001Everyone, the board of education reconvened into open session at 5:06 p.m. We are now going to do oath of office. Elected student board member Isabellia Isabellia Carbio will be sworn in by her mother, Mrs. Diana Carbio. Miss and Mrs. Carbio, please join us at the podium. Raise your right hand and repeat after me. I, Isabella Carbio, >> I, Isabella Carbio, >> do solemnly swear >> that I will support and defend >> the Constitution of the United States >> and the Constitution of California >> and the Constitution of the State of California >> against all enemies >> foreign and domestic >> that I will bear true faith and allegiance >> that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution ution >> to the Constitution >> of the United States >> and the Constitution of
002the State of California >> and the Constitution of the State of California. >> That I take this obligation freely >> without any mental reservation >> or purpose of evasion >> and that I will well and faithfully >> that and that I will well and faithfully >> discharge the duties upon which I am about to enter. discharge the duties upon which I am about to enter. Congratulations. [Applause] Next, we have elected student board member L. Huing, who will be sworn in by her advanced placement language teacher, Miss Caitlyn Alva. Miss Huing. Miss Alva, please join us at the podium. Raise your right hand and repeat after me. I, Elwing, >> I, L. Heing >> do solemnly swear >> that I will support and defend >> the Constitution of the United States >> and the Constitution of
003the State of California >> and the Constitution of the State of California >> against all enemies >> foreign and domestic. that I will bear true faith and allegiance >> that I will bear true faith and allegiance >> to the Constitution of the United States >> and the Constitution of the State of California >> and the Constitution of the State of California >> that I take this obligation freely >> without any mental reservation >> or purpose of evasion >> and that I will well and faithfully >> discharge the duties >> upon which I am about to enter. >> upon which I'm about to enter. >> Congratulations. >> We're going to take a brief recess so we can take some pictures. uh 5:09 p.m. The board of education reconvenant open session at 5:13 p.m. Now we're going
004to do a roll call. Miss Isabella, you're the first one up. >> I, Isabella Carvio, student board member, present. RHS Williams present. >> Cleveland Johnson present. >> Joanna Leila present. Brandy Clark present. Sammy Luna present. >> Alejandro Wava present. >> Espiranza Arce present. >> Robert Birdie present. >> Susanna Lopez present. >> All right. Item D3, report out of close session. The board of education met in close session to discuss board deliberations regarding student discipline cases, public employee employment appointment, public employee dis discipline dismissal release non-reelects, conference with legal counsel, existing litigation, conference with legal counsel, anticipated litigation and settlement of claims. The board gave further directions to district staff and took action on the following. On motion of Miss Clark and seconded by Mr. Johnson, the board took action to adopt the arbitrator's decision in
005its entirety and dismiss employee number by the following vote. This was approved by the board of education, five yes and zero no. A motion was made by Miss Clark and seconded by Mr. Williams and approved settlement claim number 615775. This was approved by the board of education by the following vote. Five yes and zero no. A motion was made by Miss Clark and seconded by Miss Leva and approved settlement claim number 615361. This was approved by the board of education by the following vote. Five yes and zero no. A motion was made by Mr. Johnson and seconded by Miss Clark and approved settlement claim number 642339. This was approved by the board of education by the following vote. Five yes and zero no. The following new employees were in were approved in close session. A
006motion was made by Miss Clark and seconded by Miss Leva and approve the new director 3 of enrichment and expanded learning Nicholas Sterns. Dr. [Applause] Thank you so much, President Luna and board members. And as you said, we are excited to welcome to our Marino Valley family as the new director three of enrichment and expanded learning, uh, Mr. Nicholas Sterns. He's going to be a wonderful addition to our team. He's got a a really huge breath of of knowledge and definitely a passion for this position. It's a new position in our district. It's a needed position in our district and we're excited to really see what he's going to do with it. So, with that, I'll turn it over to Mr. Sterns. >> All right. Well, good evening, governing board, superintendent Rubikava, and executive cabinet.
007It truly is an honor to have the opportunity to serve Marino Valley Unified School District uh within this new role. Uh this role really pursues things that I'm passionate about and that's finding connections for students within our intervention enrichment programs, our sports programs, and our VAPA programs. So I definitely look forward to working with Marino Valley community, the team, uh getting to know all the staff, all the students, and um our like I said, our community. And I just want to thank you again for this opportunity. [Applause] Mr. Cerns, it was a a pleasure to meet you and to get to know you a little bit. Um, but we we are so excited to have you with us. Um, it's an honor to have you here and uh we look forward to see what you
008do in your new role. Welcome to the family. >> Thank you, Mr. Sterns. You know, one of the things that really stood out was how you spoke about athletics and academics and your work ethic and how you connect with all students um and just meeting them where they are. You championed Marino Valley. There was great reasons why you chose to come to this district and we're very very proud and honored to have you. So, congratulations on your new role. >> Thank you, >> sir. It's a pleasure, Mr. Sterns to have you here and we're looking for great things for our students and tying all of the extracurricular and co-curricular activities together uh in moving our students forward in the 21st century. It's uh it's been something that's well overdue and uh you are the first
009person to sit in this seat so we expect great things from you. >> Awfully exciting. Thank you. Well, sir, I'm not going to put you under the gun like that. I'm just going to say uh we appreciate you and welcome welcome to Marina Valley Unified. Uh we know some great things going to be happening in the position that you're doing right now. And unlike my buddy right here, uh if you need some help, see him or see me before you go see the superintendent. You know what I mean? Because we'll help you out because we know that job in and out, don't we? But thank you, ma'am. And welcome on welcome on board. We we appreciate you very much. >> I appreciate it. Thank >> You see how friendly we are? >> Absolutely. I'm talking.
010All right. That's it. >> Well, welcome first of all. Um, one thing, you know, after being able to talk to you, something that that you know stay with me was like that you said every student has an opportunity sometimes, you know. you might um not be the best student but that doesn't mean you know you cannot have um a talent. So that's something that I like that you said because it's important that we know that that we support every student doesn't matter where they are. We need to meet them where they are and and help them you know be and show the talents that they that they have. So welcome. >> Absolutely. And thank you again Thank you so much, Mr. Cerns. >> Thank you. >> Uh, next, a motion was made by Miss Clark
011and seconded by Miss Leva, and we approve the new elementary principal of Butterfield Language Academy, Miss Brenda Nevis. It's always excited board members. I'm always excited to present an individual from our family who's promoting and taking that next step in their journey with us. And Miss Navvice has been serving as an assistant principal in our district for the past several years. And I know she has a passion for dual language immersion. She's going to do some great things at Butterfield. And with that, I'll turn it over to Miss Nevice. >> Thank you. >> Congratulations. >> Thank you. Thank you. Well, good afternoon board members, superintendent Dr. Rubakava, uh cabinet members and families. Um, I am honored and grateful for the opportunity to be the new principal of Butterfield Language Academy. And I want to sincerely
012thank you for the support and the confidence and with the support of my family that is here with me today. They're back there. And um some friends, my husband, my two kids, our two kids, my brother, my beautiful mom, and my sister-in-law. Um I am excited to take the responsibility and also fully committed to serve our students, our families, and our staff with integrity, but also with heart. And um I'm looking forward to working together with my new team, with my new family. Um just continue building that positive, safe and inclusive, thriving environment for all of us. And um also I want to say thank you for the um admin team that I was part of. um their mentorship, their advice, their friendship um have made me be a better person but also a better
013administrator. So I'm leaving one side and moving into another one as a better administrator. And if I can take one minute to say this in Spanish, I don't know if there are some families in, you know, Spanish speaking. Thank you. So superintendo. person [Music] inclusivo. [Music] Once again, thank you so much for this incredible opportunity. Miss Neves, thank you so much for continuing uh your career here with Marino Valley. We are so fortunate and honored to to be able to to keep someone such as yourself and and also to be able to watch you grow and see you promote and look forward to seeing what what you do. Thank you so much. >> Thank you, Miss Luna. >> Congratulations. Um, one of the things that stood out and that people championed you for was your
014creativity related to school culture and activities. And one thing that you said is that they can't learn if you don't have you can't connect with the students and you don't have heart. So, um, we are so lucky to keep you and see you in this new position because we know you'll do the best for the students in this district. So, thank you and congratulations. >> Thank you, Miss Clark. [Applause] Manita, >> gracias. >> Um, I'm very pleased that you are here with us, that you still, you know, choosing Marina Valley Unified School District as, you know, a place to work. Um, something, you know, Miss Clark said it too, but something that I like that you said in when we were talking upstairs, it's like in order for the students to learn, you need to
015win their hearts. Um I really take it you know to heart you know that it is important we cannot um do or fulfill our purpose if we don't see the the kids like that you know uh it doesn't matter their background you know or they um what they do or how they feel but you got to have that understanding that you got to win those hearts and and I feel that you're that type of person who will be doing that. Um, so thank you. Congratulations. >> Well, keep that smile. >> Keep that smile >> because when we were looking at your information, you know, it was an easy fit. Don't think I know it took us about 354 minutes to go over, but don't worry about that. >> You were easy fit. Uh, all joking
016aside, but congratulations. We we we welcome you and we're so happy to have you to join our team. And look, remember what you did tonight. So, when you go back out there, uh, look at that picture and then when you go out there, just be radiant with them. Let them see that other lady and uh, and I will tell you everything's going to be going to be fine for you because you already you already bought the four the four of us right here and I know you got my buddy. So again, thank you and welcome aboard. >> Thank you, Mr. Johnson. Absolutely. >> Welcome to Marino Valley. And I too was taken by your statement. You must catch their hearts because and build relationships >> because that that's really student engagement. We just say it
017that way, >> right? >> But really, we're capturing their hearts. >> So again, welcome to Marino Valley Unified. um and and the principle of of butterfield. Thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. Bailey. Appreciate >> you. Um I just want to piggyback right off of what a lot of them said about having heart and I feel like this is very important for bilingual speaking students. Um especially because I was one in elementary school as well. and um being able to make them feel comfortable in their ethnicity and their language is very important for communication and I really appreciate that. >> Thank you and congratulations. >> Congratulations. >> So, one of the things that we've been working on um over the last two years, we're going to continue to work on now is this idea of the
018sense of belonging. Mhm. >> Um, how do we communicate in actions, not just words, to our community, to our students, and to our families that they belong with us, that we want them, we need them, we love them. Both of you spoke about that. You and obviously Nick as well. Given the political climate that we're under right now, it's more important than ever that our community knows that we love them and that we care for them and they belong with us. So, you're going to be joining an already winning team. Butterfield has become a destination school as we know our district will become a destination district in the very near future. So, we know you were going to do a great job. And for Nick, uh I you ran away before I was able to
019catch the email where I wanted to capture the information correctly. So, we were notified yesterday that once again our district has been awarded a national recognition as being one of the best communities for music education by the NAM Foundation. which is a highly prestigious visual and performing arts organization. A lot of this work has to do with obviously Renee Roaneiro who oversees the program and our amazing educator supporters and obviously our talented students. Now, we expect and we know we're going to see that as well with our extended learning programs and with our athletic programs. So, welcome aboard and thank you again for joining our team. Thank you so much. Congratulations. >> Thank you. >> And one more uh report out of close session. A motion was made by Miss Clark and a second by
020Miss Leva and approved the new middle school principal of Mountain View Middle School, Patricia Shyel. Hope I said that right. >> She is traveling with family this this week, President Luna. But we know that uh Miss Sheeel is going to be an excellent excellent addition to the Mountain View team. They have a a history of great leadership there, great principles, and I think she's going to fit in and continue the good work and build upon that. >> Thank you, Dr. >> And we can have her come to a subsequent board meeting and and meet the board. >> Wonderful. Thank you so much. >> And President Luna, if I may. >> Yes. >> So, the board has not had the opportunity to meet in person one of our newest directors, our director of elementary education, who
021is smiling there. uh in the audience. So, Dr. Emily Price, if you want to come up. Um our board formerly appointed her at our last board meeting, but you were traveling too. Yes. >> And so, they saw you like on a screen like back in we were having flashbacks of 2021 and 2022, and that was not a good thing. >> So, we wanted to make sure that we give you an opportunity to meet you in person. I um this morning I was teasing her that I wonder if it feels like you're drinking from a fire hose and it probably does, right? Because there's a lot of information coming at you. but she still had that radiant smile which means we we absolutely made the wise choice. So, welcome. >> Thank you. Thank you so much.
