NVUSD Board of Education Meeting - December 10, 2020

001good evening everybody so we're opening our virtual meeting it is uh now 503 pm so calling the meeting to order the nvusd 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 board the open session part of the meeting agenda begins at 7 pm we're moving on to item b um public comment on closed uh session items before going into closed session the board is available for public comment on closed session agenda items is there any public comment on closed session items mr ruiz do not have any uh public comments at this time vice president gaza modest thank you mr ruiz seeing that there

002are none the napa valley unified school district will now adjourn into closed session thank you a one report for from closed session there's no report from closed session interpretation in spanish is available for tonight's virtual board meeting to access interpretation from a computer click on the interpretation icon on the button on your screen from within the zoom application on a mobile device click on the more button on the bottom of your screen and choose language interpretation from within the zoom application this is a separate channel that will allow you to hear english to spanish translation concurrently please note interpretation services are not available when you join our meeting by calling in our interpreters for tonight for tonight's meeting are julie young and paul huertas julie please translate these directions on our english channel so our

003spanish-speaking families can hear the instructions sure yeah good evening everybody interpretation thank you julie specific instructions on how to participate in the meeting are located on the board of education webpage on the district's website website nvusd.org forward slash board can we please start with an attendance roll call from vera morales yes trustee martin president trustee gonzalez mares president trustee jankowicz trustee gracias board member magana quorum present thank you thank you veda thank you for joining us tonight for our napa valley unified school district board meeting public participation remains virtual online only due to the covet 19 shelter in place order we continue in uncharted territory as we deal with cobia 19 pandemic as trustees we have returned to the boardroom in solidarity with our staff given that our school campuses are now now reopened for

004our students however in order to ensure access to our meetings without any limitations during the the persisting pandemic we are continuing with online remote access via zoom for the public and guests i would like to thank our employees our families and the entire nvusc community for how you have supported each other and come together during these unprecedented times the meeting tonight is in accordance with the open meeting rules in the state of california per the governor's order i'm going to start tonight with some basic instructions on how we're going to be using zoom and involve the members of the community all board of trustees and the superintendent are on video throughout the entire board meeting from here in the board room other staff members are present but only by audio members of the community will

005not be on video and will be muted except during public comment during public comment any member of the community that wishes to speak must raise your hand using the raise hand feature in zoom you'll be unmuted and you will be provided three minutes to speak there are two ways to make a public comment within the time allotted for public comment on an eligible agenda item the comment by video conf to comment by video conference click the raise your hand button to reque to request to speak when public comment is being taken on eligible agenda items when it is your turn to speak your name will be called out you will then be unmuted during your turn and allowed to make public comments after the allotted time you will then be re-muted instructions on how to

006raise your hand are available on the district website and mbusd.org forward slash board to comment by phone you will be prompted to raise your hand by pressing star 9 to request to speak when public comment is being taken on eligible agenda items when it is your turn to speak the last four digits of your phone number will be called out you will then be unmuted during your turn and allowed to make public comment after the allotted time you will then be remuted instructions on how to raise your hand by phone are available on the district website at nvusd.org forward slash board in addition community members were allowed to submit public comments via email at publiccomment nvusd.org up until 8 am this morning public comment received after 8 a.m the day of the scheduled meeting will

007not be read into the record however the public comment will be announced as received after the deadline and it will become a part of the meeting archive as long as it was it is received before the meeting is officially called the order for every agenda item i will prompt the meeting participants who have joined us via zoom for public comment please follow the instructions just provided when you would like to comment on an item we have been called to order and conducted our attendance roll call we will go forward with our agenda we have no report from closed session please join me in the flag salute while mr david gracia leads us the audience would please rise and join me in saying the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united

008states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all this meeting is recorded for live streaming and archiving on the district's youtube channel for a detailed review of any meeting agenda the archive video can be referenced located on the district webpage at nvusd.org the public can view the virtual board meeting remotely via zoom participation instructions and the process for public comment can be found on our district webpage e4 before we approve the agenda i'd like to move presentations and discussion items i 1a so after public comment i have a first from miss elba gonzalez second and a second by mr david gracia all those in favor aye abstentions student representative i motion passes approval of minutes so moved first by mr chunk and

009a second by mr you guys are adorable tonight stop trying to make me cry already [Laughter] all those in favor student representative aye abstention martian pounces recognition of visitors and employee organizations [Music] um do mr um ruiz do we have miss leslie walder from knapp's present tonight leslie if you're present if you could please raise your hand mr ruiz miss leslie walder is she present tonight yes i just unmuted her mic um she has to unmute her mic hi leslie do you want to say tonight do you want to say hello this evening i'm not sure she's not responding dr michetti okay all right well welcome uh miss walter thank you for joining us um is miss gayle young on this evening do you see miss gail young as a participant i do not see

010miss gil young tonight okay she let me know that she may be joining the meeting a little later but i did want to um let the public and the board members know our retiring trustees tonight the poinsettias that have been laid in front of your um seat are from the napa valley educators association so that's a gift from them and they wanted to um [Music] to give you a a farewell gift so thank you to miss young and the napa valley educators association and um edgar uh ventura or hector uh are they on tonight they did not tell me that they would be here but do you see them uh mr release i do not dr mercedes but let me let's try to get leslie walder back online okay good evening this is leslie walder

011speaking can you hear me i love you thank you yes good evening president martin uh superintendent um musee and i'm the leslie walder i'm the president of the knapp supported naps association of people services thank you leslie for being here moving forward with the agenda 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 the section of the agenda inasmuch as board action is limited to posted agenda items speakers are requested to limit their comments to a maximum of three minutes mr therese do we have any public comment president martin we do we um we can start with normal ortiz go ahead norma you've been um muted hello can you hear

012me yes we can hear you thank you dear board members ms martin mr shank and mr i never thought i was going to be here at this date and time to say these words and here i am today because it is not this is how i feel i personally want to thank you for your time commitment dedication and policy at napa valley unified school district moreover thank you for all your decisions and benefit of our english learners elac dela that means a lot to my daughter who is a student at napa valley unified school district including myself and for doing your best to overall support our students with program solutions honoring our culture traditions value systems the leads building community and our school system the inclusion of parents and community members like myself via public

013comment mr ertado i want to acknowledge the 16 years that you have served in this board the same to you mr xiang 12 years and miss martin for in support of our latino population and the community as a whole that important aspect of representing all of the different ethnic groups and our interest needs is very much appreciated but at the same time being cautious paying close attention to areas of most impact and caring for the most underserved and vulnerable communities is too thank you for embracing our mayan and aztec ancestry in this context welcoming and being attentive to the community's comments and my points of view that ambition for a bet a better future in education changes here in many ways look how far we've come with your support and passion because you were and

014are all leaders in your own capacity with your own styles you spoke from your heart and your own personal experiences when times were challenging i feel progress has been made and i am aware confident that you will continue to do and accomplish much more in the fields of education after being a part of several of our board meetings i found the need to learn more and more in such agenda items topics of discussion the same about your perspectives and roles whichever way you choose to go next your family is here napa valley unified school district and you will always be remembered in a very special and unique way for all of your contributions thank you for supporting our students parents staff members and our community under these unprecedented times with kovid miss martin your smiling

015laughter will be missed mr please know that it has been a pleasure hearing your comments based on observation and what i have heard during these meetings i can tell you're a very compassionate and warm person quote it has been an honor to serve for 16 years in this board and i can feel where you are coming from with this comment mr chunk i honor you as a person for sharing so much wisdom with us it was from you who i have learned the most you're such a humble human being and i just feel you have so much knowledge to share quote i've decided to step down make room for others thank you for empowering others in your community and i am sure you know what i what i mean by that thank you for making

016the choice of being here and making a difference in my child's life in regards to education good night thank you so much that's nice i can't say any much i can't say much more because if not we won't get anywhere tonight but thank you so much for your message we have one more uh public comment president warranty uh thomas kensack go ahead thomas i just wondered am i unmuted yes sir all right well my comments are going to sound a great deal like those of ms ortiz i checked in this evening because i wanted to honor the three of you who are outgoing board members starting with isella your upbeat optimism and warmth were a big deal i didn't serve with you as long as the other two but you made a difference during the

017time that you were there you brought a voice a voice that was needed you sometimes said what needed to be said but you also connected with the other members of the board and that makes a difference when you're sitting there thinking oh i've got a school board meeting tonight and there's unhappiness around and so on and did you think well isella is going to be there she's going to suck it up and do what needs to be done and i'm going to show up as well and so we do show up now you other two i always resented the fact that you guys had hair i didn't let that stop me from listening to what you had to say and it was a truly an honor to sit with the two of you for 14

018years some of the people and i look around the room there and i see that actually there's no one in the room that may remember that joe schunk has actually spent more than 16 years in that boardroom joe shunk has been a voice of wisdom and he's also a voice in which the fact that he has done his homework shows up joe schunk came to every board meeting for at least two years because i was there before he came on the board and maybe longer and i always made it a point to listen to joe shank when joe shunk not that i didn't listen on other subjects but when joe shank stepped up to the microphone even before he was on the board to address an issue on special ad jose hurtado i don't know

019that anyone on the board during my time had as deep and as long of roots in the napa valley as ms ortiz just pointed out you have spoken up for latino issues i listened during my time there i hope others have continued to listen because of the fact that you have such a long view of what has taken place where we've been i'd also like to thank you for serving as a lightning rod on certain things maybe that wasn't your choice but you handled it and you handled it well i see my time is up so in the end thank you very much to all of you let's go next with uh chuck needhoffer go ahead and unmute your mic chart if you like to make a public comment all right uh let's go with

020her jay her taro makati do we want to have um i need to plenty the other uh the interpreters to do this oh i can do it in english i'm sorry okay it's whatever you prefer i will go ahead okay yes good evening first i'd like to say thank you for this opportunity to acknowledge my brother jose ortado dr shank amy um senorita is isella first i it's very very proud to say and very proud of my brother as many years of service to the napa community may my brother's service continue to inspire many more individuals that have served our community now gracias thank you josephina mr reese do we have any more public comment we do uh chuck neat hopper see allow him hello can you hear me yes thank you manuel um i'm

021just checking in personally i'm sorry that we can't have kind of an in-person mixer as we have in the past um but of course these are unusual times um as an employee and as someone who's worked with the district for so long i just want to personally uh show up to thank you who have shown up so many times for so many hours um and and just really put your best efforts forward on such important issues that seem to face the district every year you know you finish a year and you think gosh a lot happened that year and then the next year comes along and and every year has its new um boatload of surprises and and rivers to ford miss martin i really appreciate how often i saw you at um at school

022events and your kind of proactive outreach to individual school sites mr shunk i um i always appreciated your eagle eye and um as um as tom commented earlier um your study of the issues and um you you really helped me even as an employee when i was presenting to the board understand repercussions of issues um sometimes further than i was thinking myself and and that's just real value added and i understand you did that over and over and over again in your years of service very thoughtful questions and and i would just want to thank you for all that homework and mr hurtado um you know the the the role that you've played in our board and in our community is hard to is hard to overstate and uh your previous experience with the college

023and bringing that knowledge and just just personal commitment from the city and to into your relationship with the school board and connecting that with our k-12 students um there's just no way that one can value that and i just appreciate the way that you approached issues um your generosity the generosity you had with your time um your thoughtfulness your kindness um just i guess all in all it's going to be an incredible loss to us in terms of institutional memory and commitment when the three of you leave and i just want to thank you from the bottom of my heart from someone who loves the district as much as you do thank you chuck okay uh monica ready good evening board of trustees superintendent dr osonomosetti and the larger napple community i would like to

024thank the board of education for creating and upholding the policies that allow nvsd administrators to rise up in the face of challenge and lead it is because of your courage integrity and commitment to each and every child that we can lead each day one of numerous examples that i can give is that we are one of 70 school districts open to in-person learning at a time when our students need to be in class i would like to personally thank trustee hertado chunk and martine for your presence you show up on campus and events to connect with our community and you listen and you show you care thank you for your years of service from napa high school thank you monica and that concludes our public comment president martin thank you very much we are now

025moving to item i1a general services presentation then [Music] discussions so good evening um napa valley unified school district community tonight is a business meeting but it's a very special business meeting and most likely an emotional one so i'm just going to warn everyone now tonight we say farewell to an amazing trio of trustees who with all of their years of service combined have committed 30 years of public service to the students families and employees of the napa valley unified school district i'm just going to warn everyone that i will be your superintendent who cries in public this evening trustees shank and martin have made such a powerful deep impression on me as an educator a leader a superintendent of schools a friend and just human that it is difficult to say goodbye and facilitate this

