001Doug Paulson: Session items. Seeing none, we're going to adjourn to closed session. We will reconvene at 7 p.m.. We are going to reconvene this regular meeting of the Escondido Union School District Board of Trustees. And we are going to start off with the Pledge of Allegiance, led by Miss Frank. Audrey Frank: Put your right hand over your heart. Ready? Begin. All: I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Doug Paulson: All board members are present. And we do have a report out of closed session. Mark Olson: Thank you. In closed session, item B1, in closed session, the board took action to approve the recommendation for appointment of Megan Power as Principal of
002North Broadway Elementary School beginning September 15th, 2025. By a unanimous vote of 5 to 0. Congratulations. [applause] Megan Power: Good evening, President Paulson, board and Doctor Ibarra. My name is Megan Power, and I'm very honored to be the next principal of North Broadway Elementary. I'm coming to EUSD from Encinitas, and I really look forward to working with the students, the staff and the families at North Broadway. I'm very eager to challenge myself in this new role in this new school, and I really look forward to collaborating with my fellow colleagues, with teachers, with the community, and with all of our leaders around the campus and really join the Escondido family. So thank you very much for welcoming me. Mark Olson: Welcome. Congratulations. [applause] And in item B-2 in closed session, the board consider dismissal charges
003against a classified probationary employee and took action to approve, approve, approve those charges and release employee number 674994 by a vote of 5 to 0. That concludes the report. Doug Paulson: All right. Thank you very much. We're going to move on to approval of the agenda. Is there anything that anybody would like to pull or modify? Looking for a motion. Zesty Harper: I'll move. Joan Gardner: Second. Doug Paulson: All right. We have a motion and a second. Please vote. All right. Motion passes, 5 to 0. Moving on. We need to approve the minutes of the meeting of August 14th, 2025. Joan Gardner: Move approval of the meeting for August 20. Doug Paulson: 14th. Joan Gardner: 14th, 2025. Frank Huston: I'll second. Doug Paulson: All right. Motion and a second. Please vote. Okay. So we'll do
004hand votes. All in favor. And motion passes 5 to 0. Moving on. I believe we've got another. Okay. At this time that was the only one that we had, correct? Okay. All right. Thank you very much. Moving on to public comments. We have one public comment tonight and that is Taylor Lee. Taylor Lee: Good evening honorable members of the Escondido School Board. My name is Taylor Lee, and I'm speaking before each of you as a student of the Classical Academy Middle School or as we like to call it, CAMS, on a daily basis, the entire CAMS community is encouraged to give back. We engage in various community service projects, including a candy drive for the Escondido Police Department, [inaudible], and a toy drive to benefit the kids at the Boys and Girls Club. At the
005end of each school year, every student participates in an event called CAMS in the Community is a commitment to bettering our surrounding community and getting involved. Last year, I took part in CAMS in the Community Lunch kits, where we put together lunches and breakfast for other students here in Escondido. Some other CAMS in the Community events included students touring the Escondido Police Department and Fire Department headquarters, where they wrote notes to thank the officers who serve and protect us. Others partnered with the City of Escondido to help beautify the area by cleaning up alongside the Escondido Bike Trail. Another group of students supported Central Elementary by organizing sports equipment for the next school year and helping to clean up after the end of school year. Classroom parties. The CAMS in the Community event, along with
006the Classical Academy Middle school as a whole, teaches everyone why it's important to give back. Giving back is the missing element in many schools, and reminds us to be an active member of the community and improve the lives of those around us. In closing, I want to personally thank each of you for supporting charter schools like Classical and for acknowledging the vital role they play in educating students like me. Thank you. Doug Paulson: Thank you very much. [applause] And do we have a report from CSEA? Seeing no representative moving on to the Escondido Elementary Educators Association. Brandi Krepps: Good evening, President Paulson, school board members, Doctor Ibarra and Cabinet. Thank you, Megan, for choosing EUSD. North Broadway is a fantastic site with extraordinary teachers and staff. We look forward to working with you. I would
007like to thank our school board meeting for the meeting today, as I think we recognize the changes that need to be made in our communications, and we look forward to all being on the same page again. The mutual respect of our roles has gotten lost, but I believe after today we are all on the same page of what's doing what's best for our students. After all, they are the reason we are all here. I'm happy to say that our EEEA membership is continuing to grow, and we welcome 22 new members to our association this year. I'm always honored and proud to speak on behalf of our association. I spent my month of July working visiting summer school classes, met with Christine Carrera, our coordinator of community schools. She's amazing and met with Rick Oser discussing
008the various exciting things we're doing in our district. I was extremely impressed with the work going on during summer school, with teachers expressing their happiness, with having the autonomy to teach their hearts out the way they enjoy teaching. I'm hoping that this autonomy continues, as the joy I saw made me very hopeful. I want to thank Rick Oser and his team for putting on an incredible professional development day on August 13th. I heard amazing feedback and I enjoyed. I enjoyed attending the courses. This brings me to my first member profile of the year. I want to thank Heather Hedstrom for her dedication to our staff and organizing the August 13th PD Materials and Resources. The work that went into those materials was apparent and appreciated. Here is a quote from Heather. When I think about
009teachers, my favorite thing about education is collaborating and learning from each other. Teachers working together to problem solve the many challenges of teaching and learning inspires and energizes me. Heather is extremely dedicated to her family and is having her 35th wedding anniversary with her high school sweetheart in October. That's a long time to be married. I want to thank Heather for all she's doing, and let her know how appreciative we are that she is a part of our team, so thank you, Heather. I spent this past Tuesday in Heather Kroepel's first grade classroom helping out with the cutest little learners ever. Heather is a fantastic teacher and I was so impressed by the entire team. I was able to chat with Vanessa Lodge and Karen Charles as well, and I have to say, it was
010just an amazing day. The best part of it was when the kids were guessing my age. It was awesome. I went from age 13 to 100 at lightning speed. Those who said I was in my 30s became my favorites equally as fast. Thank you, Mrs. Kroepel, for letting me spend the day with you and your precious students. I loved every minute. I want to thank our teachers for supporting our classified staff in the end of the year preparations for summer, and I want to thank our classified staff for their hard work in making classrooms ready for our return. Together with our brothers and sisters in CSEA, we continue to be the foundation of our district. This relationship shows the beauty of collaboration and how great things can be done when collaboration is easy and consistent.
