001Okay. So, thank you. And with that, I call this meeting to order at back to order at 6:57. And again, I apologize for our tardiness. Um, we had some confusion and had some um trustees who were tardy to close session, which then just has been carrying over. But I want to thank you to our welcome you to our board meeting. Um, we do have translation in Spanish, but today that is going to happen in the overflow room. Um, espanol, help me out, Jessica or Gabe, how would we say in the overflow room? See? Okay. This meeting will be livereamed and recorded. If someone would like to speak to an item on the agenda, they must complete a speaker card and hand it to Eva prior to that start of that agenda item. I see a
002lot of new faces here tonight, so I want to take a moment to establish some ground rules. There may be differences of opinions, sometimes strong differences. Please give those speaking the same respect that you would receive when you are speaking. This will allow everyone to be heard and the board to conduct its necessary business. And now I will move us on to item um 3.2, our pledge of allegiance. I will ask Trusty Turley to lead us in our pledge of allegiance. Behind you. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Yeah, thank you. Yeah. And now I will move us on to item 3.3, our superintendent comments. Dr. Heather Contra, our superintendent
003of schools, will make a few comments. Sylvester Stray, I believe you might have a clip for me. So good evening everyone. One of the things that we are hyperfocused on is of course the mission of our organization which is educating our students. And as we go about our daytoday practices, we need to keep education at the forefront. And so on the screen over here, we have our student data from last year's um accountability measures for the state of California. We have a practice that we're teaching our administrators as well as cabinet. It comes from Harvard Business class. It's a class that I went through um is called data wise and it's a way of looking at data. Several of our cabinet members have also now gone through that class. And one of the ways that
004we look at the data to start with is to go through a practice called I notice and I wonders. And it's just a no blame and no shame way of looking at data where you just kind of look at it and say I notice and I wonder. And so I'd like all of you right now to look at that data and just in your head do some I notice and I wonder when you look at that data. So our school board has also done this our notice and I wonders with this data and so one of the things that we as a board are incredibly committed to is changing this data. If you notice, PBUSD is underperforming for the state of California and we are underperforming for similar school districts in our area. And so
005we have committed as a school board to focusing our attention on moving these scores and ensuring that our students get the best education. And that's what we're going to be focusing on over the next few years. And so we we'll be starting um our meetings with a look at data. Those will be my continued superintendent comments, opening each of our meetings so that we just start with the focus on this is what we need to do and this is what we exist for and this is what our students deserve from us and this is what this board is committing to. Uh so for tonight, every decision that we make, every conversation that we will have, and every action that this school board will take is going to be with this data in mind, and that
006our decisions are all going to be focused to improve the outcomes for the students of Po Valley. And that is our commitment to every one of you in this room. So, thank you for being here tonight. and thank you for I know making the commitment that you also have to our students. Thank you. And now I will move us on to our governing board comments. This is the opportunity for each board member to make a few comments. Um each board member will have three minutes and we will start with Trustee Medina. I have a feeling I'm going to be uh talking to a lot more issues later on in the night. So, I'll go ahead and hold my comment so we can get it going. Thank you, Trusty Turley. Same here. Thank you, Trustee Flynn.
007Same. Uh, same. Thank you, Trusty Krasco. Same. Thank you, Trusty Dodge. Just briefly, I was able to attend open house my daughter for Kpali. And I see there's other students here from the FFA and Watsville High School. Yeah. Also attending Kpali. So Watsville High School works. Yes. So you don't need to go to Saba, go to Watsville High. Thank you. Thank you, Trusty Navaro. In the interest of time, I will also defer my comments. Thank you Trusty Eskea. Good evening everyone. I'll try to make this as fast as possible. Well, but I just want to ensure that I report the comments from the students that were given to me. But um I hope everyone had a really reun rejuvenating spring break. Um yesterday I had the honor of hosting the superintendent's inner high committee along
008with um trustee Navaro and new school shared highlights from their recent field trip to Point Logos and announced the formation of a green team club. So, the studentled club will focus on composting, organizing um recycle recycling efforts, and giving educational presentations to promote environmental stewardship across campuses. Avatars High is currently celebrating uh spring spirit week with today's spring rally, energizing the student body. They're also hosting an egg hunt with over a thousand hidden eggs, uh which students can redeem for prizes. And their prom will also be taking place this Friday at the Coconut Grove. Renaissance High had a meaningful trip to CSUMB and is gearing up for their Cinco de Mayo uh spirit week. And however, students expressed concerns about the field trip process, permission process um which they feel is overly timeconuming and restrictive.
009And Parro Valley High is preparing for their prom this Saturday and is also hosting a club carnival where students can raise funds for their organizations. The ethnic studies classes are launching their care bar presentations focused on drug um abuse prevention featuring interviews with students and staff about the personal impacts of sub of substance abuse. And students also voiced a need for more refillable water bottle stations on campus. And Watsonville High is also in the midst of prom ticket sales and planning. They've also extended their ASB election campaign to ensure greater student participation after AP testing. That's it. Thank you. Thank you. And I also will defer my comments except I do want to acknowledge with gratitude the donation to Starlight Elementary School, $5,000 from Molly Breno and American A Credit and $3,000 from Benevity. Thank
010you very much. And now I will move us on to item 3.5, our high school's FFA presentation. Oh, sorry. Um, we've been trying to come since September. So, thank you for finally getting us on the agenda and allowing the students to come speak. Um, we're here obviously to talk about our program, Watsonville High School. Um, I'll let the students um, introduce themselves. I have brought two of our teachers out of there's four of us. Um and then I'll let the students kind of talk and then I'll finish it up. But I want them to be able to go through a few of the pieces. Um the first thing that kind of goes along with who we are um is some of the classes that are offered at our school. Um so just in our agriculture
011program, you see we have a huge arrange of classes um ranging from freshman through senior year. um allowing students to meet all of their science requirements as well as some of their UCF requirements as well. Um and then kind of leaving um obviously we have not had the a mechanics in a few years and unfortunately um we couldn't hire this year due to some of the budget constraints. Um but we hope that that is something we can keep on the measure because we have a lot of students that want to learn how to weld. So kind of moving forward with that and then I'll let the students go ahead and speak. Oops. [Music] Thank you. So, hi everyone. Um, good evening. My name is Andrea Bente. I'm serving as the chapter president and I also
012served as the regional vice president at large for the 2024 2025 school year. So, a little bit about the greenhouse and garden. This year I had the opportunity to take horiculture and in that class we work a lot inside the green houses as well as outside the classroom because it's a CTE course. Um in the class inside the horiculture greenhouse unfortunately we are lacking resources to fulfill finishing one of them. So that would be great if we're able to get some CTE money for that. But outside of the classroom we're focusing in front of Watom High School to um beautify some of the areas in front of the art buildings right now. currently um fourth period right now is working on the areas and they're almost done. So hopefully that will be done before the
013end of my senior year. So I'm able to see the progress that is going to be fulfilled with that. And I know there's also another period that has horiculture. So a lot of it goes in um working around the farm because it's student run. And um yeah. Hi everyone. Good evening. My name is Janette Marcos, currently serving as the chapter vice president and the sectional officer for the 2024 2025 year. Um, next we do have the Santa Cruz County Fair for the 2024 school year. Um, it was a great success where we had a lot of students being able to show rabbits, lambs, goats, etc. We had over 75 students including the an the students who were raising an animal and who were able to um who were able to enter a floral arrangement as
014a part of the floral um class. And we also had the opportunity to have a student raise a heritage hog which is um a scholarship and the opportunity to help fund the Santa Cruz County Fair Foundation. And also we raised over $96,000 as a whole including the FFA and the CTE program in our house chapter. Next we have a little bit of the pictures of what we had. We have one of our students who was able to have the FFA reserve champion for the lamb. We have students who were able to enter their floor arrangements and we have a lot of success throughout. And these are a couple of the pictures we were able to capture. Thank you. Um, hi everybody. My name is Sila Garcia. I'm the chapter reporter. Um, these are just some
015opportunities that FFA offers such as different contests that helps out students um, the members with their public speaking skills. I was able to participate in a couple of them were um such as improv, extempiraneous, job interview, and all of them just help our members think on their feet and just improve their public speaking skills. Um outside of competitions and activities, we also attend various conferences. So this past year, I had the opportunity to fly to Indianapolis and be there for the National FFA convention that happens every year. I also was able to attend with my fellow officers as well as I believe 10 other individuals the state FFA convention um which hosts and we were able to participate in activities there. We'll go over that a little bit later. And we also offer the greenhand
016conference that is uh for 9th grade only. So they're able to understand what it is we do in agriculture at a young age. So then by the time they're seniors they've taken advantage of what the program has to offer as a whole. Um, there's also the chapter officer leadership conference that is made for the chapter officers to grow and be able to excel in their roles throughout the year. So, they're able to come back to the chapter and really strive for success throughout their year of service. And then we also have the made for excellence and the advanced leadership academy that students are able to attend as a member or as a chapter officer to grow and also just be there as a leader and to step out of their comfort zone and try something
017new in their high school career as well as being an FFA. In addition to this, we do have the chapter activities. So, chapter activities include over a hundred students coming each month to a monthly activity and this includes monthly meetings. For example, for the Halloween um haunted house and for the Halloween meeting, we were able to give back to our community by being able to create Jacob's Heart Foundation bags. And we have also been part of the middle school recruitment where we have students being able to step out of their comfort zone and recruit middle school students to be able to be part of the FF organization organization and be part of the CTE pathways and all the classes that are offered as a freshman. And we also have different types of CDE teams which
018are career development experience teams and those include the vegetable crop teams. So along with FFA many of our members are able to work on SAPE projects which is basically going into a business or agriculture related job and gaining experience from them. um such as Lakeside Organics, the Berry Fields or Jacob Hearts. And basically with those experiences, they're able to earn their state degree, which is one of the highest honors a member could receive. This year we had 50 members earn their state degree and over 100 students has earned it in the last five years. Also, um, going back to opportunities, I was able to participate in the job interview contest where I won second place sectional, third place regional, and I was able to go represent Watville at state level. So that was a really
019great opportunity I had just meeting other students and just having that experience of being able to talk to adults in agriculture field and just having that skill. Um as I mentioned I served as a regional officer which hasn't been done um from the Watsonville chapter in over 50 plus years. Being a regional officer is a great responsibility as an honor as well. Um, being a regional officer extends from the south coast region, so all the way down to LA and all the way up to the Santa Clara section. In my role, I was able to run conferences with my 10 other teammates. And in those conferences, we led 600 members um at the big conference and then 250 at a smaller conferences. And um, as Zyla mentioned, we also run the state degrees. So, um,
020only 3% of students get it in California and then Janette will touch on more in the American degrees because only 1% get it. So, these are really big numbers considering the small area we come from as well as being one of the smaller regions. But, um, as a regional officer, I will say it's a great responsibility, but also a great honor because not many are able to do that in their span of being an FFA. So yeah, in addition to what Andrea has pointed out, I do currently serve as a sectional officer where I lead over nine high schools throughout the Monterey County and the Santa Cruz County, which we are only the chapter in the Santa Cruz County. Um, it has been a great experience where I'm able to lead opportunities for students to
021mingle with each other and also be able to expand my leadership capabilities across the section. In addition to this and in addition to the degrees we offer and the national organization only 1% of the students who are able to be part of the FFA organization receive their American degrees and for a student to be able to receive their American degree they they have to be involved after graduating. So only graduates are able to receive this American degree. So it's one of the most prestigious awards in the national or FFA organization and for Watsonville there has been um over 40 graduates over the five over a span of five years and we have had the pleasure to have 10 receive them this [Applause] year. So we know our adviserss do so much for us in the
022summer. they're there throughout the whole um summer to be there with us as we raise animals uh for the Santa Cruz County Fair. So that could be a phone call at literally 5:00 p.m. where they have to drop everything and come and help an animal that needs it or just being there tirelessly nights um all the way to like 5 or 6 o'clock if we have a conference or um a monthly meeting. And so this past year, we had the great honor of going to Indianapolis, as I mentioned, to um watch Miss Laris get her honorary American FFA degree that not many advisers are usually nominated for or get the recognition. So, I'm really happy she's able to get the recognition she deserves after many years. These are just some pictures um some of the
023contests that we went the regional ones. Also we were able to do a community service project with our members where we deliver um lunches to the agriculture workers. So that was pretty fun. also the freshman leadership conference and the chapter no the green hand degree for the first year members and then um this is just another brief capture of everything we do because we obviously can't add all the photos to the slide. Um this Monday we had as we mentioned I believe 10 state degree recipients and the three of us are a part of that 3% which is really awesome. We also had um three proficiency winners. Um one of our juniors received a sectional plaque for being the sectional I believe small business owner. And then Torres, a graduate, also got recognized for her
024community service involvement that she ended up winning a proficiency in last year, I believe. Um, and then also these are just photos that happened this year of students placing an either first, second, and fourth in job interviews as well as the middle school recruitment that we do because that's vital to keeping the FFA organization and the BA Academy alive and also helping um, educate them that agriculture is not going to go away anytime soon. Um, nor do I foresee it happening because it's vital to us keeping um, staying alive. And then at the same time, we also had four students attend um, the Project Comp. Yeah. So, they competed with um across the Monterey Bay section with their student agriculture experience projects. And then that's just a photo of the three students that traveled to
025Indianapolis. Now, we're going to go be able to go um more in depth of what state FFA Convention. State FFA Convention is one of the state opportunities to um engage with over 7,000 members across the state of California. We had the privilege of having um about 12 students have the opportunity to mingle with 7,000 students and have the opportunity to talk with over 100 businesses and colleges across the nation and in the state of California including Calpaly Slow Fresno State Cal Cowpaly Humboldt and many other colleges as well. We had Mr. Gregorio who is part of the admin experience uh who was part as well as the ambassador program which I was able to give him a tour of what the state FFA convention and as part of the ambassador program it's able to ambass
026what the FFA organization provides for students the possibilities that it provides the leadership capabilities it provides for students um in these in the state FFA convention it also allows students to apply apply for scholarships and those students go through a scholarship interview to be able to receive a scholarship. Um there is also the opportunity to be a committee chair to expand the opportunities and receive feedback from student because the national FFA organization is studentled. Everything done from electing the officers to getting feedback is done by students. So everyone is a student. And these are a couple pictures of how many students were able to attend. That over there is the state ambassador program. And this right here is Andrea working as a committee chair. And those are two proud committed students to Fresno State and
027um Cal Poly Slow. In addition to what the FFA organization provides, we would now like to talk about what the BA Academy provides. The BA Academy provides with the farms leadership opportunity which is provided by the center for landbased learning and it it's included visiting places like the marine sanctuary the USDA USDA facility Selenas and Hartnell College and as a final cap project for the students who were able to participate in the farm's leadership they had to complete a community action project and what did the students from the BA the academy do at Watsville High is that they packed over 400 meal packages for our community. So being able to serve our community is one of our priorities and that has been through the BA Academy. Next, uh what is BA stand for? Well, it's
028the business agriculture technology academy and the partners for the BA Academy include the junior achievement of Northern California, the finance park simulation and also career lunch and explore your social capital. The business partners that are included in the BA Academy include Sunridge Farms, the Orgo Bros, Driscolls, FarmG, Lakeside Organics and many many more businesses. Um so related onto the business agriculture technology academy we also had the opportunity to go to a lunchon for the um junior achievement where we got to meet with various sponsors that help um bring the materials into our classrooms which makes it hands-on learning based. As a senior I also got to visit UC Davis with my cohort of students from the business agriculture technology academy that we started our sophomore year. So, it's really cool to see how we've grown
029throughout the years together. Um, they also go on industry tours like the one um to my left, the Sunridge Farms. And then also the the coolest thing that we got to do this year, or the sophomores I should say, was go to a simulation where they had to they were given a day in the life. So, you could be a single mom, you could be a married person with two kids, you could be um someone living off a teacher salary, etc. And they had to be they went to different areas to see how much housing costs, how much food costs. So you're basically living a simulation to understand what it is that you're going to school for and getting an education for, but at the same time also seeing the different education opportunities that are
030out there that don't just stop after high school or after college because obviously you can just join the workforce. So it was just really cool for the students to get that opportunity um their sophomore year to see what they do with it going further into the BA Academy. Yeah. Last but not least, um, as you can see, obviously we are a very large program that incorporates a lot of different pieces. Um, I would say if I was to look at it, I believe we are the largest CTE program in the district. Um, when we put together all the pieces, we incorporate an academy, we incorporate, um, every single class we offer is a CTE class. Um, and so currently we have 524 students in our agriculture program at Watsonville High School. um of that um
031kind of some fun statistics that I grabbed. Um students that have participated in one or more activity this school year, uh 85% of those students have participated in one or more activity. Uh looking at our graduate follow-up from last year, um so our graduates, we had 106 seniors uh who graduated. 84% of those students went on to college. So I think kind of looking at some of those statistics that we're looking at, um 43 43 of them went to a two-year college. Uh 16 of them were majoring in Agg. Uh 47 went to a four-year college, 24 majoring in AG, 11 went to the military, and five went into the workforce. Um and when I think and I say majoring in agg. Our program obviously has agriculture base, but we don't necessarily expect every student
032to go into agriculture, um really our big focus, right, is the leadership, the public speaking, getting some of those job skills that'll make you successful in any career that you can go into. And so looking at that um 83% of our students said that FFA and the CT program that we provide them um has been essential and important for their future plans. So that was really cool to see those high numbers. Um and then do you want to do the last one? Okay. So as I mentioned we go to a lot of different field trips as well as a lot of conferences. So a need followup for that I feel would be getting more money for our CTE classes as well as the students going to these various competitions because as Miss Larus mentioned a
033lot of this is essential for our workforce that we're going to go into or the education. So just a number out there going to national convention was a lot of fun but I did have to pay at least $1,000 out of pocket. So if we're able to get more funding it would be a great opportunity to take more students to Indianapolis and see what it's like out there. um because it's way different than here, the way stuff runs, the way the weather is. So, if they're planning to go out of state, I would say that would be a great opportunity to have as well as the state conference. Um a lot of students sometimes walk in and they don't really have the funding to go. So, they miss out on these opportunities and this is
034where they'll be able to connect with, as we mentioned, a 100 different colleges that you're able to see the workforce and they not only promote agriculture programs, but also other programs as well. I we know that Calp Poly Slow is a great agriculture program, but there's also different um what should I say differentmies or courses that they offer there that is that are non-agrelated. So, it's just finding the funding to help um provide more students from our underperforming schools to go and um see what's out there besides Watsonville. So, thank you so much. Good job, you girls. Good job. Could you introduce the other two people who are standing with you? I don't think you were introduced. Okay. Sorry. Um, my name is Emily Paw. I teach a civics and econ. I teach a communications
035as well as sustainable agriculture. Hi. Uh, my name is Aruro Martinez. Uh, I teach the agriculture chemistry courses as well as the environmental horiculture classes. uh where we do a lot of the greenhouse stuff and the beautifification of uh some of the areas at our school so far. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. And I'm very thankful that you are going into our middle schools and introducing them to the program and growing your your program. That's great. Thank you. And now I will move us on to item 3.6, our red apple awards. This will be presented by our PIO, Alicia Himenez. Hello. Good evening board. Good evening. Um, the Red Apple Award, as a reminder, is an award where staff is nominated by their own peers. And today I want if you can
036go to the next slide. Oh, I have it right here. I don't have I don't have anybody to do this for me. Okay. So, um it's nominating someone who embodies our core values adopted by the board. And uh today I want to take you'll see a notice on your slide because I want to bring this up. We had 107 nomination, 48 for certificated staff, 39 for classified staff, and 20 for administration. So, thank you to the 107 individuals who took the time to nominate those who inspired them. So, for the classified winner, do we have Marisol Rodriguez here? Were you able to stay? Come on over, Marisol. Thank you. Maris Sol is a If you want to stand with uh you can stand with me or you can stand with the president. Marisol is a
037behavior technician at Radcliffe Elementary and this is what it was stated about her. Marisol was nominated by two peers. Marisol is a great team player. She connects well with the team and students, is strong when dealing with difficulties, and does an excellent job when support is needed. Marisol continuously shows her co-workers and the students her strength of empathy. She cares so much for everyone around her and shows a lot of grace when even when faced with negative situations at work. She's being honored today for embodying resilience and empathy. Thank you, [Applause] Marisol. Congratulations, Marisol. And thank you. Our next winner is uh Apttos High School teacher Daniel Grubber. Is he is he here? Thank you. Thank you for joining us and for being staying an extra hour. Mr. Grober exemplifies Gruber. Thank you. Thank you,
038Mr. Gruber. Correction. Mr. Gruber exemplifies PBUSD's course core values of courage through his fearless approach to teaching AP human geography and AP research. He challenges students to think critically, ask questions, and engage in complex discussions about the world around them. Whether guiding students through rigorous research projects or encouraging them to explore diverse perspectives, he fosters an environment where intellectual curiosity thrives. Daniel's willingness to tackle difficult topic topics and push students beyond their comfort zones empowers them to grow as scholars and individuals. His bold dedication to education makes him truly deserving of this recognition and you are being honored for embodying courage. Thank you, Mr. [Applause] Beautiful managed. [Laughter] Thank you. Congratulations. If I can add to um Mr. Gerber also is retiring this year and he's been at ABTOS for over 35 years 35 years
039and I've had I've had the amazing opportunity to have him for both world history and this year for AP research. So um thank you Mr. Yes. Thank you Mr. Gber. Thank you Mr. Gber. Excuse the misprononunciation. Okay. Um, and our administrator, uh, they wrote a lot about him, so I'm just going to read one or two paragraphs, but I'd like to invite Mr. Luis Medina, director of migrant education. Come on over. Thank you, Mina. I am honored to nominate Luis Medina for the award. For nearly 30 years, Luis has been a pillar of Paharo Valley, serving in numerous leadership roles from teacher and guidance counselor to migrant counselor and ultimately as a leader of migrant education. His lifelong dedication to PBUSD and his students exemplifies the spirit of unity. Beyond the classroom, re Luis expands
040students horizons, taking English learners across California to participate in debate conferences. Before the pandemic, he introduced robotics clubs at EA Hall, empowering English learners with skills for the future. As a lifelong resident of Watsonville, a former Wildcat, and a soccer player, Luis also represents the unity of our community, blending the black and the gold spirit of Watsonville High School with his unwavering commitment to student success. Congratulations and thank you for your decades of commitment to PBUSD. Luis Thank you everyone and thank you staff and please continue nominating. It makes everyone stay. Okay, thank you. And now I will move us on to the approval of of our agenda. Can I have a motion to move approval of agenda? Thank you. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm trying to go too fast. We do have some comments. Gabriel
041Brazza, Loris Brazza, and Rody Kirkman. Good evening, Gabe Alberazza, area 5. And uh in looking at the agenda, I wanted to point out that the process of having public comments before the various presentations, especially on action items, uh does a disservice to the discourse. Uh for the last 20 months, we've had subject matter experts and people who have done extensive research into various matters before the board come out to express our position only to be drowned out by consultants or district staff who may not have the necessary information to provide to the board. Um so I strongly suggest that the public comments be moved to after the presentations especially after uh for any action item before the board. Good evening, board of trustees. I'm Dr. Barasa and I um also have a similar thinking. I
042strongly recommend that the public comment be moved to after the presentation since it gives the public an opportunity to comment on what was presented. It makes no sense to have public comment on an item that has not yet been presented. How can the public comment when we have no idea what's going to be presented? It only makes sense to have the public comment after the information has been pre presented, especially when presentations contain errors or misinformation because we've noticed that sometimes. And lastly, Dr. Contras, just so you know, one thing that consistently has shown to improve student achievement and uh school attendance is ethnic studies. [Applause] Good evening, trustees. Dr. Contrarus. I'm Rody Kirkman. Uh I am the VP of communications at the PVFT and a kindergarten teacher at Minty White. Um and I am
043here to express my absolute frustration with how this meeting has been handled. Um I know that you're going to speak to limiting public comment and limiting time on items because you don't want to be here all night. Well, if that's the case, be on time. You should give back to the community the hour that you took away from them. They were here. [Applause] I would like to make a motion to move public comment after the presentation. Okay. Second. Can you turn that off? It doesn't bother. Okay. She was making a motion. She wasn't responding to The point of order is you're not supposed to respond to what these speakers said. Okay. Thank you. You could. Okay. So, we have a motion on the floor to approve the agenda with moving public comment to after the
044Okay, Gabriel, amend the motion. Yes. Let's hear. Okay. So, microphone, please. Yeah. I would love to move um All right. I had this all outlined. Here we go. All right. I would love for us to swap the discussion. Um so um nine swap with 11. So those action items are coming up first and then public hearing and then we could go into the report and discussion items. The reason that the report and discussion items have come before is because we have people who have to travel a few hours out of town to get home tonight. So that's why we have that before. Um I I still want to make the motion and you could vote against it um if you don't want it to happen. So I'll make that motion and then also I would
045like to move that um 11.5 be moved to the first one and then I would move that 11.3 move to 11.2 two, and that we have the resolution on Asian-American after we vote on ethnic studies. Um, so that makes more sense to me cuz last time it wasn't done very correctly. So that would be my uh recommendations for this agenda. So I think you had a motion. This was a modification. Does the maker accept? Does the maker accept the modification? No. So we have the motion on the table to approve the agenda as is with the exception of moving public comments after the the um the presentation. So do I action items only or all the whole agenda? So do we have a second? Is it a second for me? No. Or for Misty's? Oh,
046she didn't accept it. Got it. Yeah. You have to vote on my amendment before you vote. Okay. Robert. Yeah. Because she made a motion and before we wanted to vote on it, I stated that I would like to amend that motion. So now we have to accept my amendments first. Yeah. Yeah. Does your amendment need a second? Yes. Do we have a second to his amendment? I'll second. Okay. So we have a first and a second. All those in favor? I opposed. I abstaining vote because I'm not really. Okay. Looks like that. Looks like that motion failed. Well, no, that motion failed. Looks like there needs to be a point of clarity. So, we could do that. Okay. Okay. Clarify your Let me clarify what I want to do. I would like to move report
047and discussion. Okay. To where 11 is. So it would be read action items then public hearing and then report and discussion on the items. That's the first amendment. The second one would be within the action items that 11.5 school reading on board bylaws go first and then we move ethnic studies second and then the resolution on um Asian-American Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. Can I modify your motion to have ethnic studies come out? Put the Asian studies before to go after because we should vote on it. Okay. Okay. So, we have his amendment on the table and it was seconded by trustee Krasco. So, all those in favor I I any opposed? I any abstaining? Okay. So motion passes. Five, two, one. [Applause] Okay. So now we are going to move on to
048item 5.1, the approval of the March 26th board meeting minutes. Can I have a motion? I move approval. Second. Thank you. I have a first and a second. All those in favor? I. Thank you. Motion passes 70 0. Now I am moving us on to 5.2 approval of the March sorry second March 20th board meeting minutes. I have a first by trustee Turley and a second by trustee Dr. Navaro. All those in favor I any oppose? Any abstaining? Motion passes 700. Okay. So now I will move us on to item six. our action and report on close session. So the following are the readouts. Close session item 2.3 expulsion referral. Under close session agenda item 2.3, the V board voted 61 to approve the recommendation from district administration for suspended expulsion of student 2425007. Close
049session item 2.4 expulsion referral. Under close session agenda item 2.3, the board voted 61 to approve the recommendation from district administration for full exposion for student number 2425008. Close session item 210 resolution 242541. Under close session agenda item 2.10, the board voted 511 to approve the non-reelection release of 26 FTE probationary certificate employees. Close session item 2.11, resolution 242542. Under close session item 2.11, the board voted 511 to approve the release of 2.2 FTE temporary certifi certificated employees. And then motion number one. Motion number one, close session item 2.5. I move to approve the certificated personnel report as presented by district administration on April 16th, 2025 with 17 and 15 additional action items. I second. All those in favor? I I. Any opposed? Any abstaining? Motion passes 700. Motion number two, close session item 2.6.
