001Okay. Thank you everyone. Thank you for being here. I'd like to welcome you all to the first meeting of 2026 of the Lagouna Beach Unified School District uh school board. Um, I hope that everyone had a nice relaxing holiday and and enjoyed themselves, friends, family, fun. Uh, and I welcome you to our meeting. We are going to if we have a lot of comments on some topics, we will have to assess then of whether we're going to go it's really loud if we're going to go to a three a two-minute uh public speaking, but we will determine that once the meeting gets started. The clock for public speaking will start at three will be three minutes at three and the microphone will go off at three minutes and 15 seconds. So you will have a
002window of wrapping up your thoughts um if you um find yourself speaking that long. Okay, thank you. This is really loud. Is it really loud? Okay. Okay. Okay. So So we're calling this meeting to order. The open session started at 6:13. If you are a student and you wish to speak on an item on the agenda this evening, please put student at the top of your card so that you can speak first. Um right now with this new um we have a new agenda system. As you see when you came in, the documents are are a little different. So we are not adjusting anything to the agenda at this point. I know there's a lot of interest in having public comment on non-aggenda items at the beginning of the meeting. And for the moment, we're
003going to leave it at the end of the meeting so we can get these um this new software system figured out. And um please know that all comments for each item on the agenda are welcome. Um you can fill the card out and bring it up. And when we get to that point on the presentation of each agenda item, you do have the opportunity to speak. The non-aggenda items at the end of the meeting are just that, non-aggenda items. And it also one of the benefits of having it at the end of the meeting is that it gives us a pre an awareness of what we might want to consider for the next meeting. So I appreciate your understanding on that. And do we need to do a roll call vote again? Okay. Okay. So,
004we're going to start the evening um we have no report out of close session and we're going to start the evening with our um reports starting with the bargaining units. Uh >> what? >> Oh, sorry. I said she I said she >> Ivy, can you lead us in the pledge, please? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> And madame president, if we have a student to speak, tell me when you want them. >> When do you want them to speak? Okay, we can do that. And that would be for before report. So, if there's any students that have any comments on agenda items or non-aggenda items, you are welcome to
005come up to the podium and speak. >> Okay. Um, I would like L to come up to speak about the pool. Hi, thank you for letting me speak tonight. My name is L. I'm a fifth grader at the Top of the World Elementary and I'm a proud water pool player for Lagona. I want to say thank you to everyone who has worked hard on this pool project and to the board for approving this new pool. Tonight, my teammates and I, who are 10 and 11, practice until 9:00 p.m. three times a week, plus swim practice on Fridays. Starting next week, we will be driving to another town's pool in preparation for the pool's closure for construction. It's a lot, and we get pretty tired, but we love this team and sport, and with a new
006pool, we'll be able to start and finish so much earlier. Additionally, we'll finally be able to bring back our 14 and under boys team. Thank you again for making this pool happen for our community. Thank you so much, y'all. Are there any other students that wish to speak before we move on? No. Okay. And I just want to remind you, we can do jazz hands, but we do not applause. Thank you. Okay. Let's move on to item five, the reports for the bargaining units. Um, Thesa, I have you listed first, but either you or Scott can go first. >> He's going to have most of the report. Um, all I have to report on is yesterday we had our first of the year business meeting and our regional rep installed my new officers, including myself.
007And we um, our sunshine letter for Mike is going through the 610 process right now and it should be on your agenda packet for next month. So, we look forward to March. Good evening. Um, we want to start too that we also turned in our sunshine agreement to Mr. Conlin couple days ago. So, we are getting ready for negotiations as well. Um, the only other thing we really wanted to talk about is the trust issue that the unions have had with the board and we're hoping that that we can move forward and create a better trust system between us. But we want to talk about a couple checking a couple false narratives from the last board meeting and this is why we have some trust issues with the board. The first one was the healthc
008care payment. Um Mr. Hills during the last meeting had spoke that option one came about because of Sherry. This was the first time that we had seen this this option. But we just want to understand that on July 26th Dr. Glass talked about that option of paying the $800,000. Also again on November 13th and November 1st I believe um our new CBO brought that option up as well. So we just want to know that that option had been out there and these false narratives just hurt trust. The second one was um Porter from CSEA came up and spoke and he discussed how the unions hadn't known anything about this until Dr. Glass said Mr. Hills responded like I wish we'd have known this from the beginning. And I wish somebody would have came out and
009said, "Oh, the unions didn't know anything about that." Well, I don't know if it's just forgetfulness or whatever, but we need to be careful what we say because on July 24th, um, when Dr. Glass said it, we responded that that was the first time that we had heard about it when he brought it to our attention. So, we were on record then. Also, October 14th, um, we also stated for the record that we had never known about this. And I was very emphatic if you were at that meeting that we absolutely had no idea about this. It was also mentioned on September 11th. You guys can check your records. September 26th as well. So I just want to I just want to that we need to be careful that when we speak that our facts
010are correct and that will help our trust issues if they are. And that's all I have. >> Thank you. Um next we have our SRO. Is there any report from our SRO? I saw them there. Hi Danny. Good evening. Well, first and foremost, we're really excited to be back with you guys after the break. Uh, I'm very excited to be back also for my injury relief, and I'm excited to be back on campus with our amazing students and staff. I don't have too much of a report for you, so I'll keep it short and sweet as I usually do. Uh, take a trip down memory lane back in December because it was so long ago. We had an amazing Shop with a Cop event. Uh, and it was comprising of 10 kids. For those of
011you who aren't familiar with Shop with a Cop, it's one of those events that really tugs at the heartstrings. I might get teeyed just talking about it, so I apologize if I sniffle a little bit. We have uh partnered up with our school district, especially with the counselors, asking, "Hey, tell us other students who are in need or who just maybe could use a good pickme up during this holiday season." Well, they gave us a list of names, those 10 students. We teamed up with a couple charitable foundations here in town. uh two of which are the Laguna Beach Police and Community Foundation as well as our own Laguna Beach Police Officers Employees uh Association as well. They donated some funds so we could take these students out to a shopping spree at the Irvine
012Spectrum via good oldfashioned charter bus because you when you travel you clearly have to travel in style. Each kid actually got $200 to spend for themselves, friends, family just to be able to have something to open during the holidays. Of course, once those gifts were done, they were magically transported via ELF back to the police station where our wrapping team was on standby to wrap up the gifts. So, they had a wrapped gift by the time they got back to our station. After that, we enjoyed a little time with uh with our students at Dave and Busters. Skiball is a thing, so is air hockey. Competition was fierce. At the end of the day, we wrapped it up with a big old thank you to the families for letting them spend the day with us.
013And we also had our marine mammal center also bringing a few mascots to the beginning of event. So, kids actually got to hang out with three mascots from our local area. Uh, next up, we have our ebike safety course. Unfortunately, due to some extreme weather conditions, we actually had to cancel and reschedule the course for last weekend. Uh, it just wasn't safe to have the students try to do some maneuvers on their ebikes in the wet rain. Uh, that date will be TBD to be decided. Hopefully aiming for the end of this month. We have a bunch of students who have new ebikes. We want to make sure that they're trained and ready for the road and be able to ride to and from school safely. And last but not least, something I'm very excited
014about. Look at Beach Police Department is now reinvigorating and restarting our Explorer program. If you're not familiar with the Explorer program, it's essentially Boys and Girl Scout for [clears throat] excuse me for the police department. Those students who are interested from the ages of 14 to 21 who are interested in the world of law enforcement and are curious about it get to kind of shadow police officers and other professionals within the police service. We teach them everything from basic police skills from in the field all the way to how to take an emergency call via 911 dispatch. So, it's a great avenue for someone who's curious about the world of law enforcement to see if it's for them or not. These two dates will actually be done for a recruitment on campus at LBHS. The
015first day will be Tuesday the 20th during the lunchtime. We'll have a little bit of an info booth with a few things for the students to see, including my one of my favorite tools, our department ATV, as well as a couple of uh specialty drones that we use in the field for police work. This will be hopefully generating some interest, answer some questions for our students as well to have a follow-up day for an actual recruitment day during our tutorial session on the 27th, which will be a Tuesday. Hopefully, we'll have some applications ready to go and hopefully, um, cross my fingers, we'll have a room full of students who are interested about the field of law enforcement. I'll take any questions if you have any. >> Um, how did you happen to bring the
016Explorer program back? Uh this has actually been a combined effort by a few of our officers and a few of our park rangers. All of which including myself was an explorer once upon a time. >> Well, I know some of my former students were explorers and one of them Pablo is now with your office and has loved it. I think it's a wonderful program. So, thank you for bringing that back. >> We're very excited and we hope to have the program ready to rock and roll hopefully by the end of the month and then soon to have meetings shortly thereafter. >> Thank you so much for your time. >> Thank you. Okay, next we have um the auditors are on the report for first. Okay, so we have the auditors from ID Bailey. You can
017come forward. Thank you. >> Thank you for having me. My name is Bobby Patel. I'm a partner with ID Bailey, specifically in charge of this district's audit. Um I'm going to go over the fiscal year 2425 audit report. Um there's few things I'm going to go over within the report. There are three opinions we provide. one on the financial statements, one on the federal awards, and one on state awards. And in addition to that, I'll also go over the communication with the governance letter that was provided with the copy of the audit report to the board. Um, before I get started, I usually like to describe what an audit is. It's a process designed to provide reasonable assurance whether the financial statements are free of material misstatements. And the ultimate goal of an auditor is
018to provide an auditor's opinion. The way we get to that opinion is through a risk assessment approach of the district's internal controls and various processes. Ultimately testing transactions on a sample basis to verify those controls. And then the next page I want to draw your attention to here it's page 91. That's the summary of auditor's results. >> Excuse me. I'm sorry to interrupt. We don't have a copy of the report. Correct? under >> last board meeting you approved the approved it. Yeah. >> Oh, [clears throat] okay. This is referencing. >> So, they don't have a copy of it in front of them. >> We don't have I apologize for interrupting, but yeah, we don't have a copy of that in front of us. >> But yeah, the summary of auditor's results. It's one page in
019the audit report that summarizes the three opinions we provide. On the financial statement, the district earned the unmodified opinion. That's the highest level of assurance we provide. Um, there were no material weaknesses or significant deficiencies noted. On the federal awards, the district earned a unmodified opinion. As well, we tested one major federal program. There were no material weaknesses or significant deficiencies noted. On the state award, the district again earned a unmodified opinion with no material weaknesses or significant deficiencies noted. Um the and again I'm going to point to a page thinking the report was here but the there's a financial trends page on page 76 of the report. Um what this page outlines it's the district's general fund the chief operating fund. It provides a picture of where that fund has been in the past
020three years and also the budget for the following year. So what this page tells us it's out of the two of the three fiscal year district had an operating surplus and is projecting a deficit in fiscal year 2526. ADA has continued to decline over the past two years. Um, that's not unique to this district. We noticed that across the state. Um, it is just one of the trends that's been there. And overall long-term obligations have been increasing. A lot of the increases for this district are tied to your pension and oped liabilities. And then the next portion I want to go over, it's the communications with the governance letter that was provided. Um, this outlines a couple things that aren't within the actual audit report, whether we had difficulties with management or if there were
021any other issues that arise that aren't addressed in the report. And I'm happy to report we didn't have any issues. Um, your fiscal service and all of the other departments are wonderful to work with. Couple other things that um that are within that letter. I know a couple of you are new board members here. So I want to address um there's a section in that letter that you might have read that's a significant um risk that were identified um specifically management overrider controls. So those two risk management overrider control and revenue recognitions are basis of every single audit that's performed. It's not unique to this district. We do all our audit with those risk identified and test to see if those there's any issues noted further from there. So for management override controls we'll test
022journal entries and other aspects that management could override controls with and happy to report we didn't have any of those issues. Now had we had any issues related to that you'll actually see them in forms of financial statement findings within the audit report and as I mentioned previously there were no findings. So we didn't identify any additional risk from those. Um if you have any questions I'm happy to answer them. >> Any questions anyone? No. Okay. Thank you very much. Appreciate you being here. >> You're welcome. Thank you all. >> Madam Chair, I just want to again state for the record how unsatisfying it is that unmodified is the highest grade you can get. >> Unmodified. Yeah, it does sound doesn't it kind of sounds Yeah, >> the wording is a little pecular. >> Thank
023you. >> Um, thank you very much. Have a nice evening. Happy New Year. Okay, moving on to our reports. We have um our executive cabinet uh member um Mr. Colin. >> Thank you, President Morgan. So, I hope everyone had a restful winter break and happy new year to everyone. Um we have our non- studentent day. It's happening a week from this Friday, January 16th. and elementary [clears throat] certificated staff and all classified staff will participate in a professional development day while secondary certificated staff will have a grading day. Sessions are tailored to align with each employees role ranging from behavior intervention strategies for instructional assistance to seizure recognition and first aid for health clerks and campus supervisors. Um reading and math intervention strategies and clerical sessions focus on cross trainining roles to enhance office efficiency.
024Um, we're also looking forward to recognize our staff and students for their incredible work at our recognition board meeting happening on January 22nd. That's all I have for tonight. Thank you. >> Thank you. And don't we have a holiday on Monday following the non- studentent day? So, a 4-day weekend coming up next weekend. Pray for snow. Thank you. Okay, moving on. Um, Manoj. >> Thank you. Good evening, board president, members of the board. First of all, happy new year. Um hopefully everyone had a good respectful uh holiday. Um we survived the rain. That was one of my concerns during the uh what they call the pineapple express over the last couple of weeks. Hopefully uh we did not have I mean thankfully we did not have uh any major incidents with respect to the water
025intrusion and stuff like that. We are getting ready for the budget for next year. Tomorrow the governor is going to announce his budget proposal for 2627 which provides some highlight as to how the state funding is going to be although it does not directly impact community funded districts like Laguna Beach but there are other streams of funding that we receive outside the LCF. So we are anxious to see what kind of funding would be coming to the beach. With that uh that's the end of my report. >> Thank you. Uh Dr. Mayberry, >> thank you. Good evening and happy new year. Um just want to give a couple quick shout outs for some teachers who uh recently were recognized uh by from the county for some awards. Uh our own Maryanne Lawson was recently recognized
026as a 20 and will be recognized coming up. uh at the county for the 2026 elementary counselor of the year. Uh as well as the 2026 Orange County music and arts awards uh the countywide celebration of an arts education. Uh Sarah Wolsey and Shirley O'Brien were nominated for their outstanding contributions to arts education as well as Came Stevens who was selected as a recipient for the art teacher and special assignment award for Orange County. It was a special it's always fun to have staff recognized for their efforts. Um and then also coming up, um the family resource center, uh since our last meeting, they've had a couple really good workshops, uh parent education workshops. Think we started off our series with parenting for success with IEPs and 504s that was hosted by Dr. Michael Keller,
027director for social emotional support, uh Jennifer Moss, our director of special education, Jaylen Thompson, interim program specialist, and Grace Jones, our high school psychologist. really supportive uh opportunity to talk about different ways to navigate the 504s and IPS and that's a three-part series. So that was part one before break. Uh we also had uh Mike Morrison and Glenn Warren and Michael Culler did one on digital safety uh as well u and that will continue to do those after the break. Then we have a couple more coming up. Uh again this is all can be found on the family resource center but want to use this opportunity. We have strength and parenting which is a new monthly five-part series uh on building parent connections around youth substance abuse. Um so you'll hear more about that one.
028Uh session three for the virtual parent power power power hour uh is coming up uh soon and this month on focusing on executive functioning skills. And then the last one uh is a parent toolkit session two that's in February 2nd for parents of elementary students focusing on supporting social emotional growth uh and strengthening parent and child uh connections. So lots of going things fun uh important valuable workshops going on at the the family resource center and if you want more information please check out the website. Thank you. >> Thank you. Those are always super helpful. Uh Dr. Glass you have our last executive team report. Thank you, Madam President, and members of the board. Happy New Year. We are excited to be back at work supporting our students in this community. I want to briefly
029update you on my work over this past week, as well as work over the break organized around three core areas. Governance, supporting our students and staff, and finally, system coherence and stability. First, on governance, over the past week, over the break, I've focused on strengthening clarity and consistency around our board processes and legal matters. This has included coordination with council on ro, scope, transitions as well as careful planning of the agenda and presentations for this evening so that the board has an informative and um meaningful meeting tonight. The emphasis has been on clearly understood and predictable processes, clear roles between the governing board and the administration, and continuing to build systems that promote stability, trust, and sound decision-making. Second, I've addressed several student and staff related issues, including instructional questions, personnel matters, parent communications. In
030each case, my approach has been to respond promptly, gather facts, involve the appropriate members of our team, both at the district and the site level, and ensure that the issues are handled professionally and fairly. As part of this work, I met with district and site leaders to review how school teams are monitoring student progress through interim assessments and aligning instructional efforts as we look ahead to the state assessments later this spring with a clear focus on supporting our students and keeping our learning aligned with high academic standards. Third, I've engaged with parents, the PTAs just today, uh, building and district leaders and community partners, balancing listening and relationship building with the need to maintain focus and coherence. A key part of that work is helping our organization stay centered on what matters most, our students,
031and is getting a smooth start to this new year. Much of the work at the start of the year is intentionally quiet. It's around building stable systems, reinforcing trust, and ensuring when issues do come to the board, they w arrive well vetted, properly framed, and ready for thoughtful governance. At different times, organizations need different kinds of leadership, and I've served in those roles. Sometimes those are outward- facing. They're flashy. Sometimes they're intended to make a splash, sometimes not. Right now, LBUSD continues to work through a period of transition and the work here calls for steadiness, calm, clarity, followth through. So rather than pursuing new or abstract ideas, the focus that we have is on making sure that learn the learning and services that our students, our staff, parents, and the community count and rely on.