026transition this evening without tearing up or choking them trustees ultadoshunk and martin the three of you will always hold a very special place in my heart you are all members of the board who hired me in the spring of 2018 almost three years ago now you changed my life forever because you gave me this unique opportunity to serve as your first female latina superintendent in this very special community that i can now comfortably confidently and warmly call my professional home after my husband orlando and i met all of you and had dinner during the second phase of the superintendent selection process i remember that we both agreed on the drive home that if i was selected for the position of superintendent for the napa valley unified school district i would be working with and for

027caring committed brilliant compassionate supportive and courageous public servants who cared about the education of the young people in their community and most importantly cared about what was doing right for children that was my first impression i really wanted the job after i met the three of you and that impression has held up as truth day after day over the last two and a half years if we've accomplished so much hard work together the three of you have taught my novice superintendent self so much about leadership community and governance that the list of everything i have learned from each of you is just way too long for tonight tonight we will honor the three of you for all that you've accomplished in service to past current and future generations of napa valley unified school district students

028you will all be sorely missed but know that your impact and influence will never be forgotten our farewell presentation tonight is delivered with love appreciation pride and gratitude we appreciate every governance decision that you have made to improve the educational lives of students we are proud of how you have approached your governance roles with integrity and honesty always and we are grateful for the work the time the stress the sacrifices of your families and the unwavering commitment to kids even in the toughest times that each of you have demonstrated repeatedly it is an honor as the superintendent of schools of nvusd alongside your colleague trustees to present each of you with the nvusd distinguished service award for your years of service and a glass gavel recognition award for the years that each of you have

029served as the board president so let's get started with our current board president president isella martin isella you have taught me to be fierce passionate and honest thank you for your leadership your insights into complex situations for always opening your heart about the struggles within our educational community for being the voice of those struggles for your passion for ensuring educational equity for our latinx students and for reminding me always with every decision in every board meeting that all children no matter what their barriers may be have the potential for greatness you have demonstrated that there is strength and vulnerability your willingness to tell your story and how your personal journey motivated you to fight to get on the school board is beyond admirable your willingness to always find a solution even when the problem seems

030impossible to solve has helped me so much these last couple of years thank you for serving as our board president in this last year you helped me learn so much about the nvusd community so quickly because of your openness and your welcoming warm approach have been invaluable to me yes so um we want to present president martin with the distinguished president martin have four years of service as a trustee and we'd also like to present her with the president's gavel recognition for her years of service as board president president martin was named president in december of 2019 so i would like to invite the trustees to share any words that they may have and saying farewell to president martin well to the families of uh trustee trustee hurtado and trustee martine thank you they have

031been fully dedicated to their role as a trustee and they could not and that could not be done without the support of family so our gratitude is certainly extended to all of you as well trustee martine estella has always championed fairness equity and has been steadfast in her beliefs i have admired her strength and her grit isella through her thoughtful work on the board has stood for inclusion and has been committed to the ongoing sustainable transformation within nbusd she has thought intentionally about the issues we have grappled with and has taught us that we have the power to impact and learn from every person we come in contact with she has demonstrated conviction and her moral compass always points due north [Music] i can't look at you i lose my place through her community engagement

032and outreach she has been a powerful voice for nbusd isella has always demonstrated an open mindset listened with purpose and understanding and has led with a collaborative approach she has honored diversity of thinking and worked diligently to support all of the students of napa valley unified she played an instrumental role in guiding our mission i am grateful for her insight her expertise and her huge heart and while boards do not need to be comprised of people that genuinely like each other i guess we have been blessed thank you for your fierceness your fervency and of course your dedicated service always done with a smile and compassion which has been an added bonus [Music] we can go down the line um i was just surprised that i still had two years left in my life because

033it's been weeks on the process um we'll go one by one um we both started our journey a school board members um i didn't know you then um but i knew you were up to the task because you ran um with such dedication and and perseverance and with such purpose um and having also your your children part of the district i know you were coming in with a very strong voice um and you always brought that to the discussion because we're board members but we're humans at the start of all of this um we're people but we care very much about the community that we live in and you model that um and what most people don't know about isella is that she models at 24 hours if the day had 37 she'd probably continue

034and it had 40 she'd go on um there is this amazing strength with that that as you walk in the room there's sort of this elevation to to meet that and i am honored and i feel so proud to have worked alongside you and to have been in your presence as we tackled since day one um very difficult issues um but always with a reminder and every time we spoke that at the at the at the center of it all was our was our students and our families and i will never forget that and i always love that um feeling that you give um it's one of those things i i've i've gone through my shares of saying goodbyes um multiple times to people that i know that i'll never you know either i don't

035know they'll see them again or not you just don't know how life works but i will never forget how you made us all feel and myself in this journey and helping and being part of the change and the solutions to help our our beloved community and our students and their families thrive and be the best that they can be so thank you and thank you also to the family for lending us isella which was quite a lot so thank you well this is to all the uh all the um uh god don't make me cry i left a gift on the table for um my colleagues who will be leaving us and i want you to look at that dollar amount fppc regulations say that you have well they imply that you have to give

036me a penny each or you're going to have to declare that as a campaign contribution and you do not want to get in trouble okay just remember that would be so mortifying we're good for it okay good good good good and um and this is to uh trusty martin martin um life is full of change i am sorry i will not be working for you with you over the next few years um i cannot think of a person who would have been better leading us through these very strange times i appreciate your leadership your warmth your sense of humor you know and the you gave us all the feeling that we were going to get through this you know somehow and your life is in spite of the pandemic moving forward in a positive way

037isn't it both professionally and personally she's smiling actually through her tears um and by the way i want everyone to know that i voted for stella martin back before district elections i voted for you um because you were the only candidate running who was talking about academic achievement which i was actually interested in and uh but you know isella isella is really much more than that uh because because of he sells life experience and the work you do your job you have a deep knowledge of our children's lives and i'm gonna miss that perspective very much and uh onward however and most definitely upward uh one of the most fun experiences i've had was going to the um day of the dead uh event over you know over the boys and girls club you know

038you helped put that on that was wonderful and um last year i went to back when we used to go to parties i went to the hispanic network's uh christmas party andy zela sang she looked saying beautiful she sang in front of all these people it would abandon everything and it was i just was floored i didn't know she had she has incredible pipes folks i mean you know if she wants to give up you know all this you know working working with agricultural workers i mean there's something else out there for him and isella i just want you to just you know keep moving forward keep singing i i really i wish you so much joy um thank you so much for everything you gave us and um and like the other two gentlemen

039you you cared about you care about all of us in napa you always put the children first thank you so much i think from the very first time i met isella when she was considering running for trustee we hit it off i believe she would bring a positive energy to the board and she has she has done a yeoman's job as president this past year first among equals holding the board to account presiding me over meetings in a unique setting of zoom it's required adapting an in-person presence to a telepresence this was never covered in any of the csba conferences we attended um and you can't handle it with a plum it's been a year of change for you and i wish you the very best in your multifaceted future good luck i remember receiving

040a phone call from i don't know it might have been i can't remember who it was asking me if i would mind uh talking to isella is what they said martin who was interested in running for the board and so he said that night you know why not i was going to get a cup of coffee out of it so i said why not and you know that i figured that the conversation would last at least as long as the coffee and i think we ended up spending almost two hours uh outlining issues uh addressing what you thought might have been holes in your resume that i thought were absolutely pluses and and we talked about that and then i remember after the election you were worrying for at least a couple of weeks because

041you were only 200 votes in the lead and i kept telling you you're fine you're in you know let's get you fitted for the chair and let's move forward but what i saw back then isella and i want you to keep this in mind is that i saw somebody with a with a real future a real future in leadership um uh the the ability to connect with people to understand uh the problems and issues of our community from a perspective that isn't always representative or isn't even represented or even appreciated uh by by some um you have a real ability you have a gift that you know it doesn't belong to you the gift belongs to your community and i will be there in the future when you decide to [Music] give this another go

042um you can count on me okay i truly appreciate your presence on the board so much has already been said i think i'll keep my remarks a little briefer i admire your dedication to good governance and how passionately you're committed to it thank you for always pushing the team to strive for that good governance i appreciate you being an example to the rest of us about how good governance ought to be performed and your willingness to passionately advocate for the things that you believe in would you like to share any words before we actually so should i do the research myself or should we just call [Laughter] in the last one [Music] in my new decade of senior leadership in school systems i don't think i've ever met a board member with your knowledge you

043are absolutely brilliant you serve as the wisest of guys when it comes to the fear of the philosophical the political and of course the practical and pragmatic aspects of the work we do as the district's governance team i have told you that if i ever teach a university course on effective governance i will be using hours and hours footage from youtube to demonstrate an example of school district governance thank you for all the times each of my phone calls and you grounded me in logic steadiness and just a huge well of integrity i know that you've been my anchor for the last two and a half years and the anchor of many of us sitting up here on so many days you're the first board president ever that i got to work with and i

044will always hold you dear in my heart thank you for creating the highest standards for our current award a new board that's onboarding this week and for every future board member that i will work with i know i am going to sit in this boardroom starting next week many times asking myself quietly in my mind what would trustee do or say in this very moment so thank you for being a humble exceptional role model for everyone it's been an honor so we're going to present um trustee the service award i get a picture sorry sorry for it so trustee shunk has 12 years of service plus i guess because he spent a lot of hours [Applause] and trust [Music] so the last gap okay trustees um so i'd like to invite you to share any

045words that you may have to say farewell to trustee shuck well trustee shunk uh we met at board meetings many years ago when you and i were frequently the only innocent bystanders there you know the the board the board meetings were gen they were not a hot ticket there was plenty of room you wouldn't have to worry about catching coven back then um because no one was there you know us and i remember uh once two other gentlemen showed up and moved up to the up to the um lectern and i was really excited i was thinking maybe maybe they'd do something like complain about the state of the libraries or whatever no instead they grouched about how terrible the vintage high football team was that year and i was completely deflated and you know

046joe of course thought that was hilarious um i'm going to miss the occasional sunday phone call where i could always get the historical perspective but i will really miss joe's humor uh probably everybody here knows that he has a very dry roll deadpan delivery um that i can never emulate but i know i can see it on the nvusd version of the wayback machine which is you know our video recordings you know on youtube videos of meetings past and i i will i just and i people have heard this a million times but it was so funny i was going back looking up something about goodness some charter school and there is and i just hit it bingo and joe's voice comes up these tendentious sepal cruel tones i am not a leprechaun i do

047not have a bag of money and i just started laughing and yet now so he has established himself as a fiscal conservative and this is true this is true given his you know background and looking out he's a numbers guy but last march when the pandemic hit he was the first person to say what about delivering lunches what about food delivery to our kids okay and joe i will always remember that about you you know this this occasionally kind of crusty person just like like all the trustees cares about the kids the kids come first so thank you very much joe uh for the companionship you know when you before you and i were ever on the board sitting out there in the audience and all the laughs and okay i'll confess this is totally

048uh tom kensak brought it up with the hair um but after one of our after our first zoom meeting i called him up his hair was so radiant it's like whiter than mike pence's hair and i called him up and said what do you wash your hair with what's the secret because it was just like this amazing flinging white halo on the screen i was thinking i could use some of that no it's not your family is going to be glad to have you back i ain't going next um joe um you know when one of the first conversations we had which right away told me so much about you um and it was you and it was trustee ken sock and um and i asked you know you know in the board packet how

049long does it take you to go through it and um and joe said well at least you know eight hours or so and tom was like whoa and i remember going like oh wow and it's you know it it's depending on the meeting it's it's so much in there that i don't think anybody but you looks at it like a page turner like a good book as i go through it i'm like oh my gosh okay what is all me what does all mean all of this and i think joe's literally like yeah that's a good line yeah you know and that's a quote i don't know like you'd see it as a good novel [Laughter] you know those are the the ups and downs of being in this role right um and it's all

050important and you're just this walking history book and manual book the to do this is what you do and it's you put it in such simple terms and it's right it was such logic um and it almost makes it look easy but it's this years of history and of course your brilliant mind and how it works and then all of a sudden just all wrapped up and ready to go to be like this is what we should do this is what i think and this is why and that's what you bring every single time um and this community and the students and the families what's so hard about this role is that many of them don't know who they're indebted to and that goes without saying with you joe and also to your family for