050I move to approve the classified personnel report as presented by district administration on April 16th, 2025 with seven and 15 additional items. And I second. All those in favor? I. Any opposed? Any abstaining? Motion passes 700. The next are announcements. Uh announcement number one. PBUSD is pleased to announce the selection of Christine Quinn as the new coordinator of educational programs. Christy moved from San Santa Cruz area to attend college and received her AA from Cababrio. Went on to the University of California, Santa Cruz to obtain her bachelor's degree and then attended San Jose State where she earned her mers of education in leadership and supervision. Christy is returning to PBUSD after three years working as an associate principal for the TK8 school district in Sierra Foothills. Christy started her teaching career and passion for education
051at Rolling Hills Middle School 27 years ago and has held numerous roles within the district including site administrative positions coordinated roles in HR technology services and afterchool programs. She also worked in staff development and grant writing and most recently was technology innovation coach and teacher at PB High School for 5 years. Christie has had the opportunity to teach all grade levels K through 12 and carries all the experiences from each of these roles in building relationships with students, staff, parents, and community partners to the goal of student achievement. She has also served at the state, region, county levels with expertise in educational technology, MTSS implementation, including RTI and PBIS, as well as oversight of ELT and special education. She has raised three adult children in Santa Cruz County, and is now enjoying her three dogs,
052traveling winter and summer sports at her cabin in Twain Hart, and is thrilled to be coming home and continuing to serve and support within PBUSD. Welcome, Christie. Is she here? [Applause] Announcement number two. PBUSD is pleased to announce the selection of Lisa Lansdale as the new principal at Apttos High School. Lisa is a dedicated educator with diverse background. She graduated from Chugiaak High School in Alaska and participated in the Rotary Exchange program at the Casarna Secondary College in Australia. She earned multiple degrees from the University of Alaska, including a BA in education, a master's degree in educational leadership, along with significant graduate level credits in counseling and psychology. Further training includes court-appointed special advocate training. Lisa's extensive work history is primarily in education. She currently serves as the K through2 Raven homeschool coordinator for the
053Yukon School District. Prior to this, she worked as an investigator for the Alaska State Commission for Human Rights and as a child development rural uh director at rural CAP. Her longest tenure was in the Anchorage School District where she serves as the K- through2 principal, assistant principal, and teachers at various schools from 1991 to 2021. She's also participated in an exchange principal program in the Northern Territory of Australia in 2006. We are excited to welcome this highly experienced educator to PBSD. Go Mayor and Lisa is [Applause] here. Okay. Thank you. And now I will move us on to item 7.1, public comments. This is the opportunity for members of the public to address issues that are not on our agenda this evening. Please know that though the Brown Act prohibits the board from engaging in
054discussion for non-aggendaized items, we are listening. Each speaker will have two minutes for a total of 30 minutes. Thank you. Does have anyone have any issues with the students going first? Yasen Estrada, Naelli Lopez, Maximiano Barza, and Sylvia Kaiser, and Marilyn Garrett. I'll wait till the timer starts. Okay. Um, good evening board. My name is Na Lopez. I am a junior at Watmo High School. I'm here to talk about the CRA contract. My ethnic studies class has shown me how important my ethnicity is to me. What you guys are doing with this contract is called the power dynamic. You guys know you have the power, so you guys take advantage of it. My teacher, Mr. Powels, has been fighting for this contract to renew for 19 months. And I know he's tired of fighting for
055the same thing repeatedly without being heard. I would also like to take note at how we had to wait another hour for you guys to arrive for this meeting. Some of us have things to do back at home and it's a school night. Please take accountability for for that and I hope all of you collectively decide to bring back CR. Thank you. All right. Good evening board. My name is Maximiano Barasa Fernandez and I am a sophomore at Pey High School. I've recently heard some concerning news about new hires. I've been informed that you are going to hire new administrators. Now, this isn't bad in and of itself, but I have a problem with it because this decision follows your previous decision to lay off teachers. This is a double standard and it does not
056help students like me. I love my teachers and their ability to foster safe environments for me to learn has helped me grow and improve my abilities as long uh along with with myself as a person. Although I understand that administrators serve a purpose, I can't say the same about them. This is to say that teachers are the most important people that allow for students like me to excel and improve ourselves. Please be more honest with your hires and consider our teachers and students. Thank you. [Applause] Hello board. My name is Yasmin Estrada. I'm a senior at Watsonville High and I wanted to speak about the recent pink slips being given to several teachers. This affects my peers, especially the underassmen who will be seeing the effects in the years to come. This will affect students
057education and mental health because it will cause them to be pushed into classrooms with over 30 students, which will mean less individual help for the students that need it. Getting rid of multiple teachers would mean putting more long-term subs into classrooms. And most of the time, these subs are not properly educated on the subject they are supposed to be teaching, which means students aren't learning what they should be learning in that class and will possibly end up failing that class and missing credits required for them to graduate. And as a student, I will be advocating for my teachers. Thank you. Good evening, members of the board. My name is Sylvia Kaiser, and I am a current junior at Uptown High School. I'm here tonight to talk about the layoff crisis. It is both disheartening and
058quite frankly embarrassing to be witnessing this gross misconduct of a school district. Your decisions have only served to weaken an already struggling school community. The layoffs that are hitting PVSD, most notably of teachers of electives, are hugely upsetting. You cannot claim to work for students while actively pushing to dismantle the very things that keep them coming to school. So many students only have creative spaces and access to the arts through their school. The notion that you are willing to remove these spaces can only mean that you have no respect for students nor for staff. I am currently enrolled in video production that is taught by Mr. Domhof at Apttos. I have a wonderful teacher who is both knowledgeable, dedicated, and has expanded my world to job and scholarship opportunities as well as personal growth. He
059is now one of the many teachers that you are willing to remove. This is unacceptable. Your unwillingness to find alternatives to budget cuts is quite frankly neglectful. I can easily think of methods to reduce spending, including limiting administration positions and looking at the effectiveness of student resource officers. You could also look into your own positions since your contributions have been overwhelmingly negative. I am blunt towards you because I am angry and I am angry because you refuse to listen to students. We are the ones most directly affected by your words and we will be facing the repercussions you will not. It is your job to listen to the students. The California School Boards Association lists it is the duty of the school board to maximize student achievement through a supportive and dynamic environment. Answer to
060yourselves honestly. Are you doing this? From the student view, you are doing anything but. [Applause] Marilyn Garrett. Uh, I wonder if I have a cough from the lithium ion battery fires that spewed out of toxins all over from Mos Laming. uh talking about a supportive environment for students. We need to not have poisoning. Never again. Moss Landing stop the three lithium ion battery storage facility proposed for Santa Cruz County. I attended an overflow meeting uh Monday evening calling for a ban of these locations. Two of which are located in your school district. One at 90 Mento Road off of Green Valley in Watsonville. The other one right by the substation at Appas High School. Thousands of people in Santa Cruz and Monterey counties are ill from the toxic air released during the world's largest lithium
061ion battery fire on January 16th at the Moss Landing ST battery storage site. If you have burning eyes, metallic taste, sore throat, cough, nausea, burning tongue, rash, difficulty breathing, headaches, exhaustion, and more, you have may have been poisoned by the fire, contact the board of supervisors at 4542000 to ban any of these projects. And I would call on this school board to issue a statement calling for the halt of any of these facilities by your school district. This is toxic exposure. It's a violation of our rights to help. And it's a certainty that there will be more fires. There have already been five at Landing. I urge you to protect the students by banning these proposed locations. Thank you. Yeah, we have a student that put a card in that he didn't know what number
062to put it under, but he Dominic, you're here for this topic. No, he gohead. Go ahead, Dominic. Hi, I'm Dominic from I'm a senior from Wasimo High School. I'm here to talk about the CR contract and how future students should experience ethnic studies. Ethnic studies has helped me speak up. It has pushed me all this year, all these two, three years I've gone through ethnic studies. So, I asked the board, please bring back the CRA contract so our future students could take advantage of these precious contracts we all get. So, please bring the CR contract. Thank you. Thank you. We have uh Bill Beecher, Cynthia Caro, Eden Mendel, Lauren Le, Stella Martinez, and Chris Webb. Good evening. I'm here to speak about the right to speak and the responsibility that goes with it. No one
063wants to be heard more than me, but the last board meeting taught me a lesson about being responsible. Because the board bent over backwards to let everyone speak, I was not able to comment on the budget until 11 p.m. When I got home later, my wife was asleep and my dog growled at me. If that wasn't bad enough, the board did not finish until 2:30 in the morning. They have families and jobs that they had to go to that morning. We have a right to speak, but not at the expense of the board. So we cannot repeat that last meeting. We need a middle path. Board meetings need to stay on time in order to get our trustees home. So the original meeting constraint should be used. For those that are unable to speak, they
064can email their trustee. I do that. They respond. Secondly, please. Families that speak individually on a given item should only have one speaker. At the last meeting, two families of four each took up more than a quarter of an hour to bring two items to the board. If you really want to speak, come early. I do. I get to speak usually first. Yes, we have the right to speak, but we have to be responsible to the board. Think about that before you get up here and attack this board. They don't deserve it. I'm not sure if you order. I'm uh Stella Martinez and I'm a mom for 38 years. I currently have a special needs student that I feel is being unjustly punished for his teacher, Miss D. Gonzalez, who's been a teacher for over
06540 years, the most awesome teacher. And I've been with her, this is our fourth year with her. Never have I heard her raise her voice, raise a hand, anything to our students. And these allegations are unfounded, but made against her. And now she's been pulled from the classroom. When I came here on Tuesday, I was told to file a complaint. The last time I filed a complaint, my son was in first grade. He's now a high school, sorry, a high school freshman. I still haven't received any word on that complaint. And the aid that tied his hands to his wheelchair is still working at Calabasa School at Duncan Halbert before that he fell. And now the director is now currently in Sulpa. Heather Gorman flat lied to my face. She told me after he fell
066from the swing and was sent home on a bus crying. Mind you, he's non-ambulatory and nonverbal. I was told that he was checked out by the nurse because he was put on the bus. And my son never cries unless he's really hurting. He came home balling on the bus. The bus driver is the one that told me he fell. I never got a call. And Heather Gorman told me, the nurse checked him out, called the nurse in, and the nurse said, "Oh, I wasn't here the day Thunderfell." He fell again at Calabasasa school off of a stage. Mind you, it wasn't a tall stage. 12 inches is what I was told by Shannon McCord, but he shouldn't have been affected by that because it was only 12 in. Again, he's in a wheelchair, non-ambulatory, non-verbal,
067fell on his face, broke his glasses, wheelchair on top of him, and nothing was done about that to the two aids that were busy on their phones instead of taking care of my son. Deganzales needed to be back in her classroom instead of two teachers without full credentials in that classroom. They There's four students that I know of that have major seizures in that class. My son is one of them. Somebody needs to be in there that knows what they're doing. Thank you. [Applause] Hi, my name is Lauren Le. I'm just uh here to see why Cababrio College wasn't one of the options for an ethnic studies um contract for ethnic studies and uh I wrote to the board and and uh Dr. Contraras, thank you. Some of you got back to me. The reason
068why I feel that Cababrio is uh a valid option is first of all, they're in our backyard. students can take uh classes there and get high school and college credit. Uh I've talked to Dr. Garcia who was the first ethnic studies professor at Cababrio and she said she didn't want to get into, you know, the thick of things here, but if she was Ash, she would be willing. She's she would like to consult. Um, I first found out about her when Lookout did an article on her a couple years ago. And uh, her background sounds a lot like what a lot of our students here are saying. She, uh, came from the Central Valley. Her parents are immigrants from Mexico going through high school. She didn't really read about any of the histories of um,
069uh, you know, somebody like her. And when she took an ethnic studies class, it changed the whole trajectory of her life, which is why she got a PhD in ethnic studies. And I just feel like go staying local is better than outside uh uh nonprofit or I'm sorry, for-profit. And I noticed too that you had said that the Hartnell College professor um wasn't available, but I was just wondering why um the Cababrio College professor wasn't asked. Thank you. Uh good evening board. Um, I would like to invite you and and the the leadership and really everyone in this entire district commit to um really focusing on integrity and um restoring trust across the community. Um let's commit to facts over favorites. By the way, Bill, you're getting replies to your emails. You're a favorite. Also,
070you get your uh presentations up. Not everybody gets that. Also a favorite. Um also, I I would want to say that um we shouldn't do the layoffs. um the due process is just not there. When that seniority list came out, one of the first things I noticed was that oh actually the previous year my seniority rights were violated. Um one thing I'm also noticing is that weirdly there's like whether or not you're actually good at your job doesn't seem to matter. Um and I feel like if we're going to be cutting people that's that should maybe be a factor. Um, also the people people who voted to on this board who allowed this situation to arrive, I would be worried if I was a trustee, I would be worried about my seat if these layoffs
071were to go through without the prerequisites that I've mentioned multiple times. I'll just review them a little bit. Um, one was about litigation costs. And if you recall, Jenny just at the last meeting said that that was big cost. And people have been asking for now months, what is the cost? So that's one thing, transparency. Additionally, um you know, Tristina, I think it was you at the last meeting brought up how like ADA can be recouped through Saturday schools. That is good and great. Um one of the things I had asked for before we go through can we look at model continuation 18/19 renaissance. How much were we bringing in and recouped ADA through our afterchool program, which was a much more positive thing, I would argue, than Saturday schools. Um, finally, I just want
072to say, uh, Trustee Scala, you brought up kids don't learn as well with the sub. I agree with you. Um, I would encourage you to take on this, since you are our favorite as well, take on this idea of, um, the idea that when you, a teacher, have a problem and you need like a take a PNA or you to to take care of your baby um, who's not sick or anything, just their child carees out. We had that during COVID. You know that the teacher will do better that it's better for everyone if they can be there. So maybe take that on and they'll listen to you. Thank you. [Applause] Christina Carter, Christine Hong, Bobby Pel, Eli Davies, and Jenny Kelly. It's okay. You can go just in the frame. Um, good evening. I
073just wanted to say that um, as you've seen for almost two years, you see the strength of the community tonight. And I want to say that in this moment we're seeing we're witnessing a lot of terror and tyrannies. Students are being snatched off the street. Some are being disappeared. Undocumented taxpayers are placed at risk. While the gates of this country are being held open and a welcome mat is rolled out for white Africaners from South Africa as supposed refugees. Ethnic studies is the only field that has proven to increase class attendance and in some cases double the chances of college going. It democratizes education. It democratizes society. Some of you here have contributed to smearing ethnic studies and its practitioners using scurless claims of anti-semitism which have been totally unproven. Some of you have been
074complicit with your silence. Now more than ever, we have to have clarity. The kind of terroristic actions that we're seeing from the government affect the name of combating anti-semitism are linked to Trump calling for the IRS to release information about undocumented people. So, we need to have clarity right now. Um, you need to stand with the people against the current assault against communities, communities of color. Um, you vulnerable status vulnerable communities and you need to support ethnic studies that is responsive to the communities of Watsonville. Um, and I say that as an ethnic studies educator at UC Santa Cruz who came and fought for ethnic studies alongside students. We now have a thriving degree granting program, one of the most vibrant in this country. [Applause] Eli, I'm just gonna be quick because Christine said so
075many of the things that I've been thinking and wanting to talk about. Uh, also within the conversation on ethnic studies. Um there was sort of finally uh a reckoning of of seeing the at the center of what is happening the Israel Palestine conflict uh conflict is is is right in there. And it was said in this boardroom uh you know that it's it's too complicated. It shouldn't happen in high school. Wait until college. And I am an ethnic studies major at CSUMB. I tried to ask my ethnic studies professor at CSCMBB to talk about this topic and he said, "No, I'm sorry. I can't. I can't because if someone in this classroom goes to my administrator and says I said something anti-Semitic, that's my job. It's gone." And this professor had already left a state
076in the South for anti-free speech repressive um legislation. So we just need we need to see how censorship is affecting when we have student scholars being taken out of where they are and given up by their universities. This is what is happening. [Applause] uh Bobby Fell with Watsonville High and um I'll get to the CRA contract later, but uh right now I want to speak to the director position that you're being asked to approve later on tonight. Um we are in the midst of laying off 30 teachers, 30 people who show up every day for the students because we are told that the district is deficit spending and yet at the same time we're going to hire more director positions at the central office. To me, that doesn't look like fiscal responsibility. That looks like
077misplaced priorities. This sends the wrong message to our teachers and it deepens an already serious issue in our district, the deep lack of trust between teachers and administration. If the message is that teachers are expendable while administration can keep growing, then we're not just facing a budget problem, we're facing a moral one. If we want a stronger district, we need to rebuild the trust. And that means starting to put the teachers first, not last. I urge you to pull these items and redirect that money back to the teachers. Thank you. [Applause] Hi. Um, I was trying to get her to sleep. It didn't work. Um, my name is Jennifer Kelly. I am faculty in ethnic studies. I'm a professor of ethnic studies. I'm trained in ethnic studies. I'm also an apttoass mom of two. The
078only contract on this agenda with any grounding in our field is the community responsive education contract. It is a thorough, wellressearched, comprehensive, and grounded and grounded in the study of race and power. It also has a um concrete plan for implementation and one that is anchored in ethnic studies. It will equip teachers to meet the requirement of ethnic studies. It has precisely what so many students who come to my class, my intro to ethnic studies course in college wish they had in high school. Facing history in ourselves is not ethnic studies as it conceded several times in the contract itself. It it will not be compliant with AB 101. It doesn't use the language of our field. It uses the language of professional development. It is in its larger effort. It places Israel beyond critique
079and erases any Palestinian history and its narration of Israel which undermines our students ability to understand both history and the colonial present. Facing history and ourselves is explicitly undermining ethnic studies in school districts. The third contract doesn't seem at all equipped to do the work uh CRA has been doing by someone not trained in ethnic studies. And it is a contract with no real plan for implementation. Our children and our students deserve to learn and are fully capable of learning ethnic studies, racism, colonialism, protest, and solidarity in school. Especially in this climate and under an administration that is routinely attacking, undermining and caricaturing our work. Thank you. [Applause] Do we have uh Esther Mario Roy uh Roy Rio, sorry, Gabe Barza and Dr. Barza. I'd also like to remind everyone that this is for non-aggendaized
080items. So, if it's regarding ethnic studies there, that is on the agenda and that could be later at 11.3. I I have my name on that one, too. But this is different. So many of us have been coming to the board for the last 20 months primarily about the CRA contract, but hopefully we're reaching some kind of resolution on that topic. I just wanted to remind this board and future boards that attempts to ignore andor silence members of this community will no longer be met with passivity. I want to thank the members of the board who have stepped into a difficult situation, but who have been advocates for the community. despite attacks from people who want to preserve their privilege and power. We have heard a lot of wonderful words about community, unity, etc., etc.
081But some of the same people uttering those words have also attacked community members for their tone, for using words that they judge as incendiary, harsh, or disrespectful. Let me remind everyone who now reveres Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. or who celebrate Cesar Chavez, Dolores Wuerta or leaders like Larry Leango and the brave women of the Watsonville Canary Strike like Gloria Bettton Court and Cruz Gomez. When those civil rights leaders were active, they were hated. They were told to calm down. They were told that being passionate was turning people off. As leaders in this district, you have to figure out whose side you're on. Are you on the side of the students and the community, or are you on the side of those that would have us wait our turn? Use the right tone. I'm not
082advocating for people to be adversarial or belligerent, but I'm saying that when the community understands that we are being ignored or delayed, being nice will not be our priority. It has never been that way. When you're fighting for justice, [Applause] Good evening, board of trustees, Dr. Contreres. My name is Esther Modio and I am the personnel commissioner for um PBUSD. I attended the PBUSD uh the personnel commissioners conference on March 16th through the 18th which had a strong turnout. I encourage the trustees to participate in the next conference. I have also requested that the classified director to present the personnel commissioner commissioners merit system PowerPoint to the new board of trustees. I hope that happens soon. Additionally, I volunteered at the spring break speed camp which extended learning offered in collaboration with Guerilla Underground. The
083camp was well attended and the students were excited and having fun. The program was uh effective featuring excellent co uh coaches. All participants received achievement awards and t-shirts. Can I see the Oh, so we took um pictures and videos of the kids um having that experience. We started off with at at the beginning with at least uh 100 students and we ended up with um I think 60 to 70 um on the fourth day. They were tired, but they had a great experience. Um, on Monday, April 14th, I also attended the battery plant um meeting they had. There was a significant amount of residents and community members uh who expressed their concerns about having a power plant based there in their neighborhood along with um Thank you. Oh, it was there. Right. So, this was
084at PB High. They had a circuit going the whole time. So, kids of all ages, uh, it was, I believe, third grade to 12. And they were awarded t-shirts and medals at the end for their achie. So, it was a really good experience. Um, I also heard that they were going to have something similar uh for summer school as well. So, real quick, on Monday, I attended that meeting. I just wanted to let um you know that it was at the Church of the Nazarene. It's a small church. I was so happy that they allowed us to participate um and have that meeting there, but there was no parking standing room only. Um I want to thank Dr. Contrarus for suggesting and letting us use PVUSD facilities for future meetings because there will be more
085to come and I urge the community to get involved because this is going to affect all of us. Thank you very much. [Applause] Dr. Barasa again uh I'm here because I am worried that some of the people on these board some of the trustee on this board do not really understand what ethnic studies is. Uh please understand what you are voting for. It's important that you understand um ethnic studies and multicultural education are two different things. Multicultural education is about learning about somebody's culture, contributions, important people, struggles. Ethnic studies is not that. Ethnic studies is about identifying systems of power and how to de deconstruct them. I think some of you are conflating the two. They are not the same. It's like saying chemistry and physics is the same because they're related. They're not. They're
086different things and you need to understand that so that you can make an educated decision when you vote later on for the contract. You cannot be conflating the two. They are very different. That's the only thing I wanted to say. [Applause] Roy Reio, I'm a born and raised Watsonville, class of well, MSD Rolling Hills, Watsonville High, class of 86. um grew up just down the street. This was a hospital. My sister was born here. I was born at the old hospital. Anyways, um I'm going to talk on 11.2 and 11.3. I just want to say that um there was a young man who passed away uh this morning after a suicide attempt. His Watsonville High School student and um I thought it would be appropriate if you guys would have honored this meeting in his
087honor or at least acknowledged him at least. Um, you know, there's a lot going on in this world and I think that ethics days helps people understand, have compassion, have love, have empathy and also brings people together in solidarity. If anything, if anything, if anything, we're all in this together. You know, it's our community. It's our responsibility. Um, I heard earlier that someone had to leave early because they had constraints about travel. I myself, you know, I'm Filipino. My my mom's white. She was part of the Dust Bowl settlers. Um, you know, part Filipino, half uh threequarters Filipino, one quarter white. But I'm also legally blind. I had to take a day off of work so I can come here on 4 hours of public transportation. I'll figure out how I can get home tonight.
