so um as you guys move forward with your decision on hopefully I mean I don't know where we have the funding but bringing them back in some kind

011of capacity or hopefully a better capacity maybe a stable position um I hope you guys consider that moving forward because middle school students are a different breed they need more than the rest you know I used to teach kindergarten I always say they're like kind big kindergarteners they might be sting here they might you know have more attitude but they just need and want the love just the same so I hope you guys consider keeping our wonderful counselors because they have what it takes to get these kids going in the right direction so thank you thank you and last but not least miss Robin is it B yes bog bog but okay welcome hi you guys thanks for being here um I'm actually speaking on behalf of 22 Middle School teachers who signed this letter

012um so dear board members superintendent oo and BD cabinet we're here tonight to express our deep gratitude for the wavering support you have provided to Mayfair Middle School under your guidance we have witnessed meaningful improvements on our campus ensuring that both students and staff receive the support that they need to thrive we truly appreciate the way this board listens reflects and makes thoughtful decisions that prior that prioritize the well-being of students and staff while maintaining financial responsibility for the district the board's initiative to provide a dedicated Middle School assistant principal has already made a difference in the one month Mr Calbert Wright has been here with the support of our middle school counselors we believe we have the administrative team in place to take Mayfair Middle School to the next level with that in mind

013we want to bring to your attention and Urgent concern we understand that the categorical funding for our two counselors Anna Sophia yapis and Maria contas is coming to an end as you plan for the upcoming school year we urge that you include these two invaluable members of our team in the district's budget Middle School is a unique and often challenging time for students it requires specialized support from individuals who understand the critical stage of development people who can be both firm and compassionate Anna Sophia and Maria have embodied this balance dedicating themselves wholeheartedly to the Mayfair Community they their contributions extend far beyond their job descriptions they have implemented one minute meetings ensuring that every student on campus has a personal check-in to discuss their progress in areas for growth they have created scavenger hunts

014and interactive activities to provide social emotional support in engaging ways they have introduced monthly backpack checks helping students develop organizational skills and responsibility they are present at every Middle School event going above and beyond to support our students staff and families more importantly they have fostered a culture where no staff member or student ever feels unsupported their impact is undeniable and their absence would leave a significant void in our school Community we ask that as you make Staffing decisions you consider a vital the vital role they play at Mayfair Middle School their investment in their continued employment is an investment in our students our teachers and the overall growth of our school thank you for your time your dedication and your commitment to making belflower the best District it can be we we appreciate your

015consideration and your ongoing support thank you and I have a letter for all of you if you want yes please will you hand it off maybe to Carrie and then we'll grab them thank you so much you guys for coming and speaking um at this time the board will recess to close session at 4:12 p.m. Open Session will resume at approximately 6: p.m. thank you okay welcome back everyone tonight's meeting the Board of Education was called to order at 400 p.m. in Open Session the board then adjourned to close session at 4:12 p.m. and will now reconvene the meeting in open session at 6:06 PM board clerk critchfield will update us on closed session topics thank you madam president uh the topics discussed in Clos session were student matters anticipated litigation and Public Employee discipline

016dismissal and release the board has reached a settlement agreement with George Martinez for voluntary resignation the district will pay Mr Martinez the sum of $81,000 he shall receive health benefits until the end of the calendar year or until he gains new employment whichever is first Mr Martinez will also receive a vacation payout of $ 72,324 193 his re resignation will be effective March 13 2025 thank you cler critchfield um replacement replacement Pages for items 14.6 and 14.9 are on the back table do we have any other replacement Pages no other replacement pages okay awesome so tonight you guys for the Pledge of Allegiance we are going to have Craig Williams principal Cecilia Madrid um will you please come up and lead us in the flag salute thank you so much for being here please [Music]

017stand put your right hand over your heart ready begin I pledge 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 for all thank you so much do we have any amendments to the agenda no Corrections this even okay awesome so tonight we have some recognitions that we're really excited for U Mrs oo please we do have recognitions this evening at this time I'm going to turn it over to Mrs Carter if we could have the board please come down for these recognitions this evening the board of education is pleased to recognize teams from from our district to earn the distinction of CIF Southern section Champions during the winter sports season staff and students please come forward as

018I call your name and remain for a picture representing Mayfair cheer we have adviser Michelle Mado and the following team captains Noah Clark and chy blackston please come forward thanks to the exceptional coaching and guidance of Mayfair coaches and staff along with the hard work and dedication of our students the Mayfair chair earns several accolades first CIF Southern section Champions division 3 co-ed their second Accolade fourth place out of 12 at USA Nationals in the varsity co-ed novice Division and the third Accolade Junior versity second place at USA Nationals and the JB coed novice division congratulations to all of the staff students and achieving these titles let's give them another round of applause would you like to recognize anybody in the audience tonight okay well we wish them luck congratulations and that is our final

019recognition for this evening okay so now we're moving on to our student Spotlight tonight we have a student being honored from Craig Williams if Miss Madrid could bring up her student please thank you so much for being here good evening board president Stewart esteemed members of the board intrum superintendent ACO cabinet members and guests my name is Cecilia Madrid and I am the proud principal of Craig Williams home of the wild cats it is my honor to bring forward to you one of our amazing CW teachers that will be introducing our student on a spotlight Mr Monte Weiss thank you giving a teacher a microphone it's dangerous all right um as we know uh the arrival of any child into our world comes with many fears many dreams many hopes Michael is fortunate he was

020born into a family that vanquishes fears and chases dreams um he was also fortunate because he was born the middle child between uh his older sister Mariah who's with us here tonight and Marley and Leia who I just met tonight um being the only boy between girls will toughen you up and prepare you for life's challenges and uh Michael has met those challenges a wild cat since first grade his teacher Mrs Shores recognized right away that Michael was exceptional in every way she tells of a first grade Michael that was always positive always cheerful continually pushing himself even at that young age to do his best and to encourage his classmates to do the same his second and fourth great teachers Mrs czma and Mrs Gilstrap echoed this those same sentiments and saw that same

021spark in Michael and I can tell you unequivocally that in sixth grade that Sparks brighter than ever I could tell from the first day that Michael walked into class he was a forest to be reckoned with he strolled into class with with three girls that are popular and very well-liked they all took a seat at a pod together and were just talking and casually joking but the second I started speaking you could see that quiet he just exuded this quiet confidence in this laser sharp Focus able to T tune out the chaos that can be sixth grade um and not miss a single word that was said and if you're in education and I know I have a lot of my BTA crew behind me here um if you're in education you know when you

022see one of those scholars in your classroom and Michael is one of those Scholars you can't trip him up if you wanted to and you never want to he approaches every challenge as an opportunity to Triumph every failure is an opportunity to grow and even when he's wrong which is rare you can see those wheels turning and spinning digesting the understanding those synapses firing they say that a rising tide L all boats at CW Michael is our Rising tide his commitment to his own Excellence ripples out to those around him inspiring his peers to new heights daily his natural abilities and his incredible work ethic have earned him a spot on our acade academic Excellence list every single trimester that he's been eligible for it but his intellectual curiosity and his academic achievements they're just

023a small part of Michael's story when our 2025 robotics team got up and running Michael was all in from day one while most of the team was 80% Robotics and 20% being social Michael was 95% Robotics and 5% oh yeah can your robot do that but it was always with a humility because if the robot couldn't Michael would show him how and then when our sixth graders decided they wanted to tutor peer tutor some third grad roboticists that's when Michael really shined he's a natural helper he works with the patience of a saint and the skill of an expert making sure that his third graders that he tutors feel that when the robots are successful it was all them and when they're not coaches them to make them work he coaches and helps his third

024graders with a warmth and a compassion that's all heart and the same is true when he's working with his reading buddies or coach coaching his peers in math and as if that's not enough then there's G band where Michael Rocks his creative side on the clarinet Tuesday night in fact an exceptional scholar a heart of gold tutor a magnificent musician Michael truly makes the world a smarter more compassionate more beautiful place simply by being Michael on behalf of your entire Wildcat family Michael we're so proud of the young man you've become and we are so excited for the future that lies ahead for you congratulations my friend would he like to say would you like to say anything to us no would you okay okay would you like to take a picture with us yes

025okay can we take a picture with them e [Applause] okay so we're moving on to our student representative reports so first up from belflower high school we have Steven Martinez good evening board president Seward members of the board interim superintendent misso guest and fellow students this is buffler high school's March board report so starting off with some of our past events our a through G breakfast was for our Juniors who are meeting a through G requirements which was well over a 100 all these students were informed by their counselors of um the next process of going to uh college and universities which as that comes up slowly we all have to start applying and as well as some seniors were able to talk about how the process was and where are some some of the

026tips that they should follow next is is our Kona Ice fundraiser over 200 students came out and supported the Kona Ice fundraiser for Bellflower um read Across America was at the beginning of this month and we sent students to five elementaries where some of them did go there and they relived some childhood memories but also were able to read to um kids during this week next is our Renaissance week so we had a Renaissance rally in our Renaissance week so um there's our different dress up days like construction gear PJ wait no sorry and um uh stuff animals we also had our rally which we also tried out a new game with that inflable mattress on the bottom where kids would slide across the gym floor and we also gave an award to Mr Ellis

027um some important news is that the end of the third quarter so today was the end of the third quarter and tomorrow there's no school yay and uh 3ay weekend to end off a good quarter um yeah and some of our future events we don't have many future events but we're tomorrow at noon at 12: we are announcing the prom theme on our social media so be tuned and look at there and the location for this year is Ovation and Long Beach and the time is at 700 p.m. on May 3rd um some other news news is that our counselors are more than halfway done with meeting with students to finalize next year's classes and on behalf of belflower we offer our condolences and prayers to the family and entire Mayfair Community um from the