051lending them to us all these many years and just the amazing positive impact you have made to generations and generations of this community and that i i'm thankful for that because i know that decisions that you've made are helping more and more of the generations to come so thank you joe for setting a good example and being a model but just for simply being joe so thank you when um i had a very interesting career on the board one of the roles that i i was given just almost by acclamation was being the board bouncer the other one was being the board uh mentor to some of our less capable board members and i remember spending hours with with and i'm sure you remember the board member and trying to uh um uh guide her

052and how the board does its work and and finally after hours and hours and hours of trying to get this board member to understand that this is really hard work and and you need to system i finally just said just watch joe during the meeting you know and especially in issues that have to do with technology or finance listen to the way he he dissects the the issue uh of course didn't help that was beyond but but that's kind of how i uh how i approach technology and finance i just um and and i have to tell you um when i was my first few meetings on this side of the of the table i would look out there and i'm wondering what are those two characters who are those two and you know it's

053cindy and and joe and i asked tom uh kenzak my my friend who you know it's like the the line in in butch cassidy sundance kid who are those guys and the response says that you know that joe knows more about special ed and and money than we do so it was refreshing to me that you finally came and sat down next to me because you know i understand and poor uh robin is got a glimpse of that i don't understand finances very very much my wife will attest to that um but i certainly learned more from your questions and your statements about what the direction we were going um and and you're and i i enjoyed your sense of humor i i really um uh i would like to think that you and i

054are friends as a result of all this so thank you you're an honor 100 number thank you all right you're the closer tonight trustee i guess um trustee shunk he's been involved with nvusd for many years even prior to taking a seat as a trustee this lent itself to one of the things i appreciate most about joe which was he always had a deep historical perspective on how the district had gotten to any specific point he was always drawing on his depth of knowledge around the history of nvusd in order to bring an interesting and often important perspective on where the district had come from in prior decision making processes sitting next to joe for most of my tenure i had a unique opportunity to see him model the behavior of an experienced board member

055i also came to appreciate joe's favorite motion at any meeting which i think he made at most meetings which was our motion to adjourn he would take pride in reminding us all that it was the only motion never to have failed [Laughter] all right okay um last but not least of course thank you for exemplifying what it truly means to stand up for what you believe in every time and i mean every time the alignment between your values and actions and everything that you do and in every interaction i've ever had with you over the past almost three years has left such a positive deep impression on me you have led our team through challenges with serenity compassion but a firm and steady hand you have served as a mentor for me and i hope

056that you will continue to teach me and others in our community what it means to lead with courage to do the right thing to do the best you can and to humbly admit when we are wrong and do all that we can immediately to make it right you have been a social justice warrior in this community willing to stand up against racism and to embrace diversity equity and inclusion at all costs your fighting but graceful patient spirit will live on in this boardroom for years to come it's with great honor that we recognize the winner tonight 16 years of service on the napa valley unified school district school board so [Applause] 16 years right here 16 16. that's a long time you can drive now okay and listen to this president's gavel recognition for the

057years he was um uh voted as president years 2006 2011 2016 and 2018. four years serving us [Applause] okay i'd like to invite the trustees to share any words they may have and saying farewell to trustee and or shunt combined to serve the students of napa valley unified and from that they have never wavered they have embodied this district taken the time and care to execute each decision thoughtfully critically and with the understanding of impact the general public may not have liked every decision but every decision came with the courage to do what was right on behalf of our students even when what was best wasn't obvious to all don't underestimate the power of courage the strength to withstand difficulty and to cultivate change multiple terms on a school board is a courageous act they

058mentored us by displaying restraint not always easy joe and understanding boundaries while pushing them when necessary jose all while educating us with the power of their questions they voiced their opinions they did so with respect and the institutional understanding of the journey that brought us to the why of where we are today how lucky we have been they have led and they have led by example oh boy trusty shunk our historian joe's ability and willingness to understand our history create context and analytics that optimize the decision-making process extract the relevant data to apply what is needed all while keeping an eye on the future is a skill that few possess he understands what elements are needed as well as what elements might be missing and should be considered before determining outcomes he is a true

059consumer of data knowledge and understands the relevance the relationship and the power of information and although intuition is often considered a secondary skill i would bet on joe's every time let me define the power of joe instead of taking copious notes during staff presentations i like many others would jot down every single one of joe's questions because his questions are thought-provoking and they demand reflection he has taken the time to mentor new board members myself included and has done so by filling in some of the blanks in our thought processes thereby forcing us to come to our own conclusions to understand the why he uses conversations to teach sorry hold on he uses conversations to teach hone our listening skills and reminds us of our role in order to best serve his reasoning his logic

060are often expressed in joe-isms and we delight in his candor as he has made us appreciate that reasons matter and we have to understand the contribution before we can focus on completion joe can say more in three words than i can say in 300 and tonight is a perfect example he embraces brevity and to our benefit joe has shown the dedication to the process means to determine where we are going so that we can better understand where we are now so the steps we take are in the right direction and that level of dedication requires us to think backwards to begin with the end in mind and then proceed forward it might sound convoluted but like with everything joe can simplify with profound accuracy which stems from profound understanding he has been exceptionally generous with

061his time and his thoughts and i am so grateful and he will forever make me consider what would joe do just one moment please just last night trustee fertile jose our humanitarian our storyteller jose has always had a way of positioning decisions within the context of an experience he brings a human element to our dialogue least we forget who we serve his ability to infuse a little humanity into the challenges we have faced comes from his previous involvement in every aspect of the educational experience he is a forever student he has been a professor educator counselor you negotiator union president and the list goes on his perspective has expanded our understanding of complex issues and he always has that one perfect concluding statement that encapsulates our thoughts while providing much needed clarity and insight he

062believes in civic duty and is set an incredibly high bar jose sat to my right when i first started on the board i was nervous and he would quietly steady me he spent many an hour weaving the tales that would help shape our experience and expand our understanding again the gift of time and perspective from youtube jose was never afraid to use his outside voice when needed but more importantly he was never afraid to use his voice he used his platform as tentacles into this community and made education a conversation jose's respect for the human condition will always make me consider what would jose do you two have been critical bookends on this board you have provided us with balance perspective understanding and the importance of why you threw in a bit of snarkiness along

063the way for good measure and we will strive to work as hard as you did it is impossible to measure your contribution passion dedication and commitment is often measured by what you are willing to give up and that speaks volume to your character [Music] we have had the ultimate opportunity for governance training it really has been a privilege to serve alongside you so saying thank you is the turning point between letting go of what's happened and embracing what's to come we will we will let go and feel grateful for what you have given and know that what is to come will always be influenced by what you so generously gave thank you to all three of you i really love you guys so my question is how much is the t-shirt it's kind of a

064two-for-one board meeting it's like a two-for-one deal it's a two-for-one right i'm gonna have the maid depending on the situation um jose um you and i met um maybe a year or two before a year before i started to um consider joining the school board and um in one of the the aspects of of of meeting you and talking with you is that i think over the years now real you realize that without having to ask you to mentor to mentor me and most people don't realize that he's mentoring you along the way weeks later you realize like oh he was actually teaching me something and um and i think that is the kind of wisdom that is what we're going to miss um but we know you're you're you're there and we'll have that

065question in mind what would jose do um but jose you your leadership and your commitment to the community um is uh to me it's something i strive for i always say like i want to be like jose when i grow up and it's important right because you need a guide um to help you walk through the process of difficult situations and um because every day um and whenever when we come up to our board meetings we know and we come with that with that with that mindset is that we're here to talk about lives and um but it's in our in those difficult times just so hard to know what to do and what's right and and it's always at those moments where we're all chatting chatting chatting and we're talking we're not sure we're

066thinking out loud and then here comes you know your wisdom that sets the tone and it helps us see through through that cloudiness and the clarity comes becomes clear um i'll miss you um but i know you're you'll you'll be there um and you're only a phone call away although i feel like i don't use that lifeline too often but i think knowing that you won't be in our meetings i might just reach out so thank you for for all your years of service and again this community the napa community doesn't know at many times who they're embedded to and i thank you for your service and for helping generations and generations and also to the family for again lenin is jose all those years thank you muchas gracias are you into the end she's

067gonna go now go ahead okay trusty or tato you and i have known each other i guess the longest um we used to run into each other a lot at cultural events involving students and uh i believe even the graduation of a favorite now behind napa valley college student from berkeley and this is really no surprise because uh with with jose ortado it is all about the students after no child left behind in program improvement i know this reminiscence you know it was just terrible time i became a frequent and often the only presence at board meetings where i was sometimes a pain in the neck foreign in the side stone in the shoe yeah it's true i know take your pick of metaphor and still when i came on the board jose was most

068welcoming you know he was glad to see me and um every so often every so often i mean he really was he was very very welcoming it was like all of you know the crankiness was it just dissipated because we're on the same team and every so often you tell us a story about your student radical days and guess what folks i know they're all true uh and i realized what a paradox you were because from a youthful anti-establishment student at san francisco state that was the place right what at uc davis pardon me at uc davis even better you became you became an official you know with a great respect for the institutions of government um because not not because of the status but because they signify public trust it's it's not about the

069office it's about the fact that people believe you can do the job in the office that's the important thing and uh he never forgot that and i also um know that uh jose was frequently i believe tom said that tom kensak said that you were occasionally the lightning rod you came in for the uh personal abuse um uh you know saving saving everyone else um and um that was you were sitting next to him but it didn't work right there and um uh i think uh you're pretty good humored about it you really were and i mean i saw i witnessed it a couple of times and thought you know he's a cool customer um i don't know what he's like when he gets home but uh but uh in public he was he was

070pretty calm occasionally we would get shrieked at by elected officials and you were shocked at how they lowered themselves and their offices by behaving in an undignified manner it wasn't it wasn't that you know they're being abusive to me it's like you know this is not what they're supposed to be doing in their position and i i you've given me a lot of lessons you know over the years and 16 years 16 years i mean as i said earlier you know gee old enough to drive you can really enjoy your retirement now you can read all the books you want to read right that's to give right and and i know that when things open up i'll go down to napa valley college and see a play um and you'll be there you know [Music]

071you'll you'll be i'll go to a concert and to hear the kids sing you'll be there too you know so this is this is not goodbye just enjoy yourself you have really worked hard first few years i was on the board jose i was absolutely convinced you were related to everyone in the valley every time every time we met a new person you were related to them by blood marriage or or uh a shirttail relation it it took me a while to realize it wasn't true jose is a storyteller that's how he makes his point when he's speaking i've gotten to know jose through his story jose and i come at the work of the school board from two very different sets of life experiences one element of our experiences have in common is our

072experiences of exclusion and that wasn't okay with us we have found common ground and common values born of different experiences and i'd like to think that's how school boards are supposed to work um since i've got the mic i might as well hold on to it personally when i started attending board meetings the board packet was a couple of inches of dead trees and the meetings weren't televised or recorded the board packet got to me from diane mitchell in the superintendent's office via inner office mail to my son's school he would pick it up in the school side office and bring it home in his backpack i can say that my time on the board has been some of the most intellectually engaging work i've done in aside from the early and middle part of

073my career part of that is the board is expected to be experts in a vast array of topics whereas most employees and other stakeholders can focus on a particular discipline aspect or interest i'd like to acknowledge the people that i've been working with the last couple of years elba is among our youngest trustees elba brings connections to multiple communities within our town we are richer for having these perspectives and values embedded in our work she is passionate and serious i'm envious of her courage and success and i wish i was half as accomplished at the same age cindy is unique in her perspective as you might have gathered from her remarks tonight she like jose is a storyteller cindy i think is unique in that she's the only nbusd trustee i know of that has

074served in public office some would say higher office prior to joining the school board she brings a real to local politics that i think will stand the board in good stead as others have mentioned she and i have one thing in common over 12 years ago we were frequent flyers at the public podium i suppose i know david the least well his contributions are many i worry about his health from the tank-sized big gulp to his relentless pursuit of perfection i think he may be developing a modicum of patience along with stamina which will stand him in good stead robin i don't know that i've met someone as bright as robin who at the same time has a deep capacity to take in and feel the emotional content of the issues the board wrestles with

075she is bright humble constantly learning and better than she knows you'll do fine dr macetti is everything we hoped when we hired her and more in the past i've had my tongue firmly planted in cheek and conveyed my sense of her to her nothing's changed my mind we've shared any number of only in napa moments and i'm sure there will be more of them i also want to acknowledge the dedication of the certificated classified and executive staff sometimes seen often unseen they've risen to the occasion repeatedly and consistently during flood fire quake pandemic and fiscal famine i never took their dedication and care for our students for granted the current cabinet is on the whole younger probably more skilled and learning faster than their predecessors and have a big adventure ahead of them i wish