011And I want to thank my EEEA board for being here this evening and showing our solidarity and our commitment to relationships with our district. So thank you. Doug Paulson: Thank you. And a special thanks from the entire school board for all of the great work that all of our teachers are doing every day. And thank you very much for making this a great start of the school year for our students. All right. Moving on to the consent agenda. Does anybody have anything they would like to have pulled for separate consideration or any questions? Looking for a motion to approve then. Zesty Harper: I move approval. Mark Olson: I'll second. Doug Paulson: We have a motion and a second. Can we just do a hand vote? All in favor, please raise your hand. Motion passes 5
012to 0. Thank you. Joan Gardner: Never give up. It worked that time. Doug Paulson: It worked that time. Well, hand voting worked also, so. Okay. Working with the new computer system. So I apologize for the delays here. Mark Olson: I can't even see it. Doug Paulson: Okay. We are on item M one, and we have all been looking forward to this one. Unaudited actuals. Andrew McGuire: So our Fiscal Director, Michelle Cagle. I'm sorry, Doug. Did you? Doug Paulson: Oh, no. I just wanted to say how excited our student visitor will be for this one. That's what I would have recommended also, by the way. Andrew McGuire: So now I'll bring up our fiscal director, Michelle Cagle, to go through our unaudited actuals. Michelle Cagle: Good evening, President Paulson. School board members. Tonight we're going to
013talk about my favorite time of the year. Unaudited actuals. For us, it's the official close of a school year. So here's how we officially ended the school year in comparison to where we thought we would at estimated actuals at the time of adoption. And then, as always, we've done the math for you. We saw an overall increase of unrestricted revenue in the amount of $5.6 million. This is comprised of having the final P2 numbers for ADA and our final entitlement for home to school transportation. There's also an increase of our interest earned revenue and then fair market value. Each June 30th, we have to report the fair market value of our cash at the County Treasurer. This is in accordance with GASB (Governmental Accounting Standards Board). We make the entry on July or sorry on
014June 30th, and then we automatically reverse it July 1st. It's just a moment in time. This year there was an appreciated value of our cash, and so we increased our revenue in comparison to the years before where there's been a depreciation. And then for expenses, there was an overall decrease of expenses of $6.4 million. During the closed process we look at unrestricted or we look at our restricted funds, what were unspent. We then look to see at our unrestricted funds, can we move any of those expenditures into our restricted funding sources, aka the EUSD plan. We were able to move about $1.1 million from unrestricted to restricted. And then budgetary prudence. Knowing our financial outlook, we really focus this year on looking at every line item of our budget, from what contracts we had to
015our licensing, to services to positions if a position became vacant. Was there a need to fill it? That continuous work resulted in some savings for this year. Every dollar we're able to save in a fiscal year sets us on a good trajectory in the multi year projection, and then for restricted revenue, unspent federal funds, that's mostly the titles we have to book the revenue and the expense in the year that that had occurred. What was unspent will be carried over into 25-26. And then for expenses, our ESG plan being able to move costs into the restricted and then once again, title carryover and ELOP carryover. Any questions? Okay. Doug Paulson: We're liking it so far. Keep going with the good news here because this is good news so far. Michelle Cagle: So far. Hey that's
016two times in a row I've been able to present good news. Now that we've looked, now that we've closed the 24-25, we want to start to look forward. However, before we discuss the future, I want to go back to where we were at adoption. This was our MYP (multi-year projection) then at that time, in the course of the three years, we were going to have to cut $12 million, $6 million in each year. With that, we had a 1.7 fund balance above our reserves. So what's changed since then? We ended the 24-25 with a fund balance of $12 million more than we projected. The state passed their budget, which included a TK add on of unrestricted ongoing money, a restricted one time student support block grant, and then reinstated the restricted one time learning emergency
017recovery funds. The question then becomes how do these changes impact our MYP? There's a couple of ways of looking at it. This MYP represents no cuts and no EUSD plan. We don't make the $12 million reductions that were required at the time of adoption. The one time increase of our fund balance in 24-25 is being used to balance the yearly deficits. We're slowly chipping away at our fund balance. We're not implementing any EUSD plan of using our restricted one time funds to offset our ongoing unrestricted funds. And at the end of the third year, we'll be $4.7 million above our reserves. And then this also takes into consideration about an average of $8 million deficit spending every year. Okay. Then we have this MYP with an EUSD plan. And this one we're still we still
018aren't making the $12 million in reductions, but we are implementing the EUSD plan of utilizing our restricted one time funds to offset our ongoing unrestricted expenditures. With this MYP, in the third year, our fund balance is $11.4 million over the required reserves versus the $4 million with the MYP, where there were no cuts and no EUSD plan. The EUSD plan is allowing us to build a bigger fund balance. And this one though I included the fourth year, which will soon be our third year. The reason for this is by the time that we enter the fourth year, 28-29, we will have fully expended our one time funds. The expenditures move back from the restricted to the unrestricted. And we're still assuming no reductions, that we have not touched the 12 million in reductions. And in
019that fourth year, we're unable to meet our reserves by $200,000. This MYP really illustrates our financial long path and allows us to be able to determine what the best course of action is. Any questions? Joan Gardner: Just a comment. Michelle Cagle: Okay. Joan Gardner: There was recently an article in the in the Union Tribune about the county. The supervisors have have decided to or are trying to use their one time money to continue programs that are no longer being funded by whatever source. And it was talking about the ramifications of that and the mistake that is. So I think we need to be very cautious about spending one time money on ongoing expenses, and look for ways to whittle away again, as we have been on those those ongoing expenses. Michelle Cagle: Yeah. As in