088But man, stick to your schedule. Don't make any excuses. I'm not making any excuses. Thank you very much. Thank you. That concludes public comment at this time. and um nope. We're moving on. I understand if you submitted a card, I'm sorry. We've reached our 30 minute limit and so you are free to email the board. Thank you. So now I'm moving on to I'm now I'm moving on to item 8.1. Uh trustee, before you move on, I would like to make a motion to extend public comment. And I could do that. I have Robert's rules open right now. We could do that at any time during the public comment period before the chair moves the meetings to the next agenda item which I had my hand up. So I would like to move to extend
089public comment to the remainder of the cards that we have according to Oh my gosh. Okay. Take a vote. He has a motion on the table. Does he have a second? A second. All those in favor? I. Any opposed? I Any abstain? And Danny, did you vote? I like to see the public comment cards read. Okay, so motion passes 43. [Applause] Thank you, Diana Martinez, Omar Diegas, and Bill Eford. That was it. Good evening board uh President Flores, uh first VP Dr. Navaro, Dr. Heather Contrez, board of trustees and cabinet. On another note, I'm here to speak about Relay for Life. We are back on board Relay for Life on August 9th. And of course, we have your flyers. Thank you. Um we would like to see um all of you there to help us
090um hopefully participate in the team. It could be a silent team if you'd like. You can call Esther and she'll give you more information. And then also this Thursday um we are having our first kickoff at Halisco from 12 to 12:00 p.m. until closing. So anything you buy you can take home. uh certain percentage of the proceeds go directly to the Relay for Life here for Watsonville and um I hope to see every you know you there and I know cancer does not discriminate um just lost a dear friend. Um one of our teachers who is retired and he's an elpac tester um he lost his brother-in-law to battle cancer for two years. So um you know just take in mind that life is very short and kindness comes a long way and that goes
091for everybody. So, I just um want to leave everyone with that thought and you know just you don't know when when your time is up and just be thankful and you know appreciate everybody no matter what they say just appreciate them. Thank you [Applause] board and superintendent. Thank you for letting me speak. I'm going to make this very quick. I was here an hour and a half before the board meeting started, so I not a late aror or anything. I have two children who are both uh Aptas High School students. And uh congratulations on finding a new principal, but I am here to express disappointment with the reassignment of Dr. Allison Hanks Sloan. Um, I think that the stated goal of the superintendent and board is to work in the best interests of the community
092and the community includes parents and teachers and students and staff, putting the students first, of course. But this action appears to me at best to ignore the interests of the community, including the teachers, staff, and parents. And even if the replacement is a perfectly acceptable, which I have no doubt she will be, it still does damage to the community to replace and remove, reassign, however you want to put it, such a good principle. The role of the school board is to represent the community, not to rubber stamp the superintendent's personnel decisions. So my understanding is the superintendent is accountable to the board but the board is accountable to the community. That's us via elections. Thank you. [Applause] Mel, first I would like to ask for a moment of silence for a precious life that was
093lost a few days ago. My heart is super broken, excited by this. So, I'd like to ask for a moment of silence. When I show up to speak to these meetings, I show up and I speak from my heart. I speak for my community and and I come here to represent my community and the students that I work for. I had a deja vu today because I turned in my card along with Christine Hungs all the time. You can never miss that. Always together. Why my card got shifted, I don't know. Um, I had a whole lot of thoughts that I wanted to talk about, but I want to touch base on on an incident that happened on March 26, uh, where we had a district employee show up with a MAGA MAGA hat and
094offensive t-shirt to our LGBQ community. and and and I put a a complaint in and I have not heard from Heather Contas. I have not heard from Flores. I heard from some of our other board members and it's alarming because I represent the students and I have to protect my students that I work with. I represent this community and what this employee did by showing up to a schoolboard meeting where there was gay students, where there were immigrant students. Me being an immigrant myself and in offensive gear, it's uncalled for. We can't we can't allow this stuff to happen in our community. If they're coming here to a schoolboard meeting and representing the district and representing our community, then we need to hold them accountable. [Applause] Thank you. I will now move us on to
095item 8.1 or to our employee organizational comments. This is now time to hear from our employee organizations. Each will have five minutes. We will start with PVFT. All right. I'm going to go a little over in my comments today because if you guys are allowed to be an hour late, I'm allowed to go two minutes over. So, I would like it if the members who were the responsible parties for why we were late stand on your business and tell us who you were. So, we deserve to know who kept us waiting because you guys Medina and I went to the wrong uh we went to the other board meeting and so that was part of it. I appreciate that. Thank you. It can be confusing and that happens to our members too. So, thank you
096for at least owning up to that because it does happen. But I felt like to keep us waiting for an hour, I don't I don't know if there were parts that could have been held off till after our public session, but I appreciate that. So, I do want to speak tonight and I want to welcome all of our members and students back from spring break. I hope this time was spent with friends and family and has been restorative. As we come back from break with a renewed energy, I'm calling on our members to refocus our efforts to stand up to the injustices that we see in the world, the state, the county, and this district. Yesterday was the 78th anniversary of Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier in Major League Baseball. As I was reflecting
097on this moment in history, it was clearly apparent to me that we have not come as far as we think we have in these last 78 years. Within our own community, we have had UC students have their visas revoked by the Trump administration. We have members currently grieving a being deeply impacted by a recent tragedy. And we have community members in these meetings who were coming close to a physical altercation over someone's choice of a hat and a shirt. Which I will say for a district that passes resolutions saying we stand up for our LGBTQ population, when you allow a community member to sit here wearing clothing that is clearly hateful and targeting this population, you are being too cowardly to stand up for what you believe in. Someone from this district should have said
098something because if somebody was laying sitting here with the shirt that said f a certain population, you're not going to say, "Oh, that's free speech." You're going to say, "That's hate speech." So that shirt was hate speech and silence equals violence. Face up to what you've done. The PVFT has been very busy since our last board meeting. Our executive council met on March 31st, and I want to thank all our vice presidents. I I pulled them for a 5 hour meeting and none of them killed me. So, all right, probably not do that again. But thank you. Thank you to our VPs. That was a long day. Um and we were meeting to strategize our actions going forward. Um one thing that we discussed in that meeting is we recently closed the deadline for our
099PVF student scholarship and we're going to be having our scholarship committee meet to choose um 10 students to receive $800. So, that's something that we've been doing for our students. We also had many members show up to the hands-off rallies that occurred in Watsonville and Santa Cruz. I was at the Santa Cruz event and the turnout was inspiring. Our site rep council also met in person this week and I'm grateful to all of our reps who were able to attend. During this meeting, we adopted a PVFT code of conduct that will apply to our members and to our elected officials so that we now have an official statement of values that we stand for and we stand with our members because nobody deserves or should be targeted for discrimination and harassment and we will stand
100up for those members. So, thank you to the site rep council for passing that code of conduct. Um, this board has an important decision to make tonight regarding the ethnic studies consultant contract. I know there's members of the community here who are going to speak more eloquently and effectively than I can. So, I'll just say that this board needs to do the right thing and apologize to Dr. Tintiago Kubales and reinstate the CRA contract. Do not make the mistake of partnering with another group that exposes Zionist viewpoints and has even had its own employees call out the organization's lack of approaching the genocide in Gaza with the honesty it deserves. I want to encourage this board to resend the unjust layoffs that are impacting our members. This district has failed to collaborate in good faith
101with the PVFT. So, resend the layoffs. This district refused to negotiate tiebreaking criteria with us because they said it's not going to get down to any ties. How do they know that when we're not sitting going over this information together? This district misled the PBFT in their willingness to collaborate with us and ultimately did not inform us of how many layoff notices would be served and who would be served those layoffs until after they received the notices. This district's seniority list was an absolute mess that was full of errors. We had members reach out to the district to ask for the seniority list and they were told to get it from the union. That's not how this works. It is the district's obligation to maintain that seniority list, not ours. and directors and administrators should
102not be telling the our members, "Go get that from your union." That's a district obligation. The um information that's been provided to us does not match some of the information that is now being provided to our attorneys. Our attorneys have been told, "Oh, that person was served a layoff notice. Actually, on the list we received from the district, a name wasn't there. So, why are our attorneys hearing one thing and we're hearing another? resend the layoffs with the CTE resolution. All that resolution said was high school CTE teachers. But what the district was actually planning was to eliminate specific programs at Paro Valley High School and Aptas High School. At every turn in this process, this district has taken a consiliatory and adversarial approach to working with us. And this board needs to have the
103courage to stand against that type of behavior and resend the layoffs. This district should have partnered with us and worked with us in this process instead of treating us like the enemy. At tonight's meeting, there are management positions on the consent agenda that will cost the district $625,840. I don't want to put words in your mouths, but I'm pretty sure one of you made a comment about not approving additional layoffs until we see reductions from the district office. So, that same logic should be applied to extending and granting new administrative positions. I'm almost done. I want to end my comments with the theme that I began with. And I am the type of person who loves to make analogies and find the common thread between items that may seem unrelated. So, I'm going to circle
104back to the legacy of Jackie Robinson. And no, not just because he's a Dodgers legend. Jackie Robinson is famously quoted as saying, "A life is not important except in the impact that it has on other lives." So, I want to ask everyone here, what impact are we having on each other's lives? Of course, there are always going to be things that we disagree over, but does that mean we have to completely disregard each other? What common ground do we have that we can stand up for each other and stand with each other and leave a positive impact on this world in the very short time that we have? I think there is so much work we can do together to leave a positive impact on the lives of others and future obligations. And it is
105our obligation to come together to affect positive change. [Applause] Thank you. Do we have anyone here from CSEA? Oh, sorry. Sorry. Thank you. Bobby uh Marchalt and Marilyn Garrett. That's me. Hi, good to see you all. Um I am here. I'm a site rep uh for PVFT for my uh site at WCSA. And I'm here in defense of all of our teachers, all my colleagues across our district who've been pink slipped and specifically for two of our 23 certified sta certificated staff who were given pink slips. Uh I believe unright so for some reason. For example, teachers who provide elementary release were not on the resolution and yet we have not got any answers as to why one of ours was pink slipped. Um the district has been unwilling to collaborate as you heard with
106the union and we feel like oftentimes with our site and unfortunately that has has ended up with it has resulted in a breakdown of trust and that is not what we want. We want to be able to work with the district but that is not where we are at right now. There has been talk tonight about hiring and I will say that and I've always I think I've been here you know that I'm open to uh if I'm mistaken on something I want to hear about it. Right. My understanding from multiple people in the district has been that we are on a hiring freeze for teachers right now and we have three openings that we cannot fly right now that are not positions that could that are that have been pink slipped and moved over
107and we can't hire teachers. So that's a concern. If we're hiring other people, why are we not opening up that hiring freeze for teachers for our sites? You started this meeting with data saying that you wanted to turn it around. Aside from one of my wonderings that I had, which is around the fact that some things that count can't be measured and vice versa, uh, we aren't going to turn that around by releasing more teachers. And so, if we want to do that, we really need to look at that. And I recognize it's hard when meetings go long. He's not here anymore, but um, I have long days, too, believe me. Um, but you know what? Uh, best board meetings are boring board meetings. Let's get back to those. If we could get back to
108where we're running smoothly, we wouldn't have these long meetings. Thank [Applause] you. Marilyn Garrett. I was the member of the union when I taught in this district. I retired in 2000. And issues that were facing us again about health are still present with us. and intensified. I'm going to read from learn the risk.org, the reality of our health. And I just heard as I was listening to news tonight, it's now one in 31 children who are diagnosed with autism. Unheard of. When I started teaching in 65, the US spends more than any other country on health care, yet has more chronic health issues than any other country. Half of all adults in the United States have a chronic illness and nearly half will eventually die of cancer. We are exposed to a cocktail of synthetic
109chemicals from birth. Polluted air and water. Lots of pesticides here. Electrical frequencies that used to belong only to space and processed food laced with pesticide to which we add pharmaceutical drugs including vaccines into the mist. Pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines contain multiple synthetic chemicals that should never be put into the body. They are part of the reason we have skyrocketing chronic health issues that have somehow become the new normal in our society. But this is not normal. And science is clear. Most if not all of these health issues can be linked to pharmaceutical treatments and drugs. Learn the risk.org. I will leave this with you. And the fences you put around schools to protect students will not protect you from pharmaceutical drugs or pesticides. Lithium ion batteries. Thank you. We will now move on to item
1108.2 um CSEA. Do we have anyone here from CSEA? Okay, we do not. But we do have a public speaker to the item. Yeah. Uh, good evening. I just wanted to express my appreciation for the new CSEA president. And, uh, I say that partially because I I've not known that president to ever extend any kind of endorsement or endorsement to anyone who's ever attacked our students. So, I appreciate that. Um, I know my previously, um, I did criticize that the person who came with that, uh, that modern-day swastika of a MAGA hat, and I stand by that assessment, and I know the former CSA president doesn't agree, but I I I stand by that because of what I've seen. Um, if anyone's paying attention, we just since the last meeting had a US citizen uh,
111wrongly detained and and deported. Um, this school year, I had kids doing uh, Nazi salutes in my class. I've seen mega hats in my class. In my 13 years in education total, I've never seen that. Um, one of those students who had the hat in the class, um, it was during a a lesson on the Civil War and a couple time and in reconstruction, a couple times he would take it off and then, um, at the end of class he left the class with it off. I never really said anything about the hat except in the end I asked him what what does, you know, great and again mean? And and he said slavery and I never saw that hat again. I think he he knew that that is a hate speech symbol and he
112knew better. And I I think um I want the community to know that the CSEA members I know personally are not team Nazi and they welcome our community and they got love for the students. And I also want to commend um the Paharo Middle School students who who uh criticized that same that same uh employee for bringing that hat to their workday and uh creating a negative environment there. Look, thank you students. Thank you for fighting for what's right. Sometimes adults don't do that enough and in these times we we do have to take a stand. Um and I I encourage you to be on the right side of history. And you can't be that way if you're silent. Thank you. [Applause] Thank you. And now we will move on to um item 8.3 CWA.
113Thank you, Mike. Take a deep breath real quick so I can be clear in my comments tonight. Good evening board of trustees and Dr. Contrarus. My name is Mike Flor and I'm here as a steward of CWA Communication Workers of America, the union that represents our substitute at PBUSD. Um, substitutes have a very dynamic and complicated job. We walk into different environments. Sometimes it's more supervisory. Sometimes we actually teach a lesson. Um, it's always different. We have to adapt. All the schools have different cultures. The kids don't know us as well, so we might not get the same consideration. Um, people might generally think that the quality of education provided by a substitute isn't as good as the regular teacher in the classroom. And sometimes it might be, but why would it be as good?
114A team is only as good as its bench. And so there's some really great substitutes in this community. Substitutes that bring a lot of of experience, a lot of poise to the classroom and we show up. It would be a lot better to have a substitute in a classroom in a long term than to split that class into three other classes and burden the teachers in those other classes. So, I'm kind of hoping that there might be more appreciation for the substitutes and what they do in the classroom, the value they hold. We get times changed on us. We get jobs canled that morning. We get misinformation about the job and we show up. Sometimes the job is switched. we're just expected to just take that on the chin without any rights or without any
115consideration. So, I'm going to use the rest of my time tonight to talk about some improvements that we're making to the subhiring protocols. Um, Dr. Contrarus has green lit. Um, another substitute to do some writing to re-up the website literature. Um um Claudia Mahares met with us the Friday before spring break to kind of show us how to do it. She's creating structure on the website. She's creating a system that's going to be able to be added to. And so this project is really going to happen. Um thank you Jeff Handley. He's the substitute that's doing the writing. He um showed me in some unit meetings and in some personal conversations that he has some great insight into dynamics around substitute teaching that I echo. And so he proudly stepped up and he did the
116work over spring break. Um it's really really good and high quality. And so this is going to become a reality. When a new substitute gets hired in our district, they're going to get two days of training. They're going to get training in the classroom shadowing and experience substitute. That's never been part of the process here. Um, they're going to also get training on the subfinder and the computer system and some of the more clerical aspects. There's also going to be training for a long-term sub taking on a long-term job for the first time that I didn't experience any of these things. And so that's coming and it's going it's already been started. It's going to happen more over the summer. So, fall of next year when the school year starts, these um processes are going
117to be put into play and um I'm going to have a role in that too. So, I have to thank Dr. Contrarus for making this happen. Jeff Hanley, I thank you too. Claudia Mahares, I really appreciate your participation in this and I'm excited to see it happen because um when I started subbing, I didn't get any training the first 100 days that I did it. I was just sort of dependent on the lesson plan. I wanted a really detailed lesson plan. Now I kind of um market myself as not really needing a really hardcore lesson plan because I have a lot of experience and I actually got a teaching credential. I just chose to continue subbing and doing other alocart work in the district which right now is this union work. So I think I've
118said everything I wanted to say tonight. Again, thank you so much. This is exciting and a positive thing that's happening in our district around our substitutes hiring and the what they experience when they come to the job. There'll be a best practices page on the website that's going to have a handful of scenarios that create controversy in the office in the morning. there's going to be it's already going to be situated and planned his day. And Jeff Hanley, again, thank you. He's the one that's scripting all this and it's going to be put on the website. So, thank you for the time. Um, I hope the meeting doesn't go till 2:30 in the morning and um, have a good evening everybody. Thank you. Thank you. I will now move us on to item 8.4. Pavam.
119Good evening, President Flores, Superintendent Dr. Contrera's board of trustees and cabinet. I'm Peggy P, executive director for teaching and learning. We are welcoming in the most exciting time of year when our students and staff are able to show us what they know and all that they are capable of. The spring in PBUSD schools is inspiring. A few highlights to share today. We saw some truly promising math instruction by teachers being supported by their administrators at McQuiddy Hyde and Cesar Chavez. We saw Swan math instruction and we are so excited. The teachers are excited. The students were really engaged. It was amazing. Young students are just about about to begin their fir actually their last universal screener assessment of the year with Dibbles and Lectura. They're looking we are now looking for some growth that we
120expect to see because the teachers and administrators and other staff have been digging in looking at data talks and they're looking at how they expect to see students achievement grow. So we're really excited about those results that'll be coming soon. Special shout out to our teams at ASD and Starlight for the hard work that they're doing there. This week we completed our third cycle of our graduation rate intervention team, our grit team process. It's our third one of the year. We'll have another one in June. And honestly, this is just an amazing process that our superintendent, Dr. Conturus, has brought to us. It is so inspiring. All three of our comprehensive high school administrative teams alongside our superintendent, cabinet, multiple directors and coordinators from throughout the district office are working hard digging in on graduation
121rates, DNF rates, student achievement data, and really looking at how we can bring our students achievement up at our high schools. This was developed by Dr. Conturus, brought to us by Dr. Contras and honestly her fearless leadership is improving outcomes for students in PBUSD and we could not be more proud of the work that she is leading us in and we are so excited. Finally, the Po Valley Association of Managers wishes to share our gratitude and heartfelt gratitude for all who continue to support our students, staff, and families in these very challenging times. Partnership on behalf of our students and families is the heart of our work and it is truly the superpower of this community. Let us all lead with love. Thank you. I am now um item our nine our nine items are
122being moved to after 11. So now I will move us on to item 10 our public hearing. uh 10.1 PVUSD sunshine proposal to California school employees association CSEA chapter 132 for the 2024 2025 2025 2026 and 2026 2027 school years report will be presented by Anelica in assistant superintendent of human resources good evening president Flores board members and superintendent Dr. Contas. My name is Angelica Reeria, intram assistant superintendent of HR. I'm presenting to the public the opportunity to comment on the sunshine proposal to CSCA chapter 12 132 prior to the commencement of negotiations as required by the ROA act. Articles were sunshining are listed on the board item. Thank you. Thank you. Now, do we have any public speakers to this item? This is 10.1. No. Okay. Seeing none, I will now move us on
123to our action items. And we're starting with action item 11.5. So, this is the second reading of board bylaws uh 9150. This report will be presented by Daniel Eskeva, our student trustee. Thank you. So during the last board meeting on March 26th along with the student civic engagement handbook that I developed um I presented to the board um an amendment to or amending our board bylaw 9150 which governs um the student trustes abilities within California um to allow the student trustee uh allow student trustees within the parro valley unified school district to make motions um which aligns with not only the Santa Cruz County Office of Education's um board bylaws, but as well as a variety of different school districts across California. Um, so during that meeting, that was the first read of the board
124bylaw, and I, you know, discussed it and what essentially it would allow me to do. But during this meeting now, um, it's coming back for a vote. So, should this um amendment amendment pass, um, the student trustee would now be able to make motions except on employee employer relations. But thank you, Trusty Eskea. We do not have any public speakers to this. I just Okay. Well, okay. Chris Webb. Uh, good. I just wanted to say um I followed this district closely obviously and then um the one where I live over the hill and um I've seen many different student trustees and I I am proud of this district because I consistently see that PVSD I'm not talking just about you Daniel it's also like Raphael um the Watsonville High the last one that we had
125we've had some really good student trustees in this district and um I actually think you're the best I've ever seen. You're the goat. You're the goat. So, this is this is a great measure. Um, and I I'm like biased because of this district and how good our trustees have been because over the hill there's some I don't know if I would want them to be um having the same power, but for you Yeah. Yeah. For sure. For sure. Make the motion. Um, what I like about you is that I I feel you're very smart. You come prepared. You're principled. Um, you're assertive. You're brave. um you weren't going to be bullied. Um I have so much respect for you. I I really hope you go into public office and uh I'm not just saying this.
126I I I wouldn't I wouldn't BS you, right? If you if you if I had an issue with you, I'd let you know. But you're great. You're great. So, thank you. Thank you so much for all your work and I hope that everyone passes this. Thank you. I move approval of the modification to board bylaw 9150. I second the move. Everyone was fighting. Everyone wanted to be the one. Okay. So, I'm not sure who Eva's going to put there, but we do have a first and a second on the table. All those in favor? I. Any oppose? Any motion passes 70. Good job, Daniel. Thank you. And that's effective immediately, right? Yes. So he can make motions now for the rest of the meeting. Yes. For the rest of the meeting. So Okay. So now
127if I'm if I'm following Trustee Medina, right, and correct me if I'm wrong, but now we're going on to item 11.3. I make a motion to approve the CRA contract with the suggestion of discussing the other two options following. Okay. So we are Okay, let me just catch everyone up. So we're moving on to now we're moving on to item 11.3. The ethnic studies consultant agreement report will be presented by Claudia Munharas, assistant superintendent of curriculum instruction and professional development. Okay. Good evening, President uh Flores, board of trustees public. Um so I am bringing forward, our department is here tonight. We want to be able to uh bring forward three contracts um to the board to support ethnic studies and PBSD for the coming school year of 2526. Our goal is to provide a balanced
128approach to supporting our program that is inclusive of all voices in our community. Uh therefore, we recommend the board approve all three contracts being brought forward for the 2526 school year. Thank you. So now now we're doing public comments. Correct. We're speeding things up a little too. I love that you're trying to get us out of here, but but um we're going to do public comment now. Max Milliano, Rabbi Debbie Israel, Rosalyn Shornstein, John Jackson Mara, Chris Webb, and Bobby Marel. Marchel [Music] Um, can I go? All right. Uh, hello again. I just want to reiterate that the CRA contract was already great just how it was last meeting. I spoke about the fields framework that Allison Tintango Kubales developed for us spec uh specifically which is one of the reasons why CRA is so
129vital. She collaborated with our community to develop it so there's no need to change it any further. We've already made the changes necessary for our community. Please respect the work that Allisono Kales has put into developing the CR contract and leave it alone. Thank you. Hello, I'm Rabbi Debbie Israel. I'm a community rabbi in Santa Cruz County and South County. I've lived in Watsonville for 16 years. I speak in opposition to the renewal of the CRA contract for staff training. I've heard some hate hateful and hurtful things this evening, and I hope to address them. Judaism is not just a religion, but also a people who have lived in the land of Israel since the time of Abraham, the first Jew. The right of the Jewish people for self-determination in our homeland, is a key
130part of my Jewish religion and Jewish identity. The right of the Jewish people for self-determination in our indigenous homeland is fundamental to the Jewish religion and identity. Ethnic studies should respect the right of indigenous people for self-determination. Yet, CRE attempts to deny this right to the Jewish people. Why are Jews the only minority that is not allowed to define prejudice against us? It's essential to reject this one-sided discriminatory approach to ethnic studies. I urge you not to renew the CRA contract. Choose an ethnic studies consultant that brings bridges builds bridges of mutual respect and understanding rather than walls of distrust, resentment, and suspicion. Thank you. [Music] Good evening trustees and superintendent Contrarus. Thank you for your service to PV USD. I'm Raj Sharenstein, the grandd daughter of Russian refugees who escaped anti-semitism and communism in
1311920. I am the first in my family to go to college. Tonight on the fifth night of Passover, the board will discuss consultants to train a small group of 13 to 19 administrators and teachers using an antibbias grant. The antibbias grant mission puts quote emphasis on preventing anti-semitism and bias or prejudice toward protected groups. I am here because I want my grandchildren and all children to have an unbiased education. Let's follow the money. Facing history and ourselves charges $4,550. They use the approved California model ethnic studies curriculum. Dr. Rodriguez charges $26,400. CRA charges 90,000 and promotes the liberated ethnic studies curriculum that California rejected. This is the on top of the 192,000 already paid to CRA. The lead consultant of CRA writes, quote, "The United States is war between the imperial and the colonized, white
132supremacy and anti-racism and dominance and resistance with schools quote the battlefields where this war is waged. But I feel very strongly that kid kids in public schools should not be exposed to political indoctrination in the classroom. According to the letters I entered into the record from four local rabbis, the Wisen Hall Center and Camera Education Institute, the Paharo board made the correct decision not to renew the CRA contract in 2023. Fresno United also did not renew their contract with CRA. What kids should learn in ethnic studies is to appreciate the factual history of their complex identities and to respect others. Please say no to CRA and let's work together to expand highquality antibbias training to every educator in the district because when our teachers grow, our students thrive. Thank you. Good evening board. My name
133is John Jackson, nearly 30-year resident of the county. uh two adult daughters attended uh school in Pakro Valley and uh I am here not so much to get into the minutia and I really compliment and kudos to the whole board doing your very best to elicit a wide spectrum of of uh comments and we've heard a wide spectrum some of them very passionately expressed and always in agreement and you've listened patiently so kudos to all of you for that I come from a multithnic family my wife who's an immigrant from Asia and uh our daughters got the funny looks and the comments about their food. So what you're considering tonight is very very important principally speaking how you decide about the contracts. I think you've heard a lot of input. I'll just give you a
134little analogous a situation as a holistic physician. Before I went to medical school by way of background I lived in the Middle East. I worked with um Muslim Arabs with Jews and with Christians. And the really hopeful news is that we got along actually and so I think there is hope even when we have a lot of butting of heads so to speak. Uh as a holistic physician type balance is so important and we really like to have all the body tissues and systems working together harmoniously and uh the goal whenever possible is prevention and according to studies prevention is a lot less expensive than trying to pay for the disease once it's established. So, I'm thinking a way of looking at your task is to prevent hate in the future. And we know there's
135been plenty of it in the past. And if we use the disease analogy, um, sometimes the disease presents itself with very subtle symptoms and signs. Other times it's so obvious, you don't have to go, doctor, I need to go to the emergency room immediately. So, there's such a spectrum. Thank you for delving into this as best you know how. I am very uh impressed by your dedication for our children's sake. Thank you for listening. Hi again board by Marcel. Um, you know, I've heard on from from more than one uh and on more than one occasion from this board that uh basically that you know, we need to whether it's support our superintendent or you know not take responsibility for certain votes because we don't micromanage or it's like you know our jobs vision and
136then uh you know let them do their jobs. I don't always agree with that, but what I will say is then be consistent because I've heard our ethnic studies teachers say CRA is what we need in our training. That's what we started with. I've talked to the ones who started it and they've said this is what has helped us. There are professionals every day in the job who know uh what is reaching students. The former superintendent supported it. The interim superintendent supported it. It was the recommendation from the staff when it was voted down. So if you truly trust the professionals, allow the professionals to be the professionals. Um I could go other routes. You know, I many of you know I am a Christian minister as well. I do interfaith work and I respect
137all of the different opinions. I also firmly believe that there not every Jewish leader agrees that this is wrong or anti-Semitic and that needs to be recognized as well. So, I know it's a a heavy decision for a lot of you, but I really do hope that you will bring back CRA, listen to the teachers, listen to those who are in the classroom and recognize uh just the good that it is doing. Um, and regardless of what other districts are doing, um, I'd like us to be a leader and I think this is our best one. So, let's be the best. All right. Thank you. [Applause] [Music] you have a chance right now to um live up to our val value of integrity to be about facts not favorites um over the course of these
138months. I can't think and even in that town hall I can't think of one legitimate piece of evidence that there was any um anti-semitism with CRA. Um, and also at the at that town hall there was vague reference to the board being emailed some some you know what in my view if secret evidence is fake evidence. So like if you can't bring it out right here don't even bother. Um, also I want to just thank I I I found that was really good town hall. Um, like educational. It brought me back some some memories. I was in that first year cohort and uh oh I appreciate Claudia also for one thing she touched on that that was like nice to hear from an admin because a lot of times they lose sight of what it
139is in the classroom. She was like oh these teachers they did this after the um after their workday and like that actually was hard. So I appreciate that she recognized that. Um, and I feel like it would be disrespectful to her, to me, to every teacher who's um been in in this program, in this training, to every student who's gotten something out of this, if you were to basically say, "No, actually, we don't believe you. We we believe the this uh this one minority, and um you know, maybe the fact that they gave money to certain campaigns helps." Um, again, facts, not favorites. Oh, and by the way, I just uh checked out my ancestry.com thing because I wanted to delete my info before it sold off. Come come to find out uh I'm part
140Ashkanazi Jew. So, if that ups my favoritism, please renew renew CR. Um thank you. Oh, yeah. And also, one thing I learned, thank you, Santino and um Greg, uh was that uh no no. And actually, as a as someone who's who's part Latino, that personally I identified that and I I learned more. Oh, one thing I carried from that training, um, the critical auto ethnography, I've carried that into my classroom and it's helped me to connect with teachers ever since. That's some of the best PD I've ever had. And I do not always hear the same kind of positive remarks about PD as I heard about that CR training. Thank you. [Music] Carolyn Kuspa, Willow Catz, Eli Davies, Roy Rio, Bobby Pels, and uh Gabriel Brazza. Actually, I'm not sure where that came from. That's
141not actually one of ours from the presentation. Okay. So when when I couldn't see who that anyways when the public speaker goes up I'm sure that will go up. Okay. That would go with her public comment but that wasn't part of our presentation. Ready. Hi. Okay. My name is Caroline Kuspa. I'm born and raised Santa Cruz. Um daughter of a descendant of Ashkanazi Jews and grew up learning that we speak up when we see injustice. no matter where it is. Um, and in the past year and a half, it's been really challenging seeing what I'm seeing and seeing people from my own community bullying me about speaking up for Palestine and for having a critical lens on what Israel is doing. And I actually went back and learned the history and I and I have
142a lot of empathy for the fact that Jews had to move there because of anti-semitism. Um, but I don't Thank you. Um, but I don't think that it means that we can't criticize what Israel is doing now. Um, I heard a lot tonight from um, let's see, Rosenstein. Um, sorry to name you, but um, you said you don't want your grandchildren to have an unbiased educa or have a biased education. You want them to have an unbiased education. So, um I believe he might be affiliated with the Jewish Education Forum or sorry, Jewish Community Education Forum that sponsored a film recently um through the Jewish Film Festival that was incredibly biased actually in my opinion um about October 8th and called October 8th and it actually did it did not mention once anti-Zionist Jews and
143non-Zionist Jews who are participating on the very college campuses that it demonized and is honestly manufacturing consent for like real state violence against like people, students, faculty. I was arrested. I saw so much brutality. There's a student who used to walk who's now in a wheelchair due to strokes from her wrist um things being too tight and getting a clot and it going and causing a stroke. So, I just the the weaponization of anti-semitism and conflating it with any criticism of Israel is super dangerous for everyone. And I think our grandchildren will be more safe when we actually have an unbiased education. That's what CR Thank you. [Music] My name is Willow Catz. As a Jew committed to freedom, dignity, and justice for all peoples, I support the renewal of the Allison Tintenko Kubalis Community
144Responsive Education CRA contract and not any other contract or program. Mentioning Palestine in the CRA ethnic studies curriculum is not anti-Semitic. Indeed, Palestinians are Semites. people speak one of the Semitic family of languages that includes Arabic, Hebrew, Amharic, Aramaic and Tina among others. Mentioning Palestine is not anti-Semitic against Jews, Palestinians, Arabs, nor any other Semitic language speaker. Mentioning Palestine also is not indicative of self-hating Jews. Supporting freedom for Palestinians and all peoples is solidly in the proud Jewish legacy of fighting for progressive and radical meaning at the root liberatory causes. Vote to reinstate the Allison Tintiango Kubala CRA contract specifically and not any other contract or program. Thank you. [Applause] [Music] [Applause] Hi, my name is Eli. I am notably here for the CRA contract. Just for the CR contract, I want to speak to
145some words that I heard earlier um that really hit me this this idea that this antibbias grant is here um to help protected people. And it couldn't be clear to me in this political moment that Palestinians are not protected people. And the censorship of what is happening right now, what has happened in the past is unacceptable. The other comment I heard about, you know, wanting a future a certain way. We also need to look at what is happening right now in the present. Why? Why do people care about this? Why? You know, there's sort of this question of like this is specifically against us and people are are upset because there is a genocide going on and because there is a huge propaganda machine erasing education about it, erasing the ability to talk about it.