028tragedy this week thank you thank you so much for that all right so for Mayfair we have Gil fredman good evening president Stewart interim superintendent Miss oo board members and District colleagues uh I want to thank you for your support through this time we all appreciate it the family appreciates it and yeah so for academics we have a new program at Mayfair it's called The Early College program it's through serito college and Mayfair right on campus freshmen are now uh going to be able to take college courses on campus and get a ton of college credits throughout their High School career so that's a super cool program that was the meeting the other night was packed so it's going to flourish moving on to Athletics we uh the Hall of Fame celebration was held on

029the 24th of February and we had 18 monsoons recognized for their outstanding performances specifically Courtney Cummings who is uh our star flag football player at Mayfair she was recognized by the National Football Foundation at the ram stadium for her outstanding performance on and off the field for the Arts our choir we had our singing Valentine's grams go out last month our sneak preview concert was held a couple weeks ago at the Civic Center and we are now prep uh preparing ing for our competition this weekend at Los Alamitos the Extravaganza and we're also preparing for our West Coast tour it's all the same show so if you get a chance to come out this Saturday it's a great show and band held their 23rd annual jazz festival in the mpb with over 30 bands in

030attendance we had our elective Fair which was hosted by ASB different electives could come out and explain what their class is about and you know everything that they have going on throughout the year ybs had their student presentations where they got to honor historic and famous black people from you know all around the world and that was a great event we had our open house it was pretty rainy not not so fun but uh I know some of you guys got to come out and see it so we appreciate that and our abilities awareness assembly was amazing it was so much fun and I'm glad that you guys got to come and see and support we got to have all of our unified programs show off what they do and all their skills and talents

031and it was an amazing time and I'm now going to hand it off to skills USA president Roman Diaz and vice president um Maximo Romas thank you good evening this is an honor to be here um like to thank and from AER High School we'd like to thank you for setting some time aside to hear about the skills USA report for the 2024 to 2025 school year uh so throughout the academic school year we have competed in various CTE and Leadership competitions and in January we competed at the regional level against local high schools in these competitions we have our members worked hard to win eight gold medals six silver medals and one bronze medal again at the regional level in April we will be going to Ontario where 28 of our members will be

032competing at the state level along with this we have participated in more community service projects such as helping a residential Cleanup in Lakewood touring several departments during manufacturing day at Ros College volunteering with the Lakewood Police Department for a Halloween event and safety Expo and having mayfer alumni guest speakers from loed Martin and Mattel visit our campus to share their experience working in the field of engineering to our members we would like to thank you for upholding this program as it has been a vital and solid foundation for our members to and students who are interested in stem and honing their leadership skills thank you all right good evening Bill far Unified School District I'm Maximo Ramos from mayfer school's skills USA chapter I'm here this evening to give our gratitude and acknowledgement for skills

033USA and letting me and many other students be able to showcase our abilities and future skills skills USA I've been giving an opportunity great opportunity for skills USA Leadership Academy that I've been going to the summer this uh program has helped me find my potential and help many others who have joined this Academy skills USA has helped many of us to really show off our stem abilities as Roman said and it's been really wonderful and a great experience for all of us thank you for helping us all to on many years to letting us compete and from regionals State and Nationals thank you for letting us go to Ontario this year and many other years upcoming thank you B our school district for letting us find our leadership and find our potentials to unlock thank

034you thank [Applause] you that concludes it Gil yes okay thank you so much all right so now we have Julian Basera who's filling in for Jay Tores from Somerset High [Applause] School good evening everyone um president Stewart members of the board uh intern superintendent Lio members of the cabinet and to everyone my fellow guests of the audience um my name is Julian Basera it is a great honor to be here again as it is my returning and unfortunately my last presentation as um student board reporter of Somerset High School so to start off our skills USA um we had three winners in our school under the guidance of Mr Guzman Y gido and Ruby Gutierrez won Gold and Silver respectively in the Telecommunications cabling contest Jay Torres won bronze in the act in the action

035skills event all three of these students will be moving forward to the state competition that will take place in April next up we went um Somerset students went to the LA Holocaust Museum students from Miss Adams and Miss Ean class went there on February 12th tier guide presented everything the museum had to offer from artifacts from the camps to the propaganda of the Nazis Holocaust Survivor her Survivor Eva Paula natson oh sorry Nathan forgive me hooked our students with her impacting story which um explained a little bit more of how things how how what she remembered in the camps and that impact impulsed students to ask further more questions on uh how it was in or or or many many other details next up we had um ASB organized a dodgeball tournament it was a

036very fun game and uh it was uh students versus uh staff not many staff but again we had a very fun game next up we have um one of our students um Liz Nunes what participated in a Lions Club speech and she brought up a really good argument Her speech was a AI Friend or Foe um so far she has won the first two rounds first round was um was local and the second round was pardon me where was it again uh second round it was um it was by City And then the third round we're not quite sure what is going to be but um yeah she will be taking um participation in the third round so we wish the best of you Liz you're doing a great job next up the CT advisory

037committee Somerset staff and a CTE student um representative attended it the CTE advisory committee met last night to learn about the program but programs bu USD offer students while touring um while touring bular High School Aviation program our counselor Miss Davila learned how to fly and land a small plane using their flight simulator she was very excited she was like a little child again and to conclude my report this is what we have upcoming so um so um since uh we have a different schedule um we use block schedule tomorrow we will still continue with uh school on March 20 uh on March 20 we will have our career fair it's a day where a lot of people from serritos or um Long Beach or people who have experience in their job offer information to

038the students so that students have an idea of what they would like to do after high school we are still looking for more guest speakers for our career day on March 20th so please let us know if you are interested in sharing about what you do for living with the students at Somerset on March 2nd I mean on March 7th it will be the start of block s and starting block s from March 17th to March 21st we will have our spirit uh our spring spirit week and we also have four upcoming field trips a trip to Disneyland uh next one is LA County Fair NR NH which is basically like a drag race and Film Festival that will be held in the in the California state um uh University I think yeah and this

039concludes my presentation thank you so much it was a great honor um um doing board reports and I and have a good evening everyone thank you so much we will be sad to see you go Julian so thank you so much for doing that for us and we know that you guys have other obligations that could be homework family friends whatever so you are free to leave at this time but thank you so much for your reports okay we do not have employee representative reports tonight from BTA or csca um do we have PTA Communications from Miss Morgan Mrs Morgan yes all right so PTA Communications with President Linda Morgan thank you this one okay um good evening president Stuart board members uh interim superintendent as AO staff and um community members um wait I

040should know how to do this now um a quick membership update first of all um we surpassed last year's total by about 30 members um so we are at 2444 members thank you um and what's not on here U but I attended Ernie pile's uh PTA meeting yesterday and I found out that they to now have 100% of their teachers that joined their PTA um so I promise them next month have them on the slide as well apparently it's a competition so I was glad to hear it um so yeah um Ernie pile now has 100% of their teachers join their PTA and um collaboration between uh parents and teachers have has been great um okay so it's been a while about a month a lot of stuff has happened um many of our PT

041um held Valentine's events um a lot of um different dances and activities teacher appreciation lunch and I know there's more coming at several sites um they had Black History Month activities the reflections art program um the campus beautification I know at um Thomas Jefferson so want to thank the district for their plug on the newsletter as well and um a lot of family engagement events uh whether it's dances um what else they had a a see assemblies activities uh read Across America book fair uh picnic and other activities they celebrated women's History Month with assemblies um and the scholarship applications are out for our high school seniors um some of a couple of our units actually sent me photos to share um so I'm going to highlight a few of our sites um one of

042them being Steven Foster and this is their uh mother or mother figure mother and son dance and then this is belflower Middle High School PTSA uh they had a family engagement event a Paint and Sip um evening at Linder Elementary uh they held a math assembly uh another um hosted a book fair and um they had their read Across America um activities and then staff joined in on the fun on twin day that's the photo on the lower right corner uh Woodruff PTA they um hosted an international women's day assembly with several guest speakers they held their PTA Founders Day tie-dye party um and a hosted a BMX assembly um at their campus um to wrap up kindness week at woodr and then at Council as well as our sites um I myself at the

043pleasure of meeting with President Stewart uh thank you for your time and I really enjoyed that um we attended a 33rd District PTA annual meeting um with some of our PTA officers um I attended the BD job fair and resource Fair uh thanks for inviting me and and um getting to see that um and participate so appreciate that uh was a good event um also the um teacher of the year committee um that was a new experience thank you Dr Ryan uh Dr Smith sorry um and uh yeah I mean we all know we have a lot of amazing teachers um so it was really neat to read the applications uh fun for me was noticing that uh a lot of nominees had been awarded or recognized by their pts ptas uh with the honorary

044service award for going above and beyond so um again parents yeah know their teachers and appreciate them very much so that was kind of fun um on the right is our um Council officers for the upcoming term which starts July 1st um we have a pretty good group um already still looking uh for a couple more volunteers um positions are secretary membership Communications Financial secretary and historian so again we're not quite there um but we have a good start um anyone that's interested um and has a passion for our students would love to have you join and then some of our upcoming events our Reflections art program we did have to change the date so it'll be April 1st um it's on a Tuesday 6 pm here in the boardroom um we'll at Council level

045we received about 45 entries from uh nine out of our 12 ptas that participated um so we'll be celebrating our winners um that evening um for more invitation will be sent via email um love to have you guys and then um historian mixers where we recap the year and celebrate you know everything that our ptas have done um they usually have a great presentation to share um with each other um that's coming up in May and then later in May our honorary Service Awards night and more information on that is to come as well because that includes a date change so um I have one more note that I wanted to share um for the superintendent search we have shared out you know the information in the different forums um but I did want to