020the in this and these MYPs were not assuming the cuts and that that one time money is strictly just eating away at our ongoing expenses, long term would be where do we want to be looking at this one, where with the information we know now, at the end of four years, we know we're not going to be able to meet our reserves. Joan Gardner: So the one time money is gone. Michelle Cagle: Yeah. So we're allowing ourselves the flexibility to make plans right now, right. For the future. And then I. Joan Gardner: Worst case scenario, I appreciate that because sometimes you don't think that far into the people don't I won't say you, but people don't think that far into the future. Michelle Cagle: Yeah. Joan Gardner: So thank you for that. Michelle Cagle: And
021then as promised and Andy's favorite slide, the Forecaster. It's really just illustrating the fund balance in relation to our required reserves are. Okay. So what's our future outlook? The state continues to fund us with one time monies. These one time resources is allowing us to offset our ongoing expenditures and then declining enrollment. Our preliminary results of enrollment indicate that at first interim, we're going to have to take a reduction of 40 students. That's on top of the 230 student decline that was from 24-25. So at the end of the day, we potentially have declined 270 students from last year. And then attendance recovery, that program started in summer and will continue throughout the year. The question that still remains is how we're going to be funded for this program. How the calculation of how the
022state's going to fund us for this program, they really haven't stated what we know is that attendance recovery is going to be reported separately from our regular ADA. So right now it's hard to be able to estimate what that revenue source is. Hopefully by the time first interim comes, we'll have a better idea of what that potential revenue source is. And then we're going to continue to monitor what's happening at the federal level and what their decisions might have that impact our financial situation. And then our next steps in December, we will be presenting the 25-26 first interim with updated ADA projections, an updated MYP. And then we're going to be finalizing our audit process. The auditors are actually going to be here next week for the 24-25 school year. And then they will be
023here by January 31st to present their findings. Any questions? Doug Paulson: Questions from the board? So the good news here, the big thing is we have been looking at doing $6 million in cuts over the next each of the next two years. We're no longer looking at that. That's the the big takeaway for me here. But we do long term have some some things that we need to look at, especially when we look four years out. Michelle Cagle: Correct. Doug Paulson: Okay. Other questions? Thank you so much. We we we love it when we hear a report that saying we're not going to have to make cuts. We really like that. That's cool. So thank you. Michelle Cagle: Thank you. Doug Paulson: All right. Is this an action item? Joan Gardner: Yes. Doug Paulson: All
024right, so we need a motion to accept the unaudited actuals. Frank Huston: I'll motion. Mark Olson: Second. Doug Paulson: We have a motion and a second. All in favor, please say aye or raise your hand. Thank you. Motion passes 5 to 0. Zesty Harper: Oh, now I go. Doug Paulson: Alright. You successfully voted. You did a great job. We are moving on to item two. Another one of of this is going to be a big one. Mobile communication devices. Mr. Oser. Rick Oser: Good evening, President Paulson, board members, superintendent Ibarra and cabinet. I love starting a presentation with this is going to be a big one [laughter], especially after a wonderful presentation by my colleague on a positive fiscal outlook, which is much nicer than the outlooks that we have had. So great setup. Thank
025you. Yes. One of our hot topics, mobile communication devices. So this evening we're going to give a little presentation about the legislation that brought us this this need for board policy. We're also going to talk a little bit about stakeholder input and then our next steps. So just a quick overview. And I know my colleague Director Smith gave a presentation in spring bringing everyone up to speed on, on EUSD's efforts around mobile devices. And so this is really just meant for a quick overview. So by 2026, we must we must have a board policy that restricts the use of mobile communication devices in our schools. And here's just a little overview of what the law requires. So school districts must develop policies with stakeholder input. The policy must be updated every five years. And school
026officials and staff. We still do not have the right to access or monitor a student's online activities. And the law does provide several exceptions. So the law outlines specific circumstances where students cannot be prohibited from possessing or using smartphones, including emergencies or perceived threats. Permissions granted by a teacher or administrator. Medical necessity as determined by a licensed position and then requirements within the student's IEP or 504 so that necessary accommodations can be received. So that's a quick overview of the Assembly bill and what is now known as California's own Free School Act. And a real brief overview of our current practices. So schools currently have practices in place to to restrict the use of cell phones inside the classrooms or at school. So these entail typically an initial violation where a staff member will provide
027a friendly reminder and warning a repeat for repeat violations. Then the device will be collected and returned to the student at the end of the day. And then if it's a persistent violation, then the a parent or guardian will be required to pick up the phone from from the school office at the end of the day. So those are some of the current practices that are in place. So I wanted to just briefly highlight the stakeholder input that was taken in in the spring at the direction of the governing board. So the design team met in early 2025. There was a lengthy discussion about mobile communication devices in our school and our schools. And then we reviewed the current district policies and practices evaluating their effectiveness. And we there was a lot of brainstorming of
028potential changes that could could take place. In addition, there was a survey that went out to EUSD staff and you could see these are the results of that survey. So cell phones were were noted as a distraction inside the classroom. In addition they were noticed as a source of disruption outside of the classroom as well. And then one of the questions pertained to whether or not the current cell phone policy was working well. And you could see a very divided there. But the majority of the staff felt that they strongly I'm sorry. They they strongly disagreed or disagreed with the, the notion that cell phone policy was working well and that there was no need for further restrictions, which brought us to doing a couple pilots. So there was a pilot that was conducted at