146People are getting fired. People are getting pulled out of the country and put who knows where, taken away from their families. These are the stakes in Trump's America right now. And that is why we advocate so hard because there's also been a harm done to this community with the lack of apology to Dr. Allison Tintiago Kubales to the way it has been handled to the way that this board has handled the community trying to use their voices and also being repressed a repression we see now more violent and more obvious. So keep all of that in mind when you try and keep things fair and balanced that there is there is so much weight here. Thank [Applause] you Gabriel Barza area 5. So, I've been coming here with many others in the community for the
147last 20 months to try and rectify the mistake of the previous board when they cut off community responsive education in the last year of their contract with PBUSD based on false allegations against Dr. Allison Kubales. I have come to understand we're here, you know, now that the contract is finally up for being reconsidered and renewal and that's a good thing. But the inclusion of these other uh agencies uh is alarming. You know, there there's no compromising when it comes to real ethnic studies. The other two vendors that are proposed as part of this bundle are not ethnic studies. I've looked into facing history in ourselves. It's not ethnic studies. its history with a slant toward discussion of multicultural education. They emphasize civil discourse that is fundamentally at odds with deconstructing systems of power. As I've
148said earlier, deconstructing systems of power is the core of ethnic studies. That's what scares people. That's what scares people that are in power. Because when we seek to make a better world, we have to write the wrongs that exist today. I looked into Dr. Ornelis Rodriguez's work and while I admire, greatly admire his work in archiving and bringing awareness of the Latino and Chuco community and the history of agricultural work, it is not ethnic studies. Again, people need to understand that ethnic studies is about empowering communities of color that have been historically marginalized. It's about empathy. It's about building a world that is equitable. The people who oppose ethnic studies, real ethnic studies, seek to preserve things the way they are now, only nicer. We want real ethnic studies. We want CRA. [Applause] Uh Bobby
149P Watsonville High. I'm here tonight to speak on the CRU contract. When I first stood at this podium in September of 2023, I felt frustrated. The contract had been cancelled without conversation, without evidence, and without speaking to those of us actually doing the work. I remember thinking that if they had just talked to me, I could have helped them understand. I could have shown them why this matters so much. But since then, most of the board has turned over and I've had my chance to speak with almost every one of you. Many of you have even visited my classroom. I'm grateful for those conversations. And I hope they helped you see that this is not just about a consultant. It's about standing up for ethnic studies. Period. So, I did ask for my due diligence
150and I got 19 months of it. Might be a record for the longest vetting process ever. But what has given me the ability to see was powerful. A community rising up. Students, parents, educators, neighbors, speaking not out of obligation, but out of purpose. That's what true liberation looks like. They didn't just support ethnic studies, they became ethnic studies. And I was so honored to stand beside them. We are ethnic studies. We've done the work and now it's your turn. Support ethnic studies. Bring back CR. Thank you. [Applause] Ray Rio, third generation Filipino American. Pops came to Watsonville in 1928. He was part of the 1930 anti-filipino race riots. Things were going on here, not just throughout the world or anywhere else. They were happening here. here, here, here. This is what PVSUSD is about. Our
151our cultures, our heritage, our love for one another, our community. Ethnic studies brings everyone together. We understand, we tolerate, and we get down and dirty about who's who and why you're here. And that's what ethnic studies is about. Us learning about one another, our neighbors, our colleagues, our fellow students. Um I wanted to say that um I had met well uh Dr. Navaro asked about why is Ellison so interested in film work far farmworking Filipino families. Well because I'm I'm I'm one of those families. So is uh Tony Tapis who went to school with Val Kubalis Allison's husband and me just like all the other folks Manuel Bersammen Joan Deis Reyes our fathers worked at the Bayon labor camp along with Val's father and that's why we're so adamant about the Tbera project being part
152of this ethnic studies component because indeed it's personal it's personal it's our livelihood it's our vitality it's our pride that makes to Paro Valley. I want to say that I know an Allison for over years. We are part of a young incubators leadership group. We're part of this thing called the International Hotel. We rebuilt low-inccome housing for 105 104 units of low housing for seniors on Kierney Street in San Francisco. mainly it got torn down just like lower Maine in San Franc in Watsonville because the leaders at be didn't want little brown brothers walking around their area basically the same thing on Kierney Street where um a building mogul um named Walter Sharenstein didn't want little brown brothers walking around his neighborhood and thusly I had known Allison for a long time you I tell
153you she's a scholar she's a leader both nationally statewide you I've sent you emails Olivia You never respond to me. But indeed, if you want to talk about a professional, a scholar, that's her, Dr. Barza, Tekashi Mazuno, Christine Hong, Omar Diegas, and Doug Claplin. Christine Hong had to leave. She had a plane to catch, so she's gone. Okay. So during the study session, one of her opponents stated that ethnic studies is anti-semitic without presenting any evidence whatsoever. She wanted us to believe that just because she said so. In fact, she she was even quoted in the uh in the lookout article stating that she had not seen all the course material and does not know anything specific in them that is anti-semitic. These are her words. She said, "I am not in the class, so
154I have no idea." Yet, she continues to come to these board meetings claiming that CRA is anti-Semitic. She also claimed that she had sent the board evidence of this. Yet, she has not, nor any of her allies, have brought any evidence to the board in the past two years to support their claims. Why haven't they brought out this evidence to the public? My guess is because it doesn't exist. Our opponents have no right to call anyone anti-Semitic without the evidence. Nor do they have the right to dictate what an entire school district can or cannot teach to our students. If you want the best education for our students, then you need to bring back CRA. Why are you considering other vendors who have not been vetted? Why are we adding unnecessary vendors when CRA has
155already done a wonderful job? Students have been coming consistently for almost two years to tell you exactly that. They've told you how much they love ethnic studies, their ethnic studies class, and how it has changed them for the better. Not only that, they have told you that oftentimes that is the only class that they attend. Why would they why would they why would you bring vendors that are not ethnic studies experts to train ethnic studies teachers? If you are truly support, if you truly support ethnic studies and actually understand its purpose, then you will understand why it's important to have experts in ethnic studies consulting with our with our teachers. The community spoke loud and clear when when we voted in this past election. As you can see, three of the board members who ran
156for reelection lost because they chose to ignore the community. Will you make the same mistake? Good evening and I'm Takashi and I woke up around 4:30 this morning. I'm getting sleepy and I received an email from my friend. He teaches uh Asian-American studies at San Francisco State University where Professor Arison teaches and heard me a letter written by Professor Arison addressed to the board members and administrators and I read it and I started to commit this issue and my main purpose at that time was to support professor arson and every time I prepared uh I wrote draft of my public public comment for this board I shared my draft of my public comment with professor arson and her colleague professor Wesley Wing I have been good friends of him for over 20 years so I
157trust him his judgment Right. And then uh early 2024, January of 2024, I I received a phone call from him and he said that uh Professor Arson was chosen as one of 20 best researchers in the nation and they had a celebration of that and at that time I thought that I I could quit my commitment. and and because several new people join joined us including brother family. So I thought I could quit it but I I realized I was only one Japanese and Japanese American. So who spoke uh in the board meeting. So I I decide to stay until today tonight and I have communicated with professor for the past couple of years. I received text message from him today that his prayers for for he prayed for all of us including you. Thank
158you. [Applause] I come with the utmost respect to the school board. But uh we have made our statement. We have proven everything that you guys have asked us to prove on the CR contract. We have swam across the oceans. We have climbed the highest mountains. We have been accused. We have been tried to get shut down our voices. We have been disrespected by the old school board. We have gone through a lot. We have been struggling and we have proven ourselves to the point where we've had you guys sit up here on the school board and agree that this is a loving CRA contract that we're presenting to you, that this is something that's going to work for our students. These students have come here several times along with other students to to talk about
159this. You know, I went to Aptas High School. I fought for CHO studies. I fought for equal rights. And it wasn't until that town hall meeting that they had where we had to go talk about the CR contract. I didn't step back on that campus on that campus for 29 years. And when I stepped back on that campus, I didn't realize the the the uh the trauma and the pain that I still haven't dealt with or healed from from all that. all that struggle that we fought for and I don't want these students to go through that. They don't deserve it. We have done extensive work to prove our point and we're asking enough is enough. Let's move forward and give the community what they deserve. Thank you. [Applause] A few moments ago, you heard
160Gabriel Barz's give you an e an excellent and accurate description of the approach to ethnic studies that Allison Tintano Cabalis has brought to our district. And obviously there are many people in our community and in this room tonight who believe that that approach is the correct approach to teaching ethnic studies. My sister and her beautiful family live in Hifa, Israel. Trustee Medina, two weeks ago, you appeared in a video during which your co-presenter said, "I want to lance Israel like a boil off of humanity." The question before all of you tonight is how we teach our students to deal with these hatred or these hatefilled words. Miss Tintono Kbalis's approach is to divide our world into two camps. There are good guys and there are bad guys. There are oppressed and there are oppressors. Does
161this approach help to heal and unite our community or does it fuel the hatred? That's the question before you tonight. Thank you. That was the last of our public comments. Correct. There was one more. Who was one more? Oh, yes. Yeah. Come on up. I don't know. We don't have a card, but put in the card and I put in Yes, I'm sure you did. Um, she's I saw you. I'm sure you saw some of them already, but um that's different though. I put both I should have one for both 11.2 and three. Okay. So, hi, I'm Natlo Area 7. Um I want to talk about the fact that you have three different contracts that are on the agenda and discuss who these vendors are. Um so, we know that CRE is led by Dr.
162Allison Dindo Kobales. She's a professor in the college of ethnic studies, an expert in K12 ethnic studies, and has over two decades of experience working with ethnic studies teachers in particular. The other two contracts simply don't have the expertise in ethnic studies, which facing history says directly on their contract that they don't have that experience. And I haven't actually been able to find any information on who at facing history would actually be working with the district, so I can't figure out what their qualifications are. Um, and Dr. Inio is, you know, he's like a historian, and I'm sure he's a great historian, but history is not ethnic studies. And AB 101 requires actual ethnic studies to be taught in the classroom, not history, not social studies, ethnic studies. And CRA has been thoroughly vetted prior
163to this contract coming up tonight. District did its due diligence in the selection process back in 2021. It's proven itself with great results for the two for two years. The teachers and the students love it. The board reviewed it and approved it twice. Allison met with our community. She met with multiple board members and none of the board members has said that she's anti-Semitic. We don't know anything about the other contractors. As of the town halls two weeks ago, none of the trustees could tell me even the names of these contractors. So, what kind of vetting process is the board going to do with these two? Have you all met with them? Um, is the is the community going to be able to ask them questions before you vote? And we've been coming out for
16420 months. Students have been here on school nights for 20 months, not for some other contractor that was pulled out at the last minute. We came out for the CRA contract. We voted out three former trustees because of that. And we won't stand for a bit and switch because we are not going away until that contract is back. Okay. Thank you. So hold on. I can't think with that. Sorry. Okay. So now we will bring it back to the board for discussion. Trusty Turley, I'd like to make a motion to approve the CRA contract with suggestion we discuss the other two options separately. I'd like to second that motion. Trusty do. Okay. Trusty Dodge, we have a first and a second. Okay. Do you do you want a traditional vote or do you want roll
165call? Was the motion to also talk about other vendors that Oh, okay. Okay. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Traditional vote. Okay. Okay. All those in favor? I I All those in favor? All those Sorry. All those in favor? All those opposed? Any abstaining? Motion passes. 700. Okay. And now trustee trustee trusty Charlie did you want to speak on the other contracts or trusty Dodge? I will. So I have this concept of having I a lot of people in this room remember Moss Hashimoto, right? He taught uh many of us US history and he brought it to life for many of us. He also for years and years and years returned to Watsonville High School just about every year to talk about his personal experience in an internment camp. And I would like to see, and I
166don't know how to make this happen, but I'd like to at least get the idea out here, that we have a series of presentations that are made to our high school students. One about the Japanese internment, one about the horrors that happened um in Nazi Germany and before that. Um but uh and um to to um Royy's um comments about many people don't know about the horrible things that happened to the Filipino members of this community and to have have presentation stories about each one of those things so they become so they're brought back to life for our our ex our young students to high school students. I'm talking about um to understand the horrors that have happened so that we make sure they don't happen again. Thank you, Trusty Dodge. uh you know at
167at the beginning I didn't understand about much about CR you know but after talking you know someone you know some local wild cats you know Tony Tes you know hearing your history manuel baramin and Roy and I'm not sure if you graduated but you talk like a lot of guy he's um but I also have to say that both Latinos and Filipinos are besetto. You know, both of our f our both of our people harvested this land. You know, strawberries, lettuce, artichokes, um and once generations of all hardworking people of all backgrounds have come to this land chasing a better life. our parents and grandparents, Filipinos and Latinos stood shoulder-to-shoulder in the fields and during the racism, the struggle and the sacrifice. You know, I you know, I had an email with back and forth
168with Dr. Baras and you know, she was right about me on some certain things, but I think this is important part of history. I would like to see, you know, yes, you know, Ignasio might just be a historian, but I would like to make a motion if we can somehow work with him to teach that history because I believe our histories are tied together. I would like to second your motion and just say that um the other two consultants were vetted just as much as Yuri was two years ago when we first brought that contract in. Um just because they've been working with us for two years, you know, that's why you're saying they're red. But they were at one point. Right now it's our time. Nat, don't Nat, right now it's our time. Thank
169you. I will have you removed from the room if I have to. Please don't disrespect us that way. It's our time to talk now. So, I did I was able to look into um the other two contracts and I was very very impressed with um Dr. Agnosio's line of work. He is an ethnic studies teacher. He's not just a historic history teacher. He's an ethnic studies teacher. He's worked um with uh high schools in San Jose and he's done work in Selenus and he has also done work in Watsville, not with our schools, but he was telling me just in our conversation um not knowing anything about me, just kind of sharing about himself. Um he shared what about his work in Selenus um with the Brastoro project and renaming a portion of the highway
170bringing that community together and what it's done for Selenus and the the beauty that that has it has created and bringing all those family members who thought their relatives were forgotten. And so he was sharing that with me that was amazing. and he shared with me that when he was working with a high school in Selenus, I mean sorry, a high school in San Jose, he that's where Lowriter magazine was founded. And so he thought, okay, he's very big on looking at what happened on that soil that you're standing on and bringing that history to life for his students. And so he thought let's really look into what the culture of low rider is low riders are and not just the the looking into the cars looking into entrepreneurship that you see within that community.
171Um what all the engineering that happens when they work on their vehicles. Um and then he asked the principal if he could have a low rider festival on campus. And um at first a lot of the teachers were hesitant. they were like, um, I don't think that's a great idea. You know, what what what are we going to be bringing onto our campus? And he fought for it and it was beautiful. He said that everyone was so appreciative of that festival and of just having their eyes opened. And to him, ethnic studies is what, you know, what we know ethnic studies to be, but it's also that opportunity to share our culture with um other people who might not know. and to see that, you know, he changed that lens for some people who might
172have looked differently at low riders and and now have an appreciation for it. Then he shared with me that he worked a couple years ago with Mashimoto before he passed and with the community of Watsonville doing a presentation here in Watsonville. and he mentioned that he's done a lot of work with one of our a local art author we have in town, Frank Bicki, who you know started I I believe he founded our teamsters um local here in Watsonville. Um I grew up with his daughter. We graduated, you know, class of 97 Watsonville High. Um but he he knows our history. He knows our area and I 100% support bringing him in and him coming alongside our ethnic studies program and adding to it and adding that you know our Latino culture as well. He
173mentioned the canaries and so that's that's why I support Ignasio Trusty Carrasco. So, um, as someone who was an ethnic studies teacher who contributed to this curriculum, um, exactly what you were describing, that's what I did in my classrooms. Um, some of you might know that last year we had a big low rider project with the Watsonville Film Festival. A year before that, I created art that was denied by the parks commission because they were low writers. So, I worked with a lot of the teachers to bring that curriculum. It's already there. And I remember speaking to Miss Webb about bringing it into ethnic studies art. I just have not had a chance to sit down and do that with her. I would like to respect the teachers who have worked really hard on this
174curriculum. My name is on that curriculum. You know, we have broughten in local history as well. The Canary Strike I've had every year than you that that the Tabaro project had a calendar. I bought one. I was speaking to my students about this because I was doing the research locally. Um, I wish I had my classroom to invite you all so that you could see what I would teach my students. They know that we do not disrespect anybody at all. regardless of any identities. They would always tell me, "I'm here even though I don't want to be here in school, but I will be in your classroom." I would never teach them to repeat things that I myself experienced like Omar at Atos High School. I would never teach them to disrespect anybody due to
175their identities. I became an ethnic studies teacher because I wanted to guide others and instead of taking something that caused a lot of trauma for you, turn it around and make something positive. That's why I'm sitting here. I would never disrespect any of you. But I need to guide our youth. It's so important. When I used to teach, I saw myself and my students, they need this knowledge. I needed it when I was at Atoss. You know, I always tell them, I'm not going to teach you stuff for you to memorize. I'm not going to teach you knowledge for knowledge sake. You're going to do something with what I teach you, and it's going to be positive, and you're going to respect people when you do it. I ran a campaign and I never disrespected
176the person that I ran against. The all of my students, you speak to them, they will tell you what my values are. And I put that in my curriculum to respect and love others regardless of who they are. I wish you could see that because when I hear that these classes create two groups, I'm thinking if you only knew that I the purpose of my class is to make everyone realize that we are all one group and that we have to work with everybody in order to do that. And that's hard, but it's possible. And here are some ways that you could do it. A, B, C. Might not work. Try D, E, and F and keep going. That's ethnic studies for me. I am ethnic studies. And it's changed my life. And I want
177my students to have that. And I want this community to have that. And I want you to have that. Go to the classrooms. See how students teach like talk to each other. how they take turns, how they take what others say and say, you know, I liked how you said this. You won't you're not going to find that in any other class. I can tell you that. I was in these high schools and the dialogue that goes on, it's mindblowing because of these classes. It's not mesmerizing information. It's what are you going to do in order to create this world a better place? That in my opinion is why we do education, right? It's not just to learn to read and write, but it's to be able to make things better than what how we
178experienced it. That was my goal with education. And a lot of these ethnic studies teachers that came before me, like I I have to give credit to Mr. Walker who's no longer with us. He's now in Oakland teaching. I learned so much from his curriculum and I want to honor the the work that we have done in these past years. If we want low riders, I I can put that in there. We want art, I can put that in there. We've already done the work. I feel like we owe it to the people who've been coming here for a really long time. the students who are no longer here because a lot of those students who were here at the very beginning, those were my students. Those were my my sophomores, juniors, and then they
179were supposed to be my seniors graduating. So, it hurt right here when I'm seeing them request something that I used to teach. And it matters who teaches it because when I left, they put somebody who was a US history teacher but not an ethnic studies teacher. And it matters because these kids were not going to that class anymore. I had a whole echo class fifth period changed to a whole class because of it. They did not come back. You can check into with Watar with Mr. Gagorio. That's exactly what happened. and they marched themselves down to the counselor office and said, "We're no longer going to this classroom." So, believe me, this class will bring students. We need attendance. They will show up. We want them to be engaged. They will be engaged. And they
180are not taught to hate other people. Why would I teach them to do exactly what was done to me? Then why why even do what I'm doing? You know, I I don't know how to describe it, but you have to be there to see it. It's all love. I promise you that. Trust me, Medina. Well, hello everybody. So, as always, I got to point out the propaganda techniques you're using, dude. So, I love that you use guilt by association, which is an approach that seeks to discredit an individual by linking them to a person, group, or idea that is viewed negatively. But Doug Hamplin, I did some digging on the Paharonian and actually pulled a quote where you said, "We don't want our students with them. That's why we should that's why they should stay
181in Watsonville." So, Gabe, right now we're talking about Agnosio's cont. Oh, yeah. I'm going to get to that cuz it all ties in together. And then what I'm hearing about folks, I'm a minority. The minority is sitting on this side right now. The minority, the people that have been treated with so much disrespect over these years. I don't see you people at protest against immigration. I don't see you at protest when people are being taken away right now. I don't see you advocating to bring back Abrego Garcia or Makmoud Khalil. I don't see you guys doing that. You only show up to meetings when it's beneficial for you so you could tell brown people who they are. But guess what? We're defining our own stories now. And the lies that you spewed here tonight were
182insane. So, I know I'm educated and you guys are losing. You actually just lost. Accept it. Own it. And also, you know, utilizing your grandchildren as a cover in order to get us to feel some sort of emotion is insane. What a manipulation tactic that you all were pulling here tonight. What a manipulative tactic. So if you want to continue to be segregationist like you were with Omar in the past working against brown kids because you didn't want to see them in power and I refuse to let that happen with Alison Santiago too. You are talking about dismissing a Filipino woman in order to get another man that you guys like. What about our Filipino community? Why don't you listen to them and tell their history? Hey my time. Wait, it's my time. I didn't
183interrupt you. So, I want to do two things. One, I want to make a motion because all this started because of DurPa. So, I want to move that we censure her for her decision and putting us through all of this. So, I'm making that motion right now. Okay. We have a motion on the table and a second to approve a cont Thank you. Thank you. We have a motion on the table and a second to approve the contract. Sorry. Yes, this contract is not in any means to replace CR. It's no I know about that's what I just want to make that clear. So there's a first and second. There's no more discussion. Okay. Yes. Thank you, Trusty Flynn. [Music] Kly. So, I wanted to address Rabbi uh Raz and Doug. Um, I did speak
184with Dr. Allison Tintango Kubalas for quite some time. I also listened to the teachers and have looked at the curriculum and what is being taught and I understand your concerns and I I really didn't see anything um that was even mentioning some of the concerns that you had. This is you know I I do believe ethic studies is really important. It seems really clear that our teachers who are the ones that are going to need the support in the administration feel very strongly about this person and a lot of our my constituents have reached out on both sides but mostly overwhelmingly supporting this and so because I represent them I I need to respect that. Um so I wanted to start with that. Um secondly, you know, this is a one the third year of
185a third-year contract. Um I do have some concerns about cost going forward. So I think that that would be important to discuss at a later date, but I think we should fulfill the third year of the contract that we started. Um I have I feel ambivalent, I guess, is the best word about uh this other candidate. I have to say that I was a little disappointed when I looked at all of the the options presented to us that they really didn't seem equivalent. I don't know how you felt about that, but clearly there was one that kind of stood out as being much more methodical about the implementation. And so, uh, you know, I I don't feel strongly about this other person. Um, but I do I do want to assure, you know, people who
186have concerns that we have looked into it and have addressed the concerns and it will be an ongoing issue that we'll be paying attention to because we don't want any student to feel that their stories don't matter or to feel segregated against. Um, and I do believe that is especially with everything that's going on at the federal level, it's really a time that we need to come together as a community and make sure that we're supporting all of our students. So, thank you. Thank you, Trusty Glenn. This is um a lot more emotional than I than I thought it would be. So, I apologize. Um, just to get it out of the way, um, as is mentioned in the proposed scope of work for facing um, history, it clearly states that it is not a
187dedicated ethnic studies um, trainer or curriculum provider. So, that stands out really boldly for me. um along with um a lot of other um uh information that I've received saying that um this just not supporting it. Um for Dr. Rodriguez's work, highly respectable work, I felt it was too narrow of a scope for what we need. Um, I um am confused by your words and it makes me wonder if we're looking at the same pedagogy. I said openly that I saw no anti-semitism in the work and then I was criticized for saying that after sitting down with people in your group defining what anti-semitism is. I went and looked thoroughly because I took it seriously. I had people criticize me for even sitting down and listening and taking time. But I felt it important to
188do and then to be criticized for taking the definition that I was given and then told that because I'm not Jewish, I can't say what is and what isn't anti-Semitic is totally wrong and causes me to lose credibility with you. And then I was told that by under no circumstances would I meet with you, which is a complete lie because we have emails going back and forth trying to meet together and I did sit down with your group and I would have sat down with you but after that comment again loss in credibility. I'm concerned that based on what Trustee Krasco was saying is that are we looking at the same pedagogy? I truly believe that there is no educator in PBUSD that is taking this training that would allow any erosion of dignity of
189any human being in their classroom under any circumstances. I honestly believe [Applause] that I'm a parent of a graduate of Apttos High School and I wish she would have had this. I truly believe as one of the few black students to graduate in her class and in the history of Aptas High, she would have greatly benefited from this. [Applause] I don't want any other student to miss out like I did, like she did. I was the only black student in an entire K through8 school lied to about history. Having to sit through hearing about slavery lynching. Having to hear about dogs being let out on people who look like me. Being sprayed with hoses, fire hoses. Did any of that teach me hate? No. It taught me compassion. But I did feel less than. I
190did feel humiliated. I did feel like an erosion of dignity. It's taken me years to rebuild. It's taken me years to understand my power, my voice. Five years ago, I did a big thing. I held the first peaceful action in Santa Cruz County after the public execution of a man named George Floyd. Over a thousand people showed up. It got national attention. I got the attention of the community and I started a movement. That action was based in love and I needed to be seen by people who look like me and I wanted people who look like me to also be seen by the whiter community and the whiter community. We are few. And as you recognize, I am the only black person in this room and often at these board meetings. That's a problem.
191Watsonville does have a history of antilackness, deep antilackness, which is written in law way back. It also has a history of land ownership. These are things that I would love to see come to the surface, not just for our black community members, but just to recognize that antilackness exists so that we can have these conversations. If we're not having these conversations, we are perpetuating the antilackness that exists in our nation. I'd like to address the group that has been pushing for CRA for two years. You have lived out CRA. You are a part of the history now. I commend your persistence, especially just all of the time that you've taken, all of the heart that you've put into it. This is important work. It has been something that I've discovered or that I I've been
192a little bit taken aback by is the lack of acknowledgment of the economic power historically held by the Jewish community that the community that of black and brown people don't have. And while they have people power, there is that economic power that really does exist. There's also the presentation power, the privilege that comes with presenting as white. And that is real. You can deny it or you can. So the thing that I ask people often is, what do you do with your privilege, your position, and your power? How do you use it historically? How do you use it locally? How do you use it today? And I'm not seeing how it's being used to move things forward. I feel like there's a lot of fear behind the movement and I don't want to deny that
193fear is is you know if somebody is afraid of something then they're afraid of something but what is it that you're afraid of? I feel like underlying one of the things that was said in the town hall was fear of hate and I did hear it from you tonight but I feel like we've addressed that and maybe you disagree and that's fine but it is my understanding that with CRA CR not whatever it is you're talking about not the props that be brought to that meeting. This field study that we looked at a few weeks ago, I saw love. Trustee Krasco just said that's what she teaches. I've had a conversation with educators who are teaching this. And again the instillment of dignity for each student and selfrespect and respect for their peers is at
194the basis of it. This is a global society that we are in now and it has to be met with love. [Applause] Thank you. Okay. So, let's take a vote on the motion that is on the table cuz we have other uh so uh let me repeat my motion so that we have a motion before yours. So, we have a motion uh first from Trustee Dodge to approve a contract with Dr. uh Ignasio and then I seconded. So all those in favor, sorry, go ahead. So I think when Daniel made his motion, it was to work with them in some way. Um and I would hope that that way would be more um presentation to students to understand the brerials. Yeah. So so the role I Yes. Okay. It's an added resource for our ethnic
195studies program. They're not he's not touching the curriculum that already exists. Sorry, cloud. Uh so he can do that. When um when he reached out to have the conversation, that is something he can do because he has worked with students before. So um a lot of his work is centered around oral histories. So those would be things that he could help with um in the classroom, support teachers with. Okay. So we have a first and a second. All those in favor? I. Any opposed? Okay. Any abstaining? That passes for three. Okay. And I believe Trustee uh Eskea would like to make a motion. I'll make a motion to extend the meeting until 2:30. I say I'll second that motion. We have a first and a second. All those in favor? I. Any opposed? Any that
196motion passes 70. I'm glad you did it. I'm on. [Applause] Okay. So, I believe we are finished with 11.3 and now we're going to No, I have he made was to do 11.2. Oh, sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Yes. Yeah. And let me restate my motion. I move that we censure Kim Durpa for engaging with this and denying our community the proper research and vetting of the curriculum. Um, and she caused a lot of damage doing that. And look at all the people that had to show up night after night after night after week in order to do that. And for her to come up here and say she thinks without not saying I've actually done my time and studied this did a huge disservice to our community. So I say that we censure her
197and let her know that that was the improper way to act and to address this issue that we had before us. And I would like to call for a roll call vote. I won't. I checked. You could censure her if she is off the board because she made a decision that impacted this district. Do we have a second? I'll second. Yes. Okay, we have a first and a second. And Gabe has requested a roll call. Trusty Krasco, your vote. Yes. Trusty Charlie, your vote. No. Trusty Medina, your vote. Yes. Trusty Flynn, your vote. No. Trusty Dodge, your vote. Yes. Trusty Navado, your vote. President Flores, your vote. No. So, that motion fails. 34. Um, because there was a conflict of interest, I don't think Misty Navaro could be voting on that. It would still fail.