032They're delivered consistently and professionally. Looking ahead, I'm excited to work with you on developing a new strategic plan and directions for LBUSD over the next several months. We'll need to identify a limited number of goals that truly matter to our students in this community and then focus our collective efforts on delivering them. I look forward to continuing that work together and building a shared direction that we all can stand behind. Thank you, Madam President. Thank you, trustees. I'm grateful every day for the opportunity to serve this district and community, and I look forward to a meaningful meeting tonight. >> Thank you, Dr. glass. We are happy to have you. Okay, we're going to move on to the board member reports. We're going to start with the student board members. Ivy, would you like to lead
033us off? >> Of course. Um, so we don't have much to report other than uh the high school's winter formal uh dance is on the 30th. Um, and happy holidays to everyone. I hope everyone had a great break and yeah, excited to start the second semester in the new year. Thank you, Logan. Um, moving on. Uh, member Kelly, >> I'm going to pass so we can spend more time on the poll. >> Thank you. Um Howard, member Hills, >> a report that um uh as indicated at the last meeting, uh I was able to go forward with um uh Mr. Shen and with uh Superintendent and and uh uh we were able to get into contact with Ambassador Carmen Caner at the United Nations. Um and um she has agreed that when the model UN
034delegation comes to New York um we're trying to identify uh window of time when she would be available, but she wants to if she can she wants to host the Laguna Beach model UN um delegation uh at the UN headquarters in New York. She is currently the executive director of the counterterrorism program for the United Nations. and she uh specifically said she looks forward to meeting the delegation and um I've passed all that information on um so that they're just going to need to now I I've I've turned uh the names of the model UN general secretaries over to Ambassador Caner's executive assistant and she's going to get in touch um with them and with Mr. Shen and they're going to they've actually identified about three-day overlap where she thinks she's going to be able
035to host them. So, uh, I'm really excited about that. I've turned it all over. I'm not going to be involved in it any further, but turn it over to them and I'm really excited about that. I think it'll be a great opportunity for our And she also said that next time is in in Cal she's in California, she'd like to come in and u make a presentation to the Mal UN for the entire delegation here at Laguna Beach High School. So, she's a fantastic woman. Um the uh other thing I wanted to just mention very quickly um is that um I wanted to thank the superintendent uh for tonight's um for tonight's agenda. I'm really excited about the fact that you know we've been you were talking about we're still in transition and we've been
036struggling for a full year on a lot of governance issues and there's been a lot of difficult uh issues that we've had to deliberate about. But um uh I think one good development is that um we've developed a governance committee so we can maybe do some of that work um in a committee context and not take up the board's time during meetings about that and then as you've as you said we can bring things forward through that process. Um and um but I'm really excited about the the math and the arts and the the the the academic the focus on academics and for um uh student achievement that is reflected in tonight's agenda. I want to thank you and the staff and everybody for putting that together because I really am impressed by what we're
037doing. I'm in very strong support of what uh you've got in got in the package here. Um, one more thing. Um, I just wanted to respond um to um Mr. with COP and say that um that uh uh I appreciate your comments and um I think I should clarify that um what I was attempting to say and maybe I didn't say it um as well as I should is that um uh at the time we approached making a decision about what to do with respect to the overpayments um uh the fact is that option number one was really not under active discussion is what I meant to say. Um I didn't mean to say that it was not um that it wasn't on the table, but what I was saying was that it was not
038under active discussion. Staff was talking a lot about taking a $800,000 grant that was for other purposes and using that. staff was talking about other um other sources of possible uh shifting funds over and and and and trying to cover the overpayments um by draining other accounts and whatnot. Um and um going back to the basic idea of absorbing the over payments in the in the budget and doing a clean new appropriation which is what I had recommended back in in June when I when matter was first first brought forward when I was acting president. Um my first response was we need to instead of making the same mistakes that were made in the past, let's do a clean new appropriation and do it above boards and balance the books. And that's what we did
039last in our last meeting by saying we will absorb it. Now what what it means when you say we're going to absorb something, we're going to have to figure out what the terms of that and what that really means in the negotiations. But the point is it was um it was the um it was the uh leadership of the board that took that idea of just not trying to do a shell game with other accounts but having a clean appropriation which is the most above board way to do it um uh was really brought back into um uh uh the for the foreground and is ultimately what we ended up doing. Um so um I just wanted to clarify that. >> Thank you. Thank you, Howard. If you could turn your mic off, that'd be
040great. Um, okay, Joan. [clears throat] >> Um, hi. Happy New Year, everyone. I attended a meeting of the school power endowment committee. I'm deeply grateful for the extraordinary community support behind our excellent schools. And I want to note that whenever I can. And second, the congratulations that Chad already shared about um our teacher awards. I developed a new course this quarter that continues an experiment I started in the fall of removing phones and computers from my classroom. I value technology. I support ethical issues, ethical uses of AI. But I discovered that without devices, students looked at one another, grappled with ideas directly, learned each other's names, and many thank me for unplugging them. I'm not suggesting that my college course is, you know, should be mapped on to K12 schooling. And I share this not
041as a lesson about looking backward, but about being intentional going forward. Institutions are strongest when they reflect rather than react. So, it's in this spirit that I want to share some concerns about governance and thoughts for the new year. Um, local school boards are among our most fragile democratic institutions. They govern through norms, transparency, truthfulness, restraint, respect for professional expertise. When those norms erode, and I'm deeply concerned that's happening here, attention is diverted from students to internal conflict and damage control. Um, first, at the direction of one or two board members, not the whole board as norms dictate, district staff are now subject to investigations initiated through attorneys and now outside agencies. There is no transparency and regardless of intent, the effect is chilling and it pulls time and money away from serving students. Second,
042I repeat my concerns about compliance with Brown Act open meeting requirements. There's a lot of knowledge that shared by the board majority that can no longer be rationally seen as coincidence. Backroom dealings trash transparency and that's the foundation of public trust and effective leadership. At our last meeting third, a bylaw revision was proposed to vest agenda setting authority solely in the board president in the event of disagreement with the superintendent. This appears minor, I know, but it actually shifts power away from our expert professional staff and undermines principles of shared governance and trust in our new superintendent. These reallocations of authority, hidden in quiet, boring bylaw amendments, matter because they shape priorities in ways that seem innocuous to the public, but potentially give people without a vested interest in our students or those with petty
043grievances, worse, an outside say about whether or how we meet our student needs. I have more to say about this when it's agendaized, and I urge you to pay attention. Um, fourth, my concerns about Mr. Hill's false assertions were noted by the union and he responded. I don't necessarily agree with his effort to reframe it, but when misinformation more generally is amplified under the authority or perceived authority of this board, it aims to move public opinion with falsehoods, and that isn't good for our students. I want to remind everyone that a school district's reputation is a public asset. undermining it affects morale, recruitment, enrollment, partnerships, and property values. It weakens our ability to deliver for students. It costs everyone. So, taken to these together, I see a broader pattern. Historian Timothy Snider reminds us that
044democratic backsliding rarely begins with dramatic national events. It begins locally through small technical changes that concentrate power, sideline professional expertise, and normalize extraordinary measures often justified by appeals to a supposedly great past. Institutions hollow out as normie road. Timothy Snder offers a clear warning. Appeasement never works. The obligation of our leaders is to recognize these patterns early. Snyder urges everyone to stand up and defend our institutions. Those are the institutions that offer opportunity for the most vulnerable, including our children. And his warnings apply here. While the board majority likes to refer to me as an obstructionist, I am merely heeding Timothy Snider's warning. This includes taking a principled stand by choosing not to serve on a governance committee created by the board majority but designed to consolidate power in the board that will lead to
045bylaw changes that I would prefer to publicly address not in a closed session where nobody can hear the conversation and that's my ongoing effort to defend our local institutions. Our board majority frequently invokes a great district of the past and governs govern governs through nostalgia, but with questionable characterizations and a misunderstanding of how education laws have changed in past decades, all while attacking our present institution. It doesn't restore excellence. It destabilizes institutions and it affects student outcomes. Accountability matters, but when it's exercised through intimidation, secrecy, falsehood, it's coercion. And that's cor corrosive and it pulls the board away from the student- centered work that we're here to do and the community expects. School boards exist to deliberate openly, tell the truth, follow the law, and protect educators so that they can focus on students, not
046survival. So in this new year in closing, I urge the board majority to recommmit to lawful process, factual integrity, institutional restraint, end unauthorized and retaliatory investigations, correct false public claims, and resist governance changes that concentrate power rather than strengthen trust. I want to remind my fellow board members that our authority is borrowed from the public for the public. And abusing it places the district legally and reputationally at serious risk. Defending this district means defending its people, its credibility, its institutions, and the democratic norms that make public education possible. Happy New Year. >> Thank you, Member Perry. Clerk Perry, excuse me. >> Thank you. Um, wishing everyone a fabulous 2026 and I'll leave it there. >> Okay, thank you. Okay. Um, so my report is also brief. Um, in addition to the staff recognitions, I wanted
047to congratulate our very own high school teacher, Shelby Anderson. She's a history teacher at the high school and she was selected by the US Army Women's Foundation for their upcoming scholarship award and hall of fame ceremony inductees and I want to thank you also for her service to our country. I am in the process of setting up meetings with my fellow board members uh member Kelly I do hope that you'll accept the invitation. The purpose of these meetings is to understand what student focused initiatives they are interested in champion championing and how I can support that. I'm also in speak I'm also meeting and speaking with various community members that are reaching out to me and I look forward to each and every one of those conversations to understand their concerns and how I can
048support them in finding the appropriate path within our process to navigate their needs. I'm meeting with the unions next week. I encouraged them to invite another board member if they felt it was necessary and as well as the superintendent. Member Malchesky will be joining that conversation and I look forward to exploring how collaboration can begin on behalf of our most important topic, our students. I have requested um the initiation of a listening tour through all of our sites and I'm encouraging staff to attend and bring their ideas, thoughts, and concerns forward. I plan on implementing a ticket type system really kind of an index card to all attendees and having it dropped in a box as they leave so that everyone is seen dropping a card in the box whether it's written on or not
049to protect u people's privacy. Uh this will allow anonymity in the process if someone needs to express any perspective that they that might be too sensitive to share. All comments will be encouraged to be confidential unless they'd like a personal followup from myself or members of the staff or the superintendent, excuse me. Lastly, I want to wish our seniors good luck in their la in their final semester at LBUSD. I believe most college apps and plans are wrapping up and as they enjoy their last semester, they are also looking ahead at the next chapter. Our f family has done that a lot over the holidays as our older kids have had to juggle work obligations and holiday desires. Our two youngest are heading back to college, one with their own last semester as a senior
050and the other excited to return back for her spring semester of her freshman year. And lastly, our youngest making the big move and launching into his next chapter um as a professional player and entertainer for you families out there that are listening. And why I say this is that it goes by in a blink of an eye. While I will was always an advocate for their education and for the excellence of our schools. And I commend those of you for taking the time to be here meeting after meeting. The school years are the most fleeting than and more fleeting than we realize until it is in your rear view mirror. Enjoy the moment. Enjoy the journey. And as always, I welcome constructive insight, feedback, and conversation. It all leads to finding a path forward, whatever
051the topic may be. So, thank you. That's the end of my report. >> Mrs. Morgan, I would like to thank you for inviting me to meet with you, but I would never meet with you alone because of the bizarre behaviors that I have observed you present. Thank you. >> Thank you. I invite you to invite whoever you would like. Thank you, Member Kelly. So, moving on to our agenda, the next item up is um our instructional services and the item 7A, approval of new vocal arts course for Laguna Beach High School beginning in the 2627 school year. Dr. Mayberry, the floor is yours. Thank you. >> Awesome. Thank you. Uh this year, the high school is recommending two new courses for board approval. Each course went through the district's new course approval process which includes
052extensive research, student input, feasibility and analysis review by department staff, school administration, district administration, and then also the curriculum council. Um the final step includes recommendation to the school board for approval, which is where we're here tonight. Uh for this first item, I'd like to invite up uh the high school staff Lindsay Parker here to to share about this the new the new vocal arts toquire course that the high school is proposing for the board to review and approve. I'll hand it off to Lindsay >> at the um at the both elementary schools and also well hopefully at the high school coming up here soon. Um can we go to the next slide please? I have the >> Thank you. Oh okay. So the purpose of this course of this choir course is to um
053kind of have somewhere for students for high school students who want to sing to go to. So currently we have 212 students participating in choir programs in the elementary and middle schools. Um we just developed a youth choir at the elementary schools at both elementaryaries. We also have honors chorus which is fourth and fifth grade. And then we also this year established a theater and choir um courses actually at the middle school and we now have a theater and vocal arts one class at the high school but there's no course for students who just want to sing and aren't interested in theater and [snorts] what it is now. So the class I teach at the high school now is called musical theater. Um, and I kind of made a little uh diagram here because I
054think they often get confused. I think some people think, oh, well, you have a singing class. It's it's musical theater, but they're actually two very different things. Um, the way I like to talk about it is like if there's a big pie, and there's um many different slices to this pie. So you have like jazz and pop and um [sighs and gasps] and classical and bluegrass and a billion different other genres of music. Musical theater is just one like very small piece of that big pie. So right now unfortunately high school students are only able to um be part of the musical theater style of singing which I love and which is amazing. Um but I do think they should be exposed to more genres like they are at the middle schools and both elementaryaries
055as well. So what we have done in the past is um we have had drama, theater and chorus. What we do now is that drama course eventually evolved into theater and vocal arts one. The theater course evolved into theater arts 2 and the chorus course evolved into musical theater. What we are proposing is to have theater and vocal arts one, keep that the same, theater arts two, but kind of branch them off. So it would go from theater and vocal arts one to theater arts 2 and vocal arts 2. Um, this is just like a snapshot of the course that I am proposing. It's just so that we all know that we already had it in the past. So it's already in like the in the system. It's already like approved. We're kind of just
056taking what we have and and enhancing it. All right. So, I did some research and I actually personally did this research. I I literally looked up like every high school in Orange County and surveyed their course catalog. And the percentage of schools in Orange County that have an explicit choir class is 84% of all public high schools in Orange County. And these are just local schools with choir classes. It includes Aliso, Dana Hills, Capo Valley, Tasorro, San Juan, San Clemente, Fountain Valley, Irvine, University, and so much more. Here are the little units of study that we would do. Um, we would build core skills and healthy advanced vocal technique. This is including breath support, resonance, range, and stamina. Um, [snorts] we would go over musicianship and literacy. Um, this includes sight singing, ear training, harmony,
057and basic theory. and also stylistic flexibility ac across like a bunch of different genres. So, um, classical coral, like the ones I mentioned earlier, including musical theater as well. And here are the career connections. This is a slide I especially like because a choir class actually has more career connections than um solely a musical theater class. Um, the way I like to think about it is a musical theater class can prepare you for musical theater performance, but a choir class or a class that involves more genres of music. Can involve you can of course be a performer. You can um, of course go on to be a Broadway performer. You can um, you build skills in harmony, blend and sight singing, phrasing, all those things. And also as a studio musician, you can do that.
058You could do education. Um, you could be a choir teacher. You could go into music education. You could be a vocal coach. You [snorts] could al also do um health science and go into music therapy. You could also do um be a composer or a lyricist. This is especially big in like commercial music um that a lot of students are into right now. So this is for film, TV and games and advertising. And lastly um audio media and technology. So um like mixing and sound designing and things like that. Here is the current CTE pathway. And the reason I say this is because musical theater is in the theater CTE pathway, the professional theater theater CT pathway right now. Um, we have theater and vocal arts one and then we have theater arts 2 and
059musical theater and then theater performance. Um, and Megan can talk more about the theater pathway and how that will look next year and this year as well, but um, this is what we'd like to see. We're kind of laying the groundwork for a vocal pathway with theater and vocal arts one and then vocal arts 2 would hopefully be the capstone. We're open to it becoming a CTE um um program. And here is some fun student feedback. I I especially like the one from Elmoro, so I'll read that one. Um this is student feedback. We we gave a bunch of students a a survey asking if they'd rather take a musical theater course or a choir course. And this is what one student said from Elmoro. Um, they said, "I'd rather take chorus because I love
060singing all kinds of songs, not just from musicals. I want to get better at my voice without having to worry about dancing at the same time." So, there's that. Oh, and this is a picture from I think this was last year's um holiday concert and we included um music the high school musical theater students as well as the choir students from Thirsten and also from Elmore on top of the world. Um next would be the further steps is obviously curriculum council and board approval and then the master schedule impact. I did want to add that that it would not affect the master schedule at all because it would replace the current musical theater course. So, the choir course would replace the musical theater course. >> Thank you very much for that presentation. Um, we're going
061to start with board questions. Member Perry, do you have any questions? >> I I just want to say, Lindsay, that I think this is fabulous. I know a lot of students singing brings such joy to them, but they don't really want to act or dance. And um it's something they can do all their lives. >> Thank you so much. >> Thank you. I agree. >> Member Kelly, no questions. Member Maltesky. >> Thank you. I have a just a couple. Do we um I know in um some of the other First of all, thank you so much. You know, I'm a big supporter. Um I love seeing more arts programs coming forward. So, thank you very much. I wanted to find out I know with some of the instrumental classes and band, we have um different
062people that come in to work with the students on different specialties within that. Is that part of this program proposal that you would be able to do that? >> Yes. So, we actually we already do that, but we would continue to do that. Yeah. So, right now, uh the musical theater students receive private voice lessons um weekly and that's just a part of the class. They get a grade for it. We would continue that. And we'd also bring in hopefully with if it was turned into a coral course, we would bring in things like sound designers and more of like commercial music and um people from film and TV and and and more. >> Great. Thank you. And then um I have another question and then a question for um Manoj. Do we have the
063are the facilities that we have in place at the this is for the high school. So is the space that we have sufficient for what you need? Is there something that we need to look at that would help enhance the experience for you as a teacher and for our students as well? I know the dance um studio, we talked about um uh risers at one point um when I was as a parent and so it's nice to see um us moving forward on some of these. So I'm just curious if this program needs any type of facility support or um anything like that. >> Thank you for that question. Um currently, um drama and well drama and musical theater share a classroom. It would be nice to have a choir classroom. That's I know that's
064the case in a lot of other districts, but I don't think there's room for that at the high school. So, I love Megan Mingz Marshall. I'm happy to keep sharing with her for as long as I live, but um it would be cool to have another classroom, but there might not be space for it, and that's okay. >> Well, thank you for that, um suggestion. we can maybe make a note and keep that in consideration for future facility cons looks um investigation or and then my last question for um Manoj is there a budget issue that we need to look at or um that we're going to need to take into consideration to help maximize your program and make sure that as we're developing the budget going forward that we can ensure that you have
065the funding that you need. If I understand it correctly, it's replacing one course already that's already existing. The musical theater course is being replaced by this vocal arts course. So there is no fiscal impact. >> This is correct. >> That's my understanding. And and just to add the part of this course and and Miss Parker has a CTE credential. So uh it putting it into that CT pathway opens up another host of funds as well that she can access to for any of those unique needs that might come up. Thank you. Okay. >> We need is and this is an action item. So, we need a motion to approve the new vocal arts course. >> I'm sorry. >> We need a motion to >> Can can we have public comments on this? >> I think
066we need the motion then public comment, right? No public comment. My apologies. Yes. Public comment first, please. >> So, do we have any speaker cards on this topic? >> Yes, >> please. Um, Mr. Steve Macintosh, are you going to sing for us? [laughter] >> Wouldn't that be something, huh? Uh, yes. As a singer and a performer, I'm very happy to hear this. I think it's really a a step in the right direction from where we've been. We used to have programs like this and then they kind of got wished into the corn field. And it's great to have this kind of thing back. And I commend everyone for doing that and the new uh administration. I think it's great. Um, one thing I just I just caught a little bit of a prerequisite for this
067class and I think that can be okay. I think what's really important is that you give a shot to everybody that wants to sing. And that was what was great about the last chorus at the high school. It was pretty much everybody could come and kids need this badly because uh there's the stresses of of life and of the rigors of school and uh the internet etc. This is a great release for people that really want to that don't play football that don't play water polo. this is their great release and singing is a fantastic way and music in general is is uh we all listen to music and so it it really moves people and to be a part of it and to perform it is really extra special and to give people that
068opportunity is is something they're always going to remember and uh I commend everybody and I and I sure that uh you should encourage you to approve this tonight. Thank you. >> Thank you. Any more speaker cards? Okay, thank you. So, I need a motion to approve the new vocal arts 2 course for Laguna Beach High School beginning in the 2627 academic year. >> So, moved. >> Any discussion? >> Member Hills. >> Yeah, I'd just like to reinforce um comments that uh Mr. Macintosh made. I think u Mr. Superintendent, you may remember when we did the when you did the town hall meetings and some of us tagged along with you for a few of those. Um, I repeatedly heard from parents uh uh questions and suggestions about restoring socialization for the kids. um talk about
069field trips, talking about activities like this where you um you have um uh you know we all talk about concern about too much screen time and we talk about concern about isolation that um students are experiencing and restoring activities that um in addition to having good teaching going on and good um uh good discipline and good training and good achievement. Uh you have you have socialization. The the students are together and they're relating to one another and um they're spending time with other people instead of just by themselves with a a screen. And so I think this is a that we should be doing more of this. And I remember up at one of the town hall meetings um a parent suggested uh doing more field trips where the students are out together in the
070world doing things going places whether it's art museums or whether it's down to Dana Point Harbor for the the um the the the boat they have down there that the kids can spend the night on or at least they used to. Uh the point being that there's not enough of student social engagement activities that draw them out of themselves and into dialogue and into relationship with uh their peers. And it's not just it's not enough to just have adult counselors and and you know it's great to have all the programs and activities we have uh for dealing with students one-on-one or individually but um uh but this is the kind of uh uh program that we should look for as many opportunities to bring students together to spend time with each other as we can
071in addition to sports. >> Thank you for your comment. Um, I have one comment that was interesting because it came through on my feed today. Um, and it ties also into one of the focal points of the art um the arts committee that we have um launched and it [clears throat] says singing in a choir for just one hour can reduce stress, improve your mood, and boost your immune system. So, I thought the timing was perfect to have this pop up on my feed with tonight's presentation. Um, and I wanted to share that and start using, you know, hopefully the arts will help us and support our students in a lot more ways other than another class on the agenda on the uh master schedule. So, thank you. So, we need to move to a
072vote. Yes, sir. Sorry. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, it also is in alignment with the feedback that we received as part of the 100 day report listening tour. this is consistent with that and I didn't just want to be recognized to express my appreciation to uh Lindsay and everyone that's involved in the music program here. I'm so excited at the way that this has grown and I know that that didn't happen accidentally. It happened because of the commitment that you and the other music teachers have and the passion and professionalism that you bring to the work. So, I've been to your performances. um incredibly proud of those and attending them just as a member of this community and I'm excited about where this goes from here. Thank you. >> Thank you. That was perfect.