029Quantum that involved using locking cabinets, and it was noticed that there were less distractions. But also it was noted that the process of collecting and then returning devices was, quite time consuming. At Hidden Valley, there was a pilot where locking bags were provided to the school, and it was primarily for persistent violations. So students who consistently had their devices out and then staff would collect the devices and put them into locking bags. So what we noticed was just the presence of those locking bags. And the enforcement of that expectation actually resulted in students complying with the expectation much more so. So that leads us to a board policy that we are presenting to all of you today regarding mobile communications devices. And you have in front of you the edited CSBA (California School Boards Association)
030Board policy, and for the most part, it's very much in alignment with the CSBA's recommended policy. Actually, CSBA had two options. One was the prohibiting use of smartphones, and then the other one was limited use. And so we are recommending that we follow the prohibited use of smartphones and other mobile communication devices and with very minor changes broadening it from, from teachers to staff. We're making a recommendation that we follow the, the CSBA's recommended policy. And it noted in this the key pieces is that students shall not use smartphones or other mobile communication devices while at a school or under the supervision and control of a district employee or district contracted agency staff member, except under these specific circumstances. And that's once again, in case of an emergency or in response to perceived threat or
031danger. When a staff member grants permission, when a licensed physician determines the possession or use of, or use, if necessary, for the student's health and well-being, and when the possession or use is required by the student's Individualized Education Plan once again as an accommodation so that the student can benefit from the educational experience. So that's the recommendation for board policy 5131.8. But this also dovetails into our current policy, which is we are also recommending for approval which is around student conduct. So in 5131 there was very limited mention about the use of cell phones. What we've done is we've actually taken the language from the recommendation from 5131.8 and embedded it in the student conduct policy. And so you can see the overview, the summary of 5131. So it'll remain the same except for the
032more restrictive language around mobile communication devices. And in addition, I shared before what the current practices were moving to this board policy. The board policy will really direct the school practices, including changing the the responses to students who are violating the practice. So once again, we will provide a friendly reminder for an initial violation with documentation so that we'll document that violation in our Powerschool log entries so that other staff members can see that violation was, was was already given. And then the second violation would result in once again collecting of the device and making device the device available at the end of the school day, once again with documentation. And then the third violation would be that's when the parent would need to come to the office to pick up the cell phone. Now,
033if a student continues and chronically violates the board policy, then school staff will meet with the family, discuss expectations, make sure that the family, as well as the student understands the violation and expectations. And then at that point, then the student will need to check their device in to a designated location at the beginning of the day and retrieve at the end of the day. And in addition to this, the expectation or the goal would be to really communicate well with students and families through a campaign so that everyone's aware of not only the board policy and expectations, but also the reasons why we're holding these expectations. And with that said, any questions or comments? Joan Gardner: Yes. First of all I actually spoke to a teacher at Quantum who said that that what the
034program they were using was very successful and everyone was happy with it. So I'm curious as what you consider time consuming. How much time did it take to collect the phones and then to to hand them out again, or to have kids pick them up at the end of the day? Rick Oser: So Quantum is actually an interesting situation because they do have a smaller student population. And and they were using the locking boxes under with new principal Mister Lyche, as well as the staff. They would like to continue to explore and experiment more extensively with the lock boxes. Joan Gardner: And I know they're a smaller population, but their class sizes are comparable now. So that's the one thing. And the other thing is that that this doesn't solve the problem of the entire
035school day. And we we found that young people are not socializing any longer. They're on their phones. They go at lunchtime or on a break. And that's where the bullying and and the untoward behavior happens. And actually, a great majority of respondents said that cellphones are a source of disruption outside of the classroom. So again, it would be in my mind, it would be preferable to have those cell phones put away for the school day. If someone really had to have a cell phone, maybe we could even provide those. I mentioned our last meeting the the phones that don't allow social content. It's just for if you need to make an emergency phone call. How many individual cases would we have that. And again, if there's an emergency, the the school has alarm systems and
036we have security overseeing the the schools now as well as we we have noted. So the socialization during the the school day when you talk about the consequences of of misuse of cell phones, that's also time consuming takes away from the classroom to, to even if you're just disciplining one individual. And sometimes it takes even more time. Once students are in the habit, come in, put their their phones in the lock box and pick them up at the end of the day. So I'd like to have a discussion about that because I really we haven't seen the administrative regulations either, which would actually be the implementation of the policy that we're we're being asked to approve. So that's my question and input. Doug Paulson: Thank you. Can we get clarification. Does this apply to the