19833. So, she would have to It still fails. 33. I just wanted to put that on record. Okay. So are we good to move on to 11.2? That's what you had asked for next. Yes. Okay. Thank you. So we are now going to move on to item 11.2. And just so you know, uh we do have time limits for discussion for the board on this as well. And I'm going to set the timer so we can try to get out of here at a reasonable time. We have 20 more items to go. So, um, resolution 24-25-40, Asian-American Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month report will be presented by Claudia Monades, Assistant Superintendent of Curriculum, Instruction, and Professional Development. Uh, once again, good evening, uh, President Flores, um, board and public. I'm here to um
199present the resolution for Asian-American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. Um this is an annual celebration and recognition of the historical historical and cultural contributions of individuals and groups of Asian and Pacific Islander descent to the United States. Um, the month of May has been chosen for as National Asian-American Native Hawaiian and Pacific Heritage Month to commemorate the immigration of the first Japanese to the United States on May 7th, 1843 and to mark the anniversary of the completion of the transcontinental railroad on May 10th, 1869. Um, each year the theme changes. So the theme for 2025 is quote a legacy of leadership and resilience. Um this is a tribute to the hard work of the AHPI leaders who have established a foundation for future generations to thrive and adapt to change and adversity. Throughout
200history, they have transformed the adversity into opportunities for public service, efficiency, and innovation, resulting in lasting change that resonates among many communities and has positively impacted our world. This resilience is woven into the fabric of our nation's prosperity, technological advancements, and social political change through ingenuity and creativity while navigating significant cultural and systemic barriers. It's a testament to the unwavering spirit of their ancestors who face their own struggles with dignity and strength. So, um I'm here asking tonight for approval of this resolution. Thank you. Do we have any um public speakers to this item? Eli Davies, Nat Low, Roy Rosio, Bobby Pels, and Tekashi Mazuno. I want to speak to this because one year ago at this resolution, I read a statement by the Tobar project that was scathing against the board a year ago
201for their unfortunate decisions regarding the CRA contract. And one thing that is deeply needed, I I appreciate this. The CRA contract did go through. One thing that is deeply needed is a true sincere apology from this board for going along with the smearing of Dr. Allison Tintiago Kubales. And I want to point out that Gabe Medina's censure of Kima Serpa was a real actionable way to apologize for the harm that she perpetuated against the Filipino community here. And I I want the people who voted no on this to to think about that because this this is the action part of of justice. Um and and for those of us who have come for nearly two years and sat through such disrespect not just from Kim Derpa but you know we got rid of Acasta and
202Sto and I hope they don't come back but um that that that attempt to censure Kimura is also an apology to Dr. Allison. And and I want you to think about that as you make a resolution to honor the Asian-American AAPI community here in this in this area. Okay. I got some slides. Okay. So, Natlo again, um, area 7 and I'm also the co-director of the Asian-American Justice and Innovation Lab. So, As you all vote on this resolution about celebrating Asian-American heritage, this month I want to talk about what it actually is. The term Asian-American was created in 1968 when the Asian-American Political Alliance was formed in Berkeley. This was the first time the term Asian-American was used as an identity to unify the struggles of different Asian groups. Some of the founders of the
203AAPA were actually the children of farm workers in Selenas. And they gave me this pin. Um, and they were part of they were part of like the third world liberation front. And as part of that front, um, Asian-American heritage is fighting for ethnic studies along with black Americans, with Native Americans, and Latino Americans in 1968 and continuing today. Criticizing war and American imperialism is also a part of our heritage. This was specifically one of the points of unity of the Asian-American Political Alliance. um you know mostly directed at the Vietnam War but like not only the Vietnam War and finally solidarity with others that are facing colonialism and imperialism is a long and proud part of our heritage. You can say it's not just it didn't start in 2023 and the Asian-American movement has always
204been in solidarity with the global third world. So you cannot say that you honor our heritage and then slander and defame ethnic studies experts including Ellison. So thank you for bringing contract back. Thank you trustees Bonita Krasco and Dodge for actually trying to create some kind of accountability and I second the calls for an apology. You cannot say that you honor our heritage and then put in guard rails against talking about Palestine and the US funded wars in Western Asia also known as the Middle East because being silent about injustice is not in our blood. Being silent about injustice is not part of our heritage. And if you actually care and are serious about Asian-American Heritage Month, you would honor that for us. and for our students. [Applause] It's it's hard to top that. My
205name is Roy. As you know, uh I'm the uh founder of the Tobara project. Toba is forbidden Tobar who's the martyr of the 1930 anti-filipino Watsonville race rights which we talk about. You know, we can talk about it all we want, but it's really important that you actually dive into it, dig into it, understand the ramifications of how Filipinos were treated regarding not having the ability to vote, buy land. You talk about redlinining, joy, there, there you go. And as well, you know, they just couldn't do nothing. They couldn't marry. You know, like I myself, just personally, my my grandmother, she's a dust bowl settler from Oklahoma. She married a Filipino man in Fresno. They had to go to New Mexico because they couldn't marry here because of anti-misination laws. So they rode a bus
206to New Mexico, got married there and came back. Can you imagine? It's called the honeymoon express. You know, a bunch of honeymooners coming back on the bus through, you know, through Arizona. I don't know what's going on at midnight, but hey, hey, they were married. But that's part of the story and that's part of the legacy of me telling my truth. Ethnic studies tell is about telling our truth. And because we've had our someone had our foot on our throat trying to tell us, hey, your stories don't matter. We don't care about you. Let's look up. Let's look at, you know, Francis Scott Key and George Washington and so on so forth. We're not going to talk about you. We're going to talk about all these other factors in American history which we all know
207about, but we don't know about our own history. And that's what part of, you know, ethnic studies is about. The Tobar project is a communitydriven grassroots all volunteer effort. We don't need to have monies, Olivia, to talk about low riders or, you know, whatever. It's in your heart. You know, you got to tell your story because no one's going to tell it for you. That's the thing about us doing community work, us giving a damn about our community is we don't need the money. We just need the effort and the time and the perseverance to say, "Hey, my voice counts. My truth counts. And what the hell are you going to do about it?" And that's what we're doing is with the Tobar Project is telling our family stories, telling our histories, validating our experiences,
208and sharing it with the community. And that's what we're all about. Tobar Project.com. [Applause] uh Bob Bobby Pels and uh I don't have a speech for this one and I already emailed everybody about this so I'll be quick. I think that it makes sense that if you're going to pass a resolution like this honoring the AAPI community that you can't do it until you settle unfinished business with the Filipina that we know was heard by this district last year. Now, I say that knowing that I said that to the old board and they passed the resolution anyway. So, I'm going to say that to you as well and hope that this is a board with better values than the old one that we can't just say this stuff. We have to live it, breathe it,
209and act it out uh as well. Otherwise, it doesn't mean anything. And really, not just this one, but none of our resolutions mean anything unless we stand up for each and every single one. So, I urge you all, please official apology. I'm not asking for personal ones. I know not everyone was there, but it would mean a lot if the district said officially, "We did wrong and we apologize and now we are making things right." That would honor the AAPI community. Thank you. [Applause] I had a very joyful conversation with Miss Joy two days ago and my conversation with her motivate motivating me to speak my public comment tonight. I do not know how many of you read a book by Iris Chan rape of Nan King. The book was published in 1997 and it
210became one of the bestsellers at that time. She's a Chinese American journalist, a historian, a speaker, and a human rights activist. The book is based on her research on the a atrocities inflicted upon the Chinese civilians by the Japanese soldiers in Nankin, China in 1937 and 1938. She took her life herself at the age of 36 in Los Gatos in 2004 while she was suffering with severe dis depression and was struggling with finding an appropriate mental health care. I had an opportunity to listen to and hear what her mother said at an event in the San Francisco Public Library in 2019. I was deeply moved by her detailed views about her daughter's death as a scientist and I wrote a letter of my apology to them to her parents as a Japanese and an American.
211I sent it to Irish Chan's parents through their friend whom I knew at that time. I received the response uh from their friend at once. He wrote to me that I did not need to make an apology because I had worked with Chinese Americans and Korean-Americans around that time for several years on the issue uh which Japanese American leaders in San Francisco San Francisco area strongly opposed and I have been still working on this issue with Chinese Americans, Korean Americans and Filipino Americans. and Okino Americans and he invited me to attend a please finish this one. He invited me to attend a ceremony to open Irish Chan Park in San Jose scheduled a couple of weeks later to meet Irish Chan Chan's parents in person. I appreciate the invitation though I did not go to
212attend. One thing which I was surprised to notice in the Irish Chan's book was that she mentioned the Christian peace and justice organization in Japan. I worked for the organization when I lived in Japan and I I will be inside park someday soon. Thank you. Now I'll bring it back to the board. Make a motion to approve. Thank you. We have a motion to approve. I have we have a second. Um I was going to say I would like to add an amendment to that and that would be to direct the superintendent to issue an official apology to um Dr. Allison Santiago Kubales on behalf of the board. I would second that. What do you mean by official like right now? Is that is it count or you want me to issue? Yeah, issue a
213letter. um to her on our behalf. Yeah, I will second. Can I second that? I heard not everybody gets square, so we'll put it online. We we'll put it online. Um I I will second that, but I have comments. Um I want to apologize. I I've voted no for the censure where I really should have abstained um because of my relationship with Kim, longtime constituent. I hold her seat. Um she was um really supportive of me coming into this seat. She was also my um my social worker when I was um in the hospital with my son. So, I I feel like um because of our long-term relationship, acquaintance, close acquaintance, that I needed to recuse myself, and I I I should have said that. So, I apologize. I do agree that an apology is
214needed, which is why I'm seconding this. Um and I do feel like um that there that I I would like to see her take some responsibility Can I change? I I don't Yeah, I would I would have to I would have She was going to recuse recruit that wouldn't abstain. So, the outcome would still be the same, but I just wanted to be transparent around that. Um, but I have this opportunity to second because I think an apology, especially given what we are presented with, is important. Okay. Any other discussion before I go to a vote? Okay. So, we have um a first and a second. All those in favor? I. Any opposed? Any abstaining? Okay. Motion passes. 70. Okay. And now we're going back to item 11.1. And before I make any introductions, we
215are going to need to get the business part of this done first. So I am going to put this over to Anhelica Reteria for the uh recommendation for the approval of a contract for the assistant superintendent of human resources. So Anelica Good evening again, board of trustees, President Flores, and superintendent Contas. The district is pleased to present the employment contract for William Bragg as the assistant superintendent for human resources for the board's consideration. Okay, thank you. So, do we have public speakers? Says we do. Brandon, Denise, and Chris Webb. Okay. So, thank you for allowing me to speak. It was a long week. Um, so I didn't actually have any comments prepared, which makes me a little anxious all the time. But I know in this what I want to say is just I want
216to wish Kit good luck um in this role and we're looking forward to being able to work with him. I was on the interview panel and I thought very highly of him at that time. Um, I advocated for him to advance to the next round and so I'm glad to see that the district made a choice to bring him on. Um, and I also want to thank Anelica Reia for her role and her time serving as interim superintendent. Um, I'm now learning how difficult it can be to be suddenly thrust into a new role and to be that person who's expected to be the glue to hold things together. So, I want to thank her for the time that we've worked together and just say that I look forward to working with Mr. Bragg. I
217know we're not going to agree on everything. I know there's times when he's like, "God, why does he have to come in so hot?" And that's that's just who I am. So, I can't change that about myself, but I want him to know that we put the students first and that's why we're here. So, thank you. Uh, good evening. I wanted to introduce myself to Mr. Bragg as a PVF grievance officer and then um share some reflections on on Helica's predecessor that I think might um help to just make things go smoothly um in the future. And the first would be once again just be about facts not favorites. Um when you play favorites um typically this doesn't if if you do this with the staff I've noticed that those the same kind of things
218will affect students as well. And um also a lot of times it leads to your your champions for students being bullied and then they they could be doing a good job. They could be bullied out of their jobs. Um when that kind of thing happens we lose ADA, we lose enrollment. So, um, we can do better than that. Um, I also wanted to say, you know, as budgets are a concern, um, let's not do this, uh, making up your own contract thing. Um, that proved to be costly to the district last year. Um, additionally, I wanted to I know he he wasn't here during CO, so I wanted to bring up um a notion something that happened during CO and um you guys have heard me speak about this before, but um because we were
219so desperate to have uh to serve our students, we said, "Teachers, please come in person after you did your regular morning online shift. Come do a second shift, take on that extra duty here. We know your kids are have to be at home, too. So, uh guess what? Fill out this form. you're not going to sue us and you can bring them. And you know, I did that and it actually was a great thing for my Renaissance High kids. Um they shined. They showed my ch my little kids what it is to be a good student. Renaissance kids did that. And if you want to see how good and well behaved those kids are, go um look at the 118 23 board meeting. go to the 44 uh minute 45 second mark and you'll see
220the cutest, most well- behaved kids and how wrong it was to uh play favorites and deny me from from bringing them in later. Um, also respect free speech when you watch that video. Respect free speech even for Renaissance kids, even for for teachers and u advocates. Thank you. Thank you. So now I'll bring it back to the board for discussion or a motion. I make a motion to approve. Thank you. We have a motion to approve. Second. And we have a second. Okay. All those in favor? I. Any opposed? Any abstaining? So that passes 70. Just a quick comment. Is he here still? Yes. So you're stealing my finger. Okay. Sorry. Sorry. With that, I would like to introduce to you Mr. William, who goes by Kit Brag. And if you would come up, we
221would like to let them see you. He has been in attendance all evening. So, thank you very much for coming. Um, it's my pleasure to introduce Mr. Bragg. We are very excited about having him and bringing him on board. I've had the opportunity to one have him in our interview at the cabinet level. He came highly recommended by the first panel which was a very large panel um and did an excellent job in the interview at the cabinet level. Um we have daunting interviews at the cabinet level I would say and he uh soared through that with flying colors. His reference checks were extensive and everyone had exemplary things to say about him. So we look forward to um working with you. He is going to have a May 1 start date and we are
222going to have a meet and greet on May 1st and so we would love to invite you to come stop by. It'll be in the morning. And with that, we'll let you have a few words. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. I will admit I Googled you, but I was quite impressed. Thank you. Well, Superintendent Dr. Contrarus, esteemed members of the board. Thank you so much for the honor. I'm privileged to be here. Um, top of mind for me tonight is my mentor when I was an intern. I started in Certino in 2001 as a fifth grade teacher and this gentleman took me under his wing and one of the things he said to me was no matter who you're in front of whether it's students, teachers, educators, community members, they'll always maybe
223not necessarily remember every word that you said that they will fundamentally remember how you made them feel. Thank you. Thank you. and knowing that I've kept that as my lens in everything that I've done from teacher to principal to site administrator and I'm I'm truly grateful to be here tonight and have your endorsement to come on board and serve the community in Paharo Valley Unified School District. Thank you so much. Thank you and welcome. No, thank you. Can we say something? Yeah, I think it's really cool um that you're coming on board. I know HR has been something that we really need to address. Um, and I'm hoping that you could really come in. I'm really excited that you're, you know, an outside kind of looking at it through that lens because we do have,
224you know, historical issues with friends hiring friends, nepotism, people protecting people and, you know, it it's really difficult and it it really shocks the system of everybody underneath when admins aren't following through, you know, on people. So, I'm really glad that you're going to come in with a fresh perspective. Thank you for that. I I would say to that that um as long as students are the lens and we want the best for our students, we can figure out how to resolve that issue. Thank you so much and welcome aboard PBUSD. Thank you. Thank you. And before I move on to um 11.4, I also want to just say thank you Anelica for stepping up and taking the helm of HR. Thank you. Yes. Yes. It's been a wonderful year, let me tell you. A
225lot of learning, but it's been great. Thank you for the support. Yes. And thank you for believing in me. It's been wonderful. We will be forever grateful to you for stepping in when we really needed you, and you've done an exemplary job. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, I will now move us on to item 11.4, student civic engagement handbook. This report will be presented by trustee Daniel Eskea. Thank you. Yeah. So, once again, during the March 26th board meeting, I presented to the board a student civic engagement handbook that I had developed over the course of about a month and a half. Um, which essentially outlines all the different opportunities for students to become civically engaged within our community. um such as my position and a variety of other um leadership positions within our community
226and also some community partners um to allow students to you know who aren't just interested in leadership opportunities but rather community um engagement opportunities and I just wanted to extend my um gratitude to Julie Edwards who was really um vital in the support throughout this whole proc this whole process. Um so yeah and just for some clarification for the board um should this handbook be approved it would be an addendum to our board governance handbook. So they would be um they would coincide and um this would be outlined under the state seal of civic engagement website on our PBSD um website to provide that guide for students um as they navigate this process. Perfect. Thank you so much. And I don't see any cards for this item. So I will bring it back to the
227board. Trusty Medina. Oh, no. Oh, sorry. Trust Trusty Flynn. Gonna make a motion. Perfect. Thank you. We have a motion through and we have a second. All those in favor? I. Any abstaining? Any oppose? Any abstaining? And we have one absent. So that passes 6001. You have it in. No, but you need to sign. Keep it for when he becomes president. Okay. Now we are moving on to item 11.6 resolution 24-25-38 afterchool professionals appreciation week. Report will be presented by Jen Littleton Bruno executive director of ex of our expanded learning programs. Is it? Yes. Perfect. Good evening, President Flores, board of trustees, Dr. Contrarus. I'm Jen Littleton Bruno, the expanded learning executive director. And I'm going to just give everybody a moment to introduce themselves. Good evening board. My name is Georgia Tyrell and I'm
228the assistant director for expanded learning. Good evening. Nancy Suniga, assistant director for expanded learning. Yes. Excuse me. Hi, my name is Kathy Mitani and I am a what am I exactly? Our substitute program. Substitute program director. Happy to be here. Yes, Kathy, before I uh continue, Kathy's joining us. Last board meeting, I shared we've been short four staff all year. Yay. One of those four staff we now have joining our team. So, we're only short three staff. We are so excited. Um, I'm also just thrilled to be here tonight. This is something I hold so dear. There's so many there was so many people in the crowd that this would go to. Um, most of them have gone home. We also tonight had many community members, partners who came out. They were hoping to be
229able to be here, but it got a little bit late. So, I'm so excited to bring to you um our national afterchool program week and it's next week and we are so excited because in our district we have over 800 staff so 500 PBUSD employees. These include high school students to certificated staff to classified staff to bus drivers. Then in addition with our partnerships of over 30 partnerships, we have an additional 2 to 300 staff. So in our community, expanded learning staff looks like about 800 staff members. So this really impacts so many different people. So we're just going to read a couple things because I know we're a little bit short on time. So whereas from April 21st to April 25th, afterchool programs across the nation will observe afterchool professional appreciation week. Whereas Baj
230Valley Unified School District trustees and staff recognize the invaluable contributions of afterchool and expanded learning professionals, including our community partners who provide high quality enrichment and academic support during out of school hours. positively impacting children, families, and community. Whereas expanded learning and community partner professionals play a crucial crucial role in organizing and leading interession programs during school breaks, providing students with engaging hands-on learning opportunities that reinforce academic success, foster creativity, and support social emotional growth. We kindly ask that the board approves this proclamation. Thank you so much. Do we have any speakers to this item? Okay, seeing none, I make a motion to approve. Second. Okay, we have a first and a second on the table. All those in favor? I. Any opposed? Any abstaining? Motion passes 70. And I just ask parents who have
231their children in after school, be sure to thank your afterchool workers this next week, maybe with some yummies or, you know, some goodies for them. Thank you. Thank you so much. I just wanted to say thank you so much because as a single parent, it's after school caregivers that I really depend on to trust and love and care for my my kids um o over the years. And so I know that there's so many other families that are dependent on you and so you're such so essential and um I appreciate your passion for this. It really comes through and I it bleeds through. So thank you. And I would just like to add I'm so impressed with the breadth of programs that you have brought to our students. It's it's so impressive. So thank you.
232Okay. Thank you so much. I will now move us on to item um 11.7 resolution 24-25-37 canvasing the results of the general board election held within the district on November 5th 2024 result report will be presented by our CBO Jenny M. Good evening President Flores, Superintendent Dr. Conturus and the board. My name is Jenny M. I'm the chief business officer here to present resolution 242537. Um, back in May of 2024, our board um adopted a resolution to um put a general obligation bond for facilities and technology um on the November ballot. Um we are very grateful to our school community for passing measure M a $315 million general obligation bond in the um December election. Now, pursuant to the provisions of the California elections code, um the county registars of voters for Santa Cruz and
233Monterey counties have each provided the district with a certification of election results for measure M. under the provisions of California Education Code um following the receipt of the certifications of election results, the board is required to cause an entry of such facts upon its minutes and to certify to each county board of supervisors and each county superintendent of schools confirmation of such election proceedings. In order to satisfy these uh statutory requirements by the district, it is recommended procedure to adopt a resolution certifying the bond election results and directing the filing of that resolution with each county board of supervisors and each superintendent of schools office. Um our bond council has prepared resolution 242537 to take these steps. Under the requirements of California law, the district must take action on the election certification um which is
234presented before you tonight before taking action to authorize the first issuance and sale of general obligation bonds authorized by measure M which we hope to bring to you at the May board meeting. So staff respectfully requests the authorization of resolution 242537. Thank you so much. And seeing no public speakers to this item, I will now bring it to the board. I'll make a motion. We have a motion to approve. I second. Second. We have a first and a second. All those in favor? I. Any oppose? Any any abstaining? Any opposed? Motion passes 70. I'd like to say thank you to Jenny M because I don't think Measure M would have passed if it weren't for Jenny M who on her own time organized people to walk and knock. We love you Jenny and we're going
235to miss you. Yeah, I'm glad you didn't put a cost in. So does the face of measure M because that would not have passed. So good. Okay. Um, so that motion passes and now we will move on to item 11.8, approval of the maintenance and operations and facilities department reorganization plan. This report will be presented by Herinda Fernandez, director of maintenance and operations and facilities, and Sergio's, assistant director of maintenance and operations. Good evening, President Flores, Dr. Contrus, board members, cabinet. My name is Alindo Fernandez, and I'm the director of maintenance and operations. We first brought this item back in March 26 for the M restructure organization. Um I'm here to ask the board this this is turning the assistant director into director of uh facilities and operations. This money is being funded by ELOP
236funds. So it's not going to it's going to have negative impact on the school district monies and it's also using some of the measure A money to bring in some new positions. well needed um for this school district. We're going to be adding some positions, two positions in the in the planning department. So I kindly ask so the board approve this uh restructure of the maintenance department. Thank you. And I do see some public comments to this item. Augustina Costa and Anel Alejandro Aia. Come on, baby. Turn around. There it is. Okay. Good evening, President Flores, Trustees, Superintendent Contraras. Got to remember the last names. I am a good A Costa. I promise. Right, let's get going. My name is Augusta A Costa and I have had the honor of serving the school district delivering
237multiple projects across multiple uh campuses for over four years already. And tonight I strongly support the reorganization of our maintenance and operations department and the separation of planning and construction into its own department. The reason being is we need to build focus. We have to allow M to handle maintenance. We have to allow our planning professionals perform planning and scheduling. One of these big caveats inside of developing this is accountability with clear lines and responsibilities for these bond dollars. We have to do our how do you say our due diligence to provide the best and adequate decisions for all our resources and this also creates capacity so that we are not a reactive department but a proactive department. This is not only about protecting our bond and the dollars from our community, but also delivering
238on what we had promised to our voters and most importantly creating safe, modern, and inspiring classrooms for our students and teachers. Let's stop trying to do more with less. Let us structure ourselves to deliver with excellence. The future of our district is being built right now in this moment. And let's make this foundation a solid. Thank you. Okay, I'm glad he went first because I was kind of nervous. Um, so thank you again, Cabinet, um, President Flores. Last time I remembered everybody's names, but he said I didn't, so I gonna I'm looking at name names, but uh, VP Dr. Navaro, Superintendent Heather Contas, the Daniels, Jessica, Joy, Carol, and Mr. Medina, Ava, I forgot to mention her last time. Anyways, I'm going through to my time. I'm going to go through this really quick what
239I read just because I read it and I mean I stayed up all night. So, um, good evening trustees. Our district is at a pivotal moment. $315 million. With this investment, we have the chance to reshape the physical landscape of our schools to create a safer, smarter, more student- centered learning environment that I know Daniel would appreciate. But to do this well and to do it responsibly, transparently, and effectively, and efficiently, we must acknowledge that our current organizational structure is holding us back. Right now, the planning department is intertwined with M. And while both departments are essential, their missions are fundamentally different. Now, planning is about what Augie was saying, the future. It's about strategic vision, long range facility development, and a community improvement to executing our major critical projects. Now, M is about the
240now. It's about the day-to-day. It's about keeping our schools running as efficiently and as effectively as we are able to do so or to to do. But these departments merged, priorities blur. Sometimes resources get stretched and people are strained. accountability. Accountability becomes murky. But most importantly, with these departments merged, our long-term vision risks being overshadowed by short-term needs. And I'm almost not even running out of time. So, the community entrusts us with $315 million. Not just to fix problems, but to build new futures, reach new horizons, and take pride in our schools. We owe it to them ourselves. Sorry, I'm I'm going to go a little bit past because I really want to make sure I I get this point. Okay. I'm sorry. Um, it's funny because I have here so we owe it to
241ourselves and to organize ourselves I I grew up in this district and I went to, you know, elementary here. I went to Rolling Hills. I went to Watson High School and I feel the same passion like radiating towards me that I hope I'm radiating towards you. Um, I've seen the board meetings and I've seen how passionate it gets and sometimes it gets heated but I just see it as passion for the schools. I love what William Bragg said, and I'm sorry if I butchered your last name. Um, as long as the students are our lens, that's what matters. We grew up here and we choose to work here. We could go over the hill, but we choose our community because we say our community, our students are the most important thing. And for the long
242term, we don't want to just throw this 315 million out the window and see whatever we can do, but we want to do things that we're proud of, things that we look back and say, "Wow, that district cares about their students." I want to remind us, all of us, of the slogan we have, right? It's um it's actually right here. You can't achieve your dreams if you don't show up and chase them. Let's give these kids something to be happy, excited to go to. Look at Google. Look at like the Silicon Valley. They know and they organize their their campuses, their structures because they say, "I want my employees to go to work. I want my students, you know, the parents want to say, I want my students to go to school because they love
243their facilities." So, thank you and good night. Thank you. And now I will bring it back to the board. Trusty Navaro, thank you so much for all that you are doing and that you are going to do. And my only comment is can you please do it as quick as possible before tariffs get any worse. That's the plan. Trusty Medina. Yeah. So I like this. It's it's really needed, but I really want to like highlight some words. It's accountability, due diligence, right? Proactive students are important. Um, is it my understanding that you know the person that was wearing the MAGA hat is under this department? Correct. And was this department also the one that engaged with somebody outside and cornered them as well? We didn't engage. We just try to break break up fight, you
244know, just try to keep it peaceful so that it doesn't get out of under out of control. That's all our our thing was here. Okay. Cuz I I love these words, but I also want to make sure that the department's being held accountable for their actions as well. And um that would be my only condition that I I think we need to look into that. It's being investigated. Okay. Um um All right. Well, if it's being investigated cuz I I think that needs to get addressed before we actually approve this. Um, and that's my my thing because I think people need to be held accountable for their actions, right? They need to do their due diligence. Um, they need to be proactive in admitting their mistakes and, you know, students are important and we make
245a very harmful environment like that um for them. I I'm not sure where the discipline's coming in with that. So, okay. Thank you. Bringing it back to this item. Trusty Dodge, you had a comment also. I know you guys know where I'm going with this. So with this reorganization, you know, people are concerned, you know, many of my constituents, myself included, and I'm pretty sure others graduation's coming up at Watsville High School. Does this reorganization, does it affect the construction time? And also, how does it help? Does this speed this up? How how how does this reorgan reorganization work? Um I I'll answer that because so the structure you would be approving the structure this evening but it's going to take us a little bit of time to do the hiring. So I don't foresee
246being that it's the middle of April. I don't foresee the positions getting filled but prior to graduation. I don't I just I just bring it up but you know nothing against but you know I have I don't think it would have an impact. I have to answer to many people. So I can um I can uh help you answer. Um so Jenny M, chief business officer. Um so this reorganization plan is not going to halt or put any of the current projects that are ongoing um in any sort of jeopardy. The bleacher project is still um on schedule. Um so it will not impact the completion of that project. Um, this is really more to build capacity for the $315 million bond that we have coming up as well as the bless you as well