073Um okay. Am I going to do this right now and ask for a vote? Okay. [snorts] All right. So, we have um so I need a vote. All in favor of um approving the new new vocal arts 2 course for Laguna Beach High School. I'm sorry, student board members easing in a little rusty. I apologize. >> Both of us say yes. >> Yes. >> All in favor? I >> I >> thank you. I Thank you. Motion passes 5 plus two to zero. Okay. The next item is um approval of the new theater production course for Laguna Beach High School beginning in the 2627 academic year. Dr. Mayberry, thank you again for bringing this forward. The arts are uh where the soul of our community is. So, I really appreciate all the hard work you guys
074have had on this and I look forward to the presentation. >> Thank you. Thank you. and appreciate your support. Um, we get the privilege of bringing up another course that the high school is proposing uh for next year, uh, theater production. And I want to invite up award-winning director of our theater program, Megan Marshall, to share about the, uh, proposal for the new course. Those of you that don't know me, my name is Megan Mingas, the Marshall. I'm the theater director at the high school and I also provide theater enrichment at both elementary sites and I'm here today to talk about an exciting new elective course that we have proposed theater production. So what is theater production? This course is going to provide students with hands-on experience in designing, running, researching, and analyzing technical theater
075and live video production. The intent is for this course to start as a nonCTE course with potential to evolve it into the CTE pathway in later years. The scheduling is not going to impact the master schedule because we plan to run it outside the bell schedule either on a semesterl long base or a year-long base in tandem with our theater performance course. So, for those of you that aren't familiar, our theater performance course is our fancy word we have for our rehearsals for our fall play and our spring musical, which run in the evenings. We just finished up rehearsal right now before we came over here. And this course would run before that happens in the evening. So, potential times could be 3:30 p.m. to 4:15 p.m. Monday through Thursday. And we usually begin rehearsal
076around 4:30 to 5 and go to 8. what is the units uh what do the units look like in this class? So, it's project based. So, it really is up to students and student interests and what students get approached with in terms of um what our school and community needs. So, even though it's called theater production, the goal is that this course is going to support all schoolwide performances and events that require technical elements. So, they will gain experience with lighting, sound, costumeuming, makeup, stage management, stage design, prop design, set design, and production overall, both in the classroom setting and in the actual event running process. So, not just for theater, but for Lindsay's vocal music productions, for SC's dance productions, for ASB events like Quadella and pep rallies, as well as end of the
077year events like graduation and convocation with the potential as we grow the course to engage with community events as well, which is very exciting. Learner profile alignment. This course, because it's hands-on, hits perfectly on a lot of aspects of the learner profile, but I wanted to highlight the empowered learner, the creative problem solver, and the constructive collaborator aspects. Students will be empowered in their learning because they are getting to design from scratch. They are having to engage with industry professionals or industry standard tools and softwares and learn how to use these things that if they pursue this outside uh of school in the future and college and career, they're going to be using that similar software. Again, they're going to have to be creative problem solvers. They will be looking at budget constraints, time constraints,
078and oftent times when you're running a live event, um things happen and they're going to have to uh determine how to solve those problems live on the spot and with their teams and collaboration. Of course, they have independent designs, but the lighting designer works with the sound designer and with the costume designer. And there's multiple people on each of those teams that they will have to work together to create an overall vision for the productions as well as work with the staff member that's overseeing the event and potential industry professionals who are teaching them the softwares they need. Lindsay talked a little bit about this already, but this is our current CTE pathway. We have theater and vocal arts one as the concentrator, the beginning course and then it goes into musical theater and theater
079arts 2 and theater performance which is again our rehearsalbased class is considered an extra offering. So we're hoping that it's going to look something like this this next year with that vocal arts 2 piece coming in and then you'll see theater production is up there as that extra offering. But if we maybe eventually split off vocal arts into its own pathway, we could then plug in some of the theater courses back into the pathway. Some data trends. So this course, even though it's not a course, students are already engaging in this work. So you'll see a steady increase of students that have been involved in tech in the past 3 years. In 2023, we had about 18 to 22 students. And this past year, we had about 22 to 25 students with a high rate
080of retention year after year. When students get involved in something like this, it becomes their community, becomes kind of like a family, and they come back year after year. There's also on the other side, you'll see a list of local schools that offer tech classes. It is uh widely considered a standard theater course at a lot of other high schools. You may be looking at this list and you may be thinking, well, these have double or triple the enrollment of our school district, but I was able to connect with Estansia High School, which has a similar enrollment of about 800 students, and they are working to develop a technical theater class for this coming year as well, which is super exciting. I just wanted to highlight some recognition our students have already been receiving. In
081the past year alone, we have won uh an award for best stage management in a musical, best marketing in a musical. We earned second place for our trailer for our play. And we don't know the results of this year's season yet. But in this um previous production, which was Emma, our fall play, we were eligible for a record number of technical categories, eight categories, and we're planning to match or exceed it for our musical in the spring. So, some examples of those categories were prop design, costume design, uh we had a student do original composition, original choreography. all of these students who are interested in things like that could then join this class. So if these students are already doing all of these amazing things, why does it need to be a class? And I'll
082tell you why. Uh making it a class would allow us to refine our tech model. It would give opportunity for students who put considerable time and effort into these designs and technical projects to earn class credit. It also allows for greater student accountability. Their work is connected to a grade. Their name is attached to this project and they've invested time. Right now, these students really begin the process about two to three weeks out from the show and it is a little bit of a fire drill. This would allow us to start and be able to kind of take it at a a walking pace instead of a a jog and a sprint to the finish line. And it would allow students specific time to work not only with me but people like Dez, our theater
083manager and other industry professionals to hone, train and develop these skills. And then lastly, I just wanted to highlight some um student feedback to the approval of this course as well as some staff feedback. Uh we have such a great group of students as you see up here who are already doing this work um who would love to be able to have the time to do it even more and even more thoroughly. And uh my biggest takeaway is that this partnership could potentially save the district costs. It would encourage participation for some of these students who spend time after school waiting for rides and need a sense of community. And it provides valuable hands-on experience. and of course enhances our overall school culture. Thank you so much. >> Thank you so much for that wonderful
084presentation. Um I've watched this program grow and um the involvement of the students and the you're right the community that is created is unlike any other. It's supportive, encouraging, it's equitable for all um and everyone sees each other as part of the solution and I really appreciate that. So, thank you for that. [clears throat] Clerk, are there any speaker cards on this item first? >> Of course. Thanks. Um, very impressive. So, I I just want to get a feel for how all this works. So, so you teach set design and then you teach lighting and then you teach sound and then you teach the makeup and marketing and the costume design. I mean, how does how does that all work? >> It's a big question. So, not quite. Right now, the current model is we
085bring in a lot of adult professionals to do that type of work. So, we pay a set designer to build the sets. Right now, we pay a lighting designer [snorts] to come in and design the lights, but when the show starts, when it begins about, like I said, about 3 weeks before the kids take over. So, they will run the light board, they will move the sets on stage. This would allow us to lay the groundwork for them to start to design themselves, for them to start to build the set themselves and of course save the district a little bit of money or place those people who were hiring who are just sitting at their desk uh programming and actually connect them with the kids and have them teach the kids what they're doing and
086how to do it. >> I see. So the professionals will be mentoring, helping the kids, teaching them something and then helping them along. Yes. Okay. I think it sounds fabulous. >> Thank you. >> Any other questions from any other board members? Do we have any questions from the student board members? >> No. >> Thank you, member Maleski. >> Okay. So, I'm going to ask you the same question that I asked before. Do you with the development of this program? I know we've brought people in and I'm I'm guessing you work with the makerpace lab at times as well. Is there um will this program be seeking um some more support from the district in as far as technology equipment and how can we do that? How can we >> Yes. I I think as it
087evolves potentially right we have what we need to get it started to get it off the ground. I think off the top of my head the most urgent need would be a lot of the um professional theater software is run via Mac and [clears throat] not PC and the students have Chromebooks and not MacBooks but we do have like a theater computer that is a Mac but if we wouldn't need like a class set potentially but even like three to five MacBooks where they can run the specific software QA and even have things there's another um rendering software called SketchUp that just work better on Max, but other than that, these kids have been doing this for many years without much with what we've already um have. It's just repurposing what we already have and
088putting it into the hands of students rather than adults. >> Thank you for outlining that. And I'm sure I again would like to hope that we can um connect all of that together and really continue to develop this program. You all do. award-winning um productions on sometimes less than some of these other schools that you're going up against and anything we can do to support that um I know I would support. So, thank you so much. >> Thank you. >> Um >> we have one >> one speaker card. Perfect. Let's call them up. >> Um Mr. Macintosh, >> when I saw this, I was very uh excited about it. I think it's really good for many of the same reasons I spoke about before uh for the kids. Um there are a lot of things
089here that are lifelong uh experiences that they'll take forward. Um and you're absolutely right. Working working a show is learning by fire and that's always difficult. It's kind of half in half half involved. Uh you learn a part part portion and then come the next show you learn a little bit more. So, a classroom setting is great because then you're going to study it. You're going to learn more about the options and um it refineses it and it becomes more involved. Um when I was going to college, I worked for a theatrical stage lighting and design company and it was a fantastic experience. I have stories that are concert stories and all kinds of wonderful stories that have stuck with me just from doing that. So, this allows kids to have a little bit more
090than just on their resume. um I did this in high school. No, I took a class and this this was something that was really more of a focus and therefore now I do know how to run a whiteboard. So therefore they can go to church, you can go to hotels, you can get part-time work uh running audiovisisual. So there's a lot of networks that this I think is great from the CTE standpoint, you know, and I think that's really important. So again, I support it and uh I think it's a great thing and I think a lot of kids will really like this to be involved from music standpoint as you expand into doing uh the music, the concerts, um those types of things. It's it's great a good experience. So uh I'd encourage you
091to uh again approve. Thank you. >> Thank you. We have any other speaker cards? Okay. Um I need a motion then to >> move that we approve it. >> Okay. Okay. The new theater production course for Laguna Beach High School. We've got um uh a motion by member Hills. Do I have a second? >> And is there any further discussion? >> Yes, sir. >> I um in the course of my nearly um 30 years working in education, I've been to a lot of school performances and theater productions. And so I went to my first ones here and I had low expectations and I was blown away um at the quality of what the kids put on. Everybody in this community needs to see what um this theater program produces. Um so I'll just say that
092and and the part of the quality of it was the uh magic of the sound and the lighting and the work that I know goes on behind the scenes that our uh terrific theater manager Dez has nothing to do with I'm sure. Um, but uh just thank you. Uh, it really is impressive and I I hope that I hope that our community uh really sees the quality in this, the investment that you put into it and the students put into it and we come out and support it the way that it deserves. >> Thank you for saying that. I think to that point was one of the communication questions I had had at the beginning of the year last year was are we promoting our events enough for our student for our community so that
093our students benefit from having an audience to perform. Um, these are amazing productions. Having been very close to several of them, the what you do with our kids is amazing. Um, and what they're able to produce, the whole community should be there. So, and we'll get there again, I'm sure. Um, okay. So, is there any if there's no more discussion? Um, and student board members, did you have anything? Did I asked you about if you had any comments? Correct. Discussion. >> Uh, we have no comments. Thank you. >> Thank you. So, we'll move on to the vote. Um, student board members, all in favor? >> We're going to vote yes. >> Thank you. All in favor? >> I. Thank you. Motion passes five to two. Five plus two to zero. Okay. Okay. The next item
094on the agenda is the approval of adoption of new new Amplify Desmos elementary math curriculum for grades K through five to align with updated California mathematics frameworks in an estimated amount of 30,000,000 309,000. commencing with the 2627 school year. Dr. Mayberry, thank you for bringing this forward for approval and the floor is yours. >> Thank you, board president. Um, so this uh this presentation brings forward um a recommendation for new elementary math instructional materials grounded in uh extensive research, teacher expertise, and student learning needs. High quality instruction materials are central to students educational success and are core part of the continuous improvement process. Uh this is in alignment with the recent updates to the California math frameworks uh which occurs every 8 to 10 years to meet the diverse and changing needs of students. Uh
095districts then review and determine if there's needs to update the courses and learning materials. Um this uh this is the result of that multi-year process. And so districtwide, uh, we're finishing up the elementary now and getting ready for the secondary math. Um, so we'll kind of share you a little bit of the overview. I did a presentation on this back in October and a few more things that happened that I want to share with you, uh, before we make the, uh, final give you the opportunity to, um, look at the recommendation. So here uh the district follows kind of the structured three-phase curriculum adoption process that emphasizes research piloting sustained implementation beyond the two-year process. Uh this approach assures that materials are thoroughly selected, supported rather than just adopted and quickly left unsupported. Uh we
096adopt curriculum the same way we expect students to learn intentionally and over time. This this here we're seeing that the two-year this two-year adoption process that I mentioned is built on more than five years prior to that buildup of it where there's essential standards, common formative assessments, inquiry based instructional learning practices, a wide variety of things lead to that two-year process. Uh significant investment in teacher leadership and professional learning uh ensure the readiness for this high quality curriculum decision. And then this is a little bit more detailed view of the full process. But the district intentionally intentionally aligned professional learning the developing a vision of a student learning experiences uh evaluating criteria piloting stakeholder input before the selection. There's instructional coherence uh from kindergarten all the way through 12th grade. So this was really a
097systemwide process. As you're looking forward to this fall, uh some of the updates, half of the K5 teachers um piloted instructional materials and provide structured feedback aligned to the district evaluation criteria that they helped develop uh which is a pretty extraordinary number to have half of the teachers pilot that and that's a volunteer for them to do that uh in their time. Student outcomes, family input, professional learning were embedded throughout that pilot uh time here this fall to inform the final recommendation. Uh we tested really before we made the selection. Materials were evaluated based on high quality task. One, two, access for all learners, meaningful assessments and classroom usability with the high priorities. Teacher feedback highlighted increased student discourse, deeper conceptual understanding, and high engagement through the hands-on learning that came from that curriculum. Uh
098as you can see here uh weekly this is some of the weekly curriculum based professional learning communities uh that teachers were part of some collaborative implementation of structured support. Um it was consistent across all the teachers that were doing it and their teams. Uh instructional coaching code teaching demonstration lessons ensured the fidelity of while honoring the teacher professional judgment. Uh support was built into the pilot um not after we adopted. And so that's a really important part to have that growth process in the fall. Here you can see all the different feedback that was a part of the process. Uh it was collected from teachers, instructional coaches, students, families, and the broader community through multiple engagement opportunities having the materials set up in the elementary offices going to PTA meetings, uh school council meetings. And
099the this year we had a unique opportunity. We did a math family night and the centers that were there were actually from the adopted curriculum. So families and students actually got to try out the materials together at that math family night. Uh so both quantitative and qualitative insights were used to understand student engagement, ability to access the materials and learning outcomes. Every voice mattered. And then finally last here the last couple slides here kind of show that the selection process uh as we took all this input in uh at the end of the pilot process teachers participated in a facilitated consensus process to review all the input and analyze the evidence. The process emphasized professional expertise transparency the collective ownership of that final decision. Uh consensus was developed through evidence not just opinion. the consensus
100and in this case unanimous recommendation was to adopt amplify desmos for elementary mathematics which is pretty rare to get a full unanimous decision that way. Uh you probably can't fully see it on there but we had asked the teachers to um if you're feeling strongly go over to one side of the room I thought for this one go on this other side of the room. It was a chance to have an open conversation as you can see from the picture everybody's all over on the left side. Uh they were all pretty excited to get this this uh materials and the impact it can have on student learning. uh I really aligned strongly with the district instructional priorities all the stake the stakeholder input that they were able to gather and providing that equitable access to
101all of our learners. So with that uh we're requesting the the committee and the teachers are requesting the board approval for uh to help us move into the implementation with clarity consistency and ongoing support. Uh so the adoption sets the stage for that stronger math learning and in this case um the recommendation is for Amplify Desmos uh for amount not to exceed $310,000. >> Thank you very much for that presentation. Yes, >> I might add on to Dr. Mayberry's presentation. Um uh coming in and observing the practices around curriculum in this district. I just want to note that it really does uh is a best practice model the way that there's a um a cycle of curriculum adoption that's in place. More importantly, there are resources and real support provided to allow teachers to be
102the ones that are vetting the materials, making the decisions, piloting the materials, making the recommendation, and resources that are provided to actually purchase and adopt uh the curriculum. uh so many uh districts around this country would love to have a structure like we have in place. So I just want to underscore how fortunate we are and that what you've seen as a result of this is a best-ofass model and approach. It's endorsed by our teachers and and it was um piloted and recommended by the practitioners that are delivering it. So you have a a highly rated uh well- reggarded product that is coming forward before you too. U so I'm I'm proud of the work that they do. Thank you uh Dr. Mayberry. Thanks to all the teachers that were involved in this as well.
103Um and we do recommend it for adoption. >> Okay. Thank you for adding that um narrative to that because I have gotten this backwards a little bit. I'm going to slow it down a little bit um and ask if there are any board member questions. member Machesky, you have the floor. >> Thank you, Dr. Mayberry. Um, generally speaking, this curriculum looks great. I have no issues or or questions about the this curriculum specifically. What I have is a sort of larger question, which is when I think about math scores for the district together. Um, how do we uh when we think about purchasing a curriculum plan for the elementary level for example, how do we think more broadly and not how do we like do you but what are the steps we take to think
104about how to align that curriculum with meeting the needs of the middle school and then building up toward the high school. I mean what do can you talk about how our process addresses that? Yeah. So the way we set up is at the elementary level we started that. So they actually have a head start. Um so they developed a vision statement. They went through this process. Um looking at the curriculum, looking at the framework really last year was their year of learning. Um this year is really a learning of of a year of looking and analyzing and testing before they select. At the secondary level is purposely staged a year later. Um, so secondary is now middle and I have a we work I'm working with our middle and high school teachers and a leadership
105team that's happening summer's where we did the elementary as well as all teachers have some training coming up actually in a couple weeks. Uh, this is their year of learning. So they're going to look at some student they're going to look at their student data. They're going to look at the frameworks. They're going to look at what elementary did. Um they're going to look at they're going to look at the current research around instructional practices as a 612 math teacher group all of them together which is one of the advantages you get being a smaller school there's you know we have 13 math teachers as well as some support staff where at the elementary you know you have 42 43 teachers not counting TK and depending on the year could be a little bit more
106or less they also teach like seven different subjects right so at the secondary level uh we can move a little bit faster but we also get the advantage antage when we stage them after the elementary to use that information and align it backwards. And so um so when they when they test their pilot and they pilot materials out next year, elementary will have already been half the teachers will have done it for two years at that point and the other half will have done it for one year. And they can take those learnings and also align the priorities for the priority standards, the priority instructional strategies so that there's a coherence all the way from elementary, middle to high school. So, um I'm just going to continue this a little bit because it's partially about
107um math, but just thinking more generally, whether it's ELA, reading, [snorts] you know, reading's my thing, science, um does the middle school and do do the 6 to 12 teachers, is there a process by which they say when kids get to middle school, I wish they were doing X, Y, and Z, >> and let's think about how to build that into the elementary curriculum. So the question is are we having those conversations across grades from K all the way to 12? >> Yes. So there's that happens in a couple different ways. Vertical articulation or sometimes it's called vertical teaming, right? And so uh we've had a couple different models in the time that I've been here. uh often those professional development days um whether the August one or the March one when the whole district
108has a district-wide day that allows those teams to get together and talk about those key areas or here's things that we're seeing when I get to nth grade that they seem to be struggling with or here's things we're seeing in sixth or seventh grade that they're doing really well or could you emphasize this more in third grade or fourth grade. Um the we also do we've also done um every every few years we'll do where we do some learning walks across the schools. Uh sometimes those are the ones we do annually are learning walks that sometimes might go across multiple subject areas but we also have done targeted ones where the sixth grade teachers will go down to the fifth grade and vice versa and then have those conversations around we're transitioning that especially that
109transition because the the learning model and the learning experience is so different from fifth to sixth. Um, so it's good to have targeted vertical conversations in math and ELA and a few in the sub other subject areas when possible. >> Yeah, >> member Perry. >> Thanks. I want to thank you for doing such a thorough adoption process. Th this is amazing. Um, I my question is about the adoption schedule. Has it lengthened like you know we used to have an adoption every gosh it was like every six years and now it's every as far as math adoption >> yeah there there prior to LCSF local control funding formula around 2014 2015 the state would allocate a certain and know can maybe jump in but the state would allocate a certain dollar amount for that year
110to adopt ELA and they'd update their frameworks andor standards. Um, and then the next year would say, "Okay, now we're doing science and you've got this amount of money and you got to use it for science." The next year, social science, right? So, when they went to the local control funding formula, that stopped. So, the districts have a the flexibility to purchase materials um because that money was pushed into the general fund when needed. Um, the state still does that cycle for updating their frameworks. Frameworks is the how of teaching, right? And so um so when they update the frameworks what that does it's it's a the system at the state level goes out to all the publishers to say we're now updating our frameworks and we want you to align your materials to this
111and then we at the K level the state approves which ones at the high they don't look at high school materials. Um the the school districts have to look and make sure they're aligned but at the K8 level the state actually approves them. And so they they started that process two years a well the frameworks were the math frameworks were completed in 2023. Um they just finished last year looking at all the K8 materials. I think there were the most they've ever had. It was 64 out of 67 were approved. Um which is a lot. So that's one of the reasons why we partnered with Orange County Department of Ed to help sift through all those different ones that were approved uh to get the ones that matched up with us. So in general to
112to talk about that process those frameworks are updated about every eight years now um there was a delay because of COVID and all the a lot of things were stopped um next after math it would be ELA so there's just now the state's starting to work with ELA so I would expect us to be looking at instructional materials for ELA um and then next year maybe two years from now u they have to finish the frameworks and then the publishers put in their new curriculum after So there's still a sequence. It's just not an exact year. >> Correct. There's no money there's no specific money tied to it the way it used to be. Like it was like you got to use it this year and it's approved and they have this nice neat schedule.
113It's very open. Um and the you don't have to do it. We could decide and say we love what we have. We're not going to adopt. Um, but when you do the new frameworks, what happened with this case is there was a lot of really good materials and a lot of our elementary teachers were actually supplementing a lot because the book they had purchased in 2015 for math was just data. They had to add more. They constantly every year adding more and more to update it. So now getting something like this high quality curriculum, the goal is that they're not supplementing much at all. Um, and it's all right there and easy and efficient for them to use. >> Great. And is Amplify Amplify Desmos being selected by a lot of other districts in Orange
114County? Is it popular? >> There's a there everyone's kind of in the process of like a couple have adopted almost all of them are looking right now or in the middle of process like we are where we're kind of just making our selection. Uh I know for sure Tustin is one of them that is either at least one of the elementaryaries is implementing it already. Um and they're looking at that one. They're actually looking at their what I've been told they're looking at the same two that we looked at this fall. We looked at two different that we piloted and they're looking at the exact same two. Um Irvine has not uh made any selection at this point. So they're all kind of like right around where we are. They're starting to go through the
115materials and decide. >> I was just curious. I think you all did all of your homework in this adoption process and you were adopting what's perfect for us. Thank you. Thank you. Um, Clerk Perry, I just have a couple questions. Um, because and I think these kind of stem a little bit off of U. Member Malchesky in the pathway of math through the elementary school up to the high schools. The current our current elementary schools are actually scoring quite high. Um I think to last year was I think 81% uh was met was meeting the standards and so by and but I know that high school scores have come down again to 59% are meeting standards. So I'm curious as to this program and if there's research done on it and how it ties into
116the high high school curriculum as far as the understanding of the programs at that level and how what is our process and procedure for if a new adoption is not working out how fast can we pivot and change hypothetically speaking of course but um I know we've had math issues in years before a while ago and I'm curious as to what that looks like should it not work for us? >> So, in regards to Amplify, the one that the elementary teachers are requesting, what does that potentially look like? How does that map out to the secondary level? For that first question, um the one thing that we have to ensure between the K5 and the 612 um is that our approach to learning is the same. Our learning our goals are similar. Our vision for
117math learning experience is the same. The we in the elementary level, we tested two different books. They both were really good choices, you know, from my lens as as a instructional leader, like I would have been happy with either one. Um, they both had that problem solving. They were looking at conceptual understanding, getting kids to talk and have more discourse. Whatever the high middle and high school select, they need they we want they should be aligned with that so that the learning experience continues on through. So that's how we that's how we that may be amplify that may be something different. Um, but they'll like there are some books that emphasize that more than others, but we want to make sure that the middle and high school have a similar learning model as elementary. Uh,
118so they're not like all of a sudden shifting to something different. And then your second question was around like if it something changes, right, we need to rethink it. Um, from as you can see from this process, this is the the actual pro the full process is two years to like go through and do the research and learning. So, if some of that has been done and it's closer, it could potentially be a year-long process because you would want to get new materials that you would want to test and select as well before you would go purchase something. So, at a minimum, I would say a year, you possibly could do it um if depending on what they look at or like or don't like, it could take longer. But if you're going to go
119do the research on the materials and say we're trying something new or do something totally different, you want to have at least a year to go look at that, do the research, test [snorts] the materials out before you commit to a big purchase for an extended amount of time. >> I can kind of answer a little bit about that. Um, previously if we adopted say a math program and we found that something was a little bit lacking like the area on fractions and students weren't doing well on testing in that then the district was very generous about getting us extra materials in that area and I assume that's still what happens. >> Yes. Yeah. For specific ones it's a great example. Right. So if we find there's an area that's lacking like fractions or what
120quadratic equations like we want to have teachers look at that and again say okay we need this extra set this extra unit we need these extra materials these extra um manipulatives to help the students learn more we would absolutely support them. >> Thank you. I have one other question. How frequently is math taught at the elementary school level? Is it every day? is it uh and how many and approximately how long are each um lessons or that that section in the day and then um taking that through again I know this is an elementary program but we do need to look at our things holistically is how they're going to p pass all the way through in our pathways so how is how is it um how frequently are are students exposed to the subject
121matter at the elementary school as well as the middle and high school >> for you know ele we're pretty similar to most elementaryaries Obviously, we have a lot more encore and these other other options for students outside of our core subject areas, but I would say in general math, depending on the day, is 45 minutes to an hour um every day. Um so, you're getting close to probably four and a half, five hours a week. Um ELA is more than that. Um ELA is typically at least 90 minutes, right? Reading, writing is a really obviously very important at the elementary level. And then you have things like science and social studies which which get less uh they don't have the same amount of time typically maybe in fourth and fifth grade but when you're in
122the lower grades there's not as much time provided for science because they're focus so much focused on the foundational skills for reading writing and as well as math. Um at the middle school um I'm trying to remember they're I think they have an hour and 40 minute blocks right so there you're at 3 hours and 20 minutes plus Fridays or Mondays. So they're probably about I want to say four four hours of instruction during the week. So a little bit less and math I think would be pretty similar uh at the high school as well. >> Is there any study correlation on um frequency of exposure to the subject and and student success? >> Say could you say one more time? Is there any study based on the exposure to the topic with what the
123frequency as and then their success rate? >> Um, as far as the frequency, it's more around the quality of the time. There's I don't I don't have to I've not seen anything on the minimum or maximum amount of time, but it's more around the quality of the instruction, right? And so there's a lot of different models. I mean, there are certain models where it's like drill and kill and, you know, you might even be able to get better test scores if you constantly are just hammering in there. Uh, but you're going to lose student engagement. They're going to not be able to apply it beyond this one setting. So, that is a model that could be that some districts still do use. It's an old traditional model. Um, this one that we're working towards is
124a much more problem based where you start doing more authentic learning. You work your way to something that's a little bit more what we how we learned which is like more algorithm based or equation based. Um but this is making it aligning more to our district priorities around the learner profile and those kind of competencies. Um so it depends on the model and the the quality of that model and how you teach it more than it does necessarily the time. Obviously, if you have you're teaching two hours a week, you're not going to get I mean, there's some obvious ones of two hours versus six hours, but in general, most my experience at the middle and high school, like if they were not outside of a block schedule, you might most schools I've worked at,
125they're those class periods are anywhere from 45 to like 52 minutes if you were doing like a sixth period day. Um, so that ends up probably pretty similar, maybe a little bit more, but not much, not significantly more than what we currently have. >> Thank you. I appreciate that. Okay. Uh, Clerk Perry, are there any speaker cards on this topic? Item 7 C. No. Okay. >> Yes. Come on up, N. >> I Oh, I thought you were on 8A. >> I am. I'm sorry. Can I just do this real quick? >> Yeah, of course. Come on up. >> Uh, N Morris, um, I studied up to graduate level math and sometimes you mentioned how things have changed. I don't know if there's a resource or if you provide it like almost like a cheat sheet
126because sometimes we're reluctant to sit down with the kids because I'm like I think we're gonna confuse them, you know. So just a just a thought soon. I appreciate that and that's one of the things that actually just so if I make a quick comment is that one of the important things of a new curriculum which we did I did not mention is that as you if things any kind of significant change or shift in the learning experience like parents are a part of that and wanting to bring parents as along with that giving parents the tools to do that at home or how to support their student if they're doing homework that's a really important piece of any new adoption. >> No, I thought was a that's that was good. I I know in
127helping my kids with homework for years, it's um you always question that if are you being consistent or teaching them something a little bit different and math has changed so much, but this is in the common course framework, correct? Okay. I remember when Common Core was introduced. Boy, that was interesting. So, but I'm glad to see that it's working. Uh we've stopped asking questions, but okay. Um okay. So, I need a motion to approve the adoption of the new Amplify Desmos. >> Okay. All right. All uh student board members, >> we both vote yes. >> Okay. All All in favor? >> I. Motion carries 5 Z. Okay. Next item on the agenda is the information item for the technology update artificial intelligence in education and Dr. Mayberry and and Mr. Morrison are presenting. Thank you.