037entire school day including break times lunch time. This applies to all the entire day. Rick Oser: Right. And that's one of the changes that we actually made to the CSBA's recommendation where it was the entire school day extending into the before and after school program as well. So with the board policy, what that will do is that will really clarify what the expectations are. And so basically, it's from the moment that the student enters school, the phone is or the communication device is stored and does not come out until the moment that the student leaves school. Even if the student is in the after school program. Joan Gardner: Where is it stored? Rick Oser: Inside the student's backpack. Joan Gardner: And so when they go to lunch, they don't take the phone with them. Rick
038Oser: Right. So the expectation with the board policy would be that the student cannot take the phone out without, and use the phone, without the permission of a staff member. And if there was the event that a student needed to make an emergency phone call, and this is very much what typically happens at the schools, if a student needed to make an emergency phone call, then of course it could be the office, or it could be going to the administrator or to a staff member and asking permission. And under the board policy that would grant the student, the staff member, to give the student permission to make that emergency phone call. Joan Gardner: And that staff member normally would be lunch duty, a lunch duty person. So you're giving them that responsibility. Rick Oser: Typically,
039it would be the administrator who's out at the lunch area or the recess area. Joan Gardner: That's quite a number of students for them to be keep have eyes on at one time. Rick Oser: But for the most part, the expectation would be that students are not having a need for that that use of that device. Joan Gardner: Or not having a need, but they will find a way. Anyhow. Doug Paulson: Okay. Andy, you've got something that you want to add. Andrew McGuire: Yeah. Just in speaking to the pilots like a Quantum. And I understand that that so far. And they're going to continue to explore that. But it's something else, especially at our five large middle schools much larger than Quantum. You know, we want to be very sensitive to the time it would
040take to take the phones and then give the phones back at the end of each period when we already have it's the precious time that we have in each period of our classes to. So before we were to roll anything out widespread, we wanted to be able to explore the possibility using the progressive nature of of the addressing these things. If the phone is out engaging with our parents as well, when that becomes a continued problem and, and work through those pathways first before we further impact the, the precious instructional time that we do have across the several, many periods, eight periods a day that we have at our middle schools. So that was the thinking behind keep it in your backpack. We have with passing this board policy would give us the more authority
041to enforce this. And of course, an AR (Administrative Regulation). We want to have the discussion first about that before we come back with an AR and update the board on the implementation of. No, we haven't because we wanted to have the discussion with the board first before we we go forward and talk about how implementing it. But I know that from the middle schools I've visited even so far this year is this something that's becoming more of a standard practice in the classrooms. I was at Bear Valley today. In every classroom has a sign up saying the phone must be, you know, remain unseen, essentially in your backpack. In that way. And of course, at lunchtime, you know, in passing periods of students attempt to take their phone out. Having this policy, the communications with
042the families and the progressive discipline involving including involving the parent it gives our administrators something more to to hold our students accountable to keep that phone away. And of course, just the ongoing campaign of socialization of our students is one of our priorities as well. And so hoping all of these things coming together, protecting our instructional time, engaging our parents, engaging our students and holding everyone accountable along this new board policy. That's that's our approach, we found kind of struck a middle ground because there's a lot of our families that don't want their phones to be restricted from them in the case of an emergency or something of that nature. And of course, there's other folks that, that have a strong feeling to remove those phones. And so we found if the phones are kept
043in the backpack, they're not being used during the school day. Any point in the school day, our administrators having this policy to enforce, engaging with our parents, that if we go forward with this, I think found the middle ground for everyone involved to ensure our students have a successful school day. Joan Gardner: Okay, I respectfully disagree. Andrew McGuire: I understand. Doug Paulson: Okay. Joan Gardner: Do they have a homeroom? Doug Paulson: Let's let's get through questions from everybody so that we can respond to them collectively. Okay. Frank? Comments? Mark? Mark Olson: No questions. I appreciate the staff's work on this. I mean, it's not as extreme as I recommend it, but I do see that it's working. And I think with initial enforcement, I think this is a positive step. And this can be a
044standard that's going to greatly improve the educational experience of our students and hopefully give quite a bit of relief to the teachers and staff as well. Thank you. Doug Paulson: I would just ask one question on the board policy. Item two, when a staff member grants permission to the student um I just foresee an issue with that of every student automatically has the, well, the the the lady over there told me it was okay for me to use it just right now. And, you know, and when there are multiple staff members in a classroom who's making the decision, and if we've got some teachers who really believe that my students need their phones out because they may need to look up words during this period, and that's the standard in their classroom. I, I, I
045just have the gut feeling that, that that is going to be when we're giving that permission to every staff member to give a student permission, you know? I have the feeling that's going to wind up being an issue. And I'm not sure what to do about it. I'm not sure what to do about it, but I, what I, what I foresee is that students who who are apt to want to skirt the policy are going to find a way around it, and they're going to be finding ways to go to their teacher says, yes, you can go to the bathroom, but your phone has to be here in the classroom. And the student goes out and yep, they've left their burner phone in the classroom in the pouch, and they've got their real phone with