022And thank you for the warm welcome uh board president Luna, members of the board, uh superintendent reala and cabinet. It's just such an honor and a privilege to be here in Marino Valley. And it truly has been remarkable even in the last 48 hours. I started yesterday and I've been able to get to almost all of the schools hosting summer school and I've been able to meet some of the incredibly dedicated staff, teachers, students and the math camps that are taking place and I'm just like this is amazing work and already no one has missed a beat in welcoming me from the very beginning um throughout the whole district office as well as the all the various school sites that I've been to and the extended staff members. It's truly a special place and as
023you shared uh Dr. Vilaba, it's the actions that matter and people truly act and walk the walk. They don't just talk the talk. They not only love what they do. Uh you can feel the love for the students, but you can feel the love for each other and the community that you've built so that we can be a team and that we do care about each other as people first so that we can be our best selves and best serve each and every one of our students because students truly deserve our community deserves the best from us and we need to be able to lean on each other. We need to be able to collaborate, support each other, pull on each other's strengths, and continue to do this great work because they need us. And
024it's urgent. And we need to make sure we lead with love. We leave with kindness, passion, and courage. And to give them that strength and that belief in themselves that they can make a difference, they will make a difference. And we will be there with them every step of the way all the way to the end and beyond. And I saw that even today in the graduation, the summer graduation and the shine. I mean, I'm so blessed and I'm so humbled and grateful to be part of this amazing team. And I'm looking forward to rolling up my sleeves, getting out there, and doing what I need to do to be able to keep this great work moving forward. So, thank you so much. And I truly appreciate everybody who's welcomed me here. I feel right
025at home, and I'm so grateful to be here. So, thank you. >> Thank you. Thank you so much. You're uh definitely a perfect fit for our MVUSD family. Um we could feel your energy, your positive energy, and your love through the screen, and that says a lot about your character. So, we're so happy to have you. Thank you so much for for being here and choosing us. >> Thank you. >> I remember meeting you via Zoom. Um amazing work. Your background stellar. I remember hearing a story, if I could just share just a little tiny bit, about you being at a conference and visiting Marino Valley at that conference. And for you to go to that conference and then choose us based on what we're doing here for kids based on your background was like
026a perfect combination. We're so humble. We're so grateful. We're glad that you led with love for this district and we will return that to you. So, thank you for joining us and congratulations. I just want to say welcome. We were able to kind of chitchat a little bit earlier today, but you know, with with that little a small conversation that we had, you know, you can feel that you're, you know, a really nice person with a really, you know, beautiful spirit. And so, thank you for choosing us. Thank you for being here. >> Congratulations. >> Thank you. >> We're all elated to have you here. When we were talking about you upstairs, all of us were shining because when when we saw and read uh about you, it was a it was a no debate
027really. But we had to take some time just because, you know, you have to go through it. But bottom line is, all joking aside, welcome, welcome, welcome. We're very proud of you. Thank you so much for choosing us. And we're looking for some great things to continue on here with you helping us to do it. So, thank you very much. >> There's not a whole lot more that can be said. We can only compliment you so much. But welcome to Marino Valley Unified. We had a chance to chat today >> and um I remember you came over to me and you introduced yourself and we kind of talked about seeing you on the video and uh to see you in person is even better. >> So, thank you again. >> Wait a minute. So, she
028went to talk to you. She didn't come. >> You were talking on the phone. Don't Don't be confused. >> Thank you. >> I got >> Thank you. >> Thank >> I appreciate it. >> I'd like to say um welcome and congratulations. Um I really liked how you mentioned to lead students with love. Um and I feel like that's very important to allow the students to feel comfortable in the space that they're in and also reach their potential. um even if they don't know what they're doing, I appreciate that you mentioned that um because it will help them in the future um reach for what they didn't know they could reach. So, congratulations. >> Thank you all. I truly appreciate appreciate being here. Thank you. >> Congratulations. Thank you. [Applause] Next, we are going to be
029led in the pledge of allegiance by our student board member, Miss Carbio. Thank you. Um, everyone, please stand. Put your right hand over your heart. Ready, begin. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, for which it stands. for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. You may be seated. Thank you, Miss Carbio. Next, we're on to item E2, future board meeting dates. August 26, September 9th, September 23rd, October 14th, October 28th. November 18th and December 9th. Item E3 is the superintendent report. Dr. Ruvakava. >> Thank you, President Luna. So, it is my pleasure to share some of the amazing things that are happening in our district since the last time we met. Uh, as always, we want to start with our
030why. And I think we've heard a lot of our why from our newest members to the family. So, thank you for already coming in with that ideology, that thinking, and that mindset because it really matches where we're going as a district. Um, our goal really is to prepare future leaders that are equity-minded and that are contributing members to our community. And we do that through ensuring equitable education, rigorous instruction, and as you hear you see here, providing a safe and welcoming uh environment, which is what we discussed a lot in the last few minutes. If our kids don't feel like they are loved and they belong, they're not going to perform at their peak and we want them to make sure that they feel that because we want the best for them. So, some of
031the district highlights, I talk a lot, so this time we decided to let the video do the talking. So, the first one is highlights of our Shine students. For those of you who are not aware, a community that's not aware of our Shine program, it's our internship program. We have students that 130 students that intern within our district and with community partners to get some real life experience in careers that they're interested in. and we actually celebrated them today. So, let's go ahead and play the video and you get to see a little bit of what our kiddos were engaging during the summer. [Music] Rio. [Music] La [Music] [Applause] [Music] good. [Music] So, congratulations to the kiddos that participated in our program. Their last day is this week and they'll get a big old paycheck
032because they get paid for doing that. So, we're very proud of that as well. You know, we are committed to trying to bridge the gap that exists between school and career and this is one of the ways that we do that. Um, I know that we received a lot of really positive feedback from our students and our families that are able to participate in that program. So, thank you to the team for putting that on, Miss Brown and all of your office and all the amazing work that they've done to make sure we connect our kids with our employers. Along with that, we do a career technical education summer camp. This is again another opportunity to give our students real life experience in fields and careers that they might be interested in. So, let's go
033ahead and roll that. Heat. Heat. [Music] And that's just a small sampling of the amazing career technical education programs that we have in our district. So think about the fields of the future, our students are engaged in that work now. So we know we're preparing them well for what's to come. We also do as part of our ELO. So I hope uh Nicholas is uh taking notes over there. Uh part of our ELO since you're going to be doing this very soon. Um we do our summer program this year. Um Dr. RC and her team were able to create what they refer to or they call Safari adventure, which is creating kind of a fun way for our kids to learn and engage in some of the activities that they're not able to do during
034the year when our focus really is on standard space instruction. And so let's go ahead and roll that tape. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] So, for those of us who are um of another generation, that is not the summer school that I remember when I was a kid, but it's definitely in the summer school that we're providing for our kids and we know that they deserve again another opportunity for them to engage in meaningful learning through project-based learning and hands-on activities which we know is the best way kids learn. So again, thank you to Dr. RC and her team for putting that together. Um they've done a great job. Um and I see her pointing at the person who's gonna Oh, Shelley actually did a great job of that since she stepped in to support
035the work while we were trying to find the replacement which is Nicholas next to her. So thank you Shelley for your work with the team on that. Um, as always, the we have a lot of work happening in our district during the summer. If you visited by pretty much any one of our sites, you're going to see a lot of construction happening. So, again, want to thank the team um Jake and his team in facilities, Mr. Pipkins and his team in maintenance and operations just doing upgrades and we want to share some of the cool stuff that's happening. So, here you see Landmark Middle School. This is really almost the last phase of the modernization. We expect it to be completed in fall of 2025. But you can see the top picture shows really modern
036classrooms. Um it's uh the latest in terms of technology, open spaces. It's just a great environment for our kids to learn and we know that right when we have an environment that's suited to learning, our kids are going to learn best as well. Here you see Mountain View Middle School. You see the finishing touches, not only inside but also outside outside the classrooms. We want to make sure that we have that curb appeal and that aesthetics. I've shared this before and it continues to be true. Research shows over and over that if you improve a school, you improve student achievement and you improve school uh home values in the community. So, not only are we doing a service to our students, we're also doing a service to our community as well. And uh Mountain View
037is scheduled to be completed in fall of 2026. at Valley View, which is our highest enrollment high school, and had the smallest kitchen. We're in the process of finishing the modernization of the kitchen. Uh, Mr. Gileia back there has a huge smile because he's very excited about that. But, uh, we're going to be completed in 2025. They're going to have a brand new kitchen that's going to be better suited to support the needs of all of the kiddos that attend Valley View. So, thank you to the team for that. Vista you've seen the development of this as you pass by the school. um from skeletons and bones to now the completing touches. You can see some of the work now going on on the inside to finish out that out. This is going to be
038again another key component of one of our career technical education pathways which is our health academyy's pathway as well. And then some of the things that have happened, uh, two of them that we celebrated today, summer graduation for our summer graduates, we had approximately 70 students finish their careers with our district. And so we're very happy to celebrate them and their families as they um got to a significant milestone in their lives, which is high school graduation. So kudos to them and to their families and to our our summer school team for supporting them in that endeavor. We celebrated our um internship program students, 130 of them that again were recognized for their hard work as they work with us to get some real life work experience. And then lastly, we invite everyone to please
039join us on July 30th for our health and wellness resource expo. I got an update from uh Mr. Garcia who is our director of wellness. We are at capacity for participants and have over 60 representatives from the community. they're going to be have booths um who are going to share services and resources to our community. So, we're very very excited for another successful um health and wellness resource expo. And again, thanks to the team for that. So, the last piece that I have is I'm going to turn it over to Dr. RC who's going to share a little bit about where we are with the uniform update at Butterfield Language Academy. As the board remembers, the last time we met, the board gave direction that we proceed. This is something that our parents wanted in
040terms of wanting to kind of brand the school as a true kind of landing spot for kiddos um especially as an academy language academy and one of the key distinctions of academy is uniforms. So Dr. Ersie >> thank you very much Dr. Uh these couple slides the board has seen them before but we added um a little bit more. The first the second slide will show the timeline that we've have adhered to and we've updated the board throughout. Um just a couple of uh additions to this. We're very excited. About a month ago we met with our vendor um that the task force selected. Uh unfortunately the vendor communicated to us on July 16th that um they couldn't fulfill the order and so we did call another task force meeting today and my message to
041them was going to be that you know unfortunately we would have to prolong this or we have to wait. But then last week um when we received the news simultaneously we got in contact with another vendor who actually does uh work for us and we met that day. I said when are you available? He said right now we met at Butterfield Language Academy. Um as a matter of fact Dr. Durakavas showed up and he sat in in the conversation and he assured us that he could fulfill the order. And so um we kept our task for meeting force meeting today and I shared the news. The task force did approve u moving forward and we have solidified uh and it's not on the it's not here because they just approved it today. Um they approved
042a fair calling it a fair but it's a sizing and ordering fair on July 29th. So um we have reached out to the wellness center. They're going to support us with parent ambassadors. We're gonna have um five sets per measurements. Um I did invite Dr. Price to join me today and I said after today we'll have the new principal so we can um transfer the you know that that project over and and continue the collaboration. So, um, we're going to have a sizing fair on the 29th. And then from there, we um expect to get the delivery, the first big delivery before school starts because the task force and the parents are asking if if those that can can start. Um, those that can't, we we per Ed code, we won't start till November 1st.