076you all well on the journey to the future stakeholders underestimate the board and our desire to move beyond the status quo in many in varied ways it is my hope the board continues that journey to beyond the status quo vera morales is the latest in a long line of folks that have taken care of the board and i appreciate her grateful assistance that i've received over these many years thank you i want to acknowledge that my dad's here tonight she's the good looking fellow over there he and my mother were here in this room 12 years ago when i was sworn in for the first time he's been one of our viewers the last few years but again then again he watches calspan on the internet and listens to committee hearings and of the state

077assembly in the state senate the policy apple doesn't fall far from the tree my son zachary was here he had to go to work jacob is still at work um they've also been supportive even if that meant they simply stayed out of trouble and never appeared on our closed session agenda that's good jacob has come campaigned with me before i was on the board he walked the neighborhoods with me for measure g and during my first campaign he walked with me knocking on doors my wife michelle has been supportive of my public then elected participation in the school board during and after our son's journey through the system these last 22 years she has given me that medicinal glass of wine at the end of a long evening giving me the space to culminate until

078it got out of my system and provided an anchor of values amid competing thoughts i am blessed to have such a life partner i have thoroughly enjoyed my time on the board i've enjoyed the time i've spent with my fellow board members all of them which when you think about it is pretty amazing we throw seven people together in a fairly random fashion and ask them to divine the intent thoughts and aspirations of a diverse public instead of the stakeholders we ask them to choose solutions to insoluble problems make impossible decisions all under varying degrees of uncertainty i still look up to compatriots past rob felder tom kensack jackie dixon francis ortiz chavez and michael douglas i suspect i will miss this but i'll get over it thank you you know he had to do

079it that last joe-ism trustee hurtado i first met him shortly after being elected to the board we had agreed to have coffee at starbucks i had reached out to me with several of the trustees prior to officially joining the board but was jose was the first one i met with i was a newly elected very eager member and jose was the elder statesman of the board he gave me some solid advice that day about appreciating the perspective of the past and understanding how we got to where we were i came in seeing a host of problems all in need of fixing but jose opened my eyes to how what i saw as problems were actually massive improvements over where things had been previously while we certainly had our fair share of disagreements we were always

080able to work together to do the business of the district we never let our policy disagreements affect our personal relationship during our time on the board jose served as president for the first year of my tenure on the board and demonstrated great leadership he ran a tight meeting and provided important perspective around issues that i was passionate about i always appreciated his perspective on issues even when we disagreed because he would often expand my understanding of the matter thank you and then trustee martinez sorry american canyon has a high school the new uh memorial stadium is a gem early on we changed the default graduation requirements a through g so that all of our students would be getting advice that would get them to college and that was quite a battle believe me we've changed

081mascots in some of the schools and just just for our information uh fresno high school uh just uh their board just voted to change their mascot and the national congress of native americans made the mascot issue foremost in their national meeting so i can't say that we were ahead of the wave we were probably halfway through the wave um one of the biggest changes was that changed positions from out here to back there a change that i welcomed um very much and we selected dr masetti uh to be our superintendent which i think was a major step forward for the district i have served also piggybacking on mr schunk's statement half served with some outstanding student uh people whose names deserve to be heard one more time in the board room dr john glaser the

082first superintendent i've served with michael douglas who served before mr chunk as the american canyon representative tom kensack who tom and my wife plotted at a hispanic network uh recognition dinner when michio aurelio furtado received a lifetime achievement award i was enjoying the food and back then i could drink so i had a glass of wine and by the end of the dinner my wife informed me that i was running for the school board how did that happen oh my um a happy uh occurrence one of the people that i respect the most alan murray who spent 56 years in education certainly a role model jackie dixon francis ortiz chavez linda laforge rob felder jacqueline chilton patrick sweeney and don evans funny story about uh alan murray uh jackie dixon and linda laforge they invited

083me to lunch soon after the election my election to the board i asked them if there was a problem before of us meeting uh because that constituted a forum and their response was no because you haven't been sworn in yet wrong and we were discussing charter schools so anyway don't we can't write that statute's a limitation that's why i can tell the story now but there was a price to pay for my my being on the school board caller and you can the resemblance is amazing he is six feet three buck fifty um i missed almost all of his high school concerts because the concerts were on thursdays uh nancy had to take over all of the our business with the skulls because our well-behaved son every once in a while ended up in the

084principal's office and so instead of making instead of making a whole big deal because when i went the principal was there the vice principal was there the counselor was there the teacher was there uh nancy took over so from second grade on mom took care of the boy i'll have you know though i'm proud of my son he holds the record at new tech high school for tardies in the morning and because he would drive to school and fall asleep in his car so technically he was at school the only time my son was ever late was when he was born he was two weeks early that was it after that it was over and friday nights after board meetings when i'd be talked and peopled out nancy figured out that that was probably not

085a good time to go out and see friends because i would not at that point i would hate people i think that those were my exact words if i had advice to give to the current board and the oncoming board members first of all it's the economy stupid uh not for you you come to congress people are going to criticize you for some of the decisions you make and we're going to hear more about that today for incoming board members i would say it's about the students it's about the families it's not about ideology the irony of the new election is that the very people who admonished us for not having a representative board have now put someone who doesn't represent our community on this board i will be keeping close watch on that i

086appreciate david's response we don't always agree in fact i think we may be the most polar opposite in our our political views on the board but we understand that the priority on this board is not our own ideology it's not our own politics it's what serves our students i will continue to support the board in furthering the futures of our students you are now accountable for what you say that was misquoted in american canyon by an elected official you are now accountable for what you say both in your capacity as an elected official and unfortunately in your capacity as a private citizen so people will hold you to what you say that's what i admired so much about mr chunk in that when he said something made a statement in our board meetings it was

087so well researched that he held himself accountable and the board to what he said again to incoming members of the board it is easier to campaign than it is to govern you can promise the world but here you have to deliver what you promise remember when people agree with you it's called transparency when they don't agree with you they call it an agenda you just be true to your values and the and follow the mission of the of this of the district it is your collective responsibility to help one another be informed prepared and accountable help each other learn the areas where your members need may need mentoring help mentor community members to consider running for the board regardless of their personal views it has been an honor and a privilege to have served this

088board people have asked me what i'm going to do now that i've retired you know all the time i have and i'll quote my television one more time now for any of you who don't know aurelia hurtado is his portrait is on the historical mural on first street he's he's a handsome guy that looks like me in in the banquet where my wife plotted with with mr kensack my uncle was asked when will you retire and my uncle's response was when the last child in napa valley no longer needs my help that's when i'll retire i may get a t-shirt that says what what would i really do i'm gonna have some maid gotcha all right i'll get that tattooed thank you um nancy my wife who encouraged me and supported me throughout these 16

089years although it interfered with my vacations um but now she told me that she has planned the first post board vacation without regard to when meetings were so we're in fat city my uh my older my oldest daughter tammy who showed me that no matter what the world throws at you you can come through it with a smile and begin your life again i love you tammy joshua my oldest son who is a high school math teacher in the highest performing math high school in dallas texas showed me that brilliance and creativity can inhabit the same brain and boy that brain is amazing rebecca my fierce warrior when we were talking about the the uh mascot and we made a strategic a decision to delay the the retirement of the mascot rebecca reminded me that

090there was never it's never the wrong time to do the right thing thank you script and kohler again my twin you never cease to surprise me my son is learning how to fly it's probably because he knows i'm definitely afraid of flying in small planes and he's gonna so he's flying he's working and he's going to school in san diego he's made a life for himself thank you all for your support and read thank you for joining our family you didn't know what you were getting into because we lied to you for a bit but then we got you again it's been an honor and a privilege thank you i did it for power words individually i did it as a group and a whole that way i can only cry once right so um

091but i have to say something out loud to you jose and that is i was never prepared for us to storm off of the auditorium stage when we were talking about mascot and both me and elva were casually having a conversation and it almost felt kind of like chaplin moment like someone pulling us off stage like what are you doing so nobody would have prepped me for any the leadership that you brought to the table during the mascot issues and i mean that's one of the biggest kind of like uh-o's that we had done and we had no idea that it was an oh but um i thank you for that moment though because it was fierce leadership during that time we had no idea what the heck was going on and however we were

092actually going to get through that but i think um with both joe and your help we were able to navigate through absolutely everything that came our way um i kept writing the list and lists and lists of things i'm like mascots pivoting 360. we have a lot of latina we have remote learning which i remember even rosanna mentioning to us one time like oh wouldn't it be a great idea we promote remote learning and everything she said it was like a doomsday that happened to to our school district and it was it came as a positive notion and then it ended up being a doomsday kind of deal and it i know it wasn't intentional but i had to bring out those highlighted items because it was we were trying to look for attraction for

093our um for our district to have other uh children come to our district to go to school so um with that said my story was surrounded by coffee it started with coffee i start my morning with coffee i start with my bestie and throw ideas thank you for joining me first thing in the morning coffee with uh with craig in the morning as well um and i started conversations with coffee with the board and that was with um it first started off with the conversation with friend francis ortiz chavez and it was really funny that the conversation she had was like you know have you ever thought about it and i'm like are you like hunting head hunting for your position and i never thought i would run for office and much less be voted

094by the majority between yonville american canyon and eva sorry so during that time i thanked everyone um publicly through the number register and i think everybody read that um my predecessor rob felder and thompson kensack they were they were great they even came back and said hey we got a clipping of your thank you from the register which was really awesome i'm like i don't think anybody read the register but i am definitely wrong especially after serving on this board that the register is much alive because i had no official platform to do so then today i do have the platform and i wanted to thank the 2402 voters that voted for me um and more so everyone that came out to vote especially on that day because it was so important um for some

095you saw my work my style of governance someone even called me the police i know who you are [Laughter] and um and what i what i think i leave behind is that you know you guys are still going to be held to the highest standard of governance um this doesn't end here i'm still fighting for full funding for our schools you guys will still be hearing me the equitable access for education kind of like how jose said i'm going to be really vigilant about things it's my it's still my area it's still where i live i still live in an unrepresented area the latinos that couldn't vote and so that is a major point of why it's so important that major representation needs to go on in my district so i alongside the way that

096i'd be fighting i've decided to join forces with california school board association which we bring together governance boards administrators from districts and county offices of education to advocate for effective policies that advance the education and well-being of the state's more than six million school children it is a membership driven association but the majority of all districts of california pertain to it csba provides policy resources training to members they've trained here and represents the statewide interest of public education through legal political legislative community and media advocacy when i sat down to write a few words the only thing that kept flying through my mind is how do i sum up these extraordinary people the work ethic on an unimaginable level problem solvers behind the scenes kind of work you know what i'm talking about being at

097the table sitting at the table flipping the table and getting things kind of done at you know you guys are my kind of folks [Music] my predecessors rob felder tom kensack jose and joe shank when i'd look across the table during closed session the only thing i can remember um i almost felt like a meme you know just sitting there in my big old puppy eyes and it's like with exclamations coming out of my head ahead help i don't know what i'm doing um but you guys did help patiently i know for jose it was like man this guy's fierce i'm so scared of him i remember the first comment you said went something like you have to remind them who we are we're the trustees of nvusd [Laughter] and then joe was always the

098calm reasoning behind it um so it doesn't matter that every single situation you flip the coin so many which ways made you think and i would come i would come to you you know with probably something i was super angry about and walk away with what the heck am i gonna do now he gave me about 20 different problem solving you know things i can do with this at this point so i do appreciate your different perspective on things um people i met along the way georgina placencia martinez uh patrick sweeney gonzalez robin jenkins cindy water we cannot forget our old friend fran and then david gracia and vera morales and the entire executive team i ask you all to stay focused on what we have all worked on collectively and keep our children's future

099in mind making positive change in education and where do i begin with all the rewards you guys have all seen them they are huge our parents our constituents our general public may or may not know how or why we make certain changes the perception of many is that we're doing everything bad but that but that can be taken many ways how much do we really know of our elected officials and what they do do they understand the hierarchy of our district and who's really in charge do they understand how awesome rosanna misteri's job is depends who you ask for a definition of awesome too how familiar are you with the industry salaries do you understand the totality of being in charge of your child's education our teachers well-being the balance and well-being of our employees