046them. And they, you know, ask somebody for permission. And that person doesn't know, know they're not supposed to be using it. I just see that as a loose spot. Dr. Luis Ibarra: Well, I can tell you, I. I witnessed this in the spring at Bear Valley Middle School. The Mr. Wrzetsky was outside during nutrition break. It goes really quick. Kid came up to him and said, can I call my mom? I forgot. I don't remember what they forgot. I need to call her. They need to bring me my gym clothes or something. Says yep. Go ahead. Right here. Took the phone out of the backpack. Called the parent. Put it away. That that was a real life example that I just saw. Joan Gardner: There are always good, always rule followers, and there are always
047rule breakers. Dr. Luis Ibarra: Right? And for those that's why the policy for those extreme examples, you go through the progressive discipline, you see it, you confiscate it. Parent has to come get it. Joan Gardner: And that is time consuming. Dr. Luis Ibarra: But again, it's not all the kids. It'll be a. Doug Paulson: Small percentage Dr. Luis Ibarra: A percentage of those that don't want to follow the rules. Joan Gardner: I would like to see a more stringent policy, but I apparently am outnumbered. So it is what it is. Doug Paulson: This is the first reading. We're looking for feedback. I don't think we're voting on this tonight. Dr. Luis Ibarra: No Doug Paulson: I think, I don't think we're ready for that. Mr. Olson? Mark Olson: I was just going to say, I
048think. Doctor Ibarra's example of Mr. Wrzeski was appropriate. As long as the staff who was making the decision is. Yeah. Do it right here. Yeah. As opposed to. Oh, can I make a call on the way that I think that's where Jones I think that's going to get a little gray. But as long as there's consistency of. Yeah. Right here next to me. Yeah. Dr. Luis Ibarra: And that's what the rule. You know, when we bring a new policy, we'll be training the administrators. They'll start they need to calibrate amongst each other. So every middle school is implementing it exactly the same. Then they roll it out with their staff so that and with their teachers that they know. Doug Paulson: Well, and this says staff. So that means noontime supervisors can provide permission. Nutrition
049staff can provide permission. Paraeducators can provide permission. And, you know, I would like to see language that just leaves less to interpretation personally that while they are under the direct control of that staff member, so that my student isn't getting permission from somebody else. Andrew McGuire: And that could be something that could be in the AR as well, to define more clearly who is allowed to give permission so that those other staff that you mentioned would be like they ask a nutrition person in the cafeteria, you're going to have to go ask the administrator for that permission. So that could be something in the implementation that we would show in the AR. And I also wanted to point out as well in that law that the exception for us, restricting access for a student to
050have their phone in the case of an emergency or a perceived threat. And I know we had that discussion before, but let's say there is some sort of an emergency in some of these methods of locking away a phone, we would have to provide a way for that phone to be now returned to that student in the case of an emergency. And so just we can walk through all the logistics of that. But if it was, every phone was locked away in every classroom or in a homeroom type situation or something like that. How do we then provide that phone back to them to be adhere to the law allowing them having access to it? So the logistical challenge of that, as well as the talk about time consuming entering the school, if we were
051to remove the phone at that time, what the administrative and other staff role would that would that be in getting kids in the gate into their first period class, after having to have everybody stand in line to turn their phones in? And so just balancing all of the nature of the things in the law, everyone's interests in the community here in the board, that that's that's where we try to strike the balance in what we're proposing here tonight. And of course, it doesn't have to be voted on tonight. It's only the first reading. We can go back and work on it. It doesn't even have to come back to the next meeting. We can have more time to discuss and work through these issues. Joan Gardner: It would be a good idea also to have
052the accompanying administrative regulation to see how it would be implemented. Andrew McGuire: Yeah, we could we could work on that. We may not have that ready for the next board meeting, but we could work on that and bring that back for further discussion of how we intend to implement this. And that could further the conversation, maybe even answer some of these questions and incorporate some of this discussion into that AR. Joan Gardner: Well, as I said, it should be both. Even though we have we don't really we don't write or approve the AR. Dr. Luis Ibarra: Well, no. And we didn't bring it tonight. We didn't bring it tonight is not because you don't approve it. It's because we wanted to have the discussion so that when we do draft that, that we're incorporating your
053thoughts and representation of, of, of the community into that AR. Joan Gardner: And CSBA does not have a draft AR on the mobile policy. They have a board policy, but not so we would have to do it from scratch. Doug Paulson: So Yeah, I think I would like, before we vote on this, whether this is next meeting or two meetings from now, I'd like to see the AR with it, to see how it's because I think the consistency of the roll off of the rollout, both across the campus and so that every school is doing things as, as closely the same as possible, is going to be how this is going to either succeed or fail. And and also what the communication we're doing with students is how are we educating them about, frankly, the
054dangers of social media, the dangers of, of our electronic devices. I think that's going to be vital to this whole thing. Dr. Luis Ibarra: We actually are in process of updating that training for our students around the digital literacy, the digital digital. I'm going to not say the word. It was said over there. There it goes. Digital citizenship. And that's a training program that we put for our students in teaching them the dangers involved in social media, the harm and the benefits of of avoiding that, especially during the school day, but really in their entire life as well. So that's an ongoing educational effort. And we're updating that right now. Joan Gardner: Yeah. Aberrations persist. Andrew McGuire: Absolutely everywhere. Doug Paulson: I also continue to think that this perceived threat of danger is very subjective.