128Uh I'm gonna start us off before I hand it off to Mike Morrison, our chief technology officer. Um this presentation will provide the board with an overview of what artificial intelligence is and how it's being implemented in teaching, learning operations in the school district. Uh this technology is as as many of you know is already beginning to revolutionize industries, communities, sciences, workplaces. Uh which is why it's our responsibility to prepare students and educators to use these tools uh in ways that are not just responsible but ethical and safe. Um so we want to really emphasize that AI is not the point. Uh learning is and humans should stay at the center of that. Uh as you can see here AI offers uh clear instructional and operational benefits u including differentiated content uh creation, timely feedback,
129personalized learning, uh increased efficiency for educators. Um but at the same time there are real risks uh with AI such as academic sonnacy over reliance bias uh student data privacy that require clear expectations and safeguards as AI has the potential to amplify both what we design well and any unknown risk that we are not able to safeguard against. Um as you can see here the AI tools are being adopted faster than any previous technology in history. um surpassing platforms like social media and streaming services. But rapid growth means schools must respond proactively rather than reactively. Uh especially around instruction, assessment and student use. Uh the question no longer is is AI here uh but how strategically intentionally we respond. So this slide shows the opportunities and risks. And if you look on the left hand
130side, you'll see that in a study that they did with diagnosis, uh, AI was 80% accurate and the human panel of doctors was 20% accurate in the diagnosis for that study. So there's some opportunities there definitely. And then on the right hand side shows you the risk. When they were studying the brain, AI made up a new part of the brain called the basel ganglia. Probably not a good idea if you're a brain surgeon to have a new part of the brain, right? That doesn't exist. So that part that's your risk with AI. So some >> this is one of the most popular most published studies which is interesting because it's very a very tiny study in MI MIT and you may have seen it on the internet. It mostly went by the name AI
131causes brain rot. That was the name of the title they put on it. But it pretty only 54 students were in the study. But it did show something interesting if you read a little deeper into the study. So they measured brain activity as kids who used AI to start and when students used AI in the beginning there was very low brain activity but as they de the students developed and through the next part of the year this AI was introduced and there was brain activity going on. So it was more of a timing issue and a process issue which is really interesting about our approach because we don't want it to replace the really heavy cognitive load. We want to still have that load on our students, but we want to introduce it at the
132right spot. So, it's really important that we be careful about the way we do this. And that just talks about the insight. Then, um, as this research shows, um, AI and you see these in your handout, but AI is moving from a tool that we use to something that people interact with. Um this change can be because of the rapid change it can happen pretty quickly between year to year and this one's from research is from 24 to 25 um when there was a significant increase in uses for healthier healthier living coding creativity enhanced learning but that also means there's again there's risks to that right there having um AI be the person that's giving you potentially mental health advice is not necessarily always a good thing right so [clears throat] we want to be
133thoughtful of like how this change and how it's being that we are proactively supporting students with this. Um, in LBUSD, our human- centered approach to learning ensures that, uh, AI use begins with human inquiry, as Mike Morrison just said, uh, and ends with that reflection, insight, and really empowerment for our students. This includes AI literacy, ensuring that there's ethical use, providing professional learning, aligning AI tools with strong and researchbased instructional practices. But it also requires um our educators to intentionally invest time in knowing their learners, building the strong classroom communities, designing learning experiences for collaboration and relevant authentic learning. Um and which means relationships matter. Um and that this type of whole child education means AI should be leveraged as a tool in service of deeper learning um and to create more space for meaningful
134human interaction. Uh and education AI should serve people not the other way around. And then a little bit of data uh on our usage uh that we wanted to share uh currently. Um, in this survey from last May, uh, nearly half of our teachers report report never allowing student AI use, uh, while others allow it at varying levels, highlighting the intentional and cautious use by teachers across grade levels and subject areas. Uh, this variation underscores the need for a collaborative develop guidance and support along with personalized professional learning. And then here you can see teachers reporting the greatest benefits of AI so far have been on and time savings, work quality, internal processes, organization. Uh which over time has a potential to open up more time for personalized instruction and student support. Um if we
135can if we provide the professional learning and and the the support that those teachers need. >> Yeah. And this just shows the usage of chat GPT which is just one tool that we have and it was in the month of October and it shows the staff use this is both teachers and uh and classified staff and it shows averaging about if you look at the chart about 80 interactions with people a day and with each interaction there's about seven to 10 uh chats because you know AI is like a chat bot and our approach was a little different in our district. We started with this idea that you need to play which means that we used AI to start to get to know each other. So a lot of uh the activities when we first
136started using AI were based on uh a project from Berkeley that was proven to to build relationships. So we started with that kind of approach which I think focused on that being human part of it as we rolled it out. Um, we're going to talk about being honest, but that's a big part of an opportunity we have because there's an opportunity to be dishonest with AI. And so, we we've kind of are capitalizing on that and having an opportunity for integrity. So, I want to share that with you. And we really believe our students must use it because it's going to be part of our culture and it already is and we need to listen to our students. So, you're going to see that as we go through the fact that we have been listening.
137Um and we want to use it to be effective and efficient. >> One of the ways uh that we do that is really through uh pretty personalized staff training uh which is something we try to do in all areas. Um so it's twofold uh with AI so far. One is providing job specific professional learning for teachers, librarians, administrators, classified staff to ensure that they have responsible and effective use of AI. Um you see that in the top half. The other one is choice based and embedded training. And so this allows staff to build skills at the appropriate depth and pace of where they're at. So we're meeting them where they're at uh and two different ways. One in within their job specific and one within their ability and their timing of and how they can
138learn. So capacity building, not necessarily this mandated top down training really is how we've been able to get AI used to be more effective and thoughtful. So this is a study from UCI from a group at UCI that uh that kind of researched how teens are using AI but they also looked at the parents. And so what I liked about this study is it showed what was interesting about the study is it showed that the usage of AI uh by parents was about half of what the kids were using AI for. And that tells us there's this gap of like what parents need to know and what parents know about AI. So, we are offering a really amazing workshop that's uh it's on school powers website. You can sign up today. Um and it is
139about parenting with AI. So, I really highly recommend if you get a chance to promote that or take it. Uh it's going to be a series at the family resource center. So, pretty powerful. So, uh when we talked about this idea of being honest, we we developed a a tool inhouse called AI trust you. And I want to kind of explain to you the history of it and then show you what it looks like. So, um, let's go to the next slide. Um, so, uh, what we realized as we were going through this process a few years ago, we saw that, uh, teachers, not just our teachers, but teachers in general were relying on AI detectors to detect AI for, you know, academic integrity. And they're very poor at doing this. U matter of fact,
140Stanford did some research in English learners show up as using AI more even though they've not used it at all than other other students. So it's really and plus you can fake them out very easily. I was able to do this in 11 lines of code in AI. So you can fake out the AI detectors very very quickly and easily. So we don't think this is a good solution. So the other problem on the next slide, we had some Stanford came in and did some research with our teachers and our students about three years ago when AI was just starting to go get going and it showed that kids were feeling guilty about using AI and teachers were feeling suspicious and we think this is the worst culture to produce. Suspicion and guilt. It's not
141a good environment. So we wanted to do something about this. So we did um we had uh feedback from students and we created a solution for this and I want to show you what that looks like in the next slide. So uh go ahead and hit play and we'll I don't know if I uh there we go. Just one sec. >> [music] >> Introducing the AI trust you Google add-on. This simple tool was designed inhouse to promote transparency and trust around AI usage in the classroom. It provides a structured way for students to document their use of AI in their assignments while giving teachers a framework to guide and monitor AI use. Let's dive in to see how it works. Whether you are a teacher or a student, you will access the add-on inside of
142Google Docs from the extensions menu. Go to extensions AI trust you build AI truth and trust statement. Let's start with the teacher side of this. As a teacher, you're building an assignment guideline for the use of AI. The first question you will answer is whether or not students may use AI on this assignment, and if they are allowed to, which services they may use. Pick whichever ones you'd like. Then select if the students may be assisted by AI, may collaborate with AI, or if AI may produce the work entirely. More detail on this in a moment. Next, check the boxes of how AI can be used. We've separated these into four categories. Writing, [music] reading, research, and audiovisisual. After you've selected the items, a statement will be created for you clearly identifying the ways in
143which AI may be used on this assignment. From here, you can either paste the statement into this Google doc or copy it to be pasted into assignment instructions in something like Canvas. One additional thing to note for teachers is that the guidelines contain best practices. [music] For example, when selecting research, it will suggest that AI is not always a reliable source. And to find one other reliable source from the student end, you will access the add-on through the same location. Extensions AI trust you build AI truth and trust statement. As a student, this tool allows you to be honest about how you use AI on any assignment. First, if your teacher allowed you to use AI, select which service or services you used. Then estimate the percentage of your work that AI helped you with.
144We've categorized these as AI assistants, meaning students use AI in small supportive ways that help with the process but do not generate the core ideas or product. The student remains fully in control of content and decisions. Collaborate with AI, meaning students and AI work together in a back and forth process. The student prompts, refineses, and edits while the AI contributes ideas, drafts or solutions. The final work is a shared outcome where the student integrates AI contributions with their own thinking and voice. And finally, produce with AI where students rely heavily on AI to generate the majority of the work, product, or solution. The student may provide prompts or minimal guidance, but the AI creates the main output, which the student may review or lightly modify. Next, check the boxes within the specific categories. And finally,
145click generate truth and trustee. From here, you are ready to be honest and transparent about your use of AI. And you can either paste the statement into this Google doc, likely at the bottom of your assignment, but it will get pasted wherever your cursor is, or it can be pasted into any other location like Canvas. Now, this tool is not meant to be used with every assignment, but for key ones where AI integration is important. teachers. By providing clarity on AI's role, you can foster a healthy learning environment where students feel supported and understood and cheating concerns are reduced. The add-on builds a common language around AI techniques which promotes open, honest conversations. And students, you will have clear guidelines on how AI can be used for different assignments and you will know exactly what
146is expected from you. It will promote open, transparent conversations, helping to build integrity in the classroom. Please note though that if there is a breach of trust with these expectations, teachers will have the grounds to issue a referral for an ethics violation. As we continue to develop this tool, [music] your feedback will help improve it. We want to know what works and what doesn't. >> So, so now you get to see the tool. Um, we released this in April of a March and April of last year and I know uh, President Morgan had mentioned about being known nationally for something our district you know would be a cool thing and we are this product is is national and international. It's being used in Australia, Taiwan and all across the nation. 300 districts are using this
147product and it's got 375,000 installs which is quite a lot from no advertising whatsoever except for word of mouth and um our high schools really starting to use this now. So this is uh something that's being deployed in uh certain classes on a regular basis. So that's kind of where we're at with this. This is just a quick example of a an AI assignment in a third grade class. And um the the subject was science and the idea was you have to learn about adaptations in third grade. So the student had to pick three animals. So just flip through. This is one animal they picked for adaptations. This was the other animal and this was the third animal. Then they had to create a new animal with all three of those adaptations. So let's see
148what the student created. So they created this with an AI image creation tool in Adobe and Adobe uses stock photography. So there's like some uh the copyright issues aren't there with Adobe because they're using uh photos they own. And they created this uh this great image and the cool part about this is it was a science project but the student rewrote their prompt over and over again to get the image they wanted. So it became more of a language arts assignment of how what kind of good language can you use to create the right type of animal. So the prompting is a key skill for our students. And this was developing that prompting skill and that language arts uh ability to describe that animal. And then we kind of took it one step further and
149animated them for the kids. The kids didn't didn't do this part, but the kids' eyes kind of lit up when those animals came to life, right? These are some of our students uh talking to our teachers in those workshops about how they use AI. So, every workshop we did with our AI empowered educators had a student explaining to us like this is the way I use it. So, those are just some examples of them speaking to us. And on the next slide, you This is an example of like one of the videos the kids showed to us during the workshop. >> Can you help me practice my Spanish? I just learned imperfect tense, but I'm struggling a little bit making new sentences. >> Of course. Let's practice together. How about you try making a sentence
150using the imperfect tense to describe what you used to do when you were a child? I'll help you correct it if needed. >> And Los Angeles, >> that's a great sentence. Just a small correction. You should saywondo instead ofwondo. So it would be >> okay. So that it gives you an idea what that would look like. um those Spanish speakers did do a pretty good job on like how it it helped them. So I it was very helpful for this student that that's this student did this on his own. He did not like this wasn't an assignment or anything like that. Well, another use >> okay. >> So Kim, Jim, and Ken each buy the same size. >> So So the on the next slide, we use a product called Snorkel. Snorkel is an AI
151tool that gives feedback to students, but they have to describe their learning and their process and what and and their answer. So, it really makes learning visible and students give instant feedback on that. So, we'll play a little bit of the that and then I'll show you the feedback. There we go. Let's play. Hit play and you can kind of zoom in. >> Okay. >> Yeah. Go like more even. Right there is good. >> So, candy bar. >> Okay. So, she ate one half. So, she ate this much of her candy. >> Stop there. But it just kind of shows you that's what they >> Jim eats. >> The student is describing it and AI's feedback is on the next slide. So you get to see what that looks like. Okay. So on the right
152hand side is the feedback and the the red dots. If the student were going to scroll through their their video, the red dots are where the feedback appears when the student was saying those things. So students will do these repeatedly which is good. Um they'll this is something that could be assigned as homework also. um because home they would get feedback and at homework sometimes you don't get the feedback that you need as a student and also it helps teachers group kids according to common problems. So the teacher gets a very good control panel that allows them to see well these three kids are are struggling with this topic and they could group them. One of our math teachers is using this here at Thirstston and he said that he would have a line of,
153you know, 10 or 15 kids waiting for his help and when he uses this he has the line smaller so he's able to kind of get to more kids quicker. So I think it's a it's a really good tool. It's been used in every subject all the way to language classes and like um Mr. Shen has used it to do a fake timeline and the kids had to correct that timeline on here. So even at a high level and at a high school class, it's being used in history. So um very powerful tool. This is the last tool that I want to share with you that we own and that we're using. It just this just shows you the interface the teacher sees, but it's basically you build these um AI interactive uh chats that
154have a topic. They're topic driven. And then the students would participate in that. They would learn something. you would ask them questions. Um, but the teacher gets to monitor that whole interaction. So the teacher can see is the students on track, what are they saying? They can see the whole interaction. So there's a lot of the ability to kind of uh see what kids are struggling with and how they're doing on that on that assignment. So a really nice tool to that we have in our district to to use with our students. >> Thank you. Thank you. That was a wonderful presentation. Um I want to um open it up for questions from the board. Starting with um let's start with the students. Do you have any questions on this? >> Um I do have
155one question. So I'm aware that the staff is newly has access to CHAGBT premium via the school board. Would you be open to extending that to the students? >> We I want to desperately, but it's not for uh it's not allowed for 18 and under by not by us. It's through Chat GPT. So, their their rules say that 18 and under uh for the edu version is not allowed yet, but they're going to make it happen and then we'll be able to open it up for kids. >> Actually wasn't aware of that. Thank you. >> Yeah. Logan, >> I don't have any questions, just comments. >> Member Kelly, >> member Hills. >> Yeah, you know, [clears throat] one of the things that we uh heard when we started talking about the use of screens and
156telephones and iPhones and everything. um and um the extent to which laptops have been incorporated into the learning program at in our schools. Uh if I recall correctly, we got we there did kind of a review of where we were and I think the superintendent said we went a little too far and we got to back off a little bit and have some more regulation and control. I think we uh dove into tech uh several years ago. Um and um I I think we failed to protect our kids. I you know, if you look at um if you look at what they're reporting now that um the younger kids that have um uh iPhones experience a higher rate of depression and whatnot. So my Yeah. So my question is what are we doing to avoid
157a repeat of that the problem that we had with iPhones and laptops and everything else and access to the internet. Um uh is this is this for example is the um uh is the content that students put into the AI process program uh is it um how is it made safe? How is it restricted? How is it protected? And is it does it become part of uh does it become part of a database or is there access to what the students are doing um uh outside of your outside of your control or our control? So with um the company like school AI that we that I showed shared with you the monitoring tool for AI they signed our student data privacy agreement which means that they uh provide a closed model. it's not open to
158the larger language model that is available. So this data that's put in there is only within their model. So it's not being used by open AI just in general. So that's protected in that way. And everything's monitored in log. So you would see the interactions the kids had. Um and the teachers would get like updates. If a kid's off track, it was it's going to tell them that. Plus the time limit time limit the time is limited. like you open up that room for during class and then you can close that room down so that you're not like it's not a free-for-all like at home doing on chat, >> right? >> So, it's very controlled. So um uh you know you the idea of trust you AI trust you well I I I do trust
159students um I don't trust AI and the question is um uh one of the things for example that I've noticed about it and I use it a lot in my work um uh I see a difference when I'm using it um between when I'm getting information from it and when it's giving me opinions. I don't like it when AI gives me an opinion. And um uh some of the opinions that students can get are very dangerous. And I would think that if we had a a program like this, we would want to address the um can we address the um the question or the issue of not getting opinions from AI? How can we block AI responses or that give students opinions about and it can be about history, it can be about politics, it
160can be about food, it can be about drugs, it can be about other things, but uh is there any way or what can you tell me? Um does the AI program that we're doing that we're using um does it does it formulate and give students opinions on subjects? I can speak to what school AI would do in this instance where you tell it the topic like you're saying we're going to study math and it really focuses in on that topic. So a student could get off track but in general it tries to get the student back on track in a in a in a studentfriendly language. So it's really not built to give opinions but the general AIs that are out there will give opinions. I can't stop that. Um, and if students have accounts
161outside of the, you know, our accounts, they would be able to get to that those opinions. >> Um, member Hills, if I might interject, you ask a couple of really thoughtful questions. Um, and I I don't want to um over promise something. Um the reality is that this is an emergent technology that is accelerating and disrupting faster than anyone or any um institution is able to absorb it. So I think what you've heard tonight are some really exciting forwardthinking positive potential uses of AI. Um there are some um disruptive, dangerous um potentially not developmentally appropriate or um cognitively negative um impacts that it may be causing. Um and there's a lot that we don't know. And so I think as we go into uh the future, it's going to be part of our world. um
162it's likely to be um in practically everything we interact with going forward. There's going to be an AI component to it. We're just at the standing at the precipice of what this may change. Um but I just wanted to to highlight that I think you're raising a really important question and caution for us that we should be excited about what the future can bring and we also need to approach it with a a level of caution. >> Thank you. U member Meski, do you have any questions? >> I have a bunch of them. >> Um good. >> First of all, >> uh Mr. Morrison, this is um a great presentation. You and I have had long discussions about all of this and um I'm very excited about all of the initiatives we have here. Um
163and I agree, AI has certainly made my job a lot easier. I engage with it all the time. It's really great for helping with teaching and finding, you know, whatever. I don't need to go into that. But what's always missing for me in these conversations is a connection between the strength of the tool and the learning objectives that we have in the classroom. Right? So when I look at the apps that students have on their computers, um when I look at the way that AI is available to students, um for example, in my classes that I teach, it's like a dopamine hit, right? You can you can I mean seriously it's like social media or anything else that you use. You can put in a question and get this amazing information out. And the other
164thing about chat GBT is it's programmed to compliment you. So you you just feel like a genius every time you ask it. I just wrote this sentence. What do you think? That's an excellent sentence. As I was talking to my friend who's a screenwriter last week, he said, I fed in my new script to chat GBT. I'm going to buy my second home because you you know you don't you don't get real it it's the kind of feedback that makes you feel great. So I referred earlier to the fact that I had removed technology from my classroom and one of the reasons for that was because when my students have their computer open and I ask a discussion question in class for example, it's just very hard not to put that discussion in and have
165discussion question in and suddenly discover that rather than students sitting there grappling with the work of trying to think about a discussion question and figuring out what to do with it. Their chatgbt is having an argument through students, right? And and I can always tell because I I'm very aware when students are using chat GPT. So going back to the question, how do we develop how do we think about this in the classroom in term in terms of learning objectives? What happens when students aren't actually doing the work required to meet our learning objectives? Like learning to write a thesis, learning to develop grammar. You know, Grammarly is not AI, but it's similar. You don't have to think about your grammar if you start typing into a Chromebook and all of your spell spelling mistakes
166and grammar mistakes are magically fixed or when you put stuff into AI. So the question is how do we map AI onto learning objectives and we can't separate those conversations. The second thing is um given all of that can we really separate AI usage from the existence of technology in the classrooms right so can we we can say we have this cool trust AI trust or trust AI I'm sorry if I said that backwards um so but but the question is like if the computer's open and we just have technology in the classroom room. Does that mean that AI is just always available to our students? And and you know, how does that affect our need to get that out of the classroom? Um and then finally my largest worry is you showed a slide
167about um you know that the study it was only 54 students but it did show that students had cognitive a activity in their brain. That's fantastic but is it the cognitive activity we want them to be having? Right? So again, that's about learning objectives, but how can we ensure that they're developing the they're doing the work to develop the cognitive skills that lead to scaffolded learning so that when they are an adult and they're a teacher and they're using AI, they can critically engage with what AI is giving them. So for example, my last course, I caught multiple students using AI. The reason that I caught it is I have some recall of readings that I assigned and when I looked at their footnotes I was like that's not on those pages that's not even
168in that chapter because AI is full of it a lot right and so you know the the problem isn't how do we stop students from cheating that's not the question the question is how do we ensure with AI that we have a school system that is forcing students to do the work to develop the cognitive abilities that allow them to engage with AI as a fully formed adult brain, right? It's like using GPS. I used to be much better with directions than I am now because I never have to think about it anymore. So, you know, that that's the question. What are the learning objectives? What are the cognitive abilities we want every one of our students to have? and how do we implement AI in the classroom and consider that we have technology open
169pretty frequently and ensure that all of our students graduate with the cognitive abilities that they would have had 20 years ago before all of the technology. That's it. >> Thank you for those great questions. >> Can you answer those right now? [laughter] >> It's just something that we It's part of the conversation. I know. I don't want to move on to questions from member Perry if you were if you were looking to respond to any of that. >> I mean I think I think one of the things I mean I'm not going to give you an answer that's going to satisfy that question because that's a very in-depth question and the answer would be incredibly in-depth too and and and difficult. Um but I do think we are addressing this in some ways by the
170techniques we're using to create curriculum. So we use unit design technique which is we basically have teachers come up with this really good driving question authentic question and we develop uh very authentic units that are real world problems to solve. And I think when you have those kinds of problems, you're going to be using your brain in a way that solves those problems. Now, ChachiPT may help you, but we don't want it to help you do everything, but there might be a time when that's appropriate for it to help you. So, I guess what my answer would be is like we really should hone in on like exactly what you said. What's the what's the teaching techniques that we're using? What are what are the the methods and what are the the ways that we're
171having our kids learn? I think it's critical. So, you know, we've done over 200 like I think we're at 280 re units redesigned um something like that, which is incredible. And they are excellent units, you know, and they do what you described. So, that's my answer, I guess. >> Thank you, member Perry. >> I want to just tag on to what um board member Malchesky said. I you know in looking looking at all this I I know you're probably familiar with some of the studies out of Hungary and I know there they they used two different groups one uh and these were college students one could use AI one could not and at the end the students who used AI their knowledge and their scores were 20 to 40% lower than the students who hadn't
172and previous years they actually learned kind of a helplessness because they came became dependent on it. So it looked to me like one of the things Hungary [clears throat] was doing now is having an AI class in 70 of their schools where they look at what should you not use AI for. Not looking at all the great things you do but what should you not use it for? and also looking at the ethics and a lot of other parts of it. And I have I have an easy question for you though um with your with your program which sounds wonderful your AI trust you can that be used at the college level? Yeah, we have several colleges using it. So, >> I was just having lunch with a group of people today and um one
173of the gentleman next to me, his daughter uh works at San Diego State and she has to call kids in who have cheated using chat [laughter] GPT or some other kind of AI or and so that's interesting. It's it's given more jobs to people, I guess, to look at that. >> I do I do want to say I really like your idea about thinking about what when not to use it. Um I think that would be something to consider for our unit design. I think like as we design units, when do you when don't you use this? It's a really good question. So I appreciate that. >> Yeah. Thank you. And I I know there are certain things that it's much better to use it for than >> Yeah. Yeah. Okay, thank >> and we've
174had a similar structure where we did around screen time with during unit design where it was when would when's appropriate time to do this and when would be a better time to not when can you replace a screen when is it good to have the technology and those some of those things are can be blurred across sometimes they're the same but sometimes when you're talking about AI versus screen time there are two different things and two different uses and what's most important is the time we're learning with teachers and teachers are working on their lessons they're designing. It's very intentional around the learning experience and very intentional around the strategies. And so mapping that out, you would not see in the any of these units that kids are just going to like open up their
175laptop and start working and typing away, right? There's some intentionality that is talked about with the teacher. We're going to talk we want you to do this on your own with paper right now. Then we're going to go type it. Then you're going to go home. So there's all these different levels of very intentional instructional and lesson design that leads to that critical thinking that I think we're all trying that we want to maintain and ensure continues to happen. >> Had one more quick question. How um how much do you do students working in a group with AI and working individually? And I'm I'm asking because of one of the studies that came out of Proctor and Gamble that was a um you know they're a business and they wanted things done and they wanted
176to look at okay does an individual not using AI is that better is a group not using AI is that better or an individual using AI or a group using AI. So um what they found out that the groups using AI were better, had better solutions. Uh when it was an individual, they were quicker, which is going to save you money. But when it was group working together using AI, it was a much superior um product that they came up with. So I just wondered how we're doing with individual and group with AI. I think it's a very good topic to talk about. We haven't discussed that as far as like how that would play out, but I think it's an important one to think through. I appreciate that. >> Okay. Thanks. >> Thank you.