046point out that the PTA form uh that is scheduled for 1:40 p.m. um many most of our PTA parents work um and so I just say that in case you know attendance is not what you'd expect or would like it to be um I know there's a community Forum also during the day and then there's the um online survey so you know we've shared it out I just you know a little stipulation if the turnout isn't what it what you'd like it to be um most of our parents are working parents so um yeah and that yes that concludes my report thank you thank you Mrs Morgan can we get that schedule for the board members to look at um or can we look and see if anything can be done about those dates and

047times yes absolutely there's also an open Community Forum in the evening available to anyone who's unable to make the scheduled time but yes we can get you a copy of that okay so take it into your superintendent report yes I can do that go ahead so I'm grateful obviously tonight that we uh started the evening by celebrating students from Craig Williams and from May for high school that was a nice start to tonight yesterday was a difficult day for the belfar unified Community my heartfelt condolences go out to the family of our Mayer student during this incredibly challenging time our staff remains fully committed to providing support to our students and staff as we navigate this period of grief I would like to express my sincere appreciation for the Swift and compassionate response of our

048crisis team which includes our own dedicated staff as well as additional support from LA County Office of Ed Pathways ease and the Department of Mental Health I'm especially grateful to Alma yoa for her organized coordination of these resources to ensure that our community received the care and assistance needed during this time together we'll continue to support one another and prioritize the well-being of our students and staff tomorrow's school close day will provide everyone I think with an opportunity to pause to kind of recharge and reset and I thank all of you for being here and I thank you for the the evening tonight thank you um I debated on whether to talk about this or say anything and I don't want to say a whole lot because I do want to respect that family but

049obviously what happened is tragic um we're here for your support for anything that you guys need our teachers our students our staff um please reach out but um our hearts are with you guys our prayers are with you guys and we support you in any way that we can all right so moving on to committee reports um I'm just going to kind of go down the list real quick we have quite a few committees going on um Alliance um vice president gar would you like to talk kind of about what we talked about the major theme of our Alliance meeting this last um meeting was uh climate and culture um do you want to add yes we actually did speak about that and um we talked about how climate and culture are looked at differently

050in different campuses um and we agree that there there are some things that we need to make sure are you know taken into all campuses so that way we're all on the same page um we did discuss about how we can do that um also how we can make sure that we can continue to talk about that as well and having those forums within the alliance members um and maybe even some you know different tactics that we can use during um staff meetings as well maybe ice different types of ice breakers uh that sort uh we also dis discussed about um having our next upcoming meeting um which I think is rescheduled April 22nd yeah so um maybe going over kind of a quick look at what we've where we started where we are now

051um and looking into the future seeing what a else we can um place on our agendas to make sure that we are covering all the different aspects that and points of view that are out there right now and needs as well another thing that came up was How We Do teacher of the year year um we used to have just I guess the application process and we had teachers that were chosen and this year they've gone to having a teacher honored at each site which I think is amazing because every site has someone that stands out and goes above and beyond so it was really nice to hear about that change and I hope that next year we can also do the same for our csca employees I feel like they need to have their

052own representative each site and then we'll choose a district um teacher and and site person but that was a really nice update that we got in that meeting as well um anything that we're not thinking of okay all right moving on um there's not any we didn't have a sped meeting so we don't have that um Foundation do you want to say anything about that or you Brad anything updates on Foundation I will say I I know uh a couple more applications have come in and we should be bringing that back to the board uh hopefully at the next board meeting okay and then we have our School site future planning um does anybody want say anything on that I know we have an up go ahead um so the next thing we have uh

053coming up we have the learner Center trip so this Sunday uh uh Dr Smith I actually a whole bus load of us are going down to San Diego and we're going to be visiting uh what eight nine sites uh five five okay easier than I thought uh so we're spending a couple days in San Diego and it's going to be very a productive trip and then we'll report on that when we get back and just so you guys know the committee like we we have a purpose for each of our committees for that particular committee we're really looking to review our current enrollment data our Trends and develop um short-term and even long-term solutions to try to address some of our enrollment challenges so that's kind of why we put that in place um we

054have an Athletics committee we're going to be meeting um soon we are really looking at um our code of conduct and just things that apply to Athletics so myself and president or president o president cops president um cleric crit um he likes titles more than me anyway so it was great for his ego right now um we're going to be looking at code of conduct and just different things going along and then we just started a climate and culture that board member Armstrong and I are going to be sitting on and we're going to be meeting our next meeting will be on March 31st so we'll get back to you and then we've had quite a few school safety we started a Safety Committee we've had quite a few of those meetings if board memb

055Centron or clerk crille would like to chime in on that one sure uh so our last meeting was on March 10th and in that meeting we uh we tasked to uh uh we had 11 different security firms that put in proposals uh and we were able to as a committee have great conversations and dialogue we whittel that down to four uh companies out of the 11 and then uh on March 19th we'll be having our next meeting where we'll be getting presentations from each of these four companies able to ask a lot of questions and uh from there we'll be able to bring recommendation to the board board for even more robust uh discussions here in open and board member Armstrong do you want to report anything on laxa I know you attended the inperson

056in Paramount was there anything to report yeah lxa keeps me busy very busy um well my goodness okay I didn't mean to put you on the spot I just okay go ahead well no it it it's a lot of stuff going on you know we we have our assembly members and our Senators uh Senator Lena Gonzalez um and Tony Tony Thurman they'll be discussing safe School immigration protections and um those issues are going to be heard on April 2nd and I Al I have a template if we as a board or you can do it individually if we want to um to write in to help support it so I do have a template that can share um this week was the legislative week the csba legislative week uh that's California school board associations and

057what they do is that we have our Pacer our public um our public connection with with csba and our assembly members uh this is what I was pulling uh putting up so this week they had a lot of talking points uh they talked about budget priorities uh sponsor uh legislation uh and the uh assembly members who's putting it out there um a lot of this stuff is online but I I also um let me see what okay one thing is I'm I'm going share this one because this was a conversation that board member um clerk uh crvi asked me about so we have uh Jose uh Lis salach stop it he he he's going to be U he's going to there's going to be a hearing uh about school board member compensation so I I

058did I ask Brad so Brad did you have anything to do with that and he was like well you know I did put it out there but he has about uh he he he's he's going to be speaking on um uh dual language immersion so he they're going to have a hearing on that um and what as what that was going to do is is establish a one-time a gr Grant to be administered over 3 years for the California Department of Education and it's going to be focused on increasing the amount of instructional materials for dual emerging programs including developing materials and purchasing them um I can't go over all of it because I have I have a lot of stuff here so that's it thank you for your updates maybe I should just share

059it you know give you guys a copy thank you okay thank you I appreciate it all right tonight we do have requests addressing Open Session agenda items while the meetings of the governing board are not public meetings they are open to the public individual speakers will be allowed three minutes to address the board on each agenda or non-agenda item the board will limit the total time for public input on each item to 21 minutes as per board bylaw 93222 all right can we have Karen youf thank you for being being here and I did read your statement so thank you so much for providing it to us beforehand as well okay good evening president Stewart members of the board superintendent ESO my name is Karine YF I am a special education teacher at mayfer high

060school and I've worked for belflower for nearly 24 years I'm here to express my deep concerns regarding the current state of our school particularly the lack of regard for the needs of our special education students and the overall learning environment as a teacher I've witnessed firsthand how the sense of community that once defined our school has fractured leaving both staff and students feeling disconnected and unsupported our students have unique strengths challenges and potential as Educators we dedicate our time energy and passion to ensuring that each student receives the education they deserve yet teachers staff and students continue to feel disregarded when decisions about their future are both made at the site and District levels when decisions are made without the input of those who work closest with students the results is often a disconnect between

061intention and impact while data and reports can provide Insight they cannot replace the actual experiences of those in the classroom what looks effective on paper does not necessarily translate into meaningful progress for students with diverse needs additionally safety concerns have reached a critical point with fights occurring nearly every day there seems to be no clear plan for maintaining order as a teacher I come to work uncertain of what the day will bring the lack of accountability among administrators has contributed to a chaotic and unsafe environment that could have been prevented with decisive action early on instead of the situation has spiraled out of control leaving staff and students harmed or vulnerable just as teachers and staff are held accountable for their responsibilities administrators should be held to the same standard our concerns must be acknowledged

062and steps must be taken to restore order prioritize student safety and ensure that special education students receive the support they deserve as I speak tonight I know my concerns are shared by many who choose not to share their discontent publicly for fear of retaliation or feel feel their voice does not matter in my 24 years in this District I have never felt so overwhelmed unheard disappointed disrespected and uncertain about the future as I have in this past few years perhaps I care too much but I don't know any other way to be we approach our job with Integrity we work hard every day to improve for our students I will always be their advocate so I make this my fight it is is unfortunate that I must make this statement to be clear moving forward

063if I experience any negative repercussions after speaking here tonight whether in relation to my schedule position evaluation or any other aspect of my role I will consider it an act of retaliation I am intentional every single day and I will always speak truth to power thank you thank you so much all right so moving along to discussion item tonight we have one discussion item this evening um it's item 12.1 the second and term financial statements Mrs oo yes I'm going to turn it over to our chief business officer Mrs Arcus thank you very much good evening president Stewart vice president Garza board members fellow cabinet members and members of staff and Community here and at home tonight I have the pleasure of presenting to you tonight our second in room report which is our second

064second opportunity to look at the financial activities of the district I will ground us once again in our budget reporting Cycles so that we report at each of our Cycles we will always know where we're coming from and where we're headed to we have made our way to the second interim reporting which which reports on our actual expenditures through January 31st 2025 and projects our expenditures and revenues through the end of the fiscal year June 30th 2025 we have already began the process for the budget development and will be contacting sites and offices starting next week which leads me to our next slide we received some information in January when our governor released the budget and I have included updated information that we received in January here in our reports tonight many of the impacts

