001good good evening good evening the nbusd board of education is holding a regular virtual board meeting tonight that all can participate in remotely you can join via zoom specific directions on how to participate are located on the board of education webpage on the district's website nbusd.org the open session part of the meeting agenda begins at 7 pm before going into closed session the board is available for public comment on closed session agenda items we don't have anybody in the boardroom yet mr michaels do we have any public comment uh we do not have any public uh comment on closed session items thank you sir seeing that there are none the napa valley unified school district will now adjourn into closed session we will see you at 7. good evening my name is robin jankowitz and
002this is the napa valley unified school district board of education the nbusd board of education is holding a regular board meeting tonight that all can participate remotely via zoom or in person here in the boardroom interpretation in spanish is available for tonight's virtual board meeting our interpreters are isidromenkos and francisco mesa may we have one of the interpreters translate the directions on our english channel so our spanish-speaking families can hear the instructions moments thank you may we please start with an attendance roll call from vera morales executive assistant yes student board member beard present trustee jankowicz present trustee gracia present trusty water present trustee riser present trustee gonzales present trustee shoe present trustee dooley here quarantine thank you thank you very much vera thank you for joining us tonight for our napa valley unified school
003district board meeting public participation this evening and moving forward will be virtual online and in person here in the boardroom directions on how to participate via zoom are available at nvusd.org board we have reconvened and i'm sorry we are a little tardy at 7 14 this evening trustee water do you have anything to report from closed session yes um are you uh e1a expulsions two cases number one the board recommends for the expulsion of student four two one two zero two two a and three [Music] roll call it's a world cup okay so it's your old call it is a roll call okay can we get a roll call vote please yes trustee jankowicz yes trustee gracia hi trustee water hi trustee reiser aye trustee gonzalez mares aye rusty shu hi trustee dooley hi thank
004you and number two the board recommends for the expulsion for student four two one two zero two two b move to expel second by trustee gracias second by trustee dooley roll call vote please trustee jankowicz aye trustee gracia hi trustee water hi trustee reisser aye trustee gonzalez marie hi trustee xu abstain trustee dooley hi thank you thank you vera and in e2a personnel in closed session the board took action to approve the following staff recommendations effective the 2022-23 school year one martha franco to the position of principal at willow elementary two peter hartnack to the position of principal at redwood middle school three cheryl lawton to the position of assistant principal at napa high school and for marianne spitzer to the position of coordinator of special education congratulations to all typically we allow the selected
005candidates to be able to address the board so i'm going to need your help here um jordan um is uh martha franco on zoom tonight the new principal of willow elementary martha would you like to address the board yes i would i don't know if you could see me but can you hear me yes we can yes okay well dr mercedes president gonzalez um board of trustees um student trustees district leadership colleagues and community members i am delighted to be here this evening to be able to formally accept the offer of principal at will elementary it is an honor to be able to return to the school community and staff that i had the privilege of working with before it became will elementary and i look forward to being a part of the amazing work
006that was established there through the arts and instruction and student achievements thank you so much for this wonderful opportunity and i'm sorry i couldn't be present i had to deal with with one of my own at soccer practice but thank you so much for this opportunity congratulations martha um let's say the folks that are online is ms cheryl lawton um on the call yes i am on the call hi welcome slot and welcome to nvusd would you like to address the board yes absolutely thank you so good evening dr massetti president jenkowitz board of trustees student board members district personnel and all the wonderful napa community i really am so excited and thank you so much for the opportunity to serve in the role of assistant principal at napa high so far i've been so
007impressed with everyone i've met there and everyone else at the district office has been absolutely wonderful i really appreciate the warm welcome and i'm looking forward to many successful years serving this amazing napa community of students parents and staff so looking forward to getting started and getting my hands dirty and doing whatever i can i am sorry i couldn't be there in person tonight but i'll see everyone soon thank you very much welcome thank you great thank you um welcome um to the nvusd team miss latin we're very very grateful that you chose nvusd um and online just one more um do we have i'm sorry can you repeat the name here for me i i am i've lost my document thank you miss marianne spritzer is she on the call a new coordinator of
008special education hi yes i mean oh that's awesome that's my fourth ring right there um i'm so happy to be talking to you uh this evening thank you so much for letting me have a second at the board meeting i can't be more excited about joining the napa valley unified school district um you know the interview process is is rather strange and stressful and i have to say that i sincerely enjoyed my interview so thoroughly um with napa valley and all the people in the interview what a great team of people i'm so excited to be working with the special education team under tara lynn rossetti um i think we can do great things and it just feels really good to bring my experience as a teacher and an administrator in special education um to
009napa valley and i've been so impressed by all the great things i've heard about the district and i have friends that have worked in the district are still in the district and they only say great things about the leadership and i'm just uh just beyond excited to be a part of the napa valley team excellent well welcome aboard welcome thank you miss spitzler again for choosing nvusd welcome to the nvusd family and last but certainly not least we have one of our newly appointed principals who's here in the room i'm going to invite mr peter hartnick who's just appointed as the new principal of redwood middle school welcome mr hartnick thank you very much i need a mic but that's okay um one of the things that's really important at redwood middle school and really
010a hallmark of any high quality middle school is the opportunity to create smaller communities to create teams i've had the opportunity to work at many different schools in the valley here um and all of them i've had tremendous relationships which has been really a hallmark of what i've been interested in in my career is making an impact through personal relationships and there's a number of people who now i'm working with in different capacities who i just wanted to thank because i think i would not be in this position without them i think you know working with mike pearson for years at vintage high school as an instructional coach was really a pivotal role for me it really showed me how to be an administrator what to do how to supervise what to how to treat
011children how to treat people with respect i think working with with monica reddy for years as teachers as assistant principals together as co-principals um as um i was once her boss she's now my boss so we've had a lot of different roles you know and i think that's a really important relationship to me as well moving forward and of course mary ann christopherson who's my current uh principal now um who will be working in a director role those teams are really important and having those relationships are critically important and though i've moved around a lot in my career i look forward to serving redwood for many many years to come thank you very much [Applause] congratulations peter all right those are the appointments for this evening president jenkins thank you uh trustee gonzalez morris would
012you like to lead us in the flight salute it would be my pleasure if we can all stand 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 this meeting is live streamed and recorded via zoom and will be archived on the district youtube channel for a detailed review of any meeting agenda the archived video can be referenced and located on the district webpage at nbusd.org the public can join the virtual board meeting remotely via zoom participation instructions and the process for public comment can be found on the district webpage may i please get a motion for approval of the agenda first by trustee gracia second second by trustee dooley all in favor all
013right the agenda is approved we will move on to approval of the minutes there have been some absences so we will go through them approval of minutes for march 17 2022 trustee riser you were not there so may i get a first move to approve second second all in uh first by trustee gracias second by trustee dooley all in favor hi extensions uh i abstain thank you a minute for the 17th approved march 31st student board member bit you were not there so may i please get a motion move to approve first by trustee gracia second second by trustee dooley all in favor extensions epstein thank you very much march 31st approved april 6th trustee gonzalez morris and student board member bit you are absent may i please get a motion first by trustee gracias
014second second by trustee dooley all in favor hi extensions epstein alepstein thank you very much and we are now approved for the six an approval of minutes for april 7th trustee gonzalez morris you are absent first by trustee gracias second second by trustee dooley all in favor all right abstain thank you very much approval of april 7th recognition of visitors and employee our organizations dr missetti yes so we'll start online um i see that uh president leslie walder the president of naps is here can you please promote her mr michaels good evening can you hear me we can okay um good evening president jankowitz members of the board of education student representative bit dr muzetti and members of the nvusd community um i'm leslie walder i'm the president of the knapp's bargaining unit and i'm
015pleased to be here if remotely this evening and i look forward to tonight's meeting thank you for joining us i do not see um i do not see hector from csb or from csea and so we'll go to in person we have president gail young the president of nvea here with us tonight hello board i am so glad to be here so glad to be back in person it's so nice to actually see people in the audience also um it was a great to have a week off i think everybody needed the break it's nice to be back to uh start back into our power through to the end of the year we've got a lot of exciting things happening enjoy the evening okay recognition of students of the month recognition of students of the
016month continues to be generous generously sponsored by the napa valley education foundation so thank you to jennifer stewart we have two high schools presenting this evening vintage high school and american canyon high school and i believe we will be starting with principal o'connor well thank you i uh vintage uh rarely gets to go first i'm so excited all right jordan we have those slides all right so i'll start with our vintage high school board student of the month for the month of january is luis ramirez soto in a way you have already briefly met luis two weeks ago i presented at the board celebration of schools no doubt you enjoyed the rather substantial portion of my presentation the video well that video was filmed edited and otherwise created by luis ramirez soto under the direction
017of his digital multimedia design teacher mr castillo luis is pretty talented right i promise you that what makes louise so special to vintage high school spans far beyond his video editing interests and talents luis has served all all year on the student advisory council for the district as an english language learner who has successfully progressed through our eld program luis's perspective is invaluable in a few moments you will hear about luis's gratitude for the vintage eld staff that serve our amazing eld students it is true that luis has been the recipient of awesome supportive adults additionally his own hard work and dedication to learning english and being academically successful in school is a reflection of who he is and his investment in his own education but what truly impresses me most about luis is that
018as he rises he truly lifts others luis is a bilingual tutor for students who are still in the eld program during the school day he's also a math tutor for our eld tutor program during intervention time twice a week luisa's work with other students in the eld program and in the intervention twice each week is having a remarkable impact on student outcomes at vintage high school he and the handful of other students engaged in this work are changing math grades academic outcomes and lives thank you luis after graduating from vintage this spring luis plans to study graphic design and be a graphic designer in the united states and also plans to be a voice actor in mexico for mexican comedies outgoing service oriented engaging thoughtful luis is truly a star i proudly present to you
019luis ramirez soto hello hi hi everybody wait hi okay can you hear me we can okay thank you uh good evening on the usd board of education superintendent dr muzeti district leaders and educators my name is luis carlos i am a chicano and i'm here thanks to the thanks to the fact that my parents gave me permission to be in the u.s in order to have a better education and improve my self the four educators that i choose tonight are miss claudia mrs mendes mr harley and mr castillo mr harley was my first english teacher since i arrived from mexico he is an eld teacher and i remember that he always support me in my work and projects it made me learn english much easier to this day we still see each other not very
020often but sometimes every time i see him he greets me with a smile and worries about me of how i'm doing in my new classes mr castillo is my digital media teacher it is a class in which we learn to do a bit of graphic design to use photoshop and adobe premiere since last year during the the pandemic i had his class and it was something that personally changed my perspective a lot and made me want to focus more on the subject of design photography and video editing among other things he's he's a teacher who allows me to use my creativity to the fullest and has given me many opportunities such as working with the napa valley district and having my adobe photoshop certification mrs mendes was my translator from my first day at school
021she helped me in most of my classes world history in english unfortunately i'm not with her in my classes because you know i i'm more advanced but we're still seeing each other in world history where i work as a bilingual tutor and we see each other sometimes in the math classroom finally and i think one of the most important is miss claudia she has helped me whenever i had jobs with my grades or has helped me know what to do or how to find solutions to different types of problems at school she gave me many opportunities here on the binge high school campus such as being in student council and tutoring for math for those eld students who just came to america i think that without her i could not be where i am right
022now or he will be having more difficult thank you again so much for choosing me for me it's a honor to be here representing my latin and chicano part and i hope you enjoy the rest of your night thank you very much [Applause] all right so uh right our second board student of the month for the month of february is meredith fishletter to say that meredith is a stellar student would be putting it lightly as i reviewed her transcript it seems she has taken just about every ap and honors course at vintage and earned an a in every single one her academic passions clearly lie in the stem fields this is obvious as you review her academic record but also as you just sit down and engage with meredith about what's on her mind and
023where she's investing her energy meredith meredith's academic accomplishments and interests are one of the reasons that she has been admitted to and i hear as of yesterday decided to attend nyu in the fall with a focus in biochemical engineering in addition to her academic pursuits meredith has been involved in a variety of clubs during her four years at vintage her favorite being the ceramics club that supported her in ap 3d studio art ceramics and art and actually as it turns out also baking apparently she bakes everything from macaroons to breads to cakes to pies has always been a creative outlet for her otherwise math and science focused mind during her junior year meredith served her vintage community as an avid tutor for which we are always grateful meredith meredith says that she will miss the
024nature of our student body a close-knit community where students are supported and adults are always around helping out knowing meredith i am sure she will find and cultivate community within her new nyu home in the fall although we will miss her for sure i am so excited for your future we are so proud of you meredith and now i present to you meredith fishletter hi can everyone hear me yep you're good okay uh good evening musd board of education superintendent dr new study district members and educators i am truly honored to be a part of just a handful of students who receive the board student of the month award and although my hard work and diligence is just one of the reasons as to why i am here today i can say with absolute certainty
025that without the support and encouragement from my friends family teachers and other nbc faculty members i would not be nearly as successful and accomplished tonight i have picked three nvusd staff members whose guidance in teaching have led have been a vital aspect to my academic career and my journey to a higher education i'd like to start by thanking my chemistry teacher mrs castellazo before her class during sophomore year i had never been exposed to a chemistry class i knew going into this class i wanted to pursue a career in stem but she further enlightened me on the endless possibilities within science and further strengthened my passion and motivation to work for this reality her class and teaching expanded my interest in chemistry and thus led me to pursue a career in a biochemical setting where
026i plan to explore the possibilities and opportunities in medicine additionally the support she's given me throughout the three years i've known her is unparalleled when compared to the majority of my other teachers she is just one of the very few who have inspired me to reach as far as i could and helped ground me when i needed it she has forever changed my love and passion for science and the experience gained in her class continues to inspire and motivate me day-to-day within my day-to-day life another teacher whose support has been a contributing factor to my success in high school is my math teacher mr merkner being someone who has loved math and science for a large portion of my life mr merkner's class revived this interest in the years leading up to his class i
027have felt lost and defeated in math not only was he able to motivate and re-inspire me but he was able to do so through the challenges posed by distance learning mr markner has been similar i have grown to trust at school and someone who is always willing to humor the random questions and discussion points i may have during class throughout his teaching and impact within my academic career he has further further verified my interest in engineering and indirectly helped me see that that is the career i'm fit for i owe him a lot of my academic academic confidence to mr mertner and his teaching through which i have learned how to learn and be confident in my ability to understand the material i've been taught the last person i would like to highlight is my
028counselor mrs watkins she has been a keystone aspect to my success during my time at vintage and without her i would not be anywhere near as successful and academically confident as i am today she's encouraged me to be thick and thin and when i couldn't be confident myself she was confident for me she listened when i struggled and guided me through times of uncertainty or unclarity she brought needed perspective into my life when i was too blinded by my own goals of perfection she helped to keep me grounded insane throughout my four years at vintage and when the time came to think about college she only encouraged me further to reach my fullest potential her support has been a fundamental part of my academic career and building who i am today without her influence in
029my life i can say with confidence that i would not be here today to accept this honor thank you again nbosd board of education dr nisetti and district leaders for choosing me as one of the board students of the month i have worked extremely hard throughout my time in school and being given the chance to say thank you for such a distinguished opportunity is truly an honor however none of this would have been possible without the support and encouragement of my friends family teachers and other nvoc staff members who've largely been a part of my academic journey now we welcome our students from american canyon high school and principal lopez good evening we have our slide for our first student from american canyon thank you our first student marielle elise manio she was nominated by