043Um, so then the next slide over is just um information that we've given to our parents. We did have a town hall meeting. Um we had advisory meetings. We had um task force meeting. And then the last slide actually shows um what the parents in the task force approved. And so they approved for elementary boys, four royal blue shirts, which is the color of the school um with the school logo, three pairs of pants, dark gray, one pair of shorts, dark gray. for the girls. Four royal blue polos, two pairs of pants, dark gray, one pair of shorts um dark gray, and then a pleated um plaid squirt, which is the skirt with the shorts under. Um they were very adamant that they wanted a particular look. So, um they voted on that. And then
044for middle school boys, very similar, but the darker uh gray polo with the black pants. And then for the girls, similar skirt, but it's the gray polo with the with the um black um pants or shorts and then the the plaid skirt. And then optional, they could also purchase a black V-neck, a cardigan, or a gray polo dress. And so we are working with the vendor because he needs a little bit more time for the skirt and the dress. but he did say that he could fulfill and the task force they they said they want to um be able to put in the order on the 29th so they can get it as soon as possible. Um and then we'll have um waiverss and those that don't want to participate there will be um exemption.
045So we're we're following the timeline and the request of the task force. And just we want to reassure the board because this question came up several times when we brought it up that we know that there's going to be a small percentage of families that want to participate but financially struggle to and that's where we're going to engage the community obviously with our new principal to make sure we engage in fundraising to make sure that anybody who wants can. Right? Uh there's a difference. People who don't want to because they are opposed philosophically to uniforms, obviously there's a waiver process for that, but kids who want to participate because they don't want to feel like they're left out. We're going to do whatever we can to make sure that they are able to participate. >>
046Thank you. Is there a way that uh maybe in December or January we can get an update on those who want and those who have been funded, please? So we can make sure that that's happening. >> Absolutely. On uh July 29th, we have and Dr. Price and her team have already worked on a form. So, the parents are going to be able to um fill out a form. We will be able to have preliminary data even as early as July 29th. >> Um okay. Um how many um uniforms is the district providing to the students if they need the district to help them? So, we don't know that yet because we need to get through that preliminary enrollment and kind of ordering fair to determine what the need is and then from there we will
047figure out what we need to purchase for our kiddos. >> And do we already know the prices of the uniforms? >> We have a set price point, but I we're still negotiating with the vendor, right? Because we're trying to get like as low as possible. They the vendor knows that this is not a fundraiser. So, we're not trying to make any money. This is about making it as affordable to our families as possible. But we'll get you price points once we know those for sure. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Thank you, Dr. RC. And thank you. That's my report. >> Thank you, Dr. Rubakavan. Now, we are on to item F, public comments on agenda items. Any person requesting to speak to any item on the agenda may do so at this time or when
048the item is addressed by the board of education. Individual speakers shall be allowed to speak for three minutes on any agenda item. The board of education shall limit the total time for public input on each agenda item to 21 minutes. Board bylaw 9323B section 5 per board bylaw 9323 twice the allotted time will be provided for a member of the public utilizing a translator. Miss Claudia, are there any speakers? >> We have two public speakers. >> Thank you. All right. First to the podium, Mr. Riley Peak, please. Good evening, President Luna, board members, members of the cabinet, and superintendent Ruvocaba. First of all, congratulations to all the new student to the two new student board members that were appointed today. I know you're the only one that's here to receive it, but congratulations. And then
049so tonight's oath of office for these student board members, it's more than just a ceremonial moment. It's a reminder that all students deserve to be heard in this district. Not in just one seat, but in every room where these decisions are made. This role is important, but it's not it's only one part of a much larger picture. If we want to take student voice seriously, we cannot stop at a single point of representation. We need more meaningful, consistent, and diverse opportunities for students to engage. That includes listening to students who aren't in leadership roles. It means creating space for honest feedback, not just formal presentations. means reaching out to students in every grade level in every program and on every campus. It means not just asking for their feedback once a year during the annual
050feedback form where we have all the students take the form means having a rolling feedback form maybe on our website where students can submit feedback year round. I hope this board sees tonight not just start of one term but as a chance to ask how can we do more? How can we build a culture where student voice is woven into the process not just invited in when it's convenient? I'll continue doing my part to uplift those voices and I hope this board commits to doing the same not just through this seat but throughout the system. Congratulations again to the student board members. I hope this year brings real opportunities for reflection, responsibility and action. >> Thank you for your comments. Next I have Dave Everett, please. >> Thank you. Thank you for the time. Appreciate
051it. Uh my name is Dave Everett. with the Western Electrical Contractors Association and I'm here tonight to talk about the project labor agreement. You're going to get a presentation on later on this agenda. Um first off, I I thought the the presentation that that's coming up is is great and that the the group that did it did a did a really good job. Um I I wanted to talk about how uh weak as opposed to project labor agreements because any uh non-union apprentice and 85% of the construction market is non-union. actually 87 in California. 85 is the national number. Um so so you know almost nine out of 10 construction me construction workers are non-union. So uh you're excluding nine out of 10 construction workers. Uh if you ex if you got rid of nine
052out of the 10 McDonald's in your city, the price of your Big Mac at the remaining McDonald's, it's going to go up. So that's just basic economics. So this project labor agreement would would cause of course uh it'd be a soul source contract. it would raise your prices and it would result in less biders on your construction projects. The other thing I wanted to mention is that it also erodess any trust um from the voters and it endangers future bonds that the district may need. But the one aspect of the PLA report that the PLA report did not touch on was the effect on minority participation. Uh 98% of black and Hispanic firms and Latino firms are non-union shops. I mean, if 87% of everybody is non-union, it doesn't it's not radical to think that
05398% of black and Hispanic construction companies are are non-union shops. And that's a quote from the uh from John Harmon, the president of the African-American Chamber of Commerce. Uh also, government here's another quote. Government mandated PLA's are opposed by the National Black Chamber of Commerce because almost all minorityowned contracting firms are not affiliated with unions. African-American-owned contracting firms are typically small businesses and employ their own core workforce, skilled construction workers who are not unionized and are generally more diverse than construction workers coming from the union hiring halls. That's from Harry Alifford, the president from the National Black uh Chamber of Commerce. uh more locally uh just from down in San Diego, Shane Harris from the People's Alliance for Justice writes, "These PLA's promised local hire and outreach to minority neighborhoods, but the union promises have
054always been empty." And and that's another thing to to point out is that all the uh goals they have in the project labor agreement, there's no teeth to any of them. There's no uh uh penalty if they don't meet those goals and and often they don't reach those goals. And uh well, thanks so much. Appreciate your time. Oh, what was that beef from? >> Oh, well, well, let me give you one more quote then. Um, from the uh uh like I mentioned, the the San Diego's uh based uh alliance for People's Alliance for Justice uh also from the National Black Chamber of Commerce. Community benefits agreements or PLA's for union apprenticeships only is a knee to the neck of the only black American apprentichip program in America. This decision contradicts the board's commitment to equality
055and inclusion for all. He was talking to another board about their project labor agreement and they're based out of here uh San Diego here in Southern California. So, thank you so much for your time. Appreciate it. >> Thank you for your comments. On to item G, public comments on non-aggenda items. The board of education encourages public comments during this section. Staff may briefly respond to statements or questions or may ask questions for clarification. The board may refer to staff or other resources for factual information, direct staff to report back at at a subsequent meeting, andor direct staff to place a topic on a future agenda. If someone wants to lodge a complaint against an employee, the appropriate form may be obtained at any school or the community education center. Individual speakers shall be allowed to
056speak for a total of three minutes on non-aggenda items regardless of the number of issues to be addressed by the individual. The board of education shall limit the total time for public input on non-aggenda items to 21 minutes per board bylaw 9323. Twice the allotted time will be provided for a member of the public utilizing a translator. With board of education consent, the president may increase or decrease the time allowed for the public presentation depending on the topic and the number of persons wishing to be heard. The president may take a poll of speakers for or against a particular issue and may ask that additional people speak only if they have something new to add. Board bylaw 9323 B through C section 5. Miss Claudia, are there any public speakers on non-aggenda item? >> One
057public speaker. >> Thank you. May I have Riley Peak to the podium, please? Hello again, everyone. So, I want to speak about uh this year's district theme, powered by purpose. From what I understand, this theme was created using artificial intelligence to process community survey results. Now, I understand innovation when it's thoughtful. But we should ask, can AI really define the purpose of a school district? Purpose isn't about catchy phrasing. It's about priorities. It's about how students actually experience their education. No algorithm can experience what it means to feel unsafe in your own learning environment. They can't interpret what it means to be overlooked, unheard, unprotected. and it also doesn't know what it's like to feel like you don't belong. And yet, those are realities for many students in this district. I also want to raise
058a concern about transparency. Were the people who've responded to this survey told that their respon that their survey responses would be run through AI beforehand? Where does that data go? Who controls it? These are important questions because trust is part of purpose, too. Right now, this theme, the theme feels disconnected from what students are actually going through, but that can change. If this district wants to live up to powered by purpose, then make that purpose real. Start by actively listening to students, by creating safer campuses, and sorry, by making decisions rooted in what your community needs, not just what looks good on paper. Purpose isn't a press release. It's the everyday work of doing what's right. Especially when no one's watching. Let this year be a turning point for the Marina Valley Unified School District,
059where transparency isn't just promised, but practiced. Where student voices are not aren't just heard, but valued, and where the district commits to following the law with integrity and respect. It's time to start fresh, to lead with purpose, and to build trust through actions, not words. And I also wanted to point out that the logo doesn't follow any of the branding guidelines or previous logos. It doesn't use our district colors. And the font is completely different than the font in our normal logo. It's just it looks like it was thrown together last minute. And I feel like we could have done a lot better for a whole school year's theme. In previous years, it was all like with our airplanes and where everything was all connected and it was unique and it was created. You can
060tell it was created with lots of passion and just in a school district that cares. Thank you. >> Thank you for your comments. Uh we're on to item H, comments from board members. Uh I would like to start with our student board member, Miss Cayo. Um I would just like to say I do agree that all students must be heard um from a non-leership role or students from all grade levels. Um and I believe that the uh the board and myself do plan to work on this in order to allow students um all equal opportunities and that's all. Thank you. >> I just wanted to uh comment on our shine program. Uh I think it it really speaks to uh the soft skills that are needed by our students to move forward and uh again
061I want to commend uh the district personnel uh the students, the teachers, um everybody who was involved in the program because um information coming out now is that students are getting off of social media and they're starting to communicate with flip phones instead of using smartphones. And by that I mean you have to actually talk to somebody, look them in the eye, and then you might have to write something down. And so, um, this is what employees, uh, and employers, excuse me, uh, are looking for in our students. And so, I just wanted to make that comment. Uh, and I hope all of the 150 students include their work experience on their resumes upon graduation. Thank you. Um, next I just like to thank all of the folks that come out every board meeting and
062come up to the mic and speak. Some of us may think, well, you know, it looks like it's easy, but it's not so easy because sometimes we don't want to express what's on our minds or we don't know how to do it in a in a in a nice way. Uh so let me tell all of the folks that have been speaking for the last few few months or so and especially tonight we do appreciate everything that you guys bring to us. We listen we hear we we may not stare you eye to eye anything something like that but we hear everything that you're talking about. Our superintendent is also listening and then we also have you on recorder so we are paying attention. So, just know that when you've got something that you want
063to see make see us make better, let us know about it. We appreciate that. And just know when you come up, uh, we're listening and we are paying attention to you. So, I want to say thank you to all of those that come up to the mic that are so brave to come and speak to us. Thank you. Um, I just want to say that we have a lot of things to celebrate um, in this district. Um, I feel very proud of what has been done. I know there's a lot more that we need to work on and that's why there's so many changes at this time. um when you choose to run for board member um you do it with a different perspective and once you're on this side um you see how things
064work and also understand that it's not just one person's decision that it has to be voted by five different people and it comes to an agreement. Um, sometimes it might be or might look easy, you know, like how come they don't make these changes, but it takes a team, a group of people to come into, you know, an agreement to make those changes. And just like Mr. Johnson said, you know, we do hear we like we take notes and we put here, you know, um, everything that we heard. And um I have always told the parents you know the way that you ask for things that the the way things are given to you and um it's not easy. It takes a lot of our time and dedication and we're parents. Uh we have our
065own jobs and still you know many people might think that we're making a lot of money. We're not. you know, that's the first thing that you see when you start serving as a board member. Um, but uh we don't forget what we're here for. At least, you know, I do not forget that my purpose is here to represent those parents who voted me in um to I always before, you know, when I was working at the district um as a CSA or instructional assistant, a parent ambassador, I always saw every kid as my own kid. If I would to be their mom, what I would want for those kids, you know, and I still do my job like that. And um we listen, but we care too. And we try to put in action um
066what we heard or what we listened and um like I said, there's a lot of things that we need to work on, but we're doing it. And sometimes changes may not happen quick. It takes time, work, and dedication. And that's something that we're that we're doing. But um it's good to celebrate too because there's a lot of great people and just like we saw today at the Shine program um celebrating 11 years of this great work that a lot of people is involved in it. Um I have the blessing of knowing many of these people you know that are working in that program and seeing um how our students you know were committed and the message that they share not only today but when you're able to meet up with their parents I have the
067opportunity and the blessing to know many parents and say you know the life-changing um effect that has caused you know being part of that program. Um, I'm very happy to see that we have two new board members. It is a great opportunity for them to see how things work on this side and and understand that it takes work, team work. Um, just like I was happy today to see, you know, many students graduating today. Um it's it you know it takes a lot of work and a lot of courage knowing that you might not be graduating at the same time as your classmates but you keep on working you keep on you know giving your your best doing your best and and working hard so that you can have that high school diploma. I celebrate
068that. I choose to celebrate that. It is important that we recognize that work. Um, so that's all. Thank you. Um, there is a couple of things um I'd like to say, but first I'd like to start by saying I thought that that rolling fee back form or some kind of option uh to get students input throughout the year is actually a really great idea. And then I also wanted to know if um we could speak later about I know we have the care portal if we can get some information about that like some data within maybe the Friday memos or uh something along the lines. I am also excited about something very near and dear to my heart which is drivers education because that is coming to the Marino Valley Unified School District. I just
069want to just say great, great, great. A lot of our kids are excited and happy about Uber, but now they're going to learn how to drive and bringing driving back. Um, I want to say thank you to my colleague and the district and and Superintendent Rubocawa um for um speaking about the land acknowledgement. That really means a lot. I've gotten a lot of emails and I just wanted to share that um people are calling, people are grateful to you, Miss Luna, and I just wanted to share and Dr. Ruava as well as the rest of the board. Um, and that's all I have. It's been a pretty great summer, but keep the feedback coming because to echo Mr. Johnson, we do hear you. We value you, and we want you uh to know that your
070opinions and thoughts matter, and we are here to listen and champion for all our students and educators and staff alike. So, thank you. >> Thank you all for your comments. I appreciate it. Uh what I wanted to share was um I had the honor of experiencing the footsteps to freedom tour with some of our Marino Valley Unified School District team and um I wrote down some thoughts that I wanted to share. Uh walking the footsteps to freedom reminded me that the fight for dignity and humanity is not just history. It's now. The courage of those who made it to freedom echoes in the journeys of families today seeking refuge and opportunity. As a board, we must ensure our schools remain places where every child, regardless of where they come from, can find freedom in education.