065are to our multi-year planning if you'll recall when we bring interims to board we also plan for the current and the next two fiscal years as you can see from this budget planning cycle January's our start but we start to overlap our process with this current year that we're still in and start to already prepare for our future budget just reminding us again that budget planning is a is a um multi-year fiscal year monitoring that goes on throughout the year tonight I will bring the board the second interim it's for actuals reported through January 31st and um jeez and estimated expenditures reported through the end of the year the second interim provides those two additional years so that we can look at 2526 and 2627 tonight I'm bringing it for board approval as the financials

066show that our district can meet our financial obligations in the current and the next two fiscal years our second in excuse me in order to project revenue and expenditures we use the planning assumptions and these are the things that we monitor so our revenues which is the largest portion that we receive from the state of California really hinge Upon Our cost of living which is our Cola our funded Ada which is the students that come to school every year and our enrollment is what drives our Ada so the number of kids that we have enrolled then translates into many students come each year I have updated the factors from our Governor's budget we had a drop in our Cola percentage for next year um it was at 2.93 and it's now projected at 2.43 so

067that will start to impact some revenues but the good news is in the oute um we did get a slight increase also from the government as proposed um but we are waiting on a lot of the impact of the fires um and things that happen in the state of California to see what will really happen and that will really shine through when we get our May Revis which is the governor's next attempt at providing budget information for the 2526 school year as well as they provide the next two fiscal years information with the best of knowledge that they have I've also included in our updated numbers expenses um including increased expenses for any contracts supplies employee expenses one of the largest expenses that we incur as an employer besides the actual employee salaries um is

068uh retirement and Health and Welfare benefits so uh we work hard to look at our Health and Welfare benefits and ensure that those are benefits are the best they can be for our employees and make sure that they're um appropriate that we can afford them as a district the Cal stir which is our teacher retirement and the Cal Pur employer rates are defined by um the state of California so I've included them here as well so our unrestricted revenue is our is our largest portion of Revenue that we receive from um the state of California and other local and federal and um State resources um it is split into two areas so we have unrestricted funds which is on your screen tonight when we're talking about revenue and we also have restricted funds I'm going

069to concentrate on our unrestricted general fund Revenue at is it is the funding that is least restrictive hence you see right now given the factors that I provided ear earlier slides you have a slight decrease in our Revenue that we're projecting for the year and that's deal due to the factors that I provided earlier again these are these are sources that we use calculations on to determine what Revenue that we might received and right now we're anticipating on receiving about 1 15.9 million in unrestricted revenue for this year I broke out the other half of our we have revenues and expenditures so these are the expenditures that we're projecting and I'm coming to you with a little bit of good news we have a board approved operating budget of about 137.5 million but right now

070we're reflecting that our expenditures are going to be about in the $19.5 million range the difference of about 7.9 million is still a collaboration between the fiscal department and our program Department looking at areas where we can improve looking at areas where we might be able to make changes in our budgeting processes looking at areas where we might be able to use those more restriced funds first um something I've mentioned before is the restricted funds A lot of them have expiration dates so I'm constantly combating looking at the restricted funds available to us when they might expire and working with program departments to figure out what might best um support us so this is the number that I'm presenting to you tonight as I stated earlier we are required to do a multi-year projection so

071I've included on the slides of course this this is a culmination of a really big document with a lot of numbers in it so I'm trying to bring forward the biggest um pieces of the document but here on this slide I'm bringing forward the unrestricted revenues and expenditures that I just showed you and it comes down to an ending fund balance that's um across the bottom of the screen so as you can see um we ended our year last year with about 96 million in our unrestricted ending balance and based on decreased revenues from the state and increased operating expenditures um over the next few years we will be seeing a decrease in fund balance this is um almost Sim very similar to the report that I provided in first interim I've made some minor

072adjustments between maybe years or things that will happen as information became available to me um but this number hasn't changed as ially from the first interum that's what I'm we're still projecting again we're still looking we're going to come back to in the June time frame with a final estimated actuals how we're going to end the year and we'll also start the uh we'll bring to you the budget for 2526 this is the entire fund so I spoke earlier about the fact that our fund general fund Is Res is split into two areas I like to concentrate on the unrestricted balance but often people look at the general fund as since it's our largest operating fund and where we do most of our business they like to look at it as a whole so I

073always bring the whole fund balance to you um again this is very similar to what I brought in the first inter room we've made some amendments we've made some adjustments we've looked in areas where the state um again with the new factors we've been able to change a couple things there we've looked at our expenditure progression and um we have very similar numbers to what came to in first in r as we end um on the general fund we will actually break down the different components of our ending fund balance so while we're projected to have about $106 million ending fund balance um some of that is nonspendable it's required to be held for um certain things like our inventory or prepayments that we might make to vendors for next year uh we've got our

074restricted programs I've talked a lot about that tonight about 26.6 6 million as a board we committed back in um December the 59 million of which 19 million is for a deferred facilities and 40 million is our projected deficit and um it leaves us with about $7 million I think it was spoke of last time that's about a 3% of our general fund balance and that's a required Reserve um I've talked about this before the state um requires us to withhold about 3% and make sure that we have that as a reserve just to give a sample of how um that lies a payroll for a district our size can run about $9 million so the state requires that we hold in reserve about $7 million but you can imagine if we have a monthly

075payroll of $9 million that's that's really not sufficient and we have about 11 million that's unassigned unappropriated at this time this slide basically summarizes everything that I brought forward today um you can see that um the blue is the unrestricted balance that we have um in our general fund the red is the restricted balance which is programs such as title one uh elop all the titles I should say several titles elop some of our after school programs um those special ed those are all the kind of um balances that we might have in there and the orange represents our combined balance so as a system you can see I've taken us all the way back to 2223 um when we were about 135 coming into 2324 we had 138 um but coming into uh this

076year we anticipate having about 106.9 million one of the large largest drops you can see is in the restricted side those are our Sr onetime dollars so remember we had um starting in 2020 2021 is we did receive a lot of funding that was for one-time purposes kind of through to hold us through the pandemic and a lot of them actually all of them expired in this year and so we utilize them in this year heading on into the next few years we've got um balance of about 78 and 59 million um that is uh basically what we're seeing what we're seeing is uh revenues kind of dropping or not kind of keeping up with the pace of our expenditures so as a system the fiscal Services Department in conjunction with actually all of the

077other departments is taking a look at our budget um I'm really excited to prepare for next year's budget it'll be the first budget that I'll be able to do here and um just like with anything else that you do yourself you kind of have a little bit more ownership a little bit more knowledge about it and it will give me a real opportunity to kind of dig in and see the kind of things that we have within our reach so this last slide talks about the next steps uh we have the release of the governor's May budget Revis so um there's three steps in January they give us a preliminary um in may they release a revise and that's how we prepare our budget that's the numbers that we know um because even though you

078are required by law we are going to bring a public hearing and a board approval in June the state and you're required by law as the board to approve a budget before then the state doesn't have to have us final budget numbers until June 30th so it kind of puts us into a situation where we're going to bring you the information we have that's best available to us and come uh July and August if there's a huge change in the numbers from what we were told we come back with what we call a 45-day Revis so we would bring that back September 2025 kind of is the culmination of the year that we would that we're in now again like I said I'm kind of in Two Worlds right now utilizing um both things so

079we're going to going to bring the final um un audited actuals which is the final numbers for 2425 we'll turn those into Leo and we'll go right back to the first slide and start all over again thank you thank you so much you're welcome um questions colleagues CL kitfield thank you madam president um thank you for the presentation um and and I know this is the next budget would be the one that you uh are part of the entire thing so I know there's um a little bit of that do you know how far we were off as far as our project where we thought we were going to end uh the last fiscal year to where we actually ended so there there's two areas that I that I saw the estimated actuals is the

080one that's brought forth in June and that's where we would provide you with the number where we think we're going to end and it was it was about $45 million difference than where we did end what how could you explain like that like how does that happen I could I'll I'll explain because at the board meeting they did have they had the estimated actuals which projected kind of one number but then they had like where we really thought we were going to land which was actually a really good accurate number ran stop moving your head man I can't she's jumping around behind you um and so they act the what was brought to the board was kind of a more accurate reflection of what we thought they were really actually close to how the year

081landed and so there was some maybe differences in the way that um budgeting and budget processing was done before the way projections were done before um I have a bit of a different method I'm I'm going to Institute it and we're going to bring it to the board and we're going to get some feedback and see um how it goes um I definitely will only be bringing you one set of numbers for estimated actuals when I come in June it will be my best guess given the information that I have of of where the district's going to land as we close the books okay and I do appreciate because I I do see some changes like even through this process where I I see the effort and we're going in that direction and again I

082understand like you haven't done the full budget um for us yet uh the just for my li it seems like we have a spending problem like what we allocate too much and then where we're allocating it's just not being spent and I think that's one of the biggest concerns from from voices on the board but also in the community is spending this year's money on this year's kids and when we think we're going to be you know that some of those graphs are kind of scary so we kind of pull back on uh spending or approving things but then we have the money it's like no La the last year's kids this year's kids they're the ones who miss out on it so I think that's all of 100% of my concern is going to

083be about that and getting as accurate as possible so we can budget appropriately be good stewards at the money but also make sure we're being as close as possible we can actually spend on this year's kids and I see you making that effort and I really do appreciate it thank you very much do you have more questions that was it sorry anybody else no thank you so much all right moving along to Major action um our first major action is 13.1 legislative action committee appointment do I have any questions or comments from the board I I brought this in um last time we talked about it I felt like it would be good to create a committee a legislative act action committee to look at some of the topics that we're going to be looking