030miss vu and marielle um is an extraordinary young lady passion love for others and spurred her joy and spunk to everyone she meets she adds so much to every club organization and community that she's in and leads with compassion dedicating countless hours to making our school and community a better place marielle is currently serving as our key club president where she leads weekly officer and member meetings empowers her officer board with information and tools to become strong leaders and connects with other clubs in our division to share ideas and collaborate she also looks for or creates social service and fundraising opportunities for our members to participate due to the strength of her leadership our club has set new records such as accumulative 5141 community service hours served by our 73 members and thirty six dollars
031fundraised for our preferred charity called the pediatric trauma program which aims to prevent injury or trauma to children ensuring that all children live happy healthy and safe lives at the district convention her club was recognized as a distinguished club of the district due to her leadership marielle also serves as one of the spirit coordinators in our division where she connects with 13 other high schools in our division to make key club a fun and spirited place where members feel connected to one another and their vision shared of serving their communities besides her role in the key club marielle also serves as the president of our school's board games club called tabletops club as the president marielle has made it a welcoming space for all students to come together to play face-to-face games such as board
032games card games and role-playing games such as dungeons and dragons and she takes such joy in setting up campaigns for the members as their dungeon master she along with the other officers put on game nights that are open to the whole entire school where students can come together to enjoy food have fun and make friends marielle is also an enthusiastic link crew leader who goes above and beyond her responsibilities besides leading orientation and visiting the freshmen in their classes once a month to share lessons with their students marielle attends all the planning meetings to plan activities and events for the freshmen to ensure their connectivity to the school along with others she's helped plan and execute events such as freshman kickback movie night freshman squid games gingerbread decorating contest and is currently planning a paint
033party night to allow freshmen to share their creativity beside being a strong leader in all those capacities marielle just shines wherever she is at and makes the room lighter and happier she enjoys singing and is a part of our school's chamber choir loves to perform and won the poetry out loud competition her freshman year she's an advocate for those who struggle with mental health and stands up for those who are in the lgbtq community she is truly a great human being congratulate congratulations marielle hello can you hear me we can welcome all right okay um hello everyone my name is marielle mano and i am a senior at american canyon high school i would first like to start out by saying thank you to the superintendent and the board for considering me for this opportunity
034i really appreciate it honestly if my younger self heard that i was nominated for this she wouldn't have believed me when i was younger i didn't believe in myself at all i magnified every fly i had and felt unwanted in my community because who likes the weird kid anyway i remember always wandering the playground alone barely interacting with anyone because i was afraid of failure and rejection i still am but then middle school came and i found friends that would change my life there were two different groups i credit my upperclassmen friends especially for helping me break out of my shell they befriended me despite me being younger with welcoming supportive arms they are alumni now many in colleges far away but i will always remember them without them i wouldn't have such confidence today
035and then there's the group of friends that are the same age as me have grown up with me and will eventually walk the stage with me friends that share the same interests as me we were all and still are weird kids but these weird kids found other weird kids they're practically my second family now thanks to them i have a home and it's not just my friends i thank the communities i'm involved with at school because they have truly shaped my identity key club tabletops creative writing club link crew and chamber choir these groups have especially made the senior year extraordinary thanks to them i have learned to be a leader and have eventually taken up a leadership role in all of these groups something my younger self would never dream of and of course
036there are the adults in my life my teachers especially miss vue and mr butler who's my choir director who truly saw me for who i am and nurtured me in my educational path and of course my family my older brothers and my mom were there with me through it all i still have my insecurities but they don't scream in my ears anymore and that weird kid part of me is still there but instead of being hidden away it is embraced today i accept this student of the month nomination in honor of everyone i have ever loved they have made me into a mosaic of their love and nurture even though it's misshapen and non-uniform it's still a beautiful collage of colors so again thank you so much i am truly grateful for this nomination thank
037you thank you marielle and you're not a weird kid you're our kid and we love all of you and we have our second nominated student a month uh beza mesfin beza was nominated by her leadership teacher miss hayes and her counselor miss zemed beza is a delightful young woman who is highly respected by peers and faculty alike in addition to her academic strengths she is also highly involved in extracurricular activities and a valued member of the american canyon community as seen in the various organizations that she is a part of and more significantly the relationships she maintains within them currently bezos serves as the asb vice president and has been involved in achs leadership since her freshman year a role that she takes seriously and with immense pride she was the class of 2022's vice
038president in both her sophomore and junior years during which she ran the class social media account planned and promoted events and fundraisers and encouraged all students to get involved in school extracurricular activities beza is also the co-founder and treasurer of the achs women in stem club where she helps lead weekly zooms does outreach to local elementary and middle schools in order to get them involved in stem events and finds current leaders in the stem world to guests share their own personal stories in order to encourage and inspire young women to not shy away from careers in the field additionally beza is a member of the mu alpha theta at math honor society the national honor society the science national honor society the medical club the napa schools for climate action coalition as well as participated
039on the cheers team for three years it is no surprise that beza is slated to be a valedictorian of her class of 410 student an honor she has her earn all on her own congratulations space oh might i mention [Music] she's one of our only students who's so excited crystal your internet is going in and out principal lopez pardon me oh i'm sorry about that okay could you repeat just the last step yes principal lopez we can bring the student on now thank you from principal lopez for the introduction and thank you superintendent and the board for this honor my name is beza and i'm a senior at american canyon high school i'm truly grateful that throughout my time at achs i've had teachers who believed in me and what i could accomplish i would
040like to make a special shout out to miss harris who has been my leadership teacher for the past four years and has fostered my growth every step of the way stepping into her classroom as a freshman i was in awe at the students surrounding me who are natural leaders eager to serve their community although i was new to this school back then miss harris and my peers pushed me to take on leadership roles that challenged me to develop skills of flexibility collaboration and initiative thank you ms harris for seeing something in me and allowing me this space to grow i continue to live by the lessons i've learned in leadership and i will treasure our relationship even after the end of high school i would also like to highlight mr ike mr atkinson miss med
041and my family and friends whose words of encouragement have uplifted me and whose support has meant so much to me throughout my academic career all my pursuits have in common and enthusiasm to learn and discover ways i can better my community through my roles as student body vice president president of women and stem club and treasurer of both myalpha theta and science national honor society i'm able to not only interact with my interests on a deeper level but also to create an environment that is welcoming of other students to pursue their passions as well in this time of great division we've experienced during and after quarantine i find great pleasure in being a part of a driving force at my school that encourages our unity i hope to continue my community outreach in the future
042at ucla as a biochemistry major i enjoyed speaking to you all and i thank you again for this recognition thank you thank you basa i apologize for that i was on the network that's for the back of the house so it was disconnecting and she shared that she got into ucla so that was what we wanted to share that's fantastic once again congratulations to all of our deserving students okay public comments on non-agenda items members of the audience may address the board on any school related matter that is not on the agenda the board will not take action on any issue raised during this section of the agenda in as much as board action is limited to post posted agenda items speakers are requested to limit their comments to a maximum of three minutes all
043of the cards i have here are on agendized items so mr michaels do we have any public comment on non-agenda items uh yes we do uh first speaker is norma ortiz uh go ahead please hello welcome ms ortiz we can hear you hi thank you hello good evening congratulations to our now appointed effect of 2022 and moving forward bilingual staff spanish speakers redwood middle school principal mr peter hartneck and willow elementary principal miss martha franco as a redwood middle school parent i would like to continue to see the following principal qualities effective communication empathy excellent people skills visibility and connection with alumni parents and staff innovation and quality of programs and services that adequately promotes critical thinking skills to ensure college and career ready readiness for all of our students on the other hand as
044a parent we deserve appropriate d lac wested trainings to better support our roles as representatives in all contexts as a d-like parent member including what other parents have voiced in this respect and who are holding a role as observed in several dlac meeting recordings would like this item to be considered in the near future to better support such positions in the best interest of the education of our students i recently attended the one pill can kill fentanyl poisoning awareness free community virtual town hall hosted today at 6 pm it was very informative in this note i would like to see that our district continues to support all efforts to raise awareness related to poisoning and fentanyl intoxication deaths deaths which according to their data have increased early detection and prevent prevention in our schools and
045in the community as part of our health and safety priorities as a district of course age-appropriate information related to these top important topics recognizing overdose i learned about the topic of implied malice murder youth mental health discussion groups and prevention community campaigns in this topic are crucial just like recognizing dangers and warning signs diverse presentations and booster boosting confidence in um to all our students thank you for considering um these topics michael's doing the additional public comment uh there's no further uh public comment trustee water did we have any public comment on non-agenda items received via email at publiccommon mbusd.org we did not thank you very much board of education and student board representative reports student board member bit would you like to start us off this evening yes please okay so first things first
046happy early earth day everybody um i wanted to start off by saying congratulations to all the students of the month it's always really inspiring to hear and learn from my peers who are doing so many great things for our community and our society at large but special congratulations to beza mesfin as she's been one of my closest friends since kindergarten and i her i feel like her leadership in pure courts and her work in unifying our school's community emerging from the pandemic are just a couple of the things that she's done in the past four years and i'm just so proud of her and all that she's accomplished on another note on wednesday april 6th i had the opportunity to present to the saint helena active transportation and sustainability committee they were interested in hearing
047about the student-led gas station initiatives that have been taking place in our county and just how st helena can get more involved in climate action from a transportation standpoint um so that was a very fun presentation and i'm excited to see what happens moving forward and i also wanted to mention that tomorrow in honor of earth day napa schools for climate action is launching our second annual our futures and your hands climate contest it's a contest that we invite all high school students in napa county to participate in um and our theme of the year is current world events and actually some of the student of the months were finalists in the contest last year so that was a nice connection but that concludes my report for today thank you very much trustee dooley thank
048you um it's been a month since our last uh business meeting in the last report and i haven't actually aside from the special meetings which we've had quite a few since then i haven't had a lot of district work it makes it sound like i haven't been doing a lot which i know kind of personally and as a on a kind of stress level i know not to be true but um i don't have much anything to report we've had plenty of special meetings to take up your time trustee so i'm actually on the opposite end of the spectrum um i attended the equity and inclusivity council meeting thank you to miss jessica rennie and miss nancy nord kanagi for inviting me um i went to that was on the 24th of march on march
04930th i attended the american canyon nights out night that was put on by achs leadership class thank you to um our board rep our student board emily bit for being one of the coordinators of that it was a great event i think all of american canyon was out on the quad of achs that day that night um i then attended of the vintage high school mamma mia production with a couple of my fellow trustees on the 1st of april um also attended coffee with the superintendent at achs on the 5th and then that night also attended the elac meeting for acms achs had a facilities tour of acms and donaldson way on the 6th along with trustees riser and gracia and i attended the achs site visit with dr masetti on the 7th along with
050a coffee with principal battellier at acms on the 8th i had the pleasure of being at the canyon oaks elementary school new digital marquee ribbon cutting ceremony and thank you to kenyon oaks pto for fundraising for that beautiful sign that now illuminates one of our great schools and last night i attended acms open house which is great to be on campus and um feedback from all the teachers were that they were very happy to be in person so that concludes my report thank you very much trustee gonzalez morris yeah good evening everybody um i um couldn't attend a couple of the meetings but i certainly tried to make that up with kicking off my um site visits to many of the schools and i decided to start with the schools that presented at the um
051celebrations um meetings that that we had earlier and so i want to thank principal jordan for his time with a napa valley adult education just very inspiring to see all the great work that's happening there with many of the career paths and so um we dove into that and i and and i appreciate his time walking me through all of that i also want to thank principal perkins for a tour in willow uh school and um and i also um had a chance to um to meet to now our soon-to-be principal at willow uh with principal frankl at harvest middle school and um it was important for me to uh step into it to that campus and connect with uh with her as we took a walk around the campus um and i also want
052to thank uh thank uh principal cole um for uh having me walk through memory lane at silverado middle school i bet i actually um um met um and she will always be miss garcia to me she married and now has a different last name but um those uh individuals that change your life right and she was definitely one of those uh miss garcia um was a connector and she would follow up and and um just really was was a true um it was really special for me to come full circle in a way as a school board member to to see her there and uh so i really appreciated that very much but um and i got to see um just take our uh gracias uh daughter in action in one of the classrooms so
053uh and um i also attended uh at redwood uh middle school with uh principal uh christopherson with uh coffee with the superintendent and uh just looking forward to my um ongoing site visits to the other schools yes thank you um let's see not a ton to report on april 1st i really enjoyed uh the performance of vintage high school's mamma mia the musical um appended with trusty 2 and water and that was a great show april 5th was the american canyon 2x2 committee uh meeting and uh let's see oh april six the um i enjoyed a facilities tour with trustees chu and gracia we uh we looked around donaldson way and then also had a really exciting sort of uh peek at the really impressive action of the construction of the acms student commons and
054it was my first time ever wearing a hard hat and an orange safety vest so that put that one in the books and then um i also attended the canyon oaks elementary school dedication of their electric sign their their digital marquee and it was just really inspiring and and neat to see the parents gathering to celebrate you know what what a really impressive um contribution that they made to the school um through their fundraising so thank you special shout out to the canyon oaks pto for our former treasurers now our fellow trustee uh two um and that concludes my report thank you trustee riser trustee water well yes uh as you have heard i went to see mamma mia which was absolutely great with a couple of show-stopping scenes and uh i also went to
055the napa county office of education meeting that was uh riveting and i went to um i went to uh coffee with the superintendent yesterday and uh over spring break i you know revisited my roots and flew to charleston west virginia so that was my vacation thank you trustee gracia yes on the fifth i attended coffee with the superintendent at american canyon high school and then on the sixth that has been mentioned i toured donaldson way elementary and observed the new construction happening at american canyon middle school for the student commons it's looking quite impressive uh on the 8th i attended the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new marquis at canyon oaks elementary and then on the 19th uh another coffee with the superintendent at redwood middle school thank you very much i too enjoyed the dvhs
056production of mamma mia i do want to just take a moment to acknowledge the celebration of schools um that a board meeting special board we had we had the privilege of hearing seven schools present during that board meeting and it's it's always an honor to hear you know the from the actual school sites you know celebrating their work so i thoroughly enjoyed that um i too went to a coffee at uh redwood middle school probably the superintendent and i was invited to a here and now luncheon of retired teachers that had taught at westwood elementary school before before it converted to mbla and they wanted to share kind of the transition of how they saw it it was it was quite fascinating the world of education has changed dramatically in 35 years so thank you
057um report special education community advisory committee yes uh we met on let's see back um on the 21st of march and we mainly review the mbusd lcap and city of american canyon um that meeting we met on the 5th of april and we just continued discussions on property thank you city of napa we have not met and town of yachtville it's been nearly 15 months since last we met thank you very much trustee gracia and now dr masetti great thank you president janquitz i'm actually going to go a little bit and reverse order from what we typically do i'm going to start with the assistant superintendents tonight so i am going to start off with um assistant superintendent mike pearson um who is our assistant superintendent of operational services i am honored i get to