071That's all I wanted to share. Thank you. Thank you, President Luna. So, I have a few comments, but I wanted to organize my thoughts. And so, we have a slide deck um that has been updated as recently as like a couple of hours ago because information keeps changing. So, make sure that >> Oh, thank you, Isaiah. While that gets going, I I wanted to share about Footsteps to Freedom, but I'm not sure I could do justice to what you shared, President Luna. So, thank you for sharing because I think it really encapsulates my feelings as well. So, I appreciate you sharing that. Um, one of the questions that we received a lot over the last several weeks has been the question around the federal impounds and what does that mean to education? and and so
072um as I just shared the information keeps changing. I have an update as of a couple of hours ago but I wanted to organize my comments in a more uh in a fashion that was more easily to to follow. So I think it's important that we start with understanding what is and what is not. So generally it's about the federal impact impounds and what the impact is to our school district. We talk a lot about our vision, our mission, and our goals. And one of the things that we know is that a lot of the work is rooted in resources. And those resources are both both fiscal and human capital. And whenever one of those is compromised, it limits the ability of us to continue to do some of the good work that we're engaged
073in. So, anytime money is put at risk or jeopardized, it means that we're going to have to make some difficult decisions about programs that are in place. And unfortunately, that's where we are now. So, let's start with what is the federal impound. So, the California Department of Education received notice that the Trump administration would not be releasing billions of education dollars that had already been allocated by the Congress. So, this is not new money. This is not future money. This is not promised money. This is money that had already been allocated by the Congress to districts. This is money that we had already made plans and presented in our budgets to our board. Not only Moreno Valley, but all districts, all states that have been impacted by these impounds. So, what are the programs that
074are impacted? And you see three of them here. Title one, part C is focused money that goes to support migrant education. And really the goal of that is to support any migratory children to reach challenging academic standards to ensure they graduate with a high school diploma and that the prepare them for citizenship and further learning and productive employment. One of the things that we know about migrant educating mig migrant students is that because of um the fact that they change households so often they go from place to place. It is much more challenging to be rooted and invested in a community where you feel like you belong and you feel connected. So this money really is to support students to make sure that we recapture and solidify bonds for students who are migratory. They go
075from place to place. Title two supporting effective instruction bonds uh monies. These are monies that were set aside to support local activities to recruit and retain effective teachers and administrators. So in an environment where it is very challenging to hire and retain talent um taking away funds that were specifically earmarked to support that endeavor jeopardizes our goals as a district and especially think about the areas that are that are even more difficult to find. our m to severe special education teachers, our speech and language pathologists, psychologists, counselors, MS counselors, those are all very challenging positions to fill. If you look at our core subjects, uh mathematics, right? Those are difficult. Chemistry, try finding a physics teacher. It is super challenging. So, this money would directly impact our endeavors in that area as well. Title three,
076English uh language language acquis acquisition. We live in a community of English learners. Either our families are are immigrants or we are immigrants and many of our kids are in that program. So telling districts that this money that was again allocated to you is no longer going to come means that our kids who are English learners are going to suffer because the resources that we had promised them are now not going to be given to them. Title four, student support uh and academic enrichment. This is money specifically earmarked to support enrichment activities for students. We know that within the school day, our goal is to focus on academic instruction and core academic initiatives. And some of the the things that make school enriching that for many of our kids are the connections to school uh
077would be would be uh jeopardized by limiting these funds. And then the last one is 21st century community learning center program which provides grants to local schools to offer community learning centers for afterchool programs. Again impacting those enriching opportunities that our kiddos have beyond the day. So what does that mean to our district? Approximately $3.2 million that we were told we were going to get that was allocated by the Congress. But now the Trump administrations has said you're not going to get this money. So I mentioned that the uh slide deck had been changing even as of two uh hours ago. And the reason for that is we received notice that now the Trump administration is saying that they are going to release some of the title four funds but those title four funds are
078going to have conditions. If you get this money you have to do X, Y, and Z and you have to prove it to us. Um, that always is a red flag whenever conditions are set beforehand on monies that are going to be allocated and have already been allocated. Really feels like you're being set up for failure. And and I'm I struggle with that as a district and as obviously somebody who's championing education for kiddos. And the other reason that the there's a little tilda in front of the 3.2 million is because this is always subject to change. Uh it feels like and this is why it's under superintendent comments because it's a political slant here that as a district we are basically at the mercy of which way the wind blows politically and that is
079not a appropriate position to put districts in and is absolutely not an appropriate position to put students in. students suffer because of the political whims of adults and that is not okay. So obviously we know we have to do something. Uh we know that we need to do what's best for our kiddos. So as a cabinet we've started to look at how can we compensate for the potential loss of these dollars. And so one of the things that we know is, and we hate to do this, but we have to, is we have to tap into future dollars. And I say that with apprehension because future dollars are not guaranteed dollars. Future dollars are estimated dollars. And the fact that we have to really look at how we're going to spend future dollars to support
080our kids now is is sad. It's depressing, but that's something that we have to do. So really it's looking at our cola for 2526 26 27 and 2728 to see if we can leverage parcel out carve out some funds to cover for the $3.2 million that we're going to lose this year. Um some of those funds would be looking at our LCAP dollars, looking at other title funds that have not been impacted by the federal impounds. Um and again it's really difficult. Um and to put it in biblical terms is robbing Peter to pay Paul, right? Unfortunately, that's something that we have to do. Um, the other thing that we're looking at, and this is something that I know is going to make Miss Lopez cringe because you never pay for ongoing expenditures with onetime
081funds, is we have to look at some discretionary onetime funds to cover at least the cost of those programs for this year. Again, these are dollars that we've already budgeted for, that our school sites have budgeted for, that we have plans in place to allocate and to spend. And so we have to we have to commit dollars to make sure that those expenditures happen at least for this year. The other thing to know is that $3.2 million is not just for one year. Those are ongoing dollars that we have committed from the Congress to to ensure future success and future needs of our programs and for our kiddos. So it's not like we're just missing 3.2 this year. If they get impounded this year, we're not going to get them next year and we're not
082going to get them the year after that and we're not going to get them the year after that. So you can see the compounding nature of the problem as we proceed. And the the one that pains me the most is having to look at potentially eliminating less effective programs. And I chose that terminology very carefully because we're not saying eliminating non-effective programs. We're actually saying taking all of these great programs and which one's the one that is the least great and having to sacrifice and having to sacrifice that. And that that's tough. Um, so we know that these are difficult decisions, but they're decisions that need to be made. So we're in the process of doing that. And unfortunately that the cuts don't end there. What I just shared are the federal impound. Those are
083d the direct impact to district cuts. There are other cuts that are indirectly going to impact us. For example, SNAP, which is the program that's used for our families to get benefits uh for meal programs, for example, there's been a metific modification to the benefits and eligibility and cost sharing part of that program, which means that families that were eligible are no longer going to be no longer going to be eligible because the elig eligibility criteria has been changed has been has gone up. Although that's not a direct impact to us, it's a direct impact to our families. And so we know that kids are going to be coming to us with less resources, more need, whether that's meals at home, whether they were part of the WIC program or food stamp program or whatever,
084and they're no longer eligible for that. That means they're going to we're going to have hungry kids coming to school. Medicaid has been impacted to the tune of $1 trillion. A lot of people don't know this, but approximately 75% of the community in Reno Valley is on some form of medical or Medicaid. So think of that. 75% of our community is potentially going to be impacted by the reduction of Medicaid funding. Um, an HHS policy shift which is now um dictating that undocumented im immigrants will no longer have access to taxpayer funded programs such as Head Start, community mental health services and title 10 family filing planning program services and other services. And I want to really make sure that there's an understanding of this. Undocumented immigrants in our community pay taxes. They pay state
085taxes and they pay federal taxes. And they've been doing so since they've arrived to our country. And so this policy now is saying that those talk tax dollars that those individuals paid are no longer going to go back in terms of benefits to them. That's disenfranchisement. That's rep that's taxation without representation. That's how this country was founded and we're basically going back to that and that is so sad to see. Um the last piece that I want to share and this is just a sampling. There's many many more that are impacted is elimination of the following programs. TRIO which we all know and appreciate. Trio is a a significant program in our district which supports disadvantaged students from middle through college to make sure that they're successful in college and we have an amazing TRIO
086program through through MVCC. Um that's going to be jeopardized adult education funds and the the specific adult education funds that are going to be impacted are the funds that go to support our afterchool programs for adults, our evening programs and our summer and weekend programs for adults. So, think about the amazing programs that we have in our adult education program. Um, high school diploma, apprenticeship, uh, pharmarmacology, uh, all of those programs are going to be potentially impacted by these cuts. And then the last one is gear up, which we know and we we take advantage of, which boosts college preparation for low-inccome and middle school middle and high school students. So the even though there is not a direct impact, there's going to be an indirect impact to the district, but a direct impact to
087our kids and to our community. And so that's why I I bring this up. So with that, I'm going to open it up for questions, but with the caveat that a lot of my answer is going to be we don't know yet because again, this is all up in the air. And like I said, right now it feels like just depending on which way the wind is blowing, we're going to get a different direction from the federal administration. So I apologize for the political slant. There's just no way uh for me to present it without that way because it hurts me as an immigrant that we have im our immigrant community being impacted in this fashion. So any questions? >> I don't have a question, but I do have a comment if that's okay. I
088brought this up to you Dr. group about title three. I didn't speak about one, two, and four, but I was very grateful to hear that the district was already moving forward with a plan to try to um subsidize our students the best way we can. And I want to say thank you for being bold and brave enough to have this conversation with the community and the board because it is very important and it is something that need to be said needs to be said and it's something that we need to think about because you know of the way that it impacts all of us. So again, not a question, but thank you and thank you to the board for um and the cabinet and the district for um looking at ways to, you know, try
089to help this situation, this fluid situation. So thanks. >> Thank you very much. I don't have very much uh to say except number one, thank you very much. Very good report. Uh but the one that I wrote down was elimination of the following programs. Um, uh, I I guess there's no other thing to do except what we're doing right now, eliminate them, right? >> Yeah. >> I always hate to get rid of something. >> Absolutely. And my our fear is we're going to get we're going to start the work of trying to either subsidize it by using other funds to support those same initiatives or looking at alternatives for those programs. and then somebody's going to change their mind and say, "Oh, we were just kidding. Here's the money." >> So, we engaged in all
090of this work. >> Yes. >> And now we're back to square one. What I will say is that there are several lawsuits um right now going through the courts to make sure or to try to ensure that this money that again was already allocated and promised to districts actually comes to districts. So, we're hopeful that there's going to be a change of heart either through um legal methods or maybe through some divine intervention so that we're able to get those funds that our kids need and deserve. >> I can live with that. Well, thank you very much again. I appreciate what you did tonight. Can we get this like every meeting? I don't want to >> I will try to I will try. Yes. >> Yeah. Thank you, sir. That's all I got. >> I
091don't have a question because I've been asking you these questions, you know, like constantly buggy with us because I'm really concerned. Um, I just feel that education shouldn't be based on skin color, ethnicity, gender, political affiliation, immigration status. education should be something that I should should be provided to any student regardless of any of these conditions that have been put you know to our students. Um, it saddens me, you know, that we put our students into this situation. And I said we, you know, even though we didn't do it, but um, uh, we're doing our best to provide the best quality education for our students. And it's hard, you know, when things like this happen that just you know it's like putting you know like obstacles along the way but you know just like you