084at in the coast to coast and to just look at Future things that are happening in our government um does anyone have any comments questions clerk Crisfield I just want to say thank you for uh taking the initiative for that committee I think that's something for our district uh that you know has been seen as pretty insular and apart from those things your initiative to engage regionally in the state and nationally to advocate for our kids and all kids I think is uh commendable so thank you thank you anything else all right so do I have a motion to approve item 13.1 so moved can I get a second second roll call please student board member snet I miss Armstrong I miss Centron I Mr critchfield I Mrs Garza I Miss Stewart I all right

085moving along to item 13.2 approval of the public agency Retirement Services pars supplementary retirement plan do we have any questions or comments staff do you have anything on this one I would just like to say that one I'm super jealous cuz all of you people if it approved that's amazing and I thank you guys for your service um being able to retire has got to be amazing I can't wait till I get there but you know we're really excited about the amount of people we're seeing on this and to get a little bonus when you leave and be able to retire I think is amazing so congratulations to all of you guys um that were able to get this incentive anything else all right can I get a motion to approve 13.2 you have that

086motion may I get a second second roll call please student board member snet I miss Armstrong I miss Centron I Mr critchfield I Mrs Garza I Miss Stewart I okay it's official [Applause] congratulations okay so moving along to our consent agenda um I would like to withhold item 14.4 the first read of the board policy for mobile communication devices does anyone have any others that they would like to withhold yes madame president if I could I'd like to withhold uh 14.7 okay and also 21 are there any others all right do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda and withhold items 14.4 14.7 and 14.21 oh so moved sorry I thank you um mooved by uh clerk critchfield second by board member Armstrong call please student board member snet I miss Armstrong I

087miss Centron I Mr critchfield I Mrs Garza I Miss Stewart I all right so moving to our first item 14.4 first read board policy mobile communication devices I go ahead clerk chisi oh sorry sorry 14.4 you're right yeah clerk chrisfield which one is that your mic is on 14.4 is is the first read board policy of the mobile communication devices or cell phone policy did I the wrong one Sor I I put 14.7 your mic is on that's why I'm asking did you have something to add to that one no no I'm sorry I thought I pulled 14.7 you did I was going in the order 14.4 14.7 14 yeah um no no no do you want to start with the different one no no no it's fine okay 14.4 cell phone policy I guess

088I'll talk cuz I was the one that pulled this um I just wanted to pull this basically so that we could have another conversation regarding this cell phone policy I know I'm one that I think disagrees a little bit with this policy I do feel that our students should not have their phones out at recess and lunch and breaks because I see where the Bullying happens and it's then um but we did decide to go forward with this policy what I just want to make sure of and talk about tonight is that and we have a lot of teachers here which is amazing and hopefully people watching is we are deciding to have the cell phone policy where you cannot use your phones in the classroom and what's going to happen I'm a teacher is

089if we don't get buyin from our administrators and all of our teachers it's not going to work so use us as the answer if kids are complaining parents are complaining send them to admin or tell them this is a board policy go talk to the board email the board and we'll take that because we want to see some type of of change and the only way to see change is to actually adhere to this policy and to enforce the policy but we have to have everyone behind this and we're in my mind we're taking an easier route because again if it was me making one decision as one person they wouldn't have them out at all so we're looking at this I just wanted to talk about it to give my colleagues an chance to

090speak on this but we have to have buyin from everybody all campuses and staff we have to have our admin directed to Force this and if teachers are not going to enforce this I'm not all about punitive things but there needs to be something done we all need to enforce this policy um vice president Gara I agree with [Applause] you um I agree with you um president Stuart um I've been on that end on the other end where I did enforce the cell phone policy myself and I was accosted by student because they were not ready to give it up which means to me that no one really enforced it so even as substitutes who are coming onto your campuses they need to know that cell phone policy it needs to be handed to them

091when they come in it probably should be part of those you know binder that they are given that day because anyone who is coming into our campuses to educate our students needs to know that this is something we really are going to uphold um as far as um you know who should parents come talk to I agree with you too this is our policy this is what we're going to do come talk to USU um you know teachers and admin um teachers can just go ahead and talk to your admin and then they can go ahead and hopefully they will also understand that this is what we need our kids need to be able to um be free of a lot of those nuisances that go on sometimes with their phones um and we're hoping

092that this will have a positive impact um we don't want to get to the point where we're saying no phones at all on our campuses at all but I mean that is something that is always there as an option I don't think that any one of us at this point is there but if it needs to come back to us and we need to make a different decision then I think that that's a discussion that the board will have at that time um so superintendent um as o as far as our principles are concerned do they understand um what this policy requires them to do so this is a first read if it's read a second time if there are no changes and it's brought back a second time and is approved then it will

093be reviewed again with principles yes they have access to see it as it is right now but um there's no discussion of how to enforce that or until it's actually approved okay so is that something that you are planning to do in the near future after if this is approved tonight once we have a new board policy approved it'll take two reads so this is the first read yes okay um because I would love to hear what their point of view is maybe they need some supports from us to be able to C carry this out um but that needs to be a conversation that they need to have with you so thank you um just to ask a clarifying question we didn't change anything in this policy correct this is the policy that already

094stands this is a policy that you you've reviewed in the past you've taken a look at this before so this is just the cleaned up version which is why there's no strikethroughs or things like that correct okay thank you cler hfield thank you Madame President um I just want to Echo what my colleagues have already said and I think uh it's something that most of us uh feel um I know a lot of school districts are moving towards a much much more strict policy on cell phones uh I applaud uh this Sport and edmin for doing this work uh you know a a while ago and making sure that we're very thoughtful um and uh having these conversations uh I think it me personally still still very uh uh split on this um the reality

095is is this policy is with a couple exceptions basically the same policy we've always had right but a policy is only as good as uh the uh the follow through uh of the policy teachers and everybody on staff need to know that we have your back admin has your back when it comes to this policy we need that we need to know like that the policy is being followed in order to know if the policy is just not working I know it's incredibly difficult I have to pry phone from my kids hand all the time I can only imagine what you guys go through daily I I know it's really difficult and I know that the the attention that our our kids have the more engaged they are uh the more we reach them the

096less it can be a problem but it's going to take all of us to understand that this is the direction that we're going so we don't have to do uh a more strict policy or some districts are doing the Yonder bags and having no phones on campus at all and we're going to see how that plays out in those uh different districts and maybe that informs our decision later on but as for now uh as much as phones are a problem we just all have to be in it together and really do our best to keep it under control that's all I'll say about that agreed vice president Cara anybody else board member Centron board member Armstrong I've I've already spoken on this you know I'm I'm kind of you know um you know these

097kids they can find a way to get out of everything they know how to break those bags and get the phone out excuse me and um we're here to support the teachers um but we have to really be an example for the teachers we have to make sure that staff and teachers are not on the phone also you know we have to be in this together we have to really make sure that our parents are aware of what we are going to enforce so we won't have parents coming in being irate also so let's just whichever way we move let's be very solid and have all the components in order so that we can really enforce it and support our teachers in this because those kids will lay you out over a phone so so

098that that's all I have to say we we have to do it because we we have to get the kids back focused on on classroom on classroom activities you know and then and and not only that I do know some teachers um in um in the high schools sometimes I I and see and this is why it conflicts me because you know with with AI and you know the the techn everything you can do on the phone a lot of times some teachers will encourage the kids to use the phone because they'll have like some type of lesson on it to where they could I guess whatever lesson they they're going to you know be doing I don't teach High School yall know I do early childhood special education and trust me those kids they

099are are attracted to a phone even those three and four year olds are attracted to a phone they can find it anywhere and so the thing is we just have to we're ready to support we just need to make sure you guys have everything in order and let's just do it right the first time so we won't have to back uh backpedal we need to be very intentional that's all board member San I think for me I go back and forth on this policy because I understand both sides I understand that our kids are very attracted to phones and they could be used as a tool um in the classroom but I also understand that teachers have to battle a lot more things than just a phone usually but things come from usage of a

100phone so I do want to Echo my colleagues and making sure that this is a blanketed policy that's enforced properly um at all our sites with the intention of bringing everybody into the fold and not punitive as uh president um Stuart said but in a way oh I'm sorry did someone say something um but in a way that this policy is not only heard but seen on campuses that is in informed to the parents especially and that our students are given an opportunity to be taught how to have a phone and be responsible in using that phone because I don't think there's any accountability within our student body as well and I'm thinking of our high schoolers but I I know that there are groups of students out there that would encourage and be right

101behind this policy and thrilled about it as well because it does pull away from their academic goals as well when the teacher is distracted trying to handle 10 or 12 other students doing something on the phone so I want to see how this rolls out is more of me I want to know the processes after this gets read and put into practice I want to know what that roll out looks like and I want to know how it's going to be enforced and I don't think it needs to be a one-time thing it has to be um something that we do and reminded of throughout the school year several times so there's my piece thank you vice president Cara yes I did want to ask a couple other questions with the um this policy if

102it does uh get approved for the second reading um what is our thoughts about rolling it out like our board member C Tron was saying um are we going to have it go out to like our our all our staff um um teachers admin support staff uh so that way any everyone knows about this policy um are we giving it out to our students as well and if we are how are we going to do that are we confirming that everyone who is in our school district understands this policy because we can place it in a in a a handbook but how do we confirm that it was read so what I would suggest Miss gar is after this is approved or during that second read process we determine what that roll out period would

103be because you do need to inform staff you do need to set up procedures you do need to inform the students and their families so my suggestion would be that we would have a timeline for that roll out you wouldn't just be able to approve it and expect it in action the following week that's something that you'd need to spend some time on and also just to to put on um maybe on your radar could we benefit could our district benefit from maybe a cell phone education program or maybe something that is done prior or in in um at the same time that we send out this policy maybe best practices at home you know not to tell parents what to do but these are some of the things that we encourage as a school