058go first today this is awesome thank you a doctor welcome mr pearce i'm usually last so good evening president jankowicz nbc board of education trustees uh dr missetti student board representative emily bit and mbsd community uh thank you for the opportunity to provide you with an update of operational services in food service i'd like to share that that nosh has had its highest monthly revenue for the 21 20 1 22 school year the month of march food service revenue providing breakfast and lunch to mbsd students exceeded 865 000 which is a tremendous amount again i'd like to thank the director of food service kristen teaco and the entire food service department for their leadership ensuring the demand for student meals is met every day in addition the food service department was recently awarded a 325
059000 grant from the california department of education for kitchen infrastructure and training funds these funds are intended to increase access to fresh nutritious meals by upgrading kitchen equipment and or training staff on promoting nutritious meals nachos was also recently at the napa farmers market on saturday april 2nd promoting nosh along with offering the community to make free tea bags with locally sourced herbs from harvest middle school garden thank you to rosie mendoza joe aurora karen fleming and kristin teakel for representing mbst nosh finally the week of may 2nd through 6th is school lunch hero week and friday may 6 is celebrating all mvsd food service employees during the school lunch heroes so please consider acknowledging one or more of our fantastic hard-working food service employees during this time period thank you the transportation department is
060busy setting routes bus routes for the 22-23 school year including the new bus routes to serve students from harvest middle school who will be attending redwood silverado and or unidos middle school and also on tuesday april 26 next tuesday is school bus driver appreciation day again please consider giving a shout out to one or more of our dedicated transportation employees i'm also excited to announce that later tonight the board of education will take action on recommendation to report to approve four new members to our measure h citizens bond oversight committee we've been actively seeking new members since several our current committee members will be terming out in november of 2022. it's encouraging that there are committee members willing to serve on this very important volunteer and i'll stress volunteer committee as a side note nvsd
061is always looking for additional members to serve on the measure h citizens bond oversight committee if you're interested in your and you're listening tonight please learn you can learn more about the committee by visiting the school district website and clicking on the measure h tab on the bottom right hand of the of the web page and lastly on may 4th and that's not like may 4th be with you but may 4th at 5 30 pm school planning and construction will be hosting the grand opening of napa junction elementary school that we would hoped to done a long time ago but we will be doing that again that's on may 4th at 5 30 and this concludes my report tonight thank you thank you so much mr pearson i will now proceed with assistant superintendent pat
062andrew jennings who oversees the instructional services division good evening president jenkins board trustees student representative dr masati and the nbsd community right before spring break our interview usd student advisory council after working with dr victorio since january presented information to district leaders on the needs and experiences of our students the students eloquently shared about how mental health issues over the past few years have impacted their learning they commented on hard it is sometimes to access a counselor they also provided some suggestions on how we can increase their connection with each other and the adults at school through grade level of team building activities as well as offering time during the school day district leaders listened and learned from our students to assist with planning the lpap and learning supports for next year we are also
063listening and learning from our students from our elementary students as we make progress on the development of the tk8 pilot programs at browns valley and sheer current fifth grade students at browns valley and current fifth and sixth grade students at shear were led through an input gathering session regarding their hopes for their middle school years a theme emerged across both sides with students wanting to hold on to some of the traditions of elementary school while building opportunities for developing independence connection and leadership both schools also also hosted visioning sessions with parents who shared what they are seeking in the program as we develop a vision for the ideal graduate from both browns valley and cheer to assist with the transition of students in our middle schools american canyon redwood and silverado middle schools welcomed their
064new families on wednesday april 20th students and families met school staff and toured the school with student leaders it was a beautiful evening as students staff and families gathered at their new campuses to learn about their school community build connections and learn about and learn all learn about all that nvusd middle schools have to offer and that and where we ensure that students strive where we ensure that students thrive socially emotionally and academically we are looking forward to unidos middle schools welcome night on may 17 and more student transition events in may as we seek to support students in their transition to middle school which is a key aspect of board priority number one around the middle school redesign and lastly our nwosd elementary summer programs currently have over 1600 preliminary registrations completed with more
065families signing up every day targeted in-person recruitment and registration sessions are taking place for families who may need additional support with navigating the registration process we are eagerly awaiting the start of our engaging and robust summer programs in june thank you that concludes my report assistant superintendent rob manguala who oversees business services good evening thank you for the opportunity to update the board and the community this is the busiest time of year for the business office the team is preparing for the interim audit visit which will occur the week of may 9th calculating our p2 ada for the current year and collaborating with sites and departments to build a budget for the next year the enrollment team continues to assist families with school registrations for 2022-23 review of inter-district transfer requests are underway as as
066we welcome and encourage out-of-district families to join nbusd the technology department has been hard at work on our network upgrade project improving the network hardware and infrastructure at all of our school sites with eight sites already having been completed we have deployed over four thousand chromebooks to secondary school sites to support state testing and cycle out older non-compliant devices and continue to provide our staff and students with world-class tech support to keep our mini systems running smoothly the data and assessment department is busy supporting sites with spring state testing we are well on our way to testing nearly 3 600 students on the lpac exam and sites are beginning casp testing this week after nearly three years without it due to the coga pandemic this concludes my report thank you mr manguala and next we'll
067hear from assistant superintendent dana page who oversees the human resources division thank you good evening president jankowitz board of trustees dr masetti and student board representative bit well it's april and we are knee-deep in hiring for next school year i was very excited about all of our appointments this evening and especially our two principal appointments which you've heard earlier mr peter hartneck at redwood middle school and ms martha franco at willow elementary we currently have four other principal positions open and in various stages in our process and like other school districts it has been more challenging than ever to find great applicants but we have continued to keep our standards very high and we won't stop until we find the very best for nvusd even if we have to post and repost so i want
068to thank my recruiting team elizabeth gonzalez gina de luca mary jarecki who have been in overdrive with all of these postings and and and really getting out there and trying to find great applicants i also want to thank matt manning and monica reddy the hiring managers for elementary and secondary leadership positions and all of the panelists from the various schools who have given their input and helped us assess the candidates throughout our process we include a lot of stakeholders specifically certificated and classified site team members students parents community members and district leaders we do this through focus groups digital surveys in english and spanish and diverse representation on at least two different panels our process is very comprehensive and it has helped us find and promote some great managers i'm also happy to report that
069since our last board meeting we have placed all of the teachers from river and harvest middle schools into new assignments for next year i want to thank them for their patience and trust as we work through the seniority list i think overall people landed in spots that they're happy about and we can now look forward to next year i really need to thank roseanne crandall from my office who made numerous numerous phone calls and emails to make all that happen and finally we have two staff spotlights which went in our all divisions newsletter uh newsletter recently and it can be found archived on our district website so first was sarah mendes and sarah got a shout out earlier from the student of the month luis ramirez soto sarah mendes was nominated by staff of vintage
070high school for her incredible work with english language learners as a bilingual instructional assistant during distance learning last year she zoomed into eld and sheltered classes and translated into spanish what each teacher was saying for six periods a day she is well respected by the students and is a positive role model for each of them we also featured gloria maravilla the family and community-minded liaison with a long history of service at napa valley language academy in fact gloria got her start volunteering as a junior and senior when she was in high school back when nbla was westwood today she describes her work as heartwork and she enjoys knowing that she makes a difference for families in need we're so lucky to have both of these amazing employees and this inclu this concludes my report thank
071you mage i'm gonna go ahead and do mine um so good evening nbusd trustee staff families and community i hope that everyone had a wonderful joyful and restful spring break i know it was much needed and well deserved i spent the week with my family and took my first real vacation after nearly two years so i was grateful to have the time as we approach the last stretch of the 2021-2022 school year i want to thank all of the parents who've attended the first two coffees with the superintendent the events that were hosted at american canyon high school and redwood middle school mentioned by some of the trustees thank you to the prince to principals lopez and christopherson for hosting it's been great to have these informal intimate conversations with parents to hear what is
072top of mind for them it's just been phenomenal getting in the room with people again thank you to the trustees again who've also been able to join me i think making connections in these smaller contexts with our nvusd parents presents a great opportunity to listen and learn from our parents and community members we have three more coffees with the superintendent sessions on the calendar in the next month and we'll see you at browns valley sheer and silverado and they're open to any parents across the district they don't have to be parents from those respective schools in addition to these more informal community engagement events i also would like to announce that our annual state of the district event is scheduled finally in person uh for wednesday may 18th at 9 00 a.m we're excited again
073to finally get to have this event in person at napa at the napa high school gym while also providing a live stream option for virtual attendants which will be open to to the public so stay tuned for more details regarding this larger scale community event where we plan to communicate and celebrate our progress on the district's strategic plan while also sharing our vision for continuing to move the district forward as we create an educational system focused on excellence and equity for all students i'm also really excited tonight it just went out in our family newsletter i know this has been sort of long awaited by many knowing that there were transitions in the horizon around our start times for the 22-23 school year so nvusd elementary schools will all have an aligned start and end
074time which is not has not historically been the case different schools have had different start and end times at the elementary level this change will provide consistency for families and allow for more streamlined transportation of students middle with middle schools and high schools um also aligning start times families with students at the multiple levels elementary middle and high will have space between drop-off time so all students can arrive safely and on time for school so the start and end times i'll just announce them tonight again our families will receive this in the family newsletter this that went out this evening transitional kindergarten and first through fifth grade will have an 805 start time and um that will also include the sixth seventh graders that are at sheer and the sixth graders that are at browns
075valley nrka pilot at rka pilot school so 805 start time middle schools will be starting at 8 25 in next year and our high schools will actually be starting at 8 35. so um i want to just commend this has been an extraordinary amount of work between transportation instructional services working with nvea so thank you human resource thanks to everyone who's made contributions to getting those start times ready for the 22-23 school year i'm also very excited super excited about this to share about a new series that i asked our communications team to develop called this is for you trustee water meet the graduates this new series will highlight the positive stories of college attainment in our district this has been a long-standing request of trustee cindy water i think she's been requesting this and
076actually took care of it herself before she was a board member as a member of the public is that right trustee water yes so to celebrate the achievements and future plans of graduating seniors we're launching this new series of short stories about this year's class of 2022 graduates and we have our first one featured in our news our parent newsletter that went out tonight also will be on nvusd news on our website and we are celebrating asking you to meet the american canyon high school graduate kyla martin now next year kyla will be attending howard university in washington d.c she's excited about the opportunity at howard to network and pursue all of her career opportunities and dreams her goal is to one day build up and market her own business this is just one example
077of these exceptional stories we heard them tonight too and with our students of the month the stories of our students success are the best stories for us to tell as an organization um so lastly why i wanted to go last tonight i have some very sad news to share with our community nvusd lost an amazing educator to breast cancer yesterday aaron soper first grade teacher at willow elementary passed away yesterday after a battle with breast cancer erin was an amazing elementary educator she worked for 16 years from 1997 to 2013 at mcpherson elementary and from 2013 to the present nine years combined at what was el centro and then evolved into the amazing school focused on artful learning willow elementary she was an integral member of the willow community loved and respected by her colleagues
078the students and families of the willow community and really as an nvusd staff member at large the soper family is an nvusd family her husband john teaches at browns valley so we know the bv community is also grieving this loss and feeling the pain our condolences to the family during my own battle with breast cancer aaron was an angel who sent me kind compassionate and encouraging messages of sisterhood and support on behalf of the napa valley unified school district i want to let the sopra family know that they are in our thoughts and prayers president janquitz i would request that we take a moment of silence in honor of aaron in recognition of the impact her meaningful life has had on so many here in the nvusd community of silence absolutely thank you difficult sometimes
079to excuse me transition to business background information on consent agenda items is provided to the board prior to the meeting a common motion takes action without discussion on a roll call vote unless discussion of items is requested by the board may i get a motion to approve consent move to approve first by trustee gracious second second by trustee dooley mr michaels do we have any public comment any on any of the consent agenda items yes we do uh first speaker is norma ortiz go ahead please i just wanted to appreciate and thank miss page and just echoing on the comment um dr masetti mentioned about the diligence and care and the hiring process in terms of key leadership applicants for um principal positions sorry i'm i'm for interrupting but your comment has to be on
080one of these oh my apology thank you um mr michaels do we have any other public comment uh there is no more uh public comment will you please get a roll call vote yes student board member bid trustee jankowicz aye trustee gracia aye trustee water aye trustee reisser hi trustee gonzalez mares hi trusty xu hi trusty dooley aye thank you vera moving on to presentations and discussion items our first presentation under general services napa valley unified school district bond feasibility presentation mr tim mcclarney from the from true north will present this evening welcome mr mclarney uh good evening madam president members of the board uh i'm tim mcclarney i'm president of true north research and tonight it's my pleasure to present to you the results of it's actually two surveys that we conducted side by
081side for the district where we're going to be looking at uh voter's reactions to and support levels for two bond measures uh one for the napa sfid and one for american canyon um i believe there's a powerpoint presentation that's gonna be run from your end there we go um and as i go through this presentation i welcome questions from the board as i go over at the end whichever is your preference so next slide please so before we actually talk about the results of the surveys it's helpful to take a moment to review the purpose of the study and the methodology uh in terms of the purpose of the study as a revenue measure feasibility study we're really trying to address the three bullets you see here on the slide the first is to understand
082that if the board were to choose to place a measure on upcoming ballot is it feasible what i mean by that does does that bond measure have a reasonable chance of success um the answer that question is always yes sometimes we do this work and no matter how we look at the data we can't see an opportunity to get you from where you are today to where you need to be on election day to be successful and if that's the case i'll be the first person to tell you that when we do find that it's feasible to move forward with some type of measure the next bullet kicks in gear which is how do we go about structuring a measure in a way that it's consistent with the type of measure that your community is
083interested in supporting there's lots of components to a bond uh there's the price tag how much is it going to cost there's the types of projects that will be funded there's accountability provisions that are part of that measure and so a lot of decisions that the board would have to make in terms of how you go about structuring this measure before you put it on the ballot the survey can help guide and then uh finally the survey is an opportunity for us to understand the importance of information to your voters and to gather information that will help with communication and outreach moving forward i'm a big believer that if a public agency is going to take the step of putting a measure on the ballot and asking voters to make an important decision it's really
084incumbent upon that agency to inform and educate voters about the decision you're asking them to make as a public agency you're not advocating up or down on this measure you're simply giving voters the facts and the information they need to make a well-informed decision next slide please so in terms of the methodology uh survey was conducted in february of this year we wound up speaking with 834 individuals that are what we call likely november 2022 voters these are individuals who based on their voting history uh when they registered as well as their demographics we would expect to actually cast ballots in this upcoming november election um the sample that we use is uh is a we use a methodology called stratified and clustered random sampling i can get into the details of that if you
085like but suffice to say what it guarantees is that at the end of our data collection period we have a sample that is representative of that likely november universe on all the dimensions that we know are related to voting behavior so things like age gender partisanship how about all of those characteristics that tend to shape how people will vote on tax measures we make sure that our sample has the correct proportions of all those uh and so it's representative of that larger uh november 2022 universe uh once individuals were recruited to participate uh we uh recruit i mean we recruited them via email text and telephone um they were given the option to participate by telephone or online at a password-protected website uh and the survey was conducted in english and spanish now because we're