247as the $1.2 billion in facility needs act um per our most recent facility master plan um that has been assessed districtwide. So what we're seeing right now is with the current um structure of M and facilities, it does not have the capacity to meet the needs of the district. So this is a way to do that in a netneutral um cost to the general fund. We would be utilizing savings from moving part of the nighttime custodial salaries into our ongoing expanded learning um funding as well as utilizing the administrative cost portion of our measure M to fund the the um additional facilities positions. Thank you for the answer. I I just when when I visit certain places, when I hang out with constituents at places, that's the the thing I get. And so, hey, Dodge,
248you know, how's this, you know, reorganization? How's it going, you know, I'm, you know, Dr. Contra hears it all the time from, you know, once a wild cats from the 60s and 70s asking her, "What's up with the field?" And they ask me that every time. And so every, you know, I know this is a great idea. I know we're trying to do our best, you know, to modernize and, you know, to properly make sure we spend these tax dollars correctly because it didn't pass by that much. You know, this it only passed by, you know, what 5%. So, we owe those people who hesitated and weren't going to vote for that because they told me that and they told the superintendent, I'm not going to vote for this. But eventually, you know, we say,
249"Hey, we're going to make sure the maintenance operations, they're going to do their best and they gave it a shot and they voted for it." And so, you know, I know you guys do great work. You know, I I've seen you guys in action. So, I just want to say thank you and I just wanted to bring those questions up. Yeah. And and just to add on it, right, I think one of the biggest thing is the property taxes, right? That's our kids' parents. That's their money, right? So, one of the things that we want to do is we want to make sure and get the first year on on pre-esigned. And we actually got blue beam in order for us to check the drawings online, right? Red line. And I think this position is
250going to be crucial because we're going to attack those projects as soon as we get them and then send them back to the um architect, whoever the architect is, right? And then in the same position, that director is going to do an assessment for painting, HVAC, plumbing, electrical, windows, right? Pay structures. And this is one of the things that I that there is, right? Even if the money is not there, we need a plan. Exactly. 2% to you guys. Well, not not just to us, but the people that voted because we had to go ask them and we had to put ourselves say, "Hey, this is going to be great. This is going to be great. Could you please vote for this?" And so, if we don't show them any, you know, any plans or
251any type of results then like Dodge. Well, you guys know Dodge, you know, I'm getting my copy at 7-Eleven. What's up with you? That's what happens to me all the time. So, I just Trust me, I hear it all the time. So, schools. So one of the things that I I'm really passionate is that I went to the schools hall district for her middle and WO high school. So yes, thank you. So well I'd like to make a motion to support this. Okay, we have a motion to approve and a quick comment. Yes, I share the same concerns as trustee Medina. Um I I know that you are capable because I understand what you did at Parro Middle School. Um I I'm concerned about the integrity in which um these that you operate and will
252be operating separately and I want there to be accountability. So we also heard your presentation after midnight. So um I I I feel hesitant. I'm not going to lie. um especially because of the concerns that um trustee Medina said. You talk about centering the students, they need to feel safe. If your workers can do whatever they want to do at home, but in public spaces, that needs to extend from your um your facilities and and your directorship as well. Um, so I want to make a motion to to approve but with a certain amount of time um to re-evaluate the the separations. Um, and I don't know what that timeline would be, but um I feel like to hold you accountable um there needs to be that. And just to add to that, right, one
253of the biggest things we have to look at, it's in a lot of the projects we're going to need zoning, environmental, geoteex, permits, and the the more that we delay is going to delay all of these projects. Okay. Um, do you guys have a uniform that you're supposed to wear at work or some kind of um something a policy that you give your workers? Yes, we do have a uniform, but the CSEA contract deems if they have a badge, they could wear a badge. So, that's where the conflict conflict is. So, it's a bargaining union discussion. It's not something that, you know, we can't demand for them to wear it. We got to go to the bargaining unit and bargain that and then come up with a solution. I just remember that when I was
254a teacher, I couldn't wear anything political. I remember that. So, I'm just wondering if you guys have something like that. So, one of the one of the biggest things when we would we tried implementing this and I tried it when I became a director is they request lockers. Our facilities don't have locker rooms for the uh employees to change. That's one of the big things that we're looking into maybe with this measure and funding to build new facilities that could accommodate the locker rooms for our employees to change. So we could really you know you know tell them that they have to wear the uniforms and have that with the you know union. Thank you Herindo. Now we're getting a little off topic. I want to make it clear to the board what we are
255approving tonight or what we are potentially approving tonight is a reorganization of this department so that we could better handle our measure M funds by separating these two gentlemen. Her Lindo is able to 100% focus on maintenance and operations and uh Sergio is 100% able to focus on what we're going to need to be spending our Measure M dollars on. And that's going to take a lot of time. Right now they do a little bit of everything. So they're pulled in so many different directions. So if what our priority is is to be able to get these projects going in the timeliest manner and with the le least amount of cost with chairs going up. I'm in constru my my husband and I were in our prices have gone up so much already. So I
256just I mean the every time we every minute we wait prices are ra rising. So I I have a motion on the table from Trusty Dodge to approve and I'm going to second. So, Trusty Dodge had a already had a motion on the table to approve this reorganization. Um, I'm willing I'm seconding unless do I need to make a an amendment or motion to make an amendment with the re-evaluation after a year? You want to hold on on the reorganization? that you can do the I'm adding a stipulation if it's effective. Yeah. Thank you. Okay. So, is there a second to her motion? I'll second that. Okay. So, all those in favor? I. Any opposed? Any abstaining? So, that motion passes 700. Do we need to do Danny's motion now? I'm sorry. Can I um
257can I ask a quick uh clarifying question? So um so one of the things I just wanted to bring to everyone's attention is this reorg would mean the elimination of the current assistant director position and the creation of a new position. So after the year, um, and I think we would have to set some success criteria and maybe some parameters of how we're evaluating success, but then that would then mean another possible layoff process. And these are additional positions that we would be bringing on to support the reorg. So it would not just be one person being potentially impacted, it would be numerous FTE being impacted. So, I just I I just wanted to bring that to your attention of the complexity of when we're saying we'll re-evaluate in a year. Um, I think it
258might require further discussion of what that could potentially mean and how it would impact our classified staff and our admin. Okay. Did you want a little bit of that of that discussion now or going I wasn't sure if that would um change any thoughts on the motion that was just voted on. Yes. Do you understand what she's what she's saying, Joy? Okay. Yeah. So, okay. So, we're standing. Okay. So, that motion passed 70. So congratulations and I look forward to seeing how this is going to improve our day-to-day operations in both departments. Thank you. Perfect. Thank you. Thank you. So I will now move us on to item 11.9 PVSUSD and PV Education Foundation partners in PVSUSD tiny home project. Report will be presented by Julie Edwards Pv PVUSD CTE coordinator. Yep. Oh, goody. There
259it is. Perfect. Um, good evening, board president Flores, Superintendent Dr. Contrarus, um, board trustees and cabinet and PVSD community. My name is Julie Edwards. I am honored and happy to be with you here tonight. I am the coordinator of the career technical education department and I am here to talk to you about the tiny home project that we started a couple of years ago. Um here it is. Yay. Okay. Um district vision strategic goals. Um this would be leveraging goal one academic excellence and powerful learning. So several years ago, one of our teachers came to me and said, "I'd love to start building small homes on our campus. Do you think we could pull that off?" So we had a few conversations. Um we started the the conversation around how we would pay for this
260because they would be um something that the district would build in our CTE program and then they would find their way into the community. And because of the nature of the fact that we are a public institution and we can't give and shouldn't give away public funds, we had to figure out how to create the sustainable project. So um this is just to give you a little sense of of what the tiny home is in terms of its size. It's an 8 by 20 um structure on a wheeled trailer. They're called tiny homes on wheels and they are um not yet legal inside city limits but they are legal in unincorporated areas of Santa Cruz County. Um so the first tiny home uh went under construction at Aptas High School actually Watsonville and Aptas started
261at the same time and we were able to get that project going. um both schools, both teachers, 240 students had their hands on these tiny homes, learning everything from framing, insulation, foundation, roofing, plumbing, electrical, all of the things in a small scale. And then um last June, we were able to uh launch the first tiny home that was completed for Aptas High School, 200 students, one and a half years. And it was a super proud moment um that we celebrated last June uh before school just before school got out. And so this this project has been generating significant community interest from the very beginning. The need for housing in Santa Cruz County. Um and basically it's kind of the best of CTE. It's good for everyone. It's good for our students. It's good for our
262families. And it's good for the community. um students gain these valuable skills that lead to high wage, high-skll, high demand jobs, especially now. And we set out to build a sustainable program from the very beginning as I mentioned. So that was kickstarted with a generous donation from Granite Construction who donated $90,000 to the PVED Foundation to give us the seed money to get the project going. Um and so this is I just wanted to share with you kind of how the money flow works. So basically at the at the little number one over there, we started so the activating event was that Granite Construction donated the $90,000 to the Ed Foundation for the materials to build two tiny homes. Then next obviously um they basically said let's build tiny homes. We go off and do
263that and PVEF donates the funds to pay for the materials to build the homes. then they are completed. And what I'm bringing before you tonight is an ASIS bill of sale that enables us to sell as a district to sell the tiny home to the Ed Foundation for a dollar and then the the Ed Foundation will market the tiny home in the community and the generate the proceeds from the sale come back to the ed foundation and back to the district to build the next one. So that's how that's how the the money water wheel works. And um so and I just want to shout out just in an incredible way Jenny M who relentlessly patiently helped figure this out. And when um I came to her early on with this hairbrain idea about trying
264to do this and trying to figure out how to do it and not break any rules or laws in the process, Jenny would took it on like no other and she didn't let it go and it was all buttoned up very recently. And so thank you Jenny for that. Um, so I um am here to just share that this is we're at a point where we have one tiny home that is sitting at Renaissance High School right now waiting for um someone to buy it. Just an aside, we did Oops. Whoops, I just ran out. We did ask the students who they wanted the homes to go to. So, we are taking that in mind um as an ed foundation that the students wanted the home to be um used by someone who was experiencing
265homelessness, lost their home in the CZ fire, something that would benefit the community. So, anyway, yes, I welcome your questions. Thank you. Um do we I do not see any public comments to this, so I'll bring this back to the board for discussion. I have a question. Trusty Flynn. Um, how much are you able to so 90,000 split into for are you able to sell it at as at a pro profit so that you can um build more than two at a time or in case um material prices go up? Yeah, it's a really good question. Thank you. Um, one of the things as a value of this project is that we didn't want to necessarily profit off of essentially student labor. So, that was one of the tenants that we set out from the
266beginning is that we wanted to give the students a really rich hands-on useful learning experience and kind of make it like a break even. But you're right, we have built in like costume materials and things like that. So, um, the Ed Foundation, which I also serve on that board with Dr. Contraras, um, will be keeping the students wishes in mind and also covering their cost for handling the legal transaction and the transfer of title and all that's the bits and pieces, but not for a huge profit. So, we're not going to auction it and like see it go like that. you know, maybe down the road there'd be another way to do a project like that in the Ed Foundation with another kind of project, but we're trying to keep it kind of within those
267um confines. So, yeah. Have you um had any um community partnerships like maybe with Habitat for Humanity and Okay. Yeah, there's a lot of interest from community organizations that are looking for temporary housing for different so that is going to be the part that will be um an interesting challenge for the Ed Foundation is we'll have an application process because it's going to be a fixed price. So, it's not like a bidding kind of thing. So it will be a fixed price and then it'll be really the story and the context of whoever is interested in making the purchase and then um the Ed Foundation we will we will decide as a body um of the right um you know entity to purchase that tiny home. The one at Watsonville High will be done in
268the fall. So we have one done and ready one going to be in the fall and then I think APTAs is well underway with their second one already. And so that'll be done. They're going to get quicker because Yeah. Yeah. Thank you, Trusty Navaro. I just want to say real quick that my son actually participated in that and it was such an amazing experience. He learned so many incredible life skills and now I can have him do work around the house and save some money. Fabulous. That's great. Thank you, Trusty Medina. Oh, Vanessa go ahead. Um, I just wanted to say that this is amazing. When will you bring it to PB High and Renaissance? Well, that's a really good question and I have ideas around that. Absolutely. So, I can share just a teeny
269bit about that now if you want me to or I can I can write it in a board update whatever board update. Okay. So, yeah, I do have I'm my wheels are uh always turning and about that as well. So, okay. And I'll make a note. Okay. So, do we have a motion on the table? Yes. Yes. Trust me. Um, is there any way that students who are working on this project could get certified in in or certificated through like one of our labor partners so that way because that's a really good skill set because we're going to need to build a lot of housing. So, is there any sort of pipeline from that course to them if they are interested to get an apprenticeship with, you know, Monter Bay Labor Council or something to
270that extent? Thank you. That's a great question. um just at a basic level, the students earn a certification in the course. They earn their OSHA safety thankfully um certification because they're using a lot of you know basically knives and fire. So um um so the answer is yes. The labor partners do present in the classroom. They they share information about the opportunities. Um our teachers are very connected to labor partners as well as local independent contractors. and one um particular an electrician that has um is part of the IBEDW um has volunteered a ton of time helping with the wiring which is really awesome and helping coach the students through that and and so yes is the answer and then we're also going to be connecting with the labor partners in early May so I'm
271going to go spend some time with them. Okay, sweet. Yeah, I just think with all the um we're trying to bring manufacturing back to America, right? So, um, uh, one, if you need me to go to Canada and Steelwood, let me know. Two, um, I would love, um, cuz I know, um, welding surprisingly is very popular among students right now where they're getting that machine. I have no idea. But I know Cababrio has a really good program. So, I'm wondering if there's like an outline of, okay, great, you completed a house. Go build a skyscraper. No, I'm just kidding. Don't do that. But like what would be the next level for them if they are interested in this pathway? They in the second class they do earn concurrent Cababrio College credit in the construction and
272energy management um course strand at Cababrio. So they do earn some credit toward they get to skip a level then they can start in the next level. And we're working on some dual enrollment um opportunities as well for all of our programs but construction as well. So okay thank you. This is a great uh discussion and I encourage you to attend our CTE committee and you'd learn a lot more about these pathways. Um but we do need to focus on this item on hand. We do have guests here that still need to drive a few hours home. I'll make a motion. Okay, so we have a motion to approve. Do I have a second? Second. And we have a second. Oh, okay. We have a first and a second. All those in favor? I. Any
273opposed? Any abstaining? Motion passes 70. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. I'm gonna start looking. Thank you. I now am moving us on to item 11.10, Williams quarterly report, January, February, and March 2025. Report will be presented by Enhelica Entrea, our interim assistant superintendent of human resources. Good evening again, President Flores, board members and superintendent, Dr. Contreas. On a quarterly basis, Williams complaints might must be reported to the board and the county superintendent. The report must include the number of complaints received related to facilities, textbooks, and teacher vacancies or misalignments. During the third quarter of the 2425 school year, the district received zero complaints on these categories. It is the district's recommendation that you approve this report as presented. Thank you. And I don't see any um public speakers to this item, so I'll bring it
274to the board. I'll make a motion to approve the report as presented. Thank you. We have a motion to approve. Second. And we have a second. Any discussion or should I do a vote? Okay, we'll do a vote. All those in favor? I. Any abstaining? Any oppose? Any abstaining? That motion passes 70. Thank you. So now we are on 11.11. Um, I accept the sunshine proposal from PBUSD to California State Employees Association, CSSEA, Chapter 132, for the 2024, 2025, 2025, 2026, and 2026, 2027 school years. Reports will be presented by Aneli Garthia, interim superintendent, assistant superintendent of human resources. Good evening again. Um, I'm not going to say my name to save a little bit of time. So the district in accordance with the ROA act is sunshining its proposal for negotiations for the successor
275agreement for the years mentioned by President Flores. We have six articles to sunshine and I just wanted to add that one of the articles that we're sunshining includes article 15 paying allowances where uniforms live. So that's one of the articles that we're going to be including in these negotiations. So the district recommends the approval of this item. Thank you. And seeing no public speakers to this item, I will now bring it back to the board. Make a motion to approve. Thank you. We have a motion to approve. Second. Okay. We have a first and a second. All those in favor? I. Any abstaining or any opposed? Any abstaining? And we have one out. So that passes 6001. Thank you. And now we are on item 11.12. SSC cooperative organizational structural and staffing review report will
276be presented by Dr. Heather Contrera, superintendent of schools. So, I was asked by board members numerous times over the course of the last several months uh for a comprehensive report of the personnel located in the district office uh not only the locations, what they're doing, uh the staffing and to have that compared to similarsized districts. in researching who could provide that type of service, there was only one um organization that could provide that and that was the school services of California. I do want to note we did do our own internal um research of that. We presented that internal research um in our sustainable budget uh team um notes and that is still available to everybody. It's on our website. Um, this study would be very comprehensive. It would include all of the departments housed
277in this building. So that's our food and nutrition services, business services, um our curriculum and instruction, um and professional development, ed services, the superintendent office, business services, human resources, um payroll benefits, all the things that fall under that, migrant services, educ um adult ed, and early childhood education and special education services. It would look just at how we're staffed, what our organizational charts are, and compare them specifically to other districts of our size. And then it would also take a look just a little bit at how salary schedules are aligned and things like that. Not a deep dive into that because that could really get complex, but uh just a kind of a a broad overview. Um, the thing I do want to note on this is the cost for that study is $72,500. The
278only place we would be able to um spend that from would be the general fund. We did do some research to see if there was any type of grant funding or if we could apply this type of study to some type of current grant that we had in existence. is we asked Julie, Julie, do you have anything that this could apply? And went to Jenny, Jody, can you find anything? Uh, but we to no avail. So, this would have to come from the general fund. Um, so with that, we're looking for some discussion and a recommendation from the board. I do also want to note that uh we would not be able to do this study immediately. school services of California is does have a waiting list. I think what is happening across California is
279most of the districts are in the same position we are where everyone is needing to make types of reductions and so everyone is studying to see are what what are we doing, how are we organized, uh where might we look to be better organized and to um be the most effective. And so, uh, we were told that this study would not be able to even start until August. So, um, and how long is the study? How long do they Oh, sorry. I'm just hold usually those types of studies last around 6 weeks. um they're about akin to our FICMAT studies that we've done. But then there are sometimes things that happen that prolong them, but that's what we were told is it would be about six weeks for them. And it and some of it
280also depends on how quickly we're able to get them the information that they need and then sometimes they find they need a little bit more, but roughly about six weeks. Okay. So, is that the end of the report portion? Because we haven't got to the discussion portion yet. Okay. So, and we do have a public comment. So, we'll have Brandon Denise. I was in the overflow room and I couldn't remember if I signed up for this one or not. So, I came running over and I guess I did sign up for this one. And I remember why it is because School Services of California is the group that had the quote where don't invest in things that eat and that just bothers me. Is that not there's a multiple school services? Well, okay. Either way,
281what I am going to point out is this is an expenditure from the general fund and I believe that we've had a fickmat study. I believe that there was mention of an internal study. So, how much studying do we need to do before we act? Because if we just sit around studying for years, what are we going to get done? and $72,500 from the general fund. A step one column one teacher gets paid $58,000. Yes, we do have some outstanding benefits packages. Um, and if they're not picking the top premium package, this would cover a step one column one teacher in a classroom who can actually be there to help support students and not a study that's not even going to happen until August. So, can we please just say no? Thank you. So, now
282I will bring it back to the board for discussion. Trusty Navaro, Brandon, I'm going to address you specifically and the group as a whole. So, part of the reason that we um reached out to potentially do this is a lot of the comments that have been made about cut at the district office, cut at the district office, cut at the district office. at in order to figure out what to do. It seems like we've already done that internal investigation and people weren't happy with the responses and this is why we looked at doing an alternative um company. But that that's kind of the main reason where this is coming from is in order to have transparency with the community and make sure that there's no areas where we can reduce redundancies and to make sure
283that we are appropriately staffed for um a district of our size. So anyway, that's the the history from it. Trusty Flynn, thank you uh Trustee Dr. Navaro for that explanation because Yeah. Okay. And I also um I'm in agreement with uh Brandon Denise in on this one because we have had Fikmat come in and do a deep dive into our um HR department and I know we we're going to have a deep dive into our M and and into SULPA. And I I have faith that our you know department our we can do our our own internal review of this. And I think if it was the first go at it wasn't sufficient, I would say then let's ask them to do it again. Um I'm I'm not I'm not happy with spending $72,000 out
284of our general fund right now. But $72,500 is a lot of happiness. Um so I had asked for this. So had Daniel. I don't know where Daniel is. maybe just in the restroom. Oh. Um, so I have mixed feelings because I want to understand everybody who's in the building and what they do and that that's the right thing to do. And somebody quoted something I think they were saying I said and it's not exactly what I said. What I said was I wouldn't approve another one of the list of layoffs unless we had done a deep dive and had a good under the seven of us had a good understanding of who's in this building, what they do, do we really need them, are there other ways to structure um yeah I think we sorry
285yeah I think we all were and the desire to have external was to speak to transparency and so that it wasn't happening from an internal perspective and things weren't getting missed because as we've heard so many times there is nepotism there is bias there is you know all of these things that go on inside that could cause you know error because we may be there people may be emotionally attached to something And this would take that out. $72,000. Yeah, that's a lot. And this is really a reaction to what the community and what I was hearing that the that the union was asking for going to the coming to the towers and then now I'm hearing something totally different. So, I'm a little confused. Yeah, I mean things change, so we could change our minds
286on this. Um I think that we Yeah, I'd rather save on I'd rather save the 72 and save a teacher if we can. Um and keep it in the community. I think um you know, when those comments were made, uh you had a new board, but I think we're kind of demonstrating to you that we do want to hold people accountable, and I think that was the big thing. So, um I think a lot of us are willing to do that is to hold people accountable, the district office, um including, you know, everybody who's working there. So, if we could commit to that as a board, then I could see us just kind of waving this um 72 and then investing that back into um you know, a teacher or somebody that we don't have
287to pink slip. So what I can do is we did early on um authorize a the board had authorized a FICMAT study of HR. The board will be hearing that report on May 7th and that does do some of this staffing study for that department. Uh particularly because that was a department that needed that that focus and that's why that determination was made. Uh another area that has needed focus that is a large department was our special education department currently uh Pikmat is doing a study on that and that's going to be incredibly helpful uh for that department and and it's large um and that that study they're they're here now Vicknad is and so that we will probably get the report from that in six weeks so that will be helpful. I think what
288we then can do is maybe do a even more thorough um report for you showing you the org chart for every other um department housed here and then maybe an org chart that we can get from several other districts for each of their departments to just show a comparison. Um, so it'll be maybe a little bit of a more indepth study than what we may have done for the sustainable budget team. If that would meet your approval, then we can do that. I think that will maybe be a summer project. Um, but we can have that maybe by July. I think definitely in time for um looking at the next steps that we'll be having to examine for next year in December. I think that um Trusty Turley and I specifically when we were talking
289about this were trying to understand like who who is who is doing what how much they are making and is there duplication of services anywhere. That's that's the main information that I want. Yeah. And that's that's all I really needed to go. I think that's a reasonable alternative and we should follow through with that. Yeah. I would like to make a motion. I'm so used to making motions to approve. I don't want to approve this. Um, make a motion to not do this at this time. At this time, I second that. I have a first and a second. All those in favor? I. Okay, that passes passes 6001. Sorry, I'm tired or passes to deny. A happy disapproval. Yes. Okay. And now we're going back to nine. Okay. So, now we're on our report and
290discussion items. And we are on item 9.1 overview of the bonds in insurance process. Report will be presented by Dale Scott, president of Dale Scott and Company. Thank you for hanging with us till 11:30. You're welcome. Good evening. Um, I did give you all hard copies of this. And yes, if I can ask if we is somebody going to move the pages for me on this. Let's skip slide two and go directly to slide three in the in of time. This is voter turnout. There were less voters turning out. That's pretty easy. I'm going to give you a little bit of background on how the previous board put this together. some of the decisions that were made and then what decisions you will be making going forward. Um so if we're on slide three, in
291order to put this on the ballot, um a resolution had to be passed by the district and it had a couple important pieces in it. One, it had this ballot language which I've put up on the screen here. It identified the dollar amount. It identified an estimate of what the tax rate would be. And most important of all, it had a project list. The project list is very long. It's a addendum to the resolution. And it covers just about anything that you could think about wanting to do. So even though this language is important in giving voters a sense of what you're going to be using it for, I think of it as sort of a movie trailer. This is sort of the highlights. These are sort of the things we're going to do. But
292if you really want to look and see what is on that list, you have to go back to that resolution. However, everything on that resolution does not have to be done. It is allowed to be done. And what is done is then your decision as you go forward. And if something comes up that is different, someone will come to me and say, "Dale, can we do this?" And I'll pick up that resolution and look at it. And if I can't understand it, I'll hand it over to the lawyer and they will look at it and say yes or no. If we can go to the next slide, please. The other thing we have to assume when we're putting this together is how much is the dollar amount going to be and what are the times
293of which those bonds are going to be issued. $300 million 300 plus million doesn't get issued all at once. Doesn't get sold all at once. It gets sold in pieces as you need it. So you want to be efficient. You don't want to do it too many times because every time you do it, it costs money. On the other hand, you don't want to do it too few times because then you run into some regulations with the federal government about having having over spent or over borrowed. So, we made some assumptions. You can see them here. About $und00 million issued every three years. Uh I believe that's been brought down a little bit for the first issue. But again, that decision will be made by you as a board when you need it and how
294much you will issue as long as you stay under these tax rate limits, which you can see here are $60 roughly $60 per $100,000 of assessed valuation. That, by the way, is on all p publicly owned, I'm sorry, privately owned property. That's uh housing, businesses, vacant land, commercial, industrial, agricultural, etc., etc. Okay, next slide please. So, now we come to what needs to be done. Um, you already certified the board the uh the uh the results you can see at this meeting earlier on. At the next meeting, there'll be a few things that will happen. First, there will be a resolution that will um authorize the issuance or the sale of that first portion of the bonds. In this case, it's going to be I believe we have it at $80 million as I recall.
295Um it will be authorized whatever that amount is that has been decided upon by the board. Um in addition, you'll need to establish a citizens oversight committee. When I say establish, I mean pass the bylaws. that takes a little bit longer to put those people together to put them in place, but you have to have that citizens oversight committee established fairly uh fairly soon. At the same time, we're working in the background making sure the bond gets uh goes to the rating agency, gets rated, that the underwriters are ready, that they're going to have something that is the uh able to get the lowest possible interest rate in the market at that time. And when all of that comes together in uh miday that will those bonds will then be sold into the market. Rates
296will be set and fixed. We'll know how long that's going to be paid off, what the interest rates are going to be. And that takes about two weeks until then the money is transferred into your account that is held by the county uh of uh Montre sorry county of Santa Cruz. So there's a little bit of a whirlwind tour. There's a number of steps happen, but my point that I really want to make is the final decisions in all of these cases is yours. Even though I've shown you a number of assumptions, assumptions change, you're the ones that make the final decision on what happens. With that, I'm happy to answer any questions you might have. Thank you. Um, we do not have any speakers to this item, so I'll bring it back to discussion
297for the board. Trust Medina. So, Measure M, it was just Santa Cruz County or is it wasn't it also part of Monterey as well? That's correct. That's correct. What percentage of it was coming from Monterey? Um, I do not know. There was a very small slice of voters in Mterrey. Um, it was on the order of five or 10% or less. Okay. I'm curious if we could set that aside for those schools and the remaining funds would go over to be spread out to the district. Jenny, can you speak to that? Because we had a we've been developing a funding formula so that all the schools are included. I don't know that we did it by like here's your five or 10%. I think we did it more by a per school allocation. Okay, good.