100keeping the lights on paying the bills following so many rules policies ed code eating healthy reading answering emails be the best we can be smile be kind and repeat i humbly came and sat here at times i was hated gosh i know i was hated at times not being the wonderful being that i am but i will say that while i sat here it was fair i listened i urged i pushed and at times we demanded this wouldn't have been possible without our my trusty team we have educated each other about each other shared opinions openly this was definitely created friendship unlike any i also have to take time to thank my sweet boys for being for dealing with me jj and demetria martin all product of mbsd and graduated here um i had to

101go through some tough times on those sell cell phone policies you know what i'm talking about um i had really hard times i couldn't go to sleep because i didn't know if i was going to get murdered or not for cell phone policies and my entire family the martin regulato vidal family and um like i said one of my best friends adopted from durango craig my love my rock my center and bella my future stepdaughter this is not a goodbye but i'll see you later it's been my pleasure to serve you all to work alongside you as a trustee past secretary past vice president and now presidency i'm gonna take two because you left me on purpose but i do thank you jose because if you hadn't left it wouldn't have prepped me for this

102year which was chaos my last words to you are make this count this is not a show of who wins or loses this isn't a race amongst trustees or employees you may not see it now but the kids that grow through your failed or successful leadership are watching feeling and waiting i'm sure jose and joe know exactly what i'm talking about and to my family that's watching and my sincere condolences are up to the family that i had missed today's viewing thank you i just i wanted to offer um any of the families um in the zoom room if anyone wants to make any comments did you want me to ask manny oh um we can do that um [Music] but yeah well i guess they're family so they can yeah family cohorts alone not

103as a broad group yeah would you like that so uh better can i get some help with a photo with photos so should we start with um uh trustee without his family oh that is funny isn't kohler gonna be late i love you i'm smiling yes oh my goodness i know they're the masks just kill me [Music] joe's eyes and his dad's eyes are the same oh he is okay you are such a good fiancee hi look how fiancee she is oh well i'm emotionally exhausted okay so mr ruiz do we have any public comment he's asleep but we do not have anything at this time sounds good okay we will proceed with our business meeting thank you everyone for showing up thank you or you can stay those are kisses by the way [Laughter]

104okay where were we okay so g1 board of education and student board representatives um we will start with student body yes all right uh so the week before thanksgiving break i was lucky enough to help facilitate uh mr peter hartnick's focus groups um and the topic was going into the next phase and asking students from all levels elementary middle and high school um a series of questions of what makes you feel safe at school what do you think your teachers can do better et cetera et um and those were really successful the elementary school ones impressed me the most i didn't really know what to expect but it was it was nice to hear from a younger audience of what is going on at schools and realizing that it's not much different than the high

105school level middle school we only had a few students show up but of course they gave us as much as they could and it was really nice hearing back from them majority had a lot of positive things to say and of course there could always be improvements but we did a lot of fist to fives and we got fours and fives for almost everybody which was nice this past week um december 3rd and 4th i attended the csba conference i attended the climate change task force session equipment 19 mental health session uh show me the money session and a governance with an equity lens that's all from me i went to the high school virtually the high school breakfast with napa valley college um the purpose of that event is to develop and strengthen relationships

106between nbc staff and counselors and the high school districts in their service area and the focus of the breakfast was to share the innovative developments that are occurring at napa valley college i listened to the virtual state of the district um which is an update on our district goals and the monumental amount of work that has been accomplished i would encourage everybody to please take the time to visit the website and listen it is worth your time you will get a deep understanding of what we do why we do it and how much has been done the board attended the csba annual education conference we went to general sessions um david and i virtually met with the people from aries on the trade show floor which actually was um really helpful i went to fed

1072020 programs budget and the election understanding your district budget an incredible session on accurate and equitable grading system wide which was the best session i attended and then engage inform communicate and transform also had a facilities and technology committee this week and a finance committee meeting this week um i attended also the csva conference um several workshops one of them was the president workshop [Music] a really good round of breakout groups with other trustees again reminding us reminding me of the size of our district and the issues that our district faces and um how they compare to theirs and a lot of similarities um as it comes to declining enrollment and and other things um a wonderful quote that um i'll say for another meeting it's been a long night but um something that just

108keeps it grounded me as to the work ahead of us um and i think that's all for my report thank you cindy um our team went to the state of the district meeting [Music] and uh i um went to the um went to the meeting about um finance and politics and what to expect next year and uh gee then on um [Music] after that meeting on the fourth i went to our local s force ca students for climate action meeting and i got a covered test negative and i was glad to see the arts council on of napa valley posted their students of the month um five from the napa valley unified school district napa high new tech napa high uh american canyon high school and silverado and uh and i guess i'd like to

109close and say that um you know we lost a former teacher this week uh last week paige paige dearden um died and i taught one of her children both of them went to napa high and she was retired from fishy school helped a lot of kids was a lot of fun and as a parent i always appreciated her insights about you know the school district a wonderful a longtime employee of our district a wonderful person and um wonderful family always you know very pro the school so um you know it's kind of sad and i'm glad to see all of you all in person i missed our last author event but i did make the napa hi elac meeting so that's sort of how i finished up this month i attended the virtual state of

110the district meeting which was i texted the texted uh talked to mercedes that she was a superstar um i attended the napa valley college a non-breakfast breakfast counselor's breakfast um my cousin was very generous to me at that meeting and the uh finance uh which will be covered later and i attended uh the cac meeting which i will uh report out later oh and i sorry lots of emails lots of emails so in november i attended the duarte training to learn about advanced presentation techniques which were being passed on to our employees i attended the curriculum meeting and the state of the district also on the 30th of november and then december 3rd and 4th i attended the csba training to help improve my abilities as a board member on the 2nd of december i

111attended the presentation on grading with equity and then on the 8th the facilities and technology meeting and then also in the evening of the 8th the author event and then on the ninth i attended the elac meeting at silverado middle school thank you we'll move to board representative reports g2a curriculum and student support committee okay well i'll report out and um if i leave anything out you'll hop in and correct me i've got about 20 pages of notes here uh but let's seriously i mean we went half an hour over time it was what i call very dense um uh okay saranac spoke spoke about mtss our intervention person multi-tiered system of support many students are experiencing trauma existential and economic we need to make sure our support system is robust and coherent and aligned

112with our strategic plan ultimately we want one year's growth for one year's instruction we need to make sure students are getting what they need we are looking at the situation from academic behavior and emotional measures we pilot piloted an assessment tool in a couple of schools want finally the same plan of action at all schools and she discussed how we manage tiers one two and three in the past we did not have consistent protocols now we will because we're going to have data systems assessments to back us up um and then looking at the big picture if you get updates you will see progress my question here is maybe more frequent updates maybe we should be having more often more instead of um more frequent uh what do you call them you know grades have

113them go out more often maybe once a month um i only say that because i'm a retired teacher uh they they convened an advisory team um there's lots of training attached to this and the board can expect to report at the end of the year uh as to how we are doing we've had parent and student focus groups and thanks to carla for all your work there you know your name came up so um we also discussed at length grading policy popularly known as the third rail or the last autonomy teachers have we have grading but no grading system we do have some software and all of us went to a more detailed meeting last wednesday with dozens of teachers where we explored this in much greater detail in some right now we have a

114lot of d's and f's uh oddly we had also nearly the same amount last year at this time but because of the pandemic it's more difficult for students to repair their grades and we do have work to do building teacher and parent understanding of the elementary report cards was a big discussion about the elementary report cards making better use of parent-teacher conferences it needs to be noted that grading for equity does not mean just pass everyone this needs to be emphasized we need to provide a middle ground and recognize that covid has had a huge impact on our students grades should re report a student's academic performance not behavior this is not lowering standards but is it's making the standards clearer and one thing that interested me but was not explained is that this is

115supposed to eliminate great inflation you know that this is going to make grades fair all around and so i'm looking forward to reading this book and we'll lend it to anyone who uh wants it when i'm done and this is this is really just a very very big topic um and we'll be hearing more about it uh and i have to say that the committee meeting i attended the teachers seemed to be pretty pretty not negative about it at all they were um we had breakout sessions and uh i was listening to people's conversations about you know their grading and it was interesting um we also discussed the math curriculum and we've we've had some you know presentations about it we want to make sure we have the right courses in place best curriculum we

116need we recognize we need the professional development and as you know this is this is the big project that we embarked on we want to make sure students are in the right courses for college career the ones that are relevant to their futures with supplemental interventions when necessary peter says that you know we need to be able to to your heart knack so that we need to be able to identify precisely where students struggle we want them to we want to be able to move in and re mediate where they're having problems not just have them fail the class and start all over again and uh would anyone else like to add to that did i leave anything out was that okay great we are continuing our laptop deployment we have been distributing at the

117site level but we will be moving deployment to the district office the process has been slowed due to the increased dependency on computers during our hybrid learning model we hope to utilize winter break for continued distribution have online scheduling available and are looking to have about an eighty completion rate by year end radio project uh working at each site and we are currently focused on operational and emergency standards with an expectation to be completed in january we are working on some of the technology needs for the new napa junction for example switches and wireless access points we will have some financial savings as we utilize some assets from the original site the fit update which is the facility inspection tool this is an objective visual tool a visual inspection to determine if facilities are considered

118a clean safe and functional space for our students to learn it has had an additional benefit in that it assists in helping us apply for state funding there are about 15 building system areas and eight building categories the categories have a numeric weight and a percentage weight this allows us to prioritize work orders and address the most pressing needs report uses evaluation detail for each category which includes a symbol a point value a ranking and a description there are four ranking categories exemplary good fair and poor and mr pearson and his team have done exceptional work in improving our scores at this very moment in time every school has a site rating of 90 there's a um a spreadsheet where there is one dip below 90 but that has been rectified so at this moment

119we have a site rating of 90 or higher and a good or exemplary rating associated with each one so very well done mr p and team we continue to reflect on best practice in addressing our visual inspections with consistent follow-up on work orders routine and improved upkeep and continued future inspections after spring inspections follow-up through the fall we will submit fit assessment for the 20-21-22 sarc we are concurrently um conducting a modernization plan we are reviewing 23 of our 28 sites the 5 not being currently reviewed are considered new sites this is an important step in understanding the condition of our sites and giving us the necessary information to rank and prioritize it is a roadmap for deferred maintenance capital improvements and keeps us in line for matching funds from the state we have assessment

120teams for site visitations we will address things like electrical mechanical and portable assessment as well as technology for current status goals and replacement plans and with the gathered information we will draft deliverables educational parity cost and projected dates will be considered budgeting will apply escalation as appropriate when needed and all necessary components of the mpp the modern modernization program plan will be completed determinations will be made summaries created and findings will be reviewed in january january at our board study session that concludes my report until we go to finance which is next thank you j uh g2c finance committee sorry guys we were fortunate to have the finance committee scheduled before the presentation of the first interim report this allowed committee members to ask questions and review the data mr mankwala presented the information that

121will be seen this evening in addition to addressing questions that we had regarding specific issues it will be duplicative if i give a detailed overview of the meeting as it was the presentation i will touch upon the subject matter covered and mr mankwala will fill in all the blanks during the first interim presentation we discussed the economic impact of covid as it pertained to state revenues and the impact on school funding rob spoke about policy decisions that led to the difference between the anticipated depression in march and the reality of a current recession he touched upon the unprecedented loosening of the monetary supply fed rates and the impact of short-term borrowing treasury rates as they are the benchmark of interest rates and mortgage prices are priced at the spread on at a spread above treasury

122so we touched on the real estate market discussion always also centered on market segments that have rebounded and sectors that will be severely impacted or will vanish with the onset of change due to the pandemic and a needs shift we move to dialogue regarding the district with focus on cash reserves cash flow and the financial implications of declining enrollment we finished with revenue and expenditure assumptions multi-year projections and the challenges ahead that concludes my report thank you robin g2d policy committee g2e special education community advisory committee [Music] we met on the 16th of november there were eight of us which was a topic of discussion for priority since we need a lot more parent participation in the cac and that again that was one of the priorities there is a secondary transition committee to help

123students 16 to 22 to decide pathways whether it's higher education or work transition there should be a presentation ready for the next cac meeting so it'll be very informative for the new representative i talked about mental mental health partnerships with dentists team concept in the celta teaming up for services and input that presentation should be ready in february uh [Music] let's see carolyn was able to brag on the fact that we were up and running with students in person providing services so we're again ahead of the wave and like i said the top priority for this committee is communication with parents in order to um to get more participation we identified probably the single biggest problem and that's that this committee meets at 12 noon so a lot of parents can't make even even virtual