086looking at two sfid bonds we split our sample so the larger sfid which is uh napa not including youngville or american canyon uh the sample size for that group was 606 interviews that has a margin of error of about plus or minus four percent the american canyon uh sfid smaller number of voters we wound up serving uh 228 individuals in that sfid and the overall margin over there is about plus or minus 6.4 next slide please okay so one of the results this first slide here shows the results um and you can see by the way what because there's two surveys i'm going to bounce back and forth between napa sfid and american canyon so you'll you'll see typically napa first and then the american canyon one right after that but at the outset of
087the interview uh we present to voters our importance of issues questions so for each of the issues you see there on that slide we simply ask voters to tell us how important is this to you is it extremely important or very important somewhat important or not at all important we present the issues in a random order for every respondent but they are sorted from high to low here based on a combined percentage of folks who said it's either extremely or very important uh we asked this question for a couple reasons one it's just a great warm-up question it gets voters thinking about local issues at the beginning of the interview but it is also an opportunity for us to understand how the issue of improving the quality of education in public schools in particular stacks
088up against other issues that also compete for tax dollars and in particular how does that issue stack up against the issue of preventing local tax increases it's kind of a rough rule of thumb but it makes a lot of sense more importance that your voters place on the issue of improving the quality of education in local schools relative to the issue of preventing local tax increases the better position you are to move forward with some type of measure that's related to education and so we do see here in napa that the number one issue in the community was improving the quality of education in local public schools we had 84 percent of respondents tell us that that was extremely very important followed by maintaining local streets and roads and then protecting the environment you go
089all the way to the bottom of the list there you see preventing local tax increases at 56 that gap from the top to the bottom is 28 it's actually a little larger than what we have been seeing in the last year or two and uh when we've asked this kind of question in other communities and so that's a that's a good sizing gap that's what we like to see one other thing i'll mention is if you look about halfway down the list you'll see repairing and upgrading aging school facilities that checked in at 64 so it's above preventing local tax increases but it's below by about 20 points improving the quality of education in local public schools i point that out not because it's unusual it's a pattern that we see all the time but
090it is a healthy reminder that although bonds are about buildings and facilities they're about capital improvements at the end of the day what voters really care about is what those buildings and improvements are going to enable in the classroom in terms of your ability to educate students and so we always you know if you're going to move forward a bond measure you always want to be connecting the dots between what it is you're building and improving and why it ultimately matters in terms of the quality of education of the opportunities that your students have next slide please same question only here it's the american canyon respondents um you see kind of a similar pattern top of the list improving the quality of education in local public schools you see preventing local tax increases towards the
091bottom there repairing and upgrading aging school facilities not as much as a gap there so there's perhaps a little less awareness among the american canyon folks about the need to repair and upgrade their facilities when you come to napa but again both of these are still above that preventing tax increases item next slide please so at this point in the poll after that initial warm-up question we get to the initial ballot test and the idea is before we get any deeper into the interview and we start talking in more detail about possible tax rates it could be associated with a bond uh the types of projects that you could fund the arguments pro and con that they may encounter during election cycle we want to present to respondents a mock-up of what we think that
09275-word ballot statement could look like and get their reaction it's a really good gauge of where your voters are at on the national with respect to this proposal so shown here is that 75 word ballot statement uh for the napa sfid and you can see in that first bullet that we make it clear that we're repairing outdated classrooms and facilities in napa schools so we we state that clearly and as you go down you can see this will be a bond for about 298 million dollars with a tax rate of three cents per hundred dollars of assessed value so that's the language that we presented for the napa sfid next slide please and very similar language for the american canyon sfid projects are slightly different but the main difference here is obviously the size of
093the bond smaller community fewer schools uh and in this case it would be a 37 million dollar bond levin levying three cents per hundred dollars of assessed value so that's the language that we tested and if you go to the next slide start presenting the results so for the napa sfid what we found is that that initial ballot test we had 55 percent of respondents that said they would support this proposal you had 34 who were opposed and you had the remainder who were unsure so the state of california for a prop 39 bond to be successful you need 55 so at that initial ballot test we are sitting right at that mark that is required for passage next slide please so i want to take a moment to kind of compare where we are
094today in in 2022 compared to where uh we were in 2020 and what you see it was actually in 2019 when the poll was done but in 2019 the district was looking at the potential for a a bond at that point and at that point you can see here over on the far left hand corner that initial ballot test was 47 right it wasn't uh to the right where you see where we are today at 55 so we're checking in about seven points higher in terms of community support for this proposal today when we compare back to that 2019 time frame what's impressive about this and again i get to do this work for a lot of districts is that in a lot of ways the conditions are actually tougher today than they were then
095and so when you look back uh some of the things that are different obviously the pandemic itself has presented some challenges but what i would argue is more challenging about the pandemic isn't so much itself as it is when it comes to the types of bond measures as it is the politics of the pandemic right um this whole national bit debate about the pandemic about vaccines about masks has you know unfortunately created a lot of drama uh in uh local schools because that's where this uh is playing out in a lot of ways and so the you know the pandemic and the politics of the pandemic have have just heightened tensions around school districts in a way that that that just really weren't there prior to uh covet hitting the other thing that is i
096think different is the conditions that we find ourselves in right back in 2019 prior to the pandemic economy was going red hot inflation wasn't there gas prices were reasonable right if you look at where we're at now obviously we have runaway inflation you have high gas prices and so those conditions are tougher and then the other thing to keep in mind is that when we were looking at a 2020 bond we were looking at a november 2020 universe that was a very large turnout when you compare it to the universe we're using for this poll is november 2018 it's a smaller turnout right you're not going to have as many voters showing up this november as you did in november 2020 typically when you shrink turnout what you wind up with is a somewhat older
097more conservative more tax adverse electorate and so all other things being equal you tend to find some smaller or sorry somewhat lower levels of support for bond measures the more you shrink that electorate and so despite all of those conditions that i just mentioned being tougher in 2022 we're nevertheless seeing that your support levels here have gone up seven percent that doesn't happen by accident right that happens because i think as a district you've done a good job reaching out to the community helping them understand what your facility needs are and sort of building more awareness and building more support for the idea of um the need to fix schools and so um you've made a lot of progress and you've kind of swimming upstream in the last two years and i just wanted to
098point that out next slide please so the initial ballot test now for american canyon checked in at 56 so slightly higher than uh the napa valley and so that's about one point above that threshold we need to be successful next slide please um so one of the sort of selling features of an sfid is that all the money stays within the boundaries of an sfid right and so uh once you only those voters in that sfid will vote on this they are the only ones who would be taxed if that bond passes and all the money stays there and so uh as part of the survey right after the initial ballot test we made it uh we made it clear to voters uh first here in napa valley that all the money the measure i
099just described would be spent repairing and improving local schools in the city of napa and surrounding under corporate areas none of the funds will be spent in american canyon knowing this would you vote yes or no interestingly what you see with the napa valley uh voters is that doesn't seem to matter all that much i mean we were at 55 percent on the initial ballot test we're at 55 with that clarification for the next slide though you'll see same basic argument for nappa valley i mean sorry for american canyon in in american canyon it seems to matter a lot to voters so when we explained to them that all the money uh for the measure uh would be spent repairing and improving local schools in american canyon and that none of the funds would be
100spent in napa or elsewhere we see a big boost in interest and support for this proposal among napa i mean sorry among american canyon voters next slide please excuse me just really quickly before you go to tax threshold um i do just want to clarify on the slide um that you were where um it said napa valley along the top that that really was the city of napa and the surrounding unincorporated areas correct so there's two of them one is for napa the napa sfid and the other one is for american canyon right the napa valley kind of being the reference point um that's probably something we should uh just uh a detail would be correct for the future the napa valley would would include um the entire county um but but how it was
101um framed in the poll with city of napa and surrounding unincorporated areas correct correct correct thank you yep so uh naturally support for a bond proposal will depend on the price tag uh and so the higher you set that underlying tax rate all the things being equal uh the less support you can generally expect and so one of the goals of the survey was to make it very clear that bonds mean taxes in case they didn't quite cast that in the 75 words ballot statement earlier and it was also an opportunity for us to test a series of possible tax rates and tax implications of this bond so we get understanding of you know how sensitive voters are to that tax rate and what seems to be kind of the appropriate sort of comfort zone
102for your voters for for a bond and so uh here in the napa sfid uh we tested from 35 dollars per 100 000 assessed valuation down to 19 per hundred thousand assessed valuation and you can see here that you know as you tick down that tax rate support builds to the point where at about 19 100 000 we're sitting at 52 support this tends to be a very conservative read on voter support for a proposal for a couple reasons one we are putting the blinders on a respondent and sort of not talking about all the things that the bond will accomplish but instead focusing their attention on the cost right so on the price tag not all not the package of things that would come with it and so that tends to have a bit
103of a depressing effect on support the other thing is you know when you say that this measure is going to cost your you know your or will increase your property taxes on your home by nineteen dollars per hundred thousand assessed valuation not all all voters know what that means right you have to know what assessed valuation is you have to have a good estimate of what the av is on your property you also have to do math pretty quickly in your head in the space of a poll and so for some voters that's a that's a hurdle they can't get over and so they know you're talking about price tag they aren't sure what this is going to add up to and when that's the case they tend to hedge right they say no we're
104not sure rather than yes and so um we're going to come at this a little differently here in a minute but on the next slide uh same basic result for american canyon and i mean same basic question for american canyon we test from 35 down to 19. you can see that uh the sort of the the sensitivity to the tax rate is a little lower for american canyon in other words particularly these lower rates their support levels a little higher at 19 per hundred thousand for example we had 61 percent of american canyon respondents say that they would support this proposal next slide please so as i was mentioned earlier when um you convey the tax implications as a rate per hundred thousand some voters a little confused by that and they tend to hedge
105and so in the space of the poll we also come at it another way we say all right let me put it another way if you knew that this measure would cost the typical homeowner about 158 dollars per year that's the left column here on this slide would you vote yes or no on the school bond measure 158 dollars is that 35 tax rate per 100 000 assessed valuation multiplied times the median av for residential property in the napa sfid that's how you get to 158 dollars per year and so what you find is that when we test it as a tax rate of 35 dollars per hundred thousand assess we had 44 support when you go ahead and do the math for a respondent and you let them know that it's 158 dollars per
106year for the typical owner support jumps up to 52 same exercise on the right only here we're taking that 19 per 100 000 assist valuation tax rate multiple times the median av you get 86 per year and at 86 dollars per year in the napa sfid we had 57 support next slide same uh analysis only here we're working with american canyon and what you see here for american canyon is a little bit higher support levels at both of those uh median uh annual costs for a typical owner at 158 dollars per year we had 58 support and at 86 dollars per year we had 65 support next slide please so okay uh at this point in the poll we get to what we call our projects and improvements section and the goal here is really
107twofold one is we're now going to start to educate this respondent more about what this bond measure will accomplish up to this point we've only had the 75 words in that initial ballot test to describe what this bond will do here we get to unpack that into all the projects you see here on the slide and test them individually and in that way we're a giving this respondent a better idea of what the proposal will accomplish and b it allows us to understand of all the ways you can spend the money from the bond how do voters feel about those projects and which of these items sort of rise to the top of the list in terms of their priorities you can see here from the slide and this one's with in napa sfid that
108everything we tested was popular with voters even lowest rated item there on that list uh which had to do with improvements to safety and security had at least 70 percent of voters say that they would favor spending some of the money on that item at the top of the list though what you see is a kind of a collection of things that we see rise to the top of the list in a lot of communities number one is sort of basic repairs to your facilities roofs plumbing heating ventilation electrical where needed uh number two is stem related facility improvements number three is career tech and then number four because in the napa sfid you have some older schools that were built at a time when you had asbestos and lead pipes in the construction process
109removing those was also a top four project next slide please so same exercise only here we're talking to the american canyon respondents and what's interesting is that although the rank ordering and the numbers are a little different at the end of the day if you look at the top three what you tend to see is the same things in the top three as in napa it's uh stem related improvements it's basic repairs to your facilities roofs plumbing electrical et cetera and it's careertech okay next slide please so you know if the board chooses to place a bond or two on the november 2022 ballot there is going to be an election cycle and during that election cycle you're going to have a lot of discussion and debate in the community about these proposals you're going
110to have some folks who will step up and advocate on behalf of these uh proposals talk to their neighbors and friends and explain why this is needed and why they should vote yes you might also have some opponents who step up and say this is a bad idea we shouldn't be doing this and here's why for this to be a reliable gauge of the feasibility of these measures we need to know not only where your voters are today which was that initial bowel test but what happens to their levels of support once they're exposed to the types of arguments that they're likely to encounter during that election cycle and so we do that by testing both positive and negative arguments in the space of the survey um shown here are the positive arguments and the
111nature of the question is supporters of the measure say blank you insert a positive argument and do you think this is a very convincing somewhat convincing or not at all convincing reason to support the measure and you can see here that we have a number of positive arguments that get some traction at the top of the list though is really a type of equity argument which is now students deserve to have the same educational opportunities as others in the region including high quality instruction and science technology and math this bond will help improve the quality of education our local schools so that was the ranking of the positive arguments for in the napa sfid if you go to the next slide please same analysis for american canyon and interestingly enough the number one argument in
112american canyon is the same as it was in napa only applied to american canyon so it would be american canyon students to zane deserve to have the same educational opportunities as others in the region et cetera et cetera so um now at this point in the poll voters have heard a lot more about this proposal than they did originally in that initial 75 words we had that initial ballot test after that we had a chance to talk about the tax rates that tends to be a bit of a wet blanket on support for a proposal but then we had a chance to describe in more detail all the types of projects that would be funded by the bond we have a chance to convey positive arguments and so we circle back with what we call
113our interim ballot test to figure out where are they now and so on the next slide you will see the interim ballot test result for the napa sfid so support ticks up slightly we're sitting at 55 percent um by slightly i mean there's actually um a little less than one percent so it rounds to 55 but we're still sitting there at 55. uh the next slide is the american canyon results here we do see that support ticks up about three points so in american canyon we're now sitting at 59 support for this proposal next lie please and then we get to the negatives and the idea behind the negative arguments is i want to put on my opponent hat i want to think about what somebody who is an opponent of this bond might say
114to try and dissuade voters from supporting it and then we convey those arguments in the space of the poll and you can see that some of the negative arguments here do get some traction uh the number one being that you know sort of uh this is just not a good time to be raising taxes local businesses and residents have been hit barred by the pandemic and inflation some are struggling to stay afloat um i also have an argument that references the district's prior bond so you can see that the negatives do get some traction with your napa sfid voters and on the next slide this is american canyon um same ranking of the negatives in american canyon as well we do see that they get some traction the real question is what happens afterwards and
115that's on the next pair of slides so in napa those negative arguments cool us down about five points and so at that final bowel test we're sitting at fifty percent uh for the bond as we tested it in this poll next slide uh in american canyon even after the negatives we land at 56 so we're a little above that 55 threshold uh even after exposing folks to the negative arguments and next slide please so i know i ran through all this pretty quickly but i want to sum up here at the end and talk a little bit about what i think it means i'm going to circle back first of that question of feasibility that i mentioned at the outset as one of the main motivators for doing this work if you as a board