298And and we've been working on I don't know that we've finalized how that is. And some of it also is based a little bit on need. So, I mean that school's on a hill. It's going to slide off soon. So there's a big need there. Some of those things are in need and some of our sites are in better condition than others. Okay, cool. Yeah, I just want to make sure like it's getting distributed across cuz those voters also pay taxes and they also want to see the schools fixed over there as well. Thank you. Do we have any other discussion from the board? Okay, seeing none, I thank you for staying with us this late. Thank you. I will now move us on to item 9.2, measure M, bond program management services, introduction of
299stacked inc and next steps for implementation of services. Report will be presented by stacked stacked inc. Hi, I'm uh Ralph Luru with stacked inc. I'm representing stacked today, but we also partnered with district advocates group and the lead there, uh, Brett, um, Brett McFaden. He couldn't make it tonight, but he was Beck's CBO here, so he knows your your sites well. I personally know your sites really well as well. I've been working at the school district um, I think more than 15 years. I've done various projects. Um I was excited to be involved in the master plan for your project and actually meeting with your sites before uh voting day. It um a lot of presentations, nighttime presentations. So I really got a feel for what um people were asking for, you know, and so
300uh and I'll never forget um the question because we want to fulfill those promises in your bond. Anyway, um so I'm bringing I'm representing a team. I'm going to show you that in a minute. And we want to work with your team because I know we want to build capacity here at the school district. Um so in terms of the program management side um we will lead it but we will partner with with the uh team that you just decided on to to you know have your your planning staff and then we also want to develop systems where we learn from M you know what what's the best product to use and how we how we can fix that. Um, I need the ticket. Next slide. Um, so, so what I represent here is is
301program management, not construction management. So, we're really going to be partnering with the the the leadership. Uh, sorry, we skipped the slide, didn't we? Um yeah so actually this was a slide from the master planning phase and just we we spoke about where you are today. So right now the master plan at that point was draft. We really need to finish it and incorporate all these ideas that we're yearing and come back to the board um for priorities and allocations per site. And then we want to implement quickly because um every minute you wait um you guys have said it already but it's true. it's honest. You basically get a smaller building for the same uh amount. So, you have to be cognizant of that. Um so, that $315 million, we have to spend it
302carefully. And we we're going to um in one of our first presentations should we you select us we'll be bringing back you know a schedule a full uh cost per site and then a phased approach as well as um bidding you know a bidding technique to execute each project. Just wanted to define you know what what do we present you? So, we're we're not the construction managers. We're uh the program managers. We're the district advocates. We're going to provide um finance and budget reports. You know, we'll go to the COC meetings. Um we coordinate with the district, stakeholder engagement, my favorite. I like to be out there and listening to staff on the ground. Um and then uh you know figuring out that um project prioritization matrix that everybody agrees on that formula to get
303to the to to the end result that meets the needs of the community. Um compliance and reporting and then we'll we'll oversee the de um the development process and in that uh matrix of services we'll also keep our own funding state funding. So, we'll um make sure that uh you're not missing the step. State funding takes a long time to get that money, but you have to get in the queue. Um so, I have a little bit of an army here, but um we're kind of reinforcing that I'll be the guy that you will see mostly it'll be me and um Brett McPaten will report. My partner VJ is a master planner and um um bean counter. You will be bring in the Excel spreadsheets with the cost analysis and we have you know various
304people with different skills. Um there's so many things we want to do for you. We want to make sure that you're organized, your filing systems organized, that we digitizing your plans. Um keeping track of this funding I mentioned. Um and then also having a a stronger control of bridging documents. What we found is that when um in the past a lot of school districts will give an idea of a project they want to do but it's not fully flushed out. It's not properly budgeted. It's not properly sequenced. And so we want to take um that ownership of that um initial phase have a strong input in that. So again as part of my early uh involvement just before the bond we were hired to uh look at how we could um get the performing arts
305center um going. This was a design did done in 2018. It was DSA approved. It went through SQA. It went through the coastal commission, but it was not finally um uh uh approved uh through SQA because of conditions of approval that weren't followed up. So um what we plan to do with this project um next slide. Um we we you know in the first 3 months we want to uh pursue this aggressively in a parallel track. Um we want to meet with the agency and get that sequel process readvertise. It it takes a minimum of 90 days. But we also want to start thinking of soliciting at the design build company. Use the existing plans that you already paid for probably paid a lot of money for those plans as the basis of design and
306solicit a good quality team and that they'll be going through this process. the board would have to approve that um with the idea of um having those two processes converge and you know um bring forward the Dave of construction sooner. So so that's the basic concept and then just looking in that design um another good reason for a design build team is that um you'll get cost before you build it from the contractor and that designer working together. There might be some efficiencies in this building. Building's quite large, a lot of seats. Um there's many angles. Uh we may be able to simplify that design. Well, we'll work with the design team on that. Uh second signature project at the same site is a um aquatic center or nanitorium. Um we feel like it um
307in the early phases needs to be covered. It's an enclosed uh structure that that project will take advantage of some of the studies that were already done at the performing arts center. So may we hoping for a little bit of a shorter uh squa period. Um so we would initiate that. Next slide. So this one we would uh we would u solicit a designer coming on board. We would again do very strict parameters of what the nanitorium is. Uh make sure that it meets all those needs of you know what's the pool used for and then um get a designer on to work through the entitlement process with that type of project because SQA is involved and it's the coastal commission. Um the city will be involved again because they're the agent for SQA in
308the area. Um and then just the approach for some of these um kind of if you can think of it district-wide incentives we want to create standards so every school is getting the same thing that maintenance knows what they're going to fix. So if you take playgrounds for instance, you know, a standard, we want them accessible, right? We want shade. Um so we may work with um all of these vendors and develop a standard and and and get some preferred pricing for the equipment and the material. Um similarly with HVAC, I was involved um during CO at Paro. um you know there was a rush to to build shade structures. We installed chade structure at every site. We also went and um kind of when co where we were starting to do some hybrid some
309some time when they actually came into the classroom we modifi um um brought more air into the HVAC system. We worked with Gio Wilson, a local contractor, and I worked with Cypress Engineering to take that data and bring more fresh air. But I hear a big push for cooling. U cooling is a big big project districtwide. You're not going to be able to cool every space in the district with this bond, but we can start to develop a plan that's focused to hit the the most important areas. Um, I know we were looking at the Watsonville High as a as as a key site for that initiative. So, we'll probably follow we'll take that data that was collected by that contractor um and we will do a plan um that'll involve again prioritization and cost
310analysis for implementation. Um so is this a this is a great project but uh we this is a tentative project right because we want to have students first but if um there there's a process I'm involved with uh a few um educator workforce housing projects right now and I can talk through that process um most successfully is we just are managing um Santa Cruz city schools workforce housing we just got um city approval so we've been through that process And I would love to be standing there next to you, Paharo at one of the sites. We did a study at um I think six sites of uh potential workforce housing. There's a whole process you need to go to to understand um whether that's feasible or not. U Dale Scott will would be involved with
311the finance on that piece. Um so to to end uh we we bring in a team of program managers to you. I'll be the point of contact. Um we will help your team be stronger. They'll be integrated with our team. We'll develop standards for them. We'll agree on processes. Um there will be strict budget oversight and cost analysis along the way. I'll be doing presentations to you probably quarterly. Um quality control, we spoke about that. Creating standards for different materials, stakeholder engagement. We'll work on a a regular step of who and when do we need to do outreach. I'll be doing a lot of those presentations, consider long-term ma maintenance, and we'll do design standards. So, there's there's a pathway to uh to go. Um I think the bond the master plan we said we're
312going to execute over 10 years. You really want to do most your work 3 to 5 years because of the es cost escalation. So 10 years you may be closing on some projects but you'll see you'll see the most most work first and we normally uh advocate for the the site site improvements first. So you would see some probably more like playgrounds and parking and drop off safety concerns. And then while that's happening, uh projects are being developed for the for for the bigger [Music] projects. And so I'm passionate in this area. I work I've worked with almost every school district in this area. I've been here 25 years. Um and um really would like to see Paro successful. really really really and I was so pleased when the when the bond passed and to
313just be part of it and um I just wanted to really thank u Mr. Ralph Luru for the work he's done um over the last few years on developing the facility master plan. Um getting ready for measure M. Um he with our M team. Um I think you went to almost every single school site council meeting to do presentations for our uh school community. So really thank you for your work and your dedication. Um I wanted to give a little bit more information. Um so back in December um the district um started a request for qualifications and proposal um for bond management um services because we knew that many of the projects coming up were so large in scale and scope and so specialized in knowledge. So the performing arts center for example um we
314really needed um expertise because designing theater spaces um in an effective manner especially um in an educational setting to support our programming that's a very specialized field of knowledge. um looking at aquatic centers, um looking at possible um educator workforce housing, um all of those not only in the design and the execution, so the technical knowledge, but also knowing how to navigate um the legal um uh regul regulation such as going through SQA, DSA, working with the coastal commission, working with the city and the county. Um that is a lot of specialized knowledge that um when we interviewed the three firms that had submitted their proposals um our panel um very clearly saw um Mr. Ralph uh Laroo's expertise and his knowledge um in these very specific areas working with other districts in our county
315um and over the hill as well. Um so um we had done a series of interviews with um subject matter experts both within our district and um external to our district. Um and um the district's recommendation um would be to um go forward with the contract we are hoping to bring to the board um at the May meeting um and um approve the selection um of stacked in incorporated. So thank you Mr. Laru. Thank you. So any discussion from the board? Okay. I just had one thing. Okay. Go ahead. Just very briefly. Sorry. Um in regards to workforce housing, what kind of survey has been put out there to the people that would actually be living in this housing because I've heard of Yes. So a lot of disgruntledness about Oh, yeah. That's that's part
316of the process. So, we have a standard survey we will send out to everybody. And I'm I'm actually working with a a consultant on that right now. Yeah, we we start we we jumped ahead. That's good. Sorry. Um we got curious about that a little bit. And so we have a consultant that I've been act um actively working with um over the last three months. And so she has reached out to some of PE some people that I just network with uh and we have sample surveys and they've talked us through the process that they've used with uh their community. So we have some surveys that are ready to go. We just have kind of paused for a minute. We have a lot of things happening right now, but uh we would be ready and
317and we were waiting too to see where we are. Yeah. I mean at Santa Cruz we we've done them about five or six times. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Not just for interest, but it helps the unit mix picking the right product for the for the teachers. Yeah. Thank you so much for staying with us so late to today tonight. And um what we would be um what we're currently working on and we'll be bringing to the board is um when we come up with the say allocations and we would be coming up with um an equity based formula. So we're taking into um factor things like age of the building, programmatic needs, um um up count for that site, things like that. Um what we would be doing is we would present the board a series
318of options. Um included in those options would be um an estimated cost for let's say the workforce educator housing. um for PB High School for example, I know that as a community um we are absolutely going forward with the performing arts center, but another thing that we would have to consider is for example the aquatic center that is also going to be a huge cost. So we would present a a series of options to show what would the say allocations be with um if we did all three for example marquee projects if we were only able to do two marquee projects and maybe the aquatic center we would get started because at SQA process takes a very long time and maybe that would be part of the next um the the next bond program. So,
319we would present a series of those um options for the board's um review and approval um in a future board meeting. I'm a realist. That's all. Yeah. Okay. Thank you so much. Thank you. I will now move us on to item 9.3 board training and program governance for migrant and seasonal head start 2025. report will be presented by Tony Jordan, executive director, child and family services, and Veronica Garcia, director of child and family services. Um, so Stanis County Office of What is that? Stanellis. Stanelis County of Office of Education. Is he now allowed to say good morning instead of good evening? Yeah, I can say good Yeah, I can say good morning. Yeah, two more minutes. It's been a long day. So morning uh president Flores board of trustees uh Dr. Contras uh my name
320is Jose Rocha. I'm the migrant seasonal head start uh interim director and I have here with me Tony Jordan executive director. I'm with the child and family services division out of the Stannis Loss County Office of Education and we are the lead agency in the Central California Migrant Head Start Joint Powers Authority. So, if you're wondering why Stannis Loss is over here, we cover a 8ount service region with migrant seasonal Head Start funding, uh, including obviously Santa Cruz and Northern Monterey counties. Longtime partner with Pah Valley Unified School District. And I have with me, oh, I was going to say good morning, but I think I still have one more minute. Uh good evening. Veronica Garcia, director over at Stan House County Office of Education, Child and Family Services, uh overseeing um the program governance
321that we're going to train you on today. Thank you, Jose. And I would be remiss if I didn't thank Anelica, our longtime director of migrant seasonal Head Start programs. And so just been a great partner to work with her along the years. Um so this is an annual training. So this is not anything that's new that's coming to you. Poto Valley Unified School District has a long history of partnering with us and being an agency of high efficiency and efficacy as it relates to this program. Uh and I'm going to have Veronica and I are going to bounce around between the slides mostly to keep you awake because it's, you know, close to midnight. Can I do the slides here or Oh, is there a click? Oh, right here. Perfect. Thank you. Oh, yes. Why
322is it Oh, there we go. Okay. Okay. So, again, we're just here to give you a little overview. Of course, um you also have a booklet uh a program governance tool that you'll look at and get a little more information on. But today's training outcomes are uh just to understand the origins of our migrant Head Start program and the function of the program governance section of it. um understand the composition of the governance structure and the shared and I'm going to keep saying shared roles um and responsibilities that was outlined in the 2007 Head Start act. Um and then they just recently uh revised the performance standards that is our rule uh where that we have to follow in 2024. Um and then again another outcome obviously is to understand how the governance and management
323entities work. So we'll give you a little overview of the collaborative of the shared governance between our parent policy council that's a parent group that has um authority just like the board um to give decisions uh about the program and then obviously as I mentioned to learn a little bit about the program's tool. So when you know you can't sleep at night and you want to uh know a little bit more about your roles and responsibilities, you can open up the the tool and take a look at that. Uh okay. So a little bit about Head Start. I was just wondering if um any of you have had this train before or know a little bit about Head Start. Um but I know that it's been around for a while. So, some of you obviously
324hopefully know about Head Start and that it's been around for 60 years. So, um actually Head Start uh began in 1965, but then four years later um came Migrant Head Start and it was conceived um uh it was conceived in 1969. But these were some of the longest standing American commitments for at risk and vulnerable children and families. Um and of course it was started for the war on poverty. So um as we continue uh with migrant head start as we mentioned it began to ensure that the farm workers and their families and their children take advantage of this. Um and it was made available for low-income children obviously and it which is head start. So the program is initially established to provide the needs of the migrant farm workers as you know you have
325lots here and have provided the migrant head start program. So we wanted to just give you a little overview. um as they moved across the country with their families to pursue their work. And then in 1988 98 they expanded to include services of seasonal agriculture workers meaning they didn't have to move every uh 12 months 24 months knowing that um they still work in agriculture. those seasonal work. Um and so then uh just in letting you know one tiny thing that is very unique with Migrant Head Start is that they have always served infants and toddlers. So not just preschoolers, so little babies all the way up to preschool. And then um in what we call Head Start um then early Head Start began because of the model of migrant Head Start. that one. Yep.
326No, no, there we go. All right. So, uh we are very unique across this country. And what I mean by that is LEAs, COE's, we are not the norm for who operates Head Start programs across this country and in the various territories where Head Start exists, such as Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands, Marshall Islands. Uh, but I think that uniqueness brings uh some really neat things to the Head Start program in terms of the oversight, the checks and balances that exist in public organizations such as ours. And so I think that's what makes us so highly effective when we operate uh Head Start uh programs. So you can see up on this chart, it's um most often a private nonprofit or a community action organization that runs a local Head Start in any given county. And
327you can see the school systems were kind of right in the middle. Uh, one thing I want to mention about migrant seasonal Head Start, um, especially as Head Start starts to come more and more under attack by the current, uh, federal administration is two things. Migrant seasonal Head Start is the only Head Start program that has a work requirement. So, families that are enrolled in this program are contributing directly to our economy because they are required to work. and the work of our migrant seasonal head start farmworker families create a safe and sustainable food source for our community, for our region, our state, our country, and by golly, this whole world. Um, and so we need to remember that message and hopefully you will help us and sounding that and beating that drum uh as
328this program continues to come more and more under attack. If you haven't seen uh the USA Today article that came out uh late Friday night or today uh in the Washington Post, I I' I'd ask you to go check that out and you can see what uh the administration is currently thinking about migrant seasonal head start and the other head start programs that we operate. Um, families benefit from this program because they find a reliable, affordable, sustainable, quality early childhood education, whole family, whole child support service uh, for them. And it takes you and the parents that are in the program to co-exist and co-manage the program. And I hit the wrong button because I'm supposed to go there. And that's the whole idea about shared governance is how do you as the school board
329and how do the parents as the parent policy committee come together on areas where you have shared and joint decision-making authority over this program and again you have a longstanding um uh uh commitment to this program and PA's done very well and you've always been in sync with your parent group but that is the whole notion of shared governance. Every uh month or so when the team from the migrant Head Start office brings items to you for approval, they've already been vetted by the parents in the program. They've already reviewed, given their input, their stamp of approval. So when it comes to you, you can be assured that the parents have done their due diligence as their part in helping to oversee the program. another graphic for you to kind of get the picture of
330what we're talking about when we say shared governance. And the reference book that Veronica uh mentioned to you has both the law in here, the Head Start Act and the regulations in here, the Head Start program performance standards. So, it's a little packet that we give to all uh board members and and parent policy council members just to have them review what are their specific roles and responsibilities as it comes to shared governance. Is that still me? Let me catch up. Sorry, it's after midnight. I'm not as polished. Um, actually, I like Yeah, let's go to that one. This is you. This is your governing body, board of trustees. Your policy committee. I don't know if that's all of you or not. Might be an older picture. That is that you? Yeah. Uh, your policy
331committee. So these are your parents and I know that you have uh one to two board members that will meet periodically as a task force as I recall as your your name that you have given your group to do some of those shared governance functions. Uh and then you have your management staff uh out of the migrant season head start office. So those three entities are what really makes all of this shared governance come to life and how each of them work within their areas of responsibility and then how they combine and converge on some of that as a elected body. When you look at your reference book and you look at the left side on the composition requirements in the law because you are all publicly elected officials you're exempt from that. So, just
332keep that in mind. But I would not hesitate to say you probably have someone that has uh fiscal experience and oversight that you can lean on. Uh I'm sure you have attorneys at your beck and call as a large school district and you have a whole team of early education uh ed ex experienced subject matter experts. So you have those resources available to you even if as elected officials you may not meet exactly that role uh but you are exempt from it because you are elected. same information just in a different uh ven diagram. If you digest things better that way to see where your responsibilities are, where your roles are, where you overlap within those three entities that make up the management and governance of the program. I'm out of breath. Is it your
333turn? Oh, it's still my turn. Conso. Okay. Um, we love this graphic because it really brings together and I heard your new uh HR associate superintendent bring this to light when the focus point is children and families and you have all the services on that next circle and then you have all the component areas working towards that goal of making sure that children and families have optimal outcomes as a result of your program and that's what's depicted here. It takes all those things working together uh on behalf of children and families to run an effective uh program which like I said PA has been doing that for quite some time. Now it's Veronica's turn. Okay. And this is the fun one because you can see here what your uh role is um here at Baharo
334Valley Unified School District. So if you look at the right that's what we call the grantee cycle. So with head start any program we have specifically obviously migrant head start here is we have to uh submit refunding application every year. the money doesn't just come. They want to make sure that um the communities that it's going to the counties still need it. And it's our responsibility with uh the board as well as with the parents to ensure that we do a community assessment every year that we look at our goals and objectives, our budgets, our training plans. it is so extensive and I'm sure you'll see that uh during the year um because we want to make sure that uh the services are where they're needed because you know sometimes things uh uh families obviously
335with young children move around. So on the right hand side you'll see a calendar that we give our agencies to ensure that um they provide us uh a timeline and their documents so that we submit uh the refunding application on time. So that's that on the left hand side is the elements of the annual refunding application for Bajo Valley. So just one example is the program goals and objectives. So you'll be looking at that as well as um your budget. Obviously that's something that you'll look at with the parents and the parents look at it with detail all the whole budget and then they submit all these things to us on a on a monthly basis. Then we put all of the counties together and send it off to Washington DC. Um and so that's
336where we get our funding on an annual basis. So that's your role. You'll be getting all of those documents to review and approve and I keep going the other way. Okay. And then just really briefly, we keep talking about the shared governance. I want to let you know that the parents also get a training, annual training just like you and give them the same tools and provide the information so they know that they do have a vote. It is their program and they're able to look at all the program goals and objectives, the community assessment, um the budgets and we have subcommittees with them to go over in detail and they give input which is fabulous. And then it also empowers them for when they get to the K12 system, they feel comfortable enough to
337come to the board meetings and and be part of um anything with with their children. So these are some of the takeaways here. As you can see, legal responsibility, fiscal responsibility, and knowledge with the pro program goals and objectives. So in closing, uh PA has been a partner with our organization since 1987. Uh in 2011, we were named uh so that we actually have national recognition. We were named a national center of excellence. Um with our migrant seasonal head start program, all eight counties. Um last year, PO Valley exceeded their funded enrollment. you enrolled and served 814 migrant seasonal Head Start children. Uh you exceeded uh by 4% the 10% children with disabilities enrollment requirement and uh there was still a waiting list. So there were certainly still more families to serve and enroll in
338the program and we will uh be aware of that as we go forward. and some of the key partners that you have uh uh to help serve families that are in the program through different ways. Salute Parente Cabrio College supports for staff and the family childcare providers uh community bridges and stars therapy service. I do want to say when we talk about family childcare home providers, you all uh contract with many of them. You all P Valley Unified School District is known across this country by migrant seasonal head start grantees and when they want to go somewhere to see high quality services through a family chakra home partner, this is where they come. This is where we bring them. This is where we tout how well it's done and what community partnerships can look like
339to best serve young children and families. And so be proud of yourselves, be proud of the legacy you have, and just continue the great work and partnership you have with the parents you're serving. And that's how you'll achieve your shared governance. So pending your questions, that concludes our presentation. Thank you very much. I see no speaker cards for this item. I will now bring it back to the board. Trusty Flynn, those were very kind words. Um, why do you think that is? I have an idea of why I think that is, but given where you sit and all the data that you receive, why do you why do you why is that the case with PBSD or Power Valley? I believe it's the way the school district is partnered with the community and really focuses
340on the needs of children and families. It's one of my favorite things about this community. Um, thank you for your work. My I'm not seasonal um Head Start, but my daughter um did do Head Start when she was a little girl. Um and at Dun it was at Duncan Hbert at the time. Um and it was she has fond memories and I do too. Thank you, Trusty Medina. Yeah. um since we do have this program, what could we do as a board to kind of protect it from, you know, those big government um things that are happening right now? So, as a board, how could we, you know, best protect this program from, you know, possible underfunding or anything like that? So, I I'll let the cat out of the bag. What was in the
341USA today on Friday and Washington Post today is that uh President Trump's budget proposal which has not yet been released but the uh the breadcrumbs that Hansel and Gretle are laying down right now are saying that the uh administration would like to eliminate Head Start and that was what was in Project 2025. So I don't believe it's coming as a surprise to many of us in the field. Um, I would say reach out to your federal and state and local legislators to share the message about how important our program is, the impact that it has. And then beyond that, I would say who are the organizations, the businesses, the vendors, the suppliers that you use that would be losing revenue because you would no longer be able to purchase goods and services that you use
342with serving children and families, right? School supplies. Who which are those vendors? We need them to be on board with us sharing that same message out there. So legislators and vendors and then most importantly parents. When we go to DC, they just look at us like we're there for our own interest because we're working in the program. When parents go to DC and voice the importance of the program, they listen. I know Claudia Shinebomb is really concerned about this program as well and she's starting to look into seeing how the consulates could get some funding from Mexico to support these because a lot of the farm workers, you know, indigenous languages, they're coming over. So, um yeah, if you could get if you guys have access to any of that information where we could start
343looking into those things to make sure this um program sustained, you know, let us know how we could help with that. We'll we'll send over uh pieces from the National Head Start Association as well as the National Merant Season Head Start Association. I'll send them over to Jose so he can get them to all of you and uh it has some calls to action, very specific steps on what we can do together. Awesome. And have you heard of um Elevate Latino by chance? No. Check them out. They're a really good group right now, but it's essentially a lot of big key players within the Latino Chico community that are looking to fund programs like this. So really good. So um yeah, elevate Latinos and they're really trying to make an effort to combat what's going
344on because our community is being attacked right now by this crazy fascist government. But yeah, thanks Trusty Medina. I will add that today uh Paharo Valley hosted a press conference with the Paharo Valley Collaborative uh and one of the issues we did talk about and discuss and are strategizing around is exactly this child care um and what can we do some of these exact same things on our rad. Thank you so much for staying with us till today and good morning. Thank you. I will and Scott said to tell you thank you board. Thank you board president. Thank you. Safe drive home. Okay. I will now move us on to item 9.4 child development department programs. Report will be presented by Lisa Sandaval, director of early childhood education and child development. Good morning. Good morning.
345So I was going to start off with good morning. Um I even crossed my notes out. So, good morning, President Flores, Vice President Navaro, board of trustees, Dr. Conturus, cabinet, and the community. I am Lisa Sandaval, and I'm the director for the early childhood education, child development department, and I'm going to give you the quickest overview of our department you've seen all in all times. So, we're going to go really fast and as soon as I can figure out how to work this. Okay. So, we serve students from birth up to age six, including pregnant and parenting students. Children, we know children learn through hands-on experiences, early literacy, early language development and social emotional skills, and we really work to honor home language and culture. Our programs run year round. So, we are a non-stop
346district program. We work we are running during the breaks and seasonally to meet the diverse needs. We're also a program that runs in multiple uh parts of our program run 6 am to 6 pm. So raising a reader, you guys have had a little bit of background about them um one time when I was up here, but they're one of our strongest literacy initiatives. It promotes early literacy and family engagement while it boosts uh brain development and reading motivation. Raising a reader supports kindergarten readiness. And as you can see, our reach is pretty expansive. Our pregnant and parenting student program is a student uh helps students stay in school while developing parenting and life skills. We offer wraparound support including parent education, child care, academic guidance, referrals for counseling, health, nutrition, and ensure Title 9
347rights are upheld. So these next few slides, there's a lot of detail on them, so we're going to go through them quickly. but you guys all have access to them to see them a little more in depth. Um, so all of our programs serve four-year-olds except our infant development center and they all fall under the guidelines for universal prek. So universal pre kindergarten which is also known as UPK and all of them have an eligibility requirement. So and that differs and that's based on the eligibility is set by the contract of the program. Placement in these programs is based on space availability except TK. That's an immediate placement. cost to parents varies except TK is there's no cost for TK and the in um and then also it's important to note that all of our
348programs except TK and the infant development center are required to follow community care licensing and they're required to have a license. So we follow all title 22 regulations. All teachers are required to have early childhood education courses in every program that we cover. In the past, some TK teachers may have been previously allowed to teach without ECE, but beginning this year, they are required to have the 24 EC units or a specific waiver, which we'll see some of those come forward later on at other board meetings. Um, or have been grandfathered into the program, the second adult in the classroom. So, every program requires a second adult when certain ratios come up, except for family childcare homes, that can vary. They're all required to also have ECE units. Um, and transitional kindergarten is the program
349that does not require um, additional EC units. And as you'll see, our student capacity also varies among each program. Ratios. Ratios are the amount of adults to students. So when you see 1 to eight, that's one teacher for eight students. Um, or one adult. So, it could be like one teacher to 24 students, but then there has to be two additional adults in the classroom. Oh my goodness, I was really slow. Sorry. Um, and then you'll see we go we have multiple over 16 funding sources that we see. Um, and they're all have different streams. Current uh TK registration is another program we support and we do online registration through parent view. We've been really successful. We were at 200. Now we're close to three, a little over 300 students. We've only had to help
350one parent with an email. Only one parent so far that's come to our department did not have an email. And so that was exciting. And they've all had a smartphone to be able to download parent view and just do it. So kicking up that paper. Um and we'll continue with support services through the summer. We expansions. Our TK implementation is in its final phase. Increase sites with the TK. increase dual language in TK, increase full day programs, and increase inclusion opportunities in all of our programs. Our state compliance review, you'll see we've had no findings in either compliance. We've had uh minor error and some technical assistance which we worked through. The analysts completed our eers and visit our family childcare homes and found that our family childcare homes were model programs. They were the
351first in the state as a pilot with our CSP program which they were talking about. We share a lot of providers. We have amazing family childcare homes. Our parent survey results, you'll see that our it's working. Our parents are happy. They feel their children are safe. They're proud of the U quality. We take these serious. This helps us plan our next year and what we're going to do. And thank you. That's it. And you'll that's our family childcare home right there in the corner. And then some of our other programs. Okay. Sorry, I know I went over 24 seconds. You're good. Thank you so much for this. Do we have any discussion from the board? Only to say thank you for staying up with us so late. No problem. Yes. Thank you. So, okay. I
352am now going to move us on to item 9.5, our 2425 CTE program update. And looking ahead to 2526, report will be presented by Julie Edwards, our PBUSD CTE coordinator. Good evening, board president Flores, Superintendent Dr. Contraras, board trustees, cabinet, and PVSUSD community. Um I'm Julie Edwards and I am the honored and happy um PBSD career technical education coordinator and I'm really um delighted to be able to share some information with you tonight about our CTE program. So I'm going to get started right away and the packets have a lot of um background information that some of the things I'll be sharing will be more detailed in the packet. Okay, this district mission and vision, we again um goal one would be the the goal that the CTE program is most focused around. And then
353what I wanted to share with you first is grounded in our why as a CTE program, the impact that we are seeing in our community and then what's next. So that's kind of the structure of what I'm going to share with you tonight. So, our vision in the CTA program, and I'm not a big fan of reading, but I'm going to read this. Um, is that all PVSUSD students have access, resources, and support to succeed in career technical education that authentically prepares them to meet their college, career, leadership, and life goals in a more just and equitable world. This is a vision that we created and have been working on for three years. It continues to evolve as the world around us evolves. Um, but it is what we ground the work that we're doing
354in. Um, and our mission is that we'll achieve that by being welcoming to our students, leveraging partnerships with regional colleges and universities, providing real world access to industry and professionals, balancing strong technical training and academics with a focus on skills, habits, and mindsets. supporting CTE educators with resources, training, and high standards for growth in a CTE community of practice and using data uh data driven equity alignment across our program. This is CTE by the numbers and you can just kind of at a glance you'll see that um we have this year we have 3,820 students in CTE classes. Basically 70% of all of our high school students are in a CTE pathway, 43 teachers, lots of courses, 27 pathways, 14 of the California industries, eight high high schools and middle schools, 15 courses are honors.