124meetings so they're sending out a survey uh to see if there's a better day and there is a has to be a better time so um uh hopefully uh by the next meeting they'll have a better time a larger commitment of parents that's it thank you g2f city of american canyon liaison representatives g2g city of napoli zone representatives g2h town of yonville liaison representatives we have not met okay and g3 superintendent and executive staff may i just say something before we go back to that it's important to recognize the fact that the past mayor of napa and the current mayor of napa both serve on the school board so we should have some thank you um i'll keep my comments um i'm trying to be brief here i am focused on three topics tonight that

125i'd like to report on um i want to continue to thank the community for their partnership patience and understanding as the napa valley unified school district continues to navigate school operations during the pandemic as many of you know nvusd continues to be one of the few greater bay area districts open for hybrid in-person instruction tk through 12th grade even during the second surge of the coronavirus there's less than 100 districts open for in-person instruction k-12 across the state of california i want to recognize the napa valley unified school district staff the teachers the principals the assistant principals district administrators and all of our support staff from clerical to the i.t team to the custodians to all of food services transportation maintenance and operations and anyone i may have forgotten this school district is working so

126hard comparatively and diligently on behalf of students it's beyond impressive and i am just incredibly proud the nvusd workforce has proven that we put students first we continue to manage our response to copen19 especially during this surge with health and safety as a top priority but we do remain steadfast in our belief as an organization that if schools are opened with safety top of mind school campuses can open for students and families who want in-person instruction while we continue to implement our distance learning program for those students and families who want the ongoing virtual option as part of goal three of our strategic plan i've spent the last couple of weeks working on the initiative taking a stand for california public schools particularly for napa valley unified school districts and all school districts in california

127that did reach the milestone of opening their campuses for in-person instruction i'm using various county and statewide platforms to ensure that our experience is well known as the bay area continues to have over a million students at home in all distance learning um goal number five um we work on equity centered leadership and being an inclusive organizational culture and under that goal tonight i'd like to let um the community and our board members know that we are very excited about having formally launched our partnership with partner i'm sorry with promise 54 the partner that will be facilitating the development of our multi-year equity action plan that will focus on issues related to diversity equity and inclusion in the napa valley unified school district earlier this week all employees are currently being surveyed through two tools

128the diversity equity inclusion staff experience survey and a talent ready diagnostic survey assistant superintendent pat andrew jennings and myself are now working on the formation of a small steering committee that will help our organization evaluate the data from these two survey tools and this data will help shape the equity action plan that we look forward to sharing with the board and the community later this spring so stay tuned i'm goal number three around community engagement and also coupled and paired with goal number five equity centered leadership and inclusive organizational culture i'd like to lastly report out a big thank you to assistant superintendent pat andrew jennings and mr matt manning for their hard work these last couple of months in establishing a formal compliant district english learner advisory committee i've attended the last two meetings

129and it's been inspiring to hear directly from our english learner latinx spanish-speaking parents about what they view as the strengths and areas of improvement of the english learner student experience in nvusd but it's been even more inspiring to have strong attendance and representation from the majority of our schools at all three levels elementary middle and high and in the last meeting observe a handful of our dlac representatives rise for a leadership opportunity and get nominated for the officer positions of the dlac board the advisory board i know mr manning right now is working through the election process and we look forward to introducing the formerly elected dlac officers to the board of education and the community very soon and lastly i do want to wish the nvusd community a very joyful happy winter break i'm

130looking forward to the new year because 2020 has been a real handful i just want to remind you i just want to remind our staff students and families everything we do over the winter break outside of school can impact our school experience upon return from the break on january 11th so i ask you please be safe stay well enjoy the break but enjoy it with safety and health at the forefront and with that i'm going to toss to my assistant superintendents who will report on their respective divisions we'll start with assistant superintendent rob manguala who oversees business services dr mercedes thank you very much i will be providing a substantial update during my first interim presentation so i i'm going to pass on any additional information tonight great thank you um assistant superintendent dana page

131who oversees human resources thank you good evening president good evening president our board of trustees dr missetti and community cova testing is now happening conveniently at our school campuses we've had successful on-site testing events at river school northwood american canyon high school and napa high is scheduled next week thank you to all the staff who helped check in employees handed out test kits guided testers and wiped tables i want to give a shout out to gina de luca for her leadership in bringing a new provider of testing curative on board and figuring out the logistics after we finish this first round of testing we will be repeating testing and increasing the frequency to once per month to follow the guidance from public health also last week i had the opportunity to connect with some of

132our teacher interns and their mentors these amazing teacher interns are taking on the responsibilities of teaching their class and completing credential programs simultaneously most often in our very hard to fill in challenging positions they shared what was working well and what other support we could provide as a district overwhelmingly they complimented their mentors and the guidance they could they get from them so i would like to publicly thank these seasoned veteran teachers who are sharing their time and expertise with our interns so i'm just going to read a few names dana hall michelle hugo ann gardner teresa alcantar tracy cavito maggie solario jill suazo nancy lucierre abbey dev jen can holly johnson terry gassner and sally sebaga also from hr i want to acknowledge domine marcus our credential analyst who is instrumental in shepherding our

133interns through all of the hoops that the california teaching credential puts in a board puts in front of them our interns were also very grateful for her help and next i'd like to remind parents and staff about the work of our calendar committee and how they can participate every year napa valley unified school district adopts the student calendar for the following school year designating when school will begin in the fall and finish in the spring including school holidays and breaks this year a committee of teachers staff students parents and community members is working to develop a three-year calendar for the 21 22 22 23 and 23 24 school years the committee wants to incorporate as much input as possible into the development of the draft proposal which will be reviewed and adopted by the board

134of education hopefully in january or early february the committee invites all families and staff to provide input through an electronic survey which went out through parent square and the employee newsletter and we'll send reminders again so we can get plenty of input finally i too would like to say a brief farewell to trustees martin hurtado and chunk simply put it's been a pleasure working with you and i will miss your calm manner your eloquence your thoughtful leadership and wisdom please stay in touch and grace us with your significant presence from time to concludes my report thank you miss page assistant superintendent pat andrew jennings who oversees the instructional services division um good evening president martin trustees student representative monganya and dr mussetti as we complete the sixth week of sixth week of in-person learning safety

135remains our focus we are continuing to find that the co-positive case rates among our virtual students outpaces those um of our in-person students currently we have 23 virtual students who have tested covet positive and eight in-person students who have tested covet positive over the last week or so the covet positive in-person students along with seven class cohorts are currently home quarantining mike mansway the wonderful director of student services reported that no virus transmission has occurred in an nvusd site this is an indication that the protocols we have in place are effective also nvusd and napa county public health health have developed a cooperative and collaborative partnership which has enabled us to respond quickly to positive cases in our district and significantly reduce the risk of transmission napa county public health has been instrumental in our

136ability to remain open for in-person learning i also want to give a special appreciation to our certificated nurses and health technicians who have worked tirelessly to make sure that we do the appropriate contact tracing and follow up with all possible covet positive cases the instructional services division continues our work to create alignment and coherence across our schools even during the times of covet all of our secondary site leaders department chairs and plc leads were introduced to principal to the principles of effective and equitable grading practices by the crescendo education group um thank you to trustee gracia and trustee water for attending this introductory session all secondary teachers will be trained in january as well as be offered an opportunity to participate in a teacher action research cohort in the spring tonight we had planned to

137present data on our secondary students academic progress we would like to include the data from the final semester grades at the high school level and as a result that presentation has been rescheduled for a future board meeting our uh third author night was this past uh tuesday um author and illustrator juana martinez ninio shared her thoughtful authentic voice with our district community her book one of her books frybread is part of the global read aloud program and all elementary school sites receive copies of the book to share lastly i'd like to take a moment to also thank board president martin trustee shunk and trustee furtado for their years of service it has been a true pleasure and honor to serve the napa valley community under your leadership thank you that concludes my report thank you

138miss andrew jennings and um last we have mr mike pearson who oversees operational services thank you dr mercedes uh manny if you could as i'm speaking if you could pull up that presentation i had uh good evening president martin nbc board of education trustees uh and members of the mbsd community before i begin i do want to also thank president martin and trustee schunk and hurtado each of you has done an exemplary job leading napa valley unified school district and i'm i'm proud and honored to have been the beneficiary of your expert guidance and wisdom not only as an employee but also as a very proud mbsd parent parent thank you and each of you is going to be uh greatly missed um tonight i'm going to share a couple of decided to do a

139little presentation here because uh sometimes the pictures are better so i wanted to update you on what's now called evans auditorium manny if you go to the next slide so over the uh thanksgiving break we had some work done and now um the district auditorium now is has the has the new name of evan's auditorium and to the uh the right-hand side is a little plaque honoring don evans uh as you know spent uh 50 years of his uh life uh working in napa valley unified serving the community the students the parents the staff here in the napa valley unified and so um and and you can go to the next slide too we had had a naming committee uh that had started uh that made a presentation uh i think about a year ago

140and that naming committee started in february um doing uh some work on that and then ultimately made some recommend made a recommendation in april that was brought back to the board of education so i want to recognize former superintendent dr david brown former super assistant superintendent barbara parr former principal of redwood middle school and vintage high school harold miller former principal napa high school barb franco current director of transportation terry guzman and then one of one of the architects um who's done who's who had done several of our buildings here in napa valley unified mark kotroki who all served on that naming committee i also want to recognize i won't go all through all these names but the individuals listed on the right-hand side of the contributors uh to the to don evans uh to

141the evans auditorium are listed in the right hand side and they all either did in kind uh with work that uh and inside the district office or also uh donated money for that so this was at no expense to the school district so thank you to all of these businesses um for your dedication and your um uh uh and honoring don evans uh we greatly appreciate that all right man if you go to the next slide um i wanted to provide the board with a quick update on on athletics if you'll go to the next side um as you know we're now back in the purple tier um and so we have to use the we have always used the california department of public health the interim guidance for youth sports so what does that

142mean if you'll go to the next slide manny what that means is that for the current status of high school athletics uh individual coaching is uh it has is conditioning is happening in pods the focus is on skill development um there is use of equipment being allowed with frequent cleaning and the four sports that are out there right now still in in the individual skill development or football auto polo cross country and volleyball next slide please the california interscholastic federation or what we call cif and the california department of public health had formed a committee with members from both organizations uh to help provide guidance uh with on you on for youth and high school sports they were originally going to come out with a some sort of guidance and updated guidance on the week

143of november 9th but that was pushed back due to 42 counties being put into the purple tier and then on december and with in between that time and now uh well december 1st there had been very little information that had been released so on december 1st if you'll go to the next slide the cif um released a statement and in that statement they said due to the continuing surge in coven 19 infections the california department of public health has postponed the issuance of any updated sports guidance and see the cif does not expect the the california department of public health will issue any guidance allowing for schools to return to full practice and competition until after january 1st at the earliest and thus all full practice and competition starts are officially on hold until the

144updated guidance is issued um and we guys i i think you most of you know we do compete in the north coast section so we don't anticipate having any kind of guidance until after jan after january first go to the next slide so um you know as we wait for guidance for the california department of public health and cif uh we've also been discussing um the following questions and i might say we the the athletic directors and the principals um and myself and marianne christopherson who's the principal at redwood but she also oversees our athletics um what will transportation look like um so we are considering a few models and what that's going to happen and this is all provided if we do have the ability to have athletic competitions we have a cost associated

145with paying referees and officials and many for these expenses typically come from spectators coming to the events and so we'll need to work need to determine how that's going to happen if athletic contests are approved how do we factor in schools in different counties who might be in different tiers um because we compete in with schools primarily in our league is in sonoma county uh but we do sometimes travel to the contra costa county to solano county uh to participate in not in non-league games as well so this will be a bit of a challenge if we're in different tiers and then finally and most importantly is is making sure that students and coaches are safe at all times is one of the things that we're also making sure has happened on that um so

146and if you go to the next slide so that sort of just kind of sums up i just want to thank you for the opportunity to give you an update on the athletics uh and to let you know about that later this evening under action items will be a very brief presentation uh updating the measure age implementation plan before asking the board to take approval for that action so and this concludes my report thank you thank you for your reports we move to approval consent agenda background information on these items is provided to the board prior to the meeting a common motion takes action without discussion on a roll call vote unless discussion or items of items is requested by the board members i would like to request discussion on h6d but otherwise move to