116were to choose to place these measures on a ballot do they have a reasonable chance of success the answer that question is yes but it's a qualified yes and what i mean by that is it's going to require some careful planning and execution to be successful well first let me explain why i come to the yes decision when we do this type of work there's a number of things that we want to see in place in a poll to come away with the conclusion that this measure is feasible it has a reasonable chance of success and a lot of those things that we want to see were in place here so we saw that voters ranked improving the quality of education local schools is the most important issue facing the community right and there was
117a pretty decent gap between the importance they signed to that and the importance they assigned to preventing local tax increases that natural sentiment uh created sufficient support at that initial ballot test we had 55 percent in the napa sfid we had 56 percent in the american canyon sfid all of the projects that we tested were popular the positive arguments resonated with voters and at all the ballot tests for the american canyon sfid support level was above 55 percent in the sfid it stayed above 55 until we hit the opposition right arguments and that's when it did below and so i you know with some adjustments that we're going to talk about on the next slide i think you have you know a good shot at being successful provided that you do the things that you
118want to do uh to be successful and prepared for an election this november um having said that i want to i want to kind of also note that it's important to keep in mind that a poll like this it's a snapshot in time it's not a crystal ball looking forward to election day and saying you're going to get 55 on election day right what happens on election day isn't what your poll says today it's based on everything you do from this point forward and so i say that because it's really important that we make smart decisions uh about how you structure this measure so it's consistent with the type of measure your community has said they're willing to support and it's also really important that you put the work in right and by that i
119mean that you continue this conversation with the community go out and make sure that voters are well informed about the decision you're asking them to make and so uh with that i have a couple recommendations the first in terms of the price tag um you know it's important that you keep this in voters comfort zone legally from a prop 39 bond you can go all the way up to a sixty dollar per hundred thousand valuation tax rate that would be a six cent per hundred dollar av um i don't based on the polling results but we didn't even test up to a 60 we i think we started at 35. when you look at the polling results i think that two cent per 100 of assessed value or also uh a twenty dollar per hundred
120thousand assessed valuation tax rate that's really the comfort zone that's where voters are gonna feel you know we have a good shot at hitting that that 55 threshold that's needed for success um beyond that you start to see some tax refreshment that kicks in that's going to make it more difficult so i would recommend keeping it there in terms of project priorities uh we saw that all the projects that we tested were popular but when you kind of look at the silos that were most attractive it's fixing and upgrading your older aging classrooms and facilities stem related improvements career tech ada where needed and then hazardous materials that was only tested in the napa sfid not in american canyon sfid and so you know in terms of next steps if the board's inclining to move
121forward and towards the take the next steps toward placing measures on the ballot i think it's important that you just start to continue to expand this conversation with the community uh start building some even greater awareness of your facility needs and consensus around a bond proposal and obviously that last bullet there that isn't district's responsibility an independent campaign this is really private citizens raising private funds that group can go out and advocate on behalf of this measure during the election cycle to make sure that this this measure has a voice uh even after the board votes to place it on the on the ballot and so i know i've covered a lot of ground in a very hopefully a decent amount of time here and so let me pause there see if there's any questions
122from the board thank you tim comment it's uh i just wanted to say uh thank you for presenting all of this tonight there's a lot of information there that needs to be digested and it looks like uh staff has their work cut out for them in continuing to analyze this data thank you okay i of course um long of a comment but we want our residents of napa county to be housed in structures that are warm safe and dry it is very intuitive to us that families should feel safe and comfortable where they reside that's a priority so to me this discussion is no different our children faculty staff and administration spend a majority of their day in our facilities about 18 000 people so sustaining a safe and functional environment for our students employees
123should be just as meaningful a priority i am encouraged by the data that shows that a majority percentage values improving the quality of education in local public schools is valued above all other local issues and a bond measure supports the correlation between learning having a physical environment that is conducive to learning and providing the facilities maintenance and improvement that allows that to occur research continues to reiterate especially in consideration of the pandemic school facilities improve the quality of the study environment in schools therefore improving the quality of education i think that it supports expanding this exploratory work there will always be discussion and sensitivity surrounding the potential issuance of a bond yet what this data tells us is their support for optimizing the learning experience and an understanding that a bond measure is a potential
124vehicle to do so our community members played a critical role as tim said in this thought process if this was to be pursued we need high-level community engagement and two-way conversations i appreciate the delineation of arguments for and against in the realm of school finance bond measures are a critical piece of facil facilities fiscal management and yes we had a bond in 2016 but the need for additional funding in light of the 2016 bond is not unique the reality is there will always be funding needs there is no consistent funding source no state funding and many of our buildings are 60 years old warm safe and dry is a real criterion the last four years the district has been fiscally prudent transparent and high quality work is the new norm the quality of program and
125services increases when we exercise financial stewardship and from my perspective investing in our capital assets is financial stewardship so i am interested in exploring next steps what is difficult to understand especially given california's gdp ranking is why our state funding structure does not provide stable funding streams to address k-12 facilities needs most state bond funding was exhausted in 2004. four in ten students in california attend schools with deficient facilities and i certainly do not want nbusd contributing to that statistic we are one unified school district but i appreciate the understanding that two communities exist with different needs so two sfid bond measure considerations allow for specificity around those needs i support research around the potential of a bond measure and the staff staff recommendations that will come based on that research maintenance and capital improvements
126from bond funding move schools forward and post pandemic the current economic environment notwithstanding local school improvement makes communities better school bond measures are a way to make an impact now and pay it forward for generations to come so i believe the potential of a bond measure warrants thoughtful consideration so i thank true north for their due diligence um trustee julie yeah i just wanted to add some comments too um i think it's important to for for us and for for those listening to consider the context of this information um we are uh you know it's a feasibility study which is you know determining whether we think it's reasonable to expend some resources now some staff time and and an effort to decide uh on whether to put this on the ballot we're not talking about
127approving a bond today there's a lot of work that needs to be done between this information and that final work what's in encouraging about that is that you know looking at this data and looking at the kind of potential growth of these numbers of for for support for a bond is you know a lot of the work that will be done is detailed analysis of what of potential projects that we can we can support um detailed information about um [Music] the the needs that we have um we've done a lot of that work we've brought that to light in the last couple years um [Music] but we actually get to put detail to the the the kind of hypotheticals that are are underlying these these um these poll numbers so it's encouraging that without that
128detail without with just hypotheticals we are getting numbers that are are you know reasonably uh attainable and yet we still get to put kind of meat on those bones we still get to to to detail what we can do with with with the the um with the bond what we can how we can improve the educational experience of our students with the the benefit of this bond so i i'm encouraged by these kind of the bones that we get to build on um to use a macabre um analogy but i i think to me it's it's encouraging enough to want to invest resources to research and develop a a a plan um that that we can decide on in in june so thank you uh it's um i i find this really interesting particularly the
129two communities and um i do have one question um has there ever been such uh such a bond one that's bifurcated um between two communities in the same area i've never heard of it before i know that um go ahead mr mclaren go oh yeah sir so we've worked on a number of uh in districts where they've had sfid boundaries for different reasons sometimes it's due to the you know the the the some areas have heavy s cfds and the other areas don't right and so they felt that the bond you know and splitting it that way was going to be a fair way of start compensating for some of the fact that some of these areas are already paying a lot i am working in a larger district in southern california and one of
130the real concerns in that area is that it's so large that there is a lot of mistrust about where that money would go and so the idea was we need to break this very large district which spans over seven different cities into smaller sfids so that everyone can have confidence that you know if we're gonna tax ourselves here the money's gonna stay local so it's been done okay and you know the other thing i want to point out and i know uh trustee gracia gets um upset when i start ranting about real estate but um but you know it's about assessed value most people in napa their houses are worth a lot more than the assessed value market value their market value is more than the assessed value i look at some of the houses
131in my neighborhood and it's i'd say their market value is double what their assessed value is at least yeah so um yeah i know uh lots of um food for thought here and no one can say we're not being transparent dr mercedes yeah any other board members or um i just so i want to add i appreciate thank you to the trustees for their comments and thanks for the charge to continue conducting the research as a california public school superintendent assessing feasibility of local school bonds is kind of it's kind of a non-negotiable given that the state as was articulated by president janquitz you know the state does not provide funding for massive capital improvements sometimes state bonds get passed but often in order to tap into the state bond dollars you have to have
132local matching dollars and really the the only way to sort of take that to scale is to have your own local bond um to be able to meaningfully tap into um often what are restrictive programs as well at the state bond level so um you know knowing that as a as a tk through 12 california public school superintendent it's important to do this research and see what the feasibility is and what we need to do if it's not feasible or attainable based on the data what is the hard work that we need to do in order to increase that statistical likelihood that we can engage our community in considering local tax measures um as a district i think we've been really really transparent that we have lots of facilities needs i want to recognize assistant
133superintendent mike pearson and his team it's really the first time we did do a study session almost a couple years ago now i think it was one of the first for some of the newer trustees study sessions that we conducted with you and we really do have accurate assessment building by building so that's again part of that research that work that laying the foundation if you're going to consider going for a measure you want to demonstrate to your community that you've done your homework that you really know what the what the needs are because you're never going to be able to address them all with one bond program so that's what really feeds into the prioritization process measure measure h we always want to thank the voters measure h thank you voters six years ago
134measure h was really successful in in making good progress across many fronts i want to remind everybody measure h build four brand new schools in the district new schools in a district are always a gift and we have napa junction we have uh snow we have the we have river school which will be unidos next year um and we have willow and and so we accomplished that we've also done massive modernization renovations at some of our elementary schools here in the city of napa as well where the older schools are also at donelson way our older school in the city of american canyon and some improvements at acms the middle school as well security upgrades technology access all across those were projects that touched all of our schools and were also very crucial during the
135pandemic we still have very significant basic facilities um needs to ensure that like president jenkwood said all of our schools are warm safe and dry and provide optimal learning environments for students and again the state of california does not solve this and i think that's an educative like thing to note uh for the public and so schools that are taking care of their facilities uh or districts that are taking care of their facilities are in places where the the local community recognize that owns that and and um and um solves it with local measures so currently just to be clear nvusd administration what we're doing is actively re researching planning laying that foundation kind of like what trustee dooley alluded to to ensure that we are prepared in the event that we decide to put
136any bonds on a potential ballot that the next potential opportunity would of course be november 2022 and as mr mcclarny presented we are considering this innovative approach like after being in the district for four years now i'm very clear on the differentiated needs and when it comes to facilities there is a need for differentiation when you compare the schools in american canyon that are much newer versus the schools in the city of napa so we wanted to again part of that research assess feasibility for structuring taking this new innovative approach and actually to your question trustee water i i will double double check my facts but i'm pretty sure this has been done in 13 counties in the state of california over the course of the last 25 years or so so it's it's it
137may be innovative and new for us but there is past practice in the state of california to again keep those dollars local it builds in that kind of inherent accountability when there's districts that stretch across different municipalities and or areas and so we wanted to conduct that research knowing that there are very different needs in american canyon and and napa still remaining a unified uh one you know district community um so we will continue our research we are engaging with stakeholders around this concept mr pearson assistant superintendent pierce and i are doing dedicating a lot of time between now and june and we will come forth with a potential final recommendation to the school board in june um if indeed we consider these two separate sfid which be two separate um tax measures um potentially
138so stay tuned uh we'll come back with more information in june thank you dr masetti and thank you mr mccartney we appreciate your time president i'm sorry yeah i i'm i'm going um mr michaels do we have any public comment on this item uh yes we do um the first speaker is mike arch go ahead please yeah mike arch here um so what are you guys going to do when these bond propositions fail that's my question to you because the last one h just barely passed through maybe some shenanigans and i i get that you know it's a new fad here you're going to separate them out and new strategy but the underlying thing is you didn't spend the last money how you said you were how can you like taxpayers to go oh okay
139yeah here's more money oh yeah sure you can't hold our kids education hostage and expect a bottomless check it won't pass what are you going to do then thank you for your comment mr michaels any more public speakers uh yes next speaker is norma ortiz uh go ahead please needs will always be there i am interested in the unknowns that may impact the bonds of um if passed um which were presented which include trajectory of the pandemic inflations economy voting climate hazardous materials and so forth i too am interested in the upgrade of napa valley unified school schools especially at redwood middle school like several classrooms and our parking lots having said that the district must continue to provide sufficient education information on this respect to make sure that napa voters feel comfortable supporting such
140bond um in the event past and transparency with the dress addressing measure h background as well as targeting all the promise key points and accountability for again uh if this were to be passed uh for the november 20 20 20 20 22 ballot so um it would be nice to have campaigns moving forward that uh visualize that so i don't i i think it's it's something to consider uh given that again like i like i mentioned um the needs are always going to be there and we just have to be consistent in making sure that um we address these items and we get the proper funds uh from uh in this case from bond so um i feel that in that you you that us as a district we could potentially find uh good support
141it's just a matter of how the information is presented and again that the key points are promised and are followed through with uh the napa voters especially thank you thank you ms ortiz mr michaels do we have additional speakers uh we have no further uh public comment thank you very much apologize to the we now move to instructional services and the first item is introduction of supplementary instruction material adoptions for dual immersion programs assistant superintendent andrew jennings um good evening um president i'm jankowitz um for this first item that's up for um review there is no formal presentation um this item is up uh for approval um to support our students who are have ieps at our dual language schools and supports their learning of um um of reading um and learning them to improve
142their reading skills um so that's the first item that's up for review thank you second item introduction of supplemental instructional material adoption oh was there any public pardon me is there any public comment on the side of mr michaels there is no public comment for this item thank you very much and now we move on to introduction of supplemental instructional material adoptions for elementary and i'm assuming there is there a presentation here um so there is a presentation because we were so excited about this um mr michaels can you please um bring up the presentation for me thank you mr michaels good evening um again president jacob with sport trustees student representative bit and the nbusd community tonight i'm here to present information regarding the rainbow kids which are supplemental instructional materials first a little
143background on the creation of the rainbow kits the rainbow kits were originally developed by the rainbow action network uh a subsidiary of first five napa network as a resource for creating inclusive and welcoming preschool classrooms for all students and families the rainbow kits are a collection of books lessons and materials that support teaching about gender inclusivity and family diversity during the 2020 and 2021 school year first five nap the first five napa network distributed early childhood education rainbow kids to preschool classrooms and early childhood education staff were trained to use the rainbow kids in napa county these priests preschool kids provided a solid foundation upon which these elementary instructional materials were built next slide please so why why should we address gender inclusivity and family diversity at the elementary level well we are addressing gender