104district um you know and maybe some data on what happens to kids because it it's not just about the policy I in my opinion um I think that some parents do need to have these facts and have kind of an education on that and even some students they may not realize what is going on because they are the ones you know inside this phone um so some type of education process or just kind of making them aware and making sure that they understand this is for their own good as well as much as possible as much as they can understand that yes I'll make note that's something that we can look into thank you clerk kitfield thank you madam president uh I mean I know we're talking about roll out but this is basically the

105same policy we've always had right so we're we're talking about rolling out the accountability piece and the oversight that is correct this is very similar to what your current policy is okay so there should be no shock Factor as far as like putting it out but how we roll out the communication on hey I know we've had this policy but now we all got to be on the same page there will be a bit of shock Factor because you do see lots of students in the classro that are on their cell phone so this will be an adjustment all right okay I have a question uh Mr surga is it possible we're not changing any of the language do we need a second reading or can we forgo that and just approve this policy and

106start working on the roll out process your mic have a second reading because it would be a agendized is that what you're going to tell me yes I knew it I'm getting good I'm getting good okay anything else all right can I get a go ahead go ahead remember San thank you um I did want to say on the second read if there can be already a suggested plan of roll out to also consider if that's something that we can do during the meeting I have a question like is this something that staff you guys would create and then tell us and we' give input or do you want us to kind of give you guys input or once we get to that second reading how do you guys see it rolling out like is

107it something that you and your cabinet do and then we add in or is it something that you would like us to create I think would what if you don't mind would probably be best would be to work with the sites the high schools especially and the middle schools to talk to them about what would be the most practical feasible way to actually reinstitute this particular policy okay so you would kind of do that and then talk about it and then bring it back to us and then we can add in correct okay okay do you guys have any other questions student board member do you have anything on this I know cell phones are your favorite thing probably uh yes I do see one of my teachers here and um good um cell phones

108is definitely an issue between me and my peers and just my classmates all around us um it I I'm justes wait it won't really apply too much for me because I am graduating but um um I do see where this comes into place and how this could benefit all the students um it's definitely something that students aren't necessarily going to like but um again like having the board like show its benefits I think they'll understand eventually and I think I understand the cell phones but you guys do have Chromebooks so really you want your cell phones for all the extras that you can't do on your Chromebooks being honest right yeah okay thank you you're awesome for being honest um anything else colleagues no I I just have a question as a student and you're

109on campus because I'm not on campus do you do you see um staff you know like teachers and uh instructional staff do you see them on the phone walking around with their phones um I actually don't see as far as my teachers um they usually put their phone down like oh like completely away from them so I think that their like influence on that could probably benefit the students because they're not on their phones either okay so that so so that part we really don't have to worry about yes so so we're already on on on the PA yes okay perfect and I do understand the staff being on the phone but I'm going to tell you as a PE teacher that doesn't carry a walk I love having my phone because I've had to

110call 911 many times so I understand we want to be Role Models but we really want the kids to learn our test scores to go up and I think that's what we're doing focusing on this um anything else all right so can I get a motion to approve 14.4 you have that motion can I get a second second roll call please student board member suet I miss Armstrong I miss Centron I Mr critchfield I Mrs Garza I Miss Stewart I okay all right moving on to um item 14.7 clerk kitfield thank you madam president I was hoping to get more information on this one if I could from staff so this is a resolution for the board that's in accordance with Education Code that would allow the district to release temporary employees um by the

111end of the year upon giving official notice of that Dr Smith are all of these uh Temporaries are there any probes on this no probes uh they're all temporary employees mostly temporary teachers there are are some counselors and there are a couple of uh temporary administrative positions as well okay CL CH so is this a procedural thing that we do every year just well so um my understanding of our prior practice has been that the board my understanding I I'll put it that way um has been that the board hasn't actually acted to do this when it it should according the education code is clear the board May um so this resolution is in alignment with what the law requires for releasing temporary employees okay so so we need uh so this is a in

112in accordance with law this is what we should be doing when releasing these these temporary employees um so we don't we don't need these employees so it's not necessarily a matter of not needing them and no one should read into this resolution or the fact that we're asking the board to consider releasing temporary employees as they're not valued they're not important they're not serving a vital function uh releasing temporary employees is a pretty typical thing that most districts do on an annual basis we've done it on an annual basis just again my understanding of our process is we haven't involved the board my understand standing um but here we are and so essentially one of the major reasons why districts do this um is typically it allows you some flexibility with respect to looking at

113your overall Staffing pictures Staffing picture and numbers also looking at your budget and then also taking a look at what type um why you need these temporary employees to begin with could it also be due to like funding of some of these uh positions like say funding wasn't going to be available for some of these positions you can I think Renee wants to say something you going chairman very good Brad it can be due to funding I was agreeing with that statement sorry absolutely so because we're giving this notice of releasing these it doesn't mean that some of these people might be back right certainly um some of these employees very well may be invited back because there's a continued need there's a um strong enough fund source to maintain the funding for them so

114certainly that can be the case um and for example last year there were a number of temporary employees that were noticed or let they were informed that they might not be returning or they wouldn't be returning and we brought a number of them back based upon need so my only my only concern I I understand the procedure and I applaud you for actually doing it the proper way and bringing it before the board if we haven't done it past practice um but my only concern is that when you let all these people know like uh especially when you have valuable people that you might be how do you retain them how do you do that like do your you know your your process which is you know aligning with the budget and need and I

115get all that but how do you make sure that we're not losing quality people in this process well I'm glad you asked that and that's the most difficult part about having to do this and this is the most difficult part the challenge that comes with having temporary employees on staff usually when people are people are placed on a temporary contract usually the the dialog is you know this is a one-year contract that expires at the end of the year and there's no guarantee that you will return so right up front the fact that somebody's labeled a temporary employee right is kind of you it's gut-wrenching right um I've been a temporary employee I've been a permanent employee that's gotten riff notices every year and then resend it so I have a lot of empathy I

116I've been in those shoes and I know how that feels so there's no great way to do this just to be candid sure but the other component of it is it's better to inform early that this is a possibility and that this could happen and bring somebody back as soon as you know that you're able to then to have a surprise with someone in June right right it's it's just because I've been on the end of that as well where I've had to deliver the news in June that hey you're you're not coming back and there was really not much warning a decision got made on budgeting whatever it may have been and that's even more painful to have to give and so you know one of the things that we've asked principles for example

117as they're talking to their people is let them know you know let obviously let them know that you know this is what is what could happen um give some reassurance that there's some potential that they very well could be asked to return but also that they have to look out for themselves and not necessarily count on that um personally I feel like it's better to do this early and inform early than the other way around yeah and I can appreciate that I've been a limited limited time employee at the college and I I do get it um it I think the main thing is making sure when we're doing this like if there's need um that we're staying on top of that and doing whatever we can to retain the best people but also Mak

118making sure when that categorical funding ends if there was some value that was provided through that categorical funding that we're finding it in other places to make sure that we're uh backstopping those needs so and thank you for sharing that and that process is happening now uh we're working through the Staffing process right now looking at what each of our school sites needs uh need we're also always considering board priorities and board approved plans as part of that um that comes together in that complete picture and so Our intention would be to act as quickly as possible if we can okay I appreciate that thank you um thank you CL chrisfield another challenge that I see is that we have sometimes too many temporary teachers so my question is what are we doing um protocol

119wise or what are we planning in the future or what are we working on to limit the amount of temporary teachers we have because they're really only supposed to be used for certain placeholders and I think sometimes not even just this District sometimes that gets a little abused so what are we doing to not have so many temporary teachers in place well I'm glad that you asked um we've put in place really starting this year because this was a conversation I I car's there um I'm gonna throw your name in here this was a conversation that Carrie and I had early our BTA president excuse me uh had earlier in the year about this being a concern and so one of the things that I did early on was work pretty closely with the rest

120of the HR team to see how many temporary teachers we could convert over and we were able to convert over reclassify I guess you could call it I think a dozen maybe a little more it was more than we've had in many many years which I was pretty happy with so part of our annual review will include early on in September you know once the dust kind of settles maybe even October um you because you get it close to seabeds at that point you really know your budget but um sitting back taking time reviewing going through those things and making sure that we have people that are holding spots as temps for the proper reasons and generally generally speaking the proper reasons are somebody's holding a place for somebody that's ill injured that kind of

121thing unable to work uh categorical funding is obviously directly in the law also there's grant funding things like that that go into that formulation and holding for toas and people that are out of the classroom as well correct depending upon the funding source yes okay um board member sron yeah um just for a point of clarification for those that are here and that are watching so when um the district sends out these notices um when do these people that receive these notices find out if they're able to return or not or they're going to be asked to return or not so we don't have a we don't have a definitive timeline on that I would love to be able to say we would have this pinned down by March 31st I'm not able to give

122that type of specificity so our goal would though would be to work through our staffing process evaluate needs the elcap plays a role in this to a degree as well to a large degree um and to have as much of that taken care of prior to the end of the school year if not sooner okay thank you sorry vice president Gara thank you uh president Stuart um I think you've answered all the questions that I was going to ask but I do want to just clarify for myself what is your our staffing process right now do does it need to be um excuse me updated are we looking at maybe doing away with some of those processes or so that way we can get closer to an accurate amount of temporary teachers so I'm very

123glad that you asked um you know being being pretty new and being new along with Renee you know because Renee is the the budgeting end of this and with my Human Resources team you know and obviously ed services we've been spending a lot of time looking at well what has our approach been and I would say the thing that we've been doing is really taking a look at um what our contractual obligations are and that's why you know we've obviously worked with BTA through the negotiations process um on um on class sizes because ultimately that guides what you do and we've taken a look at all of our school sites and all of their enrollment at least as it sits today to get some initial Staffing projections as to how many PE teachers we would