092said we got to be praying and asking for divine help whether if you believe you know um whatever belief that you might have and like Mr. Johnson said if we can continue having those updates to see where we're standing, you know, and hoping that some changes happen, you know, so that we can we can keep supporting our students. That's all. >> Uh I just wanted to send uh say thank you to you Dr. Rubakaba and our team for being proactive and also um being transparent on this. I think it's very important to always share what's going on with the public and um it's heartbreaking that we have to have these conversations um because students, youth, young people are our future and um it's terrible that you know that we're having to deal with this. But,
093um, I have faith that we will, no matter what challenges come our way, all stick together and do the best we can to make the best decisions we can for all of our students. So, thank you. Next, we have presentations to the board. Uh, J1 project labor agreements. Miss Lopez, it looks like you will be presenting or introducing this presentation. >> Thank you. Good evening, President Luna, members of the board, um Superintendent Dr. Dalcava, Cabinet. Um several months ago we were tasked with um exploring project labor agreements or PLA's as they've been referred to. Um I know we had a public comment earlier today um several months ago. We also had uh during public comments a presentation to the board. Um and I really do appreciate um the board, you know, asking and and giving
094that guidance because we wanted to make sure I think after that initial presentation um there was a lot of emails and information that was received and so I think the approach that was recommended about really forming this committee to explore um was a good direction that was provided to us. And so just to give you then a little bit of history. So um we looked at several options and um we encountered MGT which is a company that has uh facilitated similar discussions. We wanted a neutral party and at the March board meeting we recommended a contract to the board that was approved. Um and so at this point I want to introduce Michael Taylor who is with MGT. um that will come up here and walk you through the process of what actually how the
095committee was formed, the timeline, the discussions. I also want to um point you to the direction that at the on the June 20th Friday memo um also shared with the board to give you just a little bit more time to be able to digest so you have those presentations um in a summary, the actual detailed names of the participants of the committee. and so forth. Um but this evening we wanted to provide the the overall update um to the board and to the public as well. So with that I am going to introduce Michael Taylor who is with MGT um and he will walk you through the presentation and he will be here to also answer any questions as well as Mr. Romero who was present at those meetings. Um myself Dr. Cava would stop
096by. Didn't we didn't stay for the entire meetings but um because we really wanted this committee to be independent um and so we just felt that you know by having our presence there might they might not be able to speak as freely and so forth. So with that I'm going to introduce you to Michael Taylor who will walk you through this presentation. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. And um I've had a chance to listen to the the board meeting now for over an hour, and I have to tip my hat to you all for your service to this institution that we call public education. So, as Miss Lopez mentioned, we at MGT were brought on board to help facilitate a conversations about project labor agreements. Project labor agreements are also known as community workforce agreements
097or project stabilization agreements. But as we move forward in the conversation, as I take you through the presentation, we will refer to PLA's as labor agreements. We'll walk you through why are we here? Why are we having this conversation? I'll mention just a few words about students and having a student centric approach. We'll go into what is a project labor agreement. We'll walk you through the timeline of all the things that happened to get us to this very point and then we'll talk a little bit about the composition of the facility advisory committee committee and also talk just a little bit about the subject matter experts that we brought in to help us with this conversation about PLA's. Last but not least, the committee recommendation. We'll walk you through how they landed on their recommendation
098and why. And then last but not least, we'll have some time for you to ask any questions on the subject of PLA's. So purpose, I think it's pretty straightforward. The purpose is should Marino Valley Unified School District be using PLA's? And I'm going to walk you through, well, what is a PLA? Is this a good thing for Marino Valley Unified School District? So, I always like to use this slide because it really focuses on students. It's not to say that all the things on the right, budget, staff, facilities, and community are not important. They are. But one of the things that I ask the committee to do whenever we have a conversation, whenever we're talking about a specific point, whenever we're having a passionate conversation about a specific point, ask yourself this question. Is this
099best for kids? And are we doing what's best for kids? So, always kind of keeping that at the forefront of all the conversations that we had as it relates to project labor agreements. So project labor agreement what is that? So essentially it's a collective bargaining agreement between a public entity and it it can also be a private entity but mostly it's a public entity and organized labor. Essentially uh associated with construction projects. So what you're what's being asked, should Marino Valley Unified School District have an agreement with organized labor to help with its construction projects? That is the fundamental question. And so as we talk about PLA's, I'm going to go into the pros and cons. And as you're going to see, it's going to vary. I also had an opportunity to read a number
100of studies associated with PLA's and I'm not here to say that I'm an expert on PLA's but I've had dealings with PLA's in my career in education. So I do have a vantage point to provide an assessment and an opinion. So PLA's a collective bargaining agreement for school districts to use with their construction projects. So what are some of the pros and cons? So at the bottom of these slides uh always want to make sure that we mention the source and we used Fagan Freriedman and Fulfrost and they came in and they actually gave a presentation. I took this slide directly from their presentation on what a PLA is. And when you look at the literature that's out there on PLA's you will see a version of this definition kind of repeat itself. So benefits
101and I I won't read through all of them but I'll let me just start with benefits. So uh bullet number one at the very top in the lefthand corner reduce the risk of labor strikes. So that is one of the the benefits. And when you go to the very bottom and you hear this one a lot, some communities see it as support for local for the local workforce and also student trade programs. So just wanted to kind of bring that up. And then on the other side under challenges and you you hear this a lot, PLA's increased costs on cons on on construction projects. They also decrease competition. And the very last bullet, it might impact your ability to pass a local bond. And just from my own experience with PLA's, depending on the community,
102some communities are very conservative, some tend to be progressive. Conservative communities tend to not use PLA's because they look at it as There's this belief that PLA's increase the cost of construction projects and I'll walk you through why that is in just a minute. So these are some of the pros and cons associated with PLA's and when we formed the committee we wanted to make sure that the committee had a full understanding of these pros and cons as they deliberated back and forth and some of the conversations were pretty passionate as we would expect. But as you see when we come to the recommendation, they all kind of came together at the end to come up with a a unified uh recommendation. So here's the timeline. And as Ms. Lopez mentioned, we actually started the
103conversation back in January. I think she ended up Miss Lopez ended up there she ended up calling MGT. And then we had one conversation after another. And then we put together this timeline to get us to to July 22nd. And as you can see, we had our kickoff meeting in March. We identified the subject matter experts. And then we also established the facility advisory committee. Once we had the committee established, we had our first meeting. And what we wanted to do was we wanted to bring in the subject matter experts. And we didn't want to have all the subject matter experts in one meeting. We wanted to make sure that we could have a civil conversation understanding some that somei subject matter expert experts might see the subject of PLA's differently. So we're very very
104conscious of who we brought in for each as far as the subject matters exp uh subject matter experts are concerned who we brought in for each of the meetings. and I'll walk you through each of the meetings and who attended and the the results of those meetings. Facility uh advisory committee number meeting number two was held at the end of March I'm sorry end of May and at that meeting the committee came together with their final recommendation and also the justification for their recommendation. So, the facility advisory committee was brought together to provide a recommendation to the superintendent and to the board on whether or not the district should be using PLA's. And we wanted to be very we were very concerned about the composition of the phys of the of the committee and we
105wanted to make sure that we had a good representation not only from the the district but also from members of the community and all told we were able to get uh 12 members together. Not all 12 members attended the facility advisory committee meetings. Um but at the last meeting we had eight members which was a quorum and they were able to come up with with their recommendation. As you can see at the bottom we had members from the citizens bond oversight committee. We had parents we had members from the Marino Valley Employee Association CSEA and also from the district staff. So let me just walk through the meetings. Meeting number one, May 7th. That's where we brought in our legal uh legal council and they provided a legal perspective and they were neither pro or
106against PLA's. They essentially just provided a standard. Here's what a PLA is. Here are some of the pros and cons associated with PLA's and here are some of the things to consider. We also had a um a labor representative from the Western Carpenters Union that was also there to provide any information to the committee that they might need in order to be more informed about PLA's and also some of the issues associated with PLA's that labor could address firsthand at the meeting. So that was the first meeting. Meeting number two, at the end of May, we had a district representative. This was a retired superintendent that had firsthand knowledge and firsthand experience working with PLA's who also happens to work for uh for MGT consulting and she provided a a firsthand uh her firsthand experience
107with PLA's and some of the things that are good some of the things that are not so good but she was able to provide a district perspective and then we also had we invited a general contractor who was not able to attend. But, uh, Miss Kimell and myself were able to kind of fill in some of the blanks or at least the the the points that general contractors bring to the table when they when when we asked them to talk about project labor agreements. So, those were the two meetings with the corresponding subject matter experts. So what is the recommendation? What did the committee come up with? The committee there were eight members on the committee on the on at the last meeting and that committee came up with it was 80 that the district
108should not use PLA's. That is their recommendation to the superintendent and to the board. And the justification for that is transparency, erosion of community trust and also the district's fiduciary responsibility. Let me just take a few seconds to walk through the concept of fiduciary responsibility for those of you that might not be be familiar with that concept. Essentially, a fiduciary has a responsibility of taking care of and looking out for the best interest of other people's money. And so when we're talking about construction projects, the district is using community funds via the collection of property taxes to help improve the district's facilities. So the district has a fiduciary responsibility to the community to use those funds to the best possible in the best possible means. And so when we think about that fiduciary responsibility, making
109sure that that construction projects come in on time, that we're not over budget, and that we get the best value possible. So let me just walk through this justification for not recommending PLA's at Marino Valley Unified School District. trust measure X which just passed in November of of last year voters were not informed and also measure M which was actually passed in November 14. So usually there is if there's a PLA or if the district is going to use PLA's there's a conversation during that that bond process or putting that bond initiative on the ballot before um the the voters are asked to vote on the particular bond initiative. So for measures X and M from what I understand what was communicated to us there was no conversation about PLA's and definitely no conversation about
110PLA's with the passage of measure measure X last November. Number two, in the spirit of transparency and to avoid the eroding the trust of the communities, the the committee felt that PLA's at this point bringing PLA's on board would be counterproductive. And the last point under trust, any perceived lack of transparency and erosion of community trust could impact future bond initiatives. So those were the three major points under trust that the committee talked about and the reason why they did not did not think it was good for Marino Valley Unified to move forward with PLA's. So that was the first Justification number two, this is back to this concept of fiduciary responsibility. And as I mentioned earlier when I define the concept of fiduciary responsibility, the district has a fiduciary spon responsibility to the community
111on the appropriate use of those bond dollars. And I always like to use the triangle when it comes to construction projects and maximizing the use of the money that you have, the time that you use for the time that's used to to uh uh to build the project or complete the project and also the value that you're getting. So the district has that fiduciary responsibility. And so supplemental labor agreements as you just think about the concept of fiduciary responsibility fall outside of that. I think someone very crafty could probably make an argument that that labor supplemental that labor agreements might fall within that fiduciary responsibility. But when you're looking at the dollars that you have and the cost of construction, it would seem that it does fall outside of that fiduciary responsibility. So those are
112essentially the two reasons why the committee voted unanimously to not move forward or at least recommend not moving forward with PLA's at Marino Valley Unified. So, I know I've I've covered quite a lot of information in the the last few minutes. So, I want to give you some time if you have any questions, any any concerns about the subject of PLA's and the road forward. >> I have lots of questions. Hi, thank you so much for a wonderful presentation. The first thing I like to ask is how many you said we had two meetings. >> Right. In the first meeting legal and the representative from the carpenters came, >> right? >> And the second meeting one of the two presenters came. So you had three presenters of the two meetings that we had. >> Right.