144inclusivity in family diversity because lgbtq and diverse family and gender inclusive lessons align with goal five in the interview with steve strategic plan also aligns with the updated california department of education 2016 history social science framework and support our commitment to keep all of our students safe healthy and ready to learn diverse family inclusion is not just about lgbtq families it allows all chin children to celebrate their families however they may look and see that all families are different but love is what makes a family the california healthy kids survey reports that lgbtq students in napa county are at a higher risk for being targets for violence bullying and report higher rates of substance use depression and suicidal ideation having accepting and affirming adults at school in an lgbtq and gender inclusive environment can reduce
145these risks also gender inclusion is not just about trans or non-binary or gender diverse students gender inclusion benefits every child it allows all children to express express who they are without fear of bullying next slide please so what's included in the rainbow kid well the rainbow kits include a guide um which is attached to this agenda item it has developmentally appropriate lessons that were created by the rainbow action network for tk kinder which are for tk kinder and the welcoming schools program which is first through fifth grade and includes some lgbtq and gender inclusive toys diverse art supplies such as multi-colored skin crayons for art activities a rainbow flag and safe space posters and tips on using inclusive language and resources for families and for resources for family engagement next slide please additionally each rainbow
146kit contains a selection of books and lessons that support teaching students about family diversity and gender inclusion through high quality literature the books have been carefully selected to be developmentally appropriate for each gradespan the grades fans have been broken down into tkk first and second and third through fifth all of the books are accompanied by lessons developed by the rainbow action network and welcoming schools the books and lessons have been shared with a group of nvusd teachers across elementary schools to review and provide feedback the teachers provided insight into what they might need to feel successful using the materials the teachers appreciated the lessons and guided questions that are included in each book next slide please at their core the rainbow kits provide a valuable set of resources to support educating students about families love
147respect and diversity we want all of our families and students to feel welcome and included on our campuses the rainbow kids support that goal the rainbow kits the rainbow kit materials including books and lessons are available for viewing in the instructional division wing at the nvusd ed center the materials are being presented tonight for review and will be agendized on the may 5th board meeting for for approval next slide please thank you that concludes my presentation thank you very much we're going to go a little out of order here and respectfully go to public comment in person first so i will start with naomi chamberlain well she still has a painting [Music] hello okay i really didn't expect to go first okay here we go hello members of the board and thank you for your
148service i live in area five my name is naomi chamblin and i open napa book mine in 2013. we are an indie bookstore with a robust children's section and i am the children's book buyer for all three of our locations i am also the parent of a five-year-old in kindergarten at pueblo vista and a three-year-old here in napa i want to advocate for how important the rainbow kits are to be integrated into our nvusd curriculum i grew up in jacksonville florida and attended public school from k to 12. at that time the 80s and 90s in a very southern city there was no talk about being lgbtq and no talk of being an ally there wasn't talk about appreciation appreciating all racial backgrounds and cultural experiences there wasn't an acknowledgement let alone celebration of differences
149it was normal to be surrounded by racial slurs that i don't think any of us would use or approve of in the year 2022. it was normal to use homophobic language as a joke this was directly related to the discomfort that the adults had around speaking about diversity issues there was no guidance to help young people accept and be exposed to the other's experience there was only an indication that being straight white and able-bodied was the best or only option did this ensure that my friends and peers grew into straight white and able-bodied adults absolutely not ignoring differences does not make them go away what did occur when we were in college was that one of my best friends who had strokes which struggled privately with his gay identity felt pressured to become engaged to
150a woman and then snuck around contracted hiv and used hard drugs such as crack to escape his internal struggle this is not an exaggeration of my friend's story and suicide rates among lgbtq youth reflect that it is not uncommon to have this struggle when unsupported by the adults who surround them for my many other friends who did come out as lgbtq and in adulthood there was a journey to self love that they still travel they have there has been many mention of mental health tonight and feeling accepted improves mental health [Music] reading stories my friend is doing well now um by the way reading stories about different family structures have how many of you in this room have a divorced parents by the way [Music] um different family histories how many in napa county have
151immigrated from another country a lot different skin colors these topics are important to growing citizens who are informed empathetic allies to people who are not just like them the rainbow kits are developed by educators and parent advocates they have impacted my family and will only have a positive impact on our children teaching acceptance and empathy should not only exist within our private schools as if held on a pedestal and as if these are inaccessible ideas for the majority of families thank you for being an example for other school districts by approving and promoting these um rainbow kits to all of our families in napa thank you yes thank you so much i'm nancy nord kanegy my pronouns are she her and aya i am a retired school teacher from the napa valley unified school district
152nvla kindergarten teacher and i can say that these kids are wonderful kindergartners they come in and we used to have a dress-up area and people are wearing skirts of all children are wearing skirts and all children are putting on the firefighter outfit and these books just celebrate diversity in this kit these kits celebrate diversity and love and families and differences and similarities and how to have a voice and stand up for what you believe in and so thank you so much and i appreciate the board and dr musetti and and it's past my bedtime and so i'm so thankful for all of you for being here and the hard work that you do thank you next speaker alison watson before i start i have a question about the board's policy on foul language because i
153want to know whether or not i should quote my classmates directly you know we might have children that are listening so if you wouldn't mind not using expletives because we might have children that are listening um via zoom and children we have a student board member so if you could tone it down a little we would appreciate it um okay i will try to do that i had not considered that there would be children listening but i prepared this but i'll try my best oh um fair enough hello my name is allison watson i'm a senior in new technology high school um i was directly involved with a lot of the assembly of the rainbow kids as well as some of the training and behind the scenes stuff that went into their development i've reviewed
154everything in them as a part of preparing reports on them during an internship i was doing with the school district um i personally very strongly believe that they'll be good for all of the students here in nusd not just the people whose representation it will increase i believe diversity helps everyone and i've been the target of some rather blatantly homophobic and transphobic comments by my classmates and my teachers have been woefully under prepared for how to deal with that even at the high school level and i believe other people in the future will be spared to the same sort of stuff i've had to encounter in some of my classes if we are able to encourage a broader understanding and acceptance and tolerance of diversity from a younger age in nusd i believe that's a
155important good thing that we need to be doing um to protect people and i believe it really is it's not just a matter of acceptance and kindness for children i believe it's a matter of safety for the community as they grow up and become better able to understand the needs of the people around them thanks i am short good evening my name is catherine fleming and i'm a parent of two children at pueblo vist elementary school my eldest child will be attending unidos in the fall i'm also a local girl scout leader and a member of the napa rainbow action families i'm coming before you tonight to express my support for the rainbow kids to be distributed to the mbusd elementary schools i believe that it is very important for children to realize the amazing
156diversity we have in the world around us to see themselves in that world and be able to find their place in it all children will benefit from diverse family and gender inclusive classrooms and we all benefit from children learning to have an open mind children need to see families like theirs in their curriculum they need to see other children and grown-ups that look like them in their books and children need to see a wide variety of children and grown-ups reflecting the world around them i want my children and their friends to be able to bring their whole authentic selves to school and not feel like they may need to hide who they are where they are from or who their families are i applaud nvusd's work on developing a dei plan as part of their
157strategic plan i am excited to see these rainbow kits and the reflected training in my children's classrooms to inspire these discussions build knowledge encourage acceptance and create a sense of belonging for all children in our schools thank you um hello and good evening my name is kyrie fleming and i'm in fifth grade at pueblo vista elementary school i'm here today to show my support for the rainbow kits to be distributed to nvusd elementary schools as part of the lgbtq community i am disappointed to see that kids in my class often use the word gay or other words that refer to the lgbtq community as an insult and my hope is that these rainbow kits will help game gain understanding and limit discrimination against the lgbtq community nobody especially kids should feel discriminated against because of
158who they love or their gender in addition representation of the lgbtq community will help students feel more safe at school knowing that there are other people like them and that they are not alone and that they are not being represented i also believe that teachers would benefit from these rainbow kits for example two of my friends at school have become gender fluid this year because of this they have changed their names and their pronouns some teachers don't quite understand that and keep calling them by their old names and old pronouns so i think that with these rainbow kits teachers could be educated as well and help students feel more safe and comfortable at school in conclusion rainbow kits should be distributed to all nvusd elementary schools to educate students teachers and to let kids know
159that they are safe at school we need to stop fearing and start educating for the for we are the future and i want to have an open-minded aware and proud future thank you hi thanks for listening me tonight my wife and i felt like it was important to come and at least one of us talk about our support for the rainbow kids we have two sons one is a five-year-old at willow in kindergarten and one's a three-year-old and one thing we felt was very important for both of our sons to realize is that it's they should be proud and feel special that they have two moms because there's lots of people in the society that will tell them that that's wrong and that's gross and that they're they'd be discriminated against and the last thing
160i need is for my own children to feel that because i already have had to experience that in my own life and so that was always a big fear of mine and so we really did start at a young age reading books like heather has two mommies um and my oldest still wants to meet heather because he just identified with her and the fact that she had two mommies and he doesn't understand why he can't meet her and when i think about these rainbow kits i just want him to recognize that there that he can see himself in the classroom and be proud of that as well and he is so proud and he will tell anybody he sees that he has two mommies and so um it it was almost like it hurt a
161little bit when he came to school one day and said that a girl had hit him because he had two mommies and of course we went right to the teacher because we wanted this to address and i have to say the teacher responded appropriately investigated figured out what happened and it wasn't a worst case scenario where the the student was hitting him because he had two mommies she hit him because he she didn't understand how he could possibly have two mommies because everybody has mom and a dad and so she thought he was lying and as a kindergartener she got frustrated because he kept going back and saying no i have two mommies i have two mommies and she finally got so frustrated she hit him and so i just kind of think if she
162got to have these stories the way we read these stories from our sons and saw that there are different types of families out there when she's a classmate that says she has two mommies she could just be like oh okay i have a mom and a dad and that would be the end of it so my hope is that you have the rainbow kits at all classrooms at the elementary school level at nusd i think they're really important i've read all the stories in the kits there's nothing offensive in them it's important and i hope that they that you approve it and at the very least i really just would like my son not to get hit again because he has two moms thank you mr michaels do we have any virtual public comment uh
163yes we do uh speaker is kara uh yeah go ahead please hello am i off mute you are we can hear you wonderful thank you hello my name is and her first of all thank you all for your support of rainbow kids for our schools i'm a parent of a third grader at bishi i'm also the elected parent representative president for the vichy site council i'm a member of the first five napa network and i'm also the instigator and director of the naka rail arts district r rod wall mural you might see on lincoln where we work with teens of all wonderful kinds and colors including many who are genderfluid um i thought tonight i would talk with you about the site council safety and sipsa goals at vichy but um you're probably already aware
164of them and that this student social and emotional development is one of the core goals there um but not is this warm and fuzzy but is it actually a foundation for student learning and the learning environment and as a school safety goal as a parent i care so deeply about the mental health and social development interpersonal development of not just my daughter but all the children in our community and i just so strongly support promoting diversity and just actively creating that community of inclusion for all students um you know these skills we're talking about diversity and lgbtq inclusion they're actually like i know some parents can can maybe feel some some fear where their mind goes but this inclusion these conversations are actually so natural and you know they're about fairness and love and just
165celebrating each of us just as we are um you know i've really had the pleasure to work with some of the um the related rainbow family materials for parents um and they're just so professionally developed i've done this with my daughter and a cohort of parents and i just found them so just excellent and approachable and thoughtful and they just were they were fun and they were joyful these conversations are really they're not scary they're just they think there could be fear around it but they're actually quite natural and joyful um and so i just i know this journey starts so early for kids um and i see the teachers really working hard this year especially to help build and support the mental health of our kids and i'm just so thankful that these rainbow
166kids exist and that they're so professionally designed and just can help support um teachers and the adults in our lives to have these conversations i just think these kids are so valuable and engaging and age-appropriate um and uh just to help with this important work and in these open discussions so i just have strong support for these rainbow kids for every classroom um you know initiate our school and i hope it translates to the entire school district thank you so much again for your support for our schools thank you very much mr michaels do we have any additional public speakers yes next speaker is michelle dickson go ahead please hello can you hear me we can okay hi good evening board um good evening uh superintendent machete thank you so much for um taking the
167time this evening to be here even late into the evening um i wanted to speak out um as a parent um in the district i have a sixth grader at river middle school i also have a almost five-year-old who will be starting kindergarten in the fall they last year changed their name and their pronouns as they experienced this overwhelming feeling that they were in fact a girl over that time we have been involved with the rainbow action network attending playdates hosting one of the rainbow little libraries in front of our home which um contains a lot of the same books that are in these rainbow kits um in addition our daughter has been really lucky to attend one of the preschools in napa that received the training and the rainbow kits from the rainbow action
168network um i think there's a lot as you know previous speakers have said there's a lot of fear um on the behalf of parents um but there's also this misunderstanding that all of this is new or that this is only happening in teens um when in fact you know these conversations can happen so much younger than any parent can even expect and they can happen younger than any educator can expect and starting this education early having these discussions early and often is really going to make the difference to all of these children not only children that are like my daughter but children from other families that come from varied backgrounds having this accessibility in a classroom to actually be able to ask each other to talk to each other to share with each other how
169we are also very different and fostering that sense of acceptance it means so much more than i can say having teachers and classmates and friends and family that have been so supportive of our daughter and i i can just only say that i really hope that this gets approved because knowing that other teachers and kids will be able to have these discussions together means that hopefully we are heading towards a much better place in our society and ensuring that children everywhere are able to love care for and accept each other as we are thank you thank you very much mr michaels yes next speaker is uh keisha lind go ahead please hi um my name is kesha lind i live here in napa with my family i work at the napa district attorney's office um
170and currently i'm prosecuting all cases that involve any sort of child abuse i also am a um commissioner on the first five uh network as well um my husband and i live here in napa we have two young boys our older one is a second grader at pueblo vista that has had a lot of representation here tonight so go pueblo vista and our youngest is a four-year-old who will be starting there in the fall when i was getting prepared to speak here today i happened to see a presentation given by a michigan state senator named mallory mcmorrow and she happens to live in a district where there's um some legislation uh kind of in the opposite spirit of what we're discussing here tonight and one of the things that she said she gave a very
171impassioned speech on her senate floor and one of the things that she said that really struck with me is she said you know it's time for all of us to stand up push back against hate so teachers can get back to creating welcoming inspiring space for kids to learn and grow instead of having to constantly defend against attempts to marginalize any kids who are different and i think that these rainbow kits really are an opportunity for napa to be a leader in this effort of inclusivity the rainbow kits are great tools that teachers can use to not only create a safe space for children that may be seen as different but just as importantly if not more importantly they can teach all children to be allies and teach kids who to be kind and supportive
172of their friends kids who they may have just pushed aside and excluded because they didn't look or act the same way that that they did um in a world right now that can feel very divisive i think that this is an amazing opportunity for our schools to be leaders to raise leaders who will help each other and support each other and celebrate each other's differences without judgment that's the napa that i hope to raise my two sons in and i strongly encourage the board to vote to approve the use of rainbow kits in our schools thank you thank you very much mr michaels uh yes next speaker is frank soba go ahead yes hi my name is frank silva and i'm a principal in napa and we have these kids at our school i am