147approve everything else first by mr gracia a second by mr chunk full call please trustee martin aye trustee gonzalez mares i trustee jankowicz aye trustee water aye trustee urtado aye trustee shunk trustee gracia aye student board member magana hi thank you so i wanted to talk about h6d just because i think this is the first time since i've been on the school board that i've ever seen the overall price of a contract come in under budget and so i just wanted to highlight this item for its uniqueness i noticed that too because this never happens [Laughter] okay should we give it an so you know right right there you go second i'm a first by miss uh robin jenkins and a second by mr gracia roll call please trustee martin aye trustee gonzalez mares hi

148trustee jenkins water aye trustee urdado hi trustee shank hi trustee gracia hi student board member magana i thank you thank you i'm moving on i2 business and operations i2a presentations on 2020 2021 first interim report [Music] uh mr ruiz can you bring up the presentation uh one second good evening board president martin trustees dr masetti thank you for the opportunity to update the board and the community about our financial health through our presentation on our first interim budget update next slide please as you know cover 19 has caused an unprecedented impact on our economy and our economic outlook next slide covet 19 has caused an economic roller coaster and a great deal of certainty uncertainty at one point economists were pointing to an economic contraction similar to the great depression however while while there is

149it continues to be a general downturn in our economy it is not as bad as a great depression and you'll see it looks something closer to the great recession that we recently uh recovered from next slide um in terms of job losses when you look at the economy um in the first two months of covet 19 you can see that the california economy lost over 2.5 million jobs sitting at eight months past the beginning of coba 19 you can see there's been a dramatic recovery we're looking at at job loss in terms of 1.6 million however i would like to point out that the job losses due to cover 19 where we're at right now we're still lower than we were during the great recession so all the recovery that happened after the great recession

150has essentially been erased next slide in terms of impact the job losses have disproportionately impacted workers what this slide shows that if you have a bachelor's degree or higher you've only been impacted by three percent of the job loss um if you have less than a bachelor's degree you have been impacted by 97 of the job losses so there's a great deal of uh or i should say the the job losses of disproportionately affected workers the same is true when you look at race and ethnic ethnicity even though the latino population is 38 of our workforce you can see that the share of the total total job losses has been 50 to 50 so very very substantial next slide there has been a substantial economic rebound in the economy the economy in california stock prices

151have reached historic highs the technology sector has seen continued growth and consumer spending is within of pre-pandemic levels as a result we're seeing a k-shaped recovery this means that some sectors of the economy have not only recovered they're reaching all-time highs other sectors of the economy continue to drop and may not recover for a very very long time next slide prop 98 guarantees that education receives a minimum of about 40 percent of state revenues when the budget was adopted in june there was an expectation of a substantial decline in revenues however due to our tax structure with which heavily relies on high income earners and capital gains from the sale of stocks and other assets revenues are now anticipated to be higher than projected and to come in come in pretty close to pre-pandemic levels

152or even possibly slightly higher next slide please reserves represent the general fenn dollars that you don't spend school districts are required to have a minimum of a three percent reserve we have a board policy of a seven and a half percent reserve however you can see that our reserves have been as high as eight percent but have dropped close to a minimum of three percent which is below our board required reserve um we have made very significant cuts to right size the district as a result our reserves are again close to eight percent while this is a significant improvement the average reserve for a unified school district in california is 16 next slide the largest impact on district revenues is enrollment the district receives about ten thousand dollars per student you can see that the

153enrollment that our enrollment has significantly declined since 2014-15 by 2026-27 we anticipate that our enrollment will drop to around 14 000 students the district will need to continue to cut costs and reduce the number of facilities that they have to address this this almost exponential decline in revenues next slide there are numerous financial implications declining enrollment will have a negative impact on revenues for the foreseeable future enrollment decline has has increased due to covert 19 also in comparison to fall of 2019 enrollment declined by over 450 students about 200 to 250 and 250 students is our normal both certificated class by cuts will need to occur every year as long as we have declining enrollments we'll need to continue to look closely at our facilities and potentially continue to close schools we may need to

154also close both elementary and middle schools our reserves are above the board policy is seven and a half percent but below again below the average for other unified school districts next slide please in terms of revenue assumptions that are are put into our our projection and our first interim um and the usd will receive fixed average daily attendance or ada um based on last year's enrollment so our our revenues for for this year and next year are slightly higher than they would be had covered 19 not occurred so um that's kind of a strange combination of of of ideas but because of the um hold harmless of 80 ada that does keep us at at last year's level um however by the third year we're looking at a revenue drop of close to six million

155dollars due to the decline enrollment next slide please in terms of revenue assumptions we're assuming that there'll be 350 000 in ongoing certificated management reductions beginning in 2021 22. um there'll be certificated reductions of about four hundred and eighty thousand dollars also beginning next year along with two hundred thousand dollars in classified reductions um stirs and purge rates for our pensions will continue to increase um very substantially in the third year especially for pers where they will go from 20.7 to 26.3 in terms of assumptions there is an assumption in the budget that we we are closing a middle school with an estimated savings of a million dollars in the first year we know that running a middle school costs about 2 million dollars in the first year you have the ability to recognize almost

156how i should say slightly more than half of that savings some of the other savings just come a little bit over a longer period of time also there is a payback of a loan for for food services food services had borrowed 1.2 million dollars we essentially are writing off that loan um it is a conservative thing to do while food services is moving in the right directions and in terms of not running deficit uh we feel that it did it in our best the best idea would be to pay back this loan for them because they simply don't have the ability to pay it off in the near future um additional cuts may also need to occur at second interim next slide please this represents this is probably the most important slide uh it represents

157our multi-year projection school districts are all required to create a three-year projection based on their revenue and expenses um and in this projection a couple very important things to point out one is our reserves so you can see for the base year meaning year one and then in year two we are sitting above our board required reserve however in year three you can see our revenues drop down to about three point four percent and with some significant deficit spending um while it is important note the third year there's a great deal of uncertainty in the third year so i do not want to over emphasize it really when you look at the third year it's it's you should be looking at policy decisions that you'll be making this year and next year to make sure

158that you do not you have more than the three percent that i'm showing here in the third year i'm confident that we have the ability to make those decisions decisions and execute them and continue to build the reserve that we need to build next slide in terms of challenges cobit 19 continues to cause a great deal of uncertainty there's a lot of uncertainty in how the state will use some increase in revenues that we anticipate that that they'll receive due to additional revenues our hope is that the deferrals will be paid off as you as you know california was fully funded however we were fully funded with an iou we will most likely need to continue to take out an additional tax revenue anticipation note um this fiscal year so a second one for the

159year due to the deferrals and then we'll need to continue this process of taking out a trend every year typically we take out a trend for the year beginning on july 1. one of the important things that the business office will be working on is staffing projections for 2021-22 this concludes my presentation unless we have some um some questions i would like to make a comment um mr mengwala how can we cut harder for the 21 22 school year i'm uncomfortable with the three-year projection that drops us back to three percent reserve we have very real and significant cost increases particularly in the labor area coming in year three with pers and stirs contributions take significant jumps if that weren't bad enough the ada money will significantly decline as two years of declining enrollment will

160finally catch up with us after the ada was largely frozen for budget years one and two i would like to see us cut harder at second interim to save more money and increase the savings in year two so that cuts will not have to be quite as drastic in year three to avoid dropping to the bare minimum three percent reserve in the third year if we can get to a point where the projected savings in year two can go from a mere two hundred thousand to something closer to two million that would be huge improvement we must start to operate as the smaller district we are becoming in year two to avoid bigger problems in year three it is not unusual for school districts to have a reserve of 16 percent so if we increase

161our reserve further that will only help us by decreasing our need to rely on tran borrowing further some of the money that we have in the budget for year one is deferrals which is really just a future promise to pay and we don't really have that money in the bank which means while the reserves look like eight percent it's not really eight percent and is much closer to the three percent if you subtract the money that has been deferred by the state of california this budget really brings home the need to continue examining operations and the need to consider further painful decisions including the requirement that we may need to close more schools thank you trustee gracia i have a comment as well um there are areas of concern um edcode requires that the board

162certifies at least twice a year that we can meet our financial obligations that is a big deal and for the remainder of this fiscal year and two subsequent years in order for us to meet our obligations as you just heard we have to include assumed cuts including the closure of a middle school our reserves are above the required three percent as rob stated and above the board mandate currently of 7.5 percent and as rob said most districts hover around 16 percent but the reserve percentage is artificially inflated due to deferrals we need to address our multi-year projections declining enrollment is held artificially stable due to the covid induced hold harmless rule for this year and next which means we will be we will get hit with two years of declining enrollment in year three we

163don't control deferral reimbursement we don't have control over the increase in stirs and purse contributions and while we can work diligently to increase enrollment school districts cannot control birth rates housing issues and the impact of a recession so what do we have control over we have control over making very hard decisions to cut costs potentially before second interim because for every delay in our decision-making process we compound the issue and by not closing a middle school in year one it will be then a two million dollar hit in year two it's cumulative it compounds so a two million dollar loss compounds to a four million dollar loss to a six million dollar loss we cannot afford to conduct ourselves as if time is on our side it is not in light of mr manguala's comments

164in reviewing first interim it appears that we need to proactively address cuts for year two potentially looking at additional school closures meaning in addition to the assumed middle school closure to ensure that we aren't operating in a deficit and to align with our projected student population to me this is opportunity cost opportunity cost is the loss of potential gain from other alternatives when one other alternative is chosen so if we don't consider strategic cuts then the opportunity cost is the ability to provide increased support for our students if we consider additional school closures it allows us the opportunity to invest in our students enhance programs provide additional support in order to continue to transform the most essential part of this district and that is learning while it is difficult while it is a difficult process

165we have a responsibility to be financial stewards while we are being mindful of student needs we can borrow from ourselves we could borrow from govern we can borrow from government entities we you can determine that a trans is the most appropriate course of action or we can assess our surplus facilities carrying costs associated with those facilities consider reconfigurations and stop stretching our resources unnecessarily thin the first interim is a call to action i would ask that we apply all appropriate considerations to try and live within our current means and address that before second interim we must not forget that budgets really are policy documents thank you additional comments questions well i what can i add to that i mean very well said um i don't know you know people act as if um there's a

166lot of sentimental attachment to a school and you know i understand that but um i think that there's an opportunity if you can um you know look look at the schools we combined up in the north of town the money that we can can save by consolidation and i and i'm not being dismissive of how difficult this process is there is an enormous emotional component and i agree with you we get deep attachment but i also know at the end of the day you have these incredibly astute parents they can there is a facility or their student learning and they want what is best for their student the opportunity for achievement support whatever those needs are so if we're strategic we are investing in our students and we have excess facilities we have unbelievably care

167you know unbelievable caring costs in those facilities there needs to be capital improvements and all of that will be assessed to me the one thing we should consistently invest in is our kids i agree it's an opportunity to do that it is tough to get there unbelievably tough to get there and i i am not dismissive of the difficulty of the process but the end result is what we're supposed to be doing right and that is supporting these kids and i'm looking forward to the facilities discussion later on this month um because it's it's you know really daunting when you realize that we've got uh almost half if you add up all of our middle schools we have almost 50 vacancy okay so um on that note trustee so thank you mr manguala i want

168to thank miss k vang in the business services team just so everyone knows in the background and this is just to kind of honor the work of the department they've had to do this um also in the context of an ongoing conversion of fiscal management systems and that is not an easy task so we converted our fiscal management system we're operating in a pandemic and you know addressing um and and and putting very transparently what the fiscal challenges are so that's not easy work so i want to thank our executive director kay vang the business services team um under the direction and leadership of rob mangual as our chief business official for a very thorough first interim that i think provides the board and the public an accurate picture of our current financial position and

169what we need to do in order to continue to invest in our students over the course of the next few years um on the on that note um we we were obviously talking a lot about the assumption of uh potential further closure and consolidation i think in the tenure of our retiring trustees to the right um they've been through um not uh one round but a couple rounds of school closures um and um and we did um execute on school closures um over a year ago and and clearly we have surfaced i think very directly with the community that given the declining enrollment it's a path that we need to continue to uh walk and so um in the spirit of that um despite the pause in october during the fires evacuations the reopening of

170imperson school for in-person instruction during the pandemic we did pause on any decisions that would involve a school closure and or consolidation but as promised at that point in time we talked about erecting a middle school redesign task force to look at the issues relative to facilities enrollment trends facility long-term short-term facilities planning capital improvement cost of course student programming and um and the financial impacts of decisions or not making a decision is also a decision so um the financial impacts of all those things um and we're really excited we've started with our principles we have the an interest form out to teachers for the positions of teachers on that task force we also have an interest form that went out today to parents at the middle school level and at our two immersion schools