113Just want to confirm. Okay. >> The second is how long were those meetings approximately? >> About an hour and a half. Sometimes they went a bit a little bit longer >> depending on depending on who was talking and what the subject we were talking about. So we we we put an hour and a half aside and usually I if I remember correctly they went over >> just a little bit. >> So approximately three hours worth of conversation to determine Yes. Fair enough. So um one of the things if we go back to slide five when your definition of PLA one of the things you highlight is the create additional requirements over and beyond payment of prevailing wages. Right. >> Right. Is that a concern or like or is that a benefit >> in your definition?
114One of the things that general contractors will tell you that if we sign up for a PLA, then we're also we also have to pay the prevailing wage and also the health benefits that the union has in place or at least the the the benefits that it has in in its place for its members. So what I think I hear you saying is or what I think I hear you saying is to pay a prevailing wage or over prevailing wage and benefits to the employees it's a bad thing. Well, um, general contractors will tell you that they have made the argument that if we're having why should we have to pay the benefits for the employees of your particular uh, for your particular union, >> right? I hear you. And that would be one of
115the reasons that I personally support PLA's because we want the workers that are working in our district to be treated fairly to have a safe and reliable space to work to have a prevailing wage and get the benefits because they're working in our community. Just speaking as one board member. So that's one of the things that's a concern. And we I am pro- labor and um I know that our district has talked a lot about career pathways where we want our students to have CTE programs that support labor and I believe all of us have a consensus in that aspect. We've talked about it before that we want our students to uh who want to get in the trades to get in the trades but then we want to take away options for working in
116their community. Why will we do that? >> Well, we we had conversations with with the district on this and and making sure that we separate the PLA's from >> what you I think you go call it's the student >> SWA student workforce agreement. >> Yeah. That those are separate. >> They are. Yeah. >> But do you want to train the student? Agree to train the student is what I think your presentation is saying. agree for the the pathway for the students to have training but then not provide a place for them to work after we so you're for the the students getting training but against the students working in their community. >> Well, I think that is a that's a general contractor decision. And if you I I think where you're going with this is
117if you have a PLA then it's automatically hinged to the student trade program. >> Right. Right. There is that option. Right. They can work in our community. We are here to build Marino Valley up. We want Marino Valley to Marino Valley to be a place that um offers um a place to work, a place to build, a place to have a good wage where they can buy a home um where they can have a job that has a great wage and benefit so they can support their families. That's what we want our students to do. So if our students decide not to go to college and they decide to go the CTE route, we want them to be successful no matter what pathway they take, right? So why would we eliminate a job when we
118have the opportunity to create jobs in our own community via the PLA? >> Well, I think the I guess the simple answer to that is it's a it's a matter of trade-off >> and also what you're kind of tying into is that you would hire the a local workforce, right? So, I think at the end of the day, it's a matter of trade-off. If you don't go in that particular direction, then you do stand the chance, and this is the other side of the argument, is that you're going to pay more for your construction projects, >> but >> and so that there's that trade-off is >> paying more for your construction projects and then potentially using your local workforce. And then that's another conversation. Well, what does local mean >> with the possibility of of
119of of using your students to potentially um learn a trade via these pro via these projects? >> So, let me ask you this. Could this decision unintentionally create barriers for students seeking to accelerate their education or career goals via the trade um are going >> could it be a barrier? >> Yes. If we don't if we decide not to move forward with PLA's or if we say PLA's are not for or if we go with your recommendation that we shouldn't have PLA's in our district, could that create barriers for our students? >> I I I'm not sure. I'm not sure I can answer that. Uh >> potentially >> it could potentially yes, >> but again I I I'm not 100% certain of that. >> Thank you. That's all I have. Um, with the current situation
120of uh training students, what latitude do they have? If they get trained here in Riverside County, where can they go with that training that they're receiving as far as looking for employment? Well, I think the the the uh the union labor out is one, but general contractors and I think the the u the community member that came up earlier to make a public comment did mention that a good majority of uh of organized of of construction labor is outside of the union umbrella. So to your question, I I I think there are a lot of opportunities if you take the the union right route or the a route outside of the the the union umbrella, whether it's you decide to become an electrician, a plumber, uh or a carpenter, because general contractors are using those
121trades or at least those skills as we speak. And a lot of them are not using union labor. >> But as you mentioned, they don't want to pay benefits. >> Yeah. >> And they don't want to pay a prevailing Well, they have to pay a prevailing wage, but they don't want to necessarily pay a higher wage and they don't want to pay benefits. So why would we invest in someone who's not investing in our students in our community? >> Well, let me maybe I wasn't clear on this. So general contractors are required to pre to pay a prevailing wage, right? And the at least the feedback that we got from general contractors was we don't want to pay the benefits for our employees but then also have to pay the benefits for for unionized labor
122because it they're looking at it they're having to pay benefits twice. And again, that's the argument that we get from general contractors. Do I So I think I hear you saying that at the end of the day, which is fair to say and I understand, but the company wants to make more money and and more profit versus giving it to their employees versus, you know, sharing. I I think the Yeah, I don't want to speak for all general contractors, but I I I wouldn't Yeah, I personally wouldn't make that jump in logic, but if that's where you are, then >> President Luna, if I may, >> I just want to make sure that that the board understands that I feel like we're having two conversations at the same time. One conversation is PLA, the project
123labor agreement, and that's basically as defined. Um, thank you for the definition. I think it's very clear and it makes sense. And the other conversation is the student workforce agreement that can continue, will continue, is continuing, is in place, is in progress regardless of whether the board decides to do a PLA or not. So our students are still going to have an opportunity to engage in the trades within our district to have a connection and articulation or a pathway to for example the carpenters union because that's who we're working in right now regardless of whether we the board decides to move in the PLA direction or not. Um I also want to make sure that we understand that that this this is not your recommendation. >> I just please don't take it that way. We're
124using editorial you. So the committee is the one that brought this forward. Um because again you're the face of the committee. You facilitated the conversation and I part and I was there for part of it at the beginning. Um but this is basically the committee's part. So what you're presenting to us is the committee's recommendation to the board. And then the last piece that I want to sing single out just to make sure this is not an action item. This is just giving getting the information from the committee. If the board decides to do nothing, then we do nothing. We proceed with our construction projects as we currently are with a method that we're using now. If the board decides to go into a PLA, then that requires another conversation going into negotiations with the
125local trades and local unions and developing anou for that endeavor. So really this is not about a decision yet. This is about uh giving information to the board based on the committee's uh meeting and the recommendation. So then at that point once you've had the discussion if you want further direction from us then we will take that direction. >> If I can just say I 100% support PLA's but I also support being transparent to our voters. So unfortunately this was not something that was discussed or thought about when the bond was was discussed. So we didn't address it. We missed our opportunity. I don't want any voter out there to think that we have misled them. So for that reason I could not support at this time. But if a future bond go that you
126know we have to vote on a future bond or bring that forth then this is something I definitely would would like to bring forth. That is my personal thought. >> I have I have one question Mr. Taylor. You you mentioned a triangle time value and use of bond dollars. Is that your triangle? >> Yes. Dollars time and value. Yes. >> Okay. Because we have a similar triangle in education, parent, student, school. >> Sure. Sure. And again, the reason I I I invoke that concept in my days as a as a as a as an assistant super business, working on construction projects, I always focused on that triangle, talking with architects, talking with general contractors, making sure that we maximize all three legs of that particular triangle. So that's why I invoke it because we are
127talking about construction projects >> and making sure you get the most value from those bond dollars. uh construction projects especially with escalation factors are are going up year after year after year. So trying to stretch those bond dollars as far as possible is always very important for for school districts. Now your your recommendation for this other triangle I I think is is is valid way I see it. Thank you. I I don't necessarily uh know if I'm ready to bring this forward or ask if we continue with PLA's. I really think there needs to be um more information provided. I get the feeling that I do appreciate Well, I do appreciate the three-hour meeting. I get the feeling that it's not it could it could have been more. I I think, you know, having two
128people present, one from legal, one from the carpenters. Great. Then someone presented and the other person didn't show up. I think that's an issue. We should have brought them back because we want all perspective perspectives. Um, I'm not necessarily ready to move forward with the PLA, but I still would like to consider the PLA. And and with all due respect to Dr. Rubakava, I know he said we're talking about two separate things. The student workforce agreement is still moving forward, but PLA's are still are still important. And I think there's um a pathway, you know, to the PLA being a student in a student, you know, the student worker. So, you know, I think there's more to be shared. I think there's more perspectives to be had. I think that we should continue with the
129committee that we have, but I think that they should be given robust information to make an informed decision before we make an informed decision. So, I don't know if anybody else has anything to say on that, but that's where I stand. I just feel that we need to hear the other side, you know, the other part. Um it was good that he came and presented us you know the information and point of views of the committee but I just feel that um we also need to hear you know from the other part. >> So I just want to make sure we're clear we did hear from the other side. There was a presentation >> by PLA at this board to this board and that's what actually started this conversation. So from that the board gave
130direction to develop this independent unbiased objective committee to hear from all sides and come up with the recommendations. So >> so >> I I just I I there's a lot of information that was shared today. >> So I think if the board needs some more time to digest and to think about it, >> that's fine. But we can make the presentation that was shared before available to the board >> and an update so that you have it again at your disposal. Um, but this was that idea. The board gave us direction, come up with this committee. The committee comes up with a recommendation. They've done that. So now we're basically at the next steps. >> And this committee came up with the recommendation and one was they thought that it would erode trust as if
131we passed a bond with measure X and we for you know I guess they're not even in order is my point. the PLA conversation didn't happen until after the bond was passed. >> Yes, I I think that that's President Luna's point. I think >> I think in hindsight >> it would have been appropriate to have a PLA conversation before the bond >> so the community would was informed that this was a possibility. That way in the sake of transparency and and you know being forthright and all of that >> um it would have been the best way to go about it. But but we are here now. >> We are That's what I was going to say. Hindsight is always 2020. We didn't know that this was going to be a conversation. Things are always
132changing and ever evolving. We can't always go back and say, well, you know, we have to be forward thinking. >> So anyway, I guess I'm done. >> Oh, I 100% agree that we can always, you know, go back in time and try to change things, but we can't. We are where we are. >> Yeah. I just feel that we need to, you know, like like really take the time to think and um just one question. So everything that you came and presented to us is based on the different points and conversations that you have with the committees, >> correct? >> Okay. >> And I understand that there was some very spirited conversations. >> Yes. So, uh, >> so basically I think what we can just say is at this point um if people or if
133our board wants to digest it and at a future meeting when for your future agenda item if you feel um so moved to ask for it to be added to the agenda on a future time then we could do that but at this point we'll just digest it. Right. Yes, I agree with Miss Luna. >> And I will make sure that we include um the presentation from the first time around so that you have it as a refresher. >> Yeah, >> just to be clear, Dr. the first presentation was the one that was last October. >> Correct. Uh it was during uh I think public comment maybe if I remember. Yes. Yes. Yes. So, and we'll make that available. >> Thank you so much. >> Thank you for your presentation. We appreciate it. All right,
134we are on to item K, consent agenda. I'd like to um approve the consent agenda um with uh but I'd like to pull um a 5480 in the contracts, please. and um approve as amended. I'd like to pull the contract for a separate vote and that's A24255480. >> Okay. >> All right. Do I have a So, was that your motion? Okay. And do I have a second? >> I'll second. Miss Claudia, please call for the vote. >> Student board member Carbio. >> I Mr. Williams [Music] >> in in the contracts um contract A 2425 5480. I'd like to approve it for a separate vote. So the motion is to approve the entire consent agenda with the exception of of the contracts. Okay. >> And that will be voted on separately. >> And so we have
135a first and a second. >> I >> thank you sir. Mr. Johnson >> I >> Miss Lea >> I >> Miss Clark >> I >> Miss Luna >> I motion carries. Okay. Now I need a motion to approve A24 254 and 80. Do I have that right? >> Mhm. >> Do I have a motion? >> Thank you, Mr. Johnson. Do I have a second? I'll second. Miss Claudia, please call for the vote. >> Student bar member Kavario. Carbio. >> I. >> Mr. Williams. >> I. >> Mr. Johnson. >> Hi, >> Miss Lea. >> I >> Miss Clark. >> Abstain. >> Miss Luna. >> I motion carries five and one abstension. Okay. Thank you. All right. Now, we are on to educational services. Oh, no. Sorry. No, we're not. One moment. All right, we are on
136to item L one superintendent discussionform informationational items. Dr. Rubakaba. >> Thank you, President Luna. So, at the request of one of our trustees, um, which was, can we look at adding a land acknowledgement statement to the district so that every one of our meetings, every one of our sessions, and every one of our celebrations would be preceded by a land acknowledgement. Um, considering and respecting the uh, first peoples of our area. We did some research. I want to thank Claudia and Robin who helped with this. I also want to thank um Vice President Clark who connected me with her colleague over at UCR who verified that we made sure we had all of the first peoples correct. This is a draft or a proposed land acknowledgement statement for the board's discussion and review and discussion.