173very proud to um announcement i'm sorry and i was able to read one of these books today um be who you ca who you are and the kids were inspired by it there's a lot of research that showed it's been explained tonight about the impact of teasing and bullying on the lgbtq plus community and so i won't go into that but what i want to talk about is this is good for all kids this is going to give our students all of our students these skills respect equity care cooperation celebration acceptance appreciation of differences and openness empathy and self-confidence these are the skills that our students need the skills and traits our students need to be successful in the workplace and happy and productive citizens in the 21st century so i encourage um board to
174approve these the the kits thank you very much thank you very much principal silva mr michael yes next speaker is christina lawrence uh go ahead please hi my name is christina lawrence i have three school-aged children and i've taught kindergarten at browns valley for nine years i'm passionate about social emotional learning and creating a safe and inclusive community in my classroom for all of my students through extensive research and reading in areas of positive discipline and classroom management i have found that when students feel loved welcomed and connected to their school community they are more motivated and able to learn and access higher order thinking rainbow kits are a fabulous and exciting addition to our nwsc curriculum and they will help meet these goals i have been trained in best pbis restorative practices circles most
175recently toolbox all programs that encourage children to make good choices and solve problems i have been anxiously awaiting rainbow kits as another tool in my teaching toolbox that will help all of my students feel connected and welcome at school my son is a current kindergartner and the books in this kit will help him appreciate and understand the diversity in his classroom and world i'm so proud of our district for doing what is best for our students and creating communities of inclusion i'm honored to work here and send my children to school in a district that prioritizes the mental health of our students by ensuring that they feel safe respected and represented at school thank you very much mr michaels yeah yes next speaker is hannah henry uh go ahead please hi i knew as soon
176as i had a bite of ice cream i was going to get called up um thank you so much um to the board and um to all the participants um the comments tonight have been frankly moving um beyond any uh school board comments i've heard before i just want to reiterate a couple of points i mean i i want to i don't want to reiterate too many points because i want to make a couple of um different ones um a lot of ground has already been covered i just want to say that what the rainbow kits can offer is it's not a solution to a problem it's one step in a direction that we are already headed and we need to stay on a positive path my kids i am a parent of um four
177children um two have graduated from the district and i have a senior at valley oak and i have a fourth grader at shear elementary um they already have the language and they have the um they have this ability to talk about diversity and gender fluidity in a way that adults just don't we we're not comfortable with it yet we're new at it we need help we need tools teachers are are exhausted these last two years have been overwhelming um they're doing their absolute best and they need help and support navigating this new landscape and we if we don't provide extra help like the rainbow kits which is just one tool in a tool kit um that needs to be ever expanding then we're leaving kids behind and we're leaving our teachers behind um so i
178i strongly encourage you to approve these the distribution of these kits and understand that it's part of an evolving um it's part of an evolving process like we've we've got to add to our understanding of humanity we have come so far i had an uncle who took his own life because he could never come out as a gay man in his his community that was you know 40 years ago we have come so far now we can actually have conversations about it my my fourth grader came home from a play date asking what gender fluidity meant and said oh yeah so my friend says that he's he's gender fluid like that's vocabulary that i just learned myself um so we need to catch up to our kids and help them become their truest selves and
179thank you so much for considering this and absolutely napa needs to be a leader in this uh effort thank you good night thank you very much mr michaels do we have additional speakers oh we do uh next speaker is kate graham uh go ahead please thank you my name is kate graham my pronouns are she and her and monapa county resident and parent of two children ages five and three i also serve on the napa county library commission my husband hardy wallace is here with me on zoom to share a comment so i'm hoping that you can reset the clock for him when i'm finished i want to thank you for supporting rainbow toolkits containing lgbtq and gender inclusive materials to make napa elementary schools and classrooms lgbtq and gender inclusive napa unified school district
180and first five napa have already dedicated incredible time and resources to this program and our family is grateful for the partnership and the effort put forth to ensure that all children and families are made visible we're also grateful to know that napa is already leading through its strategic plan the district is committed to promoting equity by increasing institutional access to historically under served groups to supporting diversity and actively creating a community of inclusion for all students families and staff and creating systems across all departments and schools which intentionally ensures that everyone is respected and feels that they are part of an inclusive organization this is really hard work an important work and it should be recognized and applauded so again i sincerely thank you for prioritizing and fostering safe and inclusive environments where students are
181free to identify and express themselves in ways that feel authentic and comfortable to them um i'd like to share for a minute about the rainbow kits as our children have had the opportunity to directly engage with and benefit from them as you have already seen in the powerpoint and heard from so many tonight the activities and the toolkits are key in really teaching what it is to be human in existence and alongside other humans that share similarities and differences the family book by todd parr is a wonderful example of a book utilized in the toolkit you may be familiar with par as a three-time new york times best-selling author and illustrator more than 50 books for children they include powerful messages for children such as be kind love yourself and be who you are the
182family book specifically includes facts like some families have one parent instead of two some families live in a house by themselves some families share a house with other families and all families can help each other be strong when i asked our five-year-old what she learned most from the activities in the kit she responded without hesitation i've learned the most about kindness she was super sad that she had to go to bed this evening and couldn't comment and share with you all as it is baffling to her that anyone wouldn't want these kids shared we can't fly the rainbow flag and choose not to engage our children in lessons it and conversations related to the vast and beautiful spectrum for which it stands we have a responsibility to teach messages of inclusion to all our children
183in napa county and i thank the board and advance for being bold leaders and making sure this program moves forward and if i may speak i'm my name is hardy wallace i am abe graham's husband my pronouns are he and him uh i'm also the father of a three and five-year-old here in napa um and both kids have been involved with rainbow action play dates have gone through many of the books and the kips and as a father to be able to watch kids so young at three and five learn basic skills such as kindness intolerance acceptance things that when i was younger were things that were denied and things that were ignored and when we ignore denying and fail to acknowledge those things it's not just the communities that the lgbtq community that actually
184is harmed by that it's not really the community as a whole and it's our kids and because when we deny something we then give it a taboo we want to pretend that it doesn't exist or that it's wrong same way we deal with other problems in this country and so to see our kids grow and to learn kindness and acceptance at such a small and young age it makes me incredibly proud as a father as a husband to watch these kids and see their hearts grow so i hope that everything continues to move forward with these kits and thank you for giving us the time thank you very much for your comment mr michaels yes next speaker is christine treyer go ahead please christy are you with us hello can you hear me yes we
185can hi um i want to thank the board and the speakers um who came before me um and just let you know how um grateful i am to be a recipient of one of the rainbow kits and the training i'm here at my preschool giggles here in napa and where i serve 20 20 families um in our community i also teach in the child and family studies department um at napa valley college where um everything that the previous speakers have mentioned is so important in um in what we believe is so important in early childhood um and getting our next generation of teachers ready to um work with these amazing littles so in doing that i was looking at the national association for the education of young children's um goals right what are our key
186goals um for anti-bias education and i feel that in using the rainbow um kit daily it's just an it's a natural organic part of our day here at my preschool um i believe i can say with with confidence that our kiddos um do demonstrate self-awareness confidence family pride positive social identities they're all able to express comfort and joy with diversity and again um like some of the previous speakers said that littles are even able to um understand and explain what diversity means is so huge and we should be so proud as a community that this is this important to us and they're using accurate language for human differences and and just cultivating a deep caring um sense for human connections i think one of the biggest um one of the biggest um aha moments i
187had i've had using the kit is um how how the kids have learned um to recognize and speak up for unfairness and you know when i listened to allison speak at the beginning of this part of the meeting um my goal my hope would be that um all kiddos be able to um be able to feel comfortable using um being not just recognizing unfairness but having the language to describe it and to understand that it hurts so that more children aren't hurt as they grow up um i just in the last goal um goal number four in this that demonstrates empowerment in the skills to act with others or alone against prejudice and discriminatory actions and this kit is is so beautifully put together to make this possible um and i hope that it's in
188every every school in every environment where um we're young children we're children um spend time because it's gonna make all of us all of us better so thank you for your time thank you very much mr michaels do we have additional speakers uh we do have uh we have no for further uh public comment thank you very much i mean it's going to be hard to compete with what just happened so but does um would anybody like to make a comment i'll make a really short oh i'm sorry oh yes that's right we uh trustee water did we receive public comment um via email prior to the meeting we did five comments um to give their names yes okay sarah southam sarah knutson erica lubinsky megan gardner and britannia annoy gonzalez thank you very much
189sure all right trusty chew so i think as a school district we want to make sure our kid our students are prepared for the future and a lot of that actually has to do with cultural responsiveness and how we educate our children because that's the world they're gonna have to go into and cultural responsiveness is not only about you know me being asian or you know somebody else being latinx it's really about everyone lgbt community included and we need to give our teachers the tools to do this and i think we've heard that from a lot of our speakers and if we don't give that tools to our teachers who our students are learning from how how do we expect to prepare them well for the future and the future world that they're going to
190go into when they're adults and so i i really you know appreciate the fact that we are doing this because i i think you know in the united states we are a melting pot of a lot of different cultures not only you know from different countries but also gender fluidity you know trans i might and and it's very important because it does affect your mental health you know my husband is a endocrinologist and he's actually one of the only doctors in his practice that takes care of patients who who are thinking of transitioning and it's really amazing that the biggest challenge is the mental health piece it isn't the medical piece they have medicines but it really is the mental health piece are these are his patients ready for that transition are are they comfortable
191in whatever comes and you know i would love it if the society is not part of what's contributing to their difficulty in making that decision and i feel that as an education system we have that responsibility to teach our kids to be culturally responsive to themselves and to do that it's to give the tools to our teachers thank you trust trustee trustee julie yes um i really appreciate all of the the work that went into putting these kits together um [Music] one thought that came up when listening to all of the the um very moving comments tonight uh is the idea of progress um you know we all recognize how generations kind of change in their understanding about many of these things but it's not just a function of time it's not a matter of
192years passing that we we learn this it's actually a matter of action that's taken at meetings like this it's a matter of stances taken by people at meetings like this um and and comments by people in in in audiences like this that makes progress um we can't just wait and see what happens because there are people who are taking actions that are adverse to to that progress and what we've heard a lot of reasons why we need progress and why we need more progress from from where we've been in the last generation some of it is it struck me that you know i remember growing you know growing up in school we always heard about why that diversity is a good thing and there wasn't a lot of discussion about why it's a good thing
193but there have been a lot of studies hundreds of studies about why diversity is good in school settings it increases empathy among all students it increases openness towards newcomers towards differences towards people that that you may not uh encounter otherwise it increases kindness we heard that from from speakers as well it also is directly correlated with uh higher student achievement it improves creativity higher problem solving skills these are you know things that we as a school board are are very interested in in improving and diversity is directly related to that but i think you know and one of the the hardest things to that that we've heard tonight is the uh struggles that that people who are have been marginalized for so many generations are continuing to experience and diversity and things actions like this
194increase support they increase the feelings of validation and they increase feelings of self-worth this is a very simple action for us to take i mean a lot of work went into it a lot of it's not it's not simple in its concepts but or in its in its execution but it's simple in its concept and we can take that step today and and support all of those those benefits that we can see uh from from diversity as a as a benefit in our in our system so i i'm very supportive of this christy reiser yeah thank you um i will be brief first i just want to thank everybody who um came in person to address us on this issue and everybody phoned in um i'm not gonna lie i had some anxiety about this
195agenda item because i feared that our community would show up in a different way and i am incredibly grateful that the meeting unfolded in this particular way i want to thank everybody who shared their personal stories as parents and individuals to me this is a no-brainer and in i'll build on what trustee dooley said and just comment that i can remember standing in a bookstore in san carlos when i was a teacher it was 1999 because that was the only year i taught at that school and i had some funds from the school to buy books for my classroom my second third grade classroom library and i stood there with heather has two mommies which was back then like the book there was you know there's maybe there was one with two dads i think
196but i stood there and thought you know i want this book for my classroom this belongs in my classroom but then i struggled with it and then i remember i bought it and then there was a parent of a student in my class who was on the um the equivalence of the of the board of trustees at that charter school and i pulled him aside and i was like i just have a ques and before i could get the title heather has two mommies out of my mouth he was like oh absolutely you know but that was a deal and that was in 1999 and so i am also incredibly grateful that in 2022 we are at the board of trustees considering a very thoughtful professionally curated kit of supplies that are going to go
197into every single classroom pending our vote which is not for anyone listening we're i think this is not an action item tonight is that right so we aren't actually going to have the satisfying closure of voting tonight about this um but i'm just incredibly grateful for that progress and the last thing i'll say is just to reiterate that this is about families and love and respect um for those who are marginalized this could very well be a life-saving intervention that we're doing to have this content integrated and available for all students and for those other students and um and others that would encounter these kits that idea that one of our commenters brought up that this promotes allyship this tea this will be teaching other children who uh to be allies and to be allies
198for each other so um you know to to represent all of our students and to keep them all emotionally safe in our schools is our job and i'm proud of us for doing this and thank you for everyone for your hard work trust your work microphone on right um yeah i'm very glad uh about the people who who showed up tonight and um i was just thinking i taught 22 years ago i started working at the school next door and uh schools are can be very homophobic environments um in all schools all schools private schools too you know they're not believe me they're not at all immune and i did notice a change uh next door i noticed that um my students including some very surprising ones um were displaying um you know remarkable sensitivity
199and tolerance and um enjoyment i mean it's not just putting up with someone who's different from you it's actually getting a kick out of them you know having fun with them enjoying students who are different from them and i was thinking you know because i think young people are not naturally pathological i think uh children have a natural sense of fair play and when it's uh that's probably why i hate lord of the flies so much because i think i think children have a natural sense of fair play and when they behave in other ways in negative ways it's because they've been warped in some way it's maybe as naomi said maybe when they were sitting around the table you know they heard they heard adults talking in a certain way and they got bent
200but here's what i know uh when children or when children experience exclusion abuse cruelty you know rejection because of uh who they are what they are that's a violation of their human rights and um it's utterly unacceptable and i think we need to uh start from the bottom up and uh make sure people feel safe i uh people who do not feel safe who feel sad who feel depressed who feel closed out there have been some tragedies um connected with that you know some um very sad stories and uh i i think we just we just can't have that we can't have that anymore and um jason's right and um and so so are you the world is changing and i think it is it's uh i mean it's it's changing it's it's moving forward
201it's moving forward and um i think that's why some people uh you know react out of fear but it's moving forward and we need to encourage um our children to be kind to each other and have fun with each other thank you trustee water um i think i'm just sitting here and with a very strong word that is spread among the lgbt community as pride not only have we raised our our rainbow flag um an inclusive flag that has celebrates our transgender community as well and um celebrates the diversity that exists and the intersectionality that exists with humans people of color as well and today i get to wear my nbc pride shirt and but more so because one of the most important roles that we have as trustees is the governance piece of it
202how we created a foundation for the work to not only [Music] be represented by a flag that goes up during a pride month but for the long term and that creates life-changing moments for our for our kiddos and our staff and our community and we started that with our strategic plan and we started that with our dei policy and an investment in work um we continue that now with our rainbow kids um and it's been a journey but it's been a journey for many of us um longer than that and so um [Music] it's about time to celebrate um the uniqueness that we all bring um in the classroom in our everyday lives um i love the fact that the rainbow kid as is explained in the slides and as many of the stories shared