177These are all great uh questions and somewhat discussion, but that's okay. Um I just have a couple um brief questions. Um so the presentation, thank you so much. The presentation was great. I appreciate all the video and all of the um demonstrations on how it works. There's there's a lot of different this and this is a closed source you you clarified correct. So there is there a plan or what is the evolution of this program and how we use it in the school and how parents and educators can partner together to work with the students on you know if they had a test like there was a presentation I think at CSBA where the AI the closed system that the district was using had um some of the great qualities that um you've designed here.
178They also went that step further and had the parent interaction of, you know, Susie had a test today. She kind of struggled with item six that was on, you know, verb conjugation. And so because it was within this system, they were able to then take extract that challenge and and then the parent was aware of it as well and then they could address it in that way. Does this system is that something we could incorporate into the system that we could then which would then bring the parent partnership into the um student experience? >> The systems we have now don't do that but I it's it's a it's a good promise for what it could do because I think bringing the parents in would be great. >> Clearly this is an evolving a very quickly
179evolving topic. So my other question is where because I know we don't have policy on AI um or it's in development. Correct. I'm trying to remember. I know we're talking about screen time on the 22nd, but are we working on a policy towards this and how we're using it? I think we just had something, but >> yeah. So, the policy was in like last couple meetings ago. So, it was um yeah, we do have some policy on AI. So, is it So, this would be a policy that's going to have to probably be looked at pretty regularly because it's it's evolving so quickly that it's it's not um we don't know what's coming. >> Yeah. As I recall, it was a CSBA recommended update. Um and so, uh like us, every other district in the
180uh country uh is struggling with how do you what are the right limits and how permissive should you be about this? So, I think we're we're right in the conversation we need to be from a policy standpoint, but our policies are always going to lag behind uh where this thing is. Uh it's going to be different and used in different ways tomorrow. >> Um I'm reminded some about um I heard um a speaker come in and talk at one of my districts about vaping. And after 45 minutes, we had everybody in the room lthered up and worried about what are we going to do about this vaping problem? and he said, "You already know the answers what you have to do. It's the exact same thing you did with smoking. You follow the same playbook
181to limit it." Um, and so there are, I think, some of all the fears and concerns that we have out there. There are some things that we know that we can do. Mike's talked about thoughtful instructional design. So the teacher thinks through how am I going to allow the students to use AI and when should they? You just heard Dr. Maltesky talk about doing that in in her classroom. So that's a step. Um, another is uh clarity on when to use it and when not to use it and some clear signals. That's what trust AI is is or uh IA trust you is is trying to create is clarity around that. And then uh things that we've done for the what um member Hills was talking about earlier with devices um filters limits monitoring those
182things are layers that we're going to have to deploy to. All of it's going to be imperfect because it's evolving and changing so quickly. But the the tools that we use to sort of catch up to technology and control it and make sure that it's used in appropriate ways when it comes to young people are the same. You'll see those same principles brought forward to this. >> I think you'd be surprised when you look at our ethics policy that we have most of those things already embedded in the ethics policy about that. They just don't have the word AI on them. like you could have done the same thing in Photoshop. So, do we put the word Photoshop in our ethics policy? We really don't. We put the the method and the idea in there
183and we put and we try to keep it more generic and more, you know, flexible. So, that's one thing I would caution against is putting AI tag on everything. It's not going to work, you know, ju just because it's a new term. >> Thank you. That was a very uh very very good discussion on something very important to our students. Um I think we like I said we had a lot of questions and some do some um discussion but I want to open it up now. So thank you so much. I appreciate that. I want to open it now to see if there are any speakers cards on this topic. >> Yes, there are. Um Nuth Morris Uh, good evening community. I'm N Morris, tech entrepreneur who co-founded Telig GPS tracking in 2000, sold it
184to Verizon, led their connected car and IoT strategy, and now run a venture capital firm spotting shifts and having thoughts on topics like AI. The best way to think about AI is that is the new human to machine interface. A platform shift as profound as punch card to keyboard to mouse and guey to mobile. Consider Gartner's hype cycle which maps tech maturity through five phases. Innovation trigger with early buzz. Peak of inflated expectations full of hype and overpromises. Trough of disillusionment where the reality hits and interest dips like the metaverse today. Then slope of enlightenment as the second wave adopters refine it and finally plateau of productivity for mainstream value like autonomous driving is approaching now. That's where I started Teligus in 2000 as the internet bubble popped into that trough and exactly where AI
185is now sliding off the peak with press hype and concerns signaling the early days. But that raises valid worries. Parents and teachers fear kids just getting plugged into chat PT at home instead of real learning. The opportunity AI handles wrote task elevating human thinking to higher levels. But that makes critical thinking even more vital. Current AI is probabilistic not deterministic. Meaning it generates likely answers from patterns not certainties. like a first or second year intern, saving a week's worth of work, but needing critical oversight to spot errors, verify sources, and spot check outputs. So, teach AI literacy early, how to prompt, critique ethically, ensure authentic work, not shortcuts. Pilot for personalized learning, train teachers to guide it. Our kids need skills for tomorrow's world. Thank you. You've heard me speak before. um that is not
186very good for an AI output. In fact, the first draft that came out of the AI was much better than that. I tried to get it to be a little bit more glib, a little bit more punchier, and it ended up with that word salad. So, I and I actually broke the context window. Yes. So, I will say that I did it while talking to Grock, which is Eliuh Elon's um AI, which is usually higher in the benchmarks, and I did it while the car was driving myself. The point being is that this is an interesting time. It knows its voice. When I tried to get it my voice, I broke it. And it's really important that the kids develop and understand their own voice as they go through this. Thank you, >> Elana. Maybe
187it's Elena. Alana. That's what I thought. I can use myself as an example. I grew up in the 70s. I'm in my mid50s and my friends used to call me Pennium 2 when um computers were out. I had a desktop back in 1979. I grew up in a family where my dad was in Silicon Valley and one of the top people at IBM. So I have a lot of experience with this industry. This screen, this slide with the time it took companies to reach 100 million users should alert you to how this is going to go. And the other slide on here are about medge gemini and the baselar ganglia. This is a factoid which ultimately can lead to a mandela effect. Okay. There is such a thing as a basil ganglia. Okay. And it's
188very interesting that this is the particular thing that the the headline here doctor is horrified at Google's healthcare AI makes up a body part that does not exist in humans. I think they don't want it to exist because it's the part of the brain that's responsible for logic and reasoning and addictive behaviors and uh let's see what else I think cognition. Um, but the key there is it's it's focused in the addiction part of the brain. And I have a 12-year-old. No devices are allowed on her own. And she is allowed to use one of our devices to do homework with her friends on a chat group. That's it. They do not none of them are allowed to use any of the AI. And it's a very serious thing. When she was 2 years old,
189it was like she was born with a phone in her hand and I went to take it away for dinner time. And that's where the tugofwar started at age two. One of the things that we didn't know when I was growing up is how the brain develops and it continues developing well past age 18. Uh that was such an arbitrary number. But what we're doing in those years from age 12 and I think they're saying up to your 30s now is very key to how you will be in the rest of your life. And the most important thing that New just said is we need to teach them how to think for themselves and not rely on AI. Thank you. >> Thank you. That's all. >> Okay. Thank you. Was there anyone else that wanted
190to speak on this topic that did not submit a card? >> Okay, thank you. >> Are there any board comments? >> Yes. Yes. Um I wanted to get my perspective on this as a student um who use obviously has used AI uh for class activities. I've used AI outside of class and I'm Mr. Shen student for authent a authentic exploratory research and mun. So AI trust you has been a part of my life and my academic career since of mid second semester last year. So I think one of the main things that I'm sure Ivy can attest to as well as a student at just the high school is that the issue of students using AI does not get erased um just by get it being banned. Everyone knows this. And also, even though it's
191it's very idealistic to assume that every every student is just going to accurately depict how much AI they use on an assignment with an AI truth and trust statement is, at least in my opinion, uh, to quote Ivy, slightly ignorant. I think that the the stu the the students who want who don't even go into the academic year thinking that they're going to be using AI on assignments will eventually be put into time crunch and end up using it. It's to quote Mr. Shen actually it's an irresistible tool. So my perspective on this is that obviously with the current education system that's adopted by America and Lagona is as you were saying uh Dr. Mountesky negatively impacted by AI the goal for students to ab absorb information and then be tested on it or be
192able to prove that they've obtained this information if they're just using it if they're just getting the information from AI studies have shown that they're going to forget it. It's not it's not beneficial to them in the long run. So the question that this raises for me as opposed to saying how can we curtail them from using AI and stick to the current education model is how can we shift the education model to be benefiting the students because AI is not going to go away. And to me, the whole point of education is in question because is the goal of education to make our students thinkers who have the uh just a bunch of knowledge, a plethora of knowledge on a variety of different topics that they obtained through their own research and without using
193AI so that when they get sent off into the world, they can tell you exactly what happened at the Congress of Vienna. The problem is that there's a tool in all of our pockets right now that can tell us the same thing. So the skills that were valuable to students going into the workforce 20, 10, and even 5 years ago have now been made obsolete by this tool. And it's undoubtedly true, as was just said, that those who can critically think are going to be the people that are propelled in society and doing uh better in society because that's something that AI can't do. AI can only recognize patterns. It's the world's greatest recording machine. it can't come up with anything new in the sense that any new inherently human idea cannot be created or
194recreated by AI. And we're seeing this all across the country where middle management jobs that do not require much critical thinking but rather a lot of logical thinking are being replaced by AI. So the and this is also shown with self-employment being higher than ever before in history. There are tons of students that I know personally at the high school, myself included, who instead of doing the traditional route of, you know, when you turn 16 getting a job at McDonald's, starting your own your own business in fields that are typically dominated by people who are much older than you. And this is assisted by AI because instead of having to have employees or having college educations or high school educations that mentor you in how to think logically and how to navigate these problems that
195occur in just you know regular business operations, AI can do this for you. So I think that we with AI should attack the problem from the perspective of instead of changing how students can use AI, we can change how we teach students because the students are going to continue to use AI regardless. And I think that it has put the entire point of education, specifically secondary education, in question because do we want students who are either going off into the workforce or going off into secondary education being reliant on you using AI when the the the knowledge that they would be gaining from not using AI has been taken over by AI? do should we stick to a current education model that we're seeing all across the country is destroying people's jobs and livelihoods because
196AI can do that kind of job better than they can. So to me as a student that's my that's been my experience with AI and that's the question I have for AI in the future is how how how can we give students the best foot forward going into the later parts of their lives because just like uh it was said we're living in tomorrow's year. >> Thank you Logan. That was very insightful. member Kelly. >> Um, I'm going to try to keep this short because we have an audience full of people who should be in bed uh who are waiting for the poll discussion. I know. Um, so uh as I've been trying to move the agenda on all night with keeping it short, everyone uh but my comments are I want to basically uh
197say thank you to Mike Morrison. Uh he has really made us cutting edge during COVID. We went from teachers who knew nothing about zooming and distance education. He came up with models. He taught them. He helped them develop their courses. Cutting edge. The cutting edge stuff about AI. The AI trust you which is being used all over the world. I just compliment you on you're putting us on the map. I would suggest to our superintendent that we take an ad out in the Chronicle of Higher Education about, you know, if you want to get this, you know, here's our email address. It would bump up our kids' chances for college because we would be known as far as for what we produce and this is really cutting edge what you have done, Mike. Um, and
198thank you. >> Thank you. Are there any further discussions from the board that was not covered during their questions? >> I just wanted to um follow Logan's speech. Um so I couldn't agree more with what he said. Uh AI is a great tool. It [snorts] helps aid research, aid thought process, and aid acquisition of knowledge. Operative word aid. It is only when students heavily rely on AI that it becomes a problem. I'm seeing it happen firsthand where people are thinking less and prompting more. And I think that as a school board, we need to make sure that our students are using it as a tool and not to replace the neurons firing within their brains because critical thinking is critical to a better future. >> Anyone else? Any further discussion? >> I have one >>
199brief. >> I just want to say my AI program is telling me that we should have put the pool on earlier on the agenda. So, but uh but I did want to say seriously very quickly. I think um board member Moesky uh really said the most important thing that's been said here um when she talked about her students basically communicating not from themselves to one another but from AI to one another. And I think what she said um leads to the the uh what I think is a fundamental issue and I agree that it can't be controlled and it can't be stopped but um and that is that over reliance on AI can cause anybody but including students and young people to have what I would refer to as an imposttor complex where they they
200become impostors. in their own intellectual life um and in their own academic uh career. And so I think that um Joan, your description of what went on with your students and the dynamics that were going on with your students when you shut it down um again, it's not about stopping it or controlling it, but it's about recognizing when it's not working and when it's having the effect of causing people because they no longer would have ownership of their own intellectual uh how they present themselves and they would know it. And that that feeling of being an imposttor in your own life is enough of a problem when you're not aggravating it by becoming overreiant on this new technology. And there's a guy named Eric Schmidt who was the CEO of Google and uh who's written
201a couple of books about AI and he and Henry Kissinger did a book about it. Um, and they basically said, "We don't have any idea where this is taking us, and if we think we know right now where this is taking us, we're fooling ourselves." So, that's a just a note of caution. But anyway, I really enjoyed both of your comments a lot. I'm really glad you spoke up. >> Thank you, Howard. Member, member, did you have something else to add >> quickly? Um I really appreciated both of your both of [snorts] you. Also I I know um this is really an experimental time especially for young people and as we look to guide them toward careers um I I went to listen to a woman who was talking about careers and what with the
202world of AI what should students [snorts] expect and one of the things she was saying don't which surprised me she said don't have students become lawyers that's that field is not going to there'll be a few around but not a lot and sure enough right after she said that one of my brothers is an attorney and he had a young woman who had just um come out just passed the bar and he had her doing some work for him and she just used AI and all the cases she gave worthless so it you know it can be used too much but this was kind of fun we said well what career would you what career do you think would would last and would still be around. She said HVAC. So, I think we should get
203some HVAC careers going. >> Thank you. Okay. This was an information item, so there's no motion. And I Are we done with comments? >> Okay. Well, thank you. That was very informative and and a very good discussion. And clearly there's um a lot. So, and that's and it's a good a lot. So, that's good. Okay. We're going to move on to I think the highlight of the evening uh action item business services item 9A approval to award contracts for the LBHS pool modernization project in an amount of 18,813,222. Mr. Roden Roj, thank you for bringing this forward. I I practiced all day. I really did. Um thank you. Floor is yours. >> Good evening. Thank you board president, members of the board. Uh so this is a onepage uh presentation um not using AI. I
204used the intelligence of Dr. Glass uh our director of facilities and our budget administrators to come up with this slide. Um what you have is this covers both item 9A and 9B. So on the left hand side you see the project cost. This is for the swimming pool. Uh the hard cost for the swimming pool is about $18.81 million. And this corresponds to item 9A on your agenda item. And the soft cost that you are considering for approval is $2.18 million, which corresponds to item agenda number 9B. That's not [clears throat] the complete cost for the project. There will be cost related to utilities. for example, the Southern California gas connection, furniture, fixture, um, and other equipment. That's about $650,000. Um, the flooring cost, as you know, we did not get a bid on the
205flooring. We anticipating that it will cost about $150,000, which will come to the board approval at a later date. The project contingency is about 10% of the total hard cost for the projects. It's about 1.88 million. It's a cost that we may incur or we may not incur in full. So, just wanted to let you know that's on our back pocket and that's where our construction manager is going to help us on managing that contingency budget. So the total estimated cost is 23.67 million. The range if we exclude if we don't use the contingency we will complete the project at the lowest cost of 21.79 million. At the highest it can go to 25 million if we run into unexpected weather delays. And one of the project risk is this whole project of swimming pool
206is all outside. It's exposed to the elements throughout the construction. So as compared to a school building where we are exposed to weather only when we are framing the building. Once the building is framed and the shell is built, [snorts] we don't anticipate much weather delays because most of the finishes will be inside. As opposed to the swimming pool, most of the construction will be done outside throughout the one-year duration. So, we uh may anticipate if there are weather related delays, the cost to go up, but anyway, we are pegging the cost to go up. uh at most we expect we'll be able to finish the budget within 25 million. So that's the variation on the project cost and the board you are going to consider approval of just the first two items 9A and
2079B this evening but I also want to switch as to how we are funding the project and that's on the right hand side as of now we have an assigned funding of $20.4 4 million. We have already some savings as we have seen from fund in fund 40 5.4 million that's in our books. We anticipate transferring about $11 million from general fund this year to the project fund. And that's the reason if you connect the dots our auditor who was here mentioned that the last two years we ran a surplus. This year we are running a deficit because of the transfers of 11 million from general fund to fund this project and in the next year fiscal year we are transferring $4 million that brings up to 20.4 in assigned funding. So if you subtract
208the estimated cost range um subtract the assigned funding we have a remaining funding of need of about 1.39 million to 4.6 million. That's the funding the board needs to assign at a future date. We don't want to assign the funding strategically at this point of time knowing that there will be some anticipated revenues going forward. So that's strategic and we need to decide that uh remaining funding decisions sometime around March April of next year, next calendar year. What are the potential sources of that anticipated funding? uh that's on the bottom uh what's on the highlighted tan color. We are anticipating a revenue increase in the property tax for this year. Uh we will have more certain data by end of February or March of this year from the property tax collection from the Orange County
209property tax assessor. We anticipate an increase of $1.5 million this year and it's cumulative. So the anticipated increase if it increases by 1.5 it'll increase by at least 1.5 the next year. Um barring unforeseen natural disasters in the property industry. So the next item on the bullet is the Prop 2 match. Prop 2 is the state bond of $10 billion that passed in 2024. State is going to fund the school district based on some needs. And we have a niche criteria where we are uh small school districts and the state has carved out certain funds about $750 million out of that 10 billion to allocate to small school district. That allocation hopefully will be coming in 2627. Um Ryan our director of facilities expects the funding to be somewhere around 6 to7 million range. Conservatively
210we can estimate that we'll be receiving about $5 million. The only thing we don't know when we'll receive it. Uh we anticipate somewhere around the first quarter of uh calendar year 27. So the other item that we have some control over is our capital improvement program and FR FRP funding. We fund about 2.1 million every year transfer from general fund to uh facilities fund. We anticipate doing that. It's already included in our budget for 2.1 million. So the first four bullets will as you can see is sufficient to cover a funding gap of 1.3 to 4.6 million. Now the question comes what if none of these first four materialize then we will dig deeper. Vista Liso is a property we have a funding reserve of $4.6 million right now. The legal uh recommendation is we
211do not touch that fund and we will stick to it. Uh if the dispute is resolved, we can go and borrow against that fund and repay in a future year. If everything fails, we can always go for an external or a bridge loan to the extent of about $1.39 to $4.6 $6 million depending on um where the estimate will be in March of April of 2027. So we'll have a much clearer picture in around March April of 27 and I think we can come back to the board at that point of time and request an assignment of that remaining funding. But it will not be prudent at this point of time to assign that funding um based on what we know now. So with that knowledge I'll open it up for question and then um
212again the board is considering just for uh reminder item 9A and 9B which are the first two items on the left hand side. With that I'll open it up for questions from the board members. >> Thank you for that uh presentation. So just a quick question. Are we So there's there's no need to go through the bid process or any of the bids or anything like that that we're just strictly looking at this from the financial >> sorry uh this is just the project funding piece which we are not making a decision today because we have an assigned funding that will carry us through for the hard cost and the soft cost uh as of now. >> All right. So we're just looking to approve the um >> contracts themselves >> 9A and 9B and
213these are based on the lowest bidder and uh the item 9A is based on a public bid. Item 9B is based on our process because those are export uh services process. >> Great. Thank you. Okay. Um board member questions. I'll start um with Miss um Clerk Perry. [snorts] >> Um so I think we really need the pool and we can figure out a way to do this. Um my question is so if if we're borrowing money from capital improvement, which we get 2.1 million a year basically, um does that mean there are other projects we'd like to do? Like for instance, we've been wanting for a long time to expand the gym at Thirstston. Um, does that mean all that those projects are on hold? >> Uh, let me take a first shot at it
214and then I'll have Dr. Glass respond. So, the thirsten gym expansion is certainly going to be way over uh3 to4 million. So even with the CIP and the FRP money we will not be able to execute the thirst and gym. So the CIP money and the FRP money traditionally has been used for smaller projects like modernization of a small classroom expansion of audiovisisual projects like this or ADA improvement. Um, so a project like the Thirstston gym or the uh blackbox theater at Thirstston will definitely need some significant amount of infusion of money uh potentially bond or some external coop borrowing at this point of time. So uh there'll be some projects that will be impacted if we use the CIP and FRP money. But also you have to think of from a bandwidth. Um our
215facilities team is primarily just one person. Uh that's Ryan the director of facilities. The other team that's on facilities are maintenance folks. So those are not capital construction but they are maintenance folks that are used for maintenance. But Ryan will be fully booked I think or overstretched with the swimming pool project at least for the next fiscal year uh because that will be a project u that he is in charge of executing. he will have really no bandwidth to take on additional um small honeydew projects for school sites. So even if we allocate the CIP FRP funding next year, I doubt if we can execute projects just because we don't have the resource bandwidth. So >> I'll follow up to what um Mr. Rodery is presented as a range of the potential cost. So you