055You know, what is a perceived threat of danger to a 12 year old is very different than what it is to us. Joan Gardner: Do they know that there that there's monitoring going on 24 seven on our school sites. Andrew McGuire: As far as on the outside of our classrooms? Joan Gardner: As far as our the room where we have officers 24 seven monitoring the campuses. Andrew McGuire: Yeah. But their their intention of that room and their, their work is focused primarily on the perimeters of our schools in order to keep intruders and our schools safe from that sort of threat. They do not monitor the student population or any of the activities on the inside of campus. They're focused primarily on the perimeters of campus. Joan Gardner: But isn't that where the the safety
056threat would come from? Doug Paulson: Potentially. Potentially. Andrew McGuire: That is one avenue for threats to come in. Yes. Doug Paulson: Right. Yeah. Dr. Luis Ibarra: And that's exactly right. When the when that policy was, it was shortly after Sandy Hook that it was like they needed to have, kids needed to have the cell phones because you don't know. You know, they need to know the location. Joan Gardner: The recent happenings as well. Absolutely. But again. Dr. Luis Ibarra: We have that extra additional. Joan Gardner: We have that in place. Dr. Luis Ibarra: Right. Joan Gardner: So that should and I don't know if all of our parents are aware of that. Andrew McGuire: Well, that that is one of many layers to provide school safety, of course. And also our administrators and other staff,
057our social workers, our counselors, our teachers, all the staff on the school also have awareness of our students as well while they're on campus. So the watching the perimeters is one layer. Once they're in campus, many other layers take place there and the proactive nature of that. So I don't want to leave anybody thinking that just watching the perimeters is the only measure we have. We have many layers of measures of safety and security throughout our campuses and working with our student populations in that. But again, we have a law here that has left an ambiguity, as many laws do, and open to interpretation. And so we're trying to strike the balance in adhering to that law, even though it is ambiguous as it is. Joan Gardner: Well, they couldn't they couldn't mandate storage lockers
058unless they funded it. So. Doug Paulson: Oh, they mandate lots of things that they don't fund that. Joan Gardner: They would have had there would have been a big uproar. Doug Paulson: Yeah. So all right. So thank you. We look forward to seeing the policy with administrative regulations. Thank you for that. Any other input? Rick Oser: For clarification would you like staff member to be spelled out a little bit more distinct? Doug Paulson: Well I would like that, but but I'm not sure that I have any support for that. Zesty Harper: You make a good point. Doug Paulson: Okay. Sounds like we have some level of consensus for that being spelled out more exactly, or sort of how that will work. Rick Oser: Thank you. Doug Paulson: Okay. All right. I thought we were on
059number three. Okay, so we've got job description for Behavior Specialist two. Audrey Frank: Correct. I'm looking for, I'm seeking approval to approve the updated behavior specialist two. The marked one is draft. There is there for you. And then this is just to update it. It was an old. And we wanted to just update it for the new. Doug Paulson: All right. Looking for a motion. Mark Olson: Motion to approve staff's recommendation. Joan Gardner: Second. Doug Paulson: We have a motion and a second. All in favor, please say Aye. Joan Gardner: I voted. You'll have to check the vote. Doug Paulson: All right. Motion passes 5 to 0, one electronically. And item number four. This is the employment contract agreement for Assistant Superintendent of Human Resources. Andrew McGuire: I'll take this one. So before you is
060a ratification of the, for renewal of Audrey Frank to be our assistant superintendent of human resources ratification. Because if approved it taking effect at July 1st of the current year for a term ending June 30th, 2028. With a salary on the cabinet salary schedule of $191,292. Zesty Harper: I'll move approval. Frank Huston: Second. Doug Paulson: We have a motion and a second. Please vote electronically. Alright, so all in favor, please raise your hand. And motion passes 5 to 0. Joan Gardner: Maybe it's three. Five is too many. Doug Paulson: Worked perfectly. Okay. All right. Board and staff reports. Miss Gardner. Joan Gardner: Okay. Well, I had the great pleasure since the last meeting to attend the first Escondido Council PTA meeting of the year. And it's never a disappointment. I just love the polished way
061they run their meetings and how they welcome newcomers. There were a lot of new participants, in fact. And and two of the moms at the table I sat at are mothers of very young children. So they'll be with the district for quite a while. They train. They train the participants well, give them all assistance. And I'm so grateful for our PTAs because they are so critical to our schools. They're so supportive. And those parents that are involved, they have kids who are involved as well. So it's a I hope everyone, all the parents will join the PTA and participate and make them each parent teacher association at each school successful and also Zesty and I, bet she'll she can report on her own. But we attended the the latest insurance committee meeting and the news
062is not good. Are the rates across the board are up at least 10%, and we still don't know what the individual contributions are going to be. I think that's going to go out tonight or tomorrow to to our membership, to our to our stakeholders. But it is what it is, unfortunately. I think that's happening all across the, the country. Insurance rates are skyrocketing for various reasons, and I just wanted to remind everyone about the Foundation Fashion show that's coming up on October 4th and encourage everyone to get a ticket and sign up. And I understand we're going to have a very special master of ceremonies this year. You might want to expand on that. Well, it should be. It should be a lot of fun, Mr. Paulson. And and we also had a very productive
063meeting with our EEEA executive board tonight. So thank you for that. And I'm finished. Frank Huston: I don't I don't have a report. I just want to thank EEEA for providing a really good meeting this afternoon. It's always good to sit down and have those discussions and get everything out on the table so that we can move forward in a positive manner. I'm looking forward to working together with you guys and and getting everybody where they need to be. So thank you very much for showing up and appreciate your guys's candor. Mark Olson: I'll just echo what's been said. It's good to have our association membership here and stay through the evening. So looking forward to more conversations and just want to say thanks to everyone to. Sounds like the school year has gotten off