124need for example um to meet those contractual obligations with respect to Staffing then what folds into that are other pieces like well do we have intervention teachers what other type of things does each site need and then you repeat that over the course of every School site and every School site looks a little bit different and has slightly different needs some of the things that makes that challenging um are declining enrollment small schools uh difficult numbers in a grade level you know that are you know you normally wouldn't put two teachers there but you have to um because you don't have enough to get to that third teacher or or whatever you can't run it with one so all of those things come into place and we do that site by sight by site and

125that process is ongoing right now we're also working through that process with the high school as well any other questions comments all right can I get a motion to approve item 14.7 you got that motion can I get a second I second roll call please student board member suet hi Miss Armstrong I miss Centron I Mr critchfield I Mrs Garza I miss Stuart I all right um our last withheld item is 14.21 award recommendation for RFP um e- rate category clerk Crisfield thank you Madame President um so I just have a question on this and and I do apologize I didn't sent this before so I know you're just getting this so if you need so if you if you need to get back um but uh just I mean it's more about uh we

126had talked about going to Planet bids and I just was hoping because I noticed on this RFP we only had one uh one person respond to it so I think one is it two but one was unresponsive so they responded on responsive I can get down with that I guess um nonresponsive um but like the RFP uh to only get one like how did we put it out there did we really try to get bids was there something different about this one particular and have we are we on planet bids now is that still ongoing okay great questions and again I it's okay I appre I appreciate it I think I can get most of them tonight so that's good um we did it through the normal process which is the two weeks in the

127newspaper and we proceeded with the we have it on our um website so we have it in all the areas required by law and then we followed up with any questions that any of the vendors had um we followed up with any of the questions that the vendors had and then we gave them an opportunity to actually walk the sites to look at it so the two vendors that did come through were the vendors that we got um we are now on planet bids um it's actually on our website so if you're really interested in that there is is a um feature when you go into the fiscal Serv Business Services fiscal Services you'll see a feature on our website that kind of talks where vendors can go onto Planet bids so I'm really happy

128to announce that our first bid that will be running through um Planet bids is going to be for the Mayfair Fields nice and so um it is a good process I think that we um do end up in this case even though that we only had the two we did get a vendor that is very good for the services that were we need in this particular case at a price that is reasonable for what we need and so I'm not disappointed in this one this one couldn't wait we had to because of e- rate funding we have to get this one done done earlier um so that we can apply and qualify for the e- rate funding portion which is what makes it affordable so um I'm not disappointed in how we did this and

129what came about from it but I am looking forward to um utilizing Planet bids for our future bids and um looking forward to sharing more with the board as we learn more great I and I appreciate that and I I don't have uh any concern with this particular uh RFB it was just an opportunity to ask about the planet bit so I'm I'm happy we we're going forward with that and thank you for the work there you're welcome are there any other questions comments all right can I get a motion to approve 14.21 you have motion second roll call please student board member suet i m Armstrong I miss Centron I Mr critchfield I Mrs Garza I Miss Stewart I all right moving along to board Communications can we start with our student board member

130thank you good evening everyone so um as a b flower um we just did have our Renaissance rally week um our spirit days and our rally was inspired by in inside out um with the rain it was like really hard to set up everything but I think this was was a really nice opportunity to share for everyone who had academic achievement we got to announce our valedictorian and Salud atorian for the 2025 school year which again I just want to congratulate jessen Alysa for valedictorian and Eduardo for salutatorian um we ASB showed a lot of appreciation for the people who participated in our games and even gave them prizes for participating voluntarily um um then I recently attended R Across America alongside some other students um the schools we attended were Baxter Ramona Woodruff Washington

131and Ernie pile I had the pleasure of attending my Elementary School Baxter it was really nice to see all my old teachers and um having the opportunity to read to all these little kids um we do spring seasons have started um some of them can be swim baseball softball beach volleyball boys volleyball boys tennis and more um it was the end of the third quarter today which it's very nice to know that school is almost over um um more of this now is just planning for senior events there's not too much for the general school um uh uh again prom theme is getting revealed tomorrow and more there's going to be more setup for prom um again it's more of just um for the seniors to sort of just enjoy their last couple months here

132um senior countdown is starting to come up um people are still getting their acceptances I've gotten a couple of acceptances um but thank you um I got to cowp Pomona um Cal State FL and UC Santa Cruz um I'm still currently waiting for some more for biology um thank you and then um upcoming actually next week uh for the anatomy course we're going to go to the National Science Museum with my teacher Miss mantel but that should be really fun but yeah there's still some more fundraisers and little things to come for bffar but it's more of slow season now thank you thank you barard memb sub um board member Armstrong thank you president uh Stuart um good evening everyone and again thank you for joining us as we carry out the business of the

133board um um I hope you guys adjusted to Daylight Saving Time I'm struggling but it's okay um um I was able to join the management in the the initial unconscious bias training led by Dr Bryant Marx out of Morehouse and I'm looking forward to the remainder of our employees to also receiving this training um I attended the Ser Optimus International of Aria and um Toritos their 31st Annual Monte Carlo Gaya fundraiser that was my that was my first time attending the Gayla and it was fun you know the event was the event was very well put together with with a silent auction and casino style games and a delicious buffet dinner I mean that chicken was good but anyway okay and then um the thing is the S Optimus you guys probably know this but

134for the record they they donate to over a dozen programs locally to help improve the lives of women and girls so I didn't mind contributing to the activities so yeah I I I contributed to the uh to the um some of I didn't do the silent auction but I did one of the other fundraising things so um I've been ill and it it seems that every time every time I think I'm getting well um it something comes something arises again so I'm really trying to um do my best to take my vitamins and take care of myself so that I can be here because I missed the meeting last month I mean a couple weeks ago because we have them two times a month so um so I'm just still trying to find out what

135what is going to work for me to make me healthier um so this month is this month uh the month of March uh we celebrate uh we are I know I am continuing to celebrate women history um all month long we can celebrate all the achievements and uh contributions of women throughout history um it's also uh and this is my field we it's also developmental disabilities awareness month and developmental disabilities is a condition usually diagnosed during a child's development and before adulthood so the developmental disabilities impair several areas of development such as physical learning language or behavior so develop developmental Milestones such as language response to sound walking and following syp simple instructions are just a few milestones in a child's development um so in this month MRA I mean this year MRA fell in

136uh in March so um I especially like to celebrate Migra I really do bring the activities to my three and four year olds and it's amazing I took videos of them dancing to the to thetical music uh music and we had our king cake you know we just we just celebrated they're three three and four year olds you know so anyway I just I just love those celebrations uh and tomorrow is 3:14 y'all know what that is right five days so I got my t-shirt this year I got a t-shirt and I'mma eat some pie so anyway that's a math thing I I don't do math y'all I don't do math I don't do math but I'm going to eat the pie and I'm wearing my t-shirt so I'm a wear so so there are

137many other things that are and have been happening this month so so but anyway me for as for me I'm just trying to stay healthy and um and that's it I can go on and on but I'mma quit before they put a time limit on me y'all want some more am time limits are a Mr critchfield thing not a Miss Stewart thing all right board member Centron um so I was able to attend um the women's leadership and empowerment conference um that Leo put on the Los Angeles County Office of Education this year and I have to say it was a privilege um to be able to go to that conference and attend and be part of the keynote speaker um I think if we can bring in the keynote speaker for some kind of

138development for our teachers or our Administration or both it would be amazing our keynote speaker was just powerful and I I am sure Amy's gonna touch on it um I'm president Stuart um but I have to say it was an all day event it was broken up into different sessions there was musical performances by students which was really really powerful and beautiful um and it also gave us an opportunity to network um especially as a newer uh School Board member the networking is very very important and I'm just going to say this I think one of the platforms that I stood on especially when I was running is to make sure that belflower is no longer insular and that we're able to network with everybody in the region to get the best knowledge and bring

139it back to our district and making our district strong so um that happened and I got to see some of my uh old Leo colleagues which was amazing too um so again I just want to you know thank you for allowing me to attend these conferences and bringing back knowledge and being more aware of the subjects and the topics that matter to teachers administrators Schoolboard members um superintendant there were just so many things going on it was it was really incredible um but I will take a point of privilege and say excuse me um this has been a a knowledged already by the board the staff teachers but my heart goes out to the teachers and the students and the family um from the student this week uh you know my family is tied in

140as a Craig Williams family and a Mayfair family so it really hits close to home so I just want to say my condolence is for me and my family and what an incredible job our Administration has done to support the teachers and students we will continue to support in any which way we can and please take advantage of any services that you might need there is no shame in that there's no Stigma attached to it anymore we are power in numbers and if if your voice needs to be heard let it be heard and that is all for me thank you thank you so much board member cnon clerk crfi thank you Madame President um let me see uh well uh we a few events read Across America is always one of my favorite events

141I was able to go speak at Lindstrom I sat on a whoopy cushion it was great uh uh president Stewart went as well always one of my favorite events we also went to the uh interim superintendent Le saso and I went to lakewood's Legend event where they honored project Shephard which I know she helps out with go rotary um and uh also honored Dave Roa Dennis Lander and then uh the late Kirk reel who is a commissioner volunteer and a longtime educator here in BD so that was great I'm glad we're able to be there to represent um and honor him uh Fair PTSA Reflections uh as always uh president Stewart and I went to that I think it's really important to partner with our PTSA at both of our sites and our in our

142ptas in general um and one of the things we've been talking about is how do we get more involved uh in that and uh one of the ideas that's been floated around is having a uh a uh a film festival contest for our our high schools that's uh this is my first time plugging it in public it's a vision I think it's going to happen in the future and chip away at that um also the uh Lakewood Youth Hall of Fame uh that was another one and Mayfair is a part of that and this is again something uh president Stuart and I have have discussed uh a lot of it's great that we have that event for for our Mayfair students uh I do feel our belflower high students get left out of that equation