216see it's uh 21.8 million to $25 million. And so on uh two years from now when this pool is completed on our best day this thing comes in at $21.8 million and tonight we have identified 20 million of that 21 that we need. So your gap is not very big at that point. So, um, in the lower right hand part of the slide, there are a number of different options presented that allow you to solve the gap, right? And if we're that close and under budget, um, you've got a lot of good options. So, you may not need any money because if you do something like allocate additional property tax revenue or the Prop 2 match funds become available and flow in, you don't have a problem. That's our best day. Then there's the other
217side of the coin, our worst day, right? This thing comes in at 25 million. it consumes the entire project contingency and we're going into this needing $4.6 million. I think honestly in that situation we probably are looking at doing what's called some deferred maintenance. So you have a list of things that wear out, go bad that we would like to fix in the school district every year. Some of those things are going to have to wait. Uh they're going to be things that we will intentionally choose to not disrupt learning, not create safety problems. So, there'll be things like um improving light ballast systems. There'll be things like um sprinkler watering systems, upgrades of things like that. Um those are the kinds of things you would choose to defer maintenance on. And there may be
218some of those that we'll have to get to, but we won't know that really until um about um you said when >> March, April of 2027. you'll have more clarity about what the what the gap looks like at that point and then we'll have to make some strategic decisions out of that box in the lower right hand side of which what is the combination of these funds we want to use to solve it >> member >> um thanks I just have a quick question we're talking um right now about the the potential cost of approving the pool bid today and the uh possibility of a million to 4.6 shortfall. I would go at it from a different way and that is what is the cost of not doing this right away. So how do you
219compute waiting a year or deferring this because of you know not knowing that? So >> no but I think it's important to know if you're looking at a a potentially you know if there's a potential shortfall. It sounds like that's the question we're asking. what is the potential shortfall? And I think understanding that shortfall has to be weighed against the cost of not doing it. >> I think we've all agreed that we want to do it now. >> Oh, well, if you're ready to vote on the bid, that's fine. But I'm just saying that if for full information, it's useful to understand that what we're evaluating in terms of funding against what would happen if we didn't do it. I'm not suggesting that's what you're suggesting. I'm just as an accountant, that's how I would
220think about the question. there. Uh if the board didn't act, and I'm not saying that that's what you're >> I'm not I'm not assuming. >> So if if the if the board didn't act, um then the costs would inflate. Um so it'll be more expensive if you wait a year. U somewhere in the neighborhood of 8 to 10% more expensive. So that's and that's a big number when you're talking about a $24 million project. And so the project becomes more expensive if you wait to do it later. Um, also the reasons that we are wanting to improve the pool now is that the pool and the complex we have has a lot of deficiencies uh that are going to continue to get worse. And so those problems also persist. And then there's the um a
221soft cost around this around um we are trying to do this to create a ultimately a better facility for our students and for the community. So we miss the opportunity to do that. So, I think those three things um are what what the the costs are of not acting. >> Any further questions? >> Okay. Member Kelly, >> the seven years that I've been on the board, how many uh facilities projects have we done and how many of them have come in uh in the black and and before schedule? I'll have to most probably uh have Ryan come up and address that uh because I don't have the historical perspective. Dr. Kelly, so Ryan can address that. >> I would say we've been fairly successful. I think all of our projects have been done per the
222budgets that were set on time and with uh minimal impact to the community. >> I think it was 11 projects. Now, this one is a lot larger the number, but I have total faith in the people who are running our facilities area as far as from every angle of what they do. >> Dr. Kelly, we really appreciate that uh confidence and you do have a great team. They put together a great plan and and it goes back to the all of the people over the past few years who have been involved in that, including members of this board who have been involved in that. So, uh it's been an effort to get to this point. At the same time, I don't want to overpromise today. We don't know. Um, I've tried to tell everybody that
223has uh taken the time to listen to us talk about this pool in the course of this construction, something unexpected is going to happen and something is going to go wrong and it's going to be expensive. And so, we need to be ready for something like that to occur. Again, we may have our best day and it all goes exactly according to plan. That would be great. But today, we can't promise that. We'll know more. Um, and we'll we've got you have a contingency built in to handle situations like this and we have a professional firm in place to manage the cost all along the way. So, we're doing everything right, I think, to deliver on the um underexpected outcome um underexpected cost outcome that you're hoping for. Uh, but today we just can't say.
224>> Member Hills, do you have any questions? >> Questions? >> Yeah. Does the uh does the funding that we're the basic package that we have that that we're going to be um going forward with does it I remember one time we got a briefing I think from Ryan um where one of the elements of the funding was um funds for um repair and um improvements on all four campuses. Am I am I uh giving you enough information to understand what I'm asking? I I remember that one of the one of on the list of sort of the accounts that we were draining to get this accomplished was um I can't remember what the dollar amount but it was an account for current account for um repairs and replacement at all four campuses. >> Thank you
225for the questions. We have a separate funding dedicated funding. It's called routine repair maintenance >> and that fund is intact. We are not touching it because we know we'll need repair routine maintenance because otherwise other facilities will degrade. So strategically it's not prudent to use that funding for capital improvements large capital and that funding stays where it is. So our maintenance folks will be gainfully using that funding for plumbing, electrical and those kind of repairs when things break or preventive maintenance. >> So that funding is >> not used that was on the list originally. Um and uh um that's all for now. Um I might come back with another question. Ivy, do you or Logan have any questions? >> Um, given that Logan's not here, I'm going to say that we both don't have questions.
226Thank you. >> Oh, I just remembered my question. Sorry. Um, Mr. Superintendent, um, the um uh uh reference was made to the Aliso property. Um I'm not sure whether or not people understand what uh that reference was. Can you give us just a broad brush on what the issue is in terms of what what was thought that we might be able to do with the ALISO money and why we're not um uh now currently planning on uh relying on the ALISO money? I I will um I'll preface it by saying that as you all know we are involved in litigation related to that property. I had a lengthy conversation with our attorney um about the current status of that litigation. I prepared a brief statement um to address this very question that you're ask asking.
227uh after reflecting on that conversation with the attorney, it is very intentional what I will say. If it's the question is asked in different ways or repeatedly, you're going to get the same answer from me. >> Yeah. >> So, is is that your statement about it? Is it already gone out or is it >> No, I'm about to make it. >> Okay. Right. [laughter] >> Right. >> Well, you we had this all worked out. >> Yeah. Uh the dis the district, as you know, has the option to repurchase the Vista Eliso property for $1 in 2041. The district has reserved 4.6 6 million in order to be able to exercise that option early if circumstances present that opportunity to preserve that option and based on the advice of council. We are not planning to use
228those funds for the pool. There are multiple other options available that would we would strongly recommend using before using that fund. >> Thanks very much. Appreciate >> Oh, okay. Thank you. I have a couple questions. Um, are we there's a lot of um misinformation that we are um behind or it's been delayed. Is the project still on schedule as originally designed? >> Yes, it is. The project construction phase will start in June and uh it's still on schedule because we intentionally wanted to finish the year after and start the project after the uh school year is over. So the project there is no change to the schedule. >> Thank you. I would love to ask you to repeat that but I won't. Um, so the um there is an exhibit on page 272 of the
229proposal and it does say that the construction starts 323. I'm assuming that's just is that just an old file that wasn't maybe updated. I just want to make sure we're clear that the target start date is June. >> The start date, the actual physical construction is June, but there lot of preconstruction things that we go through. U Ryan, you want to state that? Yeah, I have to see exactly what that document is, but if it's uh >> milestone activity dates, that's why that's that's the only reason why I'm asking. I just want to make sure if there's pre-construction or the pools down that we're aware of. >> The construction bid schedule was super clear. It starts in June. Um everything was bid out in that manner. So, all the bids brought to you tonight reflect
230a start date of June like Mr. Richery said that there may be a document in there from maybe 9B one of like maybe the CW driver contract which was an older you know agreement where initially we were looking at starting sometime as early as March but that was dictated by the DSA approval of the plans and after going through DSA and kind of looking at our logistics um we thought it was more prudent to get contracted now and procure those early items like the elevator and electrical equipment things that take over you know up to a year to procure. So by going out um contracting early and planning ahead and procuring those those long lead time items, we can be um in that the project can start logistically when school gets out with minimal impact
231to the school and the surrounding community. >> Okay. Thank you. And then >> if I can add on board president Morgan. Um when I say the construction as I mentioned like there are equipments that are we are procuring as soon if the board approves the contracts or the hard bits tonight. There are materials like structural steel that the vendor or the contractor is going to procure right now. So things like HVAC which has a long lead time. That way when we need them, they're in place. They'll be most probably stored in the vendor or the contractor warehouse and then they will be brought in so that it does not delay the project once we start. But the physical construction is going to start in June. >> Okay. Thank you. Um and I just that's why
232I wanted to clarify that because I saw that date there and I just want to make sure um the the process of the bidding on those all of the subs. Do any of these subs have ties to Laguna Beach or have done work in Laguna Beach before? >> Um, it's hard to exactly say. I would assume that some of them may have worked in Laguna Beach before. Some have worked on um prior projects for our school district here. >> Okay. So, that's that wasn't necessarily a criteria of the bids as well. No, they went through an extensive pre-qualification process for the public contract code and they had to establish that they were qualified to bid. Um, and all of our biders that submitted bids were pre-qualified contractors and they met they met criteria that was
233that was set for the project. >> Okay. And is there um and I asked because I know we um Dr. Glass and I have talked about the bid process in the past and how how bids different bids and projects can earn you know depending on how you're having a bid earn points for different things. And one of the things that would lend to selecting a vendor would be if they have um if they're local or have ties to local. >> We would have had to included that in the bid from the outset. Um I have used that method in previous district where I worked, but it was a district that had a huge construction industry. And so this is not a community that is like that. This is a resort community. There's some of that,
234but just you're talking about a large scale uh construction project here. So, it's a very specialized group of contractors that you'd be seeking bids from. >> Okay. >> But, aren't we following state law as far as with how the how the bidding is going did? >> Can you repeat that? >> I think there's we're following state law as far as with the bidding as >> Yes. The the public contract code dictates how the these public works projects are bid and we follow it. It's a prescribed method. Um, notice of advertisement. There's job walks. There's a time period where they answer they ask questions. We answer them in forms of agenda so that it's all done in a public plan room environment so that everyone gets the information at the same amount of time. There's no
235competitive advantages. Bids are turned in in sealed envelopes. They're open read out loud. So, it's very prescriptive. Um what we end up with is um pre-qualified contractors that are qualified and then we um take the lowest responsive and responsive bidder. >> Thank you. And then do we have in in any of that was there aside from unexpected like weather delays and things like that is there any um type of asurances that we have for the subs that they're going to stay on track that they're going to make sure the materials are here on time that we're not waiting for materials. Is there any is that something that would be included in these contracts or no? >> We're we're contracting a bid schedule that's very firm. Um we have a construction management firm that's managing the
236project. So in essence, we brought our CM firm on for pre-construction. So they've already been on the job working closely with our architect firm. So going into these contracts, they're well, they're very well thought out. They've been planned for over, you know, a year and a half now. >> And a lot of work, >> so a lot of work's gone into them. So we feel like we've limited as much exposure as possible. Like like Dr. said there's there are unforeseen you know um but for the most part um we've feel that we're done everything in our power to mitigate those those exposures so that you're going in um with a very clear and defined contract scope of work it's very identified what the subcontractors are providing when they're providing it and how they're providing it
237and then we have a CM that's on site every day to make sure that they deliver. >> Thank you. And then I just have two other things and I it's just observations of what I didn't see in the bid. And so I'm just curious. Um we have the shade structures over the starting blocks on the uphill side as well as the seating on the lower side. We talked about putting solar on top of that, but I didn't see a solar bid and maybe I just missed it. But is that is solar part of the already was solar bid out when the bids were sent out? >> Um yes. So with the multi-prime delivery, the solar was part of the electrical bid package. So when your electrical bid does have the solar >> Okay. So it
238wouldn't be have been listed as separate. That's what I figured. >> Exactly. So you wouldn't actually see a solar contractor um that that that came in covered under the electrician. >> Okay. Thank you for that clarification. Okay. Uh does anyone have any further questions from the board? >> Wanted a clarification also. I I know you know this really well, Ryan, but in looking through this 200 pages and trying to do our duty, I I did notice that on I think it's page 303 that it has a 50 meter pool. And I know we agreed that we weren't going to have a a 50 meter pool. And I, you know, I just want to make sure that um this isn't given to somebody and we don't dig too far out into Park Avenue. Yeah, it's 303.
239>> We have our project manager here from CW Driver, Mr. Diamond. >> That That's likely just a general description of the project. [clears throat and cough] >> Sorry, it says 50 meter pool. >> I I think we're under that. >> Yeah, we are. >> But it's close. >> Okay. [clears throat] So I >> the plan [laughter] the plans are >> not let's just not go out into Park Avenue. >> Yeah, >> I think the plans are super clear. It's a 45 meter pool. It's very specific once you're looking in the actual construction documents, the plans, the pool plans that are there's 12 sheets of pool plans. They're all 45 meters. >> I certainly appreciate that. Um it since it does say probably should change that just because it has been pretty controversial. So I to
240member Perry's um point um that would raise question I would think. Um okay. And then I think the only other question I had was that um is it can you confirm that in the original proposal of this project the sub the idea was that the LISO funds were tagged to be used um without that was part of the plan originally when it was presented that we were going to be draining that fund as well. Correct. I I will have to restate the statement that I made earlier on this on advice of council. It is not our recommendation to use those funds. You have other funds available that we would strongly use before using that fund. >> Yes, that was identified in the close in a meeting um that the funds actually were there so or
241were tagged to be removed. So >> I'll have to repeat the same statement. >> I got it. Yep. You said that before. Thank you. Okay. I don't have any further questions. I'm sure we have board we have comment from the public. We do. And I'm a little little bit confused because some people um were really specific and said 9A, some people said 9 A 9B, some people just said pool, some people just said nine. So I'll do the best I can and if I call you at the wrong time, just let me know. Um, so >> Perry, before you start, can we do a because we have 9B coming up, can we make can we have comments for both items together? >> I thought >> that's >> I called 9A as the topic, but 9A
242and 9B were presented. So, can we do comments on? >> Yeah, I Well, I we were just uh conferring. I think the proper procedure since you called for 9A at first um you should vote on that one and then you can quickly you don't have to have a presentation on 9B because you've already heard it >> so you can move. >> But our question is as far as public comment can we call up 9A and 9B. >> Um >> and I'm confused because some people don't they may want to speak on A and B but they just said nine or they just said pool. Um I I think are they separated into 9A and 9B in the stack that you have? What? >> No, because some people just say pool. >> Okay. Um then in
243that case, I would just recommend going through them all. >> Okay. >> Um yeah. >> Okay. Thanks. >> Member Perry. How many cards do we have? A lot of cards. Are we going to stay within our 20 minutes or do we need to reevaluate? >> Nine. Okay, we should be fine. 27 minutes, but we'll go over. Okay. All right, let's begin. >> Okay, we'll [snorts] start with um student Samya. >> Hi, my name is Samya Sudle and I'm in 10th I'm in 10th grade and I'm a varsity swimmer at LBHS. I began swimming when I was 8 years old at this very community pool and I'm here to implore this board to approve the budget items for the pool modernization modernization project. We have been saving this much for this muchneeded project for years and
244we have the money to pay for the project and it will be a facility improvement that will benefit us students and our community at the large. Thank you. >> Thank you. Um, next, Aaliyah and Penny. And thank you for the pronunciation guide. >> Hi, I'm Penny. That's Aaliyah. >> Yeah. Um, we're in eighth grade here at Thirstston and we play club water polo for Laguna Beach. So, we practice at that pool like every day and we're going to go to the high school next year and we'll play on the high school team. And well, I just want to thank you guys for like doing everything and being here and working on this pool and working on this project. I really appreciate it and I think it'll be really beneficial because um I think it'll be
245really beneficial because at Bigger Pool we can have home games and those are really important to me because my grandparents and family members live locally and they aren't able to or don't feel comfortable with going to other pools that are further away and they'll be able to come to the closer pool. it'll be safer for them because they don't have to like drive far distances and that's like really important and it won't just be beneficial for us, it'll be good for the community for like all those people who just go swimming. Like there'll be more lanes and there'll be more room so they don't have to like double up or like we don't have to practice at later hours. Yeah, I think that like our pool is just I mean I'm just grateful that we
246have a pool, but like I feel like it a bigger and like nicer pool could just benefit our whole community and like it's it's just we've had this pool for so long. I feel like it's just kind of time to like upgrade it and it wouldn't only benefit the water pool team, it would benefit everyone. Um, yeah. And also home games are important for me cuz like she said, you know, our families are like around and it's just I feel like it would just benefit the whole community in every way and I feel like I'm really [clears throat] looking forward to this because I think it would be really great for all of us. So yeah, >> Thank you very much. Um, any other students that I missed? Okay. Uh, Michelle Manda. >> Hi, good
247evening. I have one question and that is if anybody here has built a house, I have 10% contingency doesn't do it. I look at this number that you have 1.88. And I don't believe it because we're looking at what two years now. I think you need to budget more as a contingency which then begs the question, where's that money going to come from? And I believe when it was first presented that the pool was going to cost $18 million. Now I'm hearing 25 worst case. I get I get that, but I'm still hearing 25. 23 at the best case. How much more is that going to go up? And where are you going to find the money? And it better not be from a bond. >> Thank you. >> Oops, Elana. >> Excuse me just
248a second. Um, everyone is entitled to their opinion and I would ask respect when someone's opinion might differ from yours but it does help offer perspective and I certainly expect that from the dis as well. Thank you. >> Thank you. So we're looking at a not a residential uh home building project where contingencies are very different than what are laid out in commercial contracts. That said, we have been asking for this pool for years. It's didn't go from 18 million. It went from far less up to where we're at right now. And it will go up exponentially. So, if we don't get started on it now, and I have a lot of faith that you guys are in agreement that we should start this now because I'd hate to have that on my fiduciary responsibility
249that we went against it. And whoops, we really need it because that pool is freezing sometimes for the kids to swim in. Heaters constantly breaking down. The lighting's awful. We can't see at in the nighttime practices that we have to have at 7 to 900 p.m. all week this week. And I have to say, we've been going to another school, which we're going to have to do during the construction. And we go to that other school. All of us Laguna Beach parents are sitting there looking at each other. Hey, you're from the 12U team and you're from the 14U team. Oh, and you're from the 10. We could have all of our kids in this bowl at the same time. We can get our kids home in a decent hour. I can't wait. Thank you.
250>> Thank you, Steve Brown. >> That's pretty short. Um, can you bring the pool modernization just the one page slide up? I just want to point something out. Um, one quick suggestion, maybe that bottom level, one thing we could add. You're trying to figure out how to source it yourself, fund it yourself. Community's got money. There's there's if you ask, you have no idea what might happen. So, a suggestion is add a line item. Maybe just put a big sign out like the, you know, here's our goal. Maybe maybe money starts coming in. Who knows? Um, and I'm happy to help with that as well. Um, that's one. Number two, I got to give kudos to Ryan and the entire team that he's he's been working with and all the other guys. I've been through
251both A and B in detail. Uh and I think it's time to cut this anchor loose. It's been a couple of years that this thing's been dragging along and you've heard from a lot of voices and it's moved along pretty well. Uh and the the good news is the district does have a good amount of money still flowing in. uh you know and I think hopefully with the rain situation maybe we won't have as I heard uh reservoirs are almost full now and we're almost at what we need for the year so maybe maybe we can just start building anyway um my vote is to move ahead and approve it. Thank you. >> Thank you Laura Jamani. Hello. I I do support awarding the contracts as presented. It's so important to keep this pool project
252moving forward and on schedule. I do have some observations to share on some recent deficiencies with our pool. From November 19th to 29th, the pool heater was not functioning properly and our athletes were training in colder water temps. Just yesterday, our high school girls water polo team had their first home league game. They had to manually score the game using a whiteboard and black marker because the scoreboard was broken. Coach Katie is with her team today up in Santa Barbara competing at a water polo tournament and she asked if I would share her public comment with you all tonight. So, from Katie, as soon as we noticed there was an issue with the scoreboard, Ryan responded right away and was in touch with the person who fixed it. The issue arose when resetting the computer
253that communicates with the scoreboard, and that's more of the focus of my frustration. The majority, if not all, of the the things at the pool are at the end of their lifespan, and we need help. There is a sense of fatigue, i.e., We just need to make it until a new pool breaks ground. There's only so much we can continue to duct tape, bubble wrap, however you want to put it, and produce a service that we can be truly proud of. Since I have been at this high school 2 and a half years, people from in and out of the community have asked me when the new pool is going to break ground. So many professionals have spent hours making plans that will provide the Laguna aquatics community with the help they and we need
254while keeping the entire community at large in mind. I want what's best for the aquatics program at LBHS and a thriving community that is water safe and enjoys the water. Please help us provide that to Lagona. Thank you. >> Thank you, Laura. [snorts] Stacy Seoff. >> Hello. I wrote this earlier today. Actually, this board meeting has been a lot more cordial than um recent ones I watched. So, um my name is Stacy Seoff. This isn't my first school board meeting, but is my first time speaking at one. And I'll be honest, I'm exhausted. I'm exhausted by the division we see nationally and I'm exhausted watching that same division spill into our local school community. People here were elected fairly. Joan is a friend. Sher Morgan's wonderful daughter Cassidy babysat my children when they were young.