137Um I I think this is important enough that I read it out loud because we want to make sure that everybody understands its significance. And again, this would be something that would be part of every presentation, every meeting, every celebration in our district. And so the land acknowled acknowledgement statement is as follows. The Marino Valley Unified School District has a responsibility to continually self-educate, reflect, and listen to the histories and peoples in our areas. including tribal land acknowledgements in practice and understanding and acknowledging history is not only respectful and educational, it is justiceoriented advocacy necessary for continuing the work of dismantling the devastating effects of settler colonialism in our society. As an institution physically located in Southern California, the Marino Valley Unified School District would like to respectfully acknowledge and recognize our responsibility to the
138original and current caretakers caretakers of this land, water, and air. the Cowoila, Gabrielino, Tongva, Luceno, and Serrano peoples, and all of their ancestors and descendants, past, present, and future. Today, this meeting place is home to many indigenous peoples from all over the world, including MV MVUSD staff and students, and we are grateful to have the opportunity to live and work on these homelands. Please take a moment to acknowledge and reflect on the native, Aboriginal, and indigenous peoples of your area from which you are physically joining us today. If you're unfamiliar with the original and current caretakers of the land, water and air in your area, we highly encourage you to take time to self-educate, reflect, and listen to these stories. Sounds wonderful. Any questions? Thank you. And this is just um just a reading asking
139for questions and comments. No action being taken. >> Correct. If you want to give us consensus now to move forward or if you want to give us information later and some feedback on how to, you know, change some of the wording, we'll be happy to. But we do plan to bring it back as an action item at a future meeting. >> Thank you. >> All right, we are on to item L2A, first reading of board policy and administrative regulation 3260, fees and charges. Miss Lopez. >> Yes. Thank you, President Luna. Uh, so we have board policy 3260 as well as administrative regulation 3260. This is regulations that deal with student fees. And so we have had new laws in 2021 and 2022 that have provided language um highlighting two of them, things that are currently
140in place um and processes that we follow but have not been incorporated into the actual policy. So beginning in 2022 um there's law that prohibits charging parents of any unduplicated student a fee for transportation. Um and that is something that we've been following since then. But again, want to make sure that we have it incorporated in our policy. Uh the second um big highlight uh was a new law implemented in on 20 in 2021 and this has to do with universal meals. So it states that it requires districts to provide free breakfast and lunch daily to any students. Again, something a practice that we've been following, but now making sure that it's in in incorporated in the actual policy. There's also changes to some of the wording. Um, for example, that that it old policy
141included terms such as homemaking. Um, now new term is family and consumer sciences. So really just aligning everything to CSBA policy and this is again a first reading. Thank you, Miss Lopez. Any questions, colleagues? No. All right. On to item 3A, first reading to delete board policy 4019.1, professional adult student boundaries, first reading of board policies and new administrative regulations 4244 and 4344. Complaints first reading of new administrative regulations 4119.12 and 4219.12. Also 4319.12 title 9 sexual harassment complaint procedures. Dr. Very. >> Thank you, President Luna. So, as you mentioned, there are six total policies that are covered by this item for first reading this evening. I'll speak first to the uh deletion piece, which is 4119.24 regarding appropriate uh adult student boundaries. At our last board meeting on June the 24th, the board did
142adopt language to replace that policy, making this one here before you this evening obsolete. The district is presenting this as a first reading for deletion as a result. And this will be brought back to you for final approval as a second reading and deletion on August the 26th. And then the remaining five updates that are before you this evening as a first reading are all compliant with current Title 9 policies and procedures along with some new CSBA guidelines that we received. And so we'll bring those back at that next board meeting as well. >> Thank you, Dr. Ry. Any questions or comments, colleagues? All right. Thank you. Next, we are on to item M1, superintendent action items. >> Dr. Rioaba. >> Thank you, President Luna. So, at our last board meeting, we presented the board
143a preliminary draft, if you will, of board priorities for 2526. After some very productive conversation and some feedback from board trustees individually after the meeting, we uh are happy to present to you the um now latest draft final draft for approval of the board priorities for 2526 in these three areas. So you see the first one student success and academic achievement, the second one workforce and operational excellence and the third one whole child and community well-being. One of the things that I want to point out is that um even though there are three, there's a lot of um depth and complexity embedded in each of these three board priorities. And so if the board adopts these tonight, they're going to really govern our work for the next school year. And every individual, every department, every
144division is going to be asked to develop goals and objectives, smarter goals, adding the E and the R for evaluate and reward or revise as necessary. Um, so that we are making sure that we're all aligned to the same goal and the same focus. Um, we did this last again. We are looking forward to presenting you some data that's going to show that when when we all align our efforts into common goals and focus areas that we do really good work and and when you see the data in a couple of weeks, you're going to see that as well. So the other piece is not every one of these goals is going to be appropriate to every division or or person in our district. Uh I'm going to pick on nutrition services for example. uh
145although their work indirectly impacts student achievement because if we have kids that are well fed then they're going to be better able to concentrate and and engage in activities, their goal might actually be be more centered around maybe creating a uh reducing their environmental footprints, maybe providing meaningful professional development. So, we're going to ask each of our uh team members to develop goals for themselves and for the division that are aligned to these but not to each one of these because if it was to each one of these and every individual would have about 14 goals and you can't do 14 things. Sorry. Um so we would ask our folks to really focus on five goals based on their data and their needs. So they would have to do some rough self-reflection, have conversations with
146their team and identify in our division department or our school what are the five things that are most in need based on what we have here and then they would engage in those goals for the year and would be not only part of their goal setting but also part of the evaluation for the year. So with that I present the board priorities for 2526. Any questions or comments on our board priorities, suggested edits? >> No, >> you guys are good with it. >> I'd like to uh make a motion to approve the 2025 20226 board priorities as presented. >> I'll second it. >> Thank you, Miss Lea. Miss Claudia, please call for the vote. >> Student board member Carbala. >> I. >> Mr. Williams, >> I. >> Mr. Johnson, >> I. >> Miss Lever, >>
147I. >> Miss Clark, >> I. >> Miss Luna, >> I. Motion carries. >> Thank you so much. We appreciate um you know, clear goals and expectations. Not only are they going to be part of our team's goals, but they're going to be part of my goals for my evaluation this year as well. So, thank you so much. >> Thank you. On to item M2A, approval of student discipline case 044-23-24. Uh, do I have a motion to approve? >> I'd like to make a motion to approve actions on student disciplinary case 044-23-24 as presented. >> Okay. Mr. Johnson seconds. Miss Claudia, please call for the vote. Mr. Williams. I >> Mr. Johnson >> I >> Miss Leva >> I >> Miss Clark I Miss Lona >> I motion carries. Item B, approval of the membership of
148the special education comm community advisory committee. Dr. RC, may we have more information? >> Absolutely, Miss Luna. This is an annual um item for the board to take action and approve our CSC membership. And provided to you were the list of the members that submitted an application. All members that submitted an application are listed and we're requesting approval. >> Thank you, Dr. RC. Do I have a motion to approve? >> Miss, >> I'd like to make a motion to approve. >> Thank you, Miss Leva. Do I have a second? >> I have a second. >> Okay, Mr. Williams second. Miss Clatty, please call for the vote. >> Student board member Gayo. >> I. >> Mr. Williams, >> I. >> Mr. Johnson, >> hi. >> Miss Leva, >> hi. Miss Clark. I >> Miss Luna. >>
149I motion carries. Item C, approval of the officers of the Special Education Community Advisory Committee for a 2-year term. Dr. Arson. >> Thank you again. Um, this is again an an annual item for the board to take action and approve. Uh, in this case, it would be the chairperson and community liaison uh as they were up for election this year. And we've provided the list. So we are seeking approval for the for the um committee of RCAC. >> I would like to make a motion to approve that. >> Okay, Miss Lea. And do I have a second? >> Mr. Johnson seconds. Miss Claudia, please call for the vote. >> Student board member Carbio. >> I. >> Mr. Williams, >> I. >> Mr. Johnson, >> I. >> Miss Lever, >> I. >> Miss Clark, >> I.
150>> Miss Luna, >> I. Motion carries. Item D, approval of the second reading and adoption of board policy 4040, employee use of technology and board policy 6163.4, student use of technology. Dr. RC, >> thank you. This is the second read and seeking approval of our board for both of those uh board policies. And just to remind the board that we um align these policies with CSBA guidelines and it includes artificial intelligence language which we are still creating board policy on the usage and and we have a a committee working on that. But this is to request up toate on our current policies on these two. Any questions? Okay. Do I have a motion? >> Mr. Johnson and do I have a second? I'll second. >> Mr. Williams seconds. Miss Claudia, please call for the vote.
151>> Student board member Corbio. >> I. >> Mr. Williams, >> I. >> Mr. Johnson, >> I. >> Miss Lever, >> I. >> Miss Clark, >> I. >> Miss Luna, >> I. Motion carries. And on to item 3A, approval of resolution number 2025-26-02, acquisition of surplus government property. Miss Lopez. >> Yes. Thank you, President Luna. This particular resolution is one that is presented annually typically at our December organizational meeting. However, we have a um an addition. Um we have a newly hired director of purchasing, Miss Sylvia Inagosa. Um she's still here this evening. Thank you. Um so we want to make sure that we get the proper approvals in place so that we can add her. Um, and so again, this is just a one time because the hiring was in the middle of the year.