143um and I would love to see something in our district where we do something to honor those students just like we do our Mayfair students so you know with the foundation coming up I think that's something that uh again is a vision that maybe uh this board can work on to make happen for those students uh also oh yeah it wouldn't be my board report unless I brought up wrestling but I want to say specifically congrats to our state because it happened after uh the youth Hall of Fame uh we had four wrestlers go to State and compete Pete and uh uh Rihanna eighth place Alyssa pra seventh place and then Kaden CTI third place in state that's huge um so congrats to them congrats to the whole team on April 26 we'll be flying

144to Washington DC to advocate for our students uh District colleagues and and admin uh will be out there um also on the foundation I will say I'm growing more and more excited about that I know uh Chris childis just submitted his application to be on the board as well um he's a brother of Josh childis uh and they do a lot of work in the community so uh I think the group that's coming together to really start that Foundation is going to be a great thing I I'm a big believer in uh not Poetic Justice oh yeah poe just I I I find having those people that are still willing even if they've had bad experiences in The District in the past recognize the change and recognize the efforts that we're making and willing to

145keep giving back to our students so that was a that was a highlight of my week when I met with him so excited about that um and I do want to say uh Happy women's History Month I um I don't know if you've noticed this I'm I am surrounded by amazing women who put in so much work and are and Ryan is surrounded as well and Andrew as well uh we we have an amazing team and I admire all of you whether it's at home with my two daughters and wife or here um I'm always in a of your uh Power your Um passion and your leadership so thank you um in my opinion every day uh is women's History Month which doesn't make sense now that I say it out loud um sometimes you

146got to hear it um and I'm kind of I'm I'm I'm stutter stepping to this last one because my my reaction is going to be uh similar to my uh colleagues um my heart hurts for our students and our and their family and uh I just want to say I'm proud of everybody for coming together and being there for our students and uh um appreciate Miss Alo for the conversations we had after I think it's something that uh uh in a perfect world that nothing like that ever happens um I have a little bit of PTSD from it from my experience last year with my little brother but uh the thought that I couldn't shake is that when that happens there's there's somebody else on our campus right now that is still here that is

147looking for somebody to give them a different way and it's not just necessarily about you know going out for RFP to have a new program to come onto our campus and the needs those needs need to be there we need to provide those but it's everybody that's on campus every day you don't need to be a specialist to see that somebody needs somebody to talk to so I think it's upon all of us uh to do whatever we can and this is a very sad reminder of that but I want to say my condolences and thank you everybody for pulling through and being strong that's all thank you Clark kitfield vice president Gara thank you Madame President um I was able to also go to the um the the rotary um the sopis sorry International

148um Mony carite as well um and uh it was really a nice event it was an event that um like my fellow board member um Armstrong said that it this is the night that they really get a lot of that money for the funding of all these different programs and scholarships that they give out um so it's a really good cause um and we also made our donation as well to that cause ourselves um myself I'm sorry um I also was able to go to the Legends I'm sorry to the Lakewood hall of fame um and it was a wonderful night to celebrate our students there from Mayfair and um all the other surrounding school districts as well um but I agree with our board members that we kind of need to do something for

149our B high school students as well we need to elevate their um accomplishments and how hard they work as well so I'm really looking forward to um seeing something like that come to fruition um in the near future with our foundation um I think we've all kind of said it and um this is a difficult time for B USD um I know we kind of went through this before um and we always hope that it never ever happens again so um our condolences to the family um our support to the staff and um and the administration that has to put all this in place thank you to our District staff for helping our schools um especially Elma I know that you had a big you know part in that um and hopefully that we are

150always talking to our kids as much as we can because um you never know you really never know who you will be able to help by just saying hello or maybe asking how are you doing or you know so teachers please as much as you can I know you already do this and and maybe I'm just you know I'm talking I'm preaching to the choir um but just say hello to someone and see how they're doing and check in with them periodically you know you never know who will benefit from that and maybe we can pass that along to our kids because they are really the ones that know what's going on with them um and they will hear it first so encouraging our students to say something to our Administration maybe perhaps to some

151other teachers maybe that could be a factor as well um but again I think that we're all doing this but continued support in that um thank you so much and have a nice evening thank you vice president Gara all right good evening um I've been super busy the last few weeks I attended the Lakewood Youth Sports Hall of Fame as well congratulations to all the outstanding student athletes and teams that were recognized I attended the Lakewood state of the city with Mrs Oo we had an alliance meeting on February 26 we talked again about climate and culture of our schools I also attended the Leo women's empowerment conference in alhamra with board member Cent Tron she is absolutely right the keynote speaker um her name is Merina and m e r l y n a

152valentine um she was so inspirational she was a principal she was a teacher and she talks about her journey um she got really sick she got sepsis and she had to have both of her legs and her arms amputated and she was told she would never be a principal again and she went back and made that school just even better and she was so inspiring I think just because it was education it showed her fight her spirit um she was amazing so it was a really awesome and inspirational day I also attended at that work at that um um conference I attended a leadership session which was really good and a session on AI presented by Leo um which is again a reminder I know I've talked with Mrs oo about this that we need

153to talk about forming an AI plan and a policy so hopefully we will start to uh talk about that process soon I attended a few read Across America events which I absolutely love I visited Lindstrom and I read to Mrs nishim mudu and Mrs second grade classes which always going to be a tradition I always go there and I love going there and I always have to stop by our TK class with Dr Robinson so thank you to AP Stern for um guiding me through the campus and allowing to me be for me to be a part of your day I visited Washington thank you to miss Royo for allowing me into your world for a little bit I read to a TK special ed class which they're just so adorable I visited um our

154art class which is one of our prop 28 editions teacher is amazing the kids were drawing and it was so great and um we also had um one of our Junior she's a junior at belflower she's our ASP ASB president and she was reading to the kids and I really love how they integrated the the students from the high school in with our elementary kids that was a really cool concept um I also went and I read in one of our best classes it was a fourth through sixth grade best class and I'm still going to plug again that I think we should look at at that for our younger ages cuz it's good program um I attended the fair at Mayfair high school with clerk critchfield thank you so much to Mr Diaz Mr

155Wright and Mrs McDaniels for taking us to see classes I enjoyed the CT CTE classes we visited except for the science class that was dissecting the cats that wasn't cool but um the Middle School classes were amazing so thank you to all of our teachers and staff for what you do and for really putting on a great night even in the rain um Thursday I met with CCA president and representative do we talked about some of our concerns we're still talking and collaborating with with our district but overall it was really well so thank you thank you for meeting with me Monday I attended the PTSA art Reflections at the steam building at Mayfair some of our students are so talented and the art was so beautiful so it was so nice to honor and

156to celebrate them so that was really cool um and a few random things that I just wrote down one it's softball season I'm an ex softball player so good luck softball at mayfer and Bellflower and to our baseball teams as well they're they have amazing teams so I'm excited to watch and see I coach so I don't get to go to a lot of softball games which is sad but I I'm the coach at my school so I have to miss sometimes um today for staff I was trained on using aeds and um I know that was effective in 2019 but I know a lot of districts are still catching up on the Friday memo can I please get um an update of how many we have at each campus and where we are with

157our training and who has been trained to use the aeds that would be great um last I just wanted to speak really quick our board pay was brought up and so I feel like I need to talk about this publicly because a lot of people don't understand how our board pay Works our board pay and all board pay is Ed code and it's based on Ada so a lot of people think we're rich and famous and we're celebrities no we make $240 a month so I just want to put that out publicly so when everyone says how much we make and all the perks we have we make $240 a month so we are very excited and we don't want to sounds selfish and be the ones talking in our own behalf but we are

158very excited that they're looking at a bill and and we learned in this bill that board pay has not been raised in 40 years 40 4 Z so I just wanted to put that out there and just think about the two meetings a month the events the emails the phone calls all of the things that we do it's $240 a month and let me add again before taxes so I just want to put that out there so anybody when we start to write some emails and things if anyone would be willing to you know we want good people on this board so if if anyone's willing please reach out to me we would love to get some emails out to Patrick odonnell from csba they're starting this kind of voyage with us and we love

159that um and then lastly I just want to say I'm I'm so proud to be up here with my colleagues you can see the emotions up here tonight when we talk about children and our kids and we really do care so much about our teachers our our staff our kids um and you can see that in our emotions and I just I wanted to say I'm so proud of you guys like I really really love that all of you guys have ran for this position you have been elected in this position because I do think you have great genuine intentions and I love that about all of you guys so I just want to say thank you and the last thing I just want to say is even as elected officials sometimes we get bullied

160online sometimes people say awful things about us and I just want to reiterate think about the things that you say to people I know that you know we uh board member Centron talked about this but please think about the things you say to people think about the things you write online and maybe read it back and think should I say that should I really bring up people's families or talk about people I just think that maybe people should think about that and if not then I will pray for you and wish you the best of luck but it's not cool to bully people whether it be in person or online so I just want to leave you with that last thought so thank you so much um do we have any question on informational items

161oh um actually I made one mistake that I need to come back to we did um we voted to approve the legislative committee and I just wanted to say that I would like to add board member Garza vice president Garza and board member crvi on that um committee please I didn't say that any any uh questions on information items all right um so unfortunately the board is going to to need to recess back to close session so at this time we will recess back to close session there will be no further action taken in Open Session okay welcome back to open session clerk chville will you please report out on close session the board discussed labor negotiation and no action was taken in Clos session if there is no objection this meeting is adjourned at

1628:59 p.m. until the regular board meeting to be held on March 27th 2025