355We have um this year we have four dual enrollment classes and that's going to go up pretty exponentially, pretty darn quickly. Uh 100% college prep. In other words, there isn't a CTE class that a student takes that can't go on a UC CSU application. And um uh 329 students in the class of 2024 completed a pathway, which means they took two courses in the same pathway, a sequence. um what we see in our students, the impact we're making, high levels of academic achievement and school engagement, meaningful connections with local industry and community orgs, and strong high school graduation rates. Um Mr. Brown, so Julie asked me if I wanted to tag along, and I chose these slides because they're for me the most fun and the exciting ones. And I'm not going to read them,
356but I I just want to call out a few things. These are quotes from our students. um th this one right here, a new wave of confidence and that uh this student wanted to thank um his teachers for for the new better him, right? And I think that's one of my former students, but I can't I'm not positive. So, I'm really excited about that one. Um and then uh this one, you know, as educators, we talk about that productive struggle, right? And let letting kids have those opportunities to really grow and learn for themselves. And so, we're we're really seeing that now. we have the student who's at at Berkeley who's who's taking that to the next level and and and diving in. Um, and then this one is, you know, we we talk about
357being college and career ready and that that's really about getting the skills and the abilities to collaborate and build as teams and and and work together. And so we're seeing that with our students throughout these programs. And then this one is is great because this is a student who's who just got a job over here at Granite Construction who's who who got the skills to be hired and and is and is being productive in our community. And then and then Julie's going to talk more about the family connection. Um but this is this is a highlight for me because we talk about how uh family engagement is a strategy to achieve all of our goals in our district and and this is happening in our CTE programs. So all these nights where we have our
358families come with our students and and so our families are saying, "Hey, now I know how to support my child and guide my child to support them on in these pathways." Um so we're seeing great synergy between the family engagement and and the and the coursework and the and the pathways that we have. So really exciting stuff coming out of this. Thank you. So just at a glance and this is in in your the information that you have, these are the different industries that our pathways are part of. California has 15 industries identified. We have pathways in 14 of the 15 and then 27 pathways. Um, as Erin Larris mentioned earlier tonight, a mechanics is something we haven't been able to find a teacher for. Um, so it's still on the list. It's not going
359away, but it's it's certainly a challenging one to find a teacher, but we have a humongous um variety of courses for students. Um, so how we make decisions. So basically um our why the impact that we're having and then how do we move forward. One of the things that we've noticed um in the last few years is that the funding for CTE is uh collecting around certain industries particularly um aligned with um health related careers, engineering, climate or STEM, computing and education. And this chart right here shows you of the funding sources that we have most recently applied for and been awarded. You can see that down the left you'll see their California, the California Department of Ed, uh, three times in a row, a federal, Perkins, and then another CDE grant. All of those
360categories were the priority um, industries that we applied for the money in. They um award money based on being targeted to high high skill, high wage, high demand careers in the region. And the um the fun part is uh is all fun, but the a uh the avail it's actually available funding is the wrong header for that. Now those are awarded. So before we knew what was available, but you can see that um those are all of the funding. Uh that's all of the funding that we've received in the last essentially 9 to 12 months. Some of it has been awarded very recently as you've heard about the Golden State Pathways. That was a long um arduous process. It was almost a year before we heard, but we did hear and good things are happening
361with those dollars. So, this is just to demonstrate for you that when we make decisions with CTE dollars, there are guard rails around them. Certain industries, restricted funds to be spent on certain things that relate to high wage, high skill, high demand. And so and then more and then just to point out this is the only federal money right here and it's the smallest just an FYI. So the state of California has said yes to workforce development and that's what you're seeing. And then a focus on a living wage as I mentioned this is 2023. We're waiting on the most recent statistics, but in 2023, one adult with zero children was a local living wage was 40 54 a thousand a year. And you can see the the um the careers that that are in
362that range and above that are in our area. And so this is a little more detail in that the occupational areas. is we get this from the labor the Santa Cruz labor um board and they they update data frequently and then we also have other sources of labor market data. We're very much guided by it. It's really the pulse of um how we make decisions as well. And then CTE has requirements that we have to fulfill when we apply for money. we report in on these categories and I just want to point out strong partnerships with industry is the one at the bottom but that is the one that is super important and um it is really what makes us fly essentially when we have great relationships with local industry partners. And then last but
363not least, these are the areas that we have identified as a district that'll align to our mission and vision that we care about um as a CT program within PVSUSD that we focus that students in our pathways understand what equity looks like in the pathway that they happen to be in. Um civic engagement as Daniel knows um uh and as evidenced by the seal of civic engagement being folded into the program. Earth systems or climate um is another area we want our students to understand impacts of earth systems on the things that they're interested in into the future. Um and then every student deserves to be conversant in computing and technology and then undergirling all of that are the basic basic and critical college career leadership and life skills. So it all comes together. This
364is our kind of has been a guiding document when we need to explain to people how we do what we do and why. This this is a um been super helpful. So just some quick success stories. We have some internships coming up. Summer in the city with the city of Watsonville. We have 20 of those. That's a paid internship program. Kaiser Permanente um is uh going to host 20 of our students with job shadows in their facilities. Um on this side and the other side of the hill, we're hosting 12 health science and healthcare internships that are also paid month-long. Whoops. Okay. Anyway, internships um are are invaluable for students to gain work work experience and see what it's really like um in the fields that they may be interested in. Um we hosted, as
365Mr. Burman um alluded to uh nine events, 250 plus families around health sciences, healthcare, medical technology focused speaker series. Hugely po hugely popular and next year we're going to add in engineering. We'll do them separately, but we're going to do engineering as well. And those events were hosted in um Spanish with English interpretation at Watsonville and PV and English with Spanish interpretation at Aptos High. This is some highlights of some of the cool things going on in our program. We brought underwater robotics back to Watsonville High, which is where the competitions are. Um, so it's super stoked. And then PV High first ever underwater robotics team. Our kids are going to be earning their pilots um their first level pilots, drone pilots license um in the Lanc Air and Space. And then California Seal of
366Civic Engagement. And I just wanted to highlight that that year 1 three students, year two 72, and this year a total of 303 students engaged in the program, 214 seniors are on track to earn the seal, including our student trustee and the other students, those numbers will grow as kids um kind of on board to the seal. Um, new pathway at Pave High Public and Community Health Lancer and Space expanded to Pave High and Watsonville High this year. Um, and I'm sorry if I'm going so far over. Is that Can I keep going? Just No, I should stop. Okay. Okay. So, anyway, great stuff happening here with partners. Um, lots of cool things uh, coming up and maybe I'll do a board communication around some of these things because they're super super cool. Okay, blue
367blue moon moment. I'll go fast. This was I just wanted you to see that the state of California as I mentioned has said yes and all the funding and focus on workforce development is undergirling um, the opportunities for our students to progress in a field like advanced air mobility. And these are partners we have on the right. These are our higher ed partners on the left and the state of California as I mentioned is funding it um this work robustly as well as with health sciences and health care. We have some partners listed on the right. Um and this is really exciting work in engineering um with a tech and mobility tech which is the EV hybrid um auto shop that we're going to be building at Watsonville High School. And so it's once in
368a blue moon. Um so um anyway, thank you for your um your interest and attention and um so CTE is building skills, empowering futures. That's what we're about. Yeah, thank you. And I do see two public speaker cards here, Brandon Denise and Joel Smith. So Joel isn't here. he had to go home, but he just text me and um I believe he was speaking with Alysia earlier and there might be a um press release um related to Verda Design that she had ready to show. So, I don't know if that was something that was going to be shown up, but that was just a request from Joel. Um and if that can't be done, then that's fine. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so I wanted to speak because I think we all know that
369I Oh, really? Yes. Let's take a peek at that because Joel's still awake. He's still watching. So, I think it's a verd Yeah. And so, um, I think it's great when we're able to display student work and I want to honor the student voices who were here today to speak in support of the programs at Apttos High School. Um, I think we just had a presentation that you Thank you, Julie. Thank you for all the work she does to support our teachers, but we're going to be closing some of those pathways and I don't feel like we need to be closing those pathways. the these classes at Aptas High School and Pey High School, they are full of students who enjoy graphic design, who enjoy film production, who enjoy video production. And so I'm asking
370the board again to resend those layoffs because if we knew that we wanted to close certain programs, that's what the board resolution should have been. And we over notified people, which is according to the legislative analyst office, that's a pretty common practice. But just because it's a common practice does that mean we have to follow that trend or couldn't we have sat down together and said look union these are the specific positions we want to close this is why let's work together to understand our rationale but instead we overnotified people who got a layoff notice and were told here in two months you might be out of a job you might not be out of a job and there's a human impact behind that and people's lives are flipped upside down they don't know if
371they're going to have a And so I just ask please if we're going to promote these programs and share awesome student work and talk about the great work we're doing then let's keep doing it and let's please keep the programs at Apttos High School and Paro Valley High School and don't lay off those CTE teachers. Thank you. Thank you. And now I'll bring it back to the board for discussion. Trusty Medina. We're not getting rid of video production, are we? What there's I mean I that is not within my domain. Um there are various I mean uh teacher as um Brandon mentioned teachers were pink slip but the resolution isn't over yet right. Oh okay. Yeah cuz my only issue is very techheavy not very artheavy. Um yeah and to hear like video production you're
372talking to a film guy here like that is not okay. Um also are we going to teach any classes on automation in the future? Automation like you mean like manufacturing? Uh no like artificial intelligence. Oh yeah absolutely. Yes. Okay. I mean actually that's another one of the unifying elements anyway was in there as I sped through but that is going to get folded into every pathway because it affects every everything. Yeah. I mean because most of those things that are up there I mean those could be automated systems. Yeah. But the arts are going to be the ones that are going to be feeding the system in order for that to get duplicated. So, I'm I'm always worried with CTE when we listen to industry and we don't listen to the artists because those are
373the ones that are going to kind of steer the culture into where it wants to go. So, um yeah, I would um like to make a motion so I could have more information on whether video production is going to get cancelled or not. So, that doesn't need to be a motion. It could just be an information request. It could. Okay. Well, how do I motion to stop video production from being cut? It it's not it's just part of the process right now. I can walk you through the process later tonight or tomorrow or whatever. Yeah. And where we are in that process. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Cuz if if if we're cutting arts programs left and right, like that's where I'm going to have a big issue with this. Okay. Cool. All right. Thanks, Julie. Yeah.
374So, I know I'm sorry. I I just You said we had 14 out of the 15. What's the one? Um, it's a fashion and interior design. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Um, yeah, it's it's one that you that is I don't think it exists in Santa Cruz County. It used to um like 10 or 15 years ago, but not right now. Yeah. Um, that Head Start student that I spoke of earlier, she went through CTE. She became an MA and now is a nurse. Awesome. Is that student your daughter? Yes, of course. Awesome. Of course. Yeah. Yeah, I want to make a plug that there's another hospital up there that has actually that you didn't mention that we actually have a summer health institute program and many other service lines that Watsonville doesn't have. Okay. So, I'll
375reach out and um ask you who that is. I think I might know. Okay, great. Thank you. I also wanted to clarify so going in. So, I know our students have already been asked currently what they would like to see for next year. So when they're asked, are they presented with just the classes that are available or are they asked like hey like fill in if you want at PV high if you want cooking you know fill that in so that you can kind of pull and see how many students are wanting these specific subjects so we can kind of yeah our course requests and I know you know a lot of times um a lot of students want the sim similar things and So, um I know like my sons, for example, at Apatas
376were would get like their second or even third choice. And so, a lot of times, you know, yes, these classes are full, but they're full because their first and second choices weren't available. So I think I I I hear that sometimes when we're going to maybe remove some that are maybe some of the students third, fourth, fifth choices to maybe allow for those one those pathways where we do have an abundance of students wanting to you know have that if we could bring in more teachers to teach that so that we could have more availability to that. I get that and I know it's a very hard and web of you know I way beyond my you know thinking but I do see that and I do see that you know you do take that
377into consideration but my question was do are they asked what do they want to see coming like specifically at PBI because I do have PBI students asking for things like auto auto mechanics and things like construction technology and things like cooking so that's just how do we get that fill So um one example of student voices public and community health at PV High this year was a multi-year conversation that I had with a particular teacher and first with Consuelo Mason who was the principal there and then the Dan Andress the principal the second year and so based on student voice the students did polls of what of their campus they drove that it was an ethnic studies class and they were tremendous advocates for what they were pulling for students. So, we were able to
378make that one happen. Um, and more of that can happen. Um, and I will do a board communication on the idea around accessing some of these programs that are very specialized and very expensive to replicate. I think that we have a pretty good idea of how to fix that so that um, all of our students would have access to more. Um, so I'm happy to write that and share that with you. Yeah, it's definitely on my mind and heart. You know, that's important. So, yeah. Okay. Well, thank you so much and thank you for staying with us so late. Yeah. Thank you. Okay. I will now move us on to item 9.6, the first read of our updated board policy 6020 family engagement policy. report be will be presented by Christy McClean, director of equity,
379state and federal programs. Good morning, President Flores, trustees, and Dr. Contraras. Um, this will be quick. I am going to present the first read of a slight update to one of our board policies. um districts often um kind of need to update their board policies if it gets updated at the CDE level or the CSBA level. And so as we were seeing that there was a few updates needed on this board policy, um we bring it to the board, you get a first read and we bring a second. So, I'm going to quickly take your eyes just to the red portions because the red portions are the ones that we added and I'm going to explain them as quick as possible. Um, this line was added talking about the money from title one that is
380allocated. The minimum amount of money that's allocated by the CD by by the um by title one is 90% of that money must go to the eligible schools which are the title one schools and we give 100% of that money to those schools. So we already do that but that line will be in there. And then the next, if you scroll down about five paragraphs, there's another red section that says if the district also receives funds under federal title 4 part E, which we do not re receive those funds, but if we did, there is a a requirement to talk about title 4 with families. We do talk about title 4 um because we get part A and B, not E. And so in when we get input for LCAP, that is how we help
381decide how to use title 4 with family uh input. And the next line here says the district's board policy and administrative regulation um the strategies for family engagement need to be in the LCAP. They are in the LCAP. And then our last portion here says district and school level parent guardian family engagement policies administrative regulations shall be distributed to parents guardians of students participating in title one programs and shall be available to the local community. So it's in board policy. It's also in this board policy is in our annual notice to parents. So it goes out to everybody in the beginning of the year every year. um it will get updated because the current one does not have this red writing. So we will update it. Uh also all schools they create a school compact
382with their families every year and that's distributed to their schools individually as well as a family engagement plan. So those are the updates and there will be a second read on May 7th. Thank you for your time. Are there any questions? Thank you. And we have no uh public comments to this. Do we have any board discussion or questions? Okay. I don't know how to stop it over there. Okay. Okay. Thank you so much. Thank you. Okay. We have we will move on to 9.7. Our first read an updated board policy 61 63.4 student use of technology report will be presented by Dan Weiser, our director of technologies. Good morning. Good I was going to say evening. Good morning, board of trustees. Dr. Contrus, my name is Dan Weiser. I'm the director of technology services,
383and this is another first read of updates to our board policy around student use of technology. Um, really, I can be extremely brief. Our previous policy was just about safety and security. It didn't really um speak to the critical nature of technology and and how it impacts student academic success. So, the updates to the policy really, you know, add in all of the academic components, including AI and the use of AI and teaching students and teachers how to use AI effectively and ethically. Um, and so it just goes into detail about all of that. And then also, um, references our safe student uh, internet policies and procedures. And so that's really the the main updates to this policy. Perfect. Thank you very much. And we don't have any public comments to this. Any discussion from
384the board? Trusty Charlie, is this an appropriate place for a policy that relates to student use of phones and how to is that likely completely separate? This policy references phones. This this policy isn't specifically speaking to the restriction of phones, which there are some new laws that are that are coming out around that. Um but it it includes phones in terms of the ethical and um academic uses of technology at least in in in the in the way that this references technology use by students. So but the laws are a different process that coming our way. This is separate from like cell phone use in a school on a school campus. This is more responsible use of technology. Um, we are being mandated to have a cell phone use policy at our schools, which we
385we loosely have that. Uh, each school has kind of adopted their own. We need to adopt one into board policy. That will require some serious and deep committee work and so we will be having that happen throughout next year. Okay. Thank you. Any other discussion from the board? Okay. Thank you so much. We will go on to your stain 9.8 employee and non-employee acceptable use policy report by Daniser. Another quick one. Um good morning once again. Um this is really an update to our acceptable use policy for employees and the real there's modernized and updated language in the policy but also um it was brought to our attention that we really needed a policy for non-employees. So an example is student teachers, right? They work in our classrooms. We give them accounts, they are, you
386know, they have to take attendance, they have to get into our systems. And so we really need a separate policy that addresses the fact that they're not PBSD employees, but they still need that kind of access in order to work with our students in our classrooms. So these two um these two uh you know uh acceptable use agreements are specific to employees and then those non-emp employees that we work with within our schools. Thank you. Any discussion from the board? Trusty Flynn. No. Um I I don't know if we can I'm not I I would defer to Dr. Catres if we would consider a trustee an employee. Obviously, you are you work for the district, but the legal definition u right Yeah. Okay. Thank you so much. Thank you. Okay. So, that uh concludes our
387report and discussion and now we're jumping to item 12, consent agenda. So, these are routine items coming before the board. I would like to make Hold on. We have a speaker. Brandon. All right. Well, good morning. Um, I would like to request that the board move item 12.29 and item 12.31 to the deferred consent agenda and reject them because they sound like unnecessary administrative positions. Um, the 12.29 29 is the job description for the director of multilingual learner services and the um description is like this is one sentence. PVSUSD is presenting the position of director of multilingual services as part of the district's strategic goal of increasing language development progress and decreasing the number of long-term English learners. In our reopener negotiations all year, we've been trying to propose a joint district union committee that
388would meet on a semester basis to discuss how we're supporting our English learners. Every single time I've proposed it, it's been rejected instead of having to hire a new administrator to have this opaque role. What if we just had a committee and you worked with your labor partners and listened to your teachers? Um 12.31 approved certificate management. This job title is really opaque. director of strategic educational opportunities. And the very last sentence, the director will provide strategic administrative support to school site administrators and will serve as a resource for district assistant superintendents and other department directors. Is does that sound absolutely mandatory that we have someone who's just a resource and an admin for an admin and a support to the support? Um I I just don't think we need to be creating new um
389management positions at the district office at this time that we're doing layoffs. So if you can at least pull those two items and ask questions, are these new positions? Are these positions absolutely necessary? Resin the layoffs. Thank you. And now I will bring this back to the board for a motion. We did discuss this uh amongst ourselves. I would make a motion to approve all the consent agenda items. Okay, I have a motion to approve. Yeah, you might not be able to because Yeah. Okay. Um, the 3.1 is Can you be specific as to I mean it's 1:00 in the morning. You can ask to pull an item if you'd like more of a explanation on it. Yeah. So, what do you want to pull the ones that um the two that were just brought
390up? Okay. So, your motion is to approve consent agenda with the removal of 12.29 and 12.31. Yes, I need Yeah. And I'd also like to pull um I have the number uh CT and Iliad group multip um multiple CTE pathway projects and that is 12.1 which one? There's like Yeah, there's like 50 of them. Um we'll go with the first one. I just want to talk about Elliot. Uh 12.15. Those are all okay. So that would be 12.15 all the way through. I just want one to talk about them all. Yeah. Okay. So we are the motion on the table is to approve consent agenda with the with the removal of items 12.15, 12.29, and 12.31. And that motion was made by Trusty Navaro. Okay. Do we have a second? A second. You have a
391second. Okay. All those in favor? I I Any abstaining? Any opposed? Any abstaining? So that passes? I can't. 6 0 01. Okay. And now I will um go to our deferred consent agenda items. We'll start with 12.15 PVUSD, CTE, and Eliad Group. Yeah. So, um, I did notice that there was a lot of contracts with Elliott Group and when I totaled the amount, it was almost equivalent to $900,000 for this one group. Um, my concern is great. Elliot's done a lot of good work in the community. They have multiple contracts out there. I'm just wondering, is there nobody else that we could kind of get to do this work? Um, I know one of the things that I wanted to do was kind of contribute more to our local economy and seeing that they're in
392Monterey, seeing that they're working with several other schools, they worked with us at the digital nest, these guys are getting contracts left and right. Um, and I don't feel like we're giving enough opportunities to other people to fulfill these contracts. So I will have Julie Edwards come back to um so the Elliott group has been a partner of PVSUSD CTE for four years and because we're a tiny department and we literally a tiny department it's me we have an administrative secretary a tech a person who's an applications analyst and a counselor. The amount of work that we are able to do is because we have subject matter experts that help us get things done and there are pro there are projects that spin up you know happen spin down and then we have an we
393have more projects. So these are highly valued partners um that are associated with the restricted funds that we apply for with the grants. So, um I I I wonder if there's anything else I could share that would be helpful. No, it's just I sorry I just want us to start looking at local people to work on these projects. Um this is 900,000 is a lot of money. It's almost a million and it is a lot of it is over four years. So, these are um our Golden State Pathways grants that started well, they're basically a six-year grant and the first two years are over because of how long it took them the state of California to get it done. So, this is parsed out over four years. So, it you're right. I agree with you.
394It's a lot, but these are big projects. These are, you know, that's a lot of work that will get done to benefit our students. Um super efficient. We have great working relationship and um they're really invaluable partners and I I hear you. Yeah. Um we do also um use lots of local um work, you know, uh resources as well. So it's it's not this is a portion of the contracts that I'll be bringing. Some of these have to do. Sorry, my mouth is really dry. It's late. Hi, I feel like um is because we're trying to get started with the construction projects um the auto and the metal shop at Watsonville High, the engineering conversion at Apttoas High, and so I need project managers for that work. So that is that's part of why we're
395seeing a big kind of chunk right now. So So they don't necessarily have expertise in those areas. They're just going to be project managing those areas. They definitely have expertise and we we do lots of research. We get sub we subcontract through get subject matter experts. So actually some of that is subcontracted. It's not just all the principles of IAT group but it could be you know there's other people. We bring in the the best of the best to help us get it done. Okay. Sweet. Yeah. I just I just would love us to consider getting other people. Um that way it's not just going to one group consistently. Okay. Thank you. Thanks. Thank you. Would you like to make a motion? Oh yeah. Uh, I'd like to um move to approve uh 12.15. Thank
396you. Can I have a second? I'll second. Thank you. All those in favor? I. All those opposed, all those abstaining. Motion passes 6001. Thank you. Thank you. So are now I will move us on to item 12.29. Approve certificated management job description. Director of multilingual learner services. So this position is part of the restructure that we talked about uh earlier this year. Uh Miss Monharees did a presentation and described what we were trying to accomplish by restructuring the curriculum and instruction professional development. It is not an addition of a position. It's just part of the reorganization and a new title. U just like the steam director title. It's just a new title to suit the the needs that we're seeing and trying to address the needs of our students better. Um I I wanted to
397also add um that it will encompass more than just EL instruction. This is also somebody who would be overseeing needs for our newcomers, um, our dual language programs, our world language programs, all of those pieces. Our newcomers. So, that's the position that we eliminated, right? One of the counselors who was working for newcomers. No, this person wouldn't be doing a counselor position. Okay. It's not a It's not a counseling position. This is somebody who's overseeing newcomer programming. Oh, got her. Okay. And what were the two combined positions again for this? So, do you want to talk? It was actually a coordinator position. Okay. So, this year we haven't had a coordinator of English learner services um whose primary responsibility was the dual language programs and um and designated EL and secondary. We haven't had that
398point person. We we have that great need. Um and then this person this position is basically taking those things along with our internationalmies which are rolling hills and Watsonville high uh newcomermies along with all general newcomer supports um and also including the world languages because we have these learn these world language um classes especially in secondary uh but we we haven't had a point person um kind of supporting that. So all of these kind of create this great pathway for our TK12 dual language multilingual learner um pathway. So the goal the goal is to kind of make it under one person who can who who's going to be joining the uh her division because the previously what what was happening was um our director for literacy rich mann so he oversees literacy so you know
399English language arts all of those pieces plus history studies plus the ethnic studies piece and then he also had the EL piece under But with all of those pieces going on, there's it's really hard for him we to focus on the ELD. So that's so and then the coordinator position was under ED services. So instead of having it in two different divisions, it's a combination of those two so that we have somebody who's focused on it because um you guys have seen our data with our ELTELS. It's definitely a need. Yeah. Thank you. Any other comments or a motion? I'll make a motion to approve 12.29. Second. Thank you. We have a first and a second. All those in favor? I. Any opposed? Any abstaining? Oh, you're abstaining. Okay. Motion passes. 511. Okay. And now
400I'm going to move us on to item 12.31. Approve certificated management job description. director of strategic educational options. So when we closed Pacific Coast Charter School and then we closed Yeah. Virtual Academy and then we me numerous positions that had never been had not been filled because of what was happening with those two schools that were classified positions and then also there was an unfilled counselor position. uh the library that is accompanies Pacific Coast Charter the u the LI library media tech is moving into another position for that. So so we absorbed many positions um that will not be refilled um principal positions others and we're we believe that the new program that we're developing is going to attract many people to that program. So, we developed the coordinator position uh to oversee that program
401and we approved the person who we just hired. We're really excited about um and this director position is not the creation of a new position. It's creating a structure uh to help to oversee uh new structural programming under the ed services department. due to the creation of many new strategies that we're employing to attract students into our district and to provide better and greater service options to our students. So, this is just the the elevation of a current position to a slightly higher um director position to oversee that coordinator um as part of a subset of the services division if that makes sense. So it is it is not it is not the creation of a new position. Thank you for jogging my memory of o overall everything that we did in that collapsing of
402PCCS collapsing of VA creating the program um and all those positions we are we have absorbed money into the general fund just in that alone um and the belief that we will attract students to our programming. We believe that that is going to help to accelerate and attract money into our general fund. I may I Yes, Trusty Truly. I feel like we not we because we weren't here, but um the district let down Pacific Coast Charter and it really wasn't supported as as it should have been um for the last several years. So I think this is an opportunity for that group that's now combined to be well supported so that that we can expect success from them. Sure. I'll make a motion. I'll move to approve the new job description. So have a motion
403to approve item 12.31 and I have a second. All those in favor? I. Any opposed? Any abstaining? Motion passes 5011. Okay. And now I will move us on to item 14, reconvene to close session. We do have something to finish up there before we come out and close our meeting. Thank you. Thank you and welcome back to our meeting. We have nothing to report out at this time. So now I will just let you know of our upcoming board meetings. Our next board meeting will be a virtual special board meeting, student recognition on Wednesday, April 23rd, beginning at 6:00. And our next regular scheduled board meeting will be on May 7th in the city council chambers. And with that, I adjourn this meeting at 203. must be worse. I know.