255I've heard insults and low blows from both sides. And in my opinion, they've only deepened the divide and brought out defensiveness rather than solutions. So tonight I want to talk about the one thing that should unite us all, our schools. I grew up in El Toro and Laguna Beach was always my dream place to live. I spent over 20 years in Dana Point and both my kids started in private school. I used to hear all the time, Lagona schools are different. It's like a private school. I can tell you firsthand, Lagona is not a private school. I currently have a daughter who is a junior at St. Margaret's and an eighth grade water polo at Thirsten. While we have incredible dedicated staff, we are behind private schools in many ways. Nutritional offerings, college counseling, indoor
256learning spaces, access to top tier coaches, and the recruiting connections that matter for student athletes. But I will tell you this, we have something private schools don't. We have community. And unless you have children in Laguna's public schools, it's hard to truly understand that Laguna is a gem. But having kids in Lagona public schools is a gem within the gym. When we play baseball at Riddle, it's Lagona versus Lagona. Parents know each other. We've watched each other's kids grow up. You go to active culture or honestly anywhere in town. And you run into a school family. We experience hospitality night differently. And this town is filled with people who went to Laguna schools and then came back to raise their children here for this exact reason. So my ask is this. Why is a school
257board giving so much weight to voices of residents that have never had the experience of having children in our public schools? I'm currently driving my ch my child to North Irvine to Northwood off Portola for water polo practices. That's as far east as Irvine gets. Why would we choose that for our kids when we when we could create something here that feels like riddle? Why would we question a pool that stays warm, allows CIF matches to take place, and something that strengthens, not fragments, our community? Why would we question a bond that supports our schools? One allows us to keep pace with the surrounding private schools, schools which many of our residents can afford. I know the school board hears the financial burdens. They need to hear and the neighbor they need to hear the
258neighbors concerns, but no one loves construction. No one loves paying more and no one loves change. Can I finish two more paragraphs? Yeah. Okay. But this is Laguna Beach, a community that has to plan their days around canyon traffic, sacrifices garage space for quality of life, and could afford private education, which many can afford private education, not all, yet chooses to invest in making our public schools the very best that they can be. So I ask you, please be a school board that puts our school community first. We all know having students at LBUSD and living in this town is something special, something you can't really explain unless you experience yourself. So please let our pool athletes feel that same sense of community, not just for our kids now, but for ones who may come
259back one day to raise their families here. Thanks, guys. >> Thank you, Steve Mintosh. Good evening again. Um yes, I want to also uh commend Ryan and uh Dr. Glass for and u Mano for their clarity and their transparency in this process. Um been pretty close to the bid uh system and we were able to be involved in looking at it, watching it, participating in in the whole thing. It's been wonderfully transparent. Uh everything's on the up and up and uh we really appreciate that and it's the we it's refreshing because we didn't have that in the past and and it's an indication of what's going on going forward. Then that's the way it should be. That's awesome. Um as far as the pool itself goes, um very few people and certainly since a Laguna
260has never been against building a new pool ever. And uh that was also a misconception. Talk about misconceptions around that was that's a big one. So um so we looked at these hard costs. Everything seems to be in the line. Um and I would like to urge that you guys uh approve this tonight because I think it's really important for a number of reasons. It's almost three years coming up that this whole odyssey started. When we were all surprised with it one day, we woke up and said, "Oh, guess what? This is a huge massive plan going on." So anyway, um in our travels, uh looking at pool, various pools in Orange County and all over Southern California, uh one of the things that we saw were people upgrading pools all over the place. And
261a lot of them didn't have the kind of cash that we have to put into the pool. So they were scrging for it. They didn't have bond money. They, you know, got money from here. They were having bake sales, car washes, and a capital campaign with with private individuals. And this is I think this is a great opportunity and a good uh uh opportunity for school power to actually step up and throw some cash into this. You know, why not? They got an endowment worth $4 million. Open that purse. And there's some guys here or people here in in this room that brag about their deep pockets. Open those up. Help out. So, let's get this pool built one way or another. Don't I don't think that I think the money is going to come.
262It'll be good. So, I urge you to approve tonight. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Okay, President Morgan. >> Any further any other comment cards? >> Not for this. >> Okay. [clears throat] Uh Dr. Glass, you're still right. We still need to do A and B separate, but we don't need a presentation on B. We can move. We can make a motion. >> That's right. So, you called for 9A. You have had really had the presentation on both. They're the same. So, I think you can call for you're ready for a vote on 9A. >> Okay. Well, before that, I want to see if there's excuse me. >> After public comment, we have board discussion. So, is there any further discussion by the board? Motion first. We do the motion first. You're right. Thank you.
263It's late. I'm tired. Go ahead. I need a motion to approve. >> Approve 9A and get the poll rolling. So, >> thank you. >> Okay. Now, any discussion, [laughter] a little tired, can't lie. >> Um, I would just like to say something really quickly. So, to say the least, this is a matter of great importance to the students. Um, I can't tell you how many times I've had the same conversation with students who have so much love and enthusiasm for their sport. And you can tell just by looking around the room how much they care. Our meeting opened with a comment from a fifth grade water polo player, which takes immense bravery, as do all of the amazing comments made by students tonight. As such, I'm grateful that their passion and courage are to be
264recognized through this pool. And I'd like to end this by thanking all of the students in the audience for choosing to be here at 10 p.m. on a Thursday night, ensuring that their voices are heard and that their needs are met. Thank you guys. I I want to thank all the students who came here uh as well. It makes our job certainly a lot easier when we don't have to represent the students voices because they're here themselves. So, it's always great to see some familiar faces and some faces from students who aren't typically at board meetings. Uh and Ivy and I are very appreciative of that. Okay, we have a motion and a second. Is there any board discussion? No, I just have one comment that I'd like to make and I and I I
265think on behalf of this board, um, one, I want to thank all of the um advocacy that this community has has given for this project. Um, it has been very controversial. Um to those that struggle that struggled in the beginning, I think I'd like to extend an apology for how this project started because this is a project that should be um you that should unite us that we should celebrate that we should um come together for and instead the way that it started it divided us and that is not what this community is about. I've lived here 34 years. We come together whenever we need to and we make it work. And so I hope that by these actions that we have continued to show which is that this project is on time that we
266are just doing our job of making sure that we are asking the right questions that we are making sure that we have answers because I don't know a lot of projects that would start saying you know we'll figure out where the money comes. We're just going to go for it. There's not a project that would do that. They usually have to know what they're doing. And as we sit here today, it's clear that there was monies offered that were not right to offer. So I'm grateful that we have had the fidiciary responsibility to be able to secure the funds to build this pool. I'm confident that we can find the rest of the funds that we need. And I love the idea of opening the coffers in the community and seeing who else would like
267to contribute. Maybe we can give them a plaque. Um, I think that uh this pool unfortunately has been leveraged as a weapon against this community to divide our community. I've seen it in this in for a long time in how things were approached. And I hope that this brings people together and we can stop some of the infighting and start celebrating how collectively of all that we're doing that is so good. And to Stacy's point, the whole reason I'm that I in went on this journey, it certainly wasn't to sit here for the public abuse. It was because I wanted to see our schools return to the public the private school setting in a public school environment which we did have >> and we need to return that. So, thank you. >> Thank you. I
268have the floor. >> So, uh we need to call we have no fur is there any further discussion? >> Yeah. Yeah, I um just wanted to say that uh I think that it's significant to note that um the project is has never been delayed. Um and it's uh it was a painful process. I don't think you owe anybody any apologies at all. Um, so, um, I I will say this, um, you were trying to ask the questions that needed to be answered in order for the project to go forward and, um, and that was treated as if you were trying to delay it. And that's that was just not the case. And, um, the fact is we were being asked to approve. It actually had already been approved. We were asking we we were been
269asking to move it forward when the design wasn't final and when the funding wasn't final. And the fact of the matter is we do not know exactly how we're going to pay for this. But we have to go forward and we should go forward because if we delay it's just going to cost more. And so it actually is a um inconvenient truth that we don't know exactly how we're going to pay for it, but this district does have the ways and the means to pay for this project. And we will pay for it and we will get it done and it will be a beautiful pool. And one of the things that's going to be best about it is that um because of you and and others in the community uh Sherry um we improved
270significantly on the plan and um an important thing for people to remember about Laguna Beach High School is that it is a neighborhood school that serves the whole community and the neighborhood was not happy with the plan and because of the fact that the right questions were being asked um the there were changes made to the plan that uh involve mitigation of light and sound and use um and the impact of that on the neighborhood. So the the the process was never delayed, but once we were able to ask the right questions, we were able to then go to the community and Ryan and the sensible Lagona guys and the staff, everybody worked together and we did something good for the neighborhood. And uh so I think that it's a success story and if people
271um uh uh if people um do and should come together and recognize that it was painful but it is a success story. >> Thank you, Howard. Um okay, let's move to a vote. Uh student board members, >> I think this is pretty self-explanatory. We're both going to say I. >> Yes. >> All right. All those in favor of approving item 9A, approval to award contracts for the Laguna Beach High School Pool Modernization Project in the amount of 18,813,222, please say I. >> I. >> Okay. All right. Moving on to 9B. I will let you. Okay. Item 9B, uh, approval to award contracts for construction. uh approval to award contracts for construction services to modernize the Laguna Beach High School and community pool in an amount not to exceed $2,176,35. Is there any further information that
272we need on this um manage? Okay. Are there any further questions? Are there any more comments? Okay. Um, [groaning] all right, then. Let's call for the vote or Yeah, I need a motion. Thank you. >> Second. >> Thank you. What time is it? 10 o'clock. Uh, okay. So, we have a second. Um, all those in favor, student board members. >> I thank you, Logan. >> Oh, yeah. Usually it was just one of us who votes. >> Yeah, I know. And we're going to, you know, each >> Yes. >> Okay. All right. Okay. board. All those in favor, please say, "I." >> I. Okay. All right. Moving on to item C. Approval of exploring the feasibility of a bond measure utilizing True North research, True North, to design and conduct a public opinion survey of voters
273in the district. I'll wait for a second. Do we need a moment? Should we take a moment? >> Let's Okay, let's recess for five minutes. Okay, I'm calling this meeting back to order at 10:109. 10:09 and we're starting with item 9C. >> Can we get a motion to extend the meeting, please? >> Yes. I need a motion to extend the meeting. >> I need a second. >> Second. >> All in favor? >> I. Thank you. Okay, we're moving on to item C. approval of exploring the feasibility of a bond measure utilizing true north research true north to design and conduct a public opinion survey of voters in the district man. >> Thank you uh board president um members of the board. So, so this evening you have an agenda item in front of you for
274the first step in figuring out the physibility of a bond. Um, and not only the physibility for a bond, but what are the priorities for the district, for the community. So, True North is a company that uh exclusively does this kind of work and this kind of work only. Uh True North is based out of Southern California. I mean if you kind of poll the school district around uh in Southern California, 90% of the districts in Southern California has utilized this particular company. Uh the question that comes up is why True North as opposed to the other districts. We looked at when we kind of evaluated um as to who would be the best company to uh do this kind of work. We wanted a expert who is not only familiar with the Southern California
275market but also school districts and have a good track record success rate. True North is basically it's a twoperson company. both are the founders of the company and they are the ones that actually do the work. So Dr. McCley and Richard uh are the two co-founders of this company back in 2002 and they have worked ex exclusively more than 500 school districts in California itself. Um there are companies other companies that do this kind of work but also does related work with respect to the fiscal advisor um campaign and strategically we want to keep those at arms length relationship. So uh particular case in study where true north came and told the board in a particular school district um although you are thinking of issuing a bond don't issue the bond. So they are honest
276in their opinion they will say we advise you based on the community feedback not to uh plan a bond election at least for this year. So they are very honest because they don't have any um relation to work related to uh campaigning or fiscal advisor. So strategically we want to keep those two uh consulting different. So you have tonight a recommendation for an independent physibility study consultant and a recommendation for a bond fiscal advisor. Two separate companies. Um I personally for all disclosure purpose have not worked directly with True North but I have worked with several references for CBOS that have utilized True North and all of them said uh hire them without blinking an eyelid. So that's my pitch for True North. um and why we recommended True North as the bond physibility study
277consultant. >> Thank you. So, as the I think Howard said we're having a hard time finding the information. Can I pause for just a moment? Just for explanation, we're using a new agenda process. And so our agenda has a lot of information on the front and background and everything else, but then there's a whole another section in the back with information. And this is a completely different process than what we've done before. Usually it's all-encompassing. If you have one, all the information is behind it. If you have two, the information is behind it. But now it's in two different places. So, it does get a little um it'll take some getting used to, but we'll get it. You good? >> Making progress. >> Okay. We're all work in progress. So, that's good. Okay. Is there
278any other information on this pre item that's being presented that we need to um that I need to allow you to continue with or was that [clears throat] >> No, at the special session in December, we went into some detail on the uh use of a polling firm to evaluate the community's uh interest in uh a bond issue and to identify priorities that the community would have uh if the district moved forward with a bond program. what what areas should be prioritized in the uh potential construction um uh program and the elements such as the tax sensitivity in the community uh what at what level um is the community supportive or becomes not supportive of uh continuing with a bond program. So this is just bring forward um the contract to bring on that polling
279firm to do that work. >> Okay. Okay. Thank you. Uh board members, are there any questions? >> I have just two questions. Um one, so I kind of missed a little bit of what you said. Um have you worked with them before in one of your other districts? >> Personally, I have not worked with True North before. uh because in the district where we issued the bond uh there were some instances where we did not have a polling in place uh based on the decision made by the board and then in other instances there were firms that were that had done some prior work with other bond issuance so we continued with the same firm. >> Okay. Thank you. And my other question is, so as far as steps, the first step would be to
280hire them and depending on what they found out. If they decided that it would be a good idea that we could go ahead with a bond, then we would hire um this second group, the the bond advisors. I mean we wouldn't we wouldn't be hiring a bond advisor before we do the preliminary work and see if a bond is feasible would we? >> No actually the bond advisor works on different scope project as compared to the uh polling consultant. The polling consultant will first have a discussion with the board to find out their priorities. They will then construct what they call the survey that they will go out with uh to the community. They kind of does the do the demographic analysis, find out who the constituents are. They will um not only discuss with
281the board but several other constituents to figure out what the priority and the needs of the school community are including students, staff, parents and non um parents who do not have association with the district because they will be the taxpayers. Then they will come back and discuss with the board and then they will refine the question and this process goes on for some time. While this is happening the bond consultant uh or the fiscal advisor is trying to figure out the sensitivity of what Dr. Glass mentioned the sensitivity of the poleing uh folks with respect to the tax rates. Remember, we have an existing tax rates of about $8.85 per thousand assessed value. They figure out um what is it going to bring uh from the revenue side of a bond if we keep the
282same tax rate or if we kind of change the tax rate. So that goes on simultaneously along with the polling agent. So these are two different functions that uh will happen simultaneously. If the polling comes back and says hey um the school board we are comfortable in recommending that if you keep the same tax rate u you have a good chance of passing the bond at a rate of 70% or 80%. Remember the threshold is 55% of the voters need to pass uh of the voters need to approve the bond and the consultant will tell you a a span that if you keep the same tax rate the chances are that your passage rate will be 70 to 80% or 70 to 75%. If you increase the tax rate by another one or two dollars
283per 100,000 assessed value, your passage rate drops to 65 to 70%. So at that point of time, the board has to decide whether they want to keep the same tax rate or increase the tax rate marginally or it they can come and say you do not have a good chance of passing the bond at this present circumstance. So the board will have to decide whether still go against the recommendation and pass put it on the ballot. Once the board puts it on the ballot then there are other consultants that come in if necessary we need a campaign consultant if you need to campaign for the bond. So those kind of consultants come in but uh those three independent consultants you have 9 C 9D and 9E um those will act will start simultaneous work much
284less work for the B bond advisor at this point of time between now and the time the board puts it on the ballot but they will have some time and hour billing for the 9D which is the bond adviser, their main work will start if the board puts it on the ballot, >> but it's important to hire them now. >> That's right. >> Okay. >> Because that work will be only scope for the work that will be done before the board puts or approves the ballot measure and that's on a time and material basis. If the board approves the bond to be put on the ballot measure, the fiscal advisor work will increase and it it's on a fixed contract and that's what you have on the agenda. But before that, there'll be some work
285that we need to work with the fiscal advisor >> and it um but it's it's more than you would do. >> Yes. >> You you couldn't just multiply out the Okay. No, there are different options. And Dr. Glass, I think wants, >> if I might, um, uh, Clerk Perry, um, I think you're asking, is it necessary, uh, when we're bringing on the polling company, do you also need to hire the bond council and the fiduciary manager all at the same time? Yes. Um, so, uh, Mr. Roy Chattery has bundled them together here, so you've got all three available. um we would only uh be um in invoiced by and pay the firms as we need them. Uh so we're not entering into a contract where we're just writing checks to them for not doing anything.
286Um the first step as you've rightly pointed out is the polling and you get information back on that and then you engage your fiduciary manager and your bond council as the district starts considering what the bond question looks like, how to structure the bonds, what that might look like. Uh, one uh u clarification I might make is that uh once the district if the district makes a decision to be on the ballot and that's an if the district makes a decision to be on the ballot uh at that point we would not be doing any campaigning. So there is no campaign consultant that the district hires or brings on. That's not our role. The community will run a campaign or not. Um but uh it's it is our it is our responsibility to uh put
287forth a proposal that is the right fit for the community. We do that through our facilities master planning project. We do it through the polling to determine what the priorities on the community. That's due diligence on our part to make sure that whatever we put forward is the is tailored to fit what is right for Laguna Beach. But um most directly to your question, uh I don't think it's necessary that you bring on all three of these at once. If you wanted to delay the other two, unless um Mr. Roy Chattery corrects me if I'm wrong, uh you could delay, but he's recommending and and we're recommending that we go ahead and line them up so that if you get um positive affirmation from the polling, you're already ready to go on the next steps.
288>> Okay. And the same for the attorney also >> on council. >> So just just to reiterate, Dr. Glass is absolutely right. There are some questions when the polling company frames needs to be approved or uh I would say uh by the bond consultant but the bond advisor so that it's the right language and also the bond council. We don't want to ask something that's not legal from the coun from a counseling point of view so that it does not geopodize when we if the board if the board puts it on the ballot. So there'll be some time and material that the polling consultant will need both from the bond advisor and as well as from the bond council. So that's why I recommend that we approve the three. The first the second two are
289on a time and material basis only if needed by the polling consultant. >> Uh the the bond council element I think is uh uh important that you bring on. Now we are recommending that all three are done tonight. Um, if you wanted to delay on the municipal advisor, that makes the most sense if if you wanted to do that. But the bond council is something that uh I would strongly recommend we act on now because immediately once we undertake uh this work of of trying to determine are we going to be on the ballot or not. It starts to generate questions around what's appropriate for board members to say and do, what's appropriate for staff members to say and do, what's appropriate for any committees that we create or feedback that we get. We have
290to be careful because we're a public entity and public employees not to be engaged in a campaign either now or or once the um the decision to be on the ballot happens. So bond council helps keeps helps advise us and keep us from doing something that it would be problematic later. >> Thank you very much. >> Member Maltesky. >> I have no questions right now. >> Okay. Thank you. Member Kelly, students, member Hills. >> Yeah. Okay. Um I may end up being the biggest booster for this bond in in town. Um uh so my comments and questions are should not be viewed as indicating you know whether I support or don't support or anything but I have some issues I want to discuss. >> One is you know I was reading this uh questions. Yeah.