203today is about love and caring for for those around you caring about yourself it's about our families and um and being there for each other um it's it's a lot about our individual cells coming out but it's also about the community coming out and so but there's a lot of history and anxiety that comes around that um coming out when you know when you come out it's like there's an anxiety around that and so it feels like every time you have to come out it it um it brings back all of that and um and i just this is part of the foundational work so that when our our kiddos and our community it just you don't have to you just are who you are um you don't have to experience the really harsh harshness
204that it that our community can can have right it takes a village to raise one but it also takes a village to take one down and we have a responsibility um a governing one here and i'm just so i'm just very proud um because i knew um deep down that um that our community was gonna show up today and um from all um all backgrounds here from allies to our lgbtq from our teachers principals to our parents and and our students um that's exactly what this this this is this is uh growing this is exactly the types of seeds that are being planted with this work it's just watching that grow in its organic way which as human beings we are that um it's just really beautiful to see that and there is no stopping
205that and it's going to continue to grow it's going to continue to branch out and it's going to continue to make our community stronger and i'm just really appreciative of the space that um that we are creating um in in our in our district which is not an easy feat to do because we know what's happening nationally in other states and and this can quickly um go the other way um but by creating these types of scenes um i think what it does it's creates a nurturing environment um and a space for for everybody to feel safe um so they can be um they be who they the the best of who they're going to be um [Music] you know i got all those layers of marginalized uh in my in my history right you're
206you're like you're latina i'm queer and um and it's just it it's exhausting that your mind has to occupy so much time in all of these areas where you just want to be who you want to be and just that's it but it's a reality it occupies that mind and it's it's filled with anger it's filled with frustration and i'm gonna you know i'm an adult quote unquote right still growing up but our kiddos right we're we're we're here for them and um and we are responsible to create that safe space uh for our kiddos and equip ourselves uh with that too and um so feeling very proud and i look forward to the ongoing work that's going to keep going that those seeds are being planted and uh and let's keep on going so
207very much i don't think i can add anything um emily my dear please um i don't know if i can add anything of substance after all of this but um i think that growing up for a lot of students topics surrounding the lgbt community um it could feel taboo especially growing up there's not a lot of represent or there wasn't a lot of representation in the media and so you don't see it around you so often times some students will think oh it doesn't exist or i i could never be this i could never feel this way and so personally for me i never grew up in a household where i was told what to be but you know you go to school and you have you know your peers telling you this is what
208my parents tell me this is what i've seen and so i think that starting young and having these rainbow kids this is i think this is such an amazing thing i've uh well i'm a student i've never seen other school districts but i've never really seen something like this before and i think it's such an amazing opportunity to allow students to explore themselves and their identity in a safe environment they go to school they don't feel pressured to be somebody else they don't feel pressured to fit a certain stereotype or like they don't feel like they're enclosed in this box and i think that a lot what i've heard from a lot of my peers who are part of the lgbtq plus community is that they weren't able to truly find themselves or they maybe
209they haven't even found themselves yet but they weren't able to explore their identity or their sexuality or their gender until they were in high school and they felt like they were old enough and they were far enough away from like their parents or i don't know they just they just didn't feel safe enough when they were younger to really explore themselves and i think this is such an important thing to be bringing into the classroom and i think that nvsc is such an amazing district and such a special place and i don't know i just feel really proud and connecting with my former peer and seeing her present and seeing that other students have had a hand in creating these kids um and their stories are obviously within these kids too i think it's a
210really special thing um so yeah i'm i'm really happy about this thank you very much i i do want to thank everybody that shared their story shared their beliefs they made themselves vulnerable um diverse family inclusion in the classroom and school settings allow all children to celebrate their families however they're structured it gives all children an opportunity to learn that all families have similarities and all families have differences and what pat andrew jennings said that all children can learn that love does make a family and the premise of that statement correlates to how our children will view themselves others and be accepting and supporting the world around them and this type of work molds the values of generations to come and i am all for it so that being said i think we have um
211concluded our comments thank you to you two i mean truly thank you very much it's 10 30. so well done you may leave [Music] this is early this is early we have a ways to go we do um no thank you and just as a matter of procedure for everyone that's on the call it's just typical it's not that we don't want to vote tonight it's just typical that um we introduce our protocol around instructional materials and curriculum is that we introduce it at a first meeting as a presentation discussion item and then it gets voted on as an action item at the subsequent meeting so we that that's that it's just a matter that that is our protocol so thank you for the clarification okay madam president yes i need to make a motion
212to extend the meeting i would like to move to extend it to midnight second first by um thank you um accept the motion and first by um trustee dooley second by trustee gracia all in mild favor aye aye pledging favor yes okay motion passes um school planning and construction this is a public hearing on developer fee levels so public hearing is now open and assistant superintendent pearson yes president jankowicz we have a very short presentation given by rob murray with king and associates on our developer fee uh level one so mr murray i think you're on panels there you are and if you'll take it away all right thank you mr pearson and superintendent busari members of the board uh as indicated i think we the order is that we do want to keep this
213one uh fairly quick while hitting all the key content and so a little bit later tonight you'll have a resolution to adopt uh developer fees that is in uh conjunction with the 2022 study uh so again i'm rob murray the director of graphics and planning with king consulting you prepared your justification study for this year so this really goes back uh without going on to everything in the history but really since 1998 with the passage of sb50 uh there is a cap on the amount that can be levied and this level one statutory fee every other year uh those fees are increased uh and really those developer fees don't actually cover the true impact of what it costs uh with the additional student generation and need for facilities so it's imperative that school districts are
214making sure to collect that maximum developer fee think of it as the routine maintenance of your developer fee program and just something that you need to make sure that you're keeping on top of every couple of years so on to the next slide please thank you and so these fees just functionally are collected on each square foot of both residential and commercial industrial construction at different rates per the state allocation board in its february meeting of this year those 2022 rates were set at 4.79 for each square foot of residential development and 78 cents per square foot of commercial and industrial development and then on to the next slide a very important one again just functionally uh the whole reason you have that justification study is that the use of those fees is tied by
215uh how the collection of those fees is justified in the study and so the study lays it out and i'm happy to answer questions if needed on that but uh largely this will allow you to use those developer fees for the new construction and modernization reconstruction projects that are needed to maintain your existing level of service for all future students and then on to one more slide uh now of course your study shows that you actually are justified at rates that exceed these statutory amounts so the recommendation is to adopt those statutory amounts of the 4.79 cents per square foot of residential development 78 cents per square foot of commercial industrial development with the exception of mini storage just because you have a large amount of square footage with a small number of employees uh
216is justified at a rate of 13 cents per square foot for that one specific type of commercial and industrial development and that is it for the presentation i am happy to answer questions if there are any mr michaels do we have any public comment uh we do not there is no uh public comment okay thank you seeing as we have no public comment and no questions i'm going to um close the public hearing thank you very much and we will move on moving on to action items discussion and approval of resolution number 2230 authorizing continued use of remote teleconferencing provisions pursuant to ab361 in government code section 54953 first by trustee gracia second second by trustee dooley do we have any public comment mr michaels there is no public comment for this item may we
217get a roll call vote please vera yes student board member b hi trustee jankowicz aye trustee gracia aye trustee water aye trustee reiser aye trustee gonzalez-mares aye christy shu hi trustee dooley hi thank you thank you vera establishing school facilities improvement districts sfid's request to napa county board of supervisors first by trustee gracia second second by trustee riser mr michaels do we have any public comment there is no public comment for this item student board rep aye all in favor aye aye motion passes resolution 2228 declaring may 9th through may 13 2022 employee appreciation week move to approve but i'd like to make a comment before we vote certainly um second first by trustee gracias second by trustee dooley mr michaels do we have any public comment there is no uh public comment for this
218item before we vote would you like to yes i just wanted to take this opportunity to recognize the good work done by all of our employees it seems fitting to express our appreciation and gratitude for their hard work and dedication to educating our students every employee in the district contributes to the education of our students whether they work behind the scenes or directly in the classroom all their work is necessary for student education so i want to take this moment to recognize all of you and to say thank you thank you very much well said well said student board rep i all in favor aye aye oh that's right i'm sorry it is um do we don't do we have any we ask for public comment um may i get a roll call vote please
219vera yes student board member bid trustee jankowicz hi trustee gracia hi trustee water aye trustee reiser aye trustee gonzalez aye trustee issue aye trustee dooley hi thank you thank you vera resolution 2233 exemption to the separation from service requirement move to approve by second by trustee dooley do we have any public comment mr michaels uh there is no uh public comment for this item you're it's another roll call vote please yes student board member bid aye trustee jankowicz aye trustee gracia hi trustee water aye trustee reiser aye trustee gonzalez marin aye trustee shu hi christy dooley aye thank you thank you vera university of colorado agreement for student clinical education move to approve first by trustee gracia second second by trustee dooley mr michaels do we have any public comment there's no uh public comment
220for this item student board rep aye all in favor aye motion passes 20 21 22 revision to salary schedules move to approve first by trustee gracia second second by trustee dooley mr michaels uh there is no public comment for this item thank you sir miss uh student board rep bye all in favor aye aye motion passes at the valley unified school district and california school employees association longevity stipend updated language move to a proof first by trustee gracia second second by trustee dooley mr michaels there is no public comment for this item hi all in favor aye aye motion passes moving on to instructional services adoption of updated pardon me my contacts board policy 6146 high school graduation requirements a move to approve first by trustee gracia second second by trustee dooley mr michaels there
221is no public comment for this item student board rep aye all in favor aye aye motion agreement between liberated ethnic studies mcc and napa valley unified school district first by trustee gracia second second by trustee dooley mr michaels uh we do have public comment uh rosa linda hurtado go ahead please good evening as a a teacher a mother and a proud mexican-american i want to thank you for the opportunity to speak and also talk about the importance of having an ethnic studies program at our district i believe it's long overdue for our kiddos i myself a product of the unified school district and i know the importance of have of being having had had uh these types of this type of program these type of learning and teaching in our school in all the schools
222that i went to i also wanted to comment a couple of reasons why i believe ethnic studies is important for all our students and our community the first one it's it's studies show that it helps with our graduation rates it gives a more supportive learning environment for on the under represented students and as we know in our district we have a large number of students of you know that are considered minority and underrepresented and i believe that it is important for them to um be heard and feel comfortable in a class that it talks about people and events that are relevant and known to them i also believe as a teacher that it enhances critical thinking skills because faculty encourages students to analyze and evaluate theories and you know historical and current events and um
223lastly i wanted to mention that it also gives the students some sort of pride and commitment to social change the more educated they are the more that they'll be able to go out into our community and in the world and um really advocate for change uh in these uh in this time so um i hope i i hope that um we are able to follow through with this and i am uh thankful again for the opportunity uh to speak and i look forward to possibly teaching this topic but also having my children learn about their history and their culture aside from what i have taught them since they were little so thank you thank you very much mr michaels do we have any additional public comment uh we do not there is no further uh
224uh public comment elementary course science adoption recommendation move to approve first by trustee second by trustee mr michaels there is no public comment for this item student move to approve there is no public comment for this item student board all in favor there is no public comment for this item student board rep hi all in favor aye aye motion passes we're moving on to operational services request for transportation department disposition of assets move to approve by trustee gracia second second by trustee dooley mr michaels there is no public comment for this item student board rep aye all in favor aye aye aye passes contract between ndusd and chef ann foundation to provide support and assistance to school food first by trustee gracia second second by trustee dooley mr michaels now there is no public comment
225for this item student board rep aye all in favor aye aye passes maintenance maintenance skirting siding and trim to approve first by trustee gracia second second by trustee dooley mr michaels uh there's no public comment for this item student board rep aye all in favor aye motion passes ella's flooring carpet replacement various district sites move to approve first by trustee gracie second second by trustee dooley heard me any public comment uh there is no public comment for this item student board rep hi all in favor aye aye motion passes request for contract with aperture media and design llc move to approve first by trustee gracia second second by trustee dooley mr michaels uh there is no public comment on this item thank you student board rep hi all in favor aye aye motion passes maintenance
226gutters downspouts project move to approve first by trustee gracia second second by trustee dooley mr michaels there is no public comment on this item student board rep aye all in favor aye aye motion passes moving on to school planning and construction resolution 2231 developer fee level move to approve first by trustee gracia second second by trustee dooley do we have any public comment there is no public comment on this item we'll call vote please vera student board member bit i trustee jankowicz aye trustee gracia hi trustee water aye trustee reisser aye trustee gonzalez mares i'm trustee shu hi trustee dooley hi thank you thank you vera resolution 2234 authorizing filing of applications for preschool transitional kindergarten and full-day kindergarten facility grant program to approve first by trustee gracia second second by trustee dooley mr michaels
227do we have any public comment uh there is no uh public comment for this item thank you vera another roll call vote please student board member bit aye trustee jankowicz aye trustee gracia hi trustee water aye trustee reisser aye trustee gonzalez mares hi trusty hi trustee dooley hi thank you thank you vera request to surplus one relocatable classroom at american canyon middle school move to approve first by trustee gracia second second by trustee dooley mr michaels uh there is no public uh comment on this item student board rep aye all in favor aye aye motion passes request for contractive services with record colette move to approve thank you energy first fight trustee gracias second second by trustee dooley mr michaels there is no public comment on this item aye all in favor aye aye motion
228passes with bad pronunciation request for contract with prize consulting for eight for hvac system consulting move to approve first by trustee gracia second second by trustee dooley mr michaels there is no public comment for this item aye all in favor aye aye and request for approval of citizens bond oversight committee membership uh move to approve but i want to make some comment before we vote no problem second first by trustee gracias second by trustee dooley mr michaels do we have any public comment oh there is no public comment on this item i just again wanted to take this opportunity to thank the existing members serving on our committee and to appreciate the four people who have signed up to join the committee um and just thank them for their service so thank you very much
229i also just want to thank them because um i asked several people recruited i i was trying to recruit uh and i'm like it's awesome and so have you ever been to the meetings it it it's but you know well i'll continue i'm going to continue and uh but it makes me just so much more appreciate those have who have said yes so um thank you so much for for participating student board rep hi all in favor motion passes request for contract with arcana project inspection for ior services at the fencing phase three project move to approve first by trustee gracia second second by trustee dooley mr michaels do we have any public comment there is no public comment for this item aye all in favor aye aye aye motion passes moving on to informational
230items your general services um student support minutes are attached facilities and technology committee minutes are attached finance committee has not met and the policy committee has not met business services any comments on contract analysis did you have some uh so i wanted to appreciate staff putting together this uh report for us uh this was something that we had requested at the last board meeting and so they have supplied the information that we requested i feel like much of what has been demonstrated in the report has been addressed at our special meeting with regard to some of these contracts so i don't feel like there's necessarily more that we need to do at this point thank you trustee gracie enrollment report we are all well aware of where that's going instructional services chronic absenteeism report month
231report month eight it's good that we're improving but it's still alarming how high that rate is additional suggestions and comments from board members and superintendent future agenda items move to adjourn first [Music] we are adjourned thank you all very much see you all in two weeks