152This is that resolution that you will see at that organizational meeting in December. >> Thank you. Any questions? Do I have a motion to approve? >> So moved. >> Okay. Miss Clark and a second. >> I'll second. >> Miss Leo seconds. Miss Claudia, please call for the vote. >> Student Board member Carbio. >> Hi. >> Mr. Williams. >> Hi. >> Mr. Johnson. >> Hi. >> Miss Leva. >> Hi. >> Miss Clark. I, Miss Luna. >> I motion carries. All right. Item B, approval of a 5% increase in the monthly stipens for the governing board members of for the 2025 2026 fiscal year. Miss Lopez. >> Yes. Thank you, President Luna. So, in bylaw 9250, um, which follows, um, education code, it aligns that every year an increase up to 5% um, can take place for
153governing board stipens. And so this item is the recommendation to increase the 5% for the 2526 fiscal year. Thank you. Any questions? >> Okay. Do I have a motion to approve? >> I'd like to uh make a motion to approve the 5% increase um as presented. >> Okay. Thank you, Miss Clark. Do I have a second? >> I'll second. >> Miss Lea seconds. Miss Claudia, please call for the vote. >> Student board member Corbalo. >> I. >> Mr. Williams, >> I. >> Mr. Johnson, >> I. >> Miss Leva, >> I. Miss Clark. >> Hi. >> Miss Luna. >> I. Motion carries. Okay. Now we are on to item 4A. Approval of the certificated personnel on a variable waiver for the English learner authorization for 20 2025 2026 school year. Dr. Verie. >> Thank you, President
154Luna. as we uh continue to staff for the new school year and get some hiring done. We have a teacher who's coming on board that are still uh concluding their particular program, their credentiing program and have the B-clad component that will help make sure that they finish up and get that. So this evening we're bringing this individual forward for this variable waiver to get them started and then we'll make sure that they continue to work on finishing up that B-clad this year. >> Thank you, Dr. Ready. Any questions? Okay. Okay. Do I have a motion to approve? >> I would like to make a motion to approve the approval of the certificate personnel. >> Thank you, Miss Lever. Do I have a second? >> I'll second. >> Miss Clark seconds. Miss Claudia, please call for
155the vote. >> Student board member Corvio. >> I. >> Mr. Williams. >> I. >> Mr. Johnson. >> I. >> Miss Lea. >> I. >> Miss Clark. >> I. >> Miss Luna. >> I. Motion carries. On to item 4B, approval of resolution 2025-26-01, elimination of vacant classified positions for the 202526 school year effective July 23rd, 2025. Dr. Verie, >> thank you, President Luna. is before the board in this item are two 3.75 EL instructional assistant vacant positions that we are asking the board to uh just help us eliminate and take off the books as we say for moving forward and these are coming again as vacancies to the board tonight. >> Thank you, Dr. Ry. Any questions? >> Just to clarify, I know you said they're vacant, so no employee has been affected or has been
156affected by this decision and uh Okay. >> Yeah, that's correct, Miss >> Okay. from Miss Labor. Yes. >> Any more questions? Okay. Do I have a motion to approve? >> I like a make make a motion to approve resolution number 202520601 as presented. >> Thank you, Miss Clark. Do I have a second? >> Okay. Thank you, Mr. Johnson and Miss Claudia. Please call for the vote. >> Student board member Corbio. >> I. >> Mr. Williams. >> Hi. >> Mr. Johnson, >> I. >> Miss Lever, >> I. >> Miss Clark, >> I lo >> I. Motion carries. Item C, approval of the first addendum to the employment agreement between Marino Valley Unified School District and Alejandro Ruvacaba. Uh, Dr. Verie. >> Thank you, President Luna. So, there are two items for Dr. Rubakaba's uh contract, employment
157contract that are being amended this evening and uh per legal requirements. I'll I'll read verbatim into the record what those are being amended uh in the recital uh what is before the board today effective July 1, 2025. The terms of paragraph one of the agreement concerning term of the agreement. Under the agreement, the district hereby employs a superintendent for a period commencing July 22nd, 2025 and ending June 30th of 2029 unless otherwise terminated or extended. In the event the district agreement shall not be renewed, superintendent shall be given written notice thereof at least 60 days in advance of the expiration of the term of the agreement. Um so the main part about this one to just bring forward to the board is the term. And then the second component that is being updated effective July
15822, 2025, the terms of paragraph 10 of the agreement concerning termination are amended as follows. Termination without cause under section A, the board may elect to terminate the agreement prior to its expiration without cause upon 60-day written notice to the superintendent. If the district elects to terminate the agreement without cause, it shall pay the superintendent a lump sum payment within 30 days of the superintendent's last day of employment with the district and equal an amount equal to the salary of the remainder of the term of this agreement or an extension thereof or an amount equal to the monthly salary of the superintendent multiplied by 12 months whichever is lesser. The calculation for purposes of the lumpsum payment shall be based upon the rate of salary in effect on the last day of the superintendent's employment
159with the district. Upon termination of this agreement without cause, the district shall continue to pay the superintendent's health benefits for the remainder of this agreement or any extension thereof not to exceed 12 months or until the superintendent finds other public employment, whichever occurs first. This provision is intended to comply with the requirements governing maximum cash settlement as set forth in government code sections 53260. In addition, pursuant to California government code sections 53243 and 53243.2, if the agreement is terminated, any cash settlement related to the termination that the superintendent may receive from the district shall be fully reimbursed by the superintendent to the district. If the superintendent is convicted of a crime involving an abuse of his office or position as defined in government code section 53243.4, this termination without cause must be by a supermajority
160vote of the board 4 to one or 100% of the board if less than five board members are present for the vote. And those are the amendments. President Luna, >> thank you. Dr. Verie, colleagues, do you have any questions? >> Are we making a decision on it right now? >> Yes. >> Correct. This is an action item. Can we have more time to discuss that because we really have the time to >> I'd like to make a motion to approve the first amendment of the employment agreement between Run Valley Unified School District is because and Dr. Alejandro Ruboca as presented second. >> Okay. Miss Clark motion and Mr. Johnson second. Miss Claudia please call for the vote. >> Mr. Williams >> nay. >> Mr. Johnson >> I. Miss Leva >> abstain. >> Miss Clark I.
161>> Miss Luna >> I. >> So motion carries. 32. >> Yes. >> Or three >> one and one no and one abstension. >> All right. Thank you. All right. On to item number one, acknowledgement of the certificated management job description director 3, secondary education. Dr. Birdie, >> as we continue to recruit for this position, President Luna and board members, we're just presenting some uh updates to the language in the director 3 secondary education. No changes to calendar or no changes to compensation, but duties, assignments, tasks, responsibilities have been updated and Dr. RC and her team have had a chance to review this as well. >> Okay. Are there any questions? No. Okay. Thank you, Dr. Very. Um, on to item number two and two, acknowledge of the fourth quarterly report on Williams uniform complaints. Dr.
162Vioa. >> Thank you, President Luna. So, as required by the Williams Act, we have to report every recorder any complaints regarding textbooks, materials, teacher mis assignments, or facilities issues. And I'm happy to report that we have zero complaints in and we have no complaints in none in all of the areas. So, um, thank you to the team for their hard work on this. >> That's great news. Thank you. On to item O, future agenda topics. Uh so this is um an opportunity for you to add future agenda topics to any meeting. Uh we'll start with um our new student board member, Miss Isabella. >> Um I have no future agenda topics. >> Thank you, Mr. Williams. Um, I think I think uh we need to look uh at our new director position and and keep
163uh keep up on that position to uh possibly assist um Mr. Sterns in in that position. Uh it is a new position. it's all-encompassing and I think there are a lot of variables we need to keep considering um with with regard to that position. So I I'd like it to be something that we review uh on a meeting by meeting basis um to ensure that he is successful. I really I really believe in the program. I like the approach that the district has taken and uh I think it's going to benefit our students um in the long run. We have to catch up in the 21st century with our students as they go above and beyond the classroom into the workforce into the work world into the business world. And this is just one of
164the areas in which we have to really stay focused. >> Do you have any questions for >> uh so just for clarification is the request that we provide a monthly update on the director of extended and extended learning activities in Vapor. >> Right. Right. >> So we don't do that for any other directors and even any other divisions. So we could do that >> or report out, have them report out >> that that's based on the consensus of the board. >> I I think that's micromanaging. I think that's in the weeds for uh the board of education. I think we should do uh presentations like we always have. We we streamline them. The board asks the cabinet to bring us presentations. You all do. But to have an employee be put on the spot every
165board meeting, I think is inappropriate and I would recommend against it. >> So >> I I I I had no intention of putting the the person on on on point. I was bringing that up as a point of us understanding the position, it being new and and and going from that point. No, I I I don't want to micromanage the man >> at all. I just want us to be familiar with it. Be like I say, it's all-encompassing. It takes in a lot of variables and uh you know, he may have questions for us. >> I think that's I think your first point about providing support for the position that's absolutely 100% something that we intend to do. you know, we we do not onboard someone um expecting them to fail or planning for them
166to fail. We want them to be successful. And I think in this case, I I 100% agree with you. The fact that this is a new position is going to require some additional support. Maybe um what we could do um is in our weekly updates maybe add a section where he can provide or his division and department can provide maybe some updates on what's going on with ELOP VAP and athletics. >> Uh our other divisions do that now. So our Friday updates contain updates from the wellness center, from student services, from student safety and security. I'm I'm looking over there. I think that that would be maybe a good way of doing it. Um I I I do I do not believe at all that this is about putting him on the spot. It's just
167as a new employee to the district it would be pretty intimidating to have to present to the board every month and >> I think the support I think is absolutely appropriate. >> The only reason I came to that is um Mr. Sterns comes with a lot of experience >> and so he's done a lot of different jobs and we haven't seen anything like that. >> Uh I don't think in our district yet. Um so um again my hats off to him for applying for the job and and it's it's it's going to be all-encompassing. Thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. Williams. Mr. Johnson, do you have any future agenda topics? >> I I don't have any future agenda topics, but I do want to address something with uh the superintendent. I I really appreciate our
168one-on- ones when I when I go into the office and we talk about the uh upcoming agenda, but uh I also appreciate the times when we go beyond the agenda and just talk in general about what's going on. So, as far as I'm concerned, you just keep that up with me. I don't know what you do with everybody else, but I know what you do with me, and I'm satisfied with that. So, thank you, sir. >> Mr. Johnson, and I mean this in an entirely positive way. It's very easy. You have the gift of gab, so it's very easy to have a conversation with you and to lose track of time. So, thank you to you as well. I appreciate you for that as well. >> Miss Leva, do you have any future agenda topics?
169>> Not at this moment. Um I know that we have talked about you know like um students to present and you said that they were going to start doing it um if I'm if I'm correct August September about you know it's sports and all that kind of stuff um but I was also thinking you know we have and that was for high school students but I was thinking you know if we are able to include somehow our um middle school kids you know I have had the opportunity to see them you know presenting what they do and I'm amazed because they're like really young and they're like very, you know, well spoken and and and they're like so into it. They they show so much experience for the for the age that they have. So
170I don't know if there's any way that we can include, you know, sometime somehow, you know, some middle school students. So, I hope I didn't get this wrong, but it was our understanding that the presentation was going to be from middle school students and only middle school students. And I hope I got that right because I we talked to Michael, who was with us at Footsteps for Freedom, our esports teacher from Badger Springs, >> and he was very excited to have his kids come and present. So, the focus will be entirely middle school. >> Okay. Thank you. Of course, >> I am so excited. Now that we have drivers education moving forward, I would like to ask uh for a future agenda topic in relation to drivers training. >> Yay. Okay. So, that is what
171I would like to see next. I promise not to bring it up every single meeting. So with consensus of the board, we can absolutely do some research on what are some options for what we used to call behind the wheel, right? So >> behind the wheel. >> Yes, I support that. >> I support that, too. I'm very excited. I'm like, ohoo, finally. >> Thank you. >> Sounds like we have consensus. Trusty Williams, Johnson, Trusty Garo. Yes. >> Okay, >> perfect. We will we will our team will start researching that. >> All right. And I I don't have any future agenda topics. >> Uh not a future agenda topic, but I have an update. I spoke to Mr. Peoples this morning and the team uh working on the cell phone policy is ready to give an
172update to the board. So we will schedule him for an upcoming board meeting so the team can present that cell phone policy update where we are with that and uh get some feedback from trustees on that. So >> thank you. All right. With no further business to come before the board of education, the meeting is adjourned at 7:45 p.m. Have a good night, everyone. Another record. Record.