291Yeah. Okay. Uh I I meant to ask about >> um so I was reading this uh background and it says the background page and that's the one I was having a hard time finding. As our facilities age, the district is reaching a point where necessary improvements will require funding beyond what current resources can provide. So that's essentially a statement that we can't live within our means. That's basically saying that somebody has made a determination that we have to have this bond or we can't uh we can't operate our school district. Um and this is the kind of thing that um concerns me. Um and I guess what I want to ask you is how do we and I may want to comment on this later. How do we maintain neutrality on the subject of the
292bond and whether it should be passed or not? Whe whether it should be first of all proposed and if proposed whether or not it should be passed or not. Um how do we maintain neutrality um uh during this initial phase of moving forward? And then second question is this. If the way this works is that they go out and do polling and they find out what the community likes or doesn't like or what the community could tolerate or couldn't tolerate and then we change our Are you saying that we then change our facilities master plan so that we're tailoring um what we're going to do if we get the bond um in order to get people to vote for it? Is that what basically a description of what we're doing? >> You ask two important
293questions. Um the first is around um given the facilities master plan that we have right now and as that goes further, you're going to have more things that are added to that facilities master plan. Um, are we going to be able to to keep up with it and maintain uh with a district with the the resources and and future additional um assuming that the tax increases are stable in what the district has experienced, we may be able to continue on without significant disruptions. But at some point, yes, uh that the statement that you read, I would say there's uh there's some objective truth to that. At some point you do reach a level where your facilities are so old and outdated that it does require some external uh infusion of dollars from some source in
294order to to update them. I've been in probably a thousand school buildings uh and you see the effect of communities that don't invest in their schools. they end up with 80, 100 year old buildings uh that are not responsible to have or they're they're not conducive to modern learning environments. In some cases, they're not safe or they're not efficient. And if um if we were to continue forward in perpetuity without uh having the community address the facility's master plan, that's the path that you would be on. So, I think we could argue and debate around, you know, is that statement uh true today? It may not be, but at some point in the future, it is going to be. Uh we already have a facilities master plan with $60 million worth of projects that we
295would recommend that we do. Now, um so we've identified that already. The second question that you raise is is one around um is it proper or appropriate that the district go out and seek feedback from the community that eventually might be used in crafting a bond question. I would say yes is the answer to that because the construction of the facilities master plan what order you do things is not just a list of what's wearing out what needs to be replaced and in what order. It's also a question around what are the comm what does the community value. You had a conversation tonight around this pool um where clearly the community over the past few years has said we value this pool. We think it's important and we need you to prioritize it board. Uh
296we could have prioritized any number of other things uh with the funds that we've u designated for this pool tonight, but the community values came out strongly and said we need you to we need you to focus on this. That's akin to the same process you'd be going through in polling. And polling is one part of it, but it's all sort of outreach um focus group conversations, uh visits with Rotary. Every opportunity we get, we will be going out into the community and having conversations around what are the things that the community values. Uh so uh more so than u electioneering uh it's determining what what are the values of the community and then making sure that we put forth something that is in in alignment with that which I think is due diligence on
297the part of the school district. >> Well um thanks I I'm going to save comments for later but thanks for the that response. >> Uh is it me? I think it's me. So I just had a couple quick questions. Um for clarification um what is a I don't know man um Mr. for voter showering rotor chairing trying um okay man uh is there I think I don't know if you said it earlier or not but is there a difference in the percentage that is needed to pass a bond if we're extending the bond versus if we in initiate a new p a new dollar amount >> no the percentage requirement remains 55% >> okay >> for a general obligation bond for school district >> thank you and then Um, one of the things that I
298had talked about wanting to start before long before we talked about the bond was setting up a fund a line item in our budget, a fund that would be like joint use where the library, for example, the city's looking to rebuild the library. And um either they build they just do a cosmetic fix on it or they completely rebuild it. But to completely rebuild it, they need support. I'm hearing that the city is h is struggling with finding funds to do some of these projects because they've taken on so many big projects. Is have we circled back to find out if the city is going to be pursuing a bond? >> I have had um very preliminary conversations with Dave Kif around the needs of the library. Um they did not result in anything formal
299around what dollar amount they needed or what that would look like. Sure. >> Um our primary concern is going to be uh spaces, learning instructional spaces or activity spaces for students. >> Right. That was going to have something in there I think was the grants. >> If there's some question around some joint or shared use um that that needs to be the the lens that we see it see it through. >> So can a bond if we were to have if so it has to be project specific, right? So we would have to say expanding the thirsten library. We I mean that those are things that depending on what the community comes back with what their priority. Can the can a bond be structured that comes back because the community has said they want to
300see a partnership with the city, the district and the city on facilities that students will benefit from like the library with a teen study room. I mean a lot of students go to Newport to study in their library but nobody goes to our library. Um, we have a new rec center that our students could benefit by having more access to with different things like um, you know, rock climbing wall, another pool, a skit, you know, uh, they're talking about a pump, I mean, different things that the city is looking to fund if it benefits our students. Is that something that we could look at and is that something that a bond could be used for? Because I know it can only be facilities, but does it have to be just our facilities or can it
301be a something like that? It's a good question for bond council to determine what are the ways that that could be structured. Um the first way I I would advise the board to consider that is that the school district's funds need to be for the school district's needs and the city's funds need to be for the city's needs. >> We're always open to and should be open to partnering and doing things together. Well, I think there's an ed code on joint use and encouraging a city a school district to use to to support the community's uh needs, the facilities that the students could benefit from. >> The the pool that we're replacing is a great example of a of a partnership like that. Um so um I I think we I will defer and say
302that we should bring on bond counsel and answer that kind of question about how it should be struct structured. Also the the polling question um you need to know is the community supportive of of something like that. That's that's an important element um of it as well. Uh and uh if so uh within or outside of a bond there are all sorts of ways that you can structure how that might work. Um, for example, I if the community were to if the board were to put a bond question on and it were to pass and you generated X dollars, let's say it's $70 million um over the course of construction that will take sever several years. You've seen in the previous presentation related to the pool, there are um capital and facilities transfers that you
303would use in that in that process. So those funds are are not restricted the way that a bond fund would be. Um so you you can um you can be creative in the way that you use other um dollars that aren't bond related. But I I I think we really need to have information from bond counsel on exactly how we would structure that legally. Make sure that that's proper and make sure that if we did anything along those lines that it would be something that ultimately the community is supportive of. Mano, anything that you would add? >> Okay. Thank you. >> Thank you very much. I appreciate that. Okay. Do we have any comment cards on this item? >> Um, yes, Michelle Manda. >> I have one comment and one question actually, some clarification. My
304comment is that um pretty darn sure the city is going to be looking at a bond a ballot initiative to raise money. So, I really would suggest you keep that in mind what the the bigger picture here fiscally in town is when you go to ask the um voters for more money, especially in light of what you just did with the pool and how that all the money that you had, you're spending on that and you don't even really know where the rest of it is coming from. I don't personally think that this environment is a good one for you to come with your hat in hand and say we need more money right now. That's my comment. But my clarification, my question is I'm unclear. I thought there is already a bond that we
305have out and it is retiring. It is we are retiring it. Is there I thought there was maybe some talk about extending that and if there is some talk of extending that I understand now it's 55% to pass an extension on a bond that already exists versus 55% on a new bond. So would you then be doing an extension on this bond that we is now expiring or do another totally new bond? I'm sorry, Madam Chair. We don't respond to public comment questions. >> Thank you. >> We'll bring that up in discussion. Thank you. Uh, next speaker. Do we have another one? >> Um, no. >> Okay. All right. [snorts] Uh, then let's move to discussion on the or we need a motion. Um, where are we at? Uh, we need a motion. What? to
306explore the feasibility of a bond measure utilizing true north research to design and conduct a public opinion survey of voters in the district. I need a >> move second. >> Okay. Uh any further discussion? Okay. So, can we clarify on the extension of a bond versus and that's I think what I had asked earlier is the extension of a bond and versus a new bond. Um it is accurate that we have a bond that was passed in 2001 that is expiring um keeping the tax level at the same rate. You could go back to the voters at that same level um and and renew that and it would generate somewhere in the neighborhood of $70 million. Mano presented on that uh at at our special session uh in December. So he he has the exact
307numbers but effectively the opportunity that the school district has is that you can without raising anyone's taxes uh generate that sum of money. Now it is true that if you let it expire people would experience a mild decrease in taxes. So that is important that we say that and and that if we move forward we're clear about what the tax impact is. But to clarify the percentage needed to pass is the same. >> So if I can add on to what Dr. Glass said and if I understand the question, extension of the bond, extension of the tax rate of the bond has to be approved by the voters. Right? So the bond that was passed in 2001 expires in 2028. It's not an automatic extension that the district can say we are going to extend
308the bond. The extension of the tax rate has to be approved by the voters and that will be through this bond measure, the new bond measure if the district board elects to put it on the bond ballot. >> So, it's not an automatic extension. I I understand that the voters have to pass an extension, but I'm asking is it the same percentage 55% whether it's a new bond or an extension of the old bond? >> It's considered as a new bond because technically we are saying extension but there is no bond technic measure. I mean there is no technical terms that we are extending the bond measure. It's a new bond from tax purpose for all sense and purpose. >> The the and the fin the fiduciary manager the financial manager will help explain all
309this but um uh at a very high level um you go to the to the voters uh you ask for a tax increase over a period of 25 years. you then go to the bond market and you sell bonds to generate the money immediately and then over the 25 years you pay off all of the people that that um bought the bonds. So we'll have an opportunity if you live here in Laguna or anywhere in the country, people will buy Lagona Beach Unified School District bonds just like you would on the municipal bond market. Um so what um uh Mr. Roy Chowdery is is saying is that once that authorization ends after 25 years that that process is over and you'd be restarting it. But with the uh why we're why we often talk about
310it in the context of renewing is that for the same tax impact that was created in 2001 that now generates far more money than it did in 2001. The same percentage increase. >> It's discussing it with leading uh it was kind of a question. Yeah, it's kind of a discussion. >> Yeah, I have a question. >> Well, we've already made a motion. We're just discussing prior to approval of the um bond the feasibility of the bond measure. You could your questions fall under item D for feasibility of a bond measure to assist the bond advisor? >> No, I wanted to I may want to propose an amendment to the motion. So, I ask question on C >> on this what we're >> Okay. All right. Go ahead. >> Um Okay. So, what we're really saying
311is that [snorts] we really shouldn't be talking about extension of a bond of the existing bond. What we're talking about is a new bond, but issuing the bond at a tax rate that is the same as the old bond. So one question is when you issue when you when you um propose a bond to the voters um can you decide what level of tax rate that you want? You can make it higher or lower. Yeah. So then we would be deciding to stick with the one we've got. And the the idea would be to be saying to the voter um uh this just continues your current tax situation. And so there's no tax savings from the the bond ending uh but there's also no tax increase. >> Right. >> That's that is a precisely and
312that is something that your uh polling firm will uh poll on those questions. Those are the tax sensitivity questions. So you need to know um at at what point um it it could be that the community is has become very tax averse compared to where it was in 2001. Uh and they're they don't have an appetite for continuing at the level we're at. In which case they'll the pollster will ask well what about half of it and what about a third of it. or it may be that uh you get the same strong numbers that they had in 2001 and so they'll ask further and so part of the pollster will help the board make a decision on what's the right tax level um that that is uh the voters are supportive of. So, um,
313when we say here in this background paper, um, as [snorts] our facilities age, the district is reaching a point where necessary improvements will require funding that, um, beyond what current resources can provide. Um so um when we have that as part of our record here and then we approve this um [snorts] you know it it raises the question of which says as our facilities age the district is reaching a point um uh you know and the district I mean it really requires an act of the board to determine that the district does not have enough money or will not have enough money. And um and that puts a um uh that creates a to me that creates a issue of what's on the record that colors um the meaning and and significance of uh approving
314these um these proposals um particularly starting with C. Um, so what I would want to do is propose uh an amendment to the motion that um the motion would include a statement that approval [snorts] of these I guess it's three proposals. Approval or we're talking about one right now. Approval um does not constitute an act of the board. um determining whether or not to proceed with the bond because um I think we have to preserve our neutrality. And frankly, let's say that I'm the let's say I'm the person that most wants this bond to get passed. I would make that recommendation because I don't think I think we I think the environment that we're in right now, but regardless of the environment we're in right now, I think it's really important that the board and
315the district, as referred to here, maintain its neutrality at this point. We don't know yet what the feasibility study is going to say. We don't know yet what the polls are going to say. We don't know yet what what we would have to change in terms of our facilities master plan. I just think we need to confirm that approval of this item does not constitute an act of the board determining whether or not to proceed with a bond. >> Thank you. Um the background information is the professional recommendation of staff thereby it's my professional recommendation of why information that the board needs to make a decision on this. as a trustee or any of you, you're free to disagree or agree with anything that we put in any presentation. What um where the board makes
316a statement is where you vote is three of you [snorts] vote together on a motion. Uh so it's irrespective of what was in the background document or not, the board's the board's position officially is is in the motion that you make. The motion that you have here is to bring on a polling firm. it if you wish to have sort of belt and suspenders approach to say we're not making a decision around uh being on the ballot or not in the future I suppose you could but um uh Trusty Hills in my professional opinion it's not necessary because your motion doesn't do that >> well um first of all you know you said that this represents what the staff is proposing what you and the staff are proposing and um Uh this is a discussion
317really in the voice of the district and um the um so you know um [snorts] uh we don't want to be saying that the district has made any kind of a determination about whether or not we can um we can um operate our schools without a bond. And so, um, I'll repeat, um, I would amend I I I move that we amend the motion [snorts] to state that, um, this action, this does not constitute an act of the board determining, um, whether it it will or will not issue the bond. So, if nobody wants to second it, then that's the end of that discussion. on the floor. >> This is that's which is why we're in discussion. >> Well, [snorts] I'm not sure that Do you second it? >> Exactly. Second it. >> Um >>
318Oh, my >> Sorry. >> It won't hurt my feelings if you don't second it, but >> No, no, no. I I I had a question about it. Um, could we could we put forward a motion to um pass to have the the the north true north selected without saying just saying that um we want to explore the feasibility of the bond as a crucial step toward maintaining highquality educational programs and ensuring the effective learning environments for our students and leave out that we need necessary improvements and we don't have the resources. >> I'd like to call on member Malchesky. She's got a comment she'd like to add. >> I'm somewhat confused about the conversation because the title to this is to explore the feasibility of a bond measure. So, I'm not sure why we're even
319having this conversation. The motion is to approve True North Research to explore the feasibility of a bond measure. It's not saying the board supports it. It's saying that we're looking for someone to explore for us whether this is feasible. So, by definition, we're not approving the bond measure. We're seeking research on it. So, I I'm >> But the back the background is saying that we need it. >> I know. But that's what we're but that's but the the title in the motion is to explore the feasibility of it, which means we're not approving the bond measure. We're trying to find out information to see whether a bond would be feasible, >> but we're feeling that there's false information given here that our our facilities are we work really hard to keep our facilities in good
320shape. And I think this is not uh accurate to say that they we can't provide for our facilities. >> Okay, hang on. Um uh Dr. Glass, >> thank you. Uh so I'll just back up and um walk through from a governance perspective what I would recommend. Um there's clearly disagreement with the language that I have super I as superintendent with staff have put before you as the background information. I have you've given me the authority to provide you background information. You don't you don't decide um ahead of time what um uh here at the table what I bring forward. You can decide going forward if you like it or not. You can argue about it. You can disagree with me. Um, but what my putting it in there and our staff putting it in there,
321that's our job. It's our job to to the best of our ability advise you and give you the information that you need. But you're free to disagree with that. Um, so I I would say that it's not really the board's role to go in and go through everything that we put forward and say, uh, do we think this is um, valid or not? other than to the extent that it informs your decision. Um, with that said, from a process standpoint, you've got a motion, you've had a request around a submotion. The submotion needs a second to determine if it's debated or not. That's the that's the place that you're at. >> Hang on. So, because we're in discussion on the first motion, there's been a suggestion of a submotion, but it hasn't been made. Correct.
322You just suggested it. So, [clears throat] so right now we're still Hang on. >> Okay. >> Um, because I wanted to take a step back for a second because I think I I think the concern is that just a couple of months ago, we were celebrating the hard work that one of our staff has done in Ryan in Ryan Zeta in maintaining our facilities that they're in excellent shape. um we've done a great job reserving money for that and we're in and and and and he's doing a great job and I think the if I may I think the concern is that by shifting the dialogue to our facilities are in bad shape there's excuse me there's um a we're now sending a different message out into the community of which we just got done
323celebrating how great we were doing maintaining our facilities Is that am I accurate in in the concern to some degree? >> Yeah, to some degree, but I would like to >> I would like to I would like to be recognized to explain my motion. >> Okay. Member Hills. >> Um first of all, I Mr. Superintendent, I appreciate your um your comments, but the the situation is is that I don't agree with um the fundamental analysis that this is just what the staff wants to say uh and and in and you know giving background to the board um and that um the board should not be second-guessing or questioning what the staff chose to put in here because it's not really speaking for the staff. It's speaking for the district. And this the staff is not
324the district. And um when the when you say that something about the district, when when you're speaking in the voice of the district, there has to be an act of the board that makes that statement um authoritative. Um so the correct way to have done this is to say um the staff believes the district is reaching you know that would then fall into the category of a staff um of of a staff um statement. The way this appears is it's basically speaking for the district and saying that the district has determined that um we don't have enough money. And I don't think that's a good message to voters. I think I think that will there there will be people who will say wait a minute this is one of the smallest and richest districts in
325the state and they're telling us that there's no way they can live within their means and I think that we could lose votes if if we wanted to pass the bond I think that would be counterproductive but more particularly um more particularly um if we we're now [clears throat] going to have to go and pass these other three things and the same issue arises um that um you know we end up having to um clarify whether or not um we've made a determination uh about issuing the bond. >> Howard, I'm gonna we have a point of information. So I'm going to let me Kelly interrupt. >> The reason that our facilities are in such good shape because we have the bond that's been going on since 2001. The monies come out >> speaking to your
326speaker. the monies that have come from that bond is what we have used to do those at least the 11 upgrades during my time on the board. That's the reason why. And and so once that bond ends, we're not going to have the money to to work on the new master plan for the upgrades. But the reason we're in such good shape is the bond. And the bond we we've been sucking off the money as far as for these projects over since 2001. and and we need to continue that as far as it's like having a home. You have to upgrade things for >> the bond. That's irrelevant to the motion. The motion is based on the fact that this this is stating that the district has made a determination that we don't have enough
327money. >> Okay. >> And I don't think the district has made that determination. I think there would have to be an act of the board making that determination. If if >> it would be fine if it said the staff's view is that the district is reaching a point where but the fact of the matter is this creates a record that is relevant to um what the action that we're taking and this is the official record of this of of this of this act of this item on the agenda. And if we act on the agenda, this record becomes part of the record of the agenda. And um I think that um uh we we should make it clear that um well first of all I don't think this should be in here but since it
328is we should make it clear that this doesn't this motion doing this feasibility study does not represent a decision um that you know a bond will be proposed because it doesn't. It's as as as um member Moesky said this is just a feasibility study. This isn't a decision. >> Yeah. Um, Trusty Hills, I I think I >> hire somebody [clears throat] to explore the feasibility of the bond measure. >> The motion is to do that in the context of a record that says that the district doesn't have enough money. >> That is not a neutral statement, >> but feasibility is feasibility. >> I think I think the concern is just the positioning of But I because I think the motion is just about issuing the FE is um the motion that was originally proposed here
329is to just allow that study. It's not but I think the concern is the language that's being used that already sets it up as though we're we have must have it and I think that's not being neutral. I think that's the so can we change >> arguing for the bond. This is taking a position in essence in favor of >> Okay. Uh Dr. Glass has the floor. Uh just from a uh again stepping back from a process standpoint, I'm going to um thank you for recognizing me. I'm going to respond to uh Trusty Hill's point because I think he's he still technically has the floor. Um and uh say that I think maybe to uh remedy the uh distress you feel about it, uh Trusty Hills, I would um perhaps a way to think about
330this is that this is what the language that's in the background information that you have outlined there is not authoritative. It represents the superintendent's recommendation and background information to the board. That is the extent of what it is. the board hasn't taken any action to um to make it official. Um >> that's exactly what my motion is to say what you just said. >> Thank you. And so um you don't have to go back and sort of um edit or cure the superintendent's background information in order for the board to make a decision going forward. Those those are that's not necessary to do that. if you wish uh um procedurally to amend the motion, which I think I think you are and that's that's where I think that we are. You've you've offered a subsidiary
331motion. You need a second now. And that's that's where the process is at this point. >> And the only thing I would say in response that that I I I think that we see things a little bit differently is that um this isn't just the superintendent's background information. This is in the voice of the district and the superintendent um is um the superintendent of the district but the superintendent is not the district and to to to speak in the voice of the district there has to be an act of the board that that um that is provides the basis for that and that's not you know that that's just um uh that's just I think a fact >> well I'm not sure that it is um because I do have a respons responsibility to prepare
332the background information for these board meetings and I'm authorized to speak on behalf of the district and so you have that >> you are authorized to speak on the on behalf of the district but correct when you do a statement has to be accurate and what this says is that the district has determined that there's not enough money and that's an argument in favor of the bond we can we can disagree with that >> yeah move to process >> we can disagree with that but I think go back to your process >> move the agenda >> yeah Okay. >> So, do we have So, the motion was as read off of the agenda. You would like to make a submotion or amend the motion. >> It needs a second, but I honestly do not remember
333what your f what your submotion was. Do we have a >> Okay, so what was the submotion? Because this is where we're at, right? We have a submotion. It needs a second. We were in discussion somehow. We got into discussion before we even had a second on that. So, >> so the sub motion was to add the sentence approval does not constitute an act of the board in determining whether or not to proceed with the with the bond. >> Right on. >> And that's just a sentence that you would like to add at the end of the first motion. >> So, you want to change the motion to say approval of exploring the feasibility of a bond measure utilizing true north research to design and conduct a public opinion survey of voters in the district
334does not constitute a >> Yeah, she had it. She read it. what she said >> and and it only needs to be done with respect to this item, not the other two. Okay? Because Joan is exactly correct that this is just about a feasibility study. I agree with Joan about that. But with respect to a feasibility study, I think that we need to make a clarification. >> So, do we have a second on that motion? >> I'll second it. >> Okay. So, [snorts] we need to we I don't think we need to discuss anymore. I think the I but I could be wrong. if anybody would like to continue to discuss. >> Um but I think then um Victoria, could you read the motion in its entirety? That is a submotion, which is what we
335need to approve or not approve first. If it does not pass, then we go back to the original motion. Right. Great. Okay. >> Motion to approve True North Research as p as public opinion survey consultant in preparing [snorts] and conducting a survey to determine the feasibility of a bond measure. Approval does not constitute an act of the board in determining whether or not to proceed with the bond. >> Okay. So, we need a vote. Let's start with the students. >> I for both of us. >> Yes. >> D. >> Yes. >> No. >> Okay. Um I vote I so four to one. Moving on. Item D. Approval of exploring the feasibility of a bond me. Here we go again. Approval of exploring the feasibility of a bond measure utilizing Fieldman Rolap and Associates to assist
336in the as municipal bond advisor. >> Okay. Any discussion? Any further discussion? This was one that was optional, but you're encouraging us to do all three at the same time. Okay. >> Hi E. Approval of agreement with Danis Wolver Kelly to provide legal services associated with cons with considering and calling a bond election in 2026. >> Is there any discussion? Because there was no questions. Yeah. Okay. All in favor? I >> I Okay, passes 5-0. Students >> I >> Okay. 5-0 with pro provisional I >> Okay. Item 10, action item, superintendent approval of the November 13, 2025 board minutes. Uh, Mr. Hills was unable to attend and shall abstain from voting on these minutes. Clerk Perry, were there any cards on any of those last items? I don't think there was, was there? >> Okay.
337So, are there any questions? So, are there any cards on the um approval of the minutes? >> No. >> Okay. Okay. May I have a motion to approve the November 13th board meeting minutes? >> Is there a second? >> Okay. Any any further discussion? No. Call for the vote. Student board members? >> I. >> All else in favor? I Okay. Item 11, approval of the consent calendar items B through M. Are there any board member questions on the consent calendar that do not require pulling the item or do any board members want to pull any item off of the consent calendar? Okay, seeing none, uh, may I have a motion? >> What? [laughter] >> Any further discussion? No. Uh, student board members are all in favor? >> I >> um board all in favor? >>
338I >> Okay. Item 12, public comment for items not on the agenda within the subject matter jurisdiction of the board. Clerk Perry, are there any speaker cards for this item? >> Oh, it worked. [gasps] [laughter] >> It's midnight. I'd like to leave. I got kids driving tomorrow. Okay. Uh so uh then the next item, the next regular meeting is Thursday, January 22nd. This is a recognition event and a regular board meeting as well as closed session. Correct. Okay. Uh okay. >> And open session. Okay. Can I have a motion to adjurnn the meeting? Move. >> All in favor?