171also for parent positions on that task force i'll be reaching out to um the chair and co-chairs of our 7-eleven committee so that we have that perspective also at the table and then we have given positions on the task force for all three of our labor unions and so it is a broad-based committee that has the purpose of creating a sustainable solution to solve this dilemma um and and uh it's it i really want to emphasize sustainable solution we don't get out of the challenges of those three years that mr manguala laid out for us and that trustees janquitz and gracia have commented on we do not get out of that dilemma by not creating a sustainable solution we have to put forth a sustainable solution so we look forward to a very comprehensive uh

172four three to four month process where we will engage in the redesign at the middle school level you know with an intended outcome of consolidation um at that level in order to deal with um this decline and and this deficit that we're facing in year three so thank you for your hard work that that concludes my comments on on first generation do i have any public comments on this item yes president martin there is a public comment martin ortiz norma ortiz norma artesias um yes i have a question i saw the the survey and who what's the criteria you're um choosing dr missetti to pick the people in this um task force and did the 7-eleven committee those uh that committee closed already because i was never sure about that in the email i sent

173you i'm just curious and another another question um based on the powerpoint presentation it seems like it's you guys will be closing a middle school 20 22 um 23. so what school is that um what school is that um being contemplated because it says well so that's already a choice that you guys had decision that you guys made i actually have a question right in front of me and actually rob for you on clarification for the general public that it's just your job to give us recommendations and so through the powerpoint presentation for the first interim it's true that you're giving us a recommendation to close schools with the potential of elementary schools and then it's up to us on how we determine um how we go about doing that correct so that's where i

174wanted to clarify that for ms ortiz that that is that is correct so um it's you know when you build a budget you build in certain assumptions um and so the the assumption is that there will be a at a minimum closure of middle school if there's not a closure of a middle school there will need to be other cuts totaling a million dollars for 2122 22 and then additional cuts in the future so and in order to balance the books there's there's a very significant cut that needs to occur that that is that's something that needs to occur that's not really a recommendation in in terms of um how it's executed that's that's ultimately up to the board the recommendation is potentially a middle school because you'll we do have declining enrollment but ultimately

175if that doesn't occur other cuts will need to happen yeah and then overall recommendation is obviously it's it's the approval of um the first interim update in a positive certification yeah so by by approving the first interim tonight it doesn't mean that the board is approving the closure of a middle school the board is approving um the budget the first interim report that's being put forth by the business services division understanding that there are assumptions there around expenditure reductions that need to take place in order for the district to remain fiscally solvent one of the assumptions on the expenditure reduction side is because of declining enrollment in order to get capture the million dollar reduction that has been named as an assumption in this first interim report one way to get there is through consolidation

176and closure at the middle school level and so that is a potential recommendation from the business services division and the school district has put forth a mechanism to consider that recommendation through the middle school redesign task force the district is not erecting the 7-eleven committee for this round of potential consideration of school closure and or consolidation we have decided to utilize the middle school redesign task force to look at study the issue understand the dilemma and put forth recommendations for the school board to consider later this spring which is when the school board will take action potentially on those recommendations additional comments mister ortiz or excuse me reece that concludes our uh public comments for this moment president martin okay thank you very much we moved to j action items j1 general services j1a adoption

177of california school board association recommended july 2020 policy updates second is that you robin okay i have a first by miss robin and a second by mr shunk do i have any public comment on this item there are no public comments for this item president martin okay all those in favor aye aye aye abstentions school representative aye ocean passes j2 business and operations j2a 2020 21 first interim report so moved second first by mr gracia a second by miss water do i have public comment on this item there are no public comments for the site on president martin thank you all those in favor abstentions student representative hi motion passes j2b single mode fiber installation ams.net change order number two so moved second first by mr gracia a second by mr chunk any public comment

178for this item there's no public comment for the site on president martin all those in favor all right hi extensions student body aye motion passes j2c approval of tableau licenses so moved second first by mr gracia a second by mr shunk any public comment on this item there's no public comment for the silent prison machine she said go check out the website please yeah and we are really excited about tableau and we are going to be able to create some incredible public dashboards um and a lot of really good data visualization for the school board and the community especially around our progress on the strategic plan and a variety of data points so we're excited to bring that to the board and to the nvusd community thank you so all those in favor all right

179scooter student representative aye abstentions nays passes i feel like i did that already i'm sorry if i'm repeating myself human resources j3a curative labs coven 19 testing for mvusd employees so moved first by mr gracia second by mr arthur i have a quick question um that as i understand it we're gonna bill employee health insurance what happens if said insurance carrier doesn't pay it because it's not diagnostic miss page yeah so if if there's any issue with the insurance either it doesn't cover it or if somebody doesn't have insurance or if they decline to um to put in their insurance information then um curative has a contract with the state um to fund it through the cares act so it won't be a cost to the to the employee or to the district okay thank

180you uh i just know of that question because my wife's employment comment on this item there are no public comments for this item president martin hi hi local assignment options for teacher assignments so moved second oh yeah all right there are no public comments for the sign of president martin yes trustee martin hi trustee gonzalez hi trustee jacobs hi trustee water hi trustee urdado trustee shank hi trustee gracia hi is student board member magana thank you better j3c frontline ehr and school nursing management virtual so moved second first by mr gracias second by mr shank any public comment on this item there are no public comments for this i'm president martin thank you all those in favor aye aye student body aye absentions motion passes oops j4 instructional services j4a mou between napa valley unified

181school district and napa county office of education it's all moved second first by mr gracian a second by mr shunk do i have any public comment for this item there are no public comments for the sidearm prison martini thank you all those in favor aye aye aye student body aye abstentions motion passes okay j4b 2021 or 20 20 21 local control funding formula lcff budget overview for parents it's all moved put it on your microphone please it's on the very first page that you're talking about do you see where it's difficult to distinguish between so i just thought i that we should make sure that that's clear before we sent it out mr anguela and miss andrew jennings will you please note that yes we will note that we did attempt to fix it but

182the programming didn't allow it but we will get it corrected thank you move to approve okay so i have a first by mr gracia second by mr urdado do i have any public comment on this item there are no public comments for this item but there's marching all those in favor aye aye student body aye abstentions russian passes j4c mou between mvusd and community pro sweep for mvae so moved second first by mr gracias second by mr shunk do i have any public comment on this item the no click comments for the silencers that are launching thank you all those in favor student body aye abstentions motion passes j5 operational services j5a contract for services with whole life nutrition so moved first by mr david gracia and a second by mr jose hortado do i

183have any public comment there are no there are no book comments for the sign up presidential team okay thank you very much all those in favor aye student body aye abstentions motion passes j6 school planning and construction j6a spc number 12.19-20 requests for maintenance of newly installed turf at memorial stadium by valley precision grading it's all moved second first and second do i have any public comment on this item there are no public comments for the side on prison marching okay all those in favor hi student body aye um abstention motion passes j6b spc number 12.18-20 request for filing the notice of completion of the replacement of synthetic turf field at memorial stadium so moved second a first by mr gracia and a second by elba gonzalez mares do i have any public comment on

184this item there are no public comments for the sign up because okay sorry all those in favor oh hi student body aye abstentions motion passes j6c spc number 16.29-17 requests a filing of notice of completion for campus-wide security fencing at donaldson way so moved second first i miss water a second by mr david gracia do i have public comment for this item there are no political politics thank you all those in favor aye aye student body i abstentions mushroom passes sorry my paper doesn't have the correct spacing j6d correct uh spc number 29.101-17 request for filing the notice of completion for our bean snow elementary school project so moved first by mr gracia second second by mr shunk do i have any public comment for this item there are no pull up comments for this

185i'm pretty marching okay all those in favor hi hi student body i absentions motion passes j6e spc number 15.53-17 request for filing the notice of completion for finishing kitchens phase one mcpherson and shearer elementary schools it's all moved second the first by mr david gracias second by miss water did we ever get our outstanding finishing kitchen issues resolved we must have if we're filing the notice of completion mr pearson that's correct trusty shack i thought that was central kitchen he did get that oh you're talking about the central uh yes it was yeah that was a central kitchen issue okay so i have a first by mr david gracias second by miss waters do we have public comment for this item there are no public comments for the sign on president martin thank you all

186those in favor aye aye student bonnie aye abstentions motion passes okay j6f spc number 15.54-17 request for filing the notice of completion for finishing kitchen phase 2 vichy and browns valley elementary schools so moved second first by mr david gracian a second by mr chunk any public comment on these items there are no public comments for this item president martin all those in favor student representative i abstentions motion passes j6g sbc number 1.3-21 request for request for updated implementation plan mr pearson do you have uh a brief presentation on this action item yes we do uh dr mercedes so i'm going to introduce kelly jorgensen our bond program manager with van pelt corporation and uh mrs jurgensen is going to lead us through a quick presentation of the updated implementation plan before the board approves

187so kelly take it away all right uh thank you president martin thank you dr mercede and board members so as always we are here under goal for tactical proactive and efficient asset management um the updated implementation plan tonight um is a living document that i know many of you have seen several times um just a quick reminder that this is a document that we try to update annually or as needed in this case we're coming to you a little bit shy of a year but we wanted to get a head start on 2021 um we are here to address the needs of the capital improvement program and adjust funding sources as needed as our plan for the improvement of facilities at napa valley grows and changes over time so in doing that we change the

188budget all right so we'll let you be able to actually see this document on the screen hopefully and i know it's also available in the board packets um so we're keeping consistent with the format that was used in last year's implementation plan with the exception that we've added some comments so that the trustees and the public can have a better understanding of the difference between the 2020 implementation plan and the new uh recommendations so you the columns can see in those columns you can see the difference and you can note that some of the projects required some additional funding some gave a little bit of funding back and um it just allows us to track over time the changes the significant changes in this plan were driven by increased funding and we had some confirmed

189funding that will be residing in fund 35 for career technology at the farm so that is down here sorry can't view the entire document and see it at the same time we also secured additional funding that will go into fund 35 for the napa junction elementary school from the office of public school construction so that is part of the state matching funds program similar to the money that we are currently tracking and have already received from the office of public school construction for the irene snow project which is also tracked in this budget in addition to that we continue to use the funds received from opsc for irene snow as i mentioned and the funding collected from developer fees which resides in fund 25. so our big changes that i wanted to highlight is the

190additional 11.5 million that resides in fund 35 when we receive it from the state um we also received a million dollar donation for the napa junction elementary school project from the vintners which was uh ushered through the foundation and we've just made some changes up and down on various projects and balancing so i'm going to scroll down i apologize you can't look at the entire document all at once so you can see the breakdown including our interest and it is just a roadmap for what comes next in our capital improvement plan thank you ms jergerson move to approve did anybody have any questions before we proceed okay so i have a thank you for the presentation that we um presented that information um to be more transparent about what um what was being done and

191the phasing in of that in the capital contributions to date et cetera et cetera so thanks for the follow-up you guys thank you i have a first by mr david gracia and a second by mr chunk do i have any public comment for this item there are no comments for the signer president of our team all those in favor aye aye aye student body aye ascensions motion passes informational items under this section do not require board action k1 business and operations k1a enrollment report i just wanted to highlight in this report the very small number of middle school students that are enrolled it's almost half of the number of high school students so this is just really to highlight how these smaller cohorts are really beginning to move through the middle school system and eventually

192will make their way to the high school level additional comments he's retired sorry i have much more fun with the inner movement districts in elementary down 20 down oh she's stalling i think she wants the next to extend the meeting huh an overview of the past 16 years maybe your t-shirt making business [Laughter] additional suggestions and comments from board members and superintendent i did have one closing comment um i wanted to highlight the good work being done by the m o staff with the new fit reports as referenced by trustee jenkins earlier the data has been created in-house for the first time and has resulted in an opportunity to fix some of the issues which previously brought scores down and allows for the standardization of the data across site reports it should result in substantial

193improvements to the sarc reports that we will see later this school year job well done on leveling up your process um just my last comments are i really need to extend a really big thank you to miss julie pressy because she's just a wonderful human being always checking in on us if you have not been president she will support you a hundred and twenty percent along the way so a big shout out and virtual to miss um uh julie pressy and then also many many thanks to gail young and her staff for um the beautiful points i was just barely gonna get the biggest points that i've ever seen they're gorgeous thank you future agenda items you'd like to put out there joe no i'm waiting to give that big motion at the end well

194go ahead you know what i'm gonna let you two go ahead and close this meeting um adjournment i move to adjourn all those in favor [Laughter] still never failed student body aye we are officially adjourned okay yeah let's have a standardization [Music] you