064to a very smooth start, and all the work that went into that I was on campus was a Reidy Creek. I think it was last Friday to see Coach V. to receive the grant. So that was great to see that our students were engaged. A lot of happy faces, a lot of energetic staff. And it's great to see one of our staff members take the initiative and try and do things for the school. It's a great representation. Just one thing that happens hundreds of times every single day across the district. So it's good to be in attendance for that special event. Thanks. Zesty Harper: I too was in attendance at Reidy Creek. I can't wait to see when they get all the new PE equipment from a generous donation from the American Heart Association. So
065thank them for supporting our, our district and our students and our teachers. I also attended the personnel commission meeting. And in speaking of the personnel commission, I wanted to say a thank you to Amy Lawton, who was our director of classified and who has has gotten a promotion at another district, but she has been here over ten years and did such an amazing job as the director and working as the personnel commission. I guess that would be the director as well. But she had such a heart for this district and and for our employees. So I just wanted to say thank you to her and wish her the best at her new position. And we also lost another one of our long term employees, Eloisa, who went on to a great promotion, very excited for
066her. But if you ever came into this district office or called on this phone, you saw her warmth and her her just her spirit for this district. And so we will we will definitely miss her. And like. Oh, sorry. Like Joan said we had the insurance committee meeting, which we had the great news that our insurance rates are going up between 6 and 12%. And so we are still working on that. I don't know when the rates are coming out. We did add, I believe we did add a cheaper PPO plan option with Assurity. That was that's it is all co-pay based, so there's no deductible percent kind of thing, but it's a lot less expensive than some of our other PPO plans. What? Oh, then the other PPO plan. So it's significantly less. So
067if someone was wanting to move to a PPO plan, this this was a better option. With a lower cost. Yeah. Sure, sure. So that that's going to be one of the options. And then we're hoping to see if there's any other, any other option we can do. But again, we don't know the rates yet. Joan Gardner: Apparently they came today and. That's all. Yeah. Zesty Harper: Okay. So again not great news. You know, that's a that's a really tough pill to swallow. But something else that the committee talked about is how to best inform all of our employees of what their insurance options are. You know what might be better for one employee versus someone with a family versus someone single versus someone young. You know that all those options and how we can get
068that messaging out because there are it's overwhelming with the choices and not knowing the unknown of what your cost might be. So we're there working on that as well. And then lastly, I do appreciate our EEEA communication meeting and the work you guys do on behalf of our teachers because it's really important, but it's and it's really important that we keep the communication open. And remember that we are here for our students, and that's our number one priority. And if we keep focusing on that, we're going to be right in the right, in the right direction every time. So I wanted to thank you again. That's my report. Doug Paulson: Okay. And I just want to thank everybody certainly all of our teachers who got us off to a good start, a great start this
069year. Very smooth. Our administrators, our district office staff, everybody who pulled together to get the schools opened and really off to a very a very good start this year. I want to spend a minute just talking about everybody. All of our classified staff who are so vital to keeping our schools running. They whether we're talking about noontime supervisors, nutrition services, aides, maintenance and operations personnel, paraeducators. We our schools really could not function without our classified staff, and they do a tremendous job. And when we talk about these increases of 10 to 12%, we already know that our classified staff generally is making a very small salary that they could do, in many cases, they could do better in the private community or in in private industry. And they're still coming to work for us to
070serve our students. And so I just want to express our gratitude to them for everything they do to keep our schools running and recognize that when we're talking 10 or 12% for insurance, what that's going to mean for them when they're making $17 an hour to $21 an hour. That means that food choices are going to have to be made at home. It means that kids are not going to be getting lessons. It means their activities are going to be really curtailed. So we understand very, very closely what these insurance rate increases mean to individual families, to everybody. And I don't know what. I don't know what we can do about it, because obviously this is not just our district. So, so. But thank you to everybody who teachers, classified staff who are deciding to
071make the children of Escondido their their sole priority. Thank you. Doctor Ibarra. Dr. Luis Ibarra: Yeah. I just wanted to publicly recognize and thank Miss Liz Shulock, who is the editor of the District Voices. And she is through a partnership, she is pushing out our family communication on a weekly basis. So more people are getting to see what we're doing and learning about our districts. So thank you. Doug Paulson: All right. Our next regularly scheduled board meeting will be held on Thursday, September 18th. Oh, I need to make one more announcement. Hold on to before I make this announcement. We did recognize that the October school board meeting was scheduled for parent teacher conferences. That date is going to be changed so that staff members and parents will be able to attend the school board
072meeting. The actual vote on changing that will be at the next meeting, but that's going to be changed to, I believe, a week earlier. Is that correct? So it's going to go to October 2nd. Yes. And with that, the next regularly scheduled board meeting will be held on Thursday, September 18th, 2025 at 7 p.m. at the Escondido Union School District. Carilyn Gilbert Education Center, 2310 Aldergrove Avenue, Escondido, California, 92029. We